Do You Believe in Magic

chapter TEN



Monday night Clay went to dinner with some clients, and by the time he returned home, it was too late to call Francie. Reviewing the weekend, he thought he’d made some progress with her. Her friends liking him had to count for something.

She was, however, even more into this “don’t touch me” and “don’t kiss me” business. In fact, she seemed to be hardening her position. And not in the way a certain piece of his anatomy was “hardening.”

At least, if her gasp and obvious pain Sunday night was any indication, the good ol’ soul-mate imperative was at work. Now, if the SMI would just hurry things along.

Tuesday at the Y, his team demolished the opposition, a luckless bunch at the bottom of the league standings, and he was able to make the last ten minutes of Francie’s game. He watched her feint and drive to the basket with a fluid motion. Damn, this woman was good. Her team was well coordinated also, running plays, feeding the ball to the open man—whoops, make that “open woman.” A couple of the women, Francie included, made some sweet shots his own teammates might envy.

A fellow team member of Clay’s sat down next to him on the bleachers. “You should have a layup as good,” he teased Clay as Francie sank another two points.

“No, Hansen,” Clay answered. “You should. She’s playing your position, the center.”

“Damn,” Hansen said as Francie blocked a shot with a high jump and a long arm. “I need to meet this babe. We would have great things to talk about, like all sorts of moves.”

Clay almost growled as he turned to glare at his teammate. “Lay off, buddy. She’s taken.”

“Oh, yeah? By who?” His eyebrows raised in question, he looked at Clay.

“Me.”

“Oh.” Hansen cleared his throat, watched the action on the court for another minute, and grinned at Clay. “Then you sure can pick ‘em, Morgan. Good luck.” He gave Clay a slap on the back and left.

When the game was over, Clay met Francie as she came off the court. “Good game,” he told her.

“Thanks,” she replied, wiping off her face and neck with her towel. “How did you do?”

“We won easily. Want to grab a bite?”

“I’m sorry. I’m going out with a few women from the team.”

“Oh, right, you always do that. What about tomorrow night?”

“Tamara finally decided last night she had to upgrade her accounting software and she wants a laptop for home. She and I are going out to look for it all on Wednesday evening.”

Why hadn’t she told him that earlier? “What about Brenner? Is he coming with you?” he asked.

“No, I don’t think so. She didn’t mention him.” Her eyes opened wide as if she had finally caught up with his thoughts. “Oh! I’m sorry. I didn’t even think about Kevin. Do you think he’ll try to get back on my computer?”

“I don’t know, but I think I’ll hang out over at Brazos tomorrow, just in case. What’s your schedule?”

“I’m going straight to her shop after work, and we’ll leave for supper and the computer store after she closes up. I expect we’ll get home around nine thirty.”

“So, we can expect him early, if at all.”

“Let me know, would you, if he’s been there.” She shuddered and twisted her towel around her hands. “I hate the thought of his being in my apartment, looking at my things, touching them.”

“This will be over soon, Francie.” He paused, then spoke. “But you have to do something for me until it is. Let me know where you and Tamara are every night.” He could hear the exasperated tone in his voice, and from the look on her face, so could she because she paled, then flushed.

“I said I’m sorry, Clay. I’ll warn you of our every move,” she answered with her own edge. “Wednesday I’ll be with Tamara, Thursday I’ll be home, and Friday I’ll be with you, keeping up pretenses. I don’t know where Tamara will be on Friday. I don’t know where either of us will be on Saturday, but she and I will set up the shop software on Sunday. Is that good enough for now?”

He knew that her answer came straight out of embarrassment since she’d missed the connection with Brenner and out of frustration with the entire situation, but he couldn’t think of a way to mollify her without making it worse. He didn’t want to give her any excuses for not seeing him. “That’s fine,” he said mildly. “I’ll give you a call Wednesday night after ten to let you know if he’s been in your place.”

She folded her arms across her chest and hunched her shoulders. “Okay.”

One of her teammates came up to them. “You ready to go?” the woman asked, looking Clay up and down.

“Yep,” Francie answered. She introduced her friend to Clay, and they exchanged greetings. “I’d better go,” Francie told him.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” he said and watched the two women walk away. Damn. If he hadn’t stopped by the game, would she have told him about her computer shopping and wide-open apartment in time for him to mount a defense? Or, even if she thought about Brenner, would she have continued her avoidance tactics, not even wanting to talk to him on the phone?

How could she be avoiding him so much? Why? Her date with Tamara should have given her the perfect “excuse” to call.

A painful question struck him: despite all the evidence, especially her rubbing an itchy breastbone, was this woman really his soul mate?

Soul mates were supposed to practically fall into each other’s arms. Look what had happened to his own sister and her husband. What was going on with Francie? How could she be resisting him?

He walked toward the men’s locker room, rubbing the spot on his chest that was alternating between an itch and an ache. Maybe what he was feeling was not the attraction of his soul mate, but heartburn. Either way, he was going to have an ulcer for sure before this was over.





