Chapter 5

 

"Your juvenile delinquent owes me fifteen dollars," Matt informed Susannah over the telephone the next afternoon. Actually, it had cost him a good bit more than that since the You Are Parked Here Illegally sticker she'd slapped on his windshield had had to be thoroughly saturated with a special solvent before the carwash attendant could scrape it off. He'd decided to give her a discount for good intentions—apparently Susannah had been having problems with people parking in her driveway and blocking her in—and for showing a modicum of good sense. At least she hadn't stuck the damn thing on the driver's side and blocked his view. Besides, if he charged her any more than fifteen dollars, Susannah would probably end up paying for it. And it wasn't Susannah who needed to learn a lesson.

"Heather's really sorry about what she did to your car," she assured him.

Matt snorted in disbelief. The girl had been anything but apologetic last night. She'd acted as if the whole thing was his fault for having parked in Susannah's driveway in the first place.

"No, really," Susannah said. "She is. And I know she won't do it again. To anyone. Not after that lecture you gave her."

Matt smiled in grim satisfaction. The grubby little vandal had gone white when he'd pointed out that some gun-wielding hothead might take exception to having his property defaced and take his displeasure out on the house or its inhabitants. He could only hope he'd given her something to think about the next time she was tempted to try some stupid stunt.

"I found a dozen or so of those illegal parking stickers in the trash can by my desk this morning," Susannah said, knowing the silent act of contrition was as close as Heather would get to apologizing. In the world Heather had run away from, admitting fault meant admitting weakness and admitting weakness got you slapped down—or worse. Susannah didn't blame the girl one little bit for her lack of trust and openness.

"Have you arranged that date for my mother yet?" Matt asked, suddenly tired of the subject of Heather Lloyd. He dealt with people like her all day—troubled, in trouble and just plain Trouble.

"I've talked to Mr. Elliott," Susannah said. "Even after I explained your excessive need for subterfuge—" she couldn't resist the gentle dig "—he was still very interested in meeting her. He said she sounds like a, and I quote, lovely, refined gentlewoman, unquote. I told him I'd check with you and get back to him about the date and time."

"How about this Saturday night at seven-thirty?"

"Saturday night?"

"The campaign's hosting a fundraiser at the Mark Hopkins. I have to make a speech and shake a few hands but it shouldn't be too bad. And the kitchens at the Mark are excellent," he said enticingly. "So you know the food will be good."

"Well, I'll check with Mr. Elliott." She doodled a question mark on her yellow pad. "Will he need a tuxedo or would a business suit be okay?"

"Tuxedo," Matt said. "And if he doesn't have one, tell him I'll spring for the rental as part of the deal."

"How about tickets?"

"Both you and Elliott will come as my guests, naturally."

"Me?" Susannah's heart suddenly started fluttering in her chest. She tried to calm it with flippancy. "I don't recall anything about my appearance at some stuffy political fundraiser being part of the deal."

"New deal," Matt said. "I need you there to introduce Elliott to my mother."

"You didn't need me to introduce her to the last three candidates."

"And looked what happened."

Susannah thought about that for all of two seconds. "All right, I'll call him right now and get back to you."

She tried to tell herself her eagerness had nothing to do with Matt—and failed miserably. Her eagerness had everything to do with Matt. She'd never in her life actually wanted to go to a political fundraiser.

"I'm due in court in a few minutes but you can leave a message on my voice mail or on the machine at the condo." He gave her the number. "Got that?"

"Mmm-hmm," she said and drew a heart around his home number.

"Good. And, Susannah?"

"Yes?" A ring of hearts began to take shape around his name.

"Even if Elliott can't make it on Saturday, I still want you to go with me." Matt's voice lowered suggestively. "We have unfinished business to take care of."

Susannah put her pencil down. "I hardly think a campaign fund-raiser is the place to take care of it," she said tartly, shocked at the way her heart had begun to thump against her chest.

"Afterward," he promised.

* * *

"If Mr. Elliott calls back while I'm upstairs, give me a holler, would you, please?" Susannah said as she came hurrying out of her office half an hour later. "I have to check on something." Like whether she had anything decent to wear to a black-tie dinner in the Peacock Court at the Mark Hopkins.

