Mystery Lover

by Annette Broadrick

  They pulled into the office parking lot and Chad parked next to her car. For the first time since they left Las Vegas he turned around and looked at her fully. Jennifer felt a sudden premonition that she wasn’t going to like what he had to say.

  She didn’t.

  “I’m going out of town early in the morning. I need to go home and pack. I should be back by the end of the week. That should give us time to decide what to do about our marriage.”

  She stared at him, stricken by the lack of any emotion in his voice. “What do you mean, what we should do about our marriage?”

  Chad ran his hand through his hair. “This isn’t really the time to discuss it.”

  “I agree,” she said. “We should have discussed it before we got married. However, we didn’t, so it looks like now is the time.”

  Chad leaned his arms on the steering wheel and rested his chin on them. She’d never noticed his profile before. The clean, strong lines intrigued her. This man of the many different personalities intrigued her. If she ever figured him out, she would probably be able to write a book about hirn. There was no one else around like him.

  “You made me angry,” he finally admitted to the windshield.

  She thought about that for a moment. “So you married me as punishment?” she asked.

  “You have been slowly driving me out of my mind for months with your lovemaking fantasies. I couldn’t take them anymore.”

  Jennifer didn’t know what to say. She sat there, staring at him.

  “You’ve been a part of my life for too long, Sunshine. I couldn’t take advantage of you. I knew exactly how you felt about sex and lovemaking. And why not? I helped to instill those values in you. Yet you had pushed me past my limit of tolerance. So I married you. I didn’t feel I had a choice.”

  “You married me so you wouldn’t feel guilty about making love to me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see.”

  “But I don’t like being manipulated. Nobody does. You took something special that we shared, something so unique that I have never been able to explain it in words, and used it against me. Okay. You won.

  I’m not sure what it was you wanted but if it was to make me want you so much that I never seemed to be able to get over aching for you, then you accomplished what you set out to do.“

  He never looked at her. His entire conversation was directed to the windshield in front of him. She might not even have been in the car with him for all the notice he gave her.

  “I decided to solve both our problems. By marrying you, I.felt it was acceptable for me to make love to you, something you have obviously been determined to have happen.”

  “But you don’t want to be married to me.”

  For the first time he looked around at her. “If you would stop and think about it, I don’t lead a life that is conducive to marital harmony. I’m gone more often than I’m here. I put in long hours at the office. I don’t have the time nor the energy to work on a relationship . . . with you, or anyone else.”

  As far as that was concerned, Jennifer hadn’t given much thought to marriage, either. She enjoyed her life, her freedom and her ability to do whatever she wanted.

  “Why does marriage have to change anything?” she asked in what she hoped was a reasonable tone of voice.

  “It just does, that’s all.”

  “It doesn’t have to. Look at it this way. Nothing that we like about our lives has to change. You travel, I have my time to myself. But when you’re home, we’re together. What’s wrong with that?”

  He thought about her suggestion for a few moments. “What about children?”

  “You made very sure that we were protected this weekend. I think that’s a choice we can make. Who knows? Maybe you’ll get tired of traveling one of these days. Stranger things have happened, you know.”

  He shook his head. “I think we need some time to think about it. I’ll see you later on this week.”

  So she was dismissed, just like that. Jennifer got out of his car with all the dignity she could muster. Marriage ceremony or not, she felt that she had just participated in a wild, weekend fling that he regretted now that it was over.

  She wasn’t sure how she felt at this point. There was a blessed numbness that seemed to have wrapped around her.

  Without saying another word, she got into her car and drove away.

  This time Sam didn’t let her off the hook for going away and leaving him alone. He had run out of food, although there was still some water left. As far as that went, he could go on a diet and it wouldn’t hurt him any.

  But his angry greeting seemed to be all Jennifer needed. She closed the door of the apartment, looking around to see that nothing had changed. Not a thing. Only her. She had changed and she knew she would never be the same again.

  Chad had been right. She had exerted pressure on him, unfair pressure, to get him to acknowledge how he felt about her. He had acknowledged it, all right. Although he had wanted her physically, he resented her as well. Resented her for using his feelings for her to get what she wanted.

  She couldn’t blame him, really. She could remember several instances in the past when he had bullied her into doing something she didn’t particularly want to do. She had resented his interference.

  Now he felt the same way toward her.

  Jennifer lay awake that night for hours, staring at the ceiling, thinking of everything that had happened. She had been on an emotional roller coaster these past few days. She tried to decide her best course of action, but nothing seemed suitable.

  She was married to the man of her dreams, to her very secret lover, and he felt that she had trapped him into the relationship. In the small hours of the morning, Jennifer took a long, hard look at what she had done and was forced to agree with him.

  The question was, what could she do about it now?

  When Jennifer walked into the office Monday morning nothing had changed. Everyone greeted her as they always did, her desk was stacked with mail, as it always was, and the phone was ringing. Nothing new.

  Only she was different. She wasn’t the same woman who had walked out Friday morning, mystified as to why her employer had told her to leave with him.

