by Sandra Brown
Almost on a whisper he asked, “Then you know how I feel about it?”
Yes, she knew. For her it had been a turning point in her life. Had she ever doubted that she was making the right decision not to marry Helmut, she saw clearly now that such a marriage would never come about. Foolish though it was to love a man who had no commitments beyond the next fast-breaking news story, she loved Reeves. Marriage to another man would be unthinkable.
For Reeves it had been an episode. She had been a brief but pleasant interlude in his life. He had found her to be genial, attractive, and—she swallowed—obliging. He had responded as any man would, given the same set of circumstances. Reading anything other than fierce passion into their lovemaking was childish and futile and wrong.
She gulped down a sob. “Yes, I know what it meant to you, Reeves,” she answered with far more serenity in her voice than she had a right to expect.
“Good,” he said with obvious relief.
They saw Helmut striding toward them now. The look on his face, even through his fatigue, was one of elation.
“Jordan, since you understand about last night, I want you to know I’m leaving immediately. I’m going to Paris tonight.”
The words pierced her as no others had. So soon! He was ridding himself of her quickly. The severance would be swift, clean, and irrevocable.
She didn’t look at him or respond. She wouldn’t let him see the tears. He’d never know the heartache she was suffering. The death her spirit was dying would be a private one, witnessed by no one. He must never know that she loved him.
Not hesitating until it was too late, she catapulted off their resting place and ran pell mell down the hill, scrambling over the slippery surface. “Helmut!” she shouted. Let Reeves think their time together had been only a casual dalliance for her, too. Let him think she was going back to her wealthy fiancé. Let him think the worst of Jordan Hadlock, but don’t let him see that she loved him.
Helmut was waiting for her with outstretched arms, and, when she threw herself into them, he thought the tears that bathed her face were tears of joy.
“My darling, my darling,” he said comfortingly as he patted her back. “Everything’s all right. You’re safe now. Was it too ghastly?”
Ghastly? Hysteria came very close to the surface. Paradise? Shangri-la? Utopia? Yes. But never ghastly. “I… I’m just glad to see you,” she said as she continued to cling to him. By shutting her eyes she could blot out everything else.
Helmut instructed one of the men to give her something warm to drink. The fellow must have obeyed because Helmut was soon pressing a silver cup against her lips. “Here, darling, drink a sip. It will start to warm you.”
The hot coffee was generously laced with brandy and she choked on the first swallow. His hand was running briskly up and down her back. “Slowly, my dear, slowly. We won’t start back down until you’re ready. No storm is forecast for tonight. I blame myself for not checking the weather report before we started out yesterday. That first storm was expected in the higher elevations. I could have prevented this entire nightmare.”
How glad she was that she and Reeves had been innocent of the storm predictions. They couldn’t be held accountable. They had been victims.
“Reeves, you seem hale and hearty enough despite your ordeal,” Helmut beamed. She didn’t turn around, though she heard Reeves’s footsteps crunching on the snow. “Someone pour this man a drink,” Helmut ordered. “I’m eager to hear how you managed to survive the night and come out of it seemingly unscathed and none the worse for wear.”
Jordan rotated slowly in Helmut’s arms and saw Reeves take a cup similar to the one she was drinking from. He sipped the hot coffee and thanked both Helmut and his assistant.
“After eating that bountiful lunch you brought along, Jordan and I decided to walk it off and go farther up the mountain. We sat down to rest awhile and …” His voice trailed off. Green eyes slid to Jordan, where she was still leaning against Helmut. The eyes bore into her and Reeves’s voice was hard when he continued. “We fell asleep. When we woke up, it was snowing.”
Briefly he outlined their halting trip back down the mountain until they discovered the tool shed. “Luckily we were able to take refuge there.”
Again his eyes flew to Jordan and again she read the open hostility and scorn there. He ignored her then as he turned back to Helmut. “Before the night was over, we were grateful both to a benevolent farmer and to your picnic basket.”