"One sec, Suse," Heather said, putting her hand over the mouthpiece. "I'm, like, on the phone."

Susannah stopped in her tracks and actually focused on who was sitting at the receptionist's desk. Heather never came into the front office during business hours. All parties concerned had decided she'd scare the clients. So what was she doing answering the phone? Her telephone skills were practically nonexistent.

"Yeah," Heather was saying into the receiver. "I'm, like, glad you're happy with the arrangement." She turned slightly away from Susannah as she spoke, lifting one shoulder as if to shield the conversation from her. "Yeah, I'll see you later. I gotta go now. 'Bye."

"Who was that?" Susannah asked when Heather had cradled the receiver. She tried to make her voice casual and undemanding, knowing how touchy teenagers were about their privacy.

"Nobody important." Heather shrugged. "Just a friend."

Susannah nodded and let the subject drop. If Heather didn't want to confide in her, then she didn't. "How come you're here answering the phones?"

"Helen went over to The Tea Cozy to, like, see what was taking Judy so long to, like, you know, check out the food 'n' stuff for your tea party. They'll be back in a coupl'a minutes."

"That still doesn't tell me what you're doing in the office." Susannah gave her a searching look. "Why aren't you in school?" Part of the agreement that allowed the girl to live in Susannah's house included regular attendance at school. "Are you cutting classes?"

"I'm on my lunch hour." Heather hunched her shoulders and shifted into offense. "I just, like, thought I'd come over and find out if the guy you were doin' the nasty with on the couch last night told you what the damages are yet, you know?"

Susannah decided the only dignified thing to do was ignore the reference to last night's activities. "Fifteen dollars."

Heather shrugged, as if it didn't make any difference to her one way or another. She dug into the pocket of her jeans, drawing out a handful of crumpled bills, and peeled off a ten and five ones. The remaining bills totaled less than six dollars, all she'd have until the weekend, when she could sell more of her jewelry creations to the tourists at Fisherman's Wharf. "Give it to him for me, will ya?"

Susannah waved the money away. "Give it to him yourself," she said. "He'll be coming here to pick me up Saturday night."

"Aw, come on, Suse. Saturday night? I'm gonna be, like, you know, busy on Saturday night."

"Come on, yourself," Susannah retorted. "Part of taking responsibility for your life is owning up to your mistakes and making amends in person."

"Couldn't I just, like, mail it to him, instead?"

"It's up to you," Susannah said, her tone aptly conveying how disappointed she'd be if Heather chose that method of dealing with the problem. "It's the coward's way out, though."

Heather frowned. "Okay, Saturday night," she groused, stuffing the money back into the pocket of her grubby jeans. "What time?"

"Between seven and seven-thirty."

Heather nodded. "Okay, I'll make sure to be here. Later." She lifted her hand in a gesture of farewell and headed for the front door.

"Wait."

Heather paused, looking back over her shoulder with a put-upon sigh, half expecting to be called down for something else. "I gotta get back to school."

"Did you eat lunch? Would you like me to make you a sandwich to take with you?"

Heather's smile was unexpectedly sweet. "No thanks, Suse," she said, obviously touched. "I grabbed a Big Mac on the way over, you know?"

* * *

Susannah decided the best course of action was to just be herself. Oh, she could run out and buy something long and formal and boring for this fundraiser, and Matt would probably love it. After all, he'd seemed pretty taken with the prissy little nun's habit she'd worn last night. But it wouldn't be her. And if this relationship—or whatever it was that was happening between them—was going to develop into anything at all, it had to be based on total honesty.

And a long, formal boring evening gown from some tony Union Square department store wasn't honest. The 1920s rose-chiffon flapper dress she'd bought herself for her birthday last February was.

