A Lyon's Share (13 page)

He was only a couple of inches taller than Joan, but decidedly stronger as he pulled her against him. She struggled desperately to get free, averting her face from his hot breath reeking with liquor.

"Let me go!"

Her angry cry had barely left her lips when the connecting office door burst open. Before she could gasp her relief at the sight of Brandt, he was pulling her free of the disgusting embrace and nearly bouncing Tom Evers off the wall in the process. The wind had not entirely been knocked out of Evers's sails, and his malevolent gaze darted from Brandt to Joan.

"I didn't realize she carried your label, Mr. Lyon," he said softly as he straightened away from the wall.

"Get out, Evers!" Brandt ordered in an ominously low voice. "Before I realize how dispensable you are!"

"It was a little innocent fun, that's all," was Evers's parting shot as he walked stiffly out the door.

Quaking shivers chased themselves over Joan's skin and she wrapped her arms about her to ward off the chill. The memory of his hot breath was churning her stomach. The areas where he had touched her felt contaminated and dirty.

Fingers touched the flaming heat in her cheeks and she automatically pulled away from them. Then she realized it was Brandt standing in front of her. His broad chest seemed to offer such safety that she swayed against it without conscious direction.

"Are you all right, Joan?" His arms were lightly encircling her.

"Yes," she breathed, feeling infinitely better in his comforting embrace.

Gently he smoothed the hair on her head. "I should have known that suddenly producing the Cinderella in our midst would bring the lechers out of hiding."

It was getting too comfortable in his arms. Her hands pushed lightly against his chest and Brandt let her stand free. She darted him a grateful glance.

"I'm all right now. Thank you."

His mouth was pulled into a smile that didn't extend to the guarded, dark blue eyes. "I was in my office. I couldn't help overhearing."

"I'm glad you were," breathed Joan, picking up the coat and handbag that she had dropped on the floor during her struggles.

"Do you have a bus to catch, or was that part of an excuse to get rid of Evers?" Brandt asked.

"No, I am going home for Christmas. My parents are expecting me." She glanced at her watch. "I have plenty of time to pick up my things at the apartment and make the bus."

"It might be difficult to get a taxi." His head was tilted to the side in an inquiring pose. "I was just leaving myself. May I offer you a ride to the terminal?"

"I—" Joan was about to refuse, then perversely she found herself saying, "Yes."

The traffic was heavy, everyone rushing from one end of town to the other in the annual Christmas chaos of parties and family gatherings. Joan had only ten minutes to spare when they arrived at the terminal. Brandt accompanied her to the gate, arranging with a porter to take care of her luggage and packages.

"Merry Christmas, Joan," he said, offering his hand in goodbye as the boarding call was issued.

"Merry Christmas, Brandt."

She would have liked to linger a bit longer, but she knew she couldn't. Reluctantly she released his hand, tears filling her eyes as she lost herself in the throng of holiday travelers.

Chapter Seven

THE Christmas spent with her family had been one of blissful contentment. The traditional placing of the star on top of the tree on Christmas Eve had been saved until Joan arrived. Then her mother had paraded out the home-made eggnog, fudge, popcorn balls, and Christmas cookies for everyone to gorge themselves on. It had been a happy reunion with all of them staying up until well after midnight, laughing and talking and reminiscing.

Santa Claus still visited the Somers home. Even though the children were grown up, there was still a silly toy in their stockings on Christmas morning. Joan's father insisted that there would always be a little bit of a child in everyone and maintained Santa's mysterious night-time visit.

The best present of all had been when her older brother Keith had called from Germany on Christmas morning. Of course, there it had been Christmas afternoon. Only once had Joan allowed herself to wonder how Brandt was spending the holiday—probably, like her, with his parents.

With Christmas falling on a Wednesday, it was back to work on Thursday. Except for an offhand "Did you enjoy your Christmas?" Brandt's manner was business as usual. Not truly as usual, Joan reconsidered, since he seemed bent on making up for that lost holiday time.

By late Friday afternoon, she felt as if she had worked an entire week in the span of two days. Yet she wasn't looking forward to the weekend. There would be too much idle time to think and she would rather work herself to exhaustion than bemoan the late of unrequited love.

The loss of concentration had been brief, but it had only taken that minutes loss for Joan to invert the spelling of a word in the contract she was typing. With a tired sigh, she set about correcting the original and the three carbons behind it.

While she was correcting the third, the telephone rang. "Brandt Lyon, please?" a sweetly low feminine voice requested.

Joan cradled the receiver under her chin as she continued her correction. "I'm sorry, but Mr. Lyon is in conference. May I have him return the call?"

"Are you his private secretary?"

"Yes, I am," Joan confirmed.

"Perhaps you could help me," the voice suggested. "This is Angela Farr." Joan's eraser froze on the paper. "Brandt has tickets for a concert tomorrow evening. Would you know which performance they're for? My parents are anxious for Brandt to join us for dinner and I don't know whether it would be best to dine before or after the concert."

The question and implication penetrated Joan's consciousness, but she was incapable to replying immediately. There was a cold deadening of her senses as she thought how aptly the delicately melodious voice matched the fragile blonde.

"I'm sorry, Miss Farr." Her voice trembled slightly with envy and resentment. "Mr. Lyon handles any personal arrangements himself. I wouldn't have the information you want."

There was a regretful sigh. "Would you tell Brandt that I called and ask him to get in touch with me when he's free?"

"Of course," agreed Joan tautly.

"He has my number, and thank you anyway."

"Not at all." It took all her willpower not to slam the receiver in the blonde's ear.

