The Indy Man

by Janet Dailey

  'Mr. Braden,' he said cuttingly, 'I don't like your comments.'

  An eyebrow of golden brown, the same color as the man's hair, raised in surprise. 'Don't you think she has a beautiful shape? I would say she's almost perfectly proportioned. Maybe you haven't taken a good look at her recently—'

  'Susan is very beautiful,' Warren interrupted angrily, black fire flashing from his eyes. 'But I certainly don't appreciate you saying things like that—'

  'I see,' Mitch Braden interrupted calmly. His laughing gaze swung to Susan's face, taking note of her heightened color. When he was looking at her, the man didn't attempt to conceal his mockery with pseudoinnocence. 'You're afraid too many compliments will go to her head, isn't that it? That's a pity, because she has such a pretty little head.' He glanced back at Warren's smoldering expression. 'Susan, did you say her name was Susan?'

  'It happens to be Mrs. Sullivan. She's my wife!' Warren snapped.

  Partially angered by the man's flirtatious remarks deliberately intended to rile Warren, Susan had still found herself hiding a smile. The tiny dimple in one cheek vanished at Warren's announcement.

  'Congratulations,' Mitch Braden responded easily to the news, not displaying disappointment or surprise. 'You're a very lucky man, Mr. Sullivan.'

  'Thank you,' Warren returned acidly.

  When Mitch Braden glanced again at Susan, his vocal blue eyes said it was such a pity she was married, but his smiling voice spoke of something else.

  'May I buy you two a drink and we can toast the happy couple?' he offered with a flashing smile.

  Susan's heart accelerated slightly. 'No, thank you, Mr. Braden,' she refused in a swift, husky voice.

  'We were just going into the dining room to eat,' Warren inserted to rescue her. 'Thank you just the same.'

  The man inclined his head in shrugging acceptance. 'It was the least I could do to make up for my earlier bad manners.'

  Warren rose to his feet. Susan was faintly surprised to see that Warren was an inch or so taller than Mitch Braden. The man's presence had so completely dominated the table that she had presumed him the taller of the two. Even now Mitch Braden was the more compelling.

  'Your apology has been accepted, Mr. Braden,' Warren said coolly, touching Susan's shoulder to prompt her to her feet. 'Now please excuse us!'

  'Of course.' The stunning smile seemed permanently carved on the handsome face, the sparkling blue eyes directed at each of them in turn. 'I hope you two have a long and happy marriage. If not,' the wicked glint returned as his gaze rested momentarily on Susan, 'I hope I'm around to pick up the pieces.'

  Susan slipped her hand under Warren's elbow. 'We shall have a long and happy marriage, Mr. Braden. Good evening.'

  With a curt nod in the general direction of Mitch Braden, Warren turned Susan toward the door. The muscles in his arms were rigidly hard as his striding walk practically carried her out of the lounge. She guessed at the taut hold he had on his temper. There was no need for her to turn around because she could feel Mitch Braden's eyes watch them leave.

  Free of the room and Braden, Warren's rein on his temper relaxed. 'That man is insufferable!' he muttered beneath his breath. 'He apologizes, then tries to steal you from under my nose. It didn't even faze him when I told him you were my wife!'

  'That was going to a bit of an extreme, wasn't it?' she suggested gently. 'I mean, we aren't married yet.'

  'Simply because it isn't convenient right now,' Warren snapped. 'And August is only a little over two months away and we're getting married then.'

  'Yes,' Susan agreed, but Warren's white lie bothered her.

  Warren continued as if he hadn't heard her. 'Do you know this is the first time I've wanted to invite a man to go outside with me since I was in high school and beat up the local bully?'

  The story had been told to her several times before, so she merely nodded and was secretly relieved that Warren had not embarrassed her tonight by trying to repeat a high school episode. Warren, embarrassing her? The idea was so ludicrous considering how proper and polite Warren was that she nearly laughed aloud.

  'Let's forget about that man,' she suggested instead, and wondered why she didn't believe her own words.

  'You're right, of course.' The taut lines of anger vanished as Warren looked down his nose at her.

  'There isn't any need to let his impudence spoil our evening. Shall we dine here as planned? I don't think that man will bother us again.'

