Rivals Read online

  “No.” His gaze wandered over her face as if intent on memorizing every detail. Then he bent his head, his mouth brushing over her lips before settling onto them with a driving need that had her leaning into him, supported by the encircling crush of his arms. She felt an edge of desperation somewhere—whether from her or from him, she couldn’t tell. But it was there, a part of this desire to be absorbed wholly into one another. When the strain for closeness became too much, his mouth rolled off her cheek to the lobe of her ear, his breathing as heated and heavy as her own. “How long have we known each other?” he murmured.

  She had to think—which wasn’t easy when all she wanted to do was feel. “Three weeks.”

  He lifted his head, framing her face in his hands. “Yet I can’t imagine my life without you in it.”

  “I know. I feel the same.” She was a little surprised by how easy it was to admit that.

  “Are you certain of your feelings as I am?”

  She searched and found not a trace of doubt. “Yes.”

  “Then marry me. Now. Today.”

  If she had bothered to try, she could have come up with a dozen valid reasons not to rush into another marriage. But none of them—not the short time she’d known Chance, not her career—was strong enough, singly or combined, to override the fact that she loved him and, more importantly, he loved her.

  “Yes,” she said simply.

  “You’re certain.” He studied her closely. “I know women like to have big, elaborate weddings. If you want to wait for that—”

  “No.” She shook her head, as much as his cupping hands would allow. “I’ve had the white satin gown and veil before. I don’t care about the trimmings this time, Chance. Your love is more than enough.”

  “I do love you, Flame,” he stated firmly. “Promise you’ll remember that.”

  “Only if you promise to remind me,” she teased.

  “I’m serious, Flame. I’ve made my share of enemies over the years. No matter what anyone might tell you about me, I do love you. And I intend to go on loving you for the rest of my life.”

  “Darling, I’m going to hold you to that—and to me, for the rest of our lives,” she declared confidently, joyously.

  Sid Barker kept the pay telephone pressed tightly to his ear as he mopped away the perspiration on his forehead and upper lip with his already sodden handkerchief. Damn this tropical heat, he thought, and wished for a tall, cold beer. At the continued silence on the line, he started to swear at the Mexican operator for not putting his call through, then he heard the muted brrring on the other end, answered immediately by a familiar voice.

  “Yeah, it’s Barker,” he said and darted a quick glance at the door not ten feet away. “I managed to locate them in Mexico—finally. But you’ve got a problem. I’m here at some sort of government building—and they just got married.” He anticipated the shocked and angry response he received—and the doubt. “It’s true, I swear. I was standing close enough I could have been a witness…. How could I stop it?” he shot back in sharp defense. “I didn’t know what was going on until it was too late. I thought he was just taking her on a little sight-seeing tour of the village to show her how the other half lived—the ones who clean his expensive hotel rooms and wait on his rich guests.” The resentment faded as his voice grew more thoughtful. “Maybe I should have guessed something was up when I got word his private jet had taken off. Less than three hours later, it was back. I figure now that he had them pick up a ring for her. You should see the rock she’s wearing.” There was movement at the door as a pair of beaming government officials escorted the newlyweds out of the room. Barker cupped his mouth to the receiver, speaking in a hushed rush. “They’re coming out now. I’ve gotta go.”

  Without waiting for a reply, he hung up and walked briskly from the building to his rental car, guarded by a pair of enterprising Mexican boys.

  The heavy damask drapes at the bedroom windows were partially closed, shutting out much of the afternoon sunlight. Maxine paused inside the doorway, struck by the unnatural stillness in the room. Unconsciously she held her own breath as she listened for the sounds of breathing on the ornately carved four-poster. The pink satin of her quilted bed jacket trimmed with eyelet lace emphasized the pallor of her crepey skin, pinched and gray with pain. Pity swept through Maxine, followed by an instant hardening. Hattie Morgan was getting just what she deserved.

  Moving silently, the thick rubber soles of her sturdy work shoes making little sound on the hardwood floor, Maxine approached the huge bed that dominated the small room. Hattie had slept in this room ever since she’d left the cradle more than eighty years ago, even though the spacious master bedroom right next door had gone unused for more than sixty of those years. Maxine had always wondered at that.

