Lotus Blossom (8 page)

“I’m sorry about the dinner and not calling,” Lotus responded in a reedy voice. “I was detained.” “Martha and I were so worried about you. Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she lied. She was dying, but how could she tell Petras that she was bleeding from a thousand cuts because she wouldn’t be seeing the one love of her life again? She inhaled, trying to smother the groan that rose in her throat at the image of the gray existence she would have for the rest of her life. She would never marry! She could never pretend to feel the explosion of feeling for anyone else.

“Lotus, I never should have let you get involved in this. I can tell, even over the phone, that something is wrong. You have to get home as soon as possible. Lotus, listen to me. You get right to the airport. I’ll get the First flight out for you. I’ll book it under the name of L. Sinclair, I’ll try to get you patched straight though, but I’ll take anything, even a milk flight. You don’t have much packing, do you?”

“No.” Lotus smothered the sob that rose in her throat. She was only leaving behind her whole being. Dash had that and no matter what happened it was his.

“Lotus, are you really all right?” Petras’s voice softened. “Why don’t you come to the store? Martha is here and she can drive you to the airport. You need someone to talk to, I can tell.” Urgency sharpened Petras’s tone. “I’ll send Martha back with you.”

“No!” Lotus almost shouted. “No,” she repeated, her voice lowered. “I’m all right. It’s . . . it’s just been a bit much.”

“You aren’t hurt, are you? Did anyone approach you?” Anxiety threaded his inquiry.

“No, I’m fine, really. I’m sorry I didn’t get to the house to visit with the children again.” Lotus strived to speak normally.

“We’ll be coming east for the holidays. Your mother writes Martha every week describing all the things she has planned for our visit.

Lotus’s voice was shaking but she managed to laugh. “I know. She’s planning a big get-together of all yours and Rob’s friends from the service who are within a fifty-mile radius.

Petras laughed again, relief in his voice that she sounded relaxed. “Yes. And she has also planned a few trips for the children I can't believe how good she is, Lotus.”

“You shouldn’t forget that she considers you and Martha her children, not just friends, ergo your children are her grandchildren.”

“Yes, I know that.”

“I really should go . . . get my things ready.” “Yes. Be careful, little sister.”

“Yes.” She knew she had to get off the line or she’d burst into tears. “I have to pack. Thank you for everything, Petras. I’ll see you and Martha when you come to Rochester at Christmas.”

“Right. Listen, sweetie, take care, will you?” Petras sounded uneasy.

“I will. Thanks. Good-bye. And, Petras, I’m fine, really I am.”

She hung up and began to pack the few things she’d brought with her. Then she paid Mrs. Weltz, the owner of the house, who allowed her to use the house phone to call a taxi.

“It was nice meeting you, dearie. Where should I forward your mail if any comes?”

“Ah ... I don’t think there will be any mail,” Lotus hedged.

“Seems funny you don’t want me to forward things,” Mrs. Weltz probed.

“Well, you see, I didn’t have anyone write to me here,” Lotus turned away from the woman when the taxi service answered their phone. “Yes, I’ll be waiting outside the house,” Lotus told the dispatcher.

Mrs. Weltz followed her out onto the rickety porch. “Won’t some of your friends here want to know where you’ve gone?”

“No.”

"Seems strange to me" Mrs. Weltz muttered
walking with Lotus to the curb, her arms folded across her ample breasts. “You ain’t in trouble with the law, are you?”

“I am not.” Lotus frowned at the sharp-eyed Mrs. Weltz.

“You can’t be too careful in my business,” Mrs. Weltz explained. “There are a lot of folks who try to chisel helpless ladies like me.”

Lotus stared at the large woman at her side, who probably weighed on the sunny side of one hundred and ninety pounds, and nodded.

“You run a clean, decent house and there’s them that would spoil it for you,” Mrs. Weltz expounded, in no hurry to leave Lotus.

Lotus glanced quickly at the sagging house behind them, then at Mrs. Weltz.

“Cab won’t be here for a time yet.” Mrs. Weltz glinted at her. “Sure you don’t want to tell me where I can reach you?”

Yes, I’m sure.” Lotus heaved a sigh of relief when she saw the taxi turn the corner and slow down. She waved.

“It seems to me that by the time you get where you’re going on the bus, you might have mail that could be there to meet you if you had a forwarding address,” Mrs. Weltz pursued doggedly. “You are going on the bus, ain’t you?”

