Undaunted

by Diana Palmer

  She picked up her suitcase, left the note and check on the kitchen counter for Marie, went out the back door and locked it behind her. She’d walk to Mamie’s house. She still had her key. Mamie’s house could barely be seen from here, so Connor wouldn’t know Emma was staying there if she kept the lights in the front of the house off. And she’d be careful about being seen outside. Then she’d find another temporary job until Mamie came back.

  It was easy to plan her next moves. But it was painful to leave Connor. In just a few weeks, he’d become the color in her world. Without him, everything was gray and sad. It felt as if the heart was being torn right out of her.

  But she couldn’t stay and watch him and that brunette in each other’s arms all the time. She was sure Ariel wasn’t leaving tomorrow. After all, she’d gone to Connor’s bedroom with him tonight. She was sure that they hadn’t spent their time talking. It broke her heart.

  Her suitcase was so heavy she couldn’t pull it. She had to carry it. She made it to the big log on the lake between his property and Mamie’s, where she’d been sitting the time he’d come upon her and they’d talked. That was long before she blinded him and later went to work for him.

  She sat down on the log with a sigh. It was going to be a long walk. She might as well rest for a few minutes. Everyone at Connor’s house would still be asleep, except Marie. But the older woman had been in the bathroom when Emma sneaked out. So nobody would know she was leaving. Not until the next day, when Connor would have the note read to him.

  It was the saddest thing she’d ever written.

  * * *

  The house was very quiet, except for faint sounds in the kitchen where Marie was clearing away the last of the party dishes.

  Connor had sent a disappointed Ariel to bed alone. He couldn’t forget the taste of Emma he’d had while they were dancing. Her anguished response to him had made it impossible to feel anything for Ariel, except the lingering desire for Emma that hardened his body. Ariel thought she’d provoked it. He felt nothing when he held her past a basic hunger that any man might feel. She was beautiful and experienced. But tonight, she couldn’t interest him less.

  He’d been cruel to Emma. He was sorry. He wanted to apologize, but he couldn’t think of a way to do it that wouldn’t savage his pride. He didn’t trust her. Yes, that was it. She responded to his advances, acted as if she would die to have him. And then she ran. Every damned time. It was like trying to hold something ethereal.

  He couldn’t sleep. His brain kept humming like an engine. He got up, leaving the phone turned off on his bedside table, slipped on his loafers and felt his way to the door. He was still wearing his slacks and the white shirt, open down the front. It was no use dressing for bed when he wasn’t sleepy.

  He paused by Emma’s door. He tapped on it lightly and called her name. He frowned at the sudden emptiness he felt, something of the senses that was unexpectedly strong. He opened the door and felt for the light switch. It was on.

  “Emma?” he called.

  Marie heard him and came to the end of the hall. “She’s gone, Mr. Sinclair,” she said quietly.

  “She’s what?”

  She walked closer to him, so that he wouldn’t wake the rest of the household. He looked furiously angry.

  “She’s gone. She left a note for me to read to you. She said she’d left you last week’s uncashed check and she wouldn’t expect one this week, in lieu of severance pay. She took her suitcase and started walking down the shoreline.”

  “In the middle of the night? God knows what she might find out there! Black bears come up near the lake...!”

  “I’m sure that she knew the dangers, Mr. Sinclair.” Her tone was as disapproving as the expression he couldn’t see.

  The panic he felt was unexpected. Emma was gone. A cold emptiness lodged in his chest at the thought that she wouldn’t be at the breakfast table with him, in the office where they worked together, sitting with him when he had a migraine and was too sick to take care of himself. Emma was necessary to him. He’d come to depend on her, for so much. She’d quit her job because he’d humiliated her in front of his guests. And it was all his fault. He’d been getting even because she wouldn’t sleep with him. It seemed a very flimsy and unworthy reason to hurt her. She was gentle and kind, not demanding or overbearing or greedy, as most of the women in his life had been.

  He drew in a breath. “Wake Barnes for me, will you?” he asked in a subdued tone.

  Her eyebrows arched. He didn’t even sound like himself. “Yes, sir.”

  Barnes joined him shortly. “Yes, sir?”

  “Lead me out to the shoreline,” he said gruffly. “And we’d better hurry. Emma’s leaving.” He was hoping that the suitcase would slow her down, depending on how much she’d packed.

  “Sure thing, Mr. Sinclair.”

  “Which way was she going, Marie?” Connor asked. “Did you see her?”

  “I did, just after I found the note. She was going toward the road.”

  “Thanks.”

  Barnes guided his boss’s hand onto his arm and he led him outside, using the method Emma had taught him. The road that led around the lake was near Mamie van Dyke’s house. It was a long way. Connor only hoped that they could catch her in time.

  He had no idea exactly where in North Carolina her people lived, or where she might go when she got to the road. She might be desperate enough to hitchhike, which would put her in danger, even in a rural area like this where most residents knew their neighbors.

  “Do you see anything?” Connor asked Barnes, and he sounded almost desperate.

  Barnes was peering ahead through the darkness. There was a full moon, so he could see a good ways from them. There, in the moonlight, was Emma, sitting on a big log near the shore with her suitcase beside her.

