Brief Encounters

“Wonderful party!” she said, clasping Swan’s hand. “We can’t wait for you to bring the show to the store. Everything is ready to go.” She glanced around. “Where’s your partner in crime?”

Jan clearly meant Lynne, but there was no time for Swan to explain. She was being summoned.

“It’s show time!” Gerard called, waving at her from across the wide expanse of neatly trimmed grass. He was climbing the steps to the stage and runway that he and his buddies had built.

“Good luck,” Jan said as Swan excused herself.

Swan silently rehearsed her opening lines as she headed for the stage. She wasn’t accustomed to public speaking, but the show had to go on, and she was the one who had to deliver it. Fortunately she had the organizer notes to back her up if she went blank. And this bold black dress as her shield.

Just don’t let me have to whiz, she prayed.

Gerard tapped the microphone with his hand. Three loud thumps assaulted the quiet night air. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “she is not only the designer of the hottest new line of male undies in recent memory—which will be sold exclusively through the La Bomba boutiques, I might add—she is also our master of ceremonies tonight. I give you Swan McKenna!”

Waving to the clapping crowd, Swan hurried up two creaky wooden steps to join Gerard at the podium.

“Swan McKenna!” he bellowed again. Gerard gave her a thumbs-up before disappearing behind the curtain of the makeshift stage. He’d also volunteered himself and his motley crew to run the slide show, lights and sound system.

“Thank you all for coming,” Swan said, still a little breathless. Her voice sounded loud and hollow as it came through the speakers. “Some of you may have noticed that my partner, Lynne Carmichael, isn’t with us tonight. She was called away on a business matter, but she sends her love and her gratitude for your support.”

Swan sucked in a breath and smiled. “And now, I would like to present a sneak preview of Brief Encounters’s first-ever line of male undergarments. This is our fall collection, and we have for your viewing pleasure our Romeo Underwear, our Hero Bodywear and our Machismo Activewear!”

On that cue, Gerard flipped on the sound system and the night erupted with Jerry Lee Lewis wailing out “Great Balls of Fire.” The audience applauded as three male models burst onto the stage and began their routine. Behind them, projected on a black silk screen, were huge color slides of other pieces from the fall line. The photos had been Swan’s idea, and it had cut down significantly on their need for models.

“Starting the show is our Romeo for tonight, Brad!” The applause was instantaneous as Brad took center stage. He wore an Armani tuxedo jacket and very little else. In one hand, he clutched a dozen roses, and in the other, a heart-shaped box of candy. His lower parts were encased in a snug-fitting thong that was glow-in-the-dark pink. But even Swan wasn’t prepared when the lights went out. For a few moments, all you could see was a disembodied hot-pink thong bobbing around.

Not unlike my dreams, Swan thought ironically.

The crowd howled and flashbulbs popped as photographers jostled one another for a better angle.

“The Romeo imprint is for the romantic at heart,” Swan said. “The man who knows how to sweet-talk and candy-walk his way right into his lover’s heart. Romeo gets his Juliet every time when he’s wearing a Brief Encounters design!”

As Brad left the stage, the second model came forward. He wore a traditional red fireman’s helmet and had a length of fire hose draped over his bare shoulder as he strode confidently down the runway. “For the damsel in distress, for the adventuress, and for all who love a man in uniform, bring on the heroes!”

This round of applause was even louder than the first. Swan noticed that a few of the women in the audience were actually getting to their feet to get a better look at Sam the Fireman. Sam’s formfitting briefs were fire-engine red with black suspender-like straps attached. When he got to the end of the lighted runway, he stopped and yanked the hose from his shoulder, pointing the nozzle at the audience.

“What do you think, ladies?” Swan asked cheerfully. “Is he hot enough for you? Should we hose him down?”

Sam dazzled them with a raffish grin before bowing his head. As he turned, the audience got their first good look at his tightly knotted buttocks, and the normally tranquil garden gave up a roar of approval.

“Whew,” Swan said, wiping her brow in exaggerated fashion. “We better cool things off.” There were loud groans of protest and Swan laughed. “You don’t want to cool off? Not even with a swim? How about a swim with the man who’s bold enough to wear Machismo?”

