Linda Lael Miller Bundle (11 page)

After work, Shay met briefly with one of the contractors providing an estimate on the renovation of the old house. His bid was higher than the one Todd had gotten, but she reviewed it carefully anyway.

Over the next three days, the rest of the estimates came in, straggle fashion. Shay looked them all over and decided to go with Todd’s original choices all the way down the line. She called her friend and, after taking one deep breath, told him that she would lease the house he’d shown her if the option to buy later still stood.

“You’re certainly efficient, Todd,” she said after the details had been discussed. “Alice loves that apartment you found for her. She’s looking forward to becoming a ‘beach bunny,’ as she put it.”

Todd laughed. “She’s something else, isn’t she? I’m glad you and Alice found each other, Shay.”

Shay was glad, too, of course, for her own sake and for Hank’s. What a surprise Alice would be to him when he came home from his trip! Even before her illness, Rosamond had never been very interested in the child, but now he would have someone besides Shay to claim as family.

For all these good things that were happening, there was one dark spot on Shay’s horizon. “H-have you talked to Mitch in the last few days?”

There was intuitive understanding in Todd’s voice as he replied, “He’s working like a madman, Shay. I think he’s got another project lined up for when he’s done with Rosamond’s book, and he’s anxious to get to it.”

Another project. Shay thought of Mitch’s earlier books—she’d skimmed through all four of them during the past few days—and she was alarmed. Good God, did he mean to tangle with the Mafia again? With drug dealers and Nazis and militant members of the Klan? He’d be killed!

She said goodbye in the most moderate voice she could manage, then hung up the telephone with a bang and rushed out of her office, past Ivy’s empty desk, through the deserted showroom downstairs and across the parking lot to her car.

Ten minutes later she was knocking on Mitch Prescott’s front door.

His housekeeper, Mrs. Carraway, answered. “Hello, Mrs. Kendall,” she said warmly. She probably knew a great deal about Shay’s relationship with her employer, but Shay couldn’t take the time to consider all the embarrassing ramifications of that now.

“Is Mr. Prescott at home? I really must see him as soon as possible.”

Mrs. Carraway looked surprised. “Why, no, Mrs. Kendall. He’s away on a research project or some such. I don’t expect him back for nearly a week.”

A week! Mitch was going to be gone for a whole week and he hadn’t even bothered to say goodbye. Shay was devastated and she was angry and she was afraid. So afraid. Had he gone back to the jungles of Colombia, or perhaps to Beirut or Belfast or some other dangerous place? She swallowed her pride.

“Do you know if Mr. Prescott has left the United States?”

The housekeeper’s face revealed something Shay found even harder to bear than surprise, and that was sympathy. “I really don’t know, Mrs. Kendall. I’m sorry.”

Shay muttered something polite and quite insensible and turned away. She should have known better than to get involved with a man who lived his life in the fast lane, she thought fiercely. She should have known better.

When Shay arrived home she found her grandmother packed to leave for Springfield on an early morning plane. Alice was eager to tie up the loose ends of her life in Missouri and get back to Skyler Beach.

Shay didn’t want her to go, even for such a short time. Everyone she loved, it seemed, was either away or about to leave. “If you’d stay just a few more days, you could meet Hank—”

Alice left her packing to kiss Shay’s cheek. “I’ll be back soon, don’t you worry. Besides, the boy will need his room.”

“It isn’t going to be the same without you,” Shay said as Alice went back to the two suitcases propped on the living room sofa to arrange and rearrange their contents.

Alice went on working, but there was gentle understanding in the look she passed to Shay. “You think I’m going to get back there and change my mind, don’t you?”

Shay sank into the easy chair nearest the couch. “Your friends are there. Your house, your memories.”

The old woman gestured toward the stack of photo albums she’d brought with her. They constituted a loving chronicle of Robert Bretton’s life, virtually from birth. “My memories are in my mind and my heart and in those albums over there. And my future is right here, in Skyler Beach. In fact, I’m thinking seriously of renting one of the shops in your building and opening a little yarn shop. I’ve always wanted to do something like that.”

Shay reached out and took one of the albums from the coffee table, opening it on her lap. Lord knew, she’d studied them all so many times that every last picture was permanently imprinted in her mind, but seeing her father’s face, so like her own, was a comfort. “A yarn shop?” she echoed, not really absorbing what Alice had said.

