Storm Over the Lake (7 page)

“That…wasn't how you sounded a minute ago,” she choked.

One dark eyebrow went up. “Any woman can stir a man, Meredith.”

She flushed darkly. “You needn't think I…was trying to…to stir
you
!” she cried.

He studied her through narrowed eyes, his face hard and impassive. “You're a puzzle, little one,” he murmured quietly.

“What do you want from me?” she asked through the tears. “Please, Mr. Devereaux, what do you want from me?”

“What did Pluto want from Persephone?” he replied narrowly.

She closed her eyes wearily. “Please go away,” she whispered. “Oh, please, go away.”

“You prefer the nightmares to me, Meredith?” He moved to the door and paused to look at her. “Sometimes, little taffy cat, reality can be hell enough.”

She heard the door close softly, and buried her face in the cool cotton pillow, weeping like a lost child.

 

She did her chores in a daze the next morning, the combination of the nightmare and her argument with Adrian leaving her drained and hollow-eyed.

“Won't you at least have a piece of toast?” Lillian coaxed when the pale girl refused breakfast.

“I'm sorry,” she murmured with a smile, “I'm just not hungry. I'll…”

The sudden insistent jangle of the telephone cut her off. She answered it automatically in the hall, preparing herself mentally for any one of a hundred situations it might mean.

“Dana, is that you?” came a familiar voice on the other end of the wire.

“Jack!” She broke into a smile. “Jack, is it you? How are you?!”

“I'm fine, honey, just fine. Dana…I've got some news for you.”

It could only mean one thing, and she felt suddenly numb from her head down. “What is it?” she asked quickly.

“It's Katy,” he said gently. “They transferred her from the nursing home to
the hospital about an hour ago. Massive cerebral hemorrhage. You'd better come on down, honey. I'm sorry I had to be the one to call, but I told the doc it would be better coming from me. You okay?”

She felt her world collapsing around her. Massive hemorrhaging. That could mean…Her lips trembled on the words. “I'll…I'll get on the…uh…the next flight. Where is she?”

“Sunnyside General. Dana, I'm sorry.”

“So…so am I. Thank you for calling, Jack. I'll be there…just as soon as I can, okay?”

“Sure. Take care.”

She nodded and laid the receiver back in the cradle. Her body shook with a hard sob. She sank into a chair by the telephone, just as the front door opened and Adrian came through it. It was odd for him to be home in the middle of the morning, but just the sight of him was enough to calm her.

“I forgot the Amhurst file,” he said shortly. He shot a lightning glare at her
tear-stained face. “Crying again? You're a damned watering pot lately.”

“Please, I have to…to go to Miami,” she said unsteadily. “Right away.”

“Why?”

“My mother's in the hospital,” she choked, forcing her voice to be calm. “Stroke. A massive one. Please, I need to see about…about reservations and…”

“Nice try, honey,” he said coolly, “but it's a little trite. No, Persephone, you're not going to Miami to see your lover just yet. I've got plans for you.”

He turned away and started into his den. “It's the truth!” she cried, her white face as chalk. “Oh, God, I'm not lying. You've got to believe me. I'm telling you the truth!”

“It would be a famous first,” he said carelessly, not even slowing down as he went through the door. “Coming from you, the truth would be worthy of a celebration.”

“She may die!” she wept, the tears streaming down her face. “I have to go!”

His dark eyes met hers, and she'd never
seen them so cruel. “Then I'll let you go to the funeral. Get to work, Meredith, I don't pay you for cheap hysterics. You aren't going to escape me that easily.”

With a broken sob, she turned and ran into the library, locking the door after her. What could she do? Run away? She didn't have the air fare, he hadn't paid her, and her bank account was almost bare. She pushed the wild hair away from her eyes and studied the phone on the writing table. Jack. She could call Jack and have him call Adrian…A long shot, but worth a try, she had to go, she had to!

