Something Different/Pepper's Way (16 page)

“I’ll gain ten pounds if this keeps up!”

“Ten pounds on you would just be necessary ballast.”

“Funny man. That ‘ballast’ won’t be able to fit into my jeans.”

“Have another roll.”

With Chase, every day—and certainly every night—became an adventure. Gypsy never knew what he’d do next.

“What
is
that?”

“The mating call of whales.”

“Really? I didn’t even know you had an aquarium.”

“Cute. It’s a record. To set the mood.”

“And I thought we were doing so well.”

“Change is the spice of life, Gypsy mine.”

“Right. Where’s the water bed?”

“Damn. Knew I forgot something.”

Gypsy discovered that it was definitely nice to have a man around. She was as mechanically inept as she was forgetful, her usual method of fixing anything being a few swift kicks or thumps.

“Chase, where are you?”

“In the kitchen feeding your pets.”

She headed for the kitchen, announcing without preamble, “Herman’s
e
is sticking, and it’s driving me crazy. Can you do anything?”

Chase nearly lost a finger since he was giving Bucephalus a
steak bone and looked up at the crucial moment. He stared at Gypsy for a second, then apparently deduced that Herman was the typewriter. “I’ll certainly try,” he told her, accepting named typewriters without a blink.

Ten minutes later Gypsy was happily typing again. “My hero,” she murmured absently as Chase straightened from his leaning position against the desk. He touched her cheek lightly and said, “That’s all I ever wanted to be, sweetheart.”

Gypsy looked up only when he’d left the room. She stared after him for a long time, eyes distant and thoughtful. Then she bent her head and went back to work.

Chase came in late one afternoon to find her pounding the keys furiously and wearing a fierce grimace that didn’t invite interruption.

“Gypsy—”

“Hush!” she said distractedly, hammering away at her top speed, which was pretty impressive. “Someone’s about to get killed.”

It was half an hour before her assault on Herman ceased. Gypsy straightened and rubbed the small of her back absently, reading over what she’d written. Only then did she become aware of a presence. She looked up to find Chase leaning against the bookcase and watching her with a faint smile.

“Hello,” she said in surprise. “How long have you been there?”

“A few minutes. I tried to interrupt you, and you told me to hush.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she muttered, horrified.

He chuckled softly. “Don’t be. I knew it was the wrong time but, to be honest, I wanted to find out what you’d do. And if that was the worst, we’re home free, sweetheart.”

Gypsy pushed her glasses up on top of her head, never noticing that the pair already there fell to the floor behind her.

She looked curiously at his trying-hard-to-hide grin. “We’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?” she murmured in response to his comment.

“If you say so. What would you like for dinner?”

Gypsy’s “night lover” continued to call whenever she and Chase were spending the night in her house. Chase was always around, but never in the room, and her suspicions were growing by leaps and bounds. It was much easier, she admitted to herself ruefully, to believe that it was Chase; otherwise, she was quite definitely in love with two separate men… and
there
was a wonderfully cheering thought!

A few days later, suddenly and with no warning, her book became an obsession. It wasn’t too bad at first; Chase found wonderfully unique ways of getting her away from the typewriter for a break or a meal or sleep—and all without causing her to lose her temper once.

“Gypsy?”

“Not now.”

“You have to help me—it’s desperately important!”

“What then?”

“My zipper’s stuck.”

“Chase!”

“It got you away from the typewriter.”

“I know, but really!”

“Now that you’re
here
—”

“You’re incorrigible!”

Or:

“Gypsy?”

“What?”

“You have to help me.”

“What’s desperately important now?”

“I have to get my car keys.”

“Chase, you’ve been up that tree every morning for weeks; you should know the way by now.”

“Corsair went up a different tree. Sneaky cat.”

“I’ll bet you told him to.”

“How could I? He doesn’t listen to me. Come now, Gypsy mine, just a moment of your time. I don’t ask for much, after all.”

“Stop sounding pitiful; it won’t wash.”

“It was worth a try.”

He found her outside one morning, sitting cross-legged on the ground and methodically pulling up handfuls of grass.

“Why are you mangling the lawn?” he asked sweetly, sinking down beside her.

