Her Kind of Hero (33 page)

“I didn't connect it when you told Ed you were going to Houston. I thought it was some cattle sale, just like you said,” she remarked.

“The reporter ran, but he'd already said that he was working with some people in Hollywood trying to put together a television movie. He'd tried to talk to your mother, apparently, and after his visit, she had a heart attack. That didn't even slow him down. He tracked you here and had plans to interview you.” He glanced at her. “He thought you'd be glad to cooperate for a percentage of the take.”

She laughed hollowly.

“Yes, I know,” he told her. “You're not mercenary. That's one of the few things I've learned about you since you've been here.”

“At least you found one thing about me that you like,” she told him.

His face closed up completely. “There are a lot of things I like about you, but I've had some pretty hard knocks from women in my life.”

“Ed told me.”

“It's funny,” he said, but he didn't look amused. “I've never been able to come to terms with my mother's actions—until I met you. You've helped me a lot—and I've been acting like a bear with a thorn in its paw. I've mistreated you.”

She searched his lean, hard face quietly. He was so handsome. Her heart jumped every time she met his eyes. “Why did you treat me that way?” she asked.

He stuck his hand into his pocket. “I wanted you,” he said flatly.

“Oh.”

She wasn't looking at him, but he saw her fingers curl into the arm of the chair. “I know. You probably aren't capable of desire after what was done to you. Perhaps it's poetic justice that my money and position won't get me the one thing in the world I really want.”

“I don't think I could sleep with someone,” she agreed evenly. “Even the thought of it is…disgusting.”

He could imagine that it was, and he cursed that man silently until he ran out of words.

“You liked kissing me.”

She nodded, surprised. “Yes, I did.”

“And being touched,” he prompted, smiling gently at the memory of her reaction—astonishing now, considering her past.

She studied her lap. A button on her dress was loose. She'd
have to stitch it. She lifted her eyes. “Yes,” she said. “I enjoyed that, too, at first.”

His face hardened as he remembered what he'd said to her then. He turned away, his back rigid. He'd made so damned many mistakes with this woman that he didn't know how he was going to make amends. There was probably no way to do it. But he could protect her from any more misery, and he was going to.

He rammed his hands into his pockets and turned. “I went to see that reporter in Houston. I can promise you that he won't be bothering you again, and there won't be any more talk of a motion picture. I went to see your mother, too,” he added.

She hadn't expected that. She closed her eyes. She caught her lower lip in her teeth and bit it right through. The taste of blood steeled her as she waited for the explosion.

“Don't!”

She opened her eyes with a jerk. His face was dark and lined, like the downwardly slanted brows above his black eyes. She pulled a tissue from the box on the table beside her and dabbed at the blood on her lip. It was such a beautiful color, she thought irrelevantly.

“I didn't realize how hard this was going to be,” he said, sitting down. His head bowed, he clasped his big hands between his splayed knees and stared at the floor. “There are a lot of things I want to tell you. I just can't find the right words.”

She didn't speak. Her eyes were still on the blood-dotted tissue. She felt his dark eyes on her, searching, studying, assessing her.

“If I'd…known about your past…” he tried again.

Her head came up. Her eyes were as dead as stone. “You just didn't like me. It's all right. I didn't like you, either. And you
couldn't have known. I came here to hide the past, not to talk about it. But I guess you were right about secrets. I'll have to find another place to go, that's all.”

He cursed under his breath. “Don't go! You're safe in Jacobsville,” he continued, his voice growing stronger and more confident as he spoke. “There won't be any more suspicious reporters, no more movie deals, no more persecution. I can make sure that nobody touches you as long as you're here. I can't…protect you anywhere else,” he added impatiently.

Oh, that was just great, she thought furiously. Pity. Guilt. Shame. Now he was going to go to the opposite extreme. He was going to watch over her like a protective father wolf. Well, he could think again. She scooped up one of her crutches and slammed the tip on the floor. “I don't need protection from you or anybody else. I'm leaving on the morning bus. And as for you, Mr. Caldwell, you can get out of here and leave me alone!” she raged at him.