“No, I’m taking a plane home—back East.” Lotus scrambled into the taxi and shut the door.

Mrs. Weltz was still talking when the cab pulled away from the curb.

She traveled to the airport in a gray haze, going through the terminal without really being aware of her surroundings. “Do you have a reservation for Sinclair? L. Sinclair?” she asked the ticket agent.

“Yes, but there will be stopovers and you’ll have to change planes in Chicago,” the woman informed her.

“Are you sure there’s nothing else?” Lotus had the feeling she should only take an express to the moon, not just a plane to Rochester, New York.

“I’ll check, miss, but I’m sure that your reservation is the best we can offer.” The woman pressed assorted buttons on her computer, studied the answers, then pushed a few more and studied again. “I’m sorry, miss. You must make a stop at O’Hare.”

Lotus nodded.

“Have you any luggage?”

“Just my duffel bag. I’ll carry it on.”

“Have a good trip, Miss Sinclair.”

“Thanks,” Lotus answered dully.

Clutching her ticket in one hand, her oversized duffel bag over her other shoulder, she looked around the crowded waiting room, and took a corner seat, which was empty.

She read and reread the typewritten instructions on her ticket. Flight 306 would be leaving Las Vegas at ... Not able to cope with arrivals and departures her mind wandered away from the printed page. At the moment it was a monumental undertaking just breathing, in and out, over and over again. She tried telling herself that she hated Dash, the gambler, the unknown embezzler who had damaged her family. She tried dredging up some of the zeal that had her burgling Dash’s safe, coming out to Las Vegas and getting two jobs to do it, but all she felt was a huge loss and a burdensome emptiness that she couldn’t fill.

Lotus was half asleep when a raucous voice announced that passengers on Flight 306 bound for Chicago’s O’Hare Airport could board the plane.

Sighing apathetically, Lotus gripped her ticket and duffel bag and followed after a man whose carry-on luggage banged against his leg at every step. She tried to smile at the flight attendant who tore off part of her ticket.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to put your duffel bag in the overhead or under your seat. The closet is full.” The blond flight attendant smiled at Lotus.

“Fine. I’ll put it in the overhead.” Lotus was wondering how she would swing up the heavy duffel bag as she passed through first class and made her way to the window seat to which she’d been assigned. Out of breath, she managed with the help of an older man across the aisle to get her duffel bag into the overhead.

She scarcely noticed when the powerful machine scampered down the runway, then lifted off in smooth ascent. She closed her eyes, grateful that there were no passengers in the two seats next to her. She didn’t just want to sleep; instead, she wanted to fall down a deep hole and never surface.

Lotus was halfway between sleep and consciousness when she heard the rattle of the drink cart being maneuvered down the aisle of the airplane. Yawning, she turned to tell the flight attendant that she didn’t want anything to eat or drink. It was then she noticed that the curtain that had been pulled between the first class section and the second class section opened. She blinked her eyes, quite sure that she was sleeping and that she was in the middle of a nightmare. Dash Colby was standing there, his eyes fixed on her as though he had known where she was sitting. She closed her eyes and opened them again. He was still there! And he was coming toward her. She couldn’t seem to take her eyes off him as he waited for the flight attendant who was next to Lotus’s seat now.

“What lunch would you prefer, beef or chicken?” the flight attendant asked Lotus.

“Neither.” Lotus pushed the words through spastic lips. “Not hungry.” Her stomach churned.

“Something to drink then?”

Lotus shook her head, not able to trust her voice to say anymore. She felt herself stiffen as the cart went by and Dash swung into the middle seat close to her. “What are you doing here?” she asked, stunned.

“What are
you
doing here?” he inquired silkily.

“You can’t threaten me,” Lotus gasped, feeling the menace coming off him choking her like smoke.

“I asked a simple question.” Dash ran one finger up her arm. “I thought we were supposed to meet later at the casino.”

“Things change.” Lotus gulped.

“Don’t they?” The velvet hardness in his voice made every fine hair on her body stand erect. “I thought you acted a little nervous, my dove, so I called when I reached my meeting to see how you were feeling. The good Mrs. Weltz informed me that you had moved out and were flying back East.” He took hold of her hand and put her baby finger into his mouth, his teeth snapping down on it. “Persons at the meeting thought I’d gone crazy when I exploded at the conference table after talking on the phone to your landlady.” His sweet voice was like a fine-honed, double-edged blade. “I called Hans and had him arrange my flight while I drove to the airport, breaking every speeding law.”

