by Amii Lorin
Tara had had dinner with David and Sallie and they’d been sitting comfortably in the living room with their coffee when Sallie mentioned Aleksei Rykovsky. Tara had grimaced with distaste and, with a rueful smile, David shook his head. “I don’t understand why you don’t like him, Tara. Most people do, you know.”
Although David and Sallie had long been aware of Tara’s preference for well-off men and in fact had introduced her to a few (believing she had an ingrained fear of being poor due to her upbringing), they had no idea of her aversion to the masterful type.
Tara had sighed, reluctant to answer, yet knowing she had to say something. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s just, well, he seems so damned sure of himself. So completely in charge. The”— and here she waved her hand around as if trying to pluck the word out of the air—“boss, so to speak. It annoys me.”
“I don’t know why it should,” came David’s gentle-voiced reply. “I’ve never heard him boss you. And anyway, he is the boss. You know what designing his new plants means to me, Tara. This is what I’ve been waiting for ever since I opened my own office. This is the biggest challenge I’ve had so far, and Alek has very definite ideas on what he does and does not want. My God, you’ve seen the proposed budget. In my view, any man who can afford to build a new plant at that cost without batting an eye damned well deserves to be boss.”
David’s tone had become unusually severe toward the end of his admonition to Tara, and when he finished, the room grew taut with a strained silence.
In an obvious attempt to lighten the mood, Sallie turned to David with a soft laugh. “Darling, within the last few weeks I’ve heard several people refer to him as ‘the Mad Russian.’ Do you have any idea why?”
David’s laughter echoed his wife’s, and when he answered, all traces of his previous harshness were gone. “Yes, sweets, I do know why. But don’t be alarmed; they don’t mean crazy-mad. It seems Alek has acquired a reputation for accepting difficult jobs with a close delivery date. Real squeakers, so to speak. The way I hear it, he has, so tar, always managed to deliver top quality work—on time. When he first started this practice, those who are in a position to know were heard to say the man was mad to take on such impossible job orders. Ergo—the title Mad Russian evolved.”
Sallie gave an exaggerated sigh of relief. “Well, that’s good to know. I was beginning to think perhaps his attic light was out.”
Opening her eyes, Tara shuddered and sat up, Sallie’s words of months ago ringing in her ears. After Aleksei Rykovsky’s behavior this evening, Tara was inclined to disregard David’s explanation and go with Sallie’s. In Tara’s opinion the Mad Russian’s attic light was definitely out.
Reaction was setting in. Tara felt tight and jumpy all over and, glancing down, she stared vacantly at her trembling hands. Closing her eyes, she swallowed around the dryness in her throat and bit hard on her lower lip.
Suddenly she had to move, needed the feeling of some sort of purposeful action. Moving almost jerkily, she went into the kitchen to the cabinet where she kept her cleaning materials. Grasping a dust-cloth and a can of spray wax, she returned to the living room.
Slowly, methodically, she applied herself to waxing every piece of wooden furniture in the room. There were not all that many pieces, for it wasn’t a very large room. But what there was was well chosen, reflecting Tara’s quiet good taste. Not an edge or corner was missed and from there Tara went into the bedroom and proceeded to give the same treatment to the furniture there.
When, finally, she had to admit to herself there was not one square inch of wood left without a double coat of wax, she returned to the kitchen and replaced the cloth and can.
Straightening from the low cabinet, she stood motionless a moment then said aloud, wonderingly, “What am I doing?” But without allowing any answers to filter through, she was moving again, going to the sink to wash her hands.
Uneasy, because she didn’t know why, Tara didn’t want to think at all just then. Least of all about him.
With single-minded purpose she broiled a small steak, tossed an equally small salad, and brewed half a pot of coffee. Twenty-five minutes after she had seated herself at the small kitchen table, she swallowed the last of her third cup of coffee then stood up and carried her plate to the sink to scrape most of her meal into the garbage disposal.
