Kitabı oku: «Impulse»

One

Speaking long-distance from Winter Haven, Florida, Mrs. Abbott assured her daughter in Atlanta, Georgia, “Well, Amy, you’re perfectly welcome to come home right now, but why not stay where you are for another day or two? With the rain, you’d either be trapped here in the house, or you’d have to go somewhere else. Unless, of course, being twenty-four years old and wearisomely mature, you’ve become tolerant of Mitzie and Peck?”

“How do you stand them?” Amy Abbott Allen inquired with genuine curiosity.

“As you know, I’m very grateful Peck saved Bill’s life all those years ago in Vietnam. I must add— however— the ‘saving’ is being told with increasing drama each year. I honestly believe Peck tripped at the crucial moment, but then you know how unbearably logical I can be?”

“I have seen hints of it.” Humor laced Amy’s droll words.

“Don’t try to ingratiate yourself to me with flattery. I cannot hint the Peckerels away. You know that. And they are such a refreshing change for your father. He needs Peck like some people need an occasional dose of Laurel and Hardy.”

“Peck is chatty, but he’s tall and thin, so he must be Laurel?”

“Yes, and Mitzie is Hardy har-har-har.”

Amy laughed with those sounds. “And what purpose does Mitzie serve?”

“I especially appreciate Mitzie’s visits. Bill looks at me in awe for simply days after we’ve been with the Peckerels.”

“I can’t begrudge you that, Mom. Instead of staying here, I think I’ll go to Saint Petersburg Beach.” She sighed dramatically into the phone mouthpiece. “I’ll sulk there until you finally get rid of the Peckerels.”

“Be careful of the prowling beasts.” Her mother’s voice became gentle. “The wolves are always after little girls like you.”

“Little? Mother, you fantasize. You know I take after Daddy.” While Mrs. Allen was five feet two inches, Amy was five feet seven, and her father was six feet four. Amy declared, “I’m a woman.”

“I...” But Cynthia Allen had hesitated too long, so she said airily, “Never mind, I’ll tell you when I see you.”

“Let me guess. You’ve found the perfect husband for me.”

Cynthia chided, “Now, Amy, why would you say something like that?”

“I’ve known you all my life.”

“It’s been a delightful acquaintance, my love. I’m sure the Peckerels can’t stay more than another few days. We haven’t been too lively.”

“You’re very sweet to Daddy.”

“I like him.”

* * *

So on that early March day, Amy Abbott Allen drove her packed car from Atlanta down to Saint Pete Beach on the west coast of Florida. She drove under the portico at the Trade Winds, exited her car and went into the glassed lobby as the rainy evening came down.

On the lobby tree, the flamboyant parrots were tolerant of the attention they were getting from some of those in the laughing, milling group of well-dressed young adults to be registered.

As Amy waited her turn, she noticed most of the people in the lobby knew one another. They were having a teasing, greeting time, exchanging gibes and laughter.

That’s when she saw him.

He was somewhat ahead of her in the casual line for the desk. He was one of that special, friendly group. Her first thought was: There’s a man Dad would like.

Then she looked at him for herself, and a strange flicker went through her body before it concentrated in the bottom of her stomach.

He was big. Almost as big as her father. He was probably thirty. His suit perfectly fit his marvelous body. His hair was very dark, so his eyebrows were, too, and that explained his black eyelashes. His lower lip was full and his jaw looked stubborn. His lazy smile was being wasted on an obnoxiously beautiful redhead who flirted with him.

Any woman would flirt with him. Amy realized that right away. A woman could become quite silly in attracting him. She could be quite like a bitch wolf trying to impress the dominant male wolf. It always embarrassed Amy to see women be so obvious.

He didn’t seem to mind the redhead’s attentions as he stood so easily relaxed. He was probably that same way in the boardroom, relaxed and in control, but God help the careless employee.

He’d slay with one rapier glance, and he’d say, “Find it!” in a soft voice. And if that person made a second mistake, he’d...uh-h-h...he’d help the incompetent one to relocate. Amy scoffed that she could know all that about a man she’d only glimpsed across the crowded lobby of a beach hotel.

