by Diana Palmer
Cal caught Madeline's slender hand as they walked, holding it gently in his, and when he caught her eyes she saw something in his face that stopped her in her tracks.
He frowned down at her, his eyes narrow and pained. "There's something I've got to tell you," he said gently. "Something I should have told you in the beginning."
"What?" she asked.
"Not here. Not now." He looked down at their clasped hands. "But very soon, love, very soon."
He said the endearment with a practiced ease—but there was a new sincerity in it, almost as if he really meant....
"Come on, you two," Merry called gaily. "Let's go look at that old Ford convertible with the hand controls!"
And the magic passed, to be caught up in the excitement of rediscovering the past.
❧
That night, they sat on the Colman's front porch with the farm couple and listened to the peace of country living. It was, Madeline thought, so very different from the sound of subdivisions. No blaring horns, no screeching tires, no noisy neighbors—nothing, in fact, except the pleasant noise the crickets and june flies were making and the distant baying of hounds.
"I could stay here forever," Madeline sighed, dropping against Cal's broad shoulder where they sat in the slow-moving porch swing.
Cal laughed softly. "Wh at would McCallum do without you?" he asked.
"Hire another redhead, if the truth were known, I'll bet," she teased.
"Sleepy?" Cal asked her.
She nodded.
"Go on in. We'll sleep late tomorrow and start back about noon. Good night, Burgundy."
She stood up and smiled down at him. "Thanks for today."
"It was my pleasure, in every sense of the word. "Night."
"Night. Good night Dan, Merry," she said, vaguely disappointed when Cal didn't follow her. With a sigh she moved down the hall and was at the door when she heard the heavy stride behind her.
She turned as Cal loomed over her. "I forgot something," he said softly and drew her gently against the length of his big body, bending toward her.
She reached up to meet him halfway, looping her arms around his neck as his mouth came down on hers with a slow, warm tenderness that sent time spinning away. She clung to him, drowning in his nearness, in the kiss that made a mockery of any other caress she'd ever known, returning his gentle ardor with reckless abandon, uncaring of what she was giving away about her own feelings.
He drew back finally, and looked down at her, his eyes dark and quiet, his breath deep and uneven.
His big hands slid up her back to the nape of her neck, cupping her head as he bent again, lightly brushing his mouth against her.
"Good night, sweetheart," he whispered.
Her lips trembled at the tenderness in that dark, leonine face. "Oh, Cal..." she whispered brokenly.
He put her from him and drew back. "Don't tempt me, honey, don't dare. Go to bed."
She turned away, forcing her numb hand to open the bedroom door, not looking as she pushed it shut. The look on his face had said everything.
She rose the next morning to find Cal withdrawn and moody, his mind clearly on a problem of some sort. There was tension between them suddenly, not the easy companionship of past days, and the Colmans seemed to sense it too.
The good byes were said, with promises to come again, but all the way black to Atlanta, Cal hardly said a word.
They landed at the metropolitan airport, and Cal parked the airplane with quiet, cool efficiency. Madeline scanned the rows of planes of all sizes and shapes, searching for some safe topic of conversation.
"Do...do they always have these planes for rent," she asked quietly, "or do you have to reserve them...?"
He threw his arm across the back of his seat and turned toward her, his face solemn, his eyes narrow. "I didn't rent this plane, Burgundy," he said quietly. "I own it."
Madeline didn't know about the market values. But it was a twin-engine plane and brand new, and obviously cost much more than any car. She sat dazedly staring at him, her eyes wide and unblinking.
"That's right, it cost a lot of money," he agreed, unsmiling. "I told you at the very beginning that I wasn't a poor man."
"But...the Mercedes..." she was faltering.
"...belongs to Bess. I was keeping it in condition for her. I've got a garage full of cars, everything from a Rolls to a Jag," he replied.
"And...Suleiman?" she whispered.
