Surprise Package (7 page)

      
“Hired by whom?”

      
“Careful Canine Care Service.” His rough bass voice was rapidly becoming a thin falsetto as Jeff's maneuver jeopardized the family jewels.

      
“Good,” Jeff said, releasing the coat collar and driving his fist into the back of the man's neck, sending him sprawling facedown on the dirty concrete. “Then I'll see to it you're never paid to abuse another helpless animal.”

      
By this time a crowd had gathered, watching the altercation. A small, dapper-looking man with a thin mustache stepped toward Jeff and extended a business card to him, saying in a crisp British accent, “Ever so glad that filth finally received his comeuppance. He's been abusing that dog for days. He's received precisely what he deserved, but we do live in a rather litigious age. If you require a witness to testify on your behalf, please feel free to call upon me.”

      
As he strolled briskly away, Jeff studied the card, which read:

Wentworth Flexner, Esq.

Labor Relations Consultant

I handle Union Problems

I handle Management Problems

      
In one corner was an address and phone number, in the other a picture of what looked like a chess piece. As Jeff was puzzling over it, an elfin little old lady in a nylon jogging suit gave her name and number to Gilly.

      
“I saw everything, dearie. That monster got exactly what he deserved. I hope your friend busted his nuts as well as his nose.” She turned to the subject, who still lay groaning on the pavement. “Filthy offal!” She spit on him, then turned to Gilly and whispered, “That means shit, dearie.”

      
Jeff walked over to them just as the elderly woman was departing. He knelt beside Gilly and stroked the pup's nose, which was bleeding from a cutting blow with the leash handle. He picked up the Rottweiler and said, “Let's take him into the lobby of that building and call Careful Canine Care Service. I think they will be very interested to learn they hired a jerk who's been abusing their customers' pets.”

      
“You were a real Sir Galahad,” she said with a wide smile. “No one else had the courage to stop that brute.”

      
“Hey, if I hadn't, you probably would've killed the guy. You should've seen the murder in those green eyes when you darted out into the street.”

      
It took a half hour for the pet walking service to send a car to pick up Muffet, the Rottie pup. The driver apologized profusely for the former employee's behavior and assured Jeff and Gilly that such an incident would never occur again. As the station wagon with the CCCS logo on it took off, they could see Muffet looking out the rear window at them.

      
“He's so sweet,” she said wistfully.

      
“You really do miss having a dog, don't you?”

      
“Sure do, but lately there have been...other compensations,” she replied with a teasing grin.

      
“Oh, great, now I'm in the same league as a puppy. I will expect a good stomach rub.”

      
They laughed and teased as they resumed their walk to the station. Before they had to part for different trains, he kissed her tenderly and said, “I'll call you tonight, Gilly.”

      
“Jeff?” She hesitated as he took her in his arms, oblivious of the rush-hour crowd bustling all around them. “About this party...it's pretty important. Charis and Bill are the nearest thing to family I have in the world, and I really want them to meet you.” J
ust like I want to meet your parents.

      
They parted with his assurances that he would make the party, come hell or high water. Gilly tried to put her suspicions and fears out of her mind and concentrate on what she'd wear for the Lawrences' annual gala. Maybe that would be the best time to explain that she'd been staying in her friends' apartment and that she edited romance, not literary fiction. Maybe.

      
But why doesn't he want to take me home to meet his family?
The thought had rankled ever since Thanksgiving. She had spent it with Charis and Bill as always, and Jeff had had his own plans, which she was certain involved his parents and sister. He hadn't invited her, nor had he made any mention of when he would introduce her to the exalted Brandts. Now Christmas was nearly here. She couldn't endure the thought of spending it alone or being babysat by the Lawrences again.

      
But Gilly held her peace. Time enough to worry about true confessions when Jeffrey Lyle Brandt made a few of his own.

