ARE YOU LONESOME TONIGHT? (Running Wild) Read online

  She didn’t want to think about Ricky Shwartz now. She wanted to have a hot bath and go to bed. Maxine yawned, waggled her fingers at Edna, and headed down the hall.

  She tiptoed into Graham’s room. He was sleeping soundly, bottom in the air, thumb plugged into his mouth. She gently pulled the quilt up over him, praying he’d sleep through the night so she could too.

  With luck, tomorrow would be as busy as today, she thought as she ran a tub of hot water, stripped off her grubby clothes, and climbed in, sighing at the sheer pleasure of being alone with no phone clamped to her head.

  But busy was good. Busy didn’t leave any time to think about how long it had been since she’d talked to a man about something besides sex, or held anyone close except her son. Her clientele might be totally male, but she hadn’t had a real date since long before Graham was born. The truth was, she never met any men suitable for dating.

  There was Leonard, the produce manager at Safeway, she reminded herself with a wry grin, sinking deep into the bubbles. He always made a point of telling her how fresh the broccoli was while his eyes lingered on her breasts.

  She did have quite nice breasts, she decided, admiring them as they bobbled in the water.

  But it wasn’t fresh broccoli she wanted to talk about, and it sure wasn’t breasts either. She got more than enough talk of breasts just doing her job.

  She wanted to laugh with a man, the same way she did with Polly and Edna. Why couldn’t a man and woman have the kind of funny, outrageous conversations that came so easily to her and her female friends?

  Maxine thought that over and then chuckled at herself.

  It could have something to do with the fact that the conversations she and Polly and Edna enjoyed so much were mostly about men. Polly loved the wicked, funny stories Maxine and Edna told about their customers, and they listened raptly to the outrageous tales Polly told of the men she dated and discarded like used tissues.

  The last thing she needed was a man in her personal life, Maxine assured herself, slowly rubbing lavender soap over her belly and arms.

  Every man she'd ever known, beginning with her father, had wanted her to be something she wasn’t. And she’d tried to change herself into whatever it was they wanted.

  She’d become adept at it. Ironically, that adaptability was the very thing that had made her successful at creating illusions on the telephone.

  She used that talent to earn a living, but she vowed she’d never again be anyone but plain old Maxine Bleckner in her normal life. No matter how much she wanted a companion along the way, no matter how much she longed for a grown-up male to share the rest of her life, she wouldn’t pretend for him. He’d have to take her exactly the way she was.

  Well, maybe she’d shave her legs she amended with a grin. And have something constructive done with her hair. She’d go that far, but no farther.

  What are you wearing, Maxine?

  Flannel pajamas and sports socks with holes. Vaseline to soften the skin on my heels. Tea tree oil to dry up the zit on my chin. And baby puke, lots of baby puke.

  If her callers only knew the truth.

  If they did, they’d never call again. Maxine grinned and pulled the plug in the tub.

  She was the fifth one he called, and it was her voice that instantly captivated him.

  “India McBride, hi, there,” she said. “How are you this fine day?”

  It was a bedroom voice, husky and sultry, provocative, honey smooth. It was also, in some complex fashion, innocently friendly and inexplicably filled with joy.

  Harry had thought he was getting good at this. The other local numbers had resulted in conversations so blatantly and immediately sexual, he’d felt amused rather than aroused; it had sounded as if the women were reading out of X-rated magazines. He’d cut them short, conscious of his budget restraints and the fact that Sadie was napping and would awaken before long.

  He absolutely didn’t want her to hear him talking about sex on the phone, and he hadn’t wanted to develop any sort of a relationship with the voices on the other end of the line, not even in the interests of research.

  This voice was different.

  He cleared his throat and found his tongue. "I’m fine, thanks.” What the hell was there to say next? "You’re looking good today, India.”

  She giggled, a sophisticated giggle, and again the timbre of her voice thrilled him. "And you’re a smooth talker, sir. Do you happen to have a name?”

