Judgement By Fire (23 page)

            They slept again
then, exhausted and love-sated.

Lauren awoke
to find herself alone, still cocooned in the warmth of blankets and quilts but
instinctively missing the heat of the man who’d spent the night beside her. Her
loss was quickly soothed as she smelled the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and
heard the sharp click of the toaster as it released hot bread. Her heart
swelled with love at the sight of him, naked except for black briefs and his
now somewhat crumpled and unbuttoned white dress shirt.

            “I thought you might
have worked up an appetite,” he said wryly as he handed her a mug and plate.

            “It’s chilly in here
now, you must be freezing. Why not bring your coffee back to bed?” she
suggested, drinking deep of the rich, sweet liquid in her own cup.

            Jon cocked one
eyebrow, his gaze taking in the delicate curve of her breasts where the
blankets had slipped down to reveal her nakedness.

“I really
don’t think that’s a good idea. Or at least, it’s a very good idea, but I have
to get back to Toronto for a meeting with Warren. If I come any closer to that
bed, it’ll be very, very late before I get to the city, and he’ll probably get
worried and have Chief Ohmer and all his officers hammering on your door
looking for me.”

            Lauren grinned at him
before her look turned serious. “Jon, what’s going to happen now? I’m sure, in
some way that everything that’s happened…well, it seems like it’s personal. As
though whoever has been behind everything has somehow decided to focus on you
now.”

            “What do you mean?” a
puzzled frown creased the skin between Jon’s eyes.

            “I mean that whatever
was happening with the company, it seems like it had a different motivation,
was somehow less personal, and now the agenda’s changed. Whoever ran me off the
road more than likely thought it was you, not me, in that fancy truck of
yours.”

            Jon had had the same
thoughts, but he was amazed that she should come to this conclusion so quickly.
After all, Lauren didn’t know that after he’d left her with Paul, he’d gone
immediately to the police station and shown the damaged Jeep to Mike Ohmer. The
Chief had agreed that the marks on the vehicle, with the ragged scraps of dark
material caught in them, looked suspiciously like the result from a hit-and-run
accident. Forensic experts from Toronto were already been on their way to
collect the Jeep and examine the scrapes.

 Carefully,
not wanting to frighten Lauren further, Jon explained what had happened and how
he and the Chief thought that Jeep was the one used to run down Pippa Williams.
Only upper echelon staff at Rush Co. had such easy access to company vehicles,
he’d added bleakly.

            “I had one of the
mechanics drive down with another Jeep for me to use. That’s the one we drove
home in last night,” he concluded, his face drawn as he watched the fear seep
over Lauren’s face and rob her cheeks of color.

            She’d laid aside the
coffee mug and the plate. Now she grabbed Jon’s arms, her eyes wide with
anxiety.

“Stay here,
Jon, Stay here with me. Let your friend Warren and the police do the rest of
the work, get this sorted out, and catch whoever’s responsible. You don’t have
to go back out there. Anything could happen.”

            Gently he gathered
her in his arms, soothing her. Then he rocked back on his heels, holding her
away from him so that he could look into her face.

“I have to go,
Lauren. Warren called me on my mobile this morning. That’s how I came to be up
and about. Pippa Williams has regained consciousness and whatever it is she has
told Warren, he wants me to hear it directly from her.

            “Lauren, this company
was my father’s. He came from nothing. He took his instincts and his brains and
built Rush Co. to what it is today. There are a lot of people who depend on us,
not just my employees and their families, but our suppliers and subsidiaries,
their employees and families…What I’m saying is I won’t stand by and let this
company be destroyed. I won’t let my father’s memory be destroyed.”

            “And what about you,
Jon? What if
you’re
destroyed?” Her voice was tiny, cut through with
threads of anger, but her gaze was wide with fear for him. Jon sighed.

            “Just before I met
you, Warren accused me of shutting my eyes to the facts in front of my nose. He
said I was sitting back and letting the company be destroyed. And he was right.
I wasn’t taking any action, wasn’t facing up to what was going on. And look
what’s happened; my inaction has led directly to Pippa Williams’ hospital bed.
And to your work being destroyed, your life put at risk. My God, Lauren, can
you imagine how I would feel if anything happened to you? I have to go. I have
to stop this thing now.”

