The Senator’s Daughter (18 page)

For an instant, he thought Sylvia was going to hit him.

Then, incredibly, she started to chuckle.

He stifled himself; if he joined in too soon, she probably would deck him.

The wintry chill in her black eyes dissolved into a twinkle, and she looked up at him with a child's pure joy.

Lyle snickered. And got away with it, as Sylvia let go of his arm and hugged herself, laughing louder.

For the first time in weeks, he burst out with a joyous sound.

“Romantic?” she sputtered.

Whoa, was she laughing with him or at him?

“Yeah,” he confirmed. “Romantic. Like that flying tackle on the sidewalk where I saved you from … getting wet.”

“Right. We were both soaked to the bone.”

As suddenly as the laughter had come upon them, they sobered.

The sun slid down from behind the cloud into a gap of clear sky above the horizon. In the mountainside vineyard, golden light and sharp shadows etched each vine and grape cluster. Lyle and Sylvia's shadows stretched long down the row.

They stood face to face, and the magic was upon Lyle. He wished to God Sylvia found this as romantic as he did. Or was he playing “nice guys finish last” again?

The sun's rays deepened to crimson and made a last stand on the hill; everything below was in shadow. As one accord, Sylvia and Lyle began a slow walk toward the inn. Every now and then their shoulders brushed, though there was room between the vine rows for two to pass.

“Were you really worried about me?” Sylvia's hair swung over her shoulder as she turned to look at him.

“I thought about you every day.” His voice was husky. “Looked for clues, asked the cops about you.”

She held his gaze a moment, then nodded and started walking again.

The stars brightened in the eastern sky.

I
t was full dark when Lyle opened the door for Sylvia and followed her into the foyer of the Lava Springs Inn. While common sense told him to carry on with his plans to call the Senator, he heard himself saying, “My stomach thinks my throat's been cut.” Knowing from the previous evening that the Klines didn't offer dinner, he suggested, “How about if we go down to Calistoga and find a pizza?”

“No need for that,” said a cool voice behind him.

He turned to find Mary Kline on the top step leading down to the lower floor where she and Buck lived. With one sun-weathered hand on the carved newel post, she regarded him with a neutral expression that did not cancel the distrust in her sharp blue eyes. “There's homemade pizza in the freezer.”

Though Lyle suspected her hospitality was to keep him from getting Sylvia alone and harming her in some way, so much the better.

“Oh, Mary,” Sylvia protested, “you don't need—”

“You don't need to go anywhere.” Mary spoke with emphasis.

“Round food would be great,” Lyle told both women. He'd had some the other night with Cliff, but as far as he was concerned pizza was a staple food.

While Mary and Sylvia went into the kitchen to get things started, he muttered something about washing up and started toward his room.

It wasn't that easy. Buck lounged on the pillowed sofa in the lobby, his booted feet stuck out, head bent over the
Napa Valley Register.
Though Lyle aimed for the hallway where his room awaited, the older man cleared his throat and set the newspaper aside. “You know, Sylvia has been through more than a woman should have to.”

Walking on as if he hadn't heard wasn't an option. Lyle considered saying, “As a matter of fact, I do know what she's been through. Do you have any idea who she is?” but decided better of it.

Instead, he said, “I don't know if your wife told you. I'm with the San Francisco DA's office.”

Buck rose and stood eye to eye with Lyle. “People in high places can be just as ugly as someone with empty pockets.”

“No argument there. I've prosecuted people you'd never have suspected.” He spread his hands. “But the woman working in your kitchen does not, and never has had, anything to fear from me.”

Lyle left the innkeeper behind and strode to his room, but he couldn't help challenging himself. If Sylvia had nothing to fear from him, then why was he considering betraying her in the basest manner?

A tough question with an easy answer …

Money.

But was it so simple?

Something in the Sylvia who'd danced on a table and thumbed her nose at the world had changed. That woman would never have cooked breakfast for strangers.

Lyle's spacious room, with a brass-framed king bed and antique armoire, seemed to close in on him. The largest thing in here was suddenly the telephone, set on an old-fashioned round walnut stand.

He procrastinated by going into the bath, relieving himself, and washing his hands before the lavatory mirror. His familiar reflection stared back … everyone acted as though his azure eyes, blond hair, and strong-boned features spelled handsome. And though he didn't think he was too hard on the eyes, to him the figure in the glass was just Lyle, working his way up from the bottom.

A man who could use a half-million dollars. Hell, he could have used the money he pushed back across Chatsworth's desk.

Yet, how was he going to look at himself if he sold Sylvia back into the spotlight?

Drying his hands on an embroidered towel, Lyle sighed. In his mind's eye, he saw her look up at him with trust. And a gleam in her eye that said she might like kissing him a second time.

Sylvia gauged how the pizza cheese was bubbling through the glass oven door. On instinct, she'd decided Lyle was probably a pepperoni man and dug out extra from the fridge.

