Authors: Janet Dailey
“Mother, please,” Tamara murmured, because that remark that had once been very close to the truth was now very far from it.
Her mother made an attempt at an understanding smile and let her gaze return to Bick. “Would you like a cup of coffee, Mr. Rutledge?”
“I would like that, thank you,” he said, accepting.
But Tamara was reluctant to leave him alone with her mother. She wavered uncertainly beside the bed, still clutching her mother’s hand in a mute attempt at protection.
“I would like very much to talk to you at a greater length, Mr. Rutledge,” her mother said with concentrated effort. “But I tire easily. Perhaps it would be better if you drank your coffee in the kitchen with Tamara.”
“Of course, Mrs. James.” He agreed to that, too. “It has been … a pleasure meeting you.”
Her mother’s eyelids drifted down in a silent acknowledgment of the polite statement before she looked at Tamara to prompt her into movement. Bick waited to follow her out of the front bedroom through the living room to the kitchen. Sadie eyed them curiously as she passed them to check on her patient.
In the kitchen, Tamara walked directly to the cupboard and took two mugs from the shelf. Fresh coffee was in the chrome-plated percolator and she filled the two cups, keeping the mug
with the chip in it for herself and handing the other to Bick. Turning her back on him, she walked to the white-painted kitchen table and chairs.
“I suppose you still think it was an act, that my mother was faking it,” she accused tightly. “Maybe you’d like to talk to the doctors. I can give you several numbers to call. One for our family doctor, the specialist’s number, his consultant, or maybe—”
“That’s enough,” Bick snapped. “I am already convinced you were telling the truth about your mother.”
“Am I supposed to be grateful?” she challenged, and pulled out a chair to sit at the table.
“You told the truth about your mother, but there’s still that matter about the missing twenty thousand dollars,” he pointed out in sharp reminder.
And now no insurance money to pay it back—and no job. “Yes, I know.” Tamara sighed and cupped both hands around the mug to warm her chilled flesh with its heat. “How am I going to explain this to my mother?” She lifted her gaze to meet his piercing look.
“Tell her you have me wrapped around your little finger. I gave you the day off because I had been making you work so hard,” he jeered, letting her see that his opinion of her intention hadn’t changed. “I don’t know what you’re going to tell her. That’s your problem.”
“What’s going to happen next?”
He moved to stand near her chair. “Do you want me to give you the money?”
“Would you?” A wary hope took the dullness from her blue eyes.
Setting his cup on the table, he put a hand on the back of her chair and the other on the table in front of her and leaned down. “Why should I?” Bick challenged.
“Because … you want to help me.” Considering the low opinion he held for her, there couldn’t be any other reason—not any more. His hard, lean features told her that.
“What would I get out of it?” His hand left the table to curve around her throat and tilt her head back.
Gripped by the throat, she couldn’t elude his mouth when it came down to capture hers and force a deeply passionate kiss that flamed her blood. He freed her lips to draw a breath while his hand slid from her throat to possessively cover the roundness of a breast with his palm.
“Lady, you’d be an expensive lay.” His insolent comment prompted her into slapping his hand away. The action merely drew a smile as Bick straightened. “And what would it accomplish? It might get you out of trouble for the moment, but inside of a month you’d be badly in need of money again. That probably doesn’t concern you, though,” he taunted. “With your beauty, charm, and body, you’ll find yourself another sucker to supply the cash. That insurance policy is a good ploy. Maybe the next guy won’t be smart enough to check on it.”
“I didn’t deliberately lie about that,” she insisted. “I told you I didn’t know my mother had cashed it in.”
“So you said.” His mouth thinned in grim skepticism, and he turned to walk to the door.
Tamara pushed out of her chair. “What are you going to do?”
Bick paused to glance over his shoulder, raking her with his eyes. “That, my sweet, beautiful … witch, is something I haven’t decided yet. It keeps running through my head that embezzlers invariably wind up in prison.” With that, he yanked open the door and walked out of the kitchen, leaving Tamara staring after him in shock.
With the closing of the front door, she collapsed in the chair and buried her head in her hands. What had she done? It had all been so innocent.
