Heart of the Falcon

by Francis Ray

  Felicia saw the anxious expression on Madelyn’s face and gave the Sampsons a pointed look. “The doctor doesn’t want her disturbed.”

  Jane smiled. Howard remained uncomfortable looking.

  “I’ll add some water.” Taking the bouquet, Felicia left.

  “Howard?” Jane prompted.

  What little confidence Madelyn had that the situation wasn’t dire plummeted. Being at a loss for words or unable to speak his mind was not a characteristic of her boss. “Is this about my job?”

  “Howard, you’re scaring the poor dear,” his wife told him.

  Mr. Sampson found his voice. “What do you think she did to me? She’s the best production engineer I’ve had in years, and she tossed it all away.”

  “I won’t apologize for my baby,” Madelyn told him fiercely. “If you’d like for me to transfer to another department, I’ll understand.”

  “Who said anything about a transfer?” he asked roughly. “You’re still the best production engineer I’ve got.”

  “I don’t understand,” she told them.

  He finally spit it out. “Babies and our jobs don’t mix. We spend too many long hours away from home. You could have been tops in your field. The Singapore tenure would have given you more experience. Now you’ll never get to the top.”

  Madelyn began a slow boil. Throwing back the covers, she got out of bed. The heavy silk blue pajamas more than adequately covered her. “Are you saying when this baby is born, I won’t be able to do my job just as well?”

  “You’ll try.” He shook his balding, gray head in dismay. “But the baby will be sick with this or that, and you’ll have to take off.”

  “You better believe it,” she said with heat. “That just means I’ll have to work twice as hard when I return—something I’m very well used to.”

  His blue eyes narrowed. “I won’t cut you any slack because of the baby.”

  “I won’t ask you to.”

  Eyeball to eyeball they glared at each other. “Just so we understand each other. Tomorrow is Friday, you might as well take it off, too, because I want you fresh on Monday morning. Number eighty-five in East Texas struck gas and oil. They need the pipes like yesterday to bring up both. I want you to work with me on it.”

  Although excitement raced though her at the prospect of working beside him, her expression didn’t change. “I’ll be there at seven forty-five.”

  Nodding curtly, Mr. Sampson turned to his wife. “Let’s go.”

  Jane smiled and whispered, “He really likes you or he wouldn’t be so upset. He’ll get over it though. We’ll have lunch when you feel better.”

  Madelyn eyed her boss standing impatiently in her doorway. “Thanks for bringing him.”

  Astonishment touched Jane’s round face. “You have it wrong. Howard isn’t the type of man you can make do anything. I’m the Trojan horse, so to speak. He didn’t like the strain between the two of you. He’s not really as chauvinistic as he sounds.”

  Mrs. Sampson’s eyes twinkled mischievously. “I’m depending on you to do what I and our four daughters and the other women who have worked under him with children have been unable to do—get him to admit motherhood doesn’t diminish a woman’s brain cells.”

  “You can count on it.” The women shared a smile.

  The doorbell rang. “Seems you have another visitor. We’d better go,” Jane said.

  Grabbing her robe from the foot of the bed, Madelyn followed them into the front room. “Daniel!”

  His cutting gaze zeroed in on Madelyn, warmed when he nodded to Mrs. Sampson, then zipped back to Mr. Sampson. “Good morning, Mr. Sampson. Finding out already you can’t get along at the office without Madelyn? I’m afraid you’ll have to—the doctor wants her to rest.”

  Mr. Sampson’s blue eyes widened.

  “Daniel,” Madelyn admonished, “you’re meddling into something that is none of your business.”

  “Shouldn’t you be in bed?” he asked her.

  Madelyn sent Daniel a glare hot enough to melt steel. “Stay out of this, Daniel, or be prepared for the consequences.”

  “Mad—” Daniel began, then her eyes narrowed. He snapped his mouth shut.

  “I apologize, Mr. Sampson. Mr. Falcon is a family friend, and he sometimes oversteps himself,” Madelyn explained.

  Daniel’s mouth tightened.

