by Helen Conrad
She flattened herself against the wall, watching him disappear up the staircase, her heart beating so hard that she felt she was about to suffocate. She wanted to follow him, but she didn’t dare. If only she didn’t get such strong feelings that he did want her, only to have them dashed by his continued refusals. If only she knew for sure what it was that held him back. One way or another, she had to find out.
CHAPTER SEVEN:
The Ghost of Christmas
The next morning was a duplicate of the-one before, only this time Grant helped cook and wash up afterward. Neither of them mentioned what had happened the night before, and it seemed to Carrie that Grant was very careful to avoid touching her.
But his spirits were, good. They played through the therapy session, and when it was over, he wouldn’t let her go back to town.
“Let’s do something together. Let’s go sailing,” he suggested. “I’ve got a friend who keeps a racing dinghy at the marina. Have you ever crewed
before?”
“Sure.” She grinned pertly. “But I’ve got more experience as helmsman. I hope you know how to crew.”
“We’ll take turns,” he promised. “Give me an hour to take care of some paperwork, and then we’ll get going.”
He closeted himself in the study, and Carrie wandered through the house, exploring rooms she’d never been in before. The house was huge. Walking restlessly from room to room, she stopped and examined each of the pictures framed on the walls from Grant’s racing days.
They mostly documented victory. That was, she reminded herself, his favorite thing. And each picture showed him smiling, climbing out of a car or on the victory stand, being handed a trophy or a check for a huge amount of money. A real champion.
She went upstairs and found herself in Grant’s bedroom. You’re trespassing, she told herself sternly. But her conscience didn’t have a chance., She was determined to learn more about Grant if she had to snoop to do it.
His bedroom told a lot about him. His bed was neatly made. Some clothes were thrown over the back of a chair but not many. Not bad. He had an oil painting of waves crashing against black cliffs— Big Sur, she’d bet—hanging over his bed and a photograph of an older woman, probably his mother, on his dresser.
No pictures of girlfriends. That was nice and made her smile, until she noticed something else on his dresser, lying right beside the picture of the woman. A crumpled scarf.
Why did she feel as though someone had just punched her in the stomach? She knew all about Eleanor Ashland. It was old news. Besides, the fact that the scarf sat there, still wadded into a ball, said that he hadn’t seen her since. And that should be good news. So why wasn’t she happier?
She backed out of the room and went downstairs, glancing at the pictures on the walls again. Suddenly she noticed how many of them showed Grant draped with lovely, scantily clad women, hugging him, kissing him, handing him flowers. Clearly women were part of the victory he loved and probably part of what he missed.
Where were all those women now? Had he cast them off or had they lost interest now that he was no longer a winner?
She heard Grant coming, and she quickly turned from the picture she’d been perusing.
“Hey, sailor,” he said, emerging from the study with a captain’s hat that he jammed on her head. “New in town?”
She smiled up at him, all doubts and fears forgotten. “Why? You got a bridge you want to sell me?”
“Nope.” He grinned at the picture she made in the hat. “I just want to go out and show you off. You’re too cute to keep under wraps.”
With an invitation like that, how could she refuse?
The hot wind was throwing the brightly colored sailboats around like autumn leaves. Grant and Carrie didn’t do much right, but they had a lot of fun trying, and they didn’t crash into anything too big. They finally maneuvered their little sailboat back into its slip and went into the yacht club to have a drink and catalog their bruises and sunburns.
“Christopher Columbus we ain’t,” she said happily, drowning her sorrows in a tall lemonade. “It’s a good thing the New World has already been discovered.”
“You don’t think we’re ready to try to regain the Americas Cup?”
“Not this year. Not with our ship of fools.” She glanced around the room at all the nautical types in their expensive white clothes. “Uh-oh. Looks like we’ve got company.”
A heavyset man in his late fifties was coming toward their table, a look of expectation on his face. He leaned in to look at Grant. “You’re Grant Carrington, aren’t you?”
Grant looked up, his expression veiled, but with a smile that spoke of the practiced ease of longtime celebrity. “That’s right.”
The older man laughed heartily and stuck out his hand. “I’m Gordon Falkes.”
Grant looked blank for just a moment, then memory cleared his brow. “Gordon Falkes.” He rose and accepted the handshake. “The Gordon Falkes who won the Traceway International in 1985?”
The older man nodded happily. “I’ve seen you drive, boy,” he said, slapping Grant on the back. “You were one of a kind while you lasted.”
Grant’s face froze, even though the smile didn’t seem to dim. “You were once pretty good, yourself,” he said.
“Yeah.” He shook his head. Overweight and breathing heavily, he looked like a man sadly out of shape. “Guess we’re both a couple of has-beens, now,” he said with false humor. “Can you imagine me trying to squeeze back into the cockpit of one of those babies?” He laughed. “And you, I hear you’ve got a bum leg since that last accident—“
“Gordon!” A woman’s voice rang shrilly in their direction. “Gordon, I swear, we’ve been waiting for ten minutes.”
“The little woman,” Gordon said apologetically. “Listen, here’s my card.” He handed Grant a small white rectangle of paper. “Let’s get together sometime soon and talk over old times. What do you say?”
