“I know, but if you like someone that well…”
“Then you walk the road and see where it leads.”
“Aren’t you ever afraid?”
“Bryn, you care very much about Lee, don’t you?”
“I—I don’t know. That’s a lie. Yes, I care about him,” Bryn admitted softly. “But there’s so much about him, about his past. So many things I’m afraid of, so many things that I don’t understand.”
Barbara was about to reply, but she halted as their attention was drawn to the stage. Hammarfield managed to introduce the band quickly; there was wild applause, and then the curtains parted to reveal Lee and the group. They started playing with a loud crash of the drums; Lee began to sing a rock number from their first album.
Bryn, as always, felt his voice sweep around her and embrace her. Like him, it was rugged and masculine, a burnished, rough velvet. The group had worn tuxedos tonight, with ruffled white shirts.
Bryn had never seen Lee in such formal attire before, and she felt a warm flush rush over her now just as it had when she had first seen him dress that evening. The elegant white shirt enhanced his dark good looks, contrasting sharply with the rugged angles and planes of his features.
I will never be able to stop wanting him, she admitted ruefully to herself. I allowed myself to fall, and now I will never be able to escape….
Barbara turned back to her, touching her shoulder and leaning closer so that she could be heard. “I hate to sound like a philosopher,” Barbara said dryly, “but some sayings are true. Nothing good in life comes easy.”
“The video will be done soon.”
“And you’re thinking that he’ll be gone as smoothly as he came? I can’t tell you that that won’t happen, Bryn. I can tell you that it’s obvious he’s entirely taken with you.”
Bryn grimaced. “Maybe just because…because he feels responsible for everything that’s happened. I mean—” she lowered her voice to a hushed whisper again “—all this started with the pictures that I took of him.”
Barbara sniffed. “I don’t think you know your man very well, honey. If he felt responsible, he’d be responsible. But if he didn’t want to be with you, he wouldn’t be. And any fool could see the sexual attraction between the two of you from the beginning.”
“Umm,” Bryn murmured dryly. She was about to retort to Barbara’s bluntness when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around to see Dirk Hammarfield staring down at her with his perpetual smile.
“Enjoying the evening, ladies?”
Bryn felt the chill again. How long had he been there? Was this benignly smiling man the same one who had made a living hell out of her life?
She wanted to shout at him, she wanted to scream, Where is Adam? Where is my nephew now? If I don’t get him back tomorrow, if he’s been harmed the least little bit I’ll…
What? What? She was the one completely at someone’s mercy. What was she doing here? What could she possibly find out?
“It’s lovely, thank you,” Bryn heard herself say. Then she started babbling. “The roast duck was absolutely delicious. And that salad dressing! Out of this world.”
“The artichoke hearts were wonderful,” Barbara added. They glanced at each other. Did being nervous instantly turn one into a blithering idiot, incapable of normal speech?
“Glad to hear the food was good,” Hammarfield replied. Was his smile really benign? Or did it have a malicious twist? “Seems,” Hammarfield continued, indicating the stage, “that Condor has chosen a nice soft ballad just for me. Would you share a dance with me, Miss Keller?”
No! she wanted to scream.
She gave him her hand and a smile as plastic as his own. “I’d love to, Mr. Hammarfield.”
Dirk Hammarfield glanced at Barbara. “If you don’t mind…?”
“Not at all,” Barbara said quickly.
Bryn felt uncomfortable as soon as they reached the dance floor. Dirk Hammarfield believed in dancing cheek to cheek and body to body. Bryn tried to move away from him, but without making a scene she wasn’t going to achieve much. Damn Lee! She was going to have to tell him to play fast tunes all night.
She managed to pull her face far enough away from Dirk’s shoulder to talk. “So, Mr. Hammarfield, how’s the campaigning going?”
“Good. Great!” he told her boisterously. His hand slipped to the small of Bryn’s back, then to her rear as he made a sudden swing with his body.
