Rivals (53 page)

Malcom started to warn her that she'd likely run into Stuart out there, then he realized she knew that—just as she'd known Stuart would be at the opera tonight. He nodded instead and said nothing, remaining in his seat and smoldering in his own private hell. Oh, he had her, but he had never really had her.

Outside, the wind had died to a whisper and the night was warm with the promise of spring. The city lights of downtown Tulsa had blurred the stars to a dusting of pale specks overhead, too faint to compete with the bright lights shining from the windows of the monoliths that loomed in front of the Performing Arts Center.

In the distance, a horn honked, but there were few cars on the downtown streets. The only hum of traffic came from far away. Flame breathed in the quiet of the night, feeling its calmness smooth over her as she gazed across the precisely landscaped green of the Williams Center.

“I've been hearing some rumors lately.” The lazily seductive drawl of Chance's voice seemed to reach out from the night and stroke her.

The calm fled, leaving a high alertness. Somehow Flame managed to restrain the impulse to spin sharply around and, instead, continued to gaze into the night. “Have you?” she countered, certain he was alluding to her relationship with Malcom.

“Yes.” A soft footfall warned her that Chance was directly behind her.

She took a quick breath and caught the fragrance of his cologne, earthy and masculine. Slowly she turned to face him, recognizing that not only was she ready for this confrontation, she was also looking forward to it.

He stood before her, dark and elegant in his black evening attire. “Very interesting rumors, they are, too.”

“Really?” She tried to read his expression, but it was too bland, too hooded.

“Yes, all sorts of talk about dams, resort hotels, marinas.”

She stiffened, her heart rocketing. That was the last thing she'd expected him to say. How had he found out so quickly?

As if reading her mind, he said, “Did you think I wouldn't hear about your project? Sometimes it really can be a small world, Flame.”

“So it would seem,” she murmured tightly.

“You don't really think you're going to succeed, do you?”

“You surely don't think you're the only one capable of building it, do you?” she challenged.

“Initially I didn't put much stock in the rumors—until I found out who your partner was.” He tipped his head at a considering angle. “You got into bed with Powell literally as well as figuratively, didn't you?”

Angered, she asserted, “It must gall you to know that I'm going to build the development you planned and still keep nearly all of Morgan's Walk intact.”

“Assuming you succeed.” His smile mocked her.

“I will.”

“Will you? You've dealt yourself into a game with the big boys, Flame. And in cutthroat competition, there aren't any rules.”

“Is that suppose to frighten me?” Flame taunted.

“You've already made a beginner's mistake. You should have bluffed—pretended that you didn't know what I was talking about until you found out for sure how much—or how little—I knew about your project. But you admitted it.” There was a wry and lazy slant to his smile. “You tipped your hand, Flame.”

“That makes us even,” she retorted. “Because now I don't have to wonder anymore whether you know what I'm doing. You've told me.”

“This is the only warning you're going to have, Flame,” he said quietly. “For your own good, you'd better get out while you can.”

“And let you take over Morgan's Walk? I'll see you in hell first,” she declared with a faint but defiant toss of her head.

He dismissed that with a vague, shrugging motion. “I've been there most of my life anyway.” He paused. “When you see Powell, tell him there's nothing to be gained by waiting. He might as well write me out a check for the mortgage balance. I never did like to spend my own money. I might as well use his to stop you.”

“You'll get it when it's due and not before.”

“Suit yourself.” He started to turn away, then swung back. “Speaking of Powell. Is he enjoying the bedroom benefits of your partnership as much as I did?”

Stung by that remark, she struck hard at his face, the impact jarring every nerve in her arm. Instantly she was seized, his fingers digging into the quilted fabric of her copper sleeves and bruising her arms. Refusing to struggle and give him the satisfaction of overpowering her physically, Flame stood silent and unyielding, meeting the icy glitter of his blue eyes.

“Does he make you furious like this?” he demanded.

