by Modean Moon
"Can he do that?"
"Not ethically," Dani said grimly. "And if Nick should decide to take any of them, Wilson would never be able to sell anything to Mid-South again."
"But if Mid-South has the top leases that take effect so soon, why would they want to buy these?"
"Because of the royalty payments," Dani told her. "The old leases call for an eighth of the proceeds to be paid to the mineral owner, but the new ones specify three-sixteenths. That's half again as much and a bunch of money in a big well." She crumpled the paper in her hand. "When are we supposed to close the escrow?"
"Tuesday," Marcie told her. "At ten."
"Nick ought to know about this," Dani said and then remembered that she wouldn't be the one to tell him. She handed the paper back to Marcie and slumped onto the chair. "Would you call Henry Slayton first thing in the morning? Tell him about this and ask him to be sure Nick knows about it before they meet Tuesday."
"But aren't you going to the bank with him?"
"No," Dani said. "No. He's not my client, and now that Henry has returned from his vacation I'm going to give the files back to him."
It sounded so simple when she said it that way. If only all she had to do to get him out of the rest of her life was to hand a folder over to someone else.
"D.J.?" Marcie's hand on hers dragged her back from her thoughts. "I asked if you were ready for breakfast."
Dani forced herself to concentrate on something as inconsequential as food. "Only if I get to help fix it."
"Okay," Marcie agreed. "You cook the sausage while I mix up the waffles. And fry a little extra. Max and Killer love it."
Max and Killer loved the waffles too, Dani discovered when they took their leftovers out to the dogs. Killer was at a distinct disadvantage because of his size, but he made up for the difference by jumping frantically for the tidbits Marcie held out to him. Max woofed good-naturedly, but it was obvious he wasn't going to let the little dog get more than his share.
"Here," Marcie said, laughing as she handed a waffle to Dani. "You feed Max while I take care of this little monster."
Marcie bent down to pamper the tiny dog while Dani called to Max and held out the waffle, but Max wasn't having anything to do with her. Obviously Killer was getting something special and he wanted a part of it. It happened so fast, Dani didn't realize what was happening until it was over. There was a sharp yap, a short growl, and then Marcie was sprawled on the ground between the two dogs.
"Marcie!" Dani hurried to her side. "Are you hurt?"
"I don't think so," Marcie said shakily. She levered herself up on her elbows and looked at the dogs, now happily roughhousing across the yard. "But I'd better figure out a safer way to feed them. That could be dangerous later on."
"What do you mean later on?" Dani asked. "Here," she reached to help Marcie to her feet, "let me get you into the house. You're going to call your doctor."
"Call my doctor?" Marcie shook her head. "Over a little tumble like that? I've fallen a lot harder and a lot farther and not called a doctor."
"Not while you were pregnant," Dani reminded her.
She settled Marcie on the couch, brought her the telephone, and stood over her until she made the call and then insisted that she lie still until the doctor returned the call.
"Well?" Dani asked when Marcie hung up the telephone. "What did he say?"
"He said to take it easy today," Marcie told her, grinning, "and to come into the office at eleven tomorrow, unless I feel drastically worse before then. And," she said pointedly, "he said not to worry."
"Right," Dani said. She marched into the bedroom and returned with two pillows and an afghan.
"What are these for?" Marcie asked. "He said take it easy, not go to bed."
"I don't know of any law that says you can't be comfortable while you take it easy," Dani told her, hiding her anxiety. She tossed the pillows to Marcie. "Now, do you want a magazine, a book, your needlework, or the television?"
"I want to get up and do the breakfast dishes," Marcie said.
"That's out of the question. I'm doing the dishes. You're staying put."
Marcie's obstinacy threatened to take over, but Dani stared it down. "Needlework," Marcie relented.
