Elsie rushed out the front door, peered into the car, and put her hand to her chest. “Lord, I thought somebody’d died. What are you doing in this thing?”
Kate pointed to the huge white cast on her leg. “I broke my leg, and I couldn’t get this plaster monstrosity into the Porsche, so Mr. Big Bucks rented a limo.”
“How’d you break your leg?”
Dave passed the crutches to Elsie and helped Kate out of the car. “We were playing football, and she tackled a garbage can.”
“She don’t look too happy about it.”
Dave paid the driver. “She’s mad because I made her cancel all her lessons for today.”
Kate grabbed her crutches and stuffed them under her armpits. “And then he called the orchestra and told them I was confined to my bed!”
“The doctor said she has to keep her leg elevated for four or five days.” Dave handed the crutches back to Elsie and scooped Kate into his arms.
“Put me down!”
“Soon as I get you into the house.”
Kate wriggled. “You’re going the wrong way.”
“I’m taking you to my place. It’ll be easier to take care of you there.”
“No!”
“Yes. I was the one who forced you to play football, and I’m the one who’s going to nurse you back to health.”
“Elsie, do something. Are you just going to stand there and let him kidnap me?”
“Sure,” Elsie said. “Dave, am I still invited to dinner on Saturday?”
Dave carried Kate up the stairs and balanced her on his knee while he opened the door. “You bet. Four o’clock.” He swung Kate inside and closed the door with his foot.
“I thought you’d invited my parents for dinner on Saturday.”
“I did.” He took Kate upstairs and set her on the couch. He brought a pillow from the bedroom, put it on the coffee table, and gently laid her foot on the pillow. “I invited Elsie, too.”
“Ohmigod.”
“Nothing to worry about. I told Elsie this was high-class stuff, and she should leave the gun at home.” He put a DVD into the DVD player and zapped it on.
“Raiders of the Lost Ark?”
“This is classic. This is terrific. I must have seen this a thousand times.”
Kate grimaced. “Isn’t this the movie where they get covered with spiders?”
“Yeah. There’s a lot of good stuff in here. Poison darts and booby traps and a bunch of scary chase scenes. You stay put, and I’ll go make us some supper.”
She rested her head against the back of the couch and closed her eyes. He was trying very hard to be nice to her, and she appreciated it. But she wasn’t the sort of person who felt comfortable being waited on. And already she couldn’t stand sitting anymore.
How was she ever going to get through four days of this? The bottoms of her feet itched to get moving. Her fingers felt cramped. She looked at the cast and cringed. It was ugly and awkward and wasn’t designed to support a cello. Disaster, she thought, this was a disaster. No, wait a minute. A cholera epidemic was a disaster. Starvation in Africa was a disaster. This was just a broken leg. Not even a bad break according to the doctor. A crack in the tibia. No big deal. She’d put on a long dress and nobody’d know. In the meantime she’d watch Indiana Jones do his thing. Except for the spider part. She didn’t want to watch the spider part.
Dave sidled into the room with a trayful of food. “Why do you have your eyes closed?”
“I don’t want to see the spiders. Are they gone yet?”
“Yeah. If you don’t open your eyes, you’re going to miss the part where he snatches the idol.” He set the tray on the coffee table and sat beside Kate. “So, you don’t like spiders, huh?”
“I can live without them.”
“Spiders are okay. They eat bugs. They catch flies and mosquitoes. Besides, I have it on good authority that the spiders in Raiders are fake.”
“They were big and ugly, and there were a lot of them.”
Dave grinned. “We could watch a different movie…”
“No. This is fine.” She looked at the plates of food.
“How did you get all this? Homemade lasagna, Italian bread, salad.”
“Leftovers from the freezer brought to you thanks to the miracle of the microwave. Except for the salad.”
“You like to cook?”
“I can take it or leave it. Mostly I like to eat. That means I have to do some cooking.”
Kate tasted the lasagna. “It’s good. I’ve never paid much attention to cooking or eating. I’ve always taken my appetite pretty much for granted.”
