Something Different/Pepper's Way (10 page)

“What
are
you doing?”

“Reading poetry. You did say that the masquerade is tomorrow night, didn’t you?” She looked up from her cross-legged position on the floor to peer at Chase over the tops of her study glasses.

“Tomorrow night it is.” He slid his hands into the pockets of his jeans and leaned against the bookcase, gazing down at her with a smile that looked as if it were trying hard to hide. “Do your murderers read poetry to their victims at the eleventh hour?” he asked gravely.

Gypsy pushed the glasses back up her nose. “Are you kidding?” She narrowed her eyes expressively. “My murderers stalk their victims on cloven hooves.”

“Mmm. Then why are you reading poetry?”

“I like poetry, peasant.”

“I beg your pardon, I’m sure.”

Gypsy pulled off the glasses and waved them magnanimously. “You’re forgiven.”

“Thank you. There’s another pair on top of your head.”

“What?”

“Another pair of glasses.”

That explained his trying-not-to-smile expression, Gypsy thought. She pulled off the second pair and set them absently on the bottom shelf of the bookcase.

“Does it take two pairs for you to read poetry?” he asked politely.

“Never mind.”

He went on conversationally. “I’ve counted eight pairs of glasses scattered throughout this house. All in strange places. Like the pair I found in the refrigerator yesterday.”

“I wonder why I put them in there?” Gypsy murmured, more to herself than to him.

“I haven’t the faintest idea, and I don’t think I want to know.”

“Smart man.”

“But what I
would
like to know”—he pointed at the corner of her desk, where a new acquisition was sitting—“is why you got
that
during your trip into Portland.”

That
was a statue of an eleven-inch-tall Buddha with a clock in its stomach. A broken clock.

Gypsy ran her fingers through her black curls and gave him a harassed look. “I asked myself that.
What do you want with a Buddha with a clock in his tummy?
No answer. I must have been possessed. There was a garage sale, and somehow or other… Anyway I paid five bucks for it.” She shook her head darkly.

Chase reached down and pulled her to her feet. He removed the glasses from her hand and tossed them lightly onto the desk. Then he caught her in a tight bear hug. “Gypsy,” he said whimsically, “I can’t tell you what a delight you are to me.”

She pulled back far enough to look up at him blankly. “Because I bought a Buddha?”

He laughed. “No, because you’re you. I thought we’d cook out tonight; how do you like your steaks?”

“Cooked.” Gypsy made no effort to disentangle herself from his embrace.

“There goes that sharp tongue again, Gypsy mine. You shouldn’t sass your elders; you’re liable to get paddled.”

“Are you my elder? I didn’t know.”

“I’m thirty-two, brat.”

“Methuselah.”

He swatted her jean-clad bottom lightly. “How do you like your steak?”

“Well done. And stop hitting me!”

“It’ll teach you not to sass me.” Chase was unrepentant.

“I’ll sic Bucephalus on you!” she threatened.

“I’ve been slipping him snacks for days now; that dog loves me like a brother.”

Gypsy pushed against his chest, curiously pleased when she couldn’t budge him. “Leave! People over thirty can’t be trusted.”

“That slogan went out of style years ago.”

“Only because the people saying it reached thirty.”

“Are you sassing me again?” he demanded.

“For all I’m worth.”

He bent his head and kissed her suddenly. But it wasn’t a gentle kiss. It was demanding, probing, possessive, and just short of violent. He kissed her as though he wanted— needed—to brand her as his for all time. The kiss lasted for brief seconds only, but Gypsy felt as though every nerve in her body had been lanced with sheer electricity.

Chase stared down at her. “Are you through sassing?” he asked hoarsely.

Gypsy nodded mutely, wondering dimly when she was going to start breathing again.

“Good.” He lowered her gently to her former position on the floor. “You finish reading your poetry. I’ll yell when I get the grill going.”

She nodded again, and watched him turn away. When he’d gone, she gazed blindly down until a line of Donne’s jumped out at her from the open book before her on the carpet. “Take me to you, imprison me….”

Why did it suddenly make her ache inside?

He called again that night, and their conversation took a turning point. No longer seductively suggestive, it was filled with gentle whimsy.