Chapter Six

      
“Oooh, that dress should do it, kiddo.” Charis Lawrence watched Gilly turn within the circle of mirrors outside the Bergdorf Goodman dressing room. They had been shopping for hours for the perfect gown for Gilly to wear to the big bash Tuesday evening. Down to the deadline as usual, they finally found it.

      
Gilly inspected herself critically. The dress was flaming orange red, a color she normally did not wear, but the dramatic shade did pick up the burnished highlights in her hair and make her skin glow. The Grecian style left one shoulder bare. Diaphanous silk clung to her breasts and fell softly, whispering around her slender hips. The hemline was shirred up the right side, revealing the curve of her calf, even a bit of thigh.

      
“It's the most daring thing I've ever worn. And the most expensive,” she said, turning again, unable to resist sliding her leg out and turning her ankle provocatively.

      
“You'll knock him dead. If that doesn't get a proposal, he's nerve dead from the waist down and you don't want him anyway.”

      
“I'll settle for an introduction to his parents, Charis,” Gilly replied wryly, then grinned. “Believe me, there is nothing whatever malfunctioning below his waist either.”

      
“Bill did mention that the water bed seemed a little wobbly on its frame.”

      
Gilly looked at her friend's big brown eyes, now crinkled with amusement. “You know I owe you big time for letting me use your place.”

      
“Well, now that we have it back, how do you explain why you're living in Yonkers? You have to come clean with him, sweetie. After that, you can name your firstborn after Bill or me.”

      
“If only it was that easy, Charis.”

      
“Read my lips and repeat after me: ‘Jeff, I'm not an editor at FS&G. I edit historical romances.’ See? It's not that difficult. If you confess the reasons you've always felt you needed to reinvent yourself—the
real
reasons, Gilly—this guy will understand. If he doesn't, he's a jerk and you're well rid of him. But if he's half the brilliant, sensitive, witty, charming, sexy gift to our gender you say he is, there's no way he won't come through for you.”

      
Gilly hesitated. “I don't know, Charis. It isn't so simple. Why should I lay myself bare when he's keeping secrets, too? What the hell is he doing when he breaks all those dates with me?”

      
“I thought you established that Karl isn't Karla and that Jeff is a bona-fide law student at NYU with parents living in Scarsdale.”

      
“Yes...but why all this mystery and the made-up excuses? I did some more checking. Professor Anderson did leave on sabbatical the week before Jeff said they were meeting to discuss the bar. He lied to me, Charis.”

      
Her friend wore a troubled expression now, all traces of her earlier good humor gone. “It doesn't look good, does it? There's only one way to find out. You have to take the bull by the horns and ask him—but first you need to 'fess up yourself. No better time than when his guard is down. And you in that dress should sure do the trick.”

      
In spite of Charis' words, the lovely gown seemed to lose its allure as Gilly stood looking at her reflection in the mirrors. “You're right. Tomorrow has to be the moment of truth.”

* * * *

      
Gilly put the finishing touches on her makeup, dusting sparkling powder across the bridge of her nose to hide her freckles. Were they still visible? She squinted into the small mirror on her dressing table. It was as dingy and cramped as everything else in the apartment. Jeff and Karl's place had a sort of Washington Square ambience about it, with Guggenheim prints on the walls, law books scattered on the coffee table, and multicolored beads partitioning the kitchenette from the living room.

      
“The only ‘ambience’ in this dump is the rhythmic clunk of the water pipes,” she muttered as the kitchen sink gave another ominous gurgle. What would he think of it? Of her, for leading him to believe she lived in the lap of luxury? But she'd spent the last few days thinking things through and finally reached the decision that, for good or ill, she would tell Jeff the whole truth about her life. The deception was getting more and more complicated, the lies multiplying. How had she let things get so out of hand? Here she was, really gone on this guy, and the whole relationship was built on sand—with the tide rushing in.

      
Her guts were knotted tighter than old Mrs. Kleinschmidt's fists. As if she didn't have enough on her mind, the hateful super had left a note in her mailbox saying that starting next month, rent would no longer include heat. It seemed that some tenants were “abusing their privileges.” Yeah, by renting out their bedrooms as meat lockers. Still, it was the least expensive place she'd been able to find in any neighborhood that was safe for a lone female.

