Читать книгу The Million-Dollar Marriage - Eva Rutland - Страница 8

CHAPTER TWO

HE LOOKS different, too, she thought, as he got out and came around to open the door for her. Rather debonair, and more like a movie star than ever in tan slacks and a cardigan sweater.

“Hello again,” he said, his eyes lighting with appreciation.

“Hello,” was all the usually talkative Melody could muster. Why, she wondered, did she feel so giddy and light-headed?

“I thought we’d go to Beno’s,” he said as he shifted gears and started down the driveway. “It’s not too far. Do you like Italian food?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” He smiled at her before turning into the street. “Now that that’s settled and we’ve howdied, how about introducing ourselves? I’m Tony Costello and you are...?”

“Melody Sands.” Darn! Now he would know who she was.

He didn’t seem to make the connection. “Melody. Like a beautiful tune, huh?”

“A dumb name.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Melody,” he mused. “I kinda like it.”

“I don’t. I prefer just plain Mel.”

“Okay. Mel. Have you always lived in Wilmington?”

“Mostly. At least, this is home.”

“And I’ve never seen you before.” He shook his head. “This must be my lucky day. How long have you been working for... Who lives there anyway?”

Was he putting her on? “Don’t you know? You were working there.”

“For Peter Dugan. He just asked me to do the rose beds at 18 Clayborn Drive.”

“Oh.” So he doesn’t know who I am, she thought, pleased. She was... well, unencumbered. An ordinary girl on an ordinary date with an ordinary guy.

“I ought to pay him,” he said.

“Who?”

“Pete.”

“Why?”

He had pulled to a stop at a light, and turned to her. “I met you, didn’t I?”

“Oh.” She was mesmerized by the look in his dark eyes. Not laughing, but serious. As if seeing her as someone special.

“Guess I owe the cook, too. Best coffee I’ve ever tasted.”

“Oh?”

“Maybe because you brought it. Do you know you have the brightest blue eyes and the most gorgeous mop of red hair I’ve ever seen? Tell me, is it for real?”

“You tell me,” she said, at last finding her voice. “Do you flirt so outrageously with all the women you meet?”

“Only the pretty ones.” There was that grin again.

“And then?”

“Then what?” he asked, as he merged onto the freeway.

“What do you do with the crowd? Do you select the most beautiful one or do you take turns?”

“Ah, come on. I was kidding. I’m not some fancy ladies’ man. Really.”

He looked so embarrassed she couldn’t help teasing him. “Then you’d better be careful, passing out all that baloney. We poor females are vulnerable creatures.”

“Bull. You’re about as vulnerable as a stone wall. And what I said wasn’t baloney. You know you’re a number ten.”

She gave him a smug smile. “So I’ve been told.”

“I bet. Anyway, it was more than that...being beautiful, I mean. You’re...different.” He gave her a puzzled glance. “I don’t understand it myself. I don’t usually go for this sort of thing.”

“What sort of thing?”

“This. A date. I don’t have time. But this morning, when I saw you standing there...” He hesitated. “Well, it was like I didn’t want to let you get away. I wanted to know all about you. Who you are, what you do, what you like, what you don’t like.” Another quick glance. “So. What do you do all day up at that big house?”

“Oh, this and that,” she said quickly, her throat suddenly dry. This was dangerous ground. “You promised I would get to know you. So tell me. What do you do besides fix rose beds for Pete?”

“Everything. Or maybe I should say anything...from weeding to landscaping.”

“Oh?” She gave him a skeptical glance. Quite a gap between weeding and landscaping.

“Okay, here we are,” he said, as he pulled into a crowded parking lot.

She looked at the unpretentious one-story building that didn’t seem large enough to house all the occupants from the cars in the lot. It took him some time to find a parking slot. When at last he did, she reached for the door handle, but he was there before her.

“Hope we won’t have to wait,” he said as he opened the door and helped her out. Most polite man she had met in a long time. Even Adrian would have allowed her to hop out by herself. Maybe, she mused as he guided her toward the entrance, Adrian and his ilk were accustomed to a doorman helping her out when they drove up for valet parking.

Also, Adrian would have had a reservation, she thought when Tony apologized for the twenty-minute wait. “Hope you don’t mind. I asked for a booth. So we can talk.”

