by Janet Dailey
“Luke asked me to come.” She saw that he was tall, easily over six feet.
“He did?” He puzzled over that for an instant, then his face lit up. “Is Luke here? Did she bring him?”
“No.” Delaney guessed that by “she,” he meant Susan. “Luke won’t be here until tomorrow. I’m Delaney Wescott.” She stepped forward and extended her hand. “What’s your name?”
He hesitated, then rubbed his hand on his jeans before grabbing hers and pumping it up and down in a vigorous shake. “Toby.” He beamed. “My name is Toby Williams.”
“I’m glad to meet you, Toby Williams.” She studied this man-boy, wondering why Susan hadn’t mentioned him.
He released her hand. “Are you a friend of Luke’s?”
“Not really. I work for him.”
“I get to work, too,” he asserted, pushing out his chest in a way that dared her to doubt him.
“I’ll bet you do good work, too.”
Just for an instant, the light went out of his eyes and the corners of his mouth were pulled down. “Harry gets mad at me sometimes. He says I’m slow. But Luke says it’s all right if I’m slow ’cause it means I’m careful.”
“I think I agree with Luke,” Delaney said. “I noticed how carefully you were pulling those weeds a minute ago.”
“You have to be careful or you’ll hurt the flowers. I like to take care of the flowers. I like to grow things and Luke lets me.”
“I like to grow things, too.”
“I don’t like it when things die,” he said with unexpected seriousness. “I don’t want anything to die.”
“Nobody does, Toby—” Before she could say more, she was cut off by the sound of Susan calling for her. “I’m over here,” Delaney answered.
A second later, Susan came into view, a breezy smile on her lips. “There you are. I—” She froze when she saw Toby, her face paling. “How did you get here?”
Stunned by the harshness in the woman’s voice, Delaney stared at her for an instant, then turned to Toby. His head was downcast, his glance uncertain.
“Harry came and got me,” he said. “It’s my vacation. Luke said I could come.”
“Where’s Harry?” she snapped. “He’s supposed to be watching you.”
There was a heaving shrug of his big shoulders. “He’s around somewhere.”
“Go find him. Now.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He hung his head a little lower and turned to leave.
Delaney couldn’t let him go like that. “I’ll see you around, Toby. Okay?”
He nodded once, glumly. “See ya.”
She waited until she thought he was out of hearing, then turned to Susan, anger simmering just below the surface. “Was it necessary to be so sharp with him? He wasn’t doing anything wrong.”
“I quite agree. Luke is the one doing wrong by taking him out of that home,” she retorted. “He should leave him there. That’s where he belongs—with his own kind.” She shuddered and rubbed at her arms. “He makes my skin crawl,” she said and shot a quick look at Delaney. “I know that’s a terrible thing to say and a terrible thing to feel—but I can’t help it.”
The anger Delaney had felt an instant ago dissipated. “What’s Toby’s problem? Do you know?” she asked instead.
“You mean other than having the mentality of a seven-year-old?” Susan countered with caustic flippancy. “No, I don’t know the cause of his condition. I don’t see that it matters. That’s the way he is. Nothing can be done about it.”
Delaney fell in step with her. “What’s Toby’s connection to Mr. Wayne?”
Her answer was a quick closed-lipped look, then, “That’s something you’ll have to ask Luke.”
Which seemed a polite way of saying it was none of her business. Which, of course, it wasn’t. Still, Delaney couldn’t help being curious. She wouldn’t have guessed that the Lucas Wayne she met in New York was the type who befriended the mentally handicapped. Obviously there was another side to the man she hadn’t seen. She thought she had learned not to accept surface impressions after her experience with Jared.
Jared. Why had she let herself think about him?
She forced her thoughts away from him. “Why did you come looking for me, Susan?”
The woman seemed grateful for the change of subject. “I finished my list and wondered how much longer you were going to be.”
“I think I’m finished.” Was she? Delaney wasn’t sure. She was letting herself become distracted by too many other things when she needed to concentrate on the job at hand.
