Not Even for Love(37)

“I’ll see you then, darling.” He hung up with his usual abruptness.

Mechanically, she dressed. She kept on the jeans she was already wearing, but tucked them into the hiking boots she had purchased soon after coming to Lucerne. Hiking in the foothills was a popular pastime.

She went into the bathroom and whipped the ski sweater over her head. Her breasts were chafed in spots where Reeves’s whisker stubble had abraded her. At seeing them she tried to conjure up angry resentment. Instead, to her shame, her insides melted and liquified at the recollection of his kisses. Actually she thrilled to this raw evidence of his masculine aggression.

Her face bore further traces of his lovemaking. Her lips had that full, pouting, well-kissed look. What small amount of makeup she had applied to her eyes earlier had been smudged by their turbulent kisses. Hastily she cleaned her face and began again.

When she was done, she swept her hair into a ponytail. Determinedly she put on a bra, a shirt with a button-down collar, and a V-necked navy-blue sweater. Nothing about her attire connoted femininity. That was paramount in her choice of wardrobe.

Since the day promised to be clear and warm, she left her fur parka behind and took a flannel-lined khaki poplin jacket. After stuffing some grooming articles in a backpack, she was ready.

Traffic had picked up on the streets now as she walked to the hotel. Helmut and Reeves were waiting for her on the porch, sitting in the comfortable chairs and sipping coffee.

Warily her eyes sifted over Reeves as Helmut embraced her with conditioned familiarity. She mumbled a good morning and skittishly stepped away from him.

“You’re angry with me.” Helmut’s unexpected sentence wasn’t a question.

“What?” she asked in bewilderment.

“Our engagement. The secret is out, my darling. It’s in newspapers all over the Continent, maybe America, too. I’m sorry. Apparently one of my guests couldn’t keep a secret.” He took her hand conciliatorily.

She risked looking at Reeves, but he was engrossed in cleaning one of his lenses with more thoroughness than it warranted. “I—”

“I hope you aren’t too angry,” Helmut interrupted her. “For myself, I’m delighted that the world knows you belong to me.”

His chauvinistic declaration of possession rankled, but she didn’t want to cause a scene with Reeves sitting right there, so she said, “Well, anyway, the damage is done.”

Helmut turned her hand over and kissed the palm. When he straightened he asked, “Would you like some breakfast, my dear? You have plenty of time. The hotel’s kitchen is packing us a picnic lunch.”

“Just some chocolate and a croissant, please,” she said as she stowed her backpack in the chair next to Reeves and settled herself in another.

While she nibbled at her breakfast, the two men ignored her and debated the pros and cons of OPEC’s latest oil price increase. She took the unguarded opportunity to look at Reeves. He was wearing a pair of lederhosen. Over the gray suede shorts, he had on a white cable-knit sweater. He even wore dark green knee socks that matched the leather trim on the shorts and brown suede hiking boots with red laces. A bright yellow wind breaker lay across his camera case. He was ruggedly handsome. The morning breeze off the lake stirred the dark hair with its russet highlights shining in the sunlight. He squinted against the shimmering water of the lake and his eyes were screened by thick, curled lashes.

Absently he tugged on his earlobe as he listened carefully to what Helmut was saying. It came to her quite unexpectedly then that she loved him.

It wasn’t possible, of course. Men as vital and attractive as Reeves existed only in the movies. They didn’t stumble into the lives of shopkeepers. But he had. Only he hadn’t stumbled. He had been thrust into her life with the impetus of a thunderstorm. She realized now as she continued watching him that she had loved him from the first moment she had seen him. Otherwise she couldn’t have done what she had that night.

Sleeping with him was no casual thing for her. She had done it out of an emotion she now recognized as love. Had Helmut not called this morning, she might very well be in Reeves’s bed this minute.

But for Reeves it was different. He was motivated by no such emotion. He found her attractive, yes. And he wanted to make love to her, yes. But when he left Lucerne for his next project, she would soon be replaced by another woman in another town, another country, another continent.

Jordan wasn’t disillusioned. Balloons, beautiful as they were, burst easily. Sand castles were swept away with the tide. Reeves would leave her and then where would she be? Without Helmut, for she must tell him soon that she wouldn’t marry him. Without a job. Bill, as much as he liked her, would look after his own security in Mr. Bauerman’s favor.