If Jared hadn’t been there, Steven would have hugged Wyatt, but he knew what the reaction would be. And he wasn’t up to, “Puleeez, Dad, yuck. Don’t do that.”
“So what’s going on?” Steven asked as he glanced at the radio.
“Oh, nothing,” Wyatt said and darted a look at Jared. The other boy grabbed the radio and pushed it to one side, next to the football phone on the rumpled covers.
“You were listening to Dr. Love?”
“Oh, no, no, not that stuff,” Wyatt said with a distasteful grimace. “We just turned on the radio and that’s where it was. We were going to try and find some music and stuff.”
“Bishop told me you wanted to talk to me.”
Wyatt looked pointedly at Jared. “You said you wanted to call your mom, didn’t you, Jared?”
Jared looked blank, then, “Oh, yeah, my mom.” He scooted back and off the bed. “I’ll call her from the phone downstairs in the study.”
He ran for the door. When it closed behind Jared, Steven said, “Okay, what’s going on?”
Wyatt sank back on his heels. “I was just thinking about not going on that skiing trip.”
Steven had been afraid that was what this was all about. “Wyatt, I told you—”
“I know. You’re too busy with work. But I was thinking, like, what if I came to see you at work or something sometimes? You know, just come down to the office, or if you’ve got business to go to, maybe I could go with you?”
Steven knew he’d been slightly off-balance all evening because of Madison, but now his son was blindsiding him. “I don’t understand.”
“You know, if you have to work late, maybe I could come down there and see you work and we could have dinner at the office or go to some place if you have to have a dinner meeting. You know, stuff like that?”
Steven looked at Wyatt and realized how easy it was to love this boy. And how much he really missed him when he had to be gone. “You’d really like that?”
“Yeah, and I could learn all about the business, then maybe I could help out sometime. And when I get bigger, I could work for you or take over for you so you could rest when you get old.”
Steven smiled as he touched Wyatt’s chin. “I’ve always thought that someday York Enterprises would be yours...when I get old.”
“So I need to learn all I can, don’t I, and you can tell me all the stuff, can’t you?”
“Sure,” Steven said and pulled Wyatt to him into a bear hug.
Without Jared there, Wyatt hugged him back and said in a muffled voice, “Then we can be together, can’t we?”
“You bet we can,” Steven said as he drew back and smoothed Wyatt’s hair. “Now it’s time for you to get some sleep.”
“Why don’t you tell me what you did today?”
“Okay. I worked on a few projects, and went to see a company we’re thinking of buying.” That simplified a day that had been anything but simple. “I was checking into it and seeing how it works.”
“Like that time you went to work building boats?”
“They were yachts, Wyatt.”
“Is it like that, you working for them?”
“Actually, it is. I’m going back out soon to meet with someone involved in the company to see how things work.”
Wyatt scrambled off the bed and stood in front of Steven. “Good, I’ll come along. I can—”
“No, you can’t. You need to get into bed and get some sleep. This isn’t the sort of meeting where you can be there.”
“But you said that—”
“I said you could come to the office, and if it’s appropriate, you can go to meetings with me. But this isn’t the time to do that.”
The door opened and a very sober Jared walked into the room followed by Bishop. “I found him wandering around downstairs,” the big man said as Steven stood.
“He was going to call his mother.”
“I told you,” Jared said to Bishop before he darted for the bed and scrambled up onto it.
“Everything’s all right, then, sir?” Bishop asked.
“Just fine.” He turned back to Wyatt. “We’ll talk later. Okay?”
Wyatt nodded and got back into bed by Jared. “Okay.”
Jared and Wyatt settled in the bed, but when Jared tugged the covers up, the radio and phone fell to the floor. Both boys froze as the big man crossed, picked them up and put them on the nightstand. He glanced at Wyatt and Jared, then strode across the room to the door and left without another word.
When the door closed behind Bishop, Steven looked at the boys. “Are you boys having problems with Bishop?”
Both shook their heads. “No, sir,” they said.
“Good, now get some sleep.”
He turned and strode to the door, but as he reached for the light switch to flip it off, Wyatt called after him, “Dad?”
He looked back at his son in the huge bed. “Yes?”
“Can we can have breakfast tomorrow morning, and you can tell me what you’re doing and when I can come down to the office?”
“Sure,” he said, then turned off the light and left, closing the door behind him.
He stood in the silent hallway by the door for a long moment, trying to figure out what was going on with Wyatt. Then he heard Wyatt speaking in a low voice to Jared.
“Come on, the coast is clear.”
There was a muffled sound of movement, then the sound of Madison’s voice was there again.
“...and if it seems that you’re alone, reach out to others. Work at shelters for the homeless or sign up as a volunteer at one of our hospitals. Don’t be alone. Reach out and touch someone. Let them know how important they are to you.”
Steven moved away from the door and the sound of her voice. He’d go back downtown to work for a while, and he wouldn’t go to the station until he had to.
