Smoke in Mirrors(77)
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz

Cassie just stood there, hangers in hand, and looked stubborn.

Luckily Gloria answered on the second ring.

“Leo, dear, you just caught me on my way out the door.” Gloria draped her pool towel over the handlebars of the walker and switched the phone to her other ear. “I’m on my way to swim class. Everything all right?”

“My friend Cassie needs more dating advice. She’s going to a semiformal reception. She’s got a drop-dead, sexy black dress and a simple but elegant beige thing with long sleeves and a knee-length hem. She wants to know which one Henrietta would suggest.”

“I see. Your friend, you say?”

“Right. Listen, as long as you’re asking for some advice for Cassie, would you mind asking Henrietta a question for another friend of mine, too?”

“This other friend is also attending the fancy reception?”

“Yes.”

Resolve shot through Gloria. “Give me a minute to get down the hall. I’ll call you back from Herb’s.”

“I’m at Cassie’s house. Let me give you the number.”

“Hang on.”

Gloria scribbled the number on the pad beside the phone, hung up, tightened the sash of her pool robe and headed for the door with her walker.

Herb answered when she pounded loudly on his front door.

“What’s up?” He frowned. “You look like you’re on your way down to the pool.”

“Forget the pool. I’ve got more questions from my granddaughter and her friend. I think this is getting serious, Herb.”

He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got a computer class in fifteen minutes.”

“This is more important.” She maneuvered the walker through the door. “Out of my way, Herb.”

“Hold your horses.” Herb stood back to allow her into the apartment. He closed the door behind her.

She stopped, turned and sat down on the seat of the walker. She punched in the number Leonora had given her.

“Okay, shoot,” she said when Leonora came on the line. “We’re ready on this end.”

“As I said, Cassie is trying to choose between a short, sexy black dress and a little beige number,” Leonora said.

Gloria looked at Herb. “A short, sexy black dress or beige for the first friend?”

“That’s easy,” Herb said. “The sexy black dress.”

“The black one,” Gloria relayed.

Cassie came on the line. “Ask Herb if wearing a sexy black dress will conflict with my image as a nurturing female. I assume that was what we were going for with the lasagna and apple pie bit.”

Gloria looked at Herb. “She’s worried about messing up the nurturing image.”

“Time and place for everything,” Herb said. “Tell her to go with the black dress. No self-respecting man knows what the hell to do with beige.”

“Right.” Gloria spoke into the phone. “Did you hear that, Cassie? Herb says no self-respecting man knows what to do with beige.”

“All right,” Cassie said. “I’ll wear the black one. Thank Herb for me.”

Leonora came back on the line, sounding a little tense. “Tell Herb that the only dress my other friend has with her is a dark-green number with long sleeves and a cowl neckline. Does she need to go shopping?”

Gloria relayed the question to Herb.

“Tell her to go with the green,” Herb said. “It’ll be good with her eyes.”

“Herb says green,” Gloria said.

“Got it. Thanks, Gloria. And thank Herb, too.”

“I will, dear.”

Gloria ended the call, satisfaction bubbling through her. She looked at Herb.

“It’s working,” she said. “First dinner, and now a fancy reception. This Thomas Walker is definitely serious.”

“I’m serious, too,” Herb said. “When Henrietta’s name comes off that column, I want my photo to go up with my byline.”

“Columnists. You’re all prima donnas.”

Chapter Twenty-one

Leonora stood at the window and watched Thomas walk up the path to her front door. He didn’t look like a junkyard dog this evening, she thought. He looked exactly as she’d known he’d look in a suit and tie. Like a well-dressed mob boss.

The sleek, dark jacket he wore did nothing to conceal the feral quality. It only served to underscore the power in his shoulders. He looked exciting and dangerous. She was very certain that she had never seen anything so scrumptious in her entire life.

He carried a package wrapped in red foil in one hand. He saw her standing at the window and smiled. A storm of butterflies exploded in her stomach.

She was in love.

There were not a lot of moments in life like this one, she realized. Moments such as this; when awareness and anticipation and the sheer thrill of being alive all came together in an intoxicating brew that made the heart sing and the pulse beat fast; such moments were to be savored and appreciated.

You’d think she was a teenager greeting her date for the prom. But she was no high-school senior and Thomas was definitely not a boy. He was a man in every sense of the word and that knowledge filled her with deep, feminine joy.

She opened the door. “You look fabulous.”

He appeared slightly startled and then amused by the compliment.

“Amazing what a suit will do for a man,” he said.

She shook her head a single time and stepped back. “What’s amazing is what you do to that suit.”

“Thanks.” His gaze moved slowly, deliberately down the length of her green dress, all the way to her strappy high heels and then climbed back up to her mouth. “But you’re the one who looks good enough to eat. Maybe later?”

She blushed. “If you’re still hungry.”

“I will be.”

He handed her the foiled package.

“For me?” She took the gift from his hand. “Thank you.”

“Decided I’d take a lesson from my dog. He’s always giving you things.”

She tested the weight of the gift. Much too heavy to be lingerie, jewelry or note paper, she decided. Curiosity consumed her. She ripped into the red foil.

To her surprise, the paper did not come off as easily as expected. The unusual gray sealing tape held the edges of the foil securely in place.

She pried at the tape with her fingernails. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a package wrapped quite like this.”

“I did it myself. Got the paper at the card shop.”