by Janet Dailey
"Yeah," Rick admitted with faint defiance as he rubbed his arm and flexed it.
Dirk took a bill from his pocket and handed it to him. "Watch my car. I wouldn't like to come back and find the tires slashed."
"You got it!" the boy grinned.
"All right. Now let's go." He ushered her forward to the set of steps with the handrail. He glanced at the street number painted above the row of mailboxes. "Your father owns this building, doesn't he? I seem to remember the address when I did some background work on him."
"Yes, he does," Victoria retorted defensively. "You'll find that all the electrical wiring is new, the plumbing works as well as the furnace."
"I know." There was a lazy curve to his mouth that told her he'd already verified that several months ago. "Who's the punk? One of your secret admirers?"
"Do you mean Rick? He lives in the building. Since I've started stopping by to see Mrs. Ogden, we've become friends," she explained. "He really wasn't going to hurt you."
"He didn't look very friendly when I drove up." Dirk opened the main door to the building and held it for her.
"Did you think they were assaulting me?" The possibility just occurred to her.
"The sight of two street toughs stopping a beautiful woman on a sidewalk just to show her their knives is not very common," he reminded her dryly. "Which floor is your lady friend on?"
"The second one," she answered. "That is what Rick was doing—showing me his knife," she elaborated. "The principal expelled them from school for carrying them."
As she led the way up the steps, Victoria realized that they were both behaving as if it hadn't been three months since they'd last seen each other. Yet there was a new feeling present that she hadn't known before—the sensation of being protected.
Several weeks ago she had accepted the fact that she was in love with him, but since he'd made no effort to get in touch with her she had decided it was one-sided. Seeing him again was reinforcing the emotion and giving her a thread of hope that it wasn't unrequited. Suddenly she had an attack of nerves.
"How…have you been?" She darted him a guarded look and noticed there were more hard lines cut into his features and the hollows under his cheekbones seemed leaner.
His gaze touched her briefly, but he didn't answer the question. "Which apartment is hers?"
"The second one on the right." She stood to one side while he knocked on it.
"Who is it?" Mrs. Ogden's aging voice cracked in demand.
"It's me, Victoria," she answered.
The whir of a wheelchair being propelled forward by a motor filtered into the narrow hallway. Then there was some fumbling with the locks before the knob turned and the door was swung inward.
"I'm sorry I'm late, but Mrs. Jackson wasn't well," Victoria explained.
But the woman waved her explanation aside with a gnarled hand. "Who is this young man?" Although her voice cracked occasionally and her fingers were crippled with arthritis, her blue eyes sparkled with a fountainous wealth of youth. Her hair was snow-white and her flawless complexion had always reminded Victoria of bone china.
"This is Dirk Ramsey, a friend of mine," she introduced. "Dirk, this is Mrs. Ogden."
The woman added to her own introduction, "A very old lady who was afraid she was going to wait an eternity before she finally met Victoria's young man."
"It's my pleasure, Mrs. Ogden." Dirk bowed slightly as he bent to shake her hand.
"Oh, he's very handsome, Victoria," she smiled.
"Yes, he is," she agreed, wondering if she should have contradicted the impression Mrs. Ogden had formed about Dirk's relationship to her.
"Do you know that is the first time Victoria has ever admitted that I was handsome?" Dirk observed with a glinting look at her. "I'm going to have to come with Victoria to visit you more often, Mrs. Ogden."
"I would like that," the woman beamed under his smile. His charm knew no age limit, it seemed.
"I'll put the groceries away for you," Victoria murmured and turned toward the cubbyhole room that served as a kitchen in the small apartment.
"Let Dirk put them away. It's good practice for a man," Mrs. Ogden instructed.
"Oh, I…" Victoria started to protest, certain he would never agree to it, but Dirk had already reached out and was taking the bag of groceries out of her arms.
"I don't mind," he murmured, leaving her a little disconcerted as he carried the groceries into the kitchen.
"Come with me, Victoria." Mrs. Ogden pivoted her chair and guided it to the open space by the window where she usually positioned her chair during the day. "I have something for you."
A little confused Victoria glanced toward the kitchen, wondering whether Dirk would put the supplies where the woman could easily find them. She would simply have to double-check before she left. She followed the woman across the room. Mrs. Ogden was trying to unfasten the looped clasp of her large, wicker sewing basket.
"Let me open it for you," Victoria offered and knelt beside the basket.
She had always marveled that the woman had continued her sewing, a task that had to be difficult as well as painful considering the gnarled stiffness of her fingers, but Mrs. Ogden insisted that sewing had kept her hands fairly nimble, besides bringing her enjoyment during the long, lonely hours in the apartment.
"Do you see that bundle near the bottom wrapped in tissue?" The woman pointed. "Would you hand it to me?"
"Of course." The thin paper crackled as Victoria slipped it out from beneath the skeins of yarn and half-finished Afghans. She placed it on the woman's lap, and waited while Mrs. Ogden began to painstakingly unwrap it.
"I started crocheting this two days after you visited me for the first time. That was nearly three years ago, remember?"