Helmut laughed then and clapped Reeves on the shoulder. “Thank you for taking care of my girl for me.”
Jordan winced at the words. She dared to look up at Reeves. A disdainful sneer marred the handsome features of his face. “She’s a woman easily pleased.” The underlying insult was understood only by her, but she caught his disparagement and resented it highly. She hadn’t exactly ripped off his clothes and chased him around that shed until he finally submitted to her!
She turned back to Helmut and asked, “What about your airplane?”
He stroked her cheek with a loving finger. “How like you, Jordan, darling, to be worried about someone else’s crisis when living through one of your own. My pilot crash landed the aircraft. He, the crew, and the cargo were all intact.”
“I’m so glad,” she said.
He raised her hand to kiss it and exclaimed, “Jordan, where is your ring? Not lost in the storm I hope.”
“No, it…I…” She looked helplessly toward Reeves but his face gave away nothing of what he was thinking. It could have been carved out of stone. The green eyes glinted frigidly. “It’s in my backpack,” she muttered at last.
“Fetch me that.” Helmut pointed to the backpack one of his men had retrieved. Once he had it in his hands, it was only a matter of moments before he found the diamond ring zippered into one of the many pockets.
He slid the cold metal ring onto Jordan’s nerveless finger and said with deep satisfaction, “There. Things are back to where they should be.”
But nothing was as it should be. She raised mournful eyes to Reeves, but the spot where he had been standing was empty. As Helmut pulled her into an encompassing embrace, over his shoulder she saw that Reeves was already stalking away from them on his way down the mountain.
Knowing that this might well be the last time she would ever see him, she whispered, “My love, my life. I’ll love you forever.”
Hearing her words and mistakenly interpreting them, Helmut hugged her tighter.
CHAPTER 10
Thank you for coming by, Helmut,” Jordan said as she shut the door of the bookstore behind him, put the closed sign in the window, and pulled down the shade.
“Darling, I was in the middle of a very important meeting.” His irritation at her summoning him and insisting that she see him immediately was apparent. “I confess to a certain confusion. I fail to see the urgency you intimated.”
“I apologize, Helmut. But I didn’t want to postpone this meeting any longer.” She led him up the stairs to her apartment and switched on the lamps in the living room. She offered him a chair and sat down on the sofa.
“Helmut, I’m not going to marry you.”
There. She had said it. It hadn’t been so difficult. There was no resultant pain. Why had she not said it before? He wasn’t threatening her with reprisals. He wasn’t shouting deprecations. In fact, he wasn’t doing anything but staring at her blankly, as if she had suddenly lost her faculties.
When he recovered from the shocking statement, he leaned forward in his chair and searched her face for signs of mental imbalance. “My dear, you’re unwell. Surely you can’t mean what you just said. You’re not thinking clearly. Maybe—”
“I’m quite well, Helmut. Actually, I feel better than I have in a long time. I meant what I said. I’m not going to marry you.”
His managerial training took over and he relaxed once more against the back of his chair. He crossed one ankle over the opposite knee. “I’ve noticed a change in you since th
e night you were trapped on the mountain in the storm. It was a stressful experience. Perhaps you were traumatized by it. These things happen, you know. I think, given time, you’ll be restored to your normally healthy outlook and will start thinking rationally again.”
He was so self-confident that Jordan smiled fondly. She shook her head. “No, Helmut. I had decided not to marry you long before then. Time won’t change my mind.”
He was quiet for long moments, weighing the firm conviction in her voice, watching her unwavering expression. “But why, darling?” he asked at last.
“Helmut, I have a deep affection for you. We’ve shared some happy times. I’ll never be able to thank you for your unlimited generosity, nor will I ever forget your many kindnesses.” She got up and walked around the end of the couch. Her fingers examined the piping around the cushions as she said, “But I don’t love you in the way a wife should love a husband. A marriage without love would be unfair to both of us. We are miles apart in our backgrounds, literally and figuratively. I would never fit into your world.”