The “little woman’s” voice carried to their table as she spoke to the other couple waiting with her. “Honestly, the only fun he has anymore is talking over his glory days. All those old athletes are the same. I swear, he can be such a bore on the subject of racing. ...”
Gordon led his wife and friends away, and Grant slowly sank back down into his seat. Carrie didn’t dare look at him. She knew what he was thinking. To him, this was a vision of what the future could look like. A ghost of Christmas yet to come. But how could she tell him that he wasn’t washed up? What could she say to erase the seediness of Gordon Falkes, the sadness of a life lived on past glories?
“You ready to go?” he asked quietly at last.
She looked up quickly and smiled. “Sure. But I’ve got an idea. Let’s stop by Mickey’s On The Bay. Have you been there since you moved back?”
He shook his head, showing no enthusiasm.
“Come on.” She tugged on his hand. “Mickey would love to see you, and it’s just down the block.”
He couldn’t resist her hopeful smile. They walked down the street, fighting the wind all the way, but this time it didn’t seem so funny. The warm cheerfulness inside Mickey’s place was a relief. Mickey greeted them right away, thrilled to see Grant again after all those years. She quickly drew a couple of men over and they turned out to be old high school friends of Grant’s.
They spent the next hour remembering old times and laughing uproariously at silly jokes. Carrie watched Grant, watched the light come back into his eyes, watched his laugh begin to look less forced, and knew he needed more of this sort of thing. There was life apart from racing; he only had to reach out and embrace it.
They didn’t talk much on the way home. She wanted to ask him what he planned to do with the rest of his life, where he was going from here. He wasn’t going to be another Gordon Falkes. She knew that, but she wanted to be sure he knew it too.
Grant was quiet. His leg was aching, but he would never admit it to Carrie. Despite the good time they had just had at Mickey’s
, his head was aching too.
Damn Gordon Falkes. Damn him for making it plain that the crossroad was near. It was time to make a choice. Was he going to go Gordon’s route or was he going to get back into racing?
He hadn’t been completely idle since the accident. He’d invested a lot of money in a partnership in a driving school to teach defensive driving according to racing techniques—mostly at corporate seminars. That seemed to be doing surprisingly well.
But that wasn’t going to fulfill his need to win, was it? The only way to do that was to get back into racing.
He flexed his leg, testing it. Stiff. Painful. And still not responding the way it would have to if he was going to put his life on the line behind it.
Frustration welled up in him, and he wanted to hit something. He’d never been a patient man. Seeing Mickey again and all those old friends had reminded him of his growing up years right here in this town. He’d been impatient then, dropping out of school to follow his racing dream—and bringing on a life-long rift with his parents because of it. No matter how much acclaim he’d had out on the national scene, his father still considered him a loser—because he hadn’t done things the way a man of his background was supposed to do them. The way his brothers had done them.
But he couldn’t wait, not for anything he really wanted. That was one reason why he had raced for a living. And now he was going to have to learn patience if he was going to let Carrie help him. If only he could believe in her methods.
He glanced at the woman beside him. She was silent, staring out the window at the sand dunes they were passing. A slight frown appeared between her feathered brows. She was worried about something. Worried about him.
He swore softly, under his breath. This was just the position he hadn’t wanted to get into with her. He should never have asked her to stay. When he was near her, when the scent of her hair filled him, when the freshness of her smile warmed him, he could hardly stand it. He wasn’t used to denying himself anything he really wanted.
But he’d never wanted anything for long after he got it.
She was different. He’d sensed it from the first. She was getting tangled in his life, and it was no good. He’d never known a woman who could affect him this way. And that was why he wouldn’t let himself touch her again.
He pulled the car into the driveway and stopped it right behind a shiny red Lincoln.
Grant groaned. “Is that who I think it is?” he asked sardonically.
Carrie stared straight ahead. “If you think it’s Jerry, you’re probably right.”
“What’s he doing here?”
“Let’s get out and see, shall we?” she said sharply.
Jerry came around the side of the house just as they were getting out of the car.
“Carrie, Carrington,” he said, and Grant nodded silently. Jerry turned toward Carrie with anger in his eyes. “I thought you were supposed to be working here,” he said, his voice high with outrage. “I thought he was a client.”
Carrie’s smile was brittle. Jerry had no right to act as though he had a claim on her. “This is therapy, Jerry,” she said. “Mr. Carrington needed cheering up, so I took him sailing.”
Jerry flushed. “That’s preposterous and you know it.” He looked at Grant, then glared at Carrie. “I think you’re going beyond therapy here. I think something’s going on.”
Grant looked from one to the other of them but didn’t say a word. It wasn’t his fight. This was something Carrie was going to have to take care of by herself.
“Oh, Jerry,” she sighed. “Why don’t you come in and have a drink or some coffee.”
“What, you’re acting as hostess here now?”
She stopped, realizing her mistake. Turning to look at Grant, she appealed to him with her eyes. He shrugged.
“Carrie has been staying out here for a few days to help me out,” he said evenly. “I consider her a friend. Come on in and talk to her, if that’s what she wants.” He walked ahead, washing his hands of them both. “I’ll be in the study if you need me,” he told her before he disappeared down the hall.