She took it out of the closet and unzipped the cloth garment bag she'd stored it in to protect the fragile material. Shaking it out lightly, she reached up and snagged the hook of the padded hanger on the bare brass canopy frame over her bed. The fresh ocean-scented breeze coming in through the open window fluttered the airy layers of the chiffon handkerchief hem, making the dress billow and sway as if it were dancing by itself. Sunlight sparkled on the long, intricately beaded bodice, making it glimmer and shine. It was a perfect dress. The perfect dress. If Matthew Ryan didn't fall flat on his face when he saw her in this dress, then he wasn't the man for her.

Smiling to herself, she turned from the bed to the window, intending to close it a bit so that a sudden gust wouldn't blow the delicate dress from its hanger. She paused with her hands on the window sash, her gaze captured by the scene playing itself out on the street below her.

Eddie Devine was standing across the street in front of The Tea Cozy. He had his hands wrapped around Judy's upper arms, holding her captive, talking earnestly, rapidly, emphatically. Judy stood with her head turned down and away from him, her whole body straining away from his touch.

Susannah felt the anger boil up. He'd had his one chance, and one was all he was going to get. She wasn't going to stand around while he manhandled Judy a second time.

Slamming the window down, Susannah ran out of the bedroom, through the great room of her upstairs apartment and down the carpeted staircase. She flew into the reception area just as Judy came rushing in from outside.

"Judy, are you all right?" she asked, reaching out to steady the younger woman and help her to a chair. "Are you hurt?"

"I'm all right," Judy said, shrugging away from the helping hands as she sank into the desk chair. "It was nothing."

"Nothing! I saw him grab you." Susannah reached out again, hesitantly, her fingertips hovering over the angry red marks on the soft skin of Judy's upper arms. "You're going to have bruises."

Judy barely glanced down at them. "I'm all right, Susannah. Really," she said, looking up at her employer with eyes too old and experienced to belong to a woman who was barely twenty-one. "He didn't do anything he hasn't done worse before. I'm fine. They're just bruises." She waved away Susannah's concern with a weary gesture. "It's nothing."

"It's not nothing," Susannah insisted. "It's assault. I think you should call the police and file a complaint."

"No!" Judy almost came up out of her chair at the suggestion. "No," she said, more calmly. "I don't want the police. I don't need them. It's nothing, really. Eddie was just... being Eddie. Just talking big, you know? Trying to scare me into coming back to work for him."

"If you don't do something about it now, he might do something worse next time."

"No." Judy shook her head. "I told him I wouldn't do it. That no matter what he did, he couldn't make me do it. He knows I mean it."

"Well, I sent him on his way," Helen said with satisfaction as she bustled into the office. She hurried over to Judy. "Are you all right, dear? Did he hurt you?"

In an uncharacteristic gesture, Judy reached up and squeezed the hand that reached out to pat her shoulder. "Thanks, Helen," she said softly, and quickly let the hand go.

Susannah looked back and forth between the two women. "Just what exactly went on out there?" she asked.

"Eddie was waiting for me when I came out of The Tea Cozy," Judy said wearily. "Helen was still inside, talking to Jason about the food for the party." Jason was one of the two owners of The Tea Cozy. "Anyway, Eddie said he wanted to talk to me about—" she shrugged uneasily and looked away "—about a new scam or something. I don't know, exactly. When I told him I wasn't interested, he started to get a little rough. That's when Helen came out of the Cozy. She hollered my name and Eddie let me go. I ran in here. After that—" She shrugged.

Susannah looked at Helen, silently asking what had happened after that.

"I gave that lowlife scum a piece of my mind, that's what happened after that," Helen said. "And you were right, Susannah, he isn't nearly as tough as he thinks he is. He changed his tune real fast when I threatened to mess up his pretty moussed hairdo with my lead pipe." She pulled the item partway out of her voluminous shoulder bag to show them. "It put the fear of God into him, I can tell you. He won't be back here bothering Judy again. Not if he knows what's good for him."

"Oh, my goodness." Susannah could feel a little bubble of laughter working its way up out of her chest as her mind conjured up a picture of grandmotherly Helen chasing slick Eddie Devine down the street with a lead pipe in her hand. "Oh, Helen," she said in a strangled voice. Despite all she could do, the laughter spilled over. "I'm sorry," she said. "I know it isn't funny. But the thought of you—" she choked back a whoop of laughter "—chasing Eddie down the street...."

