Beware of the Stranger

by Janet Dailey

  The stranger stopped at the desk. “I’m looking for Samantha —”

  A warning bell rang in her mind. “I’m Samantha Jones,” she interrupted swiftly.

  The man turned toward her at the sound of her clear voice. Instinct insisted that he had been aware of her watching him from the instant he walked through the door. She rose from her chair, the frankness of her gaze not wavering under the steady regard of his. Again with deceptive laziness, he smiled and walked toward her desk.

  “The photograph on your father’s desk doesn’t do you justice, Miss Jones.” There was the slightest inflection on her assumed name. The man spoke quietly yet firmly, as if he was unaccustomed to raising his voice. The iron thread of command was there without the need to shout.

  Perhaps that was what had first tipped Samantha off to the fact that he had come to see Samantha Gentry and not Samantha Jones, the reporter. It was a trait her father looked for in his executives and associates. The reference to her picture on Reuben Gentry’s desk seemed to confirm the stranger’s connection with her father.

  Samantha didn’t recognize him, but that wasn’t so strange. She knew very few of the people who worked with and for Reuben Gentry. Mostly they were faceless names.

  “Your father?” Beth’s voice echoed blankly from her desk. “I thought you said your father died two years ago, Sammi?”

  For a fraction of a second, Samantha felt trapped by her own charade. “Yes, he did,” she continued the white lie, calmly meeting the faint narrowing of the stranger’s gaze. “But this man evidently knew my father.”

  “Yes, that’s correct.” The well-shaped masculine mouth, an underlying hardness in its line, twisted briefly as the man went along with her story.

  Obviously he was bringing a message from her father, one he couldn’t deliver in front of Beth, who believed Samantha’s father was dead. Samantha reached for her handbag sitting beside her chair.

  “Beth, we’re going to the back room for some coffee,” Samantha stated without satisfying the curiosity gleaming in the girl’s eyes.

  A table and folding chairs occupied the corner of a back room. A large coffee urn sat at one end of the table cluttered with clean and dirty paper cups and plastic spoons. It hardly resembled the plush boardrooms where Reuben Gentry held his meetings, but Samantha didn’t even attempt to apologize for the ink-and coffee-stained tabletop. She walked to the urn and began filling one of the clean paper cups.

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t know you.” Her gaze flicked briefly to the stranger. His veiled alertness was almost a tangible thing. “I assume Reuben sent you.” It had been years since she had referred to her father as such.

  “Owen Bradley, your fa —”

  Samantha straightened. “You are Owen Bradley!” The statement came out smothered in an incredulous laugh. A dark eyebrow flicked upward in silent inquiry. Immediately she pressed her lips together and tried to stop smiling. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh. It’s just that, well, you’re not at all like I pictured Reuben’s Man Friday to be.”

  Her frank brown eyes traveled over the man again, now identified as Owen Bradley, her father’s secretary and general everything. Her image of Owen Bradley had been somewhat effeminate — a short, thin man perhaps with pale skin and thick glasses, highly efficient and a walking computer.

  But this Owen Bradley, the real Owen Bradley, seemed to belong to the outdoors. His features were roughly hewn out of teakwood. There was nothing effeminate about him. Male virility was chiseled from the solid angle of his jaw through the faint broken bend of his nose to the smooth slant of his forehead.

  At closer quarters, Samantha realized that his eyes were not dark brown as she had first thought. They were deep charcoal gray, like thick smoke, with the same obscuring ability to conceal his thoughts. There was nothing handsome about him, yet she felt some invisible force stealing her breath away.

  Turning back to the coffee urn, she set another white cup beneath its spout. “Do you take cream or sugar?” The husky quality always present in her voice was more pronounced.

  “Black.”

  “It’s liable to be very black,” Samantha warned. She handed the cup to him, noticing his large hands and the roughness of his fingers that suggested hard physical labor. “That’s the way Harry likes it. Since he’s the first one here in the mornings, that’s the way he makes it, regardless of anyone else’s preference.” She added two spoonfuls of powdered cream to her own cup of the almost syrupy black liquid.