  Susan wasn't as certain about that as Warren seemed to be, but she agreed with his suggestion anyway. Besides, she told herself as the dining room hostess led them to a table, she should look on the bright side of the otherwise unfortunate episode. At least she had learned that Warren was capable of being jealous. Sometimes he was so self-contained that she wondered if she aroused any feelings in him at all.

  They were studying the menu when a group of loud, laughing voices invaded the dining room. Susan's back was to the entrance but she didn't need to turn around to learn who had entered.

  'Good lord!' Warren exclaimed irritably. 'It's that man Braden again with a motley collection of men! The hostess is leading them this way. Pretend not to notice them, Susan.'

  How could anyone fail to notice the boisterous group coming nearer? Susan tried to obey Warren's crisp command by concentrating on the menu, but as the men filed past their table, she couldn't resist peering above the leather-bound menu.

  There were six men in the group, counting Mitch Braden. If he had noticed Susan and Warren, there was no indication of it now. He was laughing at some comment that had come from the gangly youth bringing up the rear.

  It was an odd assortment, average men running from short to tall, skinny to thin, young to old. None of them possessed the strikingly handsome looks of the man leading the way.

  The large table the hostess led them to was not far from Susan and Warren. Susan breathed a silent sigh of relief when Mitch Braden took a chair that faced away from them. She doubted if she could have eaten with him watching her at his leisure. Warren, too, seemed to relax.

  After receiving Susan's preference for her meal, Warren gave the waiter their order, spending a few minutes choosing a wine from the dining room's wine list. He prided himself on being a connoisseur with very discriminating taste. Susan had difficulty telling one wine from another.

  When the main course was served, the waiter uncorked the chilled bottle and offered a tasting portion to Warren. 'Sir—' the waiter began.

  'This is not the wine I ordered,' Warren interrupted immediately, not allowing the man a chance to finish. He reached for the bottle still in the waiter's hands. 'This wine was not even on your list.'

  'No, sir,' the man agreed. 'It's from the owner's private stock. Compliments of the gentleman at the large table.'

  Mitch Braden. Both Warren and Susan darted a look at him. He had turned in his chair and briefly inclined his head in acknowledgment.

  'The owner?' Susan breathed, glancing curiously at the waiter.

  'He is a friend of the owner, I believe,' was the courteous answer.

  Indecision held Warren silent for an instant. Susan guessed that he wanted to refuse the wine. It must have been a very excellent vintage because he did not.

  'Please thank the gentleman for us,' Warren said tautly.

  'Of course, sir.'

  Perhaps if Mitch Braden had not sent the wine to their table, Susan might have been better able to ignore his presence in the dining room. As it was, her eyes strayed often to his table, focusing on his lean masculine form and the dark golden-toast shade of his hair. Never once during the entire meal did she encounter the laughing blue eyes with the crinkled lines at the corners.

  Always from the table of six there was laughter and constant chatter. In comparison the silence between Susan and Warren seemed unnatural. But Warren didn't care for any discussions during a meal. The time for talk was before or after, but never during a meal. By the time coffee was served, a tiny pain had begun to hammer
at her temples, from tension, Susan guessed.

  Laughter punctuated the air, coming naturally from Mitch Braden's table. Warren cast a censorious look in that direction.

  'It would have been an excellent meal if the atmosphere had been more peaceful,' he commented.

  Lifting her chin slightly, Susan refused to let her gaze wander to the other table. 'I imagine about the only place you can be fairly certain of obtaining a quiet meal is in your own home.'

  'Very true,' Warren agreed, dry-voiced. 'Are we ready to leave?' At Susan's nod, he signaled their waiter for the bill.

  When he rose and walked to the back of her chair, Susan noticed one of the men nudge Mitch Braden. She could barely see his lips move, but she knew instinctively that he was telling Mitch that she and Warren were leaving.

  One shoulder lifted in an uncaring gesture and some comment was made in response by the man. A stout balding man laughed shortly and said, 'When did that ever stop you?' Mitch Braden's low answer brought laughter from the rest of the group.