"Waving that lead pipe over your head," Judy added, before breaking into laughter herself.

Helen looked back and forth between her two laughing co-workers, as if slightly insulted. And then she smiled. "It would look kind of funny, wouldn't it?"

* * *

"Okay, we've got the watercress sandwiches, the cucumber sandwiches, the scones, the shortbread cookies, the tea cakes...." Susannah snatched up one of the tiny frosted confections and popped it into her mouth.

"The tea and coffee are on the sideboard. Helen, where are the lemon wedges?" she asked, reaching out to reposition the silver sugar bowl to a more attractive angle. "There aren't any lemon wedges."

"Right here," Helen said, hurrying over to place the small glass bowl of sliced fruit on the sideboard.

"Lemon wedges," Susannah said, continuing with her visual inventory, "sugar, milk, cream, cocktail napkins, and fresh lemonade. We're ready for blastoff," she announced, just as the first party guests entered through the front door of The Personal Touch.

In less than a half an hour the reception area and front parlor were crowded with those Personal Touch clients who'd been invited to attend one of Susannah's get-acquainted teas. Although invitations weren't limited to the senior citizens on her client list, the tea parties usually ended up heavily weighted in that direction. Unlike a lot of other dating services in the city, a large part of her clientele was in the sixty-five-and-over age group. She'd found that many of them felt more comfortable meeting new people in an informal setting, alleviating the nerve-racking pressure of a one-on-one encounter. Her late-afternoon teas had proven so popular, she was thinking of adding a dressier evening party to the mix, maybe opening up the doors between the front and back parlors and rolling up the rugs for ballroom dancing.

She filed the thought away for the moment, setting herself the welcome task of mingling with her guests, making sure that those with the most likely chance of hitting it off as a couple met each other.

Three hours later, footsore, talked out and stuffed to the eyebrows with frosted tea cakes, Susannah shut off the lights and went upstairs to figure out what accessories she was going to wear with her flapper dress—and wondering if she had time to fit in a trip to the shoe department at Neiman Marcus before Saturday rolled around.

* * *

"You're early," Heather said as she opened the front door at six forty-five the following Saturday evening. "Suse wasn't, like, expecting you for another fifteen minutes, you know?" She gave him a sly knowing grin, calculated to get under his skin. "Guess you, like, couldn't wait to get your hands on her, huh?"

"It's nice to see you, too, Ms. Lloyd," Matt said with exaggerated politeness, ignoring the deliberate provocation of her words. One encounter was all it had taken for him to realize that's what would bug her the most.

Everything about the girl was calculated with an eye toward its shock value, from the shaggy hacked-off hair to the storm-trooper boots to the collection of silver pentagrams and crosses hanging from the multiple holes in her ears. She was wearing a cropped cotton sweater tonight, in a drab olive green that did nothing for her delicate complexion, and a pair of cutoff denim shorts that looked as if they'd been rescued from the rag bin. The sweater appeared to be at least two sizes too big. The shorts were a size too small. "Is Susannah upstairs?"

"Uh-huh." Heather let the door swing closed behind him with a careless bang. "She said to, like, bring you up and give you a glass of champagne." She turned and trooped up the stairs ahead of him, her heavy black motorcycle boots clumping loudly on each tread, her slim hips swaying from side to side like a pendulum gone haywire.

It was like watching a cross between Marilyn Monroe in a scene from Some Like It Hot and Frankenstein's poor monster stumbling blindly around in the woods. Matt studied the movement as he climbed the stairs behind her, trying to figure out if she was doing it on purpose or if it was her natural walk.

Heather glanced over her shoulder. "See anything you like?" she said with a provocative pout. 

"Give it ten or fifteen years, kid," he said dryly, his expression bored and deliberately patronizing. "By then you might have enough experience to make it interesting."

Amazingly, the pout shifted into a smile before she mastered her expression and turned away. "Hey, Suse," she hollered as they entered the upstairs apartment. "The ambulance chaser is here." She shot him another sly look to see how he reacted to the slur on his profession, but there was no real malice in her eyes this time.

