"Awhile."
"Aren't you afraid to live alone in a house this large, this far out?"
"Not really. It has a security system. I'm used to the solitude." Tilting her head to one side, she said reflectively, "I guess it's rather selfish for one person to occupy so much space, but I needed the tax shelter. The property is an investment, and with the mortgage that I—"
He held up both hands. "All that stuff is lost on me. I have never understood it. Suffice it to say you've got a nice place."
"Thank you. Let me take your coat."
He hesitated; he hadn't counted on staying that long. However, the fire did look inviting.
After coming all this way, he might as well stay awhile and warm up.
He shrugged out of his coat, removed his other glove, and handed them to Marcie. While she was putting his things away, he moved to the fireplace, placed one foot on the low, stone hearth, and extended both hands toward the friendly flames.
"Feels good," he said when she moved up beside him.
"Hmm. I've been curled up in front of it most of the afternoon. Not too many people are house-shopping today, so I decided it was a perfect time to catch up on paperwork."
, The cushions of a sprawling cream-colored leather chair were littered with contracts and property plats, as though she'd left them there when she got up to answer the door. There was a pencil stuck behind her right ear, almost buried in a mass of hair that his sister had said was to die for. She was dressed in a soft, purple suede skirt, a matching sweater, opaque stockings… and fuzzy, blue Smurf house shoes that enveloped her feet up to her slender ankles.
She followed his amused gaze down to her feet. "A gag gift from my office assistant."
"The kook."
Marcie laughed. "You met Esme?"
"I stopped by your office. She gave me directions here."
"Her zaniness is a pose, I assure you. She affects it so people won't know how smart she really is.
Anyway, I'm always complaining about cold feet."
"Literally or figuratively?"
"Literally for myself, figuratively for buyers who back out at the last minute."
Chase suddenly realized that the conversations he and Marcie had engaged in were the longest conversations he had had with a woman since Tanya died. After asking a woman what she was drinking, few words were exchanged until he said a terse "Thanks" and left her on a tousled bed.
The thought made him wince. Marcie misinterpreted it. "Are your ribs hurting?"
"Some," he conceded. "I've been out and around today, so I haven't taken any painkillers."
"Would you like a drink?"
His eyes sprang up to connect with hers.
They held for a moment before moving down to the cup and saucer sitting on the end table next to the leather chair. "Thanks anyway, but tea's not my bag."
"If you meant that as a pun, it's terrible."
"You were the word whiz."
"Instead of tea, what I had in mind was a bourbon and water."
"Thanks, Marcie." He spoke soulfully, thanking her for the vote of confidence she had placed in him, as much as for the drink.
She moved toward the island bar and opened the cabinet beneath it. Selecting a bottle from the modest stock, she splashed whiskey into two tumblers. "The bourbon can't be any more anesthetizing than one of your pain pills. Besides, you can't sip a pill in front of the fireplace." she added with a smile. "Ice?"
"Just water." He thanked her when she handed him the glass. She stacked together the paperwork she'd been working on and resumed her seat in the leather chair, curling her feet beneath her. Nodding toward the hearth, she suggested he sit there so they could face each other.
"And while you're at it, you can add a log to the fire. That's the price of your drink."
After adding to the logs in the grate, Chase sat down on the hearth, spreading his knees wide, and rolled the tumbler between his hands. "I have a check in my pocket for five hundred seventy-three dollars and sixty-two cents. That's why I came out. I wanted to repay you in person and say thanks for all you did."
She lowered her eyes to her own whiskey and water. "I behaved badly about that. I lost my temper. It made me angry to hear you say you wished you were dead. It was a stupid thing to say, Chase."
"I realize that now."
"So you didn't have to worry about paying me back so soon. Anytime would have been all right."
He laughed mirthlessly. "I might not have the money 'anytime.' If you hadn't sold that house, I wouldn't have a red cent."
"Then you know about that, and it's okay?
Lucky was concerned."
He nodded. "I never intended to live there.
I'd even forgotten about it until today." He sat up straighter and attempted a smile. "So you can credit your salesmanship for your having a check today." He extracted it from the breast pocket of his shirt and handed it to her.
