Authors: Patti Berg
The kid, probably not more than twenty-one, had a five-dollar bill in his hand and she plucked it from his fingers before he could tuck it between her breasts. The Torch wasn’t
that
kind of place, at least it wasn’t when she performed. She stuffed the money back in his shirt pocket, knowing he couldn’t afford it, and moved on, looking for another familiar face, or someone who looked dean and unthreatening.
Searching the room, her gaze lit on, the man leaning against the bar—a gorgeous hunk, broad shouldered, slim-hipped, dressed in a well-cut charcoal suit. It was the man who’d set her on fire this afternoon, the man who’d walked away without tending the flames he’d stoked.
She could have murdered Mike for that. But... she’d liked the glow, the heat that stayed with her for hours—even though it confused her. She wanted him; yet he was a threat to all she’d ever wanted.
Sauntering toward him, she sang another chorus of “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” knowing Gus would keep up with whatever she did. She stood in front of Mike, tugging on his tie, sliding it between her fingers. He’d made her burn; she was going to do the same thing in return.
Gus’s segue into “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” couldn’t have been more perfect, as if he could read her mind. She should have started singing after the first bar, but she toyed with Mike’s tie instead, and Gus played along.
She drew the inside of her bare knee along the outside of Mike’s leg, watching his green eyes dart to the thigh-high slit in her dress, to the scarlet stilettos that scraped over his pants. She felt like sin personified, but Mike didn’t seem to mind, not when the corners of his mouth tilted, and his dimple deepened.
She smiled brazenly. “Want to dance, big boy?” “Told you a long time ago I don’t dance.” “Would you like me to teach you?” “We gonna dance fast or slow?” “For you, slow. Real slow. Real easy.” He shoved away from the bar, and she took his hand and led him to a small scrap of dance floor near the piano. Dancing wasn’t common here; only drinking and music. Looking into Mike’s sizzling gaze, a fluttery feeling came over her. What on earth was she up to?
She wasn’t sin personified. For the most part she was Little Miss Innocent, the sweet virgin who danced and sang like a tramp but was still the daughter of a hell-fire-and-brimstone preacher inside.
“Getting cold feet?” Mike whispered, when he drew her right hand to his shoulder, tucked her body against his with a sweep of his hand around her back and a quick little tug. “No.” Her voice quivered. “Then sing for me while you show me how to dance.”
She’d started this. Somehow she had to cool it down. Unfortunately her fingers—as well as the rest of her body—were listening to her libido, not her common sense, and they wove into his thick, soft black hair. She took hold of his hand and stepped up close and personal, feeling the rapid beat of his heart keeping time with hers.
She pressed her cheek against his, inhaling his aftershave, almost getting lost in memories of a night of sleeping with this man. And then Gus tickled the ivories—loudly—and she was transported back to the present. She started to dance, to hum, closing her eyes while she led Mike through a few steps.
It wasn’t long before he figured the one-two-three, one-two-three out for himself, and he took the lead, his palm pressing against the small of her back, holding her tight.
At last she sang, “I’ve got you, under my skin ...” There was so much truth to those words, and Mike admitted it, too, repeating the words next to her ear.
Opening her eyes, Charity saw the blur of faces in the crowd, twenty, maybe thirty people watching her and Mike, no doubt wondering what was going on. She’d tell them, but she wasn’t sure herself.
Mike whirled her around the dance floor, his warm, callused fingers making slow circles at the small of her back while she sang, “I’d sacrifice anything—”
“Would you?” Mike whispered against her ear. “Would you sacrifice
anything
, Charity?”
Somehow she continued to sing, but the question haunted her. Could she sacrifice anything? A chance in the spotlight? A place at the top? For a life with Mike?
She didn’t know. Sadly, she just didn’t know.
It was well past two in the morning when Charity and Mike arrived back at her apartment. A cool breeze blew across the desert, rustling through the palms, stirring up the faint layer of sand that had blown over the parking lot, the steps, and her landing.
They stood arm and arm just outside her open door, and for the first time in her life she wanted a man to come inside, to spend the night in her bed—to make love to her. To love her.
But it wouldn’t be right. Not without marriage, and she didn’t want that. Not now.
“Why are you doing this to me?” she asked, standing as close as humanly possible, wanting him near yet wanting to push him away.
He frowned. “What is it you think I’m doing to you?”
“Making me want you.”