  A spat of erratic coughing erupted from the kitchen. “Some water would do wonders to clear your throat, Felicia. You met his mother earlier.” A smile on her face, Madelyn opened the front door. “I’ll see you at seven forty-five sharp, and thanks for the flowers.”

  Mr. Sampson almost smiled. He cut a quick glance at the silent Daniel Falcon. “You might make it after all.”

  “Of course she will, Howard. How else is she going to take your job?” his wife asked.

  Mr. Sampson appeared exasperated at his petite wife, but Madelyn noticed he held her arm until he had seated her in their blue Cadillac, then gallantly lifted the hem of her floral print dress away from the door frame. He smiled down at her just before shutting the door.

  His concern and love for her was obvious. For a moment Madelyn allowed herself to wonder what that must feel like, to know you were loved, wanted, needed.

  “I overreacted again, didn’t I?” Daniel asked, a note of caution in his voice.

  Closing the door, Madelyn faced him. “Next time ask if your help is needed before you go charging in.”

  “That’s a promise,” he said, watching her closely as if she were a time bomb and he wasn’t sure how to diffuse her. By slow degrees he took her arm, then gently led her toward the bedroom.

  Madelyn started to remind him he hadn’t asked, then decided to let him get by this one last time. A contrite Daniel was something you didn’t see every day. “Why are you back?”

  “I thought I recognized him, but it didn’t hit me until I was several blocks away.”

  Pulling off her robe, she climbed into bed. “So you were practicing your rescue skills again?”

  “Unnecessarily, it seems. I guess I keep forgetting you can take care of yourself.”

  “It’s always nice to know you have backup if needed.”

  “What did he mean by exception?”

  She made a face. “He thinks women can’t cut it in the business world once we become mothers because we lose focus or have to take off too much with sick children.” She smiled with satisfaction. “I know it won’t be easy, but I can do it. I told him I’d take off if my baby needed me and still get the job done.”

  “I could help.”

  She was glad she had leaned forward to pick up a magazine and toss it out of the way. Her heart was almost dancing before she remembered he had taken care of her before until she was able to take care of herself, then he was gone. She didn’t want a part-time father for her baby.

  Grasping the magazine, she laid it aside. Her face expressionless, she said, “That won’t be necessary.” Yawning, she scooted down farther into the bed. “I’m really tired. Good-bye, Daniel.”

  “I’ll see you this afternoon.”

  He informed his mother of the same thing on passing her in the living room. Madelyn was shutting him out again. He could take care of their child as well as anyone.

  He’d show her when the time came. In the meantime he was going to swing that door wide open and keep it that way. Even as the thought came to him, Daniel knew it wouldn’t be easy.

  Madelyn wasn’t going to be pushed. Self-reliant and independent, she might occasionally get down, but not for long. She was a survivor. He had never met a woman like her. She was the kind of resilient woman that could take on the world once she made up her mind.

  She had made up her mind, only he wasn’t sure if she still wanted him standing by her side when she did. He hated to admit it, but he wasn’t brave enough to ask her the question in case she gave him an answer he didn’t want to hear or accept. Opening the back door of the Mercedes, he climbed inside.

  �
�Where to, Daniel?” the chauffeur asked, looking in the rearview mirror. Higgins had known Daniel since he was born. The elderly driver saw no reason to stand on formalities when they were alone or with just the family. Neither did Daniel.

  “I don’t know,” Daniel said. He waited for a second, then asked, “Why are women so complicated?”

  “Don’t know. Guess that’s why I’m not married. Couldn’t find one who would put up with me,” he answered.

  “You want to run that by me again? Mother and some of her friends would try the patience of a saint. They talk incessantly and sometimes can’t decide where they want to go or what they want to do.” Daniel leaned forward in the backseat. “I’ve never seen you get the least perturbed with them. Even dour Mrs. Crenshaw calls you a dream.”

  Higgins chuckled, laugh lines deepening around his dark eyes. “She doesn’t have to go home with me. I like my things to stay where I put them. Most women like a neat place. They say they’re gonna leave your things alone—the next thing you know, you can’t find a thing.” Half turning in the seat, he faced Daniel.