  “She’s over there, sir,” Barnes said. “Sitting on a log.”

  “Thank God,” Connor said under his breath. “Let’s go!”

  * * *

  Emma heard footsteps and jumped to her feet, frightened. Then she saw who was approaching, and her heart clenched in her chest.

  “Okay, Barnes, leave me here,” Connor said quietly. “If I’m not back in an hour, it will mean she’s pushed me in the lake,” he added with a grin.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Barnes walked back toward the lake house. Connor stood a little away from Emma and tried to choose his words. He didn’t want to do any more damage than he already had.

  “Are you going to push me in the lake, Emma?” he asked softly. “I won’t say that I don’t deserve it. But I want to talk to you.”

  He was asking, not ordering. That was new. But she didn’t fancy that he was here because he cared. He needed her. She’d become like part of the office equipment, to be used and put away.

  “There’s nothing to say,” she replied in her soft, quiet voice. “I’m sorry. I can’t...I can’t go back.”

  “Where are you?” He contrived to look helpless, something she knew he wasn’t.

  “I’m on the log.”

  He cocked his head. “Something a little more specific?”

  She drew in an audible breath. “Three paces forward, turn right, sit down.”

  He followed the instructions, feeling for a place on the huge log. “Funny,” he murmured. “I think I remember this place. It’s a little blurry. There was a woman. She’d done something to irritate me, and I upset her,” he recalled, unaware of his companion’s sudden rigidity. “I felt guilty. I made her cry, at a party Mamie van Dyke gave.” He grimaced. “It’s hard for me to admit guilt. It’s a matter of pride. I never did one damned thing that pleased my father,” he recalled curtly. “He drew back his fist when I did something he didn’t like. Then he made me apologize, in front of as many people as he could find on the spot. He enjoyed humiliating
me.”

  “That’s sad,” she said quietly. The reference to Mamie’s party upset her. She hoped against hope that he wouldn’t remember any more about that time.

  “One day, I came home from school. I guess I was about fourteen. He drew back his fist, and I drew back mine. I threw him to the floor and beat the ever loving hell out of him. And made him apologize for what he did to me and my brother.” He leaned forward, lost in time and pain. “He stopped hitting me after that. But he got even. He threatened me with William.” He smiled softly. “I loved my brother. I’d have done anything to spare him what I’d gone through. That was wrong, to punish you that way. I learned early that the people closest to you are the most dangerous.”

  “I learned that, too,” she said, without elaborating.

  “From whom?” he asked quietly.

  “Someone in my family who drank to excess. It was hard to forgive what he did to one of my female relatives.” She didn’t add that the female had been her mother. “But I wasn’t big enough or strong enough to protect her. I guess I’ve been nervous about men for a long time.”

  “You were engaged once.”

  “Yes.”

  He rested his elbows on his knees and looked, sightlessly, straight ahead. “You said you missed the intimacy,” he began.

  “I missed having somebody I thought cared about me,” she corrected. “Steven didn’t... Well, he didn’t really find me attractive in any physical way.”

  “Why not?”

  “I never knew,” she confessed. She shifted on the log. “He said that we were soul mates, that he cared about me. But it was like he had to force himself just to kiss me. He...never wanted me. Not physically.”

  Connor felt his heart stop and then start again, racing. “You weren’t intimate with him?” he persisted. “You didn’t sleep with him?” he amended.

  She drew in a breath. “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Mainly because he didn’t want to. I used to go to church every Sunday,” she added slowly. “Religion was what got me through the hard times, and there were a lot of them. We learn that there’s right and wrong. And what’s wrong doesn’t change, no matter how society changes. I don’t sleep around because I was taught that decent people don’t do that.” She shifted again. “Go ahead, laugh at me. Most of my friends did. They thought I was crazy.”

  His heart was racing. “You’ve never had a man, have you, Emma?” he asked in a subdued tone.

  “No,” she said simply. “In my world, you fall in love, get married, have kids, live together until you’re old and then you die with your family around you.”

  He laughed coldly. “In my world, you take what you can get and you never let emotion get in the way of a good time.”

  “Crickets and casinos.”

  He felt for her hand and slid his fingers in between hers in a slow, sensuous motion. “There’s nothing wrong with casinos. You liked the slot machines. Admit it.”

  She smiled to herself. The touch of his big, callused hand made her feel safe, comfortable, valued. She felt shivery inside at the warm contact.

  “I guess casinos aren’t so bad.”

  “Maybe I could get used to crickets.”

  “Not a chance,” she chided.

  His fingers clasped hers closer. “You can’t leave me, Emma. I need you.”

  “You replace computers and printers all the time,” she returned. “Think of me as an obsolete piece of office furniture.”

  “No. I can’t.” He took a long breath. “I thought you were playing me.”

  “You what?”

  His hand contracted. “Tease. Retreat. Indulge a man and then run away to make him want you.”

  “I’m not like that,” she faltered. “I mean, I don’t know how to play games like that...”

  He brought her hand to his mouth. “I didn’t know you at all, did I, Emma?”

  “You thought you did,” she said.

