Embraced by Love (7 page)

The music started. There were no conga drums, no salsa beat, no horn section . . . It was Bach, light and baroque.

As she watched, Saunders and Blake exchanged a delighted, smiling look. But David was still tense. He looked with trepidation toward the door to her living quarters, the door Cooper always came leaping out of after he finished his ten-fifteen office-wide announcement.

The door swung open.

David cringed.

But the Cooper who came into Josie’s office looked quite different from the man who had danced barefoot in the halls just yesterday morning.

Cooper was wearing an obviously expensive, hand-tailored dark business suit that fit his well-muscled frame like a glove. His shirt was crisp and white, tucked into his pants and buttoned all the way up to his neck. His tie was dark blue with tiny white flecks. Josie smiled. If Saunders and Blake looked closely they would see that each of the little white spots was a miniature Starship Enterprise. But only if they looked really closely.

His golden brown hair was pulled austerely back from his handsome face, emphasizing the angles and planes of his exotic cheekbones and strong jaw.

He was carrying a tray that held a large pot of coffee, a plate of donuts and pastries, cream and sugar servers, and six or seven ceramic mugs. With a smile he set it down on the conference table. He met Josie’s eyes briefly and winked.

She smiled back at him and stood up. “Mr. Saunders, Mr. Blake, I’d like you to meet my husband, Mr. Cooper McBride.”

The Fenderson people rose to their feet, shaking hands with Coop.

“Cooper’s an architect,” she continued. “Perhaps you’re familiar with his work?”

That was a given.

As Saunders and Blake made noises about Cooper’s latest designs, Annie and Frank, who had come back into the room shortly after Cooper, poured the coffee.

Frank. As Josie looked up at her assistant, he glanced at her then tried to swallow a smile. Frank was one of Cooper’s biggest fans. She realized that he had run out of her office to warn Cooper that the Fenderson people had arrived early. Thank God for Frank.

She glanced up at David, but his eyes were glazed.

“Won’t you join us for coffee, Mr. McBride,” Saunders was saying.

“Thank you, I’d like that,” Cooper said, as they all sat down at the conference table. “And please, call me Cooper.”

Cooper played the part of the gracious, charming host with polite, almost old-world manners throughout the remainder of the coffee break, steering the conversation carefully away from business.

At ten-thirty, Cooper stood up. “Why don’t we let Mr. Chase and my beautiful wife return to work? Frank and Annie and I can give you a quick tour of the office before you leave,” he said to the Fenderson people.

Frank was already holding the office door open, and Josie only had time to briefly shake hands with Saunders and Blake before they were gone.

They were gone.

She and David stood in her office, blessedly alone.

But David looked shell-shocked. “Maybe I should follow them,” he said, staring at the door.

Josie laughed. “Oh, come on, David. Cooper charmed the pants off of the Fenderson people. He’s not going to blow it now. Think of the time he just saved us.”

With effort, David shifted his eyes toward Josie. “I thought,” he started to say, then stopped. “I think my blood pressure reached new heights for a while there.”

Josie started to laugh, and David’s face broke into a smile. He began to giggle.

“Bach,” he said. “He played Bach. Can you believe—” He was laughing harder now, and couldn’t speak. “I was—” He gasped, wiping tears from the corners of his eyes as he hooted with laughter. “Can you believe I was actually disappointed?”

FIVE

O
N
W
EDNESDAY
it rained again, and Cooper and Josie took a taxi from their apartment into work.

They were late. It was nearly nine o’clock, but Josie had been the one to drag Cooper back into bed for a change, and he hadn’t been about to argue.

He held her hand as they rode up in the crowded elevator, then carried her briefcase down the hall to her office.

Frank and Annie greeted them both as they came in.

“Get your boss a cup of the black stuff, will you?” Cooper said, holding the door invitingly open as he looked pointedly from Annie to Frank.

“I’ll get it,” Annie said quickly.

“I’ll help.” Frank followed her out of the door, and Cooper shut it behind him.

