Kiss A Handsome Stranger. Jacqueline Diamond

at Daisy.

      Please don’t let him recognize me. She didn’t see how he could, with clay hardening across her nose and cheeks. Yet he remained planted there, indifferent to the people flowing around him. Maybe he’d noticed her distinctive, chin-length auburn hair, she realized.

      “Oops.” Daisy hurried inside and locked the door. She straightened the Closed sign before fleeing to the back room.

      Long minutes ticked past. When no one rapped on the glass, she wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed.

      She should never have gone to bed with a man she had just met. It wasn’t like Daisy. Being an illegitimate child, the daughter of a man who promised the moon and delivered nothing but empty sky, she’d been careful to avoid casual involvements.

      But that night at Elise’s engagement party, the handsome newcomer had brought to life all her fantasies. He’d put her at ease when they talked, and electrified her when they danced together.

      When he invited her to his house for a drink, she’d welcomed the chance to continue their talk. Besides, she hadn’t wanted either Elise or Phoebe, the party’s hostess, to spoil this magical mood by fussing over them. Her friends sometimes went a bit overboard in their attempts to pair Daisy off.

      She could see, in retrospect, how foolish she’d been to abandon her usual caution. Most of the time, when she met a man, the first thing she assessed was what kind of father he would make. Especially since she’d reached the age of thirty and, due to the severity of her condition, had to marry soon or possibly lose her opportunity for motherhood.

      With Chance, though, Daisy hadn’t worried about such things. She’d simply enjoyed being with him. In his house, in his arms, in his bed.

      That evening she’d given him her real name, Deirdre, because it made her feel more sophisticated. When he’d said his name was Charles, she hadn’t realized that he, too, was better known by a nickname.

      It was after they made love and were talking quietly that she asked how he knew Elise. She’d nearly stopped breathing when he said, “I’m her brother.”

      Chance Foster was famous. Or, rather, infamous. According to Elise, his conquests included the most attractive women in Phoenix. A different woman for every occasion, that was his reputation.

      When she realized who she’d slept with, Daisy could have smacked herself for being such an idiot. Until that moment she’d believed they were special to each other, that their instant rapport had been as exciting to Chance as to her. Now she knew it was a trick he used to wrap a woman around his finger.

      She’d waited until he fell asleep, then called a taxi and fled. Now she was cowering in her studio to avoid him, when the man probably hadn’t given her a moment’s thought in the past two months.

      Annoyed at herself, Daisy used a wire to cut the vase’s bottom from the mound of clay remaining on the wheel. Carefully she set it on the table to dry.

      Who was that woman at the restaurant? she wondered. The make of car, the clothes and the grooming all shouted, Rich! Or, possibly, In debt and loving it!

      Without giving much thought to what she was doing, Daisy seized a few pieces of clay, created a woman’s features and attached them to the side of a partially dried pot. The resulting face, a caricature of the blond woman, had a hungry, predatory look.

      On the vase next to it, she devised Chance’s visage with a sly smile and leering eyes. Studying it, she realized she might finally have hit on an individual twist for her work.

      “I could make a whole line of Character Crockery,” she mused. “Or maybe I should call them Personality Pots.”

      The prospect appealed to her. Daisy enjoyed fooling around with caricatures in clay, but had never shown them to anyone, let alone considered selling them. People weren’t likely to buy little heads with no practical use.

      These pots, on the other hand, could hold plants. She smiled. Poison ivy, maybe.

      A flame of excitement sprang up. Daisy’s ceramic work, although technically accomplished, had until now lacked uniqueness, but this idea was promising. Although other artists had made pots with faces, she knew she could take her idea in new directions.

      How ironic that this development had been inspired by Chance Foster!

      She spent the rest of the afternoon experimenting with ways to create character faces on her pots. By making slight depressions, she created eye sockets and other contours that gave her work an even more distinctive look.

      By late afternoon Daisy’s arms ached pleasantly and her agitation over the near encounter with Chance had dissipated. She was cleaning the studio when the phone rang.

      “Native Art,” she responded.

      “Hi, Native, this is Elise!” joked her friend.

      How could such a delightful woman have such a heartless brother? Daisy wondered, not for the first time. “What’s up?”

      “I picked my colors! Deep-rose and pale-yellow!”

      Daisy didn’t immediately grasp her friend’s meaning. Then it hit. “Oh, for the wedding.” Elise and her fiancé, James, would be walking down the aisle in September, three months from now. “That sounds lovely.”

      “You know what this means,” Elise said. “We can start looking at bridesmaids’ dresses for you and Phoebe.”

      “Great.” Since Elise hadn’t wanted to favor one of them as the maid of honor, they were both going to walk down the aisle together. It would be kind of funky, Daisy thought, but fun.

      “How about if we meet for a swim right after work? Say, five-thirty?” Elise went on. “We can talk strategy and cool off at the same time.”

      Although it was only June, temperatures hovered in the high eighties. “Sounds great.”

      “See you there.”

      “There” meant the Mesa Blue condominium complex, where the three women lived. The blue-tiled pool, nestled among ferns and a few squatty palms, provided a refreshing meeting place in summer months.

      Daisy couldn’t wait to take a dip and see her friends. After draping loose plastic covers over the pots to prevent cracking, she hurried home.

      CHANCE FOSTER COULD HAVE sworn he recognized the smudged redhead outside the art gallery. By the time he strolled by, though, she’d disappeared and the place was closed.

      He stood on the sidewalk like a smitten teenager, debating whether he dared knock. But what would he say? That two months ago he’d spent a wonderful evening with a mysterious woman and now he was trying to find her?

      He couldn’t understand how such an intriguing woman could get invited to his sister’s engagement party without either Elise or Phoebe knowing her. Afterward, both had roundly denied knowing anyone named Deirdre.

      Deciding not to waste any more time on a wild-goose chase, he walked back to his office. Still, Chance’s mind wouldn’t leave the subject.

      He told himself for the umpteenth time that he must have been mistaken in his impression of Deirdre. The honest, direct, sunny lady who’d knocked him off balance wouldn’t have left without saying goodbye. There must be a darker side to her personality. Or maybe she’d fooled him from the beginning.

      Perhaps she was married and cheating on her husband. Or so afraid of commitment that she panicked when she met a guy she might care about.

      As a family law attorney, Chance had seen how many things could go wrong in a relationship. A lot of times the problems sprang from a partner who lacked the character to stick around and stay faithful when the going got tough.

      He would like to see Deirdre again, though, at least to learn why she’d bailed out on him. And so he could stop imagining he saw her on the street, the way he’d done today and several times previously.

      As