Petals on the Wind (Dollanganger 2)

"How would you know?"

"My knees are functionally good, so I know one when I feel one--but if I could see the knee I could tell more."

"Go home and look at your wife's functional knee."

"Why are you being so hateful to me?" He narrowed his eyes. "Here I was, delighted to see you again, and you act so antagonistic."

"Pain always makes me antagonistic--are you any different?"

"I'm sweet and humble when I'm suffering, which isn't often. You get more attention that way-- and remember you threw down the challenge, not me."

"You didn't have to accept it. You could have gone along your merry way and let me go along mine."

"Now we're arguing," he said, disappointed. "You want to fight when I want to be friendly. Be nice to me. Say you're glad to see me. Tell me how much better looking I've grown since you saw me last, and how exciting you find me. Even if I don't run like the wind I have my own bag of tricks."

"I'll bet you do."

"My wife is still in that beauty spa and I've been all by my lonesome for long, long months, bored to death by living with an old lady who can't talk and can't walk, but manages to scowl every time she sees me. One evening I was just sitting before the fire, wishing someone around here would commit murder so I'd have an interesting case for a change. It's damn frustrating to be an attorney and be surrounded by nothing but happy, normal people with no suppressed emotions to erupt suddenly."

"Congratulations, Bart! Before you stands someone full of aggressive resentment and mean, hateful spite seeking revenge that will erupt--you can count on that!"

He thought I was joking, playing a cat and mouse, man and woman game, and willingly he rose to that challenge too, not at all suspicious of my real purpose. He looked me over good, stripping off my sapphire jogging suit with the sensual eyes of a man starving for what I could give. "Why did you come to live up here near me?"

I laughed. "Arrogant, aren't you? I came to take over a dance school."

"Sure you did. . . . There's New York and your home town, wherever that is, and you come here--to enjoy the winter sports as well?" His eyes insinuated the kind of indoor winter sport he had in mind, if I didn't.

"Yes, I do like all kinds of sports, inside and outside," I said innocently.

Confidently he chuckled, assuming as all conceited men do that already he'd scored a point in the only intimate game a man really wanted to play with women.

"That old lady who can't talk, d

oes she get around at all?" I asked.

"A little. She's my wife's mother. She speaks but her words come out jumbled and unintelligible to anyone but my wife."

"You leave her there all alone--is that safe?"

"She's not alone. There's a private duty nurse there with her all the time, and a staff of servants." He frowned as if he didn't like my questions, but I persisted. "Why stay there at all then, why not go and have fun while the cat's away?"

"You do have a shrewish way about you. Though I've never cared much for my mother-in-law, as she is now I feel sorry for her. And human nature being what it is, I don't trust servants to take proper care of her without a family member in the house to keep check on what's done to keep her comfortable. She's helpless and can't rise from a chair without assistance, or get out of bed unless she's lifted out. So, until my wife is home again, I'm in charge to see that Mrs. Malcolm Foxworth is not abused or neglected or stolen from."

An overwhelming curiosity came over me then. I wanted to know her first name, for I'd never heard it. "Do you call her Mrs. Foxworth?"

He hadn't understood my interest in an old lady, and tried to turn the conversation elsewhere, but I persisted. "Olivia, that's what I call her!" he said shortly. "When I was first married, I tried not to speak to her at all, to try to forget she existed. Now I use her first name; I think it pleases her, but I can't be sure. Her face is of stone, fixed in one expression--icy."

I could picture her, unmoving but for her flintstone eyes of gray. He'd told me enough. Now I could make my plans--just as soon as I found out one more small thing. "Your wife, when is she due back?"

"Why should you know?"

"I too get lonely, Bart. I have only my small son after Emma, his babysitter, goes home. So . . . I thought maybe some evening you might like to have dinner with us. . . ."

"I'll come tonight," he said immediately, his dark eyes aglow.

"Our schedule revolves around my son. We eat at five-thirty in the summer, but now that the days are shorter five is dinner time."

"Great. Feed him at five and put him to bed. I'll be there at seven-thirty for cocktails. After dinner we can get to know each other better." He met my considering look with grave intensity, as a proper attorney should. Then, because of that look we held too long, simultaneously we both broke into laughter.