He shot up in the bed. "Tim! When did you get here?" He glanced around and saw that Brandi was still sound asleep, although she had been curled up by his side before he'd moved.
The full picture of what Tim must have seen when he'd come up the stairs hit Greg. If Greg had any doubts about the conclusions that Tim had drawn, he had only to look at the ominously cold stare coming from his friend's normally smiling blue eyes.
Tim Walker was a few inches short of sue feet tall, but no one meeting him ever thought of him as small. His wide shoulders, muscled arms and broad chest created the image of a man you wouldn't want to tangle with. Greg glanced down at his watch. It was five o'clock in the morning, certainly not a time he'd choose for a confrontation with Tim Walker when he was upset.
Greg hastily headed downstairs to where he'd left his clothes. "I can explain—"
"You're damn right you will," Tim growled, following closely on his heels. He stood with his hands hanging loosely at his sides while Greg dressed more quickly than he had since he'd left the military.
"This isn't what it looks like."
"It's exactly what it looks like, and you know it. My God! All the years I've known you, and I had no idea you could take advantage of someone as sheltered and protected as Brandi. I could tell by her messages that she was frightened, but I knew she'd be safe up here. Hah! That's a laugh, isn't it?"
"Lower your voice, will you, before you wake her up? I haven't hurt your precious Brandi. She's fine." He strode into the kitchen and began to make coffee. "What are you doing here at this hour, anyway?"
"Oh, so it's my fault for coming early enough to catch you in bed with her, is that it? What I don't know makes everything okay, is that the way your mind works? Good God, Greg, I knew you were ruthless, I knew you could annihilate an opponent in a courtroom, but I never thought you would take advantage of a man's hospitality and seduce an innocent woman!"
"She isn't some sixteen-year-old child, for God's sake! Brandi Martin is a grown woman, Tim, a consenting adult. It is none of your damned business what we did or did not do, might or might not do, and I resent your unfounded accusations and unsubstantiated claims regarding my character!"
If Tim wanted a fight, he was going to have one, Greg decided. Some of Tim's comments had hit extremely close to the mark, echoing some of Greg's earlier thoughts, which only made him angrier. He hadn't taken advantage of her, even though he'd had every opportunity. He hadn't abused his friend's hospitality or his trust, and he was furious that he should be judged so harshly on such flimsy and circumstantial evidence.
He faced Tim, waiting for him to make the first move.
Tim leaned against the counter and stared at Greg for several tense moments without moving. Then he straightened and took a step toward him.
"Has anyone ever told you how adorable you are when you're angry?"
Greg had been ready for anything but that. He stared at his friend in astonishment. Tim was grinning. Bewildered at the sudden change in Tim's mood, Greg just stood there looking at him.
Tim began to laugh at the expression on Greg's face. "You're right, Greg. It's none of my business what you and Brandi choose to do. I guess I've looked out for her for so long that I forgot that I can't live her life for her, or make her choices for her. As you said, she's a grown woman."
Tim walked over and poured two cups of coffee, handing one to Greg. "I'm sorry for making such a fool of myself. My only excuse is that I was really worried about Brandi, which is why I drove all night to get here. When I first saw your car outside I felt nothing but relief, knowing that if you were here she was all right. To say that I was surprised at your sleeping arrangements is putting it mildly."
''You may have noticed that I was sleeping downstairs earlier."
Tim sat down at the table with a soft sigh of pleasure. "I don't mind telling you I'm tired, which partially explains why I was less than my normally observant self. Instead of my continuing to make erroneous guesses, why don't you just tell me what's going on?"
Greg sat down across from him. "Brandi's had a real scare, and I think she's still dreaming about it. I heard her last night and went upstairs to check on her. Later, after she had calmed down a little, I started to leave. She asked me to stay with her. So I did."
''And that's it?"
"That's it."
"You mean I'm not going to get to give the bride away?"
Greg studied Tim closely. "Would it bother you to see Brandi get married?"
"Not if she decided to marry you, old buddy. I couldn't be happier."
"You're really serious, aren't you?"
"Of course I'm serious. Why? Are you thinking about marrying her?"
"Don't be absurd. I just met her. Besides, I'm old enough to be her father. We're too different. We have absolutely nothing in common. And we're—"
"Whoa, wait a minute," Tim said, laughingly interrupting. "Talk about an avalanche of ridiculous reasons for not marrying someone. All you had to say was that you weren't interested in her, you know."
Greg raised his cup to his mouth without meeting his friend's inquiring gaze. He carefully sipped from the cup and meticulously replaced it in the exact spot where it had been. "I didn't say that."
"Yeah, I noticed."
They sat there for a while in silence, drinking their coffee and watching as the sky gradually lightened to a dull, threatening gray. The wind had steadily increased, its whistling moan around the comers of the house sounding like the wail of some long-lost soul.
After a while, Tim began to speak in a musing tone. "Brandi's family moved next to mine when we were kids. I think Brandi was still in diapers. I know she hadn't started school. Her father was a good provider, loved his wife and daughter. They were a very happy family. Unfortunately, her father died unexpectedly a few years later. The change in Brandi and her mother was really sad. It got to me, somehow. Up until then I'd led a rather self-centered existence, like most kids."