“In that case, shall we go?”
“Sure.” Delaney absently rubbed her fingers along her temple.
Susan observed the action. “Headache?”
“A pounding one,” she admitted on a sigh. “I’ve had it ever since I got up this morning. I took some aspirin, but they seem to have worn off.”
“Altitude sickness…”
“Pardon?”
“Headaches, insomnia, shortness of breath, nausea, heart palpitations, they’re all symptoms of what we call ‘altitude sickness,’ caused by the reduced humidity and oxygen content in our air,” Susan explained. “It will take your body a couple days to adjust to the change in altitude. In the meantime, drink plenty of fluids, stay away from alcohol, and don’t overdo it.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Delaney remembered the drink she’d planned to have in the Jerome Bar tonight. “Sorry, Dad,” she murmured.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
From the house on Red Mountain, Susan took Delaney back to the Hotel Jerome and dropped her off. Twenty minutes later, Delaney met with a real estate agent and toured three different condominium complexes to check out the two-bedroom units that were available for rent. Another hour was spent getting leases drawn up for two of the units.
It was the middle of the afternoon before Delaney returned to the hotel—time enough for her to pick up her messages, have her rental car brought around by the parking valet, and drive to the airport to pick up Vance Hummel and John Wyatt, the other two members of her Aspen security team.
As soon as their luggage was loaded, she took them straight to the condo they would be sharing and briefed them on the next day’s schedule, then left for the hotel.
Sunset’s last vermilion streaks were fading from the sky when she returned to the hotel. The checkout time had long since passed. She was grateful for that. She was too tired, too exhausted to face the thought of packing and moving into the condo that night. She much preferred the thought of taking two aspirin and falling into bed.
As she passed the front desk, she heard piano music coming from the lobby’s parlor grand. Agile fingers picked out a happy ragtime tune. She sent a glaring look at the offending piano player, then stiffened to an abrupt halt. Jared was seated at the parlor grand, his eyes watching her.
She tightened her grip on the shoulder strap of her purse. It wasn’t fair for him to show up now. It wasn’t fair when she was so tired she couldn’t think straight. It wasn’t fair that she had to go through this again.
When he stood up, Delaney didn’t have the strength to turn and walk away. When he walked toward her, some crazy part of her mind registered the fact that he’d exchanged his Levi’s and denim jacket for a pair of tan slacks and a corduroy jacket, the same dark chocolate brown as his lizardskin boots.
“What are you doing here, Jared?” Her voice sounded as brittle as she felt.
“I had to see you again. Talk to you.”
“We have nothing more to talk about.” It was impossible to meet his eyes without feeling that old tug of attraction.
“I think we do,” he replied quietly but insistently. “We had something, Delaney. We had something special.”
“Surely you don’t think we can pick up where we left off,” she said, not so much in exasperation as in desperation.
“No, I don’t think that. But I do think we could start fresh.”
She looked at him, conscious of the sting of tears at the back of her eyes. “Don’t do this, Jared.”
He shook his head slowly. Under the light of the lobby’s chandelier, his hair was the color of dark mountain honey mixed with sunshine. “A chance, that’s all I’m asking.”
“No.” But she was weakening and she knew it. All her fine resolve was disappearing. She tried to blame it on her weariness—the altitude—anything but the fact that she wanted to be vulnerable, she wanted to be convinced they could find what they had lost.
“At least hear me out.”
She hesitated a moment longer, than nodded tiredly. “All right. Talk.”
“Not here. There are too many people and too many walls.” His hand was at her elbow, guiding her to the door. Delaney started to argue, then checked the impulse. She had agreed to talk; what did it matter if it was inside or out?
Outside the hotel, he turned down the street. Dusk was settling, thickening over the high valley town. The walling mountains loomed ever darker as the translucent, milk-white globes of the old-time street lamps came on. A high-riding four-wheel-drive pickup stood by itself at the curb, its black sides spattered with mud. Jared steered her to it. His hand shifted to the sensitive small of her back as he reached in front of her and opened the passenger door.
