A Long Hot Christmas

“Thank you. It’s working. That’s all that matters. And you? I mean, your work. I know you’re a lawyer, but…”

“An associate at Brinkley Meyers.”

“Brinkley Meyers? Your firm is representing Palmer in the Magnolia Heights case.”

Sam snapped his fingers. “That’s why it sounded familiar.”

“Are you involved in the case?”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” He smiled. “I’m in litigation. My department won’t get involved unless the case goes to court.”

“Oh, it won’t,” she said with obvious confidence. “Now. You were saying you’re an associate at Brinkley Meyers…”

She meant, “Let’s get to the point.” He leaned forward, meeting her green face head on to be sure she understood the seriousness of his situation. “A single associate. Who’s determined to make partner. This year, preferably.”

Something he said had gripped her attention. A pair of green eyes—really nice green eyes, he noted in passing—gave him their full attention. “So you’re the ‘fresh meat’ at every party. You’re the one they invite because they have a daughter, a friend, somebody they’re sure they can match you up with. And you can’t refuse, because you don’t want to offend anybody who could influence your future.”

“You’ve been there.”

“I live there,” she said, lowering her green face and balancing it on her fingertips. Thick, dark lashes fluttered down to brush the surface of the masque. “You just described my entire social life. I’m determined to make vice president for Marketing when August Everley retires in January, which means every move I make right now has a direct influence on my future.”

He fell silent, taking a minute to wallow in self-pity and feeling that Hope was in there wallowing with him.

“If you don’t show an interest it makes them mad,” he went on when he felt they’d wallowed enough. “If you do show an interest and don’t follow up on it, it makes them madder.” He paused for a frustrated sigh. “A person who doesn’t understand, somebody like your sister Faith, let’s say, wonders why you don’t just find a real man friend and cut through all that nonsense.”

Hope raised her head and visibly stiffened her backbone. “Or your sisters,” she said. “They probably don’t stop to think about the time it would take to find a woman you really enjoyed, time you don’t have, and then the time that woman would demand from you once you’d found her.”

“Time and commitment.”

“Which neither of us is ready for.”

“You got that right.”

“What we’re talking here is the possibility of a no-strings kind of escort arrangement. I go with you to your parties, you go with me to mine.”

“We act friendly enough to make people think we’re already spoken for.”

“Right.” Hope bit out the word and gazed at him with suddenly flashing eyes. “But let’s get one thing straight. If we make this ridiculous arrangement, don’t even think about calling me ‘arm candy.’”

He struggled to keep his mouth from twitching, and when he’d gotten it straightened out, he narrowed his eyes. “Same thing goes for you,” he said. “If we make this extremely practical arrangement, I’m not your ‘arm candy’ either.”

IF HE’D FELT like expressing his true feelings, which he didn’t, Sam had concluded that Hope Sumner would do fine. He liked the spunk she’d just shown. Without the green face she’d be attractive enough. One of those women who knew how to distract you from their flaws with expensive haircuts and makeup. She was well-spoken. She’d make a decent impression on Phil, the Executive Partner he reported to, and Angus McDougal, senior partner in Litigation, and she’d rear their children—one girl, one boy—with energy and intelligence.

But he was getting way, way ahead of himself. Five years ahead, maybe. The token girlfriend was for now, the suitable wife not until he’d made partner and collected a few years of percentages of the law firm’s profits. Not until he felt invulnerable, professionally and financially.

The green eyes, spectacular green eyes, actually, gazed at him out of a matching face, and there seemed to be a lot of brown hair tucked under the institutional white towel. Brown hair, green eyes, average American coloring. You couldn’t go wrong with that. She was a little taller than average—maybe five seven—but as tall as he was, that was fine. He couldn’t tell what was tucked under the hotel-style white terry robe, except that the sash outlined a small waist and the robe hourglassed promisingly above and below it.

None of that mattered much. Just gravy. Yes, she’d do. Sam wished he could say so and get back to work, but unfortunately it was also necessary to convince her he’d do. Plus—he had one more question to ask her.

