What a load of crap. Her reluctance was about the whole fantasy thing. It would end. No more mystery woman. He’d find out she was an ordinary woman, working in construction, trying to pay off her student loan.
The polished nails and perfect hair, the sensational tan, the nice clothes—none of it was really her. If he passed her on the street while she was working in her normal torn jeans or coveralls, her hair tied back in its usual messy ponytail, he wouldn’t give her a second look.
But then again, he’d only find out if she told him.
Which she’d probably blurt out once they’d made love. Except it would only be sex. Very different. So maybe…
“Dallas?”
Lost in thought, she jerked at the sound of his voice.
“Look, I didn’t mean to push you. It’s okay.”
“It’s not that. Really.”
He kissed her briefly on the lips. “On Wednesday night one of my clients is having a reception. I’d like you to go with me.” He paused, watching her closely. “Unless you have to work Wednesday night.”
She did everything in her power not to laugh. His fishing was so obvious. Fortunately the original model had recovered and was back to work. “I don’t work nights. Where’s the reception?”
“At an art gallery on the Upper East Side. They’ll be serving champagne and hors d’oeuvres. We can go out to dinner afterward.” He kissed the side of her jaw. “Anywhere you want. Say you’ll come with me.”
The carriage began to slow just as the driver said, “End of the line, folks. Hope you enjoyed the ride.” He slowly turned and grinned at them. “For thirty bucks, I’ll take you around again.”
“No, thanks.” Dallas straightened and made sure she was put together before dropping the blanket. “I really do have to get up early tomorrow,” she said to Eric and started to climb down.
“Wait. Let me go first.” He hopped down before she could protest and then grasped her around the waist and lowered her to the ground.
“Thank you,” she murmured, stopping herself from informing him that she was perfectly capable of climbing down by herself. She wasn’t normally treated so chivalrously. In fact, she made it a point to be one of the guys. As it was, they needed little ammunition to harass her and the only other woman on the crew.
Eric handed the driver a couple of bills. She resisted arguing over who should pay. They’d already gone that round in the restaurant.
It didn’t matter that it was a Sunday night. Around Fifth Avenue and Fifty-ninth there were always people on the streets, mostly tourists, returning from Broadway or dinner or watching the street entertainers.
Not far from the corner a magician transfixed his audience with disappearing balls and trinkets, earning him delighted gasps and fistfuls of change dropped into his proffered top hat.
“I know a place that makes the best cappuccino.” Eric raised his hand to hail a cab.
Dallas smiled. “I’ll have to pass.”
“It’s only five minutes away.”
“Sorry.”
He muttered a mild curse. “I’ve screwed up.”
“No, you haven’t,” she said, touching his hand. “Not at all.”
He turned his hand over until their palms met and squeezed gently. “Am I going to see you again?”
She nodded just as a cab pulled alongside the curb.
“Will you go with me on Wednesday night?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t have your phone number.” He opened the cab door and stood aside for her.
“I’ll call you.”
“What if I can’t wait until Wednesday?”
She smiled. “You can take this cab. There’s another one behind it.”
One side of his mouth hiked up. “I don’t suppose you’d let me ride with you to your place.”
“I don’t suppose I would.” She leaned toward him for a kiss. A brief, friendly good-night kiss.
He wanted more and took it.
He tugged her forward and she came up against him, her still-sensitive breasts pressed to his chest. He cupped her nape, and as she opened her mouth to his demanding kiss, he held her steady while he got his fill.
The impatient cabbie muttered something about turning on the meter. The interruption saved her from ending up on the sidewalk in a boneless mess. She pulled away from Eric, her knees close to giving out, and crawled into the backseat, yanking the door closed be hind her.
On the other side of the closed window, Eric smiled and then mouthed Good night.
The cab pulled away. She tried to wave. She didn’t have the strength.
“YO, SHEA,” TONY ST. ANGELO called from hands cupped around his mouth. “You ready for lunch?”
“Five more minutes,” Dallas hollered back and then used her sleeve to wipe the sweat off her brow.