Bryn realized that they were right in front of the stage. She gazed up to see that although Lee’s voice hadn’t faltered, nor had he missed a beat on his drums, he was staring at her. And she knew that particular glimmer in his eyes. Anger. Was he thundering particularly hard on the drums? She wanted to hit him. What did he think? That she liked being pawed by the polician? It had been his idea that she come here.
“How did your pictures come out, Miss Keller?”
Bryn’s heart skipped a beat. “I really don’t know,” she lied. “I gave Lee the film and the proofs right after they were taken.”
She felt as if her knees would give way, but she kept her eyes on his, determined to see if he would react at all to the lie.
“What a pity. I would have loved to have seen them.” No reaction; his eyes stayed steadily on hers. His hand was slipping lower and lower. He was almost caressing her.
She ground her teeth, grabbed his hand and smiled. She couldn’t stand it anymore. He could very well be a kidnapper…. He could be holding Adam right now…and he had the audacity to be touching her like a lover. She would start screaming, or faint or get sick. It would have to end. She wasn’t getting anywhere anyway.
“Where is your wife, Mr. Hammarfield?” she asked. “I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting her yet.”
Hammarfield paled visibly. He opened his mouth, about to reply, but then he turned abruptly. Bryn realized he had been tapped on the shoulder.
“May I cut in on you, sir? I suppose it’s a rude thing to do to the man of the hour, but I’m afraid I might never get another chance to dance with the lady.”
“Of course, of course!” Hammarfield patted the newcomer on the back, and Bryn grinned broadly. She had been saved from minor-molestation-on-the-dance-floor and possible illness by the young golfer, Mike Winfeld. He was wholesome and attractive with his out-of-doors appeal, and Bryn was definitely grateful to see him.
“May I?” he asked her.
“Of course!” she murmured. It was really a gasp of relief. This whole thing had been a mistake.
He clasped her to him and quickly danced them across the floor. “I didn’t think I’d get a chance to see you so soon,” he said reproachfully.
“I really have been busy!” Bryn said.
“Photographing the famous?”
“Dancing for Lee’s video. I’m a dancer, too,” Bryn said.
“You bet you are,” he told her approvingly.
“How’s your game going?” Bryn asked him.
“Oh, great. Every once in a while you hit a sand trap, but there’s usually a way out of it. When can you do my photos?”
“I really don’t know yet,” Bryn said apologetically. “I’m still working for Lee.”
“Oh,” he told her sadly, spinning around again. Bryn decided that she was glad that she was a dancer. Only a professional dancer could hope to keep up with his dips and turns.
Then she found herself being clasped as tightly to him as she had been to Hammarfield. And golfers—as well as politicians—had roving hands. The problem with Winfield was that he was so fast, she couldn’t move quickly enough to escape his roaming fingers….
* * *
Lee was glad that playing music was like breathing to him. His mind was wandering. No, damn it! It wasn’t wandering. It was set on Bryn.
It was miserable to watch her with Hammarfield and with the golfer. She was dressed in a thin-strapped, black silk dress that was belted at the waist. The silk clung gracefully to her curves, and when she danced…when she moved…she was fluid and li
the and beautiful.
And as enticing as a rose in full bloom.
He shouldn’t be watching her, he thought. Drumming was like breathing, but the drums wouldn’t play themselves. And although he had sung this song a thousand times, at this rate…
He couldn’t look away from her. And he couldn’t stop his anger from rising and sky rocketing. She was laughing as she talked to the golfer. Laughing…and her eyes were sparkling with a beautiful radiance.
You don’t own her, he warned himself sharply.
But he felt as if he did, in a way. Because he was completely entranced with her. She was naked magic in his arms at night, sleek and satin passion. To see another man touching her…that way….
It made him feel like being savage, all right.
His biceps strained and bulged beneath the white ruffled shirt; he sang the last words of the song, and rolled out a fading beat.
He barely heard the applause. He had been stupid to do the dinner. Nothing was going to be achieved tonight.
What had he expected?
