Mismatch (5 page)

He pulled his shoes on, then pushed himself off the sofa and went down the hall to find Bronwynn’s “python.” He would get it out of her house, then he could leave with a clear conscience.

“It was a garter snake,” he said, returning to the parlor.

Bronwynn looked up from her suitcase. “Are they poisonous?”

Wade shook his head, more in disbelief than to indicate the negative. “Poisonous snakes are virtually unknown in Vermont.”

“Did you have to touch it?” She made a face at the thought.

“No, it had made friends with a toilet plunger. I carried them out together. They parted company at the edge of the woods.”

“I hope he doesn’t decide to come back for a visit,” she said, surveying the outfit she’d settled on with a critical eye. White silk slacks and an emerald green silk pullover blouse was definitely overdressing, but she’d packed for Versailles not Vermont. “Thanks for getting rid of him, Wade.”

“Sure.” He rolled up his sleeping bag and gathered his gear, trying to ignore his disappointment at the thought of leaving. He forced himself to remember every outrageous thing she’d said or done since he’d met her and steeled himself against the memory of her weeping in his arms.

“You’re leaving,” she said, cursing herself for feeling disappointed. He was irascible, but she had enjoyed sparring with him. Maybe she was turning into some kind of sadomasochist. She grimaced inwardly.

“Yeah. I’ve got a lot of things to do,” he said, leaning back against the door jamb and ramming his hands in his pockets.

She refrained from pointing out to him that people who were on vacation for rest and relaxation didn’t generally have lots of things to do. Instead she accepted the lame excuse without comment and told herself she was glad he was going.

“So,” he said, not moving. “I’d better be going.”

“Right.” Bronwynn bit her lip and shot him a questioning glance. “Can I ask you one more small favor before you go?”

His eyes narrowed. “What?”

“I really can’t get out of this dress. Could you undo these stupid little buttons?”

Wade froze for a moment as she stood and presented her back to him. She had peeled off the sweater she had worn during the night. Forty round pearl buttons ran in a line down her elegant back. Several on either end of the line had been slipped from their loops, but the majority held the back of the beaded white satin dress together, just waiting for him to free them. He swallowed hard.

What a perfect opportunity for you to show yourself you can control your lust,
his conscience seemed to say.
You’re not attracted to her beyond the physical sense. Obviously she’s not attracted to you or she wouldn’t be so nonchalant about asking you to unbutton her dress. She was a model. Endless fashion shows and photography sessions have made her immune to having someone help her take off her clothes. The gesture should mean as little to you as it does to her.

Then why were his palms sweating? he wondered.

She shot an expectant look at him over her shoulder as she lifted her fiery red hair out of the way.

Wade cleared his throat and pushed himself from the doorway. “Sure.”

His fingers were shaking as he fumbled with the first tiny button. The tight loop relinquished its hold, and he moved on to the next one and the next. As buttons and loops went their separate ways, an ever-widening vee of pale, creamy skin was exposed to Wade’s gaze. She looked softer and smoother than the satin dress. From the nape of her neck, where baby-fine curls were stirred by his breath, rose the alluring scent of her perfume, tempting him to lower his head.

Bronwynn tried to force her heart out of her throat. It hadn’t occurred to her that her body would react to his touch. The feel of his fingers plucking open her dress was sending currents of electricity directly from her back to her breasts. The heat of his breath on the back of her neck poured down over her, melting her knees until it was all she could do to keep herself from falling back against him.

She had hesitated to ask the favor of Wade because she had thought it might embarrass a stuffed shirt like him,
not
because she had thought it would have any effect on her. Over the course of her career she had had dozens of people perform the same task, many of them strangers as Wade was.

Maybe that was the problem. He wasn’t exactly a stranger, and she wasn’t exactly immune. Just because her mind didn’t want her to be attracted to him didn’t mean her body would agree.

“There,” he said in a hoarse rasp. “All done.”

“Thanks,” she said, turning to face him. “I really . . .”

The word trailed away into nothingness as she looked up at Wade. The expression in his eyes was almost fierce as he stared down at her. A muscle in his cheek twitched, betraying the fact that he was fighting an inner battle. When he leaned down and took her mouth with his, she wondered if he’d won or lost.