It was the first spark of resistance he'd seen in her since he arrived. The explosion lightened his mood. She wasn't acting like a victim anymore. That was real independence in her tone, in the whole look of her. She was healing already with the re-telling of that painful episode in her life.

The hesitation in him was suddenly gone. So was the somber face. Both eyebrows went up and a faint light touched his black eyes. “Or what?”

She hesitated. “What do you mean, or what?”

“If I don't get out, what do you plan to do?” he asked pleasantly.

She thought about that for a minute. “Call Ed.”

He glanced at his watch. “Karla's bringing him coffee about now. Wouldn't it be a shame to spoil his break?”

She moved restlessly in the chair, still holding on to the crutch.

He smiled slowly, for the first time since he'd arrived. “Nothing more to say? Have you run out of threats already?”

Her eyes narrowed with bad temper. She didn't know what to say, or what to do. This was completely unexpected.

He studied the look of her in the pretty blue-patterned housedress she was wearing, barefoot. She was pretty, too. “I like that dress. I like your hair that color, too.”

She looked at him as if she feared for his sanity. Something suddenly occurred to her. “If you didn't come rushing over here to put me on the bus and see that I left town, why are you here?”

He nodded slowly. “I was wondering when you'd get around to that.” He leaned forward, just as another car pulled up outside the house.

“Ed,” she guessed.

He grimaced. “I guess he rushed over to save you,” he said with resignation.

She glared at him. “He was worried about me.”

He went toward the door. “He wasn't the only one,” he muttered, almost to himself. He opened the door before Ed could knock. “She's all in one piece,” he assured his cousin, standing aside to let him into the room.

Ed was worried, confused, and obviously puzzled when he saw that she wasn't crying. “Are you all right?” he asked her.

She nodded.

Ed looked at her and then at Matt, curious, but too polite to start asking questions.

“I assume that you're staying in town now?” Matt asked her
a little stiffly. “You still have a job, if you want it. No pressure. It's your decision.”

She wasn't sure what to do next. She didn't want to leave Jacobsville for another town of strange people.

“Stay,” Ed said gently.

She forced a smile. “I guess I could,” she began. “For a while.”

Matt didn't let his relief show. In a way he was glad Ed had shown up to save him from what he was about to say to her.

“You won't regret it,” Ed promised her, and she smiled at him warmly.

The smile set Matt off again. He was jealous, and furious that he
was
jealous. He ran a hand through his hair again and glowered with frustration at both of them. “Oh, hell, I'm going back to work,” he said shortly. “When you people get through playing games on my time, you might go to the office and earn your damned paychecks!”

He went out the door still muttering to himself, slammed into the Jaguar, and roared away.

Ed and Leslie stared at each other.

“He went to see my mother,” she told him.

“And?”

“He didn't say a lot, except…except that there won't be any more reporters asking questions.”

“What about Carolyn?” he asked.

“He didn't say a word about her,” she murmured, having just remembered that Ed said Carolyn had gone to Houston with him. She grimaced. “I guess she'll rush home and tell the whole town about me.”

“I wouldn't like to see what Matt would do about it, if she did. If he asked you to stay, it's because he plans to protect you.”

“I suppose he does, but it's a shock, considering the way he was before he went out of town. Honestly, I don't know what's going on. He's like a stranger!”

“I've never heard him actually apologize,” he said. “But he usually finds ways to get his point across, without saying the words.”

“May be that was what he was doing,” she replied, thinking back over his odd behavior. “He doesn't want me to leave town.”

“That seems to be the case.” He smiled at her. “How about it? You've still got a job if you want it, and Matt's taken you off the endangered list. You're safe here. Want to stay?”

She thought about that for a minute, about Matt's odd statement that she was safe in Jacobsville and she wouldn't be hounded anymore. It was like a dream come true after six years of running and hiding. She nodded slowly. “Oh, yes,” she said earnestly. “Yes, I want to stay!”

