Only Forever

New York Times Bestselling Author

Linda Lael Miller

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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As far as Vanessa Lawrence is concerned, jocks are bad news. Once married to one of baseball’s superstars, she’s coped with betrayal, divorce and the tabloids. She’s worked hard to establish her career, and now her ex-husband’s tell-all autobiography threatens to destroy everything she’s achieved.

When ex-football hero Nick DeAngelo takes to the playing field that was once her heart, Vanessa’s not about to let another sports-crazed womanizer ruin her life. But Nick’s not prepared to let Vanessa get away. Instead, he tackles her stubborn pride, her obnoxious ex and the gossip columns head-on. Because the day he saw Vanessa, he knew he’d found his destiny….

The daughter of a town marshal, Linda Lael Miller is a New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of more than one hundred historical and contemporary novels, most of which reflect her love of the West. Raised in Northport, Washington, the self-confessed barn goddess now lives in Spokane, Washington. Linda hit a career high in 2011 when all three of her Creed Cowboys books—A Creed in Stone Creek, Creed’s Honor and The Creed Legacy—debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.

Linda has come a long way since leaving Washington to experience the world. “But growing up in that time and place has served me well,” she allows. “And I’m happy to be back home.” Dedicated to helping others, Linda personally finances her Linda Lael Miller Scholarships for Women, which she awards to those seeking to improve their lot in life through education. More information about Linda and her novels is available at www.LindaLaelMiller.com. She also loves to hear from readers by mail at P.O. Box 19461, Spokane, WA 99219.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

1

This particular strain of flu, Nick DeAngelo decided, had been brought to Earth by hostile aliens determined to wipe out the entire planet—starting, evidently, with an ex-jock who owned one of the best Italian restaurants in Seattle.

Sprawled on the hide-a-bed in the living room of his apartment, he plucked a handful of tissues from the box on the mattress beside him and crammed them against his face just in time to absorb an explosive sneeze. He was covered in mentholated rub from his nose to his belly button, and while his forehead was hot to the touch, the rest of him was racked with chills.

He wondered when Mike Wallace would burst through the door, wanting the story. It was time to alert the masses to impending doom.

Did you actually see these aliens, Mr. De-Angelo?

Call me Nick. Of course I didn’t see them. They must have gotten me when I was sleeping.

The imaginary interview was interrupted by the jangling of the telephone, which, like the box of tissues, was in bed with Nick. Hoping for sympathy, he dug the receiver out from a tangle of musty flannel sheets and rasped out a hoarse hello.

“Still under the weather, huh?” The voice belonged to his younger sister, Gina, and it showed a marked lack of commiseration. “Listen, if I wasn’t afraid of catching whatever it is you’ve got and missing my exams next week, I’d definitely come over and take care of you.”

Nick sagged against the back of the sofa, one hand to his fevered forehead. “Your concern is touching, Gina,” he coughed out.

“I could call Aunt Carlotta,” Gina was quick to suggest. She was a bright kid, a psychology major at the University of Washington, and she knew which buttons to push. “I’m sure she’d love to move into your apartment and spend the next two weeks dragging you back from the threshold of death.”

Nick thought of his aunt with affectionate dread. It was in her honor that he’d slathered himself with mentholated goo. “This is not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill flu, you know,” he said.

Gina laughed. “I’ll alert the science department at school—I’m sure they’ll want to send a research team directly to your place.”

Privately Nick considered that to be a viable idea, but he refrained from saying so, knowing it would only invite more callous mockery. “You have no heart,” he accused.

There was a brief pause, followed by, “Is there anything I can get you, like groceries or books or something? I could leave the stuff in the hallway outside your door—”

“Or you could just drop it from a hovering helicopter,” Nick ventured, insulted.

Gina gave a long-suffering sigh. “Why don’t you call one of your girlfriends? You could have a whole harem over there, fluffing your pillows and giving you aspirin and heating up canned chicken soup.”

“My ‘girlfriends,’ as you put it, are all either working or letting their answering machines do the talking. And chicken soup is only therapeutic if it’s homemade.” Nick paused to emit another volcanic sneeze. When he’d recovered, he said magnanimously, “Don’t worry about me, Gina, just because I’m putting you through college and paying for your car, your clothes, your apartment and every bite of food that goes into your mouth. I’ll be fine without…any help at all.”

“Oh, God,” wailed Gina. “The guilt!”

Nick laughed. “Gotcha,” he said, groping for the remote control that would turn on the TV. Maybe there was an old Stallone movie on—something bloody and macho.

Gina said a few soothing words and then hung up. It occurred to Nick that she was really going to stay away, really going to leave her own brother to face The Great Galactic Plague alone and unassisted.

There was, Nick decided, no human kindness left in the world. He flipped through the various movie channels, seeing nothing that caught his fancy, and was just about to shut the set off and try to focus his eyes on a book when he saw her for the first time.

She was a redhead with golden eyes, and the sight of her practically stopped his heartbeat. She was holding an urn that was suitable enough to be someone’s final resting place, and there was a toll-free number superimposed over her chest.

With quick, prodding motions of his thumb, Nick used the control button on the remote to turn up the volume. “My name is Vanessa Lawrence,” the vision told her viewing audience in a voice more soothing than all the chicken soup and mentholated rub in the world, “and you’re watching the Midas Network.” She went on to extol the virtues of the hideous vase she was peddling, but Nick didn’t hear a word.

