by Diana Palmer
Her lips trembled as she tried valiantly not to.
He made a husky sound and his mouth settled right on her misty eyes, closing them with soft, tender kisses.
She bawled.
He took a long breath and opened the passenger door, shifting her as he slid her into the low-slung vehicle. “I’ve noticed that about you,” he murmured as he fastened her seat belt.
“Noticed…what?” she sobbed, sniffling.
He pulled a handkerchief out of his dress slacks and put it in her hands. “You react very oddly to tenderness.”
He closed the door on her surprised expression and fetched her crutches before he went around to get in behind the wheel. He paused to fasten his own seat belt and give her a quick scrutiny before he started the powerful engine and pulled out into the road.
“How did you know I was here?” she asked when the tears stopped.
“Ed told me.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “Beats me. I guess he thought I might be interested.”
“Fat chance!”
He chuckled. It was the first time she’d heard him laugh naturally, without mockery or sarcasm. He shifted gears. “You don’t know the guy who owns that little enterprise,” he said conversationally, “but the plant is a sweatshop.”
“That isn’t funny.”
“Do you think I’m joking?” he replied. “He likes to lure illegal immigrants in here with promises of big salaries and health benefits, and then when he’s got them where he wants them, he threatens them with the immigration service if they don’t work hard and accept the pittance he pays. We’ve all tried to get his operation closed down, but he’s slippery as an eel.” He glanced at her with narrowed dark eyes. “I’m not going to let you sell yourself into that just to get away from me.”
“Let me?” She rose immediately to the challenge, eyes flashing. “You don’t tell me what to do!”
He grinned. “That’s better.”
She hit her hand against the cast, furious. “Where are you taking me?”
“Home.”
“You’re going the wrong way.”
“My home.”
“No,” she said icily. “Not again. Not ever again!”
He shifted gears, accelerated, and shifted again. He loved the smoothness of the engine, the ride. He loved the speed. He wondered if Leslie had loved fast cars before her disillusionment.
He glanced at her set features. “When your leg heals, I’ll let you drive it.”
“No, thanks,” she almost choked.
“Don’t you like cars?”
She pushed back her hair. “I can’t drive,” she said absently.
“What?”
“Look out, you’re going to run us off the road!” she squealed.
He righted the car with a muffled curse and down-shifted. “Everybody drives, for God’s sake!”
“Not me,” she said flatly.
“Why?”
She folded her arms over her breasts. “I just never wanted to.”
More secrets. He was becoming accustomed to the idea that she never shared anything about her private life except, possibly, with Ed. He wanted her to open up, to trust him, to tell him what had happened to her. Then he laughed to himself at his own presumption. He’d been her mortal enemy since the first time he’d laid eyes on her, and he expected her to trust him?
“What are you laughing at?” she demanded.
He glanced at her as he slowed to turn into the ranch driveway. “I’ll tell you one day. Are you hungry?”
“I’m sleepy.”
He grimaced. “Let me see if I can guess why.”
She glared at him. His own eyes had dark circles. “You haven’t slept, either.”
“Misery loves company.”
“You started it!”
“Yes, I did!” he flashed back at her, eyes blazing. “Every time I look at you, I want to throw you down on the most convenient flat surface and ravish you! How’s that for blunt honesty?”
She stiffened, wide-eyed, and gaped at him. He pulled up at his front door and cut off the engine. He turned in his seat and looked at her as if he resented her intensely. At the moment, he did.
His dark eyes narrowed. They were steady, intimidating. She glared into them.
But after a minute, the anger went out of him. He looked at her, really looked, and he saw things he hadn’t noticed before. Her hair was dark just at her scalp. She was far too thin. Her eyes had dark circles so prominent that it looked as if she had two black eyes. There were harsh lines beside her mouth. She might pretend to be cheerful around Ed, but she wasn’t. It was an act.
“Take a picture,” she choked.
He sighed. “You really are fragile,” he remarked quietly. “You give as good as you get, but all your vulnerabilities come out when you’ve got your back to the wall.”
“I don’t need psychoanalysis, but thanks for the thought,” she said shortly.
He reached out, noticing how she shrank from his touch. It didn’t bother him now. He knew that it was tenderness that frightened her with him, not ardor. He touched her hair at her temple and brushed it back gently, staring curiously at the darkness that was more prevalent then.
“You’re a brunette,” he remarked. “Why do you color your hair?”
“I wanted to be a blonde,” she replied instantly, trying to withdraw further against the door.
“You keep secrets, Leslie,” he said, and for once he was serious, not sarcastic. “At your age, it’s unusual. You’re young and until that leg started to act up, you were even relatively healthy. You should be carefree. Your life is an adventure that’s only just beginning.”
She laughed hollowly. “I wouldn’t wish my life even on you,” she said.
He raised an eyebrow. “Your worst enemy,” he concluded for her.
“That’s right.”
“Why?”
She averted her eyes to the windshield. She was tired, so tired. The day that had begun with such promise had ended in disappointment and more misery.
“I want to go home,” she said heavily.
“Not until I get some answers out of you…!”
