“I’m not sure. You may think so, and that’s why I want us to be together when we talk.”
He didn’t like the sound of it, but he regarded Jeffrey Nash as a friend and an honorable person, so he said, “I’ll get Teddy to bed by seven-thirty, so come between then and eight. I’ll ask Eartha to fix something that I can warm up, and we can have supper.”
“Thanks, man, I’ll be there shortly after seven-thirty.”
Ashton left the office at four that afternoon, because he didn’t want to rush Teddy to bed. He played the Barcarolle for the boy until he thought his fingers would cramp, but he enjoyed the child’s expressions of joy whenever he played for him. Music fascinated Teddy, and he always sat quietly and listened to his favorite music.
“Thanks for the Barcarolle, Daddy. I’m going to learn how to play it.”
“You have to practice more. That’s what it takes.” He put Teddy in bed and read Young-Robinson’s Chicken Wing, the child’s current favorite, until he thought Teddy was asleep.
“I’m going to start reading, Daddy, and then you won’t have to read to me.”
“I enjoy reading to you,” he said, “but I want you to read.”
“Okay. I’ll see if I can learn to read and play the piano and do all the things Miss Eartha wants me to learn how to do. Why do I have to learn how to use the knife and fork, Daddy? I can eat with the spoon.”
“Spoons have their uses, but not for everything. You’re trying to avoid going to sleep.” He kissed Teddy’s cheek. “Good night, son.” He wondered if Teddy had already learned how to be sarcastic. He hoped not.
“’Night, Daddy.”
He had just enough time to replace the button on Teddy’s shirt. The child loved that shirt and insisted on wearing it every day. He also soiled it every day. Ashton sewed on the button, went down to the basement and put the shirt in the washing machine. With luck, he’d remember to put it in the dryer before he went to bed. He put the casserole in the oven to warm, looked in the refrigerator and found the salad. He liked having his friends as guests, but not on Eartha’s afternoon off. A note on the refrigerator door read “Apple pie on the kitchen counter. Serve it with cheddar cheese, also on the kitchen counter.” The doorbell rang. He wiped his damp hands on the back of his jeans and went to open the door.
“Hi. Come on in, man. It’s great to see you. The food’s ready. I just had to warm it up.”
“Thanks for having me on short notice.”
Surprised at Jeffrey’s formal manner, Ashton’s head jerked around. “You wanna talk now? I was thinking we’d eat first.”
“I don’t know. I suppose it can wait.”
Ashton put the chicken pot pie, green beans Southern-style and the lettuce and tomato salad on the breakfast-room table that Eartha had already set, sat down and said grace. “Help yourself, Jeff. We have apple pie with cheddar cheese for dessert.”
They spoke of the weather, the tennis championships in Paris, their support of Habitat for Humanity and other impersonal topics, as if they had never been college classmates and close friends.
“Do you mind if we eat the dessert later?” Jeffrey asked him. “I love apple pie, and I can enjoy it better if I get this business out of the way.”
“Right. Let’s go in here.” In the den, Ashton poured two glasses of aged tawny port and sipped idly on his own while he waited.
“It’s about Felicia Parker.” Ashton bounced forward, spilling the wine on his jeans.
“What about her?”
“Not to worry, man. Her brother, Miles, and I are friends and occasional colleagues, and he introduced his sister to me when I ran into him recently. I don’t mind telling you that I went for her, and we started seeing each other. Last night, I thought I was going to make it with her.” He paused, and Ashton thought he’d never get his breath back.
“Don’t get upset, now, Ashton, but she went so far as to let me put her in her bed, and then she told me she couldn’t do it. She always kept some space between us, and I had sensed false gaiety in her. From the time I met her, she seemed hell-bent on being happy if it killed her.
“I’d never had a woman back out on me at that stage, and considering the type of woman Felicia is, I sat down and asked her who the man was. She said John Ashton Underwood, and admitted that she’s in love with you. She said she was sorry she had encouraged me, but that she needed affection and thought she could do it. Anyway, this morning, I got a dozen, long-stemmed white roses and an apology from her. I thought over it after leaving her last night, and I realized that she had not encouraged me that much, but had accepted my company and my overtures of friendship. She has never telephoned me.”
