by Diana Palmer
Nelson went back to his office, forcing himself not to look back. He’d been shocked at the look on Mirri’s face, at its unnatural whiteness. He didn’t try to hurt people. But she got under his skin. One flamboyant woman had already taken him for a ride and crushed his pride. Mirri’s touch had inflamed him, made his knees go weak. He’d had to make her back off before he did something really stupid, like making a grab for her. He closed his office door and leaned against it, taking a deep, steadying breath. God, he wanted her! He was going to have to get her out of this office before he caved in. Every day she wore on his nerves more and more.
Later, while she was having dinner with Amanda, in a small Italian bistro, Mirri blurted out the whole story.
Amanda had known that something was wrong. Her friend was wearing a very simple beige dress, with her long hair in a neat bun and very little makeup. She looked like a shadow of her usual self.
“So that’s it,” she said gently. She smiled. “Love rears its ugly head, I gather?”
Mirri actually blushed. “Not for the iceman, it doesn’t,” she said with resignation. She fingered her coffee cup, watching the ripples move across its silvery surface. “He hates me. What am I going to do? I hate to leave my job because my boss thinks I’m a tramp.”
“Listen,” Amanda said gently, “why don’t you go to him and tell him everything.”
Mirri’s eyes widened into saucers. “Are you nuts!”
“He isn’t what he seems, any more than you are,” Amanda told her. “Can’t you look deep enough to see that he’s been hurt, too?”
“I wondered...” She lifted her eyes. “But it isn’t something I can just blurt out.”
“Then invite him out for a meal, or just a cup of coffee. Somewhere away from the office, so that you can talk to him.”
Mirri tingled all over. “He wouldn’t go with me,” she said after a minute, grimacing.
“Try it.”
The other girl sighed and then smiled wistfully. “Well, nothing ventured, I suppose. But he’ll just slap me down, you know.”
“I don’t know. Neither do you. Give it a try.”
Mirri gave her a toothy smile. “Can I quit first, and then ask him out?”
“Chicken.”
“Shades of Stephen Austin Elementary!” Mirri laughed. “Is that a double-dog dare?”
“You bet.”
“In that case—” she lifted her cup in a mock toast “—here’s to success. If I lose, you have to find me a new job.”
“No problem there. I own half a newspaper, if I can ever convince my nemesis that I’m capable of running it.”
“You’ve got a marvelous head for business. Of course you can run it.”
“I know that. I wish I could convince Josh,” Amanda said bitterly.
“You can’t tell Josh anything. You have to show him,” Mirri mused. She studied her friend closely and then crossed her hands over each other. “What went on down on Opal Cay? You look different. Did Josh finally get around to making a pass?” She knew how Amanda felt about Josh.
Amanda averted her face, but not quickly enough. She saw Mirri’s knowing smile and grimaced. “Well, yes. But Terri’s back in his life. He decided that I was dying to exchange my body for a wedding ring or control of the newspaper. He said so,” she added when Mirri looked incredulous.
“My gosh!” Mirri gasped. “Has he finally gone off the deep end after years of living on the edge of pandemonium?”
“I don’t know. He was furious with me. I’ve never seen him like that.”
“That doesn’t sound like Josh.”
She frowned. “Yes, I know. Perhaps this whole financial mess Dad left has affected him. He’s worried about Brad, too.” She put her head in her hands. “Terri is married, but Josh doesn’t seem to mind.”
“That really doesn’t sound like Josh! He wrote the book on moral behavior. I mean, he even chews out executives who cheat on their wives, doesn’t he?”
“He used to. He’s changed,” Amanda said sadly. “When I left he sounded as though he almost hated me.”
“You’ve always been precious to him,” Mirri said worriedly. “He was always on your side, at any cost. Why would he savage you for no reason, and even mention entertaining one of his ex-mistresses when you’re just getting over your father’s death? That’s not like Josh.”