She picked up the receiver with trembling hands and dialed the number direct, her nerves screaming as she waited for the call to be transferred to the newsroom, and then waited for Jack to answer. It seemed to take forever.

An eternity later, Jack's deep voice came on the line. “Hello?”

“Jack…” her voice broke and she struggled to get it back. “Jack, I've got a…a problem and I need help. My…Mr. Devereaux won't listen, he thinks I'm ly
ing…oh my God, please…Jack, talk to him, please talk to him. I've got to go to Miami!!” A sob shook her slender body, ending on a gasp of pure anguish. “Please, please…!”

“I'm here,” said a voice on the extension, deep and utterly quiet. “That you, Jack? What the hell's going on?”

She heard Jack explaining through a fog of emotion. Gently, she hung the phone up and sat down in the chair at the writing table with her face in her hands, weeping as if her heart would break.

Minutes later she heard the doorknob rattle. “Dana, open the door.”

She was spurred into motion by the authority in that deep, strange voice. She opened the door, but looked no higher than his white crisp collar.

“I'll…pay you…back for the call,” she managed brokenly.

His big hands caught in her hair, pulling her face against him. His broad chest rose and fell in a hard, heavy sigh. “Oh, God, I'm so sorry,” he whispered gruffly.

The words shocked her. She'd never
heard him apologize for anything, not ever. “I…I want to go home,” she choked.

He drew a handkerchief from his pocket and tilted her face up to his so he could wipe away the tears.

“Go upstairs and pack what you need for a few days,” he said gently. “I'll call and make the reservations. Are you all right?”

She barely registered the concern in his dark eyes, the tenderness in the big hand that was mopping up her face. “I'm fine.”

“Like hell you are,” he replied. “Wash your face. It'll help. Can you be ready in thirty minutes?”

She nodded.

“Move, Persephone.”

She went up the stairs with his handkerchief clutched in her nerveless fingers. Packing took only minutes. She hardly saw what she was doing, and it was only due to Lillian's sudden appearance that any shoes, stockings or nightclothes were included. The older woman helped her gather everything together and then led her
downstairs with a comforting arm around her thin shoulders.

Adrian was standing at the front door, waiting for Frank, who was tucking a suitcase into the boot of the Lincoln. “Give me your case, I'll have Frank load it,” he said without preamble, taking it from her cold hands.

“Have a safe trip,” Lillian told her. “God bless.”

Impulsively, Dana kissed her wrinkled cheek and turned to go out the door.

The trip to the busy airport was a blur. Adrian was quiet, and Dana withdrew into the past, into memories of the way her life had been just years ago, before her father's death had triggered so much tragedy.

In her mind, she could see Katy Meredith in the old days, a sparkling dark-eyed jewel with a vitality, a love of life that burned like a candle in a chapel. Katy, laughing as she played hostess at political gatherings, chaired fund drive committees, played golf…

She felt something warm and strong against the coldness of her fingers where
they lay on the seat of the car. Her eyes glanced at them and saw Adrian's big, dark hand swallow the coldness and warm it.

“I…I'll come back,” she said quietly. “I don't know when…”

“I'm going with you.”

She met his dark, level gaze. “Why?”

His fingers gripped hers closely. “Who else have you got, Meredith?” he asked.

Tears welled in her eyes and a sob broke from her lips. She turned away, watching the blur of passing traffic.

“Do you want me to hold you?” he asked in a strange, soft murmur.

She glanced up at him, saw the tenderness in his eyes…“W…would you?” she whispered.

His gray jacket came open against his white shirt as he reached for her, drawing her slender body against him, easing her cheek onto his warm, hard chest.

His fingers tangled slowly, gently in her loosened hair. “It's going to be all right,” he said, brushing her temple with his lips. “It's going to be all right, my baby.”

