Rivals

by Janet Dailey

  “For what?” She held her wineglass, as if unprepared to sip from it until she knew the answer.

  “For coming tonight.”

  “Chance Stuart—humble?” she mocked. “I find that extremely difficult to believe.”

  He took a drink of his scotch, the burn of it in his throat matching his own emotional rawness. But he’d learned long ago not to let such feelings show. “I received my notice that you’re seeking an annulment.”

  Now she took a sip of her wine. “I suppose you intend to fight it.”

  “If I thought it would do any good, I would.” By his definition, stalling was not the same as fighting.

  The cool curve of her lips challenged. “Don’t you mean—if you thought it would get you Morgan’s Walk, you would?”

  “Flame, I didn’t ask you here tonight to talk about Morgan’s Walk.”

  “Really?” Skepticism riddled her voice.

  “I want to talk about us.”

  “There is no ‘us,’ if you’re referring to you and me.” She paused, a glint of derisive amusement appearing briefly in her eyes. “Of course, by ‘us’ you could also be referring to me and Morgan’s Walk.”

  “Once before I told you I made a mistake in not telling you Hattie Morgan was my aunt—and that Morgan’s Walk would have been left to me if she hadn’t learned about you. And I made a mistake in not telling you I wanted that land. But that wasn’t my biggest mistake,” he said, carefully choosing his words. “My biggest one was wanting both. I was greedy, Flame. When I said I loved you, that wasn’t a lie. If there wasn’t a Morgan’s Walk, I’d still want you for my wife.”

  Something quick and surprised momentarily flickered in her expression, then a wary doubt set in as she eyed him steadily, searching his face. Within seconds, her glance fell to the wineglass, a cynicism edging the corners of her mouth.

  “That’s a safe thing to say, isn’t it, Chance? It almost sounds convincing. There’s just one problem—there is a Morgan’s Walk. There always will be. So that situation will never arise.” She lifted her glass, her eyes mocking him. “Aren’t you lucky?”

  “How can I be when I lost you both?” he reasoned smoothly.

  “Perhaps you’re right,” she conceded, her glance running over him again. “But it isn’t over, is it? You can still contest Hattie’s will. Who knows? Maybe you’ll even win.”

  He sat before her, dark and elegant in his tailored navy pinstriped suit and pale silk tie, the soft candlelight throwing the planes and hollows of his sculptured face into sharp relief. Tonight, perhaps more than any other night, he had the look of a gambler, a man who dared to do what others only dreamed. He was a man who lived on the edge of danger and enjoyed the view. But she wasn’t swayed by that as she’d been before, reminding herself that gamblers were notorious for cheating and conning people.

  “I don’t plan to contest the will, Flame. It wouldn’t accomplish anything for either of us, except to tie up the title in the courts for years and cost a fortune in attorney fees.”

  She relaxed a little, aware that a court fight was a battle she couldn’t afford to wage. That was the advantage Chance had over her; he could outspend her ten thousand to one and not miss a penny of it. At the same time, she didn’t dare trust that he truly meant what he said.

  “Plans can always change, though, can’t they?” she challenged, aware that her only hope was to be able to stall Chance long enough to give Ben Canon time to get the estate settled, a process the Oklahoma lawyer was doing his best to expedite.

  “It’s possible,” he agreed, “but highly unlikely.”

  “I notice you didn’t rule out the possibility,” she said.

  “I don’t rule anything out. And I’d like to persuade you to do the same.”

  “Me?” She frowned, unsure what he meant by that.

  He looked at her, something strong and vivid—and unsettling—in his gaze. “Hasn’t it occurred to you that I might be telling you the truth, that I might honestly be in love with you, and I would have wanted you for my wife whether you’d been Hattie’s heir or not?” As she started to reply, he cut her off. “I don’t want you to answer that, only to consider it as a possibility. Nothing more. Otherwise we’ll end up arguing all night. Why don’t we call a truce? I won’t try to convince you to change your mind about me if you won’t bring up Morgan’s Walk and the way I tried to deceive you over it. Agreed?”