Dani handed her the needlework and went into the kitchen, around the corner from, and out of sight of the couch. She wiped viciously at the counter with the sponge. Marcie had to know how precious the life she carried was, but did she know how fragile? The doctor was right—she shouldn't worry, but would she take it easy if she didn't have someone to insist upon it, and could she take it easy if she had to drive that tiny car into Tulsa and back taking Dani home? Dani knew the answers to those questions. No and no.
She caught herself smiling at the memory of Nick answering Tim with those same words. She threw the sponge into the sink and tackled the stack of dishes. Could she let herself remember the good times? Maybe later, she decided, when the good times weren't so interwoven with the others. For now—for now she would make sure that Marcie stayed down for the day. One more day and night away from the apartment was one more day and night she didn't have to spend alone in it.
When she saw Marcie settled into bed that evening and tucked herself between the sheets in the cheerful guest room, impossibly drowsy, she knew she had done the right thing. The ring of the telephone startled her, but she smiled when it rang only once and then was silent. The soft, muffled voice from the other end of the hall didn't carry words, but Dani didn't need to hear the words. Marcie was loved. That much was evident. For one moment she gave in to the wish that the call had been for her, and then she pounded her pillow, turned over on her side, and closed her eyes.
Nick's face floated behind her closed lids, haunted, stricken, hurt. She opened her eyes wide, holding them open against the new image. Ft was impossible to close her eyes and not see him.
"Oh, Nick," she moaned into the softness of her pillow.
Chapter Eleven
"What do you mean, not go to work this morning?" Marcie asked indignantly. "I have to take you home, and I have to be downtown at eleven anyway. I feel fine, D.J."
Dani conceded, at least partly. "But you must promise that you'll let me know if you feel the least bit uncomfortable."
"It's a deal," Marcie said. "Now let's go or we'll get caught in traffic you won't believe."
Dani glanced at her watch when Marcie let her out of the car. She hurried along the sidewalk, fumbling for her apartment key. Marcie might make it to the office on time, but she was going to be late.
The kitten waited at her door, irate and persistent in his attempts to attract her attention.
"Oh, good grief," she said as he wrapped himself around first one ankle and then the other, and then she noticed that both his food dish and his water dish were empty.
"Come on," she said, opening the door and following him into the apartment. Stale, she thought when she closed the door, but the air in the apartment wasn't really stale. Shut up all weekend, the odors she noticed earlier had intensified. She wouldn't have been surprised had Nick walked around the corner from the bedroom, so poignant were the reminders of him surrounding her. She leaned weakly against the door.
"I am definitely going to have to air this place out," she said.
The kitten mewed his agreement from the breakfast bar but having done so renewed his complaints. She looked at him, sighed, and pushed herself away from the door. "All right."
She picked up the cat to put him outside and started to reach for the sack of cat food. "You're such a little fellow," she murmured, noticing how small he still was. She ruffled the fur under his chin and he purred appreciatively, settling himself in the crook of her arm. "Do you ever get lonely or afraid in that big world outside?" He licked at her arm, his tongue rough through the sleeve of her blouse.
"What am I doing talking to a cat?" She grabbed the sack of food and carried cat and food both to the front door. "I told you not to stick around here," she said. "I told you there wasn't anything h
ere for you. Why didn't you listen to me?"
Marcie greeted her at the office with a thermal server of coffee and a handful of messages, most of them left over from Friday, but a few that had come in that morning. Dani carried them to her desk before she looked at them. Nothing important, she told herself, and then realized what she was looking for. Nothing from Nick. She hugged herself, grasping her upper arms, and rocked back in her chair. Hadn't she made it clear to him that she didn't want to hear from him? Abundantly, bitingly, cruelly clear? Then why was she sitting here mourning the fact that he believed her? You're a fool, Dani Simms, she told herself, a fool for wanting what you're not meant to have.
She pulled the telephone to her, sorted through the messages for the one she would answer first, and snatched up the receiver, but she hesitated a moment as, eyes closed, she held the receiver to her cheek. Then, with a determination she had to fight to maintain, she punched out the numbers for her first call. She had barely finished that conversation when Marcie entered with a stack of mail.
