To Have And To Hold. Diana Palmer

in the yard or driving past his house. And he waved back. There was a comradeship in the simple gestures that puzzled her. She found herself absently looking for her neighbor and his black Mercedes wherever she went. In the grocery store. When she went shopping at one of the sprawling malls. At the theater where she went to an occasional movie. In some strange sense, he represented security to her, although she couldn’t begin to understand why.

      On an impulse one Saturday, she baked a deep-dish apple pie and carried it next door, braving his anger at an intrusion he might not want.

      “Cal?” she called as she reached the carport, shifting the pie plate in her hands as she tried to find the source of the metallic noises coming from there. “Where are you?”

      “Here.”

      “Here, where?” she asked, looking around her, but there was only empty space unless she counted the Mercedes.

      “Here, damn it!” he growled and suddenly appeared from under the rear of the car, flat on his back on the creeper, his white T-shirt liberally spotted and smeared with grease, a wrench in one hand. “What the hell do you want?” he demanded in an exceptionally bad-tempered tone of voice.

      All her good intentions vanished. “I wanted to give you something,” she said.

      “Oh? What?” he asked curtly.

      “This.” She dumped the pie, upside down, onto his flat stomach, watching as it spread down the sides of his white jersey. “I hope you enjoy it.”

      She turned on her heel, her lips in a straight line as she carried the empty pie plate home, ignoring the string of blue curses that followed her. So much for the truce, she thought wistfully.

      * * *

      Once she got over the attack of bad temper, she could laugh at what she’d done. Even if he never spoke to her again, it would be hard to forget the look on his dark face as he stared incredulously at the apple pie on his stomach. Serves him right, she thought as she sat down to the kitchen table and cut a slice of the other pie she’d made. Of all the unneighborly. . . .

      The insistent buzz of the door bell interrupted her thoughts. With a sigh, she left the untouched slice of pie on the table and went to open the back door. The object of her irritation was standing there, head cocked to one side, eyes narrowed. He’d changed into tan slacks and a patterned tan knit pullover, and apparently his surge of temper was over, too.

      “I thought someone should tell you,” he began deeply, “that when they said the way to man’s heart was through his stomach, they didn’t mean to dump food on it.”

      The statement, and the taciturn way he made it, broke through her reserve. The laughter started, and she couldn’t stop before tears were tumbling down her flushed cheeks.

      “Oh, I am sorry,” she apologized, “but I’d been baking all morning, and I thought you might like a fresh pie, and. . . .”

      “I’m bad tempered when I’m in the middle of something,” he replied. “A clamp on the muffler came loose . . . oh, hell, Burgundy, I’m not used to women in broad daylight, much less women who can cook!”

      That made her blush, and she stared at the door. “I’ve got another pie, if you’d like a slice.” There was a silence, and she looked up quickly, embarrassed. “I’m sorry, you’re in a hurry, I imagine, and I’ve got to go to the store!”

      “Don’t panic,” he said quietly. “You’re not the kind of woman who throws herself at a man. I’ve learned that about you, if nothing else. I’m not in a hurry, and you don’t have to go to the store. I’d like that pie.”

      “I . . . I . . . ” She took a deep breath and stood aside. “Won’t you come in?”

      She motioned him to the table while she got down coffee mugs and another slice of pie. Meanwhile, Cabbage came in to see what the disturbance was all about and stood watching the newcomer with her crossed eyes intent and wary.

      “Purebred?” he asked, leaning down to let the cat sniff at his hands before she began to purr and scrape her cheeks against it.

      “Yes,” Madeline replied, setting a cup of coffee and a slice of pie in front of him at the table. “Her name’s really Sultana, but I call her Cabbage.”

      He scratched the cat’s ears. “Do you show her?”

      She shook her head. “Those lovely crossed eyes would disqualify her in any real competition, she’s little more than breeding stock. But I liked her because she wasn’t perfect.”

      He took a bite of pie and nodded. “It tastes better than it felt,” he said with a glance in her direction.

      She grinned self-consciously. “Sorry about that. If it’s any consolation, you didn’t do my ears much good.”

      “I never pretended to be a saint.”

      “God knows, you’d never be accused of it.”

      He finished the pie and leaned back, satisfied, to sip his coffee, taking it black, as she had half expected. He set the mug on the table and pulled a cigarette from the package in his pocket. “Do you mind?” he asked formally.

      She shook her head.

      “Want one?”

      “I don’t smoke.” She got up to get him an ashtray from the counter and set it in front of him.

      “No lecture?” he asked with deliberate mockery.

      “I live my life as I please,” she told him. “I think other people have the right to do the same.”

      He lit the cigarette and threw his arm over the back of the chair, watching her through a cloud of smoke. He seemed to fill the room, not only with his size, but with the raw force of his personality. His dark, masculine vitality clung like the cologne he wore.

      “I think it’s time you and I did some straight talking,” he said finally. His eyes narrowed, glittering across at her. “How would you feel about having an affair with me?”