Model number three sprinted onto the runway in a black bikini swimsuit that left little to the imagination. Atop his head was a black swimming cap and goggles. Tall, tanned and sleek as a panther, he made his way down the runway.

Swan gave her spiel on the Machismo line and allowed the raucous response to build as she waved all three models back onto center stage. “This is only the preview,” she shouted, trying to be heard over the noise. “The entire line can be seen tomorrow night at the La Bomba boutique on Melrose. Again, thank you all for coming!”

With that, she grabbed her organizer from the podium and descended into a throng of well-wishers. Her sense of relief outweighed everything else, but the success of the event began to dawn on her as she was swept into one embrace after another. Her guests, professional and otherwise, seemed thrilled by the program—and happy for her. Maybe it was safe to say that the fashion show was a hit. She only hoped the line was, too.

The press rushed over with questions about the show, and there was a line of people waiting to extend their congratulations. Swan held out through most of it, savoring the sweetness of Brief Encounters’s first victory, and wishing Lynne had been here to share it. She had to find Gerard to thank him, too. But finally, she had no choice. The need to excuse herself was becoming more urgent every second.

“Brava!” someone called out as Swan hurried into the house. Some of the guests had moved inside from the garden, and she smiled, waving as she sailed by them. The closest bathroom was in the hall, under the foyer staircase. She turned the knob, grateful that she had made it. Locked! From inside someone said, “Out in a sec.”

But Swan didn’t have much more than a second. She trotted down the hall and ducked into one of the guest rooms. The bathroom door was open and the light was off. Empty.

In record time she had her ruffled skirt hiked up and her panties and panty hose down to her ankles. She’d worn panties because her new Tanga Totally Nude panty hose were quite risqué without them—and also because of the problem that had brought her to the bathroom. A psychologist friend had told her that her sense of urgency was nothing more than a reaction to stress. Swan didn’t disagree, but tell that to her bladder on a night such as this.

It hit her suddenly how exhausted she was. The past few days had been a whirlwind of activity, but she had made it through, and she had made it through on her own. It had not only gone well, it had gone better than she’d dreamed it might—the perfect day, really.

Lord, she was tired. She could go to sleep right here.

Letting her eyes drift shut, she reached for the toilet tissue. A few seconds later she heard a creaking noise and she slowly opened her eyes again. A few seconds? Swan blinked several times. It must have been long enough for her to have fallen into a deep sleep—because she was now dreaming that there was a man in her bathroom—a very tall, angry-looking man holding a big gold badge.

“Swan McKenna?” he said. “You’re under arrest.”

3

IT WAS A GOOD THING Swan had already finished her personal business. Otherwise she would have left a puddle on the bathroom floor. Under arrest? He had to be kidding. “Gerard!” she called. Her assistant must have put this guy up to it. “Get out of my bathroom,” she croaked at the intruder when there was no immediate response from Gerard. Leaning toward the partially open door, she shouted again, “Gerard! Are you out there? This isn’t funny. Get this policeman person out of my bathroom! The auditions are over!”

“FBI, ma’am,” the intruder said. His voice was quiet and calm in the face of her distress. “And I’m not going anywhere. You are. To jail.”

Swan couldn’t even stand to demand that he leave. She was sitting on the throne with her panties down and her skirt up. This had to be some crazy prank Gerard thought up with the help of his male model friends, although this guy didn’t seem to be one of them. He hadn’t been part of the crew. But now that she thought about it, she had seen him somewhere before.

“If you don’t leave instantly, I’m calling the law,” she warned. She grabbed a plastic plunger from its holder on the floor, as if to swing it at him.

“Ma’am, I am the law.” He flashed the badge again. “Rob Gaines, Special Agent, FBI. Now put that thing down and get up. Slowly.”

Swan peered at him for so long that it suddenly hit her where she’d seen him before. “I know you,” she gasped. “You’re not FBI, you’re that telephone repairman! Did you think you could fool me by changing costumes?”

“Trust me, Ms. McKenna, this is no costume. Now set the plunger down and put up your hands. Keep them where I can see them at all times.”

