Danny Ray (Ray Trilogy) (21 page)

“Would you be interested in that job offer I made the other day?” he inquired.

Danny shook his head, “Sir, you don’t understand. I know nothing about advertising.” Danny smiled again. “They never taught us that in football.”

Mr. Marvel
bobbed his head in agreement, “I understand. You saw how large an operation that we have. We have jobs in a lot of areas you could easily handle. With your background and your drive, the sky’s the limit with you.”

“Thank you, Sir. That’s a wonderful compliment coming from a man like you.”

“With some training from my staff and maybe a college course or two, you could be fast tracked up. When Lisa graduates in a couple of years, the two of you would make a formidable team,” Mr. Marvel offered sincerely.

Danny sat there containing his amazement that this powerful man would try to help him this way
.

When Lisa arrived at the head of the stairs, she didn’t let them down. Her elegant gown showed off her trim figure beautifully. The three quarter length fitted sleeves hung off her shoulders revealing her soft creamy skin. A belt made of the same fabric had a diamond belt buckle that sparkled against the dark color of the dress fit around her small waist. The skirt tapered all the way to the floor with small delicate pleats that appeared just below the belt buckle. Diamonds sparkled around her neck and dangled from her ears. She had combed her straight black hair back away from her face but left it to hang down her back covering the expanse left from the open back of her dress.

She smiled appreciating the astonished faces of the two men who stood watching her descend the stairs. “You two look like you have never seen a woman before.”

“Never one as lovely as you,” Mr. Marvel exclaimed in awe of his daughter’s beauty. Danny echoed the compliment.

Lisa kissed both of them on the cheek and
they went out to get in the Limousine that Christopher had waiting outside the door.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

M
arvel Enterprises had rented a banquet hall in the Tupelo Club House for all of the employees and their companions for the New Year’s Eve celebration. The large hall with a twenty foot tall ceiling sported a five hundred foot long bar, complete with recessed dance floor surrounded by banquettes. A lower level provided a lounge, a VIP lair beneath Chinese-style marble arches and other hidden nooks for guest’s privacy.

Many tables
were packed with sumptuous foods designed to indulge every taste bud. Creative drinks and appetizers covered the tables such as champagne cocktails and bite-size roe-covered shrimp dumplings, flavorful crab cakes, and Carpaccio-style Thai beef salad among many others.

As soon as they entered the building, waiters carrying trays of drinks offered them
flutes of Champaign. Lisa caused a stir where ever she went, not only by her beauty but her demeanor of the princess of the business, Danny ascertained. A role she had inherited in the absence of her missing mother, he supposed. His curiosity still hadn’t been satisfied on that matter.

The night progressed with dancing and visiting with many of the VIP staff of the advertising firm. Lisa proudly introduced him to as many as they came across during the night. Every one of the men wore tuxedos and the women exhibited every kind of evening gown imaginable. Danny was amazed that so many women could come together for an occasion and none of them wore the same model of dress.

When Danny expressed as much, Lisa retorted, “If anyone of these women came with the same dress as someone else, you can be sure they would immediately leave and come back wearing another dress.”

The DJ started a slow song and Danny led Lisa out to the middle of the dance floor and he hugged her to him. By the time the music ended, the dance
floor was crowded with dance partners. The music began again and they continued. It felt so wonderful to hold her in his arms and dance to the tunes that they danced while they were in college. The old memories bringing back the closeness that they felt back then.

Sooner than it seemed possible, the count down for midnight began. At the stroke of midnight, Lisa and Danny kissed as
Auld Lang Syne
played and multitudes of balloons fell from the ceiling. Danny had never been to a New Year’s Eve party even remotely as elaborate as this one. He stood amazed that all these people seemed to take it all in stride as their due.

They stayed a few more hours because many still were drinking at the bars and dancing. Danny wondered how Lisa was making out in her four inch heels but she never complained or acted like they bothered her at all. They continued to dance into the wee hours of New Year’s Day. Danny had always heard that what you did on New Year’s Day was what you could expect the rest of the year. He wondered if he would have the beautiful Lisa in his arms for the rest of the year.

“Do you know what the tradition is back home for New Year’s Day?” he asked Lisa as they danced.

“I don’t know,” she responded with a slight furrow in her brow. “I came home for New Year’s when I went to school
in Oklahoma.”

“We eat black eyed peas and cornbread for good luck,” he smiled.
“The more black eyed peas you eat, the more good luck you’ll have.”

“I like our tradition better, I think,”
Lisa laughed. “We stay up all night and sleep all day.”

“Some of the people at home also do that,” Danny admitted.

When they arrive back at Lisa’s house, she took him by the hand and led him to her bedroom again. Even though Danny had been given a bedroom, he had spent every night in her room and tonight was to be no different.

Lisa came out of her bathroom with a sleeveless very shear violet negligee with tiny ruffles around the scoop neckline and hem. She very confidently walked toward him with a teasing smile on her face.

By this time Danny was wearing nothing but his boxers. He lifted her in his arms and deposited her on the bed. Then he ministered to every inch of her skin with tiny feather light kisses.

The next morning they slept late. A breakfast buffet placed on a sideboard in the breakfast room awaited them. They sat at a small table in the middle of a turret designed room with 240 degrees view. Glass windows from floor to ceiling graced four of the walls of the hexagon shaped room. A garden that must be filled with flowers in the summer had statuettes in two of the window views. Holly bushes lined the exterior of the walls.
Now most of the view consisted of perfectly unadulterated glistening white snow throughout the area. The sun shined down almost blinding in the brightness, but they sat there in the cozy warm room oblivious to the cold outside.

