Love in the Air (8 page)

“Sul,” Kay began, reached a hand out to him, but he caught it in midair.

“No, damn it, no. I don’t want you touching me, can’t you understand that?” His eyes were fierce again. “Can’t we call it even? I broke the rules and made—I took you to bed, and for that I’m sorry. But you broke a few yourself, didn’t you, sweetheart. You left me without so much as a goodbye.”

Near tears, Kay said breathlessly, “Oh, Sul, I didn’t want to, but you—”

He looked disgusted. “Sure, sure. You had no choice. I’m tired of reminiscing, Kay. I really have got work to do, so if you’ll just leave…”

Beaten, Kay slid from his desk. “Fine, you refuse to listen. I’ll not try to explain further, but do me a favor, will you?”

Sullivan looked down at her. Her face wore a pleading look that tore him apart. “What, Kay?” he said evenly.

“Can’t we put the past behind us? Won’t you be my friend, or if not a friend, at least will you stop hating me? I’ll leave you alone, Sullivan, but there are times we have to be together, you know that. Am I asking for the moon?”

Muscles tensing, black eyes softening, Sullivan, silently thinking he would give her the moon with a bow around it if it would make her love him the way he loved her, said softly, “No, Kay, you’re not. I’ve been a bastard, I know it, and I’m sorry. You’re right, the past is dead. There’s no reason we can’t get along like two responsible adults. Forgive me?”

“I’d forgive you anything,” she said. Sullivan felt his heart speed out of control.

Calmly he smiled. “You’re a good kid, Kay.”

“Sullivan,” she reminded him softly, “the kid you knew is gone. I’m a woman.”

“I stand corrected.” He grinned down at her.

Autumn came and with it the turning of the aspen. Kay was eager to drive up into the mountains to see nature’s glorious display, so when Sullivan informed her that she, Jeff and he had been engaged to broadcast live from a new condominium project up in the lovely little hamlet of Evergreen, Kay was delighted.

On a clear, perfect fall day near the end of September, Kay, wedged in between Sullivan and Jeff, rode in the rear seat of the Q102 remote rig up the winding road to Evergreen. The chief engineer was at the wheel. Blazing color as far as the eye could see made Kay smile and point. She felt wonderfully alive and happy to be back in her home state.

“How are your parents liking Florida?” Jeff sipped from a mug of coffee.

“Mom loves it, Dad misses Colorado,” Kay said, her eyes still darting out the windows to look at the beauty surrounding them. “I think if they hadn’t sold their home here, he’d consider moving back.”

“Nope,” Jeff said resolutely, “they wouldn’t.”

“Why do you say that?” Kay looked at him, puzzled.

“You just said, ‘Mom loves Florida.’ Don’t women always get their way?” His eyes twinkled and Kay poked him in the ribs with an elbow. She turned back to look out once more.

“Oh, there,” she said, smiling happily, “a doe. A baby doe.” She leaned across Sullivan to get a better look. “See, isn’t it adorable?” Realizing suddenly that she was draping herself across him, Kay looked up at his face and said hastily, “I’m sorry I…”

To her shocked amazement, he grinned easily and said, “The doe is cute. So vulnerable.”

“Yes,” Kay agreed, and straightened.

The remote broadcast at the site of the new half-timbered condos went well. The three air personalities, doing a live radio remote from inside the compact studio on wheels, drew a big crowd. There was never a minute when admiring fans weren’t standing in front of the glass-enclosed truck, waving to the three. The real-estate promoters were delighted. Lookers turned out en masse and by the time the broadcast ended at two in the afternoon, several contracts had been written up on new, expensive condos.

After the sign off Jeff, dressed in his favorite garb—frayed cutoffs, a white sweatshirt and a black-billed cap with the gold braid denoting captain—suggested they have lunch before driving back down to Denver. Sullivan and Kay, both starving, quickly agreed.

At a sunny sidewalk café in the artsy little community, Kay, Sullivan and Jeff sat at a small table covered with a red-checkered cloth. Full and lazy after eating huge corned-beef sandwiches and plates of potato salad, the three lounged listlessly in the near-deserted little outdoor restaurant, relaxed, content, enjoying the beautiful autumn day.

Kay, stealing glances at Sullivan, smiled as he told Jeff excitedly of his plans for future promotions. His ebony hair was disheveled and gleaming in the afternoon sun, his navy windbreaker unzipped, revealing a close-fitting shirt of canary yellow. He looked boyishly handsome as he moved his arms around, describing how he envisioned the Columbus Day parade. Kay hardly heard his plans. She was too busy drinking in his masculine beauty, the way his hands moved through the air as he talked, the fire flashing in the black eyes, the mobile mouth stretched into a grin, exposing dazzling white teeth in a dark, handsome face.

