Her feet hit the ground. He released her, and the look was gone. His hands were on his hips. “Puzzle pieces,” he reminded her.
“Mind if I change first?” she asked acidly.
“Yes, I do. Because you’re stalling.”
“I’m not!”
“All right, change first. But if you want me out of here when Sandy Tyrell shows up, you’d better hurry.”
“Make more coffee, will you?” she pleaded sweetly. Dripping, she hurried to her bedroom and rinsed the chlorine quickly from her body, thinking all the while.
She was a fool. She couldn’t be near him, not even for an hour. The chemistry, or whatever the hell it was, was just too strong. And she’d never stopped loving him, never stopped the aching, the longing….
She dressed again, very quickly, in jeans and a T-shirt. Then she rummaged hurriedly in the back of the closet. Somewhere she had a bag with a few of his cutoffs and polo shirts. Not that she meant to be magnanimous or kind; she just didn’t want him to stay wet. His clothes conformed too nicely to his body, and his body kept drawing her eyes, and…
He was in the kitchen, pouring fresh coffee, just as she had asked. She placed the bag of his clothes on the counter as offhandedly as she could.
“I remembered where I’d stuffed a few things,” she murmured, clutching her coffee cup and quickly sipping some of the hot liquid. “You won’t have to slosh around until you leave.”
“Thanks.” He disappeared into the bedroom with the bag; Colleen continued to sip her coffee, feeling a little numb. He reappeared moments later. His hair was still wet and sleek against his forehead. His knit shirt was bright red; the cutoffs were black. The color combination had always been exceptionally good on him.
Colleen turned away and decided to speak before he could start to ask questions. “Sam Tyrell drew up some kind of a puzzle thing with four parts to it. One was sent to Rutger, one to MacHowell and one to Holfer. The fourth was his, and, according to rumor, it was buried with him.”
“But it wasn’t buried with him, right? That’s the one that Sandy has, I take it.”
Colleen nodded and moved out into the living room. There was more space there, so she could keep her distance from him.
Bret followed her. She couldn’t escape him. She sat on the couch, and he stood very near.
“So you have a piece of this puzzle. And Sandy has a piece. Supposedly MacHowell and Holfer have the other two.”
“That’s about it,” Colleen said cheerfully.
“That’s not about it!” Bret said. He set his coffee cup down, sat beside her and gripped her shoulders hard. She shrieked as her coffee threatened to spill. Bret impatiently took the cup from her hands and set it on the table. “Colleen, that’s not it, you little fool! Whoever murdered Rutger was most assuredly after that section of the stupid puzzle. Damn it, Colleen, you’re in serious danger!”
She wanted to shout at him to please let go of her, to stop looking at her like that. She wanted to curl against his chest and tell him that she was frightened, that she needed him….
But she didn’t want his concern or his pity. She wanted to be loved completely, and she couldn’t settle for less. Anything except love would eat her up slowly until there was nothing left except pity and bitterness.
She shook off his hold and widened her eyes caustically. “I really don’t see why you’re so concerned. Just think of the story you’ll have if the murderer finds me. What human interest! It will be a Pulitzer prize winner, I’m sure.”
He took a long time answering. A long time in which she came to regret her acidic outburst. “That was unworthy of both of us, Colleen,” he said softly.
She rose and walked to the back of the room to stare out at the pool, which looked absurdly peaceful. “I know,” she said, her voice equally soft. “I’m sorry.”
Something seemed to be in the air between them, despite the distance she had intentionally created. It was as if a silver mist escaped him and touched her, embraced her. As if she could turn around and run to him and say that she was sorry, so sorry, and couldn’t they just forget it all and send out for pizza to eat in bed, or better yet, call the airport and make reservations for some secluded island where there would be nothing but the two of them and time to love and heal and lick their wounds and get on with their life and love….
