The Virgin And The Vagabond

Everyone had considered her a saint after that, even though Kirby had just thought herself a daughter who loved her mother. And when her mother passed away shortly after Kirby’s eighteenth birthday, the entire town had turned out in sympathy. After that, Endicott had, in effect, become Kirby’s caretakers. Older folks became surrogate parents. Younger folks became surrogate siblings. And no man in town wanted to get intimate with his sister.

Too, when Kirby had become old enough to understand what sex was all about, she’d insisted on saving herself for marriage. Of course, now that she was thirty years old and a potential life mate was nowhere to be found, she had altered her philosophy on that in a number of respects. Two years ago, as a matter of fact, shortly after her twenty-eighth birthday, when she’d realized that thirty—and Bob’s next visit—were so near on the horizon.

It had occurred to her then that if she was going to find that forever-after kind of love she’d wished for when she was fifteen, by the time the comet made its next visit, then she was going to have to give Bob a little help.

Unfortunately, by the time she began to rethink her virginal status, most of the eligible men in Endicott had been chaimed—a good many of them by women who hadn’t shared Kirby’s opinions where their own maidenhead had been concerned. What few available men were left simply didn’t view Kirby in a particularly sexual light. Not that any of the others had felt any differently.

She sighed heavily, thought about moving someplace where no one knew her, then, as always, dismissed the idea completely. Endicott was her home, the only place she’d ever known. Although she had no family left to speak of, her friends were here. She’d never traveled as a child, and simply had no desire to move. The thought of starting up all alone somewhere just held no appeal.

So she lived in the house where she had grown up, existed on a small income from investments, struggled to make her decorating business a viable source of income and spent most of her time alone.

She opened one eye and gazed up at the cloudless, pale blue sky. “Thanks for nothing, Bob,” she muttered.

Darned comet. So much for the myth of the wishes. So far, Bob was zero for three. Angie’s excitement had yet to materialize, Rosemary’s lab partner had yet to get what was coming to him and Kirby was nowhere near finding a forever-after kind of love. Endicott was still boring, Willis Random—if you could believe the gossip—was thriving as a brilliant astrophysicist teaching at MIT and not one single example of husband-and-father material had come close to entering Kirby’s orbit.

“Some wish-granting comet you turned out to be,” she added morosely, closing her eye again.

But when she heard what sounded like the faint ding-dong of her front doorbell singing through the soft silence of the backyard, she jumped up from the chaise longue and thrust her arms through the sleeves of a short peach-colored kimono, then dashed into the house.

“I’m coming!” she shouted as the doorbell sounded impatiently several more times. “Will you please lighten up on that thing? I’m not deaf,” she concluded as she jerked the door open.

“No, what you are is incredible.”

The rich, masculine voice poured over her like something hot, liquid and sticky. For a moment, Kirby could say nothing in response to the man’s observation, so surprised was she by his appearance on her doorstep. So she only gazed at him in silence, mouth slightly agape, wondering if she hadn’t simply fallen asleep on the chaise longue and been plunged into one of those erotic dreams that plagued her from time to time.

Her guest was, in a word, gorgeous. His jet-black hair, sleek and straight, was bound at his nape in a ponytail by some currently invisible means of support. A white short-sleeved T-shirt, deceptive in its simplicity and clearly not Fruit of the Loom, loosely covered—but not quite loosely enough—a torso corded with muscles. The baggy, pale gray trousers were also obviously of expensive cut, cinched around a slim waist, trim hips and legs she would have killed to know more about.

But what caught her attention most was the single, exquisite, apricot-colored rose the man held in one hand, and the dewy magnum of champagne he held in the other. Quickly she forced her focus back to his face, where her surprise at his appearance had prevented her gaze from lingering. Now she took in his features, one by beautiful one, and felt the world drop away from beneath her.

His eyes were as pale as his hair was dark, an almost mystical gray framed by long, sooty lashes and straight, elegant black brows. His nose was narrow, his lips full and his cheekbones had evidently been carved from Italian marble. As she watched, his magnificent mouth curled into a smile, and he tipped his head forward in greeting.

“Hello,” he said simply.

When Kirby realized her mouth was still hanging open, she quickly snapped it shut. “Uh, hi,” she began eloquently.

He smiled a mischievous little smile. “My name’s James. What’s yours?”

“Kirby,” she replied without thinking.

“Wanna come out to play?”

She blinked at him three times quickly, as if a too-bright flash had gone off right in front of her eyes. “Wh-what?” she stammered.

He shrugged. “Okay. We can stay in and play. I’d like that better anyway.”

She shook her head hard in an effort to clear it of the muzziness that had overtaken it, and wondered if maybe she had spent too much time in the sun. Behind the beautiful man who stood on her front porch, everything appeared to be the same. The yellow chrysanthemums she’d planted along the walkway were starting to bloom, a few early fallen leaves were scattered about her impeccably groomed yard, and there was still a pothole at the foot of her driveway that she was going to have to call the city about seeing to again. Nothing at all out of the ordinary.