  “I don’t mind.” And he sipped the potent liquid without the slightest grimace.

  Samantha suppressed a shudder at the undiluted strength of the coffee he had just swallowed. Normally she preferred black coffee, too, but this wasn’t really her idea of coffee.

  “Have a seat.” She gestured toward the dilapidated folding chairs.

  The man named Owen Bradley chose one that put his back to the wall. His gaze scanned the room and corridor with lazy interest. Samantha doubted if he had missed any detail in that brief look.

  “I was informed you had changed your name, Miss Jones, but I hadn’t realized you’d killed your father off in the process.” On the surface it sounded like an apology for his inadvertent reference to her father in front of Beth, but Samantha didn’t think it really was.

  “Only for the summer.” Sitting in a chair opposite him, she absently smoothed the fold of her denim wraparound skirt. “It seemed easier than coming up with a fictitious background and activities for him as well as myself.” Samantha wasn’t entirely sure why she was explaining except that she didn’t want her father’s secretary thinking she had permanently disposed of her father even in her mind. “Why did Reuben send you instead of relaying a message through Harry?” Harry Lindsey, the editor, had been Samantha’s communication link with her father.

  “He tried, but Harry went out of town yesterday, so your father sent me up from New York.”

  “I’d forgotten about that.” Belatedly Samantha remembered Harry’s sudden departure from the office yesterday and his expected return at any moment. Then she tipped her head to one side, curiosity gleaming in her candid brown eyes. She wasn’t surprised that her father hadn’t attempted to contact her directly, but she did wonder why he had thought it necessary to send Owen Bradley to see her. “Is there something urgent?”

  “Your father has arranged to have a couple of weeks free. He wants you to spend them with him,” the quietly spoken voice informed her, not a flicker of expression chasing across his raw-boned features. “As Reuben put it, he wants you to spend one last vacation with him before you spread your wings and permanently leave the nest.”

  That sounded like Reuben, Samantha thought with a sigh. Her fingers raked the thickness of the hair near her ears as she hesitated before responding.

  Owen Bradley must have sensed the reason for her hesitation, because he said, “A leave of absence can be arranged for your job. Harry never needed another full-time reporter on his staff anyway.”

  Her temper flared for an indignant second. Initially Samantha had thought he was accusing her of being a spoiled and indulged rich girl whose daddy had created a job for her. But the dark smoke of his gaze was without censure. She checked her rising anger, giving Owen Bradley the benefit of the doubt. Possibly he was only reassuring her that she wouldn’t be leaving Harry in the lurch.

  “I could spend a week,” she conceded, wanting to be with her father yet knowing the summer was short and wanting to gain all the experience working on the newspaper she could. “Where’s he going to be? Bermuda? St. Croix? Hawaii?” she asked, naming his favorite vacation haunts.

  “Thousand Islands,” was the calm reply.

  “Thousand Islands?” Samantha repeated.

  “Yes, near Clayton in upstate New York, the chain of islands in the St. Lawrence Seaway. He’s rented a summer place on one of the islands,” he explained patiently.

  “I’ve heard of it.” It would have been nearly impossible not to, becaus
e she had lived the majority of her twenty-two years in the state of New York.

  The area had once been known as the millionaires’ playground. Samantha suspected that her father had avoided it for that reason. Reuben Gentry rarely hobnobbed with the so-called élite. He preferred being included in a gathering because of his merits as an individual and not the size of his bank balance. Now that it had become a simple vacation spot, she supposed he had decided to investigate it.

  “Is there anything wrong?” Owen Bradley had been watching her turn over the information in her mind and now questioned the result.

  “With his choice?” Samantha returned, then immediately made a negative movement of her head. “None. It just surprised me, but I should have learned to expect that from Reuben by now. When am I supposed to leave to meet him?”

  “Today.”

  “What?” Her mouth opened.