  Flame hesitated, not entirely sure that was wise. Yet to refuse might indicate a vulnerability on her part. “Why not?” she said. “At least it will guarantee a quiet dinner.”

  Chance smiled at that. “I think we’ll be able to find something to talk about.” He picked up the menu. “Speaking of dinner, why don’t we decide what to order. I’m told the rack of lamb here is excellent.”

  Dinner proved to be more of an ordeal than Flame had expected. She’d forgotten how incredibly persuasive Chance could be when he set out to charm. More than once she’d caught herself responding to that seductive smile of his or that lazy glint in his eyes. Habit, that’s all it was—an ingrained reaction to the same stimuli. But there was danger in that, even though such inadvertent responses also served her purpose by letting him think that, with persistence, he might succeed in winning her back.

  When Chance suggested an after-dinner drink, Flame refused. Once she would have lingered, wanting to prolong their time together, but not anymore. Instead, she made her excuses to leave, explaining that she had an early day tomorrow and some work to finish tonight in preparation for it. She doubted that he believed her. Not that it mattered. If he chose to think she was running from him, that was all the better.

  But Chance didn’t make it easy for her to escape, insisting that he see her safely into a cab. She was obliged to wait while he summoned the waiter and signed the check. As she crossed the lobby with his hand resting lightly on her lower back, Flame was reminded of the time she’d gone up those elevators with him to his suite. She felt sick and angry all over again when she remembered the way she’d been taken in by all his smooth lies. Never again.

  Outside in the night-cool, the doorman whistled for a taxi. But it was Chance who stepped forward to open the door for her when it drove up.

  “Thank you for dinner,” she said and started to climb in.

  The touch of his hand on her arm checked that movement. “I want to see you again, Flame.” It wasn’t a request or a plea, merely a statement of his desires.

  She looked at him, conscious of the quiet intensity of his gaze that had once made her believe he cared deeply about her. “I don’t know.”

  “I’m flying to Tahoe in the morning—to check on my project there,” he said. “Will you come with me?”

  “In your jet? So you can spirit me off to some faraway place for a wildly romantic weekend? No thank you,” she declared with a firm shake of her head. “I’ve been through that before.”

  “Then join me there,” he persisted.

  She hesitated, then drew away from him and slid into the cab. Inside, she glanced back at him. “I’ll think about it.”

  He didn’t like her answer, but, as she expected, he didn’t press her for a more definite one.

  The mirror-smooth lake reflected the sapphirre blue of the sky and the snowcapped peaks of the Sierras. But the postcard-perfect setting was marred by the belching roar of machinery and the rattling whir of riveters’ guns as the construction crew raced to get the steel superstructure up and closed in before the first heavy snows of winter fell.

  In a hard hat, Chance walked among the customary construction rubble on the high-rise hotel site, flanked by the structural engineer and the architect, and trailed by his on-site construction manager, the steel contractor, and his foreman. He stopped to watch a crane swing a steel beam into place, then questioned the architect about the number of cars that could be accommodated beneath the hotel’s porte cochere, shouting to make himself heard above the racket.

  A steelworker hot-footed it acros
s the site, waving an arm to get their attention. Spotting him, Chance paused and waited for the man to reach them.

  The steel contractor stepped forward to intercept him. “What’s the problem?”

  He looked at Chance and motioned over his shoulder in the direction of the office trailer. “There’s a lady here wantin’ to see Mr. Stuart,” he yelled his answer.

  Chance lifted his head sharply and glanced at the trailer, everything tensing inside him. Flame. She’d come. Without a word, he walked away from the others and headed for the trailer, his stride lengthening and quickening as he neared it. He pulled the door open, his image of her vivid and bright, all his acute hungers revived.

  He stepped inside and stopped short. “Lucianna.” He was angry, frustrated, the bitterness of disappointment strong on his tongue. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to see you, of course.” All warm smiles and glowing eyes, she came to him. He caught at her, his arms stiffening to prevent the kiss she wanted to give him. “Sam told me you were here. Now, don’t be angry with him. He was thinking of you. This is a time when you should be with friends.”

