Playing for Time

by Bretton, Barbara

  "No!" Joanna's voice shattered the genteel stillness of the lobby and brought with it five very well-bred frowns from the Carillon matrons.

  "I understand refusing a blind date, but I'm a known quantity now. Why don't you both take a chance, Kathryn?"

  She searched for an alibi, and then stumbled onto the truth. "Joanna is going out tonight," she said, breathing a sigh of relief. "She and Holland are having dinner."

  He was disappointed but not deterred. "Then it's the two of us."

  Joanna had to admire a man whose interests went beyond the more obvious divertissements.

  "Seven o'clock." That wonderful smile of his was back. "How about the Hard Rock Café?"

  For a moment Joanna was sorely tempted but the absurdity of the situation held her in check. "I'll have to ask for a rain check, dear," she said as the elevator door slid open and they stepped inside followed by the matrons, who smelled of Pink Ladies and Chanel No. 5. "I'm not as young as I used to be." She hesitated, the steady stream of nonsense tangling up her tongue. "I . . . umm . . . I need more sleep these days."

  He stared at her for a long moment and she wondered if the charade had finally fallen apart. "I don't know about that, Kathryn Hayes," he said as the doors slid closed behind them. "Sometimes I think you're the youngest one of us all."

  Oh God, Joanna thought as the elevator bumped its way to the ninth floor. You don't know how right you are.

  #

  The only food left in the apartment was orange marmalade and a stale onion bagel but Ryder was desperate. He'd rattled around from room to room for the past three hours since saying goodbye to Kathryn, half expecting Alistair to show up at his doorstep eager to make another stab at keeping him in PAX.

  The man's rhetoric was all too familiar, but the thought of being whisked down to one of those steak places in the West Forties was enough to overcome Ryder's reluctance.

  When the phone rang in the kitchen, he lunged for it.

  "You must be anxious for company, O'Neal." Alistair's voice crackled through the phone wire. "Never answer on the first ring. Too obvious."

  Ryder leaned against the kitchen counter. "Are you calling to ply me with liquor and red meat?" He could almost taste the steak, medium rare, with the outside all dark and crisp and the inside –

  Alistair's laugh was amused. "Afraid not. I intend top ply a quite beautiful woman with liquor and fine food."

  "Great," Ryder said, staring glumly at the onion bagel and marmalade. "Think of me feasting on bread and water."

  "You have my sympathies."

  "So why the call, Chambers? Is it just to cheer me up?"

  "We need your help."

  Ryder groaned "At least let me get this damned cast off before you start hounding me."

  Alistair explained an emergency on the tiny Caribbean island of St. George where a militant group was holding several Americans hostage on the outskirts of town, protesting U.S. imperialistic domination. They were threatening to blow up the embassy and kill the hostages one by one.

  "Tony Alzado is there," Alistair continued, "but he hasn't come up with a way to penetrate the live bombs surrounding the compound."

  Ryder fired off three suggestions for ways the live bombs could be neutralized, but Alistair had a rebuttal for each of them.

  "So what do you want from me?" Ryder asked finally in exasperation. "That's the best I can do over the phone." He wasn't about to tell Alistair of the work he'd been doing toward that very end while recuperating here at the Carillon.

  "Exactly why we need you," Alistair said. "The car will pick you up at 07:00 and we'll be in St. George before noon."

  "I haven't said I'll go."

  "You will."

  "Not this time, Chambers."

  "There's little point in fighting the inevitable. I know you too well. Save us both the trouble and say yes now."

  The pull was strong, he couldn't deny that, but his ability to resist was surprisingly stronger. Ryder hung up the phone without another word, but the victory was Pyrrhic. He knew Alistair would call back and, when he did, Ryder would give in.

  For the first time since his accident, he realized that he might never be able to break away, that he'd waited too long to have it all.

  The work had been part of his life since he was a callow, nineteen-year-old airman first class in Omaha, Nebraska, a kid with a shortage of book learning but an unbelievable grasp of electronic principles beyond the reach of men with Ph.D.'s after their names. They'd sat him down to evaluate his cryptographic communications skills and he'd scored right off the chart the first time he set eyes on the equipment.