“Robert’s father provided very well for me,” Alice reflected, “and I’ve got no worries where money is concerned.” She closed the suitcases and their fastenings clicked into place one by one. “In my time, very few women had their own businesses, but I always dreamed of it.”

Shay looked up and closed the album. “You could teach knitting classes, as well as sell yarn,” she speculated, getting into the spirit of things.

Alice nodded. “I’ve arranged for Ivy to come and pick me up, Shay. She’s driving me to a hotel near the airport.”

Shay set the album aside, stung. “I would have been glad to—”

“I know, dear. I know. You would have been glad to drive me to the airport tomorrow at the crack of dawn and interrupt your entire day, but I won’t let you do it.”

“But—”

“No buts. My mind is made up. You’ve been running yourself ragged, what with our talks about your father and your job and those silly commercials, not to mention the catering service. I want you to eat a good supper, take a nice bath and go to bed early.”

Shay couldn’t help smiling, though she felt sad. Mitch was gone, Hank was gone, and now Alice was going, too. “Spoken like a true grandmother. Won’t you at least let me drive you to your hotel?”

“Absolutely not. Ivy and her young man are taking me and that’s final.” Alice lowered her voice and bent toward Shay, her eyes sparkling. “I do believe they’re planning a rather romantic evening; though, of course, I’ll never know.”

Shay laughed and shook her head, but inside she wished that she were looking forward to just such an evening with Mitch.

The call came within minutes of Alice’s departure with Todd and Ivy. There would be no quiet dinner, no comforting bath, no going to bed early. Rosamond had taken an abrupt turn for the worse, the doctor told Shay, and the diagnosis was pneumonia. Rosamond was being taken by ambulance to the nearest hospital.

Shay raced to Skyler Beach’s only hospital, driving so recklessly that it was a miracle she didn’t have an accident and end up in the intensive care unit with her mother.

Rosamond had arrived several minutes before her daughter, but it was some time before Shay was permitted to see her. She looked small and incredibly emaciated, Rosamond did, lying there beneath an oxygen tent, and there were so many tubes and monitoring devices that it was difficult to get close to her.

Shay had expected this to happen, but now, standing beside her mother’s hospital bed, she found that expecting something and being prepared for it are two very different things. She wept silently as she kept her vigil and, toward morning, when Rosamond passed away, there were no more tears to cry.

Shay walked out of the hospital room, down the hallway, into the elevator. She drove home in a stupor—there was a storm gathering in the sky—and somehow gathered the impetus to dial the telephone number Garrett had left for her. The first person to learn of Rosamond’s death, besides Shay herself, had to be Riley.

After talking to a housekeeper and then a secretary, Shay was finally put through to Garrett, who told her that Hank and Riley were on another part of the ranch, participating in a roundup.

As the storm outside broke, flinging the rain and the wind at the walls of her tiny house, Shay sank onto her sofa, the telephone balanced on her knees. “Garrett, it’s Rosamond. She—she—”

Garrett waited, probably guessing what was coming, for Shay to go on.

“She died early this morning. Pneumonia. Will you tell Riley for me?”

“Of course,” Garrett answered gently. “I’m sorry, Amazon. I’m really sorry. Have any arrangements been made?”

“Not yet. I just—” Shay paused, pushing rain-dampened hair back from her forehead. She didn’t remember getting wet. “I just got home.”

“Are you all right?”

“I think so.”

“Call someone. You shouldn’t be alone.”

No, I shouldn’t, Shay thought without any particular emotion, but I am. “I think I’ll be all right. You’ll—you’ll bring Hank home right away?”

“Right away, sweetheart. Hang tough; we’re as good as on the road right now.”

Shay mumbled a goodbye and hung up the telephone. Then she got up and made her way into her room. Clydesdale, her carousel horse, stood in one corner, his head high, his painted mane flowing.

Shay rested her forehead against his neck and this time she wept for all the happiness that might have been.

