“There is a bright side to this,” Bent said. “I can testify to the fact that her running won’t do her any good. The imperative will make her life miserable until she comes to terms with it and with you.”
“Yeah, but how long will it take?” A flicker of hope fluttered in his chest, but died at Daria’s next words.
“My intuition says it won’t be quick,” she said. “If, as we surmise, this Walt business triggered her apprehensions about you, I think she will need to settle that old ghost herself. As far as magic is concerned, would you like Glori and me to pay her a visit? We could throw on our illusions, and Glori knows more showy spells than Mother does. If she can’t convince Francie, there’s always Mother and Aunt Cassie.”
“No.” The idea of his two sisters, much less his mother and aunt, demonstrating spells for Francie scared Clay silly. She’d run so far he’d never find her. A visit from the family would have to be his last resort. He returned to his original idea: surely if he could talk to her, show her some programming on a “neutral” computer, it would do the trick. “Thanks, but not yet. I’d rather keep you two in reserve. The imperative convinced Bent. Maybe it’ll have the same effect on Francie.”
“Man, I hope so, for your sake,” Bent said.
Daria looked dubious, but smiled and patted him on the hand. “We’re here if you need us.”
“I thought this soul-mate process was supposed to be easy,” Clay complained. “Look at Mother and Dad. They didn’t have this kind of trouble.”
“Speaking of our parents . . .” Daria raised her eyebrows.
“No. Definitely not. Do
not
tell them anything about this.” Holy hell, his parents descending on Francie would send her right off the deep end. He thought of something else. “And do not tell Glori, either. I can’t take any of her teasing right now.”
“All right. I’ll cover for you. How’s your sting going? Any possibility it can help you with Francie?”
“No, she’s out of that, thank goodness.” Clay told them how the plans for trapping the hacker were progressing. When he was finished, he rose. “Thanks, both of you, for listening to me.”
“We didn’t do much,” Bent said as they walked to the door.
“You helped me clarify the situation,” Clay replied, realizing he told the truth. He did feel a little clearer in the head now.
“Give it time, big brother.” Daria gave him a hug. “If you want us to talk to Francie . . .”
“I’ll let you know.” He walked to his car and gave them a wave as he drove off. On the way home he remembered he might see Francie at basketball on Tuesday. He’d leave her alone until then, let the imperative chew on her for a while. She’d be softened up, and he should be able to talk to her at the Y. Maybe if they were in public, she’d hear him out.
He was her soul mate. She was his. He loved her. She loved him. He was certain about that.
Wasn’t he?
Damn right, he was.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The week had certainly not started well. On the way to her basketball league, Francie reviewed the past two days.
Monday had been bad enough.
“Are you all right?” Janet, the office mother hen, had asked with a worried look.
“Where are those great new outfits you’ve been wearing? This is so dull, it makes you look like a frump,” Sue, the office fashion plate, had opined, rubbing Francie’s sleeve between two fingers as though the material was shoddy.
Even Herb. “Look, I understand how difficult this has been for you, with your friend in it and all. If you need to take some time off, I think we have the hacker problem in hand,” he had suggested, taking her aside.
“You look like you’re coming down with a cold,” pregnant Peggy said as she offered her a cup of her “special” tea. “This has all sorts of vitamins and minerals in it.”
Francie accepted the tea, agreed about the cold, and gave everybody else vague answers as she wrapped her bulky brown sweater closer around her drab green dress and pushed her smudged glasses back up her nose.
At least the “cold” fib explained her red eyes and runny nose. Maybe she
was
catching something, the way her eyes kept tearing up. It didn’t, however, explain the pain in her middle. She’d have to make a doctor’s appointment soon.
Tuesday had been worse.
Those disturbing—and arousing—dreams of Clay had returned overnight, and she woke to tangled sheets, her usual morning sluggishness intensified to hurricane strength. The pain under her sternum had become a constant nothing could alleviate, neither antacids nor aspirin nor milk. Only her sense of duty and responsibility to her job drove her out of bed.
To wake herself up, she had chugged coffee until she was floating. Anything was better than sliding into a drowsy state where those damn dreams resurfaced and set her body to tingling, then aching. Luckily, someone had brought doughnuts to the regular Tuesday morning meeting, and the glazed pastry added another layer of protection.
She rode the resulting sugar and caffeine high to lunch—a deli sub and two candy bars—and into the afternoon when homemade brownies and more coffee carried her through another interminable meeting. Ruthless concentration forced all extraneous subjects out of her head, or so she thought until she caught herself doodling little wizard and witch hats, complete with moons, stars, and lightning bolts, in the margin of her notes. By five o’clock, feeling at the same time exhausted and raring to go, she was surprised to discover how many tasks she had actually accomplished. Just the game to go now, and then she could crash.
The contest against their main rival was a fierce one, with both teams playing at the top of their form. Her team won by a single basket—hers.
Nothing could have stopped her tonight, Francie thought, as she accepted the congratulations of her friends. Not the opposing center, a woman even taller than she and rumored to have been scouted by several WNBA teams. Not their smaller guards with their quick hands and fast breaks. Tonight she could have taken on Michael Jordan and won.
“Way to go, Francie!” one of her friends said as they gathered their towels at courtside.
“You were pumped, girl!” exclaimed another. “Where are we going to celebrate? I could use a nice cold beer.”
Several women called out the names of nearby restaurants.
“Where do you want to go?” a third asked Francie directly.
“Count me out on dinner tonight, y’all,” she said. When everyone tried to convince her to go with them, she responded, “I’ve been eating all day, mostly junk food and chocolate, and I’m still jazzed. I have to work off some of this energy or I’ll never get to sleep tonight.”
