My Christmas Stalker (6 page)

      
D
avid sat with Jeff in the security office of Bella Noche`. Jeff groaned, “I can’t eat another bite!” He patted his stomach. “Four baked goods won’t help me maintain my buff exterior for the ladies.” David laughed as he stood and stretched.

    “Well, you better eat up. I will be making as many trips as it takes. And I can’t give up my toned abs either!”

     “Well, dude, I suggest you don’t buy so many! Can’t you just buy one at a time?”  They laughed together.

    “Yeah, I guess so, but I am not used to just spending a couple of dollars at a time.” David shook his head.

    “If you want to give your money away, I stand with open palms outstretched to you my friend!” Jeff stuck his hand out and David slapped it. They ended up doing a hand jive they had created one late night when they were overly tired and David didn’t want to go back to his mom’s place.

    “You got a date with your Nora?” David asked his friend.

    “Yeah.” A smile played over his face. “She is…something else. I know she’s the one, dude. I feel it here.” He pointed to his heart.

     “She a member?” David asked assuming Jeff’s answer would be yes.

     “No,” he quietly stated. David’s head shot up “But she will be. I can feel it!” His eyes took on a serious glint. “She is one of those people who is a member, but just hasn’t been baptized.”

    “I remember you saying that about me,” David smiled thoughtfully. “I hope it all works out for you, man.”

     Jeff looked at his watch. “Well, we are out of pastries and we may need some lunch soon.” He laughed as David rolled his eyes. “This would work out way better if she worked at a pizzeria! I could eat pizza all day, every day!”

    “Oooo, that would pack on the weight for sure!” He chuckled as he patted his hard stomach. David stood up. “I need to head upstairs. I have an appointment in a half hour.” He glanced down at his clothes. “I better put a suit on, ya think?”

     “Yeah, I was wondering about why you weren’t dressed like yourself.” Jeff swiveled back to look at him.

    “Well…I didn’t want to chase her away right off.” He blushed as he thought of Whitley. “I really want this, man. I haven’t had such a strong pull toward a girl before in my life. But Whitley…she calls to me, man.”

     “Know what you mean, bro. That is how I feel about Nora.” The two men were quiet, lost in their own thoughts for a few seconds.

      “I better head on out, see ya later, Jeff.” David slapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder and left the security office.

      
D
avid entered his own office. The mahogany desk was orderly. The atmosphere boasted of a masculine air. He stepped into the small dressing room behind a hidden panel in the large office. He started to undress and the phone rang. He had only unbuttoned his collared shirt so he trotted over to his phone.

    “David Ballantine speaking,” he said into the phone.

    “David? It’s your mother. I have been hunting for you all morning! Stay there I am coming to see you.” David hung up the phone and before he could return to the little room the door burst open and Daphne Ballantine sailed in.

     His mother hair was cut in a perfect A line design, colored to a white blonde, far from her true brown hair which probably was striped with grey by now. She was in a very fashionable, tight blue skirt and satiny silver shirt. Jewelry adorned her neck, her wrist, fingers, and ear lobes.

    “Oh, my G—!”

    “Mother! Please do not take the Lord’s name in vain.” David spoke the reminder to her. She stopped and lowered her dark glasses to peer over them.

    “What on earth are you wearing?” She moved closer. “Have you been slumming? Is that where you have been?”

     “No, Mother, I haven’t been slumming.” He moved into the dressing room and shut the door.

    “David!” She pounded on the door. “I need to talk to you!”

     “Just a minute, Mother,” he called back, “I have a meeting in fifteen minutes. I need to change!”

     “Oh, thank heavens!” She moved toward the wet bar in the corner of the room. She opened the hidden small fridge. “What—is—this? You have nothing to drink, son. I shall chastise Clarice myself. She should keep you well stocked.”

    David walked out in his $2000 suit and settled at his desk. He picked up a folder and spoke as he read through the top page. “Leave Clarice alone, Mother. She has stocked the fridge with what I requested.”

