The Uneven Score (6 page)

“Fourth horn,” she said. “I’m not as good in the lower octaves. And I’m not your basic Cleveland type.”

“But you have penetrated the ‘male-dominated orchestral bureaucracy,’ haven’t you?” He paused to smile with a certain, measured irony. Then, abruptly, he was serious once more. “Yoshifumi intimated  that in another five years you’d be one of the strongest, most innovative hornists in the country—something to do with your tone.”

“How nice of Yoshifumi.”

Knowing Yoshifumi as she did, Whitney suspected he had realized she’d already managed to get herself on Graham’s black list and was trying to protect her.

“My horn teacher says when I play my tone is so round he can see the oranges falling out of my bell,” she went on glumly. There was no point in worsening her position by telling him Harry Stagliatti was her horn teacher.

Graham looked at her sternly, the shadows dancing on his face. His jeans, she noticed unwillingly, fit snugly over his thighs. The man was in incredible physical shape- probably from stalking burglars and trespassers. “Then you’re admitting you’re Whitney McCallie?” he said icily.

“Sure, why not? Seems to me my ship is sinking.”

“Seems to me your ship has sunk.” He smiled suddenly, visibly relaxing now that she had begun, in however small a way, to cooperate. “No more lies, all right? I want to know why you were in my office this afternoon.  I realize we didn’t meet under the best of circumstances, but I still think you ought to tell me.”

“Or?”‘

“Or nothing. I just need to know.”

Whitney sighed. It was an appealing argument—simple and direct. And somehow it was more effective than his guns and dark looks. She was inclined to take the chance and tell him the truth. Possibly he had a perfectly innocent explanation for being in Harry’s hotel room. But the truth wasn’t an option. There was still Paddie to consider, and Harry.

She popped her mouthpiece back on her horn and grinned up at him. “I’m in love with you,” she said lightly. “I saw your picture in some publicity on the orchestra and those clear sea-green eyes of yours and thought to myself—”

“All my publicity photos are in black and white.”

“Yes, but I knew you had sea-green eyes.”

“Give up, Whitney,” he said, but the use of her first name and the flash of his smile told her she’d penetrated his somber mood. “Or maybe I should give up. You aren’t going to tell me what you were doing in my office, are you?”

“I’m not at liberty to.”

“All right, then. I have a fair idea, anyway. Harry Stagliatti, right?”

Whitney felt her throat go dry, but she managed to lift her shoulders in an idle shrug. “All I know is that Stagliatti walked out on Dr. Paderevsky and I have to fill his shoes--no easy task, I assure you. He’s a magnificent hornist.”

“Yes,” Graham ground out. “Damn. Look, I’m not going to spend the entire night arguing with you. I want the key you used to get into my office. Give it to me and I’ll go.”

“The key? Oh; you believed me!” She laughed and hoped she was the only one who could hear how hollowly. “No, no, I don’t have a key. I bribed a janitor.”

“Damn it, woman!” he hissed angrily, but quickly reined in his temper. “Only I have a key to my office.”

“Then how could I have one?”

He slung his rifle over his shoulder and took one long step toward her. His toes were just inches from hers. It was all she could do to stop herself from snatching her feet away, shriveling them up like the Wicked Witch of the East. Her heart beat wildly. Had she pushed him too far? What if he had come out into the grove to check on Harry in the snake pit and had stumbled on her? Or maybe he was on his way to Paddie’s cottage to make her think someone was watching her? Poachers, indeed. Who would steal grapefruit blossoms?

Graham gave her just enough time to panic before he asked calmly, “Would you like me to search your belongings until I find it?”

Whitney reached over and dug around in her decrepit canvas bag. There was a bust of Beethoven silk-screened on the outside. If Graham noticed, he said nothing. She suddenly realized the man was skulking about in his grove without a flashlight. The moon was bright, but, in her estimation, not that bright. She withdrew a deerskin chamois cloth and glanced around at him. He had his rifle pointed at her. “That’s not necessary,” she said crisply. “I’m not likely to attack you with anything less than a machine gun—”

“The key, please.”

She unfolded the rag and, trying to ignore the long barrel of the rifle, handed over his accursed key. “Enjoy,” she said.

“This had better be your only copy?”

