Earth Angel

by Linda Cajio

  “Makes perfect sense to me,” Sylvia said.

  The others nodded. Miles realized that with a little coaching to keep her temper in place, Catherine could sway her relatives into anything. That gave him an idea, a brilliant idea, on how to stop Byrne and keep Catherine with him.

  “It doesn’t make sense to me,” Byrne muttered, and took another swig of Maalox. “If the two lovebirds get another ‘tip,’ I suggest they stop playing Nick and Nora Charles and pass it along to someone who can do some good with it.”

  “Of course,” Miles said, grinning at the turn of events.

  “Besides,” Sylvia teased, “you two might just forget yourselves again under the moonlit sky.”

  Catherine smiled thinly. “Thank you, Aunt Sylvia. I do believe we’re at an emergency meeting …”

  Everyone straightened and became serious again. Miles raised his eyebrows. His theory had more possibilities by the second.

  The meeting lasted about fifteen more minutes, with no solution except to do as Sylvia suggested and beef up the security and update the system. The relatives supported it, in spite of Byrne’s protests about the expense. They also decided to be bold, for once, and host a big media reception as soon as possible. Byrne nearly popped his suspenders at that one.

  When the meeting broke up, Catherine made her usual exit, with a flare of skirt across her delicious legs. Damn, but she did it better than anyone else, Miles thought happily.

  Unfortunately, it also signaled that she was furious.

  He sighed and hurried to catch up with her.

  Catherine strode toward the elevator, her annoyance pounding harder with each step.

  She couldn’t believe the conclusions her relatives had reached in there concerning her and Miles. And he’d allowed it! Her face heated painfully when she thought of the teasing and the way they’d all grinned at her like amorous jackasses.

  “Catherine.”

  The voice behind her was all too distinctive. She’d heard it whisper her name in the heat of passion. And that was all it had been. Passion. She kept walking.

  “Catherine!” He caught up with her in a few quick strides.

  “Go away.” Her self-righteous anger weakened with him so close to her. She could feel him again … the way they’d moved together … the way she’d clawed and cried out his name. She wished she had never given in to the fantasy.

  “Come on, Catherine,” he said, amusement heavy in his voice. “It was just a mistake.”

  She whirled to face him. “And you let them make it!”

  “What was I supposed to do? Tell the truth?”

  “That would be nice for a change.”

  “I’d be more impressed with that if you hadn’t been Silent Sal.”

  She set her jaw, knowing she couldn’t explain why she hadn’t confessed. It had been the prime opportunity to humiliate her family with the revelation that Earth Angel was among them, yet it had seemed a childish reaction to past hurts. Besides, the tide was turning against Byrne, and she sensed she would have put everyone firmly back in his camp if she’d confessed. Still, she was not about to answer Miles.

  “Silent Sal again,” he said.

  “You don’t have to be so damned smug,” she muttered as they reached the express elevator between the conference floor and the first floor lobby. She jabbed the down button.

  “I’m entitled,” he said, “I did like Byrne’s comment about Nick and Nora Charles. I’m surprised he knew who they were.”

  “Only from the movies,” she said. “You don’t think he’s actually read any Hammett, do you?”

  “Good point.”

  When they were alone in the elevator, Miles said casually, “The police aren’t speed demons.”

  “The report probably hadn’t been removed yet.” She shrugged. “It was bad timing.”

  “Let’s make sure that’s the only bad timing. Catherine, no more Earth Angel antics. It’s going to be too risky now—”

  “This elevator could be bugged,” she reminded him.

  He snorted. “I wouldn’t put much past Byrne, but that’s too farfetched even for him. Catherine, promise me.”

  She glanced at him, then back at the doors. “I thought my promise wasn’t worth anything.”

  “Catherine …” He changed his tone. “What if I told you there’s a way to eliminate Byrne and get all the changes you want for Wagner Oil.”

  “Are you going to call a hit man?”

