Buch lesen: «A Long Hot Christmas»

1

HOPE SUMNER’S sisters were ganging up on her again.

“I was thinking a cat,” she informed them. “I do not need a man.”

“Just to go places with,” Faith said.

“An escort, nothing more than that,” Charity said.

“Because the holidays are coming up,” Faith added.

Hope rued the day she’d taught them to make a conference call. With Faith in Los Angeles and Charity in Chicago, for a time they’d had no choice but to attack her separately. One-on-one, she was invincible. Against the two of them, she had to fight for her life. Or in this case, her lifestyle.

And what was wrong with her lifestyle? Nothing. She loved living in New York. She was a successful career woman who could afford elegant clothes, when she managed to find time to shop, luxurious vacations, if she ever found time to take a vacation, and an apartment with a fabulous view—where she rarely was, nor was she at the moment.

“Lana says he’s a very nice man,” Faith persisted.

“Lana? The punk-rock movie star? Lana dates leather jackets on motorcycles. You told me so yourself.”

“That’s how she met him,” Faith said as though this made everything clear. “Her latest leather jacket is actually a software genius. The Shark defended him against the big software company.”

“The Shark?”

“His real name’s Sam Sharkey,” Charity supplied helpfully. “They just call him The Shark.”

“Oh. Did he win?”

“Well, of course,” Faith went on. “And while they waited for the judge’s decision, they got to talking, and Shark said he was sick of being the ‘available bachelor’ on everybody’s list, but he’s nowhere even close to wanting to get married, not until he makes partner at his law firm.”

“Anyway,” Charity interrupted, “Lana’s leather jacket told Lana and Lana said, ‘He sounds like Faith’s sister Hope, and she’s in New York, and The Shark’s in New York,’ and one thing led to another.”

That’s how bad it was. Her own sisters were shopping her around to lawyers who represented leather jackets accused of software plagiarism. The cat was sounding better every minute. A calico with pretty markings. Or maybe something with long, soft hair she could run her fingers through.

She liked her life. She loved her work. All she wanted was to be the first female, and at twenty-eight, the youngest person, ever to make vice president at Palmer. Then she’d be ready to enter the next phase of her life, which would include love and happiness, a man with thick, silky hair she could run her fingers through…

She’d been quiet too long. They might assume she was thinking it over, which she certainly wasn’t. “Hey,” she said in a “let’s negotiate” tone, “I really appreciate what you’re trying to do for me, but a man to take to parties isn’t what I need to get me out of this little slump I’m in.”

Her gaze darted to her monitor. She swiftly dragged a black seven onto a red eight, smiling when the elusive ace of diamonds appeared from beneath the seven. It was after nine at night. She was still at the office. She’d come to a stopping place at eight, unable to move forward effectively without input from colleagues who’d already left.

Even her nemesis, whom she privately referred to as St. Paul the Perfect, had gone home to his lovely wife and children. She knew he had, because he’d poked his head through the door to see if she was still there, and when he saw she was, had been forced to make up an elaborate excuse for his early departure. Some nonsense about rehearsal for the church pageant in which his tiny son had the lead role—Baby Jesus—and his daughter was head angel.

No reason for her not to go home, yet here she sat, playing solitaire.

She’d drag the ace later. “What I think,” she went on, “is get a cat and cozy up the apartment a little bit. Sheila’s sending me this decorator she says everybody’s raving about. Her name’s Yu Wing.”

Tiny shrieks came at her from the receiver. “You’re using a decorator Sheila recommended?” Charity squealed.

Being orphaned in early childhood had made Hope and her sisters unusually close. Even now, strung out from one coast to the other, they got together often, monitored each other’s activities and knew each other’s friends. Sometimes this was a good thing, sometimes not. “Yes a decorator Sheila recommended,” Hope said, feeling defensive. “She uses feng shui. Sheila swears that she…”

“Sheila’s insane,” Faith declared.

“Lana isn’t?”

There was a short silence before Charity said, “The last time I saw Lana I thought she’d matured considerably.”

“Love has made all the difference,” Faith said in her dreamy voice. Faith had always been a dreamer. She was thirty now, and Hope thought it was about time she found a man whose feet were firmly planted on this earth. Now that might make a difference.

“As it does for so many people,” Charity said. Whatever Charity’s tone indicated, it was not dreaminess. The youngest sister and the family beauty, she had a brain like a Pentium chip. She was twenty-six, and so far she hadn’t found a man—lover or employer—who was able to see past her pretty face, although Hope could hardly blame the male population for that particular weakness.

“Just because love makes some people happy…”

“Who said anything about love?” Charity said.

“We’re just talking about an arrangement,” Faith said.

