Handful of Dreams (13 page)

He dressed quickly and quietly, clenching his jaw tightly. He could imagine her laughing victoriously. You mocked your father, David Lane, and look at you….

He gave himself a shake. What the hell had it been?

He didn’t know, but it wouldn’t happen again.

Dressed, he stared down at her bitterly. Then he reached into his top drawer for a piece of paper, scribbled out a note, and then a check.

Staring at her one last time, he promised himself that she would never know that she had been the victor.

Susan awoke slowly, confused at first, certain then that he must have gone downstairs. The sun was shining brightly through the windows. It was going to be a beautiful day.

She stretched deliriously. It was David’s room, she realized, filled with the memories of his youth, things a man would have thrown away, things his father would not: trophies, banners, baseball bat, bowling ball, an assortment of unused after-shaves on the dresser.

And a note attached to the mirror.

Susan frowned and walked quickly to it. She snatched at it so hard that the envelope ripped, then she stared, numbed, as a check fell to the dresser. She saw her name on it, and an amount twenty dollars higher than the weekly salary she’d drawn from the separate company holdings.

“All debts paid—account closed.”

She sank back to the bed, so stunned that her heart and mind froze. “Oh, God!” she whispered with horror.

The consequences … How she despised herself! She had known, she had known….

But she had fallen just a little bit in love with the night, with the man, with longing to be held.

Susan stared into the mirror. She saw a very pale woman there, eyes wide and torn with misery.

“David Lane, if I ever get the chance, I will rip you into a thousand shreds!” she swore.

She had learned not to cry years ago; stupid tears trickled down her cheeks, anyway. What had possessed her? She had been so determined to force his own opinions right down his throat….

Oh, she had certainly done that! But she had missed the main point; no matter what the magic, the call of the fire and the storm, she shouldn’t have fallen into the man’s arms after taunting him so.

She spun around and ran to the shower in her own room, turned on the cold water, and sudsed herself a dozen times. Each second that passed, she stiffened and straightened mentally. She had made a mistake. A horrible mistake. Well, it had happened, and it couldn’t be undone. She would have to consider it a lesson in life. Bitter but part of it all. She
was
going to get her composure back—and her serenity. She would return the check with a letter and get on with her life.

Once dressed, she hurried downstairs. The fire was out. She lit it, then ripped up both the brocade smoking jacket and her own terry robe, throwing the pieces on the fire one by one.

She made coffee and drank a cup.

Then she sat down to write the letter with which she would return David Lane’s check,, wondering bleakly how long it would take to quit despising herself for the fool she had been.

Consequences…

She had been old enough to know that they had to be paid. She even had been aware, vaguely aware, through all the need and sensation that consequences were fated to arise.

She couldn’t begin to suspect just how horrible they would be.

D
AVID WALKED INTO HIS
office Monday morning feeling as if he had been through a meat grinder. Sleep had eluded him on the Sunday night he had returned to his apartment.

Erica had given him a disgustingly pleasant greeting when he walked through; he had barely sat down behind a stack of checks, contracts, cover art, and publicity releases before she followed him in, a cup of black coffee in her hands, a bright smile on her face.

“Thanks,” he murmured, accepting the coffee and taking a moment to be grateful for his personable and ever efficient secretary. He offered her a dry smile. “What’s up this morning?”

“Stacy says she has to see you—it’s urgent. Gordon wants to go over the Gideon series covers. Rebecca thinks she has a good promotional idea for the fall sales meeting, but she has to have your okay before five o’clock. And”—Erica paused with a grimace—“Ms. Jameson called. You forgot to cancel your Saturday night theater date.”

“Oh,” David murmured with a wince.

“It’s all right. You just sent her some lovely flowers and an apology.”

David chuckled. “Good. Thanks, Erica. It’s a cliché, but what would I do without you?”

“Get a slap in the face that you’d probably deserve!” Erica said, lightly chastising him. She appeared a little distracted, though. He sipped his coffee and studied her. She was a very pretty woman, dark-eyed and blond, slim, and prone to dress in a very businesslike manner. She’d worked for his father one year before David had taken over, and though she had been crazy about Peter, she had been just as pleased to work for David. Their relationship outside of the office was a sound friendship; nothing more and nothing less.