“You’re back, Mr. Rutledge.” Mrs. Davies started to rise from her chair when he entered, reaching for the messages that had arrived in his absence.
Bick swept past her desk. “I don’t want to be disturbed—for any reason,” he snapped, and was inside his office with the door closed before his secretary could do more than open her mouth.
He walked to the side of the spacious room opposite his desk where the liquor cabinet stood in a corner. It was well stocked, but seldom used. Breaking the seal on a bottle of Scotch, Bick filled a squat glass, bolted down a swallow, and refilled the glass. In a delayed decision, he took the bottle of Scotch with him when he
walked to the cream-colored sofa and stripped off his suit jacket and tie. He sat down on the plump cushions and propped his long legs on the coffee table in front of him. With almost single-minded determination, Bick set to work to empty the bottle on the table.
A hand tentatively nudged his shoulder. “Mr. Rutledge?” Mrs. Davies’s hesitant voice called his name.
The sound seemed to reverbrate on his eardrums and pound through his heavy head. Bick tried to open his eyes and had to cover them with his hand against the sudden glare of light. His mouth felt coated with thick wool and his stomach threatened to revolt if he moved a fraction of an inch.
“I told you I didn’t want to be disturbed,” he reminded her in a very soft, yet very harsh, voice—but even that jarred him.
“That was yesterday, Mr. Rutledge.”
Bick groaned at the misplaced hours.
Another voice, a man’s, suggested, “You’d better round up a pot of very black coffee, Mrs. Davies. And some aspirin.” Peering through the narrow slit of his lashes, Bick recognized Adam looking down at him with amused sympathy. Mrs. Davies had gone in search of the much-needed remedies. “You really tied one on, didn’t you?” Adam observed.
“Hell, I don’t remember,” Bick muttered.
After three cautiously downed cups of thick black coffee and two aspirin, Bick began to feel
part of the human race. He was aware of his sleep-creased clothes and the dark shadow of a day’s beard growth on his face.
“More coffee?” Adam suggested.
“Yeah.” Bick held out his cup for a refill.
“What’s the problem?” Adam asked, settling back in the chair opposite the sofa.
“How to handle Miss James and her twenty-thousand-dollar loan.” Leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, Bick stared into the black surface of the coffee, the cup held in both hands. “We can’t keep the lid on this much longer. I’m going to be forced to take some kind of action, soon.”
“That bothers you?”
“Yes. Remember the employee that started a black market business with the company’s airline vouchers. The board made sure he got nailed. It’s their policy to be tough and come down hard on any employee caught with his hand in the till.” Bick rubbed his hand over his face, the stubble rasping across his palm. “They make an example of them so nobody else will get similar ideas.”
“In this case, I think you’ll agree there are extenuating circumstances,” Adam replied. “Plus, there is that insurance policy.”
“That’s just it.” He sighed. “There isn’t any insurance policy. She lied about that.”
Adam released a whistling breath. “I see what you mean.”
“I fired her.”
“You had to.”
“The part about her mother was true. I went to the house yesterday.” Bick took a drink of his coffee, but it seemed to have lost its stimulating effect. The dullness was back pounding at his head. “I shudder when I think about a woman as beautiful as she is spending time in prison for embezzlement.”
“It does sound like it was an act of desperation. The courts might take that into consideration and be lenient. She could get off with a suspended sentence and probation.”
“What if she doesn’t?” He set the cup on the table with a thud and pushed impatiently to his feet.
“I don’t suppose there is any way she could raise that much money—a second mortgage on her house or anything like that?”
“The only way she could get her hands on that much money is if I gave it to her.” His grimly angry statement brought a long silence. Even without looking at him, Bick knew Adam was thinking he was a prize fool. “That’s what she’s expecting me to do. The trap is all baited and set, and I’ve already been nibbling.”
“Are you going to?”
“The minute I give her twenty grand, she’s going to need more. Which means she’s just going to pull the same number on somebody else. She’s not only clever; she’s lethal. Beauty and treachery, all in one shapely package.”
“I think she’s just frightened and desperate.”