“To get you through the holidays,” Charity said. “You have all those parties to go to and you hate going alone. I can hear it in your voice.”

“Lana says he does, too,” Faith said, “hates going alone, that is. Having women treat him as if he’s up for grabs.”

“So you and The Shark can go out together as protection for each other,” Charity concluded in the voice of one who is confident she has built a solid argument.

“If you like him, of course,” Faith said.

“Whether I like him wouldn’t matter, would it, if we’re just talking about an arrangement,” Hope said unwisely.

“So you’ll meet him? See if you two can make a deal?” The tiniest show of interest from Hope, and Faith moved in for the kill.

“He likes the idea.” That was Charity, sneaking up from the rear.

“You already set it up?” Now that was going too far.

“Of course not. We just gave him your number.”

“Numbers,” Charity clarified. “Home, office, digital…”

“You told him I was interested?” Hope was already halfway out of her chair, grabbing for her coat and briefcase. To hell with the ace.

“Well, sort of,” Faith admitted.

“She had to get the ball rolling,” Charity said in her reasonable way. “We knew you wouldn’t.”

“I’m cutting you two out of my will!” Hope yelled.

“You have a will?” she heard Faith say before she hung up on them.

THE NEXT NIGHT, Wednesday night, Hope was home at seven. Usually, Thursday was the only night she came home at seven, but Sheila had made the appointment with the decorator, Yu Wing, for Thursday, forcing Hope to do her Thursday routine on Wednesday.

While she wouldn’t admit it to Faith and Charity, she was pretty annoyed at Sheila for her highhanded behavior. It had disrupted her schedule and had gotten her Palm Pilot in a tizzy while she shuffled everything around.

But she was trying to be more flexible. Wasn’t that what really worried her sisters, that she was sliding into a routine that was presently going to harden like concrete until she could never break free from it?

Good grooming, to Hope, was simply part of the image she had to maintain, that of a successful corporate woman. The “routine” she followed religiously on Thursday and Sunday evenings involved a quick dinner, after which she applied a masque to her face and gave her feet a good soak in a foot spa that vibrated. While invisible hands massaged her arches, she gave herself a manicure. When her fingernails were dry, she did a pedicure, and, at last, removed the hardened masque and with it, anything resembling dirt, toxins, flaking skin and incipient blackheads.

She shed her navy suit and navy silk shell and put on a white terrycloth robe. It felt good, warm and cozy, unlike the atmosphere of her apartment. Padding into the kitchen in matching terry slippers, she ran through her collection of TV dinners and selected Chicken Marsala with pasta and green beans, which she tossed into the microwave.

It had been a big decision whether the second grooming should be on Wednesday or on Thursday. Once she’d settled on Thursday, though, it had become a habit, and she intended to tell Sheila it was pretty darned unsettling to have to…

She suddenly felt more cross with herself than with Sheila. “Stop it,” she said aloud to the sterile white-and-chrome kitchen, and the microwave answered with a “ping.”

A MIRACLE HAPPENED to Samuel Sharkey that evening. The client he was scheduled to meet for drinks came down with a virus of the tree-felling variety and Sam found himself with a window in his schedule. He had a full hour and a half before he had to meet a group of clients for dinner, time enough to get a bothersome little detail out of the way.

He’d enjoyed defending Dan Murphy against the big company who alleged that Dan had lifted a program of theirs and gotten it on the market before they did. And he’d liked the cute, funny actress Dan was dating. Lana, that was her name. When Dan had started talking about Lana, it had somehow led Sam to tell Dan about his love life, which was a vacuum. It was Dan who’d come up with the—Sam couldn’t help smiling as he searched through a stack of cards for the one with all the phone numbers on it—quirky, creative notion that The Shark needed another shark to swim with.

This woman was the perfect companion shark, Lana had promised him. Sam didn’t believe it for a minute, but he was willing to go as far as to check it out for himself.

He found the card. He dialed the office number. When he got her voice mail—a cool, professional voice, he observed—he tried her digital phone. More voice mail, same cool voice. He glanced at his watch. Seven-twenty. If she was already at home, she might not be the kind of woman he was looking for. Still, he had started it, he might as well finish it. He dialed.

HOPE ATE the Chicken Marsala without tasting it, which was probably all to the good.

Now the routine. Heavy-duty conditioner on the hair, wrap the hair up in a towel. Put on the masque. She spread the green paste on carefully. The label promised miracles, and expensive as it had been, it had better deliver. She was rinsing her hands when the phone rang.

“Hope Sumner?”

“Who’s calling?”