He was too busy dredging up everything he knew about the Midas Network, a nationwide shopping channel based in Seattle. The enterprise was a new one, and one of his friends—an executive with the company—had urged him to invest because he was certain that telemarketing would prove to be the biggest hit with consumers since the tube itself.

Nick shoved one hand through his hair, causing it to stand on end in ridges that reeked of eucalyptus. Undoubtedly, he thought, he was experiencing some kind of dementia related to the virus that had been visited upon him.

Without taking his eyes away from the screen, he groped for the telephone and punched out the office number. His secretary, a middle-aged woman named Harriet, answered with a crisp, “DeAngelo’s. May I help you?”

“I hope so,” wheezed Nick, who had just finished another bout of coughing.

“You don’t need me, you need the paramedics,” remarked the secretary.

“At last,” Nick said. “Someone who understands and sympathizes. Harriet, find Paul Harmon’s number for me, will you please? I’m in no condition to hunt all over for the phone book.”

It was easy to picture Harriet, plump and efficient, flipping expertly through her Rolodex. “His office number is 555-9876,” she said.

Nick found a pencil in the paraphernalia that had collected on the end table beside the hide-a-bed and wrote the digits on the corner of the tissue box, along with the home number Harriet gave him next.

The woman on the screen was now offering a set of bird figurines.

“Oh, lady,” Nick said aloud as he waited for Paul Harmon to come on the line, “I want your body, I want your soul, I want you to have my baby.”

The goddess smiled. “All this can be yours for only nineteen-ninety-five,” she said.

“Sold,” replied Nick.

Vanessa Lawrence inserted her cash card into the automatic teller machine in Quickee Food Mart and tapped one foot while she waited for the money to appear. A glance at her watch told her she was due at her lawyer’s office in just ten minutes, and the drive downtown would take fifteen.

Her foot moved faster.

The machine made an alarming grinding noise, but no currency came out of the little slot, and Vanessa’s card was still somewhere in the bowels of the gizmo. From the sound of things, it was being systematically digested.

Somewhat wildly, she began pushing buttons. The words Your transaction is now completed, were frozen on the small screen. She glanced back over one shoulder, hoping for help from the clerk, but everyone in the neighborhood seemed to be in the convenience store that afternoon, buying bread and milk.

“Damn!” she breathed, slamming her fist against the face of the machine.

A woman wearing pink foam rollers in her hair appeared at Vanessa’s side. “You’re on TV, aren’t you?” she asked. “On that new shopping channel, the something-or-other station.”

Vanessa smiled, even though it was the last thing she felt like doing. “The Midas Network,” she said, before giving the machine another despairing look. “Just give me back my card,” she told the apparatus, “and I won’t make any trouble, I promise.”

“I watch you every day,” the woman announced proudly. “I bought that three-slice toaster you had on yesterday—there’s just Bernie and Ray and me, now that Clyde’s gone away to the Army—and my sister-in-law has four of the ceiling fans.”

In her head, Vanessa heard the production manager, Paul Harmon, giving his standard public relations lecture. As the viewing audience expands, you’ll be recognized. No matter what, I want you all to be polite at all times.

“Good,” she said with a faltering smile.

She took another look at her watch, then lost her cool and rammed the cash machine with the palms of her hands. Miraculously two twenty-dollar bills popped out of the appropriate slot, but Vanessa’s cash card was disgorged in three pieces.

She dropped both the card and the money into the pocket of her linen blazer and dashed for the car, hoping the traffic wouldn’t be bad.

It was.

Worse, when Vanessa reached her attorney’s modest office, Parker was there with his lawyer and his current girlfriend.

Vanessa prayed she didn’t look as frazzled as she felt and resisted an urge to smooth her chin-length auburn hair.

Parker smiled his dazzling smile and tried to kiss her cheek, but Vanessa stepped back, her golden eyes clearly telling him to keep his distance.

Her ex-husband, now the most sought-after pitcher in the American League, looked hurt. “Hello, Van,” he said in a low and intimate voice.

Vanessa didn’t speak. Although they had been divorced for a full year, Parker’s presence still made her soul ache. It wasn’t that she wanted him back; no, she grieved for the time and love she’d wasted on him.

Vanessa’s attorney, Walter, was no ball of fire, but he was astute enough to know how vulnerable she felt. He drew back a chair for her near his desk, and gratefully she sank into the seat.

Parker’s lawyer immediately took up the conversational ball. “I think we can settle this reasonably,” he said. Vanessa felt her spine stiffen.

The bottom line was that Parker had been offered a phenomenal amount of money to write a book about his career in professional baseball and, with the help of a ghostwriter, he’d produced a manuscript—one that included every intimate detail of his marriage to Vanessa.

She was prepared to sue if the book went to press.

“Wait,” Parker interceded suavely, holding his famous hands up in the air, “I think it would be better if Van and I worked this thing out ourselves…in private.”

His girlfriend shifted uncomfortably on the leather sofa beside him, but said nothing.

“There is nothing to work out,” Vanessa said in a shaky voice she hated. Why couldn’t she sound detached and professional, like she did when she was selling ceiling fans on the Midas Network? “If you don’t take me out of that book, Parker, I’m going to drive a dump truck into your bank account and come out with a load of your money.”

Parker went pale beneath his golden tan. He ran a hand through his sun-streaked hair, and his azure blue eyes skittered away from Vanessa’s gaze. But after a moment, he regained his legendary poise. “Van, you’re being unreasonable.”

“Am I? That book makes me sound like some kind of sex-crazed neurotic. I’m not going to let you ruin me, Parker, just so you can have a few more annuities and condominiums!”

