by Dana Ransom
“What are you working on?”
Charley gave him that uncertain, half smile that put his heart rate into double time. “Oh, you don’t really want the details, do you?”
“Sure I do.”
“Well, you asked for it.” She sat on the edge of her messy desk and smiled down at him, pityingly, as if she knew she was about to bore him silly. What she didn’t realize was that anything to do with her held his undivided interest. He was as greedy to learn as a child taking its first steps. And just as anxious to preserve the comfortable mood between them.
“There’s a lot of research being done in our field. We’ve narrowed ours down to the intervention of the auto-immune process.” She smiled apologetically. “I told you you’d regret asking.”
“I don’t. Maybe you could put it into English, though. I understand that very well.”
“Okay. When Type I sets in, the individual is at extreme risk, very ill. Then suddenly there’s a change, and for about two years—what we call the Honeymoon Phase—the body seems to recover. Then after that two years, the metabolic disorder reinstates. We don’t know why, but with treatment at the time of diagnosis with steroids and other compounds, we’ve been able to intervene and delay that resurgence of the disease. If we could delay it indefinitely until we could discover the cause and cure . . .” She shrugged meaningfully.
“Then what you’re doing is very important.”
“Yes, it is.” And her pride was evident.
“And Alan, he knows what he’s doing then?”
Charley smiled again. “He may not have the greatest personality, but he does have the finest mind I’ve ever known.”
“Like yours?”
She laughed modestly. “Oh, not quite. I’m skilled in the technical end of it. Brilliance is his department.”
“So what were you arguing about when I came in?”
Charley’s good humor fled. Her gaze dropped and her lips tightened into uncommunicative roadblocks. Silently cursing Alan Peters for having the prior claim, he amended quietly, “If it’s personal, just tell me to butt out.”
“It’s not. Not really.” Her gaze flickered up beseechingly, and her color heightened. “It was a difference of opinion. Nothing you want to hear about. Shop talk.”
The more uncomfortable she grew, the more he wanted to know why. “You look like you could use a good friend about now,” he coaxed softly. “Aren’t we friends?”
Friends? The idea startled her for a moment because she was used to thinking of him on a more visceral level. Friends? Yes. Yes, they were. From the beginning she’d known instinctively that she could confide anything without fear of being judged. He was her friend, and right now she needed him in that capacity a lot more than she needed the sexual tension between them. She sighed and looked chagrined.
“Yes, we are friends, Jess, and I do need a good listener.”
His hands cupped either ear. “Try me. What’s the problem?”
“The money.”
“Ah.” He said it all with that one short sound.
“Alan wants it to go into his—our research. He thinks spending it in a practical application is a waste.”
“That’s because he has the sensitivity of a snail. I’m sorry. Go on.”
He didn’t look sorry. And he was right. So she continued.
“There’s more. I didn’t show these to him. We were having enough trouble without moving decimal points even further.” She passed him the stack of letters, and he went through them one by one in silence. Finally he exhaled in a gust.
“My God, Charley. You’ve got a fortune here. This cable movie thing, alone, could bid up to twenty, thirty thousand, easy. News and women’s magazines, a spot on that emergency rescue show, the late-night and daytime talk-show circuit.” He glanced up and was arrested by the distraught pull of her features. He put a hand on her knee, rubbing gently. “What’s the matter, baby? This stuff’s great.”
Her cheeks grew even warmer, and he didn’t understand her contrary reply. “I know. It’s a wonderful opportunity. I had this idea about using all the attention to educate the public.”
Jess laughed warmly. “I could just see Robert in front of a camera. What a natural.”
“Yes, he is.” She was looking down at her bandaged hands, a frown furrowing her brow. “And we could certainly use the extra funds.”
“So?” he prompted. When she didn’t respond, he tipped her chin up with his forefinger. She wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Still camera-shy, is that it?”
