Not the Marrying Kind (Destiny Bay Romances - Forever Yours) (7 page)

Her patient, Bob Gorbett, was deathly afraid of women, which made it rather ironic that he preferred Shelley to Jeff as a therapist. Bob had been coming to her for almost a year now, and he was still trying to work out the roots of his problem.

“I was telling you about my aunt,” he said, “the one who lived with us and kept tarantulas under her bed.”

She nodded. Even though she'd heard the tarantula story at least ten times, it wasn't fair of her not to pay close attention to Bob's latest version of it.

“She had these two, they would play, just like a pair of puppies, rolling and tussling. ...”

Her patient paused, and she allowed her mind to wander to Michael Hudson. She could make up an excuse and drop into Jeff's office just before Michael's hour was up. She could pretend she hadn't known he would be there, pretend she had something vital to say to Jeff.

Bob spoke again and she dragged her attention back to him. “Sometimes she put the biggest tarantula on her arm and walked around the house stroking its little back, whispering to it. If she was mad at my mother, she would give it little orders about how it should crawl into Mom's room in the night. She had a birthday party for one of them once. We all had to come and put on paper hats and sing to it. She wanted us to eat a cake she made for it. She used flies instead of raisins.”

Shelly put her hand over her mouth for just a second, restrained a shudder and glanced at the clock. Bob's hour was drawing to an end. She had to bring the session to a close.
 

“Then,” she said, “you knew you had to do something, right?”

“Right!”
 
He sat up, his eyes filled with excitement.
 
“I went in with a shoe box and stole every one of her hairy spiders. I hid them under my bed. I knew she wouldn't come into my room after them.
 
Hah!” He paused, shaking his head, grinning at the memories.
 
“She knew my snakes would get her if she tried it.”

“Bob.” She stood, smoothing out her skirt. “Your time is up now. We'll continue this next week.”

He blinked at her, his watery blue eyes placid again. “Same time next week?”

“Of course. Confirm the appointment with Maria before you leave. Okay?” She smiled at him.

He ducked his head and made for the door. He could handle anger and disdain, but friendliness made him very uncomfortable.

Now what, Shelley Carrington
? she asked herself, standing in the middle of her office, undecided.
You're not really going to go chasing into Jeff's office. You couldn't be that silly, that blatant.

No, she realized, suddenly sagging. She couldn't. It wasn't in her to throw herself at a man. She'd never done it. She never would. She wasn't even sure why she thought she might want to do it now.

Michael Hudson had excited her as no other man had ever done. He'd infuriated her, but he'd also opened a new world to her, a world she'd only glimpsed when he was with her.

A world better left untouched
, she added, scolding herself. She sank back down on her couch, holding her arms tightly about her as though to ward off unwelcome feelings.

She'd always felt so smug, so sure no man would ever drag her heart around. She'd seen her friends go through the heartache, and she'd thought her experience with Barry had been her inoculation against the disease. But here she was, letting Michael infect her mind.

Restlessly she rose and paced her office. Love. Who needed it? She'd seen the hunger for it destroy her beautiful mother-despite the fact that she'd been quite successful, an internationally known poet for a long time. She'd also been a woman who counted on her looks to pay her way, and when those looks began to fade, she'd retreated into a dreamworld of another time, another place.

It had been her mother's schizophrenia that had interested Shelley in psychology. At first everyone in the family had tried to ignore it, hoping that it would go away if they pretended it already had.
 
As a poet, her mother lived in a world of imagination, and they tried to blame it on that.
 
Maybe she was just acting out her fantasy thoughts.
 

Shelley was still in high school when her mother came down to dinner one night and announced airily that she'd been murdered during her afternoon nap, and this was really her ghost that they saw before them.
 
Shelley knew she had to do something.

She began haunting libraries, reading everything she could on every kind of mental disturbance. With what she learned she began to realize that there was help for her mother, and slowly she convinced the rest of the family to find professional guidance.
 
With proper medication, her mother was living a fairly normal life now.
 

