Good Guy Heroes Boxed Set

by Julie Ortolon

  The trip to Washington, snippets of comments from his father, from Jan, from Michael all came together and told her what she’d been too involved to see before.

  He’d had this offer all along. All these weeks they’d been together, and he hadn’t told her.

  She pulled away and stood up, hardly noticing he didn’t try to hold her.

  What had she thought? That he cared enough about her to truly share his life with her? Just because he hadn’t walked away from her yet, because he’d looked two weeks ahead to ask her to spend Thanksgiving with his family, or even months ahead for some vague date to go sailing, had she thought he was changing his whole way of living, of existing? She was a fool. He’d shown all along how he operated.

  She straightened her back and lifted her chin.

  “They made this offer nearly three months ago and you’ve been holding them off, delaying giving them an answer?”

  “Sort of.”

  “What does ‘sort of’ mean?”

  He picked up the pen from his desk, and let it slide through his fingers. “It means I told them I had several factors to consider, and I wouldn’t be giving them an answer until I felt satisfied with the way things would work. It’s not like they gave me a deadline and I’ve blown it. They said they don’t mind waiting for my decision.”

  She watched an uncharacteristic shadow of defensiveness cross his face, and guessed he was thinking about the bid on the house, feeling guilty over something that she’d actually felt relieved about. Maybe she still owed him an apology on that score, but not now. She wasn’t going to be sidetracked.

  “What is there to decide, Paul? Are there drawbacks?”

  “Yeah, there are drawbacks,” he shot back with something close to bitterness. “You sound just like my father, and he learned it from the master - Walter Mulholland. Just because it carries you one more step up that great career ladder doesn’t make it automatically the right move.”

  He paused. Just like my father … learned it from the master. A glimmer of understanding crossed her thoughts, but slipped back as he continued, slow and controlled. “I’d have obligations to them. I’d have to be in D.C. a certain number of days each month. It would cut into my business here. I have obligations to clients here. Loyal clients.”

  “And of course,” she started silkily, “it would entail having to look ahead enough to keep some sort of schedule. Even if only for a few days a month.”

  The smoothness of her tone didn’t fool him. He flicked her a look, then made a sound that could have meant anything. A noncommittal sound. Under her breath, she swore.

  “What?” His sharpness indicated he’d caught the drift of her sentiment, though she didn’t bother to clarify.

  She knew exactly how this situation with the Smithsonian had come about.

  He’d probably been all friendly and helpful at first, making them think he was exactly the sort of person they needed, leading them on to believe he’d be there when they needed him. Then, at the last minute, he’d backed off and left them to be the ones to make the final move.

  Just the way he had with her.

  She swore under her breath again, then turned to stare blindly at the bookcase in front of her.

  Oh, he’d worked it perfectly. He had pulled her along. He’d pushed and prodded and chased - up to a point. Then he’d backed off and waited for her to make the next step. At each level, he’d forced her to make the final decision whether to go on to the next. Until there was only that final step to take toward him - to give her heart.

  Well, she had. And now she’d just have to live with the resulting pain. But she wasn’t going to live with it alone. He wouldn’t take the step himself, but by God she wasn’t going to let him pretend she hadn’t.

  Pivoting, she faced him.

  “I love you, Paul.”

  For all the uncertain anger bubbling inside her, Bette knew her voice carried conviction.

  Heaven help her, she did love him. In a way she knew she’d never get over.

  As she watched, his eyes lost their narrowed look of defense, then widened in astonishment. They stayed wide, but into them leaped a flame that seemed to add a glow to his entire face as he rose and started toward her.

  She held him off with one outstretched arm.

  Desire wasn’t enough this time. There was more to say. Words that desire couldn’t burn away.

  Her glimmer of understanding grew brighter, bright enough to illuminate the connection between past and present, between father and son, grandfather and grandson.

  “I love you, and that’s my problem.”

  He frowned at the word problem but she went on. “You pretend you’re a free and easy spirit who doesn’t commit to anything, but we both know that’s a lie. You’re committed to your business and your friends and your family. And probably, in your own way, you’re committed to me. But that’s not the kind of commitment I want. I want the kind that doesn’t wince at the word marriage, that makes plans for a home and a family, that arranges a life together. The kind that doesn’t need options left open because loving each other is the best option there is. The kind that doesn’t mind strings.”

  Looking at Bette, Paul imagined for an instant that he could feel those strings she said bound her to him breaking loose, snapping so hard and so fast that they rebounded back to whip at him.

  God, she was going to leave him.

  “That’s what I’ve wanted as long as I can remember, Paul. I knew from the beginning that you wouldn’t - maybe couldn’t - give that to me. You were totally honest about that. That’s why I tried so hard to stay away from you. But you can be persistent. And charming.”

  Her mouth, still red and swollen from their passion, lifted on one side in a smile that squeezed his heart. And in his pain, he lashed out.

  “Are you saying I seduced you? Sold you a bill of goods? Because I didn’t. I never made you promises I didn’t keep.”

