“Yeah, I guess so,” Blake said with a grimace. He stood up; Tracy did the same. He placed his little hand in hers. “Just till I get you out of the maze,” he told her.
“Oh. Thank you.”
But when they came out, he gave her hand a little squeeze before releasing it and tearing off for the house.
Tracy followed more sedately, staring down at the ground, still trying to compose herself.
At the pool, she literally ran into Ted. He righted her with a gentle smile, then frowned, noting the distress in her eyes.
“Hey! Tracy. What is it?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. Nothing. I was just thinking about, about—”
“Jesse?” he asked her, concerned.
“Yes,” she lied with a little qualm of guilt. But she had no intention of dragging Ted into another of her personal traumas. None of this was his concern.
“Ah, sweetheart!” He gave her a hug. “Jesse had a good life. Remember that. Remember the good. Come on in, kid, and I’ll buy you a drink!” he teased.
She nodded, then glanced at his face, at the concern in his dark brown eyes. She tried to smile, but still sounded a little nervous. “Where’s mother?”
“She’s not coming down. She has a horrible headache.” He sighed. “If you ask me, she’s still jealous of Carol and Lauren.”
Tracy gasped. “Why should she be! She has you.”
Ted didn’t answer her. He opened the back door and led her into the parlor, where Katie was supervising the young man at the bar. Ted ordered wine for them both, then wound up in conversation with the bartender. Lauren came in with Tiger, then Sam showed up. Tracy talked idly to them both.
But then Leif came down, and Lauren instantly became a clinging vine on his arm, and Tracy just didn’t want to be there. She slipped out of the house, thinking that she desperately needed more sleep or something, because she felt like there was a running cascade of tears dammed up behind her eyes—ready to flow like Niagara Falls at the slightest word or motion.
Or the simple condemning brush of Leif’s eyes. Someone moved over by the umbrella. She started to back away, then realized that it was Jamie.
“Oh, Jamie!” She cried, and impulsively she rushed over to him, hugging him fiercely.
“Hey, hey! Don’t spill that wine on me! It will clash horribly with my after-shave.”
But he rescued the wine from her hand, set it down on the cast-iron pool table, and hugged her in return.
“What’s the matter, Tracy?” he asked her, sounding wonderfully and fiercely protective.
“Oh, everything. I shouldn’t be here, Jamie. None of this is working. We’ve still no idea who wanted Dad murdered. I’ve had words with my mother and—”
She broke off, biting her lower lip.
“And with Leif?”
“Yes.”
He inhaled, looking out over the pool. He tried to cheer her up with a little chuckle. “If it helps any, I had words with my mother, too. Everyone is so tense.”
“So why did they all come?”
“Who knows? The guilty person probably came to keep an eye on things.”
“Great. Who is guilty—and what are the others doing here?”
“The ladies are all trying to see which one is aging the best,” Jamie informed her.
“Lauren, obviously. She isn’t even thirty.”
“Ah—but she’s never been, nor will she ever be, as beautiful as Audrey,”
Despite herself, Tracy smiled. “That was nice,” she told him softly.
He shrugged. “Tracy, things will work out. You and Leif will make it all up.”
She shook her head. “I have this horrible feeling that if we ever do discover the truth, it won’t matter anyway. The truth is going to be horrible and ugly—and it will split us all apart forever.”
Jamie shook his head vehemently. “We won’t let it. Tracy, if nothing else comes out of all this, we have each other.”
“Oh, Jamie. That’s sweet. I barely know you yet, but I do love you. I love you very much.”
He kissed her cheek and gave her a broad grin. “Let’s go show ’em who’s boss, eh?”
She nodded, and they walked back into the house, arm and arm.
Tracy made it through dinner with a certain amount of hard, cold armor in place. Leif was at the head of the table—seated between the two Mrs. Kugers. Lauren talked about her house and her business affairs all night —and how wretchedly hard it all was without a man, batting her lashes at Leif all the while. He was remote, but unerringly polite. Tremendously courteous. And every once in a while his dark head would bend intimately toward her, and the shock of jealousy that touched Tracy was overwhelming.
She had asked that her things be moved from his room. She had handed him right over to anyone else who saw fit to pursue him. What else could she have done? Nothing.
She was next to Tiger and Jamie, with Blake and Liz— and her grandfather—just beyond them. Arthur Kingsley was remote all night, but Tracy noted that he watched Leif throughout the night. Her grandfather was next to Blake, though, and surprisingly attentive to the little boy. Coffee and brandy were served outside by the pool. By that time, Tracy had a horrendous headache. Leif approached her, bearing a mug of coffee, passing it toward her.
“Black.” He said simply.
“I don’t think I care for coffee—”
“Take it,” he said, scowling. “I can’t hold it any longer.”
She took the cup he handed her. He stared at her a second; she returned the scowl. He walked back to answer something Carol was saying.
They were talking about Jesse. Naturally. They were all here for the coming memorial service. She couldn’t take any more of it. No one was watching her; she decided to fade into the background.