She didn’t mind. In fact it was quite interesting, standing in the crowded entryway—it could hardly be called a lobby—watching people come and go. Like the fat man whom she thought was alone with his three noisy children until the harassed woman joined him, waving a doggie bag and exclaiming that Jimmie hadn’t touched a thing on his plate, and she sure wasn’t going to leave all that food. There was the overpainted woman holding on to a boy with bulging muscles who looked young enough to be her son. Was he her son? Hardly, not the way she was cuddling up to him. And the teenage girl with the ponytail who—

“Costello!” the man at the cash register shouted.

“Okay!” Tony said, taking her arm. “Wasn’t too long, was it?”

Not long enough, she thought. She hadn’t yet discovered who the teenager was with. She hoped she was with her parents. But as she followed Tony through crowded tables to a booth, she decided she was more interested in finding out about him.

“Are you a landscape artist?” she asked after the waitress had taken their order.

“Not bloody likely.”

“But you said—”

“I lied.”

“Shame on you,” she said, laughing.

“To impress you.”

“You wanted to impress me?”

“Sure. Why do you think I borrowed the car?”

“The Mustang? It’s not yours?”

“Nope. Belongs to Pedro, my brother.”

“Nice car. I enjoyed the ride. Thank him for me.”

“Thank me. I’m doing the landscaping to pay for it.”

“Oh. Then you really do landscaping?”

He grinned. “If turning up the soil for a vegetable garden qualifies.”

“Oh, you!” The waitress brought their drinks, and Mel was silent for the moment, wondering why she wanted to know everything about this man. Obviously, he was a jack-of-all-trades, and she shouldn’t embarrass him by pressing. She couldn’t seem to help herself. “Will you stop trying to impress me and tell me what you really do?”

“Like I told you, everything. Okay, okay,” he said, holding up a hand as if to ward off her scowl. “I’m in business for myself. And I only stretched the truth a bit. I’ve got two more years at the State in Landscape Architecture.”

“Really? I am impressed.”

“You needn’t be. It’s a long way off. Evening school only, because I have to keep working, and then I have to do an apprenticeship before I can get a license.”

“But it sounds like a great career.” She paused as the waitress set a plate piled with mounds of spaghetti before her. How was she to manage all that? she wondered, as she watched him expertly wind the spaghetti around his fork and begin to eat with relish. “I never can eat it like you’re supposed to,” she announced as she took her knife and cut small pieces, and sampled a forkful. “Delicious!”

“Yeah. Beno’s special,” he said.

“So, how did you happen to get into landscaping?” she asked.

“Grandma’s rock garden.”

“Come again?”

“Grandma wanted a rock garden and... Well, maybe it started before that. You see, I never wanted a nine-to-five job. At least not the kind my folks, Pop and both my brothers are into. Road construction. Guess I got a thing against concrete.”

“Oh? That’s a strange bias.”

“Guess so, but there it is,” he said. “Bugs me when good soil gets covered up. And we’re getting closed in. Frank’s got one of those new houses on Benton Circle. About an inch between him and his neighbors and not enough yard to spit in.”

“Who’s Frank?”

“That’s my oldest brother.”

“How many brothers do you have?”

“Just two.”

“And a grandmother,” she added to remind him. “Who wanted a rock garden.”

“Yeah. My grandparents have this farm, a hundred and fifty acres, in Virginia, about an hour from here. Grandpa’s not farming now. Bad case of arthritis. Anyway, there’s not much profit since the big combines have taken over. He was about to sell it for a pile, but the developer ran into zoning problems, and backed down.” Tony paused to take a swallow of beer. “That was my lucky day.”

“Why so?”

“I talked Gramps into leasing to me.”

“But you said there was no profit—”

“In vegetables. Flowers are different.”

She put her fork down and stared at him. “You’re opening a florist shop?”

“Nope. A wholesale nursery. You see, I spent a lot of time on my grandparents’ farm, and I just got into growing things. With all these acres of good rich soil—”

“Wait a minute. You said you’re studying to be a landscape artist.”

“That came later with Grandma’s rock garden.”

“I see. Meanwhile you’re running a wholesale nursery.”

“Not yet. There’s equipment to buy, greenhouses to build...things like that. Not to mention the plants themselves.”

“So you’re actually planning two careers.”