Parker flinched as though she’d struck him. He rose from his chair and came to crouch before hers, speaking softly and holding both her hands in his. “You feel threatened,” he crooned.

It was all Vanessa could do not to kick him. She jerked her hands free, shot to her feet and stormed out of the office.

Parker caught up to her at the elevator, which, as luck would have it, was just arriving. “Baby, wait,” he pleaded.

Vanessa was shamed by the tears that were flowing down her face, but she couldn’t stop them. She dodged into the elevator, trying to escape the man sportscasters compared to Hank Aaron and Pete Rose.

Parker squeezed into the cubicle with her, oblivious, apparently, of the fact that there were two secretaries, a cleaning woman and a bag lady looking on. He tried again, “Sweetheart, what do you want? A mink? A Corvette? Tell me what you want and I’ll give it to you. But you’ve got to be reasonable!”

Vanessa drew her hand back and slapped the Living Legend. “How dare you assume you can buy me, you pompous jackass!” she cried. “And stop calling me sweetheart and baby!”

The elevator reached the ground floor, and Vanessa hurried out, hoping Parker wouldn’t give chase. As it happened, however, he was right on her heels.

He looked exasperated now as he lengthened his strides to keep pace with her on the busy downtown sidewalk. He straightened the lapels of his tailored suit jacket and rasped out, “Damn it, Vanessa, do you know how much money is at stake here?”

“No, and I don’t care,” Vanessa answered. She was almost to the parking lot where she’d left her car; in a few minutes she could get behind the steering wheel and drive away.

With sudden harshness, Parker stopped her again, grasping her shoulders with his hands and pressing her backward against a department store display window. “You’re not going to ruin this deal for me, Vanessa!” he shouted.

Vanessa stared at him, appalled and breathless. God knew Parker had hurt her often enough, but he’d never been physically rough.

Parker’s effort to control his temper was visible. “I’m sorry,” he ground out, and because he seldom apologized for anything, Vanessa believed him. “I didn’t mean to manhandle you like that. Vanessa, please. Sit down with me somewhere private and listen to what I have to say. That’s all I’m asking.”

“There’s no point, Parker,” Vanessa replied. “I know what you want to tell me, and my answer won’t be any different. The way you portrayed me in that book is libelous—I wouldn’t be able to hold my head up in public.”

“And I thought you’d be proud when I sent you a copy of that manuscript.” He paused to shake his head, as if still amazed at her negative reaction. “Van, people will know I made most of that stuff up,” Parker went on presently with a weak smile. “They’re not going to take it seriously.”

Vanessa arched one eyebrow. “Oh, really? Well, I’d rather not take the chance, if you don’t mind. I have dreams of my own, you know.”

Passersby were beginning to make whispers that indicated they recognized Parker. He took Vanessa’s arm and squired her into a nearby coffee shop. “Two minutes,” he said. “That’s all I want.”

She smiled acidly. “That’s you, Parker—the two-minute man.”

He favored her with a scorching look and dropped into the booth’s seat across from her. “I’d forgotten what a little witch you can be, Van.” He paused to square his shoulders. “Darla hasn’t complained.”

Darla, of course, was the girlfriend. “People with IQ’s under twenty rarely do,” Vanessa answered sweetly. Then she added, “Your two minutes are ticking away.”

A waitress came, and Parker ordered two cups of coffee without even consulting Vanessa. It was so typical that she nearly laughed out loud.

“The advance on this book,” Parker began in a low and reluctant voice, “is in the high six figures. I can’t play baseball forever, Van; I need some security.”

Vanessa rolled her eyes. Most oil sheiks didn’t live as well as Parker; he certainly wasn’t facing penury. “I’ll drop you off at the food bank if you’d like,” she offered.

A muscle bunched in his jaw. Vanessa could have lived for years on the money that Parker’s face brought in for beer commercials alone. “You know,” he said, “I really didn’t expect you to be so bitter and frustrated.”

The coffee arrived, and the waitress walked away again.

“Watch it,” Vanessa warned. “You’re trying to get on my good side, remember?”

Parker spread his hands in a gesture of baffled annoyance. “Van, I know the divorce was hard on you, but you have a job now and a life of your own. There’s no reason to torture me like this.”

He sounded so damnably rational that Vanessa wanted to throw her coffee in his face. “Is that what you think I’m doing? I want nothing from you, Parker—no money, no minks, no sports cars—and no lies written up in a book and presented as the truth.”

“So I was a little creative? What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing, if you’re writing a novel.” Vanessa could see that the conversation was progressing exactly as she’d expected. “I don’t know why I even came down here,” she said, glancing at her watch and sliding out of the booth.

“Hot date?” Parker asked, giving the words an unsavory inflection.

“Very hot,” Vanessa lied, looking down at Parker. She was meeting her cousin Rodney for dinner and a movie, but what Parker didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. She made a sssssssss sound, meant to indicate a sizzle, and walked away.

Much to her relief, Parker didn’t follow.

Rodney was waiting in the agreed place when she reached the mall, his hands wedged into his jacket pockets, his white teeth showing in a grin.

“Hi, Van,” he said. “Bad day?”

Vanessa kissed his cheek and linked her arm through his. “I just came from a meeting with Parker,” she replied. “Does that answer your question?”

Rodney frowned. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m afraid it does.”

Vanessa smiled up at the handsome young man with the thick, longish chestnut brown hair and Omar Sharif eyes. Her first cousin—and at twenty-one, five years her junior—Rodney was the only family she had in Seattle, and she loved him. She changed the subject. “Aren’t you going to ask me about the apartment?”