  “Nothing starts my day off worse than having to look for something I left out so I wouldn’t have to look for it in the first place. A fussy woman can sure ruin a man’s day. If I leave my Sunday shoes under the kitchen table, and my running shoes in the hallway, no one bothers them.”

  Higgins’s comments clouded the issue rather than helped. Daniel didn’t know how Madelyn felt about shoes left under the kitchen table, or if she usually woke up grumpy or smiling in the morning. The thing that had bothered him was the thought that he might never find out.

  * * *

  Exactly twenty-nine minutes after Daniel left, Madelyn’s doorbell rang. She and Felicia exchanged looks.

  Madelyn, sitting up in bed, voiced both their thoughts aloud. “Do you think it’s Daniel again?”

  “I wouldn’t doubt it. Thirty minutes seems the limit of his endurance of being away from you,” Felicia said, rising from the side of the bed. “But if it is, I’m going to put him over my knee.”

  “I want to see that,” Madelyn said to Felicia’s retreating back.

  Felicia opened Madelyn’s apartment door, still smiling over her shoulder at Madelyn’s additional instructions from the bedroom to send Daniel home if it was him. When Felicia faced forward, time stood still.

  Two beloved words whispered across her lips: “John Henry.”

  His impersonal gaze touched her briefly, dismissing her as insignificant, then went beyond her to scan the interior of the room behind her.

  Joy turned to pain. Trembling fingers gripped the doorknob as she fought to keep from crying out her anguish.

  He was still everything to her, and she was less than nothing to him.

  Yet some part of her was unable to dismiss him as easily. Hatless, his thick black hair hung straight down his back, framing a face as masculine as it was ruggedly beautiful.

  “I was told I would find Daniel here.”

  The pain in Felicia’s heart deepened. He refused to even greet her or say her name, but the deep timbre of his voice made her ache, made her remember its hoarseness as he’d painted erotic pictures of pleasure in her mind and made each one come true.

  His searching gaze finally came back to her. She wished it hadn’t. She could have borne his anger, withstood his hatred, but the blankness in his expression sent her deeper into despair. It was as if he had wiped her from his mind.

  “Someone at Daniel’s house said he was here with a friend.” Deep grooves furrowed in his copper-toned forehead. “Is he all right?”

  “Dad!” Daniel greeted in excitement from behind his father.

  John Henry turned to be enveloped in a hearty hug, which he gave back full measure to his son. Stepping away from each other, they shook hands. Both were smiling.

  Daniel couldn’t have been happier that instead of leaving, he had walked around the apartment complex trying to figure out how to get Madelyn to let him into her and the baby’s lives again. He wasn’t any closer to a solution, but at least his delay hadn’t caused him to miss his farther.

  They hadn’t seen each other since the Christmas holidays. Seeing him at Madelyn’s door with his mother had been a wonderful surprise.

  “You look well,” his father said, thumping him soundly on the shoulder.

  Daniel grinned. “You expected different?”

  The deep frown returned to John Henry’s face. Lines formed by time and sun radiated from his midnight-black eyes. “Last night I had a dream you were troubled and in pain. I called, but there was no answer. I got into my truck and started driving.”

  Daniel’s hand tightened in his father’s. John Henry had always possessed an uncanny sense of when his family was in pain or troubled. As a child, Daniel had thought it was cool, then as an adult he had rebelled against his father’s interference. It had almost taken a tragedy for him to accept his father’s gift and be thankful.

  “Madelyn was sick,” he answered, the memory still painful. “Come on, I’d like you to meet her.”

  Daniel turned and saw the empty doorway. His mother was gone. His puzzlement grew as he led his father inside the apartment and didn’t see either woman. “Mother. Madelyn.”

  “We’re in the kitchen,” called Madelyn.

  “Maybe some other time,” his father said, his tone flat, his displeasure evident in his narrowed gaze and stiff shoulders. Guests were greeted, if they were welcomed.

  Daniel didn’t know what was going on, but he knew Madelyn wouldn’t judge a man because he wore boots badly in need of a shine and new heels, and jeans and blue plaid that were thin and faded from too many washings.

