Body Language (6 page)

“Will you promise not to stop doing that if I make a confession?”

McCade hesitated slightly at her words. A confession? “Okay,” he managed to say evenly, hiding the sudden acceleration of his pulse. “Confess away.”

“A back rub wasn’t the favor I was going to ask for.”

Hah. So much for her confessing that she was madly in love with him. “It wasn’t?”

“I was going to ask you…” As his hands moved up her neck she tilted her head to give him better access.

“What?”

“When we’re in public, would you mind calling me Cassandra?”

His hands stopped moving and she looked up at him. “I know it sounds strange, but people around here think of me as Cassandra, and if they hear you call me Sandy, then they’ll start calling me that, too, and—”

“Cassandra,” McCade repeated.

“It’s stupid, I know. But, see, I’m going to be thirty in a few years, and I want people to call me Cassandra, not Sandy. Sandy sounds like a cheerleader or Gidget’s best friend or something. So young and, well…Do you know what I mean?”

He began rubbing her back again. “No, but if it’s what you want, hell, I’ll do it. Cassandra,” he said, trying it out. “It
is
a pretty name. You’re going to have to help me remember, though.”

She nodded, closing her eyes again. “Thanks, McCade,” she murmured sleepily. “You’re a pal….”

“Yeah,” he said softly. “I know.”

Her breathing grew slow and steady. He stood up tiredly and found a blanket to pull over Sandy. Cassandra, he corrected himself.

The name fit her. It fit her elegant looks, her powerful position as president of a thriving company, her place in the society of upper-class, country-club Phoenix. Cassandra Kirk. Not Sandy. Cassandra.

Damn, he thought. He wanted Sandy. Sandy was the sweet-faced little girl who followed his lead in and out of trouble, who needed him—his friendship, his advice, his help. Cassandra was a grown woman—sophisticated, elegant, and quietly in control. And after she snared James Vandenberg IV, Cassandra wouldn’t need McCade any longer. There’d be no room in her life for him.

But right now she needed his help. And maybe…

Maybe this situation wasn’t as hopeless as it seemed. Maybe McCade could use Sandy’s infatuation with James Vandenberg to his advantage.

Yeah, she needed his help. So he’d give her help. Oh, yeah. Help, and a whole lot more.

FIVE

“H
I.”

Startled, Sandy looked up from loading her camera into the back of the equipment van. James stood in the parking lot, smiling at her.

“Hi,” she said, wishing as soon as the word was out of her mouth that she had said something amazingly clever instead.

“I didn’t know you actually did camera work, too.” James took off his expensive-looking sunglasses and glanced down at the portable camera she’d worn on her shoulder nearly the entire afternoon. It was on the floor of the van right now, and he motioned toward it. “It’s a lot bigger than the camcorder I have at home.”

Self-consciously, Sandy pushed escaped tendrils of her hair out of her face. She’d worn her hair back in a French braid, but after several hours of hard work capturing Simon Harcourt on videotape in the hot afternoon sun, her braid was ready to collapse—along with the rest of her. Her safari shorts were grubby and the neon-pink tank top she had on was covered with a fine layer of reddish Arizona dust.

James was smiling at her, and she made herself hold his gaze. Eye contact, she thought, hoping she didn’t look as frightened as she felt. His smile was warm, though, and nice. But not as nice as McCade’s…

James glanced back at the camera. “May I?” he asked. Sandy nodded, and he picked it up.

“Whoa.” He grimaced. “I had no idea a camera like this would be so heavy. You carried this around all day?”

Sandy smiled at the irony of him admiring her for her strength. “Just the afternoon. One of my crew had a family emergency. I had to take his place.”

“I’m impressed.” He put the camera back down. “Remind me not to get you mad at me.”

Was he flirting with her? Oh, brother, he was flirting with her! Flustered, she gave all of her attention to packing the camera into its carrying case. She locked the case down, attaching it firmly to the side of the van.

“You must be tired,” James said.

“Nothing a shower and a cold soda won’t cure.” She moved to the edge of the van, about to jump down. But her foot caught on a wire, and she tripped.

Across the parking lot, McCade watched in alarm as Sandy launched headfirst out of the van. Her arms were outstretched, but he knew her hands would do little to protect her against the hard gravel of the driveway. He ran toward her futilely, well aware that there was no way he could reach her in time.

But James was there, and he caught her, and McCade skidded to a stop. His relief turned quickly to jealousy as the man held her tightly in his arms, and didn’t release her. And didn’t release her. And
still
didn’t release her. McCade counted to ten before the lawyer stepped back. But even then, the man’s hands lingered on her shoulders, then on her arms.

Wishing desperately that he could hear their conversation, McCade watched Sandy as she talked. She held her body tightly, stiffly, but as she spoke she gave James a beautiful smile and McCade’s stomach hurt. True, she hadn’t quite mastered the body-language thing, but there was no man alive who could resist a smile that sweet. God knows
he
couldn’t.