O
f all Rosamond’s husbands, only Riley came to the funeral. A tall man with rough-hewn features and a deep melodic voice that echoed in the hearts of his hearers, he seemed, after all those years of fame, perpetually baffled by the attention paid him. Looking uncomfortable in his dark suit, he delivered a simple and touching eulogy to the remarkably small gathering. It seemed apt that the sky was dark and heavy with an impending storm.

Ivy and Todd were there to offer moral support, though neither of them had really known Rosamond at all. Marvin and Jeannie Reese, recently returned from their trip and still showing signs of jet lag, were present, too, also for Shay’s sake. That left Riley, Garrett and Shay herself as true mourners. Garrett’s wife, Maggie, was looking after the children.

It wasn’t much of a turnout, Shay thought, looking around her. Rosamond had made such a mark on the world, but it appeared that she had touched few individual lives in any lasting way. There was a lesson in that, but Shay was too distracted to make sense of it at the moment.

She wished for Mitch with a poignancy that came from the depths of her and when she turned away from the graveside, he was there. He took both her hands in his.

“I just heard,” he said hoarsely. “Shay, I’m sorry.”

Shay nodded, her throat thick with tears that made speech impossible.

It began to rain and the mourners dispersed, carrying black umbrellas, their heads down. Shay stood in the open, facing Mitch, wanting nothing so much as to be held by him. He took her arm and led her toward his sleek blue car, parked behind the somber trio of limousines.

After settling her in the passenger seat and closing the door against the drizzling rain, he approached Riley and Garrett. Shay watched through the droplets of water beading on the windshield as he offered his hand, probably in introduction, and said something. The two other men nodded in reply and then Mitch came back to the car.

Shay didn’t ask what he’d told them; in essence, she didn’t care. “You’re here,” she remarked. That, for the moment, was enough.

Mitch patted her arm and started up the powerful car. “I’ll always be here,” he said, and then they were leaving the cemetery behind.

They were almost to Mitch’s house when Shay came to her senses. “I should go home. Hank is there, and—”

“Hank is all right.”

Shay knew that was true. Hank was safe with Maggie. He’d barely known Rosamond anyway; her death had little meaning to him except as something that had upset his mother. “I didn’t expect to grieve, you know,” she said in a small voice. “Rosamond and I weren’t close.”

Mitch was concentrating on the sharp turn onto his property. “She was your mother,” he answered, as though that made sense of everything. And in a way, Shay supposed, it did.

The rain was beating down by the time Mitch stopped the car in the driveway, and Mrs. Carraway stood holding the front door open as they dashed toward the house.

“I’ve made dinner,” the housekeeper said in the entryway as Mitch began peeling Shay’s sodden suit jacket from her shoulders. “I’ll go home now, if that’s all right.”

“Be careful,” Mitch said, without looking at the woman. “It’s nasty out there.”

Mrs. Carraway hesitated. “Mrs. Kendall?” she said, her eyes steady on Shay’s face though it was clear that she would rather have looked away. “I’m truly sorry about your mother.”

“Thank you,” Shay answered. Her teeth began to chatter and she hugged herself, trying to get warm.

Mrs. Carraway went out and Mitch lifted Shay into his arms and carried her up the stairs and into his bedroom. The hot tub had been filled and the water steamed invitingly.

Mitch set Shay on her feet and, after flipping a switch that made the water in the tub churn and bubble, he gently removed the rest of her clothes. Then he lowered her into the wondrously warm, welcoming water.

Shay shuddered violently as her cold-numbed body adjusted itself to the change of temperature. “F-feels go-good,” she said.

Mitch sat on his heels beside the tub and reached out to touch her hair. “You look like a lady in need of a glass of brandy and a good meal. Are you hungry?”

Shay felt guilty surprise. “Yes,” she marveled. “That’s awful, isn’t it?”

“Awful? I don’t follow your logic, princess.” His hand lingered in her hair, and it felt as good to her as the surging warmth of the hot tub.

“I just left my mother’s funeral. I shouldn’t be here.”

Mitch shook his head in exasperation, but his eyes were gentle and so was his voice. “Next you’ll be asking for a hair shirt. You belong here, with me. Especially now.”

“But Hank—”

“If you want Hank, I’ll go and get him.”

Shay bit her lower lip. “You’d do that?”

“Of course I would.”

“I—I’d like to call him later, to make sure he’s okay.”

