Last Chance at Love (9 page)

He attempted to move her from him, but she sucked his tongue into her mouth, grabbed his buttocks, and undulated wildly against him. He groaned and, capitulating, pulled her closer and rose against her. She slumped into him, shackled by the wild longing that had overcome her.

After a time, she realized that he held her away from him, and she opened her eyes to see the question that blazed in his. Sadly, she stepped away. What on earth had she done?

“I started that, Jake. I asked for it and I’m not sorry. But you know we can’t... That nothing can happen between us.”

He stared down at her, his desire far from dormant. “I don’t know any such thing. What I do know is that we want each other, and one of these days we’ll get what we want. I can wait till you’re ready.” He brushed a thumb beneath her chin. “Good night, Allison.”

Allison closed the door slowly and softly. Then she slumped into the nearest chair, threw her head back, closed her eyes, and surrendered to the emotional turmoil that gripped her. His fingers still pressed into her hips, and his hot tongue still plunged into and out of her mouth, promising her a ride into the stratosphere by the sheer power of his loins. She moaned in frustration. She had ignored her warnings and lectures to herself. Now that she’d had a taste of him, how could she stay out of his arms? She went into her bathroom and drank several glasses of water. Calmer, she undressed and got into bed.

When she closed her eyes, the vision of Roland Farr loomed before her, and she threw back the covers and sat up. What had she done? After such a bitter lesson, how could she have been so foolish as to walk back into the same trap? Roland Farr had been her first important news assignment. “Bring me everything you can find on him,” her editor at that time had said. But Roland Farr was a handsome charmer, a man of the world, and at twenty-four she’d been no match for him. He’d courted her without seeming to do so, had even pretended that he didn’t want anything to develop between them. It would be unethical from her perspective, he’d said. And then he’d seduced her, taken her most precious possession with an oath of love. She’d believed him, and out of loyalty she had omitted from her story the undocumented tales of his trafficking in illegal immigrants, telling herself that if she couldn’t prove it, she couldn’t print it.

The day after her story broke in
The Herald, The Star
printed what she had omitted, and Roland Farr disappeared. Her editor awakened her with a phone call at two o’clock in the morning and told her she had no job. The next day he reported her dismissal on the paper’s front page, but the man for whom she’d taken the risk left her to face the heat alone. Farr was never indicted or even publicly held criminally suspect, and she had sworn that she would never again find herself in such a predicament.

She believed in facing the truth, and she had to admit that her strong and growing attraction to Jake could put her in a compromising situation. The Allison whom Jake had held, loved, and aroused was not a twenty-four-year-old girl, but a woman whose clock had ticked for work and work alone over the last six years, and whose cold, drab, and lonely life he’d just heated up and torn apart. A woman who had just discovered whom and what she needed and who knew she wanted what he offered. She didn’t doubt that Jake was special, a rarity among men in her circles. Intelligent, strong, gentle, and caring. Honorable. Affectionate. Yes. And common sense told her she’d be a fool to throw away such a diamond as Jake. She put the pillow on top of her head in the hope of getting to sleep, but pulled it off at once, sat up, and idly flicked her nails. No matter how great he might be, and no matter how badly she coveted him, she couldn’t afford to walk back into that trap; it had taken her years to get out of the last one.

The next morning she telephoned Bill Jenkins.

“What do you mean you’re not covering the opening of that hotel? The hell you say! You work for me, you’ll do as I tell you.”

The bile of her distaste settled in her mouth. “Put me on that story, and you will regret it.”

“Don’t tell me you still break out in a sweat over Farr. Well, if you do, that’s your problem. Deal with it. That opening’s big time. Senator Wade’s sunk a bundle in it, and everybody who’s anybody will be there.”

“Except me, so you’d better assign somebody else. I refuse to whitewash that man.”

“Oh, yes, you will. He’s paying for this.”

Allison couldn’t help laughing as her anger dissolved. “Bill, if you don’t want Farr to sue you for fraud, assign somebody else. He’s a crook. That’s why he’s paying you for a story that makes him look good. If you force me to do it, I’ll ruin him, because I know how he operates, and I’ll find whatever he’s hiding.”

