Judith McNaught (35 page)

I noticed that when I watched you changing my tire and when you crawled out of the creek. And you're brave, too. There's a little boy in my class—his name is Johnny Everett—he wants to be strong more than anything in the world. He's crippled, so he has to stay in a wheelchair, and it breaks my heart to watch him, but he
never
gives up. Remember, I told you about him last night?" Unaware of the tenderness in her voice, she added, "He's very brave, just like you are. My brothers used to have pictures of you in their room. Did I ever tell you that? There's so much I'd like to tell you, Zack," she said brokenly. "And I will, if you'll just stay alive and give me a chance.

I'll tell

you anything you'd like to know."

Panic set in. Maybe she should be doing more to warm him or keep him awake. What if he died because of her ignorance? Grabbing a thick terry cloth robe from the closet, she pulled it on, then she sat

down on the bed beside his hip and pressed her fingertips to the pulse in his neck, her gaze riveted to the

clock on the dresser. His pulse seemed alarmingly slow. Her hands and voice shook as she smoothed the

blankets around his wide shoulders and said, "About last night—I'd like you to know that I loved it when you kissed me. I didn't want you to stop there, and that's what scared me. It didn't have anything to do with the fact that you'd been in jail, it was because I

… because I was losing control, and I've never had that happen before." She knew he probably wasn't hearing a word she said, and she fell silent as another

spasm of deep chills racked his body. "Shivering is good," she said aloud, but she was thinking frantically

for something else to do for him. A sudden vision of St. Bernard dogs with miniature kegs around their necks for people stranded by avalanches made her snap her fingers and jump to her feet. A few minutes later, she returned to his bedside holding a glass filled with brandy and brimming with excitement over

what she'd heard on the kitchen radio. "Zack," she said eagerly, sitting down beside him and shoving her

arm beneath his head so she could lift it to the glass,

"drink some of this, and try to understand what I'm telling you: I just heard on the radio that your friend

—Dominic Sandini—is in the hospital in Amarillo.

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He's doing better! Do you understand? He
didn't
die.

He's conscious now. They think the inmate in the prison infirmary who gave out the false information was either mistaken or trying to turn the prisoners'

protest into a full-fledged riot, and that's exactly what happened … Zack?"

After several minutes she'd managed to get only a tablespoon of brandy into him, and Julie gave up.

She

knew she could find the telephone he'd hidden and call for a doctor, but the doctor would recognize him and immediately call the police. They'd take him out of here and haul him back to prison, and he'd said he'd rather be dead than go back.

Tears of uncertainty and exhaustion slid from the corner of Julie's eyes as the minutes slipped past and she sat with hands folded in her lap, trying to think what to do until she finally resorted to a whispered prayer. "Please help me," she prayed. "I don't know what to do. I don't know why You brought the two of us together. I don't understand why You're making me feel this way about him or why You want me to stay with him, but somehow I think this is all Your doing. I know it because … because I haven't felt as if

You were standing with Your hand on my shoulder like this since I was a little girl—when you gave the Mathisons to me."

Julie drew a long, shaky breath and brushed away a tear from the corner of her eye, but as she said the last of her prayer, she was already feeling steadier:

"Please take care of us."

After a moment she looked up at Zack and watched his body tremble with more chills, then he moved lower into the covers. Realizing that he was deeply asleep, not unconscious as she'd feared, she leaned forward and pressed a light kiss to his forehead.

"Keep shivering," she whispered tenderly.

"Shivering is

very good."

Unaware that a pair of amber eyes flickered open and then drifted closed again as she stood up, Julie went into the bathroom to take a hot shower.

