“You must be a magician.”
“Who, me?” He couldn’t believe that anyone would describe him in that manner.
“Yes, you,” she bantered. “You’ve cast a spell on me. I don’t hug strange men,” she continued, laughing. He grinned. Then he laughed a clear, soul-cleansing laugh.
She stared at him, captivated. “You ought to laugh all the time,” she blurted out. “You’re very attractive when you laugh.”
He stopped laughing and just looked at her. Was she making a pass at him? She was dead serious. She thought he was good looking, at least when he laughed.
“Keep me happy, and I’ll laugh all you want.”
She didn’t respond.
“I was jesting, Haley, I don’t mean to step out of line with you,” he said softly.
“Step out of line? I thought you were being witty. What does it take to keep you happy? I can imagine that you don’t want for the company of beautiful women.” They walked off the floor, but the closeness that they had felt was gone.
He thought for a moment. He wanted to be truthful without seeming arrogant. “Beautiful, sophisticated women are not what it takes to make me happy or, for that matter, even to alleviate boredom.”
When she didn’t respond, he asked himself how they had gotten into something that personal. She had been teasing, and his response had been way too serious.
Nels rescued them. “I see you two have been getting acquainted. Supper is being served. Come on back in the kitchen. I’ve set a table for the three of us back there.”
“Are you deserting your other guests, Nels?” Haley wanted to know.
Nels grinned, effectively admitting that he was matchmaking. “The only guests of importance are right here with me. I see the rest of them as often as I like. Let’s plan a time when we can get together, Jon. I want to know what you’ve been doing these past five years.”
“Okay, we’ll plan something.” They bantered and joked as if they had always been a threesome. When they’d finished the roasted pheasant, grilled mushrooms and steamed artichokes, they had a green salad and Blue Stilton cheese.
Haley leaned back and sighed. “Nels, if I had a butler, I’d want you to train him. You’re the perfect host.”
“He is, if he happens to want to pick your brain, like now,” Jon observed.
After raspberry sherbet and coffee, Jon stood. “It’s time to call this wonderful evening to a halt. May I see you home, Haley?”
“Oh, I live way over on the west side.”
“Where on the west side?” Jon asked her.
“Well, Riverside Drive. That’s probably out of your way.” It was twenty-five blocks out of his way, if he was concerned with distance. But his instincts told him that it was the most direct route to where he wanted to be.
“No, it isn’t out of my way. I’ll give you a call, Nels.”
Haley hugged Nels and thanked him for the party, and it annoyed Jon that she put her arms around Nels and kissed him on the cheek. He refused to ask himself why he should get sore about a thing like that.
“Shape up, man,” he said to himself. She didn’t belong to him and never would. What had he been thinking all evening, anyway? As they reached the elevator, he felt himself withdrawing.
They were silent as the elevator descended the twenty-two floors to the lobby. She didn’t look at Jon, but he looked at her. Why hadn’t he told Nels that he’d be busy? He’d had a suspicion that she would be there. Damn, he’d wanted her to be there, had wanted to see her again. He knew that she sensed his withdrawal and was hurt by it, but he made no move to bridge the chasm that he had deliberately erected between them. He was never going to give another woman the opportunity to crush him—and that included the elegant Dr. Feldon.
As they reached the street, Haley sighted a taxi, flagged it and reached for its door.
“Now, wait a minute, here. I told you that I would see you home.”
“No, thank you. I am perfectly capable of seeing myself safely home, and I won’t have to contend with any lightning fast mood changes, since I don’t have them.” She closed the door and gave the cabbie her address. The taxi moved away from the curb, leaving a stunned Jon staring at its taillights. No goodbye, no see you, no nothing. Well, what should he have expected?
“You young people are always quarreling. Now, me and my Beth, we never had a cross word from the time we met, and we’ve been married forty-three years. Soon as I set eyes on ’er, I knew she was for me. Your man seemed like a nice one,” the cabbie said. “What’s the problem? Think you two can work it out?”
Haley blew out a long breath. “The trouble with him is that he goes from tepid to hot to cold in a couple of minutes, and I like dependable personalities and stability in my life. Anyway, he isn’t my man.”
“From what you just said, I can tell he’s ’bout hooked. You listen to me, here. When a man acts like that, he’s interested—don’t want to be and fast losing the battle. You’ll see. Well, here ya are, little lady. That’s thirteen-eighty. Mark my word, you ain’t seen the last of that one.”
Haley leaned back in her desk chair and let her gaze sweep the autumn colors that beautified her office. She’d been in that rut ever since Nels’s party. Three weeks down the drain. If she didn’t get that proposal written, she could just forget about the health education program for reservation children. She swore vehemently. Why couldn’t she get Jon Ecklund out of her head? She couldn’t think of anything except the way she’d felt in his arms when he held her and danced with her. She’d felt his masculine strength, the force of his personality and his barely controlled passion. She knew he wanted her, and she also knew that something restrained him. She told herself that it was best to forget about him. Come hell or high water, she would.
The ring of the telephone invaded her thoughts. “Yes, Amy?” Amy had been her secretary since the doors of IISP first opened. The stunning fifty-year-old redheaded grandmother had a husband who had practically worshipped her for 28 years. She was fiercely loyal to Haley.
“Mr. Andersen. Can you take it?”
“Hello, Nels. What can I do for you?”
“Well, you can begin by being less officious. What in heaven’s name have you done to Jon? He came over yesterday, asking all kinds of questions about you. But he didn’t want any answers. I think he just wanted to get tanked, and believe me, he got tanked. And he didn’t even get high once when we were in college. I still can’t believe he did what I saw him do yesterday.”
“You were in college with him?”
“Yeah. We were roommates and best friends for four years as undergraduates and two years in graduate school. We both got degrees in journalism. Haley, Jon is about the finest man I have ever met. If I had a sister, I would do my best to make him my brother-in-law. He’s straight. And you’ve got him spinning. We’ve got to talk about this.”