“I’ll deal with you later.” He hung up, but she didn’t doubt that he’d give that assignment to one of his feature writers and split the fee.

* * *

She’d asked for it, she said. Jake walked into his darkened room, disoriented for the first time in his memory. No matter what
she
said or that she assumed responsibility,
he
had wanted that kiss...and more. He’d been primed for it, and she had reached him in places that no one else had touched. She’d said she wasn’t sorry, though she considered it a mistake, so he’d just as soon it had never happened. He disliked the sense that pieces of himself now lodged elsewhere, that another human being could set him aglow, fire up his engine, and immediately turn off the ignition.
She’d made a mistake.
He undressed and crawled into bed without turning on a light, fell over on his belly, and locked his hands beneath the pillow. He wouldn’t swear not to touch her again, not even if doing it hurt. When something felt as good as her body in his arms and her mouth moving beneath his, he didn’t doubt that he’d go back for another taste. But he’d protect his flank.

* * *

Jake had assumed that, when he met Allison that next morning, he could expect a slight chill, but she didn’t look him in the eye. Shy? He hadn’t thought shyness a part of her makeup, and he figured dealing openly with it would clear the air.

“Good morning, Allison. I see you’re as dumbfounded about last night as I am.” She nodded her greeting, but her eyebrows shot upward, and he knew he’d taken the right course. She’d been prepared to pretend that their relationship hadn’t changed. “We have another four weeks on this tour,” he went on, “and the more we see of each other, the more intense this is likely to become. We’ll get on better if we talk about it now.”

He watched as she drew her shield tighter, shrouding herself in her professional armor, and it stunned him that he wanted to give her the treasure a woman gained by letting go, to show her the wonders that awaited her in the galaxy of loving. He had no doubt, after last night, that she didn’t know and wasn’t ready to risk learning. Her feigned nonchalance was all the evidence he needed that she was prepared to forgo that knowledge indefinitely. He touched her shoulder and smiled inwardly when she stepped back, as he’d known she would.

He changed tactics. “I hope you slept well, because we have a crowded schedule today. I hadn’t thought we’d tour this week, but we did, and I’m relieved. I’m taking the four o’clock shuttle back to Washington. How about you?”

She smiled, but he could see that she forced it. “I haven’t packed, so I’ll take a later flight.”

His grin must have embarrassed her, because she lowered her gaze. That from a woman who looked him straight in the eye whenever she decided to give him some sass. Unrepentant, he let the grin spread into a full-faced smile. “Chicken. I won’t ask whether you’ll miss me this weekend, because you’d be scared to tell the truth.”

Her chin poked out, and he could see that she’d squared off to defend herself. “You’re just like one of our Vermont cows that gives a pail of fresh milk, swishes her tail a few times, and kicks it over. If I find myself missing you this weekend or any other, I’ll give myself such a tongue-lashing that you can bet it will never happen again.”

He laughed aloud at that. “If you succeed, please tell me how you do it.” He touched her elbow. “Let’s hurry, or we’ll be late for the taping.”

* * *

Allison looked down at the clean sheet of paper on her knee. After one hour during which Jake had answered the interviewer’s questions, matched wits with him, and sassed him a few times, she hadn’t detected one special mannerism, habit, point of view, or idea about which she wanted to write. Dismayed that he didn’t seem to spring to life in the interview, she started to put the writing pad in her briefcase when she heard the interviewer say, “You’re the most unique subject I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing. You don’t project yourself, only your work.”

And then she knew. Her previous days with Jake had proved interesting to such an extent that her notes had filled a writing tablet. Today, she searched for a different Jake, the private man she’d gotten to know the previous evening, the one for whom her insides had churned while his mouth seared hers and his tongue possessed her. And that Jake wasn’t being interviewed. She couldn’t believe that she had relaxed her professionalism to such an extent. Annoyed with herself, she zipped up her briefcase, folded her hands in her lap, and waited for the interview to end. Jake could have been right; maybe they had better talk about it. She’d make that a priority when they met on Monday.

* * *

Jake got to Washington a few minutes before five that afternoon and went directly to the agency. The chief handed him his orders.

