Читать книгу A Long Hot Christmas - Barbara Daly, Barbara Daly - Страница 9

“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,” Maybelle said. “Some coffee’d be real tasty about now with bedtime coming up.”

“Decaf?”

“Not if you’ve got the real stuff.”

Hope headed for the kitchen to start a small pot of Hawaiian Kona, trying not to breathe the fumes in case they were enough to keep her awake. When she got back to the living room with Maybelle’s cup of deadly insomnia in hand and a glass of sparkling water for herself, she found her new decorator circling the room.

Hope fell into step behind her. It was interesting the way they circled a while before they chose seats. Last night Sam Sharkey had done the same thing. The few times she’d entertained, her guests had done it, too, as though they were looking for a more comfortable spot from which to enjoy the view.

Just now, she was feeling a quite surprising need to make Sam comfortable. But not necessarily to enjoy the view. Something unfamiliar pinged inside her.

She quickly sat down, arbitrarily choosing one of the squishy taupe chenille armchairs and perching uneasily on its edge. Back to business. “Where exactly did you get your training?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.

“A correspondence course,” said Maybelle. She deposited her cup on an end table. “Give me a hand with this, hon.” She seemed intent on dragging the other armchair across the room where it faced the door with its back to the view.

Hope closed her eyes briefly, then hurried to help, just to save the floors. A correspondence course interior designer. Her sisters were right. Sheila was crazy, and if she ever saw her again, which she never intended to, she’d throttle her. “How did your interest in decorating come about,” she said faintly, lowering her side of the chair to the floor. Thank goodness she hadn’t signed anything yet.

“Well,” the woman began when she’d settled into the chair, “first off, I was stuck down there in Texas on my husband’s family ranch when he up and died.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Hope murmured.

“Don’t be,” Maybelle assured her. “It was him or the bull and the bull had a hell of a lot more character. Cuter, too, in his way.” Her gaze grew thoughtful.

Hope’s mouth formed an O. Her eyes sought out the phone on the end table beside her. How fast could she dial 9-1-1? She was already reaching for the receiver when the phone rang. She grabbed for it. Maybe the police were calling to warn her that a madwoman was on the loose.

“Hope? Sam.”

“Sam?” Hearing from Sam wasn’t on today’s agenda. In fact, she’d assumed Sam would hear from her, not the other way around. That way she would have been prepared for the sound of his voice. This way, she hadn’t been, and she was annoyed by the stab of heat, the sudden heaviness in the pit of her stomach. She locked her knees tightly together and sat up very straight. “We’re scheduled to talk next week, I believe. I entered it in my Palm Pilot and synchronized it with my desktop calendar. The decorator is here now, so…”

“This’ll just take a minute. It’s an emergency.”

He didn’t sound as if he were dying, unaided, on a lightly traveled road. Hope drew her brows together. “What kind of emergency?”

She’d spent her hypothetical lunch hour—ten minutes eating yogurt and an apple at her desk—trying to imagine having sex with him as a purely therapeutic measure. “Have sex twice and call me in the morning if you’re not better.” And she’d decided—maybe. Or maybe not.

Out of the corner of one eye she watched Maybelle shaking her head and tsk-tsking. Meanwhile, Sam was delivering a staccato message into her left ear.

“The firm’s executive partner is having a dinner party tomorrow night. One of the guests met his Maker this afternoon. The partner’s wife is deeply moved, but she’s committed to the party. The problem is two empty spaces—the widow’s not in a party mood—at a table set for sixteen at two-hundred-fifty dollars a plate.” He paused. “Are you following me?”

“Closely,” Hope said. “The caterer’s going to charge for sixteen regardless. As a junior member of the firm you have to fill those two spaces.”

“You’re familiar with the system.”

“Intimately.” In fact, that was one of the reasons she might actually need Sam, or even better, somebody like him who didn’t mention sex in their first meeting.

She had to admit she’d like it if this new man, the one who didn’t mention sex in their first meeting, had a voice like Sam’s. It was warm and deep, and it rolled over her like a soothing wave, although the way he sounded now was more like being in a stinging shower.

Maybelle wasn’t in her chair any longer. Hope paced around with the phone until she sighted her in the bedroom, exploring the apartment uninvited and still tsk-tsking.

“Will you fill one of those spaces?”

“What? Oh.” She refocused on Sam. “Is this important to you?” She’d read the books, gone to retreats, attended seminars at company expense, and she knew what questions to ask. She’d almost said, “Is this a step toward your goal?” but somewhere in her head she heard the echoes of her sisters’ exasperated sighs.

