Jennifer Greene - Conquer the Memories

“You’ve been kind to listen,” the older man said gruffly, and motioned in Sonia’s direction with a sparkle of humor in his tired gray eyes. “Perhaps, though, you ought to go over there and rescue your better half?”

“Perhaps,” Craig agreed gravely, “that would be wise.”

It wasn’t so easy to travel the twenty-five feet to Sonia’s side. For a man who eighteen years earlier had been orphaned with no property save a bankrupt ranch in an obscure corner of Wyoming, he’d certainly come a long way; there was no counting the number of people who went out of their way to talk with him now. Having made his mark in Cold Creek-a town few people here had even heard of-Craig was still occasionally amused that anyone from Washington should go to such trouble to seek him out at this gathering. He was a private man, without the slightest interest in earning public acclaim. Actually, the only thing on his mind at the moment was collecting Sonia and getting the hell out of here.

Some sixth sense told Sonia that Craig was approaching. It was strange, but somehow she had only to intuit his proximity and her every feminine instinct was aroused. For the hundredth time, she thought idly that it was really very difficult not to be proud of him, even if she did have to bully him into coming here.

She didn’t have to spot him to know the look of him, wending his way through the crowd, a boyish shock of brown hair on his forehead, a disgracefully all-American smile catching every woman’s eye. He moved in lithe, lazy motions, with an easy sensuality that never betrayed tension. Tell me your secrets, said those brilliant blue eyes. If one looked closely enough, one could see the crow’s-feet around those eyes, and the experience and character in his strong features that bespoke his thirty-five years. He was five foot ten, but he carried himself like a man of six-eleven. Naturally, people cornered him to talk. People envied his self-assurance, his vitality…

Sonia wasn’t a bit prejudiced.

Well, a little, perhaps. Her husband had a few glaring faults. She generally treated those carefully. For instance, since she planned to be married to him for all of her next thousand lives, she figured she still had plenty of time to convince him that it was okay to take an occasional laurel for who he was and what he’d already done with his life.

In the meantime, she’d been watching him. He liked being in Chicago about as much as he’d liked spending six months in Washington last year-which was not at all. Cities turned him off. He hadn’t let it show, however, during his talks at the conference and the speech tonight. And after dinner, when a dozen prominent men were all but flag-waving to get his attention, he’d offered his time to Bradford, such a lonely old man these days.

Long, firm fingers closed on her waist from behind, and Sonia glanced up with a private smile for her husband, his mere closeness making her eyes light up like Fourth of July sparklers. The half frown on his forehead was there and gone before another soul could have noticed. Sonia, immediately perceptive, ended the argument with Ferona as Craig’s arm circled her shoulders.

“What’s wrong?” she murmured as she found herself inexorably led away from the crowd. Just outside the hotel’s banquet room was a darkly paneled hallway filled with coatracks and all but empty of people.

“It occurred to me…” Craig paused as someone unexpectedly entered the hallway and stopped to exchange a word or two. When they were alone again, he wrapped both his arms around Sonia’s shoulders and enclosed them both immediately in their own private cocoon. In Sonia’s line of vision were Craig’s stiffly starched white shirt, his spring-weight black suit jacket, the shock of brown hair on his forehead and those Paul Newman blues of his. No one else. Nothing else. “It occurred to me,” he repeated gravely, “that we haven’t made love in nearly three days.”

She stared at him blankly before a small, slow smile curved mischievously on her lips. “We aren’t a wee bit bored with this gathering, are we, Mr. Hamilton?” she murmured.

“We have done our duty, Mrs. Hamilton.”

She shook her head. “There’s still a line of people in there wanting to talk to you when they get the chance, and you know it.”

“You talked to all of them. I don’t need to.”

“They’re expecting-”

He shook his head. “If you’ll remember correctly, Mrs. Hamilton, we had some very different plans for these three days in Chicago. A little shopping, a little time alone together. You wanted to see that art fair. Instead, I haven’t even had breakfast alone with you, and you’ve been asleep long before I could escape the crowd at night. I’ve noticed it before, lady. You are a very, very good sport.”

“I am,” she agreed impishly, “very, very good.”

“And I think it’s time to skip out and cut up a little.”

“Oh?”

Craig’s thumb idly traced her cheekbone. A very high, delicate cheekbone. He was tremendously fond of those bones. And those incredible deep-set green-blue eyes, always so full of emotion, so sensitive to his every mood. She had a tiny black beauty mark at the nape of her neck and wore her curly black hair just long enough to conceal it. He loved that mark, too. And the legs that could have been a dancer’s…she was all leg, he told her often. She regularly apologized for being so misshapen.

She was wearing her cat’s smile at the moment, her eyes unspeakably demure beneath a fringe of thick, dark lashes. She knew damn well that in his eyes she was shaped perfectly. And that he was tired of people and wanted her alone, where the phone was off the hook and the door was locked against interruptions.

“First, we’re going to hear some music,” he told her huskily. “And then maybe we’ll just walk for a while.”

“Walking is what you have in mind, is it?”

“For starters.”

Sonia made a big business out of straightening his tie. Scarlet-and-black-striped, very conservative. So was his starched white shirt. Beneath that shirt his heart was beating at a very unconservative rate-and it continued to accelerate the longer her hands lingered at his throat, the longer her breast brushed just lightly against his arm. Her husband responded like quicksilver. Disgraceful, after being married four years. She reached up to brush back that wayward shock of light brown hair that had fallen over his forehead. The gesture was frankly proprietary. One of these days she was going to get him out of those starched white shirts if it killed her. She would not insist on pastels; that would be a hopeless mismatch with his character, but a simple masculine stripe wouldn’t hurt him. “It was an honor to be invited, and I really think you should be busy in there-”

“Your mother always says that busy hands are happy hands,” Craig agreed. “Mine are itching at this moment to get very busy, Mrs. Hamilton.”

“There’s just no talking to you,” she informed him.

With a lazy grin, he claimed her wrist, not wasting any more time. They quickly said the necessary goodbyes to the people Craig honestly cared for and respected, and then made their escape.

The lobby of the hotel was swarming with people; through a revolving glass door they were suddenly set free in Chicago at night. A late spring breeze whispered off nearby Lake Michigan. At eleven o’clock, Chicago’s nightlife was just getting started. Sequins and silks flashed by in passing car windows, and Sonia paused for a moment, seeing the promise of excitement in the gleam of neon lights. She no more valued big-city pollution than Craig did; they both loved their ranch at Cold Creek with its backdrop of mountains. Tonight, though, Chicago had its own special appeal. The air actually smelled fresh, with a lingering hint of spring. Or perhaps she was just susceptible to becoming intoxicated at the idea of escaping responsibilities and people.