BETWEEN THE MOON AND SAN FRANCISCO

Chapter 8

VIDEO above - San Francisco tour

BACK TO THE COSTUME BALL .....

Annie had to admit, to herself at least, that Van Drake was an enjoyable man to be with once you started to get to know him. And once you got him to stop talking about 'us'. Which he had finally done, to her intense relief, when their food arrived. She kept centering their conversation during the meal on him because she really did not know very much about him. And the more she learned, the more she liked.

He was thirty-four years old and had grown up in Los Angeles where he attended college at UCLA. After graduating he had joined the Navy SEALs where he spent four years of active duty and the remaining four working in news, media, and public relations. Upon discharge he moved to Denver where he'd gotten a job with a local newspaper. He was already writing mystery, suspense, and male action-adventure novels for Chevron Books and, after big successes with a number of them, he quit the newspaper business to write full time. He moved to Telluride, one of Colorado's famous mining-towns-turned-ski-resorts, located high in the San Jaun Mountains.

He lived in a chalet on a mountainside and spent most of his time writing. He traveled often, usually to research his books, and his social life at home consisted of drinking in the local bars with his buddies and attending parties with his small circle of friends. His musical tastes ranged from the Rolling Stones to Rachmaninoff, and one of his favorite hobbies was backpacking up in the mountain wilderness near home. He also told her that he loved children and hoped to one day have a couple of his own.

His life was totally different from the cosmopolitan way of life Annie lived in New York City, but there was something about it that she found very attractive. It was a reclusive kind of life, yet one not completely cut off from society, and one she knew would be wonderful to be a part of, especially with a man like Van.

But, of course, she had no intention of becoming part of it, even though that was obviously what Van wanted. Or, at least, what he thought he wanted. She had learned the hard way that men often have the oddest knack of changing their minds about that kind of thing.

After dinner, they walked back to the hotel. Van made several attempts along the way to hold her by the arm and to take her hand in his, all of which Annie firmly refused to go along with.

"I'm a lady pirate. I do not need help walking. Keep your hands to yourself."

"I'm not interested in helping you, Annie. I want to touch you. And this is a city of romance. Everyone is looking at us. I'm sure they're thinking I'm some kind of a goon for not at least holding your hand."

Annie laughed. "You are a goon. But for completely different reasons. And who cares what people passing by us on the street think? I don't."

"Jeez!" Van grimaced and looked ahead. "A couple as hot as we are, we should be all over each other."

"Dream on, Mr. Drake," Annie coolly returned. "You are definitely not going to get all over me."

But when they entered the hotel ballroom after taking the elevator up to the mezzanine, she swallowed her pride again and let Van take her by the hand, telling herself that going along with him was for the sake of keeping Jake Campbell happy and interested in her book. But the feeling of his strong hand clasping hers was as intimate and erotic as if she were in his hotel room alone with him late at night in a passionate embrace. Tingling sensations coursed up her arm and throughout her body as if the man himself were plugged into an electrical current. If she didn't know any better, she would have looked for a cord and socket.

She had expected that their reappearance at the ball would not go by unnoticed, but she never would have imagined the commotion that ensued when they walked into the ballroom.