      
Maybe she could fix up the joint before Jeff saw it. A little paint, a few bright scatter rugs over the worn carpet. She could even dig out those neat posters she'd saved from her stint working in that travel agency and hang them on the walls. The idea cheered her for a bit as she stood and began to slip into the dress. Buying it had maxed out her BG charge, not to mention the Ferragamo heels and matching bag she had splurged on to complete the ensemble. Charis had pronounced it “off the Richter scale” when they finished shopping.

      
Gilly glanced at the clock. The Lawrences were sending a limo for her in less than fifteen minutes. Just thinking of Jeff in a tux made her mouth alternately water with desire, then go bone dry with fear. What if he was furious with her? Or what if, after her heart-wrenching true confessions, he still refused to share the secrets of his life?

      
The sound of the buzzer brought her out of the cloud of angst. The limo was here to take her to The Apple’s Eye, where Jeff would meet her. “This is it, Gilly. Show time.”

* * * *

      
“You simply must end this ridiculous feud with your father, Jeffrey. It's breaking my heart.” The cultivated Vassar tone of his mother's voice was always under laid with a petulant whine. If Clarissa Vandergriff Brandt had a heart, it was at least a ten-karat blue-white diamond. “Here; he wants to speak with you,” she said, obviously signing off after delivering a ten-minute call's worth of guilt.

      
Jeff paced back and forth in the bedroom of his Village apartment. Damn, why did his parents have to pick this evening to break their year-long silence? He held the phone between his ear and shoulder as he fastened cuff links and slipped into the highly polished black shoes that came with the rental tux. The jacket hung suspended from the rod on the doorframe, waiting for him to slip it on and head out to meet Gilly.

      
He couldn't believe what it was costing him to please that woman. It must be love.

      
“Jeff, I won't beat around the bush,” Lyle Brandt said in his best courtroom voice. “Keith Largent and I played squash together this afternoon.” Largent was an old college pal of the district attorney. Jeff knew what was coming. “Are you still intent on throwing away a brilliant career?”

      
“If by throwing my legal career away you mean becoming an assistant DA, yep, that's my plan, Dad.”

      
“In spite of your less than judicious choice of NYU, instead of Harvard, you've achieved sufficient academic distinction to gain entry to a number of the city's most respected firms—with my connections, of course.”

      
“We've been through all this a thousand times, Dad, from the day I came to you and told you I was enlisting in the Navy. I won't spend my life riding on your coattails.”
And kowtowing to you like you did to Grandfather Vandergriff.

      
“Damn my coattails! You possess enough hubris and intelligence to be a full partner in Bradford, Trent and Lange—if only you'd wake up and stop throwing away every opportunity. There's nothing to be gained in working in the bowels of the district attorney's offices. The prestige is in making partner in a fine firm, not to mention the crass matter of money. I'd surely think by now you'd have come to the realization that living without it can be...at the least, inconvenient.”

      
“I've managed to pay my own bills for nearly eight years now. I like it that way.” Nothing ever changed, Jeff thought dispiritedly. Why had he hoped his parents were finally going to offer an olive branch instead of a carrot attached to a very big stick?

      
“So that's your final word? You're going to throw your law degree away in the district attorney's office?”

      
“I'd rather put gangsters in three-thousand-dollar suits in jail than have them pay my retainer to keep them out,” Jeff replied curtly.

      
“The self-righteous indignation of youth.” Lyle's voice was sly now. “I was afraid our conversation would be as feckless as ever. Your mother really is distressed by your obstinacy, you know. That's why I decided on some rather, er, Draconian measures to bring you around. As you recall, before I retired, I sat on the board of the Blackthorne Scholarship Fund.” Like the smooth trial lawyer he was, Lyle Brandt let the words sink in before continuing. “I still have friends on the board—those odious ‘connections’ you so disdain.”