by Lisa Jackson
Her throat tightened and she bit her lip. “You don’t have to say anything—” she protested, but he silenced her with another kiss. His trademark, it appeared.
“I care,” he repeated.
Tears touched the back of her eyes at his tenderness. He folded her into the warm embrace of his arms and sighed into her hair. “This is probably unfair of me—God knows I’ve always been accused of breaking the rules, but…” He squeezed her and his words were lost, as if he’d suddenly changed his mind.
“But what?”
“Oh, hell,” he muttered, angry at himself. “Listen, I can’t tell you how to run your life, Rachelle, but whatever you do, don’t settle.”
“Pardon me?” Again the little squeeze.
“Don’t settle for less than you deserve.” His gaze touched hers for an instant, and the back of her throat turned to sand. “I’m not the right man for you, and my guess is, that guy—” he hooked his thumb toward the open door “—isn’t, either.”
“You have no right to—”
“I know.” He kissed her again, more passionately this time, and then let go of her quickly. Without looking over his shoulder, he stepped from the porch, swung onto his bike and roared away.
“A motorcycle?” David asked, as she walked back into the house, her lips still tingling from Jackson’s kiss.
David was seated on the couch, sipping coffee, his eyebrows inched high over his thin-rimmed glasses. “Is the guy going through midlife crisis or what?”
“I don’t know…. David…”
He looked up at her then, really stared at her, and his lips tightened a bit. “You don’t have to say it,” he muttered, setting his cup on the table and running an impatient hand through his hair. “You’re involved with him.”
It wasn’t a question.
“You don’t have to answer. It’s written all over your face. Oh, God, Rachelle, what happened?” He was standing by this time, his fists opening and closing in frustration.
Rachelle leaned her back against the door. “I don’t think involved is the right word.”
“No?” He let his gaze rove slowly up her body and she realized how she must look. Her clothes were wrinkled and soiled, her hair a tangled mess, her makeup probably streaked from tears. “Well, just what is it then? Because from where I’m sitting, you and he are more than friends.”
“I don’t think Jackson and I were ever friends.”
David rolled his eyes. “You know, Rachelle,” he said, rubbing his fingers and thumbs impatiently, “I expected more from you than this, that you weren’t like all those women who ran after the macho type, that you were too levelheaded to be interested in tough guys with bulging biceps.”
“I haven’t done anything to be ashamed of,” she said, lifting her chin a fraction.
His gaze was positively damning. “I guess I’m the fool. I drove all the way up here thinking that you’d be missing me by now, that you would have had enough of this stupid town to want to come running back home. But, no—instead I find you riding a motorcycle with Mr. Bad News himself. God, what was wrong with me? Was I blind?”
Rachelle’s heart twisted a little. She didn’t want to hurt David. “It’s hard to explain about Jackson,” she finally said as she walked into the kitchen and poured the rest of the coffee down the sink. “He’s someone I knew a long time ago.”
“Ahh.” He nodded sagely, as if the slow-coming confession he’d anticipated was about to be revealed.
“Ah?”
“I knew there was someone back here, Rachelle. Someone important. Someone who had done you serious emotional damage.” Frowning, he picked up his coffee cup and carried it to the kitchen sink. “I was hoping that the man would be a heavyset middle-aged logger with a wife and a couple of kids. I guess I was wrong.”
“You don’t understand—”
“Probably not everything,” he agreed, reaching for the jacket he’d hung on the coatrack near the door. “But I know that Jackson Moore, the Jackson Moore, was someone you cared about very much. Someone you obviously still care about.”
She wanted to argue, to tell him he was wrong, but she couldn’t. David had been good to her and the least she could do was to be straight with him. “I don’t have a future with Jackson.”
David shoved an arm into the sleeve of his jacket. “But you do have a past, Rachelle. And right now you have a present. As for the future…who knows? Maybe you and I are the future.” He looked at her long and hard. “I’d like to think so.”