“Then I suggest you put on your shoes and grab a jacket, and I'll drive you back to work, while we still have jobs.”

“I can't go to work like this,” she protested.

“Why not?” he wanted to know.

“It isn't a proper dress to wear on the job,” she said, rising.

He scowled. “Did Matt say that?”

“I'm not giving him the chance to,” she said. “From now on, I'm going to be the soul of conservatism at work. He won't get any excuses to take potshots at me.”

“If you say so,” he said with a regretful thought for the pretty, feminine dress that he'd never seen her wear in public. So much for hoping that Matt might have coaxed her out of her repressive way of dressing. But it was early days yet.

F
or the first few days after her return to work, Leslie was uneasy every time she saw Matt coming. She shared that apprehension with two of the other secretaries, one of whom actually ripped her skirt climbing over the fence around the flower garden near the front of the building in a desperate attempt to escape him.

The incident sent Leslie into gales of helpless laughter as she told Karla Smith about it. Matt came by her office just as they were discussing it and stood transfixed at a sound he'd never heard coming from Leslie since he'd known her. She looked up and saw him, and made a valiant attempt to stop laughing.

“What's so funny?” he asked pleasantly.

Karla choked and ran for the ladies' room, leaving Leslie to cope with the question.

“Did you say something to the secretaries the other day to upset them?” she asked him right out.

He shifted. “I may have said a word or two that I shouldn't have,” was all he'd admit.

“Well, Daisy Joiner just plowed through a fence avoiding you, and half her petticoat's still…out…there!” She collapsed against her desk, tears rolling down her cheeks.

She was more animated than he'd ever seen her. It lifted his heart. Not that he was going to admit it.

He gave her a harsh mock glare and pulled a cigar case out of his shirt pocket. “Lily-livered cowards,” he muttered as he took out a cigar, flicked off the end with a tool from his slacks pocket, and snapped open his lighter with a flair. “What we need around here are secretaries with guts!” he said loudly, and flicked the lighter with his thumb.

Two streams of water hit the flame at the same time from different directions.

“Oh, for God's sake!” Matt roared as giggling, scurrying feet retreated down the hall.

“What were you saying about secretaries with guts?” she asked with twinkling gray eyes.

He looked at his drenched lighter and his damp cigar, and threw the whole mess into the trash can by Leslie's desk. “I quit,” he muttered.

Leslie couldn't help the twinkle in her eyes. “I believe that was the whole object of the thing,” she pointed out, “to make you quit smoking?”

He grimaced. “I guess it was.” He studied her intently. “You're settling back in nicely,” he remarked. “Do you have everything you need?”

“Yes,” she replied.

He hesitated, as if he wanted to say something else and couldn't decide what. His dark eyes swept over her face, as if
he were comparing her dark hair and glasses to the blond camouflage she'd worn when she first came to work for him.

“I guess I look different,” she said a little self-consciously, because the scrutiny made her nervous. His face gave nothing away.

He smiled gently. “I like it,” he told her.

“Did you need to see Ed?” she asked, because he still hadn't said why he was in Ed's office.

He shrugged. “It's nothing urgent,” he murmured. “I met with the planning and zoning committee last night. I thought he might like to know how I came out.”

“I could buzz him.”

He nodded, still smiling. “Why don't you do that?”

She did. Ed came out of his office at once, still uncertain about Matt's reactions.

“Got a minute?” Matt asked him.

“Sure. Come on in.” Ed stood aside to let the taller man stride into his office. He glanced back toward Leslie with a puzzled, questioning expression. She only smiled.

He nodded and closed the door, leaving Leslie to go back to work. She couldn't quite figure out Matt's new attitude toward her. There was nothing predatory about him lately. Ever since his return from Houston and the explosive meeting at her apartment, he was friendly and polite, even a little affectionate, but he didn't come near her now. He seemed to have the idea that any physical contact upset her, so he was being Big Brother Matt instead.