  She glanced hesitantly at the woman, then picked up the brown plastic container of prescription pills from the nightstand. She checked the capsules inside, trying to decide how many, if any, were gone.

  “You’re always snooping around, aren’t you?” The caustic accusation shattered the stillness.

  Maxine turned toward the bed. “I thought you were resting.” With forced calm, she set the container back down on the nightstand.

  “Then what are you doing in here?” A glaze of pain clouded the usually sharp eyes. “I heard the phone ring. Who was it?”

  “Mr. Canon. He’s still on the line. But I didn’t want to disturb you if—”

  Hattie released a scornfully loud breath of disbelief and held out an age-gnarled hand. “Give me the phone, then leave the room.” With lips pressed tightly together, Maxine lifted the phone from the nightstand and placed it on the bed next to Hattie, then turned away. She stiffened in resentment at Hattie’s parting shot: “And I’m not so drugged that I won’t be able to tell if you listen in on the extension.”

  As the housekeeper moved away from the bed, all Hattie could see was a shadowy dark figure. She could feel the excruciating pressure at the back of her eyes obscuring her vision. She was frightened by it and the dimness of her new world. As she waited to hear the door close behind Maxine, she wondered which was the hardest to bear—the pain or the fear. Interminable moments passed before Hattie heard the distinctive click of the downstairs extension being hung up. She felt for the telephone beside her, fingers closing around the receiver and lifting it to her ear.

  “Yes, Ben, what is it?” She spoke harshly, fighting to keep the inner panic at bay.

  “They’re here in Tulsa,” came the reply. “He brought her back with him.”

  “It’s true then,” she said, her voice strained by the fervent hope he would deny it.

  “Yes. She married him.”

  “She promised me—” Hearing the frantic edge in her voice, Hattie abruptly broke off the rest of the sentence, realizing it no longer mattered what Margaret Rose had promised her. “We’ll just have to see what we can do about it, won’t we?” she said with forced bravery.

  “Right,” Ben Canon replied, an offer of encouragement in the response.

  A few minutes later he rang off and the line went dead. Briefly Hattie felt that way inside as she hung up the phone. But she couldn’t quit. She couldn’t let Stuart win, not when she’d fought so long and so hard—not when she’d come so close. She groped for and found the old-fashioned bell pull next to the bed. She yanked on it impatiently and called, “Maxine. Maxine!”

  Almost immediately she heard the muted sound of running footsteps in the hall outside her room.

  The door burst open. “Are you all right, Miss Hattie?” Concern laced the housekeeper’s voice. “Shall I call the doctor?”

  “No,” Hattie snapped. “Get me Charlie Rainwater.”

  “But—”

  “Now!” She snapped again. When the door swung shut with a resounding click, Hattie sagged back against the pillows and muttered dejectedly to herself, “How could you be such a fool, Margaret Rose? I thought you were smart enough to see through him.” She closed her eyes an
d pressed a hand against them, trying to suppress the blinding pain in her head.

  Her position remained unchanged until she heard the scuff of booted footsteps approach her door nearly fifteen minutes later. She brought her hand down and lifted her chin up, jutting it forward at an aggressive angle.

  “Come in,” she responded in answer to the rap at her door, not letting any of the pain or fear creep into her voice. Pride wouldn’t let her permit Charlie to see that she might be beaten. He believed in her. He had all these many years.

  He paused beside the bed. “Maxine said you wanted to see me.”

  “Yes.” She wished his face wasn’t so blurred to her, but it was enough just to hear the soothing drawl of his voice and smell that mixture of saddle leather and tobacco that always clung to his clothes. “We have trouble Charlie. She did marry him.” She caught the sound of his half-smothered curse and smiled faintly before going on to explain about the call she’d just received from Ben Canon.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  When she felt his work-roughened fingers brush over her hand, Hattie caught at them briefly. “He’s brought her back to Tulsa with him, Charlie. I knew he’d be arrogant. And that is his mistake.”