But that was exactly how he would be. She’d bet on it. It would be interesting to meet him...just to see if she was right. That was all. She wasn’t going to do anything about him. She was only— curious. There were a lot of men who wore facades of authority, but they were actually hollow men.

When it came to pressure, they lacked the judgment, the background of information or the skill of business. She’d seen a lot of men, having traveled with her father in his business.

It was her father who had carefully guided her to know people and how to judge them.

Amy glanced over at— What would his name be? What name would such a man possess? He hadn’t yet looked at her. That was unusual.

Men generally saw her in their first assessing sweep of a room, and she would meet interested eyes every time she glanced up. She had never deliberately invited such interest.

There in the lobby other men looked at her and talked for her benefit, ready to include her in their conversation. But he didn’t even notice her.

He didn’t need to look around. Women migrated to him like iron filings to an irresistible magnet. They had crowded him so that he was no longer in the line ahead of her but off to one side.

Amy thought such interest, from her, in a disinterested man was astonishing and, to distract herself from him, she began to listen to the group. How open they were! How careless with names and plans.

Privileged people don’t care who hears their idle chatter. They rarely consider the other people who are around or listening.

Apparently the group was there for the redhead’s wedding. The bride was talking solely to the formidable man. Amy wondered how her groom felt about his bride flirting with such a man.

Or was he the bridegroom?

The bride’s name was readily available, since everyone was teasing her. She was Sally. And quickly, as Amy listened, his name was Chas, the diminutive of Charles.

Amy agreed with that choice of nickname. He wasn’t a Charlie, although the redhead did call him Charlie in such a sassy way she must be privileged. How privileged? Amy’s eyes narrowed on the redhead.

Then Amy thought, what business was it of hers? Well, at least Sally wasn’t marrying Chas. The groom’s name was Tad. Why the feeling of relief in her because the groom was not Chas?

“Any of Trilby’s bunch coming?” One of the group inquired of Sally.

“Who knows? I couldn’t find many and even they are all out of touch with one another. Trilby had ten children, all girls, and they married and scattered. With all the name changes, they’ve been hard to find. What we’ve found of the next generation, they were all girls, too!”

Some man’s voice offered, “Our bunch came down fairly intact. Male, of course.”

That male comment caused protests among the females and some teasing male laughter over the indignant female exclamations.

Since Amy was an only daughter, she was curious how Chas reacted to the thought of having only female offspring. She swiveled her head to see his reaction, but she even had to shift in order to look farther.

He was almost directly behind her! When had he moved? But she couldn’t see his face since he was turned away, talking to someone else. Not the redhead.

He had a great voice. It was low and rumbled. Even so, it sounded as if he lightened it so that it wasn’t too strong. It was still a commanding sound.

Amy’s imagination could see him on a battlefield shouting for his men to rally. And they would.

Now where did an idea like that come from? How ridiculous! Perhaps she was intrigued because he didn’t notice her.

When next he spoke, it was almost in her ear, and goose bumps flooded her body’s surface. The sensation was so peculiar that she was distracted from the lobby banter among the wedding guests.

She was so distracted that she moved to the desk and just stood there. The efficient couple behind the desk smiled at her and inquired, “Do you have a reservation?”

“Yes. Amy Aaabbott.” A couple of extra A‘s in there, since she’d almost said Allen. She was handed the reservation card and signed it.

Being her notable father’s daughter, she had begun to register as Amy Abbott, using her middle name. Her family agreed such action would be wise. Especially since she now traveled alone in this day and age. Who knew how strained and strange minds worked in revenge?

As she signed the card, she was aware Chas’s breath stirred her hair. He was facing her way. Probably impatient with her dawdling? She was being as quick as she could. Efficiently she inquired, “Was the fridge stocked?”

“Yes, it was, Miss Abbott.”

“Thanks.” She smiled back as she accepted the card, which took the place of a key. She declined an escort and was directed to the complex map, which she studied. There was a huddle of buildings named and explained. One was an indoor, heated pool. She located her third-floor suite.