“Not me,” Dave said. “I’m really into appetites. Some more than others, of course.”
Kate cut her eyes to him. “Of course.”
He buttered a piece of bread. “You ever get lonely over there in that empty house?”
“Not lately. The loneliest period of my life was when I was married to Anatole. Being alone is different from being lonely, you know.”
Dave stabbed a chunk of tomato. “Ever think about getting married again?”
“Never.” Liar! That morning she’d written “Katherine Dodd” in the dust on her bureau. “Almost never,” she amended. “How about you? Would you like to get married?”
Dave chewed his bread while he thought about it. “Okay.”
“Okay what?”
“Okay, I’ll marry you.”
Kate sat with her fork poised in midair. “When I said would you like to get married, I meant it as a question, not as a proposal.”
“Sounded like a proposal to me. And the answer is yes.”
“Sure is refreshing to find a man with a sense of humor.”
There was just the slightest hint of laughter deep in his eyes. “I’m serious. And you’d better watch your step, or I’ll sue you for breach of promise.”
She knew he was kidding. At least she was practically positive he was kidding. Still, she felt uncomfortable. Writing names in the dust was one thing—an engagement, even a bogus engagement, was something else. “Is there any dessert?”
He put the empty plates on the tray and stood. “Changing the subject?”
“Marriage talk makes me uneasy.”
“No reason to duck the issue.” The laughter spread from his eyes to the corners of his mouth. “Marriage is like riding a horse. You fall off, and you get right back on and try again, and again, and again.”
“Like crashing into garbage cans. Just because I broke my leg this time doesn’t mean I should stop crashing into garbage cans.”
“Yup. You have to keep doing it until you get it right.”
“About dessert…”
He returned in a few minutes with bowls of chocolate ice cream loaded with every imaginable topping. “I didn’t know what you wanted, so I gave you everything.”
“Marshmallow, strawberries, walnuts, chocolate sauce, whipped cream, a glob of butterscotch, and sliced bananas. This is very creative.”
“I’m a creative kind of guy.”
Kate dug into the ice cream. “You should do something constructive with all that creativity. Isn’t there anything you want to do besides play with trains?”
“I like to draw.” He reached across her and took a box of crayons from the end table. “I bought myself a new box of crayons today. Not just any box, mind you. This is the forty-eight-crayon size. That’s the best size to get. The bigger box has a crayon sharpener, but I like the shape of this box better. It feels substantial in your hand.” He popped the top and stared happily at the crayons. “New crayons are great. All perfectly lined up in their paper wrappers, with their little flat tops. And I love the waxy smell.” He sniffed appreciatively and held them out to her. “Here. I’ll give them to you, then you’ll have something to do while you watch TV. I have a new pad, too.” He took a pad from the end table and set it on her lap with the crayons.
“Oh, I don’t think—”
“It’s okay. I’ll get myself another b
ox.”
Kate stifled a giggle. She felt silly with her gloppy bowl of ice cream and brand-new crayons. All she needed was a pair of patent leather shoes—the kind with the little strap that buckled across the instep. Of course, she wouldn’t be able to put them on because her cast wrapped around the bottom of her foot. “What kind of pictures do you draw?”
“All kinds. Mostly cartoons. I always planned to be a cartoonist when I grew up.”
“So you’re planning on growing up, huh?”
He set his bowl on the table and put his arm around her. “I’m pretty grown-up already.”
“Mmmm, well, don’t grow up too much. I have a cast on my leg.”
He took the spoon from her hand and fed her some ice cream and chocolate sauce. “The cast doesn’t cover any of your important parts.”
“Watch your step, Dodd. Just because we’re engaged doesn’t mean you can take liberties.”
“Too late. I’ve already taken all your liberties.” He licked a spot of chocolate sauce from the corner of her mouth. “But I’m happy to hear you admit we’re engaged.”
She took the spoon from him. “I’m not admitting to anything, and you’re melting my ice cream.”