  “Then you don’t think it’s too late.”

  “It can’t be.” She clung desperately to that. “But we’ll have to be ready to act at a moment’s notice. We don’t have much time.”

  “You can count on me, Miss Hattie.” He squeezed her hand tightly, emotion thickening his voice.

  “I know I can.” She nodded, feeling the same tightness and the same vague regrets.

  “We’ll make it.”

  “Of course we will,” she said more confidently, drawing strength from his belief in her…just as she always had in the past. She let go of his hand and lay back, listening to the burring spin of the telephone dial as he placed her call to Ben Canon.

  “Hello, Ellery? It’s Flame.” She sat crosswise on Chance’s lap, idly and possessively fingering the short strands of his thick black hair.

  “How was your weekend of sizzle in the sun? Or was it sizzle in the sack?” came Ellery Dorn’s dry reply. “From the sound of your voice, I’d say you’re still floating on cloud nine.”

  She laughed at that, her glance straying to the plane’s porthole windows and the puffy white clouds beyond them. “Actually I am—literally and figuratively.”

  There was a pause, then a puzzled “Where are you?”

  She partially covered the phone’s mouthpiece with her hand and looked at Chance. “Where are we?”

  “About thirty thousand feet over Dallas.” A faint smile edged the corners of his mouth as he continued to idly massage the curve of her hip bone.

  When Flame relayed the answer to Ellery, he responded with a droll “I sincerely hope you’re in an airplane.”

  “I am, I am.” She laughed again, recognizing that she was so happy she could laugh at anything.

  “If you’re flying over Texas now, that means it will be another two and a half hours or more before you reach San Francisco.”

  “That’s what I’m calling you about, Ellery.” There was a part of her that was bursting to tell him the news—and another part that wanted to drag out the moment. “I won’t be flying back to San Francisco—at least, not tonight.”

  “Why not? Where are you going?”

  “To Tulsa.” She couldn’t keep it to herself any longer. “Chance and I got married.”

  “What?”

  She laughed at the surprise in his voice. “It’s incredible, isn’t it?” She ceased playing with Chance’s hair and held up her left hand to gaze at the interlocking wedding band and five carat marquise-cut diamond ring set in platinum that now so beautifully adorned her ring finger.

  “Incredible isn’t the word for it,” Ellery replied. “Flame, are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  She looked once more at Chance. The deep blue of his eyes mirrored all the love that she felt. “Very sure,” she murmured, swinging the mouthpiece of the receiver out of the way and leaning closer to kiss him, letting their lips cling together for several precious seconds.

  “I hope so,” came Ellery’s sotto voce reply.

  But it was enough to bring Flame’s attention back to the matter at hand. “Would you mind doing me a favor, Ellery? Talk to Tim in the morning and let him know I won’t be in the office for a couple of days. Explain that I’m taking a short honeymoon. And let Debbie know, too, so she can cancel any appointments I have.”

  “When can we expect you back?”

  “Chance has to leave on a business trip—when did you say? Wednesday?” He nodded in confirmation. “I’ll fly back then. Which means I’ll be in the office on Thursday morning. Okay?”

  “Your honeymoon is obviously going to be as short as your engagement,” Ellery observed. “Oh, one more thing, Flame—”

  “Yes.”

  “Congratulations and happiness, my dear.”

  “Thank you, Ellery.”

  “And tell Stuart I hope he knows what a lucky man he is.”

  “I will. Talk to you Wednesday night.” She returned the phone to its console concealed in the cabinetry next to the couch, then faced Chance, linking her hands together behind his neck. “Ellery insisted that I remind you what a lucky man you are.”

  “Extremely lucky,” he agreed smoothly.

  “So am I.” Silently she studied his face, admiring its bronze angles, so strong and clean from the slanting cut of his jaw to the unbroken line of his nose. She noticed the look in his eyes, that look that spoke of a pride of possession. She smiled, feeling it, too. They belonged to each other now, and how very wonderful that was. Idly she smoothed a strand of hair from his wide brow. “How long before we reach Tulsa?”