She blinked a couple of times, apparently adjusting to the idea that he didn’t want to be arm candy either, and glanced openly at her watch. Sam took this as a good sign. “Well, Sam, it seems we’re in agreement so far. Now that we’ve met each other, let’s give the arrangement a little further thought before we touch base again.”

Sensing that he might have passed muster, he relaxed, as much as he could in this room. It wasn’t the sofa. The sofa was cushy. The apartment was cushy. Mentally he compared it with his own Spartan digs. Weird he’d feel more comfortable there. She wouldn’t, though, and he’d never take her there, not even…

He tensed up again. “One more thing,” he said. “How do you feel about sex?”

She froze. The word hung in the air like an especially acrid room deodorizer. Mesmerized, Sam watched a crack widen in the green masque, starting at the bridge of her nose and forking off to both temples. He suspected she’d tried to raise her eyebrows.

“I don’t mean now,” he assured her, “or even soon, not until we trust each other. But sex is one of the important things I don’t have time for.” Her steady unblinking stare was starting to make him nervous. “I mean time to develop a relationship to the point that…” He didn’t get this rattled when a judge was staring him down in court. “I thought maybe you had the same problem, and we could include it in…” He halted. “Or maybe you don’t…”

“Like sex?” she said. The crack deepened. “Want sex? Need sex? Of course I do, Sam. I’m a perfectly normal woman. But surely men have ways to… I mean, I know they… But of course, it’s not the same as…”

It was her turn to be rattled. But only for a moment. The gleam suddenly returned to her eyes, and Sam had a feeling she was seeing a whole new market for pipe.

“Add it to your list of things to think about before we talk again,” he said, regaining his calm.

“Shall we say early next week?”

Sam strode down the hall toward the elevator, bemused by the final question she tossed at him as they traded business cards. “Are you allergic to cats?” she’d asked him.

He wasn’t, but he was curious to know why it mattered to her. His interest was short-lived. A few minutes later he had his laptop up and running in the bar of the restaurant where his clients would soon join him, doing the only thing he really felt comfortable doing. Work.

2

“MISS YU WING to see you.”

“Send her up,” Hope told the doorman. She checked out her apartment one more time. The magnificent view of Central Park and beyond it, the lights of the Upper East Side and the towers of midtown glittered through the huge plate-glass windows in both the living room and the bedroom. Bed made, aluminum foil from TV dinner in trash, pillows plumped, desk neat…she didn’t know what an interior designer, even one of Yu Wing’s reputation, could find to change.

The bell jangled, she flung the door open in a hospitable manner—and took in a quick, startled breath.

The small, thin woman who waited in the hallway had the biggest head of bleached-blond hair Hope had ever seen. The coat she carried appeared to have been made from a number of Afghan hounds. She fluttered a Stetson from one hand like a Victorian lady fluttering her hanky.

It was obvious why she was holding her hat. She’d never have gotten it on top of the hair. The ice-blue eyes that sparkled out at Hope from a narrow, sharp-featured, weatherbeaten face held a quick intelligence, though, that got Hope’s attention.

A white Western-style shirt, faded blue jeans that stretched over her bony hips and high-heeled, tooled boots completed the picture.

The hallucination.

“Yu Wing?” Hope said. She didn’t smile. She was poised to slam the door at any moment.

The woman breezed right past Hope into the living room. “Actually, sugah, the name’s E-w-i-n-g, Maybelle Ewing, but folks expect a feng shui expert to have a kinda Asian name.”

Hope glommed onto the one thing the woman had said that she understood. “Feng shui?” she asked in a high, thin voice. She cleared her throat. “You are the decorator.”

“Sure am. A licensed interior designer and feng shui goo-roo.”

Hope was translating Maybelle Ewing’s deep Texas drawl into normal New York-speak as fast as her mind could function.

“Oh, my land!” Maybelle shrieked suddenly.