Wednesday night when the phone rang in Francie’s apartment at ten fifteen, she jumped, then scrutinized the instrument with trepidation. She had acted like such an idiot yesterday with Clay, not realizing the opening she had given Kevin. She had been so embarrassed. But she had to talk to him now. Sitting at her computer, she had activated the program that displayed Kevin’s shenanigans and had been studying his keystrokes. All the evidence proved he had been there again.

With a heavy sigh, she picked up the handset. “Hello?”

“Hi, it’s me.” Clay’s voice came over the line, vibrated her eardrums, and resonated in every cell in her body.

“He was here again.”

“Yes. Have you called up the little application I left on your machine?”

“I’m looking at it now. You threw him all over the place, didn’t you?” She had to admit Clay could play Kevin like a fish on the end of his line. In fact, as she’d noticed before, Clay’s skill with the computer seemed almost magical. But she didn’t tell him that because his ego certainly didn’t need stroking. She did ask, “How do you do it?”

“Magic.”

“Oh, really.” She couldn’t help the sarcastic tone. What was it with Clay and this magic business? But wasn’t it just what she had been thinking?

“I’ll show you some time,” he said with a funny note in his voice she couldn’t identify. It wasn’t sarcasm. Teasing? No, it was more like he had a secret. But she didn’t have time to follow up because he was speaking again.

“Bill had one of his people take some photos of Brenner at your place again. From what the cop could see, Brenner was fuming when he left. He ran over a curb and almost had an accident. Did he do anything to your apartment in his frustration?”

“No, and I checked pretty thoroughly.” She had even left some spy-movie-type traps—tape or hairs on drawers, especially her lingerie drawers—to make sure Kevin hadn’t been searching her belongings. But that was too embarrassing to tell Clay. The last thing she wanted to discuss with him was her underwear.

“Good. If we do this right, it should be the last time he’s in your apartment uninvited. By the way, does Brenner know what Herb or anyone else at Brazos looks like?”

“I don’t think so, except he might know some of our salespeople, the ones he competes with directly. Tamara doesn’t know Herb or any of my coworkers, except by name when I’ve talked about them. Why?”

“Because I’m going to have someone with me at the bar tomorrow night so it will look like I met him there for a drink. The person will leave just after Brenner arrives so our hacker can approach me with no one else around. Herb wants to be the person.”

“Oh, puh-lease. Herb’s doing undercover work now?” She rolled her eyes at the very idea of her boss playing spy.

“I think he just wants a look at the guy. You know how he’s called the hacker every name in the book. I’m going to let Bill handle this. He can use the power of the police department to keep Herb out.”

“I hope Bill succeeds. What about you? Are you going to, what do they call it on the cop shows, ‘wear a wire’?”

“Yeah. Fortunately it’s a fairly quiet bar, according to Bill, so recording should not be a problem. Do you have any advice for me about Brenner?”

“No, not really.” She thought for a moment. “Oh, there is one thing you might like to know. I think Tamara may finally be getting tired of Kevin. You know I told you how she’s never with one man for very long?”

“Yeah. What happened?”

“Kevin evidently became the ‘big expert’ when he found out she had decided to get a laptop. Acted like she didn’t have a brain in her head. She and I had discussed the topic enough so she could tell he didn’t know what he was talking about. She said she finally convinced him she wanted me to go with her to buy it, not him. Then she complained how the zing had gone out of the relationship.”

“The zing?” Clay put in. He sounded delighted with the word.

“Tamara’s big on zing. If she’s not excited to see a man, doesn’t feel a zap to her system anymore, she drops him. I don’t know how she does it, but she usually leaves him thinking it was his idea to stop seeing her.”

“How about you, Francie?” His voice dropped to a low rasp that skittered along her nerve endings. “Are you ‘big on zing’? Do you like to feel a ‘zap to your system’?”

She was speechless for a moment as every synapse in her body seemed to fire at once. Zing, phooey. More like a lightning storm. Then a sudden feeling of euphoria and happiness made her giddy. “Uh . . .”

She had to answer him somehow. What could she say that wouldn’t push her into deeper trouble? She decided to fall back on a tried-and-true tactic: ignore the question and divert the questioner. “You know how red-heads are, much more volatile than the rest of us. Look, what time will you call me tomorrow?”

She heard what sounded like a sigh or a chuckle on his end, but his voice was normal when he answered, “I don’t know how long it will take Brenner to get down to the question, but I expect I’ll be home by nine. I can’t see us becoming drinking buddies.”

“Good. I want to know what happened.” She didn’t give him time to respond, just kept talking. “I’d better get to bed now. I have a lot of work to do tomorrow.” She was almost weak with relief he had not pursued the “zing” question.

“I’ll call. Sleep well. Good night.”

“Bye.” She hung up the phone and slumped back in her chair, one hand held to her solar plexus where a distinct pain made itself felt—again. What was going on? First an itch, now a pain. Was she really coming down with an ulcer from all this anxiety? She drank some hot chocolate before she went to bed. It seemed to help.