The Fiance Thief (18 page)

“You mean like write a novel or something?” In fact, he had no burning desire to write a novel, which made him stand out from almost every other reporter and editor he’d
ever known. But that’s what people seemed to accept as the secret desire of the newsman.

Her eyes widened. “Oh, goodness, no. I’ve had it up to here with novel writers. That’s what Scott was.”

“Right. I forgot,” he said. He wondered if Scott was more likely to write his novel than any of the newsmen he knew. Probably not, he decided, glad to think the worst of Scott.

“No, I mean something else. Or doing what you do somewhere else.”

“I did do something else,” he said. Always careful not to share any of himself with his subjects, Alec wondered what he was doing chatting so intimately with Miranda Craig. It was the thing with Claire, he knew, that had left him off kilter. “I wanted to be a big-city reporter, so I left for Atlanta when I got out of school. I really loved it, too. Then Mick Regan, my favorite professor, called. He wanted to start a weekly paper with some money he’d inherited. He was eventually going to take it twice-weekly, then daily. He made the whole thing sound so exciting that I quit and drove on up that night.”

“Has it been exciting?” Miranda asked.

“In some ways,” he told her. Maybe not as exciting as it could have been if he’d gotten out of the office and chased a real story once in a while.

Alec steered the conversation back to Miranda, and the two talked until it was time to switch sides on the ninetyminute tape. He had another tape stashed in his other pocket, just in case he needed it.

“I really appreciate you changing your mind about this interview,” he told her.

Miranda, he thought, looked almost guilty. “I should tell you…” she started to say, then stopped.

“Tell me what?”

She gave him a bright smile. “That I’m ready to talk some more.”

H
ALFWAY INTO
the recitation of his experiences at the city council meeting, Mick realized that Hank’s slow and methodical typing was not the best way to convey all that he had burning in his heart.

“Give me that damn machine,” he said, wresting control of the keyboard away from Hank. Mick surprised himself by remembering, almost verbatim, what had been said and done at the meeting. But more importantly, he emphasized in his article that the same goofballs were saying and doing the same stupid things they’d been doing since he last attended a meeting decades ago.

He carefully saved the article on a disk, just so there’d be no room for mistakes. “You’ve got to read this right away,” he bellowed at Hank, but when he looked up at the reporter, he’d fallen asleep in his chair. Mick considered taking his hat and tiptoeing out of the office.

He half rose from his chair, then sat back down again. Starting a new, untitled file in the word processing program, he told himself he’d leave after he finished one thing. He was going to give that wedding the city council treatment, beginning with how the groom’s mother made a pass at him by the reception table.

10

A G
ORGEOUS MAN
and a gorgeous day. Even if she was on a mission, Lissa wasn’t going to let those elements go to waste. She’d filled Mick’s cooler with a few bottles of white wine, a brick of cheese and some grapes. Who knew that Mick, whose idea of a great lunch was a greasy steak in a sack, sported such gems in his refrigerator? Lissa sat back in her chair and sighed in contentment.

“What are you so happy about?” Scott asked. He’d been in a touchy mood ever since she refused to help him start the boat. Lissa firmly believed there were things that every man should know how to do: driving a stick-shift vehicle, mowing the grass and killing spiders were a few of them. Starting boats had just been added to that category. After flooding the engine once, they were finally tooling down the lake.

“So I’ve never gotten a chance to ask you how your career as a novelist is going,” Lissa said.

He slumped back in the captain’s seat. “If you’re trying to cheer me up, that’s not the way to do it.”

“Your novels are still unpublished, huh?”

“Mostly they’re still unwritten.”

“You know, if I were you, I’d write a book about what kind of person Miranda really is. You could sell it for scads of money.” Lissa was a firm believer in working with the assets you had at hand.

“Nah. I couldn’t sell out my art like that.”

She leaned back in her chair. “Well, how do you support yourself?”

“I have a trust fund, for one thing.”

“You do?” Lissa’s heart soared. Why had Claire never mentioned this to her?

“But it only pays five hundred dollars a month,” he said. “So I temp the rest of the time.”

