New Way to Fly

“And how much would it be?” Mary asked.

“Let me see…” Amanda pretended to calculate.

“My cost, plus shipping expenses, less dealer tax…I could probably let you have it for around a hundred, if you decided you liked it.”

Mary’s weathered face brightened. “Really? That’s a pretty good deal, isn’t it?”

Damn right it is, Amanda thought gloomily. Especially since I paid more than nine hundred for it at Saks just a couple of months ago….

But her face betrayed none of these thoughts. “I think it’s a pretty good deal,” she agreed quietly. “And if you liked, I could bring a few of the other pieces, too, sweaters and blouses and slacks, and you could try them on in private at home before you made a choice.”

“Oh,” Mary sighed. “Oh, my, that’d be so nice. You know,” she added impulsively, gazing at the younger woman, “I think I really need something like this, Miss Walker. My life’s been…”

She paused and flushed awkwardly, then continued. “The way things have been happening, my life hasn’t been all that good lately. And I could really use a little lift like that. Something to make me feel…better about myself, you know?”

“I know,” Amanda murmured. “I know you could, Mary. Everybody needs a lift now and then. When would you like me to bring the things over for you to try on?”

“Oh, any time, I guess. Would it be…would you be coming fairly soon?” Mary asked wistfully.

Amanda nodded, considering the week ahead, reorganizing her schedule rapidly to accommodate another trip to Crystal Creek. If she could bring out the new winter outfits for Lynn McKinney on Wednesday, then she’d be able to…

“Miss Walker?”

Amanda smiled. “You’d better call me Amanda, if we’re going to be doing business together. I was just thinking about my week, Mary. Would Wednesday be good for you? Say about two o’clock?”

Mary nodded, rummaging in her handbag. “That’d be real nice. Just let me find a pen, and I’ll draw a map so you can find my place.”

“No problem,” Amanda said, waving her hand in dismissal. “I’ll be stopping off here and over at the Circle T. Someone can give me directions when I get there.”

“Oh, it’s real easy,” Mary said. “I’m just a few miles out on the other side of town, bordering Brock Munroe’s place.”

“What’s this?” A cheerful male voice came from the other side of the archway, beyond Amanda’s line of vision. “Mary Gibson, are you talking about me behind my back?”

Mary smiled and turned away to peer at the newcomer, who was still hidden from Amanda. “Hi, Brock,” she said. “My, don’t you look spiffy, all dressed up in a suit and tie.”

“I feel like a trained monkey in this rig,” the man with the deep voice said, reflecting such rueful distaste that Amanda smiled and leaned around the archway to see what he looked like.

At the same moment he stepped forward to allow a server past him, and faced Amanda head on. His mouth dropped open, his dark eyes widened, and he stood rooted to the spot, staring at her with such obvious amazement that her pale cheeks became a delicate pink.

But she collected herself almost at once, gave the man a polite smile and calmly returned his gaze.

He was certainly an arresting physical specimen, several inches taller than six feet with a rangy muscular look and an impressive breadth of chest and shoulders to balance his height. His face was tanned and clean-cut, his dark hair disheveled, his eyes warm and alert as he continued to stare at Amanda. When she smiled, he grinned back automatically, one side of his wide mouth lifting in an engaging lopsided grin that showed a flash of beautiful white teeth.

Amanda always noticed people’s hands. This man’s hands were hard and brown, probably as callused on the palms as old leather, but they were beautifully shaped, with fine square palms and long fingers.

Amanda looked back to the man’s shining dark eyes. She was beginning to feel uneasy. Apparently Mary Gibson was also becoming uncomfortable at the intensity with which the man was staring at Amanda.

“Brock, this is Amanda Walker,” Mary said finally. “Amanda, Brock Munroe, my nearest neighbor. He has a ranch right next to mine.”

The tall man broke his gaze with a visible effort and extended his hand. Amanda took it almost reluctantly and felt her own hand swallowed in his firm grip. Brock Munroe’s hand was just as steel-hard and strong as she’d expected. And she was distressed by the sudden tingle of sexual excitement that shivered through her at his touch.

“Amanda does clothes buying and TV commercials, things like that,” Mary explained.

“I know,” the man said abruptly. “I’ve seen her on television.”

