“Don't do this. Don't destroy all our years of friendship –”
“We’ll be lovers instead.”
Now he was pushing her sideways so that she was lying against the sofa's arm and he was crouched over her. “I know that you can love me, Kate. You're so beautiful...”
She tried to twist away from him but he was too heavy. Finally, she just lay still and sobbed, unable to fight this man whom she had known and trusted for so long.
“You're crying.” Oliver touched a tear running down her face in surprise. He shifted his weight off of her and gently pulled her to a sitting position. Putting his arm around her shoulders, he said, “I'm sorry. I was angry, and I love you so much.”
Kate watched him warily as she moved out of his embrace and slowly stood up. “I think I'll call a taxi.”
“I'll take you home. It's the least I can do.” He took her hand between his. “Forgive me, Kate.”
She slid her hand away. “Please call a taxi.”
He stood up, and Kate instantly moved away from him. Oliver's expression became bleak. “All right, I'll get a taxi.”
They waited in silence for the cab.
As it pulled away from the curb, Kate saw Oliver standing on the sidewalk with his hand raised in farewell. She turned away without waving. She wondered what she was going to tell Clay and Patrick about Oliver's sudden disappearance from their lives. She knew she never wanted to face him again.
Her hands were still shaking when she tried to pay the driver. He waved her away, saying that the gentleman had taken care of it. Kate stood on the front porch for a few minutes to collect herself before walking into the house. Brigid was reading in the family room.
“Och, you look tired from dancing the night away,” the Irishwoman said, closing her book. “Can I make you some tea before I go?”
“No, thank you. I think I just need some sleep.”
“Oh, I almost forgot. That gentleman with the accent called and left you a message. He asked you to call him back, no matter what time you got home. I put his number on the kitchen counter.”
“Thank you, but he'll have to wait until morning.”
“He's a good-looking devil, that one. Good night and sleep deep.” Kate walked into the kitchen and picked up the piece of paper with Randall's number on it.
For a moment, she considered calling him. She wanted to talk with someone – anyone – who could wake her out of the nightmare she had just lived through. Instead she went upstairs and checked on her sons, softly straightening their blankets and breathing in the comforting scent of their youth.
Then she stripped off her Cinderella ball gown and left it in a crumpled heap on the floor.
Randall was sitting on his terrace with a bottle of brandy and a snifter beside him. His bow tie lay on the stone floor and his cell phone lay in his lap, stubbornly silent. His sock-clad feet rested on the place where he had first made love to the woman who was making him crazy.
He had driven home in a rage at being left on the dance floor looking like a fool. But he knew he had brought it on himself. In fact, he grudgingly respected Kate for refusing to leave with him.
Now he stared at the night sky and tried to decide what he wanted to do about Ms. Kate Chilton. The most immediate answer, of course, was that he wanted to haul her up here, rip off all that taffeta and armor and make love to her until he was limp. He hadn't felt this sexually frustrated since he was about fourteen.
He tilted some brandy down his throat. But that wasn't enough of an answer. She had made it clear that her priorities were different from his. Actually, he respected her for that too. Thousands of people depended on him for paychecks, it was true, but unlike Kate, he did not have to live his life as an example to them. Having children held you to a whole different level of moral standards and responsibilities. Or it should, Randall thought, acknowledging his own childhood with a grimace of bitterness. He envied Clay and Patrick Chilton.
“Damn, I'm really losing it,” he said, putting down his brandy glass. He stood up and his cell phone fell with a clatter. He kicked it across the terrace and then sat on the wall with his back to the view.
He knew what had induced all this soul-searching. It was the look on Kate's face as she had waltzed with him. He had felt a pull in a place where he didn't think that he could feel anything at all. And it scared the hell out of him.
An electronic tone sounded, and Randall was across the terrace in four swift strides.
“Yes?” he drawled.
But it wasn't Kate.
An officer of an English subsidiary was momentarily rendered speechless at reaching a live Randall Johnson in the middle of the night. He soon wished he hadn't because Mr. Johnson was in a very disagreeable mood. The Englishman got off the phone as quickly as possible.
Randall punched the end button and hurled his phone into the treetops.
Sixteen
She awoke to the smell of scorched waffles.
Her half-open eyes fell on the crumpled heap of gold velvet and taffeta on the floor. She didn't want to get out of bed. She hadn't felt this awful since she first found Sylvia's letter. Dragging on her bathrobe, she washed quickly and walked down the steps to see who was burning breakfast.
“Hey, Mom,” Clay said, looking up from scraping black bits off the waffle iron. “Would you like a waffle?”
“That sounds great,” Kate said, even as her stomach flipped in protest. She loved it when her sons offered to cook for her. She shuffled into the family room to greet Patrick, blocking his view of the television as she leaned down to kiss him, and he shifted slightly to keep his eyes on the set.
“Mom, your waffle's ready!” Clay called.
She walked back into the kitchen and sat down. As she began to take her first tentative bite, Clay asked, “Is Oliver coming over today?”
She choked.
“Are you okay?” Clay asked, thumping her on the back.