  John Henry’s muscular arm firmly in his hand, Daniel rounded the five-foot partition separating the kitchen from the living room. Felicia’s rigid back was to them. Over her shoulder, he saw one of the magazines he had bought Madelyn.

  Daniel frowned. He thought she’d be overjoyed to see his father “Mother?”

  Madelyn in her robe and gown literally jumped up from her seat at the small table and extended her hand. “You must be Daniel’s father. My name’s Madelyn Taggart.”

  “So you’re Daniel’s friend,” John Henry said, his gaze probing.

  Withdrawing her hand, Madelyn gave Daniel’s father a tight smile “And Felicia’s.”

  John Henry grunted.

  Madelyn lifted her chin. “You and Daniel must have a lot to talk about. I won’t keep you,” Madelyn said and started for the front door.

  “She’s the reason why you were so worried?” his father asked, his voice dismissive and puzzled.

  Daniel watched Madelyn halt abruptly and spin around. His gaze went to his father and knew he was in one of his intractable moods. “Dad, please.”

  John Henry grunted and shrugged broad shoulders.

  Daniel glanced around the room at the three silent people and had no idea how to ease the obvious strain between them. “Let’s go to the house and get you settled in.”

  “I want my own room,” John Henry proclaimed.

  “Anything you say.” Daniel swung back to his silent mother. “I’ll ride home with Dad. Should I tell Higgins to wait for you?”

  “No, we have some things to discuss,” Madelyn answered for Felicia.

  Daniel studied the hunched shoulders of his mother, the gritted smile of his father, the narrowed gaze of Madelyn and left. After telling Higgins that Felicia would call, Daniel climbed into the passenger seat of his father’s dented, faded blue truck.

  The motor purred to life like a well-fed cat, which Daniel thought wasn’t far off the mark. The outside of the vehicle might look like it had been rescued from a junkyard, but under the hood was the finest money could buy.

  “Your friend is not a good woman.”

  “You’re wrong. She’s the best. Better than I deserve,” Daniel said propping his elbow on the open window panel. “Dad, if you were trying to stick it to Madelyn and Mother back there for some slight, you�
�re wrong,” Daniel defended. “Neither deserves it.”

  Shifting the truck into gear, John Henry pulled off. “It wasn’t as much fun anyway since I couldn’t get a response from either of them.”

  “Were you trying to?”

  “If you didn’t care for this woman, I wouldn’t have heard your pain.” John Henry hit the freeway with a burst of power, the gears slipping smoothly and cleanly. “I wanted to see if she would make your heart bleed as the other tried to do.”

  “And Mother?”

  “To see if she had learned to see with her inner instead of her outer one.” Calloused hands tightened on the steering wheel. “She’s only gotten worse in the last two years. She was too ashamed to look at me and take me to task as she used to do.”

  “Dad, you’re wrong.”

  “I’m right—and I’ve finally come to a decision.” He downshifted. “I’m divorcing your mother.”

  Chapter 14

  As fast as Felicia wiped, more tears appeared. “I’ve lost him. I’ve really lost him.”

  Her chair pulled up next to Felicia’s, Madelyn tried to console the seemingly inconsolable. “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes, I do. I told myself it was over, but deep down I never believed he’d do it.”

  “You didn’t even look at each other or speak. There’s still a chance,” Madelyn offered, unsure if she was right to offer hope when she wasn’t so sure of the outcome.

  Felicia looked up sharply, her lashes spiked with moisture. “That’s just it. Even when we were ready to push each other over a cliff, we were never able to deny the deep attraction we had for each other. We may not have seen each other in two years, but for me at least, the irresistible allure is still there—stronger because I’ve missed and dreamed about him so much.” Tears crested and flowed down her cheek.

  “He made it clear he wants separate bedrooms. In the past we never slept apart under the same roof no matter how long we had been apart. John Henry would always say the bed was big enough for both of us.” She sniffed delicately. “Sometimes during the night one of us would reach for the other, and blame didn’t matter.”