But by the time that happened, her mother's misery had lasted for quite some time.
 
Shelley's anger at her father was still simmering deep inside.
 
He was a physician, after all.
 
Why hadn't he suspected the problem and taken care of it sooner?
 
Maybe because he was hardly ever home.
 
And maybe that was part of the entire reason behind the nightmare world her mother had to live in for so long.
 

It was ironic, really, that she had been the one to diagnose their mother.
 
Her older brother Rick and older sister Kathy had always been the stars of the family.
   
Shelley was the little sister, watching from the sidelines as Kathy became an Olympic swimmer and Rick turned into the local playboy.
 
Unlike her siblings, she’d been shy and hesitant—and that meant she was often ignored.
 
It took a long time for the others to believe what was happening.
 

Shelley was still bitter that her mother had been forced to suffer so long without help. If only they’d known more, understood better. . . . Now her life was devoted to making sure others got the sort of help they needed right from the start.

All in all, she'd been satisfied with her life. She had her friends, her work. She didn't need anything else. But one afternoon with Michael Hudson had threatened the structure of her life-style, and she hadn't been the same since.

She really should put these wild ideas out of her head, she told herself. Maybe she should get away for a while. Her friend Robin was always bringing up vacation ideas.
 
Lately she’d been pushing a trip to a new resort hotel in Southern California.
 
Shelley had been ignoring her, but maybe it was time to get away and do something different.
 
Anything to keep the temptation of Michael from overwhelming her.

Her telephone buzzed, and she stepped to her desk to answer it.
 

“Doctor Kramer would like to see you right away,” Maria said.

Shelley's heart leaped in her throat.
 

“I'll be right out,” she answered.
 

She didn't give herself time to think. Speeding out the door of her office into the lobby, she just caught sight of Michael's back as he left the building, stepping out into the parking lot. His black hair shone in the sunlight for just a second, then disappeared from sight.

She stood staring at the swinging door as it came slowly to a stop, her pulse racing, a lump in her throat. He was gone. She wasn't sure if she was disappointed or very, very relieved.

“Shelley?” Jeff was standing in the open door to his office. “Coming to see me?”

A sideways glance found Maria watching her with open interest, and Shelley managed a bright smile for the secretary. “Yes—yes, I am,” she told her colleague, and walked on into his room. “Maria said you had something to say to me.”

Jeff nodded, pointing out a chair at the far side of his desk for her to sit in. Jeff Kramer was in his mid-thirties, a dark-haired man of medium build. He and Shelley worked well together except when he was between girlfriends and began hinting that the two of them would make a great couple.
 
She knew very well there was no spark there, but since he lived in her apartment building, he was sometimes a little difficult to shake off.

“Shelley,” he would say, shaking his head sadly, “you don't know what you're missing. We could be so good together.”

The thought wasn't even mildly tempting. Jeff was a swinger who bragged about his dates and loved to appear in fancy places with famous names. Shelley could never figure out why he was remotely interested in her, and she said so every time he asked her out.

Jeff never had an answer, but Robin thought she knew what it was. “It's your shy, virginal quality,” she told Shelley. “It intrigues him.”

“Shy! I'm not a bit shy and he knows it!”

Robin had cocked her head to the side, considering. “Maybe you're not shy,” she conceded. “But your femininity is.”

Today Jeff wanted only to get down to business. “I've just seen this Michael Hudson character. I know you met him earlier this week. What did you think of him?”

If only she knew. She stifled a smile and shook her head. “I won't be much help to you, Jeff. I . . . didn't really get a fix on him.” She took a deep breath. “I imagine he'd be difficult to open up.”

“Yeah. These undercover guys are slick operators. They live on deception and they get so good at it, they don't know what reality is anymore.”

“Undercover?” She hadn't realized he would tell Jeff about that. But of course, Jeff would know. It was because he worked with the police that they'd picked him as the analyst to help keep the cover alive.