Amanda knew that it wasn’t. His tenderness with her had raised the eyebrows of outsiders for years. “I don’t understand, either. But we’ve both agreed that it’s going to be strictly business from now on. I’m going to keep that job press running,” she said, lifting her chin and looking so much like her late father in a temper that Mirri almost grinned. “Nobody’s closing it down without giving me a fighting chance to save it. I’ve heard rumors about a shopper starting up in San Rio. I didn’t mention it to Josh, but it could be true. If it is, the job press may be the only way to save the Gazette from going under. I have to save it.”
“Good for you!” Mirri cheered.
“Then,” Amanda added, “I’m going to buy a lacy black negligee, have myself photographed in the most seductive pose I can manage, have a life-size enlargement made, and ship it to Joshua Cabe Lawson!”
The other woman pursed her lips and whistled. “Is this really you? I mean, until a week or so ago, you were pretty much the type of woman who thought that kind of behavior was debasing.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.” Amanda sighed. “I don’t know how I did mean it. Men are the very devil, Mirri!”
She nodded and smiled. “Yes.”
“If he’d only listened to me about Ward Johnson and the mess he’s making of the paper. I can’t prove it, but I know Ward’s juggled the figures in his favor. Josh didn’t believe me.”
“Now that is sad,” Mirri replied. “I put trust at the top of any relationship that works.”
“So do I. But then Josh closed the door on any kind of intimate relationship with me. He’s acting strangely lately, very broody and preoccupied. Brad said as much.”
“You watch brother Brad,” Mirri cautioned seriously. “He’s a sweet man, but he can be devious and selfish. I don’t trust him at all.”
“I do,” Amanda said, smiling. “Brad’s my favorite man at the moment. At least he’s on my side.”
“So am I.”
“You always were,” Amanda replied. “You’ve been more like a sister than a friend all these years. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.”
“Double that for me,” Mirri told her affectionately. “I think you’re an angel.”
“No hope of that, not while I’m harboring such evil thoughts about Josh and Mr. Johnson.” She glanced at her watch. “I’d better go. I have to be back at work Monday, and the cottage is in ruins from lack of clean dishes and clothes. Imagine, I get to convince Mr. Johnson that he needs to manage my mother’s paper in a more responsible manner.”
“It wasn’t fair of your father to tie up the paper this way,” Mirri said angrily. “It was your mother’s legacy to you.”
“Well, these days it’s the prize in a tug-of-war. But I’m going to win this one,” she promised. “I swear I am. It’s mine, and I won’t give it up without a fight. If Mr. Johnson wants to be underhanded and play dirty, so can I. Josh is going to see that I can take care of my own business.”
Mirri laughed. “Now that,” she said, “sounds more like the Amanda I used to know!”
* * *
AMANDA WENT IN to the office with all flags flying, wearing a natty gray suit with a white blouse and a discreet amount of makeup. Dora, the new part-time employee, scrutinized her while they took a quick coffee break. Both women were breaking later than the others because Dora had been sent to pick up an ad and Amanda had been sidetracked trying to find a lost subscription for an out-of-state customer who insisted on holding on
the telephone while she did it.
The Gazette was a small, intimate office with no social structure. The full-time employees included Ward; Amanda; the typesetter, Lisa Marlowe; and pressman Tim Wilson, who doubled as staff photographer in between his duties for the print shop. Dora, who primarily helped make up the paper, and two college students, Jenny Creigh and Vic Martin, who did a little reporting and a lot of proofreading, pasting, and random work, worked part-time. But regardless of their status, everybody took their coffee break at the same time. It was one of the few things Amanda did admire about the way the paper was run.
Ward Johnson, after a quiet greeting to Amanda, had gone out to see a potential advertiser. Amanda had started to ask him about the figures he’d sent Josh, but he was out the door and gone, as if he anticipated that she was going to be asking him some more irritating questions. He had tended to avoid her recently.
Still fuming, Amanda put more sugar in her coffee than she could drink and made a face at it.
