Between the Lines

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  Between the Lines

  Jayne Ann Krentz

  Copyright © 1986 by Jayne Krentz

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Any similarity to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title

  Copyright

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  Featured Title

  About the Author

  1

  Cormick Grayson tossed aside the handful of papers he’d been going through, poured himself another dash of cognac and said calmly, “It occurs to me there’s no good reason why we shouldn’t get married.”

  Amber Langley choked on the sip of elegant cognac she had just taken. “I beg your pardon?” She gasped for breath as Grayson lightly slapped her between the shoulder blades. It was a friendly gesture, just the sort she would have expected from him. He was, after all, her good friend. “What did you say?”

  “You heard me.” Grayson gave her his slow, fleeting smile, the one that only briefly revealed his strong white teeth. His hazel eyes were gently amused as he lounged back against the black leather cushion of the sofa. “I can’t think of a single good reason why we shouldn’t get married. We’re friends, we work well together and you’re practically living here in my house as it is.”

  Amber blinked, trying to regain her equilibrium in a world that seemed to have tilted an inch or two. “Practically is a long way from actually,” she managed to point out a little dryly. “I work for you, remember? You choose to run your business from your home. That makes your house my office. What it really amounts to is that I’m spending a lot of time in the office these days, Gray.”

  He shrugged, his massive shoulders moving with careless ease beneath the fabric of the conservative white shirt he wore. “You don’t seem to mind the time you spend here.”

  “No,” Amber admitted thoughtfully. “I don’t mind the time I spend here.” She studied him closely. Cormick Grayson was a large specimen of masculinity. There was no fat on him, but there was a sure, solid strength in the broad shoulders and strong thighs. Everything about him seemed oversized, including his hands and feet. Amber estimated his height as slightly over six feet.

  His hazel eyes were a cross between green and gold. There was a direct, watchful intelligence in his gaze that Amber occasionally found disconcerting but never really unnerving. The rest of his features were just as straightforward, from the firm line of his mouth and jaw to the bold blade of his nose. Grayson was nearly forty, a powerfully built man whose face echoed that power. His hair was a deep shade of brown that contained the faintest hint of russet. It was thick, and Grayson kept it severely trimmed. He wore his hair as conservatively as he wore his clothes.

  For all his size and sleekly muscled build, Cormick Grayson was a quiet man. He spoke softly and moved silently. It was precisely that element of quietness coupled with strength that Amber found so appealing. Grayson wasn’t flashy, unsettling, temperamental or unpredictable. He was calm, thoughtful, easygoing and pleasantly predictable. Placid, was the term Amber’s sister Cynthia used.

  Amber had noticed most of Cormick Grayson’s reassuringly placid qualities in almost the first moment she had introduced herself. That had been nearly three months ago when the temporary secretarial help agency had sent her out on assignment to his house. He had greeted her at the front door of his lakefront home just outside of Bellevue, Washington, with a politely appraising expression in his hazel eyes. He’d shaken her hand in a no-nonsense manner, introduced himself as Cormick Grayson and then instructed her to call him Gray. When she’d told him her name was Amber, he’d seemed genuinely amused by the fact that they both bore names related to colors.

  Amber knew she probably hadn’t impressed Grayson with her passable but somewhat limited secretarial skills. Typing was hardly her forte. Like many other women who found themselves temporarily out of work in their areas of expertise, Amber had fallen back on her basic ability to type. As she had told Cynthia, it was either that or wait tables until she was able to land a job in her field.

  But two weeks into the assignment with Gray he had offered her full-time employment as his assistant. Her typing wasn’t anything special, he’d told her, but she had a head for business. It was not an all together surprising discovery. Until recently Amber had worked in a high-powered advertising agency in Southern California. Among other skills she had an instinct for handling clients and an intuitive feel for business situations. She knew how to generate enthusiasm with a smile, a talent Gray found quite fascinating and useful in dealing with his clients.

  And, perhaps most importantly, she didn’t mind helping him with his research on the little Western poet Sherborne Ulysses Twitchell. Amber was secretly convinced that it was her tolerance on the latter subject that had got her the job offer. Not many people were inclined to be tolerant of the work of S. U. Twitchell. Amber had accepted the position as Gray’s assistant at once.

  Tonight Grayson was offering marriage in the same casual, reasonable manner in which he’d offered Amber a job. Cormick Grayson did everything in a quiet, reasonable, unflamboyant manner. It was one of the things Amber appreciated about him. Nevertheless, the marriage proposal managed to take her by surprise.

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?” she asked.

  “Very. It makes sense, Amber. We work well together, we respect each other, we enjoy each other’s company. Our goals and interests are similar. I want you to give the matter serious consideration.” He smiled self-deprecatingly. “I know I’m not the most passionately exciting man on the face of the earth, but you don’t seem to be looking for passion or excitement.”

