Dare to Dream

by Modean Moon

  Dare to Dream

  By

  Modean Moon

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  D.J. felt Mick behind her, the warmth of his body burning through her clothes, felt his hands moving on her arms as he pulled her back against him. Part of her wanted to turn and throw her arms around him. The other part strained away from him.

  "I never did feed you tonight," he whispered against her ear.

  "Not food." She was incapable of anything but a whisper either. "But something I needed much more."

  She stared up at him, warring with the warmth she felt, which wanted to answer the desire she saw in his eyes, and a cold, hard core within her, which hissed insidiously that she had no right to feel this pleasure.

  First published in Great Britain in 1985

  by

  Harlequin, 15-16 Brook's Mews, London W1A 1DR

  © Modean Moon 1984

  ISBN 0 373 16077 1

  Chapter One

  D.J. awoke on the carpet at the foot of her bed, the screams from her nightmare echoing through the silent room, her hands outstretched to the door that was no longer there.

  "No," she whimpered. "Not again. Please, not again."

  Instinctively she began the exercises with her hands that she had done for so many months. Clench, grip, extend. Clench, grip, extend. She repeated the exercises, no longer needing the rubber balls she had once squeezed as she tried to hold on to her sanity, until she felt her trembling ease, and she slumped against the bed, exhausted and drenched.

  She looked at her hands. In the morning light, filtering through drawn drapes, they looked older than her twenty-eight years warranted. It was strange, she thought gratefully, how few persons ever noticed that the aging was really scarring.

  She leaned her head against the bed with a moan. She might as well think about it. It wasn't going to leave her alone until she did. Five years ago today—a dozen lifetimes and yet only yesterday; added day by day on the calendar, it had been five years since her life was torn apart.

  She pulled herself to her feet and paced into the bathroom where she wrestled out of her sodden nightgown, turned the shower on full force, and let the water beat against her.

  She was lucky, they'd told her when she left the hospital. There would be minor scarring—only on the hands, and a little along the hairline, easily concealable. Her hair was already growing back when she left. Darker, now an auburn, the red only glinted when struck by sunlight. Lucky. Lucky. When all she'd lost—when all she'd lost—was everything. Nothing tangible remained as evidence of the love she and Rob had shared, not even her wedding ring, lost in the confusion of the emergency room.

  "Is that enough?" she whispered aloud as she toweled her hair and reached for the dryer. "Or do I have to keep going over it and picking at it?"

  "It's enough," she said in a suddenly calm voice.

  She made quick work of her makeup, a little cover-up feathered into her hairline and onto the backs of her hands, a touch of mascara and lip gloss. She parted her hair in the middle, brought wings down on each side of her face, and caught the length of it back in a smooth knot on her nape. The style was severe, but it helped to counteract the impression of youthful helplessness inspired by large blue eyes and generous, softly curved lips, by providing a somber frame for her heart-shaped face, and it camouflaged the almost invisible scars.

  Soon she was inspecting her image in the full-length mirror on her closet door. "Welcome back to the real world, D.J.," she said wryly.

  She saluted the image reflected back at her, that of a composed, professional-looking woman in a teal-blue silk blouse, beige linen skirt and jacket, and trim high-heeled pumps that added sometimes needed stature to her petitely scaled five feet four inches.

  "You'll do fine," she said with determination.

  She picked up her purse, looked regretfully at the empty coffeepot sitting on the kitchen counter, shrugged, and started out the door. D.J. knelt down for the newspaper and tossed it inside the apartment. No time for that, either, this morning. She felt something soft and furry brushing against her legs.

  "Are you back?" she asked with exasperation of a small bundle of black-and-white fluff. "I told you to go away, kitten," she said, softening her voice. "Now scat! There's nothing here for you."

  She thought of the sterile apartment she had just left. There's nothing here for me either flitted through her mind. Heavy traffic in south Tulsa required that she concentrate on her driving, though, and by the time she reached the interstate highway that looped the city, she had banished her traitorous thoughts.

  On a whim she turned onto the interstate and whipped over to Riverside Drive. It would take longer to get to her parking garage once she reached downtown, but even in traffic there was a calming quality about driving along the river, seeing the bikers and joggers on the paths in river parks, and winding through an older part of town that exuded an aura of an easier, less harried time.

  When she reached the beautifully maintained building that housed the law offices where she worked, she found Marcie already in her alcove, her pert, curly head bent over the typewriter, fingers flying over the keys. Marcie looked up when D.J. walked into the alcove.

  "You've got a nine o'clock appointment," she said, flashing an impish grin.

  D.J. dropped her purse on Marcie's desk and shrugged out of her jacket. "Who set that one up?"

  "None other than Mr. Merriweather himself."

  "Who, and why?" D.J. asked, reaching for the thermal server.

  "Sorry, D.J. I haven't had a chance to go for the coffee yet. The why is easy. Nick Sanders has apparently thrown a gasket over your last title opinion."

  "I don't blame him," D.J. said dryly.

  "Anyway, he called demanding to see Henry Slay-ton, who of course is still on vacation."

