Her Man Friday

by Elizabeth Bevarly

  Then he remembered there was a two-way lock on her bedroom door—which, now that he thought about it, he probably should have used to keep her out—and that in leaving, she would no doubt lock the door behind herself, something that would give her a nice head start on leaving the country. Then again, he reminded himself, there was nothing that would keep her from leaving the country once he drove away from Ashling…

  He still didn't relish being locked in her room, should she decide to do something like that. Although Leo could probably go out the window—it was only three stories, after all.

  "Gee, thanks for thinking of me," he told Lily. He reached behind himself to scoop his stack of previously blank diskettes from the desk, palming them possessively. "But I think I'll just go with what I have here. As I said, it's more than enough to bring you to your knees."

  God, he wished he hadn't said that. Because suddenly, he wanted very badly to bring Lily to her knees for an entirely different reason. Come to think of it, she'd been on her knees that morning when she'd—

  Don't think about it, don't think about it, don't think about it, he admonished himself.

  "Now if you'll just step aside, Miss Rigby," he added pointedly.

  "Leo, please," she said softly, beseechingly. "Just give me a chance to explain."

  He wanted so badly to give in, to sit right down and pull her into his lap and have her weave an intricate tale that would reassure him of her goodness and decency and love for him. But he knew better than to do that. What he'd seen in her files, what he'd discovered among all the numbers and activities and accounts was, quite simply, irrefutable evidence.

  Lily Rigby had stolen money—a lot of money—from her employer. She'd put it into private accounts, then moved it out again, doubtless to buy herself some nice possessions she'd need in the not-too-distant future. She was a thief, Leo reminded himself. She was going to jail. And even though Leo had made a lot of allowances for women over the years, incarceration was a bit more than he was willing to overlook.

  "Step aside, Lily," he said again, more forcefully this time. "I have a lot of work to do at home tonight. You'll forgive me if I don't invite you over."

  She said nothing after that, only moved aside to let him pass. Leo strode forward on legs that felt as if they would crumble beneath him any moment, amazed that he was able to carry himself at all. Moving mechanically and hastily, he returned to Kimball's office to retrieve his jacket and briefcase, then found his way to Ashling's front door. And as he stepped outside, into the dark and windy autumn night, it hit him that he'd never be coming back here as Leonard Freiberger again.

  And he'd never be coming as Leo Friday, either.

  Unfolding the collar of his jacket up around his neck to ward off the chill—though somehow, it wasn't the chill of the wind that bothered him most—he walked to his car, got in, and drove away.

  Lily stood in her bedroom for a long time wondering what she could have done differently that might have kept Leo from leaving the way he had, might have kept him from thinking the worst of her, might have kept him from becoming such a stranger overnight.

  Well, she supposed not tunneling off all that money from the Kimball Technologies profits might have been a good start.

  But if she hadn't funneled off all that money, then the entire last decade of her life would have been pointless. If she hadn't funneled off all that money, then her work for Schuyler would have been for naught. And if she hadn't funneled off all that money, then there would have been life-threatening repercussions that Mr. Leonard Freiberger—or whoever that man was that had just left—couldn't possibly have imagined.

  She sighed, suddenly feeling more tired than she had ever felt in her life. Whoever that man was, she echoed to herself. More than all the other problems she had facing her right now, figuring out that one was the most pressing. Because whoever that man was, he was under the impression that she wasn't who she'd claimed to be from the start.

  Of course, if she were honest with herself, Lily supposed she really hadn't been who she had claimed to be from the start. And now that she thought more about it, hiding her identity the way she had all these years probably hadn't been as good an idea as she and Schuyler had thought it was in the beginning. Naturally, their reasons back then had made sense. But now…

  Now everything was a complete mess, she thought. And it was only going to get messier—a lot messier—before they cleaned it all up. If they cleaned it all up, she thought. Which, she had to admit, was a mighty big if.

  She didn't bother to change for dinner before making her way back downstairs to the dining room. Frankly, eating was the last thing she had on her mind right now. That unmitigated feeling of fear pretty much filled her belly full. She and Schuyler had a long night ahead of them if they were going to salvage the tragicomedy that Leo had just put into play.

  Unfortunately, when Lily arrived in the dining room, it was to find that, although the usual suspects had gathered for cocktails, Schuyler wasn't among them.

  "Where's Schuyler?" she asked the room at large.

  Everyone turned to stare at each other in curious silence, as if they'd just now realized Schuyler wasn't in attendance tonight. Finally, when it appeared Lily wouldn't receive an answer at all, Chloe spoke up.

  "He's up," the teenager said.

  "He went out?" Lily demanded. "Where?"

  She shrugged. "Dunno. But he was all fine duded up. Big-time penguin suit. Mega roses."

  Tuxedo and bouquet? Lily translated to herself, awed by the news. That made no sense. Schuyler didn't have any engagements this evening. None that he'd told her about anyway. And he told her about all of his engagements. In spite of her additional duties and activities, Lily was still an exceptional social secretary. And if Schuyler had had an appointment with a woman this evening—even a woman of the night—Lily would have known about it. How odd. Where could he have gone?

  And wasn't it just like him to take off now, right when she needed him most?

