Calculated Risk (17 page)

Another interior door led
into an unoccupied drafting room and a library filled with manuals,
grid specs and mathematical books with titles that Stevie couldn’t
pronounce. “If the battery industry ever goes under, I won’t be
able to add one and one,” she told Quintin, her hand lifting a
weighty volume entitled
Analytical
Trigonometry
. “It’s nice to know I’ll have
you around to handle all of that.”

His arms slid around her. “One of these
days do you think we could add one and one and get three?” A
possessive hand moved to fan her flat stomach. “I can think of
nothing nicer than having a little red-haired daughter playing with
dolls in Cedar Hill.”

She smiled at him, her hand caressing
his lean cheek. “I’d love such a merger,” came her whispered
answer. “We might even add up to four. Five with Rob.”

The silence was deafening as they
wandered back to Quintin’s office. “I have a hunch your main reason
for coming here is that it’s three o’clock on Wednesday and Rob is
walking into your office right about now,” he said not unkindly,
settling next to Stevie on the sofa.

“You’re too astute,” she admitted,
resting her head in the comfortable curve of his shoulder. “I’ve
been avoiding Rob. Haven’t set eyes on him all week. Has he said
anything?”

Quintin’s fingers toyed with the wooden
buttons on the front of her brown dress. “Rob seems to be very busy
with his studies right now and …oh, hell. I’ve been avoiding him,
myself, Stevie,” he finally admitted, his voice self-condemning. “I
lack the courage to face my own son.”

“We’ve really made a mess of things,
haven’t we?” A lump formed in her throat. “I just wonder how this
will all end.” Her bleak gaze meshed with his.

“I’m praying that your theory of out of
sight, out of mind works.”

“That makes two of us.”

Stevie made sure her appointments
outside the office ran late on Thursday. When she unlocked the side
door, she found a bouquet of red roses on her desk – Robbie’s
trademark. She punched the office intercom. “Chuck, who left the
flowers?”:

“Miss Brandt!” A high-pitched masculine
voice registered surprise. “I didn’t know you were back. I was just
leaving.”

“Who left the roses?” Stevie repeated
more firmly, shuffling through the conglomeration of papers,
calculator tapes, CD’s, and assorted office atrocities that
littered her desk. “I can’t seem to find a card.”

“One of the gofers,” he babbled.
“Everything is in such disorder. I don’t remember a card. The boy
said something about missing you. I don’t know. The phone hasn’t
stopped ringing all day; one of the girls in accounting sneezed all
over me when she brought in those files you wanted, and I
–“

“Go home, Chuck. Forget everything and
go home.” Stevie collapsed in her chair, staring at the perfect
buds that stood silently in a crystal prison but screamed loudly of
a problem that had yet to be resolved.

A shaky hand again groped for the
telephone. She called Quintin’s cell phone. “What’s the matter,
honey? I can tell something’s wrong?”

“Are you home? Is Rob
there?”

“He’s upstairs doing his
homework.”

Stevie took a deep breath. “Quintin,
I’m staring at a vase of red roses. A damn baker’s dozen sitting
smack center on my desk. And I haven’t even seen him all week.” Her
voice was shrill and sniffly.

“Damn! I…I...” He took a deep breath.
“I wasn’t going to tell you this, but, well Rob’s all excited, he
gets his class ring on Friday.”

“Oh, Quint!” She swallowed the nausea
that burned in her throat. “What if he…”

“Tries to give you the
ring?”

“I can’t take it. Oh, God, there’s no
telling what’s going to happen.”

“Let me come over and we can talk and
–“

“No.” Stevie interrupted. “I..I just
need some time alone. As a matter of fact, I have another music
video taping tonight, so I may not be home till tomorrow.” She was
surprised at how easily the lie came.

Chapter 9

Wrapped in the security of her mother’s
teal blue satin robe and warmed by a snifter of her father’s best
cognac, Stevie was never more aware of the special bond between
parent and child. There in their penthouse apartment, with
Nashville glittering like millions of diamonds strewn on midnight
velvet, she felt their presence and hoped their wisdom would be
hers.

