A Lyon's Share (9 page)

Joan couldn't forget. She loved him. Foolishly, impractically, futilely, she loved him.

Chapter Five

THE clouds outside were grey, not the slate-grey that held snow, but the oyster-grey of high overcast. The wind had subsided to a baby's breath that sent the top snowflakes dancing and swirling over the drifts piled by the harsh north wind.

The shimmering gold of Joan's long hair was subdued to a dull shade by its return to the severe bun at the nape of her neck. Her glasses were set primly on the bridge of her nose, more to conceal the telltale redness of tears and the blue shadows of sleeplessness than to improve her vision.

A soapy wash in warm water had restored much of her courage, but not a sufficient amount to allow her to meet Brandt's face squarely when she walked into her office from the outer corridor. Fortunately she didn't have to as his gaze flicked briefly over her with blue remoteness.

"The snowploughs are out clearing the streets," Brandt told her, shrugging into his heavy sheepskin jacket. "I'm going to shovel the car free."

An acknowledgement of some type seemed necessary, so Joan issued a crisp "All right." As she walked towards her desk, he walked into the hallway.

Only yesterday morning, Brandt had thoughtfully provided breakfast and persuaded her to leave her hair down and curling about her shoulders. His teasing cajolery and attentiveness were gone and Joan wanted to cry at the loss. But tears wouldn't ease the desolation, as had been proved last night. The fault was hers. She should not have let his virile masculinity swamp her common sense. She had known of her feelings towards him and should have guarded more completely against him, but his warm, friendly attitude had melted her defenses.

Brandt had said he wasn't going to fire her. But wouldn't it be best for her to hand in her resignation? Or would it be construed as an admission on her part that what had happened had gone deeper than what she had led him to believe? The answer seemed to lie in whether she had the strength to meet him in the daily routine of the office without letting him discover the depth of her emotion. After a few months, she could resign in favor of a better job offer somewhere. It would be suicide to stay working for him forever, knowing the way she felt.

"Damn!" she whispered, clenching her hands into tight fists on the desk top. The problem would be in surviving those pride-saving weeks.

Then she got hold of herself. These constant recriminations over her actions had to stop. To keep reliving those painful moments after the electricity had been restored was serving no purpose. She had no idea how long Brandt would be gone, but she had to occupy her mind with something other than thoughts of him. She pulled the plastic cover off the typewriter and began typing the letters Brandt had dictated the first night. She was barely through the third letter when he walked into the office.

"Are you ready?" His quiet, calm voice stopped her fingers for a split second before they continued their flight across the keys.

"I'll be finished in a moment," she replied, not letting her gaze stray from the shorthand pad.

When the letter was finished and it and the carbon copy were placed with the other two, Brandt was beside the desk, handing her the fun-fur coat that had been in his office. Her already wounded nerves smarted at his eagerness to be rid of her, but a swift glance at his rugged, aquiline face revealed none of the impatience she had believed she would see. He stood silently by as she put the coat on, his hands thrust deep in the pockets of his own jacket, a withdrawn expression in his eyes.

He ushered her without haste to his car parked in front of the building, its motor still running. The coldly invigorating air made the warm interior seem stifling as Joan settled into the passenger seat.

"Where do you live?" Brandt slipped the car into gear and turned into the street.

Joan gave him the directions and leaned back in the seat. Her side vision gave her an unobstructed view of his hawklike profile, but she kept her gaze firmly to the front. In other circumstances, she might have enjoyed the white purity of the landscape that had transformed the city streets into a wintry wonderland. The snow was firmly packed in thin layers on patches of the street, making the driving still slightly treacherous in spite of the considerable efforts of the snowplough. The lean hands on the wheel were competent and experienced and the nearly two miles to Joan's apartment were without mishap.

The pavement leading to the front entrance of the old brick structure had not been cleared of snow. The untouched white drifts indicated that no one had as yet ventured out on this grey morning. Pushing open the car door, Joan silently wished that some premonition last Friday had warned her to wear snowboots. Wading through those drifts would not be pleasant.

Before the sole of her smart leather shoes had become buried in the snow, Brandt was out of the car and around to her side. She glanced at him in surprise, fully expecting him simply to drop her off to make her own way into the building. A gasp of shock was torn from her lips as he reached down and easily swung her into his arms.

The corners of his mouth turned in a humorless smile at her quick, "Put me down!"

His long strides were already covering the short distance from the curb to the apartment's entrance. "There isn't any need for you to freeze your feet in the snow."

"I'm too heavy," Joan protested, but they had already reached the door and Brandt was setting her down at the same time that he swung the wooden door open.

"You're tall, but you're not heavy," he stated without any emotion as he turned his blank gaze on her.

Her pulse refused to settle back to its normal pace. Just when Joan had thought she had regained control of her senses, she had been cradled against that rock-hard chest and lost anew. He stood solemnly in front of her, blue eyes unreadable, the staircase to her second floor apartment behind him. She bent her head to conceal the swift rise of confusion.

"There isn't any need for you to come into the office until noon tomorrow," he told her. An apartment door slammed on the floor above.

Joan stiffened, tossing her head back. "I don't expect any special favors, Mr. Lyon, simply because I had the misfortune of being stranded at work for most of the weekend," she asserted coldly. "I'll be in the office at eight tomorrow as usual."

An eyebrow arched into a brown peak of unconcern. "As you wish, Miss Somers. Good day."

As the outside door closed behind him, too late Joan realized that she had offered not one word of thanks for the ride home. In spite of everything, Brandt was entitled to a measure of courtesy.

"Lord! Ice nearly dripped from your voice!" Kay's excitedly astonished voice sounded from the stairs. "And after the way he carried you to the door, too!" At Joan's surprised glance at the berobed figure on the steps, Kay answered the questioning gleam in her room-mate's eyes. "I was watching from the window. He was so masterful about it."