“Fine.” Mitch bent, kissed her forehead and then left the room. He returned several minutes later carrying a tray of food, two crystal snifters and a bottle of brandy.

Shay ate without leaving the hot tub and then slid the tray away. Mitch was sitting on the tiled edge, wearing a blue terry-cloth bathrobe and dangling his hairy legs in the water.

Having finished her dinner and a hefty dose of brandy, the warm water soothing her further, Shay began to yawn. With a tender light in his dark eyes, Mitch helped her from the tub, dried her gently with a soft towel and bundled her into a bathrobe much like the one he was wearing. That done, he guided Shay to the bed and tucked her in.

He kissed her forehead and then turned away. Shay watched, half-awake, as he shed his blue bathrobe and flung it back toward the bed, just missing the target, and then lowered himself into the hot tub, his tanned and muscled body hidden from view.

Shay was disappointed. “Did you know that you’re beautiful?” she yawned.

Mitch chuckled and braced himself against the edge of the tub, his arms folded on the tiles, his brandy glass in one hand. “Am I?”

“Ummm-hmmm.”

“Sleep, princess.”

Shay stretched, warm in Mitch’s bathrobe and his bed, her mind floating. “I wished for you…and you were there…just like a prince in a fairy tale. You won’t…you won’t leave me, will you?”

“I won’t leave you.” The words were gruff, and they seemed to come from a great distance. “Go to sleep, my love.”

“Come here. Hold me.”

She heard a splashing sound as Mitch got out of the hot tub, and watched as he dried himself with a huge green towel. And then he was there, beside her, strong and warm, his flesh a hard wall that kept the rest of the world at bay.

They slept for a long time, and then awakened simultaneously to make love. The world was dark and the only sound Shay could hear, besides her own breathing and Mitch’s, was the bubbling of the hot tub.

She crooned and stretched in luxurious abandon as he kissed and tongued her breasts and her stomach, stroked her with his hands. Shay was seized by a keening tension as Mitch loved her and she clasped his shoulders in her hands. “Now, now,” she breathed.

He parted her legs with a motion of one knee and took her in one swift, masterful stroke, filling her with himself, driving out all thoughts of death and sadness and loss.

With a cry, Shay arched against him, her body acting on its own, clutching at life, affirming life, demanding life. “Oh, God,” she gasped, breathless. “Mitch, Mitch—”

He fit his hands beneath her quivering bottom and lifted her up, to possess her more fully, to be possessed by her. “It’s all right,” he said to that part of Shay that was ashamed to feel such primitive need. There were no words, however, as their bodies waged their tender and furious battle, rising and falling in a feverish search for fulfillment that ended in a hoarse shout for Mitch and a sob for Shay.

He held her, his chest heaving and damp beneath her cheek, as she cried.

“How could I—how could I do that? My mother—”

Mitch’s hand smoothed her hair back from her face and then his arm tightened around her. “Shhh. You’re alive, Shay. Your body was reminding you of that; it’s an instinctive thing, so stop tormenting yourself.”

“You’re just trying to make me feel better!”

“Of course I am, I love you. But what I said was true, nevertheless. Any brush with death, direct or indirect, will produce that response in a healthy person.”

He spoke with such authority. Shay thought of Mitch’s encounters with death, all chronicled so forthrightly in his books, and wondered whom he’d been with afterward. Some Colombian señorita? “That lady pilot, in Chapter Six of
The Connection
—”

Mitch gave an exaggerated snore.

Shay jabbed him in the ribs and then, conversely, cuddled even closer. She fell asleep and dreamed that she and Mitch were making love on the lush floor of a Colombian jungle, vines and tropical plants and enormous, colorful flowers making a canopy for their bed.

Life went on, Shay discovered, and it carried her with it. She said goodbye to Riley and Garrett and Maggie, got Hank into school and gave two weeks’ notice at her job.

“We’ll be sorry to see you go,” Marvin said quietly, sitting behind his broad, paper-littered desk. “But Jeannie and I both wish you the best of luck wth your business.”

Shay let out a sigh of relief. Marvin was a reasonable man, but she had been worried that he’d think her ungrateful. “Thank you.”

Behind his fashionable wire glasses, Marvin’s eyes twinkled. “Those commercials you made were first-rate, Shay. I couldn’t have done a better job myself.”