Her thoughts centered first on Quintin.
His rugged face was indelibly etched in her mind and heart. The
thick brown-black hair, the high intelligent forehead, those
melting brown eyes, the tough, sun-weathered skin and the firm
sensuous mouth. She knew every inch of his body. Her hands, lips
and tongue had discovered, explored and tasted all the erotic
little nooks and hollows that made him so much a man. A shiver of
pure physical awareness coursed down her spine, but Stevie
defiantly shook it off.

There was no doubt a strong physical
attraction between the two of them. She had never felt so free and
frankly sensual as when they were together. Even when she was
engaged to Paul, she had never been so – provocative or demanding
or – hell, she wasn’t quite sure what to call it.

Paul had been a taker in bed, rather
than a giver. And she had been such a novice that she hadn’t known
things could be different. There they were, planning a wedding and
she had still insisted he wear a condom, even though she was on the
pill. Trust -- Stevie thought back and wondered if that was one
reason she had begun to question her love for him. One reason among
so many others.

Her love for Quintin was more than
physical. Their relationship was made up of solid bricks of caring
and sharing, trust and fidelity. Stevie felt no need to hang back
to avoid career competition because he was secure in his own
talents.

But there was incompleteness about her
life that made her sad. While their intimate rendezvous had been
thrilling, Stevie wanted to legitimize her love, and she knew
Quintin craved that too. Without the firm sense of commitment that
marriage involved, she felt uncertain and unsatisfied.

She wanted more than the stolen moments
of today, more than memories of yesterday; Stevie wanted the
fulfillment of tomorrow. She yearned to call Cedar Hill home and
eventually to fill the restored southern mansion with the laughter
of children.

Children. Closing her eyes, Stevie
pictured Rob. He might be seventeen and on the threshold of
manhood, but he was still a child – Quintin’s child, and that made
him very special. A reminiscent smile curved Stevie’s mouth. The
teen-age years were such a vulnerable time of life. The pressures
of school were compounded by the pressures of the peer group.
Parents were always saying “you’re too young” or ��you’re old enough
to know better.”

Bodies were changing both on the
outside and the inside, and so were the emotions and hormones. How
delicate was the balance in their lives. Unintentionally and
through no fault of her own, Stevie had disrupted this delicate
balance in Robert Ward’s life. All her efforts to discourage Rob’s
affection for her had only served to strengthen his adolescent
love.

The roses and now the threat of a class
ring hung over her head like the fabled sword of Damocles. Rob was
serious in his feelings and Stevie knew just how fragile and
tenuous youthful emotions could be.

She drained the last of the cognac from
the balloon snifter and placed the empty glass on the oak end
table. Despite the softness of the sofa cushions beneath and the
downy comfort of her grandmother’s quilt on top, Stevie knew she
was between a rock and a hard place. Caught between father and son,
no matter what she decided, everyone was going to be hurt. There
were degrees of hurt, her mind rationalized, and some could take
more pain than others.

If she slept, she wasn’t conscious of
the fact. Her body may have been resting, but her mind seemed to
have been exhaustively active and a decision still eluded her. The
morning sun was busily burning off the night, turning the eastern
sky into amethyst. Stevie felt in need of a companion. She craved
Quintin but turned instead to the television, letting the congenial
hosts of the network morning news program assuage her
desire.

“The teenage years are so dramatic,” a
serious-looking child psychologist stated, “things build up in a
child’s mind and are blown all out of proportion, and that’s when
tragedy strikes.”

Stevie listed to the man’s every word.
“There has been an enormous rise in teen and even preteen suicides.
The children don’t seem to find security in their family
situations. They feel lost, hopeless, and depressed. Too often
parents feel their children are just going through a stage and in
some cases this is so.

