Mr. Imperfect(8)

"I've come to apologize." Kezia pulled up a chair.

"Forget it." He went back to playing Patience.

As usual, she did the opposite. "It was enough that you had to listen to  Bob's insults without me getting mad and trying to scupper the deal we  need so badly."

He shrugged. "If you apologize to me for stepping in, then I'll have to  apologize to you for not appreciating your defense. Like I said, forget  it."

"You got a great price."

He heard the smile in her voice and looked up. Her silky hair was  brushed to a schoolgirl's neatness, wholesome and fresh. He smiled back.  "Cleared you another ten thousand."

"Thank you," she said formally.

Christian's smile broadened. She took her obligations so seriously,  always had. Once, she'd taken him seriously. As a wild boy with wilder  dreams he'd loved her for that. On impulse, he leaned forward and  brushed his lips against hers; found them warm and firm and full like  her curves. A burst of need jolted through him and he jerked back at the  precise moment Kezia shoved him away. Hard.

"What the hell do you think you're doing!"

"Nothing … it was a friendly gesture, that's all." Christian affected nonchalance. "Why are you making so much of it?"

As he'd intended, she shrank back in her chair and crossed her arms. "I'm not. You took me by surprise, that's all."

Attack was a great deflector; he stuck with it. "If that's all … "

"Of course that's all." Angry color rushed back into her face. "You  think I'd still be carrying a torch for you after what you did?"

"Oh, that's rich." Christian forgot his strategy. "After what I did?"

Kezia held up her hands in supplication. "Truce. We're not talking about  the past, remember? We grew up, we got over it." She shrugged. "At  least, I did."

"Of course I did," he snapped, then realized she'd turned the tables on him.

"I'll play cards now," Kezia said serenely.

He pushed the cards aside, suddenly restless. "How the hell do you stand  all this peace and quiet?" Faint and far away in the country silence  came the thin hum of a car, the sound growing louder as it approached  down the lonely highway. Finally it streaked past, windows lit, a female  passenger poring over a map. "Don't you ever feel life is happening  somewhere else?" he said, longing to be in that car.

"Listen."

Crickets' song swelled and filled the dusk. Above, the darkening sky  seethed with stars. Swallows darted across its canopy, and Christian  could hear the soft snort of cattle in the adjacent field, a strangely  comforting sound.

He'd forgotten that he'd never had a quarrel with the land. Slowly the  tension went out of him. "Maybe," he conceded finally, "some peace and  quiet will do me good."

Christian's magnanimity lasted until he got into bed and the springs  screeched. Damn! How could they have gotten so rusty? He lay on his  back, naked, feeling the sag in the mattress suck on his spine like  quicksand.

Cursing, he rolled onto his side-a squeal from the springs-and the  knobbled embroidery on the pillowcase dug into his cheek. After five  minutes of maneuvering around fleurs-de-lis he sat up and ripped off the  pillowcase to a cacophony of protesting metal and flung himself down  again. "Shit!"

"Sorry about the bed," called Kezia, her muffled voice sounding close.

Christian snapped on the bedside lamp, saw the adjoining door barricaded  behind a mahogany dresser and grinned. He switched off the lamp and lay  back with his hands cupped behind his head. "How sorry?" he drawled  suggestively, just for the hell of it.                       
       
           



       

"Not that sorry."

He could tell by her tone she was frowning, no doubt lying demurely  clothed and neatly tucked into that lush double bed, only her dark hair  spilling untidily across the pillowcase. He remembered winding it around  his fingers as he worshipped her ardent young body. His grin faded.

He'd never given himself as recklessly to any woman since. The  bedsprings gave voice to Christian's growing disquiet as he tossed and  turned on rationalizations.

Okay, he still found Kezia attractive, so what? It was only because he'd  been celibate for three months, taking a break from the game.

And despite the occasional flashes of her wicked humor, Kezia wasn't the  playmate type, having fossilized into an earnest,  thirty-two-going-on-fifty-two pillar of the community.

Fourteen years later, Kelly, and you're still looking for the last word. Forget your male ego.