Lost, he thought as he moved his mouth angrily against hers at first. He’d lost the battle, then he was lost, lost in the kiss. Her mouth was generous with its secrets, as soft as rose petals, as sweet as forbidden candy. He drank in the sweetness, knowing instantly he could become addicted, but at the moment not able to say no.

Taken by surprise by Wade and her own desire, Bronwynn gave up without a fight. Her hands clutched at his upper arms as he pulled her against him and deepened the kiss. His hands slid into the open back of her dress and caressed her from shoulder to hip, setting fire to every nerve ending he came in contact with. Bronwynn pressed herself closer still, stunned and excited by the need that rocketed out of control at the feel of his hardness against her. She had never known anything like what she was feeling inside her. Nothing had ever been as all-consuming as the sensation that was taking her over.

Wade broke the kiss to trail his mouth down the slender column of her throat as he peeled one shoulder of her dress away from her skin. He was not a man ordinarily ruled by physical needs, but a sudden rampaging desire had trampled his logical mind. Need was the only thing he could think of now—the need to make love to Bronwynn, the need to hold her and comfort her, the need to ease the throbbing ache that pounded through his whole body and echoed back from hers.

The sound of a car coming up the drive forced them both back to reality. Reality was two people who couldn’t have been more different, two people who were pretty certain they didn’t even like each other. Reality was a congressman on a very temporary hiatus from the pressures of politics and a woman who needed to find herself before she could look for romance.

“That shouldn’t have happened,” Wade said, forcing himself to take a step back from her. He stared down into her eyes, realizing for the first time that one was blue and one was green. Somehow it didn’t surprise him. “I’m sorry.”

Bronwynn held her dress up at the throat with one hand, thinking reality wasn’t much of a balm for wounded pride. He made it sound as though he’d kissed her against his will. He had. She knew he didn’t think any more of her than she did of him. Why did that sting so?

She stuck her chin out. “Just so it doesn’t happen again, because I’m swearing off men for at least a year.”

“Is that so?” he asked. She could have acted a little bit as if she wanted it to happen again, he thought crossly.

“Yes, it is. In fact, I was thinking of taking up that motto: A woman needs a man like a fish needs a . . . sailboat.”

“Bicycle,” he corrected. “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.”

“Why would a fish need a bicycle?” she asked, annoyed at him for correcting her big proclamation as if he were some compulsive English teacher.

“It wouldn’t!” he said, his hands as well as his voice expressing his aggravation. He’d had more weird conversations in the last fourteen hours than he’d had in his entire life. “That’s the whole point! The saying is, a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.”

Bronwynn sniffed at him. “Leave it to a politician to split hairs! A fish wouldn’t need a sailboat either, and I can make up my own sayings if I want to.”

“Write a whole book of them if you like. I couldn’t care less.”

“Fine.”

“Great.”

They went right on staring at each other when they heard the front door open, as if there was some magnetic force drawing whiskey brown eyes to one green and one blue, as if the first to look away would be admitting defeat.

A woman’s voice called from the front hall. “Bronwynn? There’s a big dog sitting behind the wheel of your car. Bronwynn, where are you?”

“In here, Zanie,” Bronwynn called back, still not looking away from Wade.

“Zany?” he questioned, arching a straight brow. “Must be a relative.”

“Bronwynn, I—” Zane Pierson Matthews stopped short as she came into the parlor, her gaze riveting on Bronwynn, who was standing holding the front of her dress up, glaring at Wade who wore a rumpled shirt and a day’s growth of beard. “Bronwynn, what is going on here? Who is this person?”

She directed an angry stare at Wade, and he noticed immediately that her eyes were the reverse of Bronwynn’s.

“Who are you?” she demanded, going protectively to her sister’s side.

“Me?” He shot one last look at Bronwynn. “I was just leaving.”

FOUR

“B
RONWYNN, WHO WAS
that?” Zane asked, turning to her younger sister with a look that was both curious and concerned.

Bronwynn listened to Wade’s car driving out of her yard. How could he say the kiss they’d shared shouldn’t have happened? Well, she thought, it shouldn’t have, but he could have refrained from pointing out the obvious. The kiss had been dynamite. The kiss had been dangerous. He had no business going around kissing her socks off then telling her it shouldn’t have happened as if it had been her fault. She was well rid of him. Really.

