Man of the Hour (13 page)

He cried out with the pleasure of it, his eyes wide open, his face taut with the strain. “Oh, God…!”

He sank over her, helpless in that last shudder, and she cradled him, one with him, part of him, in a unity that was even greater than the first one they’d ever shared.

She touched his face hesitantly. “Oh, Steven,” she whispered, the joy of belonging to him in her eyes, her voice, her face.

He smiled through the most delicious exhaustion he’d ever felt, trying to catch is breath. “Oh, Meg,” he replied, laughing softly.

She flushed, burying her face in his throat. “It wasn’t…quite like that before.”

“You were a virgin before,” he whispered, smiling. He rolled over onto his back, bringing her along with him so that she could pillow her cheek on his broad, damp chest. “Are you all right?”

“I’m happy,” she replied. “And a little tired.”

“I wonder why.”

She laughed at the droll tone and burrowed closer. “I love you so much, Steven,” she said huskily. “More than my life.”

“Do you?” His arms tightened. “I love you, too, my darling.” He stroked her hair gently, feeling for the moment as if he had the world in his arms. “I should never have let you go. But I felt something for you so strong that it unnerved me.” His arms grew suddenly bruising. “Meg, I couldn’t bear to lose you,” he said roughly, letting all the secret fears loose. “I couldn’t go on living. It was hell without you, those four years. I did wild things trying to fill up the emptiness you left in me, but nothing worked.” He drew in a long breath, while she listened with rapt fascination.

“I…couldn’t let you go again, no matter what I had to do to keep you.”

“Oh, Steve, you won’t have to!” She kissed him softly, brushed his closed eyes with her lips, clinging fiercely to him as she felt the depth of his love for her and was humbled by it. “I’ll never want to go, don’t you see? I didn’t think you loved me four years ago. I ran because I didn’t think I could hold you. I was so young, and I had an irrational fear of intimacy because my sister died having a baby. But I’m not that frightened girl anymore. I’ll stay with you, and I’ll fight any other woman to the edge of death to keep you!” she whispered fiercely, clinging to him.

He laughed softly. They were so much alike. “Yes, I feel the same way.” He touched her forehead with his lips, relaxing a little as he realized that she felt exactly as he did. “Ironic, isn’t it? We were desperately in love and afraid to believe that something so overwhelming could last. But it did. It has.”

“Yes. I never thought I’d be enough for you,” she whispered.

“Idiot. No one else would ever be enough.”

She lifted her eyes to his and smiled. “Are we safe, now?”

“Yes. Oh, yes.”

She flattened her hand over his chest. “And you won’t grind your teeth in the night thinking that I’m plotting ways to run?”

He shook his head. “You’re going to be a responsible businesswoman. How can you run from utility bills and state taxes?”

She smiled at the jibe. “Good point.”

He closed his eyes, drinking in her nearness, her warm softness. “I never dreamed of so much happiness.”

“Neither did I. I can hardly believe we’re really married.” Her breath released in a soft sigh. “I really did love dancing, Steven. But dancing was only a poor second in my life. You came first even then. You always will.”

He felt a surge of love for her that bordered on madness. He rolled her over onto her back and bent to kiss her with aching tenderness.

“I’d die for you,” he said unsteadily. His eyes blazed with what he felt, all of it in his eyes, his face. “I hated the world because you wanted to be a ballerina more than you wanted me!”

“I lied,” she whispered. “I never wanted anything more than I wanted you.”

His eyes closed on a wave of emotion and she reached up, kissing him softly, comfortingly. Tears filled her eyes, because she understood then for the first time his fear of losing her. It humbled her, made her shake all over. She was frightened at the responsibility of being loved like that.

“I won’t ever let you down again,” she whispered. “Not ever!
I won’t leave you, not even if you throw me out. This is forever, Steven.”

He believed her. He had to. If this wasn’t love, it didn’t exist. He gave in at last and put aside his fears. “As if I could throw you out, when I finally know what you really feel.” He kissed her again, hungrily, and as the fires kindled in her eyes he began to smile wickedly. “Perhaps I’m dreaming again…”

She smiled under his hard mouth. “Do you think so? Let’s see.”

She pulled him down to her. Long, sweet minutes later, he was convinced. Although, as he told her afterward, from his point of view, life was going to be the sweetest kind of dream for the rest of their lives together; a sentiment that Meg wholeheartedly shared.

Meg opened her ballet school, and it became well-known and respected, drawing many young prospective ballerinas. Her ankle healed; not enough to allow her to dance again, but well enough to allow her to teach. She was happy with Steven and fulfilled in her work. She had it all, she marveled.