  “No. You never made promises. You were honest. At least about that. But you haven’t been honest with yourself.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “No-o-o.” She drew out the negative. “You probably don’t. But I should have seen it before. That first night you practically spelled it out. Your whole life has been spent opposing your grandfather. Whatever his expectations and goals were for you - school, career, attitude toward life, marriage, family - you did something different.”

  He didn’t bother denying it. It was true. He’d been determined from the start not to do what Walter Mulholland ordered. “And what about you? Haven’t you spent your whole life living up to your grandfather’s expectations? No time for fun, only time for work and advancement. Life goals and schedules and step-by-step plans.”

  Her eyes opened wide and he saw their blue intensified by pain, then they narrowed. “I see now. All this time, you’ve thought I was just like your grandfather, haven’t you? That what my grandfather taught me was what your grandfather tried to force on you. Maybe you’ve even worried that I’d try to run your life, to remake you like your grandfather did.”

  ‘“That’s bull -”

  She didn’t seem to hear. “I won’t ask for anything from you, Paul. I just want to be as honest as you’ve been. I love you, but I don’t want to. God, I don’t want to.” Her voice held such hurt he almost reached for her, even as the words struck at him. “Because loving you means I want all those things with you that scare you so much - a home, a family, a future. So someday I think - I hope - I’ll stop loving you. And then I’ll leave.”

  Chapter Twelve

  *

  SHE’D GONE.

  She’d said she loved him. She’d said she asked nothing of him. Then she’d left.

  He’d spent last night here in the office. Mostly pacing.

  When Norma arrived this morning, she’d put up with his growling for less than half an hour, then closed the door on him. That was fine with him. This way he didn’t have to see Norma’s glower.<
br />
  Oh, he knew Bette’s trip had been planned a long time. But it came down to the same thing.

  She’d said she loved him. She’d said she asked nothing of him. Then she’d left.

  And she’d left him behind.

  Would she have asked him to come if he’d said yes to the Smithsonian, if he’d proved he was following the “right” path in life? Was that the price of admission to her heart?

  His rush of anger receded as quickly as it had come. No. That wasn’t fair. That wasn’t Bette’s way.

  More likely she was trying to spare him. If her family was anything like his, bringing someone to a function like her parents’ anniversary celebration would have been tantamount to an engagement announcement. Five days of expectant looks and probing questions; she’d known how that would rub against him.

  Your whole life has been spent opposing your grandfather .

  Yes, she’d been right there. By the time Walter Mulholland had died, his junior year in college, the pattern had become second nature. Whatever Walter Wilson Mulholland would have approved of, he didn’t do.

  Including marrying Bette?

  He pushed the question away.

  Why hadn’t he told her the things he’d been tempted to say? He could have told her he’d nearly decided to accept the Smithsonian offer, that after a couple months of talking with them he thought they’d worked out an arrangement that overcame the drawbacks. He could have told her he loved her. The words had been there, pushing to escape.

  Instead, she’d told him she loved him and she’d left.

  And he felt as if men with pickaxes were working in syncopation inside his head, heart and belly.

  “Paul.” Norma Schaff’s voice came through the intercom. “Grady Roberts is on line two.”

  With a deep sigh, he dropped his feet from his desk and leaned forward to pick up the receiver.

  “Hey, Grady, what’s up? But make it short. Some of us work for a living, you know, not just make a few phone calls and rake in a million.”

  “Paul, I’m in my office and you know how I can see a lot of the financial district from here -”

  “If you’re calling to brag about your view -”

  “Paul, shut up and listen, will you? There’s a fire, a big one. It’s your dad’s building.”

  Paul was out of the chair without realizing it. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I just checked with somebody’s binoculars to make sure before I called you.”

  “Thanks, Grady.”

  He’d already started to hang up, when Grady’s voice stopped him. “Paul!”

  “Yeah.”

  “Paul, it looks bad. There are trucks all over. You may have trouble getting close. Be careful.”

  “Thanks.”

  He snatched his coat and, after a split second of hesitation, also grabbed the ratty raincoat left over from last spring, plus a hat from an undetermined source. Before he finished his hurried explanation to Norma, she’d dug out two umbrellas, a wool scarf and a pair of gloves, tucking them into pockets as efficiently as an experienced kindergarten teacher.

  By the time he gave up on the crawling cab and struck out on foot for the final three-quarters of a mile, he was grateful for every layer. The wind sliced sleet into his raw skin. Running made it worse, but still he ran. Even when the sidewalks became as clogged with pedestrian traffic as the streets had been with vehicles, he ran, dodging and, when necessary, pushing through the crowds.

  Only when a police barricade blocked the way did he stop, and only then because a slicker-outfitted member of Chicago’s finest snagged him by the sleeve.

  “Stay back!”

  “I’ve got to -”

  “Nobody’s got to go in there, buster, but the firemen. Just back up here and let them do their job.”

