License to Love (18 page)

Michelle sat up, too, and leaned close to him, wrapping her arms around his waist and lying her head against the broad expanse of his back. “Don’t worry. Courtney’s out of town on some kind of investigative reporting assignment. She left the day after I got here. We have the place to ourselves.”

“You’ve been staying here alone?” He turned around to face her. “Why?”

Michelle shrugged. There was no use rehashing the old birthday dinner quarrel. Today had changed so much between them. “I needed a vacation,” she said lamely. “I’ve been doing all the sightseeing I never seem to do when Courtney’s here.” She tilted her head quizzically, suddenly remembering that she had no idea how he’d happened to show up at Courtney’s door. “How did you know where I was?”

“I asked around,” Steve mumbled.

“You did? But who did you ask? I didn’t mention where I was going when I arranged for time off from work.”

“I called Ashlinn in New York,” Steve admitted grudgingly. “I thought maybe you were with her. You weren’t, of course.” He frowned. “Do we have to talk about this? Calling Ashlinn was hardly a pleasure, seeing as how she despises me. When I told her you’d left Harrisburg, she read me the riot act and refused to tell me where she thought you might be.”

“Oh dear.” Michelle sighed. “That does sound like Ashlinn.”

“I had to call her three more times before she finally agreed to tell me that you might possibly be with Courtney in Washington. It took another two phone calls to get the address.”

“But you persisted.” Michelle gave him a dazzling smile that almost stopped his heart. She was so beautiful she made him ache. “Oh, Steve, I’m so glad you did.”

Steve gave up his feeble attempts to withdraw from her. She was too tempting, too achingly near. The emotions surging through him were too powerful and too alluring to resist. He took her in his arms again.

“I’m glad, too,” he said huskily. “I felt like a louse, canceling out on the dinner party Saturday night- Right after my family arrived, I called to invite you to join us.” He grimaced, remembering. “I got your answering machine and that maddening, perky little message of yours.” He proceeded to repeat her recorded message in its entirety.

“You’ve memorized it, word for word!” Michelle exclaimed, amazed.

“Because I heard it the forty times I called that night and another forty the next day. I probably used up the entire tape with my messages. Finally it was Monday and I called your office, only to hear that you’d taken some days off to go out of town.”

She gazed into the depths of his dark, dark eyes. “I wanted to get away for a little while, Steve.”

“Because I hurt you,” he concluded, his expression regretful.

She nodded, then flashed him a grin. “You infuriated me, too. I felt as explosive as Three Mile Island.”

“I can relate to that. I went ballistic by the time I recorded message six hundred and twelve on your answering machine. Wait’ll you hear.”

They laughed, hugging, then tussling, then finally falling back on the mattress, their limbs entwined.

“Everything is going to be all right now,” Michelle said breathlessly. “I know it.”

Steve said nothing at all. He reached for his trusty packet, made use of it, and then watched her, his eyes glittering and intense, as he lifted her legs to his waist, then slowly sank into her.

Michelle gasped, expecting pain, but there was only a melting pliant heat as her body accepted him. He filled her again and again, her soft moans breaking the quiet darkness of the bedroom until her voice rose to a sharp cry and her body arched, tightening around his in an unmistakable climax.

And then he lost himself in her and the consuming, overwhelming whirlwind of their passion that merged them and made them one.

Back home again in Harrisburg, Michelle came to realize that everything had changed and yet nothing had changed between them. She and Steve saw each other as often as they had before her watershed trip to Washington, but now there was no more “chasing her around the room for a good
ni
gh
t
kiss.” They ended every evening together in bed.

But no matter how late the hour SteVe never stayed all night with her during the week, only on weekends, just for one night, never both. He maintained a need for his own time, space and freedom. Michelle soon recognized a pattern. After the times she and Steve had been exceptionally close, he would inevitably pull back, distancing himself from her, either physically or emotionally. Paradoxically she felt more insecure about her position in his life since they’d become intimate than before, when they were not.

Though she freely and often admitted her love for him— she couldn’t
not
have told him, she loved him too much to hold back anything, even words—Steve did not reciprocate with his own declaration of love. He avoided any talk of the future. He didn’t even make a date for more than a week in advance. Commitment? Permanence? Michelle was de-pressingly certain that those words weren’t in his vocabulary. She suspected he’d probably even inked them out of his dictionary.