Bick gave Adam a pitying look. He’d believed that, too, for a little while. “I’m sure she is.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to shower, shave, and change clothes.” He walked toward the door hidden in a wall mural that led to a private bath and dressing room, complete with a closet containing clean shirts and suits. “After that, I’m going to take care of any urgent business Mrs. Davies has for me. Then I’m going to withdraw twenty thousand dollars from my personal bank account and go visit Miss Tamara James.”
“I thought as much,” Adam murmured with a faint smile.
“God knows why I’m doing it,” Bick muttered.
It was after two o’clock when he arrived at Tamara’s house. The nurse, Sadie Kent, answered his knock. Her expression was pinched with disapproval when she recognized him. She blocked the opening with her tall frame and didn’t invite him inside.
“Would you inform Tamara I would like to speak to her for a few minutes?” Bick requested.
“She isn’t here.”
“Why isn’t she? Where did she go?” He snapped out the questions in irritation.
“Ssh, keep your voice down. Mrs. James is resting.” The nurse stepped outside and closed the door to glower at him. “She is still under the impression that Tamara is working for you. Tamara doesn’t want her mother to know she lost her job until she can find another one.”
“Where is she?” Bick repeated.
“Out looking for work.”
“In that case, I’ll just wait here until she comes home.”
The nurse straightened her mouth into a thin line. “Why? Haven’t you brought enough trouble to that girl? Large companies like yours are always gobbling up smaller ones and laying people off. It isn’t right.”
So that was the explanation Tamara had given for losing her job. He might have known she’d come up with a believable story. “I have an offer that I think Tamara will be interested in. May I come inside and wait until she returns?”
“Be quiet, then. Mrs. James is taking her nap and I don’t want her to know you’re here,” the nurse ordered, and opened the door to let him into the house.
When Tamara entered the house a little past three o’clock, Sadie pressed a finger against her lips to indicate her mother was resting and motioned her toward the kitchen. She crossed the room quietly.
“You have a visitor,” Sadie whispered.
Tamara pushed open the door and saw Bick seated at the table, a cup of coffee in front of him. “Any luck with your job hunting?”
“Yes.” She walked to the counter to pour herself a cup. “I’ve been hired as a waitress—for more money as a matter of fact. What are you doing here?” His presence was having a rippling effect on her nerves, spreading a fine tension through her system.
“I came to make you an offer.”
“What kind of an offer?” Had he reconsidered? Was he going to let her have her job back? Hope flared that maybe not all was lost.
“What would you say if I told you I was willing to give you the twenty thousand dollars to repay your … ‘loan.’” He hesitated before the last word to underline it.
Tamara sat down, wondering if this was another one of his cruel jokes. “Are you?”
“As long as you agree to the conditions I make.”
“Which are?” She scanned his expression, but it was a mask for his thoughts.
“In return for the twenty grand, you will become my wife and—”
“What?”
“You heard me.” His mouth slanted, but there wasn’t any humor in the suggestion of a smile.
Her pulse was hammering a thousand beats a minute. She hadn’t misunderstood. He was proposing, but the green of his eyes held no desirous light. There was no warmth in his look.
“Why would you want to marry me?” she questioned warily.
“For a variety of reasons. I feel guilty about letting you run around loose, yet I can’t stand the thought of seeing you in prison,” Bick replied, sliding an indifferent look over her face. “And I want you to move into my house and I don’t think your mother would approve unless there was a marriage license involved. The license will pacify her and I will pacify you by promising to provide for your mother’s comforts and care. I will hire a nurse to live in. You can visit
your mother during the day while I work and spend the nights with me when I’m home. Not the least among my reasons for wanting you as my wife is a desire to have some return for my money.”
She stared at him. The proposal sounded very cold-blooded in a hot-blooded sort of way. “Do you expect me to agree?”
“I don’t think you have any choice.” He smiled at her lazily. “Your loan is paid back. Your mother is cared for. You won’t have to work. All your troubles are over.”
Or just beginning? “I … I don’t know.”
“Naturally I will have a marriage contract drawn up, spelling out what you can expect to receive from me. The ceremony can take place a week from Sunday. Since we are just going through the motions for proprieties sake, we’ll restrict it to the basics.” Bick was talking as if she had already accepted.