  “It’s short notice,” he agreed with a faint smile.”A couple of important meetings were postponed and Reuben took advantage of it to arrange some time off. I’m to drive you there today.”

  Samantha sighed. Once her father made a decision, he never wasted any time carrying it out, and this spur-of-the-moment vacation was no exception. She thought of the clothes she had to pack and the washing she had been putting off until the weekend and all of her sportswear hanging in her bedroom closet at her father’s apartment.

  “You don’t have to bother about packing any clothes,” Owen Bradley said, reading her thoughts. “Your father doubted if you would have the kind of clothes along that you would need, so he sent some clothes up this morning. Any personal items that were overlooked you can buy when we get there.”

  “He’s thought of everything,” Samantha mused, lifting her shoulders in a helpless shrug of compliance. “I suppose he’s already there waiting for me.”

  “He’ll meet us there the day after tomorrow, Saturday.”

  She had just lifted the paper cup to her lips when he answered. “Us?” she questioned, taking a quick sip. The cream hadn’t improved the bitter flavor. “Is this going to be one of those half-business half-pleasure vacations?”

  “Something like that,” he agreed and finished his coffee.

  Samantha did the same, but she couldn’t contain a grimace of distaste. His charcoal gray eyes crinkled at the corners in smiling sympathy, but he didn’t comment. As he straightened from the chair, she couldn’t help noticing the bulky fit of his dark green blazer across his chest. It seemed a pity that a man with his muscular physique couldn’t afford her father’s tailor, but Samantha would have been the first to admit that there were more important things in life than clothes.

  “It’s about a six-hour drive to Clayton. If we leave now, we can make it before dark,” Owen Bradley stated.

  “Can’t we wait until Harry comes back?” She frowned. “I’d like to explain …”

  “I have a letter here for him.” He removed a plain white envelope from the inner pocket of his jacket. “I’ll leave it in his office while you freshen up before we go.”

  There were no more objections left to make. With a quiescent nod, Samantha rose. As they entered the corridor leading to the front offices she pointed out Harry Lindsey’s private office and continued to her own desk as Owen Bradley stopped to leave the letter. Beth was instantly at her side.

  “Who is he?” she whispered eagerly.

  “A friend of the family.” Samantha covered her typewriter and quickly began straightening her desk.

  “Did you know him?”

  “Not exactly. I knew of him.” She handed the other girl the column she had completed just before Owen Bradley arrived. “Give this to Mr. Lindsey when he comes. There’s been a family emergency and I have to leave.”

  “With him?” Beth’s eyes rounded. “Are you sure it’s safe? He looks kind of dangerous to me.”

  “He looks like a man to me,” Samantha smiled. In her mind she put “man” in capital letters.

  “Are you positive you know who he is?” Beth persisted in a low whisper. “Did you ask for any identification? Remember what your horoscope said: BEWARE OF STRANGERS.”

  “Oh, honestly!” Samantha laughed aloud this time. How could Beth take that nonsense seriously?

  “It’s just coincidence, I suppose, that your horoscope warned you about strangers this month and now a stranger that you think you’ve heard of walks in today,” Beth declared in a wounded voice.

  “That’s all it is.” Shaking her head at the disbelieving look in her co-worker’s face, Samantha turned and gazed squarely at Owen Bradley standing silently in the hall opening.

  There was a flash of white as he smiled. “Ready?”

  “Yes,” Samantha nodded, deciding that the only thing dangerous about him was the havoc he could wreak with her senses. That smile had increased her pulse rate and its charm had been directed at her only for a few seconds. It was a shame he worked for her father. Nothing would ever come of the attraction she could feel growing.

  Enjoy it while it lasts, Samantha told herself. A series of pleasant interludes would probably be the only love life she would know. There was no sense shying away from the first potentially exciting male to come her way simply because the attraction was doomed to die.

