Handful of Dreams (27 page)

Susan winced, wondering what to do. There was a moving sidewalk in front of her. She rushed to it, grimacing each time her foot hit the ground. She assumed the sidewalk would take her to the next shuttle stop, but it didn’t. She’d never been in the Atlanta airport before; it was immense.

“Oh, hell!” She muttered aloud, drawing a dour look from a pristine little old lady who happened to be walking by.

“Sorry!” Susan smiled weakly, then grew irritated with herself. Anyone with a grain of sense would get off an airplane and head for the baggage claim. If she went there, she decided, she would certainly find David.

It sounded perfect. It sounded fine, logical, and intelligent. Except that David wasn’t there. She found her bags and tugged them toward the exit. She glanced at the clock on the wall and realized that she had been there over half an hour.

It was then that David appeared; his features more severe and dark than any storm she’d ever seen hit the Maine coastline.

“Where the hell have you been! Why didn’t you get on the shuttle? I hope you realize that we haven’t a prayer in hell of reaching that newspaper on time! And you’re due at a bookstore on Peachtree in less than an hour! Why didn’t you stay put?”

“Stay put? Any idiot would go for their luggage.”

“Dammit, I’ve been over the entire length of this airport!”

“I did say
any
idiot, didn’t I?”

His coat was over his arm, his briefcase in his left hand. He used his right to spin her around, wave to a porter, and usher them both out into a dreary day. Susan cried out as his forcefulness made her ankle buckle again.

“I just told you how late we are! Is this all being done on purpose? What is—” He paused, eyes narrowing as he took in the pain in her eyes. “What’s wrong?” he asked quietly.

“My ankle!” she gasped out.

“Just now?”

“No, you imbecile!” Susan clenched her teeth together, fighting tears. “I hurt it in New York, and the way you’ve been dragging me around like a sack isn’t helping it at all!”

He hesitated. “Can you stand?”

“Yes! I can even walk—as long as you stop trying for the four-minute mile!”

He paused, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. The grip of his fingers on her arm eased. “I’ll have to reschedule the newspaper. We’ll go to the hotel and you can soak it.”

“No. I’ll be all right.”

“Susan, it’s not worth—”

“I will be all right!”

“Okay, we’ll try it. Our car should be here somewhere.”

He left her and returned a few moments later. A man with a rental agency cap on his head took her luggage while David took his own and helped her into a new Olds Supreme.

Susan had a feeling that this service was also especially for David Lane. Other people were entering shuttle buses to be driven to the rental agencies. Their car was awaiting them just like a pumpkin that had magically become a coach.

From that point on the day went exceptionally well. Susan was certain that it was because she had no more than five minutes to be near David alone. The book reporter on the newspaper was a lovely silver-haired woman who was an optimist; curious rather than interested in tearing anyone down. The employees in the bookstore were wonderfully gracious. There was an hour and a half gap between her session at the store and her five minutes on the evening news, but even that went smoothly because she sat in a cafe with a tea while David spent at least an hour on the phone to New York.

They had dinner with the southeastern sales manager and his wife, another very smooth event. Susan stayed in the kitchen, insisting on helping with the preparation and cleanup. After dinner she sipped amaretto, and by the time they were driving to the hotel, she was exhausted. Much too tired to argue.

Her room turned out to be a suite. Another change in honor of the publisher being on the tour, she was certain. There was a sitting room with a wet bar and two bedrooms. She was ready to go into her room and fall into bed, but when the bellboy left, David propelled her to the sofa despite her very verbal outrage.

“I ordered some epsom salts for your ankle,” he replied impatiently. “Let it soak or you’ll be sorry in the morning.”

Giving up, Susan leaned back on the sofa, watching him with narrowed eyes. He pulled off his jacket and played with the television, paying her little attention. A few seconds later room service appeared with a bucket. David tipped the boy and he left.

David knelt down by her, pulling off her shoe. “I can get it myself,” Susan protested.

“Would you quit behaving like such an idiot?” His fingers were over her nyloned flesh, and she shivered miserably.

“May I please get my stockings myself?” she asked primly. His eyes fell on her, a smoky blue, suddenly soft with amusement.

