Friends and Lovers (17 page)

“Nice weather we’re having,” he persisted, gazing up through the thick green leaves on the hardwood trees that lined the street. “For early summer, that is.”

“Very nice,” she panted. She forced herself not to look at him.

“Why don’t you take a breather and ride along with us?” John invited after a minute.

She glared at him. “Why don’t you get out of that car and take a little exercise? Didn’t you used to say that executives who sat at desks went to seed?”

There was a pause, the sound of a door opening and closing, and a minute later John was jogging along beside her with Josito pacing them in the luxurious car.

Even in worn jeans and a yellow knit shirt, he looked elegant, she thought, approving of his big, muscular body against her will as he trotted lazily alongside her.

“You really look like him this morning,” she murmured.

“Like whom?”

“That guy on TV,” she teased. “Except that he wears sneakers, not boots.”

He grinned, one side of the mustache lifting. “In the series, he couldn’t afford boots.”

“I reckon not, partner,” she drawled.

He glanced at her. “Thanks for the pie, by the way. What I tasted of it was delicious.”

“You’re very welcome.” She burst out laughing. “I’m sorry, really I am, it just seemed the thing to do at the time.”

“Like lobbing that plate of spaghetti into my lap?” he mused.

“I thought you liked spaghetti!”

“I used to,” he agreed. He glanced at her. “You’re damned pale. Feel okay?”

“Sure,” she lied. Actually, she was feeling pretty green. But she was determined not to let it show. She started counting mentally again.

“Do you have any idea how ridiculous we look?” she asked a minute later, darting a glance toward the Rolls. “Jogging in front of a Rolls Royce at five-thirty on a Saturday morning?”

He laughed softly. “We’ve done crazier things,” he reminded her. “How about the night we walked home in the rain from Jones Hall after the concert and got soaked to the skin?”

“Or the time we overbalanced that little boat when we were fishing and fell into the lake, fully clothed?” She grinned. “We’ve had some good times together.”

“They’re not over, either,” he replied. “Not by a long shot, Satin.”

She stopped suddenly, fighting the nausea as she gazed up at him. She swallowed, breathing unsteadily. “John, I think I’m going to faint,” she managed.

He caught her on her way to the sidewalk and lifted her easily in his hard arms. “Madeline, what’s the matter?” he asked, his voice taut, concerned. “Madeline!”

“I…I just felt faint,” she whispered, resting her head against his warm, broad chest, breathing in the male scent of his big body with a sense of homecoming. “A little sick…”

He muttered something that sounded like the worst kind of swearwords, striding quickly toward the Rolls where Josito was holding the back door open.

“Drive until you run out of gas,” he told Josito as he got into the backseat with Madeline on his lap. He closed the door, then the curtain between them and the front seat.

Josito got behind the wheel and minutes later they were under way.

“I thought you said that damned doctor gave you a clean bill of health,” he growled down at her.

“He did,” she said stubbornly. She drew an unsteady breath and relaxed against him, savoring his strength. “Don’t fuss at me, John, I feel dreadful.”

His arms tightened gently. “Want something cold to drink?” he asked. “A Coke? Something slushy with ice?”

She nuzzled against him. “Ice would be lovely.”

“No sooner said than done.” He moved, his arm stretching. “Josito, take us by that new ice-cream place.”

“
Sí, señor.
Is the
señorita
okay?”

“I reckon,” he growled.

“I really am,” she murmured weakly. “Or I will be when I get my breath back. I just overdid it a little. I haven’t jogged in a while, you know,” she said, eager to convince him that it was nothing serious. John, being John, would think nothing of walking into any doctor’s office he happened to come to and carrying her straight into an examination room. He had the arrogance of high position and great wealth, and he used it when he needed to.

“You’re not going to do anything silly, are you?” she asked, thinking aloud. She eased her head back on his broad shoulder, staring uneasily up at his hard, lined face. “John, I’ll be okay. I really will.”

The lines didn’t smooth out. His glittering silver eyes ran over her like loving hands searching for broken bones. “You scare me sometimes,” he said enigmatically. His voice was husky, concerned.