Amy then went out to the parking lot and moved her car to the guest lot. She took out her weekender and made her way through the hotel complex. There she walked to the deck elevator for the six-floored north wing.

In the elevator, she was again with some of the wedding party. As Amy looked out of the back, glass wall of the elevator, she heard one of the women ask a man of their group, “Is Matt coming?”

“Oh, yes. He’s still trying to convince Connie to live with him.”

“They’re cousins,” a woman commented.

The male’s voice was lazy in his reply, “Only third, no problem. But Matt doesn’t want to marry her, he just wants to get her out of his system.”

“Connie’s smart to hold out.”

The male chuckled low in his throat. “I’m not sure she does, she just won’t live with him.”

Amy wondered how did the chatterers know she wasn’t from a gossip magazine. They weren’t even aware of her. At least the women weren’t. To them, Amy could have been a knob on the panel. The doors opened on the third level, and only Amy exited.

From the elevator, she turned left. The access walk on the floor above served as a roof, so her walkway wasn’t completely wet. She looked down on the second floor sun deck which, in turn, overlooked the courts for basketball, handball and tennis.

Through the well-placed palms, she could see the putting course and shuffleboard. Beyond was the bricked chessboard in the quadrangle formed by the buildings of the complex.

She went to Room 334 and put her sandpiper-marked card into the top of the lock. The lock’s light turned green. Amy removed the card and opened the door. But instead of entering, she hesitated.

Why should she feel this odd excitement? Apprehension? It was as if she was about to cross not only that threshold but an additional one. Prickles went up her spine. Amy shivered as if with fear, or thrills, took that step and entered her suite.

Nothing happened.

She dropped her weekender on one bed and walked down the connecting bath-hall and through her living room with its kitchen bar. The wall was glass, and so were the double doors. She opened the sliding door, which gave access to her balcony.

She stood in the doorway, breathing deeply of the rain-wet, salt-scented air. To her left was the Gulf, the beach and the prerequisite palms. Then she looked down at the man-made waterways plotted around contrived islands and used for the foot-peddled paddleboats.

In the evening’s darkness, Amy stood on her balcony in the dark, looking out on the calm scene. She was a little lonely. In just the last few weeks she’d begun to understand single men hunting companionship. Traveling alone was boring.

After being inside all day in meetings, there was the urge to do something physical in the evenings, to run, swim, anything that was different.

However, being a woman alone in such circumstances, in public accommodations, left her open to be approached. In all that time she’d met about every variety of male God could devise, and they were no big deal.

But traveling with her father had kept the wolves at bay.

Amy had served as a “side man” to her father during the summers, then full time in the two years since college. In that time, she had been listening silently and learning. She had been traveling for his political campaign advisory company for almost four months now on her own. It had been a revealing experience.

Her dad used her as a trusted representative. It was interesting work, but it would have been better if she was a man.

Men reacted to her not as Bill Allen’s representative, but as a young female. Their reactions ranged from indulgence, to tolerance for Bill Allen’s daughter, to genuine attraction, to lechery. But mostly they had trouble taking her seriously.

Where a man could have started at a basic level of acceptance, Amy had to work to reach up to that zero and then had to work hard for the men to even listen to her.

Her father told her, “It’s good experience,” and he ruffled her hair. He then grinned at her and said, “In another fifty years, they’ll listen to you and take you very seriously with genuine respect. By then you won’t be the sable-haired blue-eyed killer you are now.”

She’d fingercombed her hair back into place and given the disgruntled reply, “I’ll have it before then.” Her father didn’t realize his hair-ruffling was very like other male reaction to her. She was aware, but she could tolerate it from him since he was her father.

However, the next time she’d gone to have her hair cut, she’d told Peter to give her a hairstyle that would allow her father to ruffle it without destroying anything calculated.

Peter had groused a sympathetic, “Men!” He then spent almost forty minutes studying her head before he cut her hair in the matter of about twenty minutes in a neat, shake-right swirl.

Peter believed in style not fad, and he said, “You’re lucky you can wear your hair any way you choose and forget it. You have enough hair, your head shape is good and your features are well placed. Ears can be a bore. Yours aren’t bad.” From Peter that was accolades only to her luck. He had meant nothing personal.