It was somehow easier to open up to a husky voice on the telephone, easier to admit to and show vulnerability. Alone in her bedroom, lying in the darkness, she could be the sensitive woman who mourned the loss of heroes….

“I’ve missed you,” he breathed softly. “The sound of your voice haunts me, and yet I can’t hear enough of it.”

“You don’t know me,” she murmured in reply.

“‘Twice or thrice had I loved thee, before I knew thy face or name,’” he quoted tenderly.

Gypsy smiled into the darkness. He’d read Donne as well. “You don’t know me,” she repeated.

“Then tell me what I should know.”

“I don’t…” Her voice trailed away.

“Do you love rainbows?” he asked gently.

She smiled. “Yes.”

“And the sound of rain in the morning?”

“Yes.”

“Do you wish on stars?”

“I do now,” she whispered, tears springing to her eyes.

“Then I know all that I should know,” he said.

“Do you believe in unicorns?” she asked him.

“I do now,” he replied.

“And life on other worlds?”

“Yes.”

“And…heroes?”

“And heroes.”

“I don’t think you’re real,” she told him with a shaky laugh.

“I’m real, my love. Flesh and bone, heart and mind… and soul. And my soul aches for you.”

Gypsy felt her heart stop for a moment and then pound on. What could she say to that? What could she possibly say? But he didn’t expect a response. “Sleep well, my love. And dream of me.” She did.

It took Gypsy two hours to get into her costume late the next afternoon. She wasn’t really accustomed to dresses of any kind, and even less to dresses fastened with tiny hooks and eyes, and beneath which were rather puzzling undergarments.

She had decided to stretch a point with the costume; otherwise, she’d have had to wear something like calico if she wanted to be authentic. And since she had a hunch about Chase’s costume, she felt free to stretch a point. Besides—
Old West
covered a lot of territory.

Gypsy giggled over the shiftlike garment and the frilly bloomers, but the corset presented a problem. She had a small waist, but she’d been astonished at how much smaller it appeared after the assistant at the costume shop had laced her up in the corset. Being Gypsy, she’d had the corset included without a single thought as to who would lace her up at home.

She finally put it on backward, laced it up, and then spent a few comical moments holding her breath and tugging. With the strings finally tied in a fierce knot, she collapsed on her bed, flushed and breathless.

No wonder the pictures of women in that era always looked so stiff, she thought. And no wonder genteel ladies were constantly swooning.

But once the dress was on, Gypsy understood why women had sacrificed comfort for the dictates of fashion.

The dress was black silk, and it rustled softly whenever she moved. Worn over a wide hoop—Gypsy had giggled for ten
minutes after seeing herself in shift, bloomers, corset, and hoop—it was low-cut and off-the-shoulder. The corset nipped in her waist to a tiny span, and lifted her breasts until it seemed that a deep breath would get her arrested. She wasn’t worried though; she could barely breathe anyway.

The dress was wicked for any era, and instantly branded her a scarlet woman in the era it pretended to belong to. The colorful splash of fake emeralds at her throat and dangling from her ears, however, loudly announced that she—or rather, her character—possessed wealth, and wealth could open doors even for scarlet women.

Gypsy had worked long and hard with her makeup, but was still faintly surprised to find that she had actually achieved a seductive look. The emeralds lent her gray eyes a green gleam, and the careful shading she’d done gave them a catlike slant. And the scrap of black silk that would serve as a mask only emphasized the seductive look.

“I look like a hussy,” she told Corsair, who was sitting companionably at the foot of her bed, watching her. He’d stopped constantly guarding his family since Chase had proved to be reasonable.

“Is this what’s called playing with fire, cat?” she asked him wryly.

Corsair yawned.

“Don’t let me keep you awake,” she begged politely.

By the time Chase knocked on the front door, Gypsy had donned the floor-length cloak and fastened it securely to hide the low neckline of her dress. Not that she was nervous about the cleavage, but there was no need to startle the man right off the bat, she decided mischievously.

Gypsy opened the door and gazed silently from the black-booted heels to the top of a Spanish-style hat. Her hunch had been right on target: He was dressed as Zorro.

“Are you going to run around tonight slashing
Z
’s in the woodwork?” she asked him solemnly.

