The Uneven Score (17 page)

She huffed again.

“Be mad, then.”

“She will,” Daniel said genially. “She enjoys it, I think.”

“What about hitting me on the head?” she snapped.

Harry looked serious. “I didn’t do that, Whit.”

“And you didn’t see who did?”

He shook his head.

But he had conferred with Daniel, and together they decided Harry should remain “undercover” for a while longer. Obviously, whoever was harassing Paddie was getting serious. If Daniel could talk her and Whitney into going to the police, he would, but he didn’t hold much hope of that. But someone had to keep watch on Paddie in case she was attacked. Daniel would contact Harry that night, and they would make plans. So Harry had gone back to his tent, which he moved periodically, and prepared to spend yet another night in the Florida wilderness.

“Expected a damned crocodile to move in with me at any moment,” he muttered.

Daniel glanced down at Whitney. She grinned and said, “Alligators, Harry. Florida doesn’t have crocodiles.”

“Just every other kind of pest and pestilence.”

Daniel laughed.

During the course of the night, however, instead of coming across Paddie’s harasser, Harry had stumbled upon the little band of poachers. He was shot trying to “get the hell out of there.” Once wounded, he had every confidence that Daniel would rescue him. Instead, Paddie and Whitney had. 

“Thought I was done for,” he said with feeling. Paddie scowled. “It seems to me,” she said in the biting, falsely patient tone she used to cut an undisciplined player to ribbons, “that you two gentlemen have an unenlightened view of women.”

“Who the hell said anything about women?” Harry protested. “I’m talking about you and Whit.”

“Daniel,” Whitney said tartly, “if you keep laughing, I’m going to get up and move. You’re jiggling the swing.”

“You should have confided in us,” Paddie declared.

“And vice versa, toots” Harry declared. 

Toots? Now Whitney started to giggle.

It was then that Daniel decided their conference had gone on long enough. Insisting what they all needed now was some rest, he dispatched Paddie and Harry to the cottage. “Now that we’ve ‘confided,’ he can sleep on the couch—or wherever.”

 Paddie looked appalled.

“What about Whit?” Harry asked, not looking the least appalled.

“She’ll remain here.”

“Just remember,” Harry said, rising, “her lips are her future.”

“I’ll do my best,” Daniel replied, straight-faced.

Chapter Ten

After Paddie and Harry had gone, Daniel stretched out his legs and gave the swing a little push. “You want to stomp off, darlin’?” he asked lazily.

“No,” Whitney admitted, “I’m too tired to stomp.”

“Head hurt?”

“Feels fine.”

“Mad?”

“I guess we both deserved what we got.”

“Want an apology?”

She smiled up at him. “I thought that was my line.”

He laughed. “Why don’t you blame Paddie and I’ll blame Harry?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“You care about Harry, don’t you?”

“We go back a long way.”

“He cares about you, too, although I must admit he has a peculiar way of showing it.”

“I know,” she said softly. “I guess I always have. Look, you must be exhausted. You don’t have to sit up and talk to me.”

“You must be exhausted, too, darlin’.”

His deep, sexy drawl seemed to vibrate in the small of her back, and lower, until she was tingling all over and was aware only of the man beside her. Harry, Paddie, guns, questions, danger—they all faded into her subconscious. Even remembering his comment required a concerted effort.

“I suppose I am,” she said, a little too breathlessly, “but I don’t think I could sleep right now.”

He pulled his arm off the back of the swing and touched her chin with two fingers, then curved his thumb along her lower lip, tracing it gently, his eyes searching hers. “Me neither,” he said, his voice low, his half-smile seductive. “There are alternatives, m’love.”

She nodded, struggling to think beyond the touch of his fingers. “We could take a walk,” she suggested.

He laughed softly. “That’s not exactly what I had in mind.” His fingers moved upward, stroking the corner of her eyes, pushing back the hair on her forehead. “Whitney.” His voice was quiet, serious. He wasn’t teasing or laughing now. “I’ve faced danger lots of times—.snakes, gators, accidents, occasionally some jerk with a gun. But I have never been as afraid as I was this morning.”

“You didn’t act afraid,” Whitney said wryly, trying not to acknowledge the depth of feeling he was arousing in her. Operas, she thought.