“Bronwynn?” Zane shook her sister’s shoulder gently.

“Huh?” She jolted out of her trance. “Oh—that was Wade Grayson. He’s staying at the next house down the road. He’s a congressman from Indiana.” Zane’s black eyebrows drew together in disbelief. “Congressman? He looks as though he lives in an old appliance box in some back alley.”

“Zane, what a nasty thing to say. He’s a perfectly handsome man if you go for the young Kennedy type. Of course he was a little rumpled looking; we did just get up—”

“Did just get up from where?” Zane’s eyes appeared to have doubled in size. Her face was as white as chalk.

Bronwynn’s mind was still half on the sizzling kiss she’d shared with Wade. “From sleeping. Where do you think?” Oblivious to her sister’s distress, she dropped her wedding gown on the floor and began to dress.

Zane collapsed onto a medallion-backed chair, her hand pressed to her heart as if to keep it from leaping out of her chest. “He spent the night here? You spent the night with a man I wouldn’t sit next to on the subway?”

“For heaven’s sake, Zane, you aren’t exactly Miss America first thing in the morning yourself. Give the man a break, will you?” She pulled the green silk top on over her head and shook her hair out, wondering briefly what she’d done with her hairbrush. Before she could dig through her suitcase for it, her sister grabbed her arm and dragged her to the sofa. “Zane!”

“Bronwynn, sit,
please.
”They both sat down, one on either side of the mouse hole. Zane’s anxious gaze scanned every nuance of Bronwynn’s expression.

“What?” Bronwynn asked. “You aren’t going to start in on me now, are you? I deserve to look like hell after what I’ve been through.”

Zane sat back with a little gasp, biting her perfectly painted lower lip and crushing the red silk bow at the throat of her blouse in a white-knuckled fist. “Oh, honey, what have you been through?”

Bronwynn shook her head. What was going on? She was the one who was supposed to be going over the edge, not Zane. Zane hadn’t nearly married the bounder of Beacon Hill. She was certainly taking it hard, though, which really wasn’t like Zane; she normally was a rock of stablility. Maybe she was pregnant again.

Bronwynn pried her sister’s fingers from the bow and looked deep into the green and blue eyes that mirrored her own. “Zanie, sweetheart, you’re acting bonkers. Are you okay?”

Incredulous, Zane Matthews fell back on the sofa, coughing at the cloud of dust she raised. “I’m acting bonkers. You walk out in the middle of your wedding—not that I blame you—you run off to Vermont, you spend the night in a house that looks worse than anything Stephen King could dream up, with a vagrant who tells you he’s a congressman, and
I’m
the one who’s acting bonkers! Bronwynn, for heaven’s sake, we’ve been worried sick about you! How am I supposed to act when I walk in here and find you with your clothes falling off you, and that man—” She closed her eyes and shuddered at the possibilities. “He might have been anyone, he might have been Ted Bundy!”

Bronwynn shook her head. “No, he’s not. I asked him.”

Zane was on the verge of hysteria. “What did he do to you? You can tell me. Then we’ll—”

“Do to me?” she questioned, bewildered. “Wade didn’t do anything to me.” Except hold me while I cried and listen when I needed to talk and kiss me like no man ever has.

“I realize you could have been considered a consenting adult, but given your state of mind . . . I mean, I understand why you might have wanted to go to bed with a man after—”

It was Bronwynn’s turn to look stunned. “Go to bed with—oh, dear—oh, no—Zane, Wade slept here, but not
with
me.” Having cleared that little point up, she narrowed her eyes in offense. “Wow. Boy, what do you take me for? You think I’d just zip up to Vermont for a quickie with the first guy I ran into? Jeez, Zane!”

Zane ran slender bejeweled hands over her face as she breathed a sigh of mingled relief and frustration. “Of course that’s not what I thought. It’s just that after Ross—I mean . . . forget it. Can we start over? Let’s pretend I walked in and sat down, and I didn’t jump to the conclusion that you’d slept with that Wade person. Okay?”