Charley grabbed a quick, unsteady breath. Alan’s words still burned in her memory. “I just don’t know if I could carry it off. What kind of representative would I be? I live in a world of lab coats and crepe-soled shoes. I’m more comfortable with lab rats than most people. It would be like having a bag lady pitch in a cosmetic ad.”
“Whoa! Who told you that?” She didn’t have to say it. Fury ground through him. “Charley, baby, he’s wrong. You can reach out and touch the hearts of millions of people. I know you can. You touched mine and I’m one tough audience.” She looked up at him then, listening, paying very close attention. “Can’t you see what he’s doing? He wants to keep you here, working for him. He’s telling you you can’t do good out there. He’s lying to you, baby. You know it, and I know it. Stop thinking about Alan Peters and what he wants. What do you want to do?”
“I want to do this, Jess. I really do. I just don’t know . . .”
He smiled, warmly, convincingly. “You’ll do fine. And you’ll have Robert in your corner.”
“And you?” she asked in naked need. “Will you be there, Jess?”
For an instant she thought she saw something stark and despairing in his expression. Then it was gone. He took up one of her hands very carefully. “If you want me to be, I will.”
Charley clutched his hand briefly and gave a tentative sigh. “I don’t know, Jess. Magazines are one thing, but television . . .”
“Baby, you’re beautiful. The cameras will love you.”
She blushed. “You don’t have to be nice.”
“I am not nice.” He said that so sternly that he almost convinced her of it. Then she smiled softly, disbelievingly, and lifted his knuckles to her cheek.
“You’ll have to do more than growl to convince me of that.”
And Jess McMasters’s conscience went straight to hell.
Ten
THIS IS CRAZY, Jess. What are you doing?
He couldn’t answer any more than he could draw a breath that didn’t ache all the way down to his toes. He’d come to see her with one purpose only—to tell her the truth. She’d hear it sooner or later. Better from him, straight out. It would be easier for her that way. Then he could explain—explain, hell. It was going to rip her heart out, and he was feeling just bad enough to want to suffer and bleed along with her. Some nice guy! Well, he’d show her the real Jess McMasters, wouldn’t he? Not a pretty picture. Not one he was proud of at this minute. She’d know that all that stuff he was pitching at her about following dreams and trusting was a lot of bull. Who should know better, right?
But she’d smiled at him, she’d touched him, she’d reached inside and dragged him by the tender heartstrings to a state of total madness. Because it was madness. He knew that, too. Madness to believe the way she believed—completely, blindly. Madness because even though he knew better, one sweet smile from her turned him into tapioca. He’d set out to prove she was a ruthless, greedy monster and had found that monster was inside himself. He’d rushed into this project to convince himself that she was no different, nothing special, not worth the cost of his emotions, and now he was on his knees, writhing for mercy. Because she was all of those things. And he was going to hurt her. That knowledge was crippling. She was going to hate him. That was devastating. And there was no
thing he could do to prevent those things.
So he’d come to sever the ties cleanly, honorably. He was going to tell her who he was and show her the article he’d written. Part of him was eager to get it over with, to feel the scourge of her disappointment and the affirmation of his own jaded beliefs. And part of him was cringing, terrified of wounding her, of losing her. Of cutting loose the only good thing he’d ever had. The only promise of any happiness he’d ever known.
“So, what did you come to talk to me about?”
Jess couldn’t look up. He knew if he did, she’d be able to see right down into the depths of his tormented soul.
“Jess?”
He tensed at the inquiring graze of her fingertips along his jaw. Dear God, how could he build her confidence and then knock it out from under her? Especially now, when she was vulnerable and reaching for the first time toward the accomplishment of her dreams. Who was he to knock them down? It was bad enough that he was going to break her heart. He owed her. He owed her for proving basic goodness still existed. He owed her for grabbing on to things inside he’d thought long dead and buried. And for a moment, he’d wanted to dream again, too.
“Jess?”
