You forget how the top half of the country lives. In February all us Indiana farmers are down yonder, by the Rio Grande, sitting in the sun in trailer lots. They call us Winter Texans or Snow Birds, since we tend to migrate like birds to escape the northern winter.”
“How did a farmer get in here?” She moved one hand to indicate the ballroom and that meeting.
“Yes. Well.” He thought rapidly and replied, “I never actually farmed. I went to school and learned to read and write, and I’m a reporter in the metropolis of Fort Wayne, home of Mad Anthony Wayne, who licked the British.”
Taking anyone called Mad Anthony’s heroic deed literally, she expressed great astonishment. “He licked them? Why would he do a gross thing like that?”
Quite gravely he replied, “It wasn’t with his tongue, it was in the War of the Revolution.”
“And he was mad?”
“Probably because the British weren’t being nice.” He considered her damp dress. “He’s the one who said, ‘My country, right or wrong.’”
Fully realizing she was playing straight-woman for him, she asked, “Why did he say that?”
“More than likely his country was doing something he didn’t entirely agree with.”
“On occasion, I’ve had that very feeling.”
“We are members of the same club.”
It wasn’t until then that she laughed. “Are you new on the Coast?”
“And new in the world of journalism,” he agreed with complete honesty. Then he told her, “My name is Tristan Roald, but since that sounds like a contender for the throne, I’m called Tris. And on occasion that comes out Chris with a good many of the uninitiated.” Since it really was his name, his eyelids didn’t flicker, nor did his eyes shift even the least little bit, as he watched to see how deep her research had been, and if she’d discovered that fact about Sean Morant.
“Tristan Roald sounds like a Viking.”
“We tend to take that very seriously.” He nodded with the words quite emphatically. “Plunder and all that sort of thing.”
“I’m Amabel Clayton and I’m—”
He interrupted in his lazy, husky voice. “You wrote the cover story on the Rocker. Uh, what’s his name.”
She supplied the name easily. “Sean Morant. If you don’t recall that name, you must not be into Rock.”
Adroitly he avoided a reply by saying, “The cover was impressive. Do you really think he managed so many women in that short a time?” He began laying his trap.
“Pictorial proof.”
“You don’t think it might have been just circumstances? That he’s an actual innocent?”
She grinned.
To cover his face, he scratched his nose, since she was looking at him with thoughtful eyes, but he went on, “The pictures were taken,” he conceded. “But he might not have even been very well acquainted with those women.” He pretended the comment was casual. He had to hear her reply.
“I believe it’s the exactness in the duplication of the pictures that got to me. He always looks the same, his clothes, his designer-tossed hair, his expression of boredom. Only the woman is different. It’s time for another picture. The time lapse seems almost measured. It’s as if Sean yawns and grumbles, ‘It’s time for me to be photographed with another bimbo.’”
He smoothed a hand over his hair to be sure it was all still neat and orderly, and he questioned with raised brows, “Bimbo?”
Amabel groaned. “I had to interview them. One does wonder why he chooses them.” Then she had the grace to blush rather vividly and sputter, “Well, I mean, I suppose...” And she just coughed and tried to change the subject.
But he wouldn’t allow it. “You think he just chooses a body for...physical reasons.” It wasn’t a question.
“It’s not for conversation.” Her reply was so positive on that score that it sounded a little heated.
“Do you have an unrequited desire for Sean’s body?” His eyes were almost hidden by his lashes, but she could see the glints of golden laughter in them.
“I have the strangest feeling I know you.”
“Ever been to Fort Wayne?” he inquired with honest candor.
“No. I am going to Indianapolis in March for a Women’s Seminar—”
“I’ll be just north of there, in Fort Wayne. Where is the seminar?”
“At the Hyatt.”
“Ever been to Indiana? We’ve lots of wonders to see.” And he had eased her past talking about who he might look like—or indeed, who he might be.
They talked of hotels, Indiana, California, people, and she introduced him to several people as Tris. Two asked if they knew him. Was he a publicist? He looked familiar somehow. He replied, “Well, if you’ve ever been to Indiana there are a good many of us around, and we tend to have the family look. My mother was a Fell, and her family were Davie and Hughs. And there are some...” But oddly enough by then the questioner had lost interest.
At the buffet, he crossed glances with Jamie and gave him a bland, vague look of a stranger. Jamie coughed then choked quite hard, and he had to be slapped on the back.
Tris said to Amabel, “He’s probably drunk. Most reporters drink too much. Do you?”
“He isn’t a reporter—in fact he’s Sean Morant’s publicist. No woman drinks too much if she’s as opposed to men as I am.”
“Now why would you be opposed to men?” he inquired in great surprise.
“Basically... Well, that word says it all. Men are very basic.”
Tris snagged them each another drink from a passing tray—carried, of course, by a waiter—and he handed one to Amabel before he lifted his as he said, “Here’s to the good old days, when men were men and women were barefoot and pregnant.”
She refrained from sipping the drink and cautioned, “I can see we need to talk about women’s rights. I do believe you’ve been somewhat out of touch? And that’s especially bad for a news—”
But then a sly and droll woman’s voice interrupted, “You still here, Mab? I thought you had left.”
“Not yet.” And Tris was delighted to see Mab blush faintly. “I’m still here.”
And the woman eyed Tris as she replied in very slow, drawling tones, “So I see.”
Amabel ignored that and didn’t introduce Tris but asked him, “Has our sunshine staggered your physical balance and given you a cold? You’re a little hoarse.”
Tris replied quite easily, “All hog callers are hoarse.” And with some pleasure in his own ready tongue, he added, “Pigs are deaf.”
“You’ve said you were never a farmer, and since you’re new to the newspaper business, what did you do before? I have such a strange feeling I know you. Have I seen you somewhere?”
“Interesting you say that. It’s the oddest thing, but women often say that to me. Maybe it’s our past lives, my Viking ancestors raiding villages and carrying off women, and there’s now a basic, genetic fear of me.” He smiled. “Are you afraid of me?”
And that strange shiver shimmered inside her from her core to her nipples. She glanced aside and decided it wasn’t Tris; it was the damp cloth on her chest. She asked, “Have you been in porno flicks?”
“Do you watch them?”
“No, of course not.” He puzzled her and she