After Hours

“I’m suggesting you abandon the project.”

“I don’t think so. You’re an interesting challenge.”

Her nostrils flared. “Now you’re being insulting.”

He stepped closer and said softly, “You liked it when I touched you.”

Gritting her teeth, Marcia thought about icebergs and glaciers and Scotch on the rocks, and her cheeks stayed only as pink as the heat of the stove warranted. “You took me by surprise, that’s all. A man of your experience should be more adept at distinguishing between a woman who’s startled and a woman who’s ready to fall at your feet.”

Quentin was by now thoroughly enjoying himself. “Dear me... a woman has never once thrown herself at my feet. Does that make me a failure as a man? Although it does sound rather a deranged thing to—Oh, thanks, Troy. I’ll have a beer.”

Had Troy been listening? Appalled, Marcia said stiffly, “You’ll have to excuse me... Oh, there’s the buzzer—that must be Mother.”

Evelyn Barnes looked very attractive in her rose-pink dress with her gray hair softly curling round her ears. Her usual escorts were tall, patrician-featured men, who considered themselves essential to the running of the country; Henry Woods was short, stout, bald and unassuming, with a pair of the kindest brown eyes Marcia had ever seen. She warmed to him immediately. She made introductions all around, Troy passed the drinks, and Marcia set a place for Quentin at the table, seating him where the flowers would screen him from her view.

Two and a half hours later Marcia was plugging in the coffee-machine in the kitchen. She was pleased with the success of her dinner party. Quentin and Henry bad proved to be witty and entertaining, Cat had thrown off her normal reserve and the baby had filled any gaps in the conversation. As for herself, she’d managed to avoid anything but minimal contact with Quentin. He couldn’t move out to the Gatineau Hills fast enough for her.

She reached in the refrigerator for the cream. But the container was almost empty and she’d forgotten to buy a new one. She went back in the living room. Troy and Quentin were getting out the chess pieces while Evelyn was giving Chris his bottle. “I’ll have to run to the corner store—I’m out of cream,” Marcia said. “Won’t be a minute.”

Quentin got to his feet. “I’ll come with you. I need to walk off some of that excellent dinner.”

She couldn’t very well tell him to get lost. Evelyn wouldn’t approve of that. So Marcia got her purse, pulled on shiny black boots and her raincoat and went out into the hall with him. His belted trenchcoat gave him the air of a particularly rakish spy.

“Let’s take the stairs,” Quentin said. “I shouldn’t have had a second helping of that chocolate dessert—deadly.”

“It was only Belgian chocolate, whipping cream and butter,” Marcia said, wide-eyed. “Oh, and six eggs too.”

“It should be against medical ethics to make caffeine and cholesterol taste so good.”

“It’s Cat’s favorite dessert. That article she told us about was interesting, wasn’t it?”

But Quentin hadn’t braved the rain to talk about Cat. As they went outside he opened Marcia’s umbrella, held it over their heads and pulled her close to his side, tucking her arm in his. “There,” he said. “Alone at last.”

His strong-boned face was only inches from hers; his gaze was intent: She said coolly, “This is a big city—we’re scarcely alone.”

“Don’t split hairs, Marcia. There are just two people under this umbrella-tell the truth for once.”

“All right, so we’re alone. So what?”

“Why did my painting make you cry?”

“Quentin, I have guests who are waiting for their coffee—come along!”

“You’re bright, you’re competent, you’re a dab hand with Belgian chocolate—and you’re scared to death of your own emotions. That’s quite a combination.”

Besides a rum and cola before dinner, Marcia had had two glasses of red wine with dinner. She said, pulling her arm free as she turned to face him and wishing that the umbrella didn’t cloister them quite so intimately, “You want the truth? I’ll give you the truth. You’re wasting your time, Quentin. I’m thirty-three years old—not fifteen. If I’m scared of emotion I presumably have adequate reasons, and if I’m as bright as you say I am they must be good reasons. I’m also much too old to be spilling out my life story to every man that comes along.”

Quentin didn’t like being bracketed with a procession of other men. He wanted to be different. He wanted to shake her up. As raindrops spattered on the umbrella he stroked the smooth fall of her hair with his free hand and said huskily, “You look like an Egyptian goddess in that outfit you’re wearing.”

Hot color flared in her cheeks. “I wouldn’t have worn it if I’d known you were coming,” she said, then could have bitten off her tongue.