  Holding her breath for fear he might have heard the exchange too, Susan glanced swiftly at Warren. He merely looked inquiringly back and she smiled with false brightness.

  From the restaurant, Warren drove her straight home with no stops in between. It was a week night, which meant they both had to be at the office in the morning. Warren did not believe in keeping late hours when he had to work the next day. For that matter, neither did Susan. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, the only week nights they went out, it was strictly for dinner, then home. The weekends were quite different.

  This night Susan was glad to have the evening end quickly. It hadn't been as enjoyable as other outings. Mostly because of Mitch Braden.

  Their goodnight embrace in the parked car outside her home did not last long. Lingering kisses were saved for the weekends when they had more time to indulge in them. At those times, Warren was masterful and passionate. Susan had never considered it odd that those were the times when she was most aware that she loved him.

  Only when she was in the house and watching his car drive away did she wish for the first time that the pattern of their relationship hadn't become so predictable. A surprise now and then would be nice.

  Of course, Mitch Braden, whoever he was, had provided a surprise this night and it hadn't been so nice. Oh, Warren had displayed jealousy, but Susan still wished the encounter had never occurred. Just why she wished that she didn't know.

  'Is that you, Susan?' her mother called.

  She turned away from the window. 'Yes, Mom, it's me,' she answered, shedding her spring coat and hanging it in the closet before walking down the hallway to the large family room.

  'Hello, honey, did you have a nice time?' her father, Doctor Simon Mabry, greeted her as she entered the room. His burly frame was draped in a reclining chair, a medical magazine unopened on his lap.

  'Of course,' Susan smiled.

  'Is he here?' Her younger brother Greg, a week away from turning seventeen, twisted away from the television set to glance at her.

  "No, Warren didn't come in tonight.' Susan picked up a pillow from the couch and threw it at her brother's lanky frame sprawled on the floor. Warren and Greg had disliked each other on first sight and the months since their first meeting hadn't changed either's opinion.

  As Susan slipped off her shoes and started to curl her feet beneath her to sit on the couch, the pillow was thrown back. She caught it easily from long practice.

  "Ouch, Mother! You're pulling my hair!' the youngest of the Mabrys exclaimed angrily—Amy, age thirteen.

  'Well, if you would hold still—' Beth Mabry began, Susan's mother.

  'You'd pull out every hair in my head!' Amy squeaked, her hands moving protectively to her long auburn hair.

  'I have to get the tangles out somehow, unless you'd rather do it yourself.' Beth Mabry firmly pulled the young girl closer to her chair. 'After all, you were the one who got it into this mess, climbing that tree like a tomboy.'

  'I told you,' Amy protested with rounded brown eyes of speaking innocence, 'I had to get Peggy Fraser's kitten. Ouch!'

  "Want me to comb it for you, Amy?' Susan offered, knowing the tug-of-war could go on continuously between mother and daughter.

  As her mother had put it the night before when she and Amy had argued, Amy was 'going through that difficult stage,' crazy about boys and becoming a woman but not quite able to stop climbing trees.

  'Oh, yes, please, Susan!' Amy agreed fervently.

  'Will you guys pipe down?' Greg protested impatiently. 'I'm trying to watch this TV show!'

  'Keep it to a low roar, Amy,' her father suggested with a gentle smile.

  'Greg's much too bossy, Dad.' Amy stuck out her tongue at her brother as she walked to the couch where Susan sat.

  Slowly and carefully working the snarls free from Amy's hair, Susan smiled to herself. It was no wonder that Warren found it difficult to relax when he came here. He had been an only child and the constant wrangling that went on between brother and sister and parent was something he couldn't accept. He would adjust to it when they started having children of their own.

  The television program her father and brother were watching was a police drama. Susan managed to grasp most of the storyline without giving the picture her complete attention. The local Indianapolis news broadcast came on as she brushed the last snarl from Amy's long auburn hair. She listened to the news and the weather, but when the subject shifted to sports, Susan started to untangle her legs from beneath her and stand up.

  A familiar face appeared on the television screen. She stared at it in disbelief. It was Mitch Braden, the man she had so disastrously met with Warren tonight. Only on television he wasn't wearing that perfectly tailored suit and vest. He wore a tee shirt that stretched like a second skin over his chest, and snug-fitting Levis. The film was taken outside and the wind was ruffling the dark tawny gold of his hair.