Joan didn't need anyone to explain that things were getting serious between Brandt and Angela if he had begun dining with her parents. Driven by an impotent frustration, she again attacked the contract in her typewriter and accidentally ripped a hole in the third carbon. Tearing the entire contract out of the carriage, she began again. She had it nearly completed when Brandt returned from the conference with his project superintendents.

"Do you have the Hadley contract ready?" were his first words.

"Almost," Joan replied in her angrily tight voice.

Brandt frowned tiredly. "I would have thought you'd have it finished by now."

"I was interrupted by phone calls," she told him curtly.

The messages were lying on her desk. Brandt picked them up, sifting through them. Joan saw him hesitate when he reached the note for him to call Angela.

His gaze swiftly caught her watchful look. "Miss Farr called?" he questioned sharply.

"Twenty minutes ago," Joan responded, trying to keep a professional crispness in her tone and not betray her stinging jealousy. "She was anxious to learn for which concert performance you had tickets."

Blue and probing, his gaze swept her controlled expression, then reverted brusquely to the messages in his hand as he turned to leave. "Bring that Hadley contract in as soon as you're done."

With only a third of a page to finish, Joan had the contract done, the copies separated and stapled within the space of a few minutes. She walked to the connecting door, and her hand turned the knob an instant before she started to knock. Brandt's voice reached her ears before the knock.

"Angela," he was saying forcefully, "I have to fly to Peoria tomorrow. Jake Lassiter, the engineer out of Springfield, Missouri, is meeting me there to go over the owner's changes on an interior room layout. If I could send someone else in my place, I would!"

Then there was a pause as Angela made some response to his statement. Discretion ordered Joan to close the door and wait until Brandt was off the telephone, but she disobeyed it.

"If I thought I could make it back in time, I wouldn't be canceling our plans, would I?" he asked with a thin edge of exasperation. There was another pause. "Your father is a businessman. I'm sure he'll understand" … "Angela, I'm not going to argue with you. I have other calls to make. We'll discuss it tonight."

Joan heard Brandt replace the telephone receiver on its cradle and rapped lightly on the door. When she entered his office, the receiver was again in his hand as he dialed another number. He glanced at the contract she placed on his desk and nodded a brisk approval.

"Craig Stevens, please. This is Brandt Lyon returning his call."

And Joan closed the connecting door behind her, deriving no elation from the discovery that Brandt was not meeting Angela's parents tomorrow night, because he was still seeing her this evening.

Her entire weekend was painted a melancholy blue. Not even a bright sunshiny Monday could chase away the depressing shade. Brandt spent all Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday with Dwayne Reed of his estimating staff, going over the prices and cost estimates that had to be revised because of the changes of the Peoria job. Joan couldn't decide if she was happy or sad to see so little of him. With the strange twisting of her heart, it hurt as much not to see him as it did to see him.

Joan was lazing in a bathtub full of bubbles when Kay called out that she and John were leaving. Joan wished her a good time, then felt the silence seep into the apartment. Sighing heavily, she decided it was getting to be a habit to spend New Year's Eve alone.

Kay had suggested arranging a date for this evening with one of the men John worked with, but Joan had quickly vetoed the suggestion. For once, her room-mate had not pressed her to accept. Since the office party, she knew Kay had guessed part of what was happening. Yet she refused to cry on anyone's shoulder. People had fallen in love with the wrong person before and had got over it. She would too, in time.

The silence became pressing and Joan rinsed the bubbles from her skin and stepped out of the tub. After toweling briskly dry, she slipped into the olive green culotte robe that had been her parents' Christmas gift to her. In the combined kitchen, living and dining room, she switched on the small television set that was on loan from her brother while he was in Germany. Absently she didn't bother to change channels from the football game in progress. A noise to fill the silence was mostly what she wanted.

As she fixed a huge bowl of buttered popcorn in the small kitchenette, Joan wondered idly whether Brandt and Angela were celebrating the arrival of the New Year in private or at a party. The refrigerator door banged as she tried to shut out either picture from her mind. With a glass of Coke in one hand and the bowl of popcorn balanced in the other, she walked back to the couch in front of the television.

Propping a book in her lap, she had barely settled back against the cushions when she heard footsteps coming up the stairs. She smiled in sympathy for whoever it was that was spending the evening alone as she was. Then she thought wistfully that it might be someone's date. It was nearly nine o'clock, but some parties didn't start until late. It took her a full second to realize that the subsequent knock she heard was at her apartment door.

Frowning her bewilderment, she laid her book on the cushion beside her and padded in her bare feet to the door. She left the chain latch hooked and opened the door the few inches permitted to view her unexpected visitor. The world spun crazily for a moment.

"Brandt?" Blinking quickly to be sure she wasn't seeing things.

"May I come in?"

He didn't disappear and the voice matched. Joan fumbled with the latch, opening the door and stepping away, still expecting him to vanish at any minute. She had seen him in evening clothes and business suits but never dressed as casually as tonight. His overcoat was hooked on his finger and hung over his shoulder. The cashmere sweater of azure blue exactly matched his eyes, disturbingly studying her rounded gaze. Dark corduroy trousers emphasized the muscular leanness that his more formal attire had only hinted at.

"I saw the light in your apartment from the street, and wondered if you were home," he said, stopping just inside and closing the door.

"Yes, I am," Joan answered foolishly, since it was obvious that she was. She couldn't quite take it in that he was actually here. There had to be some logical reason. "Is there some problem … at the office?"

There was a strange brooding quality to his expression. "No," he responded, and slowly wandered past her to stand in front of the television. "Is it a good game?"

"I … I don't know." It all seemed like a dream to Joan. "I just turned it on a couple of minutes ago."