Heaven's Price Part 2

"You know good and well I mistook you for someone else. The decent thing to do would have been to identify yourself. I don't see how I can live here now knowing what kind of man my landlord is. As soon as you leave," she stressed that, "I'll carry my things back down to the car."

Whatever she expected of him, it wasn't the laughter that thundered out of his chest. His smile widened and he threw back his blond head in pure enjoyment. "So the heavenly body and innocent eyes are deceptive.

Beneath them lurks the soul of a tigress. I like you, Blair Simpson.

"Well I don't like you," she shouted. "You're a liar and a sneak.

Get out!"

"I never lied," he said with maddening calm while she thought she would burst with the anger roiling inside her.

"What would you call it?"

"I told you honestly that I didn't work for the Y. I said I was a free-lancer which I am. I'm a contractor. You asked if I had enough clients and I said that you'd be surprised. I do have many clients.

I buy old houses, restore them structurally, then sell them to wealthy citydwellers who want a vacation home near the beach. So you see, everything I told you is the truth."

"But misleading."

He shrugged, his mouth tilting at the corners into a mischievous grin.

"As I said, what's a man to do under such circ.u.mstances? When a beautiful woman offers to take off her clothes and lie down on the kitchen table, do you know any real man who would politely turn and leave? " Thinking she'd shock him, she thrust out her chin and said defiantly, "As a matter of fact I do."

He wasn't impressed, as his nonchalant shrug testified. "I don't criticize anyone for his lifestyle. I only know what my s.e.xual preferences are. And a beautiful woman wearing only a bedsheet, lying docile and pliant and begging for my touch appeals to me greatly."

"Begging! I didn't . . . the only reason I was letting you touch me is because I thought you were a professional ma.s.seur. Had I known.."

"Don't try to tell me you weren't enjoying it because I know better.

You were practically purring. You weren't even aware of turning over and treating me to a look at all of you." He spoke the last words softly as he got off the table and took what few steps were necessary to stand directly in front of her. "From the back, you look like little more than a child. But from the front, for all your daintiness of figure, Blair Simpson, you are undeniably a mature woman."

His hands came up to cradle her jaw. She couldn't ward him off with her hands. They were occupied with holding up the sheet. "Don't," she said, trying uselessly to twist her head aside. She was ignored. His mouth was only a breath away from hers.

"I'll tell you something else. I'll blister your f.a.n.n.y if you ever again open your door to a strange man and let him come in. Don't you know what can happen to ladies when they act so carelessly?" The mustache made a brus.h.i.+ng pa.s.s across her lips. "All kinds of perverts are walking the streets. If you had let one of them in instead of me, something terrible might have happened to you."

His lips pressed against hers and what little will she had remaining sifted through the barriers of her mind like the last grains of sand in an hourgla.s.s. His hands, cupping the back of her head, were as gentle as they had been while giving her the ma.s.sage. His thumbs rotated hypnotically against her temples. She felt herself gravitating toward his body as though pulled by a magnet.

He dropped a few light kisses on her mouth before stepping away.

Blair couldn't focus on him clearly, so dizzy was she made by the embrace and his untimely and cruel withdrawal. When her senses finally returned, the first thing that registered on her desire-clouded mind was his victorious grin. Any lingering pa.s.sion she felt was immediately swapped for rage.

She shoved him away from her with one hand risking her hold on the sheet. "Get out!" she screamed. "You're the only pervert I've ever had the misfortune of meeting."

"I'll leave now," he said, turning away from her and navigating his way around the boxes to the front door. "But I'll have dinner ready at eight. Just come to the back door of the house and knock."

"Dinner! Are you suggesting that I have dinner with you after this?"

"I see no reason why not. Now that we know each other so well."

The meaning behind his smile left nothing to the imagination.

"Good-bye, Mr. Garrett. You'll see me on the first of next month when my rent is due."

"I'll see you at my back door at eight or I'll come get you."

Before she could respond he added quietly, "Pam told me about your knee injuries. I'm truly sorry you won't be able to dance for awhile."

Then he was gone and Blair was staring at the wooden door he'd quietly closed behind him.

