Читать книгу Suddenly a Bride / A Bride After All: Suddenly a Bride - Кейси Майклс, Kasey Michaels - Страница 9

Elizabeth left the twins with Elsie, Richard’s housekeeper, in the kitchen, where they were proudly showing her all their purchases, except for the bat their mother had insisted remain outside a house filled with antiques and lamps and other treasures that probably should not come in contact with a seven-year-old and his new toy.

She ducked into the powder room just off the kitchen to wash her hands, splash cold water on her face and make use of the toothbrush she kept there, as she felt fairly certain she had pepperoni breath.

Then she went in search of Richard, who was most likely in his study, killing somebody.

She knocked on the door and poked her head into the large, cherrywood-paneled room that overlooked the swimming pool, the tennis court and a seemingly limitless expanse of well-designed grounds. “Richard? We’re back.”

Her employer, friend and possible fiancé looked up at her blankly for a moment before his busy brain hit on the “Oh, it’s Elizabeth” switch, and then returned his attention to the computer monitor in front of him. “Home from the baseball wars, are you? That’s nice, Elizabeth. Tell me, what’s another word for incomprehensible? As in, she experienced an incomprehensible reaction.”

“Inconceivable? Unfathomable?” She thought about Will Hollingswood—why, she didn’t know. “Inexplicable?”

“Yes, that last one. Definitely containing more of a hint of sexually motivated confusion. That’s perfect,” Richard said, his fingers flying over the keys for a moment before he sat back, smiled at her. “I’d use the thesaurus that comes with this incomprehensible new computer program, but you’re faster and less likely to have me crashing the machine.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Elizabeth said, walking over to the huge U-shaped desk that had been custom-built for Richard, and subsiding into the chair she sat in when he wanted to watch her face as she read his work. “You had to change programs to be compatible with the new operating system.”

“True enough. But in my next book I think I’ll devise an untimely and considerably messy end for some software mogul. Remind me, all right?”

“Wasn’t it enough that you dropped that cheating tax collector off a conveyor belt and into a vat of hot latex meant for condoms?”

“Ah, yes, the Triple-Ripple Extra Sensitive Deluxes, weren’t they? Only barely enough, Elizabeth. Nothing is too undignifying a death for a tax collector.” He pushed his computer glasses up high on his head, where he would soon forget they were, just as Chessie had said.

“I don’t think undignifying is really a word, Richard.”

“No? It should be,” he said, rubbing at his jaw, shadowed a bit in a mix of brown and gray day-old beard. “Didn’t shave this morning, did I? Well, I’ll do that before dinner, I promise. I’ve, well, I’ve been on a roll today. So, tell me. How did the boys enjoy their first day of baseball?”

As she told him about the field, and the boys throwing balls and then chasing them because nobody seemed able to catch them, and recounted their shopping trip and pizza lunch—leaving out mention of Will Hollingswood for reasons she wasn’t about to examine at the moment—Elizabeth looked at Richard, telling herself yet again that he was a very handsome man. A very nice, gentle, sweet and caring man.

His sandy hair was always too long and a bit shaggy, but she couldn’t imagine him any other way. He may be getting just a little thicker around his waist, but he was still a very fit man. He played golf twice a week and had his own fully equipped exercise room he used … well, when he remembered to use it.

His eyes were brown, like hers, but rather deeper-set, the lines around them a sign of too many hours in front of the computer but flattering in the way that wrinkles made a man more interesting while they only made a woman look older.

Yes, he was a handsome man. If he was, again, a woman, he’d be described as a well-preserved forty-five. As a man, it would more probably be said that he was just entering his prime. And she was twenty-eight, not exactly a teenager. That wasn’t so terrible, was it?

Chessie had seemed to think so. Or were her reservations centered more on what she saw as other problems?

“Richard?” she asked when he didn’t smile as she finished telling him about Mikey’s horrified reaction to learn that there would be yucky girls on his baseball team. Girls and seven-year-old boys were like oil and water, it seemed. “Have you been listening to me?”

“Yes, of course. The boys bought mitts and gloves and shoes. And bats! Let me reimburse you for those. God knows you’re grossly underpaid. Your employer should be shot.”