Both Mary and Buck hovered, as if he would come into the kitchen and slap her around. They couldn't know her reason for not wanting to go into town on a Saturday night was that the bars and restaurants would be hopping, and she would run a greater risk of recognition.

On the other hand, she couldn't hide forever. Lyle's apparently genuine anger at her for running away, along with his serious confession that he'd worried about her, made her once more aware that others wondered where she was tonight.

The swinging door pushed open, and Lyle leaned against the jamb, arms crossed over his broad chest. “Smells great.”

Seeing him again after only a few minutes started her heart beating a little faster. If she accepted his story that finding her was a coincidence, then it was a fortunate one … one that she was glad for.

“Why don't we eat out on the back porch?” Lyle suggested.

Though his suggestion of a more private venue made Mary's brow wrinkle, Sylvia agreed. She reached to the inn's wine rack, procured a Villa Valetti Merlot, and held it out to Lyle. “Do the honors?”

“Only if Mary puts in on my bill,” Lyle replied.

The older woman nodded.

He stepped up and showed off his prowess with the corkscrew Sylvia handed him from a drawer.

Mary continued to watch with troubled eyes, while Sylvia wished her folks showed half the parental instinct that she and Buck exuded.

Pulling the pizza at the precise moment when the cheese and crust looked perfect, Sylvia was happy to find Lyle a team player. He held the plates while she offloaded, grabbed paper napkins, and helped her carry the meal out to the porch.

Tactfully, though nervously, Buck and Mary stood down.

When Sylvia followed Lyle outside, the damp scent of the spring-fed river and surrounding forest competed with the aromas of homemade dough, rich tomato sauce, and extra pepperoni. Lyle poured the wine into broad-bowled glasses, filling them about a third of the way and twisting the bottle like a sommelier to prevent drips.

Sylvia reached for hers and hesitated.

He raised his, and though he didn't say anything corny like, “To us,” she felt like he had.

Somehow, she didn't think it would be corny.

Relaxing in a cushioned chair facing the wilderness, Lyle savored the mixed flavors of cheese, tomato, pepperoni, garlic, and basil.

Sylvia slanted him a look. “It's nothing fancy.”

He chewed and swallowed. “So much the better.”

“I was sure you liked fancy things.” She set aside her plate with a couple rims of crust remaining. “You wear designer suits and a Rolex, you go to Ice and the Pearl, you drive a Mercedes …”

All mortgaged and dependent on a steady income stream.

“You drive a red Jag.” That he'd bet Daddy paid for.

She looked away.

Though he could have polished off the rest of his pizza and her crusts, Lyle shoved his plate aside. “Where is your car?”

She kept her eyes averted.

“Look,” he challenged. “The Klines clearly don't know who you are. Did you stash the Jag and walk up their driveway, pretending to be a battered woman?”

Her expression flashed a warning. “I never told them that.”

He lost his courtroom-practiced restraint. This woman had a way of doing that to him. “So you're not an actual liar, just one by omission. I've seen that too many times on the job.”

“I'm not a liar!” She was on her feet. “I just had to get away …”

“Dammit, Sylvia!” He shoved up from his chair. “I've been crazy thinking about some nutcase keeping you prisoner, or you trapped in your car at the bottom of some ravine. You put up with all the publicity for a long time. Why did you run away just when we—”

He saw her flinch and come back strong. “My own mother said she was tired of me disgracing the family … hoped I'd disappear like Tony Valetti.”

Laura had confessed that, but hearing about it and seeing Sylvia's reaction were worlds apart. This was right up there in terms of betrayal, like his mother taking off and never sending a word to her ten-year-old son.

Sylvia drew a shuddering breath. “I left town that night.”

Lyle couldn't help but say, “I can't blame you.”

Her chest heaved beneath her flannel plaid shirt.

“I still wish you'd called me.”

She didn't answer.

“How did you end up here?” he pressed. “And where is your car?”

She gave him a level look. “I got into a tangle with a tanker truck on the highway up from Calistoga, ran off the edge …”

His heartbeat accelerated. “You might have been killed.”

“I might have,” she told the black forest on the other side of the river. “Since I climbed out of the canyon and walked up here, I've been thinking about what matters.”

He let a little silence pass while he considered what tack to take.

“You seem different,” he finally observed.

She kept staring into darkness. “I hope so. No false eyelashes, mascara, or scarlet lips. Just the clothes Mary bought me at Wal-Mart, and no diffuser on a blow-dryer to smooth things down. The real me.”

Though she sounded sincere, Lyle was still having trouble with the contrast between this Sylvia and the one in vermilion leather. “The girl at Ice wanted to tell the world to go to hell. She wore designer rags from top to toes and a neckline cut down to here.” He slashed his finger across the middle of his chest. “You're telling me you were a fake?”