“Anger often follows on the heels of fear. Whitney, I didn’t want to lose you. I think the worst kind of fear isn’t when your own life is in danger, but when the life of someone you care about is in danger. That’s you, darlin’. I care about you more than I’ve wanted to admit.” He smiled, his eyes gleaming. “A damned Yankee French horn player with big blue eyes and a penchant for trouble.”

“Must be fatigue,” she said as lightly as she could manage.

“Must be.” His smile grew tender; his fingers trailed down through her hair. “Either that or I’m falling in love with you.”

There was no opportunity to answer, even to think of an appropriate response. His hand dropped to her shoulder and drew her to him, and as she looked into his eyes, their mouths met, opened, gave. The last, lingering stiffness of tension left her body. She relaxed. She melted. She let herself feel and enjoy and respond to the sheer sensuality of Daniel Graham.

“Come to bed with me, Whitney,” he whispered hoarsely, “come to bed with me …”

And then he hopped lightly off the swing, turned on his heels, and went into the house.

Whitney gasped for breath, but she wasn’t confused, not at all. Before they found themselves at the point of no return, he had given her the opportunity to make up her own mind about what she wanted to do. Possibly it would have been easier if he had made up her mind for her. Then, if she had any regrets, she could blame him.

Regrets? Impossible. She debated her next course of action for approximately five seconds. Should she or shouldn’t she? She should. She wanted to. She needed to.

To be honest to him, to be honest to herself, she had to.

He was coming out of the bathroom when she entered the bedroom. His white towel was around his neck. The dark hair on his chest glistened with dampness. The muscle definition in his calves, thighs, torso, and arms only added to the sense of power and masculine grace Whitney felt whenever she was around him, but especially now. He grinned and with the end of the towel stabbed a trickle of water from his hair. Obviously he wasn’t embarrassed. But, strangely enough, neither was Whitney.

“That was quick,” she said, sitting on the edge of the big bed with one knee tucked under her.

“Cold showers usually are.”

His voice was liquid, deep, as seductive as a caress. She smiled. “You were that sure I wouldn’t come?”

“No. I thought it a prudent move even if you did come.”

Tossing the towel on the floor, he sat beside her. “Whitney, Whitney,” he said, looking into her eyes, smiling, and gathered her into his arms.

His skin was cool and damp, firm under the skimming moves of her fingers, erotic to touch and smell. She breathed in the fresh aroma of him and teased her tongue with the sensual taste of him. He lifted her shirt out of her jeans and spanned her waist with his hands. She was lying beside him.

“Raise your arms, love,” he whispered, “so I can get this thing off. I want to see all of you.”

She murmured something unintelligible, but agreeable, and raised her arms. Her senses were filled with him. This was right, she thought. He was right.

The shirt went quickly. He found the front clasp of her bra, and it followed the shirt. “I can see your heart beating here,” he said, and his tongue flicked out against the pulse in her throat. He laughed softly, sensually. “It’s quickening.” His palm covered her breast, his thumb catching the nipple, circling it, his mouth still against her throat. “Faster and faster …”

She moaned softly, feeling her insides tighten and melt, tighten and melt, pleading. “Daniel …”

Slowly he moved downward, taking her nipple into his mouth, covering it was a warm, delicious wetness. His tongue flicked out against it. She arched under him and cried out. His hands caught her about the buttocks and drew her against him, holding her there until they both moaned softly with wanting.

Her pants went then, and her underpants, and he eased himself onto her.

She could only speak his name in reply, and open herself to him, relying upon her body to articulate what she, aching and impassioned, could not.

“You’re all I need,” he rasped, and came into her, thrusting hard, moaning softly, and then whispering her name over and over.

Whitney responded with her body and soul. They were united—not two halves of one person, but two separate individuals who were giving to each other, receiving, offering, sharing, feeling. Nothing like this had happened to her before. Never. There was no ache but that of passion, no second thoughts, no fear. There was only Daniel Graham. Her mind and body drank in the sight and feel of him, exulted in his every fervid murmuring, answered each thrust, each caress, each burning, arousing touch.