His eyes kept drifting toward the monitor. Elizabeth stood up and walked around the desk, placing a kiss on his cheek. “You will not pay for their equipment, thank you. You’ve already paid for their registration. And now I’ll leave you alone because obviously I’ve interrupted you at some crucial moment in your story. But, first, may I see?”

“I don’t think it’s quite ready for prime time, Elizabeth,” he said, moving the mouse to one of the corners of the monitor, so that the screen went black. “I’m trying something new, you understand.”

“But … but you’re in the middle of a book.”

“That can’t be helped. Sometimes a writer has to take a voyage of discovery, follow his muse where it leads. Or at least that sounds important, doesn’t it? Truthfully, I’m pretty much stuck on how to work the next scene in the current manuscript, so I’m playing with an idea I had the other day.”

“A new character?”

“No,” he said, looking somewhat sheepish. “A new genre. James Patterson does it. Others have done it, are doing it. Why shouldn’t I? I’m writing … trying to write … a love story.”

Elizabeth was dumbfounded. “A love story? You mean a romance?”

“No, my dear. When women write such books, they write romances. When men write them, they’re love stories.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Respect. Men get points for sensitivity and women get slammed for being sentimental and encouraging their readers to believe in fairy tales. Equality may be written about in books, but the publishing industry, or at least the critics and reviewers, are pretty much the last to acknowledge the fact.”

“And that bothers you?”

“Enough that John and I are going round and round about this book, if I do write it, if he can place it,” Richard said, referring to his agent. “What do you think of the pen name Anna Richards? My mother’s maiden name.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “You really plan to publish this book as a woman? Why?”

Richard pushed his chair away from the desk and stood up. “Why, so I can have it announced two weeks after publication that I, Richard Halstead, darling of the critics, am the real author.”

“Because you don’t think the reviews will be as good as they are for your other books,” Elizabeth said, nodding. “But, Richard, what if they are?”

“Damn. I hadn’t thought of that one.” He pulled her toward him and gave her a kiss on the forehead before slipping his arm around her waist and guiding her toward the doorway. She could have been his daughter, or his collie, Sam The Dog. “See why I need you, Elizabeth? Now I’m going to have to rethink the entire thing, aren’t I? Oh, and I have some news.”

“Really? I’ve only been out of the house for a few hours, and already you’re writing a roman—a love story and changing your name while you’re at it.”

“Not anymore. I think I’ll stick to my own name. I’m sure John will thank you for that. And I’m not even sure I’ll finish the book. I’ve only just begun it, and I’m honest enough to tell you that it isn’t as easy as I thought it would be. Killing people is much less complicated than dealing with all these emotions. But, no, my real news is that I’m leaving tonight for my tour, heading to New York to do the Browardshow.”

“Richard!” Elizabeth hugged him in genuine joy. “I know how you’ve longed to do that show. What a coup.”

“There was a cancellation so I’m a second choice but not too proud to grab at it. But now I have to ask you to pack for me. Only enough for two days, and you can forward the rest of my luggage on to Detroit, my original launch city. Do you mind?”

“Mind? Of course not. It’s why you so grossly underpay me, remember?” she said with a smile, beating down a selfish and probably dishonorable little voice inside her that was saying, Now you don’t have to tell him about Will. Not that there’s anything to tell him. Really.

“I should have you writing my dialogue for me,” he said as he paused at the door, clearly escorting her out of his sanctum so he could get back to his love story, but doing it in such a tactful way that she really couldn’t mind. “John’s arranged for a car to pick me up at four, and he and I will have supper at my hotel. I’d hoped we could dine together tonight, Elizabeth, perhaps talk a bit more about … my proposal.”

“That would have been very nice. But we wouldn’t want to be rushed about things, would we?” Elizabeth said, clutching at straws.

Richard frowned as he looked down into her face. “I should take you to Rome. Or Paris. Be more romantic.”

Elizabeth raised her hand to his cheek. “You have a deadline. You have this book tour. I understand.”

“I’ll always have a deadline, Elizabeth,” he reminded her. “I’ll always have half my head living in a world filled with my own creations. There’s a part of me that’s still a selfish child, playing inside my own imagination. I’m not offering you a lot, am I?”