Colleen sighed deeply, closing her eyes. Once she had done a long and involved story on battered wives. It had been heartbreaking to talk to her subjects, women with black eyes and broken bones. “You’ve got to leave him,” Colleen would say, referring to their husbands, and they would shake their heads very sadly, as if they knew something that she didn’t. They stayed in such horrendous situations; they risked their lives and their souls just to be loved. Bret would never hurt her physically, never in a thousand years. And yet when he had first left, she had felt much the same way as those poor women. No matter what he did to her, she loved him. It was so crazy; she knew better, yet there seemed to be nothing she could do.
She had also done interviews with singles groups and seen women ripped to shreds inside because they couldn’t find a man willing to make a commitment, and they went back time after time to men who blatantly used them. Cringing, crying, they were ready to take any little scraps that they could get from men who didn’t even pretend to love them. How she had pitied those poor women! She had promised herself that she would always be strong, that she would never cling to a man who didn’t really love her.
She turned around at last, grimacing slightly. “Do you know what I don’t understand, Bret?” She was very proud of herself; her voice was calm and rational, her tone conversational. No more tantrums, no more fighting, no more touching. She was going to be pleasant and professional and remote.
He turned to face her and gave her a questioning look.
“Why all this time?” she said.
He knew what she was talking about immediately. He shrugged. “You mean, why all this time with none of the survivors trying to get together and find the diamonds?”
Colleen nodded.
“For one thing, MacHowell and Holfer might very well be dead. Both of them must be in their seventies now.”
“Rutger didn’t think they were dead. He thought he would have heard…somehow.”
Again Bret shrugged. “No one knows for certain where Holfer and MacHowell are now. Some say South America, some say North Africa. It’s possible that after the war they fled so secretly that they had no way to find each other. Holfer had just been transferred to the SS. Maybe he was afraid of being pulled into the Nuremberg trials. Who knows?” He rose and walked over to her. He didn’t touch her, he just stood before her for a minute.
“Colleen, I—” He broke off, a rueful smile on his face. Then he lifted the back of his hand to her cheek briefly. “I’m going to call a friend of mine on the police force, okay?”
“Why?”
“Because it’s the only way I’ll leave the house.”
“But if Sandy sees anyone…”
“Hey! Have some faith in our law enforcement agencies, okay?”
Colleen bit her lip lightly, then nodded. She didn’t know if it was because she was a little bit frightened, or because she knew he wouldn’t leave unless she let him make whatever arrangements he wanted.
Bret went to the kitchen phone, and she heard him speaking briefly, casually. When he hung up and returned to her, he seemed relieved.
“There will be a plainclothes cop wandering around the neighborhood.”
“Good,” Colleen said lightly. She hesitated. “You, uh, didn’t bring your car?”
“Carly has it. His is in the shop.”
“Want to take the Ferrari?”
A slow grin touched his mouth. “You’re being awfully generous. Want me gone that much, huh?”
“Yes, and quickly,” she returned. But she smiled; they seemed to be bantering a little, and it was nice. “Sandy should be here any minute now,” she added.
&n
bsp; He nodded. “I need the keys.”
Colleen gave him her car keys, then walked him to the door. He hesitated there for a minute, looking at her. “Don’t open the door to anyone but Sandy. Not until I get back.”
It was her turn to nod. He reached out and caught a straying tendril of her drying hair. He smoothed it slowly across her cheek; his thumb brushed her lips, and involuntarily she trembled. There was that wistful look about him again, something dry and rueful in his eyes. She knew she should push him away, but she just stood there, as if time and the past and everything that stood between them ceased to matter. As if he were nothing other than the man she loved….
“Take care, kiddo, I’ll be back soon,” he told her softly.
And then he was gone. Colleen slowly closed the door, then she hurried back to the couch because her knees were about to buckle beneath her.
