Escapade

by Susan Kyle

To Josh, it was. He stood up on unsteady legs.

  “Let me give you something,” Dr. Edmonds said.

  “I’m all right!” Josh’s cold eyes glared at him. “You said so, didn’t you? There’s nothing wrong with me, after all. Only a nonexistent sperm count!”

  “In time, you’ll adjust to this,” Dr. Edmonds told him. “You have to believe that you will, given time.”

  “Like hell I will.” Josh turned on his heel and left the office, his mind in limbo. Sterile. He heard the word with each step he took. By the time he reached the cab he’d taken from the airport, he was hearing it with his heartbeat.

  “Drive until I tell you to stop,” he told the driver as he closed the door and leaned back against the seat.

  Back in San Antonio, Brad and Amanda were having a meal together in an exclusive restaurant downtown on the Paseo del Rio. It was a nice night, very starry and warm, and Amanda felt comfortable with Brad. She always had. He was a sweet man.

  He sipped his white wine and smiled at her. “Isn’t this nicer than work?” he remarked.

  “Yes. I’ve been busy almost every night this week.”

  “Too much work will dull your brain. Look at Josh.”

  Her heart skipped. She kept her eyes on her place setting. “How is he?”

  “I haven’t heard from him since I left Nassau,” Brad said tersely. “And I don’t care if I never do again. I’m sick to death of big brother reading me the riot act.”

  “You know you’d die for him,” she teased.

  “Not today I wouldn’t.”

  “You look worried,” she said.

  “I am. I can’t beg, borrow, or steal enough money to clear my slate in Las Vegas,” he said. “I’m at a dead end right now.”

  “Did you talk to Josh again?”

  “Finally,” he said irritably. “And of course, he said no. He says I’ve got to get myself out of it. Fine thoughts, if they don’t find me floating in the canal one night.”

  “They wouldn’t kill you,” she faltered.

  “Wouldn’t they?” He smiled cynically. “You’re incredibly naive sometimes, Amanda.”

  She grimaced. “I suppose I am.”

  “That’s why Josh fancies you, I imagine,” he continued deliberately. “His women are always like the beautiful Terri, very svelte and sophisticated. You’d be a novelty in his bed.”

  She stiffened. “That’ll be the day.”

  He turned away before she could see his face. He wanted to keep her from getting involved with his brother. The more time he spent with Amanda, the more she meant to him. Why, why had it taken so many years for him to realize that of all the women he knew, she was the only one he could ever really care about?

  “Suppose we go dancing after we eat?” he asked quietly, smiling as he turned back to her. “You’re divine in that dress. I can’t wait to get my arms around you.” She laughed, but she didn’t flush or stammer. Brad was a tease and a playboy.

  The laughter hurt Brad. She wouldn’t take him seriously, and it stung his pride. “You don’t think I mean it?” he asked.

  “I’m sure you always mean it, Brad,” she replied. “You like women.”

  He stared at the tablecloth. “I like you especially, Amanda.”

  She touched his hand, smoothing over the back of it with affection. “I like you, too.”

  He held her clear green eyes for longer than he ever had before, and something stirred inside him. But she didn’t tremble or flinch or retreat from the sudden hot glitter of his eyes. She simply pretended not to see it.

  He didn’t like his own reaction, and hers was insulting. He withdrew his hand with a forced laugh. “How long have we known each other?” he asked.

  “Since I was in grammar school,” she recalled. “Since we were both in the same grammar school, that is.”

  “You and your friend Mirri were inseparable,” he mused. “But you were both a couple of years behind me, and I never associated with children.”

  She laughed delightedly. “You snob, you. Mirri had a crush on you.”

  “I know. But she was too shy to suit me.” He shook his head. “I saw her a few weeks ago in a restaurant. What an amazing change. She’s the most flamboyant little heartbreaker I ever saw. Incredible that she was sitting alone.”

  He didn’t know about Mirri, and it wasn’t Amanda’s place to tell him. She only shrugged it off and changed the subject.

