Playing for Keeps/A Tempting Stranger (44 page)

Read Playing for Keeps/A Tempting Stranger Online

Authors: Lori Copeland

Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #General, #Contemporary, #Westerns, #test

BOOK: Playing for Keeps/A Tempting Stranger
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Page 120
Garrett looked at her ironically. ''Yes, it
is
hard to believe I ate the whole thing by myself."
"Well, let me know if you need anything. I'm going to start gathering my things up. I'm going home today, you know . . . if I can." She was watching his face intently, hoping he would suggest that she stay longer.
He picked up his magazine again and settled back down on his pillow comfortably. "Don't leave before lunch," he cautioned sarcastically, "and let's eat earlier than usual. I have a feeling I'm going to get hungry quick."
Sheesh!
she thought irritably as she carried the tray back to the kitchen.
Men and their monstrous appetites! He had just eaten enough breakfast to feed
two
peoplenow he was already thinking ahead to lunch
. Well, she probably wouldn't be able to leave until late afternoon anyway. She poured herself another cup of coffee and started the breakfast dishes.
She worked quietly around the house the rest of the morning, stopping only fourteen or fifteen times to get him something to drink, aspirins, help him to the bathroom, rub his back, make a couple of phone calls for him, fix him a mid-morning snack. An hour later, he wanted lunch,
insisting
that she stop work and eat when he did. That set the pattern for the rest of that miserable day. By the time Chandra sank wearily down on her makeshift bed that night she was seriously considering the thought of giving up all men and becoming a nun.
The next morning dawned cold and bleak, with no sign of the weather easing so she could call a cab and go home. It would have to let up soon, she had to be home by Friday at the latest.
Garrett was as worrisome this morning as he had been the previous, but Chandra managed to keep calm, seeing to his wants with a cool, controlled efficiency, then letting out a scream of frustration when she left his room.
Her patience was worn thin when thirty minutes after lunch she again heard his voice bellowing for her.
"What is it now?" she called, her voice dripping with impatience. She poked her head back into the bedroom, her hands and
 
Page 121
nose covered with flour. She had decided to prove her amazing culinary skills with Christmas cookies while she waited for any sign of a thaw in the weather.
''I'm getting bored. Do you know how to play poker?"
"NoI don't know how to play poker!" She turned around and started for the kitchen again.
"Hey!" A shrill whistle followed his exclamation. "Come back here for a minute."
Counting to ten under her breath she turned around and stuck her head back in the doorway. "You whistled?"
"No kidding, don't you know how to play
any
kind of cards?" he asked hopefully, his bored face full of expectation.
"I'm sorryI really don't. But I'm making you a surprise for your dinner," she said encouragingly.
His eyes took in the smudge of flour on her face and her hands covered in a white film. "Is it something you're cooking?" he guessed, his voice exhibiting no elation at the thought of her "surprise" menu.
"Yes . . . why?" She was in no mood for his nasty remarks about her cooking.
"Can't you drop what you're doing and come in here and keep me company," he nearly whined.
She let out an exasperated sigh. "There's an old Monopoly game out on the shelf in the garage. Do you want to play that?" Her cookies would just have to wait. It was apparent he was going to bug her to death if she didn't find him something to do.
"I don't know how," he said unenthusiastically, "but I'll learn," he added as she shot him a blistering look.
"I'll get it then." Secretly, she couldn't have been more delighted. Monopoly had always been her gameas a child she used to win hands down when she played with her father. It would do her heart good to see Garrett go down in defeat when she slaughtered him on the game board.
Within minutes she came back with the rumpled, stained game and cleared off a space on the bed to set it up. "Now, all you have to do," she explained hurriedly, setting up the board
 
Page 122
and giving him a pile of paper money, ''is try to buy up all the real estate you can, then put houses"her eyes grew real big"or hotels on the property, if you can. Then, when I land on your territory you can collect rent money from me. Whoever runs out of money first, loses. I'm the banker."
"Wait a minutehold on! Why are you the banker?" Garrett's blue eyes looked at her distrustfully.
"One of us has to be. Since you don't know how, then I'm the logical choice," she returned loftily. "Hereyou're the iron, I'm the dog." She handed him a little metal iron to move around the board.
"I don't want to be an iron," he said frowning, "that's sissy!"
She let her breath out short. "Okay! I'll be the ironyou be the dog." She hastily traded pieces with him.
"Are you
sure
you don't know how to play any kind of cards?" he asked, dishearteningly studying the layout of the board.
"Positive. You throw the dice to see who goes first." She climbed up on the bed, crossed her legs, and got comfortable. This was going to be a snap.
"Now, let me get this straightthe object of the game is for one of us to monopolize the board and bankrupt the other," Garrett reviewed her sketchy instructions. "Is that right?"
"You got it. Now roll!" Her eyes roamed discreetly to Boardwalk and Park Place, as she chuckled deviously under her breath.
Within forty-five minutes, Garrett owned Boardwalk, Park Place, all four railroads, the electric company, the water works, numerous other board properties on which he had hastily erected hotelsand all of Chandra's money. She had been in jail three times, paid over six hundred dollars in income tax, and owned one house on Baltic Avenue and one house on Mediterranean Avenue.
"You want to play another one?" Garrett asked, gloating as he straightened his large pile of money.
"No, I don't," she said in a miffed tone. "How did you do
 
