The Best Way to Lose (18 page)

His hand stroked her face, making restless forays into her hair but avoiding any contact with her body. The ache was so quick to surface that Pilar felt wretched. It was such a crazy, mixed-up situation she’d made for herself—wanting him and not wanting to want him.

As he kissed her again, headlight beams raked the car and another vehicle pulled into the space in front of them. Trace drew reluctantly away from her and watched the couple climb out of the parked car to advance toward the apartment building. He waited until they were inside before he reached for the car door.

“I’ll call you,” he said.

Pilar nodded an acknowledgment, fully aware that his discretion was for her benefit. When he climbed out of the car, she slid into the driver’s seat. It still held the warmth of his body. She watched his familiar long shape disappear into the building before she drove away.

There was a light on in the kitchen when she reached Dragon Walk. Instinct had made all the turns onto the roads that led home. Pilar remembered none of them.

“There you are,” Cassie declared with a concerned sigh when Pilar walked through the back door. “I was just thinking about calling Digger to see if you’d had car problems
or something. That auction surely didn’t run this late.”

“No. I stopped to eat on the way home. I—I’d better call Florence”—she changed what she was going to say—“and warn her to expect a delivery in the morning. I think I’ll sleep in for a change.”

T
oo much sleep had left her feeling drugged and dopey. The minute Pilar reached the kitchen, she walked straight for the coffeepot and poured herself a cup, hoping its caffeine would chase the dullness from her senses.

“Good morning to you, too.” There was a snipping edge to Cassie’s greeting as she stood at the sink, washing out one of her blouses by hand.

“Oh, good morning, Cassie. I’m sorry.” Pilar apologized for not speaking and sagged into a kitchen chair. “I can’t remember the last time I slept until noon. Now I wish I’d had you wake me up by, at least, ten. I feel awful.”

There was no sympathy forthcoming from Cassie. She stood at the sink, shoulders
rigidly squared as she rubbed vigorously at the delicate blouse material.

“Why didn’t you mention to me that you were with Trace last night? And all afternoon, for that matter.” Stiff displeasure was in every word as Cassie refused to turn around. “It isn’t right that I’m the last one in the whole town to know.”

“What?” Pilar frowned and mentally tried to shake off this slowness of her brain to function.

“I don’t understand why you felt you couldn’t tell me.” Cassie candidly aired her hurt feelings. “It isn’t as if I’d have told anyone else. At least I wouldn’t have felt so foolish, standing there with my tongue in my mouth, unable to say a word because I didn’t know what they were talking about when all those people called me this morning.”

“Who called?” The hot liquid burned her throat when Pilar tried to sip her coffee.

“Oh, just the local busybodies who couldn’t resist calling to see what I might let slip. They were in for a disappointment this time, because I didn’t know what they were talking about.” She squeezed the suds out of the blouse with a vengeance.

“I wasn’t trying to hide it, Cassie.” Pilar defended her previous night’s silence on the subject. “I just didn’t feel like talking about it last night. I didn’t realize you’d find out before I had a chance to mention it.”

Slightly mollified by the explanation, Cassie left her blouse to soak in some clear
rinse water and poured herself a cup of coffee to join Pilar at the table. “If you knew these people, you’d know they could hardly wait for the chance to call and rub my nose in it. What’s the point of gossip if it doesn’t make someone uncomfortable? That’s their reasoning.”

“If they want to make a big deal out of the afternoon and evening I spent with Trace, there’s nothing I can do about it.” She folded her hands around the coffee cup and absently studied its mirror-smooth surface.

“They aren’t the only ones who are making a big deal out of it.” Cassie let her comment lie there without elaboration, knowing full well that she had Pilar’s interest.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean Trace called the shop this morning, and became worried when he was told you weren’t coming in. That’s why he called here, to find out if something was wrong with you. I had a difficult time convincing him that you were merely sleeping late.”

“Oh.”

“Oh,” Cassie repeated the noncommittal sound. “Is that all you have to say?”