“Not really. Don’t you see how the two fit together?” He began to talk of his plans with a boyish enthusiasm that intrigued her. The clatter of silver and the murmurs of other diners faded as she sat in the little booth and listened. Through his eyes she began to see hundreds of florists and supermarkets filled with lovely luscious and unusual plants from his nursery, landscapes green with the trees and shrubs that would break up the concrete surrounding houses, condominiums, even commercial buildings and shopping centers.

Melody Sands, bored up to the ying-yang with all the successful investments and mergers discussed by all the rich successful men she encountered, listened with deep interest and awe to the dreams of this young man who was starting on a shoestring. She liked being a Miss Nobody listening to an ordinary guy talk about... No. Nothing ordinary about this guy who was really a hunk, worked like a Trojan and dreamed big.

“I guess it will take some time,” she said.

“And money,” he said. “Why do you think I’m planting roses, cutting lawns, and having to borrow a car to impress the most fascinating woman I’ve ever met?”

“The most fascinating?” she teased.

“The most,” he said with emphasis.

“Well, thanks for the flattery, but you didn’t need a car to impress me. I could have ridden in the truck.”

“You don’t belong in a truck.”

“How do you know where I belong?”

He didn’t. And that’s what bothered him. But he knew she didn’t belong in a truck. From the moment he saw her, standing so erect, the wind whipping that mass of flaming red hair... He reached across the table to touch it. It felt like silk. “Is it for real?” he asked, just as he had the first time he saw it.

“Of course it’s for real! Do you think I’d be fool enough to dye it this crazy color?”

“Not crazy. It’s out of sight.”

“Ha! If you knew how many times I’ve thought of dying it. A nice conservative brown or—”

“Don’t you dare!” She jumped and even he was surprised at his vehemence. Why did he feel such possessiveness toward this woman he hardly knew?

Damn it, he didn’t have time to possess any woman. Especially this one. Why did he sense she was out of his league? There was something about her. Something...well, classy. The way she carried herself with a certain confidence, maybe even arrogance. Even this morning, in that tattered jacket, her hair in disarray, she had looked...well, elegant. And so beautiful she took his breath away.

It’s not the way she looks. It’s the way she is. Warm, caring. Interested. He had sat all this evening spilling his guts. All his hopes and plans... things he had never even breathed to anyone else. And she had listened like they mattered to her.

This woman. This one woman. Why did he feel that he never wanted to lose her?

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like I might disappear or something?”

That was the way he was feeling. Scared. Like she might walk out of his life and he’d never see her again. This was crazy!

“Just thinking I’m pretty stupid,” he said. “I want to know all about you, and I’ve spent all this time on me. Things I already know. So, tell me. How many brothers and sisters do you have, and where do you live, and when can I see you again?”

“Wait, you go too fast,” she said, trying to get herself together. She didn’t want to lie to this man. But she didn’t want him to know who she was. She liked listening to him, almost as if she was sharing his dreams...like they were on the same level. Would he feel free to share if he knew? “I...I’m an only child,” she said.

“I see. That explains that look.”

“What look?”

“That I - can - have - anything - I - want - I’m - a - spoiled - brat look.”

“Now, don’t you start!” she said, feeling angry because she had always been accused of just that. “I’m not spoiled and I don’t always get what I want.” She hadn’t gotten Dirk, had she? And never mind that he hadn’t wanted her, just her money. She sat up, staring at Tony. He didn’t know about the money. He liked her.

He was laughing. “Okay, don’t bite my head off. I see you’ve got the temper that goes with that hair. And I take it all back. You’re not spoiled. You’re working hard at...what do you do?”

“I... paperwork,” she floundered. “For the man of the house.” That was true. She often helped her father with his business.

“Oh, a secretary. I should have known.” He reached for her hand with its perfectly polished nails. “Much too pretty and soft to do much scrubbing. And where do you live?”

“Where you saw me,” she said, absorbed in the calloused thumb that was stroking the back of her hand, making her feel...like she hadn’t felt for a long time.

“Oh, a live-in secretary?”

“Kinda.”

“Don’t know if I like that. You’re much too pretty to be around some old fogy.”

“He’s away. Away most of the time. He travels a lot.”

“Good. And your parents. Do they still live in Wilmington?”

“My mother’s dead. And my father...well, we had a little disagreement.” They had had a disagreement, hadn’t they! “Anyway, he’s away, working out of town.”

. He could see that she was agitated by his probing, so he let up. There would be time. “Better take you home, much as I hate to,” he said. “I’ve got to start early in the morning.”