“Do you want me to hold while you check?”
“No, no. It was probably someone going past with a suitcase.” He was such a lousy liar. “So, does this mean we’re on for breakfast?”
“I know I said yes last night, but I really can’t. I’m sorry. I have a ton of things to do.”
“Like what?”
He really was interested in the details of her life, but as soon as the words were out, he realized how they must sound.
“Well, I have to work on Monday’s script, and go grocery shopping, and try to hack my way through the jungle in my backyard, and-”
“Don’t you ever relax on the weekend?”
“That is relaxation. Well, except for the script.”
“Do it tomorrow.”
“I have Tuesday’s script to work on tomorrow, and some preliminary work to do on this communications specialist we’re bringing in on Thursday. Then I have to go over to North Point Mall and try to find my cousin’s four-year-old a birthday present. I’m invited to my aunt and uncle’s place tonight for dinner and the party.” She paused. “That’s way too much information, isn’t it?”
“Boy or girl?”
“Boy.”
“Ah. He’ll love anything to do with dinosaurs or Spider-Man.”
“How do you know?”
“My sister’s kids are that age. Two boys and a girl. Brandon knows the Latin names of every dinosaur that ever lived, and a few that are cartoon characters, as well.”
Her laugh made his breath hitch. What was it about this woman that affected him this way? Was he that long overdue for sex and therefore more susceptible than usual? Or did she charm everyone like this?
“Duly noted,” she said. “That should simplify things.”
An idea whisked into his mind. “I could come along. Offer some suggestions. Dinosaurs can get out of hand in a hurry without the help of an expert.” And while he was at it, he could pitch her again.
“You seriously don’t want to go to the mall with me.” Her voice filled with disbelief, though laughter lurked in the back of it. “A big network exec like you? Don’t you have important stuff to do? Deals to nail down? People to see?”
“I do,” he said. “One deal in particular is very important to me, but I refuse to let it interfere with my weekend.”
She paused, as though this were sinking in. “I see. So today and tomorrow are a deal-free zone? The subject won’t come up, even in passing?”
“Will you push me into the fountain by the food court if it does?”
“I don’t think there is a fountain, but probably.” The laughter bubbled closer to the surface now, and his whole being seemed to warm with it.
“I’ll take the risk. So how about you put the garden off until tomorrow, and we hit the mall today? Do the script this morning, and I’ll pick you up after lunch.”
“What about breakfast?”
“I’ll get some here. If we bag our ’saur, we can celebrate with a victory drink.”
She was laughing openly now. “Deal. Pick me up around two. I’ll be done with the script by then if I concentrate.”
He agreed and rang off, her laughter still tickling his mind, giving him as much pleasure as her fingers might on his skin.
She might be able to find some powers of concentration. But the prospect of spending the afternoon with her had shot his straight to hell.
6
PROMPTLY AT TWO, the doorbell rang and Eve opened the door to find Mitch hunched awkwardly on the porch under the heavy cover of the rambling roses.
“You might consider trimming these things,” he suggested by way of greeting. “I think one of them just bit me.”
Eve waved him inside. “They don’t have thorns. And I keep them that way to remind myself not to let my head swell. You know, with success. They remind me to stay humble.”
Her house wasn’t that big-a dining room and kitchen on the left of the hall, and a parlor and family room on the right, the latter of which had become her office over the past three years. The bathroom and two bedrooms were at the back, but weren’t visible from where he stood.
“I can’t imagine you having problems with that,” he said. “Nice place.”
“Thanks.” She waved him into the parlor. “The furniture is from my aunt and uncle’s attic, mostly. The coffee table was my mom’s. My grandmother in Florida died a year and a half ago, and I got some of her pieces, too, like that sideboard.”
“So you have pieces of your family with you.” His tone was abstract, as if his situation were completely the opposite. “And the piano?” He opened the lid and touched a key with one long finger.
Eve looked away. “My dad’s. He was a big fan of Pinetop Perkins and the old boogie-woogie piano players. My mom used to keep plants on top of it and he could really make them dance once he got going.”
Sure enough, ancient water rings were etched into the finish. Mitch pulled out the bench and sat. “Do you mind?”
“Not a bit. It’s probably out of tune, though.”
“Boogie, huh? I wonder if anyone remembers where that word came from.” He rolled out a walking bass with his left hand.
She laughed, a huff of amazement. “I thought you said you were a trumpet player.”
He began to pick out notes with the right hand. “I started on the piano when I was a kid. Mom was a music teacher. I haven’t done this in a while. I think I’ve lost my knack.”
“Here, shove over.” Eve sat down on the other half of the piano bench and glanced at his bass notes to see the key. The rhythms her dad had pounded out on this very spinet seemed to be embedded in it still-or maybe they were just in her memory. She found a melody she’d learned as a kid and began to embellish it.
Mitch’s bass was as steady as a rock, if you didn’t count the flourishes of syncopation that made her shoulders sway with the rhythm, and suggested skipped beats and notes of her own.
Eve had had years of piano lessons when she’d lived with Nana, who had believed firmly that her dad’s talent slept inside her somewhere, all evidence to the contrary. In about her fifth year, she’d got the hang of it and the piano became pleasure, not work. She’d never played in a band, though, or any kind of ensemble that would prepare her for the sheer organic sensuality of making music with another person.
Melody and bass, rhythm and counterpoint. Line building on line, notes forming chords forming song. Two people bringing their experience together to create something entirely new and different.
The way they might when they made love.
Eve lost her concentration and a straightforward diminished A fumbled into discord. Mitch’s rhythm faltered and stopped.
“Whoa,” she said, summoning a grin and sliding off the bench. “Lost it. I guess I need more practice.”
“Sounded pretty good to me.” He slid off the bench, too, and closed the lid carefully over the ivories. “But then, I imagine there isn’t much you don’t do well.”
Eve mumbled something appropriately self-deprecating and headed down the hall to get her handbag. It wasn’t fair. The relationship gods must hate her. Here she was in a career that depended on the whole world of relationships for its bread and butter. She’d met a gorgeous man who seemed to be as attracted to her as she was to him, and who had voluntarily suggested going to a mall without being threatened with blackmail first.
Why did he have to be the one man she had to hold at arm’s length? In the practical light of common day, she reflected from the safety of her bedroom, she’d been insane to behave the way she had last night. Nana would be so-not shocked, because Eve couldn’t imagine much shocking her-but disappointed. And she’d always hated disappointing Nana. That sad look, that biting of the lip that meant she could be giving the young Eve an earful but was holding it back so as not to hurt…oh, yeah. Very effective. She could have used a shot of Nana last night.