Bowled Over

Chapter Nineteen

"Alex?"

He made a low, purring sound and continued to stroke her hair as she rested her head against his bare shoulder. Wasn't he sweet? She felt a little like purring, herself.

But they really had to talk.

"You really should get married."

Alex sat up, dislodging Maggie from her comfortable spot. "I beg your pardon? Is this a proposal?"

"No, not exactly, sport. Let me try that one again, okay?" Maggie scooted backward against the headboard, pulling the sheet with her, pushing her hair out of her eyes. "Not to me. Not here. Not yet. In our books, Alex. That's what I'm talking about. You should be married. Think of all the hearts you'd break. One a book. I'm writing book eight now. That's eight broken hearts. That's terrible. And I'm—cripes, I'm your enabler."

"I don't know that this is a problem. The dear ladies all seemed happy enough as I gave them their congé—gifting them with diamonds and the like. Bracketed to one woman, I might be boring. Think of our readership, sweetings. There's nothing more lethal than a boring hero."

"Right. That's why I decided you needed to be sarcastic sometimes. And with a little touch of larceny in your soul. Man, both of those have come back to bite me a time or two, haven't they?"

"So we're finished with this subject?" he asked, settling back against the pillows.

"I don't know. I don't think so. I've thought about this before, you know. A couple of weeks or so ago? That maybe it's time you evolved in our books. You're always talking about evolving here, with me. Growing, changing, all of that stuff? Not that it's worked so far. Maybe, after eight books, it's time Saint Just also grew, evolved. Got married, set up his nursery. If you evolve in the books, it stands to reason you might begin to evolve here, too, yes? Be less inclined maybe to poof one day?"

"One advancement at a time, please. I see no crushing need for a nursery in the near future."

"True. One thing at a time. And it's not like you'd have to get married all at once. I could ... I could introduce a new character. A woman. You could, I don't know, you could strike sparks off each other. Liking each other sometimes, not so crazy about each other at other times. Build the relationship over the course of a few books, and then, bam, you get married."

"And live happily ever after? How boring. Are you planning on abandoning the Saint Just Mysteries?"

Maggie wished this conversation didn't sound so much like she was talking about Alex and herself. Except that she was. Sort of. He had to know it. "Being married doesn't mean their adventures would be over. I can think of a bunch of series where being married worked. The Nick and Nora Charles movies and books, for one. Hart to Hart, on television—that's an oldie, not as much of an oldie as the Nick and Nora Charles things—but they both worked. Oh, and Nora Roberts has a great series going now with a man and his cop wife. You and ... you and your bride could solve the mysteries together. There'd still be plenty of sex," she added, feeling her cheeks going hot, darn it. "The mysteries, the sensual interludes, the perfect hero being a perfect hero to his own woman now as well as in general? I think I like it."

"Maggie. Dearest. Are you by any chance feeling even a tad jealous of my heroines?"

"Don't be ridiculous! They're fiction. Why would I be jealous of your fictional bed partners?"

"I don't know. Perhaps because that particular fictional character is sitting beside you in this bed, talking to you? If moving onto this plane of existence was possible for me, for Sterling, could it one day be possible for one or two of your other characters?"

"Yeah, right. And with my luck, it would be one of the villains."

"An unhappy thought," Alex agreed, slipping his arm around her shoulders. "But never fear, I would dispatch him immediately—and then kiss my lady wife and take her to bed."

"Very funny."

"I doubt that any of this is amusing to you, sweetings," he said quietly. "I do not doubt that much of what we're discussing has to do with your sister and Mr. Bodkin. Am I correct?"

"Well, yeah. Maybe. Sort of ..."

"You're comparing me, the Viscount Saint Just, to Walter Bodkin? I may go into a sad decline."

"There aren't that many differences. Not when it comes to how you treat women. How your character treats women, that is. You know—love 'em and leave 'em?"

"More than merely taking to my bed in despair, I fear. If you'll excuse me now," Alex said, a chuckle in his voice, "I do believe I will locate my sword cane, find a deep woods somewhere, and walk inside, fall on my sword. It's all you've left me, Maggie."