"Yes, I certainly do," Victoria nodded.
"Every girl should have a fancy tablecloth when she gets married, or so my mother claimed," Mrs. Ogden winked. "So I started making this for you, but I fully expected you to be married before I finished. Your timing was excellent because I only completed it last week."
"You made this for me?" Victoria repeated with a questioning frown. Even as she said it, the last layer of tissue paper was carefully folded away to reveal the tiny, precise stitches that formed the wild-rose-designed, crocheted tablecloth.
"Yes, it's for you," Mrs. Ogden confirmed and lifted the tablecloth free of the paper to hand it to her.
Victoria held it gently, fingering the delicate threads that formed the intricate pattern. When she thought of the time, the labor, the pain it had cost the woman to crochet this for her, she was overwhelmed. Tears sprang to her eyes as she glanced at the gnarled hand on the armrest of the wheelchair. Bending, she kissed the crippled fingers, then pressed her cheek against them.
"Thank you," she whispered and felt the light, stroking caress of Mrs. Ogden's other hand on her hair. "I'll invite you to my first dinner party," Victoria promised as she lifted her head to gaze into the sparkling blue eyes.
"Gracious, no!" Mrs. Ogden laughed. "I'll knock something over with these awkward hands of mine and stain it."
"Your hands aren't awkward," Victoria insisted, spreading her smooth and supple hand over the bony appendage on the armrest. "Hands that could create something as beautiful as this could never be awkward."
"That is a lovely thing to say. Thank you, Victoria."
There was a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye. Victoria turned her head slightly to see Dirk standing in the arched opening to the tiny kitchen. His look was gently questioning. Self-consciously, she wiped the damp film of tears from her cheeks and straightened, carefully holding the handmade tablecloth.
"Mrs. Ogden made this for me," she explained.
He moved forward to touch the slender threads hooked so closely together to make the wild-rose pattern. His gaze skimmed her overly bright gray eyes, then slid to the woman in the chair.
"It's lovely work, Mrs. Ogden. No wonder Victoria is so proud." It wasn't a patronizing
statement, issued to be polite. Dirk sounded as if he truly meant every single word he said. Victoria wanted to hug him.
"I don't have any children of my own to do these things for," the woman murmured with a trace of poignancy. "Both of my sons were killed in the war. They had no children. So I don't have any grandchildren except the ones I adopt, like Victoria."
"Why don't you let me fix you some coffee?" Victoria suggested.
"No, you and your young man I'm sure would like to be alone. I know how that is. I'm just pleased you brought him along so I could meet him." There was a glimmer of tears in the woman's eyes, but she determinedly blinked them away. "You two run along."
"I would like to have a cup of coffee with you, Mrs. Ogden," Dirk insisted.
"Liar," she teased gruffly. "You'd like to have that girl beside you all to yourself. Come see me another time."
"We can't fool you, can we?" Dirk smiled.
"Indeed, you can't! Now, shoo! Both of you!" She waved them out of the apartment.
"Just let me check to be certain Dirk put everything where you can reach it," Victoria insisted and pressed the cloth into his hands as she hurried into the kitchen. Surprisingly, everything was exactly where it belonged. When she came back in, Dirk had rewrapped the tablecloth in the protective tissue paper and he handed it back to her. Before leaving she bent and kissed the woman on the cheek. "Thank you again."
"I'll talk to you tomorrow," Mrs. Ogden smiled.
In the hallway Dirk waited for her as she closed the door. "Does she call you?" he asked.
"Actually I call her. Either myself or another woman phones every day to be certain she's all right and that there isn't anything that she needs," Victoria explained. "When I first started visiting her I tried to persuade her to move out. But she's lived in this building practically all of her life. It's her home. I'm just grateful that she has a front apartment so she can see out."
Dirk paused at the bottom of the stairs and looked up the dark stairwell. "My mother wouldn't move out of our old apartment building, either. She died there. Unfortunately she didn't have anyone like you who checked on her every day and kept her company—not even me," he admitted with a bitter twist of his mouth.
"You weren't living there?"
"No, I was going to college and working." He shrugged and reached in front of her to open the door. "It was a long time ago." Her hand smoothed the tissue paper that covered the tablecloth and Dirk noticed the action. "You like that, don't you?"
"Yes." Victoria expected him to mock her reasons, but he simply gave her a gentle look that melted her wariness. "It's actually a wedding gift."
"I know." His hand rested lightly on the back of her waist as they walked down the concrete steps to the sidewalk.
"I didn't have the heart to correct her when she thought you and I were getting married," she apologized.
"Neither did I." Dirk looked straight ahead toward his car and the boys waiting beside it. "We'll work it out later." As they neared his car he asked, "Do either of you have a current driver's license?"
"I do," Rick said and pulled a slim wallet out of his hind pocket to show him.
Dirk wrote something on a slip of paper and handed it to Rick along with a set of car keys. "Take my car to this address, and no joyriding," he warned.
"Do you mean it?" Rick eyed him suspiciously. "The car ain't hot, is it?"
