Bess was right, of course, thought Geoff. His outline wasn't detailed enough. But he didn’t dare admit to her at this stage that he’d made the thing up from the whole cloth the very night he’d sent it. She’d have his guts for garters if he did that. So he would just have to brazen it out and hope that somehow he could trick her into creating some of that substance. But how?
“If we started the book in your country,” he said, thinking out loud, “you would have to take charge of the beginning. You will have to 'become' Kate anyway, one would suspect, given that it’s the American speaking patterns and attitudes and, admittedly, some of the history and geography that I have the most problem with.”
“So now you want me to start the book? And do you expect me to write the whole thing too? Because I couldn’t. You must do that!” Her simmering temper boiled over. “Damn it, Geoff, half the book is set here in Australia, about which I know less than nothing.”
“Ah, but you know Kate,” he replied enigmatically, then switched tack as they reached the Royal Oak on the corner by City Park. “There’s a local brew on tap here that I’m rather fond of, and the tucker’s quite good too, of course.”
“Of course,” Bess said, for the first time consciously realizing that Geoff’s Kate was, in fact, herself, or herself as he perceived her. Red-headed heroines were hardly uncommon in historical romances, but his enigmatic comment had dropped the penny. An Aussie expression, dropped the penny, one which Geoff often used while dealing with his fractious dog. Bess liked the expression, and was determined to use it more in The Book.
She also liked lunch and the local beer, Hazard, but going straight home to write was suddenly removed from her agenda. No, Geoff insisted, they would wander through City Park for a bit, enjoy the sunshine, visit the monkeys.
So they did, but if Bess had expected this to be an opportunity to discuss their collaboration, she was quickly disappointed. In fact, Geoff seemed to be avoiding the subject rather than embracing it.
Geoff stifled a sigh. His lovely American wench was still fretting over the bloody book, he thought, observing her half-clenched fists and the subtle pout of her generous mouth. Unfortunately, he had no more idea where their book was going than she did. Perhaps less. He’d exhausted all his energies creating a believable outline and hadn’t thought beyond its effectiveness in baiting his trap. As they paused to watch the City Park monkeys in their walled enclosure, he concentrated on his original lunch mission: evading any in-depth book discussion.
Bess fumed silently. Not only didn’t Geoff want to discuss the book, but as they strolled through the park he took her hand in his and matched his stride to her shorter one. He didn't do it seductively, but simply as if it was the most natural thing in the world. And while all her instincts cried out for her to put a stop to this right now, she didn’t. Because it seemed natural to her, too.
It wasn’t as if they were lovers, she reasoned. Just two people who happened to be extremely comfortable in each other’s company. At least most of the time. Why not enjoy this gracious park on a gorgeous day, after a wonderful lunch, with the skies blue and bright and the sun warm upon them? Why not... what were Geoff's words... loosen up a bit?
“What's the other third?” he asked.
“Excuse me?”
“You said you were one third Jewish and one third Irish.”
She considered saying one third Dover Warren Cornwall, but Geoff wouldn't understand, and she really didn't want to talk about her father right now. It was her mother who'd been half Jewish, half Irish, which made Bess fifty percent... what?
“Iconoclast,” she blurted without thinking any further. Then felt her cheeks bake.
Geoff remained silent for six or seven heartbeats. “Interesting,” he finally said. “I'm a bit of a pagan myself. Or by iconoclast, did you mean 'devil's advocate'?”
“If you mean faultfinder or bubble-burster, I certainly hope not.” She tried to grin, and failed. “Actually, it was my father who liked to burst bubbles.”
“Was? Is he dead?”
“Yes.” With sudden clarity, Bess realized how...iconoclastic...her father had always behaved toward her. Bubble-burster? An understatement if she ever heard one. Father was dead, at least to her, because she would never let him manipulate her again. Never!
Misinterpreting the anguished expression that flitted across her face, Geoff squeezed her hand. “I'm sorry,” he said. Then he led her back to the monkey enclosure and suggested he and Bess christen the monkeys with people-names.
