by Sandra Brown
"Goodbye," he said as he stood and backed into the aisle.
"Goodbye."
He returned to his seat to gather up his belongings and prepare for the landing, which was executed without a hitch several minutes later. Keely kept her head directed toward the front of the airplane or out the window, though she was conscious of him behind her.
When the 727 came to a standstill, she sat for a moment before getting up and reaching into the overhead rack for her coat. She studiously kept her eyes from Congressman Devereaux's vicinity, though she could tell out of the corner of her eye that he was shrugging into a topcoat. She decided not to put hers on yet. He might offer to help her. Then he'd have to touch her again and that was better avoided.
She picked up her purse and a small attaché and draped her coat over her arm before she stepped into the aisle.
He was waiting for her to pass ahead of him.
"Do you have luggage?" he asked.
"Yes. You?"
He shook his head. "I'm traveling light this trip," he said.
"Oh." There was nothing else to say. She stepped into the brightly lighted portable corridor that connected the aircraft with the terminal and walked along it at a brisk pace. This was ridiculous! Why didn't she just turn around and engage him in friendly inconsequential conversation? She knew he was right behind her. Why didn't he talk to her? They were both behaving like silly adolescents. But this was best. Discretion dictated putting as much space between them as possible. It was safer.
She walked into the airport. Just as she cleared the door, a rush of reporters holding cameras and microphones undulated toward it. Curiosity urged her to turn around.
Dax was immediately surrounded by the reporters and flashing cameras. He was smiling, fielding their rapid questions, bantering with them about the lousy Washington weather. While a more aggressive reporter was rattling off a question she couldn't hear, Dax looked up and caught her eye across the throng. His smile was almost apologetic. She mouthed a goodbye, then turned away and headed for the escalator.
When her one piece of luggage had been picked off the revolving carousel and checked against the stub stapled to her ticket, she hefted it off the ground and threaded her way through the airport and out onto the sidewalk. She easily hailed a passing cab and was standing aside as the driver placed her suitcase in the trunk, when another cab screeched to a halt in the next lane.
Dax shoved open the back door and cannoned out of the cab, skirted the rear end of the taxi, and jumped up on the curb in front of her. His breathing was labored. The night was cold. His breath fogged the air between them.
"Keely…" He looked disconcerted, impatient with himself, anxious. "Keely, I don't want to say goodbye to you yet. Will you have a cup of coffee with me somewhere?"
"Dax—"
"I know. I'm a stranger. You're not the type to pick up a man on an airplane or anywhere else for that matter. I don't want the invitation to insult you. I just—"
He raked his hand through windblown hair. The collar of his coat was flipped up and framed the rigid planes of his jaw. The bottom of it flapped against his legs in the cold wind. The belt hung loose and untied from the loops. "Oh, hell," he cursed softly and shoved his hands into his coat pockets as he scanned the congested traffic. Then he looked at her again. "I just want to spend more time with you, get to know you better. It's not that late. Go for coffee with me? Please?"
How could anyone resist that dimple, that beguiling smile? Yet Keely Preston must. "I'm sorry, Dax. I can't."
Someone behind his illegally parked taxicab honked belligerently. Her taxi driver scowled at them impatiently. They were oblivious of it all.
"Are you meeting someone else?"
"No."
"Are you too tired?"
"No, it's…"
"What?"
"I just can't." She gnawed her bottom lip in vexation.
"That's no answer, Keely." He smiled gently and asked, "Do I repel you?"
"No!" The vehemence of her reply elated him and mortified her.
She looked away, darting her eyes unseeingly over the traffic, the lights of the airport that shimmered through the soft mist that was falling. "That's why I can't go with you, Dax." She spoke so softly that he had to duck his head to hear her. "I'm married."
* * *
Chapter 2
«^»
His head jerked back as if he had been kicked in the teeth, which is exactly how he felt. He stared at the top of her head, which was bowed as she looked at the damp concrete under her feet. "Married?" he croaked. It was unthinkable, abhorrent.