"Oh, shut up! You're not anything like Bodkin, and you know it. But, man, Alex, that ditzy sister of mine? The guy seduces her—and half the county—and they're not mad at him. If Bodkin isn't going to come off as the bad guy, then what does that make my sister, and all those other women? Dopes, that's what it makes them. Willing to be used, discarded. I never looked at the heroines in the Saint Just Mysteries that way before, but that's what they are, too. Everyone knows Saint Just is a—well, not exactly a womanizer ..."

"Thank the good Lord for small favors," Alex grumbled, adjusting the sheets over them. "Next you'll be calling me a cad."

"No, you were—are—a man of your time. Rich, titled, wickedly handsome, faintly bored, on the lookout for adventure. Very appealing to the ladies. Irresistible."

"I can think of one who resists me with unsettling regularity."

"We're not talking about us, Alex."

"Yes, sweetings, I'm very much afraid that we are."

"All right, okay. Yes. We are talking about us. At least a little bit. Do you know how hard it is to write your love scenes, now that you're here? That last manuscript? It was bad, Alex. Toss in the circular file bad, which is where it went. Now I've started again, and this one is going to be terrible, too, I can just feel it. I need to give you a heroine. One heroine. Listening to Maureen tonight proved it to me. What you do now is a fantasy, okay for fiction, but at some point you become a farce, a man out only for his own pleasure. And that's not a perfect hero, Alex, not to today's woman, today's intelligent reader. Saint Just has at least to begin to evolve."

Alex put a hand to his ear. "Hark! I believe I begin to hear an echo."

Maggie pushed at his hand. "You said here, Alex. You said you had to evolve here, with me, in this world. You never said you had to evolve in your—our—books. I should have seen that for myself, you know, just as a writer, I should have seen that. There may be people out there who don't mind reading the same book over and over again, but I give my readers more credit than that. Saint Just has to evolve."

"I'm so grateful we've had this discussion of what you've already decided," Alex said, his grin wicked. "So Lady Prestwick is to be introduced as my love interest in our next book? Blond, buxomy? Seems workable."

Maggie looked at him levelly. "Kiki the Kudzu Queen is not going to be your love interest, so just forget it. Not happening, trust me."

"And we wave a fond farewell to our Realtor. May I suggest an alternative?"

"You can't have Angelina Jolie, either," Maggie said mulishly.

"So classically beautiful. A pity," Alex said, sighing. "I do, however, have someone else in mind, as you have this habit of borrowing attributes from famous persons, movie actors."

"You mean a conglomeration, the way I did with you?"

"Or just one actor, molded slightly to fit your requirements. I would suggest a woman not precisely classically beautiful, but rather unique. One with the ability to appear regal, haughty, and yet also more than willing to, shall we say, roll with the punches if it became necessary. Flutter a fan, wave a pistol, glide through the waltz, tackle an escaping miscreant and wrestle him to the concrete floor of a parking garage without any thought to her own safety, leap without hesitation into dark, cold flood waters—"

"There aren't any parking garages in Regency England, Alex. And leaping into a flood—me? You're talking about me? Putting me into our books? Who are you comparing to me, for crying out loud? I don't look anything like a movie star. I mean, that's the sort of thing you notice, right?"

"In your case? Apparently not, no. So, my vote, and I do believe I should have at least equal say in the matter, would be for our new heroine physically to resemble ... of course you may not agree ... and, as both Saint Just and Alex, perhaps I should have two-thirds of the—"

Maggie pushed at his chest with both hands. "Out with it!"

Alex grinned, even as he rubbed at his abused chest. "Ashley Judd."

"Who?" Maggie closed her eyes, tried to picture the actor. "She was in Double Jeopardy, right? That one with Tommy Lee Jones? She's—" Maggie slammed her lips shut over the words skinnier than me. What woman in her right mind—and Maggie liked to think she was still at least semi-sane—would admit to anything like that? "You think we look alike? You think I look like Ashley Judd? Really?"

"You object?"

