Elizabeth Bevarly - The Virgin And The Vagabond

His beautiful eyes nearly bugged out of his head at her question. “Selling? What am I selling?”

She nodded, gripping the front door more tightly, ready to close it tight. It didn’t matter how good-looking this guy was or that he had been ferried by Rolls to her front door. She was tired, she had a headache and she was in no mood for fun and games.

She remembered then that she was also naked under her robe, and the thought of fun and games suddenly took on a more sinister connotation. Certainly Endicott was one of the safest places on the planet by national standards, the kind of town people normally only chose to visit by sticking a pin in a map. Then again, there were a lot of weirdos out there who could stick a mean pin.

“Whatever you’re selling,” Kirby said as she began to push the front door closed, “I don’t want any.”

Before door met jamb, however, her visitor stuck the toe of his obviously expensive, clearly Italian, loafer in the opening, effectively interrupting the brush-off. A thrill of something slightly scary shivered up her spine, and Kirby tried to push harder.

“You don’t understand—I’m James Nash,” the man repeated slowly and clearly, as if he were speaking to a two-year-old child. “Nash,” he said again. He paused a moment before adding, “You might have seen my face on the cover of Tattle Tales magazine a few months ago. They’ve designated me the Most Desirable Man in America this year.”

Although Kirby could certainly believe a man who looked like he did was capable of winning such a distinction, she didn’t for a moment put credence in his claim. “Um, congratulations,” she said as smoothly as she could. “But you evidently have me mistaken for the Most Gullible Woman in America.” Without missing a beat, she added, “That would be my friend, Angie. She lives on the other side of town. Now if you’ll excuse me... Goodbye.”

She tried again to close the door, but the man who called himself James Nash, Most Desirable Man in America, kept his foot firmly planted between it and the latch. And he smiled again, looking devastating and yes, darn it, desirable. She frowned as a spark of heat sputtered to life in her midsection. Boy, she really was desperate for a man if a total stranger was flicking her Bic.

“You really don’t know who I am?” he asked. “You honestly don’t recognize my name?”

Kirby sighed impatiently, chanced opening the door wider and said, “No. Sorry. Should I?”

He chuckled with genuine delight. “You’ve really never seen me before?”

She shook her head.

“Not on TV? In magazines? On the Internet?” He leaned forward and lowered his voice conspiratorially as he added, “I’m a regular weekly feature on the show, ‘Undercover Camera’—it’s syndicated, so you’ll have to check your local listings—and there’s an entire web site dedicated to sightings of me. If you’d like, I can write down the URL for you.”

Kirby paused, utterly bewildered by what the man was telling her, but reluctantly entranced by his deep, resonant voice. When she finally regained her senses—what few of them she could collect—she shook her head again. “Sorry.” she repeated. “But I have no idea who you are.”

He gazed at her in silence, as if he weren’t quite sure of her species origin. Then a shimmer of amusement lit his eyes. “How utterly delightful,” he murmured. His smile turned dazzling as he ran a hand modestly over his hair. “Think a minute. Surely you’ve heard my name somewhere. James Nash. I’m an icon of popular American culture.”

Kirby smiled back—indulgently, she hoped, because one could never be too careful when one was confronted by mental instability. “Well, gee, I guess that would explain it,” she said carefully. “I’m not much of a fan of popular American culture. I don’t own a television or have access to the Internet, and the only magazines I read are related to the decorating industry.”

“There you go,” he said with a nod. “Two of my houses were featured in Architectural Digest last year. And Metropolitan Home‘s latest holiday issue was practically devoted to my Central Park condo.”

Kirby nibbled her lip thoughtfully for a moment as she searched through the files in her brain. She eyed the man more carefully. “Don’t tell me that leopard-print sofa and zebra-striped club chair were yours.”

He beamed. “You remember!”

“And you need a new decorator,” she said, making a face. “I hated that spread.”

His smile fell. “But I love that sofa.”

This time when she shook her head, it was with a cluck of disapproval. “Look, that whole African explorer thing went out a long time ago. Today’s decorators are getting back to the basics. Doing more with less. Simple lines, clean colors. Lots of light and space. Not dead animals.”

His expression was crestfallen. “But I like dead animals.”

“Hey, guy, so did Ernest Hemingway, but that didn’t make him an expert in interior design.”

She suddenly remembered that she was standing at her front door wearing little more than a suntan, jawing with a man of indeterminate psychological status about home furnishings. With the hand she didn’t have wrapped around the doorknob in a whiteknuckled grip, she clutched more tightly the top of her robe.

“Um, look,” she tried again, “it was, uh, nice, um, meeting you, Mr., ah...Nash, was it?”

He nodded, his dashing smile returning full-blown. “Please...call me James.”

“Okay. Goodbye, James. I really have to go.” And she tried, again without success, to push the front door closed.

He gazed at her through the Italian-loafer-wide opening in the door, as if he couldn’t believe what she’d just told him. “Go?” he echoed. “But I just got here.”

She arched her eyebrows silently at his announcement.

“I brought champagne,” he added, holding up the bottle of what even she, with her very limited knowledge of such things, could see was extremely expensive wine.

Still not quite certain that she wasn’t dreaming the entire episode, Kirby said softly, “I don’t understand what that has to do with anything.”

“I brought champagne,” he repeated in that voice of put-upon patience, as if she should know exactly what he intended by the statement.

“And that would mean...what?”

His lips curled once more into that devastating smile that kindled a quick fire in her belly. “It means that by the time we finish dinner this evening, we’ll both be feeling pretty frisky.”

The fire in her belly exploded at that, sending flaming debris all through her system. She told herself he couldn’t possibly be intimating what he seemed to be intimating. He couldn’t possibly be intimating that they should get drunk and get...well, intimate. Was he?

“Um,” she began. But she couldn’t make herself say more than that.

James evidently interpreted her lack of response as the positive reply he seemed to be expecting, because that twinkle of something scandalous came back into his eyes. “You don’t even have to change your clothes,” he said softly. “It just so happens that my favorite outfit for a woman is nudity. Especially when there’s no tan line to act as an unnecessary accessory.”

Kirby gaped at that, because she suddenly realized that her earlier sensation of being watched while sunbathing had been founded after all. She didn’t know how “Mr. Desirable” Nash had managed it, but now some man in Endicott had finally seen her naked. And she hadn’t even had to try.

“What?” she said, the odd encounter becoming more and more surreal with every passing moment.

He nodded, smiling, obviously not noticing her growing fury. “Don’t worry,” he said softly. “I won’t tell your neighbors what a hedonist you are. And I don’t know if you realize it or not, but sunbathing nude is rivaled only by one thing in pleasure.” He winked lasciviously. “Sunbathing nude with a friend.”