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.
2
“MISS YU WING to see you.”
“Send her up,” Hope told the doorman. She checked out her apartment one more time. The magnificent view of Central Park and beyond it, the lights of the Upper East Side and the towers of midtown glittered through the huge plate-glass windows in both the living room and the bedroom. Bed made, aluminum foil from TV dinner in trash, pillows plumped, desk neat…she didn’t know what an interior designer, even one of Yu Wing’s reputation, could find to change.
The bell jangled, she flung the door open in a hospitable manner—and took in a quick, startled breath.
The small, thin woman who waited in the hallway had the biggest head of bleached-blond hair Hope had ever seen. The coat she carried appeared to have been made from a number of Afghan hounds. She fluttered a Stetson from one hand like a Victorian lady fluttering her hanky.
It was obvious why she was holding her hat. She’d never have gotten it on top of the hair. The ice-blue eyes that sparkled out at Hope from a narrow, sharp-featured, weatherbeaten face held a quick intelligence, though, that got Hope’s attention.
A white Western-style shirt, faded blue jeans that stretched over her bony hips and high-heeled, tooled boots completed the picture.
The hallucination.
“Yu Wing?” Hope said. She didn’t smile. She was poised to slam the door at any moment.
The woman breezed right past Hope into the living room. “Actually, sugah, the name’s E-w-i-n-g, Maybelle Ewing, but folks expect a feng shui expert to have a kinda Asian name.”
Hope glommed onto the one thing the woman had said that she understood. “Feng shui?” she asked in a high, thin voice. She cleared her throat. “You are the decorator.”
“Sure am. A licensed interior designer and feng shui goo-roo.”
Hope was translating Maybelle Ewing’s deep Texas drawl into normal New York-speak as fast as her mind could function.
“Oh, my land!” Maybelle shrieked suddenly.
Of course. Ms. Ewing had noticed the view, the reason the small apartment was so expensive. All the chairs faced it. Her bed faced it. It didn’t matter how you furnished an apartment when you had a view like this one.
Hope was so surprised she jolted backward when Maybelle’s hand pressed against her forehead. The hand was dry and as bony as the rest of the woman. “You could make yourself sick in a place like this,” Maybelle said in a hoarse whisper. She frowned. “You don’t feel feverish. You been havin’ any of them psychological problems?”
“No,” Hope snapped. “Look, Yu Wing, I mean…”
“Just call me Maybelle.”
“Look, Maybelle, all I want is to make this place a little cozier, make it look a little more lived-in.”
“It will, hon, when you start living in it.” Maybelle’s voice grew softer, lost its shrill quality. “I bet you hate coming home, am I right?”
Hope stared at her.
“Well, don’t you worry about it no more, because Maybelle’s going to fix everything.”
How? Rope and tie it into submission? “Of course I would need an estimate from you before we enter into any sort of agreement,” Hope said. Recalling one’s purpose in engaging in a dialogue was a good way to keep from getting rattled. “Or perhaps you’d rather I gave you a budget.”
“Whatever,” Maybelle said with an airy wave of her hand. “We’re not to that point yet. Let’s see what I can do for a couple hundred dollars first. Mind if I take some pictures?”
“Yes,” Hope said. The cool, serene African head on the stand in one corner had cost as much as she earned in a month. The huge bowl, a piece of glass art, was worth almost as much. Good investments, both of them. For all she knew, this insane woman was here to case the joint.
Maybelle wouldn’t have a problem getting the bowl out, either. All she had to do was wear it over her hair. Then she could put the Stetson on the African head and…
“Please sit down,” she invited Maybelle. Remembering one’s manners—that was another good way to fight down rising hysteria. “May I get you a drink?”
“Sure,”