  They went dancing at a popular nightclub. Brad was actually a much better dancer than Josh. But it was Josh’s arms she remembered, and her heart ached.

  “You’re very quiet,” he said at her temple. The feel of her slender body in his arms was doing strange things to him. He’d never felt desire for her before. How odd that it should happen now, when his life was fraught with complications.

  “I’m dreaming,” she murmured.

  “About what?”

  She couldn’t admit that. She lifted her dancing green eyes to his face and laughed. Her black hair was loose tonight, falling softly down her back almost to her waist.

  Brad looked at it and pictured it haloed around her soft oval face on his pillow. The hunger it kindled in his body made him stiffen.

  “I was thinking about my job,” she remarked without noticing his momentary hesitation. “I think I’m making some headway.”

  “You watch out for Johnson,” he cautioned. “He’s a shark. He’ll nibble you to death if you threaten his job.”

  “I know that.”

  “And don’t ever think Josh would take your side against him," he continued coldly. “He may employ women executives, but only because his image requires it. Privately he has nothing but contempt for women in business.”

  She didn’t agree with that, but she didn’t argue. She smiled up at him dreamily. The liquor and the music were disarming her. “I don’t want to talk about Josh,” she murmured, and linked her arms around his neck. “Let’s just dance the night away.”

  His heart was beating double time. She was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen. Impulsively he bent and brushed his lips sensuously over hers.

  “Hey, cut that out,” she teased, lowering her cheek to his chest. “Honestly, Brad, you’re impossible.”

  His face tautened until it was almost painful as he moved in time to the music. He didn’t understand what was happening. He’d only recently considered Amanda in a romantic sense, yet he’d expected her to trip over his expertise and fall into his arms. She hadn’t. She seemed immune to him. She was more than special: she was a challenge. He couldn’t let it alone. He tried again, and again she parried his efforts.

  Frustrated, he laughed and teased and pretended that it didn’t matter. But it did. When he took her home and she offered him her hand instead of her mouth, it took all his willpower not to drag her into his arms and kiss the breath out of her.

  He drove back to his house so fast, he got a speeding ticket. Nothing seemed to be going right for him!

  Brad didn’t sleep very well that night. When the phone rang in the early hours of the morning, he’d only just drifted into oblivion. He cursed and grimaced when he saw the time.

  “Lawson,” he said into the receiver, his voice slurred with sleep and alcohol.

  “Brad? It’s Ted Balmain.”

  He sat up. “Yes, what is it?”

  “I think you’d better come down here to Opal Cay. Something’s wrong with Josh.”

  “What?”

  “He’s drunk as sin and locked up in his den with a gun. None of us can get him to come out or talk to us. I’ve never seen him so out of control.”

  The speech didn’t penetrate. He was too sleepy to understand what he was hearing. “Josh doesn’t drink and you know it. He’s just had a tiff with one of his women or something,” he said irritably. “He’ll be all right in the morning. Go to sleep, for God’s sake.”

  He slammed down the receiver. Josh was a painful reminder that Amanda didn’t want him, that she did want Josh. He couldn’
t have cared less at the moment if Josh drowned himself in a gin bottle. In fact, he thought angrily as he pulled the pillow over his head, he’d enjoy it! Damn Josh for being in the way!

  Ted hesitated, staring at the telephone receiver in his hand. If Brad wouldn’t listen, somebody else had to be made to realize how dangerous the situation was. In all the time he’d worked for Josh Lawson, he’d never seen the man so agitated.

  That doctor must have said something terrible to him. Josh needed someone who cared about him. There was only one other person he could call. He searched on Josh’s desk for the number and dialed it with controlled haste.

  Several frantic hours later, Amanda got off the plane in Nassau and climbed aboard the helicopter Ted had sent to bring her to Opal Cay. She was still half-asleep, her face devoid of makeup and her hair long and loose because she hadn’t had time to do more than run a brush through it. She’d had to drag Mirri out of bed to tell her she was on the way to Opal Cay, so her friend wouldn’t worry. She’d already phoned Ward Johnson, who’d made a grumpy remark about being shorthanded and slammed the phone down on her. He’d pay for that one day, she promised herself.