She should have been grateful. After all, he'd said often enough that marriage wasn't in his vocabulary. An affair, obviously, was out of the question now that he knew her past. Presumably affection was the only thing he had to offer her. It was
a little disappointing, because Leslie had learned in their one early encounter that Matt's touch was delightful. She wished that she could tell him how exciting it was to her. It had been the only tenderness she'd ever had from a man in any physical respect, and she was very curious about that part of relationships. Not with just anyone, of course.

Only with Matt.

Her hands stilled on the keyboard as she heard footsteps approaching. The door opened and Carolyn came in, svelte in a beige dress that made the most of her figure, her hair perfectly coiffed.

“They said he let you come back to work here. I couldn't believe it, after what that reporter told him,” the older woman began hotly. She gave Leslie a haughty, contemptuous stare. “That disguise won't do you any good, you know,” she added, pausing to dig in her purse. She drew out a worn page from an old tabloid and tossed it onto Leslie's desk. It was the photo they'd used of her on the stretcher, with the caption, Teenager, Lover, Shot By Jealous Mother In Love Triangle.

Leslie just sat and looked at it, thinking how the past never really went away. She sighed wistfully. She was never going to be free of it.

“Don't you have anything to say?” Carolyn taunted.

Leslie looked up at her. “My mother is in prison. My life was destroyed. The man responsible for it all was a drug dealer.” She searched Carolyn's cold eyes. “You can't imagine it, can you? You've always been wealthy, protected, safe. How could you understand the trauma of being a very innocent seventeen-year-old and having four grown men strip you naked in a drug-crazed frenzy and try to rape you in your own home?”

Amazingly Carolyn went pale. She hesitated, frowning. Her eyes went to the tabloid and she shifted uneasily. Her hand went out to retrieve the page just as the door to Ed's office opened and Matt came through it.

His face, when he saw Carolyn with the tearsheet in her hand, became dangerous.

Carolyn jerked it back, crumpled it, and threw it in the trash can. “You don't need to say anything,” she said in a choked tone. “I'm not very proud of myself right now.” She moved away from Leslie without looking at her. “I'm going to Europe for a few months. See you when I get back, Matt.”

“You'd better hope you don't,” he said in a voice like steel.

She made an awkward movement, but she didn't turn. She squared her shoulders and kept walking.

Matt paused beside the desk, retrieved the page and handed it to Ed. “Burn that,” he said tautly.

“With pleasure,” Ed replied. He gave Leslie a sympathetic glance before he went back into his office and closed the door.

“I thought she came to make trouble,” she told Matt with evident surprise in her expression. Carolyn's abrupt about-face had puzzled her.

“She only knew what I mumbled the night I got drunk,” he said curtly. “I never meant to tell her the rest of it. She's not as bad as she seems,” he added. “I've known her most of my life, and I like her. She got it into her head that we should get married and saw you as a rival. I straightened all that out. At least, I thought I had.”

“Thanks.”

“She'll come back a different woman,” he continued. “I'm sure she'll apologize.”

“It's not necessary,” she said. “Nobody knew the true story. I was too afraid to tell it.”

He stuck his hands into his pockets and studied her. His face was lined, his eyes had dark circles under them. He looked worn. “I would have spared you this if I could have,” he gritted.

He seemed really upset about it. “You can't stop other people from thinking what they like. It's all right. I'll just have to get used to it.”

“Like hell you will. The next person who comes in here with a damned tabloid page is going out right through the window!”

She smiled faintly. “Thank you. But it's not necessary. I can take care of myself.”

“Judging by Carolyn's face, you did a fair job of it with her,” he mused.

“I guess she's not really so bad.” She glanced at him and away. “She was only jealous. It was silly. You never had designs on me.”

There was a tense silence. “And what makes you think so?”

“I'm not in her league,” she said simply. “She's beautiful and rich and comes from a good family.”

