Instead she began to get ready for the party. In the shower, she reflected that everyone was probably furious with her. She hadn’t been here to meet the guys who—the desk clerk had informed her—had arrived safely around lunchtime. She hadn’t been very specific in her message about where she was going or what she planned to do, and she had been gone all day.
Oh, well.
The phone rang just as she came out, wrapped in a towel. She pushed several empty boxes out of the way in order to sit on the bed as she lifted the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Where,” Fate asked with obvious restraint, “have you been all day?”
“Out.” C.J. carefully inspected her polished fingernails.
There were several moments of silence, and then his voice—still carefully polite—went on. “I don’t suppose it occurred to you that anyone would worry?”
“I left a message,” she pointed out in a voice calculated to drive a saint to murder.
There was another silence. “Great. Unfortunately, your message didn’t tell me how to deal with four suspicious husbands and one—ditto the suspicious—‘fiancé.’”
“Oh, have you had a rough day?” she asked in a spuriously sympathetic tone.
“Not at all,” he disclaimed courteously. “I like having five men—three of whom are bigger than I am—gaze at me as though they’d just discovered me in their sister’s bed.”
In a considering tone, C.J. corrected, “Keith and John aren’t bigger, they’re just as tall as you. Patrick is bigger. He plays hockey.”
Fate said something that was distinctly unrepeatable.
“Such language,” she murmured. “If you used words like that, I’m not surprised they—um—eyed you askance.”
“They didn’t eye me askance,” he said dryly. “They eyed me with utter and complete hostility. I’ve seen friendlier faces at murder trials. Why didn’t you warn me that you had five big brothers?”
“Don’t worry.” C.J. found that the stranger was in the mirror again, and this time discovered a curious affinity with that very feminine woman. “Tonight I’ll prove to them that I’m…all grown up.”
“C.J.—what have you done?” he asked, a sudden wariness in his voice.
“I’ve spread my wings,” she said, more to the lady in the mirror than to him.
“Is that supposed to make sense?” he demanded. “What have you been doing today?”
“Shopping. Something slinky, you said. Remember?”
There was a long silence. “Maybe I’d better see that ‘something slinky’ before everyone else does,” he suggested.
“Oh, I don’t think so.” Her voice was calm. “Are we dressing for the party and then having dinner?”
“Yes.” He sounded a bit distracted. “We’re meeting in the dining room. C.J.—”
“Fine, then I’ll see you there. Tell everyone to go ahead and order; I may be late.”
“I’ll stop by and pick you up. We can go down together.”
“No. Meet me in the dining room.” She hesitated, then added softly, “Please?” She could have sworn he caught his breath.
“All right, pixie,” he said finally, a curious huskiness in his deep voice. “But if you come down wearing a washcloth or something, I’ll—”
“It’s not a washcloth,” she said, gazing thoughtfully at the dress lying across the foot of the bed. “There’s a little more to it than that.”
“Oh Lord,” he muttered forebodingly.
“See you at dinner.” She cradled the receiver gently.
C.J. took her time getting ready. She applied makeup carefully, covering her freckles—luckily, they were only on her nose—and emphasizing the slant and color of her eyes. Outlining her lips delicately and filling in a soft rose color.
A brand new bottle of perfume was opened, alluring scent placed carefully, thoughtfully. Hidden, secret places.
Diamond studs were placed in her earlobes. A delicate necklace clasped around her neck, the little heart, shaped in diamonds, lying in the valley between her breasts. A matching bracelet was looped around her right wrist. The jeweled watch on the left. The diamond cluster graced the third finger of her right hand.
Then the dress.
It was stark, unrelieved, unadorned black. It was, as the saleslady had said involuntarily, wicked. Backless to just past the beginning of the outward slope of her bottom. Slit up the front of the skirt almost to the apex of her thighs. Two narrow, delicate straps fastened around her neck and widened only slightly as they came down to cover her full breasts before joining in a plunging vee.