“Real important. The boss’s wife is after me.”

“Your hostess tomorrow night?” She was pretty impressed with herself for following the conversation. Maybelle was in the kitchen now, thumping the walls, looking for joists.

“So far she’s only managed to signal me by wiggling her eyebrows and running her tongue over her lips. But those big Connecticut estates have pool houses, conservatories, butlers’ pantries. Imagine what could happen if I said yes to her. Imagine what could happen if I said no to her.”

“Screwed,” Hope said. “Either way. You, I mean, not her. I mean…” She was glad he couldn’t see her blush. Maybelle did, though, and gave Hope a knowing look before she trotted into the bathroom, brandishing a wrench.

“Will you come? Be my bodyguard?”

Hope could tell his problem was a serious one. So was hers. She had to get back to Maybelle before the woman started disassembling the plumbing. “Okay, I’ll help you out. We’ll call it a trial run.”

“Pick you up tomorrow at five.”

“Five o’clock? In the afternoon?” Even Maybelle faded from her mind. Hope did her best work after five.

“Lots of traffic on Friday. Long way to Connecticut. Party starts at seven. Can’t be late.”

She thought about it. “Okay, then. Pick me up at the office.”

He was silent for a second. “It’s black tie.”

“No problem,” said Hope.

“Five.”

“The 48th Street entrance.”

“I’ll be there.”

It was sort of a relief knowing she could delay coming home tomorrow. What was it with this apartment?

What was it with Maybelle and all that tsk-tsking? “Sorry for the interruption,” she said, settling down again and feeling relieved when Maybelle followed suit. “Let’s see, we’d gotten past the bull…”

“Yeah. Anyhoo,” Maybelle said, picking up the thread without difficulty, “I got right bored that first winter after he was gone, what with nobody to fight with and only three channels on the television. But one morning I was watching this arithmetic program, Geometry, they call it—”

Hope’s eyes widened.

“You know, one of them college courses they do on TV? Anyway, right after that they was advertising these University of Texas—” She pronounced it “Tegzis.” “—correspondence courses and I sent off for the catalog. Whoo-ee, what a lot of junk you could learn without setting foot off the ranch!”

Hope felt her brain whirling in slow ellipses. Getting a little closer to Earth, then spinning way out into space. “So you sent off for a Geometry course.”

“Calculus. I’d pretty much gotten the hang of Geometry and the catalog said take Calculus next.”

“Oh.”

“Then a course in lit-tra-chure.”

“Contemporary American literature?”

“Nope, Mid-yeeval. You know, them sexy Canterbury Tales? Whoo-ee, they sure made me wish I had Hadley back for a long weekend. Then I said to myself, ‘Girl, your hands are way more bored than your head.’ And that was the truth, what with the ranch hands doing the outside work and their wives coming in to clean and cook. So I took a beautician course.”

“A correspondence course in hairdressing?” The ellipse lengthened dramatically.

“Yeah. Well, that was a bust, with nobody but the sheep to practice on. The ranch hands’ wives wouldn’t let me get anywhere close to them with my shears. But I can do my own hair real good,” she said cheerfully. “Saved me many a penny, let me tell you.”

“I can see that,” Hope murmured. “How long did it take you to finish all those courses.”

“Almost six months! Them courses was hard!” Maybelle’s gaze shot over her shoulder, then flitted from one corner of the room to the other. “Honey,” she said suddenly, “have you got an extry mirror I could hang over there on that wall?”

“Mirror? Well, no, all the mirrors are sort of attached to things, or doing their various…”

“No matter. I’ll bring some by tomorrow.” She frowned. “Don’t want to wait long, though. Anyways, next thing I did was try my hand at making dishes and stuff. Old man Abernathy brung the kiln out to the ranch in his big truck and I did that until the ladies got to complaining about dusting all the new crockery. Then landscape design, but I couldn’t get nuthin’ much to grow out there in West Texas but cactus. This place sure could use some greenery,” she added.

Hope wondered if Maybelle could be trying to hypnotize her. This was the most outrageous—at least the most different—face it, the most interesting conversation she’d had in ages. And she didn’t have to say a word, just listen to Maybelle’s chirping voice, which went so well with her chicken-like appearance. She could listen to Maybelle and think about Sam Sharkey. She was going out with Sam tomorrow night. No, not really going out with Sam, just accompanying Sam, protecting him from the boss’s wife, but still…

“…feng shui,” she heard Maybelle say.