She was wrapping herself in the robe again when it occurred to her that she could at least find the telephone he'd hidden and call her parents to let them know she was safe. Stopping beside her bed, she

laid her hand on Zack's forehead, watching him breathe. His temperature felt closer to normal, and his

breathing was deeper now, in the steady rhythm of exhausted slumber. The rush of relief she felt made her knees weak as she turned to stoke up the roaring fire she'd built. Satisfied that he was warm enough, she left him to sleep and went to look for the telephone, closing the door behind her. Deciding the bedroom he'd slept in was a logical place to begin looking, she opened his bedroom door and stopped short, staring in wonder at the incredible luxury spread out before her. She'd thought her room with its

stone fireplace, mirrored doors, and spacious tiled bath was the absolute height of plushness, but this room was four times as large and ten times as lavish.

Mirrors lined the entire wall on her left, reflecting an enormous bed with huge skylights above it and a gorgeous white marble fireplace opposite the bed.

Long

windows covered the back wall then fanned out in a semicircle on the end wall to create a wide alcove for a white marble hot tub on a raised dais. A pair of curving silk sofas upholstered in an ivory-, mauve-, and seafoam-green-striped fabric were positioned by the fireplace. On the dias, on either side of the hot tub were two more overstuffed chairs and ottomans upholstered in the same colors but in a quilted flowered fabric that matched the bedspread.

Julie walked slowly forward, her feet sinking into the deep wool pile of the pale green carpeting. On her

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left she saw brass handles on two of the mirrored panels and she gingerly pushed them open then drew in

a startled breath at the sight of a vast marble-floored sky-lit bath that was divided precisely down the center by two long marble vanities with double sinks and a mirrored half wall above them. Each half of the bathroom had its own enormous shower stall enclosed in clear glass and its own marble tub with gold

fittings.

Although the rest of the house could have been furnished to suit a man or a woman, there was no mistaking the feminine touches that had given this suite an aura of inviting opulence that would surely make a man feel as if he'd been invited into a woman's private boudoir. Julie had read in some home

furnishing magazine that married men who were confident of their own masculinity rarely objected to their

wives' desires for feminine bedrooms and, in fact, rather enjoyed the implied illicitness of invading a formerly "forbidden" domain. Until that moment, she'd thought the notion odd, but as she noted the subtle

touches designed for a man like the huge bed and comfortable, overstuffed chairs by the hot tub, she decided the theory had definite merit.

She headed for the door to the walk-in closet that opened off the right half of the bathroom and went inside to look for the telephone. After a thorough and fruitless search of both closets and all the drawers

in the bedroom, Julie yielded to temptation and borrowed a red silk Japanese kimono embroidered in gold threads from the woman's closet. She chose that partly because it was sure to fit and partly because she had a helpless urge to look nice if Zack woke up before morning. She was tying the belt around her waist wondering where on earth he'd hidden the phone when she remembered the small closet in the hall,

the one with a deadlock on it. She went straight to it and tried the knob, and when it proved to be locked tight, she tiptoed into her own bedroom. She found the key where she expected it to be—in the pocket of his soaked trousers.

The locked closet contained an enormous stock of wine and liquor and four telephones, which she found

on the floor behind a case of Dom Perignon champagne, where Zack had hidden them.

Stifling an unexpected attack of nervousness, Julie took one of the phones into the living room, plugged it

in, and sat down on the sofa, her legs curled beneath her, the phone in her lap. She'd already dialed half the long distance number when she realized the enormous mistake she was probably making, and she

hastily slapped the receiver onto its cradle to disconnect the call. Since kidnapping was a federal offense—and Zack was an escaped murderer—it stood to reason that the FBI would probably be at her

parents' house, waiting for her to phone, so they could trace the call. At least, that's what always happened in the movies. She'd already made her decision to stay here with Zack and to let God handle

whatever came along, but she absolutely had to talk to her family and reassure them. Idly tracing the flamboyant gold peacock embroidered on the lap of her red kimono, she concentrated on how to accomplish her goal. Since she didn't dare call family members, she had to reach someone else first, someone she could trust implicitly, someone who wouldn't be flustered by the errand she was going to give them.

