Sentimental Journey Read online

  "If that's true, then why didn't he buy the company? Didn't he have the money to buy it?" It didn't make sense to Jessica that a man would go to work for a company that he could own instead.

  "Yes, Janson had the money to buy it. But he's getting on in age and liked the idea that he had a nest egg securely tucked away for his old age. He didn't want to risk it in case he couldn't get the company back on its feet again," Brodie explained, as if it were all very logical.

  "But you're risking it," she reminded him.

  "I don't have anything to lose," he said with a shrug.

  "Your money," Jessica pointed out.

  "I can afford the loss," he replied with a diffidence that implied just how successful he was.

  Jessica fell silent while she absorbed that discovery. Brodie resumed his wandering inspection of the plant area. He was several yards ahead of her before she realized he had moved away. She hurried to catch up with him, unsure whether she could find her way out of this maze alone.

  "This will make a very good publicity story for you," she commented.

  "What?" He half turned, then agreed, "Yes, the news that Janson is taking over will be good publicity. That fact alone will increase business in the beginning."

  "I wasn't thinking of Janson, although it would be good, too. I was referring to you," Jessica explained.

  "Me." Brodie paused to measure her with a look. "The boy from the wrong side of town comes home a success, is that how you see it? A Cinderella story in reverse?"

  "Something like that," she admitted. "Is that wrong?"

  "No, probably not, except that I'm not interested in publicity for myself." The pathway had widened, much of the rubble cleared to one side, enabling them to walk together.

  "Why not? It would open a lot of doors for you." Jessica wondered if he was still as eager to be accepted as he once had been.

  "Doors that were closed to me before, you mean?" Brodie mocked. "No, thanks. I prefer to open my own doors in my own way."

  "That's being stubborn."

  "Yes, it is. But I won't be walking into places where I haven't knocked." Brodie pushed back the sleeve of his sweater to check the gold watch on his wrist. "It's getting late and I know you have to work in the morning. Would you like me to take you home now?"

  Jessica glanced at her own watch, surprised to see it was much later than she realized. "Yes, please. I just hope you know how to get out of here."

  "Through that door." He pointed to his right and Jessica realized they had made a full circle of the assembly room.

  She waited in the hallway while he Switched off the light, and together they walked to the front entrance. The night watchman wasn't in sight as they closed the door and returned to the car. At the honk of the horn, he appeared and waved his flashlight beam at them before Brodie drove out of the lot onto the street.

  The drive back to her apartment complex seemed to take little time, possibly because Jessica spent it thinking about the man behind the wheel and how much she had learned about him in one short evening. There was much more about him that attracted rather than repelled. Yet she still felt a wariness that she couldn't explain. Something cautioned her not to attempt to begin a relationship with him.

  They were only a few blocks from her apartment when she felt the need to break the silence. "Do your parents still live here?"

  "My father died ten years ago."

  Ten years ago, Jessica thought. That was before Brodie achieved his success. She wondered if it bothered him that his father had never lived to see how far he had progressed, but decided the question was too personal.

  "I didn't know. I'm sorry," she offered in sympathy.

  "There isn't any reason why you should have known about it. You didn't know him," Brodie stated in an unemotional tone.

  "No, I didn't know him," Jessica admitted, and fell silent.

  "There was something else you wanted to ask me, wasn't there?" He slid a sideways look at her. Jessica nibbled at her lower lip, but didn't answer. "You were wondering about my mother." She caught her breath, stunned that he had guessed so accurately. "I don't know where she is. She and my father were divorced when I was two. An attorney tried to locate her when my father died, but he couldn't find her."

  There was absolutely no emotion in his voice, neither bitterness nor remorse that he had never known the woman who had given birth to him. The twinge of pity Jessica felt was wasted. Family had always played an integral part in her life, even now when her relatives lived at a distance. Brodie, obviously, hadn't missed what he had never known.