Hope switched gears.

“And I said what the heck is that? So naturally I had to find out. And you know what I found out?” The question was clearly rhetorical, because Maybelle forged on. “If I’d known all that stuff before, Hadley and me might of got along a sight better.”

“How.” It wasn’t a question, just a polite murmur. How could anybody get along with this idiot savant? Poor Hadley must have thought he’d died and gone to everlasting steam heat turned way up by the time the honeymoon was over. He’d apparently been desperate enough to engage in combat with a bull. Didn’t that say something about the mood the man was in?

“That’s what I’m going to show you, hon,” Maybelle said with another of those abrupt softenings of her usual shrillness. She shot up out of the armchair, shouldered a brown leather purse that reminded Hope of a feedbag and got the Stetson twirling on one finger. “Can I have the run of the house for a coupla weeks?”

Absolutely not! Hope got up, too. “First I really do insist on having an—”

“—estimate. Budget.” Maybelle sighed. “Honest to gosh, if you yuppies could get your minds off money for a split second…”

She was moving rapidly toward the door with Hope in her wake. “…and credentials,” Hope said firmly. “Was the correspondence course the end of your professional training?”

Maybelle spun. “Lands no! I spent two years in Chiner and Jap-pan learning everything they had to teach me, then I come up here and got me the kind of degree you young folks understand. The Parsons School of Design. So don’t you worry none about my credentials.”

“Well. Okay, here’s a key.” The voice that uttered those utterly reckless words was strange, yet familiar. It was her own voice. That’s why she recognized it.

Hope promised herself she’d call the insurance company first thing in the morning. Have an art appraiser out. Determine the current value of the African head and the glass bowl. Adjust the insurance accordingly. And when this nonsense was over, she’d hire a proper Manhattan decorating firm to undo the damage.

She would never see Sheila again.

And tomorrow night she was going out with Sam Sharkey.

A little thrill shot straight down through the center of her body just thinking about it.

SAM GUESSED he’d been looking for a brown-haired woman with green eyes and a face to match.

As he stepped out of the luxurious Lincoln he’d hired for the evening, he scanned the crowd surging through the doors of the office building into the blustery wind of December and didn’t find anyone who fit that description. The woman who waved and stepped briskly toward the limo was something else again.

“Hope?”

She smiled. “Am I late?”

“Right on time.”

First thing, her face wasn’t green. Of course he hadn’t really expected it to be. He wasn’t prepared, though, for creamy skin or full, glistening lips, for the even thicker, darker lashes that framed her eyes—still green, thank God. And her hair. Why had he thought it was brown? Must have been wet. This woman had hair the color of copper pipe.

Maybe she’d dyed it to match her product.

Under a thick, soft-looking cape, she was wearing a tuxedo. So was he, but the only similarity was their satin lapels. Hers had a short skirt, for one thing, and some kind of low-necked black-lace top under the jacket instead of a white shirt and bow tie. And the jacket poofed out at the top and in at the waist in a way that almost made him forget the reason she was with him in the first place.

For a second he felt like somebody had gut-punched him.

He slid into the car first and let the driver help Hope in beside him. He helped her shrug off the cape—cashmere, by its feel—and pretty soon she was showing him a pair of long, long legs with smooth, slender knees in sheer black stockings. Something bubbled up inside him that was supposed to simmer, covered, for another five years or so, until he really got his feet on the legal ground.

The next thing she was showing him was a laptop. “I hope you don’t mind,” she said, perching it carefully on top of those pretty knees. “I was into something important when I realized it was time to change jackets.”

“Be my—” he paused to clear his throat “—guest. I brought work along, too.”

Even before he got to that last line he was looking at her profile, at a big emerald earring on a really cute ear that had a thick bunch of shiny hair tucked behind it, at slim hands with long fingernails painted a sort of ginger-peachy color that matched her lipstick, fingernails that went tap-tap, tap-tap-tap on the computer keys.

Wondering if this had been a really bad idea instead of a really inspired one, Sam reached down for his briefcase.

For a time they rode—sat absolutely still, rather, in the crosstown traffic—in silence except for her taps and the rustle of the brief he was scanning.

Hope knew it was a brief because she’d let her gaze stray once too often in his direction, sweep up and down the considerable length of him. Lord help her, he was glorious in black tie! Black tux, onyx studs in the buttonholes of a dazzling white shirt, black hair, black lashes…she wouldn’t mind having a brief of her own to fan herself with.