  "Schuyler," she said under her breath as she spun around to leave, "you'd better have an awfully good explanation for this when you get home."

  * * *

  Chapter Seventeen

  As he lifted his hand to knock on the front door of #3B in a South Philly brownstone, it occurred to Schuyler that, in all his years, he had never dropped in on a woman unannounced. Nor had he ever wanted to drop in on a woman unannounced. Nor had he ever brought flowers with him when he did drop in on a woman—announced. Nor had he ever actually wanted to hand pick and pay for the flowers he brought to that woman he'd never brought flowers to before.

  Or something like that.

  Hmmm… Call him overly analytical, but all of this seemed highly significant somehow.

  He hesitated before allowing his hand to make contact with the door, surveying his surroundings again. The building was old, but sturdy, the paint in the dark hallway peeling, but clean. The mingling scents of Lysol, cigarette smoke, and cooked cabbage warred for possession of the air, but there was something surprisingly appealing about the smell. It reminded him of his childhood, something he would have just as soon not been reminded of.

  In spite of that, however, as he stood at Caroline Beecham's front door, a bubble burst inside him that was warm and soft and strangely reminiscent of affection. Though admittedly, it had been so long since he'd felt something like that, he wasn't entirely sure he was correct in his identification of the feeling.

  The neighborhood Caroline called home seemed safe enough—though it was clearly, Schuyler fought off a shudder, working class—but he had instructed Claudio to remain parked at the curb and to stay with the car at all times. Certainly Schuyler wasn't anticipating any kind of trouble—not with anyone other than the resident of this particular apartment, at any rate—but he wanted to make sure he had an easy escape route, should something like escape become necessary this evening.

  And where Caroline Beecham was concerned, escape was never far from the front of his b
rain. So far in their acquaintance—he hesitated to call it anything more—she had tried to strangle him, had called him stupid, had accused him of being unfeeling, and had seen him, dammit, at his most vulnerable. Which, granted, was none too vulnerable, he assured himself, thanks to that cool, steely armor he had erected around himself over the years, by God. Still, running away was looking more and more like a viable option where she was concerned. He wondered why he hadn't taken advantage of it already.

  It was because of something in her eyes, he decided. Something in her voice when she spoke about the Van Meter Academy in general, and Chloe in particular. Something about the way she looked at Schuyler, too, that made him… curious… to know more.

  He and Caroline—yes, he did rather like the feel of her first name rolling about in his head—had ended up spending the entire evening together last night, and not all of it had been used up discussing Chloe's health, education, and general well-being, either. For instance, Schuyler had discovered that, when she was a senior in high school, Caroline had been both the captain of her debating team and voted Most Likely to Appear with Staples in Playboy. For some reason he had yet to understand, she'd been much more proud of that first accomplishment than the second. In spite of all that, it was a combination no man would be able to resist.

  It was really too bad about that high IQ business, though, he thought further. Too much intelligence was never good for a human being, male or female. In order for a body to hold that much sagacity, it became necessary to cut back on space for other things. Like a person's soul, for instance. Like a person's affections. God knows Schuyler had learned that for himself firsthand.

  Caroline, however, seemed not to have been robbed as badly as others of his acquaintance, though, in that respect. And Schuyler was determined to find out why. She still seemed capable of caring about others—to a fault, really, because no one should be that concerned about the well-being of people who'd made bad choices from the get-go. Yet Caroline Beecham, for all her smarts, was working not to make her immediate surroundings more beautiful and luxurious and convenient, as Schuyler had always struggled to do. No, instead, she toiled long hours in an ugly, dark building, for little salary and less satisfaction.

  It made no sense. Not when she had the kind of brain and passion that would have taken her anywhere. Caroline could be worth millions today, had she just chosen her career path better, could have gone to work for and with people who would have known how to exploit her resources. Had she chosen a route that included science and mathematics and technology, Caroline could be heading up a business that would be giving Kimball Technologies a run for its money right now.

  But no. She had opted to study education of all things. Child development. Sociology. And all Schuyler could do was wonder, Why?

  Only one way to receive an answer for that, he thought, rapping quickly on her front door. Just go ahead and ask. He'd meant to last night, at several points in their conversation. But as they'd sat in a deli near the school while Claudio parked the car two blocks away, as they'd shared a dinner of cheesesteaks and French fries and draft beer, Schuyler had found himself unwilling to put voice to such a thing.

  Caroline was an enigma, and he'd encountered far too few of those in his life. Still, surely there was an explanation for why she was the way she was, an explanation that, once uttered, would completely remove the magic and mystery that clung to her. But last night, he'd wanted to enjoy that magic and mystery. Even if it only lasted one night.

  He heard the slink of a chain on the other side of the door just before the deadbolt groaned in its chamber. Then the door flew open and Caroline stood on the other side, looking—

  Wow.

  Looking like a woman for a change.