“Why, most certainly,” he told her graciously.

“Well, you can turn around, or I can hobble into the bedroom.”

Chuckling softly, he swiveled on his knee to stare at the television. Susan was in such a hurry to shed her panty hose that she tripped over the half on, half off nylon and fell into his shoulders. He straightened her, a half smile curving his mouth, and pulled the nylons the rest of the way off, gently setting her foot and ankle into the tub of water.

“Any better?” he asked a little huskily.

His shirt was open at the throat and his hair was slightly tousled over his forehead, but his cheeks still appeared freshly shaven. There was a subtle, pleasant aroma of aftershave lingering about him. His lips remained just slightly curved, mocking or amused, and the pulse at his throat seemed to touch an answering beat somewhere inside her.

She looked away from him quickly. “Yes.”

“Good.”

He slipped off his shoes, picked up his briefcase, sat at the end of the sofa, and, quite comfortable, stretched his legs out over the coffee table.

He started going over the next day’s schedule.

“We’ll have coffee up here first thing; it’s another early flight. Nine-fifteen to Detroit. Noon is lunch with the regional sales manager, two-thirty is Croft’s Books, and—”

“The evening is free!” Susan said, interrupting him a little defiantly. He glanced at her questioningly, that smile still in place, and she found herself flushing. “I asked your publicity department,” she said a little defiantly. “I have a cousin in Windsor, and I’m meeting her for dinner.”

“Ah, yes, the Canadian cousin,” he murmured, and Susan remembered that she had mentioned Madeline once. She was somewhat surprised that he remembered.

“It is all right?”

“Sure,” he said smoothly, “but you didn’t let me finish. Four-thirty is Tacky Tina. She’s going to hit at you for everything—subtly. She’ll knock your science fiction as being pure trash for illiterates, and she’ll sweetly try to hang you. Think you can handle her?”

Susan couldn’t help but laugh. After all, she’d been through the best of the “hangers,” David himself.

“I’ll be just fine,” she assured him. His eyes were still on her, and suddenly he seemed very close. Relaxed and comfortable, as if he could easily reach out and slide her down to his lap…

If he wished to.

“I’m sorry, Susan,” he said softly.

“For?”

“Snapping at you today. You were right—luggage was the most logical place to go.” He grimaced ruefully, and she was suddenly very desperate to get away from him. An answer she couldn’t give was at the tip of her tongue.

She wanted to tell him that she was sorry, too, for many, many things. For the way they met, for the way she led him to believe circumstantial evidence. She was sorry that they couldn’t seem to start over, sorry that she was deceiving him right now. They were going to be parents, and she couldn’t tell him because it would be so wrong for him to feel guilty or responsible. A relationship couldn’t be forced for such a reason; there either was one or there wasn’t. She would love him to fall in love with her, could so easily love him, even if he did have a rotten temper and really didn’t trust women for some elusive reason….

“The water has gotten stone cold,” she said a little desperately, noting that his eyes were still very tender as he looked at her. She felt a bit like panicking. She wasn’t ready if he meant to touch her. She wasn’t sure about anything.

“Could I please go to bed now?”

“Of course.” He was up, bringing her a towel for her foot. She barely dried it before leaping up, desperate to rush into her own room and slam the door against him.

“Good night, Susan,” he called softly.

“Good night.”

Her heart leapt and sped when she had closed the door. She wondered if he would knock, if he would try to enter.

He didn’t. She stripped off her clothes and fell to the bed, so exhausted that she quickly drifted off. And right before sleep claimed her, she realized that she was smiling.

Maybe there was hope.

S
HE DIDN’T LOOK QUITE
so bad, Susan decided, staring at her reflection in the mirror. The hollows beneath her eyes had faded along with the shadows. It was amazing what a night of sleep could do.

Not to mention a change in attitude.

She gripped the sink for a minute, closing her eyes. She couldn’t believe that there had been no one else from Lane Publishing to send on a tour. Yes, the book was important to him, and maybe he had been a bit frightened that she might say or do something in an interview that would reflect badly on the last year of his father’s life, but if that had been his fear, he wouldn’t have arranged for the tour at all.