  “Harold.” He hadn’t planned to use his full name, but once he had, it was fine. It made what he was doing less personal, because everyone called him Harry. Harold was a different guy altogether.

  “Well, Harold, how do you do? I like that name, Harold. It’s dignified, sort of a Volvo name.”

  "Volvo?” For an instant he’d thought she’d said something else.

  "You know, significant. Solid, dependable. Trustworthy.”

  He'd never thought about his name in those terms. He’d only thought how much he’d rather be called David or Robert. All of a sudden, Harold wasn’t bad at all.

  This lady definitely had a different slant on sexy than the others he’d called.

  “Where are you calling from, Harold?”

  Her voice wrapped itself around his name like caramel around an apple, sweet and firm and inviting. It made him smile.

  “Vancouver, I live in Vancouver. I travel a lot, so it’s nice to be back. I’ve been out of town for a while now. And all the daffodils are blooming; I like that.” This was pure stream-of- consciousness stuff. He hadn’t really planned any of it.

  “I love the daffodils too. Where did you go?" His eyes searched his desk for inspiration. “Pen . . . Pennsylvania. Do you enjoy traveling, India?”

  “Not really, I’m sort of a homebody. You travel for work or for pleasure, Harold?”

  “Work.” Improvise here, Harry. "I’m a businessman, corporate stuff. It, ummm, it makes it hard to meet women.”

  “I guess it would.” She sounded sympathetic and understanding. “And what sort of woman would you like to meet, Harold?”

  He grinned at that. “You’d do just fine, by the sound of you.”

  She laughed, a gentle laugh, provocative. “That’s so sweet. But you don’t really know me yet.” That languorous voice caressed each word, and for the first time there was sexual innuendo. “Wouldn’t you like to know me lots better, Harold?”

  It was the opening he was waiting for. “I would, India. Very much better, but not in the way you think. I know most men who call probably want, ummm, just sex, but I’d like it a lot if you’d just talk to me. I guess I’m a little shy.” Pencil poised over the scratch pad, he started the interview. “You ever get other guys like me who just want to talk, India?”

  “Oh, sure.” She was so damned accommodating, so easy to talk to. "Lots of people are lonely. And I’m here to satisfy whatever hunger you have, Harold.”

  The intimacy of her tone, the emphasis she put on the words, relaxed him for a moment, and then he was suddenly irritated with himself for being taken in by her, reminding himself of the number of times a day she must say things just like this to countless other men. Stay focused on what you're doing, Watson.

  It was far too easy to forget this was just a job to her. She got paid for the number of minutes she kept him on the line, he reminded himself. He’d better get on with the interview, or Sullivan would be billing him instead of the other way around.

  "D’you mind my asking how old you are, India?”

  “Twenty-four.” The answer was prompt, and it certainly sounded honest. He had a powerful mental vision of a long-limbed slender woman in something slinky and black, stretched out on a chaise longue . . . .

  Don’t be such a jerk, Watson. There's no way of telling age over the phone; she could be sixty- three and four hundred pounds for all you know.

  "How about you, Harold? How old are you?”

  “Thirty-six.” Maybe if he was forthcoming, she would be as well. “I’m
six-two, two-forty, black hair, blue eyes.” He rubbed a hand across the stubble on his chin. “I’m pretty ordinary looking. I’m not in the greatest shape; traveling doesn’t leave much time to go to the gym.” Neither did being a single father.

  “You sound really attractive to me. I’ll bet women find you sexy.”

  They had, at one time. He grinned and shook his head. She was good at this, and he noticed she hadn’t given him a verbal on herself.

  “Thanks, but don’t feed me a line, okay, India? I’m comfortable with my shortcomings; I don’t need my ego stroked.”

  That teasing little laugh again. "What would you like stroked, Harold?”

  He wasn’t going there, although he was beginning to understand how easy it would be. Her voice was a slide of silk on bare skin. It made the hair on his arms stand up. A certain tension in his groin made him uncomfortably aware that other parts of his anatomy were also erect.

