Last Chance at Love

She put on her Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong CDs as soon as she got home and sang along with them while she sorted out her clothes for the tour. With gentle strokes, her fingers brushed the once-yellow leather rose that had long since turned brown from her loving caresses. Half a dozen times, she’d thrown it into the wastebasket, only to retrieve it and return it to her little collection of treasures—the green quilted silk box in which she kept her first bra, the lace handkerchief she’d carried to her freshman high school prom, the empty perfume bottle that had held the first gift she received from a man. The yellow rose had nestled in the elegant bow on the box in which the perfume had been wrapped. Edna Wakefield hadn’t approved of a deliveryman for her daughter, and she’d let him go. But unlike opportunistic Roland Farr—her betrayer—that man had loved her, she now knew.

What of Mac Connelly? She couldn’t get him out of her mind. Tonight, she’d sensed in him a peculiarly erotic aura that she hadn’t detected the many other nights she’d seen him play. As she watched his fingers tease those strings, an unfamiliar heat had pulsated in her. A laugh rumbled in her throat. First Jacob Covington had poleaxed her, and now this. No doubt about it; she was a late bloomer.

* * *

Early Sunday afternoon, two days later, as Allison stepped out of her Jacuzzi, she heard Covington’s voice on her answering machine, interrupted it, and took the call.

“Don’t forget that our flight leaves at eight tomorrow morning, Allison. We might as well use first names. I’m called Jake. As I was saying, please be on time. I have a ten o’clock appointment, and I don’t want to miss that plane.”

As soon as her heartbeat returned to normal, she summoned her most professional demeanor. “Mr. Covington, I’m assuming that you don’t make these statements because you want to rile me, but because you’re deficient in the art of conversation. I will be on time, dear, and I will wash behind my ears before I leave home.” His uproarious laughter cooled her temper, and she vowed not to react negatively to every one of his incautious remarks.

“Did anybody ever try to blunt that sharp tongue of yours?”

“Now, you...” she began, remembered her counsel of seconds earlier, and stopped. “Jake, do you think we automatically rub each other the wrong way?”

That deep, dark, sexy laugh again. “I think we rub each other, but I’d be the last one to suggest it’s the wrong way. Rubbing with you gives me a good feeling.”

“Well, it irritates me,” she huffed.

“In what way? I’d be happy to soothe whatever I irritate. Just let me know what I’ve...uh...inflamed, and I’ll gladly cool it off.” His laugher caressed her. Warmed her. If she didn’t watch out, she could find herself enamored of... Was she out of her mind?

“I don’t suppose it has occurred to you that you can keep your thoughts to yourself.”

“It has, but doing that wouldn’t be fun.”

She could imagine that a grin covered his face. “You’re not going to tease me into letting you trap me with innuendos. I’m onto you. Aren’t you ever serious?”

“I’m always serious,” he shot back, “but I’m not a rash man. If I told you in plain English what’s on my mind, I could damage our relationship. I don’t want that.”

She wondered if her nerves would riot. After that comment, he might as well dump it out, but she refrained from saying it. “Thanks for being circumspect,” she replied instead, and she did appreciate it. “Having to suffer my boss’s coarseness is a big enough price for getting ahead in this business.”

“I can well imagine that. See you at eight in the morning.” As though he’d received an unpleasant reminder, his manner changed when she mentioned Bill Jenkins. Who could blame him? She told him goodbye, dressed quickly, and made her way to Mother’s Rest.

* * *

Allison took Leda from the nurse, looked into the child’s sad face, and told herself that, if she were ever fortunate enough to have one of her own, she’d love it so much that it would bubble with joy all the time.

“Leda,” she cooed to the solemn little girl, “smile for me.” She sang “Summertime” and was rewarded with the baby’s rapt attention. She cuddled Leda to her breast and paced the colorful, well-lighted room, singing as she did so. Leda quickly learned that a smile brought another chorus and, when the two hours had passed, Allison surmised that she had sung the famous song well over a dozen times. The nurses let her stay beyond the allotted two hours because the child fretted when she attempted to leave. Finally she managed to sing her to sleep, but for the first time, pangs of separation after leaving one of the children tore at her, and she vowed to have some of her own. But when?

She got home, saw the house’s dark windows, and realized she’d forgotten to set her automatic timer. She searched for the small flashlight that she always carried in her pocketbook, found it, and opened the door.

After sleeping fitfully that night, she arose before daylight, dressed in leisure, and stood leaning against the check-in counter for the Delta Air Lines Washington to New York flight when Jake Covington got there. Captivated, she watched him approach her, his gait loose and his stride lazy. Suggestive. He walked up to her and grinned. Then he winked. Unaccustomed to a promiscuous onslaught of desire for a man, she had to battle the frissons of heat that swirled within her, unsettling her. Six weeks of him could be her undoing.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, replacing the smile with a look of genuine concern.

