Pink Satin

If he’d been a less obstinate man, he might have given up over the past seven days. As if he could have stopped himself from falling in love with her. Her quick humor, her compassion, her keen mind, her love-every-day spirit…she gave so much to him, without half trying.

That Greer was his, he already knew. Convincing her of that was proving a battle of wits, only Ryan was just beginning to realize that the harder she fought, the more success he was having. It had been tough understanding that. His engineer’s rational brain rejected the off-the-wall premise as illogical, but then he’d had to try to think a little like Greer.

Silently rising to his feet with a frown, he disappeared inside his apartment and returned moments later with a small box. He hunched over and started setting up a marble chessboard.

Greer flicked the yarn over her needle, only mildly shaking her head when she saw what he was doing. “First of all, that’s not necessary. It’s past midnight and you must be tired. Second, contrary to outward appearances, I do not require a babysitter. And last, you really don’t want to play chess.”

“Why not?” Ryan had won tournament after tournament in college. He might be a little rusty, but he was good enough so she’d never know when he let her beat him.

In the first game, Greer beat him in fifteen minutes. In the second game it took her nearly twenty minutes. And when Ryan set up the board a third time, he had that distinctly sour look that men get when they’ve been bested in any competitive sport-by a woman.

“You don’t play rationally,” he told her.

“I’ll try to improve-that is, if you’re not giving up?”

“Your move,” he said flatly. His eyes met hers, and her lashes quickly lowered. She understood that he wasn’t giving up. Not in chess, and not in the fancy little game of neighbor-friend they’d been playing for almost two weeks.

Ryan waited, carefully. In the process of concentrating on the game, her tears had dried, and the pinched look had left her features. She was getting a disgustingly innocent little spark of triumph in her eyes. He’d sat cross- legged for the game. Greer, after fidgeting with her skirt, had gradually given in to comfort and was lying on her stomach, her legs swinging in the air behind her, her chin cupped in her hands between moves.

A half hour into the third game, he saw the rare opportunity to steal her rook and did.

Greer glanced up. “How could I have been so stupid?” she asked mournfully.

“You aren’t. You’re trying-most insultingly-to throw the game. Probably out of pity.”

“I was not. I’ve never thrown a game in my life.”

“Fine.” He whisked one of her bishops off the board with his next move. “Did you call the police?”

She tensed up like a taut rubber band. “Ryan, there is nothing else I can do. There is nothing else anyone can do. I’ve had my phone number changed twice now, and I refuse to have the line tapped for the rest of my life. Now I have no choice except to ignore him.”

“You have to find out who’s doing it.”

“I’ve tried figuring that out, dammit.” She slipped his queen off the board with her knight and then looked up guiltily. “Sorry.”

“That queen was wide open. Don’t apologize.” Ryan wasn’t even looking at the board. “Someone is making those calls, Greer. Some man. Maybe a neighbor, maybe one of the men upstairs, maybe someone you work with. You must have some idea-”

“Well, I don’t. And we’ve been through this.”

“On the surface. We never got down to the nitty-gritty.” He leaned over the board and touched her chin to make her look up at him. “Cards on the table now, and don’t fuss. Maybe a man you refused to sleep with? A man you turned down who’s trying to get back at you?”

She pushed his hand away from her chin and pulled herself up to her knees, concentrating fiercely on the chessboard. “For heaven’s sake,” she said in a low voice, “if every man that I’d refused to sleep with called me up to harass me… I’ve dated my share of men, for heaven’s sake. Was I supposed to say yes every time I was asked?”

Very quietly Ryan said, “I don’t think you’ve said yes to any man since you divorced your husband.”

Greer sucked in a little air. Her lungs seemed to need it. “How many men I’ve slept with has nothing to do with-”

“It could have a great deal to do with it, Greer.”

“It doesn’t have to be a man anyway,” she said crossly.

“You believe it is, or you wouldn’t be scared out of your wits every time the phone rings.” When she didn’t answer, Ryan let out a mental sigh. He watched her fingers tremble as they moved a pawn, and said very gently, very firmly, “You’re staying at my place tonight.”

She dropped the pawn. “Don’t be silly.”

“All right. Then I’ll stay with you at your place.”

“That wasn’t what I meant.” Greer gave up trying to follow the game. “You caught me in a little crying jag, I admit that. That hardly means I’m falling apart. In fact, that cry was delightful.”

“Delightful?” The word clearly took him by surprise.

“It happens. Not often, but every once in a while. An occasional good cry can let out an awful lot of excess emotional baggage. This day was the pits. My breather’s been driving me nuts. Now, I don’t know what men do when they’ve just plain had enough-throw temper tantrums? Hurl things against the wall? Surely everyone’s entitled to a simple rotten mood?”

“We walk,” he snapped.

“Pardon?”

Ryan uncrossed his legs and surged to his feet, and then reached down to pull Greer to hers. “When a man’s just plain had enough, he walks. Or this one does. Where are your shoes?”

She opened her lips to remind him politely that it was now past one in the morning, then hesitated, felt a familiar sensation of being tied up in knots, and abruptly ducked into her apartment to fetch her shoes and put the cat inside. All right. They’d walk.

In some areas, she was discovering, Ryan could be just a tiny bit bullheaded. He made her laugh; he made her think; he made her feel any number of uncomfortable emotions; but when he got that certain look in his eyes, arguments bounced off him like marshmallows off a brick wall.

She’d been running into that side of him all week. On Wednesday, for instance, her niece, Robin, had come over. Andrew had naturally trailed after his runaway daughter, and they were exchanging their usual clipped dialogue when Ryan had appeared at the door with a measuring cup in his hand. She’d stared at him in total surprise. “I need a cup of salt,” he’d told her, all boyish neighbor. After shoving the cup into her hand, he’d settled in next to Andrew, and hadn’t left until he’d clearly established that her brother-in-law wasn’t the kind to make crank calls.

There’d been two other times that week when the phone had rung, and Ryan had appeared from nowhere. One of those calls had been The Breather, and Ryan had parked in her living room the rest of the evening, an immovable rock, that same stubborn angle to his chin.

Actually, that evening they’d had a wonderful time, talking until a ridiculously late hour. If he would just stop thinking she needed a keeper, all because of her foolish phone calls. She didn’t need a keeper; she’d never needed a keeper.

And worse, she was getting used to him being around when she was scared out of her wits. The last thing she wanted was to become attached to the man, and she was terribly afraid that was happening to her. Why else would she be tying her shoes at the speed of light, all because she knew he was upset with her?

She scowled down at the offending shoes, and then sprang to her feet.

She was so tired of being confused by the man she could scream. All week, he’d treated her like his best friend’s kid sister. No passes. No kisses. No touching. After that night at the restaurant, she’d expected…something. Anything. She’d have shut him down instantly if he’d pressed for an affair, but how could the man turn on like a deprived male animal on a dance floor and then not even try to hold her hand?

Had she suddenly developed the plague?

She viewed his stony face as she hurried out of her apartment wearing shoes and a sweater. A dozen turbulent emotions abruptly died. She hated the distant chill in his eyes and would have done cartwheels to erase it. “Where