"Your degree?" Gordon's eyes widened in surprise.
"She's going to night school," Bailey explained. "So she won't have to work for a creep and earn a pittance."
Gordon backed onto the sofa. "A legal secretary by day, a student by night—it doesn't sound like you've scheduled any time for me."
Paula finally gave in and sat down beside him.
"Maybe I could work you in on weekends and holidays."
Gordon shook his head. "Why couldn't I fall in love with a lazy woman?"
"I suppose for the same reason I couldn't fall in love with someone in an honorable profession."
As her two friends sat gazing into each other's eyes like total idiots, Bailey tried to tiptoe quietly from the room.
"Hold it!" Paula called just before Bailey reached the safety of her bedroom door.
"I think the two of you can carry on from here without my help," Bailey protested.
"Maybe, but you haven't been carrying on very well without us."
"I'll try to do better in the future," she promised sarcastically, "if you'll just go away for a little while and let me have some time to sort out this mess."
Paula nodded. "Will you promise to think about calling Stafford Morris to apologize? This is your career, Bailey. I know how important it is to you."
"True. But my career isn't dependent on Stafford Morris. I could open my own office." Though she hadn't considered it before, the idea didn't sound so bad. "And you could come to work for me."
"That's about as dumb as the time you decided to dye your hair black using fountain pen ink."
"Do I have any chance at all of getting rid of the two of you?" Bailey asked, ignoring Paula's rude memory. There were obvious drawbacks to lifelong friends.
Finally, though, they left, arms wrapped around each other, sappy expressions on their faces.
But she and Samantha barely had time to get situated on the sofa before the doorbell rang.
Bailey studied the solid rectangle separating her from the outside world. She couldn't think of anybody she wanted to see. Moving Samantha to her shoulder, smiling as the little dog curled against her neck, she elected to ignore the doorbell.
The second ring was long and insistent and seemed louder, though of course, that was impossible.
She wasn't surprised to hear Austin's voice. "Bailey, I know you're in there, and I'm not going away until you open the door."
CHAPTER 14
Austin knew he'd screwed up big time, but how could he apologize if Bailey wouldn't speak to him? He jabbed the doorbell again. When he'd passed Paula and Gordon in the parking lot, they'd assured him she was home and even wished him luck, but they hadn't warned him he'd have to break down the door.
"I have something very important to tell you," he shouted.
"Go away before I call the police!"
That was progress. She was speaking to him now. "Go ahead. I know a good lawyer." There was no sound of laughter from behind the closed door. "Bailey, I want to apologize. Please let me in."
"I can hear you just fine."
No doubt about it; she was definitely the most infuriating woman he'd ever met. If he could only figure out how to be happy without her in his life, he'd walk away. But he couldn't. "I was wrong," he said.
"Speak up. I can't hear you."
"I was wrong! I apologize. I should have never doubted you." If she ever forgave him, he'd strangle her for making him stand outside shouting for all the world to hear.
The door remained closed.
"I got a copy of your motion to be released as Candy Miller's attorney of record. Bailey, I'm so sorry. I thought—"
The door burst open, cutting him off in midsentence, and she stood there with Samantha in the crook of one arm. His relief at seeing her, even though she was glowering at him, told him how anxious he'd been.
"Where did you get a copy of that motion?" she demanded.
"In the mail, from your office, of course." He reached inside his coat pocket, withdrew the paper, and unfolded it.
"Let me see that." She snatched it from him with her free hand, studied it a minute, then turned back into her apartment, trying to push the door closed with one foot.
"Damn it!" Austin shoved his way inside. "It's bad enough you won't return my phone calls or answer the door, but stealing my document and closing the door in my face is going too far! I may be in love with you, but that doesn't mean I'm going to put up with your bad temper and bad manners!"
She stalked across the room, set Samantha on the floor, and picked up the telephone. He was relieved to see that the number she punched in had too many digits to be 911.
Bailey listened impatiently to the sound of Stafford Morris' telephone ringing. He'd better be home, because she needed an answer now!
The ringing stopped and she heard Stafford's voice. "I have here in my hand a copy of that blasted motion, signed by you as well as Margaret," she declared, dispensing with the formalities.
"Did you disturb me at home to tell me that? Obviously I already knew about it since I signed it."
"You said you weren't going to file it!" She waved the paper in the air as though he could see the gesture.
"No," he denied. "I just asked you why we should file it."
"And I told you why, as I recall." One foot began to tap the carpeted floor.
"You did. And a damn good job of it too. We may put you into more courtroom work."
"Why didn't you tell me you'd filed it? You deliberately misled me. "
"I tried to tell you, but you were too busy campaigning for the underdog and smashing my cigars."
Okay, she had to give him that point, but it only reminded her of the other reason she was angry at him. "So what are you going to do about the problems with the staff, now that we're on the subject?"
"If you stay around long enough to be an official partner and learn to talk below a roar, we might discuss what can be done."
"Well, yes, I can do that."
"Fine. Good-bye." He hung up.
Bailey cradled her own receiver. Stafford Morris still had a knack for taking the wind out of her sails. A little calmer, she turned back to face the storm in her living room.