“You have no right!” she exploded, her voice breaking on the words. “You have no right, no right…!”
“Leslie!”
He caught her by the nape of the neck and pulled her face into his throat, holding her there even as she struggled. He smoothed her hair, her back, whispering to her, his voice tender, coaxing.
“What did I ever do to deserve you?” she sobbed. “I’ve never willingly hurt another human being in my life, and look where it got me! Years of running and hiding and never feeling safe…!”
He heard the words without understanding them, soothing her while she cried brokenly. It hurt him to hear her cry. Nothing had ever hurt so much.
He dried the tears and kissed her swollen, red eyes tenderly, moving to her temples, her nose, her cheeks, her chin and, finally, her soft mouth. But it wasn’t passion that drove him now. It was concern.
“Hush, sweetheart,” he whispered. “It’s all right. It’s all right!”
She must be dotty, she thought, if she was hearing endearments from Attila the Hun here. She sniffed and wiped her eyes again, finally getting control of herself. She sat up and he let her, his arm over the back of her seat, his eyes watchful and quiet.
She took a steadying breath and slumped in the seat, exhausted.
“Please take me home,” she asked wearily.
He hesitated, but only for a minute. “If that’s what you really want.”
She nodded. He started the car and turned it around.
He helped her to the front door of the boardinghouse, visibly reluctant to leave her.
“You shouldn’t be alone in this condition,” he said flatly. “I’ll phone Ed and have him come over to see you.”
“I don’t need…” she protested.
His eyes flared. “The hell you don’t! You need some
one you can talk to. Obviously it isn’t going to be your worst enemy, but then Ed knows all about you, doesn’t he? You don’t have secrets from him!”
He seemed to mind. She searched his angry face and wondered what he’d say if he knew those secrets. She gave him a lackluster smile.
“Some secrets are better kept,” she said heavily. “Thanks for the ride.”
“Leslie.”
She hesitated, looking back at him.
His face looked harder than ever. “Were you raped?”
Chapter Eight
The words cut like a knife. She actually felt them. Her sad eyes met his dark, searching ones.
“Not quite,” she replied tersely.
As understatements went, it was a master stroke. She watched the blood drain out of his face, and knew he was remembering, as she was, their last encounter, in his office, when she’d fainted.
He couldn’t speak. He tried to, but the words choked him. He winced and turned away, striding back to the sports car. Leslie watched him go with a curious emptiness, as if she had no more feelings to bruise. Perhaps this kind detachment would last for a while, and she could have one day without the mental anguish that usually accompanied her, waking and sleeping.
She turned mechanically and went slowly into the house on her crutches, and down the hall to her small apartment. She had a feeling that she wouldn’t see much of Matt Caldwell from now on. At last she knew how to deflect his pursuit. All it took was the truth—or as much of it as she felt comfortable letting him know.
Ed phoned to check on her later in the day and promised to come and see her the next evening. He did, arriving with a bag full of the Chinese take-out dishes she loved. While they were eating it, he mentioned that her job was still open.
“Miss Smith wouldn’t enjoy hearing that,” she teased lightly.
“Oh, Karla’s working for Matt now.”
She stared down at the wooden chopsticks in her hand. “Is she?”
“For some reason, he doesn’t feel comfortable asking you to come back, so he sent me to do it,” he replied. “He realizes that he’s made your working environment miserable, and he’s sorry. He wants you to come back and work for me.”
She stared at him hard. “What did you tell him?”
“What I always tell him, that if he wants to know anything about you, he can ask you.” He ate a forkful of soft noodles and took a sip of the strong coffee she’d brewed before he continued. “I gather he’s realized that something pretty drastic happened to you.”
“Did he say anything about it to you?”
“No.” He lifted his gaze to meet hers. “He did go to the roadhouse out on the Victoria highway last night and wreck the bar.”
“Why would he do something like that?” she asked, stunned by the thought of the straitlaced Mather Caldwell throwing things around.
“He was pretty drunk at the time,” Ed confessed. “I had to bail him out of jail this morning. That was one for the books, let me tell you. The whole damned police department was standing around staring at him openmouthed when we left. He was only ever in trouble once, a woman accused him of assault—and he was cleared. His housekeeper testified that she’d been there the whole time and she and Matt had sent the baggage packing. But he’s never treed a bar before.”
She remembered the stark question he’d asked her and how she’d responded. She didn’t understand why her past should matter to Matt. In fact, she didn’t want to understand. He still didn’t know the whole of it, and she was frightened of how he’d react if he knew. That wonderful tenderness he’d given her in the Jaguar had been actually painful, a bitter taste of what a man’s love would be like. It was something she’d never experienced, and she’d better remember that Matt was the enemy. He’d felt sorry for her. He certainly wasn’t in love with her. He wanted her, that was all. But despite her surprising response to his light caresses, complete physical intimacy was something she wasn’t sure she was capable of responding to. The memories of Mike’s vicious fondling made her sick. She couldn’t live with them.
