Dream 2 - Holding the Dream

by Nora Roberts

  "Did you leave?" Thomas wanted to know.

  "I reasoned with him. From a safe distance. And told him, quite sincerely, that he made the best coquilles St. Jacques it had ever been my privilege to taste."

  "That goes a long way with Max," Josh commented. "As I recall, the line chefs there work like machines."

  "They appear to. They're terrified of him." Grinning, Byron sampled his tarragon chicken. "The problem doesn't seem to be in the preparation, but in the servers. Naturally there are certain hours when both the kitchen and the servers are backed up, but the room service staff has become undeniably lax."

  "Suggestions?"

  "I'd recommend transferring Helen Pringle to the Beverly Hills location, if she's agreeable, in a managerial position. She's experienced and efficient. We'd miss her here, of course, but I believe she would eliminate the problem in L.A. And she'd certainly be my first choice for a promotion."

  "Josh?" Thomas turned to his son for verification.

  "Agreed. She has an excellent record as an assistant manager."

  "Make her the offer." Susan picked up her wine. "With the appropriate increase in salary and benefits."

  "Fine. I think that closes Beverly Hills." Byron skimmed down his notes. San Francisco had been dealt with and tabled. San Diego required a personal spot check but posed no immediate need for discussion. "Ah, there is a little matter here at the flagship." Byron scratched his cheek. "Maintenance would like new vending machines."

  Thomas raised a brow as he finished off his salmon. "Maintenance came to you about vending machines?"

  "There was a problem with the plumbing on the sixth floor. Sabotage by a toddler who decided to drown his Power Rangers in the toilet. Hell of a mess. I went down to soothe the parents."

  And ended up sending them down to the pool while he helped the mechanic stem the flood. But that was beside the point.

  "I supervised the disgorging, so to speak, and the matter of vending machines came up. They want their junk food back. It seems candy bars and chips were ditched a couple of years ago and replaced with apples and fat-free cookies. Believe me, I got an earful about corporate interference in personal choice."

  "That would be Ridgeway," Josh decided.

  Susan made a dismissive sound, but held a napkin to her lips to disguise her grin. She had an image of Byron, elegant in a suit and polished shoes, wading through water and listening to a mechanic's gripes about snacks. "Recommendation?"

  "Keep them happy." Byron shrugged. "Let them eat Milky Ways."

  "Agreed," Thomas said. "And is that the biggest staff problem here at Templeton Monterey?"

  "Just the usual hitches, nothing that isn't typical day-to-day. There was the dead woman in 803."

  Josh grimaced. "I hate when that happens."

  "Heart attack, died in her sleep. She was eighty-five, led a full life. Gave the maid a hell of a start."

  "How long did it take you to calm her down?" Susan asked.

  "After we caught her? She went screaming down the hall. About an hour."

  Thomas topped off the wine, lifted his glass. "It's a relief for Susie and me to know that California is in good hands. Some people believe that running a hotel means sitting up in the fancy office and pushing paper—and people—around."

  "Now, Tommy." Susan patted his arm. "Peter's no longer our problem. We can hate him for strictly personal reasons now." She beamed at Byron. "But I agree. We'll go back to France at the end of the week knowing things here are well looked after." She tilted her head. "Professionally, and personally."

  "I appreciate that."

  "Our Kate's looking very happy," Thomas began. "Very healthy and fit. Are you making plans?"

  "Uh-oh, here it comes." With a grin, Josh leaned back, shook his head. "Sorry, By, I'm just going to sit here and watch you twist in the wind."

  "It's a reasonable question," Thomas insisted. "I know what the man's prospects are, obviously. I want to know what his intentions are."

  "Tommy," Susan said patiently, "Kate's a grown woman."

  "She's my girl." His face clouded as he pushed his plate aside. "I let Laura rush off her own way and look what that got her."

  "I'm not going to hurt her," Byron said. He wasn't as offended as some might have expected by the probing. After all, he'd been raised in the old school, where family interest and interference went hand in hand. "She's very important to me."

  "Important?" Thomas tossed back. "A good night's sleep is important."