He wasn’t the sexy-as-sin telephone repairman who’d been invading her dreams for the past two days? He was a government agent? Boy, could she pick ’em. Swan wanted desperately to think that this was a dream, too, a very bad one, but as she scrutinized his dark hair and hot blue eyes, she realized something. It was him—and he wasn’t looking at her hands.

She followed his gaze to the length of thigh exposed by her hiked-up skirt. Apparently, FBI agents weren’t bashful about getting an eyeful. She dropped the plunger and tugged her skirt to her knees.

“Do you mind?” she said. “I’d like to finish up without an audience.”

“Sorry, ma’am, we can’t do that,” another voice said.

Swan looked around Gaines and saw a second man at the bathroom door. He was as tall as Gaines but possibly twenty pounds heavier, with short-cropped, sandy-blond hair that looked as if it might be prematurely graying.

“Joe Harris, FBI,” he said.

“Are you selling tickets out there or what?” she snapped. “I’d like some privacy, please.”

“Swan? Is everything all right?” Gerard was suddenly peering over the shoulder of Joe Harris. “Who are these men, Ducks?”

“Oh, no,” she moaned. “You don’t know them, either?”

Gaines had never taken his gaze from her person, and if that wasn’t disconcerting enough, he didn’t blink. Not once. The man had no reflexes—and his burning gaze had her heart thumping in that strange and unfamiliar way again. His jeans and work shirt were gone, replaced by a navy single-breasted suit that looked way too good on him. He could have been an old-fashioned G-man with his dark, sardonic eyebrows and his seen-it-all-and-then-some scowl.

He shot her a warning look that basically said, Don’t do anything to make me pull my gun and shoot you, and then he turned to his partner. “I can handle this, Joe.”

Joe didn’t seem to agree. “You may need a witness in case she claims you molested her or something.”

“I can handle it,” Gaines insisted. “Shut the door and take her friend with you.”

Harris backed Gerard out and once the two of them were gone, Gaines kicked the door shut with his foot. “Take care of business,” he ordered Swan, apparently referring to her nature call, “and make it snappy.”

“I’ll take care of business,” she said, yanking some tissue from the dispenser, “as soon as you look the other way.”

He turned sideways, clearly intending to watch her without staring right at her. It was all she was going to get, Swan realized, secretly furious at him for betraying her this way. How could he have let her think that he was some poor, defenseless, oversexed telephone repairman when all the time he was setting her up? A moment later she was bending down, wondering if she could get her panties and panty hose up all at once. She’d never been able to do it before, but she’d never been under surveillance in her own bathroom, either.

She arranged the slippery silk panties and the gossamer hose in her fingers and began easing both up her calves. Once she had them high enough, she would quickly stand and tug everything over her hips. At the same time her skirt would fall down, covering all the vital places. It could work, but it was a delicate operation.

Her calves were covered and she was inching the panty hose over her knees when he let out a sharp sigh of impatience. She began to hurry and the panties slipped from her fingers and balled up in the nylons. She kept going out of fear, but every tug made it worse. The nylons had curled into an airtight roll, sucking the panties in with them. They looked like link sausages. Damn! Now she would have to start all over.

“Time’s up,” he announced.

“Wait a minute!” Springing to her feet, Swan brushed her skirt down and gingerly coaxed the lingerie up at the same time. For a second she thought it was going to unfurl, but that glimmer of hope was her downfall. It made her hurry even more. She couldn’t see what she was doing because of the skirt’s ruffly hem, so she yanked the silly thing back up and stuffed a wad of it in her mouth, clenching her teeth to hold it while she worked. She felt like a Flamenco dancer with an entire bouquet of roses in her teeth.

Now the black silk material was rolling up, too! It had slipped in between her tummy and her underwear. She would soon be nothing but one big airtight wad, encased in nylon.

“Cuuduuupleeeeleeee!” she mumbled, asking him nicely to leave.

Her skirt was disappearing and her halter top would be next. Everything she owned had decided to tie itself into knots, including her tongue.

“Neeeeesummpriiisee.” She needed privacy. Couldn’t he see that?

Her struggles just twisted things tighter. And now her fingers were caught. Desperate, she released the skirt from her teeth and began to fumble inside her panty hose in earnest. She had to find her bikinis and separate the warring pieces of lingerie. Her hand was still buried inside her undies when he glanced her way, but there was nothing she could do about it. She’d been taken hostage by her underwear.