It wasn’t. Paddie would never have let Whitney use her only copy of such an important weapon. “Of course. Why would I need two?”

“If I catch you in my office again, I’m going to drag you to the police by your heels. Is that understood?”

“Perfectly.”

“And I’m not in any mood to rescue you from a band of poachers. You’d better be off my property by noon tomorrow.”

“Gladly.”

He moved in front of her, so that they were again toe-to-toe and she could see the muscles tensed in his arms and the hard set of his jaw. His shadow cast over her. With one finger, he tilted her chin up toward him. But, surprisingly, when he spoke, his drawl was sonorous and almost gentle. “And Whitney,” he said, “stick to playing your damned horn.”

She thought he would turn on his heels and disappear into the night, but he didn’t. He cupped her elbows and brought her to her feet. Her horn was between them, but he didn’t notice, and neither did she. She only noticed his eyes. They were a cool, cool green, and yet they seemed to burn with bridled passion and intensity. They were eyes she could look at for a long time.

He smiled, and up close it was more powerful, more sensual, than ever. “I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to kiss a woman in sweat pants as much as I do you,” he said in a low, lazy drawl. “Why do you think that is, Whitney?”

“Maybe it’s my French horn.”

“Maybe it’s you.”

And finally he did kiss her, his mouth lightly grazing her lips. He touched her cheek, his skin as cool as the night air. Whitney gripped her horn, but was too mesmerized by the play of his lips and tongue on her mouth to pull back. Harry would say she was jumping out of the frying pan into the fire, She would agree, and jump willingly. She could seem to do nothing else.

“Noon,” he said, and was gone before she had finished her nod.

Not only did the tent stink, but it leaked. Having seen the holes and handled the worn fabric, Whitney was not surprised. What surprised her was the rain. Not long after Graham left, her beautiful starlit sky gave way to monstrous dark clouds, and the rain came in great gushing torrents. In disbelief, she crammed her belongings into the tent and wrapped herself in Paddie’s blanket, swatting mosquitoes and cursing the Sun Belt. The old canvas began dripping almost immediately. She might as well have pitched a sheet.

Waving around the thin beam of the flashlight, she contemplated her dilemma. She could stay here and be washed into a swamp and be devoured by alligators or captured by poachers, or she could venture out into the grove and find shelter. Paddie would have to let her in—provided Whitney could find her way back to the cottage. The prospect of creeping among the blossoming citrus trees in the rain was not intriguing, but neither was staying put.

Her light fell on a steady stream of water flowing into her ragged leather satchel. “My music!” she groaned. Seeing her sixth book of Maxime Alphonse exercises curling under the rush of rain forced her into action.

With her horn tucked protectively under her arm, she collapsed the tent with everything still inside it, gathered up the open end, and slung it onto her back Santa Claus style. The weight was ungodly, and with her horn tucked under one arm and the flashlight held precariously in the hand of that same arm, she couldn’t shift it around much. If she’d packed her horn in her hard case, she would have let it bounce around on her back with her other things, but, in its small, neat, soft case, it would have ended up hopelessly mangled.

“I shall prevail,” she vowed aloud, and lumbered off.

Almost immediately she came to a fork in the road. Since she didn’t even remember a fork in the road, she had no idea whether she should go left or right. Paddie had told her not to camp within a ten-minute walk of the cottage, and Whitney had obliged, heading out away from the cottage and the highway. She had assumed she would find her way back easily enough the following morning. But it was pitch dark and pouring rain now, and she could hardly remember her own name, never mind figure out how to find her way out of a citrus grove
...
and didn’t alligators come out in the rain? Alligators and crocodiles were all the same to her. Snakes, too. Slimy reptiles.

Then, for some reason, she thought of Daniel Graham. Paddie wouldn’t know a leaky tent from a spit rag, but Graham presumably would have realized the peril his trespasser would be in when the torrents started. Why hadn’t he come to her rescue?

“Because, dope,” she muttered to herself, “you don’t look like the type that needs rescuing.”

And, kiss aside, she undoubtedly hadn’t endeared herself to the man with her lies. She would remember the kiss forever—it had been that kind of kiss, and he was that kind of man—but suspected he had forgotten it already. He’d simply taken advantage of an opportunity. He was
that
kind of man, too.