“You'll never know.” She observed the brief flexing of the muscles along his hard jaw and knew her gibe had gotten through.

“Won't I?” he mocked. “You're too cool. Which tells me he doesn't ruffle you at all. You don't
feel
anything with him, do you?”

“I trust and respect him—which is more than I could ever say about you,” she hurled bitterly.

But Chance just smiled. “Trust. Respect. Those are lukewarm things. Not like this.”

He hauled her against him, his mouth coming down on her lips before she could turn away. The angry and demanding passion of his kiss drove at her. Despite all the twisting and turning of her head, she couldn't elude its heated force. Then came the shocking recognition that some part of her didn't want to end this moist, rocking together of their lips. Pride wouldn't let her respond, but a hunger inside wouldn't let her break it off.

Abruptly Chance pushed her from him. Dragging in a deep breath, she threw back her head to look at him, taut-jawed and grim-lipped. Could he see the brightness of her eyes? she wondered. Did he know it was caused by hot tears?

“Do you realize how ironic it is, Flame?” he challenged, a harshness tightening his voice. “You condemned me for using you to get Morgan's Walk. Yet you can justify the way you're using Powell because he's your means of keeping it.”

She trembled, angered that he would dare to make such a comparison. She wanted to shout at him that it wasn't the same at all. There was no pretense of love in her affair with Malcom—not on either side—and no attempt at deception either. Theirs was an arrangement that suited both of them. But Chance had already walked away from her. She glared after him, watching as he disappeared inside the building, and hating him for trying to paint her with his own devil-black brush.

Turning her back on the lighted hall, she drank deeply of the night air and fought to cool her temper. Why did she let him rile her like this? Why didn't she simply ignore his pointed gibes? There was no truth in them.

“Have you had all the fresh air you want?” Malcom tried but he couldn't keep the accusing edge out of his voice.

It wasn't the fresh scent of the night air he caught when he halted behind her, but the heady tang of a man's cologne that mixed with her perfume. Swinging around at the sound of his voice, she faced him, all heat and fire. He had the satisfaction of knowing that whatever Stuart had taken, it had been without her consent. Yet he was irritated, too, by the deep emotion Stuart had succeeded in arousing, when he himself had barely created a ripple in all this time with her.

“He knows, Malcom.” Her voice was made tight by her attempt to keep all feeling from it.

“He knows about what?”

“Our development.”

“You told him?” He eyed her in surprise.

“I told him nothing that he didn't already know.” She gripped her small purse with both hands, her knuckles whitening with the pressure. “This changes things, Malcom. He'll be out to stop us now.”

“I'll handle him. Don't worry. As soon as we get back, I'll get Bronsky moving on an approval for the dam—and place a few calls of my own to clear the way for it. I have the financing for the project virtually in place now. I can't think of any obstacles he can throw in our path that will stop us.”

“But you don't understand,” she insisted urgently. “He's going to come after us with everything he has. This isn't a fight we can win by waging it at long distance. One of us will have to stay here in Oklahoma from now on. Obviously, that has to be me.”

He disagreed with her logic, but he didn't think logic had anything to do with her decision. She claimed to hate Stuart, yet she wanted to be here to do battle with him. Silently, he studied her—so rigid and proud. He wanted to kiss away that stiffness, but he doubted that he would like the taste of another man's lips.

“That's what you've wanted all along isn't it? To move out here,” he said with a certain fatalism.

“No,” she denied, as if stunned he should even suggest it.

“That's what you planned to do when you married him.”

“Well, I'm not married to him now,” she replied angrily.

“Yes, I know. But I wondered if you remembered that.” He took her arm. “Let's go back inside. The night air doesn't seem to be agreeing with either one of us.”