She remained adamant in the face of their attempts at persuasion, and before long, her friends left to shower. She picked up her towel and one of the balls and headed toward a court in the back of the sports complex usually free at this time of night. She hadn’t been lying to her friends about her energy levels, but she also couldn’t put on a falsely happy face over dinner. She simply wasn’t that good of an actress. Besides, she did need some free throw practice and her longer shots could use fine-tuning.
She threw her towel on the bench and dribbled the ball to the free throw line. She had the court to herself, thank goodness, and the configuration of the walls muted the noise from the other matches still underway. She couldn’t have wished for more privacy. The thunk, thunk, thunk of the bouncing ball soothed her frazzled nerves, and she sighed in contentment as she took hold of it. She centered herself, lofted the ball, and grinned at the result. Nothing but net.
How could she look so good, Clay asked himself. He watched her from the edge of a neighboring court as she retrieved the ball and bounced it back to the line. Those long legs, that blond ponytail, those gorgeous breasts, that delectable butt. Then he focused on her face and smiled in bitter satisfaction. The circles under her eyes told him she hadn’t survived the past couple of days in any better shape than he had.
He had caught the last minutes of her game. She had been all over the court, acting more like a guard than a center. She hadn’t hogged the ball, however, but always found the open woman who had the sure shot. The game had come right down to the buzzer, and he had cheered when she sank the winning basket. How she still had the strength to practice was beyond him.
He saw her rub her breastbone, and an idea began to form in his head. If she were as exhausted as she looked, it might work to his advantage. His game had been easy, and he was relatively fresh. There might be a way to force her to talk to him.
He sauntered over to her, coming up from her rear. “Good game, Francie,” he said when he was about five feet from her. She must not have heard him coming because she jumped and whirled around in a defensive stance, elbows out, ball protected.
“Oh. Clay.” She didn’t sound happy to see him. She relaxed slightly, but she didn’t meet his eyes. “Thanks.” She turned back around and bounced the ball as if she were going to shoot again.
“Francie, we do need to talk. I really need to explain, and you need to understand what’s happening here to both of us.”
She shook her ponytail at him and dribbled the ball some more.
“I’m not crazy, I promise. I’ll go to any computer you can think of to prove my point. I really am a magic practitioner and a computer wizard, and we really are soul mates.” Hell, he sounded pitiful, almost like he was begging. He could hear the exasperation in his voice when he said, “Will you please look at me?”
She turned back around, her chin raised and her face composed. “Go away,” she said with a level tone. “There is no such thing as magic. I do not believe in it. We have nothing to discuss.” She faced the basket again.
He walked around in front of her and put his hands on the ball she held at waist level. Good. That forced her to raise her eyes, and he locked his gaze to hers. Damn. He didn’t know her smoky brown eyes could be so icy, so frozen. Double damn. He was close enough to smell her, an overheated scent of pure woman, pure Francie, that would be the same, he knew, when they came together as soul mates. But later.
Concentrate on your objective, Morgan
.
He kept his voice low and even. Reasonable. As persuasive as he could make it. “Francie, you know we have plenty to talk about. And we need to settle some things. The soul-mate imperative is working on both of us. The pain in your chest?” He pointed to hers, then rubbed his own. “I’ve got one, too. That’s the imperative telling us we belong together.”
She snatched the ball from his hands and took a step back. “I don’t want to talk to you, and I don’t want to see you. There’s nothing between us, not this so-called imperative, not make-believe magic, not anything. Now, go away. I have to practice.”
What was the flicker in her eyes? The brown had almost melted for a second. Fear? Anger? Embarrassment? No matter. Ignoring her comments, he pressed ahead with his plan. “I have a proposition for you.”
She shot him a squinty, suspicious glance. “What kind of proposition?”
“Play a game of one-on-one.”
“Whoever gets to eleven points first wins? Each basket worth one point?” Her gaze grew more squinty, more suspicious, but she looked intrigued.
“Yep. Whoever wins the point, the other gets the ball. The ball handler starts from center court after each basket, the opponent from the foul line.”
“What’s the bet?” Her eyebrows went up and he thought he had her.
“
I
win, you talk to me and let me show you what I can do with a computer.
You
win, and I leave you alone.
You
win, and you’ll have to come to me if you want to see me.”
She scrutinized him carefully, clearly trying to find any loopholes in his offer. “You have height and reach on me. How many points will you spot me?”
“Not a one. I’ve seen how fast and accurate you are. What’s the matter? Don’t you believe in women’s equality?” He couldn’t help the jeer. Even though he knew he could beat her, probably easily, he couldn’t help wanting to rub her nose in it just a little. He knew exactly where he wanted that nose, and those hands, and . . . Don’t get distracted, he told himself. “I will, however, give you the ball first.”
“How magnanimous.” She dribbled the ball for a moment, then held it and met his eyes. “You won’t bother me anymore?”
“Well, I can’t promise completely,” he said with a smile. “But if I do, it won’t be from something
I’ve
done. It will all be in
your
head. I won’t call or come by or e-mail.”
She studied him for a few seconds. “All right, you’re on.” She shot the ball over his head. It swished through the basket. “One point for me. Your ball.”
Grinning at her audacity, he threw his towel over to the sideline and retrieved the ball.
This was not going to be the cakewalk he had envisioned, Clay acknowledged several minutes later. The score was five to five. She was even quicker than he anticipated, and she had a sweet, surprising shot from three-point range. By not pressing her closely, not getting in her face, he was letting her play
her
game, not his. Time to change tactics. He had to force her to come in under the basket where his greater height would be more to his advantage. Make her work to win the point instead of sit back and lob those bombs of hers. Maybe a little intimidation was in order.