Strangers in Paradise (16 page)

They laughed all the way into the house, up the stairs and into the bedroom, and there the laughter faded to urgent whispers of passion and need.

And Alexi did forget about being nervous. This night, like the one before it, was magic.

Chapter 9

O
ne week later, the carpenters were just finishing up with Alexi's first project, the window seat in the kitchen.

Alexi, in a blue flowered sundress, stood by the butcher-block table, admiring the work and her own design. Her hair was drawn back in a ponytail, and she was wearing very little makeup. Joe's boy had brought out several pizzas, and Alexi had passed out wine coolers. Rex, coming in from the parlor, surveyed the little area of the house and admitted she had quite a talent for design. The window seat was perfect for the house; the upholstery and drapes were in a colonial pattern, and the seat added something to the entire atmosphere and warmth of the kitchen. It hadn't been there in the past, of course, but it looked like something that could have been.

Enthused, Alexi swung around to demand, “Well?”

“It is wonderful and perfect,” he told her, slipping an arm around her. With a satisfied sigh, she leaned against him. Skip Henderson, the elder of the two Henderson carpenters, chewed a piece of onion-and-pepperoni pizza, swallowed and told Alexi, “It's a wonderful design. It's great. I might try something like it in my own place.”

“Yeah?” Alexi asked him.

He was a nice-looking man with muscled shoulders—like Rex's, bare in the heat—and a toothsome grin. He offered Alexi a grave nod then, though, but grinned again when he looked over the top of her head to Rex to say, “Smart, too, huh?”

“As a whip,” Rex agreed pleasantly.

Alexi kicked him.

“Hey! What was that for?”

“I'd kick Skip, too, except that I don't know him that well,” Alexi retorted. “There was that nice assumption that blondes only come in ‘dumb'!”

Rex wrapped his arms around her and drew her tightly against him, laughing. “I've never dared make any assumptions about you, Alexi.”

“You'd be welcome to kick me if you wanted to get to know me a little better, too,” offered Terry, Skip's partner and younger brother.

“No deal,” Rex warned him with a mock growl. Alexi flushed slightly. She liked the note of jealousy in his voice as much as she liked the ease of the teasing repartee. Were she and Rex really becoming a couple? The thought was so pleasant that it was frightening. They'd been a couple, of course. Very much a couple. They'd barely been apart since the night on the beach. She couldn't count the times that they had made love, and that part of it was very thrilling and exciting...but there seemed to be so much more. She liked times like these almost as much. She loved the way that she could set about a project and, if she wanted his opinion, ask for it. He would take the time to answer her—unless he was behind a closed door, and then she knew that he needed his concentration. But they'd been together—living together—all these days, and they didn't seem to encroach upon each other's space. Sometimes she was so afraid that she held her breath a bit. Then she was wondering when he would decide that Eden had been fun for a spell but a woman as more than a lover was like a brick around his neck. He wasn't a cruel or cold man—he was the opposite in every way. But Alexi knew how the scars of the past could eat into a soul. The longer she and Rex stayed together, the more domestic she came to feel.

Would he run from domesticity if it became too confining?

“Finish your pizza,” Skip told his brother. “I think we're overstaying our welcome here.”

Alexi laughed. “Don't be silly. You're welcome as long as you want to stay. I'm going to run down to the cellar, though, and feed the creatures. I'll be right back. You all sit and enjoy yourselves.”

She spun out of Rex's arms, thinking that it was nice, too, that their neighbors—Rex's friends and acquaintances from the mainland—all appeared to think it natural and romantic that the two of them were together.

Only Emily disapproved. Well, she didn't disapprove, but she seemed unhappy. Rex had told Alexi once that Emily didn't dislike her—Emily thought that she was simply too nice a girl for him. Alexi was amused—and touched. Few people would assume that she was too nice for anyone. She had made the front pages of too many gossip magazines.

The phone started to ring as soon as she reached the bottom step. She could hear Rex, Skip and Terry discussing the chances of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the coming season.

“Rex! Get that, will you?” She needed an answering machine for the house, she decided. Rex seldom thought to answer a phone just because it was ringing.