He moved a step closer, watching her face lift. She didn't look apprehensive, so he moved again. “Not frightened?” he murmured.

“Of you?” She smiled gently. “Of course not.”

He seemed surprised, curious, even puzzled.

“In fact, I like bears,” she said with a deliberate grin.

That expression went right through him. He smiled. He beamed. Suddenly he caught the back of her chair with his hand and swiveled her around so that her face was within an inch of his.

“Sticks and stones, Miss Murry,” he whispered softly, with a lazy grin, and brought his lips down very softly on hers.

She caught her breath.

His head lifted and his dark, quiet eyes met hers and held them while he tried to decide whether or not she was frightened. He saw the pulse throbbing at her neck and heard the faint unsteadiness of her breath. She was unsettled. But that wasn't fear. He knew enough about women to be sure of it.

He chuckled softly, and there was pure calculation in the way he studied her. “Any more smart remarks?” he taunted in a sensual whisper.

She hesitated. He wasn't aggressive or demanding or mocking. She searched his eyes, looking for clues to this new, odd behavior.

He traced her mouth with his forefinger. “Well?”

She smiled hesitantly. All her uncertainties were obvious, but she wasn't afraid of him. Her heart was going wild. But it wasn't with fear. And he knew it.

He bent and kissed her again with subdued tenderness.

“You taste like cigar smoke,” she whispered impishly.

“I probably do, but I'm not giving up cigars completely, regardless of the water pistols,” he whispered. “So you might as well get used to the taste of them.”

She searched his dark eyes with quiet curiosity.

He put his thumb over her soft lips and smiled down at her. “I've been invited to a party at the Ballengers' next month. You'll be out of your cast by then. How about buying a pretty dress and coming with me?” He bent and brushed his lips over her forehead. “They're having a live Latin band. We can dance some more.”

She wasn't hearing him. His lips were making her heart beat faster. She was smiling as she lifted her face to those soft kisses, like a flower reaching up to the sun. He realized that and smiled against her cheek.

“This isn't businesslike,” she whispered.

He lifted his head and looked around. The office was empty and nobody was walking down the hall. He glanced back down at her with one lifted eyebrow.

She laughed shyly.

The teasing light in his eyes went into eclipse at the response that smile provoked in him. He framed her soft face in his big hands and bent again. This time the kiss wasn't light, or brief.

When she moaned, he drew back at once. His eyes were glittery with strong emotion. He let go of her face and stood up, looking down at her solemnly. He winced, as if he remembered previous encounters when he hadn't been careful with her, when he'd been deliberately cruel.

She read the guilt in his face and frowned. She was totally unversed in the byplay between men and women, well past the years when those things were learned in a normal way.

“I didn't mean to do that,” he said quietly. “I'm sorry.”

“It's all right,” she stammered.

He drew in a long, slow breath. “You have nothing to be afraid of now. I hope you know that.”

“I'm not frightened,” she replied.

His face hardened as he looked at her. One hand clenched in his pocket. The other clenched at his side. She happened to look down and she drew in her breath at the sight of it.

“You're hurt!” she exclaimed, reaching out to touch the abra
sions that had crusted over, along with the swollen bruises that still remained there.

“I'll heal,” he said curtly. “Maybe he will, too, eventually.”

“He?” she queried.

“Yes. That yellow-backed reporter who came down here looking for you.” His face tautened. “I took Houston apart looking for him. When I finally found him, I delivered him to his boss. There won't be any more problems from that direction, ever. In fact, he'll be writing obituaries for the rest of his miserable life.”

“He could take you to court…”

“He's welcome, after my attorneys get through with him,” he returned flatly. “He'll be answering charges until he's an old man. Considering the difference in our ages, I'll probably be dead by then.” He paused to think about that. “I'll make sure the money's left in my estate to keep him in court until every penny runs out!” he added after a minute. “He won't even be safe when I'm six feet under!”