Something Different/Pepper's Way (3 page)

Gypsy stepped down into the den, set Corsair on the deep-pile carpet, and immediately headed for a corner that was either an afterthought to the beautiful room, someone’s idea of humor… or both.

Chase followed slowly, staring in astonishment. The corner was partitioned off from the room by an eight-foot-tall bookcase, clearly made from odd pieces of lumber and sagging decidedly in every shelf. It was crammed to capacity. Within the “room” was a battered desk that had seen more mileage than Daisy; it was cluttered with papers, a couple of dog-eared dictionaries, stacks of carbon paper, and a few more unidentifiable items. A ten-year-old manual typewriter sat squarely in the middle of the clutter.

“Your corner,” Chase murmured finally.

“My corner,” Gypsy confirmed absently, scrabbling through a desk drawer.

Chase wandered over to examine the bookshelf, uneasily aware that the giant Bucephalus was right beside him. Trying to ignore his escort, he scanned the titles of Gypsy’s books, becoming more and more puzzled. “I’ve never seen so many books on crime and criminology in my life. Don’t tell me you’re also a cop?”

Still searching for the elusive insurance card, Gypsy answered vaguely, “No. Murder.” She looked up a moment later to find him staring at her with a peculiar expression, and elaborated dryly, “Murder
mysteries.
I write murder mysteries.”

“
You?
Murder mysteries?”

“I wouldn’t laugh if I were you. I know ninety-eight ways to kill someone, and all of them are painful.”

Chase absorbed that for a moment. “Do your victims lose their insurance cards?” he asked gravely.

“My victims are usually dead, so it doesn’t matter. Damn. It’s not here.”

Chase was frowning. Then the frown abruptly cleared and he was staring at her in astonishment. “No wonder your name rang a bell! I’ve read some of your books.”

“Did you enjoy them?” she asked him politely.

“They were brilliant,” he replied slowly, still staring at her in surprise. “I couldn’t put them down.”

Accustomed to the astonished reaction to her authorship, Gypsy smiled faintly and began to search through the clutter on her desk. “Don’t bother telling me that I don’t look like a writer,” she advised. “I’ve heard it many times. I’d like to know what a writer is supposed to look like,” she added in a reflective voice.

Chase discovered that he had been absently petting Bucephalus and stopped, only to continue hastily when the dog growled deep in his throat. “Can’t you tell this monster to lie down somewhere?”

“Tell him yourself. He knows the command.”

“Lie down,” Chase said experimentally, and was immediately rewarded when the dog flopped down obediently. Stepping carefully around Bucephalus, Chase approached Gypsy and observed her unfruitful search. “Can’t find it?”

Gypsy lifted a feather duster and peered beneath it. “It’s here somewhere,” she said irritably. “It has to be.”

“You could offer me a cup of coffee while I wait,” he said reproachfully.

“It isn’t Tuesday.”

Chase thought that one over for a moment. No matter how many times he ran it through his mind, her meaning didn’t appear. “Is that supposed to make sense?”

She looked up from her search long enough to note his puzzled expression. “I only fix coffee on Tuesday,” she explained.

“Why?” he asked blankly.

“It’s a long story.”

“Please. This is one answer I have to hear.”

Gypsy pulled a squeaky swivel chair out and sat down, beginning to search through the center drawer for a second time. “When I was little,” she told him patiently, “I became addicted to iced tea. My mother thought that it was unhealthy, that I needed to drink other things like milk. I hate milk,” she added parenthetically.

“So anyway Mother decided to assign different drinks to the days of the week. That way, she could be sure that I was getting a healthy variety. By the time I got around to drinking coffee, the only day left for it was Tuesday. And today isn’t Tuesday.”

Chase shook his head bemusedly “When you adopt a habit, it’s your life, isn’t it?”

“I suppose.”

“Well, what’s today’s drink?” he asked, deciding to go with the tide.