Something…something to happen.
But nothing had. Except that his temper had been stretched to the snapping point.
* * *
“Hammarfield is interested in the pictures,” Bryn said as Lee revved the engine of his car. It was late; only the cleanup crews still remained. And Lee had been distantly silent since she had met him on the stage when the band had been breaking down their equipment.
Lee kept his eyes on the road and replied with a low grunt.
“Are you listening to me, Lee? Hammarfield asked me about the pictures.”
“I heard you. What else did he ask you about?”
“What?” Bryn murmured, confused by the hostility that lay beneath the question.
He glanced her way briefly, a quick gaze of yellow fire, before turning his attention to the road once again. “I asked you what else he talked about.”
Bryn shrugged, still not understanding the brooding emotion simmering within him, but finding herself on the defensive anyway. “I don’t remember.”
“I see. It’s hard to listen very closely when you’re dancing that close.”
“Dancing that close! It wasn’t my idea!”
“Umm. You never thought about pushing the man away, I assume.”
“I did!”
“That’s funny. I never found you ineffective at repulsing a man when you chose to do so. And what about that jock golfer?”
“Mike Winfeld?”
“Is that his name?”
Bryn felt her anger rise to meet his. “Look, Lee, I don’t know what your problem is tonight, but I’m not going to sit here and take this from you. It was your idea to play for this dinner, and your idea that Barbara and I come along. You insisted that I might get something out of Hammarfield. You—” She bit off her words, determined not to fly into a name-calling fit. But she was furious. The night had been incredibly tense to begin with, and now he was suddenly coming down on her for things that had been his fault. “You bastard!” she grated out against her best intentions. “How do you think I felt? The man might be still holding Adam. I didn’t want to be anywhere near him!”
“Hmm. And what about Winfeld?”
“Winfeld? Just drop it, Lee.”
“You told me you liked golfers.”
She was worn and frazzled—and not at all prepared for the conversation. Tears stung her eyes, and she determined to fight back—hurting him as she was hurt. “All right—I love golfers! It’s none of your damn business. Drop it!”
“Bryn,” he began, but then he mutterd. “Oh, hell!”
He shifted in the driver’s seat, keeping his steely glare upon the highway. They would be turning off in a minute. Bryn thought, arriving at his house. It seemed as if the car were filled with a static electricity. She wasn’t terribly sure she wanted to go into the house with him. The rigid strain on his features, the vise grip he held on the steering wheel, the lethal tension that radiated from him, all promised an explosion waiting to happen.
“It wasn’t my idea to watch the woman I’m sleeping with being petted publicly on a dance floor,” he said suddenly.
“Petted!” Bryn snapped. “Damn it, Lee—”
The car veered sharply into his drive and jerked to a halt before the front door.
He turned to her, a pulse throbbing along his jaw. “Petted. Yes, the word fits, I think. What else would you call it when a man’s hands are all over you?”
Bryn stared at him for a minute, wishing she could strike him, hoping she wouldn’t burst into ridiculous tears. The attack was unfair. “I didn’t want to be where I was!”
“You were smiling away a mile a minute at the golfer. Seems to me you were quite happy where you were.”
Bryn hopped out of the front seat, slamming the door behind her. Her van was parked in front of the garage, and she started walking toward it, her heels clicking sharply against the gravel driveway.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” he called after her, crawling from the driver’s seat and staring after her.
“Home,” she said briefly, fumbling in her bag for her keys. “I’ll get things ready for Adam to come back tomorrow. With or without your help. And I’ll be here to get the boys before they wake up.”
“No you will not, because you’re not leaving.”
“Oh? Because I’m ‘the woman you’re sleeping with’? You don’t own me, Lee. You don’t even have a lease on me. And since I’ve already been ‘petted’ for the night, I think I’d prefer to sleep in my own bed.” Her fingers locked around her keys and she pulled them from her small clutch purse.