  He grinned. “We get the board to remove him as chairman—”

  She laughed. “With this crowd? You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Pay attention in there, my friend,” he chided. “Byrne is losing ground with every turn. We only have to push him along.”

  She eyed him narrowly. “Oh, sure. If you actually manage this major miracle, who would take his place that has enough sense to move into the twenty-first century? They all think exactly like him.”

  “All except one.” His grin widened. “You.”

  She gaped at him, her thoughts all clashing together in complete astonishment and confusion. He couldn’t have surprised her more if he’d suggested Ralph Nader for chairman of the board.

  The elevator bell dinged.

  “Ground floor,” Miles announced. “Everybody out.”

  “You’re nuts,” Catherine said.

  Miles chuckled as he opened the front door to his house. “You’ve said that all the way home.”

  “And I’m still saying it, Miles. You’re nuts.”

  “One has to be in dire situations. Look at Earth Angel.”

  “You’re more nuts than me.”

  She stepped over the threshold without a bit of hesitation, her focus all on his proposed board change. He mentally breathed a sigh of relief. If they hadn’t come back together in his car to discuss the meeting, he never would have gotten her this far. Now all he had to do was keep her here.

  She swung around. “Miles, I can’t run the corporation. I’m only twenty-nine, and I’ve only been with Wagner for a couple of years.”

  “We’ll get you a solid CEO. There’s a million of them out there.” He took her hand. She immediately withdrew it. He didn’t comment on her gesture, although it hurt more than he cared to admit. “I will state this one more time for the record, Catherine. You are the only one who’s even thinking of the future. You know where the business has to go. Byrne is not going to change his attitude. He’ll still be trying to widen the profit margin by eliminating ‘unnecessary’ safety procedures. And as long as he’s there, we’ll be paying EPA fines until we have no profits at all. Earth Angel isn’t going to make a damn bit of difference beyond embarrassing him. If she keeps it up, the rest will eventually become irritated with it and swing back to Byrne. Worse, they’ll get used to it, and she won’t have the impact she has now. He has to be taken out, or a lot of people who depend on Wagner Oil will suffer. The board’s ripe for an ouster.”

  She gazed at him for a long moment. “He’s my uncle.”

  “He’s ruining the company.”

  “It wouldn’t be a board fight. It would be a family fight.”

  “It’s what you’ve been doing all this time,” he said. “Didn’t you realize it would come to this if Earth Angel was successful?”

  “I never set out to oust anyone,” she said hotly. “I just wanted to get them to do the right thing about the Utah land—”

  “Then you were naive if you thought Byrne would come over to your way of thinking. The man isn’t capable. You know in your heart I’m right about this.”

  “I don’t know anything!” she exclaimed.

  But Miles knew she could see the sense of it. She was shaking with the knowledge. He wanted to reach out and hold her, but she probably wouldn’t accept him.

  “How can you stand there and ask me to destroy my family?” she said, her voice catching. “How can you turn it off like that?”

  He smiled gently. “There are always going to be hard decisions that are the
best decisions, Catherine. And usually the right one is the hardest of all to make. But the sooner you do it, the less pain there’ll be. This is the only way to save Wagner Oil. The situation’s perfect now. It’s business, and your family will understand that.”

  “Gee, but you’re wonderfully cynical. I can’t be like you, Miles. I can’t grab the brass ring just because it’s there.”

  “If you want to stop the pollution, you will.”

  “The codicil will stop them when it’s found.”

  He shook his head. “We haven’t found it yet. You may be banking a little too much on the family’s blindly following it, anyhow. What about the next crisis with Byrne? The codicil won’t cover that one. My way is a permanent solution to the problem.”

  “I’m going,” she said, turning toward the stairs.

  His stomach twisted. “Can’t we talk about this?”

  “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  “Catherine.” Her name was a plea. “Don’t go.”

  “I’m not staying, Miles.” She climbed the stairs. “There’s nothing to stay for.”