“Is that so bad?” he asked, nibbling her ear-lobe, kissing the base of her neck, driving her crazy.
She twisted away from him, from feelings that couldn’t be ignored—the physical ones as well as those in her heart.
“It is when there are a thousand miles standing between us. A thousand miles, conflicting goals, and a matching set of morals that won’t let us take what we want and not ask for anything more.”
“You haven’t mentioned one thing that can’t be worked out, Charity. But you’ve got to be willing to talk about what’s between us, about what you want, what I want.”
She pulled out of his grasp, gripped the wrought-iron railing behind her, and looked out at the city lights. “How do we work out the fact that you won’t leave Wyoming and I won’t leave Vegas?”
“We just need time.”
“Time for me to change my mind, right? Time for me to pack my bags, give up my life.”
“You’d have a new life.”
“Doing what you think I should do!”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy the time you spent at the ranch. Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy riding Satan and Jezebel and taking nose-dives off a saddle and knocking me to the ground.”
“Of course I liked it. It was different and fun and challenging. But Vegas is my home and dancing is my life, and if I’m not mistaken, you told me earlier today that I had talent, that I shouldn’t give it up.”
“You
shouldn’t
give it up, but you can dance anywhere. You can sing anywhere.”
“You make it sound as if walking away from all I’ve worked for should be easy. But it’s not, Mike.”
He wove his arms around her and rested his cheek against her ear. “Nothing’s easy. It’s just a matter of deciding what you really want.”
“I don’t want to fall in love with you.”
His sigh was heavy, and he laughed cynically as he pulled away from her. “Don’t worry, Charity, I’m not going to force you into anything. Not going back to Wyoming with me. Not love. Not sex. Trust me, six years of being alone, six years of celibacy has left me with a hell of a lot of self-control.”
And a lifetime of reaching for a star had given her self-control, too. She knew what she wanted and that couldn’t be changed.
Behind her she heard the thump of Mike’s boots on the concrete steps, felt the iron railing shaking beneath her fingers as he descended rapidly. She watched him walk across the parking lot, saw him yank open the car door, and couldn’t miss the way he stared up at her or the anguish in his words.
“I’m in love with you, Charity. God help me, that’s one thing I can’t control.”
SO MUCH FOR CONTROL!
Mike smashed his fist into his pillow, plowed his head into it, and stared at the ceiling. As if the guilt and the nightmares weren’t enough to keep him awake, now he had to face that he’d lost sight of what he’d been trying to do—make Charity fall in love with him without pushing, without scaring her off.
But the blasted woman was a tease. Any man would lose control considering what she’d put him through. She’d come close to seducing him more than once in the past twenty-four hours. Whether she did it consciously or subconsciously he didn’t know anymore, and what did it matter anyway?
What was he thinking? Everything she did mattered. A lot.
Rolling over in bed, he stared at the clock. Five
a.m.
He couldn’t think of a better time to call— when Charity was asleep and vulnerable.
He rummaged through his wallet for her number, grabbed the phone, and punched the buttons. It rang three times. He could hear the clanking sound of her fumbling to get the phone off the hook, heard the thump of her dropping it, then heard an annoyed but sleepy, “Hello?”
“Want some breakfast?”
“
What
?” He could pretty much picture her rubbing her eyes and staring at the phone in confusion. “Who is this?”
“Pastor Flynn.”
There was a long silence. Good. She was thinking about what had happened between them a few hours ago. She was feeling remorseful. In a minute, she’d apologize.
Clunk
! Bzzzzzzz.
Blasted woman!
He stabbed at the numbers again.
Ring. Ring
.
“Look, Mike.” Charity sighed heavily into the phone. “I laid awake for hours thinking about what we talked about and my feelings haven’t changed. I don’t want to fall in love with you, and I don’t want you doing anything more to make me want to fall in love with you. So, for once in my life I’m exercising a little self-control.”
Clunk! Bzzzzzzz.
His own self-control was shot to hell. He punched out Charity’s phone number again and listened to the ring—counting off the annoying tone eleven times before she finally picked up the phone.
“What!”
“Don’t hang up on me, Charity. I want you to listen to me.”
“Give me a good reason why.”
“Because I’m asking you to. Did you hear that?
Asking
. This isn’t an order, Charity, it’s a request. Consider listening to me as partial payment for all the times I’ve come to your rescue.”
Silence. Dead silence—but he fully expected to hear another
Clunk! Bzzzzzzz
.
