To Have and to Hold (3 page)

She nodded. "He didn't mean to," she said, defending the big beast sprawled at his master's feet. "He's just an overgrown puppy."

"Come at me with a stick and you'll see what kind of a 'puppy' he is," he replied flatly. "I'll walk you home. It's getting late."

She studied the hard, leonine face with a curiosity she couldn't hide. He was used to giving orders, that showed. In experience, much less age, he was by far her superior, and his face was hard with lessons she had yet to learn. She felt a sense of loneliness in those dark deep-set eyes and wondered vaguely if he ever smiled.

"Suit yourself," he said, taking her silence for protest. He turned, gesturing the dog to his side.

She ran to catch up with him, grimacing as her feet hit sharp bits of bark and twigs. "You are," she breathed, "the most exasperating man...!"

He glanced at her. "You're not McCallum's average secretary. Where did he find you?" he asked suddenly.

He had her attention now. "You know him?" she asked excitedly.

"We've done business together," he said easily. "Answer me. How did you get the job?"

"You might ask, instead of making it sound like an order," she grumbled. "Mr. Richards hired me, promoted me, that is. I've been at the engineering offices for the past four years."

They walked in silence for several steps. "Why are you off men?" he asked suddenly.

Her eyes misted, softened with the memory as she stared blankly straight ahead. "I had a fiance once. He died," she said gently, in a tone laced with pain and memory and the sweetness of loving.

"When?"

She shrugged. "Well over a year ago, in an airplane crash, two days before the wedding. Isn't that ironic?" she added with a hollow laugh. She drew a quick breath, and smiled suddenly. "Would it give away any deep, dark secrets if you told me what McCallum looks like? You have seen him, haven't you?"

She met his quiet gaze and noted with a shock that his eyes were gray, not dark at all. Gray, like water-sparkled crystal in that swarthy face, under those heavy eyelids.

A corner of his mouth went up in a bare hint of amusement, and his eyes seemed to dance. "He's old and bald and women follow him around like puppies. You didn't know how close you were to the truth this morning, did you, Burgundy?"

She laughed, the sadness gone from her face. "I thought he might have two noses and wear his head in a bag, and that's why we never saw him," she explained.

He chuckled; it was a deep, pleasant sound that made magic in the enchantment of the forest in late afternoon.

She glanced at the pine straw on the ground. "I'm sorry I lost my temper at you. I don't usually, I'm very even tempered."

He studied her face, his expression cool but with none of the wary curiousity that had been in it before. "There's a reason for the way I was with you," he told her solemnly. "I've been chased too much, and by pros. I'm not a poor man."

"I thought you were," she admitted shyly, watching as the house came into view through the trees. "That was a low blow, asking if you were the caretaker, but I was so mad...."

"You thought that?" he asked in disbelief.

She frowned up at him. "Well, your shirt was frayed at the collar, and your car is a rather old Mercedes...."

"My God. That's a first."

She turned and stood looking up at him at the edge of the yard. "It's all the same to me if you live in a palace or a log cabin. I don't choose my friends by their bank accounts, and don't think I haven't had the opportunity."

His eyes studied her flushed face with a strange intensity. "Yet you spend your time alone, don't you, Burgundy? No close friends, no socializing...don't you know that you can't hide from life, little girl?"

Her jaw stiffened. "My life pleases me."

"It's your funeral, honey," he shrugged indifferently.

She glanced at the hedge, a thought nagging the perimeter of her mind. "You said...you bought that property?" she frowned. "Does the lady rent it from you?"

"Bess?" He pondered that for a moment.

"In a sense."

"Oh," she said, accepting the explanation. "Well...I'd better go in now. Good night, Cal...Cal what?" she asked.

"Forrest," he replied after a pause. "Good night, Burgundy."

"My...my name is Madeline. Madeline Blainn," she told him.

His narrow eyes scanned her flushed face with its tiny scattering of freckles. "Burgundy suits you better. Good night," he called over his shoulder.

She stood at her back porch and watched him until his broad back dis appeared through the hedge, the doberman at his heels.

There was a subtle shift in their relationship after that. She waved to him when they happened to pass, when she was in the yard or driving past his house. And he waved back. There was a comradeship in the simple gestures that puzzled her. She found herself absently looking for her neighbor and his black Mercedes wherever she went. In the grocery store. When she went shopping at one of the sprawling malls. At the theater where she went to an occasional movie. In some strange sense, he represented security to her, although she couldn't begin to understand why.

On an impulse one Saturday, she baked a deep-dish apple pie and carried it next door, braving his anger at an intrusion he might not want.

"Cal?" she called as she reached the carport, shifting the pie plate in her hands as she tried to find the source of the metallic noises coming from there. "Where are you?"

"Here."

"Here, where?" she asked, looking around her, but there was only empty space unless she counted the Mercedes.

"Here, damn it!" he growled and suddenly appeared from under the rear of the car, flat on his back on the creeper, his white T-shirt liberally spotted and smeared with grease, a wrench in one hand. "What the hell do you want?" he demanded in an exceptionally bad-tempered tone of voice.

All her good intentions vanished. "I wanted to give you something," she said.

"Oh? What?" he asked curtly.

"This." She dumped the pie, upside down, onto his flat stomach, watching as it spread down the sides of his white jersey. "I hope you enjoy it."

She turned on her heel, her lips in a straight line as she carried the empty pie plate home, ignoring the string of blue curses that followed her. So much for the truce, she thought wistfully.

❧

Once she got over the attack of bad temper, she could laugh at what she'd done. Even if he never spoke to her again, it would be hard to forget the look on his dark face as he stared incredulously at the apple pie on his stomach. Serves him right, she thought as she s at down to the kitchen table and cut a slice of the other pie she'd made. Of all the unneighborly....