“I’m stunned. What the hell was she…” He gaped at the man before him who had just confessed to undressing and putting to bed the one woman he’d ever loved. He forced himself to remain sitting. Jeffrey didn’t come to him to gloat. He was not that kind of man. Ashton rubbed his chin, deep in thought.
“All of a sudden, Felicia stopped returning my calls, and she didn’t call me. I had a wonderful dinner—that she cooked—with her and Miles in her home, and when I left there, I was a reasonably happy man. Perhaps Miles advised her against our relationship.”
“I don’t know why he would,” Jeffrey said. “I bumped into them at the Morgan Museum. Come to think of it, Miles didn’t rush to make the introduction. Before you make a mistake here, buddy, get in touch with Felicia. I can’t speak too highly of her, she’s choice, man.” Jeffrey leaned back in the chair, drained his glass of port and gave the appearance of one who’d just heaved a load from his shoulders. “I could use some of that pie.”
“Yeah. Me, too. Thanks for telling me this, Jeff. You didn’t have to do it, and I definitely will not forget it.”
Several hours later, long after Jeffrey left him, Ashton sat on the deck overlooking his back garden, wondering what had caused Felicia to abandon their relationship. Somehow, he didn’t think Miles spoke against him, for the two of them found common ground, and he enjoyed the man’s company. Suddenly he remembered the question she asked him as he was about to leave that night. She’d wanted to know whether Miles asked what his intentions were toward her. He also remembered what he said to Miles, and if Miles repeated it to her, would she have become angry and thrown in the towel instead of helping him develop the relationship?
After musing over the matter for another hour, he slapped his thighs so hard that it hurt. “Damned right, she would,” he said. It annoyed him that she focused on his concern for her celebrity rather than his telling her brother that he loved her. And as for his ownership of the paper she worked for, she didn’t give him a chance to tell her. He intended to have some words with that lady. If she thought it was over between them, she couldn’t be more mistaken. He had the proof that she loved him, and he meant to use it well, but knowing what he knew, he’d take his time. Didn’t their confessions and promises to each other mean anything to her?
In spite of the loneliness that haunted her daily, Felicia worked long hours, writing and lecturing. Each day, she shifted her column closer to straight political coverage and commentary, and her editor offered no objections. She had some of her lectures at universities and conferences reprinted in the newspaper and posted some of them on the Internet in her newly created blog.
“I’ve got four TV interview requests for you,” her editor told her one morning, “and three of them are from broadcast channels. Only one is a cable channel. The people must be asking for you. We’ve got a bunch of letters for you, too. You want to answer them yourself?”
“Thanks. I’d like to see ’em.”
Why wasn’t she dancing for joy? She was happy, yes, and she needed the recognition of her hard work, but she needed to share the joy…with Ashton.
After a challenging interview on one of the early morning TV shows, she realized that her prominence made her a target. She hadn’t liked the interviewer, and she controlled her distaste with effort. However, her editor lik
ed her performance.
“Senator Hoots has been lining his pockets,” her editor told her, “and he’s got a couple of allies. Where there are three, you’ll find some more. Give me a column on it.”
“Yes, sir!”
The following Monday, her story appeared with her name above the column’s title. Pride suffused her. She’d made it at last. However, the paper’s telephones rang constantly, and almost all of the calls had reference to Felicia’s column, and many of the callers denounced and/or threatened her.
“John Underwood is on the phone, Felicia,” her secretary said.
When she recovered her balance, she lifted the receiver. “Hello, Ashton.”
“Hello, Felicia. I’ve been planning to make a personal call to you, but this isn’t the one. I understand that the paper’s phone is jammed with calls about your column, that the fax machine broke down because it became overheated with mail about your column, and that the e-mail box is full. More than half the mail is negative, and that’s all right. People speak louder when they’re against something than they do if they support a thing. But I’m told that most of those faxes and telegrams are threats against you.” Chills streaked through her body, but she said nothing.