She’d set up her laptop at once in order to have something to focus on besides him, but she wasn’t getting a lot done. For one thing, she was concentrating on hitting the laptop keys with the pads of her fingers, not her nails. Clear polish was definitely the way to go, and that’s the way she usually went, but for some reason she’d wanted to look especially, well, pretty tonight.

But only because she wanted to be sure she left the right impression with the boss’s wife. Lick your lower lip at somebody else. He’s mine!

“How do you want me to act tonight?” she said. She’d been thinking about it, but she hadn’t meant to say it aloud.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Sam rolled the brief a little in his hands and frowned. “Like a girlfriend, I guess.”

Wonder how a girlfriend acts. I haven’t been one since… She couldn’t remember since when. That was pathetic. Her sophomore year in college, she thought, when she’d dated a pimply philosopher.

“Like…smile up at you, and…”

“We should use terms of endearment,” Sam said. “You know, ‘Sam, darling, would you fetch me one of those adorable caviar canapés.’ That kind of thing.”

“I take it I can put ‘that kind of thing’ in my own words,” she said, giving him a sidelong glance.

“Whatever makes you comfortable.”

Comfortable? She was already not comfortable and she hadn’t even begun acting yet. “We shouldn’t try to pretend we’ve been together a long time,” she said to get back on track. “I’m popping up for the first time, and these people know you. You’d have said something about having a girlfriend.”

The thoughtful look that crossed his face told her that maybe he would’ve, maybe he wouldn’t. What he said was, “Could we claim love at first sight?”

“What about—” she did little quotation marks with her fingers “—fourth or fifth date, but we feel this really strong attraction?”

He nodded. “That’s the attitude. The overdone ‘how can I make you happy’ stuff, like ‘are you cold, here’s your cape, are you hot, let’s go out on the balcony, are you thirsty, I’ll get you a drink.’”

“Very good,” Hope said. “Then we do the sudden looks of appreciation at discovering something new about each other we’d never known before, like ‘you sail? Oh, my goodness gracious! I simply lo-ve sailing.’”

“That’d be you,” he said, looking uncertain for the first time, “saying ‘my goodness gracious, I simply lo-ve…”’

“Probably not,” said Hope. “But better me than you, now that I think of it. Incidentally, is there something you do that I should know about?”

“I work.”

“Well, yes, but…”

“That’s it. I work. Just say ‘he works.’ Anybody you’re talking to will know we’re well-acquainted.”

There was a faint bitterness in his tone, or had she imagined it. Must have, because almost immediately he turned to her with a quick, flashing grin. “Then there’s the ‘isn’t she wonderful’ face,” he said. “For me, that’d be a sappy smile.” He demonstrated.

“Yuck. You look like a lovesick gander. For me,” she said, “it would be a sort of parted lips, widened eyes kind of thing.” She demonstrated, embellishing her act by pouting out her lower lip as if it were swollen with lust.

He cleared his throat again. She hoped he wasn’t getting a cold. “By George, I think we’ve got it.”

“Sorry I interrupted your work,” Hope said.

“No problem,” he said.

She returned to her laptop and he returned to his brief. But first he had to flatten it out, he’d had it rolled up so tightly.

“CHARLENE.” Sam bowed slightly. “Phil. This is Hope Sumner.”

“I’m sorry about the circumstances that brought us here,” Hope said, looking properly funereal, “but thanks for letting us join you at the last minute. Sam has told me so much about you.”

Sam gave her a look. Where did she learn to do that, get all the right words into one receiving-line sentence?

“We’re delighted that you were willing to join us on such short notice,” said Charlene. A pair of huge blue eyes shot daggers in Hope’s direction, then Cupid arrows at Sam. He pretended not to notice, but it was hard not to notice that Charlene’s dress went down to here and came up to there, and that she was as voluptuous here as she was slender there.

Silicone at the top and liposuction at the bottom? He’d ask Hope what she thought.

“Please come in,” Charlene went on. “Make yourselves comfortable. You know almost everybody.”

“Yes, yes,” Phil murmured. “Sad time for all of us, but I know Thaddeus would have wanted us to go on with our—Harry!” he said, putting a manicured hand forward. “Great to see you. How’s the golf?”

Sam gripped Hope’s elbow and propelled her forward into the Carrolls’ magnificent reception room, a marble-floored space with twenty-foot ceilings and fifteen-foot windows. They ran directly into Cap Waldstrum. “Cap,” he said heartily. “This is Hope Sumner.” He paused. “You remember Hope.”

