The Cop and the Chorus Girl (6 page)

Joey Torrano apparently did not believe her. He began a tirade that caused Dixie's jaw to tighten. Then she rolled her eyes impatiently.

She said more firmly, “Joey, you have to do whatever you think is right. If you have to back out of the show—well, maybe another investor will turn up.”

This time Torrano began to scream into the telephone. Dixie smiled up at Flynn and winked. She covered the receiver and whispered, “You know, I think he might actually fall for this!”

“Don't push your luck,” Flynn said, keeping his voice low. “Just hang up and let the press give him the message tomorrow. That's the way the plan is supposed to go.”

She nodded, uncovered the receiver, and said, “I've got to go, Joey. Yes, I had dinner sent up and—no, of course there's nobody here with me. Why would you think that?”

Torrano shouted some more.

“No,” Dixie said. “I'm quite alone at the moment, Joey. Now, you go to sleep and think about whether you want to sign a contract to support the show, okay? Yes, good night. Good
night,
Joey!”

She tossed the receiver to Flynn and whooped. “Wonderful! He's suspicious already!”

“Suspicious about what?”

“You!” Dixie exuberantly splashed water into the air. “He had one of his spies in the hotel tonight. The guy must have spotted you and reported to Joey.” Delighted, she crowed, “They think I've got a man up here!”

“You do,” Flynn observed.

“W
ell, we'll let Joey get his trousers in a twist and see what happens.” Dixie settled back into the bubbles, pleased with the way her plan was going.

Flynn looked less than pleased. “You're playing a dangerous game, Miss Davis.”

“I don't play games.”

“I think,” he argued very carefully, “you play games all the time.”

“I do not!”

“First the Texas Tornado act, and—”

“That may be an act,” Dixie quickly conceded, “but it gets things accomplished.”

“Isn't that a game?”

“It's business.”

“Show business.” Flynn nodded. “You manipulate people—first to entertain, then to make them give what you want.”

“Are we talking about Joey now?” Dixie demanded. “Don't feel sorry for him. Joey got what he wanted out of our relationship, if that's what you mean.”

“But you never slept with him.”

“That's not what he wanted!” Dixie sat up defensively. “Oh, he thought I was sexy and all, but he wanted me so I'd make him look good!”

“It's pretty tough to make a lifetime criminal look good,” Flynn snapped. “But you managed to do it.”

“Only for the benefit of the newspapers,” Dixie replied. She lifted her toes out of the bathwater to check her pedicure. “Anyway, Joey's not so bad.”

“You don't think so?” Flynn's dark eyes were suddenly hard, and he seemed unaware of her dripping leg as she extended it in a leisurely stretch above the fragrant bubbles.

Dixie slipped her leg out of sight again. “He's given a lot of money to the show.”

“Is money the way you measure goodness in people?”

“Of course not!”

“You seem to be protecting him.”

“Maybe I am in a way. I just think—well, you have to know my friends, the ones who work with me at the theater. They're—they all have different stories—different reasons why the show is so important. I want to keep it going a little longer. I owe them that much.”

“You owe them? Why?”

Dixie decided not to answer that one directly. “Look, I admit I'm not exactly what I seem—”

“You're not the Texas Tornado?”

“Yes, in a way. I mean, it's who I am—where I come from.”

“But I notice you drop the drawl and the lingo when we're alone.”

Suddenly she didn't like the laughter in his gaze. “Of course I play it up a little! Why, my mama and Granny Butterfield think they've died and gone to hog heaven—me on the legitimate Broadway stage and all—but I—oh, hell, my real name isn't even Dixie!”

“It isn't?”

“Daddy called me Dixie from the time I was knee-high to a longhorn steer, but my given name is...”

He noticed her reluctance at once. “Your given name is?”

She sighed. “Diana. Boring, huh?”

He sat forward on the velvet chair. “Not boring. Nice.”

Suddenly Dixie felt awkward. She wasn't used to men who actually wanted to know her. Since coming to New York, she had been subjected to some of the most ham-handed wooing since her uncle Smokey had proposed to his first wife while teaching her the rudiments of silage.

“In my family,” she said slowly, “boring is boring. You have to be a character or you fade into the woodwork. So I became Dixie—with some help from Granny Butterfield and Mama, that is. Between having Miss Texas and a fan dancer for tutors, and—well, this is what you get.” She lifted her arms from the bath bubbles. “Ta-da!”

