More Than Friends (2 page)

“What were you thinking of?” he demanded. “Didn’t you even stop to consider the fact that I’m heading into negotiations with the union? If you were going to knock up some tramp, did it have to be the union president’s daughter?”

Chase dropped his bloodied shirt into the trash and pulled a fresh one out of the drawer. Everyone told him he was a perfect replica of his father, when the old man had been eighteen. But that was only on the outside. Inside, they weren’t anything alike. For as long as he could remember, they’d fought. His only goal in life had been to make his father proud of him; his father’s only goal had been to produce another Jackson to run the family business. They’d both failed miserably.

A trickle of blood began at the corner of his mouth, but Chase didn’t bother to wipe it away. He hadn’t known it was possible to hurt more, but he did. She’d betrayed him. “Did it ever occur to you that I’m not the one who got Jenny Davidson pregnant?”

His father sighed. “Haven’t I taught you anything? A man faces the consequences of his actions.” He stuck his hands into his pants pockets. “Davidson and I won’t allow a marriage between you two. She’ll go away until it’s born and then a suitable home will be found for it. But you…” His father fixed him with a cold stare. “You won’t be going to college this year. You’ll stay right here, working at the mill. Your paycheck will help defray the cost of Jenny’s expenses. Next September, you’ll leave for university, having, I hope, learned your lesson.”

Long after his father had left the room, Chase stared at the closed door. Silence filled the house. If his mother were still alive… But she wasn’t. It was him and the old man. He didn’t even have Jenny anymore. If he ever had. The girl he knew would never have betrayed him this way.

Nobody listened, he thought as he paced the room. He could explain for the next fifty years, but no one would listen and no one would believe him. Only Jenny knew the truth and she sure as hell wasn’t telling it.

He stopped in front of the picture on his nightstand. Green eyes gazed into his as laughter teased her lips. See other people. Yeah, right. Only she’d started months ago. No wonder she’d been acting strange these past few weeks. He’d been a fool. Worse. He’d been had.

“Why did you tell them it was mine?” he whispered to the picture. “Why did you lie?”

All these years he’d been treating her like some princess and she’d been fooling around with some other guy. He picked up the picture and stared at it a moment, then threw it across the room. The glass in the frame shattered and fell to the ground.

Chase brushed his sleeve across his eyes. He was eighteen—too damn old to cry. He walked to the closet. At the bottom was a duffel bag. In a matter of minutes, he’d shoved some clothes into the bag and tied it shut. The only personal item he took was a snapshot of his mother.

It was almost dark when he tossed the bag into the trunk of his car. There was three hundred dollars in his pocket, taken from the household emergency fund. He figured his stereo and TV, paid for out of his summer earnings at the mill, would make the exchange even. Without looking back, he shifted into first gear and moved down the driveway.

By the time he hit the interstate, the aspirin he’d taken earlier was beginning to ease the throbbing in his face. As he joined the westbound traffic, he realized his father had never asked about his injuries or offered to get the doctor to take a look.

The hell with ’em, he thought as he flipped on his headlights. There was nothing for him in Harrisville. He’d never come back. Not until Jenny was gone and the old man was dead.

“P
lane arrives at five. Stop. Don’t bother to meet me. Stop. I’ll rent a car and drive to the mill. Stop.”

Jenny Davidson read the telegram for the hundredth time. The message didn’t get any longer or more personal. It had been eleven years since Chase Jackson had driven out of Harrisville and out of her life. Eleven years of silence. Eleven years of wondering if he’d ever return.

He hadn’t. In the end, she’d been forced to call him home.

She folded the piece of paper and tucked it in the corner of her desk blotter, then picked up a pencil and stared at the report in front of her. The quarterly tax returns were due. She had to review the forms, verify the figures and write out the checks. The task was as familiar as making her bed. So why did the numbers dance unintelligibly before her eyes? Damn. He still got to her.

Jenny tossed her pencil on the desk and leaned back in her chair. The office was quiet. The clerical staff left at four-thirty and it was already after six. In the distance, she could hear the rumble of the steel mill.