  Susan sighed. "Eat your dessert, Thomas, You know how you love tiramisu. Working for Templeton doesn't require you to answer personal questions, Byron. Just ignore him."

  "I'm not asking as his employer. I'm asking as Kate's father."

  "Then I'll answer you in that spirit," Byron agreed. "She's become a major part of my life, and my intentions are to marry her." Since he hadn't fully understood that himself until this moment, Byron fell silent and frowned into his glass.

  "Well, then." Pleased, Thomas slapped his palm on the table.

  "It'll be news to her," Byron muttered, then let out a breath. "I'd appreciate it if you'd let me deal with your Kate in my own way. I haven't quite worked it out."

  "I'll have him out of your way in a few days," Susan assured Byron. "Six thousand miles."

  Thomas forked up creamy cake. "But I'll be back," he warned and shot Byron a wide grin.

  He was a detail man, after all, Byron reminded himself when he let himself into his house. He knew how to handle sensitive problems. Surely he could handle something as basic as a proposal of marriage to the woman he loved.

  She wouldn't want anything flowery, he decided. Kate wouldn't go for the down-on-one-knee routine. Thank God. She'd prefer the direct, the simple. It was all in the approach, he concluded and tugged off his tie.

  He wouldn't put it as a question. Phrasing something as "will you" opened up too much leeway for the answer to be no. Better to make it a statement, being certain to keep it short of a demand. Because it was Kate, after all. And it would be wise, because it was Kate, to have at the ready a list of rational reasons why it would be sensible.

  He only wished he could think of a single one.

  He'd pulled off his shoes before he realized something was wrong. It took him another minute to pinpoint it. It was the quiet. The dogs always set up a greeting din when he pulled into the drive. But there was no barking. When he raced to the deck door, wrenched it open in panic, he saw that there were no dogs.

  He called, whistled, hurried down the steps to check the fence that kept them safely in the backyard. His frantic mind whirled with the possibility of dognappers, newspaper articles about stolen pets sold for experiments.

  The first happy bark weakened his knees. They'd gotten through the safety gate, he thought as he strode toward the beach steps. That was all. Somehow they'd gotten through and gone for a run on their own. He'd have to give them a good talking-to.

  They topped the stairs at a run, tails waving flags of devoted joy. They leapt on him, licking and wriggling with the trembling delight they displayed whether he'd been gone for hours or had simply run to the store for milk.

  "You're grounded," he informed them. "Both of you. Haven't I told you to stay in the yard? Well, you can just forget gnawing on those ham bones I got from the hotel kitchen. No, don't try to make up," he said, laughing when they held up paws for shaking. "You guys are in the doghouse—for real."

  "Well, that'll teach them." Kate climbed the last step and stood smiling at him in the moonlight. "But I have to take the heat on this one. I asked them to escort me down to the beach, and being well-bred gentlemen, they could hardly refuse."

  "I was worried about them," he managed. He couldn't seem to stop staring at her. She was standing there, windblown, slightly breathless from the climb. Just there, as if he'd wished it.

  "I'm sorry. We should have left you a note."

  "I didn't expect to see you tonight."

  "I know." Feeling awkward now, a
s she always did after following an impulse, she tucked her hands in her pockets. "I went by Margo's after I closed the shop, had dinner and played with the baby. He's gained four ounces."

  "I know. Josh told me. He has pictures. About six dozen."

  "I got to see videos. I loved it. Anyway, I started to head back to my apartment." Her apartment, she thought. Dull, empty, meaningless. "And I ended up here instead. I hope you don't mind."

  "Do I mind?"

  He wrapped his arms around her, slowly. Drew her close against him, gradually. For three humming heartbeats his eyes stayed on hers. His mouth brushed hers, retreated. Brushed again, shifted angles. Then his lips covered hers, heated hers, parted hers. Soft and deep and welcoming, the kiss shimmered through her. Her hands stayed in her pockets, too limp to move. The muscles in her thighs went lax, her knees weak. When he drew away she could have sworn she saw stars dazzling her own eyes.