Tara washed up slowly and carefully, wiping the table, countertops, and stove free of the tiniest imagined spot. When she finally flicked the light switch off, she left the darkened room even more neat and sparkling than usual.
Still moving with the same single-minded purpose, she went to the bathroom, stripped, stepped under the shower, and brought all her concentration to bear on shampooing her long, heavy fall of silver-blond hair.
Later, dressed in nightshirt and terry
robe, she sat in front of her makeup mirror—brush in one hand, blow dryer in the other—and stared with unseeing eyes into the glass. In her mind’s eye grew a sharp picture of two glittering dark blue eyes and inside her head, as clearly as a few hours earlier, that deep masculine voice said: “You’re a beautiful, desirable woman. I want you.”
A shudder went through her body, and she watched, almost blankly, her pale, slim hand grasp the handle of the dryer to still its shaking.
He was beyond her experience. His manner—everything about him—was an unknown. She had gone out with a few carefully selected young men. She had been kissed, thoroughly, by all of them. Most had made a play toward a more ultimate relationship. Yet none had shocked or upset her as this man had, with seemingly little effort.
Tara felt vaguely frightened even now, hours later, and she wasn’t quite sure why. Was she overreacting? She didn’t think so. People who were hitting on all cylinders didn’t behave as he had. Did they?
From their first meeting she had felt uncomfortable and strangely on edge whenever he was around, either in the office or on the building site, and now, Tara told herself, she knew why. Not only was he autocratic and arrogant, which were bad enough traits in themselves, but he also had a streak of erraticism. The thing that puzzled her was, if she had sensed this in the man, why hadn’t David and the others?
Chapter Two
Tara had a depressing weekend. Not only was she shaken, at odd hours of the day and night, by thoughts of Aleksei Rykovsky’s strange behavior, she made the mistake of choosing this weekend to visit her mother.
She walked into her father’s house Sunday after dinner to find her mother in tears, her father bellowing at her younger sister, Betsy, and the twenty-one-year-old Betsy screaming back that she was packing her clothes and moving in with her boyfriend.
Tara groaned softly as she hurried across the room to her mother. This was all I needed to make my weekend complete, she thought wearily. At that moment she would not have been shocked or surprised if her mother told her her eighteen-year-old brother George had a girl in trouble and that her fourteen-year-old brother Karl had taken their father’s car and smashed it.
“Tara.” Her mother grasped her arms agitatedly. “Please go talk to your sister. She’ll listen to you. I’ll die of shame if she moves in with Kenny. And your father will be impossible to live with.”
So what else is new, Tara thought resignedly. But she smoothed her mother’s once beautiful hair and gently removed her clutching hands. “All right, Mama, I’ll go see what I can do. But will you tell me what this is all about first?” As she was speaking she drew her mother into the kitchen, enabling them to talk without having to shout over the din from the second floor.
In the comparative quiet of the kitchen, Marlene Schmitt drew a deep breath before beginning her explanations. “Well, it started Friday,” she began, and Tara thought swiftly. Didn’t everything? “Your father told Betsy that with inflation and all, he’d have to raise her board. She was very upset because she herself hasn’t had a raise in pay for some time. Then yesterday they had an argument just before Kenny came for her to go to a movie. He said her room looked lik
e a pigsty, and it was time she cleaned it.” Tara felt a flash of irritation. It was true that Betsy was a little careless with her things, but her room did not look like a pigsty.
“They barely spoke to each other all morning.” Her mother’s eyes filled with tears, and she twisted her hands nervously. “I guess it’s my fault. I was late with dinner, and Betsy asked if she could skip drying the dishes since Kenny was picking her up soon and she had to get ready. Your father exploded. He told her she was not allowed to go with Kenny today and could only see him two nights a week from now on.”
“For heaven’s sake, Mother, Betsy’s twenty-one years old,” Tara exclaimed indignantly.