He started to swear softly, and his shoes crunched loudly as he strode across the gravel. Bryn felt her heart begin to pound viciously in her chest. Had she wanted him to stop her in her anger? Or had she believed that he might deny his own words and say that she was much, much more than just the woman he was sleeping with?
She wasn’t sure; she just knew that she was suddenly frightened. She turned to the van, but she knew that she’d never get the door open before he got there.
She didn’t. She felt his hand on her shoulder, his grip painful as he spun her around.
He spoke softly, enunciating each word carefully. “Bryn—even if I hated, loathed and despised you, and if your feelings for me were exactly the same, I wouldn’t let you get into that van and drive away. Not tonight. Now act reasonably and turn around and get in the house!”
“Reasonably?” Bryn shrieked. It was a foolish thing to do. His lips compressed and his eyes seemed to sizzle in the moonlight with white fire.
“Have it your way,” he told her.
He ducked with a fluid movement, catching her about the midriff and flinging her over his shoulder. She swore at him violently as he headed for the door and carefully punched out the code for the new security lock. As soon as they were inside, he flicked on the hall light and set her down.
Shaken and feeling as if her own temper possessed her entire body in a reckless grip, Bryn clenched her hands into fists at her sides and tossed back the tangled waves of her hair to meet his gaze with a fiery one of her own.
“I’ll walk out of this house any time I choose.”
“No, you will not. Not while we’re involved with all this.”
“Involved? It’s over tomorrow, and the hell with the damn pictures! What are we going to find? What are we going to prove? All I want is Adam. I’d rather just drop the whole damned thing here and now.”
“But you won’t Miss Keller. Because I won’t. I’m in on this too. And I don’t like being threatened and manipulated. So we won’t forget about the pictures. And—” with his arms crossed over his tuxedoed chest, he began to move slowly toward her, stopping an inch away “—you won’t walk out of this house. I have no intention of aiding and abetting murder or suicide. I’m not going to spend the rest of my life wondering if I might have been able to do something the night I found you splattered all ove
r the road! Don’t act like a child, Bryn, or I’ll treat you like one.”
There seemed to be no dignified way out of the situation. She would be a fool to fight him; she could feel his strength when he wasn’t even touching her. All she could do was salvage her pride with as calm a demeanor as possible.
“All right, Lee. You’ve been helping with…with Adam. I need you tomorrow, and you are in on the pictures. We’ll get Adam—” Please make that be true! she silently prayed. But she had to believe it, and so she kept talking to Lee. She was so tautly wound inside that she was ready to fight. “We’ll keep playing with the pictures. But it will all end there. I do realize that I should be ready to jump, beg, and roll over when the great star speaks, but I’ve already been that route once. It’s not for me. Now, I’m going to bed. Alone.”
He had watched her silently through the entire speech; when she finished he was still watching her. Rigidly.
The only signs of the intensity of his anger were his narrowed eyes and the pulse furiously ticking a vein in his corded neck. Bryn smiled bitterly and turned, heading for the stairway.
She walked quickly, purposefully. She could feel his eyes piercing through her back, as if they were rays of heat and her flesh was naked.
She started up the steps.
And then she felt his grip; this time she hadn’t heard him move, she hadn’t sensed his silent pounce. And she was so startled that she cried out in alarm.
It was just like the scene they had practiced so often for the video. She turned, falling into his embrace. She was staring into his eyes, feeling the force and power of his arms around her.
“I mean it, Lee!” she snapped out, struggling uselessly against him. “I don’t want to sleep with you!”
“Shut up. You’ll wake Marie and the kids. I don’t intend to let you crawl back behind a celibate touch-me-not wall because you can’t deal with an argument!”
They were moving smoothly up the stairway; his long strides carried them quickly along the hallway balcony. “Lee! We were not having an argument! You were making caustic, insulting remarks and not giving me a chance to defend myself. Defend myself! What am I saying! This whole thing is a joke! I don’t owe you any explanations or excuses. I was a fool to have—”
Night Moves (60th Anniversary) Page 19