by Arlene James
Dude gulped again, eyes gone a little wild. “I-I wanna make a phone call!”
“Sure,” the investigator agreed companionably. “I’ll get a phone in here for you, but I hope you’ll take my advice, son, and call a lawyer. No one else can help you out of this. You might help yourself, though, if you tell us why you went to Miss Simmons’ shop and who sent you there.”
Dude gulped, tears brimming in his eyes. Brodie felt a little sorry for him. The man barely had the wits to dress himself on a daily basis. No way he could think himself out of this one, and his father wasn’t about to help him, either, but a call to him from Dude now would surely give the older man a heads-up. Harp might even decide it was time to leave town, and Brodie would prefer that not happen just yet.
“Listen,” he said to the investigator, “Dude was just following orders.” He stuck his hand into his pocket and withdrew the tiny tape cassette. “I actually have his father and an individual who works for me on tape plotting this whole thing, and I’ll give it to you to help confirm Dude’s story—provided he decides to tell you the truth.” Brodie was perfectly aware that the tape probably was not admissible in court, but he was hoping that the investigator wouldn’t reveal that to Dude.
The investigator’s face was as expressionless as a mask, but he said not a word, almost as if he hadn’t even heard Brodie. Taking that as a good sign, Brodie turned once more to Dude.
“You know, if you make a clean breast of this, you never have to go back to Harp. We can see to that, Dude.”
Dude looked down at his hands, but then he nodded.
“Still want that phone call?” the investigator asked, and Dude looked up again, shaking his head.
“I’ll tell,” he said softly.
“You won’t regret it, Dude, I promise,” Brodie said significantly.
He glanced at Chey, telegraphing his relief to her and once more pocketing the tape cassette as the frumpy policeman walked over to a speaker grid on the wall and spoke into it, requesting an escort for Brodie and Chey as well as an interview backup. Then he pulled out a chair, turned it and sat down, folding his arms across the top of the back.
“Now then, son,” he said companionably, “who is this ‘Pop’ of yours and what kind of mess are we talking about?”
Dude was tearfully explaining how his sister had only squeezed a “measly million” from Brodie before she got into a coma and left him and his pop high and dry in Dallas, when two uniformed policemen arrived, one to bear witness that a proper interview was being conducted and the other to escort Brodie and Chey out of the building. They were told that someone would contact them once the investigation was complete, but Brodie personally had little doubt about how it would all turn out. And he still had the tape cassette in his pocket.
On the way home, Brodie told Chey that if Dude managed to stay out of jail over this, he fully intended to set him up in an apartment somewhere and help him find a job. “It probably won’t last, but I can’t help feeling that Dude never really had a chance to be anything but what he is, you know?”
“I suppose so,” Chey murmured. It was a somewhat subdued reply, but he put it down to lack of sleep. He’d kept her up late making love, and now they were running to and from the police station in the wee hours. It was natural, as dawn began to lighten the night sky, that she should be flagging. He, on the other hand, was too excited to sleep.
“It’s almost over,” he kept saying. “It’s almost over.” His brain was so busy with plans, surveying and discarding scenarios, putting together others, that he hardly noticed her silence.
By the time they let themselves back into the house and climbed the stairs side by side, he was pretty sure what he was going to do, but he still had the logistics to work out. He left Chey curled up on the bed in her clothes, her shoes kicked off, sleep already overtaking her, and went to inform his grandmother of their return. After that, he closeted himself in his office, where he carefully laid his plans. At the very earliest opportunity, he made two important telephone calls, then kicked back in his chair for a quick nap, confident that all his troubles were behind him and that a wonderful future lay ahead for him and Chey.
He woke almost two hours later, energized and ready for the farce to end so he could truly get on with the rest of his life. The clock on his desk showed him that he just had time to make the final steps in his preparations, catch a cup of coffee, and grab a quick shower before dressing for lunch. Humming happily to himself, he strolled down the hallway to Janey’s suite and rapped smartly on the door. After a few moments, Brown answered.
“Yeah?” she asked suspiciously.
He had to laugh. So often her suspicions were baseless; now they were not, and she had no way of knowing that. “Brown, could you tell Janey that her after-lunch therapy session with Nate is canceled?”
The older woman’s heavy features bunched together. “How come?”
“Because I’ve set aside that time to settle some things about our future,” he told her with a wide smile.
Brown studied him from beneath a beetled brow. “What’s that mean?”
Suddenly Janey shoved past Brown and presented herself to Brodie dressed in a filmy pink peignoir. She batted her long eyelashes at him and gushed breathlessly, “Brodie, darling, you’re looking smart this morning.”
He grinned down at her, so pleased with the impending denouement that he wanted to laugh aloud. “Well, thank you. You are quite a sight yourself, a veritable angel in pink.” No one would ever guess what a witch she actually was, he mused silently.
She practically drooled all over him then, swaying close. “How sweet. Now what was this about our future?”
He could barely keep the chuckle from his voice. “Janey, you know me, I like things set down in black and white, so my lawyer’s coming at one-thirty this afternoon, and we’re going to lay this all out. I’d like your father to be there this time, if you don’t mind.”