“That’s exactly what she said to bun. But he told her that she was in his house, and as long as she remained under his roof, she’d do as he said. That’s when she said she wouldn’t stay here any longer. That she was moving in with Kenny. Oh, Tara, please stop her.”
“Okay, okay, calm down. I said I’ll do what I can. And you’re not to blame yourself just because dinner was late. I’ll talk to him, too, if I can, and try to make him see reason.”
Several hours later Tara collapsed onto her own sofa with a sigh of exhaustion. After long talks with both her sister and father that would have put a diplomat to shame, she had finally procured a peace settlement of sorts. She smiled ruefully, acknowledging the fact that George had been the one who swayed her father. He had entered the house, and the argument, and declared firmly in favor of Betsy. That her eighteen-year-old brother’s opinion was held in higher esteem by her father than her own did not surprise Tara. To a man like her father the judgment of almost any male held more value than that of a female. With bitter amusement Tara thought her father would fall over one Aleksei Rykovsky, seeing in him the absolute top dog of dominant men. Her amusement faded as she considered the probability of encountering that same top dog in the office tomorrow. After Friday night, what could they possibly say to each other? How could they work together if need be?
Thankfully her fears were proved groundless—at least through Wednesday—as the “head honcho,” as Tara now thought of him, hadn’t appeared.
A mystery did, though, in the form of a single, long-stemmed white rose that was delivered to her at the office Monday morning and each morning after that. When Jeannie brought the first one to her, Tara was delighted. The rose was perfectly shaped and beautiful; its scent heady, almost sensual. As Tara searched through the tissue paper in the florist’s box, Jeannie sighed enviously. “You must have a secret admirer, Tara. The delivery man said there was no card and wouldn’t even take a tip. Said he’d already been tipped. Do you have any idea who it’s from?”
Tara shook her head slowly. “No, but I’ll probably find out before too long.” Then smiling teasingly at the younger woman, she added, “And you’ll be the first to know, I promise.”
Jeannie flashed her an impish grin as she left the office, and Tara sat staring broodingly at the rose. Who could have sent it? The first name to jump into her mind was Aleksei Rykovsky, but she dismissed that at once. Much too subtle for the head honcho; he apparently went in for caveman tactics. Who, then? Terry Connors? She mused on the young draftsman in the outer office a few moments, then shook her head decisively. Not Terry. He probably wouldn’t think of it, especially after the way she’d spoken to him the last time he’d asked her out. She’d been honest to the point of bluntness. Although he was an attractive young man with talent and a promising future, he was more in love with himself than he could be with any one woman. In so many words she’d told him just that. He’d barely spoken to her since and then only in the office. He lived in an apartment just down the street from hers, and she’d passed him a few times going to and from her apartment and her car. At those times he’d nodded curtly, not speaking. So scratch Terry.
Names kept bouncing in and out of her mind as she hunted up the summer bud vase she’d shoved to the back of her personal desk drawer, and one by one she rejected them. Finally, running out of prospects, she gave up.
She went through the same mental gyrations on Tuesday morning. When the rose was delivered on Wednesday morning, she decided to stop trying to solve the puzzle and just enjoy it
As she prepared for bed Wednesday night Tara realized the advent of the morning rose had taken the edge off her nervousness about meeting Aleksei Rykovsky in the office. She also told herself the man was probably feeling ridiculous about his behavior and had not come to David’s office because he was embarrassed to face her. She should have known better.
She was at the filing cabinet Thursday morning when David, with a pleasant good morning, breezed through her small office on the way to his own. Tara looked up, but before she had a chance to voice a return greeting, two strong hands gripped her shoulders and a caressing voice said, “Morning, darling,” as she was turned around and held against a hard, muscular chest. She saw gleaming blue eyes, gave a startled “Oh,” then went warm all over as Aleksei Rykovsky’s firm mouth covered hers. Again that odd, tingling sensation touched the tips of her fingers and toes but before she could react to push him away, he lifted his head. “I missed that this morning, sleepyhead.” While caressing, his tone also held a touch of possession, and Tara was left speechless. He laughed softly as he moved away from her with obvious reluctance to join David, who still stood in the doorway with a patently interested look on his face.