When they reached the threshold, it was she who cried out first, and then again and then again, until her mind and body were one, and all she knew was the thrill and promise of that moment. They were crossing into new territory. They were creating a world, discovering a star, soaring together off into space, hand in hand.

“Oh, Whitney,” he said hoarsely, “oh, darlin’.”

And he laughed, and so did she and then they nestled together, her heart beating against his, and slept.

Whitney awoke first. She disentangled herself from Daniel’s long limbs, tiptoed downstairs, and indulged herself in a warm bath. Reality had an unkind way of presenting itself as she dusted her back and stomach with a mixture of cornstarch and talc.

Daniel Graham was upstairs asleep. He grew oranges and grapefruits and a few lemons in central Florida. He was vice president of a national citrus corporation. He was handsome. He was thrilling.

“And I’m hopelessly in love with him,” she said to herself, sighing.

She was a French horn player from Schenectady. She had commitments to three different ensembles, two as a hornist, one as a conductor. People were counting on her. And she liked her work. She liked her little house on the Mohawk River. She was close to the Adirondacks, close to New York City, close to everything she needed and wanted.

Except Daniel Graham.

And now that Harry was back and he and Daniel were both aware of Paddie’s problem, there was no excuse for Whitney to stay in Orlando.

Of course, if Harry’s wound prevented him from performing …

It wouldn’t.

“Harry, Harry,” Whitney mumbled, “how would I ever explain you to Daniel?”

It was best, perhaps, not even to try.

Reality, she decided, was not a pretty thing. She put on a pair of rugby pants and a Tanglewood T-shirt and took her horn outside, walking barefoot through the grass to the wooden lawn chairs down by the lake. It was a warm afternoon, sunny and green, a perfect spring day, the sort of day Schenectady would have a couple of months down the road. She dragged a chair out from beneath the table and sat down under a dogwood. The seat was too low and slanted down in back, but Whitney figured she could make do. She scooted up to the edge of the seat, anchored her feet in the grass, and took out her horn.

She did warm-ups for about an hour, then some exercises. Since she hadn’t brought out her music and collapsible music stand, she had to do things she had memorized, which was no problem. She had a good memory. She breathed deeply and played her best.

She did not, she thought with some amusement, sound like a dying cow.

And reality began to look less dreadful and lots more bearable. It was more fun to be in love, with all its emotional upheaval and obstacles, she concluded, than not to be in love.

Besides, what choice did she have? Daniel Graham had staked his claim on her heart. There was nothing she could do about it—nothing she wanted to do.

She ran her tongue over her mouthpiece and argued that she ought to be reasonable. How could she be in love? She’d known the man less than a week, and during the course of that time she had thought him capable of kidnapping Harry Stagliatti, harassing Victoria Paderevsky, bonking Whitney McCallie on the head, and doing untold other nasty things. It did not make an auspicious beginning to a love affair.

“I’m just infatuated,” she muttered to herself, and opened up her spit valve.

The man had proved himself as thrilling and skillful a lover as she had anticipated. But instead of satisfying her curiosity, their time together had only whetted her appetite for him.

“See?” she said aloud. “A physical infatuation.”

Then why did her heart ache when she thought of his smile? Why did her thoughts and fantasies include not just images of lovemaking, but of talking, working, and just being together? A physical attraction was only part of what she felt and imagined and hoped for.

“So I’m emotionally infatuated, too.”

And before she could think of an answer to that not particularly erudite comment, she stuck her horn back to her mouth and played the opening solo to
Till Eulenspiegel’s
Merry Pranks
. Richard Strauss’s music may have made an odious contribution to late nineteenth-century German politics, but he wrote incredible horn parts. 

She was belting out the crescendo when, behind her, there was the sound of an engine starting. She whirled around in time to see Daniel Graham’s Jeep speeding down the driveway.

“Daniel!”

But he didn’t stop. Horn in hand, she ran to the edge of the driveway, but he was already careening off, the Jeep’s rear tires kicking up sand in their wake. She saw him make a sharp right-hand turn. As she had learned her first night in Florida, Graham Groves was a spider’s web of roads. Only the parking area at the back of the house was blacktopped. She tried thinking of where that particular road might lead instead of thinking about how abrupt Daniel’s exit was, and how cruel, and, most of all, of how alone she suddenly felt.