  Her hair, which had always been swept back from her face and fixed behind her head in a knot of something intolerable, cascaded down around her shoulders like a river of henna-stained silk. And instead of some colorless, shapeless dress, she was wearing what Lily had always referred to as "leggings"—and what Schuyler had always referred to as "those incredibly erotic things women wear in place of pants"—and a longish shirt—whose top two buttons weren't fastened, he noted with due interest—in a color reminiscent of a ripe strawberry. The fabric of each was a fleecy, sweatshirt material, something that suggested she was planning to stay in instead of go out, and he heartened quite a bit at the realization.

  "Schuyler," she said, her soft voice tinted with more than a little surprise. "I mean… Mr. Kimball. What are you doing here?"

  "Don't 'Mr. Kimball' me, you uncooperative wench," he said as he pushed through the door without awaiting an invitation. Had he waited for that, after all, he never would have made it inside. He halted just inside the door and turned toward her. "Call me Schuyler, like you did last night," he added. Then, impulsively, he dipped his head to hers and brushed a brief, chaste kiss on her cheek.

  Immediately, she lifted a hand to touch her fingertips to the spot he had kissed, and her cheeks grew pink with the stain of a blush.

  "Wh-why did you do that?" she asked as she closed the door slowly, reluctantly, behind him. "Why are you here?"

  He shrugged. "Because I like you. Dammit. Where shall I put these?" He held up the roses—all four dozen of them—for her inspection.

  She laughed a little anxiously. "I have no idea. I don't have anything big enough to hold all those." But she extended a hand gingerly toward the flowers, fingering one of the delicate red blooms as if it were spun glass. "I can't believe you did this. I can't believe you're here."

  Yes, well, that made two of them.

  She chuckled a little anxiously again before adding, "And you're dressed in… Why are you wearing a tuxedo?"

  That, he thought, was a very good question. He only wished he had a good answer to go with. "Because I'm trying to impress you," he said. "There. I've admitted it. Dammit."

  She laughed again, and he decided that he liked the sound very much. Hearing Caroline's laughter once or twice a day, he thought further, would go a long way toward making life tolerable.

  "I'm… I'm at a loss," she confessed. "I… I don't know what to say."

  Schuyler sighed. "Well, not to put words into your mouth, but how about something like, "Thank you, Schuyler. Won't you stay for dinner?"

  She smiled again. "Thank you, Schuyler. Won't you stay for dinner?"

  "I thought you'd never ask."

  He extended the roses again, and, almost helplessly, she took them from him. She lifted the massive bouquet to her nose and inhaled their sweet fragrance, closing her eyes as she held the breath inside her. Something tightened inside him at seeing her enjoyment of such a simple act, and he marveled again that she had knocked him so thoroughly off-center. Funny, her coming out of nowhere like that, just when he least expected.

  "I'm serious," she said as she cradled the bouquet in her arm as one might hold a sleeping infant. "I don't think I have anything large enough to hold these. I'll have to check. Come in, please," she added belatedly, gesturing over her shoulder. "But I don't want to hear a word about the clutter. You did show up out of nowhere, without warning, after all."

  Yes, well, that made two of them, didn't it? Schuyler thought. It was only fair.

  The clutter, he found, was actually quite nice. All the color that was absent from Caroline's office at school was present here in her home. One entire wall was covered with books, many of them novels, he noted. Another wall was virtually floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on the back of a building beyond. The window seats sported dozens of multi-colored pillows and throws and… stuff, and there was a cat sleeping on each of the three, none of whom seemed at all interested in Schuyler's presence.

  Which was fine with him, because he would just as soon pretend they didn't exist, either.

  The sofa and chairs were an eclectic mix of style and color, each hosting more pillows, more throws, more… stuff. But thankfully, no more cats. On the walls were framed posters advertising a mix of genr
es on exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The place was small, but cozy, the kind of apartment that invited Bohemian guests and arty conversation.

  His gaze trailed after Caroline, who lifted the roses to her face again as she strode toward what he assumed must be the kitchen, skimming the soft blossoms against her cheek as she went. Schuyler could scarcely reconcile this woman with the one he'd gone to see at the Van Meter Academy the evening before. Certainly their conversation afterward had offered each of them an insight into the other that neither had had before, but this…

  When Caroline was safely ensconced on her own turf, in her own domain, in her own home, she was obviously a different woman than the one she unleashed on the world. Because surely it couldn't have been anything he'd said the night before that made her so accessible now.

  Could it?

  A resounding clatter of metal striking metal snapped his attention around, and he realized she had disappeared from his view. So, rounding the counter that separated the kitchen area from the living area, he saw her stooped down, struggling to extract something from one of her lower cabinets. She squatted in front of the open door with both of her stocking feet planted firmly on the linoleum, her arms looking as if they were about to be consumed by whatever lived inside the cupboard. She rugged once, twice, three times, then lost her footing and fell onto her fanny. Schuyler smiled at the picture she made, so clearly unbothered at having someone view her in such a position.

  She pushed herself back to a squatting position, dusting her hands on the part of her shirt that covered her bottom. "I think I have a big roaster," she said as she completed the action.

  Schuyler refrained from commenting on that. Oh, no he didn't—he couldn't. "I don't think it's inordinately large," he assured her, tilting his head to one side to get a better view of her posterior.

  But she seemed not to get the joke. She just nodded and said, "Yes, it is—it's huge. I think it would be perfect."