  If he wanted to punish her for what she had done, he could have found nothing more fitting than to give her a glimpse of what life would be like living with him, then to close the door.

  She looked into his office. His out box was overflowing. He must have put in several hours of work before she arrived last Friday. Going into his office was difficult. It was so much a part of him and reflected his personality—organized, neat—and like her, waiting for his return.

  By noon Jennifer knew she would have to talk to someone or go crazy. She called her mother and suggested dinner that night. Her mother was delighted.

  “Mom, I have something to tell you that I know you’re going to find hard to believe,” Jennifer said that evening, over coffee. They had enjoyed a leisurely meal at one of her favorite restaurants near where her mother lived.

  Her mother smiled. “Nothing you could say would ever surprise me, Jennie. I have never known anyone with an imagination such as yours. I can remember so many of your stories—” She laughed. “But go ahead, dear.” She patted Jennifer’s hand. “Tell me.”

  Great. With a leadoff like that, Jennifer knew her mother would think she had made everything up.

  “Mom. Some of this I have known for a long time. Some of it I’ve slowly found out over the past few months. Please bear with me, because I’d like to take it in sequence.”

  Jennifer paused, gathered her thoughts. “Do you remember the accident that caused Daddy’s death, when two boys.. . ” She began the story. She took her time, telling her the little bit that she could remember from that time. Then she told her all that Tony had shared.

  Finally she told her mother how Chad had been able to mentally communicate with her.

  Her mother’s eyes had grown larger with the telling. But she
had not interrupted Jennifer. Not once.

  Jennifer continued the story through her growing-up years, and how she and Chad had finally lost touch with each other. Or so she thought.

  “A couple of months ago I accidentally found out who Chad was.”

  Her mother looked confused. “I thought you said you knew. He was the young boy who—”

  “No, I mean who he is now.” »

  A tiny crease appeared between her mother’s brows. “And who is that, my dear?”

  “My boss, C. W. Cameron.”

  Her mother stared at her in astonishment. “I don’t believe it. That cold, callous, arrogant man—”

  Jennifer grinned at the description her mother had gained from the many stories Jennifer had told her. “That’s right, Mom. The same man.”

  “But you describe Chad as so warm and loving, so very caring.”

  “He is.”

  “How could one man be so different?”

  “I’ve given considerable thought to that over the past few months. I believe that the Chad I knew felt free to express himself. There were no conditions placed on him, no expectations of a certain behavior, no need to prove anything to anyone. In the fullest sense of the word, he allowed his inner self, his very essence, to unfurl and grow without hindrance.”

  Jennifer leaned back in her chair and sipped on her coffee. “I don’t know the whole story, but from what I have learned through the office grapevine, Chad’s father was a ruthless sort of a man, very demanding, who insisted on perfection from everyone around him, and considered that he gave nothing but the best, as well.” She set her cup down and idly toyed with the handle. “I’ve tried to picture what Chad’s young life was like. I have no idea who else was in his family, but obviously his father expected him to follow in his footsteps. So Chad did. He bottled all of his softer emotions away so that nobody ever saw them.”

  “Except you,” her mother murmured.

  They sat there quietly together, thinking about the young Chad Cameron and the conflicts he must have had to master.

  “The only real coincidence in the story is that I went to work for Chad’s company. That isn’t as much of a coincidence as you might think, since the secretarial school I attended was only a few blocks away and the agency was always looking for stenographers. I understand the Camerons, both father and son, were difficult to work for, and they had a high turnover of personnel.”

  “I thought you said that changed, after you came to work.”

  “It did, and I’m beginning to understand why. Somehow I became a buffer between Chad and the rest of the staff. I was the one who caught most of the flak, and I could take it. At least most of the time. As he became accustomed to working with me, he calmed down.”

  “It probably didn’t hurt that you were his childhood friend.”

  Jennifer grinned. “Good point. I hadn’t really thought about that. But maybe he knew me so well he didn’t need to intimidate or browbeat me into doing what needed to be done.”

  “As I recall, he did enough of that anyway.”

  “I know. I often look back and wonder why I stayed with him. He used to make me so angry!”

  “I never could understand that, myself. You used to call me in tears. Whenever I suggested you quit, you said you didn’t want to admit he could get the best of you.”

  They looked at each other. “I still don’t, Mom, which brings us to the rest of the story, as they say.”

  “You mean, there’s more? You know, this beats some of the wildest stories you used to tell as a child. I don’t think even you have imagination enough to have dreamed up all of this.”

  “Just wait, Mom. You haven’t heard everything. You see, last Friday, my boss, Mr. C. W. Cameron, and I flew to Las Vegas and were married.”

  Jennifer’s mother looked as though a bucket of ice water had just been tossed in her face. She sat there staring at her daughter, her mouth slightly open.

  Jennifer nodded. “I know, Mom. Unbelievable.”

  “But you never hinted, never by a word, that anything was going on between you.”