39

I
n
less than a week's time, Flame flew to San Francisco, packed her things, notified the building manager of her intended absence for several months, arranged for her mail to be transferred, resigned her position at the agency, cleared her desk, and caught a flight to Tulsa. Fortunately, she had been grooming Rudy Gallagher to take over the Powell account, the only major client she had continued to handle personally the last few months, so the actual transference of her accounts had been the least time-consuming of her tasks. The rest had been hectic and harried, every minute crammed with something that needed to be done.

And the pace hadn't slowed up when she arrived back at Morgan's Walk. Friday morning the freight service delivered the boxes of personal items she'd arranged to have shipped to her. She sorted through them, separating the three marked with the letter
P
, indicating they contained either her paperwork or office supplies, and carried them into the library. The rest she gave to Maxine to unpack.

Weary from jet lag and too little sleep in the last five days, Flame stood in the middle of the library and stared at the three boxes, then shook her head at her inability to decide which to unpack first. What did it matter? Ultimately she had to unpack all three.

Using the scissors from the desk, she cut through the packing tape and unfolded the cardboard lids. From the grand foyer came the pounding thud of the front door's brass knocker. At almost the same instant, the telephone rang.

Hearing the rapid clumping as Maxine hurried down the stairs, Flame called out, “I'll answer the phone.” Leaving the opened box on the floor, she crossed to the desk and picked up the phone on the second ring. “Morgan's Walk, Flame Bennett speaking.”

“I know what you are trying to do.” Startled by the strange sounding voice on the line, Flame pressed the receiver closer to her ear and frowned. “You had better stop or you will be very sorry.”

“Who are you?” she demanded angrily. “
What
are you?”

But the line went dead. She held the phone away and stared at it. Something about the threatening call was vaguely reminiscent of the hastily scrawled messages she'd received in the past. The hawk-faced man—she hadn't thought about him in weeks. But that had all happened back in San Francisco—before she married Chance. Had he followed her all the way to Tulsa? If so, why had he broken the pattern and called her instead of leaving her another one of his menacing little notes?

That voice, it had sounded alien…mechanical—like a robot's. It was definitely not made by a human. No, some kind of voice synthesizer had been used, obviously to protect the identity of the caller. But she'd never heard the hawk-faced man speak. She couldn't have recognized his voice.

She mentally shook the whole thing away and returned the receiver to its cradle, telling herself that she was making too much of it. More than likely the call was some adolescent's idea of a prank. As far as she was concerned, a very unamusing one.

“I see I've caught you in the midst of settling in.”

Flame spun around and stared for a blank instant at Ben Canon standing in the doorway, materializing out of nowhere, like the leprechaun he resembled.

“Maxine said you were in here.” His gaze narrowed sharply on her, his remark reminding her there'd been someone at the door when she answered the phone. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” she denied quickly, then gestured toward the phone. “Some crank called. That's all,” she said, shrugging her shoulders in an attempt to dismiss the threatening phone call. “Come in, but you'll have to excuse the mess. As you can see, I have moved in bag, box, and baggage.”

“Yes, I noticed part of it in the foyer.” He smiled in sympathy as he walked over to a wing chair.

“What brings you all the way out here?”

“I have some good news.” He set his briefcase on the chair.

“I could use some.” Especially in the wake of that phone call, but she didn't say that as she skirted the box at her feet and joined him in front of the fireplace, conscious as always of the portrait that watched her.

The lawyer took a letter from his briefcase and handed it to her. “Morgan's Walk has received preliminary approval to be listed as an historic place. I stress preliminary. It could still be rejected. Unfortunately we can't claim Will Rogers slept here—or that Edna Ferber wrote part of
Cimarron
in one of the guest bedrooms. We could be certain of acceptance then. Still, I think this is a good sign.”

“So do I.” As Flame started to glance through the letter, Maxine walked into the library, carrying a coffee tray, the thick rubber soles of her orthopedic shoes making almost no sound on the hardwood floor.

“You didn't say, but I figured you'd want coffee,” she declared, throwing a pointed look at the attorney.