"If you're so concerned, why don't you speak with her? It makes more sense than hiding here in the dark."
Holland tried to resist the urge to light another cigarette. She was doing her best to live without decadent treats like Gauloises, but it was proving more difficult than she would have imagined.
Living without Alistair didn't bear thinking about.
"You almost had me fooled," she continued. "I actually believed you wanted one more moonlight tryst before we went back to the big, bad city."
"If memory serves, a good time was had by all."
The darkness hid her eyes from his, and for that she was eternally grateful. Vulnerability wasn't something she was proud of. "If memory serves, I was the one who was had."
She heard his slow intake of breath, and she knew she'd hit upon the truth.
"I know this must seem ridiculous to you, Holland."
"Damn straight," she muttered under her breath.
"Family dynamics are difficult to explain to an outsider."
As usual, my darling, your aim is superb.
"Oh, yes," she said, her voice sharp as his profile, "I doubt if I could fathom the complexities of the Chambers family dynamics. I am, after all, just a simple country maiden."
"You do yourself an injustice, Holland."
"No, my darling, you do me the injustice." She was tired of the secrets. Tired of the double-talk. Tired of the strange happenings accompanied by even stranger explanations.
Hell, she was tired of coming in second and not knowing who, or what, was coming in first.
She'd learned a lot about herself this weekend.
She'd learned it was time to think about herself.
She glanced at Alistair and tried to ignore the way her heart ached.
"It's a long drive," she said, leaning her head back against the seat rest and closing her eyes, "and I have an early-morning call."
Alistair said nothing. He simply started up the Rolls and headed back to Manhattan.
And that, to Holland, said it all.
Chapter Twelve
The only light in the room was the phosphorescent glow from the computer screen.
Enter data.
Enter data.
Alistair had been staring at that screen for an endless time, alternating between drags on his cigarette and deep gulps of black coffee sent in from the all-night deli on the next block.
Three hours ago he'd dropped Holland off at her apartment on the West Side. They'd barely spoken on the drive back from the Poconos. He knew she had her questions, a thousand of them, but he also knew that answers were something he couldn't provide.
He thought he'd find escape in work, but so far he had accomplished nothing.
The details surrounding the Summit were endless, and his time was growing short.
He only had to press a few of the keys before him and the amazing machinery of PAX would spring to life, ready to transform Maggie's White Elephant into a place worthy of its spot in history.
Why, then, was he staring out at the street lamps on Fifth Avenue and working his way through his second packet of cigarettes?
He ground one out in the marble ashtray on the window ledge, typed in the words Honeymoon Hotel, then sat back and waited while the computers accessed PAX's master file.
". . . I was the one who was had."
Holland's words beat against his heart like a sledge.
Truth hurts, doesn't it, old man?
PAX.
The mistress that kept him from drawing Holland closer and letting what existed between them flower and grow.
Sarah had understood, but then his Sarah had danced to the same piper, heard the same seductive music that had lured betters sailors than he onto the rocks.
Holland was a woman with needs of her own. Ambitions that were finally being realized.
He couldn't ask her to fling everything aside and join him in this rootless, dangerous existence predicated on half truths.
Tonight he'd made a grievous error: he'd let his personal life cloud his professional judgment. He'd blurred the lines that had once been sharply etched, and Holland had been badly hurt in the process.
The computer screen blazed to life.
Choice.
It always came down to choice.
He and Sarah had faced them.
As had Maggie, in her way.
Ryder and Joanna.
A thousand others whose names he didn't know, but whose stories were all too familiar.
Nothing would change the reality of his situation.
As long as he remained within the organization, nothing could change it.
But that was neither here nor there.
The Summit Meeting was but a few weeks away, and for now he knew where his loyalties must rest.
But after the Summit was over –
Well, if the Fates and Holland Masters were both on his side, PAX would be in for a surprise.
#
Maggie didn't sleep that night. Every time she closed her eyes a vision of mirrored ceilings danced through her champagne-soaked brain.
Funny thing – John was reflected in every one of them.
If he was a spy, he was a pretty bad one, because last night he could have had every last PAX secret she knew just for the asking.
Maybe it was this whole bizarre thing with Alistair and The White Elephant and that incredible Summit Meeting that had her seeing trouble around every corner. She didn't want to think that John was anything more than what he seemed to be: an extraordinarily successful business who made her heart beat faster and kept her up all night thinking crazy thoughts.
About six she gave up the ghost. She took a shower in an attempt to look alive, made some coffee, and did her best to ignore Groucho's screeching from his cage in her office.
She was nursing her third cup at the kitchen table when Rachel found her.
"Good grief, honey! You look terrible." Rachel never was one to mince words. "I hope that's a good sign."
"You have a voice that could pierce lead," Maggie said, rubbing her throbbing temples. "Why didn't I ever notice that before?"
Rachel sat down at the table and poured herself a cup of coffee. "A hangover? I don't believe it!"
"It's not a hangover," Maggie protested grimly. "I didn't sleep."