And it clung like a live thing everywhere it touched.
C.J. slipped on the black sandals, remembering her search to find shoes with high heels, yet comfortable enough so that her inexperienced feet would feel safe. She didn’t want to make a fool of herself by falling flat on her face.
When she finally looked into the mirror, she stood transfixed for a long moment.
The hairstyle chosen by the salon was deceptively simple. Her copper curls had been swept up off her neck and allowed to cluster on the top of her head and over her forehead, making her look somehow taller and more sophisticated and yet softening her face. The makeup had given her a curiously innocent/sexy look, the catlike eyes mysterious and yet shy. Or maybe that was just her own astonishment at the transformation.
C.J. watched a hand come up as though to guard a suddenly vulnerable throat, and felt butterflies chasing one another through her stomach. Was this really she?
It was…a merging, a blending of the girl she had been and the woman who had peeked out of her eyes during unguarded moments.
She bent slowly to pick up the black clutch purse on the bed, her eyes still fixed on the mirror. She located her room key on the dresser by touch alone and dropped it into the bag. Finally tearing her gaze from the mirror, she found a compact, her lipstick, and a handkerchief, and dropped them in, too.
A glance at her watch showed her that the others would most likely be at dinner by now. She couldn’t stall any longer. Sighing with a mixture of nervousness and excitement, she left the room.
She met no one in the hall or the elevator, and it wasn’t until she was crossing the lobby that her flagging confidence received the boost it needed.
The desk clerk let out a long, low wolf-whistle.
C.J. flashed him a grateful smile and then walked steadily toward the dining room. She was by no means a shy woman, but the thought of entering a crowded room wearing this dress was beginning to drain all the strength from her knees. The whistle helped.
The buzz of conversation reached her before she reached the doorway, and she wanted suddenly to turn and walk—run—back to her room. But she squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and went in. She hesitated for a moment on the threshold, her eyes searching for Fate and her friends.
She had finally located them near the center, when she suddenly became aware that a silence had spread through the room. She saw a sea of faces turned toward her either unobtrusively or openly, and fought a panicky urge to run. Then she saw Fate rise slowly from his chair, his lean face turned toward her with an expression compounded of surprise and a curious satisfaction.
The silence in the room, though momentary, was complete, and C.J. paused, unnerved by the attention she had drawn. Then conversation resumed and she started toward Fate and her friends. Her first few steps possessed all the grace of a puppet whose strings were being jerked by a novice hand, but then something happened.
As she neared the table, the expression in Fate’s eyes touched the woman in her, and her embarrassment and nervousness melted away. That look was warm, caressing, and indescribably male. And she covered those last few steps with all the natural grace of a woman—a beautiful, exciting woman—who was approaching a handsome man.
He caught her hand and lifted it to his lips as she halted before him. “You are beautiful,” he breathed huskily, his purple eyes glowing and gazing down at her with
open, unabashed admiration.
It had all been worth it, C.J. thought dimly as she smiled up at him with the shy, bewitching smile she had no awareness of. This moment made everything worth it. The lack of sleep, her temper, the exhausting day and her unnerving emotional discoveries—none of it mattered now.
“Thank you,” she murmured, shy with him for the first time. She sat down in her chair as he pulled it out for her, feeling a queer, giddy sense of happiness when he didn’t release her hand. He sat down beside her, their eyes still locked together, and she thought to herself that he looked even more like an Indian in his black dinner jacket. And almost painfully handsome.
Finally tearing her gaze from his, she looked around at her friends and fought to hide a smile. They looked as though they’d been sand-bagged, she decided. Particularly the guys.
Like the women they were married and/or engaged to, the five men were a varied lot. Brian Rush, Jan’s husband, was of medium height and stocky, blond like his wife and quiet by nature. Patrick Lyons, Kathy’s fiancé, was tall and powerfully built; the largest man in the group, he was also the most gentle. John Crane, Tami’s husband, was tall, thin, and lanky, a redhead with green eyes and a startlingly deep voice. Chris Morgan, Susan’s husband, was an inch shorter than his tall wife, dark and gray-eyed, with a quick, friendly smile. And last of all was Keith Butler, Ann’s husband. He was tall, slender, always calm, with shrewd blue eyes and auburn hair.