"He did it simply because I didn't have any boots," Joan said tersely, "and the pavements weren't shoveled."

Her assertion didn't erase the impish smile from Kay's mouth as Joan hurried past her up the steps. There was about to be a deluge of questions and she needed the diversion of movement to collect her wits after those shattering moments in Brandt's arms.

"Is the coffee on, Kay?" she asked as she pushed the door ajar and entered their apartment. "I haven't had a cup since before the electricity went off Friday night."

"The electricity went off!" Kay echoed, dashing towards the kitchenette section of the room while Joan pulled off her coat and stepped out of her shoes. "I didn't know the electricity was off! At least, I heard it was off in some sections of the city, but I never guessed you were without it at the office. Heavens! The nights must have been awfully long!"

In the act of pouring Joan a cup of coffee, Kay spun around, her sparkling brown eyes widening and her mouth opening in surprised excitement.

"How did you ever keep warm? The furnace can't work without electricity to operate the thermostat. Did you and Mr. Lyon have to huddle together to keep warm? Oh! Wouldn't that be something!" Kay rushed quickly to the couch with the coffee cup. "Is that why you were so cold to him? Did he make a pass at you?"

Joan rushed involuntarily. "Oh, Kay, really! In the first place, we both had our winter coats to keep us warm," not exactly denying her room-mate's assertion nor explaining that they had jointly wed the coats together, "and secondly … Mr Lyon," she had nearly called him Brandt, "found a space heater in the equipment shed."

Kay pulled a wry face. "It's resourceful, but hardly romantic," she sighed. "I should have thought you would at least be calling each other by your first names after an entire weekend together."

Joan's fingers curled around the cup before she quickly sat it on the table in front of the sofa. "I feel absolutely grubby after wearing these clothes for nearly three days. I'm going to take a bath and clean up."

She rose quickly to her feet, not wanting to confide in her friend and room-mate, nor to have Kay's interrogation go any farther.

Monday morning brought a return of the strictly business atmosphere between Joan and Brandt. His gaze didn't cut her with freezing contempt, nor was he ill-tempered with anger. He treated her the same indifferently friendly way he always had, which made it easier for Joan to fall into the same pattern, at least, for the most part.

The main topic of conversation through the entire company was the weekend storm, with everyone trading stories on where and how they had been trapped by the blizzard and the difficulties they had gone through before reaching their homes. Joan was grateful for the insulation of her private office, segregated from the rest of the employees. It saved her from relating her own tale without lying. Kay had mercifully agreed to keep silent about it, knowing full well how viciously the story would be twisted into some lurid account by the office gossips, and as far as Kay was concerned, without foundation.

It was nearly noon when Brandt ventured from his office to request certain folders from the filing cabinet. Joan had just handed them to him when Lyle Baines walked into her office, a cheery smile creasing his face.

"Sorry to be so late reporting in, Brandt, but the snowploughs didn't make it to my street until after ten this morning," he explained. "That was really a first-class blizzard. Hope the two of you made it home all right."

After Brandt had nodded an initial greeting, he had opened the top folder to study its contents. At the conclusion of Lyle Baines's statement, he glanced up briefly, a dark glow of concentration in his eyes as he turned to re-enter his office.

"As a matter of fact, Miss Somers and I got marooned here until Sunday morning." he replied idly.

"The devil you did!" Lyle Baines breathed in his astonishment. His rounded, speculating gaze immediately swung to Joan.

Her dismay that Brandt should absently blurt out what she had been at pains to keep secret was written in her expressive brown eyes. Lyle Baines was not a gossip, but Joan didn't doubt that the word would spread quickly through the grapevine.

Brandt paused in the doorway. "Come into my office, Lyle. I had a chance to study the blueprints on the Parkwood Mall this weekend, and I want to go over them with you before you start putting the prices together."

Joan swiftly retreated to her desk, avoiding the questing eyes of Lyle Baines as he slowly obeyed the quiet, authoritative voice of his boss. Only when the connecting door dosed behind both of them did she let her shoulders slump.

It was not until the following day that Joan was exposed to the results of Brandt's slip. When she entered the canteen with Kay, there was instant silence as all eyes turned to her. Then there were whispers and muffled laughter. With difficulty, Joan maintained an outward air of composure, knowing that to react would give fuel to their speculations.

Naturally when Kay discovered the rumors, she was quite vocal in defense of her friend. Joan knew that Brandt never heard what was said about them. No one would dare to carry tales to the lion, including herself. She wanted to avoid any further humiliation at his hands.

During the week, the gossip died from lack of further nourishment to feed on. Joan was glad she had kept a cool silence through it all. Her attitude treated the snide comments with indifference.

When she was questioned directly by the few bold ones about how she and Brandt had passed the time, she responded that they had worked, and that was true. Her own efficient and professional demeanor added credibility to her statements.

By Friday afternoon, Joan was congratulating herself for getting through the week. Not that it had been easy, because it hadn't. Some moments had held sheer torment.

There had been times when Brandt's hand had accidentally brushed hers as they exchanged folders or other documents and she would feel the rush of warmth at his touch. Or moments when he would be signing letters she had typed and she would be able to study the thick, waving brown hair, the ends curling on the tanned column of his neck, and the strong, assured face that held the hard masculine mouth that had so devastatingly awakened her latent desire and love.

At a little past four o'clock on Friday afternoon, Joan began the filing and general clearing of the work on her desk in preparation for the weekend. Clearing the 'out' tray was a considerable task by itself. She only smiled absently when the payroll clerk stopped by her office with her weekly pay cheque.