“You look very elegant this morning,” Dora began nervously, and forced a smile. “I always feel inadequate when you walk into a room. You’re every inch the executive.”
Amanda grinned at her. She hadn’t thought she presented any image at all. “Please, would you sign an affidavit to that effect and let me send it to Josh Lawson? He thinks I need my hand held in business.”
“Oh, I’m sure that’s not true.” She peered at Amanda over her coffee cup and flushed a little. “Is that South American woman really his latest mistress?” she blurted out. “I saw their photograph in one of the supermarket tabloids. He’s so handsome! And she’s a knockout, isn’t she?”
“Yes.” Amanda hated the Latin woman, and she’d never even met her. She hadn’t asked Josh about her, because she hadn’t wanted to know. Now Terri was back in his life like a persistent ghost from the past. Josh and his women. Amanda felt she wouldn’t ever escape them.
“How are things going with you?” she asked, changing the subject. “Do you still like it here?”
“Very much.” Dora laughed a little uneasily. “I’ve known Ward since we were in school together. He was always nice to me. I liked staying at home with my boys, but we needed the extra money so that Edgar, my husband, could take a couple of college courses to keep his teaching certificate current.” She hesitated. “I suppose you young women wouldn’t want that kind of life, you’re all so independent and business-minded. I don’t guess most of you want children until you’re settled in your careers.”
Amanda thought about rocking a baby in her arms on Opal Cay. Josh’s baby. Business and independence were less pleasurable to her mind than living with Josh and loving him night after endless night and raising his children.
She cleared her throat. “It’s a new world,” she told Dora.
“Yes.” The older woman sighed. “I don’t like it very much,” she confessed quietly. “Maybe there are advantages, but in my day a woman was the center of the family. She kept everything organized and got the men and children to church on Sunday and made sure that everyone had nice manners and clean clothes. She cooked and kept a nice house and worked in the garden when she wasn’t helping out at church socials or looking after people who needed it.” She put down her coffee cup. “Forgive me, but it seems to me that these days it’s very much a selfish kind of society, with people doing only what benefits them. Self-sacrifice, family honor, ethics, compassion—those things don’t even exist anymore.”
“Yes, they do,” Amanda said with a quiet smile. “Don’t believe everything you see in the movies and on TV about modern lifestyles. In the fifties, television portrayed housewives like Donna Reed, doing dishes in high heels and a Sunday dress. Do you know, some of this modern generation actually believe women lived like that?”
Dora giggled. “You’re kidding!”
“No, I’m not.” She shook her head. “True history never gets a fair shake. A friend of mine used to say that history was the story of mankind written by the winners.”
“Distortions,” Dora agreed. “Yes. I see what you mean.”
“I like my independence,” Amanda continued, “but that doesn’t make me a crazy woman with a seething man hatred. I’m a professional with a lot of hard-bought education and a mind that I want to use. Did you know that there was a woman named Hatshepsut who was pharaoh of Egypt for twenty years?” she added. “Or that the Amazons really existed, hunting and going to war alongside their men? Or that most Native American women in this country really owned all the property in their villages, and men came to power through their mother’s lineage, not their father’s?”
“You’re joking!”
“No, I’m not. Interesting, isn’t it, how history has written the story of women?” She chuckled. “Now we’re finally getting it straight.”
Amanda watched her colleague turn away to finish pasting up ads, and she wondered at how much alike they were, for all that they were a generation apart.
She went back to her computer to go over the figures that Ward Johnson had given Josh. She wasn’t surprised to find inaccuracies; in fact, she found them quite easily. But she saw the books every day and knew what the figures actually were. Her pulse raced when she realized what a false picture Ward had given Josh.
But she couldn’t call him on it. If she dared, she’d be giving him just the weapon he needed to get her out on her ear. Josh had said that he wouldn’t let that happen, but he was in a volatile mood lately. Having her call Ward a liar and make accusations could be construed as sour grapes, after she’d complained that she had no real control of her family’s enterprise. Josh wasn’t on her side anymore. He’d be more than likely to take Ward’s.