Greg remained silent, so Tim continued. "I began to look in on them and offered to help with the chores. My folks took a more active interest in them and, over time, Brandi and her mother managed to pull out of the pain from their loss. By the time that happened, I'd already adopted my rather overprotective attitude toward both of them." He stopped and took a sip of his coffee. "I love Brandi, Greg, but I'm not in love with her. Not in the way you are."
Greg met his friend's gaze without hesitation. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"That's possible. You've never been one to stay in close touch with how you're feeling about things. I suppose your feelings for Brandi will hit you sooner or later." He stretched, got up and poured them some more coffee.
"I've already told you—"
"I know what you've already told me. You're too old, you have nothing in common. All of that's a bunch of hogwash, and you know it. Age doesn't mean a thing when you're both adults. Brandi is a warm, responsive person. She could teach you a lot about life if you'd allow her to get close enough. And you'd be good for her, as well. I think you have the ability to appreciate the subtleties in her character, even though you'd deny to your dying breath that you possess any sensitivities."
Greg's emotions tumbled inside him like a roiling sea. Meeting Brandi had unleashed previously hidden portions of him, and Greg was having difficulty knowing how to deal with these new sensations.
At the moment, all he could do was play for time like the good strategist he was.
"I think you'd better hear about what Brandi accidentally stumbled into. From every indication, these people mean business. I have reason to believe that they may have traced her here. If so, they are professionals who are determined to get whoever they're after."
Even though Tim recognized the suggested change of subject as the ploy it was, he knew that Greg was right. He needed to know what was happening.
By the time Greg had told him all that he knew, Tim's expression was as serious as Greg's. "I had no idea this mess was so threaten
ing. I thought that Brandi might have had prowlers at her home or something. She's pretty isolated, and I could understand if she'd gotten frightened enough to leave. But this!"
Tim got up and began to pace.
Greg glanced out the kitchen window. "I think I'll go outside and look around before the weather gets any worse. I'll feel better, knowing that you're with Brandi. I didn't want to leave her here alone, but hesitated to suggest that she go with me. That damn red jacket of hers fairly screams for notice."
"Good idea," Tim responded, watching as Greg slipped into his gray ski pants and jacket. "I might try to get some sleep. I don't remember the last time I was horizontal."
However, Tim's sleep was postponed by Brandi's appearance downstairs within half an hour of Greg's leaving the cabin.
"Tim! I didn't hear you come in." She had found him stoking the fire and launched herself into his arms almost before he had time to straighten and turn.
"Hi, Mouse!" he replied, hugging her to him. "How do you manage to get yourself into such crazy situations?" he asked, shaking his head ruefully.
"So Greg told you what happened." She glanced around the room and over to the kitchen. "Where is he, by the way?"
"Oh, he said something about skiing before the weather closed in any more." He yawned. "I was too tired to even consider going with him."
"I'm surprised he would have much energy after spending the night on this sofa. I tried to get him to take the bed, but he insisted on staying down here. I know he must have been uncomfortable, but I gave up arguing with him. Somehow I get the impression that few people win in an argument with that man."
Tim watched her closely. .It was obvious that she didn't remember Greg's going upstairs in response to her nightmare or her asking him to stay.
Brandi had been prone to nightmares for as long as he'd known her. One of the ways her mind dealt with them was to block them from conscious thought. No doubt she'd managed to block this most recent episode, as well.
"Have you eaten?" she asked.
"No. And I'm starved. Would you care to take pity on me, or will I have to make my own breakfast?"
"I'll be glad to feed you if you'll explain to me why those men would be so angry that they would shoot at me?"
Tim followed her into the kitchen. "You're sure they actually were shooting?"
"Believe me, I recognized the sounds when I heard them. And I didn't imagine the truck that followed me, nor the men I saw at the sheriff's office."
"What sort of clothes were they wearing?"
"Some sort of white camouflage. They looked military, but I could be wrong."
"Are you sure you didn't wander onto one of the military installations?"
"Come on, Tim," Brandi said, busily whisking eggs together, "those bases are well marked, with high fences and posted notices."
"That's true."
"So what do you think?" she asked, setting a plateful of eggs, bacon and toast in front of him.
"Looks good."
"No! I mean about those men. What were they doing?"
"I have no idea."
"Can you find out?"
"I can try. But first I'd like to eat and maybe get a few hours of sleep, if that's not asking too much."
She grinned. "For you, my friend, I'll allow it."
"That's big of you," he mumbled through a bite of toast.
Brandi laughed. She folded her arms on the table and leaned on them, watching him for a few moments in silence. Then, in a casual tone that didn't fool Tim in the least, she asked, "How long have you known Greg?"
Tim smiled but didn't comment on her interest. "We met overseas when we were in the service."
"Were you in the same unit or something?"
"No. Greg found me, badly injured, and helped me get medical attention. I doubt that I would have made it otherwise, but Greg gets irritated whenever I bring up the incident, so I've learned not to refer to his savior tendencies."