“You’ve offered me everything you can give, and I’m more grateful than I can express. If … if I could just have a little more time …”

“Yes,” he said, his eyes lighting up. “That’s precisely what she needs to say to him, and in just that way.” He gave Elizabeth a quick hug. “What would I do without you?”

“I have no idea,” Elizabeth said quietly as she watched Richard hurry back to his computer. How strange. This morning, she would have been flattered and taken his words as yet another reason she should accept his proposal. But now? Now she felt no real satisfaction in being Richard’s assistant, Richard’s muse, Richard’s very good and comfortable companion. And she hated herself for that lack.

And then she tilted her head to one side, watching him as he attacked the keyboard. Why was Richard suddenly writing a love story? A week ago, before his proposal, he’d been deep in his book, racing through the pages as if there weren’t enough hours in the day to get all of his ideas down.

So why this switch? Was he feeling the same lack she was? Was he still, in his own way, searching for something more? Something that, for all their compatibility and friendship, he knew he hadn’t found in her?

And if she hadn’t met Will Hollingswood this morning, would she even be asking herself any of these questions?

Elizabeth checked on the twins, was assured by Elsie that they were fine with her, helping her mix up a batch of peanut butter cookies, and then she went upstairs to pack Richard’s suitcase.

“Oh, my,” Elizabeth said as they walked into the ballpark and the field opened up in front of them. “I had no idea there was anything like this in the area. Boys, look over there,” she said, pointing to the large scoreboard above center field. “There’s the IronPig.”

They’d entered the ballpark through gates that led to a wide concrete area wrapping around the field above the main seating area that stretched from where they were, right field, to behind home plate, and then stretched out again along the left field line. It was as if they were standing on the rim of a bowl, with the rows of seats ahead of them leading down to the natural grass field itself.

Will stepped up behind them, looking across the outfield at the huge pink snarling pig head that made no sense, yet somehow seemed to make perfect sense … if you didn’t mind wearing shirts and hats with steroid-strong cartoon pigs on them.

“Pig iron, boys,” he said, “is a sort of in-between product that’s a result of smelting iron ore with coke and … some other things. It’s used to make steel, like for bridges and buildings. At one time, the Bethlehem Steel Works plants in, well, in Bethlehem, which is right next door to Allentown, made some of the best steel in the world. Bethlehem steel was used, for instance, for the Empire State Building and the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and even in the reconstruction of the White House. You know, where our president lives.”

Danny, or maybe it was Mikey, turned his head to look up at Will as if he had been speaking Greek. “Uh-huh. Can I have some cotton candy? Some of the blue kind?”

“What? Oh, sure, no problem,” Will said, leading them all toward the kiosk displaying bags of pink and blue cotton candy. “I thought you said they’d ask,” he said quietly to Elizabeth. “I’ve got the whole story, mostly. Although I didn’t think I’d mention the part where the molten iron was poured into a long channel and then these forms sort of branched off all along the sides of the channel, and somebody decided the whole thing looked like a litter of piglets, you know, feeding from the mother sow. Pigs, iron—pig iron.”

“You were probably wiser not to get that involved,” Elizabeth said, clearly trying to hold back a smile but not succeeding. “You really looked up the definition of pig iron, and all that information about the steel plants? That was very sweet of you.”

He pulled out a ten-dollar bill to pay for two bags of cotton candy and got four ones back in change. At least somebody was operating on a pretty hefty profit margin these days. “But not entirely helpful. I couldn’t find anything about how pig iron got turned around into iron pig, and I still sure as hell don’t know why anyone would name a baseball team the IronPigs.”

“Well, I’m beginning to think it’s rather cute. And you have to admit he’s a pretty ferocious-looking pig. Oh, look, they have a store. Is there time for me to take a look around before the game starts?”

“If you let me stay out here and wait for you, sure,” he told her, already eyeing the line in front of the beer stand. “Would you like me to get you something to drink?”

“Thank you, yes. I’ll have a lemonade if they have any. And apple juice or something for the boys? It might help wash some of that sugar off their teeth.”

“You’ve got it,” he told her, looking at the boys, who were both already sticky with cotton candy, their fingers, cheeks and definitely their tongues turning a deep shade of blue. “Uh, I shouldn’t have let them have that, should I?”