"Object? Hell, no!" Then Maggie mentally slapped herself back to reality. "So you want Saint Just's love interest to look like me—like Ashley Judd? I don't know, Alex. That's bringing this whole thing really close to home. I write fiction, not memoirs. It's kind of spooky. I'll have to think about this. Maybe next month. For now, turn your back, Alex. And I mean it!"

Maggie jabbed him in the side, hard, with her elbow as she pushed herself forward, left the bed. Balanced on her walker, her pajamas slung over the top rail of the thing, she clomp-clomped her way to the bathroom.

Once she'd maneuvered the walker and herself inside the small space and the door was closed behind her, Maggie let her shoulders slump. As exits go, that one couldn't have been very graceful. Ashley Judd couldn't have looked graceful hopping naked to a bathroom.

And Angelina Jolie couldn't have fared much better, so there.

But Alex was a gentleman. He wouldn't have looked. She could count on him for that.

She could count on him for a lot of things. And she did.

That she now seemed to be counting on him to make her life complete was more than a little frightening.

She thought she might know where the problem lay. She hadn't been mad at him, exasperated with him, for a while now. Probably too long. It was easier, keeping her emotional distance, when she was mad at him.

But now that they were lovers? Kind of hard to get mad at a guy who wasn't just the perfect hero, but also the perfect lover.

And he actually thought she maybe looked a little like Ashley Judd? Ahhh, that was so sweet of him.

Maggie shook her head, shook off the flattery. Refused to look at herself in the mirror, hunt for traces of the movie star. Promised herself she was going to stop acting like ... like such a girl.

Maybe what she needed right now was a good fight, to help keep her perspective.

"Okay," she said as she reentered the bedroom a few minutes later, having finally inched her pajama bottoms up and over her cast, "let's talk about something else."

"An excellent suggestion," Alex said, motioning her to one of the chairs near the sliding glass doors to a small, iced-over balcony. "Feel free to select a subject."

He'd dressed, not in pajamas—because perfect heroes know pajamas are unnecessary for them—and looked his usual fabulous self in black slacks and a black cashmere pullover sweater.

Comparing her blue pajamas with the white sheep on them—the baggy legs were the only ones that fit over the cast—to his sartorial perfection was enough to get her just a little bit mad at him. But he didn't seem to mind at all when she looked like she'd been dragged through a hedge, backward, so how could she get mad at him about that?

She needed something else. And then she remembered ...

"Let's talk about Socks, why don't we? Socks, and pies, and soul food."

Saint Just slipped the black grosgrain ribbon of his quizzing glass over his head and lifted a length of it, allowing the quizzing glass to swing lazily back and forth at midchest level.

A sure sign that he wasn't feeling quite as composed as he'd like her to believe. She knew the signs. She'd given him the habit, hadn't she?

"Socks was on duty when you visited the metropolis? And how is our mutual friend?"

"He's okay. I won't tell you about my visit to my condo, because I'm trying to forget it, but Socks is fine. And he'll get his foot out of his mouth soon, I'm sure of it."

"I was going to tell you myself in time, Maggie. Discuss the idea with you, that is."

"You were? After you decided, you were going to tell me. How very Regency-chauvinistic of you, Alex."

"It was only an idle conversation, Maggie, an exchange of ideas one late evening over coffee and cakes at Mario's. Socks and Jay don't have the wherewithal actually to set up such an establishment. Indeed, the entire thing was much more in the realm of fiction. You know, sweetings, as you deal in fiction. It was a conversation of what if."

"Uh-huh," Maggie said, tempted to squeeze the bicycle horn, give him a nonverbal opinion on the happy horse poop he was shoveling at her. "So let's play what if, shall we? What if Socks really wants to do this? What if he needs money to do this. Get ready, because here comes the biggie. And what if Maggie wins three-point-something-million dollars in A.C.?"

"Oh, dear, this is unfortunate," Alex said, dropping the length of ribbon. "He applied to you for a loan?"

"Him and the rest of the free world," Maggie groused, rubbing at her aching thigh, as carrying the cast around with her had begun causing aches and pains in other areas. "Why should Socks be any different?"