  Amber shook her head quickly, her eyes earnest. “No,” she whispered, “you’re absolutely right. I’m not looking for either.” She’d had far too much of both six months ago with Roarke Kelley. The extreme highs and the equally extreme lows of her relationship with the championship race car driver had kept her off balance for two months before she’d finally pulled herself together long enough to put an end to the destructive whirlwind. Kelley had brought passion and fire and romance into her world on a scale that was larger than life. Amber had learned the hard way that she wasn’t the kind of woman who was cut out to cope with the turmoil such extremes of emotion caused.

  She had fled Southern California and the excellent job with the advertising agency in search of a more stable, more serene existence. She had decided to visit her sister’s family in Bellevue and had wound up staying. Amber had found exactly what she was searching for when she’d gone to work for Cormick Grayson. Gray was right. The kind of marriage he was offering was precisely the type to which she was most suited. But there was a little matter of honor and integrity.

  She didn’t love Gray.

  She liked him, admired him, respected him, but she didn’t love him. Amber sometimes wondered if her ability to respond to love and passion had been forever destroyed by the fires of her involvement with Roarke Kelley.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking, Amber.” Gray didn’t move from the corner of the couch as he watched a myriad of expressions cross her face.

  Amber was the perfect name for her, Gray had often thought. It accurately described the brown-gold of her hair and the warm color of her faintly slanted eyes. The hai
r was worn in a mass of small curls held back from her face tonight by tortoiseshell combs. The halo of golden brown framed the wide, heavily lashed eyes, a full mouth and a delicately shaped nose and chin. Amber was an intelligent woman with the sort of face people found interesting, even attractive, but not particularly beautiful.

  In the nearly three months he had known her, Gray had never seen her wear much makeup. That suited him just fine. But it also made him curious. He wondered occasionally how much makeup she had worn when she’d worked as an account executive at the advertising agency in Southern California. Something told him that her severe restraint with eye shadow, blusher, lipstick and nail polish now was another of her reactions to the life she had once known.

  She dressed well, although the colors she chose tended to be subdued and conservative. Gray was willing to bet she hadn’t worn those colors in the flashy environment of California advertising. He thought she would look good in vivid reds, yellows and greens, but most of her wardrobe had proven to be in muted shades. Gray liked her best in jeans and an open-throated shirt such as she had on tonight. It seemed to him that her true nature was more revealed in such casual attire.

  Regardless of what she wore, he was always pleasantly aware of the delicious curve of her small breasts and the provocative roundness of her well-shaped derriere. Lately it was getting almost impossible to keep his hands off her. She was not a dieting zealot and that pleased Gray. He had no particular fondness for fashionably skinny women. He didn’t know many men who did. As Sherborne Ulysses Twitchell had once said in a line from one of his more inspired verses, “a woman should look like a woman, not a starving heifer.” As devoted to S.U.T. as Gray was, he couldn’t remember how the next line went. Twitchell had not been able to find anything memorable to rhyme with heifer. Nevertheless, it was the thought that counted, and Twitchell’s thoughts on the matter of the feminine shape equated nicely with Gray’s. A man could enjoy a good meal with Amber and not have to watch her pick delicately at her food.

  A man could enjoy a lot more than his food with Amber Langley, Gray knew. There was a warm, sweet passion in her that was just waiting to be tapped. At the moment it was still hidden safely under wraps. Gray was almost certain that it was concealed not only from most of the people who met Amber, but also from Amber herself. Some man in Southern California had singed her badly. She needed time and peace in which to recover. But Gray had determined within a day or two of meeting Amber Langley that when she was prepared to explore her emotions again he was going to be the man in the vicinity. If he talked her into marrying him, his position would be more or less assured. He would be standing in front of Sleeping Beauty when she awoke.

  From beneath half-lowered lids that concealed the watchfulness in his eyes, Gray waited for Amber to answer his question.

  “What am I thinking?” she repeated with a faint frown. “Just that you’ve taken me by surprise. I hadn’t realized—” She broke off to run her tongue nervously over her lower lip. “I hadn’t been aware that you were viewing me as a... a wife.”

  Gray smiled gently. “Why not? I think I know you fairly well after these past couple of months together. What more could I want in a wife?”

  Amber took a firm grip on her resolve. “How about love?” she suggested baldly. “Gray, I’m very fond of you, but I don’t love you. I’m not sure I’m capable of loving a man, at least not in the fiery, passionate way men always seem to want.”

  “Do I strike you as the fiery, passionate type?” One dark brow lifted in sardonic amusement. “How strange. I always think of myself as placid and quiet. Definitely a slow burner.”

  In spite of her mixed emotions, Amber found herself grinning. “You have no idea how comfortable it is to be around a slow burner.”

  “Then marry me and be comfortable on a full-time basis.”