Rodney laughed as they walked into the mall together and approached their favorite fast-food restaurant, a place that sold Chinese cuisine to go. The apartment over Vanessa’s garage was empty since her last tenant had moved out, and Rodney wanted the rooms in the worst way.

“You know I do, Van,” he scolded her good-naturedly. “Living over a funeral home has its drawbacks. For one thing, it gives new meaning to the phrase, ‘things that go bump in the night.”’

Van laughed and shook her head. “Okay, okay—you can move in in a few weeks. I want to have the place painted first.”

Rodney’s face lighted up. He was a good kid working his way through chiropractic school by means of a very demanding and unconventional job, and Vanessa genuinely enjoyed his company. In fact, they’d always been close. “I’ll do the painting,” he said.

It was late when Vanessa arrived at the large colonial house on Queen Anne Hill and let herself in the front door. She crossed the sparsely furnished living room, kicking off her high heels and rifling through the day’s mail as she moved.

In the kitchen, she flipped on the light and put a cup of water in the microwave to heat for tea. When the brew was steaming on the table, she steeled herself and pressed the button on her answering machine.

The first message was from her boss, Paul Harmon. “Janet and I want you to have dinner with us a week from Friday at DeAngelo’s. Don’t bring a date.”

Vanessa frowned. The Harmons were friends of hers and they were forever trying to fix her up with one of their multitude of unattached male acquaintances. The fact that Paul had specified she shouldn’t bring a date was unsettling.

She missed the next two messages, both of which were from Parker, because the name of the restaurant had rung a distant bell. What was it about DeAngelo’s that made her uncomfortable?

She stirred sweetener into her tea, frowning. Then it came to her—the proprietor of the place was Nick DeAngelo, a former pro football player with a reputation for womanizing exceeded only by Parker’s. Vanessa shuddered. The man was Paul’s best friend. What if he turned out to be the mysterious fourth at dinner?

Vanessa shut off the answering machine and dialed the Harmons’ home number. Janet answered the phone.

“About dinner at DeAngelo’s,” Vanessa said, after saying hi. “Am I being set up to meet Mr. Macho, or what?”

Janet laughed. “I take it you’re referring to Nick?”

“And you’re hedging,” Vanessa accused.

“Okay, yes—we want you to meet Nick. He’s a darling, Vanessa. You’ll love him.”

“That’s what you said about that guy who wanted to take me parking,” Vanessa reminded her friend. “I really don’t think this is a good idea.”

“He’s nothing like Parker,” Janet said gently. She could be very perceptive. “It isn’t fair to write Nick off as a loser without even meeting him.”

The encounter with Parker had inclined her toward saying no to everything, and Vanessa knew it. She sighed. She had to be flexible, willing to meet new people and try new things, or she’d become stagnant. “All right, but if he turns out to be weird, Janet Harmon, you and Paul are off my Christmas-card list for good.”

That damned sixth sense of Janet’s was still evident. “The appointment with Parker and his attorney went badly, huh?”

Vanessa took a steadying sip of her tea. “He’s going to publish that damned book, Janet,” she whispered, feeling real despair. “There isn’t anything I can do to stop him, and I’m sure he knows it, even though he seems to feel some kind of crazy need to win me over to his way of thinking.”

“The bastard,” Janet commiserated.

“I can say goodbye to any hopes I had of ever landing a job as a newscaster. I’ll never be taken seriously.”

“It’s late, and you’re tired,” Janet said firmly. “Take a warm bath, have a glass of wine and get some sleep. Things will look better in the morning.”

Exhausted, Vanessa promised to take her friend’s advice and went off to bed, stopping only to wash her face and brush her teeth. She collapsed onto the mattress and immediately fell into a troubled sleep, dreaming that Parker was chewing her cash card and spitting the plastic pieces out on the pitcher’s mound.

She awakened the next morning in a terrible mood, and when she reached the studio complex where the Midas Network was housed, her co-host, Mel Potter, looked at her with concern in his eyes.

A middle-aged, ordinary looking man, Potter was known as Markdown Mel in the telemarketing business, and he was a pro’s pro. He had ex-wives all over the country and a gift for selling that was unequaled in the field. Vanessa had seen him move two thousand telephone answering machines in fifteen minutes without even working up a sweat, and her respect for his skill as a salesman was considerable.

He was, in fact, the one man in the world, besides her grandfather, who could address her as honey without making her hackles rise.

“What’s the matter, honey?” he demanded as Vanessa flopped into a chair in the makeup room. “You look like hell.”

Vanessa smiled. “Thanks a lot, Mel,” she answered. “You’re a sight for sore eyes yourself.”

He laughed as Margie, the makeup girl, slathered Vanessa’s face with cleansing cream. “I see by the papers that that ex-husband of yours is in town to accept an award at his old high school. Think you could get him to stop by the studio before he leaves? We could dump a lot of those baseball cake plates if Parker Lawrence endorsed them.”

Now it was Vanessa who laughed, albeit a little hysterically. “Forget it, Mel. Parker and I aren’t on friendly terms, and I wouldn’t ask him for the proverbial time of day.”

Mel shrugged, but Vanessa had a feeling she hadn’t heard the last of the subject of Parker Lawrence selling baseball cake plates.

Twenty minutes later Vanessa and Mel were on camera, demonstrating a set of golf clubs. Vanessa loved her job. Somehow, when she was working, she became another person—one who had no problems, no insecurities and no bruises on her soul.