“No,” Cap said, “and I promise you I would’ve.” The caressing gaze of Sam’s colleague—his opposite number in the Corporate Department, the man who might edge Sam out of the partnership—slid down to Hope’s cleavage. This drew Sam’s gaze in the same direction, toward creamy breasts just barely peeking out above the lace.

He had a brief, satisfying daydream of socking Cap in the jaw. And not merely because Cap was apparently an early invitee to this dinner party while he, Sam, was just filling in. This was bad news.

He’d decided to try bluffing Cap about Hope, but as direct as lawyers were, subtlety was out of the question. He’d have to hit Cap over the head with the message to back off.

“I’ll get you a drink, darling,” he said.

“I’d love some sparkling water, angel,” she answered him, giving him the sappy smile he’d thought he was supposed to use. “With lime. I do better if I start out slowly,” she was explaining to Cap as Sam made a beeline for the bar, “especially during the holidays.”

The bar being a mano-a-mano scene, he barely got back to Hope in time to hear her say, “Pipe. I’m in pipe.”

“Not Palmer,” Cap said, sounding amazed. “What a coincidence. Our firm—”

“She knows,” Sam said abruptly. “Small world, huh?”

“So how did you two meet?” Cap was looking increasingly interested.

“I met Sam through…” Hope began.

“…mutual friends,” Sam interjected smoothly. “And for once, the friends had heads on their shoulders.” He gave Hope a replay of the sappy grin she’d blatantly stolen from the script they’d agreed on.

“Well, so nice to meet you.” Cap The Snake slithered off into the crowd to offer his apple to someone more vulnerable. Sam The Shark decided to let him go…this time.

“Two down,” Hope hissed. “Who’s next?”

“Not a new player,” he hissed back. “Charlene’s coming back for a second match.”

“Sam,” Charlene purred, “you’re my dinner partner this evening. Your friend…”

“Hope,” Sam supplied. “Hope Sumner.”

“Hope Sumner,” Charlene said, “will sit across from you between Cap—you’ve met Cap—” her gaze flitted briefly in Hope’s direction “—and Ed Benbow.”

“So it’s time to go in to dinner?” Sam said, relieved that Charlene hadn’t yet invited him to dally with her in some “private” location until the soup was on.

She gave him a mischievous look. “Soon, you impatient boy. Ed,” she said, “come and meet…”

“Hope,” said Hope.

“Sumner,” said Sam.

“Sad occasion we’ve got here,” said Ed. He did some appropriately lugubrious head shaking.

Hope turned suddenly to Sam, “Daring, I didn’t ever meet…”

“Thaddeus,” Sam supplied.

“Fine man,” Ed rumbled. “Salt of the earth.”

Sam slid a possessive arm around Hope’s shoulders. “We poured him into our opponents’ wounds,” he murmured.

It was important, of course, to behave as if he and Hope were lovers. About to be lovers, at least. But when she leaned into him, when he felt her shiver of pleasure, he wondered if putting his arm around her and whispering so directly into her ear, a small, very pretty ear, had been a good idea. That shiver had been disquieting, had awakened the sleeping monster inside him again. Except it wasn’t inside him. It was right out there in front for all the world to see. And for all he knew, Hope was just ticklish.

“How long have you known our boy Sam?” Ed asked Hope.

“Just a few weeks.” Hope smiled prettily. “Long enough to know all he does is work.”

“That’s Sam, all right,” Ed agreed.

Sam had let his hand begin to move against Hope’s shoulder in the most natural lover-like way—just testing for signs of response from her—when to his annoyance he felt something tugging at his other arm.

“Sam,” Charlene said, “I want to show you my new orchid.” She dug her spiky little heels into the floor and tightened her death grip on his elbow. “We can give Ed and…”

“Hope,” said Sam, sending a desperate glance in her direction as he slid away from her.

“Hope a chance to get acquainted.”

“I’d love to see your orchids,” Hope said warmly. “You, too, Ed? You interested in orchids?”

“My wife is,” Ed said. “Tanya?”

A stunning blonde half Ed’s age left the group she was visiting with and came over to him. “What, honey? Hi,” she said, holding out her hand to Hope, “I’m Tanya Benbow. Hey, Shark! What’s up?”

“We’re going to see Charlene’s orchids,” Ed said. “Knew you wouldn’t want to miss that.”

The merry party set out for the conservatory, led by Charlene. Earlier, her slim hips had swung seductively inside her lace sheath. Now she gave the impression of a woman on a forced march.

Sam caught Hope’s eye and winked.