  Amber’s smile faded. She looked down at the glass of cognac cradled in her hands. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Gray?”

  “Have you ever known me when I didn’t know what I was doing?” There was no arrogance behind the remark. Cormick Grayson always knew what he was doing.

  Amber was aware of that. She shook her head. “No, Gray. I’ve never seen you make a serious mistake, at least not in business. But this is a little different, don’t you think? This is marriage.”

  “What’s so different about marriage? I’ve analyzed the situation and us. I think we’ll be good together. Neither of us is the hot-blooded type. We aren’t blinded by a lot of emotional garbage and we’re both basically honest. Furthermore, I think we’re both capable of making a commitment and sticking to it. What more does it take to make a marriage work?”

  Amber moved one hand in an exasperated motion. “What more? I don’t know what more it takes, Gray. I’ve always heard it takes love and passion in addition to integrity.”

  “Don’t you believe it. A lot of successful marriages have taken place during the past few thousand years, and I’m willing to bet that almost none of them were based on love and passion. The truth is, the twentieth-century notion of romantic love is a fairly recent development. No one during the past few centuries expected to marry for love.”

  Amber’s head came up, her eyes narrowing faintly. “I know. Previous generations married for money or business reasons or to beget heirs. None of those reasons apply in this case. I’m quite capable of supporting myself, there’s no overriding business reason to marry you and unless you’ve suddenly decided you need an heir, I don’t see what—”

  Gray grinned briefly at the stubborn look on her face. “Calm down. I was just trying to point out the fact that a marriage doesn’t have to be forged in the fires of a volcano in order to be successful.” He held up one large palm as if to forestall any further protest. “There’s no need to argue about it. I’m certainly not going to push you into anything. You know me better than that. All I ask is that you think about it. And don’t worry about not being able to offer me some fantasy of passionate love. I don’t expect it and probably wouldn’t know what to do with it if I got it.”

  Amber relaxed, her mouth curving slightly. “You sound like quite an authority on the subject.”

  He shrugged again. “Maybe I am. I was married once. For about two years. That was a long time ago, back when I still worried about things like fiery passion.”

  “I didn’t know.” Amber was suddenly intensely curious, but she didn’t dream of prying.

  “It’s been over a long time. I learned a lot, Amber. Believe me, I know what I’m doing this time.” He sat up and placed his snifter down onto the glass-topped end table with careful precision. “I’m not going to rush you for an answer, although I’ll admit it would be convenient for us to get married within the next couple of weeks.”

  “The next couple of weeks!” Amber was startled.

  “I have to leave for Arizona at the end of October. You know that,” he reminded her gently. “The Symington deal.”

  “Oh. Yes.” She frowned. “But what’s that got to do with us?”

  “I just thought the trip would make a pleasant honeymoon.”

  “Honeymoon.” Amber felt dazed.

  “It’s customary, you know.”

  She glared at him briefly. “I’m aware of that.”

  “It wouldn’t have to be the usual kind of honeymoon, Amber,” he said meaningfully. “I meant what I said. I’m not going to push you in any way. But I am going to be stuck spending a week or ten days at a very posh dude ranch and I thought you might enjoy enduring the hardship with me. Just think. We could see the very kind of desert landscape Twitchell mentioned in ‘Gunslinger’s Lament.’ Perhaps stand on the very rock Red Bart hid behind when he ambushed the U.S. marshal in ‘An Ode to Badlands and Bad Men.’ It’s the literary chance of a lifetime. You’ll be able to combine a vacation with a dose of culture.”

  Amber stared at him for a few seconds and then col
lapsed into laughter. “Culture is not exactly the word I would use, but I see your point. I think you’re trying to bribe me, Gray.”

  “Of course I am. The trip would do you good and I would very much like to have you along. As my wife, not just my assistant.”

  Amber sobered again and ran her finger around the edge of the snifter she was holding. “I don’t know, Gray. I honestly don’t know. I’m very honored and flattered that you’re asking me to marry you, but to tell you the truth I haven’t given much thought to marrying anyone: At least not recently.”

  He reached out to stroke his thumb along the line of her jaw. His eyes were gentle with understanding. “I know. And I meant what I said about not rushing you. But think about it, Amber. It would be convenient to be married before the Arizona trip, but if that’s pushing it I’ll be glad to wait. I really am quite sure of what I’m doing.”

  Amber was aware of a deep tension coiling within her. “You honestly wouldn’t expect a wild, intense kind of love from me, Gray? Because I don’t have it to give. And you’re too nice a man to have anything less than what you want. I’d like you to be happy.”

  “You can make me happy, Amber.”

  “You’re very sure?”

  “Very sure.”

  “I’ll... I’ll think about it,” Amber whispered.

  * * *

  “To tell you the truth, Cynthia,” Amber stated the next day as she sat in the passenger seat of her sister’s BMW, “I’m actually considering his proposal.”