If she turned and looked out the window behind her, she’d see the main building of Jackson Steel lit up like a Christmas tree. The great cavernous structure, where iron ore was turned into endless sheets and pipes of steel, hissed and smoked with a life of its own. The late shift would be breaking for lunch in the next couple of hours. The sounds of the workers calling to one another would drift up into her office. But she’d be long gone. The trip from the airport to the mill was about an hour. Adding the time for Chase to grab his luggage and rent a car, he was due soon. She’d tell him what he needed to know, then send him on his way. He was her boss’s son, nothing more.

Right, Jenny thought, pulling open the bottom drawer of her desk and dragging out her purse.
And I’m the Queen of England
.

A few quick strokes of a brush brought her shoulder-length hair into order. She reached for a tube of lipstick, then hesitated. She didn’t want him to think his return concerned her in any way.

Get a life, Jenny, she told herself silently. The man had come back because his father was sick in the hospital. If Chase had ever cared about her, he wouldn’t have disappeared without a word all those years ago.

Swearing softly, she opened her compact and applied the lipstick. Who cared whether or not he thought she’d gone to any trouble? With Chase Jackson back in town, she was going to need all the confidence she could get. The soft pink color slid smoothly over her trembling mouth. She was as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

After stuffing her purse back into the drawer, she picked up her pencil and pretended to work. The tick of the wall clock sounded overly loud in the still room.

Was he close? Had he passed Hamilton Crossing? Was his car pulling into the parking lot yet? What would he look like? Had he changed? Would she know him? Did he ever think of her…remember what they’d had…what they’d lost? Did he still blame her for something that had never been her fault?

“This is silly.”

The sound of her voice startled her and she jumped in her seat. Jenny shook her head, then rose from her chair and walked over to the metal table against the far wall. A half-full coffeepot hissed slightly as she raised the glass container and poured the steaming liquid into her mug.

By conventional standards, her office wasn’t large, but it suited her needs. She’d been offered something bigger when she’d been promoted to head bookkeeper, but had turned down the corner space. There was no point in having all that extra room, she thought as she stirred in a package of sweetener. She worked in a steel mill. Nobody got carpeting or drapes. They’d be destroyed in no time. The furniture was functional pressboard and metal, soot covered the windows. The concrete floors were washed down twice a week, the walls painted yearly.

She glanced down at her jeans and button-up shirt. Not exactly cover material for
Working Woman
magazine. But she couldn’t wear silk and panty hose into the mill.

The sound of heavy feet in the hallway broke into her thoughts. Before her heart had a chance to leap into her throat, she recognized the even tread. She set her cup on the desk, then filled a second mug, adding a generous teaspoon of creamer and three lumps of sugar. As the large man entered her office, she held out the drink.

“Hi, Daddy. No. Chase isn’t here yet.”

The elder Davidson grunted, then took a long swallow of coffee. He grimaced. “See you’re still using those fancy beans. Coffee out of a can’s been good enough for me all my life.”

“Yeah, yeah. Sell it somewhere else. If you didn’t secretly like my coffee, you wouldn’t make so many trips up here to drink it.” She stepped back and perched on the corner of her desk.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Just checking up on my little girl.” Frank Davidson winked, then walked to the window and stared out into the darkness. “There’s talk of laying off half the shift.”

“There’s always talk. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“If the old man dies, it’ll be more than talk.”

Her father spoke without turning around, but she could hear the tension in his voice, see it in the stiffness of his shoulders and back.

All her life, she’d thought of her father as invincible. Hard, yes, but fair, and always there for his family and the union. But now… She glanced at the gray stealing the brown from his hair. He was almost sixty. Thanks to her mother’s insistence that he start taking care of himself, the beer belly was almost gone, but new lines aged his face. Old man Jackson was only a few years older than her dad.

“When was the last time you went to the doctor?” she asked, her voice a tad sharper than she would have liked.

“Last month.” He turned slowly and grinned. A familiar twinkle in his deep blue eyes chased away her fears. “I’m healthy as a horse and still strong enough to give my girls the whippings they need to stay in line.”