"You mean you were lying there n-a-k-e-d with Sean Garrett's hands sliding all over your body?" Blair watched sadly as Pam Delgado popped another chocolate chip cookie into her mouth and chewed it l.u.s.tily while her eyes were staring with wide incredulity at her friend.

"Yes. It was awful."

Pam laughed, nearly choking on the cookie. "Oh, the pits to be sure,"

she scoffed. "Who do you think you're fooling, ol' friend? Much as I love and adore my Joe, I'd probably be tempted to submit should Sean offer to give me a ma.s.sage on the kitchen table and so would ninetynine percent of the women in town."

Pam and her brood of five had descended on Blair an hour after Sean had left. Pam had a.s.signed jobs to her four oldest children. Two were emptying boxes of books and records into the built-in bookshelves in the main room. One was folding towels and linens into the closet in the bathroom. The other was unpacking pots and pans into a kitchen cabinet.

Pam and Blair were sitting at the table, talking over the clatter.

The youngest Delgado, a boy a few months past his first birthday, was on his mother's lap, smearing himself with a soggy cookie.

"Well then, I'm one of that one percent who wouldn't. Pam, why didn't you tell me this man, who is my nearest neighbor and landlord, is a perverted!"

"He did something perverse?" Pam asked eagerly, dodging at the same time the bite of cookie the baby was foisting on her. "What?"

"No, he didn't do anything perverse," Blair said in vexation, standing to go to the countertop to pour more soda into Pam's near-empty gla.s.s.

"The whole thing was perverted. He took advantage of me," she cried.

"I was mortified."

Pam's eyes softened a bit. "Well I can see how you might be upset.

But you've got to admit being taken advantage of by Sean isn't exactly a fate worse than death. I know women who'd" "Would you stop saying that please?" Blair asked, slightly irritated.

"As you know I'm not like other women. They can have the macho types.

I'm not impressed by Sean Garrett as being anything other than a scheming womanizer.

"But he's not," Pam came to his defense quickly. "Blair, he's one of the pillars of the community. He's successful in business, he's on the city council, a member of the school board." "My G.o.d! You mean he's got children?"

"No, no. He's never been married, but he's interested in all aspects of the community. In addition he's charming, and d.a.m.ned good to look at.

Don't tell Joe, but I nearly ran the Volvo off in a ditch one day when I saw him working on a roof wearing nothing but a pair of shorts.

Without a s.h.i.+rt he's..

"Okay," Blair said, throwing up her hands in a gesture of surrender.

"He's absolutely wonderful and I'm weird for not realizing how lucky I am that he made a complete fool out of me."

Pam's smile drooped. Reaching across the table, she covered Blair's hand with her own. "I'm sorry. Knowing how . . . well, how headstrong you are, I can see how you'd be angry that he duped you so easily.

But, Blair, you have to admit that it's funny. Some of the things you said .

.." She couldn't hold back the laughter any longer and it bubbled out of her throat.

"Thanks a lot," Blair said, with a wry smile. "Traitor.

Are you sure you aren't descended from Benedict Arnold?" "Does his machismo make you nervous?"

"Whose? Benedict's?" Blair said in an attempt to avoid Pam's perceptive question.

Blair laughed. "Of course not."

"I just wondered," Pam said with obvious offhandedness. She crimped the curls on the baby's head. "I mean, you haven't really been involved with a man since Cole." Blair looked away. "No I haven't."

Neither Pam nor anyone else knew the whole story of her relations.h.i.+p with Cole Slater and no one ever would.

By tacit agreement, they'd never discussed it. If Pam harbored any curiosity about that segment of Blair's past, she was friend enough not to pry. For that Blair was grateful. Pam wasn't prying now. She was only providing a key should Blair want to open a closed door. She didn't.

"Sean Garrett just isn't my type, that's all."

Pam laughed. "If you're a woman, he's your type."

Blair studied her friend who had gained too much weight with each successive child until the acc.u.mulation had carried her far beyond being pleasantly plump. "If you're so enchanted with Sean Garrett, why didn't you go after him instead of Joe?" Blair teased.

Pam spread her arms wide. "Because Joe loves me just the way I am."