“Five hundred dollars? Temp?” She felt like she was back in freshmen economics, so convoluted were the principles he was trying to explain to her. “I never heard of a trust fund that didn’t support its recipient. What kind of trust fund is that?”

“The kind I have, with my kind of luck.”

At that, the motor made kind of a weird lurching sound, then all was still.

They looked at each other. Scott’s mood had been so fragile, she was almost afraid to speak. “What now?” Lissa asked.

Scott shrugged. “Break out the wine, I guess. It’s been that kind of day.”

H
ER STORY WAS FINISHED
. Gathering up the pieces of stationery she’d used, Claire couldn’t help admiring her work. She’d chronicled, logically and thoroughly, how, since 1970, Carbine Industries had begun dumping toxic wastes on properties in south Ridgeville. She’d put in the “no comments” from the plant’s officials, the angry testimony of the residents there, and she unraveled, as best she could, the tangled question of who owned the properties. In her heart, she knew it was a solid piece of reporting. But would it ever see print?

That was up to Alec, she knew. His laptop and modem were sitting on the desk. Just as soon as he’d written his profile of Miranda, he’d zap it in over the phone line and see it become front-page material in next week’s edition.
And what would she have in that issue? A puff piece on a local author, a few movie reviews…

Oh, no. She hadn’t put any of that stuff on the paper’s computer drive before she left. It was all sitting on a diskette next to her own computer. Glancing at her watch, she took a chance that Allie would be home. She grabbed the phone and called her.

“Allie, I need you to do a huge favor for me.”

“Have you slept with him yet?”

“What kind of question is that?” Claire asked.

“That sounds to me like you think you’re very close. Just remember, it’s like driving, something you never forget.” Allie paused, then said, “I forgot what a terrible driver you are. It’s just a figure of speech.”

“Get this straight. I am not sleeping with Alec Mason.”

“Do you really want Scott Granville to be it? Do you want to go to your grave knowing that sleazy, low-life little cheater was the last man to make love to you?”

“Thanks for your concern, but I’m sure I’ll have plenty of opportunities to sleep around before I die,” she told Allie. “You, though, are in imminent danger of losing your life unless you shut up and listen to me.”

“All right,” Allie said. “What do you need me to do?”

Claire explained about the diskette.

“I’d wait until we got back, but the production staff was going to lay out the life-style section this weekend. Just go slip it under the door to the newspaper office. I don’t think anyone will be there.”

“That’s comforting to know, considering I’ll be walking around downtown all by myself.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Claire said. “There’s a regular group of bums who hang out in front of the building. They watch out for guys who try to harass women.”

“How comforting,” Allie said. “I guess the key’s in the bird feeder where it always is?”

“Yes,” Claire said. “I really appreciate this.”

“No problem,” Allie said. “And, Claire? Don’t forget to use protection. Remember, I…”

Blushing, Claire hung up on Allie and sat on the bed for a second before leaning back into it. She wrapped last night’s blanket around her and imagined that she could still smell Alec’s scent in it. Here the two of them had lain together all night, with Claire blissfully unaware of whatever it was that was protecting her from unpleasant dreams. What if she had known? Could she have stopped herself from sliding her hand under his shirt and feeling his powerful chest muscles? What would she have done if she had felt his hands caressing her thighs, if she had felt his mouth warm and hungry on her neck?

She sighed and rolled herself up more tightly in the blanket, unable to stop herself from fantasizing about Alec’s hands on her. Alec cradling her breast, Alec bringing his delicious lips to hers.

A knock at the door startled her, and she bounded up from the bed. “Just a second,” she said, thinking, and hoping, that it was Alec. She prayed that her flushed face wouldn’t belie her racy daydreams.

“Chris,” she said, opening the door to Miranda’s cousin. “What’s up?”

“Don’t bother to hide your disappointment. That glow in your cheeks gives it all away,” he told her. “Your friend Roger sent me to tell you he’s getting together a bunch of people to play badminton.”

“Badminton?” she echoed.

“And the beautiful redhead at the end of the hall says, Not in this lifetime,’“ Chris said.

“You know how I am about organized sports,” she said.

