A Fashionable Affair (12 page)

“Okay.” They went to the car, waved reassuringly
to the worried faces of Sally and Steve, and started
down the street.

“Do you think they were looking for my stuff?”
Patsy asked.

“Yes.”

Patsy bit her lip. “I’m so sorry I landed you with this mess, Michael. I had no idea ...” Her voice
trailed off.

“I’m not sorry.” He looked relaxed and composed, and Patsy found herself wondering just
what it would take to smash that seemingly invinci
ble self-command. He smiled a little and changed
the subject. “It was nice of you to let Steve win.”

Her lips curved. “Steven was watching, and I
didn’t care.”

“I know. If you had cared you could’ve been
great.”

“I don’t know.” Michael had cared, she thought
as she drove along the crowded highway. He had
chosen wrestling for his sport and he had gone at it
with such single-minded determination that he had been state champion by his junior year. They were such different types of people. She knew nothing of
the determined intensity that characterized him.
She had never gone after anything in her life. She
drifted, she thought dismally, floated along happily
on the lucky combination of genes that had pro
duced her face. What a shallow person she was, she
thought again unhappily, and sighed.

“Don’t worry, Red,” Michael said from beside
her. “It’ll be okay.”

He spoke soothingly, almost automatically, in the
sort of voice one would use to comfort a frightened
child. If she hadn’t been driving, Patsy thought
with a twinge of exasperation, he probably would
have patted her. “I certainly hope so,” she returned
a little tartly. “I never realized accounting was such
an exciting profession.”

“It has its moments.”

“So it seems.” Patsy turned off the highway onto
the exit. “Do I make a right here?”

“Yes.”

Ted Lawson was waiting for them at the office,
along with the police. All of the file cabinets had
been gone through and the ones in Michael’s office
had been emptied and strewn all over the place.

“Do you have any idea who might have done this,
Mr. Melville?” the police officer asked.

“Not offhand,” Michael said neutrally.

Patsy’s eyes widened. “You’re not working on
anything that would show up an embezzler or
something like that?” queried the other officer.

“From the looks of things here, I quite probably am,” Michael replied. “I won’t be able to tell you
what case, though, until I see if anything is miss
ing.”

The policeman asked him another question, and Patsy stood and listened in growing astonishment.
He wasn’t going to tell them anything—not that he
had been attacked that morning; not that he had
taken her files to his sister’s; not anything. She was
absolutely thunderstruck.

He talked professionally to the policemen. Then,
after the squad car had gone, he talked soothingly
to his partner. Finally Ted Lawson left as well, and
Michael turned to Patsy, who had been unusually
silent the whole time. “Let’s get out of here,” he
said. “I’ll cope with the mess in the morning.”

She didn’t move. “Why didn’t you tell them?”

He looked at her, his eyes hooded. “This isn’t a
case for the local gendarmes, Patsy.”

“And just who is it a case for, then?”

“The federal authorities. Eventually.”

“I see. Eventually.”

“Yeah. First I want to check out those shopping
centers Fred invested in so heavily.”

“You
want to check them out?”

He put a competent arm around her shoulders.
“Come on, Red. We’re both tired.”

Patsy walked with him to the door. “You’re not the Lone Ranger,” she said.

He patted her. “I know.”

When they got to the car, he opened the passen
ger door for her. “I’ll drive this time.”

He was treating her as if she were a mental
incompetent, Patsy thought mutinously as she got
into the car. And he
was
acting like the Lone Ran
ger.

Michael’s house was quiet when they arrived, but
when he put his key in the front door to unlock it,
he found the door already open. He grunted in
surprise and stepped back.

Patsy’s heart plummeted into her stomach. “You
locked that when we left,” she said.

“I know I did. Go out to the car, Patsy. Lock the
doors. If I don’t come out in two minutes, call the
police.”

Patsy’s mouth was so dry she wasn’t sure if she
could speak. “Michael...” she managed.

“Go ahead.” He spoke gently but firmly, and she
found herself returning to the car. As soon as he
saw her lean over to lock the car door, he went into
the house.

He was back out in less than a minute, gesturing
for her to join him. She jumped out of the car and
ran up the path. “They didn’t just search the
office,” he said grimly. She shot him a quick look
and went into the living room.

The house was a shambles. Failing to find what they wanted, the intruders had done as much dam
age as they could. Patsy stared in horror at the wreckage around her. “Oh, my God,” she whis
pered.

“Yes.” His voice was expressionless but his eyes
were terrifyingly cold. “Upstairs is just as bad.”

“The
bastards,”
Patsy said  passionately.  “They
didn’t have to do this. This was more than search
ing for some papers.”

“This was bully tactics, sweetheart.”

“I’m going to call the police,” she said decisively,
but he reached out and grabbed her arm.

“No police. Not yet.”

“But, Michael ...”

He was slowly shaking his head. “They’re trying
to scare me, Patsy. Your files are important, true,
but the IRS has a lot of the same material. It’s not
the files they want so much as they want me to back
off the case.”