"Yes, I mean it, and no, it isn't stolen. Now get going."
Rick let out a whoop and raced around to the driver's door. "Can Fred come along?"
"You just remember what I said about no joyriding, and I don't care who rides with you as long as the car is in the same condition it's in now," Dirk replied.
"Aren't you taking a chance to trust them with your car?" Victoria murmured.
"If you were safe with them, I think my car is. You and I are going for a little drive. We have some things to talk about." He held out his hand for the keys to her car and Victoria gave them to him, a tiny thread of excitement weaving through her nerve ends.
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Chapter Twelve
HOPE WAS FLITTING ABOUT her shoulders as Dirk slid behind the wheel and started the car. There seemed so few subjects that he would want to talk to her about, but Victoria contained her curiosity until he identified the topic. He waited until he had driven away from the curb and into city traffic.
"I lied to you," he stated.
"When? About what?" The startled questions sprang from her.
"When I said I happened to be in town and called your parents out of courtesy. That was a lie. I canceled in the middle of a lecture tour to fly here. And I didn't call to talk to your parents—I wanted to speak to you."
"Why?" She held her breath, crossing her fingers beneath the cover of the tissue paper.
"Because I've had all the sleepless nights I can stand. We've got to work out a compromise." Dirk kept his gaze fixed on the traffic, a muscle working convulsively in his jaw. "I don't know how long it's going to take for you to get to know me better, but I think I can understand some of the apprehensions you had."
"I'm glad because—"
"No, hear me out," he interrupted. "When we're married, I have asked your father to disinherit you. If he wants to set up a trust fund administered by his people to take care of you in the event of my death, or for our children, I have no objection. But I don't want you to ever think that I have any interest in your money."
An incredulous joy trembled through her. Not only did he want to marry her, but he was also denouncing any claim to her inheritance. It was more than she had hoped for, more than she had dared to dream.
"Unless you want the fanfare of a big wedding, I would just as soon be married in a chapel. You've lived in a goldfish bowl long enough. The only notoriety you are going to have from now is being the wife of Dirk Ramsey."
"Dirk, would you stop the car?" Her voice wavered on a breathless note of sheer happiness.
"Not yet. I'll have to cut down on my traveling, but I've found a house in the country convenient to Washington, D.C. It needs some fixing up, but I think we can do it. There won't be any housekeeper, not for awhile anyway. You can continue to call Mrs. Ogden as long as the long-distance phone calls don't become absurdly expensive. Have I left anything out?" he murmured, as if to himself.
"I hope I'm going to have a baby," Victoria inserted.
"What?" His head jerked around to stare at her.
"Watch where you're going," she warned.
Dirk had to slam on the brakes and swerve into the next lane to avoid the car turning in front of them. A horn blared and brakes squealed behind them.
"What possessed you to say such a thing?" he demanded, taking a deep breath.
"You seemed to have everything else planned, but you didn't mention anything about children. I'd like to have one or two." A tiny smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. "Have you picked out my ring? I hope it's something simple. I'm not much for flashy jewelry."
"Wait a minute. What are you saying?" Suddenly he was the one who was uncertain.
"I think we were talking about getting married, weren't we?" she teased. "There's a parking spot over there." She pointed to a meter by the curb two car lengths ahead of them.
Dirk quickly maneuvered the car into the parking place and switched off the motor. As he turned in the seat to face her, Victoria had the impression he was straining toward her even though he hadn't moved.
"You want to marry me…with no arguments?"
"No arguments," she agreed. Before she finished the movement that took her toward him, Dirk was reaching out to gather her into his arms.
The hunger that had been bottled up from long months apart was appeased in a long, aching kiss. It was followed by a shower of smaller ones that they rained over each other's features. Victoria felt the violent shudder that quaked through his body, and understood its cause.
"I thought I'd lost you," she whispered. "Everything happened so fast. I was so sca
red, so unsure. I thought love was something that had to grow, not just suddenly explode on the horizon one day."
"Nobody ever tied me up in knots the way you did," Dirk insisted. "I never gave you a chance to think. I had to learn patience. I had to leave you to find out I couldn't live without you. I don't want to live without you."
"You said marriage wasn't part of your plans," Victoria reminded him.
"I said that it hadn't been part of my plans, but my plans had been undergoing revisions since the day I saw you—that gorgeous rich girl, pampered, spoiled, only you weren't any of those things. If I needed any proof of that, you gave it to me today crying over a tablecloth some old woman made."
"It's the love, the caring that she crocheted in every stitch," Victoria attempted to explain.
"You don't have to tell me," he laughed softly and kissed her.
"Dirk, have you checked to find out how long it will take to get a license and a minister?"
"Not yet, but you'd better believe it's the first thing I'm going to do," he promised. "I'm not going to give you a chance to change your mind."
"I'm not going to change my mind. When that carriage disappeared I finally realized that I loved you," she admitted.
"Why didn't you write? Or call?" he groaned and rubbed his cheeks against her hair.
"I didn't think you loved me."
His mouth found hers to do whatever convincing that still needed to be done.
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