"I think it's a hangover."
"I only had three glasses of champagne, Rachel. That's hardly the lost weekend."
"So he serves champagne, does he?" Rachel leaned back in her chair, looking extremely smug. "Mr. Tyler lives up to expectations."
"What does that mean?"
"Oh, come on, honey. I'm not blind."
Maggie took a long sip of coffee. "You've been watching too many soaps, Rae." Rachel believed in fairy tales and fantasies and undying love.
"Don't change the subject."
Maggie sighed. "You hopeless romantics are too single-minded." John Adams Tyler was living proof of that.
"This is even better than I hoped. So he's a hopeless romantic, too?"
"I must be crazy," Maggie muttered. "You're the last person on earth I should be talking to about this. You're my mother-in-law."
Rachel patted her hand. "I'm your friend. I want to see you happy."
"I am happy."
"Not happy enough to suit me."
Maggie tossed a packet of Equal at her. "You've been happily married for almost forty years. If you knew what it was like out there, you wouldn't set me up on so many blind dates."
"It's no different than it ever was, honey. Human nature doesn't change."
"That's where you're wrong, Rae. Things move a lot faster these days."
"Blame your age, Maggie, not society."
"My age? What does age have to do with anything?"
Rachel ignored Maggie's scowl and lit a cigarette. "It's the law of diminishing returns."
"Great," said Maggie, fanning the smoke back at Rachel with her napkin. "It's eight in the morning. I'm lucky if I got forty-five
minutes sleep last night. I can't handle riddles."
"No riddles," said Rachel, blithely puffing away. "The older you get, the less time you have left. You tend to make quicker judgments."
Maggie shivered. "How depressing. You've given love at first sight a whole new meaning."
"Not really. All I'm saying is, why waste time when you already know what you want."
"That's assuming you know what you want. Life isn't always that simple."
"Love is."
"Another quote from the gospel according to hopeless romantics?"
"Another quote from a woman who loves you like a daughter."
Tears, sudden and hot, welled up in Maggie's eyes, and she blinked rapidly. "Unfair, Rachel. Pulling rank is beneath you."
"I've known you a long time, honey. You're like one of my own." She stroked Maggie's hair, then patted her gently on the shoulder. "And I know more about you than you think."
Maggie stiffened. "Such as?"
Rachel stubbed out her cigarette and looked Maggie straight in the eye. "You think I don' t know the truth about you and my son?"
Maggie snapped her fingers, praying she looked nonchalant. "Darn! You found out about the UFO in the backyard."
Rachel didn't crack a smile. "I know how it was between the two of you."
"Look, Rachel, I don't know what you're driving at, but it's time for me to start breakfast for the masses." She went to stand up, but Rachel's hand on her forearm stopped her.
"Before Rick died he told me."
Maggie waited, her heart thudding painfully. "Told you what?"
Rachel's eyes were filled with compassion. "That you two had filed for divorce."
Maggie dismissed it with a wave of her hand. "Old news, Rae. Why, we –"
"He also told me you withdrew the papers when you found out he had cancer."
Rachel had her dead to rights.
"He needed a good friend," Maggie said quietly. "He would have done as much for me."
"Not many women would have done what you did, Maggie."
Maggie mumbled something about being loyal as a sheepdog, but Rachel stopped her again midsentence.
"Loyalty's a rare commodity these days, honey. I just hope you don't have loyalty to Rick all tied up with this damned inn and –"
Maggie cracked six eggs into a huge copper bowl and reached for the tin of cinnamon. "Believe it or not, I love this inn, Rae. I want it to be a success." Three or four years ago her motives had indeed been all tied up with Rick and her sorrow and guilt, but not any longer.
She'd grown deeply attached to the rambling main house and the sprawling grounds, and the challenge of turning it into something special appealed to her sense of the absurd.
"I know you, honey," Rachel said. "You've always had a soft spot for the underdog."
"I'll admit The White Elephant has an image problem/"
Rachel's look was sly. "Nothing a few mirrored ceilings couldn't cure."
Maggie winced at the memory of how she'd looked as she struggled to escape the clutches of John's huge water bed last night. "Mirrored ceilings aren't all that great."
Rachel's eyes twinkled merrily. "Do tell! Maybe I can leave for vacation with a happy heart after all."
"Just don't go mailing me any Vikings, Rae."
Her mother-in-law's laugh had Maggie clutching her temples. "If you promise me you won't elope before I get back."
Maggie crossed her heart with a wire whisk. "You have my word. Now get to work!"
#
It was Holland's first morning back in Manhattan, and she was spending it at the O'Neals' apartment at the Carillon, the place where she'd first met Alistair Chambers.
All night long she'd tossed and turned, trying vainly to make sense out of Alistair's bizarre behavior.
There was only one person on earth who would understand her confusion. Joanna Stratton O'Neal, who'd shared the puzzle with Holland since the very beginning, might have the answer she was looking for.
"He did what?" Joanna's turquoise eyes were wide as she stared across the table at Holland.