They were all handsome, intelligent men. And all had regarded C.J. as a little sister from the moment of their entrance into the magic circle. They watched over and protected her just as real brothers would have done. And all were now gazing at her with the startled, somewhat embarrassed eyes of men who had suddenly discovered that “little sister” was all grown up.
All except for Keith, that is, who never seemed startled by anything. But he looked thoughtful, the shrewd blue eyes moving from C.J.’s face to Fate’s and back again.
Breaking the long silence, C.J. smiled at all of them. “Hi, guys,” she said lightly. “Sorry I wasn’t here to meet you; I had some things to take care of in Aspen.”
“You look lovely, C.J.,” Keith said quietly.
C.J. gave him a surprised look, but smiled in acknowledgment of that and the somewhat hastily added compliments from the other men. “Thank you. Have you all ordered yet? I’m starved…”
It was a strange meal.
A bubble of laughter remained in the back of C.J.’s throat from the moment she realized that Fate had not exaggerated by saying that the guys were both suspicious and hostile. As soon as the shock of C.J.’s entrance wore off, the hostility—controlled but visible—returned in force.
And that hostility was probably, C.J. thought, stronger than it had been earlier in the day. Because the guys now realized that they were no longer watching over a little girl, but a woman. And a handsome man, they seemed to think, was far more dangerous to a big girl than a little one.
But what tickled C.J. more than anything else was the knowledge that Fate was no longer having everything his own way. Wisely, he didn’t try the parasite-and-laser beam story on them, although he must have known that the girls would have already relayed that. So he met hostility with easy friendliness and suspicion with bland incomprehension. He seemed perfectly calm, but C.J. could feel the tension in him, and wondered with amusement if he were afraid the situation would come to swords-or-pistols-at-dawn.
She wondered if the girls thought so, too. They were unusually quiet, and somewhat anxiously helped Fate in trying to promote a more relaxed atmosphere among the men.
C.J. herself did nothing to ease the tension. She smiled gently at Fate whenever he looked at her, accepted his loving attention with utter calm, and fought to keep from laughing out loud.
As the meal wore on, that task became harder. The guys fired questions at him as though he were in the witness stand—a new experience for him, C.J. felt sure—and seemed dissatisfied with all his answers. Even gentle Patrick was aroused to a glare when Fate declared that he liked football better than hockey.
Only Keith displayed no fierce protective emotion, but he retired behind a wall of reserve every bit as un-breachable as the open hostility of the others. He did, however, blink when Fate put an arm around C.J. between the final course and dessert.
“You’re not helping a bit,” Fate muttered into her ear, under the guise of nuzzling her temple.
“Into the trenches and guard your back,” she murmured, repeating an earlier phrase of his in reply.
“Thanks,” he whispered irritably.
“Where’s that famous charm?” she asked sweetly in a low tone as she leaned back to allow the waiter to place her dessert before her.
“The hell with charm. Do any of these guys know karate?”
“Only Brian,” she told him limpidly. “Of course, Patrick’s very good with a stick—any kind of stick. And I think that Keith was with the marines….”
Fate attacked his dessert as though he wished it were something else entirely.
Hiding a smile, C.J. looked away and met Keith’s thoughtful gaze. She wondered if he had overheard her soft conversation with Fate, but his veiled eyes gave her no clue. He raised his wine glass slightly in a tiny salute, and she thought that a smile glimmered briefly in his blue eyes before he turned in response to something Ann had said to him.
A little uneasy, C.J. remembered that Keith, like Fate, rarely missed anything. What was he thinking?
After the meal, they joined others making their way to the largest lounge, where the party was to take place. Fate took the opportunity to whisper a few more words of reproach into C.J.’s ear as they moved with the crowd.