"True. But you told him that Sterling is going to be the beneficiary of your good luck, I imagine."

"I did, and then I warned him not to go asking Sterling for a loan. But that's not the point here, Alex. The point here is your plans for the first floor of my new house."

"Yes, I would imagine so. Again, Socks and I were in the realm of what if. I knew you had begun to fret about the cost of our new lodgings, and hence the idea of the bottom floor—clearly once employed commercially—producing some sort of income for you. To offset the cost of the mortgage. I shall disabuse him of the possibility the moment we return to the city."

And that was the problem. Alex knew her so well. How could she turn down the possibility of offsetting some of the cost of the house by renting out the bottom floor? She couldn't, wouldn't turn it down. She just wasn't built that way. Not after years of struggling financially. Her parents would probably call it having a Depression mentality, like so many people who had lived through the crash of 1929 and the lean years that followed. Whatever it was, she had it, and she couldn't seem to shake it.

"No, don't do that. It's having the idea tossed at me like that. That's what bothered me. It's probably a good idea. And I can even see Sterling working with Socks and Jay. The poor guy needs something to do other than stand around and be comic relief for you, the way he is in my books—our books. And he could eat all the pie and soul food he wants and not gain weight, right? The lucky dog."

Again with the quizzing glass? Lifting it, swinging it. Hmm, what was the man's problem?

"Alex? Right?"

"As rain, my dear. Then we're settled? I, of course, will front—the word is front, correct?—half of the funds Socks and Jay feel necessary to their project. Again, forgive me for not speaking with you before Socks could broach the subject."

"No problem. But I do have a problem, Alex."

"Other than your father, your mother, your sister—not to mention your conniving brother?"

"Yeah, well, they're all going to have to take a number and get in line for a minute. Because I want to know, Alex, what you're planning for, as Socks called it, the other side of the ground floor."

Come on, Alex, it's time for you to say something outlandish. Make me mad. I function better when I'm not feeling so damn lovey-dovey. Get me back on point, able to think about more than how we can get alone together, out of here, and the heck with anything else.

"Ah, sweetings, I don't think you really want to know. We've enough on our plates at the moment, don't we?"

She sagged against the back of the uncomfortable rattan chair. Why did beach furniture have to be so damn uncomfortable? And with pictures of shells and lighthouses on every damn wall? "That's okay, Alex," she said sweetly. "There's room on my plate, any time, to hear what you're thinking. You have such interesting ideas. I'm just hoping this one's legal."

"One of the very things I wished to discuss with you, yes."

"Oh, jeez ..."

"Now, now, don't be so quick to fly up into the boughs, my dear. Allow me to expound a moment. You like to watch the older television shows on cable late at night, don't you?"

"You know I do. I'm still thinking about writing a book called I Learned Everything I Ever Needed to Know on 'Seinfeld.' You know—close-talkers, low-talkers, being sponge-worthy, never to do anything George Costanza might think is a good idea. What of it?"

Alex stood, walked over to the sliding glass doors, looked out toward the ocean view that would be there if two blocks of condos weren't in the way. "I happened to find, and become rather enamored with, the premise of one particular show: The Equalizer."

He turned about to look at her. "You've seen the program?"

Maggie felt her stomach drop to her toes, and stay there. "I've seen it. The guy's ex-CIA or one of those agencies, and he puts an ad in the Classifieds. Something about people losing hope, feeling out of options, and suggesting they call the Equalizer. Then he goes out and solves all their problems and saves the day. Usually by killing somebody."

"There is a level of violence at times, yes. But all in honorable causes. The man has abilities, certain talents, and a profound belief that he employ them to help his fellow man. I admire that."

"Yeah, I'll just bet you do, Sparky," Maggie said, feeling more than a little fatalistic. "So you want to set up shop, be the Equalizer now?"

"I'm very blessed, Maggie. A man so blessed may feel the need to give something back. Help mankind."

"Uh-huh. Pull up the pants legs, Maggie, it's too late to save the shoes."

"Excuse me?"