The coffee was still in her hand. She sipped it quickly to get rid of it, then set the mug down on the tile step of the pool. Slipping back into the house, she hurried up the stairs, then paused, realizing that she hadn’t asked where her things had been moved. She didn’t want to go back down. With a sigh she decided she would try to discretely open doors and hope that she didn’t walk in on anyone.
But she did; the first door she opened, the one that was right down the hall from Leif’s. Someone was there; someone tall and lean.
Leif.
But she frowned, because she saw that her luggage was neatly stacked by the closet door. Her purse was on the bed—and Leif was busily examining it.
“What the hell are you doing?” she gasped out in outrage. How had he gotten here before her? she wondered, but then realized he had come to his room via the deck and simply slipped next door.
He swung around. His face was hard.
“Good. You’re here.”
“Why— And get your hands off of my purse! What in God’s name are you looking for now?”
He didn’t reply, but glanced quickly over her cocktail gown, then shrugged.
Then he strode toward her, gripping her arm before she could back away. “You want to know what ticks in my mind, Tracy? Well, let’s go. You’ll find out.”
“Go where?”
“To the car.”
“No! I’m not going anywhere with you!”
He ignored that completely. Before she could protest again, they were halfway down the stairs. “Leif, I will not go with you! If you don’t leave me alone, I’m going to scream.”
He stopped so abruptly that she slammed into his back. “Tracy—tell me the truth!” he stormed to her.
“What truth?” she raged back.
He sighed. “Are you coming with me peacefully. Let me start over. Please, Tracy, come with me.”
She didn’t like the tension in his grip, nor that which radiated through his body, rippling the muscles of his shoulders beneath his light jacket.
She didn’t like the way he was staring at her. A challenge, a dare. A ruthless demand.
“I’m not going—”
“Yes, you are.”
<
br /> Before she could draw in another breath, he swept her up and deposited her neatly over his shoulder. Even as she struggled from her position, they were down the stairs and at the front door.
“Leif! Put me down! I’ll scream! My grandfather—”
“Your grandfather will get what’s coming to him, too, Tracy,” Leif vowed savagely.
“You can’t do this!”
“Sorry. I’m doing it.”
It was nearly impossible to carry on a rational conversation from her position. She swung her fists in sudden panic against his back. She lifted herself against his shoulders and desperately tried to bite him. Her effort failed because he swung open the door to the Jaguar, threw her in, and locked the door. Then he got in the other side and started the engine.
Tracy sat back incredulously, wondering how it was possible to love someone and hate him, too. And then she felt sick, because she didn’t want a life like her parents’. Audrey had loved Jesse. And she had hated him, too.
Leif didn’t look her way. He drove; his hands white-knuckled against the wheel, his face as hard as granite.
“Where do you think you’re taking me?” Tracy demanded coolly.
“We’ll be there soon.”
“Leif, damn you! What were you doing in my things? Why were you rummaging through my purse?”
He glanced her way at last, with a strange indifference. “I was trying to see if you had your passport on you or not. I assumed you had. You came into New York from Austria, didn’t you?”
She didn’t answer him, but looked at her hands, suddenly more afraid than she had been, trembling. Yes, she’d come in from Austria. She rented a little townhouse there in a small town where the largest populations were those of the cows and the geese and where the residents were friendly and quiet. No one knew her there—or anything about her. She loved Austria—she even loved Switzerland. Despite the past.
It was simply the last place in the world that she wanted to go with Leif.
“Leif, you have to stop this car somewhere, and when you do, I’m going to scream and scream until someone gets a cop, and then I’m going to have you arrested.”
A small, small curl touched his lip. She saw it as the light from a passing car streamed into the Jag. It was a bitter smile.
“We’re almost there,” he said.
“Where?”
“The airport.”
“Airport!” Tracy screeched.
“That’s right,” he said calmly.
She started to shake her head. It was fuzzy. Of all the things to happen in the middle of this crisis situation, she felt as if she were going to keel over in a ridiculously sound sleep.
“We’re taking my plane. The old group plane,” he further clarified for her.
“Taking it where?”
He glanced her way again, then looked ahead to make a smooth right. “Switzerland.”
“No! Oh, no! I’m not going to Switzerland—ever again! And you’re really an arrogant fool, Leif Johnston, but it won’t work this time. You have to get me through customs—and I won’t go. I’ll scream and have a fit and there is no way at all—”
“My plane is private, Tracy, you know that. And I’ve traveled enough to make a few friends. We’ll be cleared at the plane.”
She stared at him, fighting for cognizance. The urge to lay her head back and sleep was overwhelming.
“You’re still crazy,” she said thickly. “I’ll pull a tantrum. It won’t work.”
“But it will, Tracy.” He stared at her, interested in her appearance. “Lay your head back, Tracy. Relax. There isn’t a damned thing you can do about it. I have your passport. And by the time we get to customs clearance, you’re going to be sound asleep.”
“You drugged me!” she charged him in a sudden realization. “Oh, you bastard! The coffee—”
“Nothing serious. Just a little pill. Liz takes one now and again when she’s desperate for sleep.”
She knew that the battle was lost; she couldn’t keep her eyes open, and a sweet, lulling lethargy was stealing away all her will. Her eyes were simply closing, and she hadn’t the strength left to do a thing about it.