“Give those guys a raise.” Cooper pulled Josie into his arms and kissed her. “I’ve got a meeting uptown with a client today,” he said. “I had to schedule it for eleven, so unless you want to have a late lunch, you better eat without me.”

“I can wait for you,” Josie said. “I’d
rather
wait for you.”

His eyes were soft as he kissed her again. “I love you,” he said. “Have I told you that yet today?”

“Once or twice,” she said with a smile. “Three times, actually, if you count saying it in Spanish. At least I
think
that’s what you were whispering to me this morning.”

Cooper laughed. “You know, I’ll teach you Spanish if you want.”

“Right,” Josie said, rolling her eyes. “I can learn it in my spare time.”

A soft knock sounded on the door, and they moved apart.

“See you later, babe,” Cooper said, blowing her a kiss as he opened the door.

David was standing there.

“Well, howdy Dave!” Cooper said, slapping him heartily on the shoulder.

“Good morning, Cooper,” David nodded. “How are you today?”

“Dave!” Cooper said, a big grin spreading across his handsome face. “Dave! You’re not ignoring me! You’re actually inquiring about my health!” He turned to look at Josie. “We’ll have him up and doing the mambo before the year is out!”

“Don’t count on it,” David said, walking past him into Josie’s office.

“Another response! Dave, maybe you’re starting to get used to me!”

“Good-bye, Cooper,” Josie said, pushing him firmly out the door and closing it tightly behind him.

“The frightening thing is, he’s right,” David mused. “I
am
starting to get used to him.”

The call came a little before noon.

Frank was at the computer, doing Josie’s job. Lord, that boy was bright. If she didn’t watch out, she thought with a smile, Josie herself would end up surplus.

She sat with Annie at the conference table, going over some editorial changes in the monthly status report to Fenderson when the intercom beeped. The secretary’s cool voice announced, “Call for Josie, on line three. It’s the Tennessee State Police. They say it’s urgent.”

“The
who
?” Josie said, standing up and crossing to her desk, reaching over to push the speak button on her intercom. She repeated her question.

“Tennessee State Police,” answered her secretary. “They don’t seem to want to take no for an answer. They insist on talking to you.”

“Thanks, I’ll take it.” As Josie picked up the phone, she glanced at Annie and Frank, who were trying not to look too curious. “Jeez, do you think they want to nail me for that parking ticket I got in Nashville back in 1979?” She pushed the phone line, leaning against the edge of her desk. “Taylor here.”

“H’lo, this Miss Josie Taylor?” came a deep voice with a thick Tennessee drawl.

Lord, thought Josie. Did I used to talk like that? Do I still?

“Yes, it is,” she said. “Who is this, please?”

“This is Sergeant Hoover from the Tennessee State Police,” he said. “Ma’am, are you related to Mr. Bradley J. Taylor of 134 River Drive, Walterboro, Tennessee?”

“Oh, Lord,” Josie said. “What has Brad gone and done?” Her older brother had been in trouble off and on during his adolescence. It was true that it had been a good ten years since his last run-in with the law, but in the past, Brad had a tendency to party hard and lose his temper frequently. She had thought that had changed since his marriage, but—

“Is he related to you, ma’am?”

“Yes, he’s my brother,” Josie said. “What is this about? Does he need an attorney?”

“No, I’m sorry, ma’am, he does not,” Hoover said. “I regret to inform you, ma’am, that your brother and his wife were involved in a fatal automobile accident on Route 40 outside of Nashville at three a.m. today, mountain time.”

“Oh, God,” Josie said, gripping the edge of her desk. “Were they badly hurt? Which hospital are they in?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said. “But there were no survivors. Bradley and Carla Taylor were pronounced deceased at the accident scene at 3:14 this morning.”

Deceased.

That meant dead.

Dead?

Her brother Brad was dead?

No—

The room spun, and the bright light streaming in through the windows looked distant, until it seemed just a pinprick of light, as if she were looking through a long, narrow tunnel. The phone dropped from her hands, and for the first time in her entire life, Josie fainted.