  Staying objective was going to be a lot harder than he’d imagined.

  Chapter Four

  It took all his self-control to sound casually amused.

  "What would I like stroked? Oh, let’s see. My curiosity, I guess. I’d like to get to know you, like I said before.”

  There was a tiny pause. "Get to know me? In what way, Harold?”

  “Oh, I want you to tell me what sort of a woman you are.” He glanced at his scribbled notes. "Tell me what you like to do for fun, what you read, what movies you like to watch. Talk to me as if I were a new friend instead of a customer."

  “Well, let’s see.” Again there was a small silence. Her voice was more tentative now, her diction slower.

  He guessed she was feeling her way, trying to figure him out.

  "I guess you could say I’m a little bit wild, Harold. I always was. I like to take chances; I like to live on the edge. I like, ummm, motorcycles. I like . . . oh, to dance by myself in the middle of the night. I read erotic poetry, nonsense rhymes, traditional verse. I like romantic movies that have an edge to them, older ones like The Thomas Crown Affair."

  “I didn’t see it.” He’d gotten rather fond of Max and Ruby. It was Sadie's favorite show. He scribbled furiously, wondering how much of this was fabrication. It sounded a lot more literate than he’d expected from a phone sex worker.

  "Daddy?"

  Harry was so involved in the phone call he hadn’t heard Sadie waking up or coming along the hall. She stood in the doorway of the study, her acorn brown eyes still heavy from sleep, strands of silky red-gold hair caught on her eyelashes. She had her tattered blanket over her shoulder and her toy rabbit under her arm, and her face was creased from the pillow,

  “Daddy? I needs a love.”

  He clamped a hand over the receiver and beckoned her over to him. She always needed cuddling after her nap. She snuggled her face into his chest, and he spoke hurriedly into the phone. “I’m terribly sorry, but something argents’ just come up and I have to go now. Can I call you back this evening, say about, oh, nine?”

  “Eight-thirty would be better,” she murmured suggestively, as if they were planning an intimate liaison.

  "Eight-thirty it is.” He hung up and wrapped his daughter in his arms, wondering why it had been such an unsettling call. He thought it over and came to the conclusion that for some obscure reason, he didn’t like misleading the invisible woman behind that beguiling voice.

  Maxine thought she’d heard a female voice in the background. Well, it was nothing to her; whoever he really was, he must have a life that included women.

  When the line went dead abruptly she shrugged and thought about the call. She’d assumed that she and Edna must have heard every kind of call imaginable, but this one had been in a class of its own.

  Harold had sounded polite, hesitant, a little shy, but certainly not the type of shy she was most familiar with. That kind was usually into domination and submission, and she was willing to bet that Harold wasn’t one of them.

  He was intelligent, not that some of her other callers weren’t; the difference was that they were just intelligently single-minded, intent on having their needs satisfied. They certainly weren’t interested in what she was like, beyond the standard stuff such as what she was wearing and how excited she was by them and was she enjoying their encounter.

  Would he call back?

  She went over the conversation in her head, puzzling over it, wondering who Harold really was. There had to be more to it than just wanting to get to know her. He must have some obscure fetish that she’d never come across, she decided.

  There wasn’t time to think much about it. She could hear Graham, awake from his nap and wanting to be picked up, and the business phone was sure to ring again at any moment.

  Maxine dismissed Harold from her mind and hurried off down the hall to rescue her son.

  That evening, however, she knew instantly who it was when the call came at precisely eight- thirty. Graham had had his bath and gone down forty minutes before, and Maxine was curled in an easy chair with the newspaper. The radio was turned low, tuned to an FM station that played hits from the seventies.

  She turned the volume down still further and used her most languorous business voice.

  “Hello, there, India here."

  “Hello again, India. It’s Harold"—there was the tiniest of pauses—"Walters.”

  “Well, Harold Walters, how nice to hear from you.” It was only then that she was aware she’d been waiting for his call. Now why would she do a thing like that?