He was staring again, as if trying to memorize every line and detail of Amanda’s face.

Or, Amanda thought in warm confusion, as if they were already well-known to each other, lovers meeting again after a long, long separation…

Mary smiled at them and began to edge away, murmuring something about helping Virginia with the buffet, but Brock and Amanda were so absorbed in their sudden and surprising contact that they hardly noticed her departure.

“So,” Brock said with that same abrupt tone, “what exactly is a personal shopping service, Amanda? What is it that you do for a living?”

“I dress people,” Amanda said automatically. “I help them to select a balanced complementary wardrobe, and the proper accessories to achieve a total look. And then I price-shop the stores for them, over as wide an area as I’m able, as well as the catalogues from the better houses.”

The man beside her nodded thoughtfully. Amanda looked up at him with a cautious critical eye, noticing for the first time that his suit had to be fifteen years old, at least, with its old-fashioned lapels and the awkward dated cut of the trousers. And that tie…

Amanda couldn’t help thinking what a shame it was to see a man like Brock Munroe dressed this way. With his beautifully-formed body, he’d look just wonderful in a really well-cut suit.

She stole another glance at his lapels.

“Eighteen years,” he told her quietly.

Amanda looked up at his face, startled. “I beg your pardon?”

“This suit. I bought it eighteen years ago for my high school graduation. That’s what you’re thinking, right? That I look real tacky and out-of-date?”

Amanda flushed and then realized with annoyance that this reaction had been as much of a giveaway as her earlier expression of distaste. “Clothes are my business,” she told the man stiffly. “I can’t help but notice cut and style. It’s my job.”

“And you think I’ve failed to deal with all those tiny intangibles that add up to a total look?”

Amanda glanced up at him sharply again, recognizing her own words in his deep teasing voice. Was she being gently ridiculed by this handsome rustic?

“I wasn’t really thinking about your appearance at all,” she lied, trying to keep her voice cool. “I’m just enjoying the party, and I was looking for my friends, actually. I think they’re out on the patio.”

She began to edge away but the man put his big hand on her arm, just below her elbow. To her horror and growing annoyance, Amanda found herself thrilling once again at the warmth and intimacy of that touch.

She jerked her arm and Brock released it instantly. He reached to lift a glass of white wine from a passing tray and handed it to Amanda.

“Thank you,” she said, pausing to sip from the crystal goblet, while struggling to compose herself.

“How do you know Mary?”

The question came as a surprise. Amanda hesitated. “Actually, I don’t,” she said. “We just met today. I have some clothes she’s interested in seeing.”

The man turned to stare at her. “Mary?” he asked in disbelief. “Mary Gibson is hiring a personal shopping service? A professional image-maker?”

Amanda felt another surge of irritation. “Look, Mr. Munroe,” she began, “you’re certainly free to have any opinion you like about my job. But that doesn’t mean that I—”

“What do you like to do?” he asked, ignoring her cool tone. “I mean, when you’re away from the job? What kind of person are you, Amanda? You know, I’ve always thought…” He paused suddenly, looking embarrassed.

“What? What have you always thought?” Amanda asked, intrigued by his sudden discomfort.

“Nothing,” the big man said with a casual shrug. “I’ve always liked to find out what interests people, that’s what I was going to say.”

“You want to know what interests me?”

“Yeah. I want to know what you’re like. I mean, do you spend all your time getting your hair done and reading fashion magazines, or do like to jet-set around the world, or what? When you’re all alone, what do you dream about?”

Amanda bit her lip and stared at him in silence, thinking about his question.

What did she like to do?

The tall man watched her calmly, apparently prepared to wait all day for her response. But Amanda was slowly realizing, to her growing discomfort, that she had no answer to give him.

She didn’t know what she liked to do. The truth was, Amanda Walker hardly knew who she was anymore.

There’d been a time, years ago, when she’d been far more definite about her likes and dislikes. She could remember herself at twenty-one, telling Edward with girlish happiness that she loved running barefoot on the beach, waking early to watch the sunrise across the lake, walking in the woods at twilight and listening to the hushed music of the night birds.

And he’d laughed, gazing at her with raised eyebrows and that wry sardonic grin that had always made her heart turn over.

“My, my,” he’d said with the flat New England twang that sounded so sophisticated to her Texas ear. “What an intriguing little savage we have here. The face of an angel and the soul of a hillbilly.”