Today was way too hot to be working outdoors. But that was the breaks. Just part of the job. That’s why she got paid the big bucks.
Right.
She adjusted her sunglasses and then dug for her bottle of water without letting go of the heavy Stop sign she’d been holding most of the damn morning. She hated traffic duty. With a passion. Even shoveling rocks and brick from a razed building was preferable. But this was a punishment she often received. For no other reason than being a woman working in a man’s world.
Tony was one of the good guys. One of the pathetically few who didn’t blame her for “taking a man’s job away from him.” He always waited to have lunch with her, though he was allowed to break at any time. The two traffic workers had the only formally scheduled breaks. She even had to get permission to go to the bathroom.
She waited for the radio message and then dutifully carried her sign to the middle of the road, bringing traffic to a halt and enduring angry honking until the back loader cleared the intersection. Then she radioed to her partner on the other end to resume traffic and waited for someone to come and relieve her for lunch. She pushed back the top of her glove and checked her watch. As usual her relief wasn’t in any hurry.
In the beginning, with the exception of Tony and Sam—and Billy, when the other guys weren’t around—the rest of them had treated her like a pariah, pulling seniority and giving her jobs that no one else wanted. They had made snide remarks, sometimes crude ones, under their breaths when no one but she could hear. Even so, after they’d clocked out for the day, half of the stupid bastards had hit on her at least once.
That had mostly changed after she’d made it clear she wouldn’t put up with that ridiculous behavior. Of course there were two exceptions who insisted on acting like macho idiots, but they were easy to ignore.
What really got to her was that Nancy—the other woman on the crew—put up with their harassment. She accepted after-work drink offers even though she couldn’t stand the guys. But she was a single mother with limited skills who desperately needed the job and felt she had to play nice no matter what.
Dallas, on the other hand, stuck around partly out of stubbornness but mostly because she didn’t know what else to do with her life. Nothing really called to her; she had no passion. Not like her brother or sister who both lived and breathed the intricacies of the law, or her father, a well-respected judge, whose views on education and child abuse had achieved national notoriety. Even her mother had made a name for herself in the science community. Dallas envied them their passion and focus. While in graduate school, after she’d become disgusted with modeling, she’d gone to a temporary agency for work. She’d quickly found she hated sitting in front of a computer all day. Adding columns of numbers hadn’t turned out to be her thing either.
Then a new temp agency had mistakenly placed her on a construction site. To her amazement, she’d found she liked working outdoors. She no longer had to worry about every morsel she ate or what to wear, or how many mistakes she made typing. After she punched her time card, she didn’t have to worry about anything related to work.
“Okay, Shea. Lunch.” Rocky roughly grabbed the sign out of her hand. He was one of the two Neanderthals left and hated relieving her. “That’s thirty minutes only. Got it?”
“Really?” She raised her eyebrows and looked at him over her sunglasses. “It hasn’t changed?”
“Don’t be a smart-ass,” he mumbled and snatched the radio.
“I wouldn’t want to take away your job.” She smiled sweetly and walked away from his barrage of curses.
Tony was waiting for her at the curb with both of their lunch pails. “He giving you a bad time again?”
“What’s new?”
“Damn low-life bottom-feeder. I still think you should report him.”
“Like that would help.” She took her Aladdin lunch pail—a gag gift from Wendy—from him and they both turned toward the small park they’d found last week. “He’s in so tight with old man Capshaw, it’s pathetic.”
“Yeah, he’s either kissing ass or sleeping with the old guy.”
Dallas laughed. “You would think of that.”
“Tell you what, how about I just punch him out in the meantime?”
“Hey, if that’s what I wanted, I’d do it myself.”
This time Tony laughed. “Yeah, you probably would. Seriously, though, I don’t care how tight Rocky is with Capshaw, this is a legal issue. Capshaw’s Construction is too big. He can’t afford to ignore a complaint and get ripped apart by the EEO, ERA or whoever the hell is involved.”