“Well, then,” she said reasonably, “why don’t we
just turn everything over to the IRS and let them
handle it?”

His eyes traveled slowly around the room. “Do
you know, Red, I’d rather wait a bit. Perhaps we can
save something for you out of the mess.”

“Michael,” she said earnestly. “I don’t care about the money. Please, let’s go to the IRS.”

He said the same thing to that idea he had said to calling the police. “Not yet.”

“But, why?”

His eyes narrowed. “Let’s just say I have a little
score to even up with the bully boys.”

Quite suddenly all the stress of the day came to a
head and Patsy lost her temper. “Men!” she said
furiously. “You’re all the same—one step out of the
cave. You positively
enjoy
bullying and bashing each
other about. All you require of a woman is that she
be a good-enough nurse to patch you up so you can
start bashing all over again. And that she be availa
ble in bed in case you want a little sex, of course.”
She was glaring at him now in outraged indigna
tion.

He had begun to smile when she launched into
her speech, and as she finished, his face broke into
a wide grin. “Sounds like a good program to me,”
he said. “Especially that last part.”

Patsy stared at him and tried to hold on to her
anger, but it dissipated as quickly as it had come.
“Stay with me for a while,” she said abruptly. “You
can’t stay here in this mess.” She looked around
with horror. “Half the furniture is broken.” And
you’ll be a lot safer in my apartment, guarded by plenty of security personnel and three locks, than
you will be in this very vulnerable house, she
thought to herself in the brief silence that followed
her words.

He was looking at her, his face grave. “Are you
serious?”

“Perfectly serious. You can’t stay here. Michael,
please.”
She hoped the panic she was feeling did not
show in her voice. If he stayed here and those thugs
came back....

“You could twist my arm,” he said.

“Consider it twisted. Pack a suitcase and I’ll try to
straighten out the kitchen while I wait.”

* * * *

They left the house two hours later and stopped
for dinner before crossing the bridge into Manhat
tan. They took Patsy’s car and left Michael’s parked
in his garage.

“Mr. Melville will be staying with me for a while,
Howard,” she told the doorman. “And nobody else
at all is to be allowed up to my apartment. Under no
circumstances. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Miss Clark.” The doorman hastily con
cealed his surprised expression. “Good evening,
sir,” he said to Michael.

“Good evening,” replied Michael, and he and
Patsy went upstairs. She unlocked the three dead bolts, and he entered, carrying his suitcase.

Patsy switched on the living-room lamps and
closed the drapes against the darkness. Michael sat
on the sofa and stretched his legs in front of him. “This is much nicer than my place,” he said.

“I’d hardly call that a compliment,” Patsy mur
mured dryly. “Tea?”

“Mmm. Tea sounds good.”

He stayed in the living room while she went to
the kitchen to put the kettle on. She arranged the
tea things on a tray and then walked quietly back
down the hall to the living room.

He was still sitting on the sofa where she had left
him, idly leafing through a magazine from the cof
fee table. His black hair was rumpled and untidy
and he needed a shave. She paused for a moment
in the doorway, her eyes on his partially concealed
face. He looked tired, she thought. The room was
very quiet, and suddenly it seemed to Patsy as if
time had abruptly stopped. There was no move
ment in the room, just the sight of Michael sitting
on her sofa reading a magazine. The very blood
and breath in her seemed to still. Then he raised his
eyes and saw her. Patsy’s heart gave one loud
thump and then began to race uncontrollably. He
was looking at her inquiringly, and for one endless
moment she couldn’t speak.

“Tea ready?”

“Almost.” She was speaking, but her voice
sounded strange to her own ears. “Do you take
sugar?” she forced herself to say. “I forgot.”

“No, no sugar. Just milk.”

The kettle began to whistle and she fled thank
fully back to the kitchen.

It had happened. After all these years, it had
finally happened—the one, the only, the forever
love had finally come into her life. And she was too
late. He loved someone else.

She made the tea with unsteady hands. It was
Michael himself who had told her she would recog
nize real love when it came her way. “When you
meet the right guy, you’ll know it,” he had said. He
was right. It was a completely different feeling
from anything she had known before. Patsy stared at the tea tray. What am I going to do? she thought
in forlorn bewilderment.

“Do you need some help?” It was Michael, com
ing into the kitchen.

Patsy jumped. “Oh,” she said, “Er, yes. You could
carry this tray into the living room for me.”

“Sure.” He lifted the tray and started down the
hall.

Patsy followed, breathing deeply and trying to
get her nerves under control.

They had their tea in the living room, and Patsy
managed to summon up most of her usual poise.
She wouldn’t worry about the future, she thought
as she drank her tea, watching Michael’s face and
listening to the even tones of his voice. He was here with her now; that’s what mattered. She would take
whatever the present had to offer and leave the
future to take care of itself. Patsy had always had
the happy facility of living for the moment.

Michael put his teacup on the coffee table and
stretched.