Holland looked up from her croissant. "You heard me. He spied on his own niece."
"Maggie?"
"He has another one?"
Joanna put her cup down and shook her head. "Why would he hide in the bushes and spy on her?"
Holland polished off her croissant and reached for another. "I was hoping you could tell me."
"I barely know the woman. I have no idea what she could be up to."
"It's not what she's up to that worries me, Jo." She split the croissant and piled it shamelessly high with butter and raspberry jam. "Unless I miss my guess, it has something to do with Alistair and Ryder and whatever it is the two of them do."
Joanna's expression grew guarded, the way it always did when Holland raised that particular subject. "I think you're letting your imagination run away with you, Holland. You know they're in finance."
Holland bit back a curse. "I was in the car with him, Joanna. I saw him do it."
"Maybe Alistair is worried about her," Joanna suggested. "Maybe he doesn't like the man she's seeing, and he wanted to make certain she got home safely."
"That's exactly what he said."
Joanna brightened. "See? I knew there must be a simple explanation. Why do you always look for things that aren't there?"
Holland glared at her friend. "I liked you better when you were dressed like an old lady and trying to figure Ryder and Alistair out. You're too well trained for my taste now."
Joanna pushed back her chair and rose to her feet. "Now what the hell does that mean?"
"It means you've changed. From the day you and Ryder came back from that mysterious trip with Alistair – after keeping me waiting for two days, I might add – you've been different."
"Marriage does that." Joanna's voice was low, controlled. "I have new responsibilities."
"It's more than that." Holland would never forget that long, aching weekend when it had seemed Alistair, Joanna, and Ryder had all vanished from the face of the earth. Two years later she was still waiting for an explanation she could believe. "You're in with them, aren't you?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Holland finished her second croissant and only the thought of her wardrobe mistress's wrath kept her from demolishing a third. "I think you do."
"You think wrong, Holland. I'm a makeup artist, same as I ever was."
"Then why aren't you working?"
Joanna sat back down. "I am working."
"Benny Ryan says he hasn't seen you in months."
"I work for a lot of people besides Benny Ryan. Maybe he's feeling slighted."
Holland ticked off a list of all the other people her best friend had once worked with. "They're all feeling slighted, Jo. What gives?"
"Don't ask questions I can't answer."
"Don't patronize me," Holland retorted.
"Speak to Alistair." Joanna pushed her shiny black hair off her face and met Holland's eyes. "Tell him how you feel."
Exasperated, Holland grabbed for the third croissant, wardrobe mistress be damned.
"I'm going to find out what's going on," she warned as she picked up the knife. "Sooner or later, I'm going to find out everything."
#
Rachel stayed on through the breakfast rush, even though she and George were leaving that night for their Scandinavian vacation. Strange to think that if John hadn't come into her life when he did, Maggie might have taken them up on their invitation while The White Elephant was making history.
Alistair called twice while they were frying the French toast, and Maggie had somehow managed to deflect Rachel's curiosity by keeping her end of the conversation as bland and boring as possible.
"Your uncle is a fascinating man, but a real mystery," Rachel said after Maggie hung up for the second time. "First we don't see him around here for ages, and now he and Holland are permanent fixtures."
"Well, they're not perma
nent fixtures around here," Maggie said, trying to reroute Rachel's curiosity. "They seem to like the décor at Hideaway Haven better."
"Progress," said Rachel, piling French toast on a plate. "You're not calling it the pleasure palace anymore."
"Don't go reading anything into that, Rae. Maybe I'm searching for a new nickname."
Rachel, of course, remained unconvinced and continued to extol the virtues of Mr. Tyler whom she had never met, until Maggie regretted ever changing the topic from her uncle Alistair.
Finally when breakfast was over, Maggie shooed Rachel off with a hug and a promise to drop by later and see them off just as Alistair called for the third time.
"When do the last of your guests check out?"
"They'll be gone by noon."
She heard the sound of keystrokes in the background.
"Our people will be there by two o'clock." He quoted some figures. "Are those the dimensions of your property?"
"I think so. I can run into my office and hunt up the paperwork – that is, if it's not in the bottom of Groucho's cage."
"What a marvelous businesswoman." His tone was unusually acerbic even for the wry Alistair. "I hesitate to ask where you keep your bankbooks."
"That's one of the benefits of being flat broke, Ally. I don't have to worry about things like that."
"We'll access county records for your property lines," he said briskly. "I would hate for you to disturb that winged creature of yours."
Maggie knew there was no love lost between her uncle and her parrot, but usually Alistair made a joke of their terrible relationship.
"Are you okay, Alistair?"
He missed a beat. "Of course."
Too late, Uncle. You gave yourself away.
"Is Holland back at work?"
"I assume so."
Maggie sank into a kitchen chair with a sigh. So much for the course of true love.
Alistair moved smoothly to talk of business. He had arranged for an extra four weeks' paid vacation for her staff. The phone calls had been made from PAX's New York City office earlier that morning.
The first of the work crews would be there this afternoon.
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