  "Well," she began, but he was kissing her again, in that same drugging, devastating, delicious way. It was as if they had forever to simply be there, caught in soft sea breezes and quiet passion.

  She gulped in air when his mouth lifted. His eyes were so close, so clear, she could see herself trapped in them. It jolted her back a step, made her fumble for a casual smile.

  "I'd have to say, at a guess, you don't mind."

  "I want you here." He took her hands, brought her palms, one at a time to his lips. And watched her. "I want you."

  He could see that she was struggling to recover, to plant her feet back on the ground. He didn't intend to let her. "Come inside," he murmured, drawing her with him. "I'll show you."

  Chapter Nineteen

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  Days later, she was still there.

  Byron's idea of a break from weight training was a three-mile jog on the beach. It was difficult for a woman whose idea of a morning start had always been two very hot, very strong cups of coffee to adjust to the concept of running at dawn.

  Kate told herself it was the experience that mattered. And, more important, the waffles he'd promised her if she stuck it out.

  "So you, like," she puffed, huffed, and tried to concentrate on her pace, "really enjoy this."

  "It's addictive," Byron assured her. He was going at a snail's pace to bring her along gradually, and admiring the way her legs looked in baggy shorts. "You'll see."

  "No way. Only sinful stuff is addictive. Coffee, cigarettes, chocolate. Sex. Good stuff never becomes addictive."

  "Sex is good stuff."

  "It's good but sinful—sinful in a good way." She watched the dogs race into the surf and shake themselves so that little bullets of water flew and sparkled in the strengthening sun.

  She supposed there was something to be said for dawn, after all. The light was achingly beautiful, and the smells so fresh, so renewed, they seemed unreal. The air was just cool enough to be bracing.

  She had to admit her muscles felt loose. Oiled, in a way, as if her body was becoming a well-tuned machine. It made her feel foolish to realize she'd accepted feeling unwell for so long simply because she'd found it too much trouble to change.

  "Where did you run in Atlanta? No beaches there."

  "We've got parks. Indoor tracks when the weather's bad."

  "Do you miss it?"

  "Bits and pieces. Magnolia trees. The sound of slow voices. My family."

  "I've never lived anywhere but here. Never wanted to. I liked going to school back east. Seeing snow, frost on the windows. The way the leaves look in New England in October. But I always wanted to be here."

  She saw the beach steps in the distance. Her aching calves all but applauded. "Margo's lived lots of places, and Laura's done much more traveling than I have."

  "Someplace you'd like to see?"

  "No, not really. Well… Bora Bora."

  "Bora Bora?"

  "I did this report on it in high school. You know, a geography report. It seemed so cool. One of those places I told myself I'd go when I took a real vacation. Just a hang-out-and-do-nothing vacation. Oh, thank goodness," she breathed and sank to the sand in front of the beach steps. "I made it."

  "And you're going to cramp up if you don't keep moving." Unsympathetically, he hauled her to her feet. "Just walk. You've got to cool down. Why haven't you gone to Bora Bora?"

  She walked, for three paces, then bent over at the waist and breathed. "Come on, Byron, real people don't just go to Bora

  Bora. It's one of those daydreams. Do you think jogging can dislocate internal organs?"

  "No."

  "I was pretty sure I could hear my ovaries rattling."

  He paled a bit. "Please." He handed her the bottle of water he'd screwed into the sand at the base of the stairs. He whistled for the dogs before starting up the steps with her.

  "Normally, I'd just be getting up now, stumbling into the kitchen, where my timed coffee machine would be finishing up its last few drips. Leave the house at eight twenty-five, hit the office at eight forty-five. Have the coffee machine there brewing away and be at my desk with the first cup by eight fifty-five."

  "Eat the first roll of antacids by nine fifty-five."

  "It wasn't quite that bad." She fell silent as they crossed from steps to lawn toward the house. The dogs winged through the gate, streaking toward their bowls in anticipation of breakfast. "I haven't had a chance to tell Margo and Laura about going back to Bittle."

  Byron hefted the twenty-five-pound bag of dog food out of the pantry. "Haven't had a chance?"