Still, they had certainly come a long way from the days when she hadn’t even known which city he was in, Michelle reminded herself. And if it
looked
as if Steve was involved with her, if he
acted
as if he was committed to her by dating her exclusively, didn’t it stand to reason that he actually was in love with her? Every time Michelle asked herself this question, she always came up with the same answer. Yes. Surely one of these days, Steve would, too.

May

“Michelle, can you believe it? The two of us playing golf at Hershey Country Club—what a hoot!” Leigh Wilson straightened the brim on her yellow golf hat, and grinned at Michelle through the ladies’ locker room mirror.

Michelle surveyed her own image in the mirror. Her ecru-colored polo shirt and wide-cut taupe culottes, conservative in style and color, were certainly a far cry from the eyecatching, splashy golf clothes they’d seen in the pro shop of the club.

Leigh, all in yellow, looked like a bright canary, as she recombed her red hair and readjusted her hat for at least the fifth time. When she was finally satisfied, the two women headed for the first tee on the west course, where they were meeting the other half of their foursome, Steve Saraceni and Ed Dineen.

Steve was a member of the area’s most exclusive club whose renowned golf course made invitations to play there highly prized indeed. The chance to play with a “scratch golfer” like Steve, who routinely shot par, was eagerly welcomed, as well.

Michelle had been present the morning Steve had invited Ed Dineen for a Saturday morning game of golf. Ed had accepted instantly, but to Michelle’s surprise, Ed jettisoned Steve’s proposal to invite two other legislators to join them.

“I have an idea, if you’re game for something a little different,” Ed said to Steve and, of course, Steve was more than willing to accommodate a legislator who might someday be voting on an issue crucial to one of Legislative Engineers Limited’s clients.

“You see, no one has a better staff than I do,” continued Ed, “and I like to reward—”

“I understand.” Steve smiled that smooth as glass smile of his. “You want to invite Ken Gaudy and Jim Flinn to play golf with us.” He named Dineen’s top two aides. Familiarity with the legislators’ staffs was extremely important to access and Steve knew them all.

“No.” Ed shook his head. “Four guys on the golf course is commonplace, I said something
different!
How about we ask Michelle here and, uh, Leigh Wilson to play with us?”

“Play golf with Michelle and Leigh?” Steve’s smile faltered. He didn’t quite manage to conceal his dismay. Steve took his golf game very seriously, and his hours on the green did not include fledging amateurs, unless the said amateur happened to have a vote. Michelle and Leigh, junior staffers and female at that, most certainly did not.

“Have they ever played golf before?” Steve asked, catching Michelle’s eye. He knew that she hadn’t; she’d once told him so.

Michelle shrugged. It did seem an odd request for Ed to make.

“Who cares? We’ll have a great time, no matter what!” Ed enthused.

Steve recovered himself enough to politely agree, though he’d complained about the arrangement to Michelle later that night as they lay together in bed.

“So you haven’t picked up a golf club since you were twelve, and that was for miniature golf, hmm?” Steve groaned, looking martyred. “Well, I haven’t played golf with a female since
I
was twelve and that was miniature golf with my kid sisters. Girls and golf just don’t mix.”

“Chauvinist!” Michelle playfully socked him. “Ed isn’t a sexist, he’s wonderfully egalitarian. That’s why working for him is so rewarding.”

“If you say so,” grumbled Steve.

And so here they were, a foursome on the links. It was a beautiful day and Michelle was delighted to be able to spend this extra time with Steve. He patiently showed her which club to use, how to hold and swing it. She loved having his arms around her during the lessons. The long hard length of his body surrounding hers was exciting and evocative; learning to swing the club couldn’t compare to the thrill of being in his arms...

Michelle was so absorbed in Steve that it took her longer than usual to notice that while Steve was tutoring her in the fine points of golf, Ed had taken on the task of instructing Leigh in much the same way. Ed’s arms encircled Leigh, their bodies pressed close, moving in sync as they swung the club. Soon, the two of them, laughing and talking and retaking countless practice shots, were lagging far behind Steve and Michelle.

Steve glanced impatiently at his watch. “The foursome behind us must be ready to twist their nine irons around our necks,” he gritted, watching the other couple’s antics.