“I—I can’t make any commitments—”
“Yet.”
She swallowed against a thick lump in her throat. She cared for David, if only as a friend. “About the future, I don’t think I have one with you, either.”
He studied the zipper tab of his jacket. “Are you telling me that you don’t want to see me again?”
It sounded so final. Like a death knell. “I’m just saying that you and I want different things in life, David. I want kids—at least two.”
“I’ve got the girls—”
“I mean I want my own children. They could be adopted—that wouldn’t matter—but I want to start with them as babies and raise them as my own.”
His mouth pursed into a hard knot. “If my children aren’t good enough—”
“They’re good enough, David. Don’t start this argument again. You know I love your girls. But they’re nearly grown. I feel cheated out of a lot of years. I wasn’t there when they took their first steps, when they learned to ride a bicycle, when the neighbor boy taunted them and they ran home with tears in their eyes. I didn’t get to teach them silly songs when they were three, or have them stand on chairs and help me bake cookies, or help pick out their dresses for their first dances. I wasn’t there when one of their friends said something cruel, I didn’t nurse them through their ear infections or buy them milk shakes when they had their braces tightened.
“It isn’t enough, don’t you see?” she asked. “I’d always be a stepmother to them, nothing closer and I want—no, I need—to have a child of my own, to raise my way.”
“And Moore will give you that?” he said with a sneer, a bitterness she’d never seen before suddenly appearing. “Anyone can sire a child, Rachelle, but it takes more than a quickie in the woods to be a father.”
A small cry escaped her lips. “You don’t understand.”
“No, but I’m beginning to,” he replied. He was angry now, his face turning red as he grabbed hold of the doorknob. “You’ve kept me at arm’s length for an eternity, Rachelle. I thought you were frigid, that you’d probably have to see a shrink to come to grips with your own sexuality, but it turns out I was wrong. Because you’re still hung up on the guy that gave you all the problems to begin with.”
“That’s not how it was!”
“Oh, no? Well, you’re probably right. But then, I wouldn’t know how it was, would I? You never let me in on any of your little secrets, did you? You wouldn’t let me into your life, Rachelle, not really. Do you realize that I don’t know a damn thing about your past except that you have a sister and that your parents were divorced when you were in high school? Other than that, I have no idea how you grew up.” In frustration, he wrenched open the door. “Oh, hell, I’m tired of all this! If you want me, you know my number.” He strode off the porch and climbed into his car, leaving the door open wide and letting in the cool night air.
Rachelle wanted to crumple onto a corner of the couch and cry. In the span of fifteen minutes, she’d watched the two single most important men in her life walk out. Though she felt a whisper of freedom in David’s departure, she was still reeling from the night and everything that had happened.
She’d made love to Jackson, and the passion that had rocked her body had shocked her to he
r bones. She’d thought that her memories of her one-night stand had been colored by time, that the passion she’d never felt with another man had been exaggerated in her mind. But she’d been wrong. Tonight his kiss and his touch had aroused that same dark, slumbering desire that had infiltrated her body and soul twelve years before.
Java, who had been hiding outside, strolled in and rubbed against Rachelle. Absently she reached down and petted the cat. “What am I going to do?” she wondered as Java wandered off in the direction of her water bowl.
Goose bumps rose on Rachelle’s flesh and she walked over to the door and shut it, latching the bolt and telling herself that everything was for the best. Now, at least, she knew that she wasn’t “frigid,” that she could experience desire as white-hot as a lava flow, that she could make love to a man and wish the lovemaking would never stop. And David was gone. The parting hadn’t been overly painful and now she had to answer to no one but herself. That little bit of freedom was worth a few hurtful words.
David had been right. She’d never let him get really close to her. She hadn’t told him about Jackson or the night that had bound their lives together forever. Several times she’d tried to explain to David about Roy Fitzpatrick, about the fact that he had attacked her, but she’d kept quiet, hiding that secret in a locked chamber in her mind. She hadn’t been fair to David, she supposed, but right from the start she’d known that his expectations had been different than hers.