The insistent buzz of the door bell interrupted her thoughts. With a sigh, she left the untouched slice of pie on the table and went to open the back door. The object of her irritation was standing there, head cocked to one side, eyes narrowed. He'd changed into tan slacks and a patterened tan knit pullover, and apparently his surge of temper was over, too.

"I thought someone should tell you," he began deeply, "that when they said the way to man's heart was through his stomach, they didn't mean to dump food on it."

The statement, and the taciturn way he made it, broke through her reserve. The laughter started, and she couldn't stop before tears were tumbling down her flushed cheeks. "Oh, I am sorry," she apologized, "but I'd been baking all morning, and I thought you might like a fresh pie, and...."

"I'm bad tempered when I'm in the middle of something," he replied. "A clamp on the muffler came loose...oh, hell, Burgundy, I'm not used to women in broad daylight, much less women who can cook!"

That made her blush, and she stared at the door. "I've got another pie, if you'd like a slice." There was a silence, and she looked up quickly, embarrassed. "I'm sorry, you're in a hurry, I imagine, and I've got to go to the store...!"

"Don't panic," he said quietly. "You're not the kind of woman who throws herself at a man. I've learned that about you, if nothing else. I'm not in a hurry, and you don't have to go to the store. I'd like that pie."

"I...I..." She took a deep breath and stood aside. "Won't you come in?"

She motioned him to the table while she got down coffee mugs and another slice of pie.

Meanwhile, Cabbage came in to see what the disturbance was all about and stood watching the newcomer with her crossed eyes intent and wary.

"Purebread?" he asked, leaning down to let the cat sniff at his hands before she began to purr and scrape her cheeks against it.

"Yes," Madeline replied, setting a cup of coffee and a slice of pie m front of him at the table. "Her name's really Sultana, but I call her Cabbage."

He scratched the cat's ears. "Do you show her?"

She shook her head. "Those lovely crossed eyes would disqualify her in any real competition, she's little more than breeding stock. But I liked her because she wasn't perfect."

He took a bite of the pie and nodded. "It tastes better than it felt," he said with a glance in her direction.

She grinned self-consciously. "Sorry about that. If it's any consolation, you didn't do my ears much good."

"I never pretended to be a saint."

"God knows, you'd never be accused of it."

He finished the pie and leaned back, satisfied, to sip his coffee, taking it black, as she had half expected. He set the mug on the table and pulled a cigarette from the package in his pocket.

"Do you mind?" he asked formally.

She shook her head.

"Want one?"

"I don't smoke." She got up to get him an ashtray from the counter and set it in front of him.

"No lecture?" he asked with deliberate mockery.

"I live my life as I please," she told him. "I think other people have the right to do the same."

He lit the cigarette and threw his arm over the back of the chair, watching her through a cloud of smoke. He seemed to fill the room, not only with his size, but with the raw force of his personality. His dark, masculine vitality clung like the cologne he wore.

"I think it's time you and I did some straight talking," he said finally. His eyes narrowed, glittering across at her. "How would you feel about having an affair with me?"

She could feel the blood draining out of her face, the astonishment making her eyes widen and darken with shock. Had she heard him right?

He chuckled softly. "Never mind, words couldn't say it any better than the look on your face. All right, Burgundy, I get the message. As you said before, I'm years too old for you."

She caught her breath, taking a sip of the hot coffee as she searched for something to say. "You say the most outrageous things," she said breathlessly.

"The best defense is a good offense, didn't you know that?" He sobered, setting the mug down and leaning forward. His forearms crossed on the table as his eyes met hers. "You need someone, little girl. You have a haunted look about you when you think no one's watching. You're years too young for that kind of ache, that kind of loneliness. All I can offer you is friendship, but I think it might help us both. In a real sense, I'm as alone as you are, Burgundy."

She met his gaze levelly. "Are you?"

He studied her in silence for a long time.

"I've had women, Burgundy. I think you knew that already. And I'll still have them. I'm a man, with all the man's needs, I can't live like a monk."

She felt the flush returning. Even with Phillip, there hadn't been this kind of adult conversation, this frankness...even their kisses had been gentle, undemanding....

"That's none of my business," she managed in what she hoped was a calm voice.

"No, it isn't. No more than your sex life is any business of mine..if you even have one." He took a deep breath. "The only way a relationship between us is going to work is if we keep it on a non-physical level. Men and women aren't usually friends," he added, stressing the last word just enough to make his meaning clear.

"I know that." She studied her hands onher lap. "You didn't ask, but I'll tell you anyway. I've never had a lover, and I don't want one. But I do, very badly, need a friend. Someone to...hold onto, who won't make demands I can't meet. Someone just to talk to and do things with...."

"My God, maybe I ought to just adopt you!"

She jerked her eyes up to his, puzzled at the anger there. "But you just said...."

"Never mind. Never mind, I said," he growled as she opened her mouth. He gulped down his coffee. "Thanks for the pie. I've got a few phone calls to make."

She bent her head, staring down into the black, glimmering liquid in her coffee cup, stung almost to tears by the whip in his voice, the anger that she couldn't understand. She couldn't answer him, not without having him hear the tears in her voice.

"Burgundy?" he asked gruffly.

She shook her head, trying to convey in that non-verbal message that there was nothing wrong.

She heard his footsteps move closer, until he was standing beside her, his hands clenched into fists in his pockets.

He sighed deeply, and one big hand came out of the pocket to tip her face up, very gently, to his view.

"I'm forty years old," he said tightly.

She forced a tremulous smile to her lips. "I won't kick your crutches out from under you, if that's what you're worried about," she whispered.

His eyes closed, and an involuntary deep chuckle shook his chest. "Oh, my God, what am I letting myself in for? Eat your pie, you impudent little upstart. I'll see you later."