“What’s on your mind?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“Yes, there is.”

The anxious look left her features for a minute as she laughed. “I just hope you’ll see Stacy right away. She’s been after you to look at that manuscript for ages now, and you’re still procrastinating!”

David shrugged, curious at her concern. “I have complete faith in Stacy’s editorial decisions. I gave her my okay to make it a lead title next summer.”

“Yes, but you haven’t read it.”

“So?”

“I brought it into the house!” Erica reminded him. She flushed. “I read it, and I maneuvered things a little unethically to get it here.”

David leaned back in his chair, grinning as he watched his secretary. “So rumor is true? You’re dating John Ketchem?”

Erica’s coloring was very, very close to crimson. John Ketchem was a young but very promising literary agent. David liked him; he knew his business, when to go to bat for his clients, and when nothing would be accomplished by endless hours of haggling.

“I—uh—see him now and then, yes.”

“See him?” David couldn’t help raising his brows to her and allowing a wicked, knowing grin to creep into his features.

“Stop that!” Erica pleaded.

He stood up, chuckling, and walked around his desk to brush her cheek affectionately with his knuckles. “Just don’t go ‘maneuvering’ too far in the pursuit of business, okay?”

“It wasn’t anything like that!” Erica protested. “But I did get him to send the manuscript here first. And Stacy moved like lightning to get the contract out.” She hesitated, and he realized that she was nervous about the book itself. “David, you won’t understand until you read it!”

He shook his head. “Understand what? Stacy told me the gist of it: Irish immigrant making it in the New World. She said it was great, and I believe her. I will read it. I read everything. It’s just that lately…”

His voice trailed away as he shrugged, and Erica instantly looked sad and contrite. “Your dad. I know, David, and I’m sorry. But that’s exactly why I’m so anxious! You’ve got to read it, because it should be rushed. And if you’d just read the damn thing, you’d understand! David—”

“Good morning!”

They both started as a pleasant drawl sounded from the door that Erica had left ajar. David looked over his secretary’s shoulder to see Vickie Jameson standing there, serene, confident, and lovely in a new fall outfit, a beige off-the-shoulder sweater and a calf-length tweed skirt that contrasted nicely with her silver-blond hair.

“Good morning, Ms. Jameson!” Erica reacted quickly. Vickie was always charming to Erica; Vickie was just the type of stylish woman that instantly commanded respect.

“Vickie,” David murmured, surprised that his lids fell to cover his eyes a little uneasily. He should have felt something—sorry that he had neglected to call her, sorry that he didn’t feel like embracing her … that he didn’t really feel anything at all because all of his emotions were still bitterly entangled with another woman. His father’s mistress.

He forced himself to look up with a smile. “Vick, I’m sorry about the other night. Want some coffee?” He gave Erica a glance, quickly understood. “I got … tangled up in Maine.”

“There was that horrible storm!” Erica said innocently. “All the power and phones were out.”

“Mmm,” Vickie murmured dryly, casting off her kidskin gloves as she moved into the office. “Erica, thanks so much for the flowers. They were absolutely lovely.”

Erica flushed and looked at David a little helplessly, at which point he laughed. One of the things he liked about Vickie Jameson was her blunt and rational view of life; she wasn’t annoyed, merely resigned. She held no ties on him, and because of it they had enjoyed a long relationship. He didn’t owe her excuses because of his absence; he did owe her an excuse for his rudeness.

“I’ll get some coffee,” Erica murmured. She paused in the doorway, clearing her throat. “Da—Mr. Lane, please don’t forget the manuscript. It’s on your desk.”

“I won’t forget it, Erica. Give Stacy a buzz and tell her to come up at ten.”

The door closed. Vickie moved into the room, smiling as she stood on tiptoe to give him a light kiss on the cheek. David smiled back and left her to sit in one of the conference chairs in front of his desk while he walked around to take his chair behind it.

Her kiss, her touch, her scent … all left him ridiculously unmoved. He couldn’t forget the way a pair of emerald eyes had stared into his; how the grazing of long red nails moving down his back had created a path of fire….