Amanda had flushed with embarrassment at her own naiveté. Instantly she’d resolved to be more the kind of woman Edward admired, more cultured and intelligent and in tune with the nuances and realities of his New York life-style.

And she’d certainly succeeded. During the years that she’d been in New York, Amanda Walker had become the toast of their small exclusive circle, a graceful arbiter of fashion, gifted with a sure knowledge of what was correct for every occasion. She was at ease in any group, comfortable with the casual witty patter that was so much in vogue, secure in the knowledge that she was the most elegant woman in any gathering.

But did she like that life?

And if she did, why had she decided to come back to Texas, left Edward behind along with all their friends and embarked alone on this terrifying project?

And it really was terrifying—throwing aside the security of Edward’s arms as well as a large salary and expense account, for the dangers and uncertainties of opening her own business.

“I like to succeed,” she told the man in front of her with a quick defiant lift of her head. “I like the idea of making my own way in the world, taking on something that’s really difficult and making it into a viable and lucrative operation.”

She saw something in Brock Munroe’s face, a flicker of some emotion that looked almost like disappointment.

“And is that all you dream about, Amanda? Being a big success? Is that your whole happiness in life?”

Amanda met his eyes. Then she flushed and looked away, buffeted by a sudden paralyzing wave of yearning when she remembered her dream.

The dream haunted her all the time these days. She saw herself on a grassy hillside, laughing in the sunlight with a baby in her arms. That was the whole dream, just herself and the midday warmth and the comfortable weight of the drowsy infant in her arms. And somehow there was also the knowledge that a man stood nearby, unseen but deeply loved.

The image was always brief, usually invading her sleep in the misty hours just before dawn, and it filled Amanda with a happiness so exquisite that waking to cold reality sometimes seemed like an anguish too great to be endured.

She glanced helplessly toward the patio door and saw Beverly emerge, mouthing something and waving across the crowded noisy room.

“I—I have to go,” Amanda told the dark man in his poorly fitting suit. “My friends are looking for me.”

“In a minute, Amanda,” Brock Munroe said gently, holding her with his eyes. “First, you were going to tell me what you dream about.”

“I dream about clothes,” Amanda told him abruptly, wincing at the harsh arrogant note in her own voice. “And real jewelry and expensive cars. I dream about having lots and lots of money so I can own beautiful things, Mr. Munroe.”

When Amanda saw the disappointment that flickered across Brock’s face, she was tempted to grab his arm and apologize for her lies. She wanted to say, No, no, it’s not true, none of it’s true, that’s not what I’m like at all….

But maybe it was, she told herself defiantly.

Maybe they were all true, the things she’d just told him. Why was she so driven by her need to succeed in business, if not for the pleasures that came along with financial success? And why had she left behind everything she’d once valued, if not to attain a new goal that meant even more to her?

Brock waited politely, but his handsome face was no longer warm with interest. Amanda wanted to say something—anything to dispel the sudden chill that had come between them.

“Mr. Munroe…Brock, look, I just wanted to…” She began with uncharacteristic awkwardness.

But Beverly reappeared at that moment, waving frantically over the heads of people nearby, trying to catch Amanda’s eye.

Conscious of her friend, Amanda paused nervously. Brock smiled down at her with that same distant look of sadness.

“‘Again, the Cousin’s whistle,’” he quoted softly. “‘Go, my Love.’”

Amanda nodded automatically, then turned and stared up him.

“That’s from a Robert Browning poem, isn’t it?”

Brock Munroe nodded, looking down at her intently. “The poem’s called ‘Andrea del Sarto,’” he said. “It’s always been one of my favorites.”

“But…” Amanda’s astonishment was evident. “But how…”

“I may be a big simple cowboy in a bad suit, Miss Walker,” Brock said quietly. “That doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy poetry.”

She was silent, still searching for words to express her surprise.

“All you glamorous people don’t own the world, Amanda,” Brock told her quietly, his hard sculpted face empty of emotion. “You don’t have a corner on everything that’s beautiful and worthwhile. The rest of us may be peasants, but we have eyes and hearts and souls just like you do.”

Amanda felt an urgent desire to explain herself, to apologize and show him she wasn’t what he considered her to be. But this emotion was soon overridden by a slow burning outrage.