“Okay.” Unfortunately, because the thought had been planted in her head, Bronwynn couldn’t seem to stop thinking about it. What would it have been like to have slept with Wade Grayson? She could remember enough from their encounters to piece together a scenario that was not unattractive. She knew what it felt like to be held by him, in passion and in compassion. He could be gentle and tender, but there had been a fiery demand in his kiss, a maleness that drew out the most basic feminine feelings from way down deep inside her. No man had ever made her feel quite the way he had.

“I guess I’m still a little off kilter from yesterday,” she said softly. It was a statement that covered everything—Zane’s concern and her own.

“It’s no wonder.” Zane’s eyes misted over as she gave Bronwynn a sympathetic look. “Oh, baby, I’m so sorry about what happened.”

“Well . . .” Bronwynn picked at a bit of stuffing from the mouse hole in the sofa. When she caught the gleam of bright little eyes looking up at her, she quickly grabbed a box off the end table and covered the hole. She smiled nervously at her sister, who was terrified of mice. “Twinkie, Zane?”

“No, thanks.”

Bronwynn unwrapped the little sponge cake treat and took a bite, licking the cream from her lips as a thoughtful expression came over her face. She felt so much better today. Things seemed to be in the proper perspective. “I’m glad I didn’t marry Ross. I have to consider myself lucky I found out about him when I did. The thing I regret most is the mess I made for you. Has it been horrible?”

A naughty smile lifted Zane’s wide mouth. “Truth? It’s been kind of fun, actually—aside from worrying about you. The paparazzi descended on Ross like flies on a goat, as Uncle Duncan used to say. Of course, there are some who think you ran off to be with another man. You win either way, as far as the press is concerned. Everyone has found out Ross is a two-timing snake, and the consensus is it would serve him right if you had run off with someone else.”

“Uncle Duncan.” Bronwynn leaned back, polishing off her Twinkie. “Isn’t it funny? I hadn’t thought about him in years. Now here we are in his house quoting him. I just realized I miss him. I missed this house.”

Zane looked around at the dirt and the ruined furniture, the cracked plaster and the peeling wallpaper. “It’s a shame the place went to pot this way. I can’t believe you spent the night here.” She shuddered as she stood up and went to lift Bronwynn’s wedding gown off the grimy floor. “Well, let’s get you packed and out of here.”

“I’m not going back, Zane.”

The briefest beat of silence expressed Zane’s dissatisfaction, then she took a patient breath and said, “No, but we’ll get you moved into a nice hotel, a place where you can relax and think things through.”

“No, Zane,” she said to Zane’s backside as she watched her sister try to restore some order to the suitcase on the floor. She pushed herself to her feet and shoved her hands in the pockets of her silk slacks. “I’m staying here. I do need to think things through, get my life back on track, and decide what direction it’s going to take.” She gave a little shrug. “Might as well be doing something constructive while I’m at it. I’m going to fix this place up.”

“That’s fine, dear,” Zane said. Bronwynn recognized the tone of voice as being the same one Zane used when her son told her he was going to ride his tricycle to Jupiter. “I came by a darling little inn on my way. We’ll get you settled there. I’m sure the proprietors can tell you who to contact to make the necessary repairs.”

Bronwynn rolled her eyes. No one seemed to think she was capable of taking care of herself. First Wade had told her she couldn’t stay alone, now Zane. What these autocrats were going to have to realize was that she was an adult who had every right to make her own decisions, whether they agreed with her or not.

She
needed
to stay. For once she was going to take control of her life instead of allowing herself to simply be swept along. She liked the idea of restoring Foxfire to its former glory. She wanted to do as much of the work as she could with her own two hands. It would be wonderful therapy while she figured out where she wanted to go from there.

And way, way in the back of her mind she was looking forward to having a certain irascible congressman for a neighbor.

“Express those reports up here ASAP, will you, Murph?” Wade took a long drag on his third cigarette of the morning. He looked out the picture window as an extreminator’s van rumbled past.

“Wade, you’re supposed to be taking it easy.”

Wade blew a stream of smoke out on a long sigh and rubbed the back of his neck. He paced as far as the telephone cord would allow. Murphy Mitchell was his friend as well as his right-hand man. Murphy was one of the few people who couldn’t be fooled by Wade’s most charming tone of voice. He used it anyway. “So what’s more relaxing than reading?”