Pilar lifted her gaze to the coffee-skinned woman, who was more like a roommate than anything else. They had shared so many happy things and sad things, confidences and confessions, yet in this one thing, she had never sought Cassie’s counsel.

“You don’t seem surprised by what people are suggesting,” Pilar realized.

“Why should I be?” the woman reasoned with her usual calmness, which stood her in such good stead as a nurse. “I’ve known for a long time what kept Trace away from this house. And I hurt for him.”

“You mean … you knew?”

“It wasn’t what he wanted to feel. I could see him struggling inside with it sometimes.” There was a slow sigh from her. “People can’t always pick and choose who they want to love. It just happens to them.” She studied Pilar for a short second. “And you … well, I would have been more worried about you if you hadn’t found him attractive. You’re a woman coming into the prime of her years, when your needs are stronger, and … you’re alone. I know what that can be like. I went through it myself when my husband died.”

“Afterward, did you meet someone like Trace?” Pilar wondered.

“Like Trace?” Cassie laughed shortly. “Now, I don’t know what you mean by that. I guess I’d have to know how you feel about Trace before I could tell you.”

“That’s just it, Cassie.” Pilar sighed and stared into her coffee, as if trying to see through its blackness. “I’m not sure how I feel toward him. It’s hard to compare it with anything. It isn’t at all like the love I felt for Elliot. There was so much happiness and tenderness with him… so much laughter and affection. With Trace, everything is so heated and intense. One minute it can be all friendly and natural, and the next there’s a
flashpoint and I get turned inside out.” After hearing the words, Pilar smiled in faint wryness at herself. “The only time I can ever remember feeling anything close to this happened when I was fifteen and I had this wild crush on a local football star. One smile from him and I could float on a cloud for a week, and be equally devastated if he failed to acknowledge me when we passed in the school halls.” She looked at her friend. “What do you think?”

“Well, I think…” Cassie paused to stand up and walk back to the sink to finish rinsing her blouse. “… some things in your life have happened backward.”

“What do you mean?” Pilar found that to be a curious statement. She straightened from the chair and wandered to the sink.

“Usually when you’re young, you find a passionate kind of love that follows no particular rhyme or reason. Then when you get older, you want something warm and loving. You skipped the first and went straight to the second when you married Elliot,” she explained. “So you see, there wasn’t anyone like Trace for me, because my Oggie was Trace.”

“I see.” Pilar sipped slowly at her coffee to give herself time to think. “Passion usually burns itself out, though.” She spoke aloud the doubts that assailed her. “When it’s dead, there usually isn’t anything left.”

“Passion eventually burns itself up,” Cassie agreed. “But passionate love is another thing entirely. Some of us are lucky enough to find
it, others find an equally satisfying substitute, and the rest make do. Passionate love means passionate caring. He’s got to mean something more than just a man you want to sleep in your bed. How do you describe an emotion that doesn’t need words?” She shook her head, unable to come up with a way. “Desire is a part of it, but it only makes the caring richer.”

“Everything is so tangled up inside me that I don’t know anything, Cassie. I like him. I’m even beginning to understand him.” She laughed softly at that. “But … I question whether the desire can last. I don’t trust my own emotions.”

“For your own sake, you need to decide,” Cassie advised. “Sometimes making no decision is worse than making the wrong one.”

“I love it when you give me one of those adages of yours,” Pilar chided affectionately. “They sound so wise and they’re so impossible to carry out.” She finished her coffee and set the empty cup on the drainboard. “I’d better get to the shop before Florence decides that I’m not coming in at all today.”

Pilar was in the rear storeroom of the antique shop, checking over the items she’d purchased the day before at the auction and making sure none had been damaged in transport. Florence Barslow was on her way out the rear door to take her noon break, a little late in the day. The bell above the shop door jangled the entrance of a customer.

“Would you want me to wait on them while you finish up?” Florence volunteered.

“No, I’ll get it. You run along.” Pilar set her notes aside and stepped over the pile of discarded newspaper and tissue-packing to cross the storeroom to the retail section of the shop.

When Trace saw her, he paused in mid-stride, then came to the counter. “So you finally made it to work. I missed you at the house. I called a few minutes ago and Cassie said you’d left to come here.”