The performing ballet slippers of flawless pink satin and pink ribbons rested in an acrylic case on the grand piano in the living room. But in due time, they came out again, to be fastened with the slender, trembling hands of Steven and Meg’s firstborn, who danced one day with the American Ballet Company in New York—as a prima ballerina.

L
ang Patton felt absolutely undressed without his credentials and the small automatic weapon he’d grown used to carrying on assignment. It had been his own choice to leave the CIA and take a job with a private security company in San Antonio. He was hoping that he wasn’t going to regret it.

He walked into the San Antonio airport—weary from the delayed Washington, D.C., flight—with a carryon bag and looked around for his brother Bob.

He was tall and big, dark-eyed and dark-haired, with a broad, sexy face. His brother was an older version of him, but much slighter in build. Bob approached him with a grin, a young boy of six held firmly by the hand.

“Hi,” Bob greeted him. “I hope you just got here. I had to bring Mikey with me.”

The towheaded boy grinned up at him. He had a front tooth
missing. “Hi, Uncle Lang, been shooting any bad guys?” he asked loudly, causing a security man who was talking to a woman at the information counter to turn his head with a suspicious scowl.

“Not lately, Mikey,” Lang replied. He shook his brother’s hand and bent to lift Mikey up onto his shoulder. “How’s it going, pardner?” he asked the boy.

“Just fine! The dentist says I’m going to get a new tooth, but the Tooth Fairy left me a whole dollar for my old one!”

“Just between us, the Tooth Fairy’s going bust,” Bob said in a lowered voice.

“Can I see your gun, Uncle Lang, huh?” Mikey persisted.

The security guard lifted both eyebrows. Lang could have groaned out loud as the man approached. He’d been through the routine so often that he just put Mikey down and opened his jacket without being asked to.

The security man cocked his head. “Nice shirt, or are you showing off your muscles?”

“I’m showing you that I don’t have a gun,” Lang muttered.

“Oh, that. No, I wasn’t looking for a gun. You’re Lang Patton?”

Lang blinked. “Yes.”

“Nobody else here fits the description,” the man added sheepishly. “Well, there’s a Mrs. Patton on the phone who asks that you stop by the auto parts place and pick her up a new carburetor for a ’65 Ford Mustang, please.”

“No, he will not,” Bob muttered. “I told her she can’t do that overhaul, but she won’t listen. She’s going to prove me wrong
or…cowardly woman, to sucker
you
into it,” he added indignantly to Lang, who was grinning from ear to ear.

“His wife—my sister-in-law—is a whiz with engines,” Lang told the security man. “She can fix anything on wheels. But he—” he jerked his thumb at an outraged Bob “—doesn’t think it’s ladylike.”

“What century is he living in?” the security man asked. “Gee, my wife keeps our washing machine fixed. Saves us a fortune in repair bills. Nothing like a wife who’s handy with equipment. You should count your blessings,” he added to Bob. “Do you know what a mechanic charges?”

“Yes, I know what a mechanic charges, I’m married to one,” Bob said darkly. “She owns her own repair shop, and she doesn’t care that I don’t like her covered in grease and smelling of burned rubber. All I am these days is a glorified baby-sitter.”

Lang knew why Bob was upset. He and his brother had spent their childhood playing second fiddle to their mother’s job. “You know Connie loves you,” he said, trying to pacify Bob. “Besides, you’re a career man yourself, and a terrific surveyor,” Lang argued when the security man was called away to a passenger in distress. “Mikey will take after you one day. Won’t you, Mikey?” he asked the child.

“Not me. I want to be a grease monkey, just like my mommy!”

Bob threw up his hands and walked away, leaving Lang and Mikey to catch up.

The Pattons lived in Floresville, a pleasant little ride down from San Antonio, past rolling land occupied by grazing cattle
and oil pumping stations. This part of Texas was still rural, and Lang remembered happy times as a boy when he and Bob visited their uncle’s ranch and got to ride horses with the cowboys. Things at home were less pleasant.

“Time passes so quickly,” Lang remarked.

“You have no idea,” Bob replied. He glanced at Lang. “I saw Kirry downtown the other day.”

Lang’s heart jumped. He hadn’t expected to hear her name mentioned. In five years, he’d done his best to forget her. The memories were sudden and acute, Kirry with her long wavy blond hair blowing in the breeze, her green eyes wide and bright with laughter and love. There were other memories, not so pleasant, of Kirry crying her eyes out and begging a recalcitrant Lang to listen. But he wouldn’t. He’d caught her in a state of undress with his best friend and, in a jealous rage, he’d believed the worst. It had taken six months for him to find out that his good friend had set Kirry up because he wanted her for himself.