How dared he be so superior and judgmental, this “simple cowboy in the bad suit,” as he called himself? What gave him the right to express opinions about Amanda Walker, to look at her with such evident disappointment and give the clear impression that she’d been weighed in the balance and found wanting?

“I suppose that’s true,” she told him coldly. “I really wouldn’t know, and I’m not all that interested in finding out, to tell you the truth.”

He nodded, accepting her words as a dismissal.

“Goodbye, Amanda,” he murmured.

“Goodbye,” Amanda said with a small sardonic lift of her beautiful mouth. “It’s certainly been interesting talking to you.”

Then she was gone, moving gracefully off through the laughing throng, conscious of his dark eyes resting on her as she walked away.

CHAPTER THREE

RAIN POUNDED against the windshield and streamed over the surface of Amanda’s small car, whipping past in gusty sprays to pool on the highway and in the ditches. Amanda gripped the wheel, frowning and squinting into the darkness, struggling to see ahead each time the wipers gave her a brief field of vision.

“Damned lousy rain,” Beverly Townsend muttered, lounging beside Amanda in the passenger seat and glaring out the window. “It’s probably fixing to flood again, like it did in the spring. Everything will be a great big ol’ mess, all over again. I hate it, Mandy. I just hate it.”

Amanda grinned at her friend’s fretful tone, distracted for a moment from the strain of driving in the storm.

“Well, I declare, Beverly Townsend,” she said in a cheerful imitation of Beverly’s warm Texas drawl, “you certainly aren’t your usual chipper self tonight, are you? Now, why on earth could that be, I wonder?”

Beverly had the grace to smile back, her teeth flashing white in the darkness. “Well, what do you expect? Here I am, a poor helpless waif thrown out of my own home, forced to thrust myself on the hospitality of a friend who doesn’t even like me enough to show the least little bit of sympathy.”

Amanda chuckled. She was always charmed by Beverly’s witty good humor, and by the warmth and sweetness that were so startling to all those people who looked on Beverly Townsend as little more than a self-absorbed beauty queen.

“Nobody’s throwing you out of your home,” Amanda pointed out reasonably. “This was entirely your own choice, Bev, coming to Austin to stay with me for a week or so to give Carolyn and Vern some time alone together.”

Beverly shrugged. “Well, sure, but really, what choice did I have, Mandy? It’s their honeymoon, for God’s sake. And since Mama absolutely refuses to go away anywhere while Cynthia’s so close to her due date, I could hardly hang around the house and make it a cozy threesome, could I, now?”

“What about Lori? Isn’t she going to be around? She lives there, too, doesn’t she?”

Beverly glanced over at her friend with the look of weary but resigned tolerance that she reserved for Amanda.

“I told you,” she began, “about twelve hundred times, Mandy, that Lori’s been renovating the old garage next to the tennis court to make a gorgeous little studio apartment for herself. It’s not quite finished but she moved in a couple days ago anyhow, just to give the newlyweds some privacy.”

“Did you tell me that?” Amanda asked blankly.

Beverly laughed, then sobered and gazed moodily out at the rain once more.

Amanda stole a sidelong glance at her friend’s discontented profile. “You know what I think? I think this mood of yours has nothing at all to do with the weather or where you’re going to be living for the next week, Bev.”

Beverly turned to glance at her quickly, then sank low in the seat and braced her blue-jeaned knees against the dashboard, hugging them gloomily.

“I know,” she said at last. “But, Mandy, it’s so strange, somehow. All those years I had so much fun playing the field, picking up guys and dropping them just for the hell of it, never really giving any of them much thought. Now, I hate to admit it, but Jeff goes away for a week on business and I can hardly stand it. A week, it seems like eternity, you know what I mean? I don’t know if I can bear to be away from the man for a whole entire week.”

Amanda gave her friend a disbelieving look. “Not even for the chance to spend a week in the city, attend two fashion shows and a gallery opening, meet some really important people and do a whole lot of early Christmas shopping?”

Beverly shook her head morosely. “Nope. Not even for that.”

“My goodness,” Amanda said seriously, although her mouth was twitching with amusement. “I guess it must be love, all right.”