She looked at him then, straight in the eye and without expression. Her voice held no inflection as she answered, "Yes."
"But—"
"Goodbye, Dax." Keely stepped around him, yanked open the door of the taxi, and fell inside, saying "Capital Hilton" to the driver, who was glaring at her with open hostility for keeping him waiting so long.
The taxi lurched away from the curb and daringly forged its way into the flow of traffic. Keely didn't even notice. Her hands were covering her face and she was pressing the middle finger of each hand on the sharp throbbing pain in the center of her forehead.
The day had finally come. The day she had dreaded for years. At 37,000 feet in the sky she had met a man. A man who made her situation that much more untenable.
Keely Preston Williams had been married for twelve years, but had been a wife for three weeks. She and Mark Williams were classic high school sweethearts. He was the star athlete in their small hometown in coastal Mississippi. She was a cheerleader. It was 1969. Drugs, hard liquor, and loose sexual mores hadn't yet made it to the high schools in the rural South. The community in which she and Mark grew up was still poignantly naive. Regional football, community-wide picnics, and church socials were still the mode.
After graduation Keely and Mark both enrolled in Mississippi State. Mark was an athlete, and as a result of a heavy class load and grueling football practices, his grades slipped until he failed out the first semester.
The Vietnam War was still a threat to any young man, and Mark fell victim to it. As soon as the draft board was notified of his grade average, his draft classification changed and he received his induction notice. Two weeks later he was on his way to boot camp.
It had been Keely's idea for them to marry as soon as they got word of his induction. She pressured him, cried, pleaded, threatened, until she wore him down. He finally consented against his better judgment and their parents were notified to meet them on a given day in their pastor's study. They were married.
They drove to New Orleans to spend the weekend, then returned home to live that fleeting two weeks with Mark's parents before the army bus carried him off.
For the past several years Keely hadn't been idle, but actively strove to keep the MIAs on the public's mind. She and other wives in similar circumstances had organized an action group called PROOF, taking its name from the initials of Positive Resolution Of Our Families. On most occasions Keely acted as their spokeswoman.
She leaned back on the smoky-smelling, dusty upholstery of the taxi and stared vacantly at the Washington scenery as it sped by. Twelve years. Was she any better off now than she had been when she had first learned of Mark's disappearance?
Drowning in a miasma of disillusionment and depression, she had finished school with a degree in journalism. She took her degree and moved to New Orleans. She landed a job on the Times-Picayune as a "gofer" with the grandiose title of copy editor. She stuck it out for several years, gradually working her way into the unenviable position of cub reporter. The events she was assigned to cover were so unimportant that her stories were buried in the middle of the newspaper.
Through the journalistic grapevine, she heard that a newswriter at a local radio station had abruptly left, due to an indiscretion with the switchboard operator on company time. On her lunch break Keely had gone to see the harried news director, charmed him into hiring her, and starte
d her new job the next day. She liked the work. It was at least more kinetic than the dull stories she had been writing.
She met Nicole Castleman in the commissary when they reached for the same bottle of catsup at the same time. They became friends, and when someone conceived the innovative idea of putting a sexy-sounding woman in the traffic helicopter, Nicole suggested Keely.
Keely had listened to their proposal with a combination of terror and incredulity. She had never spoken into a microphone in her life. And to get in a helicopter every day! Mark! His helicopter had been seen going down under heavy fire. It had exploded, but no body was ever found. She couldn't.
But she had, seeing the job as her way of keeping Mark's memory fresh. Over the years it had begun to dim. Also the job forced her to meet her justified fear of aircraft head-on. Keely Preston Williams hated to admit fear of anything.
Her friendship with Nicole Castleman had cemented over the years. They were able to talk to each other with sometimes painful honesty. Last night Nicole had sat Indian fashion in the middle of Keely's bed while she packed. She had tried to talk Keely out of coming on this mission.