“Let me be the judge of that, Jordan,” he said.
She smiled. “I don’t doubt your acumen for making executive decisions, Helmut, but this is a decision of the heart. Of emotions. I’m not an employee that you can groom for a certain position in your conglomerate.”
“Is that the impression I give you? I’m sorry. I never intended to make you feel as though I were molding you into something you weren’t.”
“Which brings me to the next point,” she said. “Perhaps right now you do find me diverting. I’m not like the many other women you’ve paid court to. But how long would the novelty last? When would you grow tired of me?”
“I love you the way you are, Jordan.”
“For life?” Her question hit home. He looked away quickly and she knew that her words had caused him to think of her as he never had before. “I had one disastrous marriage. That was enough. I wouldn’t want to ever make you unhappy.”
“You wouldn’t,” he said adamantly.
“I would, Helmut. I want tranquillity. My former husband promised me a home and children, stability, security. He never delivered. And while your means and abilities far surpass his, I would soon tire of your hectic pace. I’m an old-fashioned American girl with Midwest ideas ingrained into me. I’ve loved every minute I’ve lived abroad, Helmut, and I wouldn’t trade the experience, but I want to go home. Please forgive me if this disappoints you. It’s for the best. I promise you.”
“Why did you ever accept my proposal if you felt it weren’t for the best?” he asked with just a trace of aristocratic hauteur.
“Did I ever accept? Officially?” she teased.
For the first time, he smiled. It was a rueful grin. “I guess you didn’t. I’m accustomed to getting my way.” With customary conceit he added, “It never occurred to me that you might not want to marry me.”
She laughed. “Helmut, you’re priceless.” She took the velvet ring box out of her skirt pocket and went to the place where he was now standing beside the chair. “Here is your ring.”
“I don’t suppose you’d consider keeping it as a token of my esteem.” Jordan smiled, but shook her head no. “You Americans! You’re still Puritans,” he scoffed, but affectionately.
“Middle-class morality.”
“Precisely,” he said crisply. “With archaic and idealistic ideas about love and marriage.”
He looked down at the ring box and turned it over in his hand. His brows lowered in deep concentration. He was remembering something. “Jordan, this decision of yours wouldn’t have anything to do with the American journalist, would it?”
“Helmut, how absurd,” she said brightly, but ducked her head and turned away so he wouldn’t see the pain that flashed in her dull eyes. “Would you like a drink?”
He ignored the offer. “Jordan, look at me.” Slowly she complied. He saw the heartsickness that was so clearly etched on her taut features. She held her body rigid and straight, as though if she allowed it to relax it would fly into a million pieces and disintegrate. He let his breath out slowly. “Ahhhh, so that’s it.”
“No, Helmut. He had nothing to do with this.” His shrewd skeptical look told her he didn’t believe her. “I swear to you that I haven’t seen him since we were rescued from the mountain.”
“That has very little bearing on your feelings, my dear. Now that I think of it, at that last interview, which Reeves insisted take place that same afternoon, he was in a state of extreme agitation. What happened in that shed where you sought refuge that night?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re lying, Jordan.”
Yes, she was lying. Something had happened that night. Her life had begun and ended in the space of those hours she had spent with Reeves. For the past two weeks she had moved through her routine like a programmed automaton, though answering the myriad questions of her customers as patiently and courteously as she could.
Through the maze in her mind, she had tried to map out a plan for her future, since Mr. Bauerman’s daughter would soon be arriving to replace her, but she was incapable of thinking beyond one day. Surviving the present required all her effort and concentration.
Now she slumped to the sofa and stared vacantly at her hands. It wasn’t until the cushions sank under his weight that she realized Helmut had sat down beside her. He covered her cold hands with both of his. “You’re in love with him,” he said clairvoyantly.