Michelle said nothing, out of loyalty to her boss. She couldn’t admit, not even to Steve, that she found Ed’s behavior-well, embarrassing. And oddly disappointing, too.

It was the first time she had ever found reason to question anything the senator did. But why was he acting so uncharacteristically
silly
with Leigh?

Finally, finally, they were on the eighteenth hole and in sight of the clubhouse. Michelle and Steve finished first, then waited for Ed and Leigh to join them. “What a day!” Steve grimaced. “I feel like we were on a double date with Ken and Barbie.” He reached over to catch Michelle’s hand. “On the positive side, you weren’t bad for a beginner, Michelle. With some lessons and enough practice, you’d be an okay player.”

“High praise indeed,” Michelle said dryly.

When Steve suggested treating everybody to lunch, Ed immediately accepted. “Steve, didn’t I tell you this would be fun?” Ed demanded jovially. “What do you say we do it again, real soon?”

Michelle almost laughed out loud at Steve’s horrified expression, one he quickly managed to mask. “Sure, Ed. We’ll have to do it again,” he replied with commendable sincerity.

“When hell freezes over,” Steve amended privately to Michelle as they walked toward the clubhouse. Ed and Leigh were lollygagging behind, as giddy as a pair of high school students playing hooky on a warm spring day.

“It’s an unwritten rule that a guy doesn’t carry on his flings on the golf course,” Steve added, casting a critical glance at the other couple.

“Ed isn’t having a fling with Leigh!” Michelle exclaimed, aghast at the very mention of such an unbelievable prospect. “I admit he has been acting unlike his usual self.” She gulped. “But he would never be unfaithful to his wife. He’s a devoted family man. His old-fashioned values are part and parcel of his appeal.”

Agitated, she caught Steve’s arm. “I know this is the way gossip starts. People see a senator and a staff member together out of the office, laughing and having a good time, and assume the worst. But—”

“You mean, they assume the obvious,” Steve said wryly. “Which is generally right on the mark.”

“Not Ed!” Michelle insisted. “There has never been any scandal attached to Ed’s name. He’s not a womanizer and Valerie would be so hurt if she were to hear—rumors. Please, Steve, promise me you won’t, well, mention anything about Ed and Leigh and—and this afternoon.” Michelle was well aware of the efficiency of the Harrisburg grapevine. It relayed gossip, innuendos and rumors faster than any electronic communications system. And lobbyists were renowned contributors. If Steve alluded to Ed Dineen’s flirtatious behavior with a female staffer—on the golf course of the Hershey Country Club!—the tale would spread like wildfire, with various titillating embellishments added to each retelling.

“I won’t say a word,” Steve promised, but he stared at Michelle with troubled dark eyes. “Michelle, you don’t believe all Dineen’s press clippings, do you? Keep in mind that you’ve written some of them yourself. What the voting public is told about a politician is often a far cry from the type of man he really is.”

“Maybe in some cases,” Michelle conceded. “But I couldn’t work behind a sham. I have to believe in the people I work for and with. Ed and Valerie Dineen are—” “You’re not cynical enough, Michelle,” Steve cut in. “You haven’t developed the hard shell you need to weather the hypocrisies and necessary-compromises of politics. I worry about you,” he added gruffly. “I don’t want to see you get hurt, and you will be, if Dineen doesn’t live up to your high expectations of him.”

He realized at that moment how very much he didn’t want her to be hurt. He knew he would protect her—if he could.

Michelle gazed at Steve thoughtfully. He really did seem concerned for her. Taking encouragement from that, she decided to brave asking him what she had not yet dared to ask. “Steve, Courtney called me last week to tell me that she’s getting married next weekend,” she said in a rush. “The wedding is going to be very small, only family, and unfortunately, not everybody can make it to Washington on such short notice. But Courtney said I could bring a guest. Would you like to go with me?”

“Next weekend?” Steve stalled for time. Over the years he’d attended more weddings than he could count, and that included serving as a groomsman in quite a few. He had an ironclad rule about weddings, though. Always go alone. Taking a date to such an emotional, symbol-laden event was like taking a stroll through a mine field. Unless one thrived on potential disaster, both were best avoided. As for taking Michelle to a private family wedding...