Once, he’d asked her to change her outfit when they were going out with an important client of his. Another time, he’d introduced her as “my little princess.” Rachelle had suffered those two indignities and sworn she’d never suffer another. She hadn’t and their relationship had become strained. No wonder David had encouraged her to return to Gold Creek. He hadn’t expected her to run into Jackson Moore.
Nor had she. And now Jackson was gone. She looked at the business card she still clutched in her hand. He was on his way back to New York. As soon as they’d made love, he’d found a way to leave—just like before. Well, this time, she didn’t need him; she wouldn’t sit around waiting for him to call or come back. Despite the ache in her heart, she told herself that his leaving was for the best and she didn’t care if she ever saw him again. That was a lie, of course, but one she was going to stick to. Waiting around for Jackson had cost her dearly in the past and she wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. With a rush of independence, she tore his card into half, then quarters and eighths and dropped the fluttering white pieces into the nearest trash basket, trying not to think that those jagged snips of paper looked much like her heart.
* * *
THOMAS FITZPATRICK WOULDN’T see her. He wouldn’t return her calls, nor agree to meet with her. Whatever had happened between Jackson and him had insured Rachelle of not getting an interview. She called Fitzpatrick, Incorporated and was given the runaround by Thomas’s secretary. Even Marge Elkins at the logging company found excuses for not scheduling an appointment with him. Rachelle left messages at his home and never heard from him.
The man was avoiding her. There were just no two ways about it. But Rachelle wasn’t about to give up. Thomas Fitzpatrick was the single largest employer in Gold Creek, and as such, he was an integral part of her series.
She decided to take matters into her own hands. She drove to the offices of Fitzpatrick, Incorporated and waited until she noticed his white Mercedes roll into his private parking spot. Within seconds, he was out of his car and inside the building, a yellow-brick, three-storied structure that had once housed the Gold Creek Hotel.
Rachelle climbed out of her Escort and walked into the lobby. Though recently renovated, the office complex retained its turn-of-the-century charm. Thick Persian rugs were tossed over gleaming oak floors and philodendron and ivy grew out of polished brass spittoons. A stained-glass skylight, positioned three stories above, allowed sunlight to pool in variegated hues on the walls and floor.
Thomas Fitzpatrick’s office was on the third floor. Bracing herself for yet another rejection, Rachelle took the elevator. Within seconds she was pleading her case with a receptionist who couldn’t have been more than twenty-two.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Fitzpatrick is tied up all afternoon,” the girl said with an understanding smile.
“Then I’d like an appointment with him.”
“Certainly,” the receptionist said, though she was nervous and Rachelle had no doubt that the president of Fitzpatrick, Incorporated had left specific instructions that he wasn’t to see one Rachelle Tremont. She started thumbing through the pages of a calendarlike appointment book, while avoiding looking directly at Rachelle. “There doesn’t seem to be any time—”
Rachelle pointed to a blank page. “What about here?” she asked, tapping her finger on the empty squares representing the hours of Thomas Fitzpatrick’s life.
“No—he’s busy with a client, I think. They play tennis on Tuesdays.”
“Wednesday, then.” She flipped the page for the flabbergasted receptionist.
“No, Wednesday won’t do.”
“Why not?”
“Wednesday is golf with Dr. Pritchart—”
“Thursday.”
“I’m afraid not—”
Rachelle slammed the book closed and leaned over the younger woman’s desk. In her years working for the paper, she’d had to get tough with more than her share of reticent interviewees and had been forced to deal with some secretaries who would defend the door to their boss’s office with their very lives. “Look—” she glanced at the brass name plate positioned on the corner of the desk “—Rita, we both know he’s ducking me. The problem is, he can’t duck me forever, and I’ll find a way to talk to him. You could save us both a lot of time and effort.”