“I can think of a few zillion things more relaxing than reading Brentworth’s tome on paring down the defense budget—sleeping, soaking up the sun, making love with a beautiful woman, to name a few.”

Bronwynn Pierson leaped to the forefront of Wade’s mind. Damn, he thought. One simple kiss had knocked him for a loop. Why had he gone and done a stupid thing like kissing her anyway? He wasn’t the kind of man who let passion rule his actions. He was a logical, practical man. The women he dated were logical, practical women. When they had sex, it was logical, practical sex.

So why was it when he got within an arm’s length of Bronwynn Prescott Pierson, it was hormone happy hour? Even now his body tightened at the thought of her flaming hair and creamy skin, her exotic eyes and erotic mouth.

“Be discreet if you do meet a woman, by the way,” Murphy added. “You know the press is rabid for sex scandals this year.”

Wade stubbed out his cigarette, popped an antacid tablet in his mouth, and washed it down with cold coffee. “Yeah, right,” he said, dismissing the topic. “I found out a little more about that piece of property we talked about. There might be a slight hitch in getting it. I . . . ran into the owner. She’s reluctant to sell at the moment, but I’m sure she’ll change her mind. Give it a week or so—”

“She?” Wade could almost hear Murphy’s ears prick up. “She who?”

“Bronwynn Prescott Pierson. She inherited the place—”

His aide interrupted him with a string of highly inventive curses. “Bronwynn Prescott Pierson is there? You’ve been near enough to speak to her?”

He’d been near enough to do a lot more than speak to her, but he didn’t tell Murphy. “Yeah, so?” With one hand he dug another cigarette out of the crumpled pack and lit it.

“
So?
The princess of the polo set ditches her fiancé at the altar and just happens to set up camp a mile down the road from the up-and-coming young congressman from Indiana.
So?
he asks me! Lord. This is what guys like me have nightmares about. It’s the kind of thing that’s making me go bald. Did anyone see you with her?”

“No. Cool out, will you, Murph? Jeez, you’re paranoid. It’s just a coincidence.”

“Famous last words. Do you honestly think the press is going to swallow that?”

“Look, nobody knows she’s here. She came up here to get her head straight—as if that were even a remote possibility,” he added sardonically. “Nobody knows I’m here. Besides, it’s not an election year, and it’s not as if I’ve got a wife and kiddies waiting for me back home.”

“Well, be careful for crying out loud. Maybe I am being paranoid, but you know as well as I do the reporters would have a field day. All they look for anymore is a guy with a healthy libido. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.”

“It seems to me they’re more interested in kinky libidos or adulterous ones,” Wade said, tapping ash into a cut-crystal candy dish. He glanced at the little plaque on the coffee table that read Thank you for not smoking and flipped it facedown.

“Bronwynn Pierson is news, pal, with or without a libido.”

Oh, she’s got one all right, Wade thought as he remembered the way she had melted against him, the way her body had softened into his as he’d kissed her. Taking short angry puffs on his cigarette, he shoved the memory from his mind. “She’s a pain in the butt is what she is. She’s as far off the beam as she can get without actually falling on her head.”

“Good. Glad to hear it,” Murphy said. “Steer clear, and grow a beard while you’re at it. Just in case.”

“Jeez, Murphy.”

“You can’t be too careful. I’ll talk to you later. So long.”

Or too rich or too thin. Again he thought of Bronwynn as he hung up the phone. She was probably too rich. She was thin, but healthy looking, in spite of what appeared to be a ravenous appetite that fed on an endless supply of junk food. She had been a model, but she didn’t look starved the way many models did. Willowy—that was the word. Weird, yes. Too attractive. She wasn’t beautiful in the conventional sense. She was exotic, and there was something magnetic about her.

Steer clear, Murphy had said. He intended to, though it wasn’t because of his image. No. Wade had his own reasons for staying away from Bronwynn Prescott Pierson: She was goofy, she annoyed him, she made him feel things he didn’t want to examine too closely.

He was thirty-seven. During the last fifteen years of his life he’d focused on building his political career. He was ambitious, yes. But he was dedicated, concerned, he wanted to make a difference. He was a patriot, and he didn’t care if it was a fashionable word or not. Democracy fascinated him, both the straightforward principle of it and the endless labyrinth of the reality. The political world was his life almost to the exclusion of all else.