“Exactly.” Sullivan pounded the table for emphasis and reached out for another cigarette. He felt in his pocket for a match. “Give me a light, will you, Jeff?”

Jeff, absently turning a match pack over and over in his right hand, flipped it to Sullivan. “By the way—” Jeff’s eyes began to twinkle with mischief “—what ever happened to that gold lighter you always carried? You lose it?” Jeff could hardly suppress his teasing laughter. He had a very good idea what had happened to the lighter his old friend had valued for so long.

Kay watched as steady brown hands lit the cigarette and flipped the matches back to Jeff. Sullivan, his face devoid of expression, said calmly, “A long time ago.”

Sullivan’s changed attitude made life more pleasant for Kay. And for everyone else who came in contact with him. Kay surmised he’d finally decided to let bygones be bygones. He was like the Sullivan she’d met all those years ago: congenial, patient, but holding her at arm’s length.

Kay became relaxed around him and hurried in and out of his office with ideas just as she’d done when she was a starry-eyed kid eager for advice and praise from her knowledgeable mentor. Sullivan was never too busy to listen, to make suggestions, to offer help.

Kay, working late on Friday evening, swiveled around in her chair, rubbed her tired eyes and decided it was time to leave. Rapidly cleaning off her desk, she locked her office and started toward the lobby. At the end of the corridor, Sullivan’s door stood open, though there were no lights burning inside.

She started grinning.

Without qualms, she strolled into his office, tossed her handbag onto the leather couch and looked up at the high chinning bar. She’d been dying to try it since the day she returned. She could recall so vividly Sullivan showing her how to chin herself and the two of them breaking up with laughter over her awkwardness. When finally she’d managed the feat, she’d been rewarded with warm, loving kisses from the laughing man standing below her.

Kay kicked off her shoes, smoothed her hands on the skirt of her dove-gray dress and walked to the bar. Tossing back her head, she lifted her arms high in the air toward the steel cylinder. Biting her lip, she lunged up and her fingertips touched the shiny bar. Standing on tiptoe, Kay stretched as high as possible and managed after a couple of failed attempts to wrap her fingers tightly around the bar. She did it underhanded, just as she’d been instructed.

With a little gasp of victory, she laboriously lifted herself up until she was able to press her lifted chin over the cylinder. Face flushed, stockinged feet swinging in midair, Kay giggled happily. Deep male laughter joined tinkling female laughter.

Startled, Kay’s laughter subsided as her surprised gaze went to the man lounging in the doorway. “Very good.” Sullivan chuckled and started toward her.

Kay, clinging to the bar, froze, speechless, and watched him nearing her. He stopped directly in front of her and slowly wrapped his long arms around her hips. “Sullivan, I can get down by—”

“Release the bar, Kay,” he said, the warm smile still on his upturned face.

Kay did. She moved her chin back and uncurled her fingers, letting her hands go to the tops of Sullivan’s wide shoulders. Laughing again, she said, “Guess it’s a good thing you came by. I might have hung up there all night.”

“Yeah,” he said softly. For a time he held her there, his arms folded tightly beneath her bottom. Kay, her pelvis resting against his hard chest, hands on his shoulders, saw the laughter leaving the dark eyes.

Slowly, carefully, Sullivan let her slide downward, never releasing his hold on her. Their eyes locked. She felt her body moving sinuously down his, felt the tight skirt sliding up, up, even as she slid down. Neither spoke. Her stockinged feet were touching the floor now, but her hands remained on his shoulders and his hands were on her hips. They stood pressed closely together, the hem of her skirt bunched up against his hard thighs.

They stood in the rapidly darkening room, high above the city, looking at each other, neither daring to breathe, to move. Senses reeling, Kay was acutely aware of the warm, granite-hard body touching hers from chest to toes. The roughness of the denim encasing his long, muscular legs was pleasantly ticklish to her thighs, which were protected only by silky pantyhose.

Instinctively pressing closer to his tall, powerful body, Kay gloried in the feel of his virile masculinity. When she opened her eyes to look at him once more, his dark gaze had gone to her hair. A big hand moved up to cradle her head tenderly while his eyes eagerly caressed the long, shiny hair.

“You know,” he said in that velvet voice that warmed her so, “Jeff’s wrong.”