She hesitated briefly, long enough to meet the serious light in his eyes, then stepped onto the running board and climbed into the truck’s cab. She had no idea where he was taking her, but she wasn’t about to ask.
Nor did Jared volunteer when he swung into the driver’s seat. He simply started the engine, glanced in his side mirror to check for traffic, then made a U-turn—an illegal one, Delaney was sure—to head down the street in the opposite direction.
On the outskirts of town, a highway sign listed the number of miles to Independence Pass, Twin Lakes, and Leadville. Then the lights of town were left behind them. For a time, there was a scattering of houselights winking through the trees and glittering from the dark slopes on either side of the road. Gradually, even they disappeared.
Delaney watched the track of the beams as they picked out the road’s twists and curves. They were climbing, winding ever higher. She kept her eyes on the road, never looking at Jared, but conscious of him in her peripheral vision.
He didn’t say a word. There was only the rush of the wind around the truck’s cab, the hum of the tires on the paved road, and the low drone of the engine to break the silence. A silence that wore on nerves already frayed by tiredness and the pounding in her head.
Finally she couldn’t take it anymore. “How long before we get to wherever it is we’re going?”
“Soon.”
“I suppose you’re taking me to your ranch.”
“No.” His gaze never left the road. “If I took you to the ranch, I’d want to take you to my bed. I think we both know it’s too soon for that.”
Delaney wished he hadn’t said that. She wished he hadn’t reminded her of those incredible moments they’d shared in each other’s arms. It was better to remember the pain than the joy she’d felt.
Rounding a curve, Jared slowed the pickup, then pulled over onto a wide layby. The headlights tunneled into night’s nothingness, then blinked off and the engine stopped, encapsulating the truck in a dark silence.
Without saying a word, Jared climbed out of the cab and came around to the passenger side. Her door swung open under his hand. Delaney hesitated, then stepped out. He met her questioning glance briefly, then moved off, his boots crunching on the mixture of gravel and hard-packed earth with each step.
He halted short of that lip of blackness, his body angled away from her, his gaze directed at the nightscape. Delaney started to follow him, then checked the action, realizing she preferred to keep her distance, even if it was symbolic.
Instead she let her gaze follow his and inspect the view. A crescent moon cast a pale light at the earth, letting the deep indigo sky sparkle with its dusting of stars—stars that looked close enough to reach out and touch. Slowly, as her eyes became adjusted to the absence of brightness, she could make out the jagged peaks of the surrounding mountains, the valley meadow far below, and the quicksilver gleam of a stream running through it.
Gradually, too, the land’s vast silence came alive and she could hear the sigh of the wind, the whisper of something moving in the grasses, the whirr of a bird’s wings, even the faint, fragmented murmurings of water tumbling over rocks…soft sounds, soothing sounds.
His voice came to her quietly, easily blending with the hush. “You said you weren’t the same woman. But some things never change, like the mountains and the moonlight.”
She heard his sigh and saw his head tip to look at the moon. “I swear I thought you knew I was married. I thought I’d told you, Delaney. Then…later, when you didn’t mention it, I couldn’t either. It didn’t belong—it wasn’t a part of what we shared.”
He swiveled his shoulders toward her, his gaze seeking hers, the moonlight bronzing the line of his jaw. He was telling her the truth. This time she believed him. Yet she couldn’t say that. She couldn’t say a word.
“It was heaven and hell being with you, Delaney!” he continued slowly. “It was hell knowing I had no right to want you, hell trying to figure out how something so wrong could feel so right. I loved you and I think you loved me, even though we never said it. I’m not sure I even admitted it to myself, not until I had to learn to live without you.”
He made it sound as if he was the only one who’d gone through pain. Didn’t he realize it had been worse for her? He had known he was married. She hadn’t. She curled her fingers into her palms, digging nails into her flesh.