“Sam Sharkey. Lana West got your number from Faith…”

“Oh, yes,” said Hope. The lawyer, the one who had to make partner before he made a proposal. He was calling so soon? She hadn’t really made up her mind yet, or actually she had. She’d decided to say no.

“I have a free hour or so I wasn’t planning on. Wondered if I could come by and meet you. This is a pretty crazy idea, but I promised Dan I’d give you a call.”

“Dan. The…”

“My client. The boy wonder of software.”

“Oh.” Lana’s leather jacket. “Well, I agree it’s a crazy idea,” Hope said tightly. No other way she could say it. The masque was hardening rapidly. “Maybe we could just tell whatzisname we talked and decided against it.”

“Actually,” he said, “I’ve been thinking about it some.”

“I guess I have, too,” Hope said, “but I can’t see you tonight. I’m wearing a masque.”

Sam stopped himself just in time to keep from saying, “Hey, kinky.” When his intelligence kicked in, he realized she wasn’t talking a Little Bo Peep mask but that stuff women put on their faces—why, he didn’t know. The masque explained the change in her voice. Now she sounded uptight.

“It has to stay on for forty-five minutes,” she went on. “Otherwise, I might consider at least discussing an arrangement with you. Briefly.”

So she was thinking about it. They must both be desperate. “Don’t worry about how you look,” he said. It was going to make him crazy if he couldn’t fit this obligation into the free time that had dropped into his lap. “She already told me you were presentable.”

“My sister described me as ‘presentable’?” The voice dripped ice.

Sam cursed himself. He was a lawyer. He was supposed to know how to choose his words, and if he couldn’t choose the right ones, to keep his mouth shut. “No, I didn’t talk to your sister. I asked Dan’s girlfriend if you were presentable and she said sure. She said it in a positive way,” he added for good measure. “Not like, ‘sure she is.’ More like ‘she sure is!’” He winced just listening to himself. Come on, Hope Sumner, say yes. We’re wasting time.

“We’re wasting time.”

Sam dropped his brand-new phone. Sweeping it up off the icy pavement, he heard Hope’s, “Hello? Hello?”

“Sorry about that,” he muttered.

“I was just saying, we might as well get this taken care of one way or the other.”

“My thoughts exactly. I’ll see you in—” He looked up at the number on the canopy that sheltered the entrance to a large, modern Westside apartment building “—a couple of minutes.”

HOPE OPENED the door and peered out. What she wanted to do next was slam the door in his face and lean against it until her knees stopped trembling.

She’d been prepared for an attractive man. Good clothes and neat grooming had to be just as important in the legal world as they were in the corporate world, and this man had told Leather Dan right up front that he was aiming for the top. She’d expected him to be smart, well-educated and career-driven. What she was not prepared for was six two or three or four of bone and muscle, of shoulders and long legs, of sheer male power in a black overcoat. For short, thick dark hair, the kind of rich, deep tan she couldn’t get even if she did throw skin health to the four winds and give it a try, and a pair of very blue eyes that examined her with thinly veiled curiosity.

It would be so, so wonderful if her face weren’t green.

On second thought, she was grateful to have the masque to hide behind. His masculinity was overpowering. This was a man a woman could actually want to be with. And that wasn’t the deal at all.

In fact, they didn’t have a deal yet, and they weren’t going to make a deal. A man like this could affect her attention span.

But she couldn’t slam the door, and she couldn’t take time to recover. “Sam?” she said briskly, hoping somehow he wouldn’t be, that he was a totally different man who’d come to the wrong door. “Alias ‘The Shark’?”

“That’s me,” he admitted.

With a strong feeling that she was doing the wrong thing, she opened the door wider and waved him in. “I’m sorry about the mudpack,” she said. “If I’d known…”

“No problem,” Sam said, shrugging out of his overcoat and revealing a dark pinstriped suit. “I’ve got sisters. I’ve seen them with green faces and cucumbers on their eyes.”

He smiled. His smile wasn’t anything like the calculating curve of a shark’s grin. It was warm and compelling. It sent out powerful vibes, although she had a feeling he had no idea his testosterone had sprung a potentially explosive leak. Hope’s knees buckled again, but she locked them in place and said, “I’ll take your coat. Please sit down. Would you like a glass of wine? I’m afraid I can’t join you, because I still have…”

“No, thanks,” he said simultaneously. “I still have…”

“…work to do,” they finished together, and Hope couldn’t resist the temptation to smile back at him. Feeling her face crack sobered her up at once, but it didn’t slow down her pulse rate, still the pounding of her heart or lessen her sudden awareness that under the sexless terrycloth robe she was wearing—nothing.

She didn’t need her Palm Pilot to tell her it was time, definitely time, to pull herself together and direct her thoughts to a higher plane.