She studied him a moment, then purred throatily, “I’m sure Daddy will welcome the opportunity to settle my future.”
He smiled, and on impulse, just because she was so easily read and still so very much the Janey he’d always known, he leaned down and pegged a kiss right in the center of her forehead. “I trust you’ll call Harp immediately?”
She nodded, glowing with delight. He could see the dollar signs dancing behind her pretty eyes. “One-thirty,” she confirmed.
Brodie didn’t even try to restrain his smile, but then a movement behind Janey had him glancing over her shoulder at Brown, who still glared suspiciously. “Oh, Brown,” he offered magnanimously, “you’re welcome to come along, if you like. In fact, I’d prefer that you join us. After all, if not for you, we wouldn’t have this opportunity, would we?”
She narrowed her eyes at him, then nodded and began plucking at the back of Janey’s peignoir urgently. Brodie pretended not to see, saying, “Well, I’ll leave you two ladies to make that phone call, and I’ll see you both at lunch.” With that he went downstairs in search of Marcel’s fragrant coffee.
Since Chey had not come down yet, he carried a cup of coffee back up the stairs to her, avoiding everyone but Marcel in the process. Placing the coffee mug on the bedside table, he reached over and shook her gently by the shoulder.
“Sweetheart?”
She sat up groggily, rubbed her eyes and asked, “What time is it?”
“Just after eleven.”
Groaning, she swung both legs over the side of the bed and announced, “I need to check on the shop.”
“Sure, but could you put it off a little while yet?” He sat down next to her and explained, “We’re having company just after lunch, say about one-thirty, and after the meeting I have arranged I expect we’ll be at least two short for dinner, which ought to be reason for celebration.” He smiled happily and kissed her. “The you-know-what is about to hit the fan.”
She smoothed her hair with her hands and reached for the coffee, asking, “What do you need me
there for?”
He drew back at that. “Are you kidding? Darling, you play the central role in this little melodrama I’m staging. Besides, don’t you understand that this is it? Janey’s hold on me ends today.”
She sipped the coffee, then smiled, shook her head apologetically and put down the cup again. “Of course. You’re right.” Slipping off the bed, she wrapped both arms around him and hugged him tightly. “I’m so happy for you. Thanks for the coffee, by the way.”
“I’m happy for us both,” he said, slightly troubled by her reticent attitude, but of course she was worried about her shop. “Let me explain the plan,” he said briskly.
She pushed away, shaking her head. “I really have to get down to the shop. After I’ve spoken to Georges and taken care of a few things, I’ll be back.”
He frowned, but it was unreasonable to be so disappointed, so he pushed the feeling aside. “Okay. It might even be better this way. I don’t want to let anyone suspect what’s going to happen at that meeting, and right now I imagine Janey’s thinking that I’m going to cave, offer to buy them off.” He chuckled. “She may even think I’ve decided to take her back, if you can imagine that. Suppose you could be back by a quarter after, though? I want everyone in place before Harp arrives.”
“No problem,” she told him with a bright smile.
He put aside all doubts and indulged in a long, deep kiss before tearing himself away to head for the shower. Afterward, he went downstairs and quietly gathered the remainder of the household in the kitchen, where he apprised them of all that had happened and all that he expected to happen, assigning them each their roles.
He wanted Seth kept out of sight, so Kate was under strict instructions to keep him happily occupied in his suite throughout the event. At lunch, however, she had another function. Marcel was to station himself near the front door and usher in their guests at the appropriate moment, then stay to serve drinks. Nate took possession of the tape recorder and received instruction concerning when he was to emerge from Viola’s office into the back hallway so he could be handy.
Brodie was famished and nervously eager by the time everyone sat down to lunch. Chey’s absence did not go unnoticed, but it was Kate who, as assigned, questioned her whereabouts. Brodie explained that “someone” had broken into her shop during the previous night and that she had gone to investigate the damage. Janey and Brown traded surreptitious glances over that, but wisely refrained from commenting. The others made appropriate noises of concern.
“What is this world coming to?”
“I hope the thieves didn’t take anything important.”
“Is there anything we can do?”
Brodie waved away their questions with apparent unconcern, saying that he felt certain Chez Chey was fully insured and must have experienced similar misfortune in the past. “Besides,” he added expansively, “it really shouldn’t concern us. The house is, for all intents and purposes, finished. In fact, I’ve already begun planning its social debut.”
He went on to discuss the elaborate reception that he was planning for the Legantine ambassador and, for good measure, explained the exclusive and very lucrative travel program contract.
Janey was positively effervescent after that, bubbling with excited chatter about the planned party and sending Brodie secretive, conspiratorial looks. Apparently she was more than willing to forgive and forget his involvement with Chey. No doubt she was too busy tallying her supposed share of the Middle Eastern profits. Brodie laughed at the very thought, and consequently, lunch was a deceptively lighthearted affair.
Brodie stayed at the table well after finishing his meal to concentrate on Seth, whom he hadn’t seen all morning. Picking up on the mood at the table, the boy exercised himself to entertain, and for once even Janey seemed amused by his antics. Finally the Westminster clock on the sideboard chimed the hour, and Brodie excused himself from the table, saying that he had a quick phone call to make and some papers to check. He sent a direct look to Janey, saying, “I’ll see you in the family parlor in half an hour.”