“Cotton candy wouldn’t have been my first choice, no. But they both ate all of their supper, so it’s all right. At least they’re not asking to go home. But you know what? I don’t think I should take them into the store while they’re all sticky like that, do you? Could you watch them for me? I want to get them each something with the pig on it.”

Panic, swift and fairly terrible, kicked Will in the midsection. He suddenly remembered why he’d always made it a point to never date women with children. “Me? Watch them? Oh,” he said, attempting to look, if not fatherly, then at least reasonably competent. “Sure, no problem.”

“Thank you,” she said, rummaging in her purse. “Here’s some wet wipes in case they finish their cotton candy.” Elizabeth’s smile strangely made his sacrifice seem worth the effort, and he held out his hand as he mutely accepted the wrapped packets. He then watched her disappear into the crowd milling along the walkway behind the right field seats, feeling only slightly desperate.

“Okay, boys, let’s go get Coach a nice cold one.”

“A cold what? Can we have one, too? Where’s Mom?” one of them asked, the one who had somehow gotten cotton candy on his elbow. How the hell did you get cotton candy on an elbow?

“You’ve got to be Mikey, right?”

“Yeah. So where’s my mom?”

“She went to buy you guys some Pigs stuff. She’ll be right back.” So please don’t cry.

“Cool,” Mikey said, licking his fingers. “I’m thirsty. Hey, Danny, are you thirsty?”

Danny, who had wandered off without Will realizing he was gone, walked back to them wiping his hands together after tossing the empty plastic bag in a garbage can. At least they were … trained. “Sure. I saw a kid with a hot dog. We could get hot dogs. Or maybe pizza? I saw some pizza, too.”

Will was beginning to sense that Elizabeth’s sons were going to eat their way through their first experience at a baseball game.

“Here, hold out your hands,” he told them, ripping open one of the packets. With memories of his mother scrubbing at his sticky face and hands with a washcloth, he started by wiping their faces and then opened two more packets and gave them each a wet towelette so they could clean their own hands. He reserved the last packet for himself, to clean himself up after cleaning them up.

“Will? Will Hollingswood? Is there something I should know?”

Will shut his eyes for a moment, recognizing the voice, knowing who would be standing behind him when he turned around.

“Hi, Kay,” he said grabbing the used towelettes the twins were shoving at him and stuffing them in his pocket before turning to look at the tall, stunningly beautiful brunette. “I didn’t know you liked the Pigs.”

“Well, then that makes us even. I didn’t know you had children.”

“Very funny. They’re not mine, Kay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Okay, not so funny this time. Kay, look, I’m sorry I didn’t call you, but it’s been a hell—” he shot a quick look at the twins, who weren’t really paying attention, thank God “—a heck of a week.”

“Yes, I heard about The Hammer. Are these two of your little baseball team children?”

“They’ve never seen a baseball game,” Will answered, going into lawyer mode. Tell the truth while saying nothing.

“And the entire team is here somewhere? You’re really taking this punishment seriously, aren’t you? Or maybe just trying to score brownie points with The Hammer, which wouldn’t be a bad idea. You really were out of line, Will, you know.”

“So says the assistant district attorney. If you’d been sitting at the defense table, you would have objected, too.”

Kay shrugged her bare shoulders. She was dressed in a sort of tube top that didn’t quite reach her waist, and a miniscule tan skirt whose length only barely passed the public decency test. It was like there were two Kays, the buttoned-down prosecutor in the courtroom and the sensual, sexual shark everywhere else. He should know.

And he needed her gone before Elizabeth got back.

Besides, the twins were now running in circles in a small cleared spot near the beer stand, chasing each other and nearly bumping into people, including a guy built like a Mack truck and carrying a full tray of beers. He didn’t look like the kind of guy who’d just laugh and say “boys will be boys” if the tray hit the ground.

“I’ve got to go, Kay,” he told her, pointing to the twins.

But he’d left it too late, because here came Elizabeth toward him, carrying a large plastic bag with the image of an IronPig on it.

“Danny! Mikey! Get over here.”

The twins stopped running and raced to their mother, each of them grabbing for the bag. She pulled out a pink baseball hat with the IronPigs logo on it and then handed the bag to her sons. “You each have the same thing, so there’s no reason to kill yourselves trying to see.”

Then she looked at Will. And saw Kay.

