Whatever Comes

Tris’s refusal was said flatly: “Don’t even consider it.”

“It would be such a joy to see some faces as I told it. I could do it confidentially. I would limit it to two. Mab being one.”

“I’d fire you.”

Jamie gave a gusty sigh. “No humor. None at all...at all.”

* * *

So two days later, when the reporter/publicist meeting was scheduled, Tris drove a rented car to the hotel. The pressure in his life too seldom allowed him to be alone—there was simply never enough time—so he took advantage of any opportunity that came his way to be free for a while.

He kept a house in the canyon country, north and west of downtown Los Angeles. With the badge for the meeting delivered to him, there had been a picture of Amabel Clayton. She was “an interesting experience for any man.” Those were Jamie’s words. How could anyone who looked as she did be the shrew she must be?

He arrived at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, which is located on Wilshire Boulevard, west of Los Angeles, in Beverly Hills, seven miles from the Pacific. Tris handed the car keys to an attendant to park it in one of the garages. Then Tris went into the lobby, as he pinned on his badge and followed the discreet signs to the International Ballroom where the meeting was held.

There were close to a couple of hundred people in the crowd. There were more men than women. There was the subdued roar of conversation and laughter for they were almost all acquainted. It was their business to know each other.

Even in that crowd, she wasn’t hard to find. She looked like any man’s summer idyll, as Jamie had promised. It was a while before Tris could quit staring. It was odd the number of men who stood out of her reach but who looked at her with a kind of vulnerability. Look but don’t touch seemed a tested rule for her. So although some women spoke to Amabel, all of the men did at least greet her. She was natural and courteous in her responses. Why did Tris find that so strange?

With the cover story firmly in his mind as a shield against her, Tris worked his way through the throng to her as he considered approaches. It had been a good many years since he’d had to approach any woman. All he’d had to do was say okay.

He tried one of the classics deliberately. He wanted to hear her screech. Pretending to be joggled, and with perfect timing, he spilled his drink right into the open collar of her blue shirtwaist dress. He apologized, “I am sorry,” as he handed her a clean handkerchief.

“Don’t worry.” She busied herself with the mop-up. “I buy my clothes with this sort of thing in mind. But being only February, it is a little early in the season for an unexpected dousing.”

Her reaction puzzled him. She was lovely, courteous and kind. That wasn’t his mental image of Amabel Clayton. He said, “Back home in Indiana,” and he had to prevent himself from singing the line, “we don’t drink cocktails this early in the day.”

She held her dress out from her very nice chest and inquired, “What do you drink in the early afternoon?” And she raised those black fringed, blue eyes up to his and smiled just a little. Then she sobered and her eyes went out of focus as the most amazing shiver touched her core.

Without really paying any attention, he replied, “Lemonade under a sycamore tree.”

“In February?” Her reporter’s training saved her from the bemusement. “In Indiana? The spring thaw hasn’t even started.”

“February in southern California is a fooler. You forget how the top half of the country lives. In February all us Indiana farmers are down yonder, by the Rio Grande, sitting in the sun in trailer lots. They call us Winter Texans or Snow Birds, since we tend to migrate like birds to escape the northern winter.”

“How did a farmer get in here?” She moved one hand to indicate the ballroom and that meeting.

“Yes. Well.” He thought rapidly and replied, “I never actually farmed. I went to school and learned to read and write, and I’m a reporter in the metropolis of Fort Wayne, home of Mad Anthony Wayne, who licked the British.”

Taking anyone called Mad Anthony’s heroic deed literally, she expressed great astonishment. “He licked them? Why would he do a gross thing like that?”

Quite gravely he replied, “It wasn’t with his tongue, it was in the War of the Revolution.”

“And he was mad?”

“Probably because the British weren’t being nice.” He considered her damp dress. “He’s the one who said, ‘My country, right or wrong.’”

Fully realizing she was playing straight-woman for him, she asked, “Why did he say that?”

“More than likely his country was doing something he didn’t entirely agree with.”

“On occasion, I’ve had that very feeling.”

“We are members of the same club.”

It wasn’t until then that she laughed. “Are you new on the Coast?”

“And new in the world of journalism,” he agreed with complete honesty. Then he told her, “My name is Tristan Roald, but since that sounds like a contender for the throne, I’m called Tris. And on occasion that comes out Chris with a good many of the uninitiated.” Since it really was his name, his eyelids didn’t flicker, nor did his eyes shift even the least little bit, as he watched to see how deep her research had been, and if she’d discovered that fact about Sean Morant.

“Tristan Roald sounds like a Viking.”

“We tend to take that very seriously.” He nodded with the words quite emphatically. “Plunder and all that sort of thing.”

“I’m Amabel Clayton and I’m—”

He interrupted in his lazy, husky voice. “You wrote the cover story on the Rocker. Uh, what’s his name.”

She supplied the name easily. “Sean Morant. If you don’t recall that name, you must not be into Rock.”

Adroitly he avoided a reply by saying, “The cover was impressive. Do you really think he managed so many women in that short a time?” He began laying his trap.

“Pictorial proof.”

“You don’t think it might have been just circumstances? That he’s an actual innocent?”

She grinned.

To cover his face, he scratched his nose, since she was looking at him with thoughtful eyes, but he went on, “The pictures were taken,” he conceded. “But he might not have even been very well acquainted with those women.” He pretended the comment was casual. He had to hear her reply.

“I believe it’s the exactness in the duplication of the pictures that got to me. He always looks the same, his clothes, his designer-tossed hair, his expression of boredom. Only the woman is different. It’s time for another picture. The time lapse seems almost measured. It’s as if Sean yawns and grumbles, ‘It’s time for me to be photographed with another bimbo.’”

He smoothed a hand over his hair to be sure it was all still neat and orderly, and he questioned with raised brows, “Bimbo?”

Amabel groaned. “I had to interview them. One does wonder why he chooses them.” Then she had the grace to blush rather vividly and sputter, “Well, I mean, I suppose...” And she just coughed and tried to change the subject.

But he wouldn’t allow it. “You think he just chooses a body for...physical reasons.” It wasn’t a question.

“It’s not for conversation.” Her reply was so positive on that score that it sounded a little heated.

“Do you have an unrequited desire for Sean’s body?” His eyes were almost hidden by his lashes, but she could see the glints of golden laughter in them.

“I have the strangest feeling I know you.”

“Ever been to Fort Wayne?” he inquired with honest candor.

“No. I am going to Indianapolis in March for a Women’s Seminar—”

“I’ll be just north of there, in Fort Wayne. Where is the seminar?”