“Only if someone maligns your honor,” he replied with equal solemnity and a deep bow.

She started to warn him that just about anyone would malign her honor once they got a good look at her dress, but decided to await developments.

“Black suits you,” he noted critically, head to one side as he studied her masked face. “As a matter of fact, you look beautiful. Why are your eyes green?”

Gypsy flicked a dangling earring with one finger. “It’s the emeralds. And thank you.”

“You’re welcome. It’s a long drive to Portland, so we’d better get started. Just as soon as you tell me where you left my car keys.”

“Car keys….”

It took Gypsy half an hour to locate the keys; she’d left them in the pocket of her jeans and had forgotten to return them to Chase. He waited patiently while she searched, but every time she passed him, he fingered the hilt of his sword and gave her a threatening look.

The sixty-some-odd-mile journey to Portland took less than an hour.

“Do you know what the speed limit is?”

“Of course, I know.”

“No wonder you killed Daisy.”

“Funny. Besides, it’s this damn sword; it keeps stabbing me in the foot.”

“You’re supposed to be wearing it on your
left
hip.”

“Why?”

“You’re right-handed.”

“Oh. Remind me to change it around when we get there.”

“Right. Are you sure you’ll be able to dance in that thing?”

“Of course I will.” There was a pause. “The couples dancing near us’ll have to watch their step though.”

The masquerade was being held in a huge recreation center on the outskirts of Portland. The charity involved was one for needy children. From the looks of the size of the crowd that had turned out, whatever goal had been set for this fund-raising event, it had been reached easily. Costumes were varied and ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous. Royalty from the Court of St. James vied with those of other European countries, and clashed with various fuzzy creatures from recent movies and assorted fairy-tale and nursery-rhyme characters. There was even one giant of a man who was dressed as Paul Bunyan, and kept wandering around asking if anybody’d seen his ox.

Refreshments had been set out along one wall, and the buzz and laughter of a hundred conversations filled the tremendous room. A small band of musicians tuned their instruments screechily in one corner.

Gypsy winced at a particularly discordant clash as Chase, standing behind her, removed her cloak and handed it over to the cloakroom attendant. “Are we supposed to be able to dance to that?” she asked wryly, turning to face him.

Chase’s mouth fell open.

Suddenly remembering her dress, Gypsy fought to hide her smile. “Didn’t know I was so well blessed, did you?” she asked him gravely.

His eyes lifted to her face, and he laughed. “Gypsy, you say the damnedest things!”

“What’s a little bluntness between friends?”

“Oh, I wholeheartedly approve. Of the bluntness—and the dress. Shall we check out the refreshments?”

“Yes. I’m dying of thirst, but I won’t be able to eat anything.”

“Why not?” He took her arm and began leading her toward the refreshments.

“I’ll tell you about it someday.” Her voice was rueful.

He looked at her curiously. “Now you’ve got me wondering.”

Gypsy thought of her afternoon’s struggle, and her lips twitched. “Never mind.”

“Gypsy…”

“Hang onto your sword, will you? You just stabbed that Louis in the shin.”

“I wondered why he was glaring at me.” Chase handed her a cup of punch with his free hand. “And don’t try to weasel out of it; why can’t you eat something?”

Gypsy glanced furtively around to make sure no one was close enough to overhear. “It’s my corset,” she told him in a stage whisper.

“Your what?”

“My corset. I can barely breathe, much less eat.” Gypsy thoroughly enjoyed the struggle going on on his face.

After a moment he set his own cup of punch on the table, released his death grip on the hilt of his sword, and solemnly measured the span of her waist with both hands. “Yep. It’s definitely smaller.”

“Looks great to me,” announced a strange masculine voice over Chase’s left shoulder.

Chase turned suddenly, stabbing another Louis (or was it the same one?) in the shin as he greeted the tall man who’d come up behind him. “Jake, the last I heard, you were building something in Texas.”

“Surprise! I finished building it.”

Introduced to Jake Thomas a moment later, Gypsy’s first impression was that Chase’s builder friend was an absolute nut.

He was big and rawboned, his size and obviously cheerful personality perfectly suited to his lumberjack costume. It took Gypsy only a moment to realize that he was the Paul Bunyan in search of his ox.