            The anguish in his
voice seared her heart, but the courage on his face and the love that lit his
eyes took her fear and anger away. Scrambling to her knees, she pulled him into
her arms, kissing him deeply before holding him still and close. Then she let
him go with a final brief kiss, telling him to do what must be done and she
would be waiting for him when it was over.

            They didn’t speak
again as Jon dressed quickly. Lauren dragged on her own flannel shirt and jeans
and poured them both more coffee. After he’d drained the mug, he pulled on his
jacket and parka and started to leave, but he paused at the door and turned to
her.

“I already
called Chief Ohmer to tell him I’m leaving and you’ll be alone here. I asked
him to send a car over. Don’t let anyone you don’t know in, Lauren. Keep the
doors locked.”

            “God, you sound like
my mother,” she teased him, and he grinned. But the look he gave her before he
left was filled with love and longing, and when he was gone, Lauren’s brave
smile slipped from her face and she wrapped her arms around herself and wept.

*
* *

“I’m sorry,
Dad. I guess I’ve screwed this all up, too. You said I wasn’t much good, said
it ran in our side of the family.” The man kneeling at the graveside choked on
sobs which racked his body. “Mom, I wanted to make you so proud of me, wanted
to be somebody, because I know you thought Dad had let you down. That’s why you
died so soon, isn’t it? And nobody helped us, least of all Uncle Jonathon.” Silently,
he laid the huge bouquet of yellow roses on the grave, then stood and wiped the
tears from his face. “Well, it’s over now. By tonight they’ll have paid their
dues, too.”

Then he
straightened shoulders that had stooped in a parody of prayer, and turned away
from the grave as the early morning sun picked out the names carved on the
stone: Mary Margaret Rush, nee Wallace, and her beloved husband, Stephen Rush,
Sr.

*
* *

            What is it about
hospitals that make them all seem the same? Jon wondered as he strode through
the automatic doors into the big Toronto hospital where Pippa Williams was
being cared for.

            He’d managed earlier
to slip into his office in the Rush Co. building and change out of the crumpled
clothes he’d worn all the previous day and then again this morning. He always kept
fresh clothes and toiletries in his office suite, never knowing when business
might require him to jet off to some distant locale. 

A few days ago
he’d wondered why he was involving himself so closely in what was really quite
a small project for the mighty Rush Co. Now he realized that even then,
although he hadn’t admitted it to himself, he had been irresistibly drawn to
Lauren Stephens from the very first time they met. An aftershock of pure
pleasure shivered through him as he recalled the passion they’d shared, and
visions of her lovely body, her face taut with delight as she hovered above
him, lit by the soft golden light of the fire, winged across his mind in rapid,
sensuous succession.

            Seeing the odd look a
passing nurse gave him, Jon grinned at her and ordered himself to keep to the
business in hand. Yet those flighty little tremors kept on creeping up on him,
and he knew he wouldn’t have it any other way.

            His thoughts returned
to the problem of his own involvement with Haverford Castle. Although it wasn’t
a large enough project for the company president to be running errands on, it
should certainly have occupied the time of the vice-president for Avalon
Hospitality Inc., and chairperson of the Special Projects Committee, Stephen
Rush.  Yet Stephen had been missing for several days now.

Jon had
checked with Stephen’s department during his brief visit to the office this
morning, and been told by an anxious-looking second in command that there’d
been no message from Stephen. When Jon had commiserated, commenting that the
work Stephen should have been attending to must have been piling up, the other man
had grimaced and said that there had been nothing that the other Mr. Rush would
not have normally left to his deputy and staff. The man had looked embarrassed
then, obviously unhappy at sounding so critical about his own boss to the
company head. After all, his boss was the company head’s cousin.

