Fire and Ice

If she had hoped to embarrass him, she didn’t succeed. He leaned back in his chair, sipping his scotch, watching her with unblinking dark eyes. “We make a superior line of undergarments,” he replied. His gaze fell once again on the bodice of her dress. “Along with a lightly padded bra that would do wonders for you.”

The ginger ale sloshed out of the glass all over her napkin and part of the tablecloth, while her face flushed for the first time in five years.

“You’ll have to excuse God for my shortcomings; he threw me together between wars,” she growled.

He flexed his broad shoulders, and she noticed for the first time the elegant cut of his evening clothes, and how well black and white suited him. He was a fashion plate—not quite handsome, not really young—but hardly over the hill, either. Margie judged him to be about forty, or slightly under. Those hard lines in his face were the marks of high pressure, not age. He had the look of a human bulldozer.

“Why isn’t your sister here?” he asked coldly.

Margie also leaned back, staring at him. “Jan didn’t give me any explanations. She asked me to meet her here at seven and hung up. You know as much about it as I do. Probably more,” she added wickedly. “I understand you tell your brother what clothes to put on every morning when he gets up. Do you also tell him which girls to date?”

His head tilted slightly to one side and his eyes narrowed. “Shall I be blunt?” he asked quietly. “Your sister would fit into my family the way a dormouse would fit into a cat convention. My world—and Andrew’s—is best described as a social round of civilized warfare. Your sister, from what I’ve seen, couldn’t fight her way out of a domestic dispute.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Margie replied thoughtfully. “She used to play tackle football when we were kids, and she still tells me what to do.”

“You look as if you could use some guidance,” he replied with maddening carelessness, staring pointedly at the dress.

“It’s a designer dress,” she returned.

“It would probably look better on the designer.”

“He’s a man.”

“Exactly.”

She took a deep breath and her eyes glittered. “Well, Mr. Undergarment Tycoon, you’ll just have to excuse me. It’s pretty obvious Jan got me here to meet you, and now that I’ve had that dubious honor, I’m going home.”

She started to stand up, but a steely hand caught her wrist and jerked her back down. She was startled as much by the unexpected action as by the tingle of pleasure that ran up her arm at his touch.

“Not yet,” he said in a deep, low tone. “My brother isn’t marrying your sister. I’ll see to it.”

“I couldn’t be more pleased,” she replied hotly. “Because I don’t want bad blood in my family, either!”

“Watch it, honey. I bite,” he cautioned.

“On the neck?” she asked with a venomous smile.

“Andy and I are going down to Florida to visit our mother for a few weeks,” he mused. “That should cool his ardor. And I don’t think there’s much danger of your sister following him.”

“Why?” Margie demanded. “Because she’s a secretary with a low bank balance?”

“Something like that.”

“For your information,” she said softly, “I can afford to charter her a plane to Florida if that’s what she wants. And I will. Not that I want Andy for a brother-in-law, you understand,” she added. “But because I don’t like stuffed shirts with big bank accounts telling my family what to do.”

His eyes were calculating. “Drawing battle lines?” he asked softly. “I’ve never lost a skirmish, Miss Banon.”

“My name isn’t Banon,” she said stiffly. “It’s Silver.”

He cocked an eyebrow, glancing at her ringless left hand. “My condolences to your husband, although I’d bet good money that you’re no longer living with him.” He laughed shortly when she blushed. “On the button, I presume?” He sat forward, leaning his forearms on the table, and his eyes were threatening. “I don’t intend for Andy to marry your sister, regardless of whether or not there’s money in your family. It wouldn’t work. I don’t want another broken marriage to add to my mother’s heartaches.”

Her own eyes went to his ringless left hand and she smiled demurely. “No longer living with your wife?” she asked.

His face went harder, if that was possible. “I rue the day I agreed to let Andrew manage the Atlanta branch of the company,” he said coldly, getting gracefully to his feet. “But fortunately, it’s a problem I can solve. Keep out of it, Mrs. Silver. I won’t tolerate your interference.”

“What will you do, Mr. Van Dyne, honey, have me flogged?” she asked with a sweet smile. “Why don’t you pack your little ole carpetbag and go back up Nawth where you belong?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “If you’re going to toss old history at me, Silver, you’d better remember who won that war. Ciao.” And he walked away, leaving her with the bill.

* * *

“Leaving me to pay the bill,” she grumbled when Jan returned to the Victorian house she shared with Margie. “Calling me names, threatening to break up you and Andy…what kind of man is he?”

“A law unto himself.” Jan sighed, dropping down on the couch. “Oh, Margie, I had such high hopes that if I didn’t show up with Andy, you and Cannon might hit it off….”

“Cannon?” she asked, arching her eyebrows.

“That’s his name, although most people call him `Cal,’” Jan said miserably. “I’m sorry, really I am. You see, Andy wants to invite me down to the family’s beach house in Panama City, Florida for a couple of weeks. I want to go, so that I can get to know Andy’s mother, but Cannon won’t hear of it. He’s been so dead set against our getting married, and I thought—” she glanced at Margie and grimaced “—well, I thought meeting you might change his mind. You can charm anyone when you set your mind to it. I didn’t realize you were going dressed like a hooker,” she added regretfully.

Margie struck a pose. “I must be getting better as an actress.” She grinned. “I sure convinced your future brother-in-law that my reputation was in shreds.”

“Margie!” came the groaned reply.

“Are you sure you want to marry Andy?” Margie asked with genuine concern. “Just think, you’d have to go through life having that human bulldozer order you around.”

“We wouldn’t have to see Cannon all that often,” Jan assured her. “He lives in Chicago, you know.”

She turned away, toying with a statuette on the mantle. “Is he married?” she asked carelessly.

“Not anymore. His wife was making time with just about everything in pants. He divorced her, and Andy says the only use he has for women now isn’t printable.”

“I can’t imagine any woman desperate enough to get in his bed,” Margie retorted, her eyes glittering.

“They say he’s much sought-after in Chicago,” Jan mused, watching her sister’s reaction with great interest.

“Well, he wouldn’t be in Atlanta,” Margie grumbled. “And never by me!”

Jan shook her head and frowned. Margie was a lot like Cannon Van Dyne, her sister thought, although she probably didn’t realize it. Margie hid her inner feelings under all that clowning, but she wasn’t as carefree as she pretended. Jan had been there the day Lawrence Silver died in that plane crash, and only she knew the truth about Margie’s unhappy marriage. Margie had avoided men ever since, except on a friendly basis. She wanted no one near enough to hurt her again.

But she seemed to be reacting to Cannon in a totally alien way. Margie wasn’t usually antagonistic, but her eyes glittered when she mentioned Andy’s brother. It was the most violent emotion she’d shown in five years.

“Cannon’s an attractive man,” Jan murmured.

“That big stone wall?” Margie turned away. “I don’t even want to talk about him. Imagine, leaving me the bill for his scotch and water, and ordering me a drink I didn’t even touch! I ought to have the bill embedded in a block of concrete and mailed to him special delivery, collect.” Her green eyes brightened. “I wonder how I could do it….”

Jan couldn’t repress a grin. Margie was incorrigible.

The jangling of the phone cut into the conversation. Jan ran for it, her eyes lighting up at once when she held the receiver to her ear.