She closed her eyes and relaxed with a trembling sigh. He was warm and strong, and it was so good to lean on someone just this once, to have the security of someone else making decisions, leading the way. And in spite of all he'd said, and all he'd done, loving him was a way of life. Even through the fear and the pain and the grief, being in his arms was a balm worth any wounding.

 

The flight seemed short. In no time Adrian had her off the plane and into a rented car. The first thing he did was check them into adjoining rooms at a hotel near the hospital. Dana had had to give up her small apartment when she went to Atlanta, so the hotel rooms were a necessity.

She had time to change her dress and compose herself before they went to the hospital. She clung to his hand all the way up the four floors and all the way down the hall to her mother's semi-private room. But she hesitated at the door, trembling all over.

His fingers meshed with hers, palm to palm, strong and reassuring. “Face it,” he said quietly. “I won't leave you.”

T
wo beds were close together in the small room, but only one of them was occupied. A thin, wraith-like little body was outlined by the crisp white hospital sheets and the single yellow blanket. An I.V. was hooked into the blue veins of the hand, and there was an oxygen mask around the nose. The small oval face was like old parchment, the big eyes closed, the mouth purplish.

“Oh, Mama,” Dana whispered, unaware that she'd even spoken.

Adrian's hand tightened. He went with her to the bedside. “How long has she been like this?” he asked.

“Bedridden, you mean? For the past three years,” she said quietly. “I moved her to Miami because I knew a specialist here who was willing to work with her.”

There was a long, static silence.

“What kind of shape are you in financially, Meredith?” he asked.

“That's none of your…” she protested.

“Oh, hell, yes it is,” he replied shortly, his eyes dark and unblinking as they met hers. “Tell me!”

She turned her attention back to Katy Meredith, haunted by the sight of her. She reached down and touched the frail arm. Pride fought with fatigue, and fatigue won. “My father was killed in an accident, over three years ago—just before I…started to work for you. He was heavily in debt, although Mama and I didn't know it at the time. He was her world, he was all the color and light in her life. When he died, she had the first of several strokes. They left her like this. It took everything, all the
insurance money…everything, just to pay the debts and start paying on the hospital bills. Mama didn't have any hospitalization insurance.” She drew in a sharp breath. “I used to hear it said that everyone has a price. I found out then what mine was. I agreed to that masquerade, to get that story on you because there was nothing in the bank and I couldn't bear even the thought of charity. That man in the restaurant with me…he was our attorney. The check I was giving him was one I'd received from the insurance company on a policy I didn't even know Daddy had. It was a Godsend, that check. It made it possible to move Mama here. Afterwards, I was able to get a job with Charlie's paper and take over the bills.”

Adrian studied the frail little body on the bed. His face was like carved rock. “How do you manage the nursing home on your salary?”

She shrugged. “Frugally,” she said with a wan smile.

“Without government assistance, too, right, Persephone?” he asked curtly.
“She's not old enough to qualify, if looks are any indication.”

“I made my own clothes, and kept a tight budget, and I lucked out on an apartment in a home with some very nice people.” She closed her eyes. “From a Mercedes to a city bus and a two-story town house to a one-room efficiency…it was a long way down, and if it hadn't been for Dad's insistence that I take journalism courses, I don't know how we'd have survived.”

“I don't see how the hell you are surviving,” Adrian said in a cutting voice. “And she doesn't need to be in a semi-private room. She damned well needs a round-the-clock nurse as well.”

She glared at him. “Need has to adjust to ability,” she reminded him.

“Why didn't you tell me this before?” he asked.

“Would you have listened, Mr. Devereaux?” she ground out.

He met her challenging look evenly. “My name is Adrian. Don't ever put a mister in front of it again. Sit down. I'll be
back in a few minutes. Can I bring you a cup of coffee?”

It sounded like absolute heaven. She could almost taste it. “Oh, please!”