She nodded miserably. Tears stood in her eyes when she looked up at him. “Helmut, I swear that I had already made up my mind about us before I ever saw Reeves Grant.”
“I believe you, but that’s hardly the point, is it? Does he know how you feel?”
“No.”
“You are a most infuriating creature, Jordan. Why didn’t you tell the man? Do you expect him to play guessing games with you?”
“No, Helmut. It wouldn’t matter if he knew or not. He… he doesn’t … feel the same for me. We’re at cross purposes.”
“I find that hard to believe. The man is a fool to leave you. I’ll have him recalled immediately.”
“No!” she exclaimed, and clutched his arms. “Promise me you won’t try to contact him in any way. In a day or so I’ll be going home. I’ll feel better then.”
He looked at her doubtfully. “I only received one letter from him. The magazine story is scheduled for publication early next year. He said he would let me know when.”
She hated herself for asking, but couldn’t help it. “Where was the letter postmarked?”
“Paris.”
She sighed. “Yes, that’s where he said he was going.”
“Jordan—”
“I’m all right, Helmut. Really I am.” She smiled with more bravery than she felt.
After a while she escorted him down the stairs and unlocked the door. He turned and embraced her warmly, kissing her on both cheeks in a typical European gesture. “My dear Jordan. I’ve enjoyed our time together. It was in this room that I first met you. I’ll always feel a pang of nostalgia whenever I walk by this way. Are you sure you won’t marry me?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” she said patiently. “You’ve expanded my world, Helmut. My outlook. Knowing you has been an education.”
“I’m a prize jackass,” he said.
It was so out of character for him to put himself down that Jordan laughed. “Why?”
He hugged her tightly. “I should have bundled you off to bed when I had the chance instead of honoring your objections to the impropriety. I’ll never forgive myself.”
“It was my constant refusals that kept you intrigued,” she said lightly. “Sooner or later you would have given up and gone away.”
“Don’t be too sure of that,” he whispered as his blue eyes studied the lovely face turned up to his. He cleared his throat. “When will you leave?”
“I don’t know exactly. Bill is supposed to notify me within a few days.”
“May I see you
again before you go?” he asked gently.
Her smile was sad. “I don’t think so, Helmut. It will be better this way.”
“Always pragmatic. Your common sense is one of your virtues, Jordan.”
She laughed again. “That isn’t a very gallant compliment. Where are all those poetic comments you used to shower me with?”
He laughed, too, but then grew serious. “Don’t misunderstand me. Your astute mind didn’t diminish your sexual attractiveness.” He drew her close one last time and whispered the next words directly in her ear. “Don’t let that solid common sense always dictate the course of your life, Jordan. Some of my finest achievements have been the result of a gamble.”
He kissed her once on the lips and then he was gone.
“Damn,” Jordan muttered as she retraced her footsteps back down the first three stairs. Just a moment before she had closed the shop for the night and turned out the light. Now one last customer was rudely knocking on the door.
She was tired. For the last week she had been trying to get the newsstand in tip-top shape before Bill arrived with the Bauermans. At night, after business hours, she had been packing her personal belongings into shipping crates. Today had been particularly busy. A tour bus of senior citizens from Detroit had descended upon her and all fifty-one of them had demanded personal attention. When they left, her shelves had been depleted and had required restocking.
Now someone was blatantly ignoring her CLOSED sign. In exasperation she turned the key in the lock and jerked the door open. “I’m clo—” The words died on her lips and the blue rings around her gray eyes widened.
Reeves was standing on the threshold. He was leaning nonchalantly on the outside wall. His gaze was taking in the heavy clouds overhead, which just now were letting loose their first raindrops.
“I can’t ever seem to get here in anything less than a deluge,” he remarked inconsequentially, and shoved his way past her. She was so stunned to see him that she didn’t try to keep him out. Instead her jaw hung slack and her arms dangled uselessly at her sides.