* * *
The Fourth Day of Christmas
AT TEN MINUTES after midnight, Madison left the broadcast booth to head down to her office. Distracted by the anticipation of having to deal with Steven again, she wasn’t looking up, and when she turned left to go to the elevator, she ran right into someone.
She stumbled back, but was stopped from falling by hands gripping her shoulders. When she looked up to apologize, she found herself gazing into hazel eyes. In that moment she felt as if she’d been thrown back in time to Harrington’s earlier that evening.
But it wasn’t that scene by the elevators that flooded over her right then. It was later, after they’d stopped dancing, when Steven had kissed her. And she cursed the fact that just his touch on her shoulders could bring that all back to her.
When she realized her hands were pressed to the fine material of his overcoat, she drew back and he let her go, breaking all direct contact. Nervously, she swiped at her hair and took an unsteady step backward to build a much-needed buffer between the two of them.
The pills Ron had given her had actually started to work during the broadcast, easing the tightness in her muscles and letting her relax just a bit. But she knew that if she stayed around this man for very long, no pills would help the tension that he built in her.
“Don’t you ever watch where you’re going?” he asked with a lift of his dark eyebrow.
Chapter Seven
Madison fought the urge to rub her hands together to dispel the feeling of him against her palms that lingered despite everything. “If you wouldn’t get in my way, I wouldn’t run into you,” Madison muttered.
“I’ll remember that.”
“And what are you doing up here?”
“Ron told me where the studio was, and I thought I’d just come on up and save some time.”
She felt a bit of relief to hear Ron mentioned. “If he’s still here, let’s go down to his office and have the meeting there.” She turned and started for the service elevator at the end of the hall. “He knows what’s going on and what he wants.”
Steven fell in step beside her, not touching her, but that didn�
��t stop her being aware of every time his arm swung by hers. “He probably does, but he was on his way out when I ran into him. He said he’d talk to you tomorrow.”
“Great,” she muttered as she got to the elevator. Before she could jab the Down button by the doors, someone called down the hall. “Madison?”
She turned and saw Donny Morgan, one of the guys who answered the phones and worked as a part-time director for the show. He was leaning out of the studio door waving at her. A blond man with pale lashes and brows, a ruddy complexion and a penchant for wearing tank tops even in the dead of winter, he had a voice that could carry a mile. And right now it echoed down the deserted hallway.
“What is it?” she called back.
“I forgot to tell you that the kid, John, called in during the first hour, but he couldn’t hold on. He asked me to let you know his friend’s trying what you said to do and he thinks it’s going to work.”
“Is he going to call back?”
“Don’t know. He didn’t say.”
“Thanks for telling me.”
“Sure thing,” Donny said, then slipped back into the studio.
Madison exhaled and had almost forgotten Steven until she heard him ask, “You’ve got kids calling in?”
“Not usually.” She shook her head. “But this kid called last night, and I was hoping he’d call back.”
“What’s his problem?”
She looked up at Steven. “He says he was calling for a friend, but it was for him. He just wants to have his father pay attention to him. It’s hard sometimes, talking to people, then never knowing what happens to them.”
“The price of being a celebrity instead of a real doctor?”
Why had she told him anything? She turned away and pressed the Down button, then when the doors slid open, she got into the car. As she turned to press the button for the third floor, she said, “Oh, I’m a real doctor. But I’m hardly a celebrity.”
She kept her eyes down when she realized that she and Steven were reflected side by side in the polished metal doors.
“And I was just thinking of asking for an autograph,” he murmured.
She didn’t know if he was being sarcastic or not, and she wasn’t going to chance looking at him to find out. “I don’t give autographs or interviews or do other talk shows.”
“There’s no ego involved?”
“Oh, there’s ego with everyone. The ego of being a success or making a difference. Probably of helping people. And that’s what we want to do.” The elevator stopped and the doors opened. “This program is to help, not make me a star in any sense of the word.”
She walked out into the hallway to go to her office and Steven was right by her. “Is that why there aren’t any pictures of you around here, because you’re trying to stay in the background, to just be a voice?”
“Partly,” she admitted as she neared her door. “But mainly because I take a terrible picture.”
“I don’t buy that,” he murmured as she opened the door to her office and stepped into the small, softly lit room.
“It’s true,” she said as she turned and looked at Steven in the doorway. “My office. We can talk in here.”
He touched either side of the doorjamb with each hand and leaned forward to look inside without actually entering the room. He glanced around, then back at her. “Nice. The cartoons are an eccentric touch.”
“They’re cells and they’re collector’s items. A good investment.” She didn’t want to talk about cartoons with him, when all she wanted was to get this over with. “Are you coming in?”
“I was thinking we might go out and get something to drink while we talk.”
She looked at him in the doorway, his very presence dwarfing the already small space. And she knew that being in here with him would be like embracing a time bomb. Going out seemed like a very good idea to her at that moment. “Sure. That sounds fine.” She turned to go to the desk. “I just need to get my purse.”
“Unless your car got emergency CPR, we can take mine. It’s in the parking garage downstairs.”
Her hand touched the leather of her shoulder bag, but when Steven spoke, she didn’t pick it up. She stood with her back to him, trying to remember if there was anyplace within walking distance from the station that was open this late.
