Envy(100)

“Not to me it isn’t.” She spoke softly and a bit shyly. “When I really love a book, the characters become real to me. I think it stems from losing my mother at such an early age. I needed people around me, so the princes and princesses I read about became my adopted brothers and sisters.

“I lived in palaces and on pirate ships. I climbed mountain peaks and hacked my way through dark jungles. Captain Nemo’s submarine became as familiar to me as my own bedroom. The characters in my books took me along on their adventures. I laughed and cried with them. I was involved in their lives. I was privy to all their secrets. I knew their hopes and dreams as well as their fears. They became like family.”

She straightened a bent corner of one of the manuscript pages and gave a small, self-conscious, self-deprecating shrug. “I suppose that passion for fiction carried over into adulthood.”

For several ponderous moments, she kept her head down. Eventually she looked across at him. He leaned toward her and spoke very softly. “If you can get that turned on by a book, I’d like to know what else you have a passion for.”

She knew exactly what he was thinking. Their minds were moving along the same track. He could see it in the way her eyes turned smoky and hear it in the catch of her breath.

“The f word turns me on,” she whispered.

“The f word?”

“Food.”

He threw back his head and laughed. It rumbled up out of his chest and felt so good it startled him. For the first time in years, his laughter was spontaneous. It wasn’t tinged with bitterness and cynicism.

She fired a fake pistol at him. “Gotcha.”

“I concede. You’re hungry?”

“Famished.”

“Mike will never forgive me for being such a rotten host. I suppose I can put together some sort of meal, but you have to help.”

“Lead on.”

They moved into the kitchen and, working side by side, assembled BLTs. “Avocado?” he asked, as he set the microwave to cook the bacon strips.

“Yum.”

“You have to peel it. Mike says I can’t do it without bruising it.”

“One thing I like about you, Parker—”

“Only one?”

“—is that you own up to your shortcomings.”

“Well, there are so few of them, I can afford to be humble.” She threw a Frito at him.

They ate the chips out of the bag and pickles straight from the jar. “Different from what you’re used to, isn’t it?” he asked around a mouthful.

“Obviously you have me confused with a pampered, spoiled brat.”

“No,” he replied honestly. “You work too hard to fit that description.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re dedicated.”

“Yes, I am.”

“You get the job done.”

“I try.”

“So is that why you came back? Am I a job you left unfinished?”

“I came back to deliver the letter of agreement along with your signing check for fifteen thousand.”

“You never heard of Federal Express?”

“I wasn’t sure a carrier would deliver to St. Anne.”

He gave her a look that said he knew better, and she got busy picking at the crust on her bread. “Okay, we’re being honest. I wanted to make sure you were writing, Parker, and if you weren’t, to prod you along. My dad advised it.”

“Oh, so you came back because your daddy thought it was a good idea.”

“Not exactly.”

“Then why, Maris? Exactly.”

She looked over at him, opened her mouth to speak, reconsidered, and began again. “We had quarreled before I left. I wanted to clear the air between us. Otherwise our working relationship would—”

He bleated a sound like the buzzer on a TV game show. “To you this might look like the backwoods, but believe it or not, we’ve got telephones, e-mails, faxes, various methods of communication.”

“But you wouldn’t take my calls or answer my e-mails and faxes.”

“Eventually I would have.”

“I wasn’t sure.”

“Yes, you were.” He ended the parley there by holding up his hand and stopping her next argument. “You hopped that jet plane because you wanted to see me again. Admit it, Maris.”

Her chin went up defiantly, and he thought she might deny it. But she surprised him again. “All right, yes. I did. I wanted to see you.”

Folding his arms on the tabletop, he leaned toward her. “Why? Not because of my natural charm. We established early on that I have none.” He stroked his chin. “So I’m wondering, did you and your hubby have a spat? Afterward, you thought, I’ll show him. I’ll trot myself down to Hicksville and have a fling with a gimp. Is that why you came back?”

He figured she would storm from the room, retrieve her things from the guest cottage, then hightail it to her golf cart and leave him in a wake of epithets. But, again, he guessed wrong. She remained where she was and addressed him in a remarkably calm voice.

“Tell me, Parker, why do you insist on being cruel? Does being mean to people make you feel stronger and more manly? Do you use meanness to cancel out the wheelchair? Or do you deliberately piss people off in order to keep them at arm’s length? Do you hurt them before they have a chance to hurt you? If that’s the case, then I’m truly sorry for you. Indeed, for the first time since I met you, I pity you.”