She smiled. “I’m not trying to shoot the rapids, am I?” she laughed. “Or hang glide…”

“My God, shut up,” he sighed roughly, leaning back against the seat and drawing her with him. “If you get sick just running, imagine how you’d feel soaring down some damned mountain? I haven’t forgotten the day you decided to try parachuting,” he added with a black glare.

She shifted uncomfortably and settled closer against his warm body. “I didn’t put the tree in the way,” she reminded him.

“It took me the better part of an hour to cut you loose,” he grumbled. “After I spent a damned hour scouring the woods looking for you. You’re lucky it took me that long.”

She made a face at him. “Then you must have been in a nasty temper. You bawled me out as it was!”

“And it served you right, you little daredevil,” he said unsympathetically. “Madeline, don’t you even think about pulling anything that stupid now,” he added in a challenging tone, his jaw set.

Her heart jumped. She tried to breathe normally while she stared into his hard eyes. Did he know more about her condition than he was letting on? She tried to recall some of the strange remarks he’d made to her lately.

“Not until you get over this damned virus,” he added in a minute, and she relaxed unconsciously.

“They do…hang on,” she murmured.

“I wish you’d see my doctor,” he said. “I’m not sure I trust the one you went to.”

“He
was
your doctor!”

“The company doctor,” he agreed, “not my personal physician.” He stared at her contemplatively. “Suppose I have them set up an appointment for you?”

“Oh, no, that won’t be necessary,” she said quickly. “I’ll be just fine. See, I’m not even nauseated anymore,” she assured him as she tried to sit up.

“Just stay where you are,” he shot back, holding her. His eyes were suddenly level with her own, and she could feel his warm, smoky breath. “It’s not that big a car. Suppose we had to pick up a stranded motorist or something—where would he sit if you moved and started taking up more space?”

She tried to resist a smile. “He? It might be a gorgeous buxom blonde, and then what would you do?”

He considered that, and the mustache twitched.

“I guess she’d have to sit on Josito’s lap,” he laughed softly.

She linked her hands around his neck. “Are you insinuating that I’m fat, Mr. Durango?” she murmured coyly.

He chuckled down at her. “Oh, no. Not fat.” His hands found her thickening waist and pressed very gently, moving down to her hips and back up again, under the jogging shirt onto the bare skin of her back. “Not fat at all, Miss Vigny,” he murmured, rubbing his nose provocatively against hers, the mustache almost touching her lips. “Just deliciously voluptuous.”

“John, you promised,” she reminded him as her pulse pounded wildly.

He grimaced, his hands stilling on her shoulder blades. “I guess I did,” he admitted reluctantly. He brushed his mouth against her nose and then released her, easing her down to a sitting position beside him. “Feel better?”

“Yes and no,” she murmured provocatively.

“You’d better stop right there, Satin, before you get in over your head,” he told her. His eyes ran over her possessively. “God, you’re lovely! You were always a knockout, but lately you’re staggering.”

She dropped her eyes to his open-necked shirt. “How you do go on, Mister John,” she drawled, blinking her long eyelashes at him.

He smiled at her. “I guess I do.” Then his expression became completely serious. “Honey, why won’t you marry me? Won’t you even think about it?”

She gazed up into his eyes and nodded slowly. “I—I’ll think about it. But no more pressure tactics. Please. I have to make up my own mind about this. And I need a little time.”

“Whatever you say, Satin,” he murmured, drawing her close. “Whatever you say.”

***

If only it had been that easy, she sighed, staring around her at the forest of roses. The scent was overpowering, and despite John’s promise to stop pressuring her, they kept on coming every day.

She knew he thought he was giving her the time she’d asked for, so she made no protest. She couldn’t expect him to change his ways overnight. But when she discovered that he was turning up in all the places she frequented, she put her foot down.

“You’re following me,” she accused late the next week when she “accidentally” bumped into him at a liquor store in one of the malls.

He drew her aside, away from the man behind the counter and his three customers, into an aisle stocked with wines. “What are you doing here?” he asked her, his voice lowered. “You shouldn’t be drinking. I thought the virus gave you nausea?”

God alone knew of a virus that could last for weeks, but apparently John wasn’t even suspicious about it, thank goodness.