She remembered the last time she’d been in his car, and the way she’d almost felt each breath he took. Repeating that wasn’t the most comfortable idea she’d had lately. She picked up her purse, and as she slipped the strap over her shoulder she turned back to him, thankful that half of the office was separating the two of them. “The Mustang’s dead for a while. It needs rewiring and the carburetor rebuilt.” She couldn’t think of any alternative to the car or the office. “Where did you want to go?”
He shrugged as his hands fell to his sides and he drew back. “It’s your money. You choose.”
The only place she could think of right then was probably ten minutes away from here. She could do ten minutes if she had to. “The Lame Duck’s open all night. It’s down by the bay on—”
“I know where it is,” he said. “It sounds fine. Are you ready to go?”
“Ready,” she murmured and crossed to the door to leave.
Steven drew back into the corridor so she could go out and close the door without being in any danger of contact with him. As she started toward the freight elevator again, he spoke by her side. “Don’t you ever take the other elevators?”
“Sure, if I want to go to the lobby and go past the security guard and walk a mile to get to my car.” She got to the elevator and hit the Down button. “This one takes you right to the garage.”
“Don’t pass go, don’t collect two hundred dollars?”
The doors opened and she stepped inside with him. As she turned and hit the button for the garage, she said, “No, you don’t pass the lobby and you don’t waste time.”
When the doors shut, she stared determinedly at the floor buttons and saw them flash on and off as the car glided down.
“So do you think I could pass as your husband?” Steven asked.
That was when she made a major mistake. Without thinking, she turned to him, and he smiled at her. The easy expression exposed a faint dimple at the corner of his mouth, and his eyes crinkled as they narrowed. The sight rocked Madison. If she’d thought he’d been attractive before, she knew he was devastating now. And her neck and shoulders tightened even more, feeding the throb behind her eyes.
“The Kincaids have never seen my husband, so there’s no way they’d know what he looked like,” she said, thankful when the elevator stopped and she could get out of the close confines.
As she stepped out into the parking garage, the cold air hit her through the thin silk of her blouse and she realized that she’d totally forgotten to get her jacket when they’d been in her office. She hesitated, weighing her options of going back upstairs, or just making the best of it and get this over with as quickly as she could.
She knew she didn’t have a choice, not really. She saw the Jaguar parked in a visitor’s slot across the garage near the other elevator doors and she started for it. Steven walked beside her, his leather-soled shoes making faint clicking sounds that echoed in the concrete-walled structure.
“They’ve never met Mr. Dr. Love?”
“No,” she said and kept walking.
“How about you? Have you ever met these people?”
“Never.”
“No big party for sponsors or affiliates that Kincaid might have attended?”
“None,” she said as she got to the sleek black car and went to the passenger door. As she reached for the handle, Steven leaned around her and his hand covered hers on the cold metal.
That contact felt like the final straw and she jerked back sharply, almost bumping into Steven before she turned and moved back from him. He stood very still, staring at her intently, and she felt foolish. He’d been going to open the door for her. That was all. But she knew that
she didn’t want to feel his skin touch hers. Not when it felt as if he could brand her with that contact.
“You don’t have to do that,” she muttered as she lifted a hand to press the tips of her fingers to her right temple.
His eyes narrowed. “Do what?”
“Open doors. Stand when I come into the room, or lay your coat across a mud puddle for me.”
The smile was there again, yet this time it was more wry, but no less disturbing. “Okay, I promise I’ll never lay my coat on a puddle for you. But I might open a door or two. It’s a habit.”
“Part of the job?”
“Manners,” he said as he turned from her to open her door.
“Listen, I—”
“Go ahead,” he said as he turned back to her, no trace of the smile evident now. “It won’t cost you any more money for a simple courtesy.”
She slipped into the car quickly and the door closed with a muffled slam. Then Steven circled the Jaguar, got in behind the wheel and, when he started the engine, the heater gently blew warm air into the interior. The heat was very welcome to Madison, but she couldn’t relax and enjoy it. She sat against the door, her eyes straight ahead as he headed to the exit ramp.
They drove out of the parking garage onto the foggy midnight streets that were adorned with the muffled glow of Christmas decorations. The ten minutes Madison had estimated to get to the restaurant was sharply rethought when she saw how thick the fog was. The car couldn’t go much faster than a crawl, and the longer they drove in silence, the more her headache grew.
When Steven finally spoke in the silence, the sound of his voice startled Madison. “How can you be so sure the Kincaids don’t know what your husband looks like?”
Right then the neon sign for The Lame Duck emerged from the foggy night in the distance. “Trust me, they don’t have a clue what he looks like.”
“The mysterious Mr. Dr. Love,” he murmured.
She refused to look at him again, choosing to watch the restaurant getting closer and closer. “There’s the restaurant.” She pressed her hand on her purse and felt the shape of the pill bottle in it. She was going to take a couple more pills when she got inside to see if they were as effective when the source of her tension was close by.
The Christmas Husband Page 9