  Miles strode into his study. He poured himself a Scotch, neat, and drank it down in one gulp.

  Let her go, he told himself. She didn’t budge an inch anywhere, and he was damned tired of being the villain in her book. What the hell did she want from him, anyway? The last time he’d made a commitment, it had been a disaster. Couldn’t she give them both time to get used to their relationship? Why the hell did she have to rush in like a firebomb and demand more than he was ready for? Why couldn’t she just stay and explore what they had?

  He wouldn’t beg, he decided as he heard the front door slam shut. He would not beg.

  Twenty seconds later, he found himself out in front of her car. Begging.

  “Catherine, please don’t go.” He squeezed himself between her and the driver’s door.

  She faced him squarely. “I can’t do what you want, Miles. It makes me sick to think of it.”

  “I’m not some ogre, you know.”

  She smiled sadly. “Everything is business to you. Everything. Even your cat.”

  “What the hell does Sheba have to do with anything?”

  “You don’t even see it, do you?” She shook her head. “We don’t think alike. You’ll never want what I want.”

  He pulled her to him. His fingers traced her cheek. “Doesn’t this count for anything?”

  She took a deep shuddering breath. “It isn’t enough.”

  “It’s everything,” he murmured, burying his face in her silky hair.

  She rested her forehead against his shoulder. “Let me go, Miles.”

  Pain knifed through him. He tightened his fingers around her arms for one long moment … then dropped his hands away.

  He set his jaw as she got into the little car. The engine kicked over instantly. She put the car in gear and drove down the driveway without once looking back.

  “Damn you, Catherine,” he whispered, as he watched the taillights disappear around the bend.

  He felt as if he had lost his heart.

  “My grandson is miserable.”

  Catherine sighed as she looked at Lettice, sitting across the table from her. “You didn’t ask me to lunch at Chef Tell’s just to tell me that, surely.”

  Lettice ignored the redirection. “I still want to know what happened. First he’s sending you curealls by the pound and getting himself arrested to your great amusement—which neither of you has yet explained, by the way. But now he’s colder than a witch’s … He’s worse. I have seen my children and grandchildren in pain before, but I have never seen any of them like this. He’s an emotional zombie. And you don’t look much better.”

  She didn’t want to hear this, Catherine thought. She knew she shouldn’t have come. But Lettice had been so insistent, and she hadn’t been able to resist hearing some tidbit about Miles. “Lettice, Miles has always been cold.”

  “Not lately. Lately, he’s been hot as the tropics. And don’t try feeding me some line about how there’s nothing between you two. I’m not blind, and I’m not a fool.”

  Catherine shrugged as casually as she could. She had to remain cool or else the misery she’d endured the past three days would erupt again.

  “Catherine.”

  The prompt was all too reminiscent of Miles’s. She swallowed back a rush of emotion. “What he wants I can’t give. What I want he can’t give.”

  “That’s no answer.”

  “That’s all you’re going to get.”

  Leaning forward in her chair, Lettice eyed her. Catherine resisted the urge to babble the truth. How did the lady provoke that sensation with one look?

  “That’s no answer, either,” Lettice said. “But I suppose I won’t get one anyway. You evaded me pretty well when we had to bail Miles out of prison.”

  Catherine actually chuckled. “It was only a holding cell.”

  “Whatever. And that was no power breakfast that morning. A grandmother knows.”

  Catherine’s smile turned to a grimace. She thought her head would explode from all the probing. Why couldn’t Lettice leave it alone?

  “Well, far be it from me to poke my nose in where it doesn’t belong,” Lettice announced, sitting back in her chair.

  “And I’m Barbara Bush,” Catherine muttered.

  “I’m restraining myself, so don’t blow it.”

  Catherine clamped her lips shut over a retort.

  “You two are all grown up now, so you can ruin your lives if you want. Far be it from me to try to stop you and Miles from the stupidest mistake of your lives.”