The network had a policy of letting viewers chat with the hosts over the air, and the first caller was Parker.

“Hello, Babe,” he said, after carefully introducing himself to the nation so that there could be no doubt as to who he was. “You look terrific.”

Vanessa’s smile froze on her face. She tried to speak, but she couldn’t.

Mel picked up the ball with admirable aplomb. “Thanks, Parker,” he answered. “You look pretty good yourself.”

Even the cameraman laughed at that.

“Giving up baseball for golf?” Vanessa was emboldened to say.

“Never,” Parker answered confidently. “But I’d take ten of anything you’re selling, Baby.”

Vanessa was seething inside, but she hadn’t forgotten that several million people were watching and listening. She wasn’t about to let Parker throw her in front of a national audience. “Good,” she said, beaming. “We’ll put you down for ten sets of golf clubs.”

Parker laughed, thinking she was joking. Vanessa wished she could see his face when the UPS man delivered his purchases in seven to ten working days.

2

The man was impossibly handsome, Vanessa thought ruefully as she watched Nick DeAngelo approach the table where she and the Harmons had been seated. He was tall, with the kind of shoulders one might expect of a former star football player. His hair was dark and attractively rumpled as though he’d just run his fingers through it. But it was the expression in his eyes that took hold of something deep inside Vanessa and refused to let go.

Suddenly Vanessa’s emotional scars, courtesy of Parker Lawrence, got the best of her. She could have sworn they were as visible as stitch marks across her face and she was positive that Nick DeAngelo could count them. Her first instinct was to run and hide.

Grinning, Paul stood to greet his friend. “You survived the flu,” he remarked. “From the way you sounded, I didn’t think you were going to make it.”

A half smile curved Nick’s lips, probably in acknowledgment of what Paul had said, but his gaze was fixed on Vanessa. He seemed to be unwrapping her soul, layer by layer, and she didn’t want that. She needed the insulation to feel safe.

She dropped her eyes, color rising to her cheeks, and clasped her hands together in her lap. In a matter of moments, a decade of living, loving and hurting had dropped away. She was as vulnerable as a shy sixteen-year-old.

“Vanessa,” Paul said gently, prodding her with his voice. “This is my friend, Nick De-Angelo.”

She looked up again because she had to, and Nick was smiling at her. A strange sensation washed over her, made up of fear and delight, consolation and challenge. “Hello,” she said, swallowing.

His smile was steady and as warm as winter fire. Vanessa was in over her head, and she knew it. “Hi,” he replied, his voice low and deep.

The sound of it caressed the bruises on Vanessa’s soul like a healing balm. She was frightened by his ability to touch her so intimately and wondered if anyone would believe her if she said she’d developed a headache and needed to go home to put her feet up. She started to speak, but Janet Harmon cut her off.

“I hear you’re opening another restaurant in Portland next month,” she said to Nick, her foot bumping against Vanessa’s under the table. “Won’t that take you out of town a lot?”

The phenomenal shoulders moved in an easy shrug. Nick DeAngelo was obviously as much at home in a tuxedo as he would be in a football jersey and blue jeans. His brown eyes roamed over Vanessa, revealing an amused approval of the emerald-green silk shirtwaist she was wearing. “I’m used to traveling,” he said finally in response to Janet’s question.

Vanessa devoutly wished that she’d stayed home. She wasn’t ready for an emotional involvement, but it seemed to be happening anyway, without her say-so. She was as helpless as a swimmer going down for the third time. In desperation, she clasped on to the similarities between Parker and Nick.

They were both attractive, although Vanessa had to admit that Parker’s looks had never affected her in quite the same way that Nick’s were doing now. They were both jocks, and, if the press could be believed, Nick, like Parker, was a veritable legend among the bimbos of the world.

Vanessa felt better and, conversely, worse. She lifted her chin and said, “I don’t think a jock—I mean, professional athlete ever gets the road completely out of his blood.”

Nick sat back in his chair. His look said he could read her as clearly as a floodlighted billboard. “Maybe it’s like selling electric foot massagers on television,” he speculated smoothly. “I don’t see how a person could ever put a thrill like that behind them.”

Vanessa squirmed. How typically male; he knew she was responding to him, and now he meant to make fun of her. “I’m not ashamed of what I do for a living, Mr. DeAngelo,” she said.

Nick bent toward her and, in that moment, it was as though the two of them were alone at the table—indeed, alone in the restaurant. “Neither am I, Ms. Lawrence,” he replied.

A crackling silence followed, which was finally broken by Paul’s diplomatic throat clearing and he said, “Vanessa hopes to anchor one of the local news shows at some point.”

Vanessa winced, sure that Nick would be amused at such a lofty ambition. Instead he merely nodded.

Dinner that night was delicious, although Vanessa was never able to recall exactly what it was, for she spent every minute longing to run for cover. After the meal, the foursome drifted from the dining room to the crowded cocktail lounge, where a quartet was playing soft music. Vanessa found herself held alarmingly close to Nick as they danced.

He lifted her chin with a curved finger and spoke in a velvety rasp. “Your eyes are the size of satellite dishes. Do I scare you that much?”

Vanessa stiffened. The man certainly had an ego. “You don’t scare me at all,” she lied. “It’s only that I’m—I’m tired.”

He smiled, and the warmth threatened to melt her like a wax statue. “You were married to Parker Lawrence, weren’t you?”

Suddenly it was too hot in the place; Vanessa felt as though she’d suffocate if she couldn’t get some fresh air. “Yes,” she answered, flustered, searching for an avenue of escape.

