A Will and a Way

Curious, again naturally, to find out what it was about Michael Donahue that attracted all those poster girls. She’d found out.
    So he had a way of making a woman feel utterly a woman, utterly involved, utterly willing. It wasn’t something that had happened to her before nor something she’d looked for. As Pandora saw it, it was a kind of skill. She decided he’d certainly honed it as meticulously as any craftsman. Though she found it difficult to fault him for that, she wasn’t about to fall in with the horde. If he knew, if he even suspected, that she’d had the same reaction to him that she imagined dozens of other women had,he’d gloat for a month. If he guessed that from time to time she’d wished—just for a moment—that he’d think of her the way he thought of those dozens of other women, he’d gloat for twice as long. She wouldn’t give him the pleasure.
    Individuality was part of her makeup. She didn’t want to be one of his women, even if she could. Now that her curiosity had been satisfied, they’d get through the next five months without any more…complications.
    Just because she’d found him marginally acceptable as a human being, almost tolerable as a companion wouldn’t get in the way. It would, if anything, make the winter pass a bit easier.
    And when she caught herself putting the finishing touches on a sketch of Michael’s face, she was appalled. The lines were true enough, though rough. She’d had no trouble capturing the arrogance around the eyes or the sensitivity around the mouth. Odd, she realized; she’d sketched him to look intelligent. She ripped the sheet from her pad, crumpled it up in a ball and tossed it into the trash. Her mind had wandered, that was all. Pandora picked up her pencil again, put it down, then dug the sketch out again. Art was art, after all, she told herself as she smoothed out Michael’s face.
     
    He wasn’t having a great deal of success with his own work. Michael sat at his desk and typed like a maniac for five minutes. Then he stared into space for fifteen. It wasn’t like him. When he worked, he worked steadily, competently, smoothly until the scene was set.
    Leaning back in his chair, he picked up a pencil and ran hisfingers from end to end. Whatever the statistics said, he should never have given up smoking. That’s what had him so edgy. Restless, he pushed away from the desk and wandered over to the window. He stared down at Pandora’s workshop. It looked cheerful under a light layer of snow that was hardly more than a dusting. The windows were blank.
    That’s what had him so edgy.
    She wasn’t what he’d expected. She was softer, sweeter. Warmer. She was fun to talk to, whether she was arguing and snipping and keeping you on the edge of temper, or whether she was being easy and companionable. There wasn’t an overflow of small talk with Pandora. There weren’t any trite conversations. She kept your mind working, even if it was in defense of her next barb.
    It wasn’t easy to admit that he actually enjoyed her company. But the weeks they’d been together at the Folley had gone quickly. No, it wasn’t easy to admit he liked being with her, but he’d turned down an interesting invitation from his assistant producer because… Because, Michael admitted on a long breath, he hadn’t wanted to spend the night with one woman when he’d known his thoughts would have been on another.
    Just how was he going to handle this unwanted and unexpected attraction to a woman who’d rather put on the gloves and go a few rounds than walk in the moonlight?
    Romantic women had always appealed to him because he was, unashamedly, a romantic himself. He enjoyed candlelight, quiet music, long, lonely walks. Michael courted women in old-fashioned ways because he felt comfortable with old-fashionedways. It didn’t interfere with the fact that he was, and had been since college, a staunch feminist. Romance and sociopolitical views were worlds apart. He had no trouble balancing equal pay for equal work against offering a woman a carriage ride through the park.
    And he knew if he sent Pandora a dozen white roses, she’d complain about the thorns.
    He wanted her. Michael was too much a creature of the senses to pretend otherwise. When he wanted something, he worked toward it in one of two ways. First, he planned out the best approach, then took the steps one at a time, maneuvering subtly. If that didn’t work, he tossed out subtlety and went after it