"There have been a few attempts on my life. I don't like to carry a gun, so I take him with me most places," he told her. "He's saved my skin more than once. In my line of work, I make enemies."
"You're...in construction you said."
"I build airplanes," he told her with narrowed eyes. "At least, one of my corporations does. My God, it's been under your nose all this time, and you haven't even guessed!"
She felt the apprehension like a living thing. "What do you mean, Cal?" she asked.
"I'm McCallum."
Chapter 7
Even with that surge of inner warning, the words hit her with the force of a body blow. She sat there, breathless, utterly winded, suddenly recalling all the things she'd told him, confided him about the job, about her absent boss, and she wanted to go down through the cockpit with embarrassment. Everything was different. He wasn't her friend. He was the phantom, McCallum. He was cruel, uncaring stranger who lived only for his work, who'd used her to spy on his employees. She hated him. Hated him!
With a cry of anguish, she wrenched the door open and clambered down the wing to the ground and took off at a dead run.
She headed straight for the airport coffee shop and sat down at a table, tearfully oblivious to the big, dark man following slowly behind her. She got her coffee and sat alternately sipping it and wiping her eyes with a crumpled tissue from her small purse.
She caught a movement out of the corner of her watery eyes just as Cal sat quietly down at the table beside her, his gray eyes dark, his arms folded on the table as he watched her.
"Can we talk about it?" he asked in a tone that was strangely gentle, not at all like the steely, commanding one she was used to.
"What is there to talk about?" she asked, her voice husky with tears. "I trusted you."
He ran a big hand through his wavy hair with a sigh. "I know. I almost told you a hundred times. I should have done it to begin with, but you were so damned blind."
"Naive," she corrected, sipping her coffee. Her eyes closed painfully. "No wonder you thought I was chasing you," she whispered.
"Only at first," he corrected.
"I'm sorry...for what I called you," she stammered.
A tiny smile touched his hard mouth. "Evenly Fried, you mean? Only around the edges, little one. For what it's worth, the initials stand for Edward Forrest."
"Oh." Tears welled in her eyes again.
"Will you, for God's sake, stop crying? It isn't the end of the world, nothing's changed between us, Burgundy!" he growled.
She dabbed at her face with the handkerchief. "Everything's changed. You're a stranger."
He caught her hand and held it firmly. "I'm the same man who kissed you last night."
She shook her head. "He was Cal Forrest. You're...you're my boss," she managed.
"So what?" he demanded, exasperation in his deep voice.
She glanced up at him. "What are you worth on today's market, Mr. McCallum—ten million, twenty? I buy all my clothes on sale, and I cut my grocery budget to the bone, an d I drive an economy car because that's what I can afford. I wouldn't fit into your world in any capacity."
"You've been fitting into it pretty damned well," he countered.
"But you weren't McCallum," she replied quietly, her dark eyes sad with regret. "You were dust a man named Cal Forrest who wore shirts with frayed collars and kept an incorrigible dog. Why were you really staying there?"
"My apartment's being redone," he told her. "I needed rest. That seemed the best place to get it. A man who can't be found can't b
e harrassed to death. My phone rings constantly, little girl. Twenty-four hours a day. The pressure very nearly got to me, so I took a rest."
She looked down at her ringless hands. "And who is Bess, really?"
"My mistress. Didn't you work that one for for yourself?"
"Oh, yes," she said wryly. "It wasn't quite in keeping with my idea of Cal Forrest, but it does suit you, yes, sir."
"Women like my money, Miss Blainn," he told her with a bitter irony in his voice. "I've been chased like some prize stallion. You were a breath of fresh sea air."
"Thank you for that. I'm glad I didn't join the ranks."
"That wasn't part of the plan, Burgundy," he said.
"It wasn't? Not even in Panama City?" she persisted.
He sighed deeply, his eyes on his clasped hands. "Then, yes. But that was before I was sure about you."