  “There wasn’t, at least not in the way you mean. You see once I found out that Chad and C.W. were one and the same, I began to spot the similarities. He tried his best to keep the two personalities separate. But I started treating him differently in the office. I talked to him the same way we mentally communicated—easy, casually, and with a great deal of warmth.”

  “What did the people in the office think about your change?”

  “Oh, they didn’t see it. People avoid him as much as possible in the office, so no one would stick her head in my office whenever he was in town. It’s almost comical, really, the lengths people will go to to avoid him.”

  “Well, what do they think now? Were they surprised to hear you’re married to him?”

  “Nobody knows.”

  “Aahh. That makes sense. He wants to keep it a secret.”

  “I have no idea what Chad wants, Mom. That’s why I’m here telling you all of this. You see, he brought me back from Las Vegas after the most beautiful weekend, dropped me off at my car, told me he would be out of town all this week and he’d see me later.”

  Jennifer’s mother choked slightly on her water. Coughing, she waved away her daughter’s help and eventually exclaimed, “The man has to be the most insensitive, irritating, boorish oaf I’ve ever heard of.”

  “That’s one explanation. There might be others.”

  “Name one.”

  “I was a little underhanded in my attempts to get him to spend more time with me.”

  “In what way?”

  “Let’s just say that I used our unique manner of communication to help him visualize some of the delightful ways we could spend our evenings, and nights, together.”

  “Jennifer Chisholm! You didn’t!”

  “I’m afraid so, Mom. I can’t say that I’m particularly pleased with my tactics, but they did provide some results. Not exactly what I had in mind, though.”

  “Are you saying you were hoping for an affair with him?”

  The way her mother said that caused Jennifer to bite her lip to keep from smiling. Her mother’s words were spoken in a tone that indicated how hard she was trying to make an affair seem like an everyday occurrence. But Jennifer knew for a fact that her mother had shown no interest in a man since she’d lost her husband.

  “I’m not sure what I was hoping for, to be honest. I hadn’t given any long-range thought to what effect I was having on him and how he would handle it.”

  Her mother sat back and studied her for a moment in silence. Then she smiled. “So you’re married, are you?”

  She nodded. “It looks that way, doesn’t it?”

  “What do you intend to do about it?”

  “Fight for my marriage. What else?”

  ‘’ Do you have any idea how? “

  “No. I’m open to suggestions.”

  Jennifer’s mother gathered up her purse and stood up. “Well, let’s go home and see what we can do. At least you can’t say you don’t know the man. Surely with all that knowledge, you can figure out what to do to convince him the two of you belong together.”

  Jennifer followed her mother from the restaurant, a sense of expectancy invading her being. Somehow, someway, she had to convince C. W. Cameron that he had made the best decision in his life when he married her.

  Chapter Eleven

  Contents - Prev / Next Chad?“

  “?”

  “Are you awake?”

  “Just barely. What is it?”

  Jennifer lay on her side in bed, Sam sprawled out beside her. She had been in bed for almost an hour, since eleven, and was unable to sleep.

  “Nothing, really. I was just thinking of you, wondering if you were all right.”

  “Are you?”

  She felt his concern. So he had been thinking of her. Three days had gone by since she had seen him. And three nights. Jennifer had discovered how quickly a person c
an become used to new experiences. She missed Chad in bed with her, holding her, loving her. She missed his presence.

  “I miss you,” she responded.

  “I’ve got the same problem,” he admitted.

  “I had no idea being together could be so wonderful.”

  He didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he said, “/ was afraid we might have overdone it a little. We were quite active for it to be your first exposure. ”

  “Let’s just say that I haven’t been in the mood to go to the club and work out since we got home.” After a few moments of silence, she said, “Do you know yet when you’ll be back?”

  “No.”

  She tried for whimsical humor. “You can’t stay gone forever, you know. Sooner or later you have to come home.”

  “I know.”

  “But you aren’t looking forward to it,” she offered gently.

  “// isn’t that. I just feel so—confused, somehow. I can’t seem to get my life into any understandable order. All these years I’ve been in control of my life. Now.. . now I don’t know what to think, what to do, how to evaluate what’s happening. ”

  “That’s because feelings and emotions aren’t that definable. We can’t push them into little compartments and expect them to stay there. That’s part of being human.”

  “If all this confusion is part of being human, I think I’ll pass.”

  “And go back to being a robot?”

  “Is that what I am?”

  “I think that’s what you’ve tried to be. Thank God, it didn’t work,”

  They were quiet for several moments. At least he was communicating with her again, Jennifer was pleased to note. She was afraid their marriage had caused him to push that part of their relationship out of his life.

  “Sunshine?”

  She smiled at the familiar nickname. “Yes?”

  “What are you wearing?”

  She glanced down and grinned. “My flannel pajamas with the feet in them.”

  “?”

  “Well, nobody’s ever seen me in them but Sam.”

  “Have you ever thought about an electric blanket?”

  “I have one. In fact, I generally keep it set close to broil.”