As McCade continued to watch, her shoulders got tighter and she stuck her hands into the front pockets of her shorts. James’s hand dropped from her arm, and she almost imperceptibly moved back, away from him. Her arms weren’t crossed in front of her, but they might as well have been. Even from McCade’s distance, he could see her tension, her discomfort, her shyness.

James handed her something, smiled, then walked away.

Sandy turned to look at McCade, and he quickly busied himself, loading equipment into the other van.

It didn’t take too much longer to get the rest of the gear packed, and the vans moved out, heading back to the studio. McCade crossed the parking lot, heading toward Sandy, who slumped tiredly against her little car.

“Want me to drive?” he said into her ear.

She didn’t even open her eyes, she simply held out the car keys. “Now, if only you could magically get me inside the car,” she said, then gasped as he swung her up into his arms.

“McCade!” she protested as he carried her around to the passenger side of the car. He opened the door effortlessly, still holding her in his arms, and gently set her down in the seat.

“Not quite magic,” he said, fastening the seat belt around her. “But it did the trick.”

He crouched next to the car, one hand on the open door, the other on the back of her seat.

“You’re spoiling me,” Sandy said tiredly. “If you keep taking care of me like this, I’m going to go into terrible withdrawal when you leave.”

“What if I don’t leave?”

Sandy sat up, instantly awake. “What?”

But he had already shut the door. As he slid in behind the wheel she nearly pounced on him. “Clint, are you thinking of staying in Phoenix for a while?”

McCade shifted into reverse, adjusting the rearview mirror. Sandy called him Clint only when the subject was of the utmost importance to her. Since his mother had died, she was the only person who ever called him by his first name. In fact, through the years, he’d even discouraged his girlfriends from calling him anything but McCade. Clint was too vulnerable. Clint was a twelve-year-old little boy, alone and angry in a new school, outraged that his father had deserted him and his mother, forcing them to move to a tiny basement apartment in a bad part of town.

It was Sandy, who moved into that same rundown apartment building the following September, who started calling him McCade. She’d expected him to be some sort of tough-as-nails street kid, and so that’s what he’d become. Her blatant hero worship left him no time to feel sorry for himself. She was a year younger, a skinny blonde waif, and he quickly learned to enjoy the role of her protector. An unnecessary role, McCade admitted to himself with a smile. He’d found
that
out after she’d attacked a ninth grader for making insinuations about McCade’s paternity. She gave the boy, who was nearly twice her size, a bloody nose and a bruise on his shin that he’d no doubt remembered for a
long
time. After that, McCade and Sandy’s friendship became more equal.

As he drove through the late-afternoon traffic he could feel her watching him as she asked again, “Are you going to make Phoenix a temporary home base?”

He glanced at her, one eyebrow raised. “Temporary? Don’t you want me in town permanently?”

“You don’t do permanent.” Sandy pulled her sneakers off, wiggling her toes appreciatively in the coolness of the car’s air-conditioning. “At least that’s what you’ve been claiming for the past decade.”

“Maybe I’ve changed my mind.”

Something in his low, husky voice made Sandy look at him,
really
look at him. He looked away from the road for the briefest of instants to meet her gaze, but even in that short blink of time she could see something different in his eyes. It was more than sadness. It was a kind of desperation that she hadn’t seen before. At least not before this visit.

She turned to face him, lightly resting her hand on his forearm. “Clint, I can’t shake the feeling that you’re having some sort of crisis,” she said softly. “I wish you would tell me what’s wrong so that I can help you.”

McCade braked to a stop behind a long line of cars at a red light. He moved his arm so her hand slid down to his, and he gently locked their fingers together. “I’ll be all right,” he said, praying he wasn’t lying.

“You know that I’d do anything for you. Just ask.”

McCade smiled and lightly kissed the top of her hand before he released it. “I saw your graceful exit from the equipment van.”

“You’re changing the subject.”

“Very perceptive.”

Sandy was silent. Since when did McCade keep secrets from her?

“Did you do it on purpose?” he asked.

Sandy stared at him blankly. “Huh?”

“When you fell out of the van, did you mean to?”

“Yeah, I intentionally planned to look like a fool.” She snorted. “I’ve found that really turns guys on.”

“It works for me.”

McCade was grinning at her, and she found herself grinning back. “Well, gee, I’ll keep that in mind.”

Now why was it so easy to flirt with McCade? She would never dare say something so suggestive to James. Maybe it was because she knew McCade was safe. She knew he wouldn’t take her seriously, the same way she’d never mistake his flirting for something real.

“What did Vandenberg give you?” McCade asked.

“You
were
watching me. I thought so.” She narrowed her eyes. “How was my body language?”

“It needs work,” he said bluntly.

“But I thought I was doing okay,” she protested. “I mean, James had his hands all over me. In fact, for a minute there, I thought he was asking me out. He said there was a reception at Simon Harcourt’s country club tonight, but then he gave me the directions and told me to bring a date.” Sandy sighed.