True to form, Nick read her thoughts precisely. “This way,” he said, and, taking Vanessa by the hand, he led her off the dance floor, down a hallway and into a large, tastefully furnished office. She was about to protest when she realized there was a terrace beyond the French doors on the far side of the room.

The autumn night was chilly, but Vanessa didn’t mind. The crisp air cleared her head, and she felt better immediately.

The sky was like a great black tent, pierced through in a million places by tiny specks of silver light, and the view of downtown Seattle and the harbor was spectacular. Vanessa rested her folded arms against the stone railing and drew a deep, delicious breath.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, smiling.

Nick was beside her, gazing at the city lights and moonlit water spread out below them. “I never get tired of it,” he said quietly. “The only drawback is that you can’t see the Space Needle from here.”

Vanessa shivered as an icy breeze swept off the water, and Nick immediately draped his tuxedo jacket over her shoulders. She thanked him shyly with a look, and asked, “Have you lived in Seattle all your life?”

He nodded. “I was born here.”

Vanessa marveled that she could be so comfortable with Nick on the terrace when she’d felt threatened inside the restaurant. She sighed. “I grew up in Spokane, but I guess I’m starting to feel at home.”

“Just starting?” He arched a dark eyebrow.

Vanessa shrugged. “Seattle is Parker’s home-town, not mine.” Too late she realized she’d made a mistake, reopening a part of her life she preferred to keep private.

Nick leaned against the terrace and gazed at the circus of lights below. “I’ve been married before, too,” he confided quietly. “Her name was Jenna.”

Vanessa was practically holding her breath. It was incomprehensible that his answer should mean so much, but it did. “What happened?”

“She left me,” Nick replied without looking at Vanessa.

“I’m sorry,” Vanessa said, and she was sincere because she knew how much it hurt when a marriage died, whether a person was left or did the leaving. “A lot of women can’t handle living with a professional athlete,” she added, and although she’d meant the words as a consolation, she immediately wished she could take them back.

“Jenna bailed out before I got into the pros,” Nick said in tones as cool as the wind rising off the water. “When I started making big bucks, she wanted to try again.”

Before Vanessa could make any kind of response to that, Nick put an arm around her waist and ushered her back inside. She lifted the tuxedo jacket from her shoulders while he closed the French doors that led out onto the terrace.

“Did you love Jenna?” she asked, and the words were the most involuntary ones she’d ever spoken.

Nick’s expression was unreadable. “Did you love Parker?” he countered.

Vanessa bit her lower lip. “I honestly don’t know,” she answered after a few moments of thought. “I was in college when I met him, and he was already breaking records in baseball. I’d never met anyone like him before. He was—overwhelming.”

Nick grinned somewhat sadly and leaned back against the edge of his desk, his arms folded. “I’d like to know you better,” he said.

Vanessa was aware that such straightforwardness was rare in a man, and she was impressed. She was also terrified by the powerful things this man was making her feel. She placed his jacket carefully over the back of a chair, searching her mind for a refusal that would not be rude or hurtful.

She was unprepared for Nick’s sudden appearance at her side, and for the way he gently lifted her chin in his hand and said, “It’s time to let go of the pain and move on, Vanessa.”

The low, rumbling words, spoken so close to her mouth, made her lips tingle with a strange sense of anticipation. When Nick kissed her, she swayed slightly, stricken by a sweet malaise that robbed her of all balance.

Nick was holding her upright, though whether by means of the kiss or his gentle grasp on her waist, Vanessa couldn’t be sure. She knew only that she was responding to him with her whole being, that she’d let him take her then and there if he pressed her. Being so vulnerable when she’d been so badly hurt before was almost more than she could bear.

When Nick finally released her, having kissed her more thoroughly than Parker ever had in even the most intimate of moments, she was so dazed that she could only stare up at him in abject amazement. She made up her mind that she absolutely would not see him again, no matter what.

He was too dangerous.

“Are you working tomorrow?” he asked in a sleepy voice, toying with a tendril of titian hair that had slipped from her ivory barrette.

Vanessa struggled to remember, her throat thick, her mind a razzle-dazzle of popping lights. Finally she shook her head.

Nick grinned. “Good. Will you spend the day with me.

No, no, no, cried Vanessa’s wounded spirit. “Yes,” she choked out.

Nick smiled at her, tracing the curve of her cheek with one index finger, then reached for his jacket and shrugged into it. “We’d better get back out there before Paul and Janet decide we’re doing something in keeping with my image.”

They went back to the dance floor, and Nick held her. It was an innocent intimacy but it stirred Vanessa’s senses, which had been largely dormant for the better part of a year, to an alarming pitch of need.

Every time she dared to meet Nick’s eyes, it was as though he had taken away an item of her clothing, and yet she could not resist looking at him. The dilemma was at once delicious and maddening, and Vanessa was relieved when Nick didn’t offer to drive her home at the end of the evening.

Paul lingered on the sidewalk for a few minutes, talking with Nick, while Vanessa and Janet settled themselves in the car.

“Well,” Janet demanded the moment she’d snapped her seat belt into place, “what did you think of him?”

Vanessa drew in a deep breath and let it out in an agitated rush. “I think I should have stayed home with my needlepoint,” she said.

Janet turned in the car seat to look back at her. “You’ve got to be kidding. The man is a hunk!”

Only now, when her nostrils weren’t filled with the subtle scent of his cologne and her body wasn’t pressed to his could Vanessa be rational and objective where Nick DeAngelo was concerned. “He’s also a jock,” she said miserably. “Do you have any idea how egotistical those men can be? Not to mention callous and self-serving?”