"Thank you." She didn't even look to see if the amount was correct before adding it to the stack of papers on the end table. "To your speedy recovery." She raised her glass. He tapped it with his. They each sipped from their drinks.
For several moments they were silent, listening to the crackling of the burning logs and the occasional tapping sound of sleet crystals hitting the windows that overlooked the woods. Even bare of foliage, the forest was dense. Tree trunks were lined up evenly, looking as straight and black as charred matchsticks, their edges slightly blurred by rainfall.
"Who told you about my phone calls?"
He turned his head away from his contemplation of the woods and looked at her inquiringly.
"What phone calls?"
Then it was her turn to appear confused.
"When you came in, you mentioned the kook.
I thought you were talking about the kook who keeps calling me."
"I was talking about your secretary, that
Esme."
"Oh."
"Somebody keeps calling you?"
"Uh-huh."
"Who?"
"I don't know. If I did, I'd confront him and demand that he stop it."
"What does he say?"
"Oh, he likes to talk dirty and breathe heavily."
"What do you do?"
"Hang up."
"How often does he call?"
"There's no pattern. I might not hear from him for weeks, then he'll call several times in one evening.
Sometimes it gets really annoying, so I take the phone off the hook. If Esme tried to call and tell me you were coming over, she couldn't have gotten through."
He followed her gaze to the telephone on the entry-hall table. The receiver was lying next to the cradle.
"He called today?"
"Twice," she replied negligently. "It became a nuisance because I was trying to concentrate."
"You're sure casual about this, Marcie. Have you reported it to Pat?"
"The sheriff? No," she exclaimed, as though the suggestion were ridiculous. "It's probably just a teenager who gets his kicks by saying dirty words into a faceless woman's ear. If he had any courage, he would be saying those things to her in person."
"What kind of things does he say?"
"Very unoriginal. He'd like to see me naked, et cetera. He tells me all that he'd like to do with his tongue and…" She made a vague gesture. "You get the idea."
When she demurely lowered her lashes over her eyes, Chase noticed that Goosey came close to being gorgeous, as Sage had described her.
With the firelight flickering over it, her skin
appeared translucent. From her hairline to the vee of her sweater it was as smooth and flawless as the porcelain figurines his grandma used to keep in her china cabinet. Her high cheekbones cast shadows into the hollows of her cheeks.
"Did you have an eye job and a chin tuck?"
"What?" The question took her so by surprise, she almost spilled her drink.
"Sage said the ladies in the beauty parlor were speculating over whether or not you had an eye job thrown in when you had plastic surgery."
"No!" she cried again, truly incredulous.
"They must not have much else to gossip about if I'm the hottest topic."
"Well, Lucky got married."
She laughed in earnest then. "Yes, he did keep the gossip mill churning, didn't he?"
"So you didn't have the doctor take an extra tuck or two?"
"No, I did not," she said tartly. "He just had to smooth out one scar right here." She drew an invisible mark along her hairline. "A
shard of glass got imbedded there."
The inadvertent reminder of the accident put a pall over their easy dialogue. Chase considered tossing back the entire contents of his highball glass, but remembering the resolution he'd made last night, he decided against it and set it on the hearth instead. He stood up.
"Well, I'd better let you get back to work. I
didn't mean to interrupt."
"You don't have to go." Unfolding her long, slender legs, she stood also. ''I'm not under any kind of deadline to finish."
He looked beyond her toward the glass wall.
"It's getting pretty bad out there. Now that
I've done what I came for, I should head back to town."
"Hmm. Oh, by the way, the clients I was entertaining the other night called today and inquired about you.
They're still interested in buying property over here."
"So you didn't lose a sale on my account."
"Doesn't look that way."
"Good."
"Do you have plans for dinner?"
He had already turned toward the door when her question brought him back around. "Dinner?"
"Dinner. The evening meal. Had you made plans?"
"Not really."
"Chili or sardines?"
He gave a lopsided grin. "Something like that."
"How does a steak sound?" She made a circle with both hands. "About this big around.
This thick." She held her index finger and thumb an inch and a half apart. "Grilled medium rare."