"Haven't you martyred yourself enough, Saint Keely? My God! Your dedication to lost causes is your only stupid trait," she had shouted even as she helped Keely select which clothes to bring.
"Nicole, we've been through this so many times in the years since I've known you that I can almost quote it verbatim. We should just record this conversation and then every time we feel the argument coming on play the tape and save ourselves the breath."
"Sarcasm doesn't become you, Keely, so cut the garbage about a tape recorder. You know I'm right. Every time you meet with those other wives, you come back depressed and stay that way for weeks." She leaned back, displaying her lush figure, which was enviable. It was only one of her assets. She had a veritable mane of blond hair and sea-blue eyes. Her smile was deceptively angelic. That cherub mouth was capable of unleashing a string of obscenities that could make the brawniest seaman quail.
"It's something I have to do, Nicole. They have asked me to be their spokeswoman because I'm the most qualified. I've told them I would. And I will. Besides, I believe in what I'm doing. Not for myself, but for the other families. If Congress votes to have our men declared dead, then their army pay, which is automatically channeled to us, will be severed. I can't stand by and see that happen without doing something."
"Keely, I know that in the beginning, when PROOF was organized, your motives were strong. But when does this purgatory end? When the POWs were released and Mark wasn't among them, you got physically ill. I know, I was there. I saw you go through hell. Are you going to put yourself through that again and again?"
"If I have to, yes. Until I know something about my husband."
"And if you never know?"
"Then you'll have the supreme satisfaction of saying, 'I told you so.' Should I take this ecru blouse or the gray one for that navy suit?"
"Gray and navy. Wonderful," Nicole had muttered in total exasperation. "The ecru. It looks less widowish."
So now Keely was in Washington to face a congressional subcommittee on behalf of the wives and families of the MIAs to plead that the proposal to have those unaccounted-for men declared legally dead be dropped.
When she faced that assembly of congressmen, would her mind be on her plight? The plight of the others? Mark? Or would it be on the man she had met tonight? The one who had said almost shyly, "I just want to spend more time with you, get to know you better." And to whom she had had to say, "I'm married."
"Hilton," the cabby said tersely.
She realized then that they had been stopped for several seconds. "Thank you," she mumbled.
She paid the taxi fare, carried her one bag into the lobby, and checked into the room that had been reserved for her for weeks. Subconsciously she signed the register Keely Preston, then almost as an afterthought added Williams.
Her room was cold and sterile and impersonal, as hotel rooms in large cities are wont to be. What had their room been like where she and Mark had spent their short honeymoon? She couldn't remember. She could remember very little of their time together after they were married. When she did remember him, it was as a football hero, or as the president of their graduating class, or as her date at the Valentine Prom.
When they had lived that frantic two weeks with his parents, he had been nervous and embarrassed about having Keely sleeping in his room. That first night she had scooted across the narrow mattress to embrace and kiss him. He had shied away and reminded her in hushed tones that his parents were directly beyond the thin wall. The next night he had made some feeble excuse to his curious parents and hustled Keely out of the house. They had driven to the lake, parked, and climbed into the cramped back seat of his Chevy. For Keely, that night, and the others that followed it, had been less than earth-moving. But she had loved Mark and that was all that mattered.
Keely shivered in the cold room as she slipped out of her coat. She switched on the stereo system built into the bedside table, reset the thermostat, and began unpacking her suitcase, smoothing out the wrinkles of each garment before carefully hanging it up. She was almost done when the telephone next to the bed rang.
"Hello," she answered.
"Keely, this is Betty Allway, I was just checking to see that you had got here all right."
Betty was a decade older than Keely and had three children. Her husband had been missing for fourteen years, yet the woman refused to give up hope. She, like Keely, wouldn't take the legal action herself and have her husband declared dead. They had met several years ago and had served on PROOF committees together and corresponded often. As always Keely was inspired by Betty Allway's undaunted courage.