"It's Monday with a vengeance," Marcie said, grinning, handing her the mail and a sheaf of new telephone messages. "There's more mail, but I'm going to have to pull the files, and, if you don't mind, I'd rather do that after I get back from the doctor's office." She laughed. "The phone hasn't stopped ringing long enough for me to do it this morning."
"Did you call Chet and ask for someone to fill in for a while?" Dani asked.
"I tried, but no one answered his phone."
"That's strange." Dani pushed the mail to one side. "You hold down the fort while I see what I can find out."
Chefs outer office was empty. Although a large ring of keys rested on Robyn's desk, her typewriter was still covered, as was her calculator. Dani heard the soft murmur of voices through the slightly open door to the inner office. The door opened farther when Dani tapped on it.
Chet was seated at his desk, Robyn in the chair across from him, crying quietly into a large white handkerchief. The young woman looked up, a silent "Oh!" forming on her lips, and Dani stepped back in embarrassment.
"I'm sorry, Chet. Marcie tried to call. Would you mind getting in touch with me in the next few minutes?"
"No, D.J. Wait a minute."
"Mr. Davis, please!" Robyn rose hastily from her chair.
"All right," Chet said wearily. "Why don't you go to the lounge for a few minutes. But don't leave. I want to talk with you again."
Robyn scooted from the room, leaving Dani standing awkwardly in the doorway waiting for Chet to speak.
Chet picked up the stub of his cigar from the ashtray, taking special care as he relighted it. "Come on in and close the door."
"No, really, Chet. All I needed was a temporary fill-in for Marcie's desk. I can tell this is a bad time. We'll get by without one."
"Please, D.J.," he said, sighing. "I think I need someone else's opinion. I'm having trouble being objective about this."
Dani glanced at the outer office as she closed the door. "It has to be something more serious than a fight with her boyfriend, then?"
"Yes."
She took the chair Robyn had just vacated.
"Robyn quit her job this morning."
Dani looked around his spotless office. "Why?" she asked. "She's been so good at it, and she seemed to enjoy it."
"The boyfriend," he said slowly, "the one I was afraid was going to marry her and carry her off?"
"Yes?"
"She said she found out this weekend that he was only using her to try to get information."
"Wonderful fellow," Dani said, feeling disgust tightening her stomach as she sank back into the chair. "Is she sure?"
"As sure as she can be. She said at first she thought he was only sharing her enthusiasm for her job, but that he had begun to ask some pointed questions, and finally he demanded that she go into a specific file."
"Did she?"
"No. And apparently they had quite an argument because she didn't."
Dani sighed and shook her head. "I can't imagine anyone using a woman like that. What could he have hoped to learn?"
"She wouldn't tell me."
"Are you trying to decide whether you should talk her out of quitting?"
"D.J., look around you. This is the first time this office has ever been organized. Things are finally where they're supposed to be. I can find them when I need them. And she's a delight to have around." He ground his cigar out in the ashtray. "Damn it, I don't want to let her go!"
Dani glanced toward the credenza in front of his window. One well-tended dracaena occupied the space formerly given to stacks of files.
"Was there a breach of any client's confidence?" she asked. "Or was the firm jeopardized in any way?"
"She says she doesn't think so. She believes that whatever information she may have let slip, if any, was harmless."
"Is he going to be able to pressure her into doing what he wants at some later date?" Dani asked.
"No." Chet was emphatic. "She told me that she would never see him again, and I believe her."
"Then why are you having trouble deciding? She's going to punish herself for her error in judgment. You don't have to help her by accepting her resignation. As far as I can see, that's the only mistake she's made since she's been here, and she's not about to repeat it."
Chet nodded in agreement, and Dani realized he had only wanted his opinion reinforced. Well, why not? she wondered. No one but Robyn had been hurt.
"Now," Dani said, "about the reason I came down here."
"A temporary." Chet pulled a folder from his top drawer. "How long do you need her?"
