Kiss Me, Kelly Page 4

She hadn’t expected him to take a congenial approach to their outing. She’d envisioned him showing up with his arrogant grin and a superior attitude because once again, he’d backed her into a situation from which she couldn’t disentangle herself. The flowers threw her for a loop.

  “Thanks. They’re pretty,” she said, taking the bouquet. She motioned for him to enter, then turned to follow him. With new eyes she looked around her home at the eclectic array of furniture, the pictures and memorabilia that had accumulated in the apartment that had sheltered three generations of Branigans. For the first time in her life she couldn’t suppress the wish that the Branigans had settled on the other side of the river…like someplace on Park Avenue.

  Sensitive to his impressions of who she was and where she came from, she feebly motioned for him to make himself comfortable. “I’ll put these in water.”

  “Is the gym far from here?” he asked, following her into the small, rarely used kitchen as if he’d done so a thousand times. He seemed to feel at home in her environment, seeing none of its age or shabbiness. Whether he was merely being polite or truly couldn’t see it, Kelly couldn’t tell. She felt oddly relieved just the same. “I let Shaw take the car,” he went on, “because he said you had one. But I came back early in case you were planning on my having a car. We can take a taxi if you don’t feel like driving, though. What time is it, anyway? I…my watch is broken.”

  She smiled reluctantly as she watched him tap vigorously on the crystal of his black-banded wrist-watch, then hold it up to his ear. She hadn’t expected him to be so eager to please her either. Or to worry about inconveniencing her. Most of the men she knew wouldn’t have cared one way or the other.

  “It’s not far and we have plenty of time,” she said quietly, filling one of her mother’s vases with water and removing the plastic wrap from the flowers. “We can walk.”

  “It’s hot. If you think there’s a chance that we’ll melt before we get there, we can always stay here. I have a few ideas about what we can do to give our cardiovascular systems a good workout.” He grinned suggestively. “And we wouldn’t even have to leave your bedroom.”

  The real Elgin Baker had returned and Kelly came back down to earth with a sharp thud.

  “See. That’s your problem, Elgin,” she said, placing an unkind emphasis on his name. “You have so few ideas and they’re all warped.”

  “Warped? Meeting a beautiful woman and wanting to take her to bed isn’t warped. It’s healthy and natural.” He paused. “Being attracted to someone and pretending you’re not—now that is warped.”

  She plunked the vase of flowers down in the center of the large round kitchen table, refusing to get further involved in the conversation. She wasn’t denying her attraction for him. That would be like denying she was alive. She was rejecting the temptations he presented because she knew what the consequences of her actions would be—a lifetime of anxiety and fear, a forever of uncertainty, loneliness, pain, and a broken heart. What man was worth that?

  “Look,” she said, “if you don’t want to play racquetball with me—just racquetball—then say so.” She brushed past him as she strode back to the door to pick up her gym bag. “There’s always someone around who’s willing to play a game or two.”

  “I’m sure there is,” he said, and followed her out the door, down the back steps to the rooms behind the bar, and out onto Seventh Avenue.

  The bright July sun was probably shining in blue skies somewhere, Kelly guessed, but all she saw was a hazy, overcast sky, under which the air was stale, stagnant, and sweltering. A gust of coastal wind was a blessing from God during the summer months, and she could have used a little of His benevolence as her long strides carried her toward Carroll Street.

  “You know,” Elgin said, casually inspecting the diverse architecture of the row houses, as if they were taking a leisurely stroll along the uneven walkway instead of sprinting by at a breath-draining jog-walk, “sometimes I’ll be driving along some street and forget where I am. It’s sort of amazing the way big cities resemble one another.”

  Urban development was a safe enough subject to discuss, Kelly thought. She slowed her steps and glanced at her companion.

  “Have you always lived in Chicago?” she asked, more interested than she’d ever show outwardly.

  “Yep. As a matter of fact, I grew up in an apartment that looks a lot like yours, in a neighborhood that looks a little like this one.” A soft sentimentality in his voice reflected his attitude about his past.