* * *

Below Amy’s balcony, down on the pedestrian walkway, a group of wedding guests strolled along in the misty evening, laughing. Even from two floors up, Amy could clearly hear, “But who else will come?”

“Who knows? It’ll be interesting to see.”

How carelessly those elegantly, casually clothed people chatted. Anyone listening closely could intrude and pretend to be one of them.

Being oblivious to listeners was the way with any specialty group whether it was business, politics, travelers or, as in this case, monied people.

It never occurred to them they were overheard and someone could carefully listen. Look at the information she’d gleaned just in the lobby, the elevator and just now. They didn’t actually know who all would be there at the wedding of Sally and Tad.

Even Amy, who had no ulterior motives, could go to any of them and say, “Well, hello! I’m a descendant of your Aunt...” Was it Tilly? No, not Tilly. It had been Trilby. “I’m your long lost cousin, Amy Abbott!”

She could say that quite easily. They didn’t know all of their relations. Even those they knew weren’t in touch with the others. She could fake being related.

And they would accept her. After a certain strata in life, people were no longer snobbish. They would include her quite nicely, for a time, just for the novelty if for no other reason.

All Amy had to do was take advantage of their careless tongues. She could do it. And if she did...she could meet Chas! Ah, yes. Did Chas know he was a carrot to her goatish...uh...ewe-ish desires?

If she did pretend to be related to them, it would give her the opportunity to find out what kind of man he really was. She would learn if he was solid or hollow. She could do it as a test of her father’s schooling. An independent study. Test her skill of summation. What a neat cover-up for lust.

Lust? She? Of course not! It was simply... curiosity.

However, it would be interesting to have an affair with him. To have him look at her with that sinfully lazy smile. To have him bend his head down to hear her and watch her mouth as she spoke. To be the object of his attention.

She might be able to do that, too, with complete immunity. Not only could Amy Abbott Allen invade their celebration, but she could contrive to have an affair with the dominant male wolf.

They were all strangers, she wasn’t native around there. She could very easily perpetrate such a masquerade...and get away with it.

She did pause. Again. It was another threshold. Was it the one she’d sensed as she’d entered the suite?

She was contemplating a very rash thing here. Strange behavior for the puritan Amy Abbott Allen. It was one thing to fake an acquaintance and invade a private gathering just to see if she could, but it was another thing entirely for a woman of her upbringing to even think about plotting an affair.

An affair with a stranger she’d only glimpsed in a hotel lobby? Insane! She’d been working too hard. She was alone too much. Her male contacts called it burnout or nerves or relaxation or distraction or almost any other word. She’d always sneered and called the affairs predatory usage.

Could it be she was no better than any prowling male? Women did do this sort of thing. Amy knew they did, but she’d always thought they were a different kind of woman.

Perhaps Amy’s interest now was only because she’d never before seen a man she wanted.

Amy did want to try for him.

With the decision, she spent a long time listening to a wild, shocked debate inside her head— all of which she realized she’d heard before! Had she only been thwarted from seduction by her conscience? Was she a victim of Victorian morals?

She was not! While not quite past this one, she was a Twenty-first Century Woman!

She could live like any man. She could take her pleasures as she found them and enjoy the freedom of choice. She could.

She could stand on her back legs and howl just like any others of the wolf pack. She could go right ahead and have an affair, right there, with Chas...if she could entice him.

What if he wasn’t interested? Well, there were others in the party. She could... No. She could look them over again, but she hadn’t seen any of the others who’d rated a third glance.

It was to Chas that her eyes had clung. It was he whose body spoke to hers. She wanted him.

And of course, she had the advantage of being unknown. She could vanish into the night, like a highwaym— highwaywoman.

* * *

Lochinvar had carried off the bride. Amy would be a female Lochinvar. One who carried off a man from a wedding celebration. It was an omen.

He’d be something to try to carry off since he was so big. And she only wanted the affair. It would be an affair of mystery for she would vanish. Would he pine for her? Search?

Her mind made up all sorts of tales of his search. He’d stand on the outer edges of her life, she would at last recognize him and she would be kind.