"I'm not sure, but I hope for only a couple of hours."
It was long after lunch when Dani heard Marcie's voice in the hall and called her into her office.
"Well? What did the doctor say?"
Marcie grinned at her. "I'm fine, D.J., and the baby's fine. The reason it took so long is that he had to work me in. I told you there wasn't any reason to worry."
Dani hugged the woman. Maybe she hadn't meant to let herself care for her, but she did, and maybe she hadn't meant to let herself worry about anyone again, but she had. She pulled away.
"And is that all he said?" she asked sternly.
"No." Marcie laughed. "He did say I was going to have to find a better way to feed the dogs."
The time she had spent waiting for Marcie to return had dragged by, and now the afternoon seemed to go on interminably. The relief secretary had been assigned to her for the balance of the day, and Marcie took full advantage of the extra help to tackle the work that never seemed to be caught up. Dani knew that she should have been able to do the same.
And why couldn't she? It wasn't because of the dull headache throbbing in time with the clock, although she would have liked to blame it on that.
Admit it, Dani, she told herself in disgust. Admit that you wish you hadn't told Marcie to return Nick's escrow file to Henry Slay ton. Admit that you want to be the one to go with Nick tomorrow morning. Admit that you'd snatch at any excuse to see him one more time. Admit it and then forget it and get back to work.
So she admitted it, hating herself for the weakness that made it true, but she couldn't forget it, and she couldn't get back to work.
Where was the excitement, the thrill of challenge that she used to feel? She looked around her at the neat stacks of work awaiting her. Today she couldn't see them as symbols of her growing professional reputation, or of her clients' confidence in her ability. Today they were just stacks of dry words and dusty pages stretching endlessly before her, filling her days, but not with joy, not with laughter.
She felt someone watching her, looked up from the contract that for at least half an hour she had been trying to read, and saw Frank Merriweather standing in her doorway. She blinked her surprise and rose hastily from the chair.
"Mr. Merriweather?" she stammered. "If I'd known you wanted to talk with me, I would have come to your office."
He closed the door and
crossed the short distance to her desk. "Not if you'd known what I wanted to talk about," he said as he dropped a familiar, fat folder on the smooth surface in front of her.
She stared blindly at the folder, tracing one finger along the edge of the tab, as she felt her throat tightening. "This isn't necessary," she said slowly.
"It shouldn't be," Frank Merriweather insisted. "Nick isn't proud of what happened, but he would tell you about it if you'd give him an opening."
You want to know about Marilyn ? Let me tell you about her. Dani covered her eyes with one hand. It was impossible. If she blocked out Merriweather's piercing gray gaze, she saw Nick's emotionless green one. "I know," she said.
"D.J.," the man's voice softened. "What are you afraid of? Nick is in love with you."
Because I loved you, Dani.
"No," she said solemnly, raising her head and looking directly into those gray eyes. "No, he isn't. He thought he was, but he didn't know me." Her voice failed her. "He can't love someone he doesn't know."
"And can you, D.J.?" Merriweather asked relentlessly.
"What?"
"Can you love someone you don't know?"
"That isn't fair," she whispered.
"Perhaps not," he said. "But perhaps nothing I've done in connection with you has been fair."
"You gave me back my life."
"Did I?" He shook his head. "I'm not sure now. When John Matthews called me about you, he was certain that time, and moving away from Oklahoma City and the memories it held for you, and starting over in a new, challenging job were all you needed to snap you back to your old self. I had placed so much emphasis or, work in my life, it seemed reasonable to me. Besides, John swore you were the best intern his firm had ever had, your law school transcript was outstanding, and you'd done extremely well on the bar exam. I didn't see how anyone could be hurt by doing what John asked and giving you a job with this firm."
"If I've…" Dani heard only the resignation in his voice. She thought she had proved herself, but apparently she was wrong about that too. "If I've jeopardized the firm by my—involvement—with Nick, of course I'll leave."