“I’ll break it to Roger gently. I think he thinks you’re the outdoor type,” Chris said, starting to walk away.

“Hey, Chris,” she said, calling him back. “You haven’t seen Alec, have you?”

His guilty expression told her he knew something. “Christine caught up with him and Miranda by the pier, and she said Miranda was finally giving Alec that interview he’s been hounding her about.”

“That’s really nice for Alec,” Claire said.

“It’s your paper, too,” Chris reminded her.

“You’re right,” she told him. “I’m not losing a fiancé, I’m gaining an exclusive.” As she was saying it, it didn’t even occur to her to confess to Chris that Alec wasn’t really her fiancé. The pain was just as real as if he had been.

“Claire.” Chris seemed shocked by her cynicism. “It’s not like you to be this way.”

“But maybe it’s about time,” she added quietly. He started to walk away again, and she stopped him once more. “I’ve got to ask you something,” she said in a low voice. “Is anyone else around?”

“They’re all out in the clean, fresh air.”

“Be honest with me. Does your tabloid editor want you to get something from this weekend?”

“I’m sending him something, yes,” Chris admitted. “Right now it’s going to be as big of a yawn as Miranda’s next movie.”

“Well, if you found out something about Miranda that you didn’t know about, wouldn’t you feel obligated to tell him?”

“What are you getting at?” Chris asked. “Do you have something on her?”

Before he had a chance to question her further, she heard Alec whistling as he came down the stairs.

“We’ll talk later,” she said. Chris nodded and nearly bumped into Alec as he went back up the steps.

“Badminton?” he asked a startled Alec.

“No thanks,” Alec said. He stopped at the doorway and gave Claire a hug. She stayed still as a statue at his touch, and she refused to move when he tried to squeeze past her in the doorway.

“Are you going to let me in?” he asked.

“I suppose I must,” she said, moving abruptly out of the entrance. He stumbled a little, then shut the door behind him. “I guess it’s your room, too.”

The room hadn’t seemed so small before, not even when she’d woken up to find herself practically on top of him. Alec said nothing, merely leaned against the door and folded his arms, his eyes measuring her with a look she couldn’t read. She walked to the desk and straightened the pile of papers there. Then she went to the sofa and
pre
tended to fiddle with something in one of her suitcases. All the time, she could feel Alec’s eyes on her.

“Don’t you have somewhere else to be?” she asked.

“Like where?”

“Don’t you want to go chase Miranda some more?”

“Why should I? I got my story,” he said.

“So I heard.” Claire popped open another suitcase and began to aimlessly transfer items from one piece of luggage to another. “It’s funny, considering that she never meant to go down to the pond to talk to you. I overheard her tell someone she sent you there to get her out of her hair. But when she saw me eating lunch with Roger, she must have wanted to make me jealous.” And it worked, she added silently. Her body tensed as she felt Alec step away from the door and come up behind her.

“What were you doing having lunch with Roger?” he asked.

She turned to face him, only to find he was even closer than she thought. She tried to step back, but the sofa was in the way. Lifting her chin a bit, she said, “What makes it your business?”

“This makes it my business.” He put his hand under her chin and pulled her lips to his. It was a sweet kiss, a gentle kiss, and Claire knew she could break away from it, could go on pretending there was nothing between the two of them but a light hint of flirtation. But there was no denying
the passion, a passion that made her whole body quake as Alec began to explore her mouth with his tongue, claiming not only her lips but all of her.

She bit his lip, and his arms tightened around her. When one hand moved from around her waist to cup her breast gently, her knees started shaking, and Alec pulled her on top of him as he sat down on the sofa, pushing her suitcases off onto the floor as he did so. Circling and teasing the nipple of her breast through the linen of the shirt, he whispered, “I need to see more of you.”

Any feelings of self-consciousness Claire had ever had around Alec were suspended. For how long, she didn’t know, but she wanted to revel in the time while she had it, to let him enjoy her body just as she wanted to enjoy his.

Claire traced her lips down Alec’s jaw and neck, bestowing kisses on him as his fingers moved down the buttons of her shirt. He pushed his hands into her blouse, moving his strong, warm fingers to the snap on her bra.