Flynn smiled, one brow raised wryly. “It's a pretty nice package, I must say. You've certainly knocked New York on its ear.”

“The Sexiest Woman on Earth? Oh, that's nonsense!”

Flynn took a breath and let it out slowly, trying to fight down the feelings that were starting to bubble inside him again. It was hard watching her enjoy her bath. “You're the sexiest thing to come to this city in a long time.”

She slid over to the edge of the tub again. “Do you think so?”

He couldn't help leaning closer, longing to take her lips with his to see if they melted like cotton candy. “I think everybody thinks so.”

“Just because I have a sense of humor about my body? About sex?” Dixie shook her head, looking wise. She laid her forearms on the edge of the tub and floated on her belly. “Listen, this is the body I was born with, so what am I supposed to do? Hide it because big breasts are politically incorrect right now? Hell, I might as well have a laugh at my own expense and enjoy it!”

“Some women would say you're being exploited.”

“Maybe some women who take their clothes off
are
exploited,” she retorted. “But I take care of myself. I don't jump into bed with anyone who comes along. I don't do bump-and-grind stuff or humiliate myself. If sex can't be fun, it's—well, it feels dirty to me, you know?”

“You certainly look like you're having fun,” Flynn agreed, trying hard to keep his eyes from traveling down the heaps of bubbles to get a glimpse of the body in question.

“I am having fun. I've got a life besides sex, though. Everybody assumes I'm thinking about bedrooms all the time because I look the way I look. But I have a real life!”

“Flaunting yourself onstage?”

“That's not why I'm here,” she began. “I mean, I've got a job to do—”

“Acting like the new Marilyn Monroe?”

“No! Yes. Well, maybe. Look, underneath the Texas Tornado act, everything is really pretty innocent, don't you think?” Her blue gaze was direct and challenging as she looked at him from the mounds of perfumed bubbles.

Flynn didn't feel the least bit innocent at that moment. All he could think about was diving into the tub with her and covering her talkative mouth with his own.

“If you wanted to be innocent,” Flynn said slowly, “you'd be wearing a nun's habit around town instead of that big white hat and a push-up bra.”

“I do not wear push-up bras!” She sat up again.

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I don't! Hand me that towel!” Her temper began to blaze. “I have a body that gives out messages maybe I don't necessarily want to broadcast to the world, but I can't help the way I look!”

“You could tone it down.” Flynn pulled a fluffy white towel from the heated rack and passed it to Dixie.

“Why should I?” she demanded, snatching the towel from his grasp. “Am I supposed to be punished for having this figure?”

“No, but—”

“Should I be forced to wear uncomfortable clothes because of the way I look?”

“Well—”

“I hate being told what to do!”

“I'm not—”

“It's
you
who can't control what you're thinking,” Dixie snapped, suddenly standing up and whipping the towel around herself. The mirrors behind her gave away all her secrets, and Flynn caught a beautiful glimpse of her naked bottom dripping suds and warm water.

The glare in Dixie's eyes was very hot, though. “You look at me and think about making love with this body, but is that my problem? No!”

“I didn't—”

“You want to pretend you haven't thought about sex with me?”

“No, but— Well, I mean—”

“Is it
my
problem that your imagination is out of control?”

“But—”

“Should I stifle who I am because of what's going on in
your
head?”

“I only meant—”

“I know what you meant!” Dixie thundered. “And it's the fault of men like you who want to pigeonhole women like me for the way we look—not once thinking that we might be doing the same thing with you!”

“What?”

She pulled herself up very straight and trembled with outrage. “I think you'd better leave, Mr. Flynn.”

“Wait a minute—”

“Do you deny thinking about me as a sex object?”

“Hold on!
You
kissed
me,
remember? Nobody kisses somebody the way you kissed me in the street today without deliberately planting the idea of—”

“That was different.”

“Different?”

“You asked for it!”

“
I
asked for—”

“It's time you left my bathroom, Flynn.” She hugged her towel like a Victorian lady taking offense at the uncouth actions of a barbarian.

“Exactly what just happened here?” he demanded, a little drunk from just watching the bathwater stream down her exquisitely long and shapely legs.

“You can sleep on the sofa in the living room,” she said tartly. “Good night.”

“But—”

“I said, good night.”

“I—”

“Scram!”

Flynn scrammed. When he'd closed the door and fled, he could hear Dixie slamming bottles and plates around the bathroom, having a temper tantrum.