She took a gulp of juice and croaked, “I just swallowed wrong.” She took another swallow and said in a clearer voice, “No, Oliver's not coming today.”
His face fell. “Oh. I'm working on a new sculpture, and I wanted to get his input on the welding.”
Kate's heart twisted. “You know engineers are not totally without aesthetic judgment,” she said. “Maybe I could take a look at your welding question.”
“Thanks, Mom.” He actually gave her a quick hug. “I know you have great taste. I just thought I'd let you rest today. Was the party fun?”
Fun was definitely not an adjective she would apply to her evening.
“The decorations were fantastic.” She described the room and the auction items, and they were laughing over the idea of Gretchen at a dog beauty salon when the phone rang.
“Kate, it's Bruce Adler. Sorry to bother you on a Sunday, but I just got a call from the lieutenant governor's assistant. They want to do a press conference tomorrow on site, complete with blueprints, model, and especially the brilliant engineer who came up with the design. They're trying to fend off all the complaints that they've been getting about construction projects disrupting traffic for months at a time. I don't have to tell you what great publicity this is for us.”
Kate smiled. “Especially since the project is still right on time.”
Bruce laughed. “Let's hope they want to have another press conference at the end of it.”
She spent the rest of the day enjoying the company of her children. They whiled away a couple of hours at the welding bench in the garage, experimenting with Clay's new project. Then they ran soccer plays and went out for ice cream. They rented a movie, and after dinner, the three of them sat together on the couch and watched it, totally immersed.
Not until Clay and Patrick were in bed, and Kate was tucked under her own covers, did she allow Oliver or Randall to emerge into her conscious thoughts. In spite of her flannel pajamas, she shivered at the memory of Oliver's hands on her. She couldn't bring herself to fight him because he was her friend. Y
et he had been oblivious to the fact that she was unwilling. If she hadn't cried, what would Oliver have done?
She pressed her hands to her stomach as the pain of Sylvia's revelation lanced through her again. David had wanted a divorce. Oliver had confirmed that. She drew in a shaky breath. Her world would have disintegrated around her even if David had lived.
Suddenly, she understood.
Oliver had known all of this, but he hadn't talked David out of leaving her. He had planned to step right into David's shoes after the divorce. David's death had changed nothing in his mind. She threw off her quilt and paced across the room. “Why me?” she asked herself quietly. “Why would he obsess about me?” The question was unanswerable.
To complete the disaster that was her life, she had fallen in love with Randall Johnson.
“You are an idiot,” she addressed herself in her dresser mirror. He wanted sex. She wouldn't kid herself that it went any further than that.
And that was her own damned fault.
What she needed to do was find a kind, loving man who would be a father for Clay and Patrick. Randall's voice floated through her mind: “I'm not a nice man, Kate. You don't want to mess with me.” She punched a pillow. How could she love him?
It was the second unanswerable question of the night.
She decided to wear a pale gray tailored pants suit with a white silk blouse for the press conference. That way she could clamber around the site if necessary without worrying about immodest flashes of thigh. She and Bruce spent the morning reviewing the plans from every angle, trying to think of any questions that the reporters might ask them.
After lunch, they loaded the model into Bruce's car and drove up to the bridge.
Kate was trying to figure out where the cameras would be set up when the official entourage arrived.
Car doors flew open and men and women began to set up tables and unfurl flags. A small knot of people moved toward Bruce and Kate. At its center was a tall blond man in a beautifully cut navy blue suit.
“I'm Lidden Hartley, the lieutenant governor,” he said, smiling and holding out his hand to Bruce. “You must be Bruce Adler.” He shifted toward Kate. “And you're Kate Chilton. It's a pleasure to meet the people responsible for this innovative design. You've solved a big problem for Connecticut, and we appreciate it. My staff will help you position your visual aids. Thanks so much for coming.”
With another warm smile, he swept away to greet the reporters emerging from the third set of vehicles.
“Wow,” Kate said. “He's a smooth act. He even knew our names.”
“His staff briefed him in the car on the way over. I told them exactly whom to expect,” Bruce said, as they carried the blueprints and the model to the tables.
“But he bothered to remember.”
“He's a politician. They're good at that or they don't get reelected.”
Kate raised her brows. “You're very cynical.”
“Not cynical, realistic.”
The press secretary bustled up to them. She was a dark-haired woman with wire-rimmed glasses and a brisk air. “I'm Joan. What do you have here?” She looked over the model and the blueprints with an expert eye before more staff members whisked them away. Then she turned to Kate. “We'll want you to do at least some of the talking because you're a woman, and we want to encourage our female constituents.”
Kate suppressed a smile at the PC-speak and listened carefully to Joan's outline of the press conference. Lidden Hartley would obviously get the lion's share of the attention but they wanted Kate front and center. “Sorry, Bruce,” she said when Joan had moved away. “I didn't know that I would be encouraging female constituents.”
Bruce rolled his eyes in mock disgust. “Upstaged by the token female.”
Kate was amazed at the speed with which everything went forward. No one wanted to waste time hanging around the edge of a busy highway. Another surprise was the familiarity between the government officials and the reporters; Lidden Hartley traded jokes with the reporters as his hair was groomed.