  The car slowed to a stop in front of her apartment building. It took Jessica several seconds to shake out of her reverie. In that time Brodie had got out of the car and walked around to her door.

  As she stepped out of the car, a whole new set of thoughts assailed her. The male hand at the small of her back wakened her to the fact that she would soon be bidding Brodie good-night. At the conclusion of every date, with the exception of her first few as a teenager, it was expected that a kiss would be exchanged at the door, but her senses shied vigorously away from the image of his hard mouth pressed against hers.

  Her heart was skipping beats when they reached her door. She made a project of searching through her bag for the key. Aware of his eyes watching her, she had the uncanny sensation that Brodie knew exactly what she was thinking, feeling and trying to avoid.

  "Thank you for dinner." Her fingers closed around the key at the bottom of her bag.

  It struck her then that Brodie might expect her to invite him in for coffee. She had no intention of doing so and wondered how she could delicately avoid it if he suggested it.

  "It was my pleasure." Brodie sounded as if he was Silently laughing.

  Jessica didn't look to see if he was. She removed the key from her bag. But before she could insert it in the lock, Brodie was reaching for it. The touch of his fingers was like scalding water. Jessica surrendered the key to him without resistance and took a step backward to avoid further contact while he unlocked the door.

  The bolt clicked open. Jessica trembled when he straightened to face her and tried not to show it. She wondered if it was by design that he was between her and the safety of her apartment.

  She held out her hand for the key. "Thank you again. And good luck in your new venture."

  She attempted to slide between him and the door, hoping her movement would prompt him to step aside. He didn't. In consequence, she was uncomfortably close to him, and Brodie still hadn't returned the key.

  Her gaze focused on the tiny stitches in the sleeve of his sweater while waiting for the key—but not for long. The hand with the key moved toward her. She followed it, expecting the key to be placed in her outstretched hand. Her hand was ignored as his continued in an upward motion that stopped with his forefinger at her chin, the key hidden inside his closed palm.

  Forced to meet his gaze, Jessica felt a rushing heat sweep over her skin. One corner of his mouth was a fraction of an inch higher than the other, implying mockery.

  "Are you wondering whether I intend to kiss you good-night?" His voice was a slow, lazy drawl, pitched low to lull her into a sense of false security.

  How should she respond to that? Laugh it off? Deny that it had even occurred to her that he might kiss her? Or perhaps she should be cool and cutting? She wasn't able to make up her mind which was the best way to handle it. Her indecision gave Brodie command of the situation. Truthfully he had been in charge of the evening from the beginning, and he didn't relinquish the position as it came to an end.

  His tracing finger underlined the sensitive skin from her jaw to her chin and back, a tantalizing caress that sent the pulse in her neck throbbing at an incredible rate. Inside she was a quaking mass of jelly. Outside, there was the faintest quiver.

  "I believe—" the finger of the hand with the key slowly worked its way down her neck to the v neckline of her silk blouse, and Jessica was suddenly aware of how deeply it plunged in the front "�
�you're frightened of me."

  She took a breath and lost it as she felt the cool metal of the key being slid inside the lacy cup of her brassiere and against the fiery warmth of her breast. Her stomach was instantly twisted into knots.

  "I believe," she began in a voice that was husky from the disturbed state of her nerves, "you're trying to frighten me."

  His mouth twitched in a fleeting smile while she silently congratulated herself for having the presence of mind not to reveal how much she was intimidated by his raw virility. It was a small victory, but she cherished it.

  "Perhaps I am," Brodie conceded the possible truth in her statement. He was no longer touching her. The lack of actual physical contact didn't lessen the tension that shivered with elemental meanings through her nerves. "But a little fear is good," he added. "It sharpens the senses and sends adrenalin shooting through the veins. It can be very stimulating and exhilarating."

  His words defined precisely what Jessica was feeling. She was frightened, but not too frightened to run. The fact made the situation doubly dangerous and placed more power in his hands.

