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That meant war.
Outraged, he lifted his fist to knock again, then hesitated when a startling realization smacked him right upside his head.
This was a new experience.
After all his years of globe-trottng and debauchery, he had begun to think there were no new experiences left for him to enjoy. He had embraced Been There, Done That as his motto long before it had been silk-screened onto T-shirts for mass consumption. He had indeed been virtually everywhere in the world, and he had done virtually everything there was to do.
African safari? Circumnavigating the globe? Done that. A visit with the Dalai Lama? Tea with the Queen of England? Done that. Slept in the Blue Room at the White House? Yawn. Done that, too. Seen Siegfried and Roy perform? Done that twice. It was all a big crashing bore by now. For years he’d been convinced that there simply was, for him, no such thing as a new experience.
Yet this Kirby person was presenting him with exactly that. Not only was she absolutely clueless as to his identity and notonety—something with which James had never been confronted—but she seemed in no way interested to learn more about him. Women always knew who he was. And they always wanted to get to know him better.
There were women out there who had actually formed a club, the members of which made it their sole purpose in life to sleep with him. They even had special little badges available to award to those who succeeded in their quest—if they succeeded.
Not that James approved of such a single-minded goal. People should have some hobbies, after all. And in spite of all the sordid stories printed and broadcast about him, he was nowhere near as promiscuous as the tabloids and trash TV made him out to be. Oh, sure, he loved women to distraction, but he wasn’t totally without standards. He never involved himself with women who were on the rebound. He avoided women under the age of twenty-one. And he certainly steered clear of married women.
Still, he did like women. Very much.
His gaze skittered to the mailbox, a tidy little brass rectangle, embossed with a tidy little frog on a tidy little lily pad, and tidy little letters proclaiming the property as 231 Oak Street. And just below that, more tidy little letters spelling out the name Connaught. Kirby Connaught, he mused further. It shouldn’t be too difficult to uncover the secrets of her life. This was small-town America, after all, right?
Clearly he had a full afternoon ahead of him. Or, at least, Begley did. There was no way James could go out on a fishing expedition himself—he’d be netted and scaled in no time flat.
When he realized he still held the perfect, apricot-colored rose in his hand, he lifted it to his nose for an idle sniff, its tangy, sweet aroma filling his senses. He tucked it into Kirby’s tidy little mailbox and spun on his heel to leave, awed by the episode that had just transpired.
A new experience. How very extraordinary.
A blond, blue-eyed beauty who’d had no idea who he was had slammed the door right in his face. A door on a neat little pink stucco house, sitting on nothing less than Oak Street, U.S A. A pink stucco house that had a frog on its mailbox and yellow flowers sprouting along the walk.
James shook his head in wonder. Kirby Connaught was about as small-town, middle-American a woman as he could conjure up in his wildest dreams, the epitome of all that baseball-and-Mom-and-apple-pie mentality.
Except for that naked sunbathing business, he thought further, something he really wanted to investigate more thoroughly. Her enjoyment of such an activity suggested that beneath the delectable exterior of this small-town girl there was a hedonist’s soul to rival his own just begging to break free. Now all James had to do was make her realize the true nature of her inner self.
But then, he was the Most Desirable Man in America, he reminded himself in matter-of-fact terms, without a trace of arrogance. And no woman could resist that for long. Not even a small-town, middle-American one who lived in a tidy little pink stucco house, right?
Smiling, James spun around toward his waiting car, feeling more purpose than he’d felt in a long, long time. A new experience, he marveled again. A true adventure. Kirby Connaught, he decided resolutely, was going to provide him with both.
Kirby peeked through the curtains of her living room window, and observed with what she assured herself was only idle interest the departure of James Nash, icon of popular American culture.
What a jerk, she thought. Acting as if he need only show up at her front door to have her fall to her knees and beg him to make love to her. Obviously he was unaware of her high standards where men were concerned. Clearly he had no idea that she was only interested in men who were decent and warm and conscientious, not to mention local. What would she possibly want with the likes of James Nash?
Other than hours of unbridled physical satisfaction, of course. She squeezed her eyes shut tight to banish the uncharacteristic idea that leapt to life in her brain. Unfortunately, closing her eyes only brought the graphic images into stark focus.
She really had gone far too long without experiencing the sexual satisfaction any normal human being required, she thought with a sigh that sounded disturbingly wistful. All her life she had saved herself for the perfect union, and now that perfect union seemed well beyond her reach. No man in Endicott was interested. The way things looked now, she was going to end her days as a dried-up old spinster, a local legend for every young girl to whisper about, and for every young boy to fall back on in efforts of seduction.
Better be careful they’d tell their would-be conquests. Or you might end up like Old Lady Connaught, who at ninety years of age has never even come close to enjoying the Big O.
Kirby sighed wistfully again, not even trying to deny the fact that she was just that—wistful. If she was so worried about winding up a shriveled old virgin, and if she knew she would never find the perfect match, then why couldn’t she be satisfied with an imperfect one? she asked herself, not for the first time. Why hadn’t she just jumped at James Nash’s more-than-obvious offer?
Immediately she knew the answer to that question. Because deep down, she still harbored some small hope that Bob would bring her a man who would love her forever after. And she wanted it to be special when that man appeared James Nash, she was certain, wasn’t that man.
Even if he’d been telling the truth about making the cover of Tattle Tales magazine—which, of course, she sincerely doubted—he was far too caught up in himself to ever give a woman any kind of attention. And if he was a celebrity—again, something Kirby suspected was a complete fabrication—then that was all the more reason for her to avoid him. Because there was no way any celebrities would ever settle down and start a family in Endicott.
The sound of his car rumbling to life outside brought her attention to the window again, and something inside her trembled in time with the purr of the Rolls’s engine. Through the sheer curtains, she watched as the silvery car pulled slowly away from the curb. And for some reason, the only thought that tumbled through her head was that her very last chance was slipping right out of her grasp.
She shoved the odd idea away and headed for her shower, determined not to give another thought to James Nash. It wasn’t like she didn’t have enough to keep her mind occupied for the next few weeks, anyway. She was, after all, serving on the committee of the Welcome Back, Bob Comet Festival, something that would keep her unusually busy for the month of September. She had a million things to organize, a million events to oversee, a million places to go, a million people to meet. She had a comet to welcome back. Whether Bob was bringing her a wish come true or not.
Two
A few hours later, she was feeling fresh and clean, dressed in a loose, white cotton sheath with three-quarter sleeves, a wide, scooped neck and sailor-type collar. But better than that, she thought as she strode into the Endicott Free Public Library to meet with the other festival committee members, she had gone a whole