The Hellion (6 page)

But in the end, as she wandered off to sleep in a guest bedroom again, the memory of his face and his voice on the phone was her lullaby.

  
It was busy at Panache the following day. Spring had arrived and the seasonal fashion change brought a flurry of shoppers. Verda had managed beautifully while Rachel was gone. Sales had been good. New stock had come in. Rachel was tagging a shipment of swimwear when Verda remembered, "Oh! Some man kept calling for you while you were gone."

Rachel's head snapped up. "Who?"

"I don't know. He wouldn't give his name, but I'd recognize his voice if he called again."

A premonition of dread struck
       
61 Rachel. Could it have been Tommy Lee? The last thing she needed was to have Verda aware that he had called. With his reputation, eyebrows would rise in no time.

"Did he say what he wanted?"

"No, just kept saying he'd call back, and I finally told him you'd gone to St. Thomas and would be back today."

So he'd known when she'd get back. That's why his phone call had come immediately upon her return. That meant last night's call hadn't been impetuous, as she'd hoped. But she'd made it clear she didn't want to see him or talk to him again. Surely Tommy Lee wouldn't force the issue.

He didn't. For two weeks.

But during the third, after suffering sleepless nights and haunted days, he knew he could put it off no longer--he had to see her.

He left the office at the end of a balmy spring day and made the run home in the usual nine minutes, bounded into the house and began stripping off his jacket before he hit the stairs to the living room. If he'd been planning to see

Bitsy tonight he would have been whistling. But as it was, he found his mouth dry, so he washed a glass from the kitchen sink and mixed himself a martini to carry with him upstairs to the bathroom.

In the shower he thought of Rachel, becoming conscious once again of the twenty-five pounds he should lose. When he'd finished shaving, he paused in the act of patting after-shave on the slack skin about his jaws, scowling into the mirror. Brushing his hair, he wished he'd used something to cover the gray, but it was too late now. He recalled the ducktail he'd worn all those years ago when he and Rachel were teenagers. And she'd worn a long black ponytail, and sometimes a high-placed doughnut circled by a ring of tiny flowers to match her blouse or skirt. Lord, she'd come a long way since then. Her stylishness alone made Tommy Lee quaver. So when he dressed, he chose carefully: an expensive pair of trousers in oatmeal beige; a coordinating belt with a shining gold buckle; a blue-on-blue dress shirt; and a summer slubbed-silk sports coat the color of a coconut shell. He debated about a tie, decided against it, and, as he slipped his

billfold into his back pocket and
      
63 studied his reflection in the full-length mirror, decided this was the best he could do. But when he drained the last of his martini and clapped the glass on the dresser, his hand was shaking. He was scared to death.

Rachel's house looked closed up and forbidding as he pulled the Cadillac up to the curb and glanced at the arched windows. Yes, it was a beautiful house, he thought, continuing to study it as he slowly got out and slammed the car door. The click of his hard heels on the concrete walk sang out like rifle shots. The front door was windowless, painted Wedgwood blue to match the shutters. Facing it, he quailed again, but adjusted his shirt collar, drew a deep breath, and pressed the doorbell. Inside it chimed softly while he waited, his heart clamoring and a thousand insecurities making his stomach jump. Unconsciously he ran a hand over the crown of his head, then half turned toward the street, hoping to appear nonchalant.

But at the first click of the latch, he swung back eagerly. The door opened and all the rehearsed greetings fled his mind. The hundreds

of yesterdays came back with a nostalgic tug-- how many times had he appeared at her door, invited or uninvited?

She was more beautiful now than she'd been at seventeen, and her loveliness struck him like a blow, made him stand speechless far too long, taking her in.

She wore soft lavender tapered trousers with tiny-heeled shoes to match. Her lilac silk blouse had long sleeves and buttoned up the front to a classic open collar that revealed the tips of her collarbones and a fine gold chain holding a gilded giraffe suspended at the hollow of her throat. At her waist was a thin gold belt that made no pretense of holding up her slacks, but only accentuated the flatness of her stomach and the delicacy of her hipbones. She paused with one palm on the edge of the door, the other on the jamb, her sleeves softly draping, brown eyes startled yet somber.

When he could breathe again, he said, "Hello, Rachel."

She sucked in a surprised breath while her face took on a look of utter vulnerability. He wondered if she always wore

soft rose-colored lipstick when she was
   
65 home alone at night.

"Hello, Tommy Lee," she said at last. Her voice was quiet in the evening shadows and held a tinge of nervousness. She stood unmoving, guarding the entry to her house, while the smell of it drifted out to him--floral and tangy and woodsy all at once. Or maybe the smell came from her--he couldn't tell.

"Could I come in?"

Her expression grew troubled while she deliberated. Her glance flickered to his white Cadillac at the curb and he could read her hesitancy quite clearly--suppose someone she knew saw the car there? Still, he held his ground, waiting. At last, almost wearily, she let her hand slip from the edge of the door and stepped back.

"For a minute."

He moved inside then turned to watch a graceful hand with long painted fingernails--the same shade she wore on her lips--press the door closed while her head dipped forward as if she were arming herself to turn around and face him. The back of her short black hair seemed to spring into natural waves that no amount of professional

attention could quite subdue. When she turned to face him she slipped her hands into her trouser pockets and drew her shoulders high, emphasizing the thinness of her frame as the blouse draped more dramatically, scarcely rounding over the vague swell of her tiny breasts. For a moment, as their eyes met, neither of them knew what to say, but finally Rachel, with her exquisite sense of correctness, invited, "Would you like to come in and sit down?"