Gypsy was fixedly watching her hands. “I’ve painted myself into a corner, dammit,” she muttered irritably. “And now I don’t see…”

“Let the paint dry and repaint the room,” he advised cheerfully obviously without the least idea of what she was talking about.

She froze, lifting startled eyes to his. “Wait a minute. That just might work. I could— And then—” She reached over to hug him exuberantly. “You did it! Thank you!”

Chase followed her into the house, murmuring, “Great. What did I do?”

Chase managed to get her away from the typewriter all day the following Sunday by inviting her parents to have dinner and spend the afternoon at his house. Gypsy was inclined to be temperish about it at first; in fact, it was the first time she really snapped at him—and it upset her more than it did Chase.

“Why
did you do that? I can’t stop working for a whole
day! I’ll never get this book finished, dammit, and it’s all your fault!”

“Gypsy—”

“You’ve messed up my whole life!”

“Have I?” he asked softly.

She stared at him and her anger vanished. Quickly she rose from her chair and went over to him, wrapping her arms around his waist. “Why do you put up with me?” she asked shakily

“Well, you’re just an occasional shrew,” he told her conversationally. “And I always did prefer tangy to sweet.”

“Chase—”

“Cheer up. You haven’t seen
my
worst side yet.”

“Do you have one? I was thinking of having you canonized.”

“Saint Chase?” He tried the title on for size. “Doesn’t sound right, somehow. We’ll have to think it over. Come along now, Gypsy mine; we’re going to prepare a feast for your parents.”

“We?”

“This time you get to help.”

“Help do what? Kill us all? Face it, pal—I have absolutely no aptitude for cookery.”

“You can slice things, can’t you?”

“You’re going to let me have a knife?”

“On second thought I’ll do the slicing. You can set the table and keep me company.”

“As I asked once before, is your china insured?”

“Since the day after I met you.”

The entire day was fun laced with nonsense, and Gypsy thoroughly enjoyed it. She always enjoyed her parents’ visits, but Chase’s presence made it even better. He got along very
well with both of them, accepting Gypsy’s definitely unusual parents with clear enjoyment.

And they just as clearly approved of him:

“Mother, what were you and Chase in a huddle about?”

“Nothing important, darling. Are you working on a book? You don’t look as tired as usual.”

Knowing her mother, Gypsy accepted the change of subject. “Chase makes me rest.”

“Your father is just the same with me. When’s the wedding?”

“Are you and Poppy getting married again, Mother?”

“Gypsy…”

“He hasn’t asked, Mother.”

“Nonsense, darling. He doesn’t have to.”

“Etiquette demands it.”

“Write a new rule. Ask him.”

“I’m an old-fashioned kind of girl.”

“Stubborn. Just like your father.”

“Poppy, where are you going with that ladder?”

“Corsair stole
my
car keys. He’s on the roof; Chase is going up after him.”

“Oh. Chase had a ladder all this time? I’ll get him for that; I’ve been helping him out of trees all week.”

“Corsair?”

“Chase.”

“Oh, I like him, darling.”

“Corsair?”

“You’re worse than your mother. Chase, of course.”

“Stop smiling at me, Poppy.”

“I like smiling at you; fathers do that, you know.”

“Yes, but it’s
that
kind of smile. A definitely parental Father-always-knows-kid-and-don’t-try-to-hide-it kind of smile. Unnerving.”

“You’re misreading my expression. This is my I-want-to-dandle-a-grandchild-on-my-knee-one-day smile.”

“Poppy—”

“I’ll take the ladder to Chase.”

“Do that.”

“Did you get Corsair off the roof?”

“After a merry chase, yes. Your cat has a devious mind.”

“I’ve been meaning to tell you. If you’d only stop playing his game, he’d stop too. He never would have gone up a tree a second time if you’d only ignored him the first time.”

“I needed my keys.”

“He would have dropped them. Eventually.”

“Uh-huh.”

Days passed and Gypsy became more and more wrapped up in her book. The clutter on her desk, composed of notes on odd sheets of paper, reference books, and assorted alien objects like the Buddha, grew until it was nearly impossible to find her or Herman in the middle of it. Chase pulled her from the muddle for meals but otherwise left her strictly alone.