“I tried to apologize once,” Lang said without elaborating, because Bob knew the whole story.

“She won’t talk about you to this day,” was the quiet reply. Bob turned into the side street that led to the Patton house. “She’s very polite when you’re mentioned, but she always changes the subject.”

“She went away to college before I left,” Lang reminded him.

“Yes, and graduated early, with honors. She’s vice president of a top public relations firm in San Antonio. She makes very good money, and she travels a lot.”

“Does she still come home?” Lang asked.

Bob shook his head. “She avoids Floresville like the plague. She can afford to since her mother sold the old homestead.” His eyes shifted to Lang. “You must have hurt her a lot.”

Lang smiled with self-contempt. “You have no idea how much.”

“It was right after that when you were accepted for the CIA.”

“I’d applied six months before,” he reminded Bob. “It wasn’t a sudden decision.”

“It was one you hadn’t shared with any of us.”

“I knew you wouldn’t like it. But here I am, back home and safe, with some pretty exciting memories,” Lang reminisced.

“As alone as when you left.” Bob indicated Mikey, who was lying down on the back seat of Bob’s Thunderbird, reading a Marvel comic book. “If you’d gotten married, you could have had one of those by now.”

Lang looked at Mikey and his eyes darkened. “I don’t have your courage,” he said curtly.

Bob glanced at him. “And you said I shouldn’t let the past ruin my life.”

Lang shrugged. “It tends to intrude. Less since I’ve been away.”

“But you still haven’t coped with it, Lang, you’re getting older. You’ll want a wife and a family one day.”

Lang couldn’t argue with wanting a wife. It was the thought of a child that made him hesitate. “My last case reminded me of how short life can be, and how unpredictable,” he said absently. “The woman I was helping guard had a kid brother who’d been
in a coma for years. He’s older than Mikey, but a real nice kid. I got attached to him.” He stretched and leaned his head back against the seat. “I did a lot of thinking about where my life was going, and I didn’t like what I saw. So when an old friend of mine mentioned this security chief job, I decided to give it a try.”

“What old friend?” Bob asked dryly. “Someone female?”

Lang glowered at him. “Yes.”

“And still interested in you?”

“Lorna gave me up years ago, before I started going with Kirry. She was only thinking that I might like a change,” he said. “It’s nothing romantic.”

Bob didn’t say anything, but his expression did. “Okay, I’ll quit prying. Where is it that you’re going to work?”

“A corporation called Lancaster, Inc., in San Antonio. It has several holdings, and I’ll be responsible for overseeing security in all of them.”

Bob made a sound in his throat.

“What was that?” Lang asked curiously.

Bob coughed, choking. “Why, not a thing in this world!” he said. He was grinning. “I hope you like pancakes for dinner, it’s all I can cook, and Connie won’t be in for hours yet. I usually make her an omelet when she gets here.” His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “I hate mechanics!”

“You knew Connie had this talent when you married her ten years ago,” Lang reminded him.

“Well, I didn’t know she planned to open her own shop, did I? For the past six months, ever since she went into business, I’ve
been living like a single parent! I do everything for Mikey, everything, and she’s never home!”

Lang’s eyebrows lifted. “Does she have any help?”

“Can’t afford any, she says,” he muttered darkly, pulling into the driveway of the stately old Victorian house they lived in. Out back was a new metal building, from which loud mechanical noises were emanating.

The elderly lady next door, working in her flowers, gave Bob an overly sweet smile. “How nice to see
you
again, Lang,” she said. “I hope you didn’t come home for some peace and quiet, because if you did, you’ll find more peace and quiet in downtown San Antonio than you’ll get here!”

“You’re screaming, Martha,” Bob said calmly.

“I have to scream to be heard with that racket going on night and day!” the white-haired little lady said. Her face was turning red. “Can’t you make her quit at a respectable hour?”

“Be my guest,” Bob invited.

“Not me,” she mumbled, shifting from one foot to the other. “Tried it once. She flung a wrench at me.” She made a sniffling noise and went back to work in her flowers.

Lang was trying hard not to laugh. He took his flight bag, and Mikey, out of the back seat.

“Is that all you have?” Bob asked for the third time since he’d gotten his brother off the plane.

“I don’t accumulate things,” Lang told him. “It’s not sensible when your assignments take you all over the country and around the world.”

“I guess so. You don’t accumulate people, either, do you?” he added sadly.