Rita licked her lips and the phone rang. Relief painted her face with a smile. “If you’ll excuse me—” She reached for the receiver and turned her attention to the caller. “Fitzpatrick, Incorporated.”
Rachelle didn’t wait. Opportunity wasn’t about to strike twice. She walked swiftly past the reception desk and through inlaid double doors only to find herself up against another obstacle. She hadn’t entered Fitzpatrick’s private office at all; instead she was in the foyer of a suite of rooms and his secretary was positioned in front of another set of doors.
The woman, about Rachelle’s age, was busy taking dictation. Her back was to the reception area and she was wearing a headset while her fingers flew over the keys. She glanced up as Rachelle entered and her expression turned from vague interest to disbelief. “I thought I told you he was busy,” she said, stripping off her headgear and tossing thick black hair over her shoulders.
Rachelle’s stomach sank. Thomas Fitzpatrick’s private secretary was Melanie Patton, the girl Roy had promised to marry and then dumped when he took up with Laura.
Melanie was on her feet. “You can’t be here. Mr. Fitzpatrick is a very busy—”
Rachelle wasn’t about to be waylaid. She’d come this far and without another thought to Melanie, she rounded the desk and shoved open the door. “Mr. Fitzpatrick, I’d like to talk to you,” she said as she spied the object of her quest. He was taller than she remembered, and trim. His shoulders were broad beneath an expensive navy blue suit, his white shirt crisp. He turned clear blue eyes in her direction and she nearly froze under the sheer power of his stare. “I’m sorry to barge in on you, but believe me, I’ve tried conventional methods and they just didn’t work.”
Thomas didn’t seem the least surprised to see her. He was seated at a large teak desk, one hand poised over the telephone. He was a handsome, imposing man and though there was an edge of wariness in his expression, he didn’t explode into a rage as she’d thought he might.
“Sit down, Miss Tremont,” he said in the well-modulated tones of a would-be senator. “Since you’re so hell-bent to
interview me, I guess I’d better talk to—”
“I’ve called Security.” Melanie marched into the room in a cloud of indignation. Rita was right on her heels—like a puppy.
“Oh, Mr. Fitzpatrick, I’m so sorry,” Rita wailed, wringing her hands. Her skin had turned rosy with embarrassment, and she glanced at Melanie nervously, as if expecting the dressing-down of her life.
“You can throw me out,” Rachelle said, her gaze meeting the arrogance of Fitzpatrick’s, “but I’ll be back. Either here or at your home. I’m doing a series of articles—”
He waved off her explanation. “I know what you’re doing, Miss Tremont.”
“Then you realize that I have to talk to you. Fitzpatrick, Incorporated is the single largest employer in Gold Creek. For years, at least during the timber boom, Gold Creek was practically a ‘company town,’ and you, your father and grandfather were the company, as were the Monroes with their sawmill. For as long as anyone can remember, the Fitzpatrick and Monroe families have been an important part of Gold Creek’s industry.”
Melanie opened her mouth, but shut it as Thomas motioned Rachelle into one of the chairs near his desk. “Close the door as you leave,” he told Melanie, “and tell the guard I won’t be needing him.”
Melanie hesitated a second. “You’re sure—”
“Absolutely.”
Rita was already scurrying out of the office, and Melanie, spine stiff with disapproval, walked quickly behind her. The doors whispered shut and the latch clicked softly in place.
Thomas leaned back in his chair and, resting his hands over the hard wall that was his belly, he stared at Rachelle. “All right, Ms. Tremont. You’ve got my full attention.” He glanced to the door again. “I’ve got to tell you, you’ve got nerves of steel. I know grown men who wouldn’t mess with my secretary.”
“Or with you?”
He lifted a shoulder.
“Maybe they aren’t as dedicated as I am.” She reached into her purse for her pocket recorder and notepad. At the sight of the equipment, Thomas’s features grew grim.