Her eyes sparkled happily. "And can he ever love!" she added with an exaggerated sigh. Her skin, which she had sense enough to protect from too many sunny days on the beach, was clear and smooth. Her hair, piled up on top of her head in a careless knot, was a summation of her philosophy of life. She looked happy and totally fulfilled, and Blair knew a pang of envy.

"I know you think I've let myself go to pot," Pam said with characteristic honesty. "I know I look like a blimp and no longer resemble the svelte dancer who fought every ounce. Don't think I don't look at you and get pea green with envy for your tiny figure. I do.

Firm thighs, a flat stomach, and b.r.e.a.s.t.s that don't sag are history for me.

But I'm happy, Blair. I've got Joe and the kids and I love them. I wouldn't trade places with anyone. I wouldn't trade places with you, glamorous career or no glamorous career."

Strident voices from the living room indicated that Andrew didn't approve of the way Mandy was doing her job. Mandy said she was going to tell Mama if Andrew didn't leave her alone. Andrew yelled, "Tattletale, tattletale.

The two women scarcely heard them. Blair was staring down at her hands and Pam was watching helplessly as she read the heartache on her friend's enviably youthful face.

"I wouldn't blame you for not wanting to trade places with a thirty-year-old gypsy with banged up knees," Blair said forlornly.

"Your knees will heal and you'll be back dancing in no time."

"And if they don't heal? What then?"

"Then you'll do something else."

"I don't know anything else, Pam."

"Well, you'll learn something else. My Lord, Blair, you're beautiful and talented and the fact that you're thirty may be threatening if you want to be a professional dancer, but there are other things you can do that haven't even occurred to you yet. I know you're not stupid enough to think that your life is going to end now that you're thirty and may not be able to dance anymore."

"The life I want will be over."

"How do you know what you want? You've never known any other life but dance. Something wonderful may be in store for you that you couldn't even guess at. Do you think I thought, G.o.d let me be mugged that day in the park so I'd have to file a report with a cop named Delgado who had beautiful brown eyes and a wonderful laugh? That your knees are giving out may be the best thing that's ever happened to you."

Blair saw that arguing was useless, so she patted Pam's plump hand and said, "Maybe so," knowing full well that such was not the case.

With Pam helping and the children causing a minimum of chaos, they managed to unpack most of the boxes in the next hour. Pam sent the older children down the stairs with the empty boxes with instructions to put them into Sean's trash barrels.

"Can we go see Sean?" Mandy, the oldest girl, asked Pam.

"No. He's probably out working somewhere."

"His truck's here. So is his car," Andrew said. He was the oldest of Pam's children, just approaching nine.

Pam sighed. "Just for a minute then." Despite her warnings that they be careful on the stairs with the boxes, they raced down them.

"Andrew's got a terrible crush on you," Pam said. "He asked me the other day if I thought you were pretty. Usually he scorns females of any kind."

"I thought boys had their first crushes on their teachers."

"It's summertime," Pam said and they laughed.

When the two came bounding back upstairs they were slurping on Popsicles. "Sean gave them to us. He sent these to the others,"

Andrew explained, handing the other three Popsicles to his mother.

"Oh, let's hurry out of here or we'll drip all over Blair's floor," Pam said, quickly grabbing up the baby, her purse and car keys.

"Oh, yeah, I almost forgot," Andrew said to Blair just as his mother was shooing him out the door. "Sean said for you to dress casual tonight."

Pam stopped her frantic efforts to herd her children down the stairs and looked over her shoulder. "Tonight?" she asked on a high note.

"He has the mistaken idea that I'm going to eat dinner with him," Blair mumbled.

"You're not?"

"No! " "Wanna bet?" Pam asked, winking before she ...turned to a.s.sist three-year-old Paul down the steps.

When Pam had first told her about the garage apartment, Blair had asked if it had a bathtub. One of the things the doctor said would help her knees was frequent soaking in hot baths. Pam had a.s.sured her it had one.

Now, Blair was taking her first relaxing bath in the old-fas.h.i.+oned, deep, claw-footed tub and it felt wonderful. The tension that had been building since she first saw Sean Garrett standing on her threshold began to dissolve in the steamy water.

When the water finally began to cool, she stood up, reeling slightly.