  “And you wouldn’t have had it any other way,” she said, elaborating on his thoughts.

  He looked speculative. “Oh, I don’t know. I suppose if I’d grown up on a ranch in Montana, it wouldn’t have been much different. You grow up wherever you are. I had a really normal childhood, but it would have been equally normal in Montana, I guess. Why? Did you hate growing up here?” he asked. He looked genuinely interested and receptive, and something inside Kelly responded in kind.

  “No. I mean, I never really thought about it. Growing up in Brooklyn is like being raised Catholic. It becomes as much a part of you as your hair. And you can cut it and dye it and curl it and cover it up with a hat, but underneath it’s still your hair, you’re still Catholic, and you’ll always be from Brooklyn.” She glanced at him. He was still listening intently, and she ventured on. “I’ve occasionally wondered what it would be like to live somewhere else. What my life would be like, you know? Sometimes I wish I were anywhere but here.”

  She heard a soft chuckle and once again looked to see if he was taking her in earnest, or if he was going to mock her words.

  “Everyone does that,” he said, glancing down at her. The understanding she saw in his expression altered his entire demeanor. She felt safe and un-threatened. He made it so easy for her to let down her guard and forget that he was someone she didn’t want to get involved with. “They call it The Great Getaway Fantasy. You think living on a deserted beach in Bora Bora is the only way you’ll ever be happy, but the truth is, we’d be bored stiff. Unless, of course, we went together.”

  He waggled his eyebrows in a humorous fashion. His remark had been made as pure levity, to lighten the somberness growing between them. She couldn’t take it any other way, and she laughed.

  “Your brain’s stuck in your zipper, Elgin,” she informed him mildly. When he laughed, too, she continued. “So, when you were happily growing up in Chicago, did you dream of being a cop?”

  “Hell, no. At first I was going to be the Bears’ quarterback, but I developed an allergy to pain and decided I’d be rich instead. Maybe buy The Loop and live off the real estate profits.”

  “What happened?”

  “I let my dad talk me into going to law school.”

  “You have a law degree?” He nodded and she was impressed. “Why didn’t you go into private practice? Why a cop?”

  Oh, why a cop, indeed? she thought. Didn’t he know what being a cop meant? Obviously he did, which only increased her confusion. Didn’t he know what he was risking?

  “Private practice was out of the question,” he said. “I wanted to be rich, but it wouldn’t have been worth having my old man on my back every day for the rest of my life. Oh no.” He looked heavenward at the mere thought of it. “You see, where you come from a long line of cops, I come from a long line of poor do-gooders. Almost all of them lawyers. Legal aid attorneys, public defenders, parole board officers. Anything depressing and not profitable.”

  He shook his head and smiled at her. “I couldn’t see myself living like that, but I couldn’t exactly become Perry Mason or a big-time corporate lawyer and keep peace with my family. So I pushed my rebellion as far as I could without going to war and switched to the other side of the justice system.”

  “Prosecution.”

  “Right. I figured I’d start out as this lowly clerk in the D.A.’s office, and by the time all my relatives were dead or too old to notice, I’d be the star prosecutor, on my way to becoming state’s at
torney, or even the governor.” As an aside he added, “Sincere political ambitions are acceptable.”

  “So, Mr. Policeman, what happened to your political career?” she asked, soaking up everything he said like a dry sponge. He seemed so confident and in control, she was amazed his plans for his life had gone as haywire as the plans she’d had for her own.

  “I don’t know,” he said with a sigh, looking truly bewildered. “I hadn’t even finished my internship in the D.A.’s office before I realized that my side wasn’t going to get anywhere if the police didn’t get some help. They were constantly blowing collars and screwing up evidence because of one legal technicality or another. And it wasn’t like they weren’t trying. They just didn’t seem to know any better. I was only going to join the force long enough to show them how to do it right, and then I was going to get rich, like I planned.”