He left the room, and Dana was alone with the fragile fleshy shell of her mother. She sat down beside the bed, her eyes scanning the pronounced cheekbones, the sharp eyebrows, the thick, long eyelashes that had never needed mascara. There was nothing of the brown sparkle of those eyes that had loved life, nothing of the active woman whose endurance and vivacity were a watchword.

Dana laid her fingers on the cold, unmoving hand spread out on the white sheet. “I love you, Mama,” she whispered.

But the lilting voice that had always answered her as a child answered her no more.

An hour later they left the hospital. Adrian had given the hotel number to the nurses' station and the business office, assuming the responsibility with customary nonchalance.

He propelled her toward the hotel restaurant firmly.

“Please, I can't eat anything,” she protested as he seated her at a table in the cozy, dimly lit room. Red candles glowed softly against the stark white of the tablecloth.

“You've got to,” he said matter-of-factly, seating himself across from her. “I talked to the doctor.”

Her heart froze. “And…?”

A muscle in his jaw twitched. “I think you already know, honey. I think you knew when Jack called you. It's just a matter of time. Minutes. Hours. A few days. There's nothing more they can do. You know that, don't you?”

Tears welled in her eyes. She caught her lower lip in her teeth and stared at the tablecloth. She nodded silently.

The waitress came and Adrian ordered coffee and steaks and a salad for them. The waitress left, and he leaned back in his chair to light a cigarette, studying Dana through the smoke.

“I'm having her moved to a private
room,” he said. “And I've engaged 'round the clock nurses. She won't be alone for a minute.”

“But…!” she began, torn between wanting the best for Katy, and being unable to pay for it.

“We'll talk later. Right now, I'm going to feed you. Then you're going to lie down and rest for an hour or so. We'll go back to the hospital tonight, when you're rested.”

“Are you going to tuck me in and give me a bottle, too?” she asked, irritation rising to camouflage the grief.

A tiny smile tugged at his hard, sensuous mouth. “Would you like me to?” he asked pointedly.

She felt her cheeks catch fire. The waitress came back just in time to save her from a reply.

 

That day set the pattern for the two that came after it. Adrian was with her almost every minute, only leaving her alone at bedtime. He propelled her from one place to another, propped her up, made her eat,
stayed by the bedside with her. He was her mind for those horrible, cold days of impotent waiting, her consciousness, her guiding hand. And when the end came, quietly, at the end of a long, gray afternoon, he took her gently into his big arms and held her while she cried.

She sat on the edge of the bed that night, her eyes wide open, her heart aching as she remembered the still little form under the sheets, the doctor's comforting voice.

Adrian made arrangements for Katy to be taken back to Atlanta. In the morning, the hearse would come to take Katy Meredith home. In the morning, Dana would fly home with Adrian. In the morning…

But it was still night, and the first night she'd had to live with the loneliness of having no family left. And tears streamed down her pale cheeks as she sat there in her lace-trimmed brief nylon slip, her taffy-colored hair cascading around her shoulders in brilliant disarray.

She heard the door open and saw Adrian through a mist. He was still dressed, in well-fitted brown slacks and a white shirt
open at the throat. His thick dark hair was rumpled, his face heavily lined, his eyes shadowed and quiet. He needed to shave; there was a faint hint of beard on his broad, leonine face. But all in all he was the most attractive man she'd ever known. He was so good to look at…

It took her a full minute to realize that she wasn't dressed. She started to get up and go after the robe at the foot of the bed, suddenly nervous, but he blocked her way.

“It's a little late for false modesty between us, Meredith,” he said quietly. “I've seen you in a hell of a lot less.”

“I…I know, but…” she murmured, feeling those dark, bold eyes run up and down her slenderness.

His big hands caught her shoulders gently. “I want you to forget convention for tonight. I want you to trust me in a way you've never been asked to trust a man before.”

“What do you mean?” she asked weakly, looking no higher than the buttons on his shirt, pearly white buttons that were partially undone so that the hair-covered
muscles were tantalizingly displayed. He smelled of tobacco and tangy cologne, and he was warm. Big and warm and solid.