Austin stood just inside the still open door, his expression intent and anxious. Waiting to see if she'd forgive him? Was it possible her forgiveness meant that much to him?
Then it hit her like a Kansas tornado. Somewhere amidst his ramblings, he'd said he loved her. For an instant her heart soared, the empty spot in her chest filling with a warm glow. Austin loved her. The halcyon days weren't over; they were just beginning. She took one eager step toward him, watched his lips relax into a smile and his arms come up to reach for her.
But reality intruded. He couldn't love her very much when he didn't trust her, had to have proof of her integrity. She halted in front of him. Wordlessly she proffered the wrinkled legal paper.
He returned it to his pocket then reached for her. "Why don't we go out and grab a bite to eat?" His arms pulling her close felt treacherously good.
She slipped from his grasp while she still could. "Why don't we not?" she snapped, moving into a chair so he couldn't sit next to her, couldn't touch her.
He perched on the arm of the chair. "Bailey, I've apologized. There's nothing else I can do. I admit I was wrong. The whole damn condo complex knows that by now."
"I accept your apology. But I see no point in further discussions. How can we be—" she hesitated "—friends if you don't trust me, if you have such a low opinion of me that you think—how did you phrase it? All that matters to me is winning. Right isn't even a part of my vocabulary."
Though she wasn't looking at him, Bailey felt Austin flinch. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I was angry about the merger deal. That's not an excuse, just an explanation." He took her face between his hands, turned her toward him, forced her to look into his eyes. "If I didn't love you so damned much, you couldn't make me so damned angry, your conduct wouldn't be so important to
me."
Bailey pushed his hands away and rose, moving about the room, avoiding him. How was she supposed to think coherently when he looked at her like that, his soul in his eyes?
"You certainly didn't waste any breath correcting my erroneous assumption," he called after her.
"I shouldn't have to," she retorted, looking around the room for Samantha. She could definitely use some of the little dog's unqualified love right now.
"No," he agreed, "you shouldn't have to. But it wouldn't have hurt if you'd tried. I'm only human. I have been known to be wrong upon occasion, especially when my emotions are involved. And they are very involved right now. Will you stop running around the room and talk to me?"
He was wearing her down, getting to her, making her believe what she wanted to believe, what she was afraid to believe, setting her up for another letdown. "It's been a long day. Can we discuss this another time?" She peeked into the empty kitchen. "Samantha?" The dog didn't like it when people raised their voices, and was probably hiding somewhere.
"Fine," Austin said. "When?"
She had never met a pushier human being. "I don't know. Next week." Raising the sofa skirt, she peered underneath.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Nothing. Looking for Samantha. She has to be in here. Both bedroom doors are closed." She checked behind the drapes.
"She wouldn't go outside, would she?" Austin asked, joining the search.
"Sure she would if she could, but—the door! We left the door open!"
"She's probably around here somewhere," Austin soothed, and joined in the frantic search.
''I'm going to look for her outside," Bailey called, charging out the door.
"I'm coming with you," Austin responded, right behind her.
"You go that way," Bailey directed, flying off the last step. "Check all the bushes. She loves to smell. She'll sniff at one spot for ten minutes."
"We'll find her," Austin promised. "Traveling at that rate, she can't be far away."
In vain Bailey checked the dog's favorite spots—the patio where a Chow lived and both dogs issued bold threats as long as the fence stood between them; the garbage dumpster she always tried to steer Bailey toward; the tree used by the big dogs where she pawed the ground in her macho act.
Then, up ahead, she spotted a bit of black fur under a bush. "Samantha!" she called, rushing toward the bush.
A black cat hissed at her and bolted away.
From behind the condo complex, she saw Austin approaching, empty-handed.
"She couldn't get past that." Bailey waved a hand at the stockade fence separating the condominium property from the housing subdivision behind. "She must be in front somewhere."
"She could be back at her own front door by now," Austin soothed.
"Maybe." Bailey broke into a run, and Austin followed suit.
Peering under cars, they searched the parking lot. "I see her!" Austin called, and Bailey followed the direction his finger pointed.
In the middle of the busy four-lane street that passed in front of the complex, the little dog was inspecting a turtle. "Samantha!" Bailey called, starting to run.
Samantha looked up for an instant then returned to her interesting discovery, directly in the path of a large moving van just cresting the hill.
Bailey charged toward her dog, trying to run faster, pushing harder than ever before in her life, but she felt as if she were running through water. From the corner of her eye, she saw Austin stretching his long legs almost parallel to the ground with each step, but only the truck appeared to be moving rapidly.
Still several feet away, Bailey panicked as she realized there was no way she could make it. At that same instant she heard the scream of brakes as Austin dove into the truck's path, and the truck, Austin, and Samantha seemed to merge into one.
Hot wind pushed against her as the truck shrieked on past. Her mind rejecting the horror, her momentum carried her on, up to Austin's body lying curled beside the road.
"No!" she shrieked, stumbling over him into the ditch beside a still, furry ball.