“Is today Friday? Let’s see…. Friday is wine. Or a reasonable facsimile thereof.” She looked up with sudden mischief in her eyes. “Mother doesn’t know about that. Poppy—my father—told me that I’d better save Friday for when I grew up. So I did. It’s a good thing I listened to him. I like wine.”

Staring at her in fascination, Chase murmured, “You seem to have … interesting parents.”

“To say the least.” Abruptly she asked, “What do you do for a living?”

Chase blinked, but quickly recovered. “I sell shoes,” he replied blandly.

With sudden and disconcerting shrewdness, she said calmly, “If you’re a salesman, I’ll eat my next manuscript— page by page.”

Chase wondered why he’d lied, then decided that it had probably been due to sheer bewilderment. “I’m an architect.”

Gypsy made no comment on the lie, other than a brief look of amusement. “Now,
that
I believe. Residential or commercial?”

“Commercial. I’ve designed a few private homes though.”

“Would you like some wine?” she asked suddenly.

After a moment Chase complained, “You take more conversational shortcuts than any person I’ve ever met.”

“It saves time,” she said solemnly.

He decided again to go with the tide. By this time he was beginning to feel like a piece of driftwood being battered against the shore. “Yes, I’d like some wine. Thank you.”

Gypsy frowned. “I’d better see if I have any.” She rose from the chair and headed for the hallway, saying over her shoulder, “Go through the desk again, will you? I may have missed it.”

It took Chase several seconds to realize that she meant the insurance card. With a shrug he sat down in the creaky chair and began searching through the desk.

He’d searched three drawers by the time Gypsy came back into the room carrying two glasses filled with white wine. “Find it?” she asked, handing him a glass.

“No. Tell me something.” He waved a hand at the general clutter of her desk. “How can someone so obviously disorganized write such ruthlessly logical and neatly plotted books?”

“Luck, I guess.”

Chase lifted an eyebrow at her as she rested a hip against the corner of the desk. “Luck. Right.” He lifted his glass in a faint toast, but the expression on his face indicated that he was
not toasting Gypsy’s answer but rather some wry thought of his own.

“Tell you what.” He sighed almost to himself. “Why don’t you keep looking for the card? Maybe you’ll have found it by the time I pick you up tonight.”

“Pick me up? For what?”

“Dinner.”

two

“DINNER?” GYPSY LEANED AN ELBOW ON
her typewriter and stared at Chase. The reluctance in his voice had been so audible as to be ludicrous, and she fought an urge to giggle. “You don’t really want to do that.”

“No,” he agreed amiably. After a moment he added cryptically, “I’ve always considered myself an intelligent man.”

Was that supposed to make sense? she wondered. “Look, if you’re feeling guilty because of what you did to Daisy—” she began, but he cut her off decisively.

“I’m not feeling guilty about Daisy; the accident was more your fault than mine. And taking women out to dinner because I feel guilty isn’t one of my noble habits. Do you want to go or don’t you?”

Gypsy sipped her wine to give herself time to think. After hesitating, she asked cautiously, “Why are you asking me?”

He stared at her. “You want to hear my motives, I take it?”

“A girl likes to know where she stands.”

“Well, my motives are the usual ones, I suppose. Companionship. Interest in a lovely woman. A dislike of eating alone. And,” he added wryly, “I think that I should get to know my next-door neighbor.”

Gypsy blinked. “You live… ?” She gestured slightly and sighed when he nodded. “You’ve been gone for two months.”

Chase nodded again. “Back East working on a project.”

“You didn’t know Bucephalus,” she pointed out.

“I hardly knew the Robbins couple. And I never saw that dog before today. They must have kept him hidden, although how to hide something that big… Are you going out with me?”

Gypsy hesitated again, and somewhere in the back of her mind her uncertainty was still nagging her. “Chase….” She was searching for the right words. “If you want a companion across the dinner table, that’s fine. If you want a neighbor you can borrow a cup of sugar from, that’s fine. Anything more than that isn’t fine. I don’t want to get involved.”

