* * *
Maris groped for the ringing telephone. She squinted the lighted clock on her nightstand into focus. Five-twenty-three. In the morning. Who—
Then panic brought her wide awake. Was this that dreaded, inevitable phone call notifying her that her father had suffered a coronary, stroke, fall, or worse?
Anxiously she clutched the receiver. “Hello?”
“Maris Matherly-Reed?”
“Speaking.”
“Where do you get off screwing around with my life?”
She was taken completely off guard and it took a moment for the rude question to sink in. “I beg your pardon? Who is this?”
She sat up, switched on the lamp, and reached out to rouse Noah. But his side of the bed was empty. She gaped at the undisturbed linens, at the pillow that was still fluffed.
“I don’t appreciate you calling the sheriff,” the caller said hotly.
Where is Noah? “I’m sorry… I was… you caught me asleep.… Did you say sheriff?”
“Sheriff, sheriff. Ring any bells?”
She sucked in a quick breath. “P.M.E.?”
“A deputy came to my house, snooping around. Who the—”
“I—”
“—hell do you think you are?”
“I—”
“To mess with people’s—”
“You—”
“—lives. Thanks for nothing, lady.”
“Will you please be quiet for one second?”
Her raised voice brought him to an abrupt silence, but Maris sensed waves of resentment pulsing through the line. After taking a couple of calming breaths, she assumed a more reasonable tone. “I read your prologue and liked it. I wanted to talk to you about it, but I had no way of contacting you. You left me no way to contact you. So I called the sheriff’s office in the hope that—”
“Send it back.”
“Excuse me?”
“The prologue. Send it back.”
“Why?”
“It’s crap.”
“Far from it, Mr.—”
“I shouldn’t have sent it.”
“I’m glad you did. These pages intrigue me. They’re compelling and well written. If the rest of your book is as good as the prologue, I’ll consider buying it for publication.”
“It’s not for sale.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look, I’ve got a southern accent, but I’m still speaking English. Which part didn’t you understand?”
His voice was geographically distinctive. Usually she found the soft r’s and slow drawl of southern regions engaging. But his manner was abrasive and disagreeable. If she hadn’t seen real potential in his writing, recognized an untapped talent, she would have ended the conversation long before now.
Patiently she asked, “If you didn’t want your book published, why did you submit the prologue to a book publisher?”
“Because I suffered a mental lapse,” he answered, imitating her precise enunciation. “I’ve since changed my mind.”
Maris took another tack. “Do you have a representative?”
“Representative?”
“An agent.”
“I’m not an actor.”
“Have you ever submitted material before?”
“Just send it back, okay?”
“Did you multiple-submit?”
“Send it to other publishers, you mean? No.”
“Why did you send it to me?”
“You know what, forget sending it back. Toss it in the nearest trash can, use it for kindling, or line your birdcage with it, I don’t care.”
Sensing he was about to hang up, she said quickly, “Just one more moment, please.”
“We’re on my nickel.”
“Before you decide against selling your book, a decision I think you’ll regret, I’d welcome the chance to give you my professional opinion of it. I promise to be brutally honest. If I don’t see any merit in it, I’ll tell you. Let me decide if it’s good or not. Please send me the entire manuscript.”
“You have it.”
“I have it?”
“Did I stutter?”
“You mean the prologue is all you’ve got?”
“It’s not all I’ve got. It’s all I’ve written. The rest of the story is in my head.”
“Oh.” That was disappointing. She had assumed that the remainder of the book was completed or nearly so. It hadn’t occurred to her that the manuscript consisted of only those first twelve pages. “I urge you to finish it. In the meantime—”
“In the meantime, you’re running up my long-distance bill. If you don’t want to spend any money on return postage, then shred the damn thing. Good-bye. Oh, and don’t send any more deputy sheriffs to my door.”
Maris held the dead phone to her ear for several seconds before thoughtfully hanging up. The conversation had been almost surreal. She even thought that perhaps she had dreamed it.
But she wasn’t dreaming. She was wide awake. By Manhattan standards, it was practically the middle of the night—and her husband wasn’t in bed with her. If the strange telephone call weren’t enough to wake her up, then Noah’s unexplained absence certainly was.
She was concerned enough to call the hospital emergency rooms. But when she’d last seen Noah, he’d been in the company of Nadia Schuller. Which made her angry enough to throw something against the wall.
In either case, her night had ended and she was up for good. Throwing off the covers, she got out of bed and was reaching for her robe when Noah strolled into the bedroom, politely covering a wide yawn with his fist. He was still dressed in his tuxedo trousers and shirt, although he had removed the studs and his shirttail was hanging out. His jacket was slung over his shoulder. He was carrying his shoes.
He said, “Did I hear the telephone ring?”
“Yes.”