Suddenly, the red lights glowed on all of the cameras, and Kate tried to look pleasantly professional as she faced the battery of lenses. The lieutenant governor gave a short speech about the ongoing improvements to the highway system. Bruce did his part by playing up Connecticut's emphasis on not disrupting traffic. Kate got to show off the model as she gave a simple explanation of how the construction would work. The reporters asked a few questions, most of which Lidden Hartley and Bruce fielded. One design question was directed to her. Then it was over, and the press vanished even faster than they had appeared.
Joan helped them carry the model back to the car. “This should appear on the ten o'clock news if you want to watch. Mr. Hartley is planning to run for governor next year, so the press is following him pretty closely. And they like to get their digs in about road construction, so this will give them an opportunity to make snide remarks.”
Bruce was just slamming down the trunk when the lieutenant governor himself strode over. “An excellent presentation! We can use some good press on this highway construction, as I'm sure you know.” Kate admired the smile that drew listeners into his charmed circle. “Bruce, thanks for making the trek up here and making us look so good. Kate, I can see why Randall Johnson is so impressed with you. That's a brilliant solution to our problem.”
'Thank you, sir,” Kate said, even as she was absorbing what he had just said. Randall had discussed her project with Lidden Hartley? And without bothering to mention it to her? Her blood was boiling as she shook hands once again with the lieutenant governor.
Bruce looked at her quizzically once they were alone. “I didn't know you had friends in such high places. It goes a long way toward explaining how we got the job so quickly.”
“I hope that we won the job on the merits of our proposal,” Kate said stiffly.
Bruce laughed. “I'm not downplaying the importance of the work that went into our proposal. Hell, we probably would have been chosen without any intervention. According to my sources, we had the best solution. But for an unfamiliar firm to be approved so fast...well, Susan and I were amazed. It just proves the old adage. It's not what you know, it's who you know.”
Kate's jaw clenched. Maneuvering her into his swimming pool or even into his bed was one thing. His manipulation of her livelihood went beyond the pale. Despite her determination never to see him again, she now longed to tell Randall exactly what she thought of his interference.
“You don't have to answer this but I'm curious: how do you know Randall Johnson?” Bruce asked.
“We have mutual friends,” Kate said, watering down the truth considerably.
Bruce raised his eyebrows. “There's nothing wrong with using connections, Kate. The business and political worlds run on the 'old boy network.' It's naive to think otherwise.”
A cell phone beeped as they got into Bruce's car. They both reached into their pockets. “It's mine,” Kate said. “Hello, Kate Chilton.”
“Kate, it's Denise. I'm at the hospital with Clay and Patrick.”
Kate's heart froze. “What's wrong?”
“Patrick is fine. Clay got his hand tangled up in a dog fight. They've done everything they can here, and the doctor wants to talk with you.”
“Denise, is he all right?”
“He's fine but his hand is pretty chewed up. Here's Dr. Mattern.”
“Hello, Mrs. Chilton? I'm Andrea Mattern, the emergency room doctor. Your son is in no danger. We've stopped the bleeding and bandaged his hand. However, there is a fair amount of damage to the muscles and ligaments, and I would recommend that you take him to an orthopedic surgeon as soon as possible. Time can make a big difference in reattaching tissues.”
“How bad is it?” Kate asked in a small voice.
“It's his left hand and I understand that he's right-handed, so his writing won't be affected. But he could lose a noticeable amount of mobility and strength. It's hard to tell so soon and I'm not a specia
list. I could send him to the doctor we have on staff, but frankly I would recommend an orthopedic surgeon at Long Island Jewish Hospital. He's one of the best at treating hand injuries.”
“Can you refer us to him?”
Dr. Mattern hesitated. “Yes, but I don't have much pull. To be frank, this man mostly works on athletes and celebrities.”
“Give me his name and number and I'll do whatever I need to.” Kate wrote down the information, then asked to speak with Clay.
“Hey, Mom. Sorry to be such trouble,” came his shaken voice.
“Sweetheart, don't apologize. How are you?”
“Well, my hand hurts a lot, but other than that I'm fine. A little foggy because they gave me some painkillers, I think.”
“I'll be there as fast as I can. I'm going to try to arrange for you to go to a fancy Long Island doctor while I'm on my way. I love you, Clay. Relax and don't worry about anything.”
“Thanks, Mom. Here's Mrs. Costanza.”
“Denise, I can't thank you enough for being there with Clay. Will they let him leave soon?”
Denise consulted with the doctor. “Dr. Mattern says I can take him home now as long as he stays quiet. I think the painkillers will knock him out anyway. I'll take him to my house. You can come pick him up whenever you get home.”
“I'm on my way now. I'll be there as soon as I can.”
Kate ended the call and noticed that Bruce was already on the highway toward New Jersey rather than back to the city. She closed her eyes to gather her scattered wits and to keep herself from crying. “Thanks, Bruce,” she whispered. “I know this is way out of your way.”
“I gather it's a medical emergency?”
A Bridge to Love Page 17
