Collide & Burn (11 page)
MR. GOAT WAS resting comfortably by the time we left him with Doc Cribbs. All the vet could tell us was that he believed it to be a toxin but wouldn’t be sure till the lab results came in the next day. I was just thankful he’d come into the veterinary clinic on Sunday.
“Poison,” I said to Wade as I climbed back into the truck.
“Yeah, we need to get this under control.” Wade’s lips were drawn, and I could see his mind working furiously.
He got me inside the house and went to talk to his security people. I knew he was in control mode, as I heard him send off a couple of men to pick up meals for everyone, including us, telling them to make certain they watched the preparation of the food.
He then phoned Tim, his head security man, and while I couldn’t hear even one side of the conversation, I could tell it was intense from the way Wade was pacing in the adjoining study.
I went into the kitchen, found some green tea, and put a pot on. I suddenly realized I hadn’t eaten all day and was hungry. I looked for something to eat and thankfully took up a bagel I found in the bin. Even as I bit into it, it was dislodged from my mouth and went flying across the room with Wade saying
, “
No!
”
Okay, this was getting intense.
And then I looked up and saw a face—a familiar face partially hidden by a bookcase. Jeff. It was Jeff, here in the house with us.
I didn’t have a voice. It had disappeared with my astonishment, but I had a finger, and I pointed, and my lips made some very strange sounds as I tried to scream. You see, Jeff was holding a Glock, and he was pointing it at us.
“Jeff!” Wade had a voice, and it was hard, real hard, as he pushed me behind him.
“Hell, look at you! Playing the hero, pushing her behind you. Is that who you are? No, we know better, don’t we? You’ve screwed half the women in Manhattan alone
…
you don’t deserve Charlie, but I do. She would look at me if you hadn’t come in with all your money and your power and swept her away. She should be mine. And when you are dead, she will be.”
I had to buy time. I knew that one of the security men was slinking about in the other room trying to get into position to shoot Jeff. Did I want Jeff dead? No, but I didn’t want him to hurt either Wade or me, either.
I said, “Jeff
…
not sure what is happening here, but how did you get in?”
He snorted. “Don’t you remember showing me the escape route—the one your dad made when you were a kid? It’s all overgrown with weeds, but it’s still there. Leads right to the backyard and opens up in the basement. I guess his plans of the house didn’t show it, and the construction guys haven’t found it yet
.
”
I looked at Wade. “How is that possible?”
He pulled a face. “Your dad told my man about it, and I forgot. We were leaving the basement for last. I was going to make it a game room.”
Jeff laughed, and it was a maniacal sound. “Not too smart
…
is he, Charlie?” He shrugged. “But then, neither are you. When I got over Wilma
…
last year, by drowning her, I looked at you and realized you were meant for me. I was going to give you time. I lost my job though
…
and had to take something in the city, but I would come out here and sneak inside and listen to you breathe in your bedroom.”
Okay, that was sick. How had I not known? You read about this sort of thing, but here it was—live!
Keep him calm
, a little voice told me.
Just keep the crazy man calm
.
And then, everything exploded.
Jeff waved the gun around wildly. I saw Wade dive as he shoved me hard out of the way, and something flew across the room.
It was a small knife, and blood spurted out of Jeff’s shoulder. Wade had been carrying it around, and I hadn’t even realized. Then, even as Jeff cried out in pain, he switched hands, taking the gun into his left to aim it at Wade.
A shot rang out and I screamed, but it was Jeff who went down. It had been Tim’s man, Wes, who had been inching towards him from the study, who had finally gotten a clear shot.
He had a knife wound and had taken a bullet, but Jeff was still alive and crawling towards the gun that had slid away from him during his fall.
Wade’s foot was down on the gun. He bent down, took it, and said, “Wes, did you call 911?”
“Yeah, man, they’re on their way.”
I closed my eyes for a moment and started breathing again.
* * *
I wasn’t sure I was going to get my happily ever after, but as the Christmas holidays approached faster than usual, I hoped.
Wade Devon was my one and only. Was I his? I thought so, but would that be enough to break his ‘fear of commitment’?
Time would tell.
We were shopping in Manhattan, and, oh, the city is beautiful during the holidays. I was at a loss about what to get him. I already had something in mind, but I also wanted to buy him something that he would enjoy. So I asked, “What does a simple working artist, like myself, get a rich boy, like you, for Christmas?”
“A sweater?” he answered my question with one.
I snorted. “Yeah, right.”
He laughed. “I have an answer, but I don’t think it’s the one you are looking for.”
“Try me?”
“I want you, naked except for three red bows—one stuck to each nipple with vanilla cream and one right between your thighs.”