She drew a slow, deep breath and finished her coffee. "It was a nice fishing trip, thank you for taking me with you."
"Is that good bye?" he asked in a soft, biting tone.
"Not entirely. I still work for you, I suppose?" she asked deliberately.
"For the time being, yes, madam, you do." He rose pulling his chair back for her.
She looked up at him. "I liked you very much in frayed shirts and old jeans," she said quietly.
His eyes narrowed, glittering like silver in sunlight. "In my business, I learned quick not to make snap judgments about people without facts to back them up. Something you're still in the process of learning, I imagine, little girl."
She had the grace to blush, but she couldn't answer him. She let him lead her out of the coffee shop and put her in the black Mercedes.
The three miles home were the longest she'd ever ridden. Not one single word passed between them. He let her out at the back door, with her bags, and with a nod was gone—out of her life.
She dragged herself into the office the next day, looking so drawn and unlike herself that Brenda thought she was ill.
"What's the matter with you?" she asked at break. "My gosh, you look like you've seen a headless ghost!"
"I have."
"Maddy...!"
She wrapped her fingers around her coffee cup, gazing blankly around the canteen where the other secretaries and typists were huddled over the tables swapping office gossip.
"Heard any more about McCallum?"she asked.
Brenda nodded. "They say he's coming back in sometime this week. Richards got the boot early this morning, and old man James got a secretary of his own. You'd think McCallum had inside information," she laughed.
"He did," Madeline said wearily. "Guess who my new neighbor turned out to be?"
Brenda looked blank. "The one with the dog? The one who nursed you when you were sick and wouldn't let me near you? The old ugly bulldozer? McCallum?"
"You aren't any more shocked than I was. I feel ten years older this morning," she sighed.
"And you look it, too. Oh, gosh, Maddy, I'm sorry, I'm really sorry," she said sympathetically. "You liked the guy a lot, didn't you?"
Liked. Now there, she thought bitterly, was a truly inadequate word.
"Yes," she replied. "I liked the man I thought he was, just a common, ordinary man who liked to go fishing and listen to soft music, and watch the waves at night. What a pity," she finished unsteadily, "that he turned out to be an illusion."
"The blonde?" Brenda fished.
"Guess."
She shook her head. "Sorry. Why didn't he tell you who he was?"
"Ask him."
"Did you?"
Madeline shrugged. "What would have been the use? I don't have champagne tastes."
"Most of us," Brenda reminded her, "could acquire them pretty easily to land a man like that."
"I don't think so," she smiled. "I'm still that much a romantic that I think love comes before money."
Brenda met her eyes squarely. "Tell me you weren't in love with him."
The words went all the way to her soul. She finished her coffee and stood up. "We'd better get back to work or we'll be like Mr. Richards—out hunting work."
"Go ahead, ignore me," Brenda said. "You can't ignore your heart, though." And it was true.
She worked late that night, to keep busy, to keep from going home. There was an emptiness inside her that had nothing to do with a lack of food. It was a lack of hope that was killing her.
She stared blankly at her typewriter. McCallum. McCallum. Had it only been a few weeks since she sat here and wondered what he looked like? Had it been such a short time instead of the lifetime it seemed to be? Her mind went stubbornly back to their first meeting, and every cryptic remark he'd made suddenly became crystal clear. Beside the stream, when she'd asked him name, and he'd replied, "you really don't know, do you?" it was because he thought she was playing games. But this was a far more serious game then she could have realized and losing brought a terrible penalty with it.
It was the end of so many things. Of companionship on night when the loneliness got up and breathed in her living room. Of impromptu picnics and rides in the darkness and plane-trips to out-of-the-way places, and that deep, lazy voice drawling in her ear over the phone....
She choked back a sob. Most of all, she'd miss those unexpected phone calls, when he'd invite her over for a steak or just a little conversation, and she could sit and watch him without him knowing it, imprint his dark, hard face on her memory so that she could remember it perfectly when he was not around.
