have to spend the evening washing up.”
She sighed angrily. “I don’t like you.”
He smiled slowly. “If I hadn’t learned so much about your sex the hard way, I might be tempted to make you like me,” he said very quietly. “But fortunately for you, I’ve lost my taste for it. An occasional night out satisfies me very well these days.”
He sounded and looked as if women held no more secrets for him, and she felt vaguely grateful that he wasn’t interested in her. A man like that, with his obvious experience, could make mincemeat of her.
“Excuse me while I get down on my knees and give thanks for that saving grace,” she told him and offered him the sandwiches.
He took one and studied it carefully.
“Looking for something?” she asked as she lifted one for herself.
“Arsenic,” he said bluntly.
She burst out laughing. “I used the last on the bus driver who let me off a mile from my stop,” she promised. “Honestly, it’s safe.”
He bit into it, finished it and smiled. “Not bad. I didn’t know tuna could taste so good.”
“It’s the pickled peach juice,” she murmured dryly. “Dad taught me how to make it. He does most of the cooking. My mother can burn water.”
“What does she do?”
“She sets type for my father, who runs the print shop. She’s very good at that, and dealing with customers, but she isn’t domestic. I learned to cook or starve at an early age.” She finished her own sandwich and took a sip of coffee. “How long have you been in construction?” she asked politely.
His broad shoulders shrugged as he finished his second sandwich. “I think I was born doing it. My parents died when I was just a child. My grandmother raised me, pushed me into finding a profession I liked instead of just one I took for money.” He smiled faintly. “I found I enjoyed building things. She prodded me until I called up a cousin who was an architect and asked him point-blank how I could get into the business. He was impressed enough to hire me on the spot. I worked for him between college classes. When I graduated he gave me an executive position.” His eyes grew wistful. “He had no immediate family, and he hated most of his distant relatives. When he died, I inherited the company. I’ve expanded it, enlarged it. Now it’s almost too big for me. I have a board of directors and every damned decision I make, I have to fight for.”
“I’m glad I’m just a tadpole,” she said with a sigh. “I’d hate that.”
“I enjoy it,” he murmured, dark eyes smiling at her across the table. “I like the challenge. It keeps my blood pumping.”
At his age, surely a family would help. She studied him for a long moment, unaware of the blatant curiosity in her eyes.
“Well?” he asked. “Spit it out.”
She shifted in the chair, feeling her nudity under the caftan as if he’d reached out and touched her. She hadn’t been self-conscious with him before, but now she wished she was dressed.
“I just wondered why you weren’t married.”
“Because I don’t want to be,” he replied. His dark eyes sparkled mischievously. “Or did you think I was over the hill? I assure you, I’m not. At least, not in the respect you’re mulling over,” he added, watching her fidget nervously. He finished his coffee. “Are you going to La Pierre, or do I make a phone call?” he asked.
She sighed defeatedly. “I’ll go. But I’ll never forgive you.”
“That won’t matter,” he said. “We won’t see each other again.” He stood up. “Thanks for the meal.”
“You’re welcome.”
She walked him to the door, expecting him to go right out it. But he didn’t. He turned and suddenly put his big hands on either side of her face and tilted it up to his dark eyes.
“Just to set you right on something…” he murmured, and bent his head.
His mouth came down on hers roughly, a warm assault that quickly parted her set lips and searched them with a pressure that was demanding and frankly expert. Within seconds, she was his, a victim turned coconspirator, a willing victim with a frantic heartbeat. She’d been kissed before, infrequently, but it had never been like this. She wanted it to go on forever. Her eyes were closed, her fists clenched tightly by her sides, her body throbbing even though he didn’t touch it or bring her one inch closer. She savored the rough pressure of his lips on hers and tasted him in one wild second with all the sensual curiosity she’d ever experienced for a man.
His head lifted a fraction of an inch and he looked into her drowsy, dazed eyes. “Why, you little fraud,” he breathed. “It was pure bravado this morning, wasn’t it? You don’t even know how!”
She almost said “teach me,” she almost reached up to him. But sanity came back just in the nick of time. She eased away from him, her eyes nervous but steady on his face.
“Are you through?” she asked through lips swollen from the pressure of his mouth, which had, at the last, been formidable.
“Yes.” He studied her with a ghost of a smile on his broad, craggy face. “Odd how things happen. I’m sorry we come from such different walks of life. I’d have enjoyed teaching you. A twenty-eight year old innocent,” he added with a visible twinkle in his dark eyes, “is an intriguing proposition.”
“You just take your propositions and go away and play with your building blocks. I’ll do your dirty work. And you keep that male stripper away from my office, please, I need my job.”
“Seven sharp,” he returned. He opened the door with a last, lingering look. “You could make your living as an exotic dancer,” he said quietly. “I’ve never seen a more exquisite body.”
He turned and left her standing there. It was a full minute before she could close the door again. Cold fish, indeed! More like a dormant volcano….
Three
Mr. Callahan was around sixty, had a bald head and narrow little eyes, wore glasses and was half Amelia’s size. He could out curse any sailor in port on a spree, and his compassion stopped at the door of his plant. He did not give leaves of absence, he did not like illness, and if there had been another job going anywhere, Amelia would have taken it on the spot. But openings were so hard to find in the raw economic times that she gritted her teeth and did what she was told. The only thing worse than this would be going back to Seagrove, a small town on the coast near Savannah, Georgia, and helping her parents run the print shop. That would take her close to Henry Janrett, who still expected her to come home and marry him when she got big-city living out of her blood. Henry ran the small town’s sole newspaper. He wrote a column about beekeeping, when he wasn’t lazing around local officials’ offices jotting down notes. He was a sweet man, just about Amelia’s own age, and she supposed someday she might even give in and do it. But Henry seemed a desperate last chance, and meanwhile she was still hoping for a crack at an exciting occupation in the big city. She didn’t know why she’d picked Chicago. Perhaps because her Navy veteran mother had been stationed at a naval base near Chicago