“That’s our problem.” She let out a rounded sigh that settled the masque back into place. “At least my sisters think it’s a problem.”

“Liking your work?” Sam The Shark took a look around the room. “Great view,” he murmured. Then he aimed himself half-heartedly at one of her plump, velvety armchairs, seemed to give up on that goal, glanced at her deeply cushioned taupe sofa and finally slid onto it, carefully bypassing the knife-sharp corners of her smart glass coffee table.

“Loving it,” Hope said. She couldn’t help noticing that he didn’t look any more comfortable on the expensive Italian design statement than she felt. She’d paid extra to have it stuffed with down. How much more comfortable could you get?

She made a mental note to ask the interior designer what the problem might be. For the first time, she thought she actually needed a decorator.

If she wasn’t careful, she’d start thinking she needed a man. Noticing that she was still milling around her own living room, she took the armchair that sat at a right angle to Sam Sharkey. That way she could get another look at his profile, his long, elegant nose and his to-die-for lashes.

“I don’t even know if I love my work,” Sam said, looking thoughtful. “I don’t have time to think about it. All I know is that I’m determined to succeed at it.”

“Well. Me, too,” said Hope. The words “vice president” lit up in her mind like a Times Square theater marquee. She gave Sam a closer look, wondering if “partner” had just lit up for him.

“Tell me about your job,” he said, and turned the full force of his riveting dark-blue gaze on her.

The “vice president” sign faded as another, quite disturbing message lit up inside her. The impact was powerful enough that she had to dig deep for the name of her company, but it finally surfaced. “I’m at Palmer. In Marketing.”

“Palmer. It rings a bell. I should know what Palmer does, but…”

She’d just drifted into a vision of Sam parting her robe to move his hands sinuously across her breasts when it all came back to her, her job, her true love, the real object of her deepest desire.

“Pipe,” she said.

SHE SAID the word the way another woman might say pearls or Pashmina, pâté or Porsche. She all but licked her lips.

“Pipes? Meerschaums? Briars? Hookahs?”

“Pipe. Copper, plastic, cast iron, galvanized steel. Life flows through pipe. Pipe runs the world, and Palmer Pipe runs it better.”

He gazed at her, feeling stunned. “Is that original with you? That ‘Pipe runs the world’ line?”

“Of course not,” she said. “It came from the ad agency.” She paused. “I picked the ad agency.”

She looked at him so expectantly she reminded him all of a sudden of one of his sisters’ kids wanting approval for a dive he’d just done or a basket he’d just made. And he did his best to make them feel good about each small victory.

He’d been lying about seeing his sisters in mudpacks and cucumbers. He’d seen them in curlers, no makeup and one of Dad’s wornout shirts, but his sisters didn’t have the time or the money to take care of themselves the way a woman like Hope did. They considered it a major victory to get their hair washed and their kids in shoes.

It was up to him to change all that, change their hand-to-mouth existences, turn them into upwardly mobile middle-class citizens, educate those kids—

He’d assigned his family a compartment in his mind that he visited when he needed to, but he never enjoyed the visits. Right now wasn’t the time to go there.

“It’s a good slogan,” he said in an approving tone. If it had been one of his nephews, he’d have said, “You did good.”

“Thank you. It’s working. That’s all that matters. And you? I mean, your work. I know you’re a lawyer, but…”

“An associate at Brinkley Meyers.”

“Brinkley Meyers? Your firm is representing Palmer in the Magnolia Heights case.”

Sam snapped his fingers. “That’s why it sounded familiar.”

“Are you involved in the case?”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” He smiled. “I’m in litigation. My department won’t get involved unless the case goes to court.”

“Oh, it won’t,” she said with obvious confidence. “Now. You were saying you’re an associate at Brinkley Meyers…”

She meant, “Let’s get to the point.” He leaned forward, meeting her green face head on to be sure she understood the seriousness of his situation. “A single associate. Who’s determined to make partner. This year, preferably.”

Something he said had gripped her attention. A pair of green eyes—really nice green eyes, he noted in passing—gave him their full attention. “So you’re the ‘fresh meat’ at every party. You’re the one they invite because they have a daughter, a friend, somebody they’re sure they can match you up with. And you can’t refuse, because you don’t want to offend anybody who could influence your future.”

“You’ve been there.”

“I live there,” she said, lowering her green face and balancing it on her fingertips. Thick, dark lashes fluttered down to brush the surface of the masque. “You just described my entire social life. I’m determined to make vice president for Marketing when August Everley retires in January, which means every move I make right now has a direct influence on my future.”

He fell silent, taking a minute to wallow in self-pity and feeling that Hope was in there wallowing with him.