“Rex!”

The phone kept ringing. Alexi dropped the fifty-pound bag of Samson's dog food with an oath. Samson barked at her; his tail thumped the floor, and he stared at her with huge, reproachful eyes.

She patted him on the head. “I'll be right back, big guy. I promise.”

She almost stepped on a kitten as she started up. “I'll be back—I promise,” she said again.

Skip and Terry were at the table. Skip pointed toward the hallway. Alexi nodded her thanks and hurried toward the parlor.

Rex was saying something. He looked up and noticed that Alexi had come into the room. “Hold on, will you? She's right here.” He covered the mouthpiece and handed the phone to Alexi. “Your agent.”

“Oh.”

Alexi took the phone and greeted George Beattie with affection. George was great; five-three, stout, a very proper British chap with a heart of gold. Alexi didn't think that she'd have made it through the past year without him.

Rex knew he probably should have left the room, but he didn't. Alexi didn't really say much of anything; she listened mainly. She glanced at him, a little apologetically, and asked for a piece of paper and a pencil. She thanked him with a glance when he supplied them.

“September first... I don't know, George. I still don't know.” She paused to listen. “I'll let you know by next week. Is that enough time?”

Rex knew he must have agreed. Alexi thanked him, asked after his wife and kids, told him to take care and hung up. She fingered the paper, then noted him standing there, watching her, his arms crossed over his chest.

“They want you back?” he asked.

There was no emotion in his tone. Alexi shrugged. “Oh, it was an offer from one of the clothing manufacturers. A new campaign.”

Rex took the paper from her and looked at the dates—and the sums. “That's the money involved?”

She nodded.

“Who is the photographer on the shoot? Not Vinto.”

“No, no. Once the Helen of Troy finished, George knew to make sure that such a thing couldn't happen again.”

“Well,” he breathed softly. “You'd be a fool not to take it, wouldn't you?”

He handed the paper back, smiled stiffly and walked back to the kitchen. Alexi watched the set of his shoulders and felt as if her heart sank a little.

He didn't care. She was falling into domestic bliss, and he was definitely finding it all to be a brief affair—cut short conveniently by her work schedule.

She'd known; she had only herself to blame. He'd never made any promises, and she wasn't really entitled to any complaints. No man could have given her more.

She stood there, watching his broad back as he disappeared through the door to the kitchen. What was the matter with her? They were hardly strangers. All she had to do was waltz right after him and demand to know what he had meant by that. She could be frank. She could take her chances. Gene had always said that you were a loser from the beginning if you didn't even try.

She trembled suddenly, thinking how much it meant to her. This little bit of time here—these hours they had shared in his “Eden”—they meant so much to her. They were everything she had always wanted, everything she had always searched for. She'd had to defy her family at first—she'd been young. But she'd always been looking for this...this very special relationship. This quiet, far from the crowds. This life...with Rex.

She couldn't go in and accost him emotionally. Not when he and Skip and Terry were discussing football. They would all stare at her as if she had lost her senses.

Alexi exhaled a little sigh and sank back onto the sofa. She remembered that she hadn't finished feeding the animals, but decided that she didn't really have the energy to do so. Maybe if she stayed away from the kitchen for a minute, Skip and Terry would go home.

As she sat there, her chin in her hands, the phone started to ring again. Alexi idly reached over to answer it. “Hello?”

She waited, not alarmed at first.

“Hello?” she said more impatiently.

She could hear breathing in the background. Harsh and heavy.

“Hello, dammit! Say something.”

She was just about to hang up when a voice said something at last.

“Hello, Alexi.”

She was startled by the power that voice still held over her. She had seen him almost daily for almost a year after it had all happened, and she had dragged up a facade of cool and cordial indifference—and she'd even managed to believe it herself. But now time had passed, and she was hearing his voice. It touched her spine and raked along it—and she was afraid.

“Alexi?”

She almost hung up. But it seemed smarter to talk, to find out what he wanted.

“John. What do you want? How did you find me?”