I'd rather name our book characters, she thought, even as she played along. “Okay, Geoff, the one over there in the corner is Tommy Frontario, my first boyfriend. And the big one, the one who looks like he's wearing a rumpled suit, is Tom Rossiter.”
Geoff laughed, then leaned over and stage-whispered, “I do believe your Tommy is a Tomasina, darling.”
As always, his laughter was contagious, and Bess let loose with a series of unrestrained giggles, suddenly happy to be alive, happy to be with Geoff.
But when they returned home and he announced he would be gone for the rest of the afternoon on business, she was equally glad to be rid of him, to get some time to herself, to try and work out something on the book, not to mention working out more than a few somethings about the effect Geoff was having on her.
It was all very disconcerting. She was a guest, but also a sort of partner. She was collaborating, but on what? Every time she looked at what he had done thus far, the substance of the book grew more and more ephemeral.
Before leaving her alone, Geoff had been adamant…if she was going to have Lady in the house, Bess must refrain from undue excitement. So she found herself moving slowly, thus thinking slowly. Because, as Geoff had predicted, the mad dog was alert to her every move. Often, it seemed, before Bess even knew she was planning to move.
“That damned dog piddles on my office carpet, and you, missy, are going to be in big trouble,” Geoff had warned. But Bess, watching him try and hide his grin, had surmised that if Lady watered his office carpet, it wouldn’t be the first time or the last. What had Geoff said over lunch? Something about how maturity, assuming it ever arrived in a dog as spinny as a working-bred English Springer Spaniel, removed at least the damp aspects of the demented frenzy that appeared at the slightest stimulus.
He could have been talking about Bess Carson, she thought wryly. Without a doubt, Mrs. Paul Bradley had been the most immature female on the face of the earth. Except Mrs. Paul Bradley hadn't been bred to work... just breed. Focusing on Geoff's computer, Bess was determined to forget her own past and solve Kate's dilemma. After all, Bess Carson's demons were nothing compared to the demons that haunted Kate No-last-name-yet.
When the telephone rang about an hour after Geoff’s departure, Bess picked up the receiver without thinking and answered with a simple “Hello.” After a few beats of silence, the man on the other end asked for Geoffrey Barrett. Bess politely told him Geoff was out, would perhaps be back by tea time, then asked if she could tell Mr. Barrett who’d called, and if there was a message.
“No,” was the reply. “I expect I know where to find him, so I’ll catch him there. If not, I can always phone back later.”
Her mind was partly on the book and partly on the distinction between tea time as afternoon tea and tea time as dinner time, and it wasn’t until after she'd hung up that she found herself thinking the caller’s voice had sounded strangely familiar.
Definitely American, she thought, just before the mailman came by on his motorbike, Lady went ballistic, and she forgot all about the phone call.
She had reluctantly abandoned the book and was in the back yard playing with the demented dog when Geoff returned late in the afternoon. Standing near Lady's kennel, Bess looked on in some confusion as Geoff started unloading a huge sheet of plywood from the roof of his four-wheel-drive.
“Well don’t just stand there, come give me a hand with this,” he said, as the panel tipped and threatened to score
the Land Cruiser’s paintwork.
So she did, then helped him manipulate the plywood into the house and, by virtue of several back-and-fill maneuvers, into the hall outside his office.
Then Bess helped him move furniture so he could lay the plywood on the floor in front of his desk. She stood rooted in further confusion as he strode out to his vehicle and returned with a smallish, gas-lift secretary’s chair, on castors. The chair was similar to his, except Geoff's had a bigger, more luxurious seat.
“What on earth are you doing?” she asked, realizing even as she spoke that there was only one logical explanation.
“Giving you a place to sit while we collaborate, of course. I think there’ll be a lot of chopping and changing at the keyboard, and I hate to think of you having to leap up from the couch every time I need you.”