He drew a line from her knee, up the inside of her thigh. “Remember the gearshift…”
Remember it? Only down to the most minute detail. She wriggled away from him. “Stop that! Behave yourself, or I’ll hit you with a crutch.”
He pulled her back. “Your crutches are downstairs in the kitchen.”
“Oh, yeah.” Kate sighed. He was getting to her. And his fingers were doing clever things at the base of her neck, making her feel relaxed and friendly, making her remember the night they’d spent together. “I don’t want to hit you anyway.”
His thumb stroked lazy circles up toward her hairline. “That’s encouraging.”
He didn’t know how encouraging, she thought ruefully. There were times, like tonight, when she didn’t care about motivation and long-term compatibility. There were times when she simply wanted to enjoy the moment. She’d worked hard all her life, but now her leg was broken, and she was forced to alter her lifestyle for a while. Maybe she should make the most of it… just for a day or two.
His voice was soft. It whispered through her hair when he spoke. “Now that you’ve decided not to hit me with a crutch, are there any other aggressive tendencies we could explore?”
“Mmmm. I think I’d rather make love to you. Very slowly. Very thoroughly,” she said.
It was what he wanted, too. Very slowly. Very thoroughly. That was the way he kissed her, and that was the way he continued to kiss her while his hand moved just as slowly and just as thoroughly. They’d begun playfully and progressed with gentle expertise, but there was none of that left now.
She looked at him with half-closed eyes and smiled as her pulse rate began to slow. “This is obscene.”
“I’m never getting rid of this couch. I might have it bronzed… eventually.” He put his hand to his heart. “Maybe I should take out more medical insurance.”
“It was good, huh?”
He reached for the box of crayons, took the red, and drew a small line on her cast.
When Kate awoke in Dave’s bed on Saturday morning the lines tallied up to fourteen. Dave took a green crayon from the nightstand, smiled in happy exhaustion, and crosshatched number fifteen.
“This is a big day,” he said, yawning. “Mom’s coming today.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yup. It’s Saturday.”
She sat up in bed. “What happened to Thursday and Friday?”
“Thursday we had an Uncle Scrooge festival and spent the day in bed, reading comic books. And Friday we spent the day in bed seeing how many marks we could make on your cast.” He lay spread-eagle under the down quilt. His hair was mussed, and he had a three-day-old beard. “I think I lost five pounds. I need a day off.”
“You didn’t sound like that an hour ago.”
“I wanted to go down in a blaze of glory.”
“You succeeded.”
He rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Do you think your parents would notice if I didn’t shave?”
“Mmmm. I’ve been meaning to speak to you about that beard. I’ve got beard rash in a bunch of very tender places. I can’t imagine what it’s going to feel like when I try to put clothes on.”
“You weren’t complaining about it an hour ago.”
“It’s hard to think straight when you’re filling me with your glory.” She swung her cast over the side of the bed. “Saturday! I haven’t practiced in three days. How could this have happened?”
“Tell you what. I’ll go next door and get your cello, then you can play some heavy-duty stuff for me while I make breakfast.”
An hour later he was frying French toast to Bach. “That’s pretty nice,” he said. “Do you know any Metallica tunes? Maybe some Eminem?”
Kate improvised “Master of Puppets” by Apocalyptica.
“All right! Now you’re playing music.” He saw the look of horror on her face and grinned. “Only kidding. I think Bach is okay, too.”
They both turned at the sound of light rapping on the window of the kitchen door. It was Howie and another man.
Dave opened the door. “Just in time for breakfast.”
Howie looked at the French toast and groaned. “You know what my wife made me eat this morning? Plain yogurt, six ounces of orange juice, and a sawdust muffin. She weighs my food! She has this little scale, and she weighs every lousy morsel of food. She checks my pockets for candy wrappers, and she smells my breath when I come home at night to see if I’ve eaten pizza.”
Howie’s partner held out his hand to Dave. “Ed Slikowsky. Everyone calls me Slik. Howie’s doctor told him to lose ten pounds, and since Howie’s been on a diet he’s gained three.”