“If you don’t show an interest it makes them mad,” he went on when he felt they’d wallowed enough. “If you do show an interest and don’t follow up on it, it makes them madder.” He paused for a frustrated sigh. “A person who doesn’t understand, somebody like your sister Faith, let’s say, wonders why you don’t just find a real man friend and cut through all that nonsense.”

Hope raised her head and visibly stiffened her backbone. “Or your sisters,” she said. “They probably don’t stop to think about the time it would take to find a woman you really enjoyed, time you don’t have, and then the time that woman would demand from you once you’d found her.”

“Time and commitment.”

“Which neither of us is ready for.”

“You got that right.”

“What we’re talking here is the possibility of a no-strings kind of escort arrangement. I go with you to your parties, you go with me to mine.”

“We act friendly enough to make people think we’re already spoken for.”

“Right.” Hope bit out the word and gazed at him with suddenly flashing eyes. “But let’s get one thing straight. If we make this ridiculous arrangement, don’t even think about calling me ‘arm candy.’”

He struggled to keep his mouth from twitching, and when he’d gotten it straightened out, he narrowed his eyes. “Same thing goes for you,” he said. “If we make this extremely practical arrangement, I’m not your ‘arm candy’ either.”

IF HE’D FELT like expressing his true feelings, which he didn’t, Sam had concluded that Hope Sumner would do fine. He liked the spunk she’d just shown. Without the green face she’d be attractive enough. One of those women who knew how to distract you from their flaws with expensive haircuts and makeup. She was well-spoken. She’d make a decent impression on Phil, the Executive Partner he reported to, and Angus McDougal, senior partner in Litigation, and she’d rear their children—one girl, one boy—with energy and intelligence.

But he was getting way, way ahead of himself. Five years ahead, maybe. The token girlfriend was for now, the suitable wife not until he’d made partner and collected a few years of percentages of the law firm’s profits. Not until he felt invulnerable, professionally and financially.

The green eyes, spectacular green eyes, actually, gazed at him out of a matching face, and there seemed to be a lot of brown hair tucked under the institutional white towel. Brown hair, green eyes, average American coloring. You couldn’t go wrong with that. She was a little taller than average—maybe five seven—but as tall as he was, that was fine. He couldn’t tell what was tucked under the hotel-style white terry robe, except that the sash outlined a small waist and the robe hourglassed promisingly above and below it.

None of that mattered much. Just gravy. Yes, she’d do. Sam wished he could say so and get back to work, but unfortunately it was also necessary to convince her he’d do. Plus—he had one more question to ask her.

She blinked a couple of times, apparently adjusting to the idea that he didn’t want to be arm candy either, and glanced openly at her watch. Sam took this as a good sign. “Well, Sam, it seems we’re in agreement so far. Now that we’ve met each other, let’s give the arrangement a little further thought before we touch base again.”

Sensing that he might have passed muster, he relaxed, as much as he could in this room. It wasn’t the sofa. The sofa was cushy. The apartment was cushy. Mentally he compared it with his own Spartan digs. Weird he’d feel more comfortable there. She wouldn’t, though, and he’d never take her there, not even…

He tensed up again. “One more thing,” he said. “How do you feel about sex?”

She froze. The word hung in the air like an especially acrid room deodorizer. Mesmerized, Sam watched a crack widen in the green masque, starting at the bridge of her nose and forking off to both temples. He suspected she’d tried to raise her eyebrows.

“I don’t mean now,” he assured her, “or even soon, not until we trust each other. But sex is one of the important things I don’t have time for.” Her steady unblinking stare was starting to make him nervous. “I mean time to develop a relationship to the point that…” He didn’t get this rattled when a judge was staring him down in court. “I thought maybe you had the same problem, and we could include it in…” He halted. “Or maybe you don’t…”

“Like sex?” she said. The crack deepened. “Want sex? Need sex? Of course I do, Sam. I’m a perfectly normal woman. But surely men have ways to… I mean, I know they… But of course, it’s not the same as…”

It was her turn to be rattled. But only for a moment. The gleam suddenly returned to her eyes, and Sam had a feeling she was seeing a whole new market for pipe.

“Add it to your list of things to think about before we talk again,” he said, regaining his calm.

“Shall we say early next week?”

Sam strode down the hall toward the elevator, bemused by the final question she tossed at him as they traded business cards. “Are you allergic to cats?” she’d asked him.

He wasn’t, but he was curious to know why it mattered to her. His interest was short-lived. A few minutes later he had his laptop up and running in the bar of the restaurant where his clients would soon join him, doing the only thing he really felt comfortable doing. Work.