“You louse!” Vickie laughed, eyeing him with reproach and amusement. “Do you know what I went through to get those tickets? I actually stood in line in the rain to get them!”

He shook his head. “I should have called you on Friday morning when I decided to go up to Maine. I didn’t mean to stay. I got there late, and then the storm broke. I’m sorry.”

Erica buzzed. David hit the button on the interoffice phone. “Yes?”

“I’ve Ms. Jameson’s coffee.”

“Bring it in,” David said a little impatiently. She should have known she didn’t need to buzz; his office was a place of business, and if a secretary didn’t know it, of all people…

Erica brought in the coffee. Vickie murmured her thanks and complimented Erica on her hairstyle. David barely heard the exchange.

His thoughts were just a little bit of a lie. If she were before him … Susan Anderson … in that white robe, with that soft smile and that streaming firelit hair flowing over her shoulders, he would be just as mesmerized, just as enchanted as he had been while the storm raged in Maine.

He ground his teeth together, realizing that Erica was almost out of the room. “Erica!” He called her back a little sharply.

“Yes?”

“Get the attorney’s office for me, will you? I need to see someone today.”

Erica nodded and closed the door.

“My, my, what a sudden temper!” Vickie commented. “What’s up?”

“Just a little hitch in my father’s estate.”

Vickie frowned. “I assumed everything but a few small bequests would have been left to you. I can’t imagine you begrudging anything to anyone, David. For that matter, I thought you hadn’t even seen the attorneys yet.”

“I haven’t. I’m just expecting a little flaw,” David said smoothly. He frowned suddenly as his eyes were caught by words on the manuscript in front of him. There was no title page on it; it began with page one, and the author’s name was in the upper left-hand corner. The name rang a bell: S. C. de Chance. The title was
The Promised Place.

Vickie was talking, saying something about dinner, but he wasn’t really aware of her words. He had started to read.

Jem didn’t see the fire or the smoking ruins. He couldn’t hear the shots in the background or the torn and anguished cries of women. He saw only the girl, Amy, who had loved him so dearly against family and heritage, blood, and the wrath of the Catholic God.

Amy was tied to the post behind her. Black tar covered her beauty; feathers flew about her. There were tears in her eyes as she turned to look at him, tears and love and regret, but no anger, no resentment….

There was a roaring sensation in David’s ears. He saw nothing but mist.

It was Peter! In those few words he knew it. Jem was Peter, and Amy was his mother, Mary Lane.

“Who the hell is S. C. de Chance?” he thundered.

“What?” Vickie stared at his face, dark and gaunt and stormy.

David’s thoughts seemed to come back into focus. “Oh, uh—”

“You’re not paying the slightest bit of attention to me,” Vickie murmured ruefully as she rose. “My fault. I should have known better than to come here.”

She moved around to the back of his desk, touched his broad, suited shoulders, and lightly brushed the top of his dark head with a kiss. “I’m leaving, Mr. Lane—before you toss me out. Are you coming to dinner or not?”

“When?”

“David, I just told you! Tomorrow night.”

He stared down at the manuscript again. The words were blurring before him. He didn’t want to go to dinner. He didn’t want to laugh and enjoy Vickie’s fun-loving form of seduction.

All he wanted to do was go back and find an emerald-eyed redhead; hold her, shake her, demand to know what it was that gave her such incredible power that he couldn’t think or reason, behave rationally, or forget her! To know how, and why, he had managed to lose all passion and interest in anyone else…

“Sure, dinner sounds fine.” He stood up and distractedly kissed her. He forced himself to smile, swearing inwardly that he would forget Susan Anderson, sweep her from his mind and soul with all the scorn she deserved.

He walked Vickie to the door. “Dinner tomorrow. I won’t forget.”

“I’ll call. I don’t think you’re with me at all, David.”

“I’ll be there!”

“I’ll have the champagne iced for eight o’clock.”

“Wonderful.”

“Hmm,” Vickie murmured, appraising him. “Heaven knows why I chase you so, David! You’re a lost cause. You’re never going to marry me, Don’t—” She held up a hand when he would have said something. “You’re not, and I know it. It’s all right because I’m having a hell of a good time. And I have beaten out the competition so far, hmm?”