  "You can stop wondering, though." His heavily veiled look encompassed every feature of her face. "I'm not going to kiss you good-night." He turned the knob and pushed the door open, all without taking his eyes from her. Moving aside he added a promise, "Not this time."

  Not until Jessica was inside her apartment with the door closed did she realize that he had implied that there would be another time. Yet he hadn't asked her for a date nor even said he would call her. Perhaps because of the pressures of his business, he didn't know when next he would be free.

  She listened to the echo of his footsteps in the hallway. The curve of her breast tingled where his hand had made brief contact with it when he had slid the key inside her bra. She took the key and returned it to her bag, but that didn't erase the sensation.

  A surge of irritation burned through her as she realized he had taken for granted she would accept a subsequent invitation from him. The only reason she had gone to dinner with him tonight was because she had trapped herself into agreeing. The next time she wouldn't let that happen. Admittedly Brodie Hayes was a fascinating man, but that was all the more reason to stay away from him.

  THE NEXT FEW DAYS Jessica lived through in constant anticipation of a telephone call from him, either at work or at home. Yet the weekend came and went without a word from Brodie. At first Jessica blamed the silence on the many loose ends that were probably involved in purchasing the boat-manufacturing company. Then she had assumed that other business interests had taken him out of town.

  By the middle of the following week, she was forced to consider that he might not be interested in seeing her again, regardless of what he had implied. That possibility became more logical when Jessica remembered he had admitted taking her to the restaurant where he had wanted to bring her sister. She discovered her ego was bruised. It was one thing to look forward to rejecting him, and quite another to be the one rejected.

  While Jessica tried not to admit it, the experience had had an effect on her. She became irritable and defensive. Her patience with others grew short. She pretended that she had forgotten the entire incident, but if was forever nagging at the back of her mind.

  There was a knock at the door of her private office. "Yes?" She answered in a voice sharper than she realized.

  Ann Morrow, the receptionist, walked in. "A guy from the printer's dropped this by for you." She handed Jessica a bulky manilla envelope. "He said you'd told him you wanted to go over the proofs as soon as he had them ready."

  With a sigh Jessica unfastened the flap. "Do you suppose I'm experienced enough to check copy?" As far as she was concerned, it was something anyone who could read could do, and she found it very boring.

  "I wouldn't let it get you down just because Mr. Dane isn't going to let you handle that new account you brought in," Ann insisted.

  Jessica raised a dark blond eyebrow and stared at the receptionist. "What new account?" she demanded.

  "How many are there, for heaven's sake?" Ann laughed. Before Jessica could reply that she knew of none, she was interrupted by the ring of the telephone in the reception room. "Ooops, I'd better get that."

  Jessica watched her leave, for a minute overcome by curiosity. Then she shrugged. Ann must have got her information confused. She knew nothing about a new client. It must have been someone else in the office who had solicited the new account. In any event, her uncle hadn't mentioned anything about it to her yet, but she generally heard about new accounts in a roundabout way.

  She took the proof copies out of the envelope and began checking them. The first glaring error fairly leaped off the page at her as she noted that the wrong size of type had been used. Farther down the same page the wrong style of type had been set.

  The instructions had been very explicit and it angered Jessica that they had been so blatantly ignored. She raced through the rest of it and found three more mistakes, minor ones. As far as She was concerned, they were marks of shoddy workmanship.

  Bundling the corrected copy back into its envelope, she called the printing company, told them what she thought of the quality of their work, and instructed them to have someone return immediately for the proofs. Much of her anger had been vented in the phone call, but a trace of it was still shimmering in the green of her eyes when she entered the outer office.

  "A man from the printing company is to be here within the hour to pick this up," she informed Ann as she tossed the envelope on her desk.

  "At lunchtime? But I'll be gone," Ann protested.

  Jessica glanced at her watch. It was eleven-thirty. "I didn't realize what time it was," she apologized with irritation at her oversight. "Just leave it on your desk, then."

