Rivals (21 page)

“She's in a lot of pain all the time now. She tries not to let on, but I can tell. I think she's forgotten I was a registered nurse long before I was a housekeeper. Knowing what she's going through, sometimes I can't help feeling sorry for her. I'm convinced that half of what she's doing now is because she's crazy with the pain. She's like a mortally wounded animal, wanting to take something with her when she goes.”

“With your help, maybe she won't succeed.”

“I hope not.”

“Was there anything else?”

“Nooo.” She dragged out the word, as if none too certain of that. “She did make another call after she'd talked to this Margaret Rose woman. Probably to Ben Canon, although I don't know that for sure.”

“Why do you think it was Canon?”

“Because he came to the house later that afternoon. When I answered the door, he said she was expecting him.”

“Do you know why he was there?”

There was a pause before she answered, “I think it was to have a new will signed. I know they called old Charlie Rainwater and Shorty Thompson into the library, probably to witness it. I asked them later, but those two are so closemouthed I couldn't get anything out of them other than a grunt.”

“I can't say that I'm surprised,” he admitted grimly. “If anything, I thought she would have had a new will drawn up right after she learned about this Margaret Rose.”

“I thought you would probably anticipate that,” she said, then paused again. “I'd better hang up. She sent Charlie into town with me. He could walk in any minute and I'd rather he didn't see me on the phone.”

“You take care of yourself, Max—and thanks for the information.”

“You know I'll help any way I can. Be good, Chance.”

“I will.” He hung up.

“Hattie's made a new will, has she?” Sam remarked in a grimly troubled voice.

“Yes.” Chance turned to look at him thoughtfully, then glanced sideways at Molly. “Get Matt Sawyer on the phone for me,” he directed, then commented idly, “At least we have a first name to give him. I wonder how many women named Margaret Rose there are in the San Francisco area—specifically ones with a residential phone. A computer search of the phone company's records should be able to provide us with such a list.”

14

C
opies
of birth certificates, baptismal records, marriage licenses, church registers, obituary notices, death certificates—they were all there—spread across her desk top. In between bites of the seafood salad she'd order from a local deli, Flame checked the names against the ones that appeared on the ancestral chart Hattie had included in the packet of documents. Although she hadn't had time to verify everyone, the evidence seemed irrefutable. She and Hattie Morgan were related, albeit distantly.

A quick rap on the door pulled her attention from the papers on her desk. “Yes?”

Almost immediately the door opened and the blond-haired Debbie Connors stepped inside, her look anxious and agitated. “I'm sorry, Flame, but Mr. Powell's outside. He wants to see you. I didn't know what to tell him.” The words tumbled from her in a rush.

“He's here?” Flame questioned, as stunned as her assistant was.

“Yes, I—” The door behind her started to move, pushing Debbie along with it. She stepped hastily out of the way as Malcom Powell walked through the opening.

Flame rose from her chair, unsure what to make of this unexpected visit. Surely he had to know that by coming here, the mountain had moved. “Malcom,” she said in greeting, then added coolly, “you should have let me know you were coming.”

He paused in the middle of the room. A hand-tailored gray suit, the same iron-dark shade as his hair, smoothly fit over his powerfully built chest.

“I see I've interrupted you in the middle of a late lunch,” he observed, his sharp eyes flicking a glance to the partially eaten salad on her desk.

“I'm finished.” In truth, her appetite had fled when he walked in the door. She picked up the salad container along with its plastic flatware and paper napkin and deposited them in her wastebasket. When she turned back to Malcom, Flame caught Debbie's frantic what-do-you-want-me-to-do-look. “That will be all, Debbie. Let me know when Tim Herrington arrives.”

“The instant he comes,” she promised and hurried out the door, this time closing it tightly behind her.

“This is the first time I've ever been in your office,” Malcom remarked, looking around him with curious interest, his glance skimming over the white lacquered desk and attendant chairs, upholstered in a textured fabric of pale cerulean blue, and lingering on the abstract painting behind her desk, the Art Deco sculpture on the occasional table, and a set of needlepoint pillows in a geometric design on the small sofa.