“Felicia, I don’t want anything to happen to you. Nothing is worth it, not the news or the paper or anything. Please, Felicia, tone down the next column on this story. I—I couldn’t…I can’t let anything happen to you. These bigots are dangerous.”
“I—I hear what you’re saying, Ashton, but I have to do my job. Of course, if you say I can’t do it, that you won’t print it, I won’t have a choice, will I? After all, you’re the boss.”
His long silence was evidence enough that she had either angered or hurt him, or both. “So that’s the reason why you abandoned our relationship without so much as a go-to-hell. If you had returned my phone call, I would have told you. I hadn’t signed the papers when the story got out, and I don’t count my chicks before they hatch. At least your brother didn’t speak against me.”
She regretted her words and the bitterness with which she spoke them. “Don’t blame Miles for anything. He’s your best ally.”
“Are you going to soften your stance?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t recognize myself. I’m sorry, Ashton.”
“Then you’re going to have a bodyguard and bulletproof transportation to and from work and on any professional trips. That’s that, and I won’t change my mind.”
“You can’t possibly be serious.”
“The next time you start out of that building, even if it’s an hour from now, you’ll find out whether I’m joking. I need to talk with you, but I’ll call you at home.”
With chattering teeth and shaking fingers, she managed to place the phone on her desk, got up and walked across the room to the window. How dare he talk to her like that! She stood there for about a minute, taking deep breaths in the hope of calming herself, then she went back to her desk, sat down and said, “I suppose you hung up.”
“I have better manners,” he said.
“How dare you try to bully me, Ashton? Don’t you know it won’t work?”
She imagined his eyes narrowed when he said, “And don’t you know that I am trying to protect you, to take care of you, since you haven’t a clue as to what you’ve gotten yourself into? Woman, don’t you know I care about you? Yes, dammit, you’re going to have a bodyguard and an armored car. Period.”
As if he’d punched the wind out of her, she slumped in her chair. “I didn’t think it was that serious.”
His voice softened to the mellifluous tone that always melted her heart. “Felicia, is your memory so short? I’m leaving tonight for Rose Hill, and when I get back, I want us to talk. Until then, search yourself to see if you can find any plausible reason for walking out on me, and while you’re looking, remember that I can hurt as badly as you. I’ll see you in a few days.”
“’Bye,” she said, thoroughly chastened.
Minutes later, her editor called. “You’re to leave the building from the garage. Take the elevator down to the garage level and you’ll see a gray Town Car in front of the elevator door with the license plate number 6WAJ50. The driver’s name is Bob. Five minutes before you leave your office, call this number.” She wrote down the number, thanked her editor and realized that, in exchange for success, she’d given up her freedom, for as badly as she wanted to, she knew she’d better not defy Ashton. He was not a frivolous man and he would not have ordered that level of protection for her unless he knew it was necessary.
Too concerned and too drained from her conversation with Ashton to concentrate on her work, she did what she’d always done when in trouble—she phoned Miles.
“I won’t have any freedom,” she told him after relating her conversation with Ashton. “Do you think all that’s necessary? I’m tempted to ignore it.”
“You really don’t want this guy? Is that it? First, you fool around with Jeffrey, although you know you’re not interested in him as a lover. Ashton tries to protect you, not because he owns the paper you write for, but because he loves you and wants to take care of you. But you’re so damned asinine, you want to prove you don’t need him. Yet, you’re in love with him. I don’t get it. Go ahead and risk your life, so Ashton will realize how foolish he is.”
“What do you mean?”
“After the way you treated him, I’m surprised that he cares at all. I wouldn’t.”
She hadn’t wrung her hands since her mother died, but she balled and twisted them then. “Miles, I’m scared. I love that man so much that it frightens me. I know I didn’t do the right thing, but he could have decided any day that…that he couldn’t handle my lifestyle and just walk out, so—”
“So, expecting the worse, you walked out first? I can’t think of anything more stupid. Talk with the guy. Not even in your next life will you find another man like that one, and a man that you’ll love. My last word on the subject.”