  Mirri had tried to tell her something about Nelson Stuart, but Amanda had cut her off. Time was precious. Josh was in bad shape, and she couldn’t waste a second getting to him. She hoped she’d made that clear to a sleepy, puzzled Mirri, but it didn’t matter right now. Nothing did, except getting to Josh.

  Ted had mentioned that Josh had gotten some test results that afternoon. Amanda knew about his physical, and her blood ran cold. He’d been hinting about some condition. What if he had cancer? He’d said he didn’t, but that was before the test results. He smoked those cigars. He kept threatening to quit, and presumably he’d gone to that smoking seminar. What if it was that or something worse that! that? What if one of the women he’d slept with had given him some killer disease?

  She’d never been one to bite her nails out of nervousness, but by the time she arrived at Opal Cay she’d gnawed them all off just barely above the quick.

  “Ted? How is he?” she asked when the tall man joined her in the chauffeured limousine on the way up to the house from the airstrip.

  “Still throwing things and cursing at the top of his lungs, thank God,” Ted said heavily. “Thank you for coming. I couldn’t get Brad to take me seriously.”

  “Brad took me out to dinner last night,” she told him. “He was acting very strangely when he took me home. I think he'd had a little too much to drink.”

  “I noticed. And we can certainly say that of Josh, I’m afraid. I’ve never seen him drunk.” He grimaced. “I hope I never have to again. He’s violent.”

  “The doctor must have told him something terrible,” she said uneasily, her big green eyes expressive in a face like rice paper.

  “That’s what I thought,” Ted replied. “I found him like this when I got back from Freeport on business. I couldn’t get in there with him, and he wouldn’t talk to me. He hasn’t stopped cursing for the past two hours.”

  Amanda absorbed that all the way to the house. It seemed to take forever. What if he was badly sick? What could she do? More important, would he even let her near him?

  “Good luck,” Ted said when he left her at the door of Josh’s study. He went on upstairs with her single suitcase.

  “Thanks,” she called, absently smoothing away the wrinkles in her simple green silk sheath.

  She knocked on the door.

  “Go away!” came a powerful, angry voice, and something smashed against the wood.

  “Josh, it’s me!” she called back. “It’s Amanda!”

  There was a sudden silence. Footsteps stumbled closer. A key turned in the lock, and the door opened.

  Josh looked down at her from bloodshot dark eyes, his tall body taut and unkempt in a shirt and slacks that looked slept in. His blond hair was disheveled. He was flushed, and there were terrible lines in his face. He looked at her as if she were salvation itself. “Amanda!” he choked.

  She went to him, sliding hungrily into his arms, holding him. He clasped her bruisingly close, and the face he pressed into her soft throat was hot. His big body shook with emotion.

  “Oh, Josh,” she whispered achingly. “Here… darling, let me close the door.” She did, gently, and he wouldn’t let go of her even that long, following her to it.

  “I need you,” he said raggedly, holding her closer. “Stay with me.”

  “Of course I will. Of course, Josh.” She maneuvered him over to the sofa, but when he sat down he pulled her onto his lap and clasped her breasts to his face.

  “Please, tell me what’s happened,” she said tenderly, smoothing back his damp hair from his broad forehead. “Talk to me.”

  His fingers stabbed into her back, and he drew in a shuddering breath. “Oh, God,” he whispered.

  “Tell me,” she coaxed.

  His face rubbed against her throat. “I don’t want to. I wanted to hide my head in the sand, but I can’t anymore.”

  Her hands tugged gently at his hair. “Talk to me. What did the doctor tell you?”

  He took a deep breath, and another. He lifted his head, and his dark eyes met hers levelly. “I can’t father a child, Amanda. I’m sterile.”

  “Oh, Josh!” She stared at him with dawning realization. “It was this,” she said involuntarily. “This is what you’ve had on your mind for so long. You suspected it all along.”

  “Yes.” He pushed back his damp hair. He looked older. His dark eyes searched her face with aching loss. “I didn’t tell Ted to call you, did I?” he asked uncertainly.