  “And how long ago was that?”

  “About ten years.” He smiled wryly. “Cops are very slow learners.”

  Cops and bartenders, she thought, taking his story to heart. It fit perfectly. They both had had dreams for their futures, yet had gotten sidetracked by something else. Still, in a strange sort of way, she sensed they had skidded, slipped, and fallen into the places meant for them.

  She guessed she’d have to twist his arm to get him to admit he wasn’t nearly as money hungry and egotistical as he claimed. There was a bigger story to his being a police officer than he let on, but he didn’t need to tell her. She was satisfied with simply knowing that there was more to Elgin Baker than he cared to impart to the world in general…and she couldn’t help but like him for it. In fact, there were a lot of things about him she couldn’t help liking.

  “What about you?” he asked. “When you were a cute little redheaded girl, did you play with dolls or did you run the local lemonade stand?”

  She laughed. “I did have a lemonade stand, but being a bartender was the last thing I wanted to grow up to be.”

  “You wanted to be a cop like your father, like his father before him, like his father before him, like—”

  “No! That didn’t even make the list. I wanted to be a nurse, then later I was going to be a doctor. I grew up liberated, you know.”

  “I noticed. What happened?”

  “I can’t stand the sight of blood and I hate whiny people. If the patients could suffer in silence and never complain, I could have been a medical doctor, but…”

  “So you jumped from medicine to bartending. That sounds a little Freudian to me,” he said, adding dramatic suspicion to his tone.

  “Oh, what do you know about Freud?” She nudged his arm with hers, hoping to dispel the suggestive, analytical expression on his face. Instead, she felt the heat of his arm against hers. The light covering of dark hair brushed her skin, and she jerked back as if it had shocked her. She looked at Elgin, but he didn’t seem affected.

  “I know a lot about Freud,” he said, laughing, the light in his eyes teasing her. “I believe choosing to be a bartender has something to do with repressed sexuality and providing one’s self with the opportunity to meet someone from Chicago who could help—”

  “Will you stop?” she said, laughing too. It was either laugh with him or scream at him, and she was beginning to like him too much to do that. So, flat out, she told him, “Lord, but you’re an impossible man.”

  “I know. But I’m growing on you, aren’t I?”

  “Right. Like a fungus.”

  “Penicillin’s a fungus and it saves lives.”

  “I thought it was a mold,” she said absently, considering his words.

  “Same family.”

  Could he save her life? she wondered. Not that her life needed saving, but it certainly needed a change, a shot in the arm. Everything was the same. Days fused together until it was impossible to tell one from the other. She wasn’t a crazy, wild person who needed a string of diversions to keep her happy, but constant repetition was monotonous.

  She liked Elgin Baker—very much. What harm could come from opening up to him a little, from enjoying what he had to offer her? She wasn’t forgetting his profession, but he wasn’t a permanent thing. It wasn’t as if he’d be around long enough for anything serious to develop between them. He was here now, gone in a day or two. What could happen?

  His voice startled her. “What?” she asked.

  He frowned at the passing garbage truck for interrupting their discussion, then turned his attention back to her.

  “I said, I’d still like to hear why you became a bartender. Someone like you could be anything.”

  She appreciated the nonsexual admiration in his voice.

  “It’s a little like your being a cop,” she said. “It was going to be a temporary job, until I could find something else in the city. I have a degree in sociology, but I graduated during a period of government cutbacks and I couldn’t get a job with social services or welfare or any of the hospitals.” She shrugged. “My mother needed help in the bar and with my brothers gone, I seemed the logical choice.”

  “So temporary became full-time, and now you run it on your own.”

  “Yes. For now. And it’s not so bad. Most of the time I like it. I’m used to it. It’s something I’m good at and comfortable with. I grant you, it’s no great strain on my brain, but I like most of the people who come in. I like talking to them and listening to them. Who knows? Someday I might title a thesis, A Society Within A Society: The Neighborhood Bar.” She shrugged again. “It’s not a bad job…and it beats being a bag lady.”