  Why not take advantage of the fact that it would be difficult for him to say no to the boss’s daughter, especially when the boss was Reuben Gentry? But Samantha smiled at herself, knowing she would never take advantage of that fact, no matter how attractive she found a man.

  | Go to Table of Contents |

  Chapter Two

  THE TELEPHONE POLES were whizzing by so fast that they looked as close together as fence posts. Samantha’s hand tightened instinctively on the car door’s armrest as they approached a curve in the highway. Centrifugal force pressed her against the door, but the car hugged the road all the way around the curve into another stretch of straight highway.

  “Is someone chasing us, or do you just always drive this fast?” she murmured, half-jesting and half-serious.

  “Sorry.” Owen Bradley’s gaze flicked to her absently, almost as if he had forgotten she was sitting in the passenger seat. For the past two hours, Samantha was nearly positive he had. His foot eased its pressure on the accelerator and the powerful car slowed to a speed closer to the posted limit.

  “I didn’t mean to frighten you by driving so fast,” he apologized.

  “Normally it doesn’t bother me when it’s on the divided highway of an interstate, but on these secondary highways with their curves and intersections …” Samantha left the rest unfinished.

  It wasn’t that she questioned his driving skill. It was superb. She was certain he was probably in control of the sports car every minute. But it was some of the other idiots with licenses that she worried about meeting.

  “True, but the secondary highways offer a much more scenic route,” he replied.

  Staring out the window at the rolling hills dotted with groves of trees and pastoral farms, Samantha silently agreed it was beautiful, especially now that it wasn’t so much of a blur. She shifted to a more comfortable position in the seat and the dark gray eyes slid briefly to her again.

  “Getting tired?” he inquired.

  “Stiff from sitting,” she acknowledged with a smile that said it was to be expected after more than four hours on the road. They had stopped once to refuel and she had stretched her legs then, but that had been two hours ago.

  “There’s a good restaurant in this next town. We’ll stop there to eat,” he told her.

  More silence followed, but it wasn’t really so bad, Samantha conceded. In fact, it was rather nice. Not that she wouldn’t have liked to find out more about the real Owen Bradley now that she had met him. He had answered her general question readily enough at the start of their journey, but he hadn’t volunteered any information she hadn’t already heard from her father.

  He had been disinclined to talk about himself and the conversation had drifted into generalities an
d finally into silence, Although she knew a lot of facts about Owen Bradley, the man remained an enigma in many ways.

  His latent animal grace suggested a man with physical pursuits as well as mental. It was hard for Samantha to visualize him spending as many hours in boardrooms and offices as his position with her father demanded. He was in his middle to late thirties and unmarried — that fact had been relayed by her father because he had wanted someone at his beck and call and not tied down with family.

  But had he never been married? His blatant masculinity would attract a lot of women; Samantha could feel its pull on her. Was he divorced or widowed? Or a confirmed bachelor like herself? She would find out the answers eventually. She wasn’t training to be a reporter for nothing. As a matter of fact, she could find out the details from her father when she saw him on Saturday.

  Three-quarters of an hour later, they were sitting in the restaurant, their meal eaten, and lingering over their coffee. Owen had asked her a couple of questions about her job with the newspaper, which she had answered.

  “This coffee is a definite improvement on Harry’s,” she added after answering his questions.

  With a smile, she glanced from her cup to his face. He wasn’t looking at her but watching the activities of the various people in the restaurant. Their corner table gave him an unlimited view and he had been taking advantage of it ever since they had sat down, only occasionally glancing at Samantha.

  His lack of attention irritated her. She was the boss’s daughter and he could at least pretend to be interested in entertaining her. Samantha tipped her head to one side, seal brown hair falling around her shoulders.

  “Am I boring you?” she asked with frank candor.

  The unreadable dark smoke screen of his gaze turned to her, dark brown nearly black hair growing thickly away from his wide forehead. The well-molded mouth was slightly curved, a suggestion of hardness in the otherwise sensual line of his masculine lips.

  “Not at all,” Owen Bradley assured her in his low voice that never seemed to vary in volume.