  Immediately, he was lifted from the ranks of the ordinary and moved to an organization so secret that few outside the highest echelons of government were aware of its existence. Before he was twenty-five, Ryder had worked on protection devices for aircraft in the Vietnam war, reconnaissance equipment used to monitor the proliferation of Soviet weapons in Afghanistan and, most important, bomb-detection apparatus meant to protect U.S. embassies abroad.

  Right now he had the highest security clearance given to a civilian not in military work, more money than time in which to spend it and a vast and growing loneliness that work – no matter how important, how necessary – could never fill.

  Once before he'd had the chance to sample life in the mainstream. He'd been working in London on some high-tech security equipment for members of the British Parliament when Valerie Parker, daughter of a member of the House of Lords, came into his life and treated him as if he were the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

  She was young and idealistic, the product of the finest schools and most genteel upbringing the British Isles had to offer. She was only four years younger than he, but Ryder felt centuries older. Idealism, innocence such as hers were traits that had long ago disappeared from his characters.

  When she offered herself to him, heart and body, he took and took again and never bothered to consider the true value of the gift until the day he left for a new assignment in Taiwan.

  Valerie had burst into tears before he finished breaking the news to her. "But I love you, Ryder," she said, her sobs making her difficult to understand. "I want to be with you forever."

  He'd gently removed her slender arms from around his neck, her words feeding his male ego.

  "Nothing's forever, Val," he said, smoothing her blond hair away from her cheek. "You knew that when this started."'

  But, of course, she hadn't known that at all. How could she when her heart was telling her forever was within her grasp? He'd been so accustomed to the cool blondes whose bodies refreshed him like a gin and tonic on a summer day, to women whose approach to sex was as uncomplicated as his, that he didn't recognize Valerie's pain even when it stared him in the face.

  His father's legacy to him.

  It wasn't until he was halfway to China and he received a cable telling him she'd washed down a handful of Seconal with a bottle of her father's Dom Perignon that he understood exactly what he'd done.

  The parallel between Valerie's pain and his own mother's wasn't lost on him.

  Fortunately, however, Valerie Parker was blessed with the resiliency of youth. Her pride had been wounded but not her spirit. She came back from heartbreak, and a few years later married the son of a British diplomat who gave her what Ryder could not: commitment.

  The experience changed Ryder. From that time on, he approached his work with a zeal bordering on obsession, willing to disappear within PAX and put his own life and future on hold. For all his grandiose attempts at saving the world, he'd done one hell of a lousy job when it came to saving one person. He'd managed to convince himself he wasn't like everyone else. He didn't need love; he didn't want forever.

  What he had was all that he wanted.

  But these weeks as a civilian had changed him yet again. The visit to his family had pointed out the empty spaces in his life. Holding his newest niece in his arms, he had felt a stab of envy for all he had missed,
all he'd cavalierly cast aside when he was too young to know better.

  He was sick of being needed only when the specter of death hovered nearby, tired of dealing in abstracts, hiding behind security clearances and clandestine missions, with no one but Alistair to talk to.

  He opened the jar of marmalade and spread some onto the stale bagel.

  Maybe that was why Kathryn Hayes was such a revelation to him. Because of the nature of his profession, his relationships with women – except for Valerie – had been mutually pleasurable but fleeting. He had to rely on whatever charm and looks he had at his disposal because more serious, meaningful communication was impossible.

  Kathryn wasn't interested in his money or his looks or his bed. She said what she thought, and said it with a vengeance, and Ryder found himself enjoying this taste of reality more than he'd imagined possible. A broken leg had been a small price to pay for opening his eyes to the possibilities beyond PAX.

  The combination of onion bagel and orange marmalade was disgusting beyond description. He swept the whole mess into the garbage and, grabbing his crutches and his jacket from the hall closet, set out to find dinner and, if he was lucky, maybe he wouldn't spend the night alone.