“What are you doing?” Gaines asked.

“Concealing a weapon,” she said sarcastically.

Big mistake. Big.

Evidently, federal law enforcement officers didn’t appreciate a little harmless gun humor. Without warning, Gaines spun around to face her. His eyes narrowed in disbelief as he saw her Houdini-like predicament. If someone had tossed her off a bridge, she would have drowned before she could get her hands free.

Swan tried to extricate herself, but she couldn’t. It was like being restrained with Saran Wrap. Somehow she had created a slipknot, perhaps out of an elastic leg hole, and it wasn’t about to let go of her fingers.

Gaines closed the distance between them in two easy strides. “What have you got in there?”

“Nothing! It’s just my underwear!”

“The hell you say. You’re trying to shove something into your panties.”

Swan gave him a look of utter exasperation. “I am not trying to shove anything into my panties. I’m trying to get something out of them. And it’s not working.”

Before she could explain, she felt herself being spun around like a toy top. The way he gripped her wrist and pulled, he didn’t seem to care whether or not he left her fingers behind. Fortunately it only took one firm tug to free her and then he yanked both of her hands behind her back.

“Hey, is that necessary?” she said as handcuffs locked down on her wrists.

“We’re going to clear this up and we’re going to clear it up now.”

Gaines turned her around and scrutinized her from head to toe. It was obvious from his perplexed expression that he had no idea how a woman could have been strait-jacketed by her own clothing in mere moments. And with no help from anyone else.

“You did this to yourself?” he asked.

Swan glanced down and let out a little moan of despair. A skirt that would normally have covered her legs to mid-calf now exposed her from her belly button downward. The link-sausage undies were an awful sight, but at least she wasn’t dealing with full-frontal nudity. She was too mortified to even consider what her backside must look like. From the way it felt, she was going to have to keep her rear to the wall at all times.

Swan wasn’t sure it was possible to be more humiliated.

Rob Gaines proved her wrong.

“I have to search you,” he said.

Swan shook her head so hard she nearly lost her balance. “I want a female officer to search me!”

His shrug said, Sure, whatever you want, lady. “Let’s go then.”

He pointed to the door, but she didn’t move. “Go where? I can’t even walk.”

“Headquarters. If you want a female, that’s where we’re going.”

If angry glares could burn, he would have been charcoal briquettes. “All right,” she sighed. “Get it over with then.”

“I should call in my partner,” he said.

“No! Search me, dammit. Frisk me, pat me down, probe my body cavities, whatever the hell you have to do, just do it and get it over with.”

“Thanks for all the options,” he said dryly. He placed his palms on her waist and began to frisk her in a way that was totally professional but not at all reassuring. He was thorough and patient as he slid his hands along the curves and swells of her body. He never touched her inappropriately. He never even spoke, but there was something about the feathery pressure of his fingers, or maybe it was his smoky aftershave or the heat of his breathing, that elicited what Swan could only call unwelcome sensations. Whew. He was everywhere with his velvet-soft hands, even inside her thighs.

Swan’s stomach took an express ride down, and her heart went the opposite direction. A weird tremble crept into her breathing, and she very nearly emitted an audible sigh of relief when he stopped. If her panties weren’t damp before, they certainly were now.

“Thanks,” she said, willing strength back into her legs.

Apparently satisfied that she was unarmed, he stepped back and studied her hopelessly snarled clothing. “Want me to fix that?”

It was either him or the bomb squad. “Sure.”

“Okay, but it may take surgical intervention.”

“Meaning you’re going to cut off my underwear?”

“Meaning I’ll try to untangle it, but if I can’t, this is Plan B.” He pulled a penknife from an inner pocket of his jacket and set it on the vanity table. “Either way, I’ll have to go in.”

“Go in where? Hey!” Swan gasped as he stretched her panty hose out like a slingshot and delved into her drawers. “Hey, stop that!”

His hand was much too large not to touch things it shouldn’t. So much for professionalism. Something brushed her pubic hair and she let out a squeal.

“What is this?” she cried, “some kind of macho payback for pulling your pants down?”