            Jon, however, had
shown no hint of the anger that was building in him. Instead, he had put the
man at his ease, complimented him on the job he was doing and assured him that
if he needed further help, he could contact Jon’s administrative secretary,
Cathy, and she would arrange things.

            Then he made a mental
note to speak to Stephen and find out just how true those rumors were that he’d
been hearing about his cousin’s lack of attention to work issues. A moth of
unease was beating its wings against his brain, but the candle flame of an idea
to which it was drawn was much too hot and bright for Jon to pull out into the
open right now. He pushed the thought aside as he prepared to step into the
private room where Pippa Williams lay.

*
* *

            He wasn’t able to
keep this protective ignorance for very long. As soon as he stepped into the
bright hospital room, he saw Warren slumped in a chair next to the bed where a
small dark-haired woman was supported by a mound of pillows and the raised
backrest.

At his entry,
the pretty Ontario Provincial Police woman officer stood up from the chair
where she’d been sitting on guard, the magazine she’d been absently flipping
through still clutched in her hands. Warren rose to introduce Jon to both the
policewoman and to Pippa, who acknowledged their acquaintanceship with a slight
smile.

It was barely
twenty-four hours since he’d last seen Warren, yet the deep lines of tiredness
and strain that had appeared on his friend’s face took Jon aback. He was even
more horrified by the obvious damage that Pippa Williams had suffered. Jon knew
her slightly, as he had always made a point of knowing at least by name all the
senior staff at Rush Co. He remembered her as a pretty, vivacious woman who took
her work very seriously.

Now she lay
back against the pillows, no trace of that vivacity left in the weary way she
slumped, obviously in pain and under the effects of medication. Her pretty
features were swollen and discolored and her breathing rasped around the tubes
inserted into her nose. The lower half of her body was encased in a plaster
cast and an intravenous drip ticked steadily beside the bed as it emptied its
life giving fluids and medication into her body through a catheter in her hand.
Another machine, monitoring vital signs, hummed quietly on the far side of the
bed.

The awkward
moment as Jon stood on the threshold, trying to absorb the shock of what he was
seeing quickly dissipated as a middle-aged and competent looking nurse hurried
into the room.

“Ah, you must
be the famous Mr. Rush we’ve all been expecting,” she said, her voice deep and
attractive.
The sort of voice that it wouldn’t be too bad to regain
consciousness to,
Jon thought idiotically.

“Now, Miss
Williams here is being an awkward patient on
your
account, young man,”
the nurse continued. “You see, she’s pretty uncomfortable and needs her pain
medication to get the rest she needs to get better. Isn’t that so, Pippa?” She
addressed the woman on the bed. “But Miss Williams here, she tells us the
medication makes her mind fuzzy, and she and Mr. Dillon insist that she tell
her story to Mr. Rush directly. She won’t hear of taking that medication until
she’s talked to you…”

Jon swallowed
the emotion that had lodged in his throat, greatly moved by the loyalty that
led this young woman to choose to be in “discomfort” until she was able to
carry out what she obviously saw as a duty. Quickly, Jon assured the nurse that
this would be a brief interview.

“You’re darned
right it will be. I’ll be back in here in ten minutes. With a needle,” she told
Pippa, and left, her soft soles swishing on the polished floor.

            Pippa must have seen
the look on Jon’s face, sharp-eyed despite her condition, and she grinned.
“Don’t think this is some big ‘loyalty to the firm’ self-sacrifice, Boss,” she
told him, her voice dry and hoarse. “Tell you the truth; I want the bastard who
did this to me caught. He ran me down like some stray dog who got in his way,
left me there not knowing or caring if I was already dead or dying slowly and
painfully in a snow bank. If that old woman, God bless her, hadn’t been
watching out of the window and hadn’t had the presence of mind to call for
help, I probably wouldn’t be talking to you today. Mind you, in this condition,
I’m finding it hard to feel thankful, but I am blazing mad.”

            Jon nodded,
understanding her reaction and the powerful role her anger had played in
helping her cling to life. He moved towards the bed, sitting carefully on the
edge of the mattress so as not to hurt her, and took Pippa’s free hand in his.