  Chapter Six

  Joanna was too lazy to go out to dinner by herself, so after she washed off the heavy makeup she changed into a nightgown, and then settled down in front of the VCR with a Lean Cuisine, a bottle of Soave, and The Big Chill for company, fully prepared to feel sorry for herself.

  Kevin Kline, however, proved to be a wonderful antidote for self-pity, and she was just musing on the definite resemblance between the actor and the mysterious Ryder O'Neal when she heard a crash from Rosie's apartment next door, followed by a yelp that sent chills up Joanna's spine.

  She untangled herself from the mountain of magazines on the couch and tapped on the wall between her mother's apartment and Rosie's.

  "Rosie! Are you all right in there?"

  No answer, just the sound of objects hitting the floor.

  She pounded the wall again. "Rosie! What's going on?"

  Rosie's voice, muffled and indistinct, floated through the wall followed by the sound of another, very male voice. Joanna's heart thudded against her breastbone. She knew Bert's lilting Irish brogue and that very definitely was not it.

  Barefoot, Joanna raced out of her apartment and brought her fist down hard on Rosie's door.

  "Come on, Rosie! Answer the –"

  The door swung open and Joanna found herself staring up into the very amused eyes of one Ryder O'Neal.

  "What in hell is going on?" she demanded. "Where's Rosie?" Her heart thumped madly with terror but her terror took an abrupt turn into shock when he started to laugh.

  "You'll never believe it," he said.

  She wasn't in the mood for riddles. "If you don't tell me where Rosie is by the time I count to three, I'm going to call the police."

  He ushered her into the hall and closed the apartment door.

  "Rosie's in the bedroom counting her girdles."

  Joanna's temper exploded. "That does it!" She reached for the phone on the end table.

  Ryder sat down on the monstrous couch that had seen better decades and put his good leg up on the coffee table. "You'll feel pretty foolish when they find Rosie up to her elbows in Maidenforms."

  Joanna bent down and pushed his unbroken leg off the tabletop."That's an antique," she snapped, "not a footstool."

  "Put the phone down," Ryder said, "and I'll pretend you didn't do that."

  Another crash came from the rear of the apartment. Joanna slammed down the phone and ran for the back bedroom where she found Rosie, unbelievably, surrounded by spandex and Lycra mountains. The old woman was making separate stacks of panty girdles, the all-in-one foundation garments and the long line bras, carefully noting each one in a green steno pad.

  Joanna heard the thump-thump of Ryder's crutches as he came up behind her.

  "Do I hear an apology?"

  She ignored him and walked over to Rosie. "Are you all right?"

  Rosie nodded and continued sifting through the stack of girdles.

  Joanna glanced around in shock. Housecoats and slippers and stockings lay scattered on the floor. A jewelry box rested upended by the radiator. The contents of three bureau drawers had been emptied on the club chair near the window. Scarves and gloves and winter caps were piled on the sill and atop the portable TV in the corner.

  "Rosemary Agnes Callahan, if you don't tell me what's going on –"

  "Shh." Rosie swatted at Joanna as if she were a pesky housefly. "Let me finish counting the panty girdles."

  The whole world was going insane. Joanna picked up one of the bed pillows, covered her mouth with it, and let out a shriek of frustration.

  "If you're through having a tantrum, I can explain everything."

  She turned toward Ryder, who was balanced in the doorway on his crutches. "I wish someone would," she said.

  It turned out that Ryder had gone out for dinner and, when he came home, he bumped into Rosie in the lobby.

  "She'd gone to see a Greta Garbo revival at the Thalia—"

  "Not Greta Garbo," Rosie corrected, looking up from her steno pad. "Greer Garson. Mrs. Miniver, to be exact."

  Ryder grinned. "Greer Garson. She invited me up for a drink, and as soon as we got inside the door, Rosie knew something was wrong."

  Joanna looked at the disaster Rosie's once-immaculate bedroom had become. "I would say so."

  "She knew even before she saw the bedroom," Ryder said. "Everything looked normal to me, but she walked straight in here, opened her dresser drawer and said Stanley had been in here."