“I’m not buying something to drink,” she whispered. “I am getting a small bottle of rum with which to make a rum cake. I know how you like rum cakes, and they don’t taste the same with artificial flavor.”

He frowned thoughtfully down at her. “Well, I suppose most of the alcohol does evaporate—but get some coconut rum,” he added. “If you use half that and half dark rum, you get an unforgettable cake.”

She gasped. “How ever did you learn that?” she asked in her slowest drawl. “You don’t know how to cook!”

“Josito told me,” he said.

“Well, I won’t argue with Josito,” she said. “Coconut rum it is. Now why are you following me? You were at the grocery store—the grocery store, for Pete’s sake!—and then yesterday you were at the pharmacy. Today you’re here…. John, I’m better, honestly I am.”

“I know that,” he grumbled. “You even look better. But those damned things hang on. You might feel dizzy again, and who’d look after you?”

“Nobody would do it the way you do, and that’s a fact,” she sighed, half-amused, half-flattered. “I know you want to give me the time I asked for, so you’re watching over me without actually making contact. But you really don’t have to go to these lengths, you see. You could call me once in a while, you could have dinner with me….”

“When?” he shot back. “Tonight? What shall I bring?”

She couldn’t help laughing. “All right, tonight will be fine. You can bring a bottle of port to go with the spaghetti and garlic bread.”

“Are you going home now?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, sir, just as soon as I buy my rum,” she agreed smartly.

“See that you do,” he said, turning away.

She stuck out her tongue at his departing back.

***

Actually, she had good intentions about going home. But she hadn’t banked on having a flat tire on the way.

“How could you do this to me?” she asked the little yellow car as she stared helplessly at its flat rear tire. “I rescued you from months of having to listen to that grinning salesman tell lies about you, from having total strangers feeling your upholstery. And you do
this
to me!”

She opened the hood with a sigh and got out the lug wrench and jack, and proceeded to try to figure out how to get the car off the ground. She actually had the jack put together and was sliding it under the little car when there was a screeching of brakes.

She knew before she turned who it was. Sure enough, the Ferrari was parked across the street and John was walking toward her as she straightened from her task.

“What the hell are you doing?” John bellowed at her, his good intentions apparently forgotten.

“I’m changing a tire, of course, what does it look like?” she asked haughtily, annoyed at his autocratic manner. “Do you suppose I like standing here looking like a fool?”

“I don’t know, do you?” he countered, rolling up the sleeves of his white shirt. “Get out of the way. This is man’s work.”

“How dare you!” she burst out, flattening herself against the side of the car to prevent him from getting the jack. “This is not the Victorian age, mister, and you may own an oil company, but you don’t own this car or me!”

“I’m going to,” he said calmly. “Get out of the way.”

“You are not!”

“You’re going to marry me,” he informed her. “And soon. I’ve had about as much of this waiting as I can stand. My nerves are raw from trying to watch out for you while you make up your mind.”

“And what do you mean by that?” she demanded.

Across the street a crowd was gathering to watch the show.

“I mean you’re driving me
nuts
, does that make it any clearer?”

Her eyebrows arched. “Who, me?”

“You!” His face hardened. “I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t even do the job the stockholders expect me to do. My whole life is devoted to making sure you don’t kill yourself!”

“How can jogging down a quiet street and buying a bottle of rum constitute suicide?” she asked with biting sarcasm.

“What would you call trying to change a flat tire in your condition!” he flung back, his eyes fiercely accusing.

She felt the blood slowly leaving her face. “What do you mean,
my condition?
”

He drew a deep breath, started to speak, and changed his mind. “I mean, my dear, you are just recovering from the flu,” he ground out. “You don’t have any business overexerting in this damned heat!”

She cocked her head at him, studying the hard, poker face that gave nothing away under its deep tan.

He sighed disgustedly. “Will you please move, your ladyship, or do I have to lift you out of the way?”

“I’d like to see you try,” she challenged, knowing immediately that in his present state of mind it wasn’t the thing to say.

He bent, lifting her before she had time to react, and cradled her against his chest as he crossed the street to where the Ferrari was parked.