  Paul pulled in a couple deep breaths as he considered the pugnacious expression and broad shoulders of the cop. Then his eyes went to the building, belching smoke that seemed to hiss as it met the cold, wet air. Nobody could still be in there, at least not alive -

  “The people. Where’d they take the people? They must have evacuated -”

  A flicker of understanding lit the cop’s eyes. “Around this corner, go to the middle of the block, there’s an insurance company, glass all across the front, big open lobby. That’s where they’ve been taking ‘em. Leastwise the ones the ambulances didn’t take.”

  Ambulances. The word reverberated in Paul’s head as he ran in the direction the cop had indicated.

  The lobby was a dizzying mass of people. People with mismatched jackets flung over their shoulders or with blankets wrapped around them. Some sitting quietly against a wall, others talking feverishly on phones or to anyone who would listen.

  Forcing himself to be methodical, Paul worked his way through three-quarters of the room before spotting a familiar face.

  “Miriam!” His father’s associate had been out to the house with her husband many times for dinners both business and social.

  “Paul. What in the world are you doing here?”

  “I heard about the fire. I haven’t seen - I can’t find -”

  “He’s fine, Paul. Everybody got out safely.”

  Some of the tension went out of him. But he’d feel certainty only when he saw his father himself. “A cop said they were taking people to hospitals.”

  She nodded. “Some smoke inhalation, and some shock, I think. But they’ve told us everyone’s in good condition. Everybody was evacuated in time.”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “He and some others were trying to find a way to get taxis through the streets to start taking people home. He was going to the next street over to talk to someone in charge of the police to see if they could help.”

  Leaving the building, Paul noticed the cold more this time.

  He wasn’t sure whether it was because the temperature had dropped or because fear no longer held such a stranglehold on him.

  By the time he found his father twenty minutes later, the raw chill was in his bones.

  The sight of his father talking to a man in uniform a few dozen yards away brought welcomed warmth into him. James Paul Monroe nodded at something the other man said, then turned away and stood coatless and hatless, staring up to where smoke rose against an equally gray twilight sky. His suit jacket shimmered in the huge spotlights the fire department had directed on the area, as if the moisture caught in its fabric had turned to frost.

  “Dad.” Paul waited until he was close enough that he could say the word without shouting.

  His father turned toward him, but slowly, as if he didn’t have full control over his muscles. Paul’s heart wrenched at the slightly dazed sheen in his father’s eyes.

  “Son.”

  Paul pulled his father into his arms, in a fierce and grateful hug, remembering a hug he’d received some twenty years before by the side of a dark and rainy street.

  “You’ll freeze out here, Dad. Take this.”

  Quickly, he shrugged out of his topcoat and put it around his father’s shoulders. As he pulled on the raincoat, he pulled out the scarf to put around his father’s neck. Through it all his father stood, just looking at him. Paul knew he was acting a bit like a mother hen, but he couldn’t help it, and he had the oddest certainty his father knew exactly how much he needed to do these things.

  A memory flashed through his mind of the time when he’d been fifteen and had broken his arm, of his father each morning neatly rolling the shirtsleeve over the cast while Paul fretted to be off.

  “You better put the coat on, Dad. It’ll be warmer that way.” He helped his father put his left arm through one sleeve, but when he reached for the other arm, a slice of light showed him the red, blistered skin of a burn across the knuckles as his father gripped something hidden in the shadows by his side.

  James Monroe glanced down at his hand as if in surprise. “The fire came up the back stairwell. We started that way, but when I tested the door, we knew we’
d have to find another way.”

  Paul swallowed as he realized how his father had tested that door. He reached down, intending to take the object out of his father’s hand so he could put on the coat, but before he could, James Monroe tightened his grip, despite the wince the movement produced, and Paul pulled his hand back.

  “It’s odd how your mind works at times like that,” his father said. “When the alarm sounded, it hit me that the smell I’d just barely been catching for a while was smoke. I realized we had to get out. We had to get everyone out of the building right away. I told them all not to stop for anything. But I did. I couldn’t leave without it. It’s odd how you see your mistakes, how you know what’s important at times like that.”

  Paul looked down to where his father’s fingers slowly loosened from the object he’d rescued as he escaped the fire.

  Paul’s brows contracted in a puzzled frown as he saw the dull hard glint of gold. Then his father’s hand opened, and the beam of light fell on what it held: the gold-framed photograph of the family taken the summer before Paul’s senior year in college.

  “But all the things in your office. Your baseball glove, your awards, your pictures …” All the things that had chronicled his father’s successes. Paul glanced up at the smoke still billowing into the sky and wondered if a bit of leather and some aging paper could have survived.

  “Probably gone.”

  Paul’s gaze came back to his father’s face, and he could see no more hint of despair there than he’d heard in his voice.

  “I might miss those things, but I took what’s most important to me.”

  His father looked at the photograph held in his burned hand, and standing there in the cold, with the sting of smoke all around them, he smiled.

  *

  PAULD WOULDN’T FORGET that smile, not as long as he lived. That and the way his parents held on to each other when he and his father finally made it to the house in Lake Forest some time near midnight.

  His father had insisted on seeing that all the people from his office were safely on their way home and that the fire department had declared the fire out before he agreed to let Paul take him home.