“What did you want to see me about, Malcom?” She could think of only one reason for his unannounced visit as she gathered together the documents on her desk and slipped them back into their manila envelope.

He walked over to the window. “I almost called and had Arthur pick you up. Then I thought better of it.” He stood with his hands clasped behind his back in a pensive pose. “After our luncheon last Tuesday, I had a feeling you wouldn't react well to such a summons. You would have come, but only because you felt you had no choice. You would have resented that. And it isn't resentment I want from you.”

Flame very carefully avoided asking him what he did want. She knew the answer to that. She always had. Remaining by her desk, she waited for him to continue, a fine tension threading through her nerves and matching the slow simmer of her anger.

“I think you should know where I stand, Flame. The Powell account is yours as long as it is handled satisfactorily. I won't hold it over your head.”

Provoked by the tone of largess in his remark, she challenged, “Am I supposed to thank you for that?”

He half-turned to look at her. “You should,” he said, his eyes defiantly narrowed in their penetrating study of her. “Those were brave words you said last Tuesday, but that's all they were. I know you won't admit it, but I could use the account to get what I want from you.”

“Don't bet on it,” she snapped.

Malcom merely smiled. “I don't think you realize just how vulnerable you are to that type of pressure.” Then he shrugged, dismissing it. “But it won't be applied. A victory under those circumstances would be hollow indeed. Which is not to say I'm giving up,” he inserted quickly, a subtle warning contained in the firm advisory. “I'm only saying that when you come to me, it will be of your own free will.”

Ignoring his latter statement, Flame tilted her head at an aggressive angle and demanded, “Does that mean you'll be calling off your bloodhound?”

“I beg your pardon.” He turned the rest of the way around, his eyebrows lowering to form a thick bushy line that hooded his eyes.

“You amaze me, Malcom,” Flame murmured with a touch of sarcasm.

“What are you talking about?”

“I'm talking about the man who's been following me for the last week, the one you hired,” she retorted, her anger showing, although tightly controlled.

“I didn't hire anyone to follow you. Why should I?”

Both his denial and confusion seemed genuine. She frowned. “Either you have acting talents you haven't used—or you're telling the truth.”

“It is the truth,” he insisted. “Who's following you and why?”

She hesitated, still watching him closely. “A man. I saw him for the first time at the Deborgs' party for Lucianna Colton. He was a waiter, in his middle to late forties with brown hair and a large, hooked nose. He drives a dark green sedan, a late model Ford.” There was nothing in his expression to indicate the description meant anything to him. “And twice he's passed on messages warning me to stay away from Chance Stuart. I assumed…you were behind them. But you weren't, were you?”

“No.” His gaze narrowed on her sharply. “Have you been seeing a great deal of Stuart?”

“When he's been in town, yes,” she admitted.

“Are you serious about him?” A muscle flexed visibly along his strong, square jaw.

She waited for a twinge of doubt to come, but none did. “Very serious,” she stated, amazed by the buoyantly content feelings within that had surfaced with the admission.

Malcom paused, then laughed abruptly. “My God, I didn't realize I could still feel jealousy.” A slight frown creased his forehead as he gazed at her in thoughtful study. “I don't know why that should surprise me. With you, it's always been different. Perhaps, in the beginning it was the chase and the conquest that appealed to me, but that changed long—”

“Stop it, Malcom,” she warned.

He looked at the sparkle of temper in her eyes and smiled. “You excite me the way no other woman has—including my wife.”

“I don't care, Malcom! Your feelings are a problem
you'll
have to deal with—not me. I am not going to be the solution to them.” She struggled to keep her voice down and her temper in check.

Moving away from the window, Malcom crossed to the side of her desk, that aura of power emanating from him and reminding her that he was a force to be reckoned with. She faced him squarely, conscious of the possessive look in his eyes and the slow skim of his gaze as it traveled the length of her.