Kay licked dry lips with the tip of her tongue. “About what?”

That intense black gaze still on her hair, he said musingly, “He says your hair looks like a Christmas angel, but it doesn’t.” Long fingers gently raked through silky locks. “It’s more like captured moonlight, shimmering and silvery and breathtaking.” His eyes slid back to hers and his head slowly descended. Kay sighed. Sullivan softly kissed the left corner of Kay’s mouth.

His lips lifted immediately from hers. Kay felt his hands move. She waited. Her lips parted expectantly, her hands tightened on his shoulders, her pulse raced with anticipation.

Sullivan gently set her back a step and, looking only at her upturned face, he chivalrously lowered her skirt down over her thighs. Kay’s fingers gripped at his neck and she said, “But, Sul, please don’t…”

“I don’t intend to,” he said, plucking her fingers from his neck. “But I can’t stand here with you in my arms and your dress pushed up to your gorgeous bottom without wanting to.” He smiled at her, turned and strolled casually away. “Night, Kay,” he said over his shoulder and left a stunned Kay looking after him. Trembling with need, Kay jammed a hand to her mouth to quell the sobs of frustration threatening to erupt from her tight throat.

Through the darkened reception area, Sullivan Ward took long strides, anxious to get outside and away from the silver-haired temptation. Heart pounding, jaw flexing, abdomen tautened and aching, Sullivan gulped at the fresh night air when he stepped outside. Groaning with relief when he reached his gray Mercedes, Sullivan couldn’t resist. He tilted his dark head back and looked up, counting the windows across to the corner office where he’d left her.

A shudder shook his long, lean body and he jerked open the car door, lunged into the seat and sped away as though a modern-day Lorelei was seductively urging him to the fatal rocks.

“Kay.” It was Janelle Davis’s soft voice. “If you aren’t too busy, could I come by your office and speak to you about your costume for the Columbus Day parade?”

It was shortly before noon on Monday. “Of course you can, Janelle. In fact, I’m getting hungry. Why don’t you and I grab a salad or a sandwich together?”

“Sure, all right. That would be nice,” Janelle responded.

Half an hour later the two women sat at the Café Promenade in Larimer Square, the beautifully restored older part of downtown Denver. A favorite of the tourists, historic Larimer Square gave the visitor a feel of Denver’s colorful past. Kay loved the place.

Janelle Davis daintily sliced a piece of cheese on the carved cheese board, took a tiny bite, smiled and said, “Just delicious.”

Kay sipped her wine and nodded. “Sullivan tells me the theme of this year’s parade is to be the old west.”

“Yes, I think it will be great fun.” Janelle smiled and confided, “Sullivan’s going to ride a beautiful black horse.”

“Good Lord.” Kay’s eyes clouded. “I won’t be expected to ride, will I?”

“Oh, no, certainly not. Sullivan said you’ll ride on the Q102 float.”

“Whew.” Kay grinned. “That’s a load off. I’m scared to death of horses.”

“Yes, I know.”

“You do?” Kay’s silver brows lifted.

“Well, yes, Sullivan mentioned it. He also mentioned what he’d like you to wear in the parade.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, he said he thought it would be appropriate if you’d be the schoolmarm.”

“No.”

“No?” Janelle patted at her mouth with a linen napkin, her gray eyes filled with surprise.

“No, Janelle, I don’t want to dress like a schoolmarm; that would be as dull as dishwater.” Kay smiled. “My crafty partner. He’s to make a grand, dashing figure atop a coal-black stallion while little Miss Clark sits on a float, hands folded in her lap, dressed in a white blouse, long skirt and hair in a bun at the back of her head.”

“I don’t see it that way, Kay, but perhaps, if you’d like, you could dress up as Annie Oakley.” Janelle looked at Kay expectantly.

“Was Annie Oakley Sullivan’s idea, too?”

Janelle’s face reddened. “Yes. He said you might not like the schoolmarm idea, so…”

“He’s so right, nor do I intend to be Annie Oakley. Order me a costume of a hurdy-gurdy girl. You know, a dance-hall dress. I’d like a flamboyant eye-catching satin outfit with mesh hose and a feathered hat and…What? What’s wrong?”

Janelle, an expression of displeasure on her face, was shaking her head. “Kay, you just can’t do that.”

“Oh, yes, I can.” Kay leaned forward. “Look, Janelle, I may work for Sullivan, but I’m no child, to be told what I can and cannot do. Did Sullivan tell the rest of the air personalities what to wear?”