She laughed and batted her eyelashes at him. He nodded significantly at his mother, kissed his son, and strolled out of the room with his heart slamming hopefully in his chest. He wished suddenly that Chey was in the house. He felt a great need to hold her just then, to reassure himself that all was going as it should. The next instant he shook off these nameless fears and hurried up to the office to fetch his little tape recorder and ring up the police to find out what he could about Dude.
Chey was too busy at first to think much about the pending meeting. Dude had broken the lock on the grille that protected the shop’s front door after hours, then had busted a window in the door to get inside. Georges had taken photos and called the appropriate repairmen, but the insurance company had to be notified, forms filled out and the claim verified, which meant dealing with the police again. Once she’d accomplished all that, Georges demanded a word-for-word account of what had transpired at the police station. It was half past twelve by the time they sat down at her desk over sandwiches from the deli around the corner and really talked over the events of the night.
Georges was shocked and quite admittedly titillated. His curiosity over the pending meeting, which would presumably put the Shellys into retreat once and for all, far surpassed Chey’s own, and Georges required barely a thought to figure out why. “You’re not ready for this, are you?”
She shrugged and said the most patently ridiculous words that had ever come out of her mouth. “It doesn’t have anything to do with me.”
“Don’t give me that. I woke him in your bed last night. That is, I presume you were sleeping by then.”
She felt her face color revealingly but stubbornly said nothing.
Georges nibbled at his sandwich for a moment and then asked assiduously, “So, you’re not going to marry him?”
She bit her lip and gave up any attempt at pretense, replying miserably, “I don’t know.”
“You love him, don’t you?”
She put her head in her hands and said to the desk, “Yes.”
“And Seth?”
“Seth’s very dear to me,” she said softly. “I-I’ve never felt the biological need to bear a child of my own, but…” She shook her head, unable to explain.
“But Seth is a child who already exists,” Georges deduced gently, “and, your personal convictions aside, you’ve found it impossible not to love him.”
She nodded. “Yes, that’s it exactly.”
“So what’s the problem?”
She sighed heavily. “How do I know that I can be a good mother to Seth? I—I think about giving up my career, and I know that if I do, I’ll be miserable, and yet, I just don’t know if it’s fair to try to balance my career and motherhood.”
Georges spread his thick hands. “Well, it certainly wouldn’t be fair to you to ask you to give up something that’s so important to you. Has Brodie said that’s what he wants?”
“No.”
“Have you discussed it? Does he know how important your career is to you?”
“I-I think so. I mean, we’ve discussed it, yes.”
“Then the problem is you and not him,” Georges surmised with a lift of an eyebrow.
She sighed. “It’s just such an awesome responsibility.”
“Look, Chey,” Georges said matter-of-factly, “it’s just one little boy, not a houseful. It’s not like Brodie has ten kids.”
“I know. I’ve thought of that, and sometimes I think surely I can handle one little boy, but then I think, what if I ruin him? I don’t know anything about being a mother, really.”
Georges barked a shout of laughter. “Honey child, for a smart girl you can be awfully dumb. Of course you don’t really know how to be a mother. In case, you haven’t heard, it’s a do-it-yourself, learn-as-you-go proposition, but in so far as you can be prepared, you’ve got so many legs up on the competition that you might as well be a spider! How many nieces and nephews have you
baby-sat? How many runny noses and wet behinds have you dried?”
“Other people’s children aren’t the same thing!” she argued.
“No, they’re not, and I’m glad to hear that you realize it. Goes to show, along with everything else you’ve accomplished, how well you will do.”
“Do you really think so?” she asked uncertainly.
He rolled his eyes. “Sugar, have I ever lied to you?”
“No.”
“Well, then. Now, will you just think about it like this? He’s one little boy, and you won’t be in it alone. Brodie is an experienced father, and there’s Viola and me and your whole family.”
“You?” she echoed doubtfully, a smile wiggling its way across her mouth.
Georges pretended great offense. “Are you implying that I won’t be your favorite baby-sitter? Sister girl, I am crushed.”
She laughed, feeling lighter than she had since she’d walked out of the police station and realized that her sweet interlude with Brodie had come to an end. Her doubts were not completely put to rest, however. How much simpler it would be if they could just go on as they were!
Unfortunately, that was not an option. Her excuse for living at Fair Havens was at an end, and her family would start asking questions about her involvement with Brodie soon, questions she was unprepared to answer. Besides, Brodie himself had stated flatly that he couldn’t go on as they were indefinitely. No, the time for decision had come, the moment she had known would eventually present itself from the instant she had allowed Brodie back into her bed, not that she regretted what they’d shared.
The past few nights had been filled with so many emotions and sensations and moods that she literally marveled. Had anyone told her that lovemaking could be all at the same time playful and fun and soul-binding and spiritual, she’d have marked it down as so much nonsense. Now she knew better, and in order to have more of the same, her only option was to marry him.