“Deal,” I said.
“Now you?”
“I want you with your wrists tied to a bed with red ribbons and one red ribbon around your dick.”
“Oh baby, deal. Do we have to wait?” he said, and his voice was low and fevered.
And then I sighed and asked the same question I had asked a few days ago. I asked again, because he had only shrugged when I asked the first time.
“Are you going to your parents for Christmas?”
He eyed me and said, “Going to my mom’s for Christmas Eve. My dad will be busy.”
I smiled. “Oh, I’m glad. That will be nice for both of you.”
“She wants to meet you.”
I opened my eyes wide. “She knows you’re seeing me?”
“Yes, she knows. I told her a few weeks ago.”
“And?”
“And, she wants to meet you,” he repeated. “So, will you come
…
for Christmas Eve? I’ll fly you to your parents the very next day.”
I eyed him. “Without you? I understand totally if you have plans
…
”
He didn’t answer.
I said, “Okay, no worries, Wade, no pressure. You do what’s right for you.”
We dropped the subject, but I felt it there, hanging between us like a big, heavy weight.
* * *
Sother’s Gallery was overloaded with the rich and even famous. My mouth dropped open as I looked around at familiar faces—familiar from magazines and TV!
They were there to look at my paintings. The room was filled with my most treasured pieces, a few for show, and a few more I thought of as just fillers. From the reaction I was observing, every piece was a hit, and the prices the gallery was asking made my head spin.
Wade came up behind me and put his hand possessively at my back as one of those familiar hotties made conversation with me. Wade knew him well, and I watched the two talk about people and things like they were school buddies.
The cocktail dress I was wearing was black chiffon and hugged my body. A slit up one leg was more revealing than I am wont to wear, and the dress had no back. In fact, it went from the narrow straps at the shoulder to a V way down my butt. Wade had picked it out and sent it to me. I had to admit it was gorgeous, stylish, and way out of my budget.
We celebrated afterwards, privately, in his city apartment. He looked around the place and said, “I know you hate the décor here
…
”
“Do you love it?”
He laughed. “No, I bought the place as is and am never here long enough
…
” He shrugged. “So I suppose it didn’t matter. What matters to me is to do it up the way you like.”
I laughed. “You might not like what I would do with the wonderful open space.”
“I love everything you do, everything,” he said simply. He slipped off my dress, and I stood naked, the dress pooled around my ankles.
“Baby
…
you walk around without a clue how savage you make a man. Tonight every guy in that place was fixated on you.”
I laughed, embarrassed. “Oh, come on, there were beautiful women there for them to be
…
er
…
fixated on.”
“None like to mine,” he said.
“Mine? Are you calling me yours?” My brow was up.
“Yes, you are—say it. Say you are mine.” He sounded feral.
“If I do, then you have to say the same,” I countered.
“But, Charlie,
I have been yours from the start. Now say it,” he demanded.
“I’m yours, Wade Devon, and you are mine
…
”
“Mine” was all he seemed to hear. “You are mine.”
With that he scooped me into his arms and carried me to his bed.
CHRISTMAS EVE WITH his mother turned out to be brutal. She was determined not to like me, which I might have even understood, but it wasn’t because she was being motherly and protective. She was a bitter woman, dissatisfied with life, and of all things, she blamed her son for having ruined her life.
Apparently the bitch had wanted to be a ‘rock star’. Her family had the money and the power to launch her, but when she got pregnant they withdrew their support for her career and she had to marry Wade’s father.
She told me all this while Wade squirmed beside me and drank more than I usually saw him drink. His limit had always been two—three, tops—glasses of wine.
When last I’d looked, he was on his second bottle, not glass, and as his mother was a recovering alcoholic and I was still sipping my first glass, I knew he was not enjoying himself.
I got up after dessert was served by her live-in maid (who should, I thought, have been awarded a gold medal in tongue-biting and patience) and said, “Well, this has been
…
a very different Christmas Eve. Thank you for your hospitality. I am afraid we have to go.”
She looked surprised.
She had never seen a woman with Wade, let alone a woman, or I suppose even a male friend, willing to take the reins. I was in protective mode.
I turned to Wade and said, “Ready?”
He was slightly buzzed, but he grinned from ear to ear and said, “Anytime, anywhere
…
always for you.”
His mother’s jaw dropped.
I gave her a look and said, “You know, Mrs. Devon, you have the brightest star any woman could have ever reached for
…
time to take stock.”
With that, I took his hand, and we marched right out of her swanky Park Avenue Condo.