“Stop doing that to yourself,” Ed muttered, dragging her back to the present. “You can’t change the past. You have to walk straight into the future without flinching. It’s the only way, to meet things head-on.”
“Where did you learn that?” she asked.
“Actually I heard a televised sermon that caught my attention. That’s what the minister said, that you have to go boldly forward and meet trouble head-on, not try to run away from it or hide.” He pursed his lips. “I’d never heard it put quite that way before. It really made me think.”
She sipped coffee with a sad face. “I’ve always tried to run. I’ve had to run.” She lifted her eyes to his. “You know what they would have done to me if I’d stayed in Houston.”
“Yes, I do, and I don’t blame you for getting out while you could,” Ed assured her. “But there’s something I have to tell you now. And you’re not going to like it.”
“Don’t tell me,” she said with black humor, “someone from the local newspaper recognized me and wants an interview.”
“Worse,” he returned. “A reporter from Houston is down here asking questions. I think he’s traced you.”
She put her head in her hands. “Wonderful. Well, at least I’m no longer an employee of the Caldwell group, so it won’t embarrass your cousin when I’m exposed.”
“I haven’t finished. Nobody will talk to him,” he added with a grin. “In fact, he actually got into Matt’s office yesterday when his secretary wasn’t looking. He was only in there for a few minutes, and nobody knows what was said. But he came back out headfirst and, from what I hear, he ran out the door so fast that he left his briefcase behind with Matt cursing like a wounded sailor all the way down the hall. They said Matt had only just caught up with him at the curb when he ran across traffic and got away.”
She hesitated. “When was this?”
“Yesterday.” He smiled wryly. “It was a bad time to catch Matt. He’d already been into it with one of the county commissioners over a rezoning proposal we’re trying to get passed, and his secretary had hidden in the bathroom to avoid him. That was how the reporter got in.”
“You don’t think he…told Matt?” she asked worriedly.
“No. I don’t know what was said, of course, but he wasn’t in there very long.”
“But, the briefcase…”
“…was returned to him unopened,” Ed said. “I know because I had to take it down to the front desk.” He smiled, amused. “I understand he paid someone to pick it up for him.”
“Thank God.”
“It was apparently the last straw for Matt, though,” he continued, “because it wasn’t long after that when he said he was leaving for the day.”
“How did you know he was in jail?”
He grimaced. “Carolyn phoned me. He’d come by her place first and apparently made inroads into a bottle of scotch. She hid the rest, after which he decided to go and get his own bottle.” He shook his head. “That isn’t like Matt. He may have a drink or two occasionally, but he isn’t a drinker. This has shocked everybody in town.”
“I guess so.” She couldn’t help but wonder if it had anything to do with the way he’d treated her. But if he’d gone to Carolyn, perhaps they’d had an argument and it was just one last problem on top of too many. “Was Carolyn mad at him?” she asked.
“Furious,” he returned. “Absolutely seething. It seems they’d had a disagreement of major proportions, along with all the other conflicts of the day.” He shook his head. “Matt didn’t even come in to work today. I’ll bet his head is splitting.”
She didn’t reply. She stared into her coffee with dead eyes. Everywhere she went, she caused trouble. Hiding, running—nothing seemed to help. She was only involving innocent people in her problems.
Ed hesitated when he saw her face. He didn’t want to make things even worse for her, but there was more news that he had to give her.
“Your job is waiting,” he assured her. “Whenever you want to come in.”
“I won’t do that to him,” she said absently. “He’s had enough.”
His eyes became strangely watchful. “Feeling sorry for the enemy?” he asked gently.
“You can’t help not liking people,” she replied. “He likes most everybody except me. He’s basically a kind person. I just rub him the wrong way.”
He wasn’t going to touch that line. “The same reporter who came here had gone to the prison to talk to your mother,” he continued. “I was concerned, so I called the warden. It seems…she’s had a heart attack.”
Her heart jumped unpleasantly. “Will she live?”
“Yes,” he assured her. “She’s changed a lot in six years, Leslie,” he added solemnly. “She’s reconciled to serving her time. The warden says that she wanted to ask for you, but that she was too ashamed to let them contact you. She thinks you can’t ever forgive what she said and did to you.”
Her eyes misted, but she fought tears. Her mother had been eloquent at the time, with words and the pistol. She stared at her empty coffee cup. “I can forgive her. I just don’t want to see her.”
“She knows that,” Ed replied.
She glanced at him. “Have you been to see her?”
He hesitated. Then he nodded. “She was doing very well until this reporter started digging up the past. He was the one who suggested the movie deal and got that bit started.” He sighed angrily. “He’s young and ambitious and he wants to make a name for himself. The world’s full of people like that, who don’t care what damage they do to other peoples’ lives as long as they get what they want.”
She was only vaguely listening. “My mother…did she ask you about me?”
“Yes.”
“What did you tell her?” she wanted to know.
He put down his cup. “The truth. There really wasn’t any way to dress it up.” His eyes lifted. “She wanted you to know that she’s sorry for what happened, especially for the way she treated you before and after the trial. She understands that you don’t want to see her. She says she deserves it for destroying your life.”