Time After Time (4 page)

Noah.

He stepped into the loft with a cheerful smile, saying, “Good morning, Alex. I thought you could probably use some help—” Then his eyes widened
as he took in the neatly arranged living area of the loft. “You’re a fast worker, aren’t you?” he observed, surprised.

“An early riser.” Alex smiled as she closed the door behind him. “I’ll have it to do all over again, probably, when the painters come, but I wanted to get an idea of how it’ll look. Coffee?”

“Thanks.” He followed her into the kitchen area, his eyes drawn irresistibly to the lovely picture she made dressed in snug jeans and a colorful peasant blouse. A bright bandanna held her thick hair away from her face, making her look even more fragile than she had the night before. And the sirens, he decided, were still present in her eyes, but this morning they were wistful creatures with gentle smiles.

Bewitched. He was definitely bewitched, and he wondered distantly why that didn’t disturb him.

“Do all the lofts have the same floor plan?” she asked him, handing over a cup of coffee.

He nodded. “Except mine, which basically has double the space.”

Her green eyes were bright as she looked
around her own loft. “Possibilities. Definite possibilities.”

They had moved back into the living area, and he laughed as he looked at the profusion of pillows. “I’ve never seen so many before,” he replied to her inquiring look. “D’you collect them?”

“No, I throw them,” she answered casually.

Noah sat down on the couch at her gesture, watching her get comfortable a foot or so away and wondering if he’d missed a turn somewhere in the conversation. “You throw them?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Why?” he asked blankly.

“It’s better than breaking things, isn’t it?”

He took a sip of his coffee. “You’ve lost me.”

She smiled suddenly, and the sirens became mischievous sprites. “I have a terrible temper, and when I’m mad, I have to
do
something. I broke an awful lot of things before I discovered the pillows: they satisfy my urge to throw things, but nothing breaks.”

Noah became conscious of a sudden desire to watch her get mad. It was a totally unreasonable
urge, and he didn’t want to
make
her mad; he just wanted to see her throw pillows. He fought the urge.

“Oh. Um … you just throw the pillows?”

“And yell,” she added happily.

Imagining that tiny voice roused to a yell was almost more than his mind could grasp; it seemed an impossible thing. Both the yelling and the pillow-throwing, in fact, seemed impossible, given her tiny, fragile appearance.

Clearly Alex saw his disbelief. “It’s true,” she assured him. “I used to have the most famous temper tantrums, and even now my friends hide behind things when I get mad.”

“Should I take that example to heart?”

She smiled, but there was something about the smile implying a definite warning. “You’d better.”

“I’m not planning to make you mad,” he told her.

“Best-laid plans, and all that.
Something
is bound to make me mad sooner or later.”

Noah thought about that for a moment, flipped a mental coin, and didn’t even bother to see how it
landed. “Do amorous photographers make you mad?” he asked gravely.

Alex sipped her coffee, and the sirens in her eyes seemed to laugh at him. “Noah” she asked dryly, “are you making a pass?”

“I planned to be more subtle than that,” he told her, pained.

Her eyes were definitely laughing. “Oh. Well, to answer your question—as I said before, all the photographers I’ve known have been short, fat, and so on. Fatherly, in fact. I’ve never met an amorous photographer, so I don’t know how I’d react.”

“Best guess?”

She reflected. “Best guess—I doubt it. On principle, you understand. Of course, there’s no saying for sure. The amorous photographer in question could easily do or say something to set me off.”

“For instance?”

“Oh, any little thing could do it. The wrong word or gesture. A frown instead of a smile. Who can say?”

“Then you’d throw pillows.”

“And yell.”

He nodded, still grave. “Any jealous suitors hanging around likely to cause trouble?”

“You mean you wouldn’t be willing to fight for me?” she asked, wounded.

“How could I impress a lion tamer with my fighting ability?” he asked, a suitably rueful expression on his handsome face. “I’m defeated before I start. And answer the question, please.”

“Suitors? There weren’t any the last time I looked.”

“Maybe they couldn’t compete with a lion tamer either.”

She giggled suddenly. “I never noticed anyone trying. You’ve got lion tamers on the brain, Noah. It was quite a few years ago, you know, and I rarely pick up a whip and chair to demonstrate my skills. How about you? Any ladies lurking about?”

“Not recently,” he told her, deadpan.

“That’s good. I’d better warn you that I never stand in line for anything but the movies. One of my little quirks, I’m afraid.”

“Jealousy?”

Instantly she shook her head. “No, that isn’t it. Life’s too short to take second place to anything. If I get involved with a man, it has to be a blue-ribbon affair, or it won’t be any more than a beginning.”

“If you get involved.” He was watching her intently now, surprise in his blue eyes. “You haven’t, have you?”

She looked at him for a moment, then shook her head with a faint smile. “I haven’t. Nobody waved a blue ribbon.” Abruptly sober, she added, “A few of my friends used to call me a vanishing breed, but they stopped laughing after a while. They’d wake up in the morning to an empty bed and a note on the pillow after one of their casual ‘encounters,’ and the night before didn’t seem as enjoyable as it had at the time.”

Noah gazed at her silently as he absorbed her meaning. It wasn’t that her standards were too high, he realized. Not
who
but
how
. She carried no dream of Prince Charming, no image of physical perfection; all she asked—demanded—was the kind of committed caring that most people realized
their need for only after much trial and error. And her next quiet words confirmed his thoughts.

“I’m not looking for a ring and a promise, but it has to be more than just the moment. It has to be important. So I’d warn the … amorous photographer … that I’m still looking for that blue ribbon, and I won’t settle for less.”