  With an effort he dragged his gaze from her face and looked out the window. “That looks like the Red River below us, which means we’re crossing into Oklahoma. We’ll probably be landing in another twenty minutes or so.”

  “So soon,” she murmured in mock disappointment.

  “Yes.” There was more than a trace of regret in his voice as his glance slid to her lips. Then he breathed in deeply. “We probably should move back to the main cabin. You’ll have a better view from there of your new home when we fly in.”

  “That’s a shame when I’m so comfortable sitting here,” she declared softly and brushed her lips across the ridge of his cheek, breathing in the earthy fragrance of his cologne.

  “We aren’t there, yet,” he reminded her as he turned his head, seeking and finding her lips.

  Ten minutes later they were interrupted by the buzz of the intercom. It was the pilot, Mick Donovan, notifying Chance that he was about to begin his descent into Tulsa. With some reluctance, Flame traded her comfortable seat on Chance’s lap for one of the richly upholstered chairs in the main cabin.

  With her seatbelt securely fastened, Flame leaned forward, angling her body to look out the window at the wide open landscape of rolling hills below. The long slanting rays of the setting sun set fire to its autumn hues, intensifying the shades of its golds, rusts, and reds and giving a richness to the land.

  Somewhere out there, she remembered, Hattie Morgan lived. She’d have to give her a call while she was here—assuming, of course, that she’d have the time to spare on this short trip.

  Then Chance’s arm curled around her waist and all thought of Hattie fled as he leaned forward to look out the window with her. “There’s my city,” he said. “Daring and dynamic Tulsa.”

  Etched against the fiery backdrop of the sunset’s red sky, she saw the gleaming towers of the city itself, rising out of the surrounding hills and seemingly throwing them off with a mighty shrug of its shoulders. She stared at the tall sleek buildings, their proud stance reminding her somehow of Chance.

  “Well, what do you think?”

  She felt the brush of his chin against her hair, and hesitated briefly, wondering how she could tell him that her firs
t impression of Tulsa was of something powerful and aggressive—something lean, tumultous, and restless—the very things she sensed in him sometimes.

  But the feeling was too elusive to put into words. She chose a safe middle ground instead. “I like it already. It’s vigorous and alive.”

  “That black building to the right is the Stuart Tower, where my company’s headquartered.” He pointed it out to her just before the plane banked away to make its approach to the airport. Chance kept his arm around her as they both sat back in their seats. “In the morning, you can come into the office with me. I want you to meet Sam and Molly.”

  “I’d like that, darling.” From the few things he’d said about them, she had gotten the feeling that these two people were the closest thing he had to a family. “I just hope they like me.”

  “They will. Although I probably should warn you that Molly may come off like a mother-in-law.”

  “Ah, a potential ogre—any suggestions?”

  “Just tell her how wonderful you think I am and you’ll have her eating out of your hand.” He grinned, certain that Molly would love her as much as he did and refusing to consider the friction that would arise if she didn’t.

  And Flame laughed. “You mean you aren’t eating out of my hand?”

  “If you think I am, that’s all that counts.”

  She sensed the shift in his mood to something more serious, more intimate. “What about Sam? How do I get him to eat out of my hand?”

  “Ask him about cars. The man’s crazy about anything with four wheels and a motor—a little like I am about you.” He kissed her, and Flame wasn’t aware of the jet’s wheels touching down.

  18

  Sam leaned against the corner of Molly’s desk, one hip resting on top of it. He took another deep drag on his cigarette and glanced anxiously at the doors to the private elevator, then swung his gaze to Molly, watching as she fussed over the fresh floral arrangement on the credenza behind her desk. She stepped back to survey the result, then nodded in mute satisfaction even though Sam couldn’t see that she’d changed the placement of a single flower. Turning, she ran the same critically inspecting eye over the room. When he saw it fall on the serving tray with its precise arrangement of china cups and saucers, the requisite creamer and sugar, lacking only fresh coffee to be poured in its decorative urn, his nerves snapped.