Fleur was ashamed of herself, too. “It wasn’t about Jake. I’m not that stupid. It was about feeling like an overgrown teenager again.”

“I’m not buying it,” Magnolia Blossom said. “Don’t you think it’s time you stop kidding yourself and take a hard look at your feelings for that gorgeous man sitting in your living room?”

“My feelings for him are made up of dollar signs. Really, Kissy. I’ve practically lost Olivia, and the only clients who want me to represent them are ones I don’t want to represent, like that cretin Shawn Howell. Jake’s not even pretending to write, and-” She stopped. “That’s no excuse. I’m sorry, Kissy. You’re right. I’ve been acting infantile. Forgive me.”

Kiss finally softened. “All right. But only because I feel the same way every time I see you and Charlie together.”

“Charlie and me? Why?”

Kissy sighed and refused to meet Fleur’s eyes. “He likes you so much, and I know I can’t compete with you when it comes to looks. Every time I see the two of you talking, I feel like the Pillsbury Doughboy.”

Fleur didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “It seems like I’m not the only one who doesn’t know herself very well.” She gave Kissy a bear hug, then glanced at her watch. “Butch Cassidy is on television tonight. If I’m calculating right, we should be able to take a peek, then get back to the party before we’re missed. Do you want to indulge?”

“You bet.” Kissy flipped on the small television perched on a secondhand table in the corner of the bedroom. “Do you think we’re getting too old for this?”

“Probably. We should give it up for Lent.”

“Or not.”

The Hole-in-the-Wall Gang had just robbed the Overland Flyer, and Paul Newman’s Butch, along with Robert Redford’s mustachioed Sundance Kid, were drinking on the balcony of the whorehouse. Kissy and Fleur settled on the edge of the bed as the schoolteacher Etta Place climbed the steps to her small frame house, lit the lamp inside, and unfastened the top buttons of her shirtwaist. When she reached her bedroom, she pulled off the garment and hung it in the closet. Then she turned and screamed as she saw the chiseled features of the Sundance Kid staring menacingly at her from across the room.

“Keep going, Teacher Lady,” he said.

She stared at him with wide, frightened eyes. Slowly he picked up his gun and leveled it at her. “That’s okay. Don’t mind me. Keep on going.”

She hesitantly unfastened the long undergarment and then stepped out of it. Clasping it modestly in front of her, she tried to hide her eyelet-trimmed camisole from the outlaw’s eyes.

“Let down your hair,” he ordered.

She dropped the undergarment and pulled out the hairpins.

“Shake your head.”

No sensible woman was going to argue with the Sundance Kid when he had a pistol trained on her belly, and the schoolteacher did as she was told. All she had left was the camisole, and Sundance didn’t have to talk. He raised his pistol and cocked the hammer.

Etta slowly opened the low row of buttons until the camisole parted in a V. Sundance’s hands moved to his waist. He unfastened his gun belt and pushed it aside, then stood and approached her. He slipped his hands inside the open garment.

“Do you know what I wish?” Etta asked.

“What?”

“That once you’d get here on time!”

As Etta threw her arms around Redford’s neck, Fleur sighed and got up to turn off the set. “It’s hard to believe that scene was written by a man, isn’t it?”

Kissy gazed at the blank screen. “William Goldman’s a great screenwriter, but I’ll bet anything his wife wrote that scene while he was in the shower. What I wouldn’t give…”

“Uhmm. It’s the ultimate female sexual fantasy.”

“All that male sexual menace coming from a lover you know will never hurt you.” Kissy licked her lips.

Fleur touched her morning glory necklace. “Too bad they don’t make men like that anymore.”

Jake stood in the hallway outside the partially opened door and listened to the two women. He hadn’t intended to eavesdrop, but Fleur had looked funny all evening, and they were gone so long he’d decided to check up on her. Now he was sorry. This was exactly the kind of conversation a man should never hear. What did women want? In public the rhetoric was all about male sensitivity and equality, but in private, here they were, two intelligent women having orgasms over caveman macho.

Maybe he was a little jealous. He was one of the biggest box office draws of the decade, and he was living right above Fleur Savagar’s head, but all she wanted to do was take verbal potshots at him. He wondered if Redford had to put up with this kind of crap. If there was any justice in the world, Redford was sitting in front of his television someplace in Sundance, Utah, watching his wife go melty-eyed over one of Bird Dog Caliber’s rough-’em-up love scenes. The thought gave him a small moment of satisfaction, but, as he slipped away, the emotion faded. No matter how you looked at it, this wasn’t the easiest time to be a man.