* * *
Carlton “Carly” Fuller, was grumbling over a pan of bacon when Bret walked back into his town house. He was still in his bathrobe, a worn terry thing of an indeterminate dark color. His gold-rimmed spectacles were falling low on his nose, and his remaining side tufts of gray hair were fluffed out. He looked like a mad scientist, Bret thought, or at least he did until he looked up expectantly at Bret. Carly had young eyes; they were a deep, sparkling blue. They held intelligence, wit and a deep fascination with and caring for the things that went on around him.
As a boss he was a whip-cracker. He didn’t care much for excuses. Bret felt as if he’d never really been a journalist until he’d started working for Carly. Through Carly he’d learned to ferret out the truth, to look beyond the obvious and see a situation from every possible point of view.
Bret had also discovered that there was no one alive more dependable than Carly. In a pinch he was there. He made no promises that he didn’t keep. As a friend he was A1. He was no flatterer, and he judged most things that were said to him long and hard. But he had a habit of making you think, and Bret knew that anything Carly did decide to say might be blunt, but it would also be the truth.
He was more than twenty years older than Bret and Colleen and they were both crazy about him.
Yet Carly had said nothing when they decided to marry, and nothing when they “decided” to divorce.
“I never did get the hang of frying bacon,” Carly grumbled finally.
Bret laughed. “It’s too late to be cooking bacon, anyway. It’s lunchtime.”
Carly didn’t respond. He shook his head, and his glasses slipped farther down his nose. “That wife of yours can cook bacon. Perfectly. No burnt spots, no soggy fat. Just a nice, crisp, perfect piece of bacon.” He looked up again at last. “So how is Colleen this morning? She must have taken your appearance more kindly than you expected since you didn’t show up here last night.”
Bret grimaced. He walked into the kitchen beside Carly, took the fork from the other man’s hand and began to unwind the mess of tangled bacon that Carly had somehow created.
“She wasn’t thrilled to see me,” Bret said.
“Oh,” was Carly’s simple reply. “Want some coffee?”
“No, thanks. I’ve had enough coffee to stay wired for a week.”
“Oh,” Carly said again. “How about some Scotch? I’ve got some well-aged Johnnie Walker.”
“Yeah,” Bret said. “Yeah, I could use a good Scotch.”
“Come to think of it, so could I,” Carly said.
“Scotch and bacon?” Bret asked.
“They’re great together.”
And they were, Bret mused a few minutes later as he helped Carly pick at the bacon while sipping his Scotch. And man, the Scotch did taste good. Damned soothing after the night and morning he’d spent.
“So is she upset with me?” Carly asked casually.
“No,” Bret replied a little bitterly. “All her venom is for me, Carly.”
Carly was silent for a minute. “But you stayed.”
“She drank herself into a mild stupor rather than talk to me.”
Carly smiled a little. “But you got the story from her, I take it?”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
Bret proceeded to fill Carly in on what he had learned, then told him that Sandy Tyrell was at the house now. He finished his Scotch in the process. Carly refilled Bret’s glass, shrugged and threw another dollop into his own.
“She’s not happy. Not happy at all. But I really can’t let her handle this one on her own.” Bret sobered for a minute. “Not after I saw what they did to Rutger, I can’t.”
“You asking me or telling me?” Carly quizzed him.
Bret looked at his friend, hurt. “Carly! There’s a rather grisly murderer running around. You don’t think I should leave it be, do you?”
“Let’s turn on the ball game,” Carly suggested.
Texas was playing L.A. It was a good game, good enough that each man occasionally interrupted the conversation to yell something at the television set. By halftime they were halfway through the Johnnie Walker.
Even though Bret’s outward attention was on the game, his mind remained on Colleen. He had stepped in on one of her stories once before and had been served divorce papers for his efforts.
Bret lifted his glass and stared blankly at the amber liquid. Her eyes were sometimes the color of Scotch. Dazzling, pure, with a touch of gold.
But he’d been right! The situation had been horrible; she would have been in constant danger. She could so easily have been hurt…even killed.