Her temper cooled as she realized what she was going to have to do. She had to lie low and jockey for a position of power. It would take cunning and guile, but if she worked at it, she could pull it off.
She began to hum softly to herself as she bypassed Ward’s figures and started on the current accounts. He thought he’d outfoxed her, but he had some surprises coming. She was Harrison Todd’s daughter, with all his genes and, God willing, his shrewd business head as well. If she was careful, she could still win out over Ward. And over Josh as well.
CHAPTER NINE
JOSH FLEW BACK to San Antonio a few days after Brad and Amanda, putting in an appearance that dispelled the relaxed atmosphere at the Lawson Company. Everyone jumped when Josh was in his office just on normal days, but he was more demanding than ever now, impatient and living on his nerves. Even his usual dry humor had gone into eclipse. He spent long hours at his desk. He didn’t seem to sleep.
“I know you don’t like talking about what bothers you,” Brad said the second day he was at work, “but you’re my brother, and I am concerned about you now and then. Can I help?”
Josh glanced at him over a page of figures, dark shadows under his black eyes, new lines in his lean, handsome face. “No. When are you going to talk to Holmes about the shipping holdup on his computer software? Have you contacted the consultant who’s supposed to reengineer the database for him?”
Brad laughed with cold humor. “So much for that approach. No, I haven’t, but I will. My God, don’t you ever get tired of the stone-man facade?”
“I’ve got several appointments to get through.”
“Why not talk about what’s bothering you, Josh?” Brad complained. “Why is it always business with you?”
“When you get to the top, that’s what’s left,” his brother replied. “Business and solitude.”
“Well, you know all about that. All our lives your only direction has been to make more money and get more power. You’ve sacrificed everything for it.” He rammed his hands into his pockets. “Why don’t you get married and start producing heirs to inherit all this?”
Josh stood up, his dark eyes narrowing with anger. “Don’t you have something to do, little brother?”
he asked menacingly. Even his posture was threatening.
“What did I say?” Brad cried, exasperated. “You won’t even talk about a family life—”
“I don’t want it!” Josh said harshly. “I like my life as it is, without complications.”
“And without women?” Brad eyed him curiously. “Terri was supposed to show up at the cay with her husband. Did she?”
“I canceled the visit,” Josh said. His chest rose and fell heavily. “I told you, I don’t need complications.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll change the subject. I’ve had my yearly physical. You’re still going in for yours, right?” he prodded. “The insurance company called again about it.”
“Yes, dammit!” He glared at the younger man. “No one is going to find a brain tumor or anything fatal.”
“I never thought they would.”
“When are you leaving?” Josh asked with casual pleasantness, the anger gone now. He even smiled.
“Tonight. Does that make you happy?” Brad replied, stung.
“It does indeed.”
“I suppose you already know about the jam I’m in?”
There was the slightest hesitation. Josh didn’t like people knowing that he had spies and used them. “Yes,” he said.
“Leave it to you to dig deep.” He rocked back on his heels, his hands in his pockets. “I’m overextended. I can’t borrow any more. I don’t suppose you’d bail me out one more time if I promised to stay away from the gambling tables and get help?”
“You promised the same thing last time I pulled your irons out of the fire. I believed it then.” Josh shook his head. “I don’t now. You’ll have to get yourself out of trouble this time.”
“Thanks. Nice to know I can count on you when I’m in over my head.”
“The only person any of us can count on in this life is ourselves. You’re overdue learning that.” Josh’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve sheltered you too much already. I felt that you got a bad shake because of Mother’s ongoing marriages, and Dad’s neglect and endless affairs. When I got old enough, I took you out of boarding school and tried to make it all up to you. But I’ve done you no favors. Now I have to do right by you. You have to learn to solve your own problems, avoid your own mistakes, pay your debts without a safety net. It’s time to grow up, Brad.”