Lotus jumped in her seat, trying to jerk her hand free, but he wouldn’t let her. “I told you my home is in the East,” she said.

“So you did, but you didn’t tell me you were going home today. I hope you haven’t cost me a multimillion dollar deal on the club I was trying to buy.”

“You shouldn’t have come,” Lotus muttered, finding it hard to inhale.

“You shouldn’t have left me. Tell me why you did.”

“No,” was all Lotus managed to say.

“Oh, but you will. I’ll insist on that.”

“You can’t threaten me.”

“So you’ve told me. Do you often repeat yourself?” he asked her with clinical interest.

“I don’t want you on this plane.”

“Do you own it?” Dash settled back in his seat, his eyes glittering. Then he smiled at the puzzled flight attendant when she approached them. “I’m sitting back here for the time being, trying to convince my friend to join me in first class.” He explained to the curvaceous redhead who leaned toward them “Oh, you should, miss. Mr. Colby has two seats in first class.”

“No, thank you.” Lotus tried to smile, but her lips felt like cement. She could kill him for finding her! And how did he know how to find her? She was just beginning to deal with the sense of loss she had felt at leaving him. Now he was here! Was he here to arrest her? Was this his way of entrapping her? All her paranoia resurfaced in one balloon of pain and uncertainty.

“Suit yourself.” The flight attendant flashed a big smile at Dash, then wandered up the aisle.

“You can’t be traveling on this plane all the way to Rochester.” Lotus enunciated each word, trying to control the quaver in her voice.

“No. We change planes at O’Hare,” Dash said pleasantly.

“Don’t sit next to me. . . Lotus cleared her throat, hearing her voice rise. She caught the curious glance of the man across the aisle and spoke in a whisper. “This seat belongs to . . .”

“Me. I had my security people track you down. The L. Sinclair threw them for a moment, but not for long. They’re very efficient. It didn’t take them long to track down a very slim, attractive Oriental . . .”

“I’m as Yankee as you are,” Lotus snapped.

“. . . Looking woman who moved like a dream. They had you pegged in minutes.”

“Oh? What do you have? A private F.B.I.?” “Something like that. I couldn’t run casinos and

not have a thorough security system. That would be stupid. And I’m not stupid.”

“You are if you think that I’m going to allow you into my life,” Lotus snapped, turning her head to look at him for the first time.

Dash faced her, his lazy smile not masking the silver fury that had turned his eyes to lava. “Too late. I’m already in your life. Would you like me to refresh your memory? We could start with the tiny, sweet mole you have on your backside, darling.”

“Stop . . . sadist . . she hissed, her glance sliding away from him and hitting the man across the aisle who was looking at them.

“Settle down, Lotus. I’m going to nap.” Dash slouched in his seat, his long leg hooked over the arm of the aisle seat. “Damn short seats here.”

“Then go back to first class. Your seats are there.”

“These two are mine also.” His eyes closed.

“You bought four seats on an airplane? That’s disgusting.” Lotus exhaled brimstone.

His eyelids fluttered up, a pained look on his face. “I thought Orientals were inscrutable, silent types. How is it that I never noticed how you chatter?”

“I am an inscrutable, silent Oriental when I’m with normal people, not . . . not plutocrats . . .” Lotus sputtered, wondering for a moment if she would ever be back on even keel. In a few short days, Dash Colby had reduced her cool, calm demeanor to that of a gibbering idiot. She could kill him!

He squinted at her. “Are you relaxed now? I’d like to rest.”

Lotus fulminated at him in silence wishing she could blacken those blue eyes of his as she watched them flutter shut. How could he sleep when she was so upset? Then she hunched her shoulder and stared out at the cloud blanket that seemed to sit beneath the plane. She didn’t even realize she was sleepy until her eyes closed.

“Lotus, Lotus, wake up, we’re landing in O’Hare. ...” Dash pressed his mouth to her ear, letting his lips rove over the shell-like surface. Even her ears were perfect! She was a doll! But he was going to show her that she couldn’t jerk him around like this! Leading him on a merry chase to the East when he had a deal pending in Las Vegas! He watched her blink her eyes awake. Then he leaned over and took her mouth with his when she tried to smother a yawn.
“Ummm,
nice. You yawned into my mouth.” He muttered, watching her angry eyes shoot around them to see if anyone was looking at them. “Pay no attention to what people think.”