  Lettice was a real confidence builder, Catherine thought. She buttered her roll with vigor.

  “I suppose I should get to the reason for lunch,” Lettice continued. “I … Actually I haven’t quite figured out a way to tell you this.” Her hesitant tone sent shivers of dread along Catherine’s spine. “It’s about your grandfather’s codicil.”

  “You still can’t remember the lawyers he used for that,” Catherine guessed, her heart sinking.

  “Catherine.” Lettice reached out and took her hand. “I’m an old woman. I don’t see and hear things as well as I used to.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “That I think now I must have been mistaken about a codicil.” Lettice’s voice was gentle, but that didn’t stop the shock.

  “Mistaken?” Catherine echoed blankly.

  The older woman nodded. “I’m afraid so. I have tried so hard to remember the lawyer, and I finally realized the reason I can’t is because there might not have been one. I’m so sorry, Catherine, but I think I might have mixed things up.”

  “Mixed things up?” Catherine asked, her heart thumping painfully. “Are you saying there isn’t a codicil?”

  “I’m not sure what I saw. I had thought it was an addition to his will, but now I’m not so sure. It’s all muddled up in my mind. I know he talked about a codicil. Maybe that’s what I’m confusing.”

  Catherine shook her head to deny the words. “But, Lettice, all this time—”

  Lettice patted her hand. “I’m very sorry. You’ll have to find some other way to save the land.”

  “There is no other way.”

  “Of course there is.” Lettice raised her eyebrows. “Catherine, there always is another way for anything in life. Now quit feeling sorry for yourself and get out there and do it.”

  “That’s a great pep rally you give,” Catherine muttered.

  Catherine watched the antacid tablets fizz in the squat glass of water. She threw a couple of ice cubes in to chill it, then swallowed the liquid. It would be a miracle, though, if the stuff managed to get rid of the raging headache and flipping stomach she’d acquired at lunch.

  She turned around in her office chair and stared out the window, blindly watching the activity at the refinery plant. How could Lettice have gotten things so confused? And why hadn’t she recognized it sooner?

  Catherine ha
ted to admit it, but Miles had been right about one thing. She had been depending too much on that codicil. She should have known when it couldn’t be traced that it was more than just lost. Her problem was that she had hoped against hope.

  She finally acknowledged that her grandfather might not have followed through on the codicil. After all, he hadn’t put the land in trust to protect it.

  Despite her best efforts to resist it, Miles’s solution drifted through her mind like a seductive harem dancer. When he had first suggested it, she had been horrified … and tempted. Byrne was ruining Wagner Oil, and someone had to stop him. They were trying to run a multimillion-dollar business, not decide who got to go to the family cabin during the skiing season. But it would cause a family rift, and she didn’t want to be instrumental in that. As an officer of the corporation, she also had an obligation to do what was right for the corporation and its employees.

  She had been naive about where the Earth Angel exploits would lead. Looking back, she could see they would lead nowhere else. What Miles proposed was right. And it was time she took responsibility for her actions.

  Catherine closed her eyes for a long moment, then opened them. Screwing up her courage, she swiveled around in her chair, picked up the telephone, and dialed Miles’s number.

  His secretary answered after the third ring. Catherine identified herself.

  “Yes, Miss Wagner. I’ll put him right on.”

  She didn’t even have time to blink, let alone hang up, before Miles was on the line.

  “Catherine.”

  Her heart leaped and her blood pounded at the way he said her name. She forced the sensations away. “Hello, Miles.”

  “You haven’t returned any of my calls. There were more than two this time.”

  She hadn’t returned them because there was no sense in torturing herself. “Miles, do you remember the problem we discussed the other day?”

  There was a long pause. “Yes, I remember.”

  His voice sounded odd, almost as if he were disappointed. She told herself not to be foolish. “I would like to reconsider the option you mentioned.”

  This time the pause was longer, and when he spoke, his voice was excited. “I’m pleased. Can we meet about this?”