Blowing a drop of rain off the end of her nose, she reared back her shoulders, chose the fork to the left, and proceeded.

Within a hundred yards the grove ended and she was walking through an open clearing. A bona fide lawn! But it wasn’t Paddie’s lawn, and the house up ahead was much too large to be Paddie’s cottage. A window on the second floor was lit, but otherwise the house was dark. Paddie didn’t have a second floor. Off to the right, down a gentle slope, a small lake was spattered with raindrops.

Whitney stopped dead, ballet slippers squishing in the wet sand, sweat pants and hockey shirt heavy with the soaking rain, back and shoulders aching under the weight of her pack. The water beaded up and slid off her horn case. She could not envision herself marching up to Daniel Graham’s front door and inviting herself in. It had to be his house. Her luck dictated it would be. Reason mandated that now she was on the edge of Daniel Graham’s front lawn.

She could
not
ask him for help. He had seen her accursed tent! He had to know she was out there suffering, about to drown within spitting distance of his front porch, a woman he had kissed!

She whirled around, dropping the flashlight and nearly toppling over under the swinging weight of her pack. Her shoulders screamed. In the lake, bullfrogs croaked. Or was it an alligator?

Tears of exhaustion and frustration stung her eyes. She couldn’t go back into the grove, either.

“Oh, blast it all,” she muttered, retrieving her flashlight. “Daniel Graham beats an alligator—I think.”

Straightening up as best she could, she stumbled across the lawn and, with heroic effort, trudged up his front steps. The door to the giant screened porch was unlocked. She went in. Her tent gave way, scattering her most precious possessions on the gray-painted floor. Clutching her horn to her, she raised her fist to pound on the inside door. She would demand human decency. She would— Her flashlight touched upon a cozy-looking settee off to her right. A dark blue afghan was folded across the back. She paused, listening. Despite the racket she’d made, no one seemed to have stirred inside the house. She glanced at the mess she’d made and considered the mess she was in. Forget everything else—the burglary, the trespassing, the lies. Whatever else he might be, Daniel Graham was the chairman of the board of the Central Florida Symphony Orchestra, and she was taking over as its principal horn. That alone justified a little circumspection.

And, then, of course, there was the kiss. If she came tramping inside right now, what would happen? She was physically and mentally exhausted. She no longer dared to trust her instincts. Her willpower was nonexistent. If Daniel Graham offered her his bed, and him with it, she’d take them both.

The settee, she thought, would do just fine. She dug an unrevealing nightgown out of her suitcase and peeled off her wet, muddy clothes right there on the front porch. She left them in a heap and, with a few mumbled curses at Paddie, Daniel Graham, and herself, collapsed into a dead sleep.

Chapter Four

Whitney opened her eyes to the warmth of the sun angling in through the porch screen and the figure of Daniel Graham sitting in a wicker chair with the morning paper. He had on tan gabardine pants and a sparkling yellow cotton shirt. The sleeves weren’t rolled up, but he hadn’t yet fastened the buttons on the cuffs. His hair was dark and gleaming. Whitney peeked down at the floor. Even his damned shoes were polished! If she hadn’t been so stiff and sleepy, she might have leaped off the settee and gone screaming into the grove. As it was, she drew the afghan up to her chin and yawned. She felt clammy and none too clean, and expected she looked it.

“Morning,” he drawled.

At least he seemed to be in a good mood. And unarmed. There was a distinct twinkle in his eye that she found both compelling and unnerving. Even if he didn’t, she remembered what had transpired, besides lies, between them last night. “Good morning,” she said sedately. “How long have you been sitting there?”

“Long enough to read the sports section,” he said with a smile that made her realize once again how spectacularly good-looking he was. Try as she would; she couldn’t ignore his sensuality. It was there. Most assuredly, it was there. In heaps. He continued to smile and went on, “Nothing especially interesting unless you like golf. Do you?”

She shook her head. Wasn’t he even curious about finding his thief and squatter asleep on his porch?

“I didn’t think so. I haven’t met a musician yet interested in sports.”

“Hockey,” she said through a yawn.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’m a hockey fan. Ice hockey. I like the Buffalo Sabres.”