"Old saying. You'd say, 'Pull the other one, it's got bells on.' But the meaning's sort of the same. You want to help people—I believe that. But you also want to get your jollies. You like trouble. You thrive on it."

"And you don't?"

"No! No, I don't. Do you think I'm having fun here—watching my dad get arrested for murder? Watching Bernie get hauled off for murder a while ago? Finding that stupid writer hanging outside my bedroom window? Having some guy send me a dead rat? No, I don't like trouble. I hate trouble. But ever since you ... since you got here, there's been nothing but trouble."

"Very well. I'll abandon the idea."

That was quick. Probably too quick. Maggie opened her mouth to say good, terrific. But then she closed it again.

"Maggie?"

"Don't push. I'm thinking here. You do the Fragrances by Pierre thing. Good money—great money—but you only need to work a couple of times a year for it. You've got the Streetcorner Orators and Players, but you've got Mary Louise and George and Vernon and probably two dozen more like them by now, who do the real work. Are you bored, Alex? Is it boring, being here? Being with me?"

"Do I miss the excitement of my former plane of existence, you mean? The balls, the routs, the gaming, the bruising rides, the mills, the court intrigues, the constant murders and mysteries to be solved? No, not really. We've been fairly well occupied here, Sterling and myself."

"So you weren't pulling my leg? You really feel like you want to give something back? Just plain old help people?"

His handsome face bore an adorably honest expression of resolve and bafflement. "It's what heroes do, Maggie. I am as you made me."

"And I wanted to be mad at you," she said quietly. "You're not helping here, Alex. I need to be mad at you, not like you more and more every damn day."

"Like me, Maggie?"

"Yeah ... well ... you know ..."

"I do, yes. My dearest Maggie. So articulate in our books, so very tongue-tied at any other time, when it comes to subjects remotely emotional. We'll leave the subject for now, shall we? What do you think of my idea, hmm? Not calling myself an Equalizer, but something else. Something that defines the service I wish to offer my fellow citizens of Manhattan—and the boroughs, of course. Shall we think about that, instead?"

"Regency Man," Maggie said, happy to move on to another subject. Any other subject than the sort of words she might use to categorize her feelings for Alex. "No, that's not good. What are some synonyms for help? The Assister? Bleech, that's dumb. The Neutralizer? No, that sounds like an air freshener. We could maybe do a play on Saint Just. You know, like The Saint? Damn, that was a television series title, too. It's like book titles—all the good ones are already taken. You know, Alex, this could be fun. We are pretty good at this solving problems stuff. Will we charge for our services?"

Did she just include herself in his crazy plan? Yup, she had. And he hadn't blinked, either, so he'd been thinking the same thing. Well, hell, if she was going to be his fictional heroine anyway, why not? It could be fun. Not quite Nick and Nora Charles ... but, as long as they seemed to go from trouble to trouble now anyway, why not make it a formal agreement?

"Collect fees, you mean? Not necessarily, no. Does that upset you?"

"Not necessarily, no," she repeated, still hung up on a name. Titles always drove her nuts. She'd find one she liked and Bernie would nix it. She'd give Bernie a dozen alternatives, and she'd nix them. That's why she'd called her books about Alex The Saint Just Mysteries. The title was all hers, and nobody else would have it, Bernie couldn't really fight it. Anything she could do to not end up with another sappy title like Love's Lustful Embers or Miranda's Sweet Seduction. Gawd! How many people never read a good romance novel because they didn't want to carry around a book with such a sappy title, and with a nursing mother cover to boot? "Wait, I've got it! The Samaritan. You like?"

"Very biblical," Alex agreed. "We'll consider it. For now, perhaps you should consider coming back to bed. We've another long day in front of us tomorrow, one way or the other. Speaking with your father, for one, as I was never able to get around to that today. Avoiding our friend on the go-cart, for two."

"Visiting all those women from the W.B.B., for three. I'm not looking forward to that one, although I guess you are. Laying on the charm, and all of that."

"One does what one does best," he told her, helping her to her feet and then sweeping her up high into his arms, returning to the bed. "And practice, I firmly believe, keeps one perfect ..."