“Why? Who is it? For that matter, what is it?” she asked, showing her interest. Henry had always known just how to work Meghan his way. Or so he thought. In truth, there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do for him. She respected him totally and was very fond of him personally.
“Michael Ramsey is his name. He’s the eldest son of a Texas oil rancher, and he apparently has set out to make his own fortune. He wants to buy property here and contacted me several weeks ago. The Corbetts recommended us,” he said as his phone rang. “So if you could take it on, we’ll keep them happy and wind up with a new client,” he finished, picking up his phone.
“Yes, Evelyn,” he said, then paused. “Fine, put him on.” With his eye movements and facial expressions, Henry indicated to Meghan that it was Ramsey on the phone.
“Hello, Mr. Ramsey. I’ve been expecting your call. …Yes, certainly. That’ll be fine. … November the twelfth?” He gave Meghan a questioning look, and she nodded in answer. “Yes, that will be fine too. … No, actually I won’t be. My colleague Ms. Shay will. … Oh, the Corbetts did mention her then. … Yes, she is. She’s excellent. … Fine, we’ll see you then,” Henry concluded.
Then as an afterthought he asked, “Mr. Ramsey, about that other problem you had? Were the investigators able to help you out at all?”
Henry listened intently for several seconds, his expression sympathetic. “No trace of her? I am sorry, Mr. Ramsey. New York is a big city. … Well, if she’s still in New York, Macklin will find her. … Well, good luck to you, and we’ll look forward to seeing you on the twelfth. … Good-bye.”
Henry shook his head sadly as he replaced the phone in its cradle.
“What was that last part about?” Meghan inquired, curious.
Henry eyed her for several seconds distractedly, then confided, “This poor Ramsey fellow is off his rocker. When he first contacted me, he also asked for the name of a reliable investigator for a personal problem he was having. I gave him Macklin’s name and number and told him Macklin was the best.
“About a month after that, Macklin called me and wanted to know what I knew about Ramsey. Apparently Ramsey met a woman the last time he was here, and somehow lost contact with her. Macklin didn’t tell me all the details, but he did say that all Ramsey gave him to go on was a composite sketch of the woman, her first name, and a few vague leads.
“When Macklin reported to him that he wasn’t able to find her, Ramsey told him to check everywhere, including the underworld, because there could be a chance the woman was in some sort of danger. It seems he met her under a strange set of circumstances, and poor Ramsey was worried sick about her. Macklin didn’t want to take unnecessary chances in the dirty money circles if Ramsey were some sort of nut who went around finding homes for lost women or something, so he called me for a reference.”
Henry sat quietly, obviously thinking about the hopelessness of Ramsey’s quest.
“Well? Is he?” Meghan asked, burning with curiosity about her newest client.
“Is he what?” asked Henry, returning his attention to the conversation.
“Is he a nut?” she specified.
“No. I don’t think so,” he said reflectively. “I think he just wants to find this woman.” Henry laughed suddenly, and in answer to Meghan’s expectant expression explained, “He said that when he did find her, he was going to wring her neck for disappearing and putting him through all this. Now, does that sound like a nut to you?”
That evening when Meghan got home, Mrs. Belinski was still there waiting for her.
“I leave your supper in di oven. You eat now. Will not be too done,” she said after Meghan had hung up her coat and turned to the woman, puzzled.
Mrs. Belinski wiped her clean, dry hands nervously on her apron, then went into the kitchen to retrieve Meghan’s dinner. After Meghan was seated at the breakfast bar, her meal before her, the older woman cleared her throat several times before she spoke.
“I don’t ask anything when di paper with di fuzzy ducks come. I don’t ask anything when di lovely rocking chair come. But I think I should now.” She hesitated briefly, then got to the point. “You be with di baby, yah?”
“Yes, Mrs. Belinski,” Meghan stated calmly.
The silence was deafening. Mrs. Belinski obviously had a million questions she didn’t know how to ask, and Meghan was dreading them. “Now that you know, Mrs. Belinski, will you be staying on or would you rather not,” Meghan asked, her pride shielding her from the woman’s reaction.