  His brows rose and he nodded his agreement. He seemed to be considering what she said as they stood on the corner waiting for the light to change.

  “Most of your customers are cops, though,” he said as they started across the street. “I thought you hated cops.” He sounded confused.

  “Me?” She laughed. “Everyone I know is a cop. Or married to one. I don’t hate cops.”

  “Tommy said you never get involved with cops.”

  “I don’t. Not romantically, anyway. It’s safer that way.”

  “Why safe?”

  She frowned, searching for the words she’d need to explain the way she felt. She shortened her stride while she concentrated, and he shortened his as he watched her. Soon they stopped, facing each other on the sidewalk.

  “I have a great respect for the police force,” she said, her voice soft but earnest. “They’re Don Quixotes sometimes, battling windmills. But they have good hearts, you know? They believe in what they’re doing. How many of those guys on the stock exchange believe in what they’re doing and that what they’re doing is noble and good? How many people in the garment district go to work every day because they firmly believe everyone is entitled to wear clothes? None of them. If you can’t buy their clothes, you don’t wear them.

  “It’s not like that with cops,” she went on. “There’s only one set of laws and everyone’s entitled to protection. It’s the worst job in the world. You couldn’t pay other people to do it. But cops do it because they believe in it.”

  Elgin released a soft whistle and shook his head. “I think there’s a little Don Quixote in you, too, babe. You make them sound like saints and you know better.”

  “But that’s exactly it, Elgin,” she said vehemently. “They’re simply men and women with as many faults and as much greed as everyone else…except they’re cops.”

  “What about the cops that give in to their greed and their faults?”

  She gave him an indignant look. “Those aren’t cops. They’re crooks. I’m talking about good cops, like my dad and my brothers and Tommy. Like my grandfather was, in his own way. They’re honest, dedicated men.”

  “And that’s not the kind of man you want to get romantically involved with,” he concluded. “You want an unprincipled sleaze.”

  She laughed, thinking that she hadn’t enjoyed someone as much as she did Elgin Baker in a long, long time.

  “Not exactly. There are lots of good, decent men that
aren’t cops. I want one of them.”

  His frown deepened. “Well, what’s wrong with getting involved with a cop?” he asked, stymied. “Like me, for instance.”

  Sure that he was teasing her again, she grinned. “You want a list?”

  “Yes.” He was serious.

  “They go off to work with a gun every day, and sometimes they never come home,” she said, matching her mood to his. “Sometimes they come home crippled. They’re always on duty. They drag their job around like a ball and chain. They’re never home when you need them—and…they tell lousy jokes.”

  He was silent as he tried to read the emotions that flickered like warning signals in her eyes. He looked so hard and so deeply, she had to lower her gaze to her sneakers, to keep him from seeing straight into her soul.

  The tension between them crackled like thunder before a storm. She had no idea what Elgin was thinking, but she knew her own mind. It was a mass of confusion. She was drawn to Elgin in a way that made her forget the expression on her mother’s face every time her father had gone off to work in the mornings…and then the night he didn’t come home and every night after that. Angie lived in constant fear of losing Tommy. Her sisters-in-law were the same way. Kelly didn’t want to live like that, but Elgin made it too easy not to think about it.

  It was a long while before he reached out and tilted her face up to his. He smiled the smile that invariably seemed to terminate in a twisting sensation in her belly. He perused her face one more time with eyes that were both caring and resolute.

  “You’re a bright and beautiful woman, Kelly Branigan,” he said in a quiet, determined voice. “But you don’t know diddly about love.”

  “Oh, yeah?” she said, bristling automatically.

  With his fingers still beneath her chin, he held her still and placed a sure kiss on her lips. “Yeah.”

  Four

  KELLY BRANIGAN. BAKER had never met anyone like her. She had a heavenly face and a body designed by the devil to tempt saint and man alike. She was quick-witted and intelligent. She played racquetball like Godzilla.