Flushed with embarrassment, wide-eyed in confusion, Tara faced David. “I—I...”
David shook his head slowly, smiled gently, and closed the door between the two offices.
Anger flushed her cheeks even more brightly as she stared at the closed door. Who did he think he was, kissing her like that? And what in the world did he mean, he missed that this morning?
At lunchtime, instead of having lunch at her desk as she usually did, Tara left the office and walked. Ever since her teens, whenever she was troubled or had a particularly knotty problem to work out, she walked. She started out at a good pace, her long slender legs eating up the city blocks rapidly. Anger stirred her blood and kept the adrenaline pumping.
This man, this Rykovsky, was beginning to drive her wild. Banish him, she told herself severely. Push him out of your mind completely. Not an easy thing to do. Mocking blue eyes in a handsome face were beginning to haunt her. Why had he suddenly set out to bedevil her? Had she slipped up, let her dislike and disapproval of him show? If she had, she couldn’t think when. For David’s sake she had worked hard at always displaying a cool, efficient, respectful attitude toward him.
She could not think of one instance during the last few months when she had let her mask drop even at the times— and there had been several during office meetings and on the new plant site—when his overbearing superiority, his enormous self-confidence and arrogance, had made her hand itch with the desire to slap his haughty, patrician face. She had controlled the urge by removing herself from his presence on one pretext or another.
Sighing softly, Tara shook her head in defeat. She had no idea why he was attacking her. She had avoided his type like the plague and so could not fathom what his motivation could possibly be.
Tara had been striding along at a good clip, oblivious to her surroundings and the gloriously warm fall day. The dry, crackling sound of leaves being crushed underfoot cracked the door of her consciousness; the happy ripple of young children laughing pushed it open.
Glancing around, she shortened her stride; then she stopped completely. She was passing the park, the still deep-green, well tended grass partially obscured now by the heavy fall of leaves from the various types of trees in the park. Again children laughing caught her attention, and her gaze followed the sounds to the park’s small-tot lot. Young mothers stood together talking while keeping a watchful eye on their offspring. Others guided toddlers down sliding boards or stood behind swings, gently pushing each time the seat arced back. Bemused, Tara watched the happy, worry-free youngsters play. She had always loved children, been happy and eager to
help her mother when first George and then Karl were born.
A gentle smile tugged at her lips; a tiny ache tugged at her heart. Would she ever meet a man whose children she would not only be willing to raise but wanted to bear with a deep and passionate longing? Had she set her sights too high, made her requirements too rigid? Apparently not, for she had met more than one young man who’d not only met her requirements but had other extra added attractions as well. Yet they had all left her cold, with no desire to continue the relationship, let alone deepen it.
Was she destined to spend the rest of her life alone, searching for some elusive thing that could set a spark to her emotions? Was she never to know the joy evident on the faces of the young mothers she now observed? Did they realize, she wondered, how precious the time was that they held in their hands as their babies grew? Did anyone ever?
Giving herself a mental shake, Tara breathed in deeply, filling her lungs with the sweet, smoky taste of autumn. She had become pensive and moody and, with a determined effort, she drew her eyes away from the children, turned, and began retracing her steps to the office.
A long, low wolf-whistle, issued from the window of a passing car, brought a smile to Tara’s lips, a spring to her step. Her long, silvery hair bounced on her shoulders and against her back in rhythm with her stride.
Her walk—or stalk, Tara thought wryly—had restored her equilibrium. For all of fifteen minutes, back there at the park, she hadn’t given one thought to the head honcho. But now he was back to torment her thoughts. She had walked off the sharpest edge of her anger, but the core was still there, burning low but steadily.
What games was this man playing? And how in the world would she explain her behavior this morning to David? Her worry on that score proved groundless, for she had no sooner returned to her office when David came out of his. Alone.