She had not encouraged Jeffrey to fall for her, but nonetheless she hoped she hadn’t hurt him. No one knew better than she the pain of a lover’s treachery. Besides, callousness was not in her nature. She couldn’t work, so she decided to go home, access the Library of Congress through the Internet, and get some corroborating information on the senators for her column. She phoned her editor’s secretary.
“Ray said I should let you know when I’m ready to leave.”
“Yes, Miss Parker. The car and guard will be waiting.”
She took the elevator to the garage, stepped out and saw the gray Town Car parked nearby. A tall no-nonsense-looking man got out of the car and held the back door open. She ignored him and walked around to check the license plate. Satisfied that she wasn’t being duped, she thanked the man, and got in.
“So this is what it’s like to capitulate,” she said to herself. “And I hardly challenged him. I must love him more than I thought, because I certainly am not scared of anybody hurting me. I wish I knew where this was going.”
“I’m Bob, Miss Parker. I’ll try to stay out of your way, but I’ll always have my eye on you. You’re safe with me.”
“Thank you, Bob. I don’t doubt it one bit.” What she did doubt was her ability to tolerate the loss of her freedom. “I’m going to have a talk with Ashton about this. It’s more than I’m prepared to suffer.”
Ashton would have preferred not to take Teddy with him to Rose Hill, but he wanted his son to know his uncles and, especially, his great-grandfather. He dressed in a tan summer suit, a white short-sleeved dress shirt, white shoes and socks, and dressed Teddy identically.
“I’m dressed like you, Daddy. Now everybody will know you’re my daddy.”
“They’d know that if we weren’t dressed alike. Tie your shoes. You don’t want us to miss the plane, do you?”
“You tie them, Daddy. When I do it, they always get loose.” He sat Teddy on the bed, tied the boy’s shoes, picked up their luggage and headed downstairs.
“
Wait for me, Daddy. I have to find the picture I drew for Granddad.”
Ashton dropped their bags at the bottom of the stairs and looked up at the little replica of himself, his reason for being. “All right, two minutes.”
“I only need one, Daddy.” Ashton couldn’t help laughing. Teddy wanted everything spelled out, and if you didn’t do it, he would. Within a minute, the boy joined him, but he still wasn’t ready to leave the house.
“I have to show Miss Eartha how I look. She says I always get dirty. Am I dirty, Daddy?”
“Of course not, you just put that on. No more stalling here. We have to make that flight.”
“You mean I’m flying? Gee.” He ran back to the breakfast room. “Miss Eartha, I’m flying to Rose Hill. ’Bye.”
Their plane landed in Frederick, and Ashton drove them on to Rose Hill in a rented Chevrolet. Anxious to see the improvements in the building and to examine the new tack, he stopped first at the Rose Hill Riding School.
“I don’t have to ask who you are,” the blonde said to him. “I’ve met Cade and Damon, so you have to be Ashton. Never saw such resemblance.”
“All things considered,” he replied dryly, “you’re the new riding instructor. Is Cade around?”
“He went home a minute ago, but don’t worry. You’re safe. I don’t bite.”
Not sure whether he faced antagonism or her brand of humor, he said, “I rarely worry about anything. If I can fix the problem, I do that. If I can’t, I accept that fact and get on with my life. What’s your name?”
“Leslie Fields.”
“Glad to meet you, Ms. Fields. I’ll see Cade at home.”
Granddad had really done it this time. Ashton got in the car and drove on to the house and, to his surprise, Teddy jumped out and raced to his great-grandfather with his arms outspread and a glowing smile on his face. “Granddad. I brought you a picture I drew for you.” Jake picked the boy up and hugged him with love glowing in his face.
After embracing his grandfather, Ashton said, “Granddad, I know you like pretty women, but Leslie Fields takes the cake. Can she teach anybody how to ride a horse?”
Just the Man She Needs Page 16