Janet sighed. “Not every man is like Parker,” she insisted.

The conversation was cut off at that point because Paul came back to the car, whistling cheerfully as he slid behind the wheel. Vanessa shrank into the corner of the seat, wishing, all in the same moment, that the night would end, that she could go back in time and say no to Nick’s suggestion that they spend the next day together and that tomorrow would hurry up and arrive so she could see him again.

“Thanks,” she said ruefully when Paul saw her to her door a few minutes later.

He smiled as she turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open. “Sounds as if you have mixed feelings about Nick,” he commented.

Vanessa kicked off her high heels the moment she’d crossed the threshold. “I have no feelings about Nick,” she argued, facing Paul but keeping her eyes averted. “Absolutely none.”

Her boss chuckled. “Good night, Van,” he said, and then he was gone, striding back down the front walk to his car.

Vanessa locked the door, slipped out of her velvet evening coat and bent to pick up her discarded shoes. Her calico cat, Sari, curled around her ankles, meowing.

Sari had already had her supper, and even though she had a weight problem, Vanessa couldn’t turn a deaf ear to her plaintive cries. She set her purse, coat and shoes down on the deacon’s bench in the hallway and allowed herself to be herded into the kitchen.

Even before she flipped on the lights, she saw the blinking red indicator on the answering machine. Vanessa was in no mood to deal with relationships of any kind that night; she wanted to feed the cat and go to bed. Her own innate sense of responsibility—some calamity could have befallen Rodney or her aging grandparents—made her cross the room and push the play button.

She was opening a can of cat food and scraping it into Sari’s dish when Parker’s voice filled the kitchen.

The first message was relatively polite, but, as the tape progressed, Parker grew more and more irate. Finally he flared, “Don’t you ever stay home? Damn it, call me!”

Vanessa had washed her hands and was about to turn off the machine when Nick’s voice rolled over her like a warm, rumbling wave. “You’re a terrific lady,” he said. “I’m looking forward to seeing you again tomorrow.”

Vanessa moaned faintly and sank into a chair, propping her chin in both hands. With a few idle words, the man had melted the muscles in her knees.

“Good night,” he said, his voice deep and gentle, and then the tape was silent.

After a few moments of sheer bewilderment, Vanessa got up and checked the locks on both the front and back doors. Then, taking her coat and shoes with her, Sari padding along beside her, she went upstairs.

She hung her coat carefully in the closet and put the shoes back into their plastic box. Soon she was in bed, but sleep eluded her.

She kept imagining what it would be like to lie beside Nick DeAngelo, in this bed or any other, and have him touch her, kiss her, make love to her. Just the thought made her ache.

Sometime toward morning, Vanessa slept. The telephone awakened her to a full complement of sunshine, and she grappled for the receiver, losing it several times before she managed to maneuver it into place.

“Hello,” she accused, shoving one hand through her rumpled hair and scowling.

After knowing him such a short time, it seemed impossible, but she recognized Nick’s laughter. “Don’t tell me, let me guess. You’re not a morning person.”

Vanessa narrowed her eyes to peer at the clock and saw that it was nearly nine o’clock. She was glad Nick had called, she decided, because that gave her a chance to cancel their date. “Listen, I’ve been thinking—”

He cut her off immediately. “Well, stop. You’ve obviously in no condition for that kind of exertion. I’ll be over in ten minutes to ply you with coffee.”

“Nick!” Vanessa cried, afraid of being plied. But it was too late, he’d already hung up and she had no idea what his home telephone number was.

Grumbling, she got out of bed, stumbled into the bathroom and took a shower. By the time Nick arrived, she was clad in jeans and a blue bulky knit sweater and was fully conscious.

She greeted him at the front door, holding a cup of therapeutically strong coffee in one hand. “You didn’t give me a chance to tell you on the phone, but…”

Nick grinned in that disarming way he had and assessed her trim figure with blatant appreciation. “Good, you’re dressed,” he said, walking past her into the house.

“You expected me to be naked?” Vanessa wanted to know.

He laughed. “I’m allowed my share of fantasies, aren’t I?”

Vanessa shook her head. Nick was impossible to shun. He was wearing jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, and he had the look of a man who knew where he was going to spend that chilly, sun-washed Saturday. “Come in, come in,” she chimed wryly as he preceded her down the hallway to the kitchen. “Don’t be shy.”

He grinned at her over one shoulder. “I’ve never been accused of that,” he assured her.

Vanessa had no doubt he was telling the truth. She gave up. “Where are we going?”

“Running,” he said. “Then I thought we’d take in a movie….”

Vanessa was holding up both hands in a demand for silence. “Wait a minute, handsome—rewind to the part about running.”

Nick dragged his languorous brown eyes from the toes of her sneakers to the crown of her head. “Bad idea? You certainly look like someone who cares about fitness.”

She sighed and poured her coffee into the sink. “Thank you—I think.”

“I guess we could skip running—just for today,” he said, stepping closer to her.

Vanessa’s senses went on red alert, and she leaped backward as though he’d burned her. “On second thought, running sounds like a great idea,” she said, in a squeaky voice, embarrassed. “You seem to have a lot of—of extra energy.”

He favored her with slow, sensuous grin. “Oh, believe me,” he said with quiet assurance, “I do.”