“I’m sorry I took so long, Will. There was a line at the register. Hello,” she said to Kay.

Will didn’t physically step between the two women, but he did think about it. “Elizabeth Carstairs—Assistant District Attorney Kay Quinlan.”

“Oh, how formal, Will,” Kay said, extending her hand. “Outside the courtroom, I’m just Kay. Are these two adorable boys your sons?”

“Only mostly adorable, but yes, they’re mine.”

Will grabbed the twins and stood them in front of him, his hands on their shoulders. Not that he needed a shield from either woman. “Mikey, Danny, meet Assist—that is, meet Ms. Quinlan.”

The boys mumbled something that sounded vaguely like a greeting and then went back to their new possessions, matching baseball caps and a pair of tan canvas-covered stuffed dogs sporting blue bandannas with the IronPigs logo on them.

Elizabeth must have seen him looking at the dogs. “They’re autograph hounds. I thought if I could interest the boys in the players that they’d also become more interested in the game. The salesgirl told me the players often sign autographs before and after the games. Is that all right? Oh,” she added, reaching into her purse, “I also got them a set of trading cards with the players’ photographs on them. Although the roster—roster, right?—isn’t complete anymore because players are always coming and going. Some of them have gone up to the big show already this year.”

“The big show?” Will grinned at Elizabeth’s earnest expression. “You mean, the big leagues, up with the Phillies.”

“If you say so. She just said the big show. I’m sorry, Kay. This is all new to me—and to the boys. Will has been kind enough to help explain the game to them now that they’re on a team.”

“So they are on your team?” Kay asked, one perfect eyebrow arched. “The one that only came into existence in the last few days? My, my, William, you don’t let any grass grow, do you?”

“Excuse me,” Elizabeth said, taking Mikey’s hand, probably knowing that where one twin went the other followed. “I think Mikey would like a hot dog. We’ll be right over there, Will. Kay? So nice meeting you.”

Will waited until Elizabeth and the boys were standing at the back of the line at the hot dog stand and then turned back to glare at Kay. “You had to do that?”

“Probably not. She seems like a nice woman. Let me guess. Newly divorced?”

“Widowed.”

“Even worse. Shame on you. Well, at least now she’s been warned, hasn’t she? When are you going to make your move, Slick?”

“I’m not making a move, Kay.”

“Sure you are. And the sooner you make it, the sooner you’ll be back in the pool. Call me.”

“I’m not making any—Oh, the hell with it,” he said as Kay turned away, heading for the beer kiosk.

He stood where he was for a few moments, his thirst for a beer gone, and wondered how he was going to explain Kay to Elizabeth. She’s nobody important, just someone I sleep with once in a while when we’re both bored? No, that wasn’t going to cut it. Did he have to say anything at all? Probably not, at least not from the way Elizabeth had looked at him before taking the boys to the hot dog stand.

How the hell had he gotten into this mess? Okay, so he knew how he’d gotten into the mess. He should never have tried to set Chessie up with somebody, especially with anal-retentive estate lawyer Bob Irving. Payback was a bitch, but what was fair was fair. And the idea had seemed simple enough. Show the girl a good time, Chessie said. Flirt with her, make her feel feminine, desirable. Remind her she’s still young—and all that crap.

Sure. Great plan.

Then have her standing there all fresh-cheeked and vulnerable, with her mommy-clothes yellow blouse and knee-length denim skirt and her silly pink IronPigs baseball cap on, and two cute but definitely not disposable kids with her, and introduce her to the sleek, sensual, übersophisticated, smart-mouthed Kay Quinlan.

That ought to help Elizabeth come out of her shell, or wherever the hell place it was that Chessie seemed to think she needed to get out of. Not.

Then again, who needed this? Not him. He didn’t like kids, didn’t know how to relate to them. Cleaning off sticky faces definitely wasn’t a turn-on. Nor was trying to romance a woman whose kids kept getting in the way.

He looked over at the hot dog stand to see that the boys were now munching happily as Elizabeth squeezed mustard on her own napkin-wrapped hot dog. They were kind of cute kids, though. Maybe they needed a haircut. All those curls on boys old enough to be swinging a baseball bat? He’d be surprised if they weren’t teased in school. But a woman raising her boys alone maybe wouldn’t know the little ins and outs of boy stuff. The kids could have a problem.