  "Of course."

  "So he went straight to the top, and Mr. Merriweather has assured him that you will explain everything to his complete satisfaction."

  D.J.'s delighted laugh broke from her. "How do you manage to learn all these tidbits of information? Never mind," she said as Marcie opened her mouth to answer. "I don't want to know. Just tell me who he's sending."

  "The great man," Marcie pronounced exaggeratedly, "is coming himself."

  "That's terrific, Marcie. All I need is an irate client the first thing this morning. Tell me, office ears, is there anything else I need to know about him?"

  "Only that he's thirty-seven, he's been divorced for years, and the women in word processing say that he is one gorgeous hunk."

  D.J. could only shake her head and smile at the younger woman. "Did they also tell you when the Miller contract would be ready?"

  "It's promised by eight forty-five."

  "Good." She draped her jacket across Marcie's chair and picked up the thermal server. "If you'll get that and the Sanders file, I'll take care of the important things."

  It might be possible, D.J. mused as she hurried toward her office with the coffee tray, to keep herself busy enough that she wouldn't have time to think today.

  She rounded the corner into her hallway, and all musing screamed to a halt. For once the women in word processing had not been extravagant in their praise. It had to be Nick Sanders standing in the hall between her office and Marcie's alcove—at least six feet three of dark, rugged impatience.

  Something—appraisal perhaps—flickered in his green eyes as she slid the tray onto th
e alcove's passthrough counter and reached across to answer Marcie's persistently buzzing intercom.

  "Marcie's desk," she answered, only to have the receptionist's agitated voice confirm her suspicions.

  "Nick Sanders is on his way back there. He refused to wait any longer."

  "That's all right, Jeanne. He's here now."

  No, he was not the type to wait patiently, D.J. thought as she glanced at the man looming above her. Her job of explaining the problems in his latest contract and soothing his ruffled temper wasn't going to be made any easier by keeping him waiting.

  "Won't you go on in, Mr. Sanders, and have a chair?" She nodded toward her office door as she picked up the coffee tray. "It will be a few minutes before your files are brought up."

  She followed him into the office and slid the tray onto the visitor's side of her desk.

  "For me?" he asked, pulling himself out of his thoughts for only a moment. "Thanks." He poured himself a cup of coffee, turned from her, and walked to the glass wall overlooking the city.

  D.J.'s eyebrow shot up at the obvious dismissal, but she bit back an angry retort. It wouldn't do her any good to snap at him. She started out to Marcie's alcove to gather her things but paused at the door and looked back at her client. Her client? She shook her head. Not hers, thank God. After four and a half years with Merriweather, Pratt, Widlyme and Tanner, she was intimately familiar with the legal aspects of his business transactions, but this was the first time she had even seen the man, let alone been entrusted with dealing with him.

  She studied him quietly from across the room. Rich, dark hair, almost black, worn carelessly long, hinted at waves as it fell to his collar. He wore work clothes—khaki slacks that hugged long powerful legs and a short-sleeved shirt that exposed muscular arms. He was bronzed by years in the weather, honed to a lean perfection by physical labor, and only caribou boots, a slim gold watch, and an unmistakable air about the way he held himself gave any indication of his success.

  Outlined against the glass wall of her sixteenth-floor office, suspended against the skyline of Tulsa—skyscrapers rising among the terra-cotta-trimmed art deco buildings of the twenties and the Gothic Renaissance buildings of the first rush of oil money—he seemed a part of the new steel and glass. And well he should, she realized. He was building it.

  D.J. slid into the second guest chair. He turned at the slight noise, a question in his eyes, and reached for the server to pour himself more coffee.

  "I haven't had my coffee yet," she said softly. "Will you pour a cup for me, too?"

  A hint of a smile played about his lips as he did so and handed it to her. "Marcie, is it?" he asked as his gaze, no longer hooded and introspective, inspected her, missing no detail as it moved up her long, hose-clad legs, the linen skirt outlining trim hips and waist as she lounged in the chair, the silk shirt that draped softly over small breasts, to rest finally on her face.

  "No, I'm not Marcie," she said. She never enjoyed the inspections, but she had realized that there was nothing she could do to stop them. Only after they had been completed could she begin to counteract that first sensual appraisal by her competence and ability.

  "You're filling in for her, then?" he asked. Speculation softened the impatience in his eyes, and she saw green lights sparking to life in their depths. He obviously liked what he saw, D.J. realized with a start. It was time to get down to business.

  "No. Mr. Sanders, I—" she began, but a soft tap at the doorway interrupted her.

  Marcie, no longer flip and joking, came quietly into the office. "These are the files you requested, Miss Simms. Do you need anything else at this time?" she asked softly.

  D.J. took the files from her. "No, Marcie. That will be all for now."

  The woman nodded and left the room as quietly as she had entered, closing the door gently behind her.

  "Miss Simms?" Nick Sanders asked incredulously. "D. J. Simms?"

  "Yes," she said coolly as she rose and walked behind the desk to her chair.