“I see.” Chase set his wineglass on top of a dictionary, then took hers from her hand and set it down also. “That’s an interesting point.”

“What is?” she asked blankly.

“Whether we could become involved with each other. Would Bucephalus protect you?”

Gypsy had the detached feeling that there was something here she was missing totally. Deciding that the simplest course would be to answer his question, she said, “I suppose he would. If I screamed or something.”

“Don’t scream.” Chase rose to his feet and pulled her upright into his arms.

“What’re you… ?” she sputtered, caught off guard.

“A little experiment,” he murmured. “To see if we could become involved with each other.” Before she could utter another word, his lips had unerringly found hers.

In that first instant Gypsy knew that she was in trouble. Definite trouble. A fiery tingle began in her middle and spread rapidly outward to the tips of her fingers and toes. It was totally
unexpected and frighteningly seductive. And Gypsy couldn’t seem to find a weapon to combat the stinging little fire.

Something had kicked her in the stomach; dizziness overwhelmed her, and shock sapped the strength from her knees. Her body seemed to disconnect itself from her mind, her arms lifting of their own volition to encircle his neck. She felt her lips part beneath the increasing pressure of his, and then even her mind was lost. Searing brands moved against her back, pulling her body inexorably against his, and the hollow ache in her middle responded instantly to the fierce desire she could feel in him.

Gypsy was aware of the hazy certainty that she should stop this. Yes. Stop it, she thought. But she couldn’t even find the strength to open her eyes, realizing only then that they were closed.

Stop it. In a moment….

The stinging little fire wasn’t so little anymore. It was a writhing thing now, scorching nerve endings and boiling the blood in her veins. She could feel her heart pound with all the wild unreason of a captive beast, and it terrified her with its savage rhythm.

She was dimly aware of drawing a shuddering breath when Chase finally released her. Her hands fell limply to her sides and then reached back to clutch at the edge of the desk she was leaning weakly against. Wood. Solid wood, she assured herself. Reality.

She stared at him with stunned, disbelieving eyes, only partially aware that his breathing was as ragged as hers and that the jade eyes held the same expression of bemused shock as her own.

Chase lifted his wineglass and drained it very scientifically. “Scratch one casual friendship,” he muttered hoarsely.

Gypsy immediately shook her head. “Oh, no,” she began.

“I’ve been wanting to do that,” he interrupted musingly, “ever since you told me about coffee on Tuesday.”

She blinked and then fiercely gathered her scattered wits. “No, Chase,” she said flatly. “No involvement.”

“Too late.”

Hanging on to the desk as if to a lifeline, she shook her head silently, ignoring the sneering little voice inside her head that was agreeing with his comment.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m not strong enough to fight,” he said wryly.

Gypsy silently ordered the little voice to shut up and took hold of her willpower with both hands. “No involvement,” she repeated slowly.

He gazed at her with a disconcerting speculation. “I’m reasonably sure it isn’t me,” he observed, “so what is it?”

For the first time her small work area was giving Gypsy a claustrophobic feeling, and she pushed away from the desk to wander out into the den. She sat down rather bonelessly on a handy chair and watched as Chase followed her into the main part of the room. Since he had a somewhat determined expression on his face, she searched hastily for words.

“Gypsy—”

“Chase, I— Oh, hell.” She decided on honesty. “Chase, I’ve never… slept with a man before.”

“You haven’t?” Something unreadable flickered in his eyes.

“No.”

“Why?”

She bit back a giggle, her sense of humor abruptly easing the tension in her body. “A girl used to have to explain why she did; now she has to explain why she doesn’t.”

“The times they are a changin’,” he murmured.

“Uh-huh.” She gave him a wry look. “Look, I’ve spent
most of my life traveling, which isn’t exactly conducive to lasting relationships. Summer flings and one-night stands hold no appeal for me. It’s got nothing to do with morality, it’s just me. In spite of my footloose life-style, I’m the home and hearth type at heart.”