Matt felt as if he'd passed some test he hadn't even known he'd taken.

"You, like, want some champagne?" Heather asked, reaching for the bottle on the counter as she spoke.

Matt crooked his fingers at her in a beckoning motion. "Give it to me," he said, "I'll open it."

"I can open it."

Matt shook his head, leaning across the counter to take it out of her hand. "It's not that I don't trust you...." He let his voice trail off.

Heather grinned and let him take the bottle.

He was just pouring champagne into a fluted glass when Susannah walked out of the bedroom. Matt sucked in his breath and stared.

Her hair was down, the way it had been the first time he'd seen her. Springy corkscrew curls framed the pale oval of her face and cascaded over her shoulders, a rich, lustrous mahogany red against the silky creaminess of her bared skin. Her dress was soft and pink and floaty, with thin straps made of sparkly beads and a U-shaped neckline that dipped just low enough to hint at the beginning swell of her breasts. The whole thing seemed to shimmer, catching and reflecting the light with her slightest breath.

Susannah hesitated just outside her bedroom door, her smile fixed and uncertain, waiting for Matt to react in a way she could interpret. Was his stunned silence good or bad? Was he bowled over with admiration for her elegant and sophisticated taste? Or wondering if she was really going to out in public dressed like a Las Vegas chorus girl?

"Tell her she looks nice," Heather hissed, just as Matt felt ice-cold champagne trickle over his fingers and onto the floor. He jerked the champagne bottle upright, setting it, and the overflowing flute, down on the marble counter with a sharp click.

"You look incredible, Susannah." He shook his head slightly, as if to clear it. "Absolutely stunning."

Susannah's smiled bloomed with relief and she let out the breath she didn't even know she'd been holding. Her self-confidence miraculously restored by his obvious admiration, she stepped out of the doorway and walked across the room toward him, slowly, never once taking her eyes from his. The heels of her new evening shoes clicked against the hardwood floor. The uneven handkerchief hem of her dress flirted with her slender calves, concealing and revealing them with every step. The hip-length beaded bodice sparkled around her slim torso, making her look as if she were surrounded by stardust.

She stopped in front of Matt, close enough for him to smell the exotic oriental fragrance she'd used in her bath, and reached up to straighten his perfectly straight black satin bow tie.

"So do you," she said softly. "Look incredible, I mean."

And he did. Most men looked a little uncomfortable in black tie, as if they weren't quite sure everything was on right. Matt looked born to it, as elegant and at ease as a royal Scandinavian prince. Tall, blond, broad-shouldered and almost icily remote, until he smiled and reached up to take her hands in his. He lifted them to his lips, one at a time, and the look in his eyes as he pressed his mouth to each of her sensitive palms in turn wasn't remote at all. It burned hot enough to melt glaciers—or a woman's foolish heart.

Heather's low whistle intruded into the taut silence. "It's, like, wow, Cinderella and frigging Prince Charming," she said admiringly.

Susannah laughed softly, shakily, and slipped her hands out of Matt's in an effort to regain the equilibrium he'd stolen with just a smile and a heated look. Matt let her slide her fingers from his without protest, his look telling her—promising her—that she wouldn't get away so easily next time and that if it hadn't been for Heather standing there watching them and the people waiting for them at the hotel, she wouldn't have gotten away this time.

Susannah shivered with a combination of instinctive feminine fear and delicious anticipation and turned away from the look in his eyes. "Do we have time for a glass of champagne before we go?" she asked, already reaching out for one of the delicate fluted glasses on the marble counter. She turned her head, glancing over her shoulder when he didn't answer immediately. "Matt?"

Matt answered with a strangled syllable that sounded suspiciously like a curse.

Heather giggled.

Susannah raised a delicate eyebrow.

"Good God, woman," Matt demanded, "do you want to start a riot?"

Susannah's eyebrow rose higher. "Excuse me?" she said, although she knew exactly what he meant.