He clapped a big hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Family’s different.”

Bob smiled lopsidedly. “Yeah.”

“I’ll just go out and say hello to Connie.”

“Uh, Lang…”

“It’s all right, I’m a trained secret agent,” Lang reminded him dryly.

“Watch your head. Place is loaded with wrenches….”

Lang banged on the door and waited for the noise to cease and be replaced with loud mutters.

The door was thrown open and a slight woman with brown hair wearing stained blue coveralls and an Atlanta Braves cap peered up at him. “Lang? Lang!”

She hurled herself into his big arms and hugged him warmly. “How are you? When Bob told me you’d given up the Agency to work in San Antonio, I stood up and cheered! Listen, when you get a car, I’ll do all your mechnical work free. You can stay with us—”

“No, I can’t,” he told her. “I have to be in San Antonio, but I can come and visit often, and I will. I’ll get a nice big apartment and some toys for Mikey to play with when you bring him up to see me.”

She grimaced. “I don’t have a lot of time, you know. So many jobs and only me to do them. I can’t complain, though, work is booming. We have a new VCR and television set, and Mikey has
loads of toys. I even bought Bob a decent four-wheel drive to use in his work.” She beamed. “Not bad, huh?”

“Not bad at all,” he agreed, wondering if it would be politic to mention that gifts weren’t going to replace the time she spent with her family. He and Bob had scars that Connie might not even know about. God knew, Lang had never been able to share his with Kirry, as close as they’d been.

“Well, back to work. Bob’s cooking tonight, he’ll feed you. I’ll see you later, Lang. Did you get me the carburetor?”

He flushed.

She glowered. “Bob, right? He wouldn’t let you.” She stamped her foot. “I don’t know why in heaven’s name I had to marry a male chauvinist pig! He looked perfectly sane when I said yes.” She turned and went back into the garage, closing the door behind her, still muttering. Lang was certain then that Bob had never shared the past with her.

“Well, did she scream about the carburetor?” Bob asked hopefully as he dished up black-bottomed pancakes in the kitchen.

“Yes.”

“Did she tell you how much stuff she’s bought us all?” he added. “Nice, isn’t it? If we only had her to share it with, it might mean something. Poor old Mikey doesn’t even get a bedtime story anymore because she’s too tired to read him one. I even do that.”

“Have you tried talking to her?” Lang asked.

“Sure. She doesn’t listen. She’s too busy redesigning engine systems and important stuff like that.” He put some pancakes
down in front of Mikey, who made a face. “Scrape off the burned part,” he instructed his son.

“There’s a hamburger from yesterday in the refrigerator. Can’t I have that instead?” Mikey asked plaintively.

“Okay. Heat it up in the microwave,” Bob grumbled.

“Thanks, Dad! Can I go watch television while I eat?”

“You might as well. Family unity’s gone to hell around here.”

Mikey whooped and went to retrieve his hamburger from the refrigerator. He heated it up and vanished into his room.

“Poor kid. His cholesterol will be as high as a kite and he’ll die of malnutrition.”

Lang was staring at the black pancakes. “If he doesn’t starve first.”

“I can’t cook. She didn’t marry me for my cooking skills. She should have found somebody who was a gourmet chef in his spare time.”

“Why don’t you hire a cook?” Lang suggested.

Bob brightened. “Say, that’s an idea. We’ve got plenty of money, so why don’t I? I’ll start looking tomorrow.” He stared at the black pancakes on his own plate and pushed them away. “Tell you what, I’ll run down to the corner and get us a couple of Mama Lou’s barbecue sandwiches and some fries, how about that?”

Lang grinned. “That’s more like it.” He paused. “While you’re at it, you might tell Connie exactly why you don’t like working mothers. If she understood, she might compromise.”

“Her? Dream on. And I don’t like talking about the past. Go
ahead,” he suggested when Lang paused. “Tell me you ever said anything to Kirry.”

Lang didn’t have a comeback. He shrugged and walked away.

He spent a lazy two days with Bob and Connie and Mikey, trying not to notice the disharmony. If the couple hadn’t each been so individually stubborn, things might have worked out better. But neither one was going to give an inch or compromise at all.

Before Lang left for San Antonio to see his new boss the following Monday, Bob had interviewed four women to housekeep and cook for the family. The one he favored was a Mexican-American girl who had beautiful black hair down to her waist and soft brown eyes like velvet. Her voice was seductive and she had a figure that made Lang’s pulse run wild. This was going to mean trouble, he thought, but he couldn’t interfere. His brother had to lead his own life.