Which meant that he was with her because he wanted to be?

“Susan?”

She opened her eyes quickly, left the bathroom, and heard him tapping at the bedroom door.

“Coffee’s here. Ready?”

“Yes. All set and packed.”

She hesitated just a second, smoothing down her skirt and twirling before the dresser mirror one last time. She would do. It was her most sophisticated outfit; a red skirt suit with a white tailored blouse, slim necktie, red belt, and daringly angled hat. It should have all clashed with her hair, but it didn’t at all; it brought out the dark highlights.

And she felt good! Daring and reckless and feminine. Ready to fly into the battle zone and do deadly combat with Tacky Tina.

She picked up a pair of soft kid gloves as she entered the living room. David, with his customary élan, was leaned against the window, hands in his pockets, a slightly brooding expression on his face. He looked like something out of
GQ
, and Susan smiled. If nothing else, they looked like a perfect couple.

He turned to her, raised his brows, grinned, and slowly assessed her from head to toe. She spun around for him, returning a slightly haughty gaze, then laughing delightedly because she liked the glint in his eyes and wondered if her own mirrored it.

“Shall I handle Tacky Tina, do you think?” she asked pertly.

“Beyond a doubt, Miss Anderson. Beyond a doubt.”

He left the window to bring her a cup of coffee, already poured and steaming hot. He lingered near her, hands in his pockets.

“And you smell good too. It’s a shame they can’t get a whiff of that over the television tube.”

“Why, Mr. Lane, thank you. And may I return the compliment? You smell…divine.”

They were flirting, she realized. Like strangers who had just met, were attracted, and getting their toes wet.

He moved away from her, stacking things into his briefcase and closing it. “It’s too bad we can’t have breakfast up here,” he muttered regretfully. “But the porter’s already on the way up, and”—he hesitated, shooting her a warning glance—“I really do hate them slamming the door behind me on a plane before I’m on it.”

“It wasn’t my fault!” Susan protested. “I wasn’t driving, remember? You had a car pick me up, and the traffic was deadly. I wrecked my body to make it on time!”

A soft curl played at the corner of his lip. He paused, surveying her very slowly again. “Your body looks okay to me.”

“I’m talking about my ankle!”

He started to respond, but there was a rap at the door. The porter was there; they had to get to the airport, leave the car and keys, and get on the plane.

It was the first-class section again. David admitted a preference because of the length of his legs. “I feel like an accordion when I sit in the back,” he told her. “You really don’t mind, do you?”

She looked at him, sipping tea that morning, and shook her head. “I’m willing to suffer for professionalism, Mr. Lane.”

They really didn’t speak that much on the plane. David read the paper again; Susan did a crossword puzzle. But it was nice to have a comfortable silence between them. Toward the end of the flight David folded up his paper and pointed out the river separating Detroit from Windsor. He asked her casual questions about the beach house and wanted to know how Jud was doing out in his hunter’s lodge. With a little catch in her throat Susan cheerfully talked about Christmas, how pretty the pines had looked, coated in snow that had frozen over to glitter like panes of glass. She asked him about his Christmas; he evaded the question and told her that John and Erica seemed to be getting quite serious.

Despite some miserable drizzly weather, things began quite well in Detroit. Again the newspaper people were charming. The young man doing the interview had done a short piece for the previous day’s issue on Peter Lane—with speculation about the book—so her stint at the bookstore was marvelous. Lunch was a quickly grabbed sandwich between appointments. David spent time on the phone again, and Susan bought a horror novel to entertain herself during the in between moments and plane rides. She called Madeline, promising that she would be at the Cock’s Crow in Windsor by eight for dinner.

And then it was time for Tacky Tina’s show.

The “tacky,” Susan quickly realized, definitely had to do with the woman’s barbarous tongue, because appearance wise she was quite stunning. Her hair was so dark, it was almost black, and it was cut in a very contemporary pageboy. She was tall and lanky, dressed in the height of fashion in a beige silk dress that clung to her with a savvy negligence. She had a lovely smile, a low, cultured voice, and dark, dark eyes that carried a pure streak of either mischief or malice.