After they finish eating all they wanted, Lisa led him to her father’s library. The massive mahogany desk sat surrounded by lines of shelves filled with books, no doubt some of them heirlooms, by Danny’s estimation. The walls were painted a rich velvety burnt orange color. Across from the desk a fireplace blazed with a warm fire. A brown leather couch sat in front of the fireplace for cozy reading or visiting. Danny’s eyes took in the large oil painting above the fireplace
adorned by a gold ornate frame.

Mystified, Danny reached up his hand toward the painting, “Who is this?”

Lisa took a deep breath and pulled Danny down beside her, “That’s my mother.”

Not wanting to ask, he opened his hands and shrugged.

Lisa had brought Danny into the study hoping to establish a cozy intimate setting so she could talk to him. She hadn’t thought about her mother’s portrait being in here. She tried not to think about her or look at her picture, but her father had refused to take it down when she had asked one time a few years ago.

“
Many years ago when I was not more than ten years old, my mother went for a walk along the road. I was so young I couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t let me go with her. One day she didn’t come home. We waited for hours hoping to hear from her. Finally my father called the police, but they wouldn’t do anything because she hadn’t been gone over twenty-four hours yet,” Lisa got up and began pacing the floor.

“You don’t have to tell me, Lisa,” Danny said since she seemed agitated.

“It’s okay, Danny.” Lisa’s eyes filled with tears. “It’s not something I like to think about often.”

She continued, “My father kept waiting for a ransom call but nothing came so he feared the worst. He tried to keep it from me but I knew he was really worried.
In the early hours of the morning he called the police station again and they began driving up and down the roads sweeping their lights hoping to find her. By this time my father thought she was lying dead somewhere. Neither one of us could sleep so we waited. Finally I fell asleep in his arms and he let me sleep on the couch that night so I would be nearby. He couldn’t let me out of his sight for fear of losing me also.”

“The next day the police began a full investigation and found out that she had a lover that she met often about a mile down the road during her hiking forays.” Lisa shook her head rapidly, “Finally we found out why she would never take me with her.”

“Lisa, I’m so sorry that I brought this up,” Danny repeated.

Not paying any attention to his apology, she continued, “The police assumed that she had run away with her lover. My father hired a private investigator to find her. He couldn’t find any trace of her even though he tracked down the man in
New Jersey. He swore he knew nothing about her disappearance.”

“Did anybody ever find out what happened to her?” Danny asked.

Lisa swallowed very hard and replied, “She was found by accident a year later by a couple of young boys out walking their dogs in a pasture only a short distance from the road where she walked. It had rained a lot and some of her bones washed out of the shallow grave and the dogs smelled them.”

“Did the police determine what happened to her?”

She shook her head no, “The man she was seeing had a legitimate alibi, and there were no leads. She had been hit over the head with a blunt object which cracked her skull. No weapons were found with the body. There was nothing to indicate why or with what, or by whom. It’s still in a cold case file.”

He got up and put his arms around her, “That’s got to be hard to deal with.”

Lisa looked up at him angrily, “If she had not run around on my father, or would have taken me along, none of this would have happened.”

“Lisa, you can’t look at it that way.” Danny soothed rubbing her back. “Count your blessings, if you had been with her you might also
be lying in a grave somewhere.”

Lisa pushed away from him, “I’ve heard that before, too. I have a hard time trying to forgive her. In spite of all we have gone through, and the suspicion that came on my father because of her, my father still loves her. He refused to take her picture down. Also the reason he still is single to this day.”

“That’s an admirable love. Maybe all the facts aren’t out yet. Maybe she was innocent. Just because she met someone, she may not have been seeing someone for romantic reasons,” Danny suggested.

Lisa visually pushed the thoughts away by pushing out with her hands in the air. “Now, Danny, we don’t have a lot of time before your flight. We need to think about your decision.”

“My decision?” Danny asked.

“Yes,” she smiled. “First of all, what do you think of my home?”

Danny half laughed at the quick change of subject, “Your home? I think it’s marvelous.”

She laughed.

“Would you be interested in living here in New York?”

He thought of his home that he planned to build, of Frisker, and the kittens. He could picture his livestock grazing in the pasture, and his pigs that are almost grown that he wanted to breed.

“I can’t, Lisa. I have so much going on at home.” He shook his head. “I have obligations and my family is there.”

She reminded him, “Remember the offer that my father made to you about a position in the company.
” With a sparkle in her eyes, she said enthusiastically, “You could work at Marvel Enterprises?”

“Yes, but I have no training for that kind of job.”

She took his hand excitedly, “He said that he would take a special interest in you to see that you learned everything that you needed to know to succeed. When I get out of college, Danny, we would work together. Some day we would own the company.”

“Are you forgetting that I spent half of my life earning enough money to buy back the family farm? Do you want me to give that up?”

“I understand, Danny, but now you have it. It is back in your family. Now you can move here to New York.”

He thought about what it would be like to work in a fast paced business
compared to the life he had mapped out for himself of being a rancher.

“There are all kinds of jobs available in the firm. My father would see to it that you have a job where you are happy. He would accelerate your climb in the
firm to where you could quickly earn a decent income. Think of all the perks of living in New York. You could go the opera anytime you want, enjoy all the nice restaurants, or go to Carnegie Hall. You could have your own membership in the country club. Think about it, Danny. It could all be yours in a short time.”