Annie was up and out of her seat before Josie crumpled to the floor. “Get the phone,” she ordered Frank. “What did they say to her?”

Josie’s face was frighteningly pale, and with her eyes shut, lying on the rug, she looked like a rag doll.

“David!” Annie shouted, kneeling next to Josie on the floor. Her pulse was slow and steady, thank God. Annie raised her voice even louder.
“David!”

He came quickly across the hall. “What’s the matter?” He saw Josie. “Oh, Jesus—”

“The line’s been disconnected,” Frank said. “It must’ve happened when she dropped the phone.”

“Call an ambulance, then get the number for the Tennessee State Police,” Annie said, then turned to look at David. “Get Cooper.”

David knelt down. “Christ, Josie! What’s wrong?” He asked Annie, “Is she sick?” He touched Josie’s check, her forehead. Her face was so white, her soft skin clammy . . .

“Find Cooper,” Annie repeated almost savagely to David.

“He’s not in the office,” David said.

“Paramedics are on their way,” Frank said, “and I’m calling that Tennessee number . . .”

“I
know
he’s not in the office.” Annie was starting to get very angry at David. “Check his calendar, find him, and get him back here.
Now!”

Annie’s usually quiet gray eyes were blazing as she glared at him, and he left the office at a run.

Cooper’s office door was unlocked, and David burst into the room. The architect’s desk was piled high with stacks of files and papers and magazines. He rifled through the mess, looking for something,
anything
that resembled a calendar.

He finally found it, hanging on the wall. It was a regular, monthly calendar and Cooper had penciled into today’s little box the words, “Waytech, 11:00.”

David flipped open the Rolodex, and quickly found Waytech’s phone number. He punched the numbers in quickly, then tapped his fingers impatiently, waiting for the receptionist to pick up.

Over at Waytech, Cooper was letting the Board of Directors take their time checking out his design for their new building. They had bought a site out in Montvale, New Jersey, and this building was to be their corporate headquarters. He had created something modern and sleek, with just the right amount of tongue-in-cheek self-importance thrown in. So far they loved it.

The phone buzzed, and the chairman picked it up. Cooper was surprised when the portly, gray-haired man held it out to him, saying, “Mr. McBride, it’s for you.”

“Hello?” Cooper said questioningly as he took the phone. Who would call him here?

“Cooper, thank God. This is David.” It was David Chase, and he sounded really upset. What the hell . . . ?

“You have to get over here right away,” David said frantically. “It’s Josie—”

Ice.

Frozen fingers of ice grabbed Cooper around the throat and chest and squeezed. Something had happened to Josie. Something so bad that David had to track him down here at Waytech. Cooper couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t talk.

“I don’t know what happened,” David was saying. “I think she collapsed. She passed out. She looks really bad—”

“I’m on my way,” Cooper managed to grind out and hung up the telephone.

He left the executive conference room at a dead run, shouting his apologies over his shoulder. Skidding to a stop in front of the elevators, he pushed the down button. After waiting only a few seconds he started toward the door marked “stairs,” but changed his mind. He was on the twenty-fourth floor. Even if he ran, it would still take less time to wait for the elevator.

“Come on, come on,” he begged it under his breath, and finally one of the doors slid open.

The ride down took forever, and when the doors finally opened, Cooper burst out into the lobby.

He ran a block and a half before he flagged down a taxi. Panting, out of breath, he gave the driver the address. “Floor it,” he said harshly. “I need to be there
now.
”

The cab left the curb with a jerk and a squeal of tires. Cooper peeled off his suit jacket and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. His hair had come free from his ponytail as he was running, and now he pushed it back from his face.

Josie had seemed fine this morning. Hell, she’d seemed more than fine. What could have happened?

He remembered all of her stomachaches. She’d had them off and on throughout the past five years. He had teased her about the stress from her business giving her an ulcer. He’d only been kidding, but maybe it had finally happened.