“I’m really scared.” Considering all four Davidson girls had been daredevils, the number of whippings throughout the years had been surprisingly low. She could only remember one she’d received. The circumstances weren’t clear, but they’d had something to do with a badly hit softball and the big window in the front of the house. It hadn’t even been her fault, she remembered. Chase had thrown it too hard and…

Chase. She sighed.

“That boy’s always been trouble,” her father said, reading her mind. “He’s not even back and you’re mooning over him like a lovesick puppy.”

“Who’s mooning? I was just thinking about…”

Her father stepped next to her and touched her face. “He’s not right for you, Jenny. Never was. Our kind and his don’t mix.”

“Oh, Daddy. It’s the nineties. Don’t you think the whole class issue is a little outdated? Anyway, he doesn’t own the mill.”

“His father does. Same thing. You mark my words. Stay clear of that Jackson boy or he’ll break your heart.” He set his mug on her desk and kissed her cheek. “I couldn’t bear to see that happen a second time.” When he reached the doorway, he turned back. “Your mother’s expecting you for dinner Sunday.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, Daddy. I do remember some things, even without your prompting me.”

“You’re not too big—”

“To spank. So you keep threatening. Get out of here or you’ll have to explain why
you’re
late for dinner.”

When the sound of his footsteps had faded, Jenny glanced at the clock. Chase was getting closer. She could feel it. The once-familiar room seemed to close in on her. Damn you, Chase Jackson. It had been eleven years. Why did he still have the power to affect her?

*

Chase eased the Bronco into neutral and let it slow to a stop. Up ahead was Hamilton Crossing. He was almost home.

No, he told himself firmly. Home was a ranch-style house on the outskirts of Phoenix. Home was an acre of desert with the ground still warm at midnight. Home was a perfect sunset against a mountain range-no smoke, no ash, no smell of steel. Harrisville wasn’t home; it was the place he’d left behind a long time ago.

He rolled down the window and inhaled. The crisp night air carried with it the scent of autumn. In the darkness, he couldn’t see the flaming colors of the changing leaves, but he could feel the promise of winter. Sometimes he missed the snow, but that was all. Nothing else in Harrisville called to him…ever. Except maybe Jenny.

Damn! He’d been back in town thirty seconds and already he was acting like some lovesick teenager. Hadn’t he learned his lesson? Jenny Davidson had lied to him. She’d betrayed him, made a fool of him, then had him run out of town on a rail. He rubbed his jaw. No doubt she’d left years ago, taking her kid and the lucky father with her. He hated her and everything she stood for.

No. That wasn’t true. He’d given up his hate a long time ago. Now he felt nothing. Nothing for any of them.

The sound of night creatures drifted to him. It was all returning, like a bad dream. He fought the urge to turn around and drive back to the airport—that wouldn’t accomplish anything. The sooner he got to town, the sooner he could leave.

Shifting back into gear, he pressed his foot on the gas and eased onto the empty road. There wasn’t much traffic at this end of town. The mill shifts would have already changed and no one else came this way.

He drove without thinking, slowing on the turns, accelerating on the straight patches until, without expecting it to be so short a trip, he pulled into the steel mill parking lot.

Nothing had changed. The screeches and groans as men forged steel from iron clamored around him. The air was heavy…hot. Up ahead, the mill itself loomed large in the black night. Artificial light illuminated the hungry mouth of the dragon. God, he hated this place. He didn’t worry about dying. He’d been to hell and the devil lived inside a steel mill.

To the left of the mill, the two-story office building stood alone, like an abandoned child. Most of the offices were dark, but one, on the second floor, shone like a beacon. The telegram about his father had come from the mill office and the message had asked him to stop there on his way to the hospital. No doubt his father’s secretary had stayed late to give him an update. Eleven years ago, Miss Barnes had been old and cranky. Seemed unlikely that time would have mellowed her spirit. Better not keep the lady waiting.

His long stride covered the ground from his car to the office building in four easy paces. The door opened silently. A light on the stairs beckoned.

The first step was easy, the second higher…harder…as though he were moving backward through time. Knowledge and wisdom and maturity dropped away, like winter layers on a sunny day, until he felt like a teenager again. He half expected to see his father’s angry face, Jenny’s laughing one.