Julie ruled out the other teachers. They were terrific women, but they were more timid than daring, and they didn't have the kind of panache required for the task. Suddenly she burst into a beaming smile and went for the little address book she carried in her purse. Opening it to
C,
she pulled the phone onto her lap and checked the home number she'd had for Katherine Cahill before Katherine had become Mrs.

Ted Mathison. Earlier that month, Katherine had sent her a note asking if they could get together when

she was in Keaton this week. With a satisfied chuckle, Julie decided Ted was going to be furious at her

for sending Katherine back into the Mathison family's midst, where he couldn't avoid or ignore her

…

and Katherine was going to thank her for doing just that. "Katherine?" Julie said quickly as soon as the other woman answered the phone at her family's house, "This is Julie. Don't say anything unless you're

alone."

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"Julie! My God! Yes, I'm alone. My-my parents are in the Bahamas. Where are you? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I swear I'm completely safe." She paused to steady her nerves and then said, "Do you know if there are people—police or FBI agents, I mean—at my parents' house?"

"They're at your parents' and asking questions all over town, too."

"Look, I need to ask you a very important favor. You won't be breaking the law, but you'll have to agree to keep this call a secret from them."

Katherine's voice dropped to a teary whisper. "Julie, I'd do
anything
for you. I'm—I'm honored you called me—that you're giving me a chance to repay you for all the things you did to try to stop Ted from divorcing me, for the way you've always stood by

—" She brought herself up short just as Julie was about

to interrupt her. "What do you want me to do?"

"I'd like you to get word to my parents and my brothers right away that I'm going to call you back in an

hour so I can talk to them. Katherine, make absolutely certain you don't do or say anything to alert the

FBI. Act natural, get my family off alone, give them my message. You aren't going to be intimidated by meeting FBI agents, are you?"

Katherine gave a sad little laugh. "As Ted used to very correctly point out—I was a spoiled little princess whose daddy made her believe she could do as she damned well pleased. Now, there is no way," she finished with more humor, "that a few lowly FBI agents could possibly fluster a former princess

like me. If they try," she joked, "I'll have Daddy call Senator Wilkins."

"All right, great," Julie said, smiling at the tone of reckless daring in Katherine's voice, then she sobered,

trying to phrase a warning that would deter Katherine as well as Julie's family from possibly deciding it

might be in Julie's best interests to alert the FBI about Julie's next call, regardless. "There's one more thing: Make certain my family understands that I'm completely safe right now, but that if anyone traces this call, I'll be in terrible danger. I—I can't explain exactly what I mean—I don't have time, and even if I

did—"

"You don't have to explain anything to me. I can tell from your voice that you're all right, and that's all that matters to me. As far as where you are … and who you're with … I know that whatever you're doing, you're doing what you believe is the right thing. You are the best person I've ever known, Julie.

I'd

better get going. Call back in an hour."

Julie lit the fire in the living room fireplace, then she paced back and forth in front of it, checking her watch, waiting impatiently for one hour to pass.

Because of Katherine's calm, unquestioning acceptance

of everything Julie said, Julie wasn't at all prepared for what happened when she made her second phone call. Her normally stoic father snatched up the Cahills' phone on the first ring. "Yes? Who is this?"

"This is Julie, Dad," she said, squeezing the telephone hard, "I'm okay. I'm fine—"

"Thank God!" he said, his voice hoarse and gruff with emotion, then he called out, "Mary, it's Julie, and

she's okay. Ted, Carl—Julie's on the phone, and she's fine. Julie, we did what you said, we didn't tell the FBI about this."

Over a thousand miles away, Julie could hear several extension telephones being snatched off their cradles and a jumble of relieved, panicked voices, but over them all was Ted's voice—calming,
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authoritative. "Quiet, everyone," he ordered. "Julie, are you alone? Can you talk?" Before she could answer, he added, "That student of yours with the deep voice—Joe Bob Artis—he's worried sick about you."

For a split second Julie gaped in confusion at his opening topic and his use of a name she'd never heard