Shay grinned. “It’ll be years before I live those spots down,” she answered. “Yesterday, in the supermarket, a little girl recognized me as the bee and called her mother over to meet me. It was half an hour before I could get back to my shopping. To make matters worse, Hank is selling my autograph for twenty-five cents a shot.”

Marvin sat back in his chair, chuckling. His checkered jacket appeared capable of leaping into the conversation on its own, and Shay blinked as he replied, “Twenty-five cents, huh? That’s definitely the big time.”

Shay sighed philosophically. “Not really. He gets two-fifty for Riley’s signature. The poor man must have written his name a hundred times while he was with Hank, just to keep the kid in spending money.”

“Enterprising boy, that Hank,” Marvin said with quiet pride. “Takes after his mother.”

“That’s a compliment, I hope.”

“Absolutely. If you need help of any kind, Shay, you come to Jeannie and me.”

Shay nodded and looked away, to hide the sudden tears that sprang to her eyes. “I’d better get back to work,” she said softly, turning to go and then pausing at the door. “About my replacement—”

“I think Ivy can handle the job, don’t you?”

Shay was delighted. She’d planned to suggest Ivy, but Marvin had saved her the trouble. “Yes.”

“Get a new receptionist, then,” Marvin said brusquely, tackling his paperwork with a flourish meant to hide emotions of his own. “Do it right away. Ivy will need to concentrate on learning your job and I want the transition to be made as smoothly as possible.”

Shay saluted briskly, her lips twitching, and hurried out. Ivy was standing up at her computer terminal, at hopeful attention.

“The job is yours,” Shay whispered.

“Ya-hoo!” Ivy shrieked.

Shay had obviously painted part of the old house herself, in a very light shade of blue and a pristine white. Both colors were well represented not only on the front of her coveralls but on her chin and her nose, too. Watching her, Mitch ached with the love of her, the need of her.

He’d been hard at work on Rosamond’s book for several weeks and now it was done, ready for Shay’s final approval. He cleared his throat and she lifted her eyes to his face, her conversation with a similarly clad Alice falling off in midsentence.

“Mitch,” she said.

Alice rubbed her hands down the legs of her tiny coveralls and did a disappearing act.

“The book?” Shay whispered.

Mitch extended a fat manila envelope. “Here it is, princess. Photo layouts and all.”

She approached him, took the envelope, but her wide eyes never left his face. “I’ll read it tonight,” she said.

“I’ve missed you,” he replied.

“We’ve both been busy.” Her eyes were averted now. “Y-you’re starting a new book, aren’t you?”

Mitch sighed. The Alan Roget project was something they hadn’t discussed. “I’ve gathered some material, yes.”

She paled. “I—I guess I’d better get back to work,” she said.

Something in her manner panicked Mitch. He wanted to shout at her, grasp her arm, anything. Instead he simply said her name.

Shay turned away from him, holding the manuscript in both arms. “It’s over now, I guess,” she said distractedly. “You have your life and I have mine.”

“Over?” Mitch was stunned. He reached out then and caught her arm in one hand and wrenched her around to face him. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“W-we’ll both be so busy now—”

“Busy?”

There were tears gathering along her eyelashes and her lower lip was quivering. “Shall I call you if there are any changes to be made? In—in the book, I mean?”

Mitch looked around him then, at the beautifully restored walls and ceilings, and suddenly he thought he understood what was happening. He’d served his purpose and now there was no place in Shay’s life for him. “Yeah,” he bit out, letting go of her arm. “You do that.” He turned and walked out, not daring to look back.

Shay sat down on the newspaper-covered floor and opened the packet containing Mitch’s manuscript. She had to rub her eyes several times before the typewritten words would come into focus.

“Where’s Mitch?” Alice asked innocently, holding out a cup of coffee to Shay and sipping at one of her own.

Shay felt hollow and broken. “He’s gone.”

Alice manuevered herself into a cross-legged position on the floor, facing her granddaughter. “Gone? I don’t like the sound of that, Shay. It has a permanent ring.”

“It is permanent,” Shay confirmed sadly.

“Are you mad?” Alice asked in a low incredulous tone. “That man loves you, Shay, and you love him!”