  “You should have called first,” he said tightly. “I’ve asked Flame to join me here.”

  “Wonderful.” Lucianna shrugged her lack of concern and smiled. “When she comes, I promise I’ll disappear without a trace.”

  But Flame didn’t come.

  32

  The oatmeal knit of her long jacket flared slightly from the matching shaped turtleneck dress as Flame swept aggressively into Karl Bronsky’s office at Thurgood Engineering, an eagerness in her stride that she didn’t even try to contain. Her glance darted automatically to the drafting table in the corner, then fell on the rolled plans lying on the desk and finally lifted to the thin, tanned man coming around the desk to welcome her.

  “It’s good to see you again, Ms. Bennett. Please have a seat.” Karl Bronsky was a freckle-faced man in his midforties with mild eyes and a habit of nodding with each spurt of talk, as he did now. “The traffic on the Bay Bridge must have been murder. It always is on a Friday, with everybody racing to get out of the city for the weekend.”

  “It was.” But she wasn’t interested in wasting time exchanging pleasantries about the traffic or the weather. “When I talked to you this morning, you indicated you had finished your review of the plans I left with you.”

  “I did.” Again there was that sharp nod of his head as he circled back around his desk.

  “What did you think of them?”

  “What did I think? I think it’s one helluva ambitious project—if you’ll pardon my language—the kind every engineer dreams about being a part of.”

  “Then…” She paused, choosing her words carefully. “…you didn’t see any flaw in them.”

  “You have to understand, Ms. Bennett, these are in the preliminary stage. They aren’t finished working drawings. Which isn’t to say a lot of thought hasn’t gone into them. Obviously it has. In my opinion, it’s definitely a viable project.”

  “I see.” She tried not to let her disappointment show.

  “Now you asked me specifically to look at the plans for the dam.” He began going through the stack of rolled blueprints and drawings on his desk. “As you know, none of these contains the name of the firm responsible for drawing up the plans—or any reference to its location.”

  “I know.” She’d made certain all such references were removed before she’d given them to him for review. She hadn’t wanted to run the risk that someone in Thurgood Engineering might know someone with the engineering firm Chance had used. Fields of business tended to be small worlds, and she didn’t want word accidentally getting back that she was in possession of these plans.

  “Anyway, I don’t know who engineered the plans on the dam, but he seems to be a highly competent individual—or group of individuals.” He unrolled one of the sets and anchored the corners down with a paperweight, pencil holder, stapler, and desk pen set. “As a matter of fact, I only question him on one area. Which isn’t to say I think he’s wrong. It’s impossible to second-guess somebody when you aren’t in possession of all the facts.”

  “What did you question?” Flame noticed that he’d unrolled the overall site plan.

  He leaned over it, a faintly puzzled look clouding his sunny freckles. “You did say that you owned this valley and these people had come to you with the proposition for this massive project.”

  “Yes.”

  “The thing I can’t figure out—at least not without more information—is why they chose this particular site for the dam and why they would want to flood the entire valley.”

  “What do you mean?” She tried to check the sudden leap of hope, reminding herself it was too premature. “Where else could they build it?”

  “Again, you have to recognize, Ms. Bennett, that I haven’t seen the actual site. I’m just going by these plans. But when I look at this, the most logical location for the dam would seem to be this neck of hills here—” He pointed it out to her on the plan. “—well north of the present site. Which would leave this entire south section of the valley intact.”

  Which was also where the house and all the ranch buildings were located, Flame realized. She stared at the map, too stunned for an instant to react.