"Hello, Betty. How are you? The children?"
"We're all fine. You? Was your trip from New Orleans pleasant?"
A startlingly accurate vision of Dax Devereaux flashed through Keely's mind. Her heart did a somersault. "Yes. Uneventful." Liar, she accused herself.
"Are you nervous about tomorrow?'
"Oh, no more than I usually am when I have to face a group of grim congressmen carefully guarding the purse strings of the nation."
Betty laughed good-naturedly. "They couldn't be as intimidating as General Vanderslice. We've been through worse. And you know we all have confidence in you."
"I'll try not to let you down."
"If things don't work out like we want them to, it won't be because of you, Keely. What time should we meet in the morning?"
They made plans to meet in the coffee shop of the hotel and go from there to the conference room in the House of Representatives.
Keely hung up, trying to shrug off the despondency that had suddenly cloaked her, and began peeling off her travel-rumpled clothes. She was down to her underwear when the telephone rang again.
Betty must have forgotten a detail. "Hello," she said for the second time.
"You don't wear a wedding ring."
She gasped softly and clutched the half-slip she was holding in her hand against her body like a shield, as though Dax could see her through the telephone wires.
She collapsed on the bed, her knees refusing to hold her.
"H-how did you know where to find me?'
"I put the CIA on your trail."
"The—"
"Easy, easy," he laughed. "Can't you take a joke? Actually my taxi followed you to the hotel."
She didn't say anything. He completely disarmed her. She was trembling, twirling the cord of her telephone in her fingers, staring at the striped bedspread, dreading the moment she would have to hang up, when she wouldn't be able to hear his soft breath in her ear.
"You haven't commented on my observation," he finally said to break the silence that neither considered uncomfortable.
"What? Oh, you mean about wearing a wedding ring? Yes, I do wear one, only not when I know my hands are going to perspire as they do when I fly. That's why I didn't have it on tonight."
"Oh." He drew in a deep, remorseful breath. "Well, you can't blame a guy for jumping to the wrong, albeit hopeful, conclusion then." When she didn't respond, he asked, "Can you?"
She laughed then, though there was really nothing funny about the situation. "No, I can't blame a guy for jumping to the wrong conclusion. I should have told you right away that I was married."
Another silence hung between them, this one slightly more tense than the last.
"You didn't eat your dinner on the plane. You must be hungry. Why not go out for a bite with me?"
"Dax!"
"Okay. I'm sorry. Perseverance runs in my blood." Another silence.
"I can't go out with you, Dax. Please understand. You do, don't you?" It was suddenly vital to her that he did.
A soft expletive sizzled through the cables followed by a deep sigh. "Yes, unfortunately I do."
"Well…" she paused. What did one say at this point? It's been nice knowing you? See you around sometime? Good luck in your Senate race? What she said was "Good night." It wasn't quite as definite as goodbye.
"Good night."
She sighed regretfully as she replaced the receiver. She could almost hear Nicole screaming in her ear, "Have you lost your ever-lovin' mind?"
If they argued constantly about Keely's involvement in PROOF, it was nothing compared to their go-around about Keely's love life, or more to the point, the lack of one.
Nicole loved men. And they loved her. She went through them with the neglect that most women go through a box of Kleenex; she used and discarded them almost daily. But while she was with one, she loved him without limitation. Her men came in all shapes, sizes, and pedigrees. She adored them all.
How Keely could have stayed faithful to her husband for twelve years was beyond Nicole's comprehension. "My God, Keely. Twelve years of living with one man would be ghastly enough, but twelve years of living with a fond memory is absolutely asinine."
"He's not 'one man.' He's my husband," Keely said patiently.
"If this husband of yours comes home one day, which I hate to say I doubt, do you think you'll pick up where you left off? Come on, Keely. You're more intelligent than that. For godsakes. No telling what he'll have gone through. He won't be the same person you remember. You're not the rosy-cheeked cheerleader any longer either, my friend."