    The woman shut the door on the little appliance and hurried over to face her son. “This religion…thing,” she waved her hand in the air, “has changed you! No liquor? How can you conduct business without a little liquor to loosen them up?” She sniffed in the air. “Your father is probably rolling in his graved with the way you are running his business into the ground with your new-fangled, fanatical religion!” David turned the page of the report.

    “Profits are up twenty-five percent this quarter. My father taught me good business sense and my living my religion is blessing our lives.” He laid the work sheets down. “Mother, I have an important meeting, so if you could get to the point of this visit, it would be greatly appreciated.”

     Daphne stuck her lip out in a pout. “Sweetie, you forgot my little dinner party last night. I planned it especially for you. Monica Blare was there. She was so upset that you forgot she was coming to be your date.”

    David sat back in his chair. “Mother, I love you, but you haven’t been listening to me. I don’t want you picking my dates anymore. They aren’t the type of girls I want to spend time with.”

    “Oh, pooh! Darling, your mother knows what is best. You can’t find happiness with those prudish Mormon girls.”

     “Well, I refuse to spend any more time with the skanky girls you set me up with!” He spoke harshly. His mother’s head snapped back.

    “Those girls have been chosen on special merit! They are…like…me!” David rose from his chair and walked around the desk. His mother stood with a sour look on her face.

    “Mother, you are not skanky. That was not what I was saying. I don’t want a girl that will touch me without my permission or show up in my bedroom without her clothes on! Nor do I appreciate a woman whose words are not those a lady should be speaking, and you, my dear mother, have taught me if nothing else, to expect a lady to be on my arm. A woman that knows how to make a person feel comfortable in her presence and is beautiful on the inside and out.”

    Daphne’s pouting face changed to a serene smile. “You see those things in me?”

    “That and much more, Mother. So, please stop setting me up with the girls that have twelve arms and the mouth of a sailor, okay?” He led her to the door and hugged her, kissed her cheek and opened the door. “Now, I have to get ready for my meeting. I love you, Mom.” She patted his cheek and stepped out into the hall.

    “Bye-bye, sweetie. Will I see you at home tonight?” She paused for his answer.

    “I’m not sure. I will call and let you know.”

    “Okay, son.” She expelled a breath of air. “Toodles!”She smiled and waved over her shoulders, her heels clicked on the tile flooring as she walked away for her son’s office.

     David had just enough time to review the order and glance through the catalog of models in evening gowns before his secretary knock on the door and escorted a well-dressed, dark haired man into his penthouse office.

     “Pierre! Good of you to come all this way from Paris to discuss our new order!” They men shook hands and the meeting commenced.

     
T
he afternoon was busy at ‘Patty’s Pastries’, but not so busy that Whitley didn’t keep one eye on the door. Hoping and dreading the fact that David might make good on his threat to stop by again to buy more pastries from her. She had given up hope when 4:30 rolled around. She went into the back during one of the lulls in customers to run a brush through her hair and pin it back up. She also applied a little lip gloss to her chapped lips.

     Her lips always chapped right before a heavy storm. She looked out the back door into the alley. Grey clouds were peeking over the next set of buildings. She nodded her head as if she knew she were right. The doorbell chimed out front signaling that a customer had entered the shop. She grabbed a pan full of raspberry turnovers and headed to her station out front.

    She looked up with her ‘happy to see you’ smile and she halted a moment as her eyes made contact with those ocean blue eyes. David’s smile was wide and made the creases at the edge of his mouth stand out.

    “Hey, pastry girl.” He leaned against the counter. Whitley’s chest became tight and her breathing was raspy.

    “Hi.” She bent to transfer the turnovers to their proper shelf. “Be with you in a sec.” She rushed the pan back to the kitchen and leaned on the wall with her hand over her heart as she took deep cleansing breaths.

    “Hey, you okay?”  Derrick, the afternoon baker, asked.

    “Yeah,” Whitley’s eyes went to the man in the white coat and baking hat. She had forgotten he would be there. Derrick glanced through the double swinging doors to the counter. He grinned and laughed.

    “Oh, I see what the problem is.” He laughed again as he turned to go back to work. Whitley half grimaced and half smiled to herself.