Gypsy made a tremendous effort and firmly stopped working at midnight every night. She’d never held herself to any kind of fixed schedule before, and was agreeably surprised to find that it didn’t seem to be interfering with her creativity. If anything, it helped; she always stopped before she got too tired now.

Besides … she cherished the nights with Chase. He
showed her an enchantment she had never before known, and she loved him more with every day that passed. Neither of them ever put their feelings into so many words, and she had a suspicion that Chase wouldn’t say a word until she did. He’d said that he was “playing for keeps” and was leaving the rest up to her.

But Gypsy still wasn’t ready to commit herself fully She was still uneasy, still worried that his patience would run out.

And it did.

As the book neared its completion Gypsy warned him that the midnight halts were at an end. The last few days of a book were written in a white-hot headlong rush, interrupted by nothing except a catnap when the typewriter keys blurred before her eyes. At that point Gypsy was driven by the need to
just finish
the thing, and there was nothing else she could do.

It went on for three days. Gypsy ate little and rarely left her desk. She catnapped on the couch at odd hours, then took showers to refresh her mind before going immediately back to work. She was dimly aware of Chase, but not distracted by his presence. As for Chase, he was always around but didn’t intrude.

Three days. At two A.M. on the fourth day, the headlong rush came to a crashing halt.

Gypsy found herself jerked suddenly to her feet, banging both knees against the desk’s center drawer, and quite thoroughly and ruthlessly kissed.

“Do I have your attention now?” Chase demanded hoarsely.

She blinked up at him, a bit startled by the suddenly unleashed primitive man. Clearing her throat carefully, Gypsy barely managed a one-word response. “Yes.”

“Good!” He lifted the glasses from her nose, dropped them on the foot-high clutter on the desk, and then threw
Gypsy over his shoulder with one easy, lithe, far from gentle move.

“Chase!” Dangling helplessly, she realized that he was carrying her into the bedroom.

“Don’t
have me canonized!” he snapped.

“Chase, what’re you—” She bounced once on the bed, looking up with wide eyes as he joined her with a force that stole her breath. “Chase?”

He kissed her with a roughness just this side of savagery, a bruising impatience that stripped away all the civilized layers of the mating game. His hunger was voracious, insatiable. Restraint was gone, gentleness was gone; there was only this crucial need, this desperate hunger.

Gypsy had believed that she could never be surprised by his lovemaking, but she discovered her mistake. And after the first moment of shock, she responded with a mindless need to match his own wild hunger.

It was silent and raw and indescribably powerful. They loved and fought like wild things compelled to mate once and die, their movements swift and hurried and uncontrolled. Something primal drove them relentlessly, pushing them higher and higher, until they soared over the brink in a heart-stopping, mind-shattering release….

Floating in a dreamy haze, Gypsy was lying on her back close beside Chase. She felt his arm, heavy across her middle, heard his rough breathing gradually steady. She wanted to smile all over. Eyes closed, she felt rather than saw Chase raise himself on an elbow, felt his gaze.

“Honestly,” she murmured in an injured tone, “you could have just asked, pal. I mean—I think they used to call it ravishment.”

“Gypsy…”

Startled by his hesitant, anxious voice, her eyes snapped
open. She looked up at him, searching his concerned face and darkened eyes, realizing in slow astonishment that he was really worried. She wasn’t about to let
that
go on.

Sliding her arms up around his neck, she allowed her inner smile to show through. “You should get creative more often.”

The jade eyes lightened, but he still looked anxious. “You really don’t mind?” he asked in a low voice. “I didn’t mean to be so rough, honey.”

Gypsy rather pointedly traced a long scratch on his shoulder with one finger. “We both got a little carried away. Let’s get carried away again… real soon.”

He chuckled softly, apparently realizing that she wasn’t the slightest bit upset by ravishment. “You should be mad, Gypsy mine; I interrupted your work.”

“With a vengeance,” she agreed dryly. “But I forgive you. I only had a few pages left to do anyway.”

“To finish the book?” When she nodded, he said ruefully, “That close to the end and I stopped you…. You should be furious.”

“No, but I am
curious.
What finally pushed you over the edge? I mean, you’ve been Saint Chase for weeks.”