“Do you remember what you said at dinner about a man’s honor and the guilt he’d feel if he violated it?” Jared paused, waiting for her response. She didn’t make any, not even a short, sharp nod of her head. “It was true. When I came back here to Colorado, guilt made me try twice as hard to make my marriage work. It didn’t. It couldn’t. Whether I’d met you or not, it would have failed.”
She didn’t want to hear about his marriage. She didn’t want to hear any of this. Dear God, why had she come with him? She caught back a pained breath, conscious of the burning in her lungs and her throat.
He turned fully around. “After the divorce was final, I wanted to tell you. I don’t know how many letters I wrote to you—and never mailed. Once, when I was in Los Angeles to meet with the detectives looking for Kelly, I even called, but I hung up before anyone answered.”
Delaney listened and tried not to think, not to feel, not to notice he was moving closer.
“But there wasn’t a day or night that I didn’t think about you.” His voice was still pitched low, but with a huskiness to it that was like a caress. He was close enough that she could see the leashed hunger in his eyes.
“And not a day or night went by, Delaney, that I didn’t fantasize about how you’d react when you found out I wasn’t married anymore. Sometimes I imagined that you wouldn’t say a word, but there would be tears in your eyes, tears of happiness as you hurtled into my arms. Other times you’d be angry because I hadn’t come to tell you before—angry over the days and nights we wasted. I even imagined that you’d slap me, call me names. But always, you wound up in my arms. Then today, this morning on the street…I never imagined the coolness you showed me, I never imagined you’d tell me goodbye and walk away. Why, Delaney? Didn’t I mean as much to you as you meant to me? Or were you afraid I’d hurt you again?”
She couldn’t answer him, finding it equally impossible to lie or admit the truth. His questions hung in the air between them, the moment and the tension stretching until he broke under it, the words exploding from him in a violent rush.
“Dammit, say something, Delaney. Hit me or kiss me or tell me to go to hell, but don’t just stand there!”
Before it was over, she did all three as she raised her balled hands and brought them down on his chest, intending to pound at him, b
ut the instant she touched him, her fingers curled into the corduroy of his jacket. She bowed her head and swore at him, pushing the words through clenched teeth. “Damn you, Jared. Damn you to hell!” Then her hands were around his neck and her mouth rising up to claim his, angrily, fiercely, and soon…desperately.
Confused, uncertain, she dragged her lips from his and lowered her forehead against his shoulder, drawing her arms to wedge a space between them. She felt the raggedness of his breath against her, the heavy pounding of his heart beneath her hands.
“I’m not sure about this, Jared,” she whispered tightly.
His arms loosened as he pressed a kiss against her hair, then pulled back. “I’m sure.” He slowly rubbed his palms up and down her arms, keeping his fingers spread, while his warm gaze moved over the face she finally raised to him. “I’m sure that I want to discover all the ways you’ve changed and grown—and all the ways you haven’t. I’m sure that I want this chance to know you again.”
He made it sound so easy, so safe. She closed her eyes, trying to fight the pull of his words. “I’m in Aspen on a job, Jared. I’ll be tied up a lot. Busy.”
“I’ll take whatever time you’ll give me,” he said. “Not many people get a second chance, Delaney. I can’t make you give us that chance, but I can ask. And I’m asking, Delaney—will you?”
“I need time, Jared. The last time I leaped without looking. I won’t do that again. It hurt too much when I crashed.”
“I know,” he said.
“Will you take me back to the hotel?”
Nodding agreement, he turned her toward the black pickup.
The ride back to the Jerome was made in silence. This time Delaney welcomed it as she leaned her head back, resting it against the seat, and closed her eyes to sort through the tumble of feelings, old and new. By the time they reached the hotel, she had been only moderately successful.
In typical gentlemanly fashion, Jared walked her to her room. “Will you be staying at the Jerome while you’re here?” He took the room key from her and unlocked the door.