   
“Don’t be such a baby!”
she scolded herself.
“Nora is right! Time to stop being such a fraidy
cat!”
She moved back into the front room of the shop.

     “What can I get you?” she asked with her best customer smile. She heard him take a quick breath. Her insides jittered at the thought that maybe she was affecting him the way he affected her!

    His charming smile went into action again. “You asked me. One hot chick behind the counter for dinner tonight.” Her faced went a little pink, but she got a glint in her eye. She whipped out a receipt book.

    “One hot chick for dinner?” His eyes brightened when she didn’t shoot him down right away. He got excited thinking maybe she was writing down her cell number—finally!

    “Here you go.” She handed him the paper she had just written on. “Down over on 115
^th
is a great little bistro that serves this great hot chicken sandwich. Here are your directions.” She smirked at him. He looked a little stunned for a moment. Then his smile went into play again.

   “Ah, I like a girl with a sense of humor.” He folded the paper and put it in his pocket. “However, that is not what I had in mind.” He leaned farther over the counter. “How ‘bout it? Would you have dinner with me?” She backed up a step, her teeth bit into her lower lip.

    He tried a new approach. “What’s my name?” She looked at him with confusion.

     “Your name is David.” He smiled triumphantly.

     “Hey, you know who I am! So I qualify as dating material!” She laughed at his little trick.

     “I don’t even know your last name.” She shook her head. David hesitated a moment before he stretched his arm forward with his hand extended, like he had earlier that morning.

    “I’m David Ballantine.” She carefully took his hand, his name rang a familiar bell in her mind. She tilted her head at him, trying to place him.

     “Have we ever…met before?” she asked. That nagging familiarity was still hanging in the foggy part of her memory.

     David looked slightly uncomfortable, but he smiled and Whitley wasn’t sure she had seen the look after all.

     “We had our first official introduction this morning.” His smile did something to her stomach each time he directed it at her.

    He lowered his voice, a serious expression fell over his face. “I would really like to take you out to dinner. Spend time getting to know you, and you getting to know me.” He waited for her response.

    “I don’t know,” she muttered.
“Fraidy cat! Fraidy cat!”

    “You don’t have ah, um, a boyfriend or anything, do you?” David cringed inside.
“Stupid! Don’t remind her of
Paterson now!”

    “Well, no…no one official,” she said with a concentrated look on her face. David’s mind went into his fast thinking ‘close a deal’ mode.

    “Whitley, I like you. I really would like to get to know you and I hope you will take the opportunity to get to know me better also. How about a compromise? You pick a place that you are comfortable with and I will meet you there. If you would like me to escort you, that would be great, too. I am a little old fashioned and would prefer to at least walk with my dates on the streets of this rough and tumble city. Keep you safe and all that.”

    Whitley nodded reluctantly. “I appreciate that trait.”

    “So, what do you say?” He pulled out the folded receipt. “How about a hot chicken sandwich?” Her teeth came out to worry her lip again. The urge to kiss that worry away overcame him.

    “I need…to...think…” She blew out a loud breath. She shut her eyes. “Okay! I will meet you there after work!” She blinked and picked up a tong. “Now which pastry did you wish to purchase today.” David laughed with pleasure.

    “I could buy out the whole store!” he said in his happiness. Her eyes grew wider. “But I won’t.” He quickly held up his hand. “One of those turnovers you just brought out would be perfect.”

    She raised an eyebrow. “Just one?” She smiled as he shook his head.

    His hand went to his stomach. “I am still feeling the effects of this morning’s run on your sweetness.” She gasped, then gave him a shy smile.

    “This one is…on the house.” He gripped his bag.

    “Thanks.” He walked backwards and then nodded and went out the door. The door shut and then he bobbed back in. “What time do you get off work?”

    “I am done by 6:00.” He smiled again.

    “You sure…I can’t come walk you to the bistro?” His head tilted, “I would feel more comfortable.” She let out a slow breath.

    “Yes…I…would appreciate it if you would walk me there.” His eyebrows lifted with a pleased expression.

     “I’ll be here. Don’t leave without me!” He waved at her. “See ya, pastry girl.”