Vanessa swallowed. It was beyond her how accepting a single blind date could get a person into so much trouble. She swore to herself that the next time Janet and Paul wanted to introduce her to someone, she was going to hide in the cellar until the danger passed.

“Relax,” Nick said, approaching and taking her shoulders into his big, gentle hands. “You are one tense individual, Value Van.”

Vanessa blinked. “What did you call me?”

“I’ve gotten kind of caught up in this cable marketing thing,” he replied, his dark eyes twinkling. “I thought you should have a professional nickname, like your friend Markdown Mel. The possibilities are endless, you know—there’s Bargain Barbara, for instance, and Half-price Hannah…”

Vanessa began to laugh. “I never know whether to take you seriously or not.”

He bent his head and kissed her, innocently and briefly. “Oh, you should take me seriously, Van. It’s the rest of your life that needs mellowing out.”

She gave him a shove. “Let’s go running,” she said.

They drove to the nearest park in Nick’s Corvette. He led the way to the jogging path and immediately started doing stretching exercises.

Vanessa eyed him ruefully, then began, in her own awkward fashion, to follow suit. “One thing about dating a jock,” she ventured to say, breathing a little hard as she tried to keep up with his bends and stretches, “a girl stays skinny, no matter what.”

Nick started off down the path after rolling his eyes once, and Vanessa was forced to follow at a wary trot. “Are you saying that I’m not a fun guy?” he asked over one shoulder.

“What could be more fun than this?” Vanessa countered, already gasping for breath. She’d dropped her exercise program during the divorce, and the effects of her negligence were painfully obvious.

When they reached a straight stretch, Nick turned and ran backward, no trace of exertion visible in his manner or voice. “So, how long have you been a member of the loyal order of couch potatoes?” he asked companionably.

“I hate you,” huffed Vanessa.

“That really hurts, Value Van,” Nick replied. “See if I ever buy another pair of Elvis Presley bookends from you.”

There was grass alongside the pathway, and Vanessa flung herself onto it, dragging air into her lungs and groaning. She couldn’t believe she was there in the park, torturing herself this way when she could have slept in until noon and sent out for Chinese food.

Nick did not keep running, as she’d expected. Instead he flopped down on the cold grass beside her and said, “I appreciate the offer, but we haven’t known each other long enough.”

Vanessa gave him a look and clambered to her feet. “Tired so soon?” she choked out, jogging off down the pathway.

At the end of the route, which Vanessa privately thought of as The Gauntlet, the ice-blue Corvette sat shining in the autumn sunlight. She staggered toward it and collapsed into the passenger seat while Nick was still cooling down.

When he slid behind the wheel, she barely looked at him. “What did I do to Janet to make her hate me like this?” she asked.

Nick chuckled and started the car. “I’ll answer that when I’ve had a shower.”

Vanessa’s eyes flew open wide. Showering was an element she hadn’t thought about, even though it seemed perfectly obvious now.

Nick’s expression was suddenly serious. “Relax, Van,” he said. “It’s a private shower, and you’re not invited.”

To her everlasting chagrin, Vanessa blushed like a Victorian schoolgirl. She was a reserved person, but not shy. She wondered again what it was about this man that circumvented all the normal rules of her personality and made her act like someone she didn’t even know.

“It never crossed my mind that you might expect me to share a shower with you,” Vanessa lied, her chin at a prim angle, her arms folded.

“Liar,” Nick replied with amused affection.

He lived in a condominium on the top floor of one of the most historic buildings in Seattle, and the place had a quiet charm that surprised Vanessa. She had expected a playboy’s den with lots of velvet, chrome and smoked glass, but the spacious rooms were decorated in earth tones instead. There was an old-fashioned fireplace in the living room and a beautiful Navaho rug graced the wall above the cushy beige corduroy sofa.

“Make yourself at home,” Nick said casually, ducking through a doorway and leaving Vanessa to stand there alone, feeling sweaty and rumpled and totally out of place.

She went to the window and looked out on busy Elliot Bay. A passenger ferry was chugging into port, large and riverboatlike, and Vanessa smiled. In the distance, she heard the sound of running water and an off-key rendition of a current popular song.

The view kept her occupied for what seemed like a long time, but when Nick didn’t return after ten minutes, Vanessa began to grow uneasy. She approached the big-screen television in one corner of the room and pushed the On button.

Immediately the Midas Network leaped out at her in living color, life-size. She turned the set off again and began to pace, tempted to sneak out before this nonrelationship with Nick De-Angelo grew into something she couldn’t handle.

She was just reaching for the doorknob when his voice stopped her.

“Don’t go,” he said quietly. “I’m not going to hurt you in any way, Vanessa. I swear it.”

She couldn’t move, couldn’t drop her hand to her side or turn the knob and make her escape.

“Something really important is happening here,” he went on. “Can’t you feel it?”

Vanessa let her forehead rest against the cool panel of the door. “Yes,” she confessed in a strangled voice, “and that’s what scares me.”

He stepped closer to her and laid his hands very gently on her shoulders. She was filled with the scent of his clean hair, his freshly washed skin. “I won’t let anything happen that you’re not ready for,” he promised, and when he turned her around to face him, Vanessa was powerless to resist.

She looked up at him with eyes full of trust and fear, and he let his hands drop to her waist. He was careful not to hold her too close, and yet she was achingly aware of his total, unreserved masculinity.

“I’m going to kiss you,” he said matter-of-factly. “That is, if you’re ready.”

She slid her arms around his neck and stood on tiptoe, exhilarated and, at the same time, terrified. “I’m ready,” she answered, her mouth only a whisper away from his.

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