“I would suggest that if your preteen
or teenager gets moody or melancholy and becomes antisocial, you
first consult a physician for a complete medical checkup. If there
is no organic problem, then he or she should be seen by a
psychiatrist, psychologist or counselor.

“Teachers can be helpful by reporting
to parents any ‘loner’ behavior in the child. An extremely
introverted child needs help, actually they are screaming for help.
And let me assure your audience that hundreds of children, some as
young as eight and nine, do succeed in taking their lives every
year.”

The female talk show host shook her
head in amazement. “Thank you, Doctor. In a moment we are going to
be talking to a representative of Child Find. Child Find is helping
to locate the hundreds of thousands of children missing in America.
Some are stolen by their parents, but the majority are runaways or
have just vanished. We’ll have an eight-hundred number for you and
show you some photos of missing children ranging in age from just a
few months old to the late teens. Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at
the growing number of cults that are attracting our youngsters.
Right now, it’s seven-thirty and here’s a message from one of our
sponsors.”

Stevie’s shaky fingers
reached out to turn off the set.
Suicide.
Runaways. Cults
. Those three words echoed
louder and louder in her mind. She knew what her decision had to
be. And she realized that she was going to have to be stronger
today than she had ever been in her whole life. She just couldn’t
tell Quintin – not just yet. She had to play for time.

She found solace in work. She stayed in
her parents’ apartment, keeping in constant touch with her office
by phone. Most of her time was spent calming and soothing her temp
secretary’s high-strung nerves and adding up all the urgent
messages Quintin had left at her office, at her home and on her
cell.

It was nearly six on Friday when she
returned to Brandt Associates and found the temp, Chuck Lewis, in
the midst of an anxiety attack.

“Miss Brandt, I am so glad to see you.”
His angular face was nearly lost behind heavy black-framed glasses
that succeeded in making his blond hair look bleached out. “There
are stakes of messages on your desk from Quintin Ward.” A shudder
ran through Chuck. “He is the most disagreeable man. Wouldn’t
believe you hadn’t been here all day and threatened me with all
sorts of bodily horrors if I didn’t tell him where he could find
you. Of course, I didn’t. Basically because I didn’t
know.”

A smile curved her lips. “That’s just
part of Quintin’s charm.” She winced as she surveyed Gloria’s
usually orderly domain. Folders protruded from closed file drawers;
the Out basket was overflowing; the In basket was empty; CD’s and
demo tapes were piled in haphazard clumps everywhere. “I see you’ve
been busy, Chuck.”

“I’ve been running myself ragged all
day,” he grumbled. “Over seventy percent of your employees are out
with the flu; we’re down a mail boy; nothing comes in or goes out
unless I go downstairs and get it or take it down myself.” He
pointed to a teetering stack of outgoing mail. “I’ll drop these on
my way home.” Sucking in his cheeks, Chuck nodded toward the wall
clock.

“Thank you, and I do see it’s time for
you to leave. I just came in to collect some papers I’m taking to
the coast tomorrow.” Stevie extended her hand. “Chuck, again, you
were great. I really appreciate all you’ve done here and I’ll make
sure that you are additionally rewarded.” Her hand was given a
damp, limp shake.

“That’s quite all right, Miss Brandt.
But please, don’t ever request me.” He slipped a suede topcoat over
his leather jacket. “I’m just not cut out to handle such a
rambunctious office.”

Her own desk, Stevie discovered, was in
worse condition than it had been the night before. It looked as if
a bomb had exploded in both offices, leaving a chaos of papers in
its wake. She was filling her briefcase with the necessary business
papers when the telephone jangled to life. She knew it was Quintin.
She inhaled a deep, steadying breath and lifted the receiver.
“Hello.”

“Stevie! Finally. I’ve been half out of
my mind trying to find you. Worrying about you. Stay right there,
I’m coming over. I –“

“Quintin, please, wait just a minute.
Hear me out.”

The only sound in her ear was his
ragged breathing. “For the first time in my life I’m afraid to
listen to you.”