“Do you expect me to just sit there while you’re typing? What are you going to do when it’s my turn? Twiddle your thumbs?”
“No. I’m going to sit on my chair and watch you. Very pleasant occupation, that.”
The grin that followed was the brigand’s grin she had come to fear most, the one that warned her there was a gangplank only inches away, and he was the one with the cutlass. Bess shook her head, auburn curls flying. Then she decided enough was enough, this conversation was heading into deep water, and she hadn’t even tried out the chair yet.
“Oh, you had a phone call,” she said, suddenly remembering. “An American. He didn’t leave his name or any message; just said he’d find you.”
Geoff’s eyes grew bleak and the smile vanished. “I found him, and the only thing he and I could manage to agree on was that my new secretary, that's you, had a most professional telephone manner and a very pleasant voice to go with it.”
“So it wasn't a very productive meeting, I'd guess.”
“Not for him.” And there was that pirate’s grin again. Only with his eyes still bitter, the grin now held more than a hint of danger, and something in Geoff’s expression was positively menacing. “If he calls back, tell him to go and get stuffed. In your most professional manner, of course.”
“Yes, sir. Anything else, sir?”
“Nothing I’d like to hear coming out of your pretty mouth,” was the laconic reply. “But I'm damned sick of buggering around with this mob, and I’m afraid it will get worse instead of better unless I start getting exceedingly hard-nosed about things.”
“What things? I suppose I shouldn’t ask, but...”
“You shouldn’t. Especially since the corporation concerned is one of your mob. American, that is. They’ve been after a company I own for about a year now, and they don’t seem inclined to take no for an answer despite the fact that it’s the only answer they’re going to get. I control the damned company and if I don’t want to let it go, I bloody well won’t.”
It was the word, more than the tone of voice, but when Bess heard “control,” an involuntary shiver flew along her spine. And it must have shown on her face, because Geoff immediately looked concerned and moved closer... the worst possible thing he could have done.
“Are you all right?” he asked, reaching out to catch her as she backed away and almost fell over the new chair.
“I... I’m fine,” Bess stammered. “A touch of heartburn, I think.”
Which gained her a quizzical look. “Oysters,” he said.
“What?”
“You once told me you really like oysters. And do I know a place. Unless your heartburn is more than a touch.”
“No,” Bess assured him. “You just said the magic word. Oysters. Do I have to dress up?”
“Not really, but it isn’t a bad idea. I haven’t seen you wear legs since you landed at the airport. Tell you what. You wear legs and I’ll wear a tie. You may not think it a fair trade, but you don’t know how long it’s been since I wore a tie, much less how I hate the damned things.”
Bess couldn’t help but smile, thinking it had probably been about as long since he'd worn a tie as it had been since she’d worn a mini-skirt. And she'd packed one!
~~~
In his suite at the Country Club Casino, the Asia-Pacific manager for the Cornwall group, Gerald Coolidge, couldn't stop thinking about the voice he’d heard on Geoffrey Barrett's phone. Why had the voice sounded so familiar? American, definitely, but why should he think he knew it?
The penny dropped about three minutes after Tom Rossiter walked through his door. Even then Coolidge wasn’t sure. But he'd trained himself never to believe in coincidences, no matter how ridiculous they might seem on the surface, and so far that ability had paid off in spades.
“You’re a long way from your turf, Tom,” he said in greeting to his old friend. “What are you drinking and what are you doing in this god-forsaken hole?”
“Whiskey and water, and make it a double,” Rossiter said. “God only knows I need it. The old man’s going off the deep end, Gerry, and it’s all I can do to keep from going with him.”
Coolidge shrugged. “He’s always doing that. What’s the flap this time?”
“He’s never gone this far before. I think he’s losing it, I really do. Can you believe I’ve been sent here to track down his daughter and drag her home by the pigtails? I'm supposed to kidnap her. I mean, how the hell can I kidnap someone I can’t even find, much less get them from here, if she really is here, back to New York? Hell, this isn’t some little kid, Gerry. This is the old man’s full-grown, adult daughter and heir!”