She wasn’t so foolish as to tell him what seeing him had done to her. She turned to the ticket agent and handed him her credit card. “New York. One way, please.”

* * *

They took their seats in business class, and Allison immediately opened a newspaper, but Jake couldn’t resist closing the paper and relaxed when her inquiring look bore no censorship.

“I want us to get along well, Allison,” he began. “I grew up in a peaceful, loving family, and I’ve accepted that as the kind of life I need. I do not allow myself to spend a lot of time with contentious people. If you can’t stand my company, I’d rather we called this off before the plane leaves the gate.”

“I’m a little unsettled. It’ll pass over, I hope. In any case, Jake, contentiousness is not part of my disposition, so if that’s what you detect, you probably precipitated it.”

He ignored the remark. “What happened to you back there?” Whatever it was, it had plowed right through him. Oddly, he didn’t expect an explanation, because the incident had the appearance of spontaneity, a phenomenon unto itself and of its own power, so her answer held no surprise.

“I wish I knew. Don’t worry, though; I’m fine.”

He let his hand touch the side of hers; he couldn’t help it. Something in her called out to him, sparked a need in him, and it wasn’t one-sided. He knew she’d deny it, but there it was. She reacted to him exactly as he responded to her, and though he wasn’t anxious for them to get involved, he knew from experience that when nature decided to take a hand in such things, it didn’t ask permission. So he told himself he’d better take his mind off the matter, because the more he thought about her, the more she intrigued him. When the odor of fresh, perking coffee wafted into the cabin, he inhaled deeply, savoring its aroma, grateful that it overrode Allison’s tantalizing scent.

“I’d like some coffee. Sugar and cream,” he told the flight attendant.

Allison asked for plain black coffee and didn’t reply when he commented, “Unadorned, huh?”

She also hadn’t moved her hand from beside his fingers. What was he supposed to make of that?

Trying for a reaction, he teased, “Scared of gaining weight? From where I sit, you’re perfect.” He wouldn’t have thought that a simple blush could give him so much pleasure, but he relished the sight of her embarrassment as evidence that his compliment pleased her.

He sensed her uneasiness, too, but he didn’t think she’d want to be questioned about it, so he opted for impersonal conversation. “My network appearances will be taped at seven-thirty in the mornings and aired at nine-thirty,” he said, “and I have to be there an hour early. You want to go with me, or would you rather—”

That did it; immediately she removed her hand. “You’re not losing me, Mr. Covington, so please don’t try it. If I had wanted to watch you on television, I could have stayed home and done so in the comfort of my bedroom.”

His left hand went to his forehead. How did a man deal with such suspicions? He decided to ask her.

“Do you distrust everybody? Or just me? Allison, I cannot and I will not spend the next six weeks tiptoeing around your tender feelings.”

He watched her lift her chin in a display of aristocratic disdain. For heaven’s sake, not a stuffed shirt, he said to himself.

“My feelings are not tender,” she corrected him. “I want to make it clear that I won’t let anything or anybody prevent my carrying out this assignment, and that includes you.” Tired of hassling when he wanted to be gracious, he resorted to silence.

“I didn’t mean to snap at you,” she said after a time. “I’m not usually so touchy, but you seem to... I don’t know... I haven’t been my best self this morning.”

He rewarded her with an obliging smile, though it wasn’t what he felt. She’d glanced up at him for his reaction, and he’d smiled because she needed to be absolved.

* * *

Allison hadn’t considered that the simple business of registering at their hotel could prove embarrassing. After determining that they really did want separate rooms, the Drake Hotel registration clerk asked if they were traveling together. Jake said no, but she said yes, not realizing that they were being asked if they wanted adjoining rooms with a door that opened between them.

“Which is it?” the clerk asked. Heat singed her face when Jake replied that they didn’t want to be together. Flustered, she looked everywhere but at him and cringed before the clerk’s knowing gaze. She’d rather neither of them had known that she’d never checked into a hotel in the company of a man, not that it was their business.

“I’ll be ready in twenty minutes,” he said when she walked out of the elevator. “Can you make that? We’re going first to my publisher, then lunch, after which I sign at Barnes and Noble. Okay?”

She nodded. It was one thing to be attracted to him, but if she wasn’t careful she’d like him more than was healthy. Her reaction to him in the Washington Airport had distressed her, and when he’d sensed her unease and almost covered her hand with his, he’d told her more about himself than she needed to know right then. She changed into a burnt-orange suit and brown accessories, refreshed her makeup, and met him in the lobby with minutes to spare. His smile of approval had nothing to do with business and everything to do with a man liking the looks of the woman who approached him.

He held the taxi door for her and took his seat beside her. “I may not be in this evening, Allison; bright lights hold a lot of fascination for a country boy.”

She turned her body fully to face him. “Did you say you’re a country boy?”