  The liquor was doing its evil work on him. It might be a blessing, considering how devastated he looked. “No,” she said. “But I’d have come anyway. You silly man.” She touched his lean cheek and looking at him with worshiping eyes. “I’d come from the moon if you needed me. I said so, remember?”

  “So you did.”

  Her fingers pressed against his hard mouth. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “That makes two of us.” His eyes narrowed on hers. “Are you crying?”

  “I think I am, a little,” she confessed, wiping away ; the faint traces with the backs of her fingers. “I’m sad,” she told him. “You’re so beautiful, Josh. Your children would have been beautiful, too.” She saw the pain in his eyes and understood. “It hurts, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes.” His jaw tautened, to keep emotion at bay. He struggled to master himself. He drew a knuckle under her eyes to take away the tears. “I’m drunk, Manda.”

  “I know.” She smiled and smoothed back his hair. “I guess you need to be, don’t you?”

  “It numbed the ache.”

  She bent forward and kissed his eyes. He stiffened at the unexpected gesture and seemed to go boneless. A faint gasp escaped him. He sat back against the sofa, and she pressed her advantage. Her warm mouth brushed his eyelashes. They were thick and dark and soft. She smiled as she smoothed her lips over his eyebrows and his broad forehead, his high cheekbones and arrogant straight nose. They brushed his square, jutting chin and then whispered onto his broad, sexy mouth.

  He stilled, accepting the caresses with something like awe. His eyes closed and he sighed, giving her the freedom to touch him as she liked. She slid closer and put her mouth over his, kissing him with tenderness and wonder. But his lips remained firm and tightly closed.

  “What a prude you are!” she whispered, teasing gently through the maelstrom of emotion she was putting behind her. She lifted her head and smiled into his dark eyes. “Won’t you let me kiss you properly? You won’t get pregnant from a deep kiss, Josh,” she murmured dryly.

  Almost at once she realized she’d said the wrong thing. His eyes blazed up like brown fires, glaring at her. His big hands went to her waist and started to push her away.

  “Don’t,” she pleaded quietly. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to make a joke of it. But you can’t expect people to avoid the mention of the word pregnancy
around you for the rest of your life.”

  His jaw tautened, but he stopped pushing. “I’m not a child,” he said. “Stop treating me like one.”

  “I never have,” she protested gently. “I never would. Josh, do you really think the ability to make a woman pregnant is what makes you a man?”

  “It’s a good part of it,” he argued.

  “But there are much more important things, like gentleness and compassion and intelligence and strength. You have all those.”

  He drew a long, harsh breath into his lungs. “I’m sterile.”

  “Yes. But not impotent.”

  He laughed. It was bitter and cold, but it was a laugh of sorts. “Should I thank God for that, do you suppose?”

  “Most things that happen are for a reason, even if we don’t know what the reason is,” she told him. “I’m sorry that you can’t father a child, Josh, but it certainly doesn’t make you less a man in my eyes.”

  “Aren’t you prejudiced, though?” he mused, looking at her almost hungrily. “You wouldn’t mind if I lost a leg or an arm, or if I were crippled. You’d love me if I went ugly overnight. ”

  She smiled, accepting the gibe. It was true, after all. Why pretend?

  “I’d love you if you’d always been ugly and went lame, too,” she murmured, and her eyes smiled at him. “Love doesn’t ever change or wear out or go away. Not if it’s the real thing.”

  “And is yours the real thing?”

  She hesitated. But only for a few seconds. Her soft eyes searched his, and she gave him her heart along with the words he was asking for.

  “I’m afraid so,” she replied.

  CHAPTER

  FOURTEEN

  Through the fog of his pain and intoxication, the words softened him, comforted him. He allowed her to draw him down again, to hold him. It had always seemed a weakness of sorts to be vulnerable in front of a woman. But Amanda wasn’t just any woman.

  He smiled against her cheek. “I never had tenderness, did I ever tell you? I can’t remember ever being embraced by either of my parents.”