“You are despicable. ‘Please come with me, Tracy!’ ” She repeated scathingly. “You liar! You’d already planned this!”
“If you weren’t a liar, it wouldn’t have been necessary.”
“You are brutal and cruel!”
The car suddenly went off the road. His arms were around her and suddenly he was trying to keep her awake.
“Why, Tracy, why?”
“Why what?” she mouthed.
“Why am I being cruel?” he was shouting. She didn’t care.
“I don’t ever want to go back—”
“Why not?”
“I hate you!”
“Tell me the truth, Tracy!”
“I hate you! I despise you!”
“The truth! We can end it all now!”
“No—”
“Then I have to prove the truth to you, Tracy. Cruel and brutal as you seem to think it is.”
“What—”
“Tell me!”
She couldn’t tell him anything else. The sweet, pleasant, overwhelmingly urge to drift from the present overwhelmed her.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
They were somewhere far over the Atlantic when she awoke.
Curiously, her first sensation was one of mild interest —or perhaps it was merely that she awoke still feeling exhausted and too lethargic to give way to her growing sense of resentment and fury.
And so, awakening slowly, it was with interest that she looked around herself. She knew where she was—she’d heard about the groups’ various jaunts and tours on the plane. She’d never been on it, though, and despite everything else, she was intrigued.
She was on one of two very plush recliners that lay against either side of the renovated plane. A table sat between them. There was a bar just beyond the sofas, and beyond that was a large round table surrounded by captain’s chairs. It was fantastic, Tracy thought, that an airplane could so resemble a living room.
And then she remembered why she was on the plane.
Abruptly, she sat up, pausing to grip her temples as it seemed that bells went off in her head. A moment’s panic seized her as she realized that she was alone, and the fantasy living room high in the air seemed like a corridor in the Twilight Zone. With a swift movement she turned to the windows, sliding open the slim plastic cover with a vengeance.
They were in the clouds. High, high above the earth, moving with a quiet hum through some strange eternity.
Switzerland…
Switzerland was their destination. He knew.
She shivered suddenly, then forced herself to swallow back an irrational fear. He knew.
So what!
He knew that she’d had a child; that the child was long dead and buried. What was his point? He was taking her back to prove it, but to what end, she wondered in anguish.
It just all seemed to be the height of cruelty; to prove that she had been nothing short of a fool to stay anywhere near Leif Johnston. Once burned… but she had come back anyway. She’d come back in memory of her father, but she’d been compelled to relive another memory, and she’d even begun to believe that memory could become truth—that he loved her.
She should have known. She should have been forewarned. She knew him well enough to be certain that his tenderness could be hypnotic—but that his temper was ruthless, and little ever stood in his way once he was determined.
The door to the cockpit suddenly opened. Leif stood there, quietly closing it in his wake, looking at her pensively, but saying nothing. Tracy returned his stare with cold reproach. There was nowhere that she could go—no way to avoid him. He walked down the length of the plane to the bar. The distance seemed very long, yet he filled that distance with his strides, with his silent presence. He slipped behind the bar and spoke to her.
“Can I get you something?”
“No.”
“We’ve still got several hours in the air.”
She gave him no reply. He poured himself a drink of something amber and came back around, sitting on the sofa opposite her. Idly he crossed an ankle over his knee and sipped his drink, but his eyes didn’t waver from hers. “You still don’t feel talkative?” he inquired softly.
“No.”
He lit a cigarette, inhaled and exhaled. “Tracy—”
“I haven’t anything to say to you. You are cruel and obnoxious and totally without principle.”
“I am cruel?” he inquired with a sardonic smile curling his lip.
Tracy clenched her teeth tightly together. How could he possibly switch the tables at a time like this? And yet that bitterness in his voice proclaimed him the one wronged, and it cast her into a pool of confusion, where she felt near tears again.
“How do you intend to manage the rest of this, Leif?” she asked him smoothly. She would not cry, she would not break, she would not give him the least satisfaction. If she closed within herself, if she could talk, walk, and feel with cold disdain, she would make it.
“Have you got more pills up your sleeve, Mr. Johnston? Unless you’re planning on murdering me, I’ll exit the plane sooner or later. And when I do, I plan to charge you with abduction.”
“Do you really?” he replied as coolly.
“Of course.”
“You’re not afraid of what I might decide to do?”
“What can you do?” she demanded heatedly, then warned herself that she was not maintaining calm. But it was difficult; it was nearly impossible. The plane, which had seemed so huge for two people, seemed ridiculously small. He was so close.
The same man who had taught her from the very beginning what love could be. Who had come to her in her dreams. Who had spoken so recently in a haunting voice that tore at her heart about the caring he had felt… the caring that had lingered.
Lies. It did not seem that he cared about anything.
The same man who had held her yesterday. Made love to her; filled her and touched her—and left her lost and confused. He’d been planning this. All along. But for the love of God—why?
Tracy lowered her eyes. She couldn’t look into the smoldering gray eyes that could hold love and passion and then hide away all emotion. She couldn’t look at his strong body, handsomely encased in his suit, somehow more distant because of the formal attire. His hands, long and powerful, capable of gentleness, capable of force.
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