Carrie led Jerry into the kitchen and sat him at the kitchen table. She could hear Grant’s music filling the hallways. She knew he usually played it to soothe something wild within himself, and she was tempted to leave Jerry and go to him. She stood for a moment, undecided.
“You really ought to let people know where you are so they can get in touch with you,” Jerry was saying. “You never answer your cell.”
“The coverage is awful out here,” she said.
She turned and looked at him. His hair was slightly ruffled, his tie askew. She’d never seen him less than perfectly presentable before. His disarray touched her. He did, after all, deserve a decent explanation. She turned back to the stove and put the coffee on.
“How can you stand that junk?” Jerry groused, listening to the horns blare.
She glanced at him, getting out the sugar and cream. “Don’t you like big-band music?”
He made a face, taking the cup she offered him a bit roughly. “It went out with the dinosaurs.”
“Along with manners,” she said sweetly.
He looked down at the cup in his hands. “Oh. Sorry.”
Sitting down across from him, she tried to read the expression in his eyes.
“Now tell me why you’ve come,” she said, though she was afraid it might open the floodgates to a wave of accusations she didn’t really want to hear.
He put down his cup and glared at her. “To save you from making a big mistake. You know you’re playing with fire here, don’t you?”
She licked her lips and tried to smile. “I don’t know what you mean.”
He threw out his arms, getting into his subject. “Yes, you do. This guy—“ He waved a finger at her warningly. “This guy is a junkie, only his habit is supplied by women.”
She groaned and covered a smile with her hand. “Oh, Jerry, don’t be so melodramatic.”
“Carrie, I know what I’m talking about. I realize you’re never going to marry me.”
She looked up quickly and reached for his hand. “Jerry—“
He let her hold his hand but didn’t hold back. “Oh, no, don’t bother apologizing,” he said. “I think I’ve really known it all along. For some reason, when you came back to town, it was like a fresh breeze blowing through my life. I really hoped we could make it. But I can see now that we weren’t really right for each other from the first.”
She squeezed his hand. “I think you’re right,” she said softly. “And I’m sorry.” The sense of relief at how well he’d accepted it overwhelmed her.
But Jerry was frowning. “However, that’s not the point any longer.” He glanced around the room as though he expected Grant to walk up behind him any moment. “You’ve got to get out of here. This guy is poison.”
She dropped his hand and turned away in her chair. She understood Jerry’s concern. She’d felt that way herself at times; but there was more to Grant than the race-car driver and playboy everyone else saw, though she would have had a hard time explaining just what else there was to Jerry.
“Really, Jerry,” she said mildly, trying to brush away his objections. “There’s nothing going on between us. I’m just his therapist.”
Jerry was blunt. “You’re not sleeping with him?”
She turned and glared back at him. “No, I am not.” Even if that wasn’t her fault. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
“It doesn’t figure.” He frowned, scratching his head. “The way the two of you are together, there’s a sort of electricity that flows between you. I can’t imagine that he wouldn’t have slept with you yet.”
Carrie’s eyes flashed. “Well, you know, I might have something to say about the matter,” she snapped.
He shook his head. “You know what they say about him, don’t you? If it wears a skirt, he’ll seduce it.”
The blood drained from Carrie’s face. “Jerry,” she said warnin
gly. “I don’t want to hear any more of this. You know, as well as I do, how much gossip is worth.”
He stared at her. “My God. It’s too late, isn’t it? You care for the guy.” He grabbed her hand this time. “Come with me now, while you can still get away.”
She jerked her hand from his. “I’m not a prisoner,” she told him earnestly. “I told you, I’m here as his therapist. And I can take care of myself.”
“Can you?” He gazed at her for a long moment. “Just remember, if you ever need me, I’ll be there.” She didn’t respond, and he sighed, shrugging his shoulders. “Another reason I came out was to get some advice.” Suddenly he looked downright pathetic. “How am I going to tell my mother that you’re not going to marry me? I’ve tried to hint around, but she just won’t believe it. She was at the stationers’ today, ordering wedding invitations.”
Despite all the tension that had so recently sprung up between them, Carrie had to laugh. “But she knows I never said yes.”
He grinned in return. “Listen, she happens to think I’m a prize that no one in her right mind would turn down. She thinks you’re just holding out for a better wedding settlement.”
“Oh, Jerry.”
They laughed together, and Carrie had the warm feeling that they could be better friends than they’d ever been sweethearts. She leaned close to him, musing out loud, trying to think of some way he could get his mother to acknowledge reality. Every idea she thought of caused them to laugh, and neither of them noticed Grant as he stood silently in the doorway, watching them.
He’d tried to stay away. He’d gone to his study and pulled out papers that needed to be reviewed, turned on Harry James, and then paced back and forth across the little room, slamming down books and bumping into walls.
He’d discounted Jerry from the beginning, knowing that the man was too wedded to pure ambition and status to hold a woman like Carrie. When she’d stayed, he’d assumed she knew that and had left Jerry in the dust, where he deserved to stay. But when you came right down to it, Carrie never actually had told him that. Not in so many words.