In the elevator, Wade looked at me and started to chuckle. That chuckle turned into an outright laugh and now that, calmed down a bit, I realized what I had just done, I joined in, partly from release and partly from ‘like I can’t believe I just did that’.
We laughed all the way home. His home, no longer mine. He had expanded it, redistributed the rooms, enlarged the master bedroom into a suite, and I liked it. I liked it a lot.
I suddenly remembered what I wanted to give him for Christmas and hurried to where I had stashed it earlier that week. I produced it and shoved it at him wrapped in a wide red ribbon.
He looked at me with disbelief. “But you love this
…
this is Spike.”
“I want you to have it
…
a remembrance of me and our time together.”
“I don’t need anything to remember you by, Charlie,” he whispered and carried me up the stairs.
In that suite, he removed his jacket and shirt, and I ran my hand up his hard, defined chest. He took my hands, kissed my fingers, and said as he had been saying since the Sother’s event, “Mine.”
I ran my hand down his chest, opened his silky pants, and found my way to his erection. “Mine,” I said.
He growled, “Show me.”
And I did.
* * *
It was six in the morning. I was sleepy from an all-nighter session with Mr. Hard-On Never Quits. A woman should always be sleepy from that. It makes you all soft and dreamy, and that was how I felt.
He wasn’t coming with me. Christmas would be with just my parents, and that was a big and major disappointment for me. I had hoped we had progressed beyond his fear of commitment.
But I told myself how much we had progressed to and was content. Well, perhaps content would be too strong to describe what I felt. Perhaps frustrated would be better.
Dad was always reminding me that once I ate my cupcake it would be gone, so I’d learned to save a piece, just a piece, in case I wanted to taste it one more time the next day.
That was what I was doing, savoring the now, saving what could be for another day.
Wade took me through security, and I turned and said, “How did you get through? I thought you had to be flying.”
“Who says I’m not flying?” he said and grinned.
“Wait
…
what?”
“Escorting my girl to her family.”
“Escorting? And then what?”
“I’ll be nearby in my hotel suite, and after Christmas I’m taking you and your parents to the Keys, to a little island I discovered.”
“My parents?”
“I spoke with your dad last week, and he was receptive.” Wade grinned.
“You did all that, but you won’t have Christmas day with us
…
?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he kissed me long and sweet, and then we were on the plane. Out of nowhere, he pulled out a deck of cards and said, “Gin rummy?”
“Gin rummy?” I was astonished.
He laughed and pinched my nose. “Afraid you can’t take the champ?”
“Deal, mister,” I said. “Deal.”
* * *
He escorted me all the way to my parents’ door, kissed me long and hard, and stopped my hand from knocking. “Wait,” he said, “till I leave.”
I turned hopeful eyes to him, and I heard the plea in my voice. “You sure
…
you won’t come in? We do turkey again for Christmas, and you could eat my share.”
“No can do,” he answered glibly, and his attitude made me frown.
He went back into the elevator, and I stood feeling lost for a moment before I knocked on the door. My dad opened it wide and scooped me in for a hug.
I wasn’t there more than five minutes when a knock sounded once again. I frowned. “You expecting people today?”
My dad grinned. “Only one.” He opened the door wide, and there stood Wade, looking like a schoolboy who had swallowed something everyone else wanted.
“Wade, my boy,” my father said and clasped Wade’s hand.
Wade, my boy? Since when had Wade and my dad become friends?
Wade stepped in, holding something behind his back with his free hand. My dad slapped him on the shoulder and went to stand with my mother. They looked like they were about to attend a musical as they held one another and my mom made little sounds of delight.
Wade cleared his throat, and I saw at once he was nervous. I had never, ever seen Wade Devon nervous.
He said, “I have already gotten your father’s blessing
—
”
“What?” I said.
“Shhh,” my father said.
“But
—
” I said.
“Hush,” my mother admonished.
Wade produced a small black velvet box. He got down on one knee, and my mother squealed. It dawned on me what was happening. It all became clear. He had called and asked my dad for permission. My parents knew. They knew.
He flipped open the box and said, “Charlene Wells, I love you beyond redemption. I love you with my mind, and my heart
…
no war there, they both call for you. I need you beside me always. You are all I need. Will you marry me and make me the proudest, happiest man on earth? Please, Charlie, because I am fairly certain that I can’t get through this life without you.”
I was dazzled by him, by this speech, and by the size of the beautiful diamond in the box. Dazzled speechless.
“Charlie,” Wade said on a plea.
“Baby,” I said and pulled him off his knees, “I said yes the moment I met you.”
He roared with pleasure, and we all started laughing as he slipped the ring on my finger and my parents surrounded us with love.