"You mean it was dangerous for him to have helped you?"
"Suicidal."
"And he did it anyway?"
"Yes."
"And he didn't even know you?"
"That's right."
"What sort of a man would do something like that?"
"A very unusual one." Tim stared out the window. "People are only now beginning to understand what it was like in Southeast Asia back then. We were just kids out of high school, raised on John Wayne war movies, raring to go fight for our country. Only we discovered when we got over there that it wasn't like the movies at all." He slowly turned to look at Brandi. "Most of us lost our youth over there. I did, and I know Greg did."
Tim was quiet for a long moment, remembering. Then he shook his head, and his gaze finally met hers. "I'll never forget the first time I saw him after we got back to the States. I'd lost track of him, and I wasn't going to let him disappear from my life. Whether he liked to hear it or not, the fact remained that I'm alive today only because of the risks he took to save me. You can never forget something like that."
Tim pushed his plate away. Brandi took it over to the sink and rinsed it, then poured him another cup of coffee. She didn't want to break into Tim's story. She could tell that thinking about those years caused him pain, but she felt that she needed to hear what he was going to say.
"The only address I had for him belonged to his parents in Virginia. So I went there. It was hard to believe that those two embittered people had produced the man I knew to be warm, compassionate and caring. They acted as though they barely remembered him. They didn't even know his address, just that he'd gone to Massachusetts to go to school."
Tim shook his head. "It took me a while to locate him, and when I did I almost didn't recognize him. He looked years older. He was cold and very distant. In fact, his attitude toward me was similar to the one I'd run into with his parents. As though he couldn't imagine why I'd bothered to look him up."
He sipped absently from the cup in front of him. ''I wasn't accepting that sort of behavior from Greg. I'd gotten to know the man too well. Something was eating him alive, and I was determined to do what I could to help."
"He'd enrolled at the Harvard law school and had a small garage apartment. I deliberately got him to drinking until he loosened up enough to tell me what had happened. It was worse than I thought."
"What was it?" Brandi asked, watching Tim play with the handle of his cup.
"Greg explained to me that he was the youngest of three boys. He said he'd grown up knowing without understanding that he could never do anything to please his parents. He wasn't as smart as his oldest brother or as athletic as his other brother. His grades were never good enough, and neither were his achievements."
"How sad."
"The thing is, Greg never allowed their attitude toward him to stop him from trying to excel in order to win their approval."
When he didn't say anything more, Brandi finally prodded him. "So what happened?"
"Nam happened. Both his brothers were drafted, two years apart. When Greg's turn came before the draft board he was given a deferment because he was the only son left at home. When he told his parents about the deferment, his dad accused him of being a coward and hiding behind his brothers."
"Oh,no!"
"So Greg enlisted and ended up overseas."
Tim got up and poured himself another cup of coffee, but instead of returning to the table he began to pace in the small confines of the kitchen. "What he told me that might explained a lot of things to me, things about Greg that had puzzled me when I'd first gotten to know him. He'd been awarded several honors and medals for bravery, including the time he saved my life, but none of them seemed to mean anything to him. He brushed them off, and got irritated whenever anyone brought them up. It hit me that night that Greg had still been trying to prove that he wasn't a coward, which is ridiculous. Greg Duncan is one of the bravest, most courageous men I've met."
He paused in his pacing and picked up his cup.
"Surel
y his parents couldn't ignore all that he had done overseas," Brandi pointed out. "Didn't their attitudes toward him change at all?"
"His parents hadn't kept in touch with him while he was overseas, so Greg didn't find out until he returned home that both his brothers had been killed."
"How horrible! How awful for the whole family."
"Yes. Greg had loved both of them very much, even though, from what I could gather from his remarks about them over the months I was with him, they had been busy with their own lives while they were all growing up and showed only a casual interest in him. Losing them was devastating enough, but when his parents told him about his brothers' deaths they made it clear they resented the fact that he had survived while the two they had idolized had been killed."
"But that's really sick. How could they blame Greg for something over which he had no control?"
"Who knows, but obviously they did. By the time I managed to locate Greg he'd withdrawn behind a wall so thick I wasn't sure I'd ever get behind there and find the man I knew." He shook his head and sat down at the table once again. "But I couldn't walk away and leave him that way. He was my friend. He'd saved my life. Now it was time for me to do what I could to help him."
"So what did you do?"
Tim grinned. "Don't you remember? I ended up enrolling in school myself, moving in with him and spending hours over the following months in long philosophical discussions about the meaning of life and what we hoped to get out of it."
"It must have worked."
"Who knows? But we both got through the readjustment of returning to a country that was ashamed of what was happening in Asia and reflected those feelings onto those of us who had taken part in it."
They were both quiet for a while, thinking about the past. Finally Brandi shook her head. "It must have been terrible for someone as sensitive as Greg is to have to endure such callous treatments."
Tim glanced at her and smiled. "Does that mean you haven't been put off by his cold and aloof manner, Mouse? That you saw the man that hides behind that shield?"
2. Come Be My Love Page 5