Instead he heard a resigned but soft spoken, “All right, I’m listening.”
“Have breakfast with me.”
Another long pause. Good, she was giving his invitation some consideration. “I can’t. I’m spending the day with Logan.”
Logan, again. Friend or not, they sure spent a lot of time together. “Doing what?”
“Helping him pack, nothing more. He’s a friend Mike,
a friend
, and since he left a message on my recorder begging for assistance I’m going to help him. Before that, I plan on sleeping since I’m currently dead on my feet.”
“Are you trying to avoid me?”
Silence. “I can’t avoid you, Mike. I keep trying, but...” He couldn’t miss her painful sigh. “You’re everywhere I go—the past twenty-four hours anyway—and you’ve been in my thoughts for months. You’ve been in my dreams, too, and my friends continually bring up your name. I’d avoid you if I could but... but... I’m tired and I just don’t want to deal with this now.”
Bzzzzzzz.
Mike smiled as he casually dialed Charity’s phone number.
“Hello.”
“But what, Charity?”
“I’m falling in love with you and it scares me.”
“I know.” He was scared, too, but he wasn’t going to back off.
Mike heard the squeak of bedsprings and pictured Charity rolling over on the mattress, snuggling up with her pillow, holding the phone close to her ear.
“I’ve never been in love before,” she said. “A crush or two in high school, but the guys weren’t too interested in the preacher’s kid.”
“I told you I wanted to be your first.”
“
If I
fall in love, Mike, and that’s a big if. There’s still the Las Vegas vs. Wyoming problem.”
“Probably half a dozen other problems, too, things we already know about, things that could crop up later, when we know each other better.” Some things he didn’t want to think about, like guilt, and nightmares, and restless nights.
“What would you tell your parishioners if they came to you and said they might be falling in love with someone who was all wrong for them?”
“I’d tell them to pray on it. I’d ask what they loved most about the other person, find out if the love is strong enough—important enough—to make it worthwhile to work through their differences. Then we’d pray together. And then I’d probably dish out a bunch of advice straight from a psychology textbook or throw out a cliché like ‘go with the flow.’ ”
Charity laughed, and he found himself settling into the firm and uncomfortable hotel bed, found his eyelids growing heavy... because she soothed him in a way no one ever had.
“Is that what we’re going to do now?” she asked. “Just go with the flow?”
“Unless you’ve got any better ideas.”
She was silent a moment. Thinking. “Want to spend the day helping Logan and I pack up his house?”
“Can’t. I’ve got to meet a horse trainer this morning.”
“What?”
He heard the bed springs again and had a pretty good idea she was wide awake and fuming. He should have known those words would rile her again. “I heard about some guy who’s got a sure-fire way of taming mustangs, and I want to check out his methods.”
“What does he do, use some kind of special bamboo pole for stroking horses? Does he use the clicker method or a slip rope?”
“Where’d you learn about those things?”
“I read about them in a book.”
So she was interested in what was going on back at the ranch. At last, something was working in his favor. “They’re good methods, Charity. They work.”
“They’re not the methods I’d use, but... but... oh, hell, what difference does it make. I won’t be training horses in the future, I’ll be dancing in the spotlight, so go spend the day with your trainer. Right now, I just want to go back to sleep.”
“You could go with me and see firsthand what this trainer does with the horses.”
“I told you, I’m helping Logan.”
“Then what if I call you later and tell you all about it?”
“Fine.” She gave him her cell phone number since she’d be with Logan all day. “Now, can I go back to sleep?”
He smiled at her frustration. If they ever got together, there’d never be a dull moment.
“Sweet dreams,” he whispered, then hung up the phone and settled comfortably into bed, letting his mind wander to images of Charity riding an untamed stallion, maybe in that barely-there leotard she’d worn today. The beast bucked wildly, and Charity beamed with excitement as she held on tight and enjoyed the ride.
Life with Charity would always be one wild ride after another, Mike figured. If he had to use Satan as bait, so be it. One way or another, he was going to catch Charity Wilde—and keep her.
Another night, another round of grabby hands.
Charity wove in and out of tables, dodging one too many touchy-feely types, while she belted out a rendition of “Cry Me A River.” The song was soul searing and gut wrenching, but something was missing. Something important. Something that had always been there before.
“Cry me a river ...” Charity swept her fingers over the shoulders of a stranger, and tried not to think about love. Singing about it was bad enough.