“Yah. Yah. I stay. I tell you always I love di little ones,” she said cheerfully. “I ask something?” With Meghan’s silent consent she asked, “When does di baby come?”
“The first of April,” the mother-to-be supplied, waiting for the next question.
Her eyes twinkling, the older woman asked, “You wish for di little boy or di little girl?”
Hiring the housekeeper for the baby, arranging the leave of absence, preparing the spare bedroom for the baby, and keeping her pregnancy under wraps were all part of phase two of Meghan’s grand plan.
With Mrs. Belinski’s acceptance, Meghan felt relatively content and happy that all was going well.
Four
MID-NOVEMBER FOUND New York colder and more windy. It had snowed the night before, but by the morning, the soft, fluffy whiteness had turned to gray-black slush in the streets and on the sidewalks. Michael surveyed the mess from the window of Henry Alderman’s office.
“Macklin hasn’t turned up anything then?” Henry asked.
“Nothing. It’s been four months, and I even had him hire extra men in Boston. I just don’t think she’s in New York anymore,” Michael said dejectedly. “And I wouldn’t know where to start looking outside the two cities.”
“I suppose Macklin looked into the possibility that she was just another guest in the hotel,” Henry stated, knowing that he probably had.
“Oh, yes. He tried everything,” Michael said, turning from the window. “I just think it’s time to hang this one up and go on. She obviously didn’t want me to know who she was, or she’d have told me.”
“I’m sorry. But you’re probably right. She could be anywhere.”
That same phrase had echoed through Michael’s head for months. A dozen times he was tempted to call off the search, when out of despair a new possibility would arise. But enough was enough. This afternoon he’d pay off Macklin, and even if she continued to plague his thoughts, he was determined to get on with his life. After all, it’s not as if she were his missing mother or wife—or even anybody he knew. She was just … that woman. That woman who had come to him out of nowhere. That intriguing woman who was so beautiful, so passionate … and in the end so strangely sad. Lately, he had even been considering the fact that she might not have been real after all. That maybe she was only a fatigue-induced fantasy.
Michael sighed loudly and ran his hand through his dark hair in frustration. With great effort, he attempted to lighten his mood.
“Speaking of lost women, do you suppose your associate will be much longer?” he asked, grinning. “My luck with women lately has led me to become very nervous when they don’t show up when I expect them to.”
Henry chuckled appreciatively. “You can relax on that score with Meghan. She’s as reliable as they come. She’s been in court all week with a tricky suit we filed for a client. She was supposed to finish it up this morning.”
“I understood yesterday when I called to confirm our appointment that she could be a little late. And I came early hoping for the chance to meet you and thank you for the help and concern you’ve given me with the problem of my missing lady. You’re very kind.”
“Not at all,” Henry said self-consciously. “I wish I could have done more. Now, let me check on Meghan for you, and we’ll get started on something that should be a lot easier and more pleasant to take care of.”
When Alderman opened his office door, a flash of red caught the attention of both men. Michael went rigid with shoc
k as he watched a shapely red-headed woman take several steps and enter another office across the reception area. As Macklin had pointed out to him time after time, there were thousands of red-haired women in New York, but Michael would bet his life that only one could walk like that.
He had found her. After four months of worrying himself sick about her. After thousands of dollars of investigators’ fees. After … after everything else she’d put him through, there she was. Pretty as you please. Safe and sound. Every emotion Michael had felt over the last few months came to a head inside him, completely bypassing relief and turning to boiling anger.
“Ah, speaking of the devil, there she goes. Come along and I’ll introduce the two of you,” Henry said cheerfully, oblivious to the fact that Michael was working on a catalog of the various means by which he planned to take his revenge.
The unsuspecting Meghan was just settling behind her desk when there was a brief knock on the door. Henry let himself in, saying, “Meghan. You’re back. How did it go this morning?”