“It’s hormones,” Howie said. “It’s not my fault.”
Dave set two extra places at the table. “Some coffee?”
Howie nodded. “We have a favor to ask. Remember how you said next time we should shoot from your house and leave the chopper at home? We’d like to take you up on it.”
“Something big due to happen?”
Howie sipped his coffee. “Maybe. Your bedroom window is at the perfect angle to keep an eye on things.”
“How long do you think you’ll be here?”
Howie had his gaze glued to Kate’s French toast. She poured syrup over it, and he held his mug in a death grip. “If everything goes as planned, we’ll make our move tonight. They’re supposed to sell some syrup… I mean some dope.” He pressed his lips together. “That’s real maple syrup, isn’t it? Not the fake kind with corn syrup and coloring, but the real stuff that costs $4.75 for a little bottle…”
Dave stacked up a tower of toast, loaded it with melted butter, and poured syrup over it until there was a substantial pool of brown liquid in the bottom of his plate. “You’ve got to get a grip on this diet business, Howard. All it takes is a little willpower.”
“Better watch it, Dave. I’m carrying a gun. I’m a desperate man these days.”
Dave forked French toast into his mouth. “What you need is more exercise.”
“Is that how you do it? You look like you lost weight since I saw you last. In fact, you look like hell. You have bags under your eyes. You need more rest.”
Kate kept her eyes on her breakfast.
Howie looked from Dave to Kate, and a blush rose from his shirt collar. “Oh.”
Slik pushed away from the table. “I’ll go get the equipment.”
“Mostly photographic,” Howie explained.
Dave didn’t look happy. “I’m having a dinner party tonight—”
Howie held up a hand. “No problem. You’ll never know we’re here.”
Slik returned with a video camera, a tripod, a walkie-talkie, and two shotguns. “Nice of you to let us use your house like this. We’ll be real careful not to break anything.”
; Dave finished his French toast and poured more coffee. Slik’s promise not to break anything didn’t exactly fill him with confidence. He had an unpleasant vision of his house riddled with bullet holes. “This isn’t going to get violent, is it?”
“No way. It’s a plain old stakeout,” Howie said, refilling his mug. “You mind if I take this upstairs with me?” He stopped in the hallway and called back. “What are you having for dinner?”
“Roast chicken, mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli, and pineapple upside-down cake for dessert.”
Howie thunked his head against the wall. “Oh, God, I love roast chicken, mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli, and pineapple upside-down cake.”
Kate put her plate in the dishwasher, pulled a chair away from the table, and positioned her cello between her legs.
“Does the cast bother you?” Dave asked.
“Yes, but I’m ignoring it.”
He sat back with his coffee and watched her. Her hair sprang from her head in big orange curls and framed her face in unruly tendrils. Her eyes were intense as she read the music. Her mouth was mobile, reflecting the passage she played. She stopped and swore and started again. This time her mood was more reflective. She was analyzing problems. She made a mark on the page with a pencil and began again. Even Dave could hear the difference this time. She was settling in. Phase two. He was beginning to know her. When she was learning something new she thrashed around until she got a handle on it, then she mellowed out while she perfected her technique, and when she felt she’d achieved the necessary expertise, she poured energy back into it. He was more of a plodder, he decided. Maybe that was one of the reasons he found her so fascinating. She was constantly changing, varying her intensity.
Kate looked up from her music and was surprised to find him staring at her. “Are you still here?”
“I live here.”
“Yes, but don’t you have anything to do? Don’t you have to bake a cake or something?”
“I wanted to watch you for a while. You’re so beautiful when you make music.”
She didn’t know what to say, just as she was often overwhelmed after making love. It was the same feeling of being complete. Ultimate satisfaction. Gentle euphoria. He loved her. It was in his voice, in his eyes, in the way he touched her, in the way he teased her. No man had ever loved her like this, and she felt as if her whole body were smiling. “Thank you.” It sounded dopey, so she blushed.