  As she turned, the door to her uncle's office opened and Brodie Hayes walked out. His blue eyes lighted on her immediately and a half smile curved his mouth while she tried to get her breath back. Again he was dressed in a dark suit and tie that emphasized the darkness of his looks and gave the impression of a prosperous businessman.

  It was a full second before Jessica became aware of the stranger who was with him as well as her uncle. Ann's comment about a new client clicked in her mind. Had she meant Brodie?

  "Hello, Jessica," Brodie greeted her, but didn't give her an opportunity to answer. "I don't believe you've met Mr. Janson."

  Jessica managed a smile as she stepped forward. Janson was the man who had agreed to take over the presidency of the company he had once owned. He was a sparely built man with bushy eyebrows and a mass of iron gray hair. The harshness of his features was softened when he smiled, as he was doing now. Jessica had the feeling he was a very honest, trustworthy man.

  "It's indeed a pleasure to meet you, Miss Thorne." The man shook her hand and cast a glance sideways at Brodie. "I can certainly see why Mr. Hayes found you so persuasive."

  "Persuasive?" She was confused, and a glance at Brodie only added to it.

  "There's no need to be modest, Jessica." The unsettling blue eyes were fixed on her. "Mr. Janson has already added his endorsement to your suggestions."

  "My suggestions?" She was beginning to feel like an echo.

  "Yes, and they were very good, too," her uncle inserted. "The campaign you outlined to Mr. Hayes will be just the thing to rebuild the reputation of the company. Janson back at the helm," Ralph Dane said as if quoting a line from an advertisement.

  Nothing was making any sense to her. She didn't know what they were talking about. She had made no suggestions for a campaign nor even suggested that Brodie should use this firm. But before she could correct the impression, Brodie was speaking.

  "You can handle everything from here, Cal," he told Janson, and turned to her uncle. "It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Dane. While you two have lunch, I hope you don't mind if I spirit your niece away for an early lunch of our own."

  "I certainly don't," her uncle smiled broadly.

  "But—" Jessica began.
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  "Where's your coat?" Brodie interrupted.

  "In my office." There was more she would have said, but his hand was already on her elbow directing her to her office.

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  Chapter Five

  BRODIE USHERED JESSICA into her office and closed the door. She turned to face him, his bland expression telling her absolutely nothing.

  "Would you mind explaining to me what's going on?" Her hands were on her hips in challenge.

  "Over lunch. Where's your coat?" he repeated his earlier question, then noticed the coat hanging on a wall hook.

  Jessica was much too confused to object when he helped her into it and handed her shoulder bag to her. He was guiding her to the outer office before Jessica realized how readily she was falling in with his plans. She pulled her arm free of his hold.

  "What are you doing?" she demanded.

  "I'm taking you to lunch," he responded.

  "I never said I'd go with you."

  Brodie tipped his head to an inquiring angle. "Will you?"

  "I have no intention of going anywhere with you." Jessica sot her handbag on the chair and started to slip out of her coat.

  "The same way you had no intention of providing me with your address." His hands were on her shoulders, as if to help her off with the coat.

  Something in his voice made her pause. "What are you talking about?" She feigned ignorance.

  "I'm talking about the last time you accepted my invitation to dinner, knowing that I didn't know where you lived and doubting that I would find out." His hands remained on her shoulders, his closeness a tangible thing.

  Jessica's back was to him, but the warmth of his hands seemed to burn through the coat to her skin. "You knew!" The murmur was halfway between an accusation and an admission.

  "Yes, I knew."

  "Why did you bother to find out where I lived when you guessed what I did?" She lifted her head to a proudly defensive angle, refusing to feel guilty for her act.

  "I invited you to dinner. You accepted. I always do what I say I'm going to do and I expect the reverse to be true with others, when necessary, by helping them fulfill their word." With one hand, Brodie turned her around and slipped his other hand inside her coat to rest on the curve of her waist.