No Victoria.
He ducked into the kitchen and looked around.
Where was she?
He went onto the patio and followed the path to the pier. And there she was, walking along a row of power boats. He caught up to her next to the Whiplash, a Fountain speedster owned by a personal-injury lawyer.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I just needed some air.”
She was staring across the bay and wouldn't look at him. He came closer. The only sounds were the clanks and groans of the boats in their moorings and the far-off caw of a seabird. The sun had set, and an evening breeze chilled the air.
“You're cold.” Steve took both of her bare arms in his hands and felt the goose bumps.
“What were you doing in there?” Sounding angry. Ready to unload on him. “Just what the hell were you doing?”
“I'm sorry. You're helping me. Big-time. So if I was out of line. ..”
“And in court, massaging my neck?”
“It won't happen again. Scout's honor.”
“I'll bet a year's pay you were never a Boy Scout.”
“I was till they caught me peeping into the girls' bunkhouse.”
“And what are you doing now?”
He hadn't realized it, but his hands were rubbing her upper arms. “Just keeping you warm.” But in reality, he simply couldn't keep his hands off her. “I apologize. Really, I would never-”
“Shut up, Solomon.” She threw her arms around his neck, pulled him close, and kissed him.
He was so startled that it took him a second to kiss her back. But he did. At first, soft and tender. Then deeper, hungrier. Lips melting, tongues circling, it was a long, sigh-filled, sweet river of a kiss that left them both gasping. He held her close, and for a long moment, neither moved.
He tried to fathom his longings. Why did this feel so different than all the rest? Why did this woman matter?
Suddenly, she pulled back and turned away.
“That didn't happen,” she said.
“Yes it did.”
“I'm drunk.”
“Don't think so.”
“Or it's some chemical thing. I'm light-headed from not eating.”
“You want the paramedics?”
“Or it's propinquity. We work together every day, so naturally some feelings arise.”
“That's gotta be it.”
“Or it's reverse chemistry. We really don't like each other, so this is some mutually codependent, destructive urge that manifested itself simultaneously in both of us.”
“Or a rational, synergistic coupling,” he said, using her own words against her.
“I doubt it.” She was hugging herself with both hands.
Steve came to her, put his arms around her from behind. “Whatever it is, why not go with the flow?”
She wheeled to face him. “And where will that take us? Besides your bedroom?”
“I don't know. I just thought-”
“Isn't that just like you, Solomon? Do what feels good and damn the consequences.”
“Do what feels right. And this feels right. Why fight it?”
“For one thing, I'm engaged.” She held up her ring finger.
“A lawyer would notice you didn't say, ‘I'm in love with someone else.'”
“That's implicit in ‘I'm engaged.'”
“Love's never implicit in anything.”
“Okay, I love Bruce. I love him a lot. I'm going to marry him. Satisfied?”
“If you are.”
“I'm not going to play this game.”
Suddenly, a woman's voice sang out of the darkness. “I knew it!” A second later, Jackie showed up. “What'd I miss?”
“Nothing.” Victoria raked her hair with her fingertips. “We were just planning trial strategy.”
“Sure you were. I saw Bad Boy cop a feel, then you took off without your purse, which you wouldn't do if the place were on fire. Then Bad Boy follows you out here, so I thought maybe, just maybe, you might need your lipstick, which believe me, you do.” She handed Victoria her purse.
“Oh, God, Jackie.” Victoria opened the purse and fished for a mirror.
“Relax. Bruce is describing the horror of root rot, which he claims is like genital warts. The doctor's enthralled. And what do you have to say for yourself, Bad Boy?”
“Nothing happened out here,” Steve said.
“Don't worry. I won't rat you out. Vic's my best friend. But it's not fair.”
“What?” Steve asked.
“She has two fiances,” Jackie said, “and I don't have any.” Bruce Kingston Bigby and Victoria Lord request the honour of your presence at their marriage on Saturday, the eighth day of January Two Thousand and Six at six o'clock in the evening Church of the Little Flower 2711 Indian Mound Trail Coral Gables, Florida. Black tie dinner to follow at the Biltmore Hotel* *No animals or animal prducts will be used in food preparation.
Twenty-five
A KISS IS NOT A KISS
Where the hell was she?
It was 10:37 A.M., according to the Miami Dolphins helmet clock on Steve's desk, and Victoria was MIA. Not like her at all. She usually got half a day's work done before most people had finished their Wheaties. Or in his case, a handful of guava pastalitos with cafe Cubano.
What if she'd quit? Quit the case and quit him.
No answer at her apartment, no answer on her cell phone. She probably spent the night at Bigby's house, a thought that depressed Steve even more.
Kissing me and sleeping with him. The wench.
Thinking about Bigby made Steve feel devious. Not lawyer devious, that was a given. Personal devious, and that wasn't him. Even as an adolescent, he never bird-dogged other guys' girls, cheated on exams, or boasted of his own conquests. And his lies were always harmless and easily disproved, like exaggerating the size of his penis.
So where the hell was she?
Steve was supposed to be interviewing new clients-the Barksdale publicity had flushed out a few quail-but his heart wasn't in it. He was still thinking about THE KISS. Feeling it. Tasting it. The physical sensation lingering on his lips, sweeping through his body, searing itself on his brain. Or what was left of it.
What the hell's going on?
His mind drifted to other kisses. Two decades ago, he'd planted one on fourteen-year-old Sarah Gropowitz in the theater balcony during the movie Witness. He remembered waiting until Harrison Ford got his car started in the barn, and Sam Cooke was singing that he didn't know much about history.
Ford takes Kelly McGillis in his arms, and they dance, a brazen sacrilege, because of her Amish upbringing, to say nothing of her recent widowhood. Young Steve figured this was the kind of scene that turned chicks on, forbidden love and all that. Just as Cooke confessed that he was equally deficient in biology, Steve leaned close to Sarah's Clearasil-spotted face. Puckering up, Steve strafed her like a cruise missile hitting a terrorist camp. For his efforts, he got a mouthful of her jujubes, a cackling laugh, and derision from his peers for weeks to come.
Thinking about the movie deflated him. Harrison Ford didn't get the girl. True to his nature, the hard-boiled cop returned to his city. And true to her roots, Kelly McGillis hooked up with a strapping, blond farmer. Sort of an Amish Bruce Bigby. All of which led Steve to two disheartening conclusions.
Maybe opposites attract, but they don't usually end up together.
And…
If Harrison Ford couldn't get the girl, how the hell could he?
“Que pasa, jefe?”
Cece stalked into his office with the morning's mail in one hand, a twenty-five-pound dumbbell in the other. Today, she wore lower-than-low Brazilian jeans and a cropped tee. Trying to look like J-Lo or Shakira or Thalia-Steve couldn't keep them straight.
“Victoria call?” he asked.
“Why should she?”
“Because she's late.”
“Slave driver.” She dumped the mail on his desk. “Your next customer will be here ahorita mismo.”
“Client, Cece. We call them clients.”
She shrugged, her trapezius muscles fluttering.