“I hope revenge is sweet.”
“Very sweet.”
“You little witch, you enjoyed that.”
C.J. smiled up at him. “Immensely.”
Fate was distracted for a moment, noting that John was glaring pointedly at the hand resting on the small of C.J.’s bare back. Hastily, the hand slid upward a few discreet inches. “Damn. I feel like a white slaver, the way they’re looking at me.”
“It isn’t so much fun when it’s an uphill struggle, is it?” she asked him wryly.
He looked down at her. “Are you trying to make a point?”
“I wondered when you’d notice.”
Fate sighed. “Touché. But you haven’t had to deal with five hostile men.”
“No. Just one crazy man.”
“I resent that,” he said, looking absurdly wounded.
C.J. wasn’t deceived. “Sure. If you want some advice—”
“Now she offers,” he interrupted, looking heavenward.
“—you’ll tone down the loving act,” she went on calmly. “You’re only making things worse, you know. How would you feel watching some stranger paw your sister?”
“I am not pawing,” he objected, looking even more wounded. He shot a glance at John’s watchful eyes and then defiantly moved his hand back to its former place at the small of C.J.’s back. “And I’d like to know,” he went on in a distracted voice, “how I’m supposed to keep my eyes and hands to myself.”
C.J. giggled in spite of herself. “Bite the bullet,” she murmured, and bit her lip in helpless amusement as he looked down at her reproachfully.
“Funny. You’re a funny lady.”
“I think so. Were you complimenting me, by the way, or was that meant to imply that you’re a dirty old man?”
“I’m neither dirty nor old,” he responded, sounding even more rattled as he intercepted an unfriendly look from Chris. “And I was complimenting you. I’ve been fighting a battle with all my baser instincts ever since you walked into the dining room. I’d like to throw you over my shoulder and carry you off somewhere.”
“Why don’t you?” She meant it to be a mocking question, but he immediately seemed taken by the idea.
“Shall I?” he asked, catching her left hand in his and drawing it up to his chest, a tiny fir
e kindling in his dark eyes.
“No,” she said hastily.
“Coward.”
“The guys would shoot you in the back,” she explained sweetly.
“They’d be more likely to take me outside and thrash me,” he said wryly. “Like gentlemen.”
C.J. bit her lip again.
“And what’s more,” Fate added in a definitely aggrieved voice, “I’m supposed to be engaged to you. All nice and respectable. So why am I being treated like a cross between de Sade and Jack the Ripper?”
“It must be your honest face,” she said politely.
“Uh huh. Really know how to cheer a guy up, don’t you?”
“I try.” Relenting, she said gravely, “Actually, their suspicion is quite understandable. They think you have villainous designs on my virtue.”
“I have,” he said. “Not villainous designs, but designs with honorable intentions. Don’t they count for anything?”
“Not with big brothers.”
“Great.” Fate sighed softly.
Enjoying the sight of him rattled and off balance, C.J. was in no hurry to put an end to her teasing. “And then, there’s always the natural mistrust of lawyers,” she pointed out airily.
“Strike two.”
“And then there’s your name.”
“What’s wrong with my name?” he demanded, offended.
C.J. gave him a pitying look. “Fate. I mean, think about it. Gypsy fortunetelling with tarot cards and crystal balls; a tall, dark stranger, and all that. Destiny and luck. Fate…dark shadows and furtive looks. And so on.”
“Strike three.”
She couldn’t help but laugh at his crestfallen tone.
He frowned at her. “Are we going to go on playing one-upmanship?”
“Is that what we’re playing?” she asked innocently. “Then tell me—who’s ahead?”
“You are. Damnit.”
“At last!” She laughed again. “I’m finally one-up on the great Mr. Weston. Raise the flag!”
They had, by this time, entered the lounge. Music and laughter hit them with the force of a tide. The musicians were playing a medley of popular tunes suitable for slow dancing, and several couples were already on the floor.