Beverly glared at the other woman and punched her arm lightly. “If you’d ever been really, really in love,” she complained, “you wouldn’t laugh at my misery. You’d show a little more compassion, you coldhearted witch.”

Amanda’s face tightened briefly and she stared ahead into the driving rain.

Beverly caught the look and laid a gentle hand on Amanda’s suede coat sleeve. “Sorry, kid,” she murmured. “I guess you’ve been through it, too, haven’t you? You spent a lot of years with Edward, after all.”

“Four,” Amanda said, trying to smile. “Four years. And you don’t need to treat me like a poor girl with a broken heart, Bev. It was my idea to leave, after all.”

“I keep wondering about that, but I never wanted to pry. So there was no big fight or dustup, nothing like that? You just decided to move back to Texas and open your own business, and Edward let you go, just like that?”

“Just like that,” Amanda agreed with a sad smile. “All very civilized. He’d just bought his own store in New York, and sunk all the money he inherited into it, and he certainly wasn’t about to toss all that aside and follow me, no matter how much he cared about the relationship.”

She fell silent, gripping the wheel in gloved hands and gazing bleakly at the black flowing rain.

“And you?” Beverly prodded delicately. “Didn’t it hurt to leave him behind after all those years? Did you really want to be on your own enough to give up such a long-term relationship?”

Amanda frowned. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “I thought I did, Bev. I was getting so restless, so stale and tired of everything, and I really thought I needed a change of scene, some kind of fresh challenge.”

Beverly nodded. “Absolutely. That’s the way I felt before I got really involved with my hospital work. And Jeff, of course,” she added with a faraway smile.

“Of course,” Amanda agreed dryly.

“So how do you feel about it all now? Do you wish you were back in New York, working for Edward again and socializing with all your friends?”

“Sometimes…well, I guess I do,” Amanda said, surprising herself with her response. “Sometimes I feel so lonely and out of place, and so terribly scared that my business will fail and I’ll be…”

She was silent again, regretting the sudden intimacy of the conversation. Beverly Townsend was a good friend, probably Amanda’s closest friend at the moment. But there were things about herself, fears and dreams and longings, that Amanda Walker never admitted to another soul.

Beverly didn’t notice the sudden silence. She was still much more interested in the details of her friend’s relationship. “So, do you hear from him at all?” she asked.

Amanda shook her head again. “Not often. He said that if we were going to make a break, it might as well be a clean break, but that any time I wanted to come back, he’d be waiting.”

“Well, that was real sweet,” Beverly ventured cautiously. “Wasn’t it?”

“Oh, sure,” Amanda said. “Edward always does and says exactly the right thing. Then, about a month later, a mutual friend told me he was dating one of the top models from a big-name agency.”

She swerved to avoid the lashing spray of a passing semitrailer, then pulled her little car back into the driving lane.

“It bothered you, right?” Beverly said, glancing at her friend’s still face. “Hearing he was with somebody else, it really got to you, didn’t it?”

“A little,” Amanda said, not willing to discuss the unexpected pain she’d felt when she heard about the glamourous new woman in Edward’s life.

“Maybe you’re still in love with him,” Beverly suggested comfortably. “Maybe you should go back to New York and check it out.”

“And give up everything I’m beginning to achieve here? Just admit that it was all a big mistake and go running home saying, ‘please look after me, I’m so sorry, I’ll never do it again?’”

“Yeah, I see the problem,” Beverly said slowly. “Especially since he’s not likely to move to where you are, right?”

“Not likely,” Amanda agreed bitterly. “He spent years clawing his way up through the retail garment industry in New York to the point where he could manage his own store and draw a handpicked clientele. Believe me, Edward Price is not about to throw all that away for a woman, Bev. Any woman.”

Beverly was silent a moment, her face thoughtful. “What does he look like?” she asked finally. “You know, I never did meet him, Mandy. Every time I came to New York, he was off on a buying trip to Paris or Bangkok or somewhere.”

“I know.” Amanda frowned, clutching the wheel and trying to visualize Edward, startled again by the pain it caused her. “He’s about five-eleven,” she said at last, “thirty-five years old, very handsome and sophisticated. He has hazel eyes and auburn hair that he wears parted on the side and flowing over like this, you know…” She made a quick gesture with her gloved hand against her own dark head, indicating a graceful fall of hair.