  “I saw what I wanted to see. Pardon the irony. I can’t see anything.”

  Guilt swept over her. “One day, you will,” she said. She was going to pray for it every single night. “One day, you’ll see again.”

  “Think so? I’d take that bet and get richer if you had money.”

  They were quiet. Crickets grew noisy around them. The faint slosh of the water coming up onto the shore was peaceful, like the distant baying of dogs.

  “Come back,” he said gently. “I won’t ever put you in that position again.”

  “I’m in the way,” she argued.

  “That’s not it.” He could hear her breathing. It was fast. Unusually fast. He nudged her fingers with his. “It’s Ariel. Isn’t it?”

  Her teeth ground together. No way was she admitting that she was jealous, possessive, of him.

  She couldn’t have known that her silence was an admission. It made him feel things he’d forgotten long ago. He was protective of her. And yes, possessive. She belonged to him as no other woman ever had.

  “I didn’t sleep with her,” he admitted curtly. “I sent her back to her own room.”

  Her heart jumped. “It’s none of my business!”

  While she was talking, he drew her to him and found her mouth blindly.

  * * *

  It was always the same. She loved him so much. More than anyone or anything in the world. He touched her and she melted into him. It was a response she couldn’t help.

  He knew that. His hands were gentle, but not invasive. He kissed her with a tenderness she’d never had from him before.

  “A virgin,” he breathed into her mouth. It excited him to think about being her first man. He’d never been the first with anyone.

  Her hands touched his face hesitantly, feeling the jutting brow, the high cheekbones, the faint stubble around the mouth that was teasing hers.

  “I should have shaved,” he whispered.

  “I don’t mind,” she replied huskily.

  “Don’t you?” He drew her across his lap and sat, just holding her, in the quiet moonlit darkness. “My first wife,” he said slowly, “was a debutante. She and I were just in our late teens when we married, but she’d been sexually active for a long time. I’ve never been a woman’s first man.”

  “Listen,” she began worriedly, “I can’t...”

  He drew her up so that his face was in the long hair draped across her soft, warm throat. “You won’t have to.” His arms tightened. “You make life bearable for me. I’ve never had tenderness from a woman,” he added softly. “Passion, aggression, all the usual things. But I don’t know a single woman who would have been willing to nurse me through a migraine headache.” He kissed her warm throat gently. “If you leave, nobody will know what to do for them.”

  She was weakening. She loved being close to him. If he wasn’t demanding, if he’d stop pressing her... She swallowed and drew closer to him. “Can’t you go somewhere else with Ariel?” she asked miserably. “If she isn’t at the house, I guess I could go back.”

  “You’re jealous.”

  She swallowed. “She’s beautiful and cultured and experienced. She’s been with you for a long time.”

  He scowled. “How did you know that?”

  “Marie told me,” she lied.

  “I see.”

  “You’re my boss,” she added, trying to salvage what was left of her pride. “I guess I don’t like sharing you with other people. That sounds selfish.”

  It sounded delightful. His dark mood lifted. He smiled against her throat. “I don’t mind.”

  Her heart jumped. “But you can’t seduce me,” she said bluntly. “You’ll just walk away, but I don’t get over things easily. I’d never get over that.”

  His arms contracted. “Whatever you want, honey,” he whisper
ed. “Anything.”

  She drew in a long breath. He smelled of cologne and soap, scents she always associated with him. The words warmed her as much as the embrace. She felt safer than she’d ever been.

  Connor was feeling something similar and fighting it. She was something out of his experience. That had to be why it was so difficult to think of letting her go. He was fond of her. He loved kissing her. She was tender with him, efficient, great at reducing huge amounts of data into talking points that he could grasp easily.

  “You’re one of the best PAs I’ve ever had,” he said unexpectedly. “I can’t handle the weight of business if I don’t have you to help me.”

  She smiled sadly. “Office furniture. That’s what I am.”

  “Precious cargo,” he whispered. His head lifted, his cheek slid against hers in a bristly caress. “The most precious thing in my home.”

  She felt her heart racing at the words. Maybe he needed her for business, but the way he was holding her was new, sweeter than honey. “You don’t mean that. Not really,” she whispered back.

  “I mean every word of it.” He lifted his head and looked down, wishing he could see her. Touch and hearing and smell told him that she was desirable, but he wanted to know what she looked like. He wanted to see her eyes while he touched her, see the visible proof of her attraction to him.

  His fingers drew down her cheek, over her full lips, to her rounded chin. “I’d give anything to see what you look like right now, Emma.”

  “You told that West Texas cattleman that I was homely,” she said, wincing inwardly at the way he’d worded it.

  “I was being a jerk, and you know it,” he bit off. “You ran from me that night in Nassau. I went to bed expecting... Well, something more than I got. I was getting even. Ariel heard me talking to Cort on the phone and she couldn’t resist bringing it up when we were together at the party.” He sighed. “I’m sorry,” he said, and it was one of the few times in his life that he’d said it. “Truly sorry. It was a lie. I don’t even know what you look like, Emma.”

  “I’m plain,” she said quietly, resting against him. “It was the truth.”