“Nah. Mikey would sock anyone who teased him,” Will told himself quietly. “And Danny would talk the rest of them to death.”

Will frowned. How did he know that? He’d only been with the twins for a couple of hours that morning. But he was already beginning to be able to tell them apart just by their mannerisms, the way they talked, the words each of them used. The way Danny played his mother like a fine Stradivarius, the way Mikey couldn’t seem to stand still for more than five seconds at a time.

The blare of the loudspeaker on a nearby pole alerted Will that the team was taking the field, snapping him out of thoughts that weren’t making him all that happy anyway.

He walked over to Elizabeth and told her it was time to take their seats. They filed into the box in the third row behind the dugout just as it was time to stand for the national anthem. Elizabeth yanked Danny’s baseball cap off just as Will was doing the same for Mikey—their nearly synchronized movements seeming so natural to him and maybe even satisfying. Elizabeth smiled at him in thanks for his help, and he suddenly had a niggling feeling that, although he was the only one who hadn’t had anything to eat yet tonight, he’d maybe just bitten off more than he could chew.

“I still can’t believe they sell turkey legs at a ballpark,” Elizabeth said as Will eased his car into the line of traffic leaving the ballpark. She felt so comfortable with him now that it was difficult to believe she’d been nervous and vacillating up until the moment he’d picked them up for the game.

“I still can’t believe Mikey ate one,” he told her, waving his arm out the window to thank the trucker who’d let him in line. “Plus the slice of pizza and the snow cone.”

“And the hot pretzel—although, to be fair, you ate at least half of it,” Elizabeth told him, taking off her baseball cap and running her hand through her curls. “And we won. You do realize that now the boys will expect fireworks if their team wins a game.”

“We don’t keep score, remember?”

“… four … five … hey, Mom, I’ve got six autographs,” Danny called out from the backseat. “And Mikey got seven. But we can get more next time, right?”

“Yeah, Mom. Next time. When are we going again? I love the Pigs. Oink! Oink!”

Elizabeth and Will exchanged looks. “Methinks you’ve created a pair of monsters, Coach. I don’t know how much they understand now about baseball, but they certainly understand all that food and getting autographs.”

They were free of the parking lot now, and Will deliberately turned left as most of the traffic was turning right. The trip home might be longer this way, he told Elizabeth, but at least they wouldn’t be sitting in traffic for the next quarter hour.

“No problem. I told you, I have season tickets. But I’m afraid the team leaves for a road trip tomorrow morning. A road trip, guys, means that they’ll be playing their games in somebody else’s ballpark. They won’t be back here for another week or even longer.”

There were twin sighs of frustration from the backseat that were not matched by the occupants of the front seat.

“They’ll be fine,” Elizabeth assured him. “With luck, they’ll also both be asleep by the time we get back to the highway. We all really did have a wonderful time tonight, Will. Thank you.”

“Actually, thank you. That was a lot of fun, explaining the game to the boys. They asked some pretty good questions, too.”

“But I didn’t?”

He shot her a grin. “Oh, I don’t know. The one about why the players don’t wear dark pants so that they don’t get so dirty wasn’t too terrible.”

“They were wearing white, Will. Who plays in the dirt while wearing white? I pity whoever has to presoak all those uniforms.”

“But they’re the home team, Elizabeth. The home team wears white. It’s … tradition.”

“And it’s a tradition that would only last another three days if the team owners had to personally presoak the uniforms themselves,” she said firmly. “Don’t say anything. I know I’m being silly. I just couldn’t think of anything else to ask you. But I think I cheered at the right times.” She turned slightly in her seat and looked behind her. “Ah, out cold, the pair of them. And we didn’t even reach the highway yet.”

Worse, Elizabeth thought, with the twins asleep, and the subject of the baseball game pretty much worn out, now she had to find something to say to Will to keep the conversation going. She dredged her mind for a topic, being very careful to avoid the subject of the beautiful and clearly well-known-to-Will Kay.

Not that his relationship with the assistant district attorney had anything to do with her. Because she and Will weren’t on a date. You don’t take a pair of bottomless pit rowdy seven-year-olds with you on a date. Not a real date ….