Mirror Image

arches of her feet and receptively angled her hips up.
    Hostile, hard, and hot, Tate slid his hand into the damp silk prohibiting his entrance.
    The telephone rang.
    He withdrew his hand, but she still lay trapped beneath him. While they lay breathing heavily against each other, the phone continued to ring.
    Eventually, Tate rolled to the edge of the bed and jerked the receiver to his ear. “Hello?” After a brief pause, he cursed. “Yeah, Jack,” he growled. “I’m awake. What is it?”
    Avery emitted a small, anguished cry and moved to the far side of the bed, putting her back to him.

Twenty-Six
    “I’m coming.”
    Eddy left his comfortable hotel room chair and rounded the matching hassock. Stacked on top if it were computer readouts, newspaper clippings, demographic charts. Thinking the knock signaled the arrival of his room service order, he pulled the door open without first checking the peephole.
    Fancy stood on the threshold. “I’d pay to see that.”
    Not bothering to conceal his annoyance, he barred her entrance by placing his forearm on the doorjamb. “See what?”
    “You coming.”
    “Cute.”
    “Thanks,” she replied cheekily. Then her blue eyes darkened. “Who were you expecting?”
    “None of your business. What are you doing so far away from home, little girl?”
    The bell on the elevator down the hall chimed, and the room service waiter emerged, carrying a tray on his shoulder. He approached them on soundless footsteps. “Mr. Paschal?”
    “Here.” When Eddy stepped aside to let him in, Fancy slipped inside, too. She went into the bathroom and locked the door. Eddy scrawled his signature on the bottom of the tab and showed the waiter to the door.
    “Have a good night.”The youth gave him an elbow-in-the-ribs grin and a sly wink.
    Eddy closed the door a little too suddenly and a little too loudly to be polite. “Fancy?” He rapped on the bathroom door.
    “I’ll be out in a sec.”
    He heard the commode flush. She opened the door while still tugging the tight, short skirt of her tube dress over her hips. The dress was made of stretchy, clingy stuff that conformed to her body like a second skin. It had a wide cuff across the top that could be worn off the shoulders. She was wearing it way off.
    The dress was red. So was her lipstick, her high-heeled pumps, and the dozens of plastic bangle bracelets encircling her arms. With her mane of blond hair even more unruly than usual, she looked like a whore.
    “What did you order? I’m starved.”
    “You’re not invited.” Eddy intercepted her on her way toward the room service tray the waiter had left on the table near the easy chair. He gripped her upper arm. “What are you doing here?”
    “Well, first I was peeing. Now I’m going to scope out what you’ve got to eat.”
    His fingers pinched tighter and he strained her name through his teeth. “What are you doing in Houston?”
    “It got boring at home,” she said, wresting her arm free, “with nobody but Mona and Mother around. Mother’s in a stupor half the time. The other half she’s crying over Daddy not loving her anymore. Frankly, I doubt he ever did. You know he thought she was knocked up with me when they got married.” She lifted the silver metal lid off one of the plates and picked up a cherry tomato—a garnish for his club sandwich.
    “What’s… hmm, a chocolate sundae,” she cooed with pleasure as she investigated beneath another lid. “How do you eat like this late at night and keep your belly so nice and flat?”
    Her practiced eyes moved down his smooth, muscled torso, seen through his unbuttoned shirt. Suggestively, Fancy licked her lips.
    “Anyway, Mother believes Daddy has the hots for Aunt Carole, which I think is downright scandalous, don’t you?” She shivered—not from repugnance, but with delight. “It’s so, so Old Testament for a man to covet his brother’s wife.”
    “The sin of the week, by Fancy Rutledge.”
    She giggled. “Mother’s positively morose and Mona looks at me with the same regard she would have for a cockroach in her sugar canister. Grandma, Grandpa, and the little spook were due back, which would only make things worse, so I decided to split and come here, where all the action is.”
    Wryly, he said, “As you can see, there’s not much going on tonight.”
    Undaunted, she curled up in the easy chair he’d been occupying and popped the tomato into her mouth. It was the same vibrant color as her lips. Her