He pounced. “You don’t want me seeing the real you?”

“I don’t know who the real me is anymore!” Marcia exclaimed, then rolled her eyes in self-disgust. “Telling the truth seems to be addictive. Quentin, it’s pouring rain. Let’s go.”

“Maybe I call you to truth,” he said quietly. Then he clasped her by the chin, lowered his head and kissed her full on the lips. Her lips weren’t cold; they were so soft and desirable that he lost all track of time and place in the sheer pleasure of the moment. When she suddenly jerked her chin free, it came as a physical shock.

“You mustn’t do that,’ she gabbled. ”You scarcely know me. You can’t just go kissing me as if we’re lovers in a Hollywood movie—and now you’ve got lipstick all over your mouth.”

She sounded anything but unemotional, and her first, instinctive yielding had set his head swimming. Quentin fished in his pocket, producing another handkerchief. “You’d better wipe it off,” he said.

“So that’s why you carry a hand kerchief—I should have known,” she said nastily, and scrubbed at his lips with painful vigor.

He was suddenly angry out of all proportion. Pulling his head back, he said, “Let me tell you something—my dad was a lumberjack in a little village in New Brunswick that I’m sure you’ve never heard of—Holton, in the Kennebecasis Valley—and my mom cleaned the houses of the rich folk. A white handkerchief was the mark of a gentleman to her, and when I won a provincial art competition at the age of twelve she gave me six boxes of handkerchiefs. I may not qualify as a gentleman but I loved my mother, and that’s why I always carry a white handkerchief.”

Marcia stood very still. Water was dripping from the prongs of the umbrella and her feet were getting cold. She said, “I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have said that.”

She was looking straight at him, and her apology was obviously sincere. “Okay. But you really get under my skin, Marcia Barnes.”

“That’s mutual,” she snorted, and wiped the last of the lipstick from the corner of his mouth. His nose was slightly crooked and there was a dent in his chin; his brows and lashes were as black as his hair. As for his mouth... She shivered in a way that had nothing to do with the cold. She had never been kissed like that in her life. Brief, beautiful and bewildering, she thought, tugging at his sleeve and starting off down the sidewalk, even through his coat she could feel the hard muscles of his arm.

They walked in silence for several minutes. Then Quentin said abruptly, “Have dinner with me tomorrow night.”

“I can’t.”

“Tuesday, then.”

“You’ll be in the Gatineau Hills.”

“I have a car. It’s less than an hour’s drive.”

“The store where I can get the cream is in the bottom floor of that apartment block—I won’t be a minute,” Marcia gasped, then darted from under the umbrella and ran inside.

The harsh fluorescent lighting and the aisles packed with food restored her to some kind of sanity. One kiss and I would indeed have fallen at his feet, she realized grimly, taking the container of cream out of the refrigerator and marching to the checkout. But just because my hormones are doing a dance like daffodils in springtime doesn’t mean I have to have dinner with the man. In fact, it’s precisely why I shouldn’t have dinner with him. I’m in enough of a muddle without adding a wild card like Quentin Ramsey to the pack.

She paid for the cream and went outside. Quentin was waiting for her, a tall, blue-eyed stranger standing under a streetlamp. He did call her to truth, she thought unhappily. To truth and to emotion—a devastating combination for a woman used to hiding herself from both. How was she going to convince him that she didn’t want to date him? Normally she had no trouble getting rid of men who forced their attentions on her.

As she cudgeled her brains, he forestalled her. “If you’re too busy at work to have dinner through the week, I can wait until next weekend.”

Marcia bit her lip and started to walk back the way they’d come. “Quentin, I don’t want to see you again. I’m sorry if that sounds harsh, but that’s the way it is.”

“Why not?”

She said childishly, “Because. Just because! Okay?”

“No, dammit, it’s not okay! I know you’re attracted to me, and I’m willing to bet you don’t lose your cool with anyone else the way you have with me. My painting made you cry, your whole body responds when I touch you, and the more I see of you the more I figure Lucy doesn’t have a clue what makes you tick.” He drew a harsh breath. “Plus she told me how much you wanted the painting of the three little girls—the one Troy bought for you.”

Spacing her words, Marcia seethed, “I can want a painting. That doesn’t mean I have to have dinner with the artist. You’re not a stupid man and that’s not a very complicated message. So why aren’t you getting it?”