Why couldn’t she understand? He had stepped in because he valued her life above his own. He’d been right, too. Americans had been being killed right and left by the guerrillas. People had just happened to get caught in the cross fire. Civilians…journalists. And now…now Rutger Miller had been murdered, and she was blind to the chilling danger.
“Bret, you just watched a touchdown without a change of expression,” Carly commented.
“What? They made a touchdown? Oh. Great!”
Carly was quiet for a minute. “You’re still in love with her, aren’t you? Colleen, that is?”
Bret hesitated. Carly knew him well. Too well. “I don’t know. Yeah, I suppose so,” he admitted grudgingly.
“You missed her, huh?”
A little tremor seized him. Oh, yes, he had missed her….
“She’s a beautiful woman,” Carly commented conversationally. “Sexy. You sure it isn’t lust?”
“Lust? Hell, no!”
“You don’t feel any lust?” Carly smiled. “Well, hell, son, I’ve been keeping you in the jungles too long.”
“What the—” Bret began, but Carly laughed.
“Have another Scotch, Bret. Let’s see if we can’t figure this thing out.”
“Figure it out?” Bret asked. He wasn’t so sure he wanted to figure it out. He was acquiring a nice buzz from the Scotch, a sense of well-being. It was a false sense of well-being, of course, but it was damned nice.
Carly was going on anyway. “This whole thing started last winter. She was supposed to have that Middle East assignment, but you came to me and told me you didn’t want her going—you’d do it. I agreed with you because the situation didn’t look too safe, and because you have a habit of landing on your feet, no matter what.”
“That’s the story,” Bret said dryly, staring at his Scotch with fascination again. Someone on the television made a touchdown; he didn’t even notice which team had scored.
“Colleen was angry.”
Bret snorted. “She was a virago. The guerrillas were safer to be around at the time.”
“Because she thought you purposely and willfully stole her best story,” Carly continued as if Bret hadn’t spoken.
“Right on,” Bret mused.
“Well, I don’t believe it.”
“Believe it!” Bret said bitterly. “She told me that if I went, it was over. And then, when I flew back in with the first story, she called me just as pleasantly and sweetly as she could. She showed up
at the magazine looking like any man’s dream of paradise just to tell me I didn’t need to worry about anything, she’d done all the filing and necessary paperwork for the divorce.”
“Oh, I knew she filed the papers,” Carly said. “She told me right away. She said I had a right to know.”
“Yeah, she told you before she told me.” Bret leaned back on the sofa, casting an arm over his eyes. Even with his eyes closed, the world was spinning slightly. He smiled a little ridiculously.
“See, I have this feeling,” Carly was saying, “that you didn’t manage to explain the situation very well. You probably got mad and walked out on her when she was still trying to talk—”
“Scream,” Bret interjected.
“I beg your pardon.”
“She was screaming.”
“Yes, well, women do, now and then. So do men, for that matter. Bret, did it ever occur to you that she might have had a right to feel a little insecure because of what you were doing?”
“Insecure?” Bret snorted. “Over what? She’s bright and beautiful and holds the world in the palm of her hand.”
“She doesn’t want the world. She wants you. And you’ve got to admit, Bret, you have a hell of a reputation preceding you.”
“What…?”
“Business. You’re the top of the line. A hard act to follow. Not that she needs to—you’re different people, different writers. She wanted to be in your league, to be worthy of you, and you weren’t letting her. And on a personal level, she may know how to behave like the frost queen, but she’s a sweet innocent. You’re the first man she’s ever really loved. You had a string of lovelies stretching down a dozen coastlines—”
“I do not!” Bret protested, the loudness of his own voice making him wince.
“I didn’t say that you do. I said you had. Big difference, my boy, but hard on a woman.”
“Well, she’s not insecure…” Bret protested, and then his voice faded, and he was smiling again. He could remember when they’d first met. It had been Colleen’s first tight spot, and she had been frightened to death, but she hadn’t shown it. Not Colleen. Her face had been a little white, but she hadn’t said a word, not a single word, to show her fear.
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