Jennifer Greene: Pink Satin

Since the stranger refused to stop studying her, Greer responded in kind. People-watching was one of her favorite pastimes anyway.

As handsome went, he wasn’t particularly. His hair was sort of cinnamon-brown, crisply curling and healthy-looking. The sun had baked his skin to a warm gold. A small mustache trailed the shape of his smooth upper lip; he had a square chin and clean, strong features. Nice-looking but not outstanding. His eyes, though, were wonderfully unusual, an absolutely brilliant blue, keen and intelligent, full of life.

He didn’t give all that much away with his facial expressions, but his body language said a great deal. His blue work shirt fit snugly over a broad chest, and his jeans hugged the long, smooth muscles of his thighs. His shirt was open at the throat, and a worn leather belt settled on his lean hips. The message wasn’t rough-and-tough machismo, but a certain bold sexuality came with the man.

Again, Greer guessed that he was single. No self-respecting wife would have let him loose with that tiny hole in his worn jeans-not that high on the thigh. Assuming from his northern accent that he was new in town, Greer doubted that he’d have any problem finding female companionship in North Carolina. Even his lazy smile carried a teasing hint of sexuality.

Fine by her. On one level, certain wary instincts automatically kicked into operation when she was near a certain kind of man. On another level, Greer had erected well-entrenched defenses against her own susceptibility. Other women would see the sexuality of the lean and hungry figure. Greer’s only concern was that he looked slightly underfed. She swallowed a bite of lasagna. “What do you do?” she asked curiously.

“Pardon?”

“Your work?”

“Engineer. A mechanical engineer-I spend most of my day out in the field, as you can see.” He motioned to his dusty work boots. “Laughlin’s the company; they’re busy moving into Greenville at the moment. If the building ever does get done, I hope to have a little time to put up a house. I’ve rented this apartment for six months, but I hope to move into my own place before then. You?”

“Um.” She swallowed the last morsel of food, feeling just slightly unnerved by his lazy stare. Old defenses were slipping, as he kept his eyes on her face, but she knew darn well she didn’t have that fascinating a nose. “I work for Love Lace. Lingerie.” Greer looked him straight in the eye, administering a little private test of her own.

“Doing…?”

Greer set aside the aluminum tray and twined her hands loosely around her knees, relaxing. He’d passed her tiny test by not indulging in sexual innuendo about her job. “I’m their ad psychologist. If you’ve never heard of that job before, it’s probably because my boss invented it. Grant hired me-directly out of college with an extremely useless degree in psych-to keep the marketing and design staff from killing each other. Since his wife’s our head designer, he had a vested interest in her survival.”

“I can understand that.”

“I’m glad you can. I don’t always. Basically, the lingerie industry’s gone boom; Grant wants to stay in for the count, and he needed an impartial woman’s viewpoint to back up his own business expertise. His wife wants to make French panties; the marketing staff says Jockey-type shorts for women are in. Somebody’s got to study the public to psyche out what they really want to buy. For instance, a man can stare at a Playboy spread of a woman in a satin G-string, but as to whether or not he’ll actually buy one for his wife- What’s wrong?” Greer asked cheerfully.

“Nothing.” He was choking mildly.

And Greer knew exactly what was wrong. A big ego wasn’t her problem, and he’d given her no reason to think he was going to come on to her. She’d just wanted to make sure that didn’t happen, and nothing took the predatory gleam out of a man’s eyes quicker than an encounter with a commonsense woman who talked about unmentionables the way other people talked about toothpaste.

“You didn’t mention your name,” she said lightly, once he’d recovered.

“Ryan McCullough.”

The name suited him. McCullough had the flavor of Scottish highlands and fresh air and the wild, rocky sea coast. And he had the look of a man who would seek out man-against-environment-type challenges. The stereotype of the plodding engineer didn’t fit him at all, arousing her curiosity.

Greer kept her eyes carefully averted from his work boots, praying he wouldn’t notice that Truce had settled at his feet and was trying to pull out the shoelaces. “You’re from…?”

“Maine, originally.” He added abruptly, “How long have you been getting those phone calls?”

“Too long, but honestly, they’re nothing to worry about.” Greer glanced at her watch, hardly believing that nearly an hour had passed. Unfortunately, anxiety attacks always made her gregarious, but that choked-up irrational fear was gone now. Long gone, thanks to one Ryan McCullough, and she’d certainly been bending his ear long enough. She stood up and stretched. “If I’d known you were moving in, I would have brought over a dinner. As it is, tonight was rather slim pickings-”

The phone rang in her apartment, a distant jangle through walls and closed doors. Greer pivoted toward the sound, color draining from her face. Her friendly chatter ceased instantly, sliced off rapidly as if with a knife blade. When the phone rang again, her fingers curled helplessly at her sides.

Firm hands suddenly closed on her upper arms from behind. “Dammit. Now, how the hell often does that happen?”

Her fingers fluttered in the air. She held her breath when the phone rang a third time. Ryan’s firm hands released her shoulders; he swept in front of her toward the door. “Where’s your phone?” he demanded brusquely.

“Pardon?” Tiny pinpricks of moisture beaded on her forehead. She stared wildly at Ryan as the phone jangled a fourth time. Fear was the strangest emotion. A stupid, stupid emotion. There’d been no threat of harm from the heavy breather. It was all in her head, this insidious growing fear of the stranger out there in the city watching her, a man who always seemed to know when she was alone, a man who’d gone to a lot of trouble to learn her new unlisted number almost as soon as she’d had the old one changed. Why had he chosen her? What could she possibly have done to deserve this? What did he want from her?

“There isn’t any reason to be frightened,” she said haltingly. “I know that. It’s totally ridiculous to get so upset…”

“Stay there.” Ryan pushed open her door and disappeared while she stood there. The phone rang once more and then stopped. Very shortly after that, one Ryan McCullough leaned against her open doorway, one leg lazily hooked forward and a definitely determined look to his mouth that she hadn’t noticed before. His eyes bored into hers and just wouldn’t let go. His tone, by contrast, was almost ridiculously gentle. “Didn’t you just offer me a dinner?”

“Did I? Was there-” she hesitated “-anyone on the line?”

“They’d hung up.”

Greer gathered up Truce.

“Is the offer of dinner still open?”

Greer stared at him blankly, almost certain that she’d specifically not offered him dinner. “I…sure.” She couldn’t think. Distractedly, she watched him take the plate and then the cat from her arms.

When Ryan closed her apartment door after they’d entered, she noted vaguely that he locked it.

“Do you have any wine?” Ryan inquired.

“Wine,” Greer echoed. She stared at him blankly until the word finally registered in her fogged brain, and then wandered toward the kitchen and crouched down by the cupboard near the stove. One Christmas, someone had given her a lovely wine rack; the lone bottle resting on its inexpensive side was dusty.