“Nothing, Charley. Nothing important.” He looked up and smiled. His cheekbones ached with the strain of holding it. She peered at him suspiciously, then abruptly smiled back. God, she was easy to fool. The good ones always were. The sudden need to protect her closed around his heart like a vise. Just for a while. Just until she got her feet firmly under her. Until she was strong enough not to need him or anyone else.
Who was he fooling?
Just until Monday.
Then she’d know everything.
He had until then to give her everything he could, to be everything she thought she saw in him. It wasn’t a totally noble decision. It gave him three more days . . .
“Let’s get out of here.” He stood and stripped the lab coat from her shoulders. Charley blinked in surprise but didn’t protest as he flung the coat aside. She couldn’t help smiling at his burst of contagious enthusiasm. “I know just what you need. There isn’t a woman alive who can resist the charm of the Magnificent Mile and not feel like a million bucks.”
Her smile grew bewildered.
“Chicago,” he explained in a word. “We’ll drive down for the day, and you can go shopping. We can be there by lunch and home in time for a late dinner.”
Charley hesitated. She did her shopping out of home catalogs.
Seeing her balk, Jess grinned wider. “Come on, baby, where’s your adventurous spirit?”
She was about to say she didn’t have one.
“It’ll be fun,” he coerced with that beguiling smile.
Fun? When had she ever had fun? When had she ever had time? Buying clothes was like buying groceries. A painful necessity the sooner done, the sooner forgotten. But Jess intrigued her into seeing the possibility for more. And then there was the undeniable appeal of her personal guide . . .
Sensing she was weakening, he pulled out all the stops. “You want confidence? I know where you can get it. And with money as no object, you can’t miss. We’ll put together a package that’ll knock their socks off. What do you say?”
“Jess, I don’t know anything about shopping and clothes and stuff,” she trailed off lamely.
“Trust me,” he crooned. Her gaze lifted and warmed in an instant. It was as if she’d smacked him in the gut with a nine iron. It was all Jess could do not to wince. “What kind of limit do you have on your cards?”
“Cards?”
He laughed. “Lord, you are a babe in the woods, aren’t you? Credit cards. You can’t go carrying around cash.”
She thought a moment, then told him, “I have twenty-five hundred on my bank card.”
He laughed again at her naïveté. “That’ll get you in the parking lot. Never mind. We’ll dust off mine, and you can pay me back. I have tickets to all the best places in town. My ex used to wear the numbers off regularly. She carried them in a Rolodex clipped to her belt. I used to get Christmas cards just like I was a major stockholder. When we divorced and I took her name off them, I got condolence calls from every credit department on Michigan Avenue.”
Charley was staring up in rapt amazement. Then she blinked and laughed at him. “Jess, you are such a liar.”
He grinned wryly. “That’s right, baby. You can’t believe a word I say.” He took her by the elbow. “Let’s blow on out of here.”
With Charley walking tamely at his side, Jess strolled through the lab. Alan Peters stopped what he was doing to glare in well-founded fury. As Jess was about to settle his dark glasses on his nose, he let loose a wide, cheeky grin in the other man’s direction. You lose, sucker. He pushed up the sunglasses and ushered Charley out the door.
As they left the building, Jess stopped short at a mailbox flanking the walk. Before he could give it much thought, he drew an insulated mailer out of the inside of his jacket, opened the chute, and let it slide. Then with Charley Carter on his arm, he strode away without looking back.
CHARLEY WAS AWARE of excitement mounting, mile by mile. The closest she’d ever come to shopping in Chicago was buying a magazine at a gift shop in O’Hare International Airport during a layover. An adventure, Jess called it. An adventure. She’d never had one of those before. She liked safe, predictable things, yet here she was, tossing off her inhibitions, fleeing responsibility in a westbound car with a man of mercurial moods. And oh, it was exciting.