To his credit, he didn’t respond. He went about his business, feeling around some more, working the knots like a safecracker. He plucked and toggled and tugged, but nothing seemed to give way. When he went to pull his hand out, it didn’t give, either. He was stuck.

Swan let out a horrified gasp. This could not be happening.

“We seem to have a problem,” he said.

“No, we don’t,” she informed him in barely audible tones. “Just amputate your hand at the wrist and we’ll be fine.”

His expression told her he didn’t think much of her suggestion. In fact, if she’d been a zoo animal, and he’d had a tranquilizer gun, she would have been headed for a very long nap.

“I was thinking of something a little less drastic,” he intoned.

“Like what?” She didn’t trust any part of this. He wasn’t moving his hand, but she couldn’t help thinking that his eyes were unnaturally bright, and his breathing had deepened. It mortified her to think that he might have discovered the damp spot. Fiend. He was enjoying this.

“Like this wad of nylon must be ballistic,” he told her. “It could stop a bullet. I recommend Plan B.”

“These are my best black panties! And my last pair of Tanga panty hose!”

“Would you like us to be buried in them?” he inquired politely. “Because that’s how long it will take to get the damn things unsnarled.”

“Oh, use the scissors in the drawer,” she said crossly, gesturing to the vanity where he’d set the penknife.

Just moments later Swan’s panty hose were in shreds and so were her nerves. She told herself that going commando was preferable to having an FBI agent in her pants, but as Gaines snipped away at her underwear, she wondered how this entry would look in her journal. “Tonight I was handcuffed in my bathroom while an FBI agent surgically removed his hand from my panty hose, after which he hauled me to jail and threw me in a holding cell with hookers and drug addicts.”

A shudder started at the base of her heels and slithered up her spine.

“Hold still,” he said. “I’m almost there.”

She didn’t ask where. She just closed her eyes and held her breath until she felt the wad begin to give way. A moment later his fingers were no longer nestled against her private parts and the garrote that was strangling her stomach was gone! With a few more snips of the scissors, he had the lingerie free and he was gingerly peeling it off her. He even made sure her lower extremities were covered with her skirt. What a prince.

What was that he was humming? “Natural Woman?”

She opened her eyes and was surprised to find him standing there, studying her intently, his hands planted on his hips. She could hardly believe this was the same man who’d nearly achieved lift-off in her design center. He could have had the decency to look a little flustered, couldn’t he? Especially when she was breathing like a distance runner. All she could think about at that moment was the satisfaction of breaking through his reserve and making him squirm, too.

“I’m going to take the cuffs off,” he said, leveling a firm gaze at her. “But I don’t want any problems. Understand?”

He even waited for her to nod.

The moment her hands were free, Swan adjusted her blouse and skirt, as if that could restore her respectability. “This is outrageous,” she said in a trembling voice. “How dare you come in here and accuse me of— What am I accused of anyway?”

“You’re under arrest for several counts of bank fraud, embezzlement, conspiracy and forgery. Serious stuff.”

Swan gaped at him as he took a card from his coat pocket and began to Mirandize her. He was as nonchalant as if he’d never been messing around in her pants, as if he hadn’t made her tremble and gasp.

She heard the words about her rights, heard what he said about lawyers and about how anything she said could and would be used against her in a court of law. She heard every bit of it, but none of it truly registered. It felt as if she were not in her own skin anymore. Was she going into shock?

“Do you understand your rights as I’ve explained them to you?”

“Uh—”

“I need a yes or no.”

She gave him a defiant look, her spirit flooding back. “Yes, I understand my rights, and I also understand that I haven’t done anything wrong. You and your buddy out there have made a terrible mistake.”

“Have we?” he said. “It’s all on videotape.”

“Videotape of what?”

“Of you, forging a name on loan documents and walking out of the bank with an unauthorized bank draft for—”

“Unauthorized?” Until this very moment Swan had clung to the notion that this was a practical joke or some kind of mistake. Now, with a clarity that made her heart tumble, she understood what was happening. She didn’t know what he meant by “unauthorized check,” but she had signed Lynne’s name to the loan papers and somehow the Feds had found out. Those were serious charges.