“Sure. Didn't you know? He runs sting operations on con artists. He busted a big ring of mining swindlers in Reno a few years ago. He goes in like he's a rich hick, ripe for the plucking, then he nails the crooks in the middle of their game.” Jeff frowned. “I really don't appreciate the department getting me involved this way. Setting up phony appointments. I've got real work to do. I don't have time for this.” He shot her a furtive look. “So that's why I'm going to hand him over to you.”

“Me?” Her voice came out a piercing squeak. It was impossible. But how could she get out of it?

Very simple, Shelley Carrington
, she told herself sternly.
You just say no.

When she'd first started working with Jeff two years before, she'd been so grateful to be hired, so eager to please, that she'd done any job he suggested without a murmur of protest. Over time he got quite used to slipping all the dirty work her way. She'd known for quite a while that it was high time she made a stand. This seemed like a ready-made opportunity to show Jeff she wasn't going to put up with it any longer.

“No way, Jeff.” Shaking her head almost violently, she began to back away from his desk. “You're the certified therapist.”

He came toward her, brow furrowed. “But you signed for it.”

She shook her head, refusing to be bullied. “I signed for you, though, and you know it.” She gestured toward the telephone. “Call the department if you want to get out of it. But don't throw him in my lap.”

“Thanks a lot,” Jeff grumbled, giving it up. “Just remember this next time you want a favor from me.”

She grinned at him, surprised it had been so easy. “I'll remember.” She slipped out of his office and stopped, feeling pleased with herself. Not only had she stood up to Jeff, she'd strengthened her resolve against seeing Michael again.
Good for me
, she thought.

She gave a little dancing two-step in time to the piped-in music and walked across the hall toward her own office. As she passed Maria's desk her glance fell on a book of matches in the ashtray.
 

“Smoking again, Maria?” she asked teasingly, knowing the secretary fought a perpetual battle with cigarettes,

Maria looked surprised. “What? Oh, no. Those are Mr. Hudson's.” She shuddered dramatically. “Get them out of here, would you? I hate to be reminded, especially at this time in the afternoon.”
 

Shelley obediently picked up the matches and put them in her pocket.

Back in her office, she pulled them out again and
turned them in her fingers, the bay vista grand hotel,
Newport beach.
Funny,
Shelley thought,
that was one of the hotels Robin had been talking about staying in.

Robin had been relentless lately.
 
“You need to get away from this constant grind,” she'd argued. “You need to kick off your shoes and put on a bikini. Be a woman for a change!”

And behind that, of course, Robin meant be a woman and find a man. She knew her friend worried about her. Robin had been her roommate in college, and they'd moved in together again only a few months before when Robin had separated from her husband of five years. He was on an engineering assignment in South America, but the split had come about more because of marital problems than because of job situations. Robin made no bones about needing a man in her life.

Shelley's fingers tightened on the matchbook cover. Maybe she would go with Robin after all. The thought sent her pulse racing again.

Was she crazy? Irrationally she began to laugh softly. Yes, yes, she was crazy. That was exactly it. She couldn't get the man out of her mind.

She closed her eyes and leaned back in her swivel chair. She knew he was poison, and yet she also knew that he offered an excitement she wouldn't be able to resist.

Well, never mind, she told herself. He hadn't shown any signs of wanting to see her again. And why should he?
 

Go with Robin
, she told herself,
and have a nice vacation
.
But don't expect to see Michael Hudson
.
 

She turned to look at the picture he'd stared at on her wall. Pressing her fingers to her lips, she remembered the kiss they'd shared, and something inside seemed to curl at the memory, tightening so quickly that she gasped.
 

 
Michael Hudson was about to slip into the driver’s seat of his fancy rented car when he noticed a sign and hesitated.
 
He’d just finished up a bit of investigative work on a yacht here at the marina and was about to head home, but the name on the sign caught his eye.
 
Mickey’s on the Bay.
 
Where had he heard of that before?
 
Ah yes.
 
Something overheard in a restaurant a couple of days ago.