She spent the first hours rationalizing her behavior. She did need clothes. If she was going to be in the public eye, she needed something a little more glitzy than oxfords and the sensible twills and cottons she had hanging staunchly in her closet. There would be publicity pictures, cameras, parties, and fund-raisers, if everything went as she was beginning to anticipate. And those things required a certain amount of on-the-back flash. She could, of course, have gone to any number of the department stores in Ann Arbor or Detroit. But Chicago had one distinctive allure. Jess McMasters. She couldn’t shake the feeling that he wanted to take her to his home ground. And at that moment she would have boarded a shuttle to the moon to spend the day with Jess.
They left Michigan and began the curve around the lake, through the rolling Indiana countryside and past the acrid stench of Gary, finally looping up into Illinois. The closer they got, the thicker the traffic, and the more edgy and animated Jess became.
“Right up there, through that next break of trees. That’s my favorite view of the skyline.”
From out of the mists of an overcast day, it was like a mythical kingdom set in the clouds.
“That tall one’s Sears Tower. The one with the antennas is the Hancock Building. They’re built to give with the wind off the lake. I remember the first time I went up in the tower. I was just a little kid. The ride up in the express elevator had my stomach bobbing around under my Adam’s apple. My brother talked me into pressing up to one of the glass windows to look down, and about that time you could feel the whole building moving. I threw up in front of about forty people. It’s one of those golden moments from childhood you don’t ever forget.” Jess laughed with a trace of embarrassment that endeared him to her.
“Is your family still here?”
“No. I have a brother in L.A., one in St. Louis, and one that kind of blows around out west like a tumbleweed. My sister’s in Philly.”
“Your parents?”
“Mom remarried a couple of years ago. She’s got a condo down in St. Pete. My Dad died my last year in college.”
She touched his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
Jess glanced her way, smiling faintly. “Yeah, me, too.” He was still wearing the dark glasses, but when he looked back to the road, she caught a shimmer along the ridge of his lower lashes that turned her heart inside out. “He was a
great guy. Wanted me to be a pro ball player in the worst way. He was in the minors until his arm gave out, and I guess he wanted me to carry on the tradition. The whole family practically lived at Wrigley Field in the summertime. I think all those hot dogs are probably what tore my stomach up, even though the doctor said it’s stress-related. Ulcers. Occupational hazard.”
Of teaching? Charley wondered but didn’t comment.
“Anyway, I was a pretty good third baseman, good enough to get me a scholarship. Had a couple of scouts feeling me out in my junior year, but I really wanted to finish school. I don’t think Dad ever forgave me for that. And the next year he died.”
Jess made it sound as if the two things were connected. As if he’d been responsible, and that Charley wouldn’t stand for.
“I’m sure he’d be proud of how you turned out,” she stated with conviction.
Jess shot her a quick look. His mouth quirked up in a brittle smile. “Yeah. Sure.” He was silent for a moment then said, “I thought we’d have lunch at Berghoff’s. I had my first legal glass of beer in the basement there.” Subject of family closed. Charley got the message.
“Sounds fine, Jess,” she replied softly, blinking away the evidence of a too-tender heart.
It was drizzling by the time they reached the city. Charley stared up in awe at the buildings that rose on all sides like a mountain range with peaks buried in the clouds. The wet street bisected them like a dark canyon stream. She’d never been to the Rockies but this was how she imagined them—majestic, soaring spaces of breathtaking splendor that reduced humanity to the size of a flyspeck.
“Oh my God! Look at that! I don’t believe it!”
Jess hauled on the steering wheel, cutting two lanes and earning an angry blare of horns from the motorists around them. Charley grabbed for the dash, her heart lurching up into her throat as she looked about in alarm for a sign of some threat. The car squealed to a stop, slammed into reverse, and cozied up snugly to the curb. Jess shifted into park and leaned back, grinning as if he’d just experienced some very self-satisfying victory. Then he glanced at her and frowned at her pallor.