Understandably put off by the evening’s earlier turn, Catheryn shook her head. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am. Please, Kate.”
Catheryn hesitated. “After what’s been going on between us, I certainly don’t feel like-”
“Please?”
Catheryn hesitated a moment more, then finally relented. “Well, I am leaving for almost six weeks, and I do hate to waste a perfectly good babysitter. But I’m definitely not making any promises about what happens when we get there.”
I smiled, encouraged to see that Catheryn was making an effort, too. “One step at a time.”
Avoiding the freeway, I jogged over to Beverly Boulevard and turned west, my eyes sweeping side streets and alleys along the way-a habit from patrol days I had never been able to shake. Twenty minutes later, after cutting across Santa Monica Boulevard, I took Palm to Sunset, then backtracked at the first light and headed toward the beach.
Catheryn, who on our cross-town trek had repeatedly asked where we were going, suddenly sat erect. “We’re staying here?” she asked in amazement as I pulled into the palm-lined entrance of the Beverly Hills Hotel. “We haven’t been here since…”
“… that second honeymoon we took a few years back,” I finished. “I got the same bungalow we had then. That was one hell of a weekend, Kate.”
Catheryn’s cheeks colored. “Yes, it was. But Dan, what about the expense?”
“We’ll just have to get along without the new Ferrari,” I joked.
As we proceeded up the curving drive, I studied the four-story Crescent Wing that had been added to the hotel during the early fifties, its walls now partially concealed behind a thicket of tropical trees and flowering plants. As we passed, the thought struck me that for some reason the uniquely opulent building, with its pink stucco exterior, red tiled roof, and arched perimeter walls somehow seemed to exude an aura of hospitality that contrasted its near-garish appearance.
“I can’t believe we’re here,” said Catheryn.
“Believe it. This is where I bring all my women.”
Again making an effort to forget our previous argument, at least for the moment, Catheryn shot me a playful look of admonishment. “There had better be only one woman in your life, mister.”
“Don’t worry, Kate. I’m saving my godlike body just for you.”
“You’d better.”
As I jammed the Suburban into park, a valet in a pink polo shirt stepped to Catheryn’s door to help her out. A tall doorman wearing a forest-green jacket with contrasting white and gray cuffs appeared at my window on the other side. “Good evening, Detective,” he said, his eyes twinkling with the unmistakable humor of someone who has at one time or another seen almost everything, and who by nature chooses to view the lighter side of life. “It’s been a while. Will you be staying with us tonight?”
During the early eighties, prior to moving up to homicide, I had served on an FBI/LAPD task force investigating organized crime figures-some of whom had briefly resided at the Beverly Hills Hotel. While there on a three-week stakeout I had grown to know many of the employees, including the doorman, and over the years I’d stayed in touch. “That’s the plan, Chris,” I answered with a grin. “Glad to see they haven’t fired you yet. Still got ’em fooled, eh?”
Chris grinned back. “Same as you, Detective. Same as you.”
Waving off an approaching bellman, I reached into the Suburban and retrieved our overnight bags, then escorted Catheryn up the red-carpeted walkway to the entrance. I glanced back as we reached the door, noting that Chris had directed a valet to park my Suburban in an area up front reserved for the hotel’s most prestigious patrons-close enough to the entrance that vehicles left there could be retrieved before departing owners arrived at the curb. Smiling, I watched as my station wagon shuddered to a stop between a sky-blue Porsche and a gleaming silver Rolls. Though a small token of respect, Chris’s gesture was not lost on me.
As I registered at the desk, I noticed that a number of changes had been made to the lobby since we’d last visited, but the original Art Deco theme had been maintained throughout, the reserved tone somehow now even more exquisite. After I finished registering, I led Catheryn past the Polo Lounge to a series of enclosed gardens beyond. A number of security men in suits and ties had been unobtrusively present in the lobby. Once outside, I noticed two more stationed near a bungalow on the left.
“Ex-LAPD guys working hotel security. Some big shot’s probably spending the night,” I explained to Catheryn, noting her glancing at the men as well. As we approached the pair of heavyset men, I barked, “Look alive, girls. No sleeping on the job.”
Both men momentarily straightened, then relaxed. “Kane. What are you doing here?” one asked.
“Slumming,” I answered.
Catheryn and I continued down a flower-lined walkway to the right, moving through puddles of light spilling from horn-shaped copper lamps, their downturned bells illuminating the path. “Am I imagining things,” asked Catheryn, “or do you know everybody in this town?”
“Everybody worth knowing,” I answered as we rounded a stand of palms. “Here we are. Four-A. Remember?”
Catheryn regarded the bungalow where we had spent a long weekend celebrating our tenth wedding anniversary. Nearly hidden behind a wall of giant bird of paradise, the small cottage brought back happy memories. “I certainly do,” she said. “Plants are bigger, though.”
I led her to the door. “It’s been a few years, sugar. Check out the inside.”
Like the lobby, the interior of the bungalow had been tastefully refurbished since our last visit, but it was a vase of yellow trumpet daffodils on a bedroom nightstand that caught Catheryn’s attention. “Oh, Dan,” she said softly, bending to admire the bouquet of flowers. “They’re lovely. How did you find them at this time of year?”
I had begun giving Catheryn daffodils when we first started dating. “Had the concierge order them special,” I answered. “Needed a week’s notice. Can you believe they had to come all the way from Holland?”
“I know,” said Catheryn. “Thank you.”
I smiled, pleased by her reaction. Then, my smile fading, “Kate, I really am sorry about how I’ve been acting. I realize things have been hard on you, too. And I haven’t been making them any easier.
“No. You haven’t.”
“Sometimes I wonder why you’re even with me. There are times like tonight when I saw you up there onstage with the orchestra that I can’t help feeling you could do a whole lot better than me.”
“Dan, if you don’t know by now why I’m with you, I’m not about to tell. Your head’s already big enough.”
“I’m serious, Kate. Do you ever get the feeling that if things had been different, maybe you could’ve been happier with somebody more, I don’t know, more-”
“Normal?” Catheryn joked. Then, seeing my expression, she touched my cheek. “You are serious, aren’t you?”
“I guess I am.”
“I’m with you because I love you,” she said simply. “And I’ve missed you, too. More than I can say.”
And then she kissed me. Her mouth, at first soft, slowly grew insistent. Her tongue lightly touched mine, then became more demanding. I felt her breasts brushing against me, and sliding my hand down the strong curve of her back, I drew her to me, her body electric against mine. With a soft moan of desire, she returned my embrace.
I lifted her easily and carried her to the bed.
Our clothes came off in a rush between kisses, winding up in a scattering across the floor. Our earlier argument forgotten, at least for the moment, we began to make love quickly and hungrily, lost in a passion as unstoppable as a flood. Catheryn arched beneath me, her fingers digging into my back, her breath hot on my cheek.
I kissed her lips, running my hands over the smoothness of her breasts, smelling the fragrance of soap and the sweet scent of passion as her nipples grew hard beneath my palms. Moving against me in a rhythm as ancient as time, Catheryn entwined her legs around me and held me tightly, whispering endearments that hearkened back to the first time we’d been together.