The next morning Jake showed up to run with her, but as they made their way around the Central Park Reservoir, he barely spoke. She had to find some way to motivate him to at least attempt to write. When they returned to the house, she impulsively invited him in for Sunday morning breakfast. Maybe he’d be more communicative with a full stomach. But he declined.

“That’s right,” she replied coolly. “Your schedule’s been a real killer lately with all that time you’re spending pounding away at your typewriter.”

He tugged open the zipper of his sweatshirt. “You don’t know anything.”

“Are you even trying to write?”

“For your information, I’ve already filled up a legal pad.”

Jake composed at the typewriter, and she didn’t believe him. “Show me.”

He scowled and brushed past her into the house.

She showered, then slipped into jeans and her favorite cable-knit sweater. She’d been so preoccupied with Michel’s collection, Olivia’s skittishness, and trying to anticipate Alexi’s next move that she hadn’t focused on the problem over her head. Jake Koranda had made a deal with her to start writing again, and he wasn’t following through.

At ten o’clock, she went out into the front hallway and unlocked the door that led to the attic apartment. He didn’t answer when she knocked at the top of the stairs. She slipped her key in the lock.

The attic was a large, open space lit by both a skylight and smaller, rectangular windows on two sides. Fleur hadn’t been up here since Jake had moved in, and she saw that he’d furnished it sparsely with a few comfortable chairs, a bed, a long couch, and an L-shaped arrangement of desk and table that held a typewriter and a ream of paper still in its wrapper.

He had his feet propped on the desk, and he was tossing a basketball from one hand to the other. “I don’t remember inviting you in,” he said. “I don’t like interruptions when I’m working.”

“I wouldn’t dream of interrupting your creative process. Just pretend I’m not here.” She went into the small kitchen that sat behind a curve of counter and opened the cupboards until she found a can of coffee.

“Go away, Fleur. I don’t want you here.”

“I’ll leave as soon as we have a business meeting.”

“I’m not in the mood for a meeting.” The basketball passed back and forth, right palm to left.

She plugged in the coffeepot and walked over to perch on the desk. “The thing is,” she said, “you’re dead wood, and I can’t afford to have anything pulling me under right now. Everyone in town thinks you signed with me because we’re sleeping together. Only one thing’s going to stop the gossip. Another Koranda play.”

“Tear up our contract.”

She swatted the basketball from his hand. “Stop being such a crybaby.”

Easygoing, wisecracking Jake Koranda disappeared, leaving her face-to-face with Bird Dog. “Get out. This isn’t any of your goddamned business.”

She didn’t move. “Make up your mind. First you say I’m the one who blocked you, and now you tell me it’s none of my business. You can’t have it both ways.”

His feet dropped to the ground. “Out.” He grasped her arm and steered her toward the door.

She was suddenly angry, not because he was manhandling her and not even because he was threatening the future of her business, but because he was wasting his talent. “Big hotshot playwright.” She jerked away. “That typewriter has an inch of dust on it.”

“I’m not ready yet!” He stalked across the room and grabbed his jacket from a chair.

“I don’t see what’s so hard about it.” She made her way to his desk and ripped the wrapper off a ream of paper. “Anybody can put a piece of paper in a typewriter. See how I’m doing it. Nothing could be easier.”

He shoved his arms into the sleeves.

She dropped into the desk chair and flicked on the switch. The machine hummed to life. “Watch this. Act One, Scene One.” She picked out the letters on the keyboard. “Where are we, Jake? What does the stage set look like?”

“Don’t be a bitch.”

“Don’t…be…a…bitch.” She typed out the words. “Typical Koranda dialogue-tough and anti-female. What comes next?”

“Stop it, Fleur!”

“Stop…it…Fleur. Bad name choice. Too close to this amazing woman you already know.”

“Stop it!” He shot across the room. His hand came down on top of hers, jamming the keys. “This is all a big joke to you, isn’t it?”

Bird Dog had slipped away, and she saw the pain beneath his anger. “It’s not a joke,” she said softly. “It’s something you have to do.”

He didn’t move. And then he lifted his hand and brushed her hair. She closed her eyes. He pulled away and headed into the kitchen. She heard him pour a cup of coffee. Her fingers shook as she tugged the paper from the typewriter. Jake came toward her, mug in hand. She slipped in a fresh sheet of paper.