Forsaking All Others Read Free

her tongue.
    “Ouch, dammit!” Depositing the cup and saucer on the glass-topped coffee table, she rose to her feet, scattering male faces from lap to floor as she held the single, striking face at arm’s length.
    “Holy cow,” she breathed, stricken. “Holy . . . holy . . . cow.” The face seemed too perfect to be flesh, the hair too disorderly to be accidental, the eyes so warm they seemed to reflect the change beneath the light from the table lamp. The nose was straight, with gorgeous nostrils. He had long cheeks and a strong jaw. And the mouth—ah, what a mouth. She studied it as an artist, but reacted as a woman.
    The upper lip was utter perfection, its outline crisp, bowed with two peaks into perfect symmetry—a rare thing, no matter what the untutored layman might think. The lower lip was fuller than the upper, and the half smile seemed to hint at amusing things on his mind. Flat ears, strong neck—but not too thick—good shoulders, one leaning at an angle into the picture. He wore what appeared to be a wrinkled dress shirt with its collar askew, not the customary satin showman’s costume, nor what Allison had come to think of as the “Tom JonesLook”—open-necked shirt plunging low underneath a body-hugging, open suit jacket. Still, she smiled.
    I’ll bet any money there’ll be hair on his chest, she thought.
    Allison flipped the picture over.
    Richard Lang . . . 4-11-57 . . . blond . . . blue.
    She read the words again, and somehow they didn’t seem enough. Richard Lang . . . 4-11-57 . . . blond . . . blue. God, was that all they had to say about a face like this? Who was he? Why hadn’t she ever seen his photo in the North Star files before? He had the kind of features photographers dream of. Bone structure that created angles and hollows, beautiful for shadowing. The jaw and chin seemed to be living, the mouth made for mobility. She imagined it scowling, smiling, scolding. She wondered if it were as mobile in real life as it seemed on paper. Something said “dimples” when there actually were none, only attractive smile lines on either side of his mouth, as if smiling came easily.
    Richard Lang.
    Twenty-five years old, blond hair, blue eyes, face as captivating as . . . but Allison stopped herself just short of finishing, “Jason’s.”
    Richard Lang, you’re the one!
    She leaned the eight-by-ten glossy against the base of a table lamp and backed off, studying it while she unbuttoned her cuffs, then the buttons up the front of her shirt. She reached for her cup, took it a reasonabledistance away while blowing and sipping, and studied the face, already posing him, figuring the camera angles, the lighting, the background, which could not be too involved lest it detract from that face.
    There wasn’t a girl in the lot pretty enough for him. The girl, she could see, was going to give her trouble. It had been made clear to Allison that in the photograph the hero must appear to be overcome by the heroine, yet that was going to be hard to do with a face like his! It would overshadow any other within a country mile!
    Allison, you’re getting carried away.
    To bring Richard Lang back into perspective, Allison deposited her empty cup in the sink, clumped into the bedroom, flung off her shirt, squirmed out of her jeans, and snuggled into a blue, fleecy robe, thinking all the while that when she returned to the living room she’d find the flaw she must have overlooked.
    But he leaned there against the base of the lamp, more handsome than she’d remembered, making her hand move in slow motion as she zipped up the front of her robe.
    She wished the photo was in color. Maybe his skin wasn’t as clear as the black and white made it appear. Maybe he had freckles, ruddiness, sallow coloring. But she somehow knew his skin would be as smooth and healthy as a lifeguard’s. Still searching for flaws, she thought maybe he has a horrible temper. Catching herself, she scolded, well,