  'Is … is that Mitch Braden?' Susan forced the question out, too stunned to hear what the sports announcer was saying.

  'Yep,' Greg replied.

  The smiling, handsome face left the screen and a rundown of baseball scores started.

  'Who is he?' Susan asked hesitantly.

  'He's Mitch Braden.' Greg frowned at the dumbness of her question.

  'But—what does he do?'

  'What does he do?' Greg exclaimed with a taunting hoot. 'He's just about the most famous race car driver around. He's in town for the Indianapolis 500 race Memorial weekend. What does he do! Boy, what a dumb sister!'

  'I thought he looked familiar,' she commented, but more to herself than as a direct comment.

  'Well, you just saw him on the television screen.' Greg shook his head in despair at her strange remark.

  'No, I mean, tonight at the restaurant,' Susan explained absently, still slightly stunned that Mitch Braden had turned out to be such a famous personality.

  'You saw him! You saw Mitch Braden!' Her brother bounded to his feet. 'Did you get his autograph? Did you talk to him?'

  'Well, yes, I talked to him in a way, but I didn't recognize him. I knew he looked familiar, but I didn't know why.'

  'You didn't get his autograph!' Greg moaned.

  'What did he say to you?' Amy asked curiously. 'Is he as handsome as he looks on television?'

  'Mostly he talked to Warren,' Susan answered truthfully, wishing suddenly that she hadn't even mentioned that she had seen him. 'He's good-looking.' More so than on camera, she thought silently, because film couldn't capture the magnetism he exuded.

  'I wasn't aware that Warren was acquainted with anyone in racing circles,' her father included himself in the conversation.

  Greg's hair, a dark brown like Susan's, fell shaggily across his forehead. He flipped it away from his eyes with his hand. 'Neither was I,' he agreed forcefully.

  Susan bit into her lower lip. She wasn't about to explain what had really happened. 'Warren doesn't know him.

  'You said he talked to him,' Greg
reminded.

  'They were simply in the same restaurant at the same time.' Susan rose to her feet to bring an end to the conversation. 'It was just a case of two strangers exchanging casual conversation. I wouldn't even have mentioned it if I'd known I was going to get the third degree.'

  She started for the hall with Greg trailing on her heels.

  'I don't suppose Weighty Warren knew who Mitch Braden was either.'

  'Will you stop making those insulting references about my fiancé?' Susan demanded impatiently. 'And no, he didn't know who he was any more than I did.'

  'That figures,' Greg responded derisively.

  'There are more important things in the world, Greg,' Susan stamped her bare foot on the floor, a childish action for someone approaching her twenty-fourth birthday, 'than knowing some idiot who drives around a racetrack at a hundred and fifty miles an hour.'

  'Yeah?' her brother challenged.

  'Greg!' came her mother's warning voice.

  'Ah, gee, Mom,' he turned impatiently away from Susan. 'There's only a chance in a million of meeting someone like Mitch Braden and my sister blew it!'

  Susan didn't wait to hear what arguments Beth Mabry offered in her behalf. She escaped to her room while she had the chance, knowing that she probably hadn't heard the last of her brother's recriminations or Mitch Braden's name.

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  Chapter Two

  'SUSAN, is my son busy?'

  Glancing up from her typewriter, Susan encountered the solemn face of Robert Sullivan, the senior partner of the law firm and Warren's father. The resemblance between the two was striking. Both were tall and ruggedly handsome. Warren's hair was jet black while his father's had turned iron gray.

  'Yes, he is,' she nodded. 'You can go on in, Mr. Sullivan.'

  She gestured fleetingly toward the closed interoffice door behind her, wondering if she would ever be able to address the man less formally even after she and Warren were married.

  Robert Sullivan always seemed so remote and untouchable, the way Warren did sometimes.

  With a sigh, Susan turned backed to the typewriter, rereading the last page of the corporate agreement for typographical errors. Satisfied that there were no mistakes, she removed the original and carboned sheet from the carriage. The hall door opened as she started to staple the several-page document together.