“That’s what he handed you? Directions to the club?”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

“You know what I think happened?” he asked, and she shook her head, waiting for him to continue. “I think Vandenberg was intending to ask you to go to this reception with him, but then you started backing away, so he backed off too.”

“Backing away?”

“Yeah.” McCade pulled into the condo lot, zipping neatly into Sandy’s slot in the carport. He turned off the car and dangled the keys toward her. “This time you froze him out by jamming your hands into your pockets and doing a quick two-step away from him. He interpreted that as an impending refusal. So, being a normal, red-blooded American male, he decided to skip the humiliation of a rejection. Can you blame him?”

“I froze him out?” Sandy took the keys and slumped dejectedly in her seat. “I’m a social reject. A body-language illiterate. It’s hopeless, McCade.”

“No, it’s not.” McCade extracted his long legs from the tiny car and went around to open the door on the other side.

Sandy looked away, but she wasn’t quick enough to hide the fact that her eyes were brimming with unshed tears.

“Aw, hell, you’re serious.” He crouched next to her so their faces were on the same level. “Hey, Sandy, come on. You can learn body language, but it’s just like anything else. In order to really learn it, you need to practice.”

“Practice?” she echoed.

“Practice,” he agreed. His hair was a jumble of waves, one lock falling rakishly across his forehead. The muscles in his arms tightened as he supported his weight, his solid biceps stretching the sleeves of his shirt. “Let’s go inside, get showered up and changed, and hit that country-club reception.”

“You hate going to that sort of thing.”

“I’ll live. You need to be in public to practice.”

“Won’t I also need someone to practice on?” she asked. “James isn’t exactly willing.”

“You don’t need James,” McCade said. “You’ve got me.”

Sandy’s heels clicked on the marble tile of the country-club lobby. She stopped at the entrance to the ballroom where the reception was being held.

There had to be at least two hundred people there, but the ballroom was so big, they seemed to be scattered about, standing in small groups, sitting at tables that dotted the edges of the dance floor, and dancing to music performed by a trio of musicians.

The men all wore tuxedos, and the women wore variations on the dresses they’d had on at Saturday night’s fund-raiser at the Pointe. Sandy spotted the woman who had worn the outrageous peacock-feather dress. Tonight she was covered in shiny blue fringe that shook and shimmied when she moved.

Sandy’s hand was resting lightly in the crook of McCade’s elbow, and he tugged her gently into the reception. She caught sight of their reflection in a big framed mirror on the other side of the room, and nearly laughed out loud.

McCade looked like a million bucks. He filled out his designer tuxedo to perfection and his sun-streaked brown hair gleamed in the dim light. He wore it moussed up and back, off his forehead, thick and wavy and just begging for fingers to be run through it. His gorgeous lips curved up into a smile and then a full-fledged grin as he met her eyes in the mirror.

“Man, would you look at yourself,” he whispered to her. “You look unreal.”

She did. She looked like someone else, not Sandy Kirk. She wore the little black velvet slip dress that McCade had bought. Spaghetti-thin black straps crossed her smooth, tanned shoulders and the dress’s neckline dipped down between her breasts, a reminder that she wasn’t wearing a bra. But the woman whose reflection was looking back at Sandy from that big mirror didn’t need a bra. That woman, with her long, thick jumble of blonde curls falling down her back, with the long, slender legs covered with sheer black hose, with her spike heels that made her taller than almost all of the women in the room and most of the men,
that
woman was self-confident, beautiful, and well-adjusted enough to know that velvet wasn’t exactly see-through, and that even without a bra, she was perfectly, adequately covered. Besides, Sandy thought wryly, there was no bra on earth that could be worn with a dress that dipped as low in the back as this one.

McCade was right. She looked unreal. But the truth was that she and McCade looked exceptionally unreal together.

Familiarity, she decided. They were friends, relaxed and comfortable together, and it showed in their body language. Body language, she thought wryly. Yeah, right.

“Now that we’re here,” she said, “what do we do?”

“How about we have a drink? You want me to get you something from the bar?”

“No way am I letting go of you.” Sandy tightened her grip on his arm. “You go to the bar,
I
go to the bar.”

“The most beautiful woman in the room won’t let go of my arm.” McCade smiled at her. “I think I can live with that.”

“Careful with the flattery, McCade,” she said. “I might start believing you.”

He looked down at her, his eyes searching her face. “Would that be so terrible?”

She looked away, unable to meet his gaze, afraid of…What? She wasn’t afraid of McCade. She was afraid of herself. Afraid she was going to give herself away, afraid she wouldn’t be able to keep her eyes from his mouth, his lips. And McCade, an expert on body language, would know without a doubt that she wanted him to kiss her. Oh, God, she was dying for him to kiss her. What on earth was wrong with her lately?