“Fine. I—” Meghan’s whole world stopped short when she spied the man who had followed Henry into her office. The room went suddenly dark. Her heart stood still. The color the wind had blown into her cheeks drained away. Her eyes grew large, then snapped shut in an unconscious attempt at self-preservation, as if closing out the sight of him would allow her lungs to take in the air she needed to breathe.
Michael enjoyed her reaction tremendously, but it only whetted his appetite.
“Meghan,” broke in Henry’s startled voice. “Are you all right? Have you seen Lucy lately? Can I get you anything?”
Meghan was nodding and shaking her head furiously in response to his rapid-fire questions, but she couldn’t speak. She had to concentrate on staying alive.
“Ms. Shay,” came a deep baritone. “You look as if you’re had a terrible shock. Is something wrong?”
The added impact of his voice jolted the air from her lungs, and her emergency life-support system kicked in. She opened her eyes slowly. Immediately, she could see the man was having a very good time at her expense.
He was casually leaning against the doorjamb of her office. With supreme control, he held the laughter in his throat at bay, but his eyes were another story. They were sparkling wildly, laughing exultantly.
For generations, the Shays had had nothing to claim but pride. And Meghan Shay had inherited her share. Determinedly, she straightened her spine and puffed out her chest. Her chin came up defiantly, but she couldn’t quite look him in the eye.
“I’m fine, Henry,” she said, and cleared her throat. Then, since no Shay ever died sitting down, she rose to a standing position and added, “Lucy said I need to get more rest. You must be Mr. Ramsey.”
“Oh, sorry,” Henry apologized. “Meghan Shay. Michael Ramsey.”
“How do you do, Mr. Ramsey. Would you like to sit down?” she asked, sending up yet another silent prayer of thanks for all those poker lessons.
“What does the M stand for?” Michael asked with pleasant enough curiosity. He indicated the name printed on her office door, which still stood ajar.
As Michael made his way across the office and took a chair directly in front of Meghan’s desk, Henry answered him. “Mary. The M stands for Mary. Mary Meghan Shay just drips of saints and virgins, doesn’t it?” Henry teased her, as he had a thousand times before.
“Certainly does,” Michael agreed, his voice cracking with laughter. Giving Meghan a meaningful look, he repeated slowly, “Saints and virgins.”
Blissfully, Henry continued to dig Meghan’s hole as he retold the old office joke about her name. “We were a little surprised when she used an initial for Mary. We always thought it made her sound so incorruptible that it would have made great public relations for the firm.”
Michael laughed appropriately for Henry, but his rebuttal was for Meghan. “It would indeed. But we all know actions speak louder than words. I’m sure Ms. Shay’s reputation says more about her skills than her name does.”
When Meghan gasped, Michael was delighted with his direct hit.
She shuffled papers around on her desk in embarrassment, trying to settle herself.
Meghan was panic-stricken, but the emotion she felt most intensely was pain. She deserved his anger and ridicule, and she knew it, but it hurt nonetheless. She blinked back the tears that welled in her eyes as she pushed papers back and forth on her desk. All she could do was handle the situation with as much dignity as she had left.
With a strange glint in her eyes that Michael couldn’t decipher, she looked straight at him and said, “Mr. Ramsey’s right, Henry,” then she changed the subject. “I understand you’re buying a piece of the Apple, Mr. Ramsey.”
“Yes, I am,” he stated. “Since it’s so close to noon, perhaps we could discuss it over lunch, say … at the Essex,” he zinged her again, then for Henry’s benefit he added, “I’m staying there and have an appointment there later, so it would be convenient, and the food is excellent.”
“Thank you,” she said softly. “But I have an appointment with my doctor at one-thirty. So, if you wouldn’t mind, we can discuss it now.”
At this point, Henry the Helpful decided to go.
“Mr. Ramsey, I’ll leave you now in Meghan’s expert hands. I’m glad we got the chance to meet.”
“The pleasure was mine, Mr. Alderman, and please call me Michael. I have a feeling my attorney and I will be in conference often, and I’m hoping we can run into each other again sometime,” he said, as he rose to shake Henry’s hand.