  "I've heard a few stories about Stanley," Joanna said carefully, "but I don't think he'd search someone's apartment."

  "Search, nothing," Rosie said, sticking her pencil behind her ear. "He stole three of my favorite girdles."

  Joanna laughed out loud. "Come on, Rosie! That's absurd."

  "I'm telling you he did and it's the second time. Two weeks ago he took my best Bauer & Black support hose, the good ones with the elastic tops."

  Joanna looked over at Ryder, who was now leaning against the doorjamb. She looked back at Rosie.

  "I really don't think Stanley would steal your underwear, Rosie." She started to chuckle despite herself. "Wouldn't it be easier to go over to Macy's and buy his own girdle?"

  "Don't get smart with me, miss," Rosie snapped back. "This is the Gaslight treatment he's giving me."

  "Gaslight?"

  "An old Charles Boyer-Ingrid Bergman movie," Ryder explained. "The ne'er-do-well husband tries to convince the naïve young wife that she's doing insane."

  With her film and theater background, Joanna was embarrassed that the reference had eluded her. "Why would Stanley want to do something like that?"

  Rosie snorted in disgust. "You're a babe in the woods, Joanna. Money."

  "There's a black market in Maidenforms?" Rosie really was losing her grip on reality.

  Rosie refused to dignify Joanna's question with an answer and continued her sorting.

  Ryder answered instead. "Selling apartments is big business, and Rosie stands in the way of someone turning a tidy profit."

  Joanna made a face. "There are only nine unsold apartments in the Carillon," she said, remembering a notice she'd seen posted in the laundry room. "I find it hard to believe the management is in any fiscal pain." Certainly not if the horrendous amount Cynthia had paid for her own piece of the venerable old building were any indication.

  "You are naïve," he said, moving into the bedroom. "What you can't have is always more appealing than what you can. It's human nature."

  "Corporations aren't human," Joanna pointed out, suddenly conscious of his extremely male presence in the small bedroom and of the fact that she was standing there in a sheer nightgown. If Rosie's bed hadn't been littered with enough lingerie to stock Macy's basement, she would have wrapped herself in a chenille bedspread and sprinted for
the door; instead, her only choice was to brazen it out and hope for the best.

  "The people who run the corporations are," he answered, "and therein rests the problem."

  This was a cynical side of him she hadn't seen that afternoon, and it threw her off balance. She turned away from him and said good-night to Rosie, who had just discovered three more pairs of support hose were missing. She started a recount of her full slips.

  Joanna turned for the door, only to find Ryder blocking her exit.

  "You're pretty agile on those things," she said, motioning toward the crutches.

  "When I need to be." The smile was the same one he'd given her as Kathryn, but this time it was laced with undercurrents that were unmistakably sexual.

  "Don't look at me like that," Joanna said, aware of the flimsy nightgown she wore and the bright light at her back. "I feel foolish enough as it is."

  "Let me see you to your door. That' s not exactly the right outfit for strolling the halls at midnight."

  "I won't be strolling the halls," she said. "I live next door."

  "Next door? I thought that was Kathryn Hayes's apartment."

  "It is. I'm her granddaughter." She found herself perpetuating the ruse before she had a chance to think it through.

  His eyes widened. "Joanna of the blind date?"

  Her smile spread slowly as she relished his shock. "One and the same."

  "If Rosie had told me you were this beautiful, I might have considered it."

  "How flattering," Joanna drawled, "but it wouldn't have made any difference. I don't accept blind dates."

  "Not even if they've been screened by your friend and your grandmother?"

  "Not even if they come with a four-star rating from Manwatchers International and a security clearance from the Pentagon."

  "Of course, now that you know me, I no longer qualify as a blind date."

  "We haven't been introduced."

  He snapped his fingers. "Semantics. I'm Ryder O'Neal. You're Joanna Stratton. Let's have dinner tomorrow night. We can even invite Kathryn if you want."

  Rosie looked up, her brown eyes questioning. "But Kathryn –"