Page 123
that?! I used to beat my father every time we played.'' She was astounded at how rapidly he had creamed her.
"He probably
let
you win," he shrugged, scooping his hotels back into the box.
"He certainly did not. And even if he did"she bristled at the suggestion"I think that he was a real gentleman for being that nice."
"What did you want me to do, cheat and let you win?" Garrett asked smugly, watching the way her eyes sparkled when she was mad.
"You're disgusting!" she snapped crossly, sliding off the bed.
"Come here, you little hellcat," he said gently, pushing aside the monopoly board. "I'm sorry I beat you at your specialty."
She didn't wait to be asked a second time. She went willingly into his outstretched arms, his mouth meeting hers in a lingering kiss of welcome. Closing her eyes she savored his familiar smell, his arms crushing her tightly against his chest. They kissed with a growing hunger as her arms wrapped themselves around his neck, her fingers slipping gently through the thickness of his hair.
"Hi," he whispered seductively as their mouths broke away reluctantly.
"Hi," she whispered back, her fingers reaching out to touch his cheek.
"I've been wanting to do that all day," he confessed as he gently nipped at her lips with his strong white teeth.
"I've wanted that too," she confessed as he buried his face in her fragrant hair.
They lay there for a moment, content just to be in each other's arms, willing the world and all its problems to go away.
"I should be going," she finally sighed, still lying in his arms. The thought of leaving him now was very disturbing. "I still have to finish your dinner and cookies before I call a cab."
Garrett was silent as he stroked her hair, his hands tightening possessively as she spoke. "I don't want you to go, Chandra," he said quietly.
 
Page 124
She closed her eyes, tears welling up in them. ''I have to, Garrett. If not tonight, then very soon. The Rhodeses will be leaving Saturday and my parents will be back from Europe anytime. I wish I could stay forever, but I can't." The tears slid silently down her face, dropping wetly against the front of his broad chest. His arms locked around her more tightly as he kissed the top of her head gently, unable to accept her words.
"Stay here with me, sweetheart. We'll work it out someway," his voice pleaded raggedly.
"It would never work for us, Garrett, you know that," she sobbed quietly. "I can't live the way you want, and you can't live the way I want. We would only end up despising one another. I couldn't stand that."
"Marriage isn't the answer to all of love's problems, Chandra, can't you see that?" he whispered coaxingly, his soft breath fanning her hair. "I watched my parents tear each other apart in a bad marriage, I watched my sister commit suicide over a bad marriage, I've watched my friends turn into drunks when their wives walked out the door taking their children with them"his voice broke"God help me, Chandra, I couldn't live through something like that." She felt his body shake.
She reached up and lovingly caressed his face, trying to ease the mental anguish he was battling. "But it doesn't always have to be that way, Garrett. For every bad marriage, there are thousands of good ones. Look at my parents. They've been married nearly thirty years and they've had their little spats, but they loved each other so they worked them out. I would be as committed to you, if I lived with you, as I would be if I married you. Don't you see, darling, you're always running the chance of being hurt if you love someonewhether there's a legal paper involved or not? If you're not willing to take the gamble on love and all its commitments, then you'll be a terribly lonely man."
"You make it all sound so simple, Chandra, but life isn't that simple. When you trust your very life to another person, and that person lets you down the way my mother did my father, then you form some pretty strong opinions about what you want out of
 
Page 125
life. You came from a happy home. You didn't have to watch your dad die by inches every day until he finally drank himself out of his misery. You didn't stand and look down at your baby sister's face in a casket, distorted almost beyond recognition from running her car over an embankment after finding her husband in bed with another woman. You live through thatthen I'll listen to your theory of how life's problems are solved at the marriage altar.''
Chandra's heart nearly broke as the bitter words poured out of Garrett, his large body trembling with emotion as he held her pressed roughly against him. She had no idea how unhappy his life had been. She ached to kiss away all the bitterness and pain, but the lonely prison he had locked himself into had no key.
"I didn't say marriage was the answer to all problems, I just said that if you loved someone, you trusted them. If they betray that trust, then of course, you'll be hurtbut if they return that trust and love . . ." She pulled his face down to where her eyes met his. "Oh, Garrett," she whispered, "if they return that love, then there's nothing more wonderful on earth than to love and be loved. Life makes no promisestwo people who love one another have to make their own promises . . . and keep them. And it happens every day."
"I don't know, Chandra . . . I just don't know." He buried his face in her neck, her salty tears wetting the side of his cheek. "Please, sweetheart, don't cry like that. You know it drives me crazy." He kissed her eyes gently. "I think we need to talk about . . . Phillip."
It was Chandra who tensed this time. The sound of her fiancé's name made her react guiltily in Garrett's arms. She pulled away from him and rolled over on her back to stare at the ceiling. "What do you mean?"
Garrett lay beside her, his face devoid of all emotion now, one arm thrown up carelessly over his eyes. "Do you love him?" he asked in a dead tone of voice.
"I thought I did . . ." Chandra's voice faltered. "I really don't know, Garrett." Somehow, she couldn't bring herself to tell

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