  "You're a woman," he said flatly.

  "You've been aware of that for several minutes, Mr. Sanders."

  "Yes, I have been aware of that," he admitted, his voice edged with repressed anger. "But I was not aware that you were the person responsible for this title opinion." He pulled the folded papers from his pocket and flung them on the desk.

  "I understand that you've taken exception to my opinion," she said, her voice devoid of emotion, waiting for the right opportunity to begin to appease him and finally to convince him that his interests were being protected.

  "You're damned right I've taken exception to it. I've done the impossible. I've contracted for a rig to start drilling this well six weeks from now. I have an ironclad contract with Sam Wilson to buy one hundred percent of the leasehold in a six-hundred-and-forty-acre drilling unit directly offsetting the biggest gas well in western Oklahoma, and you're telling me that not only do I not have one hundred percent of the working interest in the leases, I have less than half."

  When he paused for breath, D.J. interjected softly, "I believe one of the reasons you retain this firm is to advise you of possible legal complications, Mr. Sanders. That's what I've done."

  "I want to talk to Slayton."

  D.J. sighed and then swiveled her chair around to the credenza behind her. Opening a door, she reached in and drew forth a stack of abstracts, compilations of every document that had been placed of record in the County Clerk's office concerning the land his leases encompassed.

  "He won't be back until a week from Monday," she said as she placed the abstracts on the desk and slid them toward him, "and I understand that time is important. Even by messenger it would take several days to have these delivered to him in the British Virgin Islands and returned." She looked at him steadily. "For you, he probably would interrupt his vacation to read the abstracts, but when he did, he would tell you the same thing I have already told you. It would be to your advantage, Mr. Sanders, if we devoted that time to attempting to solve the problems that exist rather than arguing about whether those problems really exist."

  "It would be to my advantage," he said with a ring of steel in his voice, "to have the opinion of someone other than a half-grown girl just out of law school. There's too much riding on this for me to have to depend on your immaturity and inexperience."

  D.J. forced herself to show no reaction to his outburst. Instead she leaned back in her chair and swiveled it slightly so that she could look out the glass wall toward the trio of steel and glass towers that rose from behind the Williams Center, overshadowing it, tying North Tulsa with the heart of downtown that lay south of the railroad.

  "You're familiar with the Brady Center," she said, still looking at the buildings.

  "Of course I am," he snapped.

  Of course. She had expected his terse answer. She knew it had been his foresight that had enabled him to buy acres of slum property and develop the project, a skillful blending of inner city apartments, luxury offices, restaurants, and specialty shops.

  "When I first started with Merriweather-Pratt," she said emotionlessly, "those buildings were still on paper."

  "You've been here that long?" he asked.

  She nodded, still looking at the buildings, remembering her first assignment with the Tulsa firm. "It was I who discovered that two heirs to one of the city lots in the center of your construction site had been omitted from an early quiet title suit. It was I who located those heirs. And it was I who negotiated the purchase of their interests in the lot so that excavation could begin. So," she said with a grim smile, "appearance to the contrary, I am not without experience."

  He appraised her again, but not sensually this time. This time she recognized a no-nonsense, clear-eyed, shrewd assessment of her business sense.

  "You're the one who pulled that deal through?" he asked.

  She nodded and saw the reluctant admiration in his eyes.

  "You did a good job," he said.

  "I know."


  When a smile broke across his face, softening its harsh lines, she opened the folder in front of her. "Now let me explain where we stand and what your options are."

  Quickly she outlined her basic objections to the leases in question and went over the clauses in the escrow contract that protected him. Now that he was over his initial anger, he easily grasped the problems she showed him, and his questions concerning them were so perceptive they surprised her, until she remembered that he was no stranger to title law or to oil and gas law.

  When they covered the last point, he poured the remainder of the coffee into their cups, lit a cigarette, and leaned back in his chair.

  "You do your homework, lady."

  "It's my job, Mr. Sanders."

  "Sam Wilson insists that the leases are good and that it's your title opinion that's faulty."

  "Sam Wilson has a lot to gain if he can convince you of that."

  "He won't, but he's going to give it one more try. This time I'll be a little better prepared to meet his arguments." He stared at her over the rim of his coffee cup. "I'd feel better about it, though, if you were present during the discussion."

  D.J. studied the folder in her hand. As casual as it might sound, she recognized that this was high praise indeed from a man as independent and self-assured as Nick Sanders.

  "I'd be happy to meet with you," she said. "If you'll let me know when you set up the appointment, I'll schedule my time so that I can be there."

  "Good," he said, stubbing out his cigarette and rising from the chair. "I'll pick you up at six-thirty tonight. What's your address?"

  D.J. glanced up at him in stunned silence before finding her voice. "What?"

  "I'm meeting him for dinner tonight at seven. I'll pick you up at six-thirty. What's your address?"

  "But I meant—I mean—"

  He looked steadily down at her while she stammered, and then he crossed to the credenza behind her desk. He picked up the telephone book and scanned the pages, noting her address. "Which apartment?"