Setting her lips in a thin line, she finished the letter she was working on, folded it, put it in the envelope and stamped it. No more looking back. If she was to keep her sanity, no more look back!
She broke the resolution the minute she turned into her driveway, feeling cold chills run up and down her spine as she saw the black Mercedes sitting in the driveway across the hedge.
With resignation, she sped her little car up under the carport, jumped out and opened the door with speed that would have done credit to a track runner, got inside the house and locked the door. But she needn't have bothered. There were no heavy, measured footsteps following her. The phone wasn't ringing either, although she spent the first hour at home waiting for it to.
"For that, I'd need a miracle," she told Cabbage with a sad smile. "I've burned my bridges, Cabbage, and now I don't know how I'm going to get across the gorge."
She was turning back to the stove, where she was just starting a couple of hamburger patties, when there was a jaunty ringing of the doorbell.
Her heart was in her throat, her face a study in abject pleasure, she ran to throw open the door... and found on the other side of it not Cal, but Cousin Horace.
"Why, cousin Madeline, as I live and breathe!" he said enthusiastically, and flashed her a toothy grin under eyes as brown as his father's.
"Horace, as I die and suffocate!" she returned with a forced laugh, measuring him. "Thinner than ever, I see."
He touched his blond hair where it was beginning to recede at the hairline despite the fact that he was only thirty years old. "Well, I still have a little left. Can I come in, or would you rather I set up housekeeping under your carport? I've got a blanket in here," he mumbled, eyeing his big suitcase.
"Idiot. Come in."
She stood back and let him inside. "Upstairs first, I'll show you where to put your stuff. How long are you staying."
"Till in the morning. I'm on my way to Washington to try a case, and you were en route," he grinned. "Do you mind?"
"Of course not, I'll burn another hamburger, and you can have supper with me. How are Uncle Fred, and Aunt Johnnie?"
"Too mean to live with. That's why I've got an apartment of my own."
"You've got an apartment because you like girls," she corrected with a laugh.
"As usual, there you go knocking my sterling character." He sighed with mock resignation. "I don't insult yours."
"You haven't been here long enough," she countered opening the door to the guest room. "If you'd like to fresh
en up, I'll see about making another hamburger."
"With onions," he called after her. "Lots of onions."
"No wonder you can't get any girls," she muttered.
❧
Horace was great fun, and he took her mind off Cal while they munched their way through hamburgers and french fries.
"You sure have changed," he said, swallowing down the last of his burger with a tall swallow of iced tea. "A far cry from the freckle-faced little stringbean I used to chase around the house."
"Why, thank you, sweet cousin. If it was a compliment," she added thoughtfully.
"It was." He sighed wearily. "I seem to have been driving forever. By the way, the folks want to know why you won't ever come see them."
"Time," she replied with a smile. "Work takes all of it."
"That's not what your friend Brenda told me," he grinned, then changed the subject when he saw the bitter bleak expression tear the smile from her face. "Speaking of the devil, what does Brenda look like, anyway?" he asked.
"She's little and fair, with curling blonde locks and limpid green eyes, and a voice like music in the night," she told him solemnly.
"My God, is she that bad?" he groaned.
She laughed. "She's a dish and unmarried, and she's a live wire at a party. You ought to stop back by on your way home and I'll introduce you."
"Would you really do that to your best friend?"
"With regret, but yes, I would." She smiled at him over her glass. "You're not bad, cousin. I like you most of the time. When you're not trying to get me out of this lovely old house, that is."
He reddened with a grin. "I know, I'm obvious. But I think you're super, too, cuz, and if it weren't the house it'd be something else. I have to have something to argue over."
"That's why you became a lawyer, I'll bet, because you have a steady stream of people to argue with," she told him.
"How did you ever guess!" he laughed.
❧
It was late when they finished talking over old times and finally went to bed. Understandably, they overslept the next morning.