“Stuart's not the man for you,” he announced.

Infuriated by his arrogant assertion, she snapped, “That's for me to decide!”

“Right now your eyes are filled with him. But it won't last. You'll come to me…in time.”

Momentarily shaken by the certainty in his voice, she fought to dispel it. “You have forgotten one very important detail, Malcom. Whether Chance Stuart is in my life or not, my answer to you would be the same as it's always been—no.”

He didn't like her answer, but a knock at her door checked his reply. Aware that anger had flushed her cheeks, Flame turned, welcoming the interruption as Tim Herrington, the head of the agency's San Francisco branch, walked in.

“Sorry to bother you, Flame,” he began, then paused in feigned surprise when he saw Malcom Powell. “Malcom, I didn't realize you were here.” He crossed the room, a hand outstretched in hearty greeting, his eyes big and dark behind the bottle-thick lenses of his gold-rimmed glasses.

“Hello, Tim. How are you?” Malcom responded perfunctorily.

“Fine, just fine. And you? No problems, I hope.” His glance ran to Flame as if addressing the remark to her, concerned that there might be trouble with the agency's biggest client.

“None at all,” Malcom assured him.

“Good.” He seemed to visibly relax, the falseness of his wide smile diminishing.

The two of them chatted about business in general a few minutes longer, then Malcom brought the conversation to a close. “You'll have to excuse me, Tim, I have another appointment.” He looked at Flame. “We'll have lunch next week. I'll have my secretary call and let you know the day,” he said, taking it for granted that she would make room on her schedule to accommodate him. Which, of course, she would.

Alone in her flat that evening, Flame again went through the sheaf of documents Hattie had sent her. When she came to the photocopy of her own birth certificate, she paused, her attention centering on her given name of Margaret Rose. A smile touched her lips, softly edging the corners. Her mother had been the only one who ever used that name. To everyone else, she'd always been Flame. But not her mother. Never her mother.

Her glance strayed to her purse lying open on the glass-topped occasional table next to her chair. She hesitated then reached inside and pulled out the small compact that had been a gift from her mother on her thirteenth birthday. A special occasion called for a special gift, her mother always said. And this one was special indeed. Done in cloisonné art, the design depicted a vase holding a bouquet of daisies and roses. Somewhere, sometime, her mother had read or heard that in French, Margaret meant daisy. At the time, her father had joked that the design should have been a candle with a tall flame, but her mother hadn't found his remark all that humorous.

Flame suspected that her mother believed she would outgrow her nickname someday. Once—Flame couldn't remember exactly when anymore—her mother had told her she'd picked the name Margaret Rose because it had a certain ring of pride and dignity about it that she liked. Of course, Flame had thought it sounded dreadfully old-fashioned and used to cringe whenever her mother called her Margaret Rose. Now no one ever did—no one, that is, except Hattie Morgan.

The telephone rang.

“Speak of the devil,” Flame murmured, as she reached for the phone. She cradled the receiver against her shoulder and slipped the compact back into her purse. “Yes, hello.”

“Flame? It's Chance.”

“Chance, this is an unexpected pleasure.” She brought the phone a little closer, holding it with both hands.

“I hope so.” There was the suggestion of a smile in his voice. “I had a few minutes before I have to be at a meeting, so I thought I'd call and see if you have any plans for the weekend.”

“I hope I do—with you, that is.” She smiled, finding it impossible to play it coy with him. “Are you flying in?”

“Long enough to pick you up.”

“Where are we going?”

“That's a secret.”

“That isn't fair,” Flame protested, intrigued just the same. “How will I know what to pack? You have to give me some kind of clue. Will I need snow skis or a swimsuit?”

“A swimsuit. And maybe something simple for the evening and a light wrap.”

“Is that it?”

“You can fill in the blanks from there.”

“In that case, I'll bring something lacy and black.” She smiled into the phone.