  “Think of the golf course and country club that could be built in this valley—and what a complement it would be to the rest of the development. It would definitely be an improvement over that rolling dervish of a course they show winding through the hills now.” He raced on with his thoughts. “Naturally, it would change the shape of the lake—send it into this valley to the northwest. To me that would be a better location for the marina and hotel with these hills sheltering it from high winds. Changing the dam site opens up a whole new set of options. You could put in a landing strip for private aircraft, and, Lord knows, a development like this is going to attract the kind of people who have their own planes. The way it stands now, you’d have to flatten a hill to put an airstrip in, and cost-wise it probably wouldn’t be feasible.”

  “Then, why—” But she knew why. Chance hated Morgan’s Walk. He wanted to destroy it. He wanted it at the bottom of the lake.

  Karl Bronsky straightened, regret bringing two thin lines to his forehead. “I shouldn’t have gone on like that. Again, I have to stress that the engineer who did this work and chose this site over the one I suggested may have very sound reasons.”

  “Such as?”

  “Test borings could have shown him that this location wouldn’t support a dam without costly subshoring. Maybe here he can anchor it to bedrock for a fraction of the money.” He shrugged, indicating a multitude of possibilities. “Without inspecting the site and doing the necessary tests, I’m only guessing, Ms. Bennett.”

  “Mr. Bronsky.” She spoke slowly, playing with all the possibilities in her mind, even the outrageous ones. “Is it possible that sometime within the next two weeks you could fly to Oklahoma with me and look at the property yourself?”

  “Oklahoma—is that where it is?” he said, then breathed in deeply, considering her suggestion with obvious interest. “I suppose I could arrange my schedule to free up a couple of days.”

  “Good, because I’d like to know if it’s absolutely necessary for all of my land to be flooded.” She smiled faintly. “It’s not that I don’t trust the work of this engineer. I’d just like a second opinion.”

  “I don’t blame you. In fact, it’s probably the smart thing to do.”

  The traffic light ahead turned red and the limousine eased to a smooth stop at the crosswalk. From the rear seat, Flame watched as a cable car clanged across the intersection. Idly, her glance swung to Malcom’s driver, Arthur, separated from the rear passenger area by a sliding glass partition. He’d turned the radio to an easy-listening station and the soothing music of an old André Previn tune came softly over the stereo speakers.

  Turning her head on the back rest, she looked at Malcom and smiled faintl
y. “If I closed my eyes, I think I could fall asleep.”

  The cleft in his chin deepened slightly, amusement glinting in his eyes. “I thought you had.”

  “After that marvelous lunch, can you blame me?” Her smile widened, but the wonderfully lethargic feeling remained, making her feel all lazy and replete. “Right now it wouldn’t take much persuasion to turn me into an advocate of siestas.”

  With customary keenness his gaze examined her face. “You do look tired.”

  She didn’t deny that she was. “I’ve been on the go constantly for the last ten days trying to get everything caught up so I can leave tomorrow for Tulsa. This is the first time I’ve been able to sit back and truly relax in days—and I have you to thank for it.”

  “Tulsa. That’s Stuart territory you know,” he challenged, closely watching her reaction to Chance’s name.

  Flame smiled with a degree of cool unconcern. “He doesn’t have an exclusive on it, Malcom.”

  “Do you intend to see him while you’re there?” he asked, aware that she’d met with him before.

  “Possibly.” Although she had agreed to see Chance, that didn’t mean she would. She’d canceled meetings with him before. “It depends on my schedule. There are a lot of legal matters that I need to clear up regarding the settlement of Hattie’s estate—documents to be signed, that sort of thing.”

  She didn’t mention that the engineer Karl Bronsky would be flying the day after she arrived to meet with her and look over Morgan’s Walk, specifically the proposed dam site and his alternative. She had yet to confide in Malcom the reasons behind her split with Chance or the battle ahead of her to prevent Chance from acquiring control of the land he’d married her to get.

  Malcom frowned thoughtfully, his gaze narrowing. “I don’t understand why you see him when you keep saying you’re through with him.”

  She smiled away his remark, a playfully chiding light entering her eyes. “You make it sound as if he’s been my constant companion, Malcom. I’ve only met him twice. And contrary to recent rumors, there is no reconciliation in the works.”