For an instant she lay there, trying to summon the effort to get up, to face the probability that Austin and Samantha were both dead. Then she raised her head and found herself staring into a pair of bright brown eyes. Samantha licked her nose.
A surge of relief that her dog was safe mingled with fear for Austin. She snatched up Samantha and rushed to him.
Pressing her ear to his chest, she listened but wasn't sure if she heard Austin's heartbeat or only her own as it pounded more furiously than after the longest run. He couldn't be dead. She refused to even consider that idea. She loved him, and she wouldn't let him be dead.
Plopping Samantha down, she admonished her, "Stay!"
Trying desperately to fight back the panic and remember her long-ago instructions in CPR, Bailey pressed her lips to his and breathed in. "Don't you dare die!" she ordered, pushing on his chest. To her intense relief, a groan escaped, but his eyes remained closed, seemed to scrunch even tighter, as a matter of fact. Another good sign, she decided.
Bailey shook his shoulders frantically. "Get up and fight, damn you!" She bent forward to breathe into his mouth again and noticed his face was wet. For a moment she thought he was bleeding then realized the moisture was clear and coming from her own eyes.
"Is he hurt?"
She looked up to see a tall, thin man approaching from the direction of the now stationary truck.
"Get an ambulance!" she ordered, and went back to her efforts.
"You jerk! I fall in love with you and then you go and die!" She pressed her lips to his again then straddled his supine body as the words of her CPR instructor came back through the panic. If you don't hear cracking noises when you push on the rib cage, you're not doing it hard enough. Better to have a broken rib than be dead. She pushed with all her might.
Austin cursed.
He was alive! She gave another push since the last one had been so successful.
He cursed again, roundly and loudly. Yes, he was definitely alive.
"Are you trying to kill me? Didn't they teach you the difference between CPR and torture?"
Laughing and crying, Bailey fell onto his chest, holding him close. "I thought you were dead!"
He wrapped his arms around her. "Had you worried, huh?"
She snuggled against his neck. "Yes, you had me worried."
"Did you mean what you said?"
"Huh?"
"About being in love with me."
Bailey raised her head and gaped at him. "You were unconscious! You couldn't have heard that!"
"Did you mean it?" He grinned.
"You weren't unconscious at all, were you?"
"Well, that truck did knock the wind out of me. Then you gave such nice mouth-to-mouth, I just didn't see any reason to get up until you started trying to break my ribs."
Bailey jumped to her feet. "You creep! You arrogant jerk! You had me all upset and worried, and you let me make a total fool out of myself saving your life when you didn't need saving!" She bent to scoop up Samantha, then glared back down at Austin. He was still smiling, totally unrepentant.
"Come back here and finish saving my life," he said. "And don't pull that anger business on me. I've got your number now, Bailey Russell. I've seen you when you're really mad." He raised his arms invitingly.
He was right. She wasn't really upset with him, but she wasn't going to give in so easily. "You don't look very dignified lying in that ditch. I will not get down there with you. Get up and come on back to my place. As I recall, we were discussing the error of your ways before this interruption."
He groaned in mock agony and started to rise, then groaned more loudly, more sincerely, and fell back.
"Forget it," Bailey said, trying to suppress a smile. "No more mouth-to-mouth in the ditch."
But when he looked up at her, his face had lost its smile, and beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead. "I think I twisted something i
n my right leg," he said, his matter-of-fact tone belying the pain in his eyes.
"Take my hand," Bailey offered, suddenly alarmed that he had a real problem.
He shook his head. ''I'm all right. Just give me a minute." Again he tried to rise, made a grotesque face, and sank back down.
Bailey stooped beside him and tentatively examined his leg, eliciting a loud curse from him.
"It's a damn good thing you decided to practice law and not medicine," he complained. "Are you still trying to kill me?"
"I think your ankle's sprained," Bailey told him.
"And just what do you base this diagnosis on, Dr. Russell?"
"The fact that I don't recall your ankle being the same size as your thigh prior to the present time," she snapped.
Austin moaned as he raised his head and twisted around in an attempt to view the limb under discussion.
"Don't worry," she reassured him. "The man in the truck went to call an ambulance."
''I'm not going to lie here in this ditch and wait for an ambulance." He tried again to get up, this time making it to a posture somewhere between sitting and stooping.
"I think you injured your brain as well as your leg. Get back down before you do more harm."
As he began to totter, Bailey rushed over and grabbed his arm. This time he didn't protest. Returning Samantha to the ground, she helped him stand, one arm draped around her neck, his injured leg dragging. Extending her free hand to Samantha, she caught the dog as she jumped, cradling her in the crook of her arm.
"Okay, Mr. Macho. What now?"
"Your place," he whispered, taking in deep gulps of air.
The truck driver rushed up. "Mister, you ran right out in front of me. It wasn't my fault."
Austin waved him away.
"I called an ambulance," the man said, hovering over them as they started across the street. "It's on the way."
"Uncall it," Austin ordered.
"Send it across the street," Bailey said, countermanding the order as they continued on their way. "Number 219. Or the stairs leading up to 219. You'll never make it up those steps."
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