The back of her dress dipped considerably lower than the front, coming to a V just above her waistline. Three strands of pink crystal beads draped across her spine, filling in the opening and holding the dress in place.

Matt made another inarticulate noise and gestured at the back of her dress.

Susannah shrugged, making the beaded strands shimmy over her skin, and turned back to the counter. She nonchalantly reached for the champagne, secretly pleased to be getting some of her own back. He'd disconcerted her with a smile and a heated look. She'd evened the score with a little discreetly bared flesh. "Do you think it's too much?" she asked innocently, and winked at Heather.

"I think it's—" the sexiest thing I've ever seen "—too damned little," he groused. "You're going to catch pneumonia if you go outside in that thing."

"My evening wrap is very warm." She turned back to face him. "Champagne?" she said, and held his glass toward him with a bright smile of feminine challenge.

Matt looked at her for a long second, consideringly, fighting the twin urges to wring her neck and kiss her senseless at the same time. He decided that neither one was a viable option at the moment. He reached out and took the glass from her, draining half of it with one gulp. "We'd better get going if we don't want to be late," he said, handing the glass back to her.

Susannah took it and set it on the counter. She looked at the teenager who stood silently, watching them. "Heather? Don't you have something you want to say to Matt before we leave?"

Heather twisted her hands in the hem of her sweater, pulling it all out of shape, and shrugged noncommittally.

Susannah gave her a sharp look, tilted her head toward Matt, and then turned to get her wrap, leaving the two of them to talk privately.

"Suse thinks I should, like—" she looked at the floor, her mouth screwed up in a rueful grimace "—apologize, you know?"

"And what do you think?"

She shrugged again.

Matt waited.

Heather sighed and dug into the pocket of her shorts. "Here." She handed him a wad of bills. "What I owe you." The next words she uttered could have been I'm sorry but they were mumbled so low Matt couldn't be sure.

He smoothed the bills out, wondering if he should make her say it again, and then decided to let her off the hook. This time. "Thanks." He folded the bank notes neatly in half and slipped them into his pocket.

"Everything okay here?" Susannah asked as she came back with her wrap over her arm.

Heather looked at Matt.

He nodded.

"Did she ask your advice about her legal problem?"

"Suse!"

"What legal problem?" Matt asked warily. There was no end of legal trouble a teenager could get into these days, especially one with a go-to-hell attitude and no discernible parental influence.

"I've got it covered," Heather said, shooting a fulminating look at Susannah. "Legal Aid assigned me a lawyer yesterday afternoon. I forgot to tell you, is all."

"A lawyer?" Susannah huffed delicately. "Some first-year law student, right?"

"Second year," Heather said. "And all he has to do is, like, file some stupid papers is all. It's no big deal."

"What legal problem?" Matt demanded in a quiet tone that nevertheless had both females turning their heads to look at him.

"I'm petitioning the court to be declared an emancipated minor," Heather told him.

"That involves more than just filing a few papers," he said.

"Yeah, well..." Heather shrugged again, as if she really didn't care.

Both adults could see clearly that she did.

Matt sighed. "All right, look. I haven't got time to go into it with you right now, but later in the week the three of us can get together and talk about it."

"What's to talk about?" Heather mumbled.

"Before I can help you, I need to know what I'm helping you with. You answer a few questions for me and I'll check into it and see what I can do. Maybe light a fire under your lawyer at Legal Aid. Maybe something more. Okay? But only if I think your case warrants it," he added sternly, trying to avoid raising false hopes. "The courts grant emancipated-minor status only in very rare cases," he warned, "and I'm not about to add to an already overburdened system just because you don't get along with your parents. Is that clear?"

"Yeah, sure," Heather said with another unconcerned shrug, but her eyes were shining with hope.

Matt glanced at Susannah, expecting her to reinforce his statement of caution. She smiled back at him as if he were St. George about to slay the dragon. He sighed again, knowing when he was licked.

"Come on, Cinderella," he said, reaching for the wrap over her arm. He shook the deep-wine-colored velvet cape out and swirled it behind her, settling it on her shoulders. "Time to go to the ball."