“Oh, you were easy to find, sweets. And I just want to talk to you.”

“Why?”

“Don't sound so hostile, babe.”

“I am hostile.”

“Alexi, come on! Think of the good times.”

“I'm sorry. I can't remember any.”

“I've got to see you.”

“I don't ever want to see you again.”

“Alexi—”

“Where are you, John?”

“Close, babe, real close.”

How close? she wondered. She felt the tremors rake along her spine again. Her tongue and throat felt dry; her palms were damp.

“Well, John, forget it. I—”

She was startled when the receiver was wrenched from her hand. She gasped slightly and looked up to see that Rex was back. She hadn't heard him come into the room. Nor had he ever looked at her quite like that. His eyes were burning coals. His features were taut and strained, and he seemed a very hard man at that moment, striking, but cold as ice.

“What do you want, Vinto?”

“Who the hell are you?”

Even Alexi heard John's reply. She bit her lip, listening to the harsh tone of Rex's answer. He told John exactly who he was and exactly where he could be found. And then he told John to leave Alexi alone—or else.

Then he slammed down the receiver.

Alexi sat motionless for several long moments. She felt drained, and found that curious, for Rex seemed to be a mass of tension and knots, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides as he watched her.

“I didn't tread on any toes, did I?” he said.

“What?” She looked up at him at last.

“Did you want to see him?”

“No! Of course not. You know that! I—I'd like to feel that I could have handled it myself, but—”

“Sorry.”

He turned around again and was gone. Miserable, Alexi continued to sit there. She got up at last and followed Rex across the hall.

Skip and Terry had gone. Rex was sitting there by himself at the butcher-block table, staring at the window seat that had so recently given them both such pleasure.

Alexi came and sat down next to him. He glanced her way. A brief smile touched his lips and then was gone. He squeezed her fingers and rose. “I'm going out for a few hours.” He started for the kitchen door.

Alexi rose, too. “Rex?”

“It's all right,” he assured her. “I'm just going out for a few hours.”

The kitchen door swung. She heard Rex's footsteps on the stairway, going up. Then, seconds later, she heard them coming down again. He hesitated, as if he was going to walk straight to the front door but then decided not to.

He came back into the kitchen. He'd donned a striped tailored shirt and moccasins and was busy tucking the shirt into his jeans. He came around behind Alexi. With his fingers he lightly stroked her upper arms.

“I'll be back,” he promised her.

There was so much she wanted to say. She didn't seem able to say any of it. She nodded, and he kissed the top of her head.

“Alexi, I...”

“What?”

“I, uh, I'll try not to be gone too long.”

She looked up at him curiously. He smiled and kissed her distractedly on the forehead again. A moment later, the kitchen door was swinging in his wake, but then he caught it again to say, “Come on out and lock the door.”

Samson started barking. He raced up from the cellar stairs and brushed past Alexi and jumped on Rex.

“Get down, you monster.”

“He doesn't want to be left behind,” Alexi murmured.

“All right, all right, you can come for a ride,” Rex told the dog impatiently. “Alexi, make sure you lock the door.”

“I will, dammit, Rex. I know how to do it now.”

He didn't answer her. Alexi heard him yell at Samson to get into the car; then she heard the Maserati rev. She locked the door and leaned against it and felt like crying.

She muttered fervently to herself about the absurdity of such a thing and went back into the kitchen. She threw away the pizza boxes and the empty beer bottles and swore softly as she washed down the table and the counters. She curled up on her new window seat, but she couldn't seem to take any pleasure in it. Then she heard a mewling and remembered that she still hadn't fed any of the animals—his or hers.

“Okay, my loves. I'm coming.” Alexi uncurled herself and started down the cellar stairs. The kittens played around her feet. “Samson went out without any dinner. Serves him right, don't you think? Men. They're all alike, and they deserve what they get, huh?”

Alexi glanced through the shelves of food. “Chicken, tuna or liver, guys?”

She shrugged and decided on cans of chicken. She picked up the bowls to wash them in the big, ancient sink and bit her lip against the temptation to cry again.