She led the way into the elegant living room whose fanlight windows he'd viewed many times from outside. The room's pastel colors were as tasteful and proper as those of Rachel's clothing and skin. The lamps were lit, and she waved him toward a quilted sofa, then took a seat on a small chair directly facing him, a marble-topped table between them. She crossed her knees, curved her hands over the front edge of the chair seat, and leaned forward, again with her shoulders drawn up in that off-putting way.

She wasn't going to make this easy for him.

So, all right, he'd play it her way.

"It's been a long time since I was in a Talmadge house."

"My name is Hollis now."
         
67

"Yes, I seem to remember that at regular intervals."

"I asked you not to come."

"I tried not to, but it just didn't work. I had to see you."

"Why?"

"To satisfy a long curiosity."

"About what?"

His eyes dropped to the pair of rich brass giraffes on the table between them. "About how life has treated you." His glance continued idly about the room, and when it came back to her his voice softened. "About how he treated you."

"As you can see, both life and he treated me just fine." She settled back in her chair, letting a hand fall casually on the far side of her crossed knees, wrist up.

No, she wasn't going to make this easy for him. But suddenly he realized she was just as scared as he; in spite of the loose-flung wrist, the nonchalant pose, she was undeniably tense. And she meant to keep him contained in this showplace of a living room that looked as if not one hour's worth of living had ever been done in it.

"Yes, so I see. You seem to have everything." He glanced left, then right. "Except an ashtray."

He enjoyed making her move. When she did, he could watch her covertly. As she walked the length of the room toward the dining room beyond, he noted again her thinness, but it was classy, not brittle. He'd never before known a woman who wore lavender shoes. On Bitsy they would have looked like a whore's shoes. He watched them as Rachel opened an étagère, withdrew an ashtray, then softly closed the glass door. Returning, she placed the heavy crystal piece on the table, resumed her seat, then watched as he reached inside his sports coat and drew out a pack of cigarettes. When he unexpectedly looked up at her, she dropped her eyes to the toe of her shoes, only to see his hand appear, extending the red and white package with one cigarette half cocked.

She met his eyes nervously. "No, thank you, I quit years ago."

"Ah, I should have guessed."

He lipped the cigarette straight from the pack --a memory from the past--and she saw that his mouth

had not changed at all. The evidence of
  
  
69 aging that marked the rest of his face had not reached his lips. They were crisply etched, generous, as beguiling as ever. When he suddenly stood, her heart leapt. But he only fished for a lighter in his trouser pocket, then sat on the edge of the sofa again while she watched him light up. He scowled as the smoke lifted, then threw back his head on a heavy exhalation as he slipped the lighter into his breast pocket. At last the ritual was through, and he rested with his hands pressed butt to butt between widespread knees, the cigarette seemingly forgotten in his fingers. He studied her until it took great effort for Rachel to keep from begging him not to.

"So, Rachel, where do we start?"

His question startled her, though she tried hard not to let it show.

"I think you know the answer to that as well as I do. We don't start."

"Then maybe I should have asked, where do we end?"

"We ended years ago, Tommy Lee. I really don't know why you've come here."

He glanced around. "I wanted to see your

house from the inside for once. It's a beautiful house, what I can see of it. Owen must have worked out fine with your daddy."

A faint blush heated her chin and cheeks. "Yes, he did. He worked his way up to vice-president at the bank."

"Yes, I know," he said softly.

"Yes, I suppose you do. There's probably very little we don't know about each other."

"There's no such thing as a secret in a town this size, that's for sure."

She shot him a sharp glance, but he was studying his cigarette, and when he raised his gaze she hurriedly dropped hers. "I understand you live out on the lake now."

"Yes, ma'am," he drawled with a touch of irony. "Got a big house out there." He chuckled quietly. "Folks called me crazy when I built it, but now they drive by in their boats and stare at it, and I think a few of them actually like it."

She couldn't help smiling for a moment, but she knew all the other things they said about him, too.

"Do you enjoy being ... unconventional?"

"Unconventional?" He glanced up with a

crooked, sad smile. "Why, I'm as
   
71 conventional as the next one. What you're meaning to ask is if I enjoy being the hell-raiser they say I am, isn't it, Rachel?"

"You said it, Tommy Lee. I didn't."

He seemed to consider the question a long time, all the while studying her closely. When he answered, he sounded resigned. "No, I don't enjoy it much. But it kills time."

Rachel bristled. "Is that what you consider three marriages and three divorces--killing time?"

He flicked his ashes into the crystal ashtray and answered as if to himself, "Well, it was killing anyway. But then we all can't be lucky like you and end up with a marriage made in heaven, now, can we?"

"You've grown cynical over the years."

"Hell, yes. Wouldn't you if you tried three times and failed?" She glanced aside as if appalled by his admission. "Does it bother you, Rachel, the fact that I've been married all those times? Is that why you're so tense?"

Her eyes snapped angrily. "I'm tense because I've just been through two grueling years

watching my husband die of cancer. It would make anybody tense." She jumped to her feet and he followed, catching her elbow above the marble-topped table.

"Rachel honey, I'm sorry."

She carefully withdrew her arm. "I'm not your Rachel-honey anymore, and I begin to see what it is people object to about you, Tommy Lee. You had no business coming here like this so soon after Owen's death, and especially after I asked you not to."

Their eyes clashed for long seconds. Then she turned her back and walked to one of the arched windows, where she stood staring out at the fading twilight. He leaned down, studying her back while he stubbed out his cigarette. Then he crossed to stand behind her. He caught her scent again, the Rachel-scent, the lingering of fine, costly powder caught in her clothing and on her skin, and it created a maelstrom in his senses.