  "All right—haven't found the right way." She shifted as the nuggets clattered into plastic. "I feel like I'm letting them down. I know that's not right. I know they won't feel that way. They'd understand this is right for me."

  Byron replaced the bag, signaling the dogs to chow down. "Is it?"

  "Of course it is." She brushed back her hair. "What a thing to say. It's what I studied for, worked for. It's what I've always wanted."

  "All right, then." He gave her a friendly pat on the rump and headed in.

  "What do you mean by that? 'All right, then'?" She rushed in behind him, scowling. "It's a partnership, with all the bells and whistles. I've earned it."

  "Absolutely." As a matter of habit, he started upstairs toward the shower. Kate followed at his heels.

  "Well, I have. That whole business about the altered documents is just about cleared up. In any case, I'm clear. The rest is Detective Kusack's problem. And the firm's problem. I'll have more control over what's done after I'm a partner."

  "Are you worried about it?"

  "About what?"

  He tugged off his short-sleeved sweatshirt, flung it toward the hamper. "About clearing up the escrow discrepancies."

  "Of course I am."

  "Why haven't you pursued it?"

  "Well, I—" She broke off as he flicked on the shower and stepped inside. "I've been busy. There's not a hell of a lot I could do, in any case, and with Margo being pregnant, and the auction, and Laura tossing me all these details about this holiday fashion show she wants, I haven't had time."

  "Okay," he said agreeably.

  "That doesn't mean it doesn't matter." Disgusted, she stripped and joined him under the spray. "It just means I've had other priorities. It all came to a head a couple of weeks ago. The forgeries, the offer, the baby. It didn't seem fair to tell Margo and Laura I'd have to cut back at the shop just when Margo had to cut back herself. And until I do, and I'm back at Bittle, I don't see what I can do about finding out who tried to screw me and the firm. But once I'm there, you can bet your ass I'm going to find out who set me up."

  "That makes sense."

  "Of course it makes sense." Irritated for no reason she could name, she stuck her head under the spray. "Just like it makes sense for me to accept the offer. It's the most practical course."

  "You're right. It's definitely the most practical. Pretenses is an investment. Bittle is your career."

  "That's right." Instead of being soothed by his agreemen
t, she bristled. "So what are we arguing about?"

  "I don't have a clue." He gave her an absent kiss on the shoulder and stepped out to dry off. "I'll get breakfast going," he announced, and chuckled his way down the stairs.

  She was, he thought, as easy to see through as a chain-link fence.

  Kate worked with Laura shoulder to shoulder throughout the morning. She told herself the minute they had a real break in traffic, she would sit Laura down and explain about her plans. She would, of course, continue to take care of the books. A few evenings a week, the occasional Sunday—that would be enough for her to run Pretenses' finances. Naturally, she would be very busy as a partner at Bittle, but she would also be in a position to delegate a great deal of the grunt work that she had been accustomed to handling herself.

  She would have more leeway, more freedom. And, of course, more clout. Her schedule would be crammed, but she was used to that. Working at the shop had certainly kept her busy, but it had also given her large chunks of free time that weren't necessary.

  She told herself she would be glad to have her hours prioritized again. That was her way.

  And she would be thrilled not to have to chitchat with strangers. Not to be asked to give fashion opinions or have a say in gift-giving decisions. What a relief it would be to settle back at her computer and not have to speak to a soul for hours on end.

  "My sister's going to be thrilled with that," a customer said, as Kate carefully removed the tag from a coral cashmere tunic.

  "I hope she is."

  "Oh, she will be. This is her favorite shop. And mine, too." The woman beamed at the varied selections she'd placed on the counter. "I don't know how I managed before you opened up. Look at the wonderful dent I've made in my Christmas shopping."

  "Getting an early start," Kate commented and blinked her self back into focus. "I'd say everyone's going to be happy."

  "My mother would never buy herself something as frivolous as this." The woman trailed a finger over the delicate lines of a crystal Pegasus. "That's what gifts are for. And where else but here could I find an antique pocket watch for my father, cashmere for my sister, sapphire studs for my daughter, a crystal flying horse for my mother, and a pair of navy suede Ferragamo pumps for me?''