“I’ll look forward to it, Michael, and you can call me Henry. I’m sure you will find Meghan is the best there is for this sort of affair,” he said, before letting himself out of the room.
Michael stared after him in amused wonder. Then, calling his own temporary truce with Meghan, he turned and gave her a wry grin. “He wasn’t much help to you, was he?”
“He meant well,” she retorted with a shrug.
“That’s true,” he conceded, the truce over. “Now, can we say the same for you?”
Meghan decided there were too many potholes in the road ahead and tried to steer clear of them.
“Shall we discuss your acquisition, Mr. Ramsey?” she asked formally.
“Ah,” he said, as if suddenly enlightened. “We’re all business in the daylight hours too.”
“That’s up to you, Mr. Ramsey. I’m leaving at one o’clock. You can sit there and torture me until then if you want to. However, you will be charged for my time, and we won’t be any closer to reaching a settlement on your property. The choice is yours,” she pointed out tersely, sitting down in her chair and crossing her legs comfortably.
“Oh, good. Then my choice does occasionally matter,” he said sarcastically. He opened his briefcase and brought out a file folder. He flipped it carelessly onto the top of her desk.
“I have a verbal agreement to buy out Dobson Publishing Company,” he began in a professional tone as cold as her own. “I want total ownership, complete rights, and the use of their good name for as long as I own the company. In return for which I will give them their total asking price. I then wish to have the necessary papers drawn up to incorporate it into Texacal. Their attorneys’ names and addresses as well as those of my attorneys in Texas, and several other minor stipulations, are listed in there also.”
His instructions were clear to Meghan and left her with nothing to say. He closed his briefcase, latched it, and stood to leave, saying, “If you have any questions, you know where to reach me.”
At the door he turned to study her intently, then cautioned her, “I’m not through with you, Meghan Shay.”
She returned his steady look and uttered, “I didn’t think you were, Mr. Ramsey.”
Meghan’s appointment with her doctor took place over lunch in an Italian restaurant that Meghan and Lucy often frequented.
“Oh Lord, Meghan, what are you going to do?” asked a terrified Lucy after listening to the horrifyi
ng story.
Morose, Meghan shrugged and glanced across the table at her friend. “I don’t know,” she stated dully, then as an afterthought added, “You don’t happen to have a bottle of pills I could take?”
“Meghan,” Lucy gasped.
The red-haired mother-to-be propped her elbow on the table and laid her forehead in her hand. “Relax,” she mumbled. “It was just the first thing that came to mind. You know I’d never do anything to harm the baby.”
“Oh Lord, Meghan,” Lucy repeated, for at least the tenth time since their meal was served.
Peeking through her fingers at Lucy, Meghan released a derisive half laugh and offered, “Just imagine what he’d say if he found out I’m pregnant.”
“Oh Lord, Meghan!”
Lucy’s remark drew the attention of some of the other diners. Glancing around at the onlookers and then back to one another, the women broke into giggles. The tension effectively drained from the conversation, Lucy encouraged Meghan to eat some of her untouched meal.
After two or three small, tasteless bites of superb manicotti, Meghan began to play with the cherry tomato in her salad. Thoughtfully turning it over and over with her fork, she finally muttered, “There isn’t anything I can do.”
Lucy watched her, but didn’t speak.
“I’ll just avoid him when I can and endure him when I can’t,” she concluded. “Let’s face it, Luce, I deserve it. Somewhere in that panic this morning, I actually felt relief. I remember thinking, ‘Oh, good. He’s come to kill me and I won’t feel guilty anymore!’ What I did to him is appalling. What I should do,” she stated vehemently, “is confess the whole thing and let him horsewhip me until we both feel better.”
“Meghan,” Lucy said sympathetically.
Meghan heaved a heavy sigh.
“Look, Meg, avoid him like you said before. Eventually he’ll either run out of nasty things to say or he’ll go back to Texas. It can’t go on forever,” consoled the eternal optimist.
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