Except, of course, for the silvery Rolls-Royce, complete with livened driver behind the wheel, that was parked at the curb in front of her house. That was certainly something she didn’t see everyday.

She turned her attention back to her unexpected visitor. “Who are you?” she managed to ask.

His smile fell some, as if he couldn’t quite believe she had just posed the question she had uttered. “Who am I?” he repeated. He expelled a single, incredulous sound. “I’m James Nash.”

Kirby said nothing, waiting for him to elaborate. But when he only stood there gazing at her, she added, “What are you selling?”

His beautiful eyes nearly bugged out of his head at her question. “Selling? What am I selling?”

She nodded, gripping the front door more tightly, ready to close it tight. It didn’t matter how good-looking this guy was or that he had been ferried by Rolls to her front door. She was tired, she had a headache and she was in no mood for fun and games.

She remembered then that she was also naked under her robe, and the thought of fun and games suddenly took on a more sinister connotation. Certainly Endicott was one of the safest places on the planet by national standards, the kind of town people normally only chose to visit by sticking a pin in a map. Then again, there were a lot of weirdos out there who could stick a mean pin.

“Whatever you’re selling,” Kirby said as she began to push the front door closed, “I don’t want any.”

Before door met jamb, however, her visitor stuck the toe of his obviously expensive, clearly Italian, loafer in the opening, effectively interrupting the brush-off. A thrill of something slightly scary shivered up her spine, and Kirby tried to push harder.

“You don’t understand—I’m James Nash,” the man repeated slowly and clearly, as if he were speaking to a two-year-old child. “Nash,” he said again. He paused a moment before adding, “You might have seen my face on the cover of Tattle Tales magazine a few months ago. They’ve designated me the Most Desirable Man in America this year.”

Although Kirby could certainly believe a man who looked like he did was capable of winning such a distinction, she didn’t for a moment put credence in his claim. “Um, congratulations,” she said as smoothly as she could. “But you evidently have me mistaken for the Most Gullible Woman in America.” Without missing a beat, she added, “That would be my friend, Angie. She lives on the other side of town. Now if you’ll excuse me... Goodbye.”

She tried again to close the door, but the man who called himself James Nash, Most Desirable Man in America, kept his foot firmly planted between it and the latch. And he smiled again, looking devastating and yes, darn it, desirable. She frowned as a spark of heat sputtered to life in her midsection. Boy, she really was desperate for a man if a total stranger was flicking her Bic.

“You really don’t know who I am?” he asked. “You honestly don’t recognize my name?”

Kirby sighed impatiently, chanced opening the door wider and said, “No. Sorry. Should I?”

He chuckled with genuine delight. “You’ve really never seen me before?”

She shook her head.

“Not on TV? In magazines? On the Internet?” He leaned forward and lowered his voice conspiratorially as he added, “I’m a regular weekly feature on the show, ‘Undercover Camera’—it’s syndicated, so you’ll have to check your local listings—and there’s an entire web site dedicated to sightings of me. If you’d like, I can write down the URL for you.”

Kirby paused, utterly bewildered by what the man was telling her, but reluctantly entranced by his deep, resonant voice. When she finally regained her senses—what few of them she could collect—she shook her head again. “Sorry.” she repeated. “But I have no idea who you are.”

He gazed at her in silence, as if he weren’t quite sure of her species origin. Then a shimmer of amusement lit his eyes. “How utterly delightful,” he murmured. His smile turned dazzling as he ran a hand modestly over his hair. “Think a minute. Surely you’ve heard my name somewhere. James Nash. I’m an icon of popular American culture.”

Kirby smiled back—indulgently, she hoped, because one could never be too careful when one was confronted by mental instability. “Well, gee, I guess that would explain it,” she said carefully. “I’m not much of a fan of popular American culture. I don’t own a television or have access to the Internet, and the only magazines I read are related to the decorating industry.”

“There you go,” he said with a nod. “Two of my houses were featured in Architectural Digest last year. And Metropolitan Home‘s latest holiday issue was practically devoted to my Central Park condo.”

Kirby nibbled her lip thoughtfully for a moment as she searched through the files in her brain. She eyed the man more carefully. “Don’t tell me that leopard-print sofa and zebra-striped club chair were yours.”

He beamed. “You remember!”

“And you need a new decorator,” she said, making a face. “I hated that spread.”

His smile fell. “But I love that sofa.”

This time when she shook her head, it was with a cluck of disapproval. “Look, that whole African explorer thing went out a long time ago. Today’s decorators are getting back to the basics. Doing more with less. Simple lines, clean colors. Lots of light and space. Not dead animals.”