To Have And To Hold

“There are a lot of things I’d rather call you,” she remarked, still sizzling under her studied calm.

“Don’t strain yourself.” His dark eyes slid up and down her slender figure. “So I’m too old for you, am I?”

She flushed uncomfortably but stood her ground. “Yes, you are.”

“How old are you?”

“It’s none of your business—but I’m twenty-four,” she replied.

“Touché” he told her. “All right, Burgundy, let’s call it a draw and put up the gloves. I bought this property for a refuge. I don’t want it turned into an armed camp. Pax?”

She eyed him warily. “You started it,” she said defensively.

“I can finish it, too,” he said, the authority in his deep voice arresting. “I’ll ask you once more—pax?”

That or nothing, he didn’t have to say it, it was there in his dark, unsmiling face. She grimaced. “Pax,” she ground out.

“Like pulling teeth, isn’t it?” he asked. “Need a hand?”

She shook her head stubbornly, giving the Doberman a nasty glance as she found her way to the bank, careful not to slip again on the water-polished stones, where the ripples played.

She shifted from one foot to the other in the soft, cushy grass near the tree trunks to dry her toes.

“Suleiman knocked you down, didn’t he?” he asked her.

She nodded. “He didn’t mean to,” she said, defending the big beast sprawled at his master’s feet. “He’s just an overgrown puppy.”

“Come at me with a stick and you’ll see what kind of a ‘puppy’ he is,” he replied flatly. “I’ll walk you home. It’s getting late.”

She studied the hard, leonine face with a curiosity she couldn’t hide. He was used to giving orders, that showed. In experience, much less age, he was by far her superior, and his face was hard with lessons she had yet to learn. She felt a sense of loneliness in those dark deep-set eyes and wondered vaguely if he ever smiled.

“Suit yourself,” he said, taking her silence for protest. He turned, gesturing the dog to his side.

She ran to catch up with him, grimacing as her feet hit sharp bits of bark and twigs. “You are,” she breathed, “the most exasperating man . . . !”

He glanced at her. “You’re not McCallum’s average secretary. Where did he find you?” he asked suddenly.

He had her attention now. “You know him?” she asked excitedly.

“We’ve done business together,” he said easily. “Answer me. How did you get the job?”

“You might ask, instead of making it sound like an order,” she grumbled. “Mr. Richards hired me, promoted me, that is. I’ve been at the engineering offices for the past four years.”

They walked in silence for several steps. “Why are you off men?” he asked suddenly.

Her eyes misted, softened with the memory as she stared blankly straight ahead. “I had a fiance once. He died,” she said gently, in a tone laced with pain and memory and the sweetness of loving.

“When?”

She shrugged. “Well over a year ago, in an airplane crash, two days before the wedding. Isn’t that ironic?” she added with a hollow laugh. She drew a quick breath, and smiled suddenly. “Would it give away any deep, dark secrets if you told me what McCallum looks like? You have seen him, haven’t you?”

She met his quiet gaze and noted with a shock that his eyes were gray, not dark at all. Gray, like water-sparkled crystal in that swarthy face, under those heavy eyelids.

A corner of his mouth went up in a bare hint of amusement, and his eyes seemed to dance. “He’s old and bald and women follow him around like puppies. You didn’t know how close you were to the truth this morning, did you, Burgundy?”

She laughed, the sadness gone from her face. “I thought he might have two noses and wear his head in a bag, and that’s why we never saw him,” she explained.

He chuckled; it was a deep, pleasant sound that made magic in the enchantment of the forest in late afternoon.

She glanced at the pine straw on the ground. “I’m sorry I lost my temper at you. I don’t usually, I’m very even-tempered.”

He studied her face, his expression cool but with none of the wary curiosity that had been in it before. “There’s a reason for the way I was with you,” he told her solemnly. “I’ve been chased too much, and by pros. I’m not a poor man.”

“I thought you were,” she admitted shyly, watching as the house came into view through the trees. “That was a low blow, asking if you were the caretaker, but I was so mad. . . .”

“You thought that?” he asked in disbelief.

She frowned up at him. “Well, your shirt was frayed at the collar, and your car is a rather old Mercedes. . . .”

“My God. That’s a first.”

She turned and stood looking up at him at the edge of the yard. “It’s all the same to me if you live in a palace or a log cabin. I don’t choose my friends by their bank accounts, and don’t think I haven’t had the opportunity.”

His eyes studied her flushed face with a strange intensity. “Yet you spend your time alone, don’t you, Burgundy? No close friends, no socializing . . . don’t you know that you can’t hide from life, little girl?”

Her jaw stiffened. “My life pleases me.”

“It’s your funeral, honey,” he shrugged indifferently.

She glanced at the hedge, a thought nagging the perimeter of her mind. “You said . . . you bought that property?” She frowned. “Does the lady rent it from you?”

“Bess?” He pondered that for a moment. “In a sense.”

“Oh,” she said, accepting the explanation. “Well . . . I’d better go in now. Good night, Cal . . . Cal what?” she asked.

“Forrest,” he replied after a pause. “Good night, Burgundy.”

“My . . . my name is Madeline. Madeline Blainn,” she told him.

His narrow eyes scanned her flushed face with its tiny scattering of freckles. “Burgundy suits you better. Good night,” he called over his shoulder.

She stood at her back porch and watched him until his broad back disappeared through the hedge, the Doberman at his heels.

There was a subtle shift in their relationship after that. She waved to him when they happened to pass, when she was in the yard or driving past his house. And he waved back. There was a comradeship in the simple gestures that puzzled her. She found herself absently looking for her neighbor and his black Mercedes wherever she went. In the grocery store. When she went shopping at one of the sprawling malls. At the theater where she went to an occasional movie. In some strange sense, he represented security to her, although she couldn’t begin to understand why.

On an impulse one Saturday, she baked a deep-dish apple pie and carried it next door, braving his anger at an intrusion he might not want.

“Cal?” she called as she reached the carport, shifting the pie plate in her hands as she tried to find the source of the metallic noises coming from there. “Where are you?”