“Was there something urgent?” There was a quicksilver racing along her nerve ends.

“Foolish question,” he mocked dryly. “Where you’re concerned, my needs are always urgent.”

Deciding it was better if she didn’t reply to that, she chose to comment on something else. “Are you playing hookey again today?” She noticed the way the blue-gray suit fit him, comfortably molding the tapering width of his body.

“No. I just came by for two reasons,” he said.

“And they are?” she prompted.

“I wondered if you were still planning to go to New Orleans next week.” The counter was between them. Trace picked up a glass paperweight and leaned a hip against the counter while he examined the blown crystal glass.

“Yes, I am.”

“I believe I mentioned to you that our new towboat was due to come out of the boatyards about that same time.” He set the paper
weight onto the counter again. “The date happens to coincide with your trip. It seemed appropriate to me that you should be on hand to christen the newest member of the Santee river fleet when it’s launched for the first time.”

“Do you mean … with champagne?” The idea intrigued her.

“How’s your swinging arm?” Trace inquired. “You have to hit that champagne bottle across the bow in just the right spot to break it.”

“It should be fun.” She warmed to the plan.

“Come on.” He caught her hand and pulled her around the counter. Before she could guess his intentions, he had her standing with her back to him and his arms were guiding her into a swinging position. “We’ll practice a few times.” But he was nuzzling her hair, working his way through its silken mass to her ear.

“Trace, don’t.” His breath stirred little shivers to race over her skin. She brought her arms down, but his hands followed them and folded her arms across her middle to draw her backward into his long length. “There are people outside. They can see us through the window.”

“So? Let them.” But he made no attempt to check her escape when she moved shakily out of his arms.

“This is a place of business,” she retorted impatiently. “How would you like it if I
walked into your office while you were working and proceeded to crawl onto your lap?” The instant she saw the wicked gleam in his eyes, Pilar immediately retracted her question. “Don’t bother to answer that.”

“So we’re in public, hmm? And it’s back to hand holding.” He reached for her hand and carried it to his mouth, where he kissed her fingertips with consummate ease. She snatched her hand away before she began to enjoy the sensation too much.

“Is this why you came here? Just to mock me?” As she turned away she laughed in irony. “And to think that just this morning I was saying to Cassie that I thought I was beginning to understand you.”

“Did you? What else did you tell her about me?” he asked.

“It’s none of your business.” She tried not to let that huskily seductive pitch of his voice insinuate itself into her confidence.

“If I was the subject being discussed, whose business would it be if it isn’t mine?” Trace chided her mockingly. “Maybe I’ll have to stop by the house and talk to Cassie. It’s pretty hard for her to keep anything from me.”

“There’s nothing she can tell you that you don’t already know.” Pilar didn’t doubt that he had the wiles to maneuver Cassie into disclosing their conversation without realizing she had.

“Which is?” He was doing it to her.

“That everything is a tangled mess.”

“We’ll never straighten it out if we don’t spend time together,” he responded seriously.

“I’m well aware of your idea of time together.”

“Are you?” he countered. “My idea is that we go to New Orleans together—get away by ourselves where the wrong noses won’t keep sticking themselves into our business and you won’t have to worry about who’s watching.”

“Alone? With you? No.” That was asking for trouble.

“I guessed you’d say that, so I have an alternative,” Trace replied. “The new towboat will go out on a shakedown cruise after it’s launched. We can ride on it as far as Natchez, which is somewhere around a two-day trip, depending on the conditions. Have you ever been on the river?”

“Only in pleasure craft,” she admitted.

“Then you’ll have a chance to learn firsthand what the business is all about. As part owner of the company, it’s something you should know.” The rough contours of his lean features showed a dry pleasure at how nicely the reason dovetailed into his plans for spending time together. “We’ll drive up on Monday. There’s no need for you to take your car or it will wind up stranded in New Orleans.”

“But I’ll need transportation once I’m there so I can make my calls on the various antique shops.” That was the only inconvenience Pilar foresaw.