Whereupon the penny dropped from a wondrous height, and Gerald Coolidge could only stand there with his mouth open and his brain on fire as the coincidences came together. “How bad is the old man, Tom? It’s been a year since I saw him in person, you know, but I have to agree he’s been sounding more and more out of control whenever he phones.”
Rossiter grunted, took a huge slurp from his drink, then lowered his hulking body into a chair. “I’ve noticed during the last six months that he’s getting more and more erratic, and far more volatile, which is saying something for old War. And vindictive? Gerry, you wouldn’t believe some of the crap he’s been pulling. Remember the pictures in his office? I think he thinks he's Howard Hughes. You’re lucky to be so far away from headquarters.”
“What about his daughter?”
“He’s concocted some weird scheme involving this Englishman who’s fixated on Elizabeth. Never so much as met her, but he’s seen her picture and he wants her. And if the old man has anything to do with it, he’ll get her. Lucky bastard. She's probably the most drop-dead gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen. Nicely padded, not too skinny like... like one of those scrawny models. Elizabeth should have been a movie star, not buried somewhere in Colorado. The old man said she moved there because she loves football and she's a Denver Broncos fan.”
“And the old man’s going to... what... sell her? Marry her off like he did before to that idiot, Bradley? Wasn’t he a piece of work? We’ve done a few things over the years I’ve at least half-regretted, Tom, but putting that jerk through the hoops almost bordered on fun.”
“Personally, I think it’s too bad he shot himself. Better he should have lived and suffered some more.”
“Yeah, right.” Coolidge paused, then reached out to snatch the almost-empty glass from Rossiter’s hand. When he refilled it, it was more than a double.
“Listen, Tom,” he said, after Rossiter had slugged back a mouthful. “How do you think the old man would feel if his daughter helped him with this stubborn son of a bitch down here? The one we’re trying to dicker with? Before you kidnap her and drag her home, I mean.”
“What?” Rossiter’s surprise was total. He almost gagged on the next slug of whiskey, then sat there dumbfounded, the glass swamped by his enormous hand, his eyes glaring with suspicion. “Okay, Gerry. You obviously know something I don’t. Of course! I forgot the old man sent instructions to everybody and his dog to keep an eye out for the girl. And you found her, didn’t you?”
If they hadn’t been old friends, hadn’t
gone through the Cornwall corporate wars together, and if their corporate interests weren’t in totally different if complimentary directions, Gerald Coolidge would have lied. But he owed Tom Rossiter, and vice versa, and they went back a long way, with many bodies buried along the track.
“I didn’t realize I’d found her until you walked in the door,” he said. “What’s worse, I never got any instructions from the old man about Elizabeth, which means I’ll have somebody’s balls for bookends when I get back to Singapore. But yeah, I’m almost sure I know where she is. Why, I can’t imagine to save my life because it makes no sense at all, but it could be just the ticket for both of us, Tom. A ticket to fame, fortune and the American dream.”
Whereupon he poured himself a drink, most unusual in the middle of the morning, and sat down to relate to Rossiter the curious tale of his phone call, as well as his last abortive meeting with Geoffrey Barrett.
“Now, friend Tom,” he said, after refilling their glasses. “I think we have to have a plan, and I think I’ve got one that serves both our needs. Interested?”
“Cautious,” was the brief reply. “But I’ll listen.”
“Good. First, we have to make sure it is the old man’s daughter. Did you happen to bring a picture or two along? Of course you did; how handy. You and I can’t go anywhere near the place since she knows both of us by sight. But I just happen to have an ambitious bootlicker called ‘Rambo.’ Rambo's as sleazy as they come and Elizabeth doesn’t know him. So, first thing we do is send him around to confirm her identity. Easy enough to get Barrett out of the way. A phone call should do it.”
Rossiter merely raised one eyebrow. “Okay, so assume we’re sure it’s the right girl. Then what?”
Finding Bess Page 6