On the sofa later, he tossed and turned, trying to figure out what he'd said or done that was wrong. But either Dixie's argument hadn't made any sense or his brains were truly scrambled by being so near her.

* * *

In the morning her bedside telephone woke Dixie bright and early. “Yes?”

“Good morning, sleepyhead!” chorused two voices on the phone. She recognized the high spirits of two friends from the theater—Rob and Jan Murdock, who were known as Rob and Jan Munchkin because they were both quite small and always adorable.

In Dixie's ear, Rob sang, “We're in the lobby—here to help make your boyfriend believable. Let us in!”

“He's not my boyfriend,” Dixie grumbled, remembering her battle with Flynn the night before. She rubbed one eye and glowered at the alarm clock. It was almost ten, time to get up, anyway.

“Whatever,” Rob said with a laugh. “Tell us the suite number and we'll be right up.”

Dixie did so, then slid out of bed and headed for the bathroom. Minutes later she felt presentable and went out to wake Flynn before her friends arrived. She considered hitting him over the head with a sofa cushion.

He was uncomfortably sprawled on the living room sofa, one arm trailing on the floor, his face squished into a pillow. With a gulp, Dixie saw that he was wearing a pair of jeans and nothing else.

He looked gorgeous, Dixie thought at once, stumbling to a halt to stare at him. But she pushed that unwelcome idea aside and poked him. “Wake up, sugar. We've got company.”

“Mrf?” Flynn mumbled. “Wha—”

“It's morning, see?” Dixie flung open the curtains and a blaze of morning sunlight bounced off Central Park and into the suite with the power of a laser.

Flynn groaned and hid under his pillow.

“Get up, get up,” Dixie caroled, deciding to pretend nothing had happened the previous night. “I've got friends coming up in the elevator this minute.”

“You're kidding, right?”

“On the contrary,” Dixie said, arriving at the suite door in time to open it just as Rob and Jan appeared there.

“Good morning,” cried the Munchkins, arm in arm and laughing as usual.

“Not good exactly,” Dixie said wryly. For some reason the sight of two happily married people actually enjoying each other's company did not fill her with pleasure this morning.

“Things will improve,” Jan promised airily. “We brought coffee and bagels.”

“In that case, you may enter,” Dixie replied. “And bless you.”

The couple barreled into the suite, waving bags of food and lugging two large cardboard cartons. At the theater, the Munchkins were set dressers—employees who made theatrical scenery realistic to the audience by adding details. Their tools were props, fabrics, wallpaper, knickknacks—any items that might make the audience believe the characters onstage were real people. Although young, both Rob and Jan were quickly developing an excellent reputation in the business.

They were a couple of characters themselves, dressing in outlandish clothing that they usually found in vintage-clothing stores. The Munchkins spent all their free time scouring flea markets, tag sales, antique shops and out-of-the-way places nobody else ever heard of in search of wardrobe additions as well as items that could be used effectively in the theater. Professional pack rats, it was clear that they loved their work—and each other.

Rob headed straight for the coffee table to set out a picnic. He stopped dead in his tracks when Flynn sat up from the sofa where he'd been sleeping. “Egad,” said Rob. “Is this our hero?”

Flynn glowered at Rob, looking rumpled and grumpy from his night on the sofa. “What's it to you?” he rejoined in a growl.

“Heavens,” said Rob as he eyed Flynn with dismay. “You're going to be a challenge, aren't you?”

“Did you bring any newspapers?” Dixie asked.

“No tabloids on Sunday,” Jan said. “We'll have to wait until tomorrow for our story to break. That will give us more time to work on Flynn here.”

Flynn got up from the sofa with a rumbling grumble and did not answer. He towered over Rob by at least eight inches, and his near-naked state managed to emphasize the animal quality of his body. Without another word, he turned and headed for the bathroom.

Rob blinked and looked at Dixie, clearly stunned by Flynn's physical splendor compared to his own slight stature. “My goodness. Is he for real?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Dixie replied, closing the door of the suite and padding into the room with her friends.

“Unfortunately,” Jan observed to her husband, “I think these two got up on the wrong sides of their respective beds this morning.”

“Maybe it should have been the same bed,” Rob mused.

They laughed merrily, but Dixie found nothing humorous about the situation. “Very funny.” She sat down on the sofa and opened one of the deli bags.

Rob and Jan exchanged a look. Then they sat down, too—one on each side of Dixie. They leaned close as she fished a cup of coffee out of the bag for herself.