Please God, he prayed. Whatever it is, don’t let it be serious.

But as the taxi pulled up to the office building, there was an ambulance parked haphazardly near the front entrance. God, an
ambulance.

Cooper threw a wad of bills at the driver and bolted for the door.

He took the elevator up and was nearly screaming with impatience by the time the doors opened on Taylor-Made Software’s executive floor.

The hallway emptied as people saw Cooper coming, clearing the way for the big, wild-looking man with a grim light in his eyes and hair streaming out behind him as he ran.

He burst into Josie’s office.

She was lying on the couch, her eyes closed as one of the paramedics took her blood pressure. God, she looked so pale, so little, so
fragile—

Frank touched his arm. “She’s okay,” the younger man said quietly. “She’s not sick, Coop, she just got some bad news.” Frank’s eyes darkened with compassion. “Her brother and his wife were killed in a car accident.” He swallowed. “They had a head-on with a semi that was going the wrong way on the interstate.”

“Oh, God,” Cooper breathed.

“The policeman I talked to figures they died almost instantly on impact.”

“What about the kids?”

Frank blanched. “Oh, Christ, they had
kids
? The man told me the car was pulverized, Coop. Everyone in it was killed.”

Cooper turned, pushing his way to his wife’s side. As the paramedic slipped the blood pressure cuff off Josie’s arm, Cooper knelt down next to her, taking her cold hands in his.

“Josie,” he said, and her eyelids fluttered.

“Coop,” she whispered. The pupils of her eyes were dilated, and she shivered even though it was quite warm in the room. “Oh, Cooper, Brad’s dead.”

“I know, honey,” he said, smoothing her hair back from her face. “I’m so sorry.”

Her brown eyes looked very large and so vulnerable against her pale skin, and as he watched they filled with tears.

“I’ll clear the room,” he heard Annie say softly and he nodded.

Within seconds, even the paramedics were gone. Annie shut the door tightly behind her.

“I think I fainted,” Josie whispered as the first of her tears spilled onto her cheeks. “I can’t believe I actually fainted.” She laughed, but it quickly turned into a sob. “Oh, God, it’s been more than a year since I even
talked
to Brad on the phone—”

Cooper held her tightly. “Baby, it’s all right if you cry.”

“I don’t have time to cry,” Josie sobbed into his chest. “God, Cooper, I’m his only family. I have to make the funeral arrangements!”

“I’ll do it,” Cooper said. “Joze, will you let me do it? I’ll take care of everything.”

Cooper sat at Josie’s desk with his head in his hands as he waited for the damned lawyer to find the damned file and get back on the damned phone.

The director of the funeral home in Walterboro, Tennessee, had asked him what Brad and Carla’s wishes were regarding their interment, and Cooper realized that he didn’t have a clue.

After a solid two hours of searching, he’d finally come up with the name of the lawyer who had written the Taylors’ will. And now the man, Mr. Travis Beaujelais, Esq., was searching for the file that held that document.

Cooper looked down at his list of things to do. He asked Annie to help him by making airline reservations from New York to Nashville. Frank was taking care of the rental car, and investigating what church, if any, in Walterboro the Taylors had attended. After he got that phone number, Cooper would have to call the pastor and make arrangements for the funeral service. Annie had notified the local and city newspapers about the obituaries and the dates and times for the wake . . .

God, dying was complicated.

The phone line clicked, and Cooper was disconnected.

Cursing under his breath, he redialed the lawyer’s phone number.

Beaujelais answered after only one ring. “Sorry, so sorry,” he said. “Cain’t get used to this new-fangled telephone.”

The man sounded at least eighty-five years old and had such a strong Southern accent, Cooper had to ask him to repeat at least half of everything he said.

“Let’s see now . . . What’dya say your name was?”

“Cooper McBride,” Cooper said patiently.

“That’s right,” Beaujelais said. “McBride. You any relation to Tom McBride over in Tullahoma?”