He smiled slightly. “Will you know it when you find it?”

“Yes.” The one word, calm and simple. She would know.

Noah shook his head. “You’re an unusual woman, Alex.”

“Not at all. Just between you and me, that little spiel of mine has scared off a few would-be suitors.”

Noah wasn’t deceived by the flippant comment, but he could see that she was growing uncomfortable with the light, humorous flirtation that had become too serious. Besides, he knew only too well that they were still virtual strangers, and a part of him was wary of instant attraction.

They had time.

Alex was astonished at herself. Why on earth, she wondered, had she taken the opportunity of Noah’s teasing to offer a very serious warning? Oh, she knew that he had been more than half serious himself, knew that he’d cloaked definite interest in light words. So why had she turned the tables on him? Instead of remaining in the well-defined role of possibilities-should-be-lightly-explored, Alex had instantly stepped out of her part to deliver the warning generally presented much later.

According to her rulebook of new relationships—her own private experience of how relationships tended to progress—first came the light probing she and Noah had ventured into. Next came a different and more serious kind of probing along the lines of likes and dislikes and similarities between the two. Somewhere during these two steps, Alex had found, either attraction or disinterest developed with the inevitable physical closeness or a parting of the ways. That was where she’d always given her warning.

Beyond that point, she’d never gone.

Alex knew that men were attracted to her—past experience told her that quite plainly—but she was quite aware that she was either too demanding or else was less attractive on closer association. It had caused her no heartbreak in the past because she herself had never been interested enough in a man to care when he either became a friend or else faded into the misty night.

During the past years men had told her in tones varying from bewilderment to desperation that she was an unusual woman. She had never been sure precisely what that meant, and no one had offered to enlighten her. Noah had made the comment, and she wondered what he meant by it.

Unusual? Like dodos and dinosaurs, a relic of a bygone age?

Alex didn’t know, and didn’t plan to ask him. She was too concerned with her own skipping of steps, too bothered by a warning that had come too soon.

And an attraction that had come too soon. She had felt it instantly, first a strong curiosity about a
stranger’s face in the darkness and then breathless surprise when that face had been revealed to her. After seeing that face, surprise at her own attraction had faded.
Of course
she was attracted to the man; she’d have to be blind or made of stone not to be.

So why had she warned him? Because past experience told her that interest always faded within a short time? Or had she warned him because her own intense attraction to him frightened her? Because she knew that Noah could be the most important man in her life—or hurt her terribly?

Alex had faced lions without fear. She had helped to tranquilize a bull elephant run amok. She had more than once waded into a group of angry tigers to separate them.

But when she thought of Noah Thorne, of hawklike good looks, a silent, Indian-file walk, and a smile that was charm and danger, Alex felt a sudden urge to pick up a whip and chair.

T
HE NEXT FEW
days hardly bore out her misgivings. She and Noah were very occupied, each in settling into new homes and both in discussions and plans about decorating those homes. Noah was casually friendly and companionable, but no more, and Alex was grateful for that.

She was grateful for that primarily because she was having a very difficult time as it was keeping Caliban hidden from her landlord; if she’d had to deal with romantic interludes as well, she would
have gone quietly crazy. Luckily her pet slept long hours during the day, and was perfectly content to remain shut up in her bedroom … usually.

In the past, Caliban had always shown only disinterest in people other than Alex. Perfectly friendly in a face-to-face encounter, he never sought out other people.

Until now. To Alex’s intense frustration and worry, it seemed that Caliban was curious about the only other occupant of the building. Coming down from Noah’s loft late the second day to find some material swatches, she encountered Caliban on the stairs and hastily led him back into her own loft. A moment’s inspection showed her that the bedroom door had a tricky latch, and that she had apparently failed to secure the front door; there were no claw marks, no indication that her pet had forced either door.

At that moment Noah called down the stairs to ask if she needed help in finding the swatches, and Caliban, attracted by the voice, started back toward the front door. Alex had a hell of a time
wrestling the four hundred pounds of her pet back into the bedroom.

And that was only the second day.

Half a dozen times during the next week Caliban remained a secret only by the skin of Alex’s teeth. For six years an exceptionally obedient pet, he now seemed determined to get both himself and his owner in a great deal of trouble. Escaping Alex outside late one night, he dashed through the open gate and gave a roaming German shepherd a near heart attack. The next day he apparently discovered—for the first time in his life—that he had claws, and proceeded to sharpen them on trees outside and doorjambs inside; it took some frantic work with sandpaper and putty by Alex to hide the long gouges he made on the bedroom door-jamb, and she could only cross her fingers and hope no one noticed scars on the trees outside.

A water-loving oddity of his kind, Caliban discovered the pool on the fourth day and thereafter demanded a swim every morning. And when painters and paperhangers began their work, they
had to be reassured by Alex that the eerie moaning they heard came from a harmless pet.

Noah seemed to notice nothing unusual, or at least that’s what Alex thought. Until midway through the second week.

The painters in Noah’s loft made staying there uncomfortable, and Alex had reached the point of strictly avoiding his presence in her own loft. It was an unusually hot and sunny day, and since the pool offered coolness, she suggested they take advantage of it. She regretted the suggestion, however, when Noah took the opportunity to voice his puzzlement.

“I heard the oddest noise last night,” he told her, floating lazily on his back.

“Really?” Alex managed to say after treading water fiercely long enough to stop the coughing brought on by swallowing a mouthful of water.

“Yeah. Howling—no, moaning. Gave me the strangest urge to look over my shoulder. Africa.”