Dinner with Marcie. Dinner with a woman.
Somehow that seemed like much more intimate coupling than having a few drinks followed by a roll in the sack, which had been his only interaction with women since he lost Tanya. No thinking was required. No commitment.
No conversation.
Dinner, on the other hand, involved his head.
Personalities entered in. And social graces, such as looking into her eyes when you said something to her, such as being expected to say something in the first place. He wasn't sure he was up to that yet.
But this was only Goosey, after all. Hell, he'd known her since he was five years old.
She'd been a good friend to him the last couple of days. Apparently she had been looking after his interests for a while, because she had saved him the hassle of getting rid of that house he had bought for Tanya. And he couldn't dismiss how polite she'd been to Tanya, and how much Tanya had liked and respected her.
He could do her this one favor, couldn't he?
"Grill the steak blood rare and you've got yourself a deal."
She broke into a smile that made her face look—what was it his mother had said? Oh, yes. Radiant.
With no coyness whatsoever, Marcie excused herself to change into something more comfortable.
She returned from one of the upstairs bedrooms dressed in a sweat suit and her Smurf shoes. The pencil had been removed from behind her ear, and she had swapped her contacts for her glasses.
Once the steaks were sizzling on the indoor grill, she put Chase to work making a green salad while she monitored the potatoes she was baking in the microwave oven.
She asked if he preferred formal or casual surroundings, and when he replied, "Casual." she spread place settings on the island bar instead of on the table in the separate dining room. In no time at all, they were seated, demolishing the simple but delicious food.
"I'm afraid there's no dessert," she said as she removed his empty plate, "but you'll find my stash of chocolate chip cookies in the canister on the counter."
The telephone rang—she had replaced the receiver when she returned downstairs. As she went to answer it she called over her shoulder,
"You should feel privileged, Mr. Tyler. I
don't share my chocolate chip cookies with just anybody… Hello?"
She was smiling at Chase as she raised the receiver to her ear. He watched her smile collapse seconds after greeting her caller. She hastily turned her back to him. Tossing his napkin down onto the bar, he left his chair and in three long strides, crossed the room.
Before he could pluck the receiver away from her, she used both hands to cram it back onto the cradle of the phone, then braced herself against it as though wanting to hold down a lid over a garbage can full of something vile.
Her head remained lowered and averted, probably out of embarrassment. She wasn't as blase about this as she wanted him to
believe. She was visibly upset, her face leached of all color.
"Was that him?"
"Yes."
"Same kind of stuff?"
"Not quite." Her color returned, spreading over her cheeks like a rosy tide. "This time, instead of telling me what he wanted to do to me, he, uh, told me what he wanted me to, uh, do to myself… for his entertainment."
"Damn pervert."
Chase and his brother had been reared to respect women. Both their parents had drilled into them a sense of chivalry and sexual responsibility.
Even during his drunkest binges,
Chase had been careful to take the necessary precautions with the women he bedded. He had never taken advantage of a woman who didn't welcome him or even one who was reluctant to have him in her bed.
In their youthful, single days Lucky and he had enjoyed plenty of women, but always with the women's consent. They had never had to be coercive, but wouldn't have been anyway.
Their father had taught them that no meant no when a lady said it. A gentleman never imposed himself on a woman, no matter what.
In Chase's book, telephone pornography was imposition, and it made him furious that Marcie was being subjected to it. Pillow talk was one thing, when you were whispering naughtily into the ear of a lover whose sexual enjoyment you were heightening. Hearing the same words over the telephone from a face
less stranger was sinister and frightening. He didn't blame her for turning pale with anxiety and revulsion.
"Is that the kind of trash you've been having to listen to?" he demanded of Marcie. She nodded and turned away, returning to the kitchen. He caught her arm and brought her back around. "For how long?"
"A few months," she said quietly.
"You shouldn't put up with that. Have your number changed. Let Pat put a tracer on your line."
He was so caught up in his argument that he didn't initially realize he still had hold of her arm and that he'd drawn her so close their bodies were touching. When he did, he released her and quickly stepped back.
He cleared his throat loudly and tried to sound authoritarian. "I, uh, just think you should do something about this."