“I want you to sleep with me.”

Shocked, her red-rimmed eyes met his, asking questions her mouth couldn't shape.

He studied her face, her paleness, with a tenderness she never expected to see. “No strings, little taffy kitten,” he said gently. “I'm offering you a shoulder to pillow your head, and an arm to hold you when the hurting breaks through that mask you wear. You're not going to close your eyes as long as you're alone in here, now, are you?”

“No,” she admitted with a reluctant sigh. “Adrian, I…I really don't want to be alone,” she added in a whisper. “But I…”

“I may be a devil, Persephone,” he murmured deeply, “but I'm not quite a monster. Seduction in these circumstances would be beneath most men.”

She met his eyes and read them. When he reached out and took her hand, she followed him back into his own room. He
closed the connecting door and switched out the top light, leaving only the bedside lamp to light the way.

Turning back the covers, he put her under them and stretched himself out on top of them, drawing her close so that she could pillow her head on his broad, powerful shoulder.

“All right?” he asked gently.

“Yes, thank you,” she murmured, feeling the tension slowly drain out of her as her drawn muscles relaxed. The strain of the past days caught up with her all at once, and she felt suddenly drowsy.

“Adrian, how old were you when your mother died?” she asked, her voice muffled against his warm shirt front.

“Ten,” he said.

“Is that why your father took you on hunting trips with him…to make up for it?” she asked gently.

“Probably.”

She nuzzled her cheek against the warm hardness of his chest. “Adrian, you're such a blabbermouth,” she added with just a bit of her old cheek.

Soft, deep laughter shook the hard pillow under her ear. “Am I?” he taunted, and she felt his lips brushing her forehead.

Her fingers toyed with the button on his shirt as the drowsiness washed over her like warm bathwater. “I've got nobody now,” she whispered, feeling the ache come back.

His big arms tightened, protectively, possessively. “Haven't you, Persephone?”

“Adrian.”

“Hmm?” he murmured against her hair.

“What finally happened in the legend? Did Pluto let her go?” she asked on a yawn.

“I don't remember, honey. He was stubborn as all hell. I don't imagine he'd have set her free without putting up a fight—not if he cared as much as the legends say he did.”

“That's funny.”

“What is?”

“The devil caring about anyone,” she explained. “Maybe he just had a good
public relations department back then. Some old salt of a reporter who didn't get to heaven and had to earn a living somehow…”

He chuckled. “Go to sleep, little one.”

“I don't usually sleep with men, you know,” she murmured sleepily.

“This is a first for me, too, Meredith,” he said with a trace of amusement in his deep, clipped voice. “I don't usually
sleep
with women.”

“You ought to get more rest,” she told him lazily. “A man of your advancing years needs his sleep.”

“Why, you damned little impudent…!”

She laughed softly. “Touchy.”

“My God, you'd try the patience of a saint, do you know that?”

“But, then, we've already agreed that you're not one,” she reminded him.

“Damn you.” He said it on a ripple of laughter, his big hand catching her hair to jerk her face back on the shoulder that was pillowing it. His dancing dark eyes met hers, something sensuous and just faintly dangerous burning in them. “Baby girl,
you're touching a match to straw, do you know that? It's not going to take much more.” His other hand came up to brush her flushed cheek, his fingers lightly tracing her soft mouth. “Do you understand me, or do you want me to spell it out?”

She blushed. “I think it might be a very good idea if I go to sleep.”

“So do I,” he murmured softly. He pressed her cheek back against his hard chest and put both arms around her. “Goodnight, little one.”

“Goodnight, Mr. Devil,” she whispered impishly.

His fingers smoothed her flyaway hair. “Dana.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Don't call me sir.”

“No, sir.”

“Dammit…!”

“What?” she asked, feeling reality fade in and out as blessed sleep began to claim her.