“Was it Daniel? There’s nothing wrong, I hope.”
She was greatly relieved to see him, but dumbfounded by his nonchalance. “Noah, where in God’s name have you been all night?”
Her tone stopped him in his tracks. He looked at her with puzzlement. “Downstairs on the sofa in the den.”
“Why?”
“You were already asleep when I came in. I hated to disturb you.”
“What time did you get home?”
He arched an eyebrow in silent disapproval of the third-degree tone of her questions. “About one, I think.”
His calm manner only fueled her irritation. “You said—you promised—you’d be half an hour behind me.”
“We had two rounds of drinks instead of one. What’s the big deal?”
“The big deal is that I was awakened at five-twenty-something in the morning, and I was alone in bed,” she exclaimed. “Call me irrational, but unless I know the reason why not, I expect my husband to be sleeping beside me.”
“Obviously I wasn’t missed until you were awakened.”
“And who’s fault is that?”
Her voice had gone shrill. It was the voice of a ranting wife. It called to mind the caricature dressed in a shapeless flannel robe and fuzzy scuffs, curlers in her hair, holding a rolling pin above her head as she caught her cheating husband sneaking in the back door.
She took a moment to get her temper under control, although she was still bristling with anger. “If you’ll recall, Noah, I tried to seduce you into coming home with me straight from the office. But you elected for us to go to that interminably long banquet instead. Following that, I tried to talk you into salvaging at least part of the evening just for us, but you chose to have drinks with Vampira and that dopehead.”
He dropped his shoes to the floor, removed his shirt, then unzipped his trousers and stepped out of them. “Each book that ‘dopehead’ writes sells over a half million copies in hardcover. His paperback sales are triple that. But he thinks he can get even higher numbers. He’s unhappy with his present publisher and is considering moving to another.
“ ‘Vampira’ set up the date for drinks, thinking that it would be a beneficial meeting for both parties. Indeed it was. The author agreed to let us work up a publishing proposal. We’ll be hearing from his agent to discuss terms. I had hoped to surprise you and Daniel with this good news tomorrow, but…” He shrugged eloquently, then moved to the bed and sat down on the edge of it.
“And just to come completely clean with you,” he continued, “I confess that the dopehead got so drunk we couldn’t conscientiously put him into a taxi by himself. Nadia and I accompanied him to his apartment and put him to bed. Not a pleasant chore, I assure you. Then she and I shared a taxi back uptown. I dropped her off at Trump Tower, then after arriving home I came upstairs, saw you sleeping soundly, and decided not to disturb you.
“Throughout the evening, I was acting in what I thought was your—our—best interest.” He placed his hand over his heart and bowed his head slightly. “Forgive me my thoughtlessness.”
Despite his logical explanation, Maris still believed she had a right to be angry. “You could have called, Noah.”
“I could have. But knowing how exhausted you were, I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“I don’t like being obligated to Nadia.”
“I don’t like being obligated to anyone. On the other hand, it’s not very smart to intentionally alienate Nadia. If she likes you, she bestows favors. If she dislikes you, she can inflict serious damage.”
“And either way—if you’re a man—you get screwed.”
That caused him to smile. “Why is it that a woman, and especially you, is never more beautiful than when she’s angry?”
“I was.”
“I know.”
“I am.”
“Don’t be. I’m sorry I worried you. I didn’t mean to.” He looked at her and smiled gently. “You have no reason to be jealous, you know.”
“Oh, really?” she asked, deadpan. “I think I have every right to be paranoid, considering the number of affairs you had before we were married.”
“You had affairs, too, Maris.”
“Two. You had that many a week, and you had a ten-year head start.”
He grinned at her exaggeration. “I’m not even going to honor that with a comment. The point is that I married you.”
“Sacrificing all that fun.”
Laughing, he patted the spot beside him on the bed. “Why don’t you stop this nonsense, retract the talons, and simply forgive me? You know you want to.”
Her eyes narrowed with feigned malevolence. “Don’t push it.”
“Maris?”
Reluctantly she moved toward him. When she was still a distance away, he reached out far enough to take her hand and draw her down beside him on the bed. He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and kissed her cheek. She put up token resistance, but not for long.
When their first long kiss ended, she whispered, “I hankered for this all day yesterday.”
“All you had to do was ask.”
“I did.”
“So you did,” he said with a regretful sigh. “Let me make it up to you.”
“Better late than never.”
“Didn’t you say something earlier about dispensing with these jammies?”
Moments later they were both down to their skin. Nibbling her neck, he asked, “Who called?”
“Hmm?”
“The telephone call that woke us up. Who was it?”
“That can wait.” Seizing the initiative, she guided his hand down her belly to the notch of her thighs. “If you want to talk now, Noah, talk dirty.”