Instead she thought about the rushed phone conversation she’d had with Mike this afternoon. The meeting with the horse trainer went great, as if she’d really wanted to hear that bit of news. In fact, Mike had said, he’d probably make the guy an offer tomorrow, he just needed a night to sleep on it. The last thing he wanted to do was make a rash judgment and end up hiring the wrong person for the job.
Job
! Gentling horses shouldn’t be a job—it should be a
passion
. Mike didn’t understand. He’d never understand.
Of course, she didn’t understand why her own passion had deserted her. Her rendition of “Am I Blue” ripped through the room, but it seemed forced. No one else would notice. But she certainly did.
She launched into “Stormy Weather,” perching atop the baby grand in purple silk, a floor-length sheath that was slit to her thigh, had just a hint of spaghetti straps, and was cut nearly to her belly button in front. She’d twisted her hair into a chignon and truly looked as if she’d stepped out of the forties or fifties. But it was only drunks and strangers who appreciated how she looked. There was no one at home to tell her she was beautiful, no one to pull her straps down slowly, to make love to her.
Drunks and music lovers shoved tips into her oversized snifter right and left, and most of them blew smoke in her lace when they did it. She couldn’t help but wonder how much longer she could work in a place like this before her lungs would take a beating.
She was twenty-five, but she wouldn’t be twenty-five forever.
Snap out of it
! She had a job to do, songs to sing. It was time to stop feeling sorry for herself. This was the life she’d chosen, the life she wanted.
But her heart wasn’t in the song. It was in Wyoming with a wild stallion named Satan. It was in a beautiful log cabin that sat beside a meandering stream. It was in a big four-poster with fluffy down pillows and a handmade quilt.
And with a man named Mike.
She finished her number, listened to the applause, the whistles. Was it her voice they were cheering, or her body? Did it matter? she wondered. Tips were tips, no matter how they were earned.
Stretching out across the piano, she leaned close to Gus’s ear and asked him to play “In the Still of the Night.” Gus’s fingers tripped over the keyboard, and she felt another pair of fingers trip over her exposed thigh.
She spun around, ready to do battle. No man touched her without permission. That was a rule. But she felt the rage in her eyes soften when callused fingers moved to her waist, and bright green eyes smiled.
“Dance with me?”
Mike lifted her off of the piano and into his arms, holding her close as she sang, as he tried to distract her by whispering in her ear. “I missed you today.”
She smiled, trying to focus on the words of the song, on her singing, pouring out emotions while getting caught up in the hot, spicy scent of Mike’s aftershave, the smoothness of his cheek brushing over hers, the feel of his rough palm at the small of her back.
In a heartbeat, the passion had returned to her voice.
“I thought about you dancing privately for me and wondered what you’d wear,” he said, his teeth tugging lightly on her ear. “Something white and silky? A little bit of lace?” He kissed the hollow beneath her ear, and she leaned into his seductive power. “Nothing?”
She flashed him a frown and pulled out of his arms. She’d get fired for sure if Mike came to the club every night, continually distracting her.
She slipped across the room toward someone safe, to the cute young guy who’d come every night since she’d started singing at the Torch. She sat in his lap, wove her hands around his neck, and looked right through him, watching Mike instead, drinking in the sight of his broad shoulders, his narrow hips, his rapid gait as he headed for the door.
Her heart lurched. Had her escape sent out signals that she wasn’t interested? Had she angered him when she’d only meant to ... tease?
Mike pushed through the door and the red neon torch outside flashed down on his face as he looked back inside, searching the smoky room. At last he found her, holding her spellbound in his gaze. When Gus played the final crescendo, when Charity belted out the climactic ending, Mike winked, the dimple beside his mouth deepening as he hit her with a smile that could have knocked her off her feet if she hadn’t been sitting in a young man’s lap.
And then he was gone.
Leaving her with the promise of more to come.
Gus launched into “The Way You Look Tonight” as she made her way back to the piano. She slid her hand over the ebony baby grand and her fingers bumped into a small, oblong package nearly hidden behind the overflowing snifter.
She turned her back to the crowd, pulled the clips from her hair and let it tumble down her back, giving those in the room a good show and a great song, even though they couldn’t see her face or her fingers fumbling to open the gift card. At last she peeled out a piece of hotel stationary and read the words.
Charity,
If you have a chance, read this and let me know your thoughts.
Mike
Well, that was certainly personal!