“You’ve got time for a couple of phone calls. We want you to leave right now.” Jake walked down the hall to the nearest telephone booth and placed a call. His disappointment in not finding Allison at the Drake Hotel in New York stunned him. He didn’t leave a message.

“If I’m not back here Sunday night,” he told the man, “call Allison Wakefield and give her my regrets and a sound excuse.”

“What’s her number?” Jake’s eyebrow rose slowly as though he didn’t believe what he’d heard. “All right,” the man said, “I’ll call her.”

Jake headed for the basement and the chauffeured car that would take him to the airport. He used the car phone to call his mother, but not Allison, because he didn’t particularly want the official to know what he had to say to her. He sat back in the heavily tufted leather seat and began to plan his strategy. The agency had a plan, but if it went awry and he got into trouble he’d have to rely on his own wits, and he was prepared to do that.

Three days and six hours later, his plane touched down on United States soil, and he walked through the Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington a greatly relieved man. As usual, he reported immediately to his superiors, but ten hours after that, refreshed and with his guitar under his arm, he headed for Blues Alley.

* * *

That Saturday afternoon, Allison left Mother’s Rest around four o’clock, tired but exhilarated after two hours with eight-month-old twin girls. As soon as she walked into her house, she telephoned Connie. “Let’s go to Blues Alley tonight.”

“I was going to call you,” Connie said. “Mac will be there tonight, and you know I don’t want to miss him. Oh, and Carly Thompson just called me. She’s always liked jazz, so why don’t we ask her to come with us tonight?”

“Great idea,” Allison said. “Where’s she staying?”

“Mayflower. You know Carly. She’s here doing business and that means the best address, even if it breaks her. She’s on the way, though. We always knew she’d make it.”

“Yeah. Desiree used to say Carl had it all together,” Allison said as her mind traveled back to her college days. “She was the youngest of the bunch, but no one would have guessed it. A den mother, if there ever was one.”

Nostalgia eclipsed Allison as she thought back to those carefree years and the dreams she had shared with her Alpha Delta X sorority buddies, Carly, Connie, Desiree, and Rachel. The gang of five, as they were known on campus.

“I’d better get dressed,” she told Connie. “See you shortly.”

“Let’s meet for dinner. Carly said she has an engagement, so I’m going to tell her to join us at Blues Alley.”

“Works for me. See you at Basel’s. Seven-thirty.” She changed into a green woolen pantsuit and dark camel-hair coat and went to meet Connie.

* * *

“You’ll be sick gulping your food down like that, Allison,” Connie warned. “Mac will be at Blue Alley until two o’clock in the morning, and we have a reservation, so what’s the hurry?”

“I’m not rushing to see Mac; I’m curious about him. Do you think he’s blind and that’s the reason why he wears those black glasses, and we always see him sitting?”

“Could be. Not everybody who has a handicap wants to broadcast that fact. Give the man a break, and stop chasing him.”

The hamburger remained suspended between Allison’s plate and her mouth. “Sometimes I think you have a serious mental problem, Connie,” she complained. “I am not chasing Mac Connelly; I have a peculiar feeling about him is all.”

Connie sipped her Coke, swallowed, and waved the air in a gesture of dismissal. “Of course you do, and I’ll bet you have to cross your knees very time you try to figure out what it is.”

“Connie, for heaven’s sake! Wait till you eat those words.”

“You don’t scare me, girl,” Connie boasted. “We engineers don’t fear you journalists, because we’re so dull and uninteresting you’d never consider writing about us.”

“My next freelance piece will be about our undervalued engineers, and you can watch out. By the way, when will you see Mark what’s-his name?”

Connie’s eyes took on a dreamy look. “I’ve seen him every night since we met. Let’s go; it’s almost time for the first show.” When Allison’s lower lip dropped, Connie released a deep-throated, lusty laugh. “I hope I haven’t given you the impression that I’m slow, girlfriend. When I see what I want, I go after it.”

“And you didn’t tell me you were seeing him?”

“I didn’t want to jinx it. I’m still scared to talk about it. He’s what I’ve been looking for.”

Perplexed at her friend’s odd behavior, Allison said, “But you’ve only known him ten days. How can you be so sure?”