No, that would never do. When she left, it would be finished. She couldn’t have old lovers turn up here and there. That would make her life too cluttered.

The affair would stay an interlude of enchantment. And he would never know who she really was.

Of course, once she met him, there was the chance that she might not be interested. He could well be hollow. But the opportunity was there for her to find out if he was a solid man.

She didn’t have to languish through the days of simply catching glimpses of him around the hotel. She could get to know him, and she could judge whether or not she wanted to know him...better.

Wasn’t that the word men used? “I’d like to know you...better.” All she had to do would be to enter their group, ta-dah! and reveal herself as a long-lost cousin!

Having that distraction from boredom, the affair would entertain her. She had to have something to do until Peck and Mitzie left her parents’ house. She could read up on the campaign of Harry Albert Habbison, who was running for a State Senator’s job in Illinois.

H.A.H. seemed so relaxed and easy, but he was about the shrewdest hayseed she’d ever met. He was going to use the State Senator’s position to campaign statewide, and he’d then become a U.S. Senator or he’d have scalps.

Amy was curious what her father would do with her notes in working up a rough on Harry’s campaign. Harry had a good chance of winning his district. And in a sampling in the state, people didn’t yet know of him.

That was good. If they had no opinion of the unknown, there was nothing to counteract.

In Illinois, the Republicans had always ruled the state while the Democrats held Chicago. But that was changing. Could a Republican hayseed make it? Harry thought so. How would her dad advise on that, and what would be his comments on her notes? It would be interesting.

Amy’s father was considered one of the country’s most brilliant campaign advisors. A lot of gimmicks were attributed to him. The handwritten notes whose ink actually smeared. The shirtsleeves and loosened tie with suit coat carried over one shoulder with the left fingers holding it— leaving the right hand free to shake any hand.

The coat over the shoulder was attributed to Sinatra’s long-ago album cover, as Mr. Allen pointed out. Although, before then, his candidates had used it— for a time.

By now the folksy, shirtsleeved bit had been so overused, and used so awkwardly and with such calculation, that no Allen-advised candidate touched such a cliché.

Any Allen campaign pattern was so quickly copied that he allowed others to take credit for them, because by then he’d gone on to better ideas. The senior Allen didn’t like to be coupled with ideas that were past their time. The only thing he pointed to— with clients— was who had used him and how many had won.

So, naturally, there was the question as to how many of those who won had beaten better men? Whose side to take was faced with every potential client.

The preliminaries for the decision was Amy’s job. It turned on who was the client, his reputation and how he reacted to her.

She probed as to what sort of people were around the candidate and what were his goals.

There had been potential clients who’d been turned down who had won. And there were good men Allen had accepted as clients who’d lost. No one won them all.

So what would her dad do with Harry A. Habbison? Something ought to be done with that double H. Her father might shun such a gimmick. Honest And Honest? Double H for double Honor?

The man was honorable. She’d stake her judgment on that one, but he was peculiarly unpalatable. However, the H.A.H. might be used by the opposition as the derisive sound, hah! Maybe they shouldn’t draw attention to his initials.

What was Chas’s full name? Now there was a man who would tempt any woman to vote for him. Chas, the dominant male wolf.

A woman always wants the best man around. And there was the warrior in Chas which would inspire men to believe in him. Ah, to have Chas for a candidate client. All they would have to do would be to put him on television and ask him to say his name and what he wanted.

Amy really didn’t care what he wanted. She wanted him. She wanted to talk to him, and have him look at her, smile at her, to reach out, put his hand on her nape and draw her to him. Yes.

It was getting quite cool with her balcony door open. Why would she stand there, in the cool wet darkness, dreaming about a man who hadn’t even looked at her?

He was probably a loyal husband with six kids. Any wife of his would willingly have six kids for that man. She...well, no, she wasn’t having his children. She simply wanted an affair, if he was single.

She was going to try. Tomorrow she would contrive to meet Sally and introduce herself as a long-lost cousin. And after that, it would only be a matter of time before she met Chas. The impulse was a little heady, and she felt a strong recklessness. It would be an adventure.