He turned carefully and was rewarded with only a small squeak of the  bedsprings, which brought to mind the rat. In the dark he shook his  head. Only Kezia would come up with such a novel solution for a  bed-wetting Batman. His brain ran idly over the day's conversations,  braked and rewound. "The springs got worse because … only recently."

Christian jerked bolt upright. "Who was the last person to sleep in this bed?" There was silence, followed by a smothered laugh.

Right, he thought grimly, all bets are off.



AT SIX-THIRTY WHEN KEZIA went to creep past Christian's door, running shoes clutched in her hand, she found it open.

The sleeping man lay sprawled on his belly, one arm flung over the side  of the bed, his face half buried in the pillow. Bare, broad shoulders  tapered down to a narrow waist, both deeply tanned against the white  sheets, unlike the taut creamy buttocks the top sheet barely covered.

But what made Kezia gasp was the sight of two small boys standing  patiently by the bed. One wore a Batman cape and was sucking his thumb.  "Come away," she whispered, gesturing frantically.

Batman removed his thumb. "We want him to wake up." Christian stirred,  opened one bleary eye and John Jason obviously thought him ripe for  conversation. "You're in my bed."

"I gathered." Christian closed his eye again, opened it. "Where's the rat?"

"In my new room. I liked this one better."

Christian rolled over with a groan repeated by the bedsprings. "What time is it?"

Time to flee. Kezia tiptoed away.

"What's the o'clock, Auntie Kezia?" Batman bellowed.

Squaring her shoulders, Kezia turned around. "Six-thirty, now shush or  you'll wake your mother!" Christian, she saw, had propped himself up on  one elbow and was looking at her with a predatory gleam. "Good morning,"  she said briskly, refusing to feel bad. Really, she'd had no idea the  bedsprings were that rusty. "Did you sleep well?"

"Don't get funny with me," Christian warned her, looking downright  dangerous with his disheveled hair and blue-black stubble. An effect  negated by his two pajama-clad sidekicks. Kezia found it impossible to  hide her smile. "You'll keep." He made it sound like a promise.

"Can you please take us for a ride in your Ferrari?" John Jason's sleepover buddy finally found his courage.

"David is my friend," Batman informed Christian in the manner of one providing a personal reference.

Christian's lips twitched. "Later I'll take you. Scram for now."

Reluctantly they trooped toward the door where Batman paused. "Why don't you wear pajamas? We all saw your-"

"Boys!" Her cheeks hot, Kezia shepherded them out. "It's too early. Go get breakfast."

When she turned back, Christian was leaning against the pillows with his  hands clasped behind his head and giving her a killer smile. She asked  primly, "Would you like a cup of coffee?"

"What I'd like-" his gaze ran lazily over her bare legs and high-cut  running shorts and Kezia got hotter, resisting the urge to yank down her  T-shirt "-is a new bed and a lock on my door to keep out Peeping  Thomasinas."

"I didn't … it wasn't … " she stuttered, then met his eyes. "Okay, you embarrassed me back, we're quits."

"Who said I was embarrassed? Let me get dressed and I'll come running  with you." When she hesitated, searching for a polite way to tell him  she always ran alone, he raised a quizzical eyebrow. "Are you hanging  around for another glimpse of my ass?"

"Downstairs," she snapped, "five minutes." And fled.                       
       
           



       





CHAPTER FOUR




HANDS RESTING LOOSELY on his knees, Joe Bryant sat in the clinic's  Spartan foyer, feigning nonchalance and hoping Rueben would get off the  damn pay phone before his courage failed. Again. He cleared his dry  throat. "Other people need to make calls."

The wiry teenager, all Adam's apple and attitude, waved a dismissive  hand. "C'mon, man," he wheedled into the receiver, "I'm dying in here."  He glanced over to where Joe and Big Tim sat, and his voice dropped to a  whisper. "It'll be easy to smuggle it in, security sucks." His voice  hit normal levels and kept rising. "Whaddaya mean, you don't trust me?  Screw you, then. You're no friend of mine." He slammed down the phone  and stormed off.