Grand Passion

Partridge.”
    “Damn. What I really need is a martini.” Partridge snatched up his key and stalked toward the staircase. The next three people in line behind him surged forward in a wave.
    Max watched as Cleo braced herself for the onslaught. He saw her glance again at the stairs. When the missing bellhop did not materialize there, she turned back to face the wave with a warm smile of welcome.
    The lobby door slammed open with a crash. Max saw lightning crackle across the night sky. Rain, wind, and two more drenched inn patrons blew into the hall. They joined the crowd milling around in front of the hearth.
    “Lucky Ducky go swimming.”
    Startled by the high, squeaky voice that came out of nowhere, Max looked down. A small boy with a head full of blond curls looked up at him. He was dressed in a miniature pair of jeans and a striped shirt. He appeared to be no more than five years old, and he had a thumb stuck in his mouth.
    “I beg your pardon?” Max could not recall the last time he had conversed with a child.
    The small boy yanked his thumb out of his mouth long enough to repeat his statement. “Lucky Ducky go swimming.” Jamming his thumb back into his mouth, he gave Max an expectant look.
    “I see.” Max sought for a suitable response. “It's a cold night for swimming, isn't it?”
    “Uncle Jason said ducks can swim anytime, anywhere.”
    Max's hands tightened around the hawk-headed grip of the cane. “Uncle Jason?”
    “Uncle Jason's gone,” the child confided with a wistful expression. “Cleo says he's in heaven.”
    “Jason Curzon in heaven?” Max contemplated that. “Well, anything's possible, I suppose.”
    “Did you know Uncle Jason?”
    “Yes.”
    The boy took his thumb out of his mouth again and gave Max a bright, toothless smile. “My name is Sammy Gordon. Did you know my daddy, too?”
    “I don't think so.” A staggering thought occurred to Max. “Not unless your daddy was Uncle Jason?”
    “No, no, no,” the child said, clearly impatient. “My daddy isn't in heaven like Uncle Jason. My daddy's lost.”
    Max realized he was beginning to lose the thread of the conversation. “Lost?”
    Sammy nodded quickly. “I heard Mommy tell Cleo that he had to go find himself.”
    “I see.”
    “He never did, I guess.”
    Max did not know what to say to that. He glanced across the crowded room and saw a pretty woman with short, honey-blond hair emerge from the office behind the front desk. She went to give Cleo a hand.
    “That's my mommy,” Sammy volunteered.
    “What's her name?”
    “Sylvia Gordon.” Sammy eyed Max's cane with deep interest. “Why do you have to lean on that? Did you hurt yourself?”
    “Yes.”
    “Will you be all better soon?”
    “I hurt myself a long time ago,” Max said. “This is as good as I'm going to get.”
    “Oh.” Sammy was intrigued.
    “Sammy?” Cleo came around from behind the desk. “Where are you?”
    Max's head came up swiftly. Jason's mistress had a rich honey-and-cream sort of voice, perfectly suited to a Cleopatra. Another jolt of awareness went through him. He could almost hear that warm, sensual voice in bed.
    “Here I am, Cleo.” Sammy waved a wet thumb at her.
    Max's eye was caught by a glimpse of silver as Cleo emerged from the crowd. He glanced down and frowned when he saw that Jason's mistress favored shiny, silver-toned sneakers with glittering, metallic laces. The rest of her attire was not nearly as tasteless, but it wasn't particularly inspiring, either. It consisted of a yellow oxford cloth button-down shirt and a pair of faded jeans.
    “I wondered where you were, Sammy.” Cleo smiled at the boy, and then her eyes met Max's.
    He saw the startled expression that appeared in her soft hazel gaze. For a few seconds her gold-framed glasses afforded her no protection at all. In that brief moment she was as open to him as a work of art, and he knew that she was as aware of him as he was of her.
    The impact of the flash of raw intimacy stunned Max. It was a dangerously disturbing experience, completely unlike anything he had ever known with another human being. Until now the only things that had had a similar effect on him were extraordinarily fine paintings and very old books. Desire, fierce and completely unexpected, swept through him. He fought it with all the willpower at his command.
    Cleo's gaze slipped briefly to Max's cane, breaking the spell. When she looked up again, she had her professionally hospitable