  Her heartbeat picked up. She had to work at keeping her voice normal. “Are you having an enjoyable evening, Harold?”

  Too late, she realized that wasn’t a question she’d normally ask a client; the fact that they were calling her meant that they hoped to have an enjoyable evening.

  She wasn’t on the ball tonight.

  Snap out of it, Bleckner. This is business.

  “Actually, I'm having a great evening,” he said in the deep baritone that Maxine recalled so well from their earlier conversation. It was sexy, understated, a quiet, assured voice that hinted at a man who knew who he was and accepted it.

  “I have a glass of red wine going, Bob Dylan on the sound system, and now you on the telephone.” He gave a deep sigh that made her smile. "It doesn’t get much better, India."

  "Glad to hear it. I like Dylan, too.” She could hear the music playing softly in the background. "I’ve got the radio on—they're playing Rod Stewart. What other music do you listen to, besides Dylan?” If this guy was going to pay her just to chat, why not talk about things that were interesting to her?

  “Tom Waits, ever heard of him?”

  She never had.

  “Funky blues,” he explained, adding that if she liked Dylan, she’d probably like Waits as well. “I used to play blues guitar in college, a long time ago.”

  "Do you still play?”

  “Once in a while. To amuse myself, when I have the time.” He turned the conversation back to her. "What do you read besides poetry, India?”

  “Mystery.” Thank God Edna was as good at reviewing books as she was at relating the plots of movies. "How about you, Harold?”

  "Oh, bits of everything. I like science fiction, mystery, biography. I enjoy reading about how other people live their lives, what motivates them to make the choices they make.”

  She might enjoy that, too, if she ever got the time, Maxine thought a little wistfully.

  She heard Edna’s key in the lock. The older woman came in and gave her a wave and a smile as she hung her raincoat in the closet. She pretended to tip a teacup to her lips and Maxine nodded hearty agreement. She’d love a cup of tea. She also wouldn’t mind finishing this conversation in private, which was weird; she’d never had any qualms before about having Edna hear her business patter.

  “You never told me where you live, Maxine. I assume you’re also from Vancouver?”

  "How did you guess?"

  He chuckled, a warm and intimate sound that brought an answerin
g smile to her lips. “Daffodils. When I said I liked daffodils, you said you did, too. And I just assumed from that that you lived here.”

  “It’s a great city; I love Vancouver.” She did, even though she lived in a suburb outside it.

  Edna had come back into the living room while she waited for the kettle to boil, and Maxine suddenly felt duty-bound to add some spice to this strange call.

  “It rains a lot here, but I don’t mind it. One of the things I most enjoy doing is walking in the rain with just a raincoat on; it’s such a delicious feeling, the coolness against the thin material, being naked underneath."

  Edna pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow, then nodded hearty approval. It was a new line, one neither of them had used before.

  Harold was less enthusiastic. “I’ve never tried it. Don’t think I will, either. I’ve heard that guys in raincoats with no pants get arrested and thrown in the slammer. I guess gals are different, but aren’t you afraid of getting in an accident?” He laughed. He had a nice laugh, deep and hearty and spontaneous. “Didn’t your mother ever give you that old lecture about wearing clean underwear in case you had to go to the hospital?"

  Maxine had to laugh too. “Come to think of it, she did, Harold. I guess everyone’s mother used that line.”

  “Are you close to your mother, India?” The question was sincere and unexpected, and she hesitated before she answered, taken aback. No one except her female friends had ever asked her that before.

  “I was, but my mother died when I was sixteen.” Now, what had possessed her to be truthful? And why would such old news make her feel a sudden new pang of loss?

  Edna stopped on her way into the kitchen and turned, giving Maxine a puzzled look. She was talking to a client about her mother?

  Maxine rolled her eyes and shrugged, indicating that she had a really strange one on the line.

  "I’m sorry. That must have been tough for you, losing your mom when you were so young." His voice was thoughtful. “Think it’s hard for a girl, growing up without a mother?"