[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
have him come over to see you."
"I don't need..." she protested.
His eyes flared. "The hell you don't! You need someone you can talk to. Obviously
it isn't going to be your worst enemy, but then Ed knows all about you, doesn't he?
You don't have secrets from him!"
He seemed to mind. She searched his angry face and wondered what he'd say if he
knew those secrets. She gave him a lackluster smile.
"Some secrets are better kept," she said heavily. "Thanks for the ride."
"Leslie."
She hesitated, looking back at him.
His face looked harder than ever. "Were you raped?"
Chapter Eight
The words cut like a knife. She actually felt them. Her sad eyes met his dark,
searching ones.
Not quite," she replied tersely.
As understatements went, it was a master stroke. She watched the blood drain out
of his face, and knew he was remembering, as she was, their last encounter, in his
office, when she'd fainted.
He couldn't speak. He tried to, but the words choked him. He winced and turned
away, striding back to the sports car. Leslie watched him go with a curious
emptiness, as if she had no more feelings to bruise. Perhaps this kind detachment
would last for a while, and she could have one day without the mental anguish that
usually accompanied her, waking and sleeping.
138 MATT CALDWELL: TEXAS TYCOON
She turned mechanically and went slowly into the house on her crutches, and down
the hall to her small apartment. She had a feeling that she wouldn't see much of
Matt Caldwell from now on. At last she knew how to deflect his pursuit. All it took
was the truth or as much of it as she felt comfortable letting him know.
Ed phoned to check on her later in the day and promised to come and see her the
next evening. He did, arriving with a bag full of the Chinese take-out dishes she
loved. While they were eating it, he mentioned that her job was still open.
"Miss Smith wouldn't enjoy hearing that," she teased lightly.
"Oh, Karla's working for Matt now."
She stared down at the wooden chopsticks in her hand. "Is she?"
"For some reason, he doesn't feel comfortable asking you to come back, so he sent
me to do it," he replied. "He realizes that he's made your working environment
miserable, and he's sorry. He wants you to come back and work for me."
She stared at him hard. "What did you tell him?"
"What I always tell him, that if he wants to know anything about you, he can ask
Page 48
Palmer, Diana - Long Tall Texans 21 - Matt Caldwell - Texas Tycoon
you." He ate a forkful of soft noodles and took a sip of the strong coffee she'd
brewed before he continued. "I gather he's realized that something pretty drastic
happened to you."
DIANA PALMER
139
"Did he say anything about it to you?"
"No." He lifted his gaze to meet hers. "He did go to the roadhouse out on the
Victoria highway last night and wreck the bar."
"Why would he do something like that?" she asked, stunned by the thought of the
straitlaced Mather Caldwell throwing things around.
"He was pretty drunk at the time," Ed confessed. "I had to bail him out of jail
this morning. That was one for the books, let me tell you. The whole damned police
department was standing around staring at him openmouthed when we left. He was only
ever in trouble once, a woman accused him of assault and he was cleared. His
housekeeper testified that she'd been there the whole time and she and Matt had sent
the baggage packing. But he's never treed a bar before."
She remembered the stark question he'd asked her and how she'd responded. She
didn't understand why her past should matter to Matt. In fact, she didn't want to
understand. He still didn't know the whole of it, and she was frightened of how he'd
react if he knew. That wonderful tenderness he'd given her in the Jaguar had been
actually painful, a bitter taste of what a man's love would be like. It was
something she'd never experienced, and she'd better remember that Matt was the
enemy. He'd felt sorry for her. He certainly wasn't in love with her. He wanted her,
that was all. But despite her surprising response to his light caresses, complete
physical intimacy was some-
140 MATT CALDWELL: TEXAS TYCOON
thing she wasn't sure she was capable of responding to. The memories of Mike's
vicious fondling made her sick. She couldn't live with them.
"Stop doing that to yourself," Ed muttered, dragging her back to the present.
"You can't change the past. You have to walk straight into the future without
flinching. It's the only way, to meet things head-on."
"Where did you learn that?" she asked.
"Actually I heard a televised sermon that caught my attention. That's what the
minister said, that you have to go boldly forward and meet trouble head-on, not try
to run away from it or hide." He pursed his lips. "I'd never heard it put quite that
way before. It really made me think."
She sipped coffee with a sad face. "I've always tried to run. I've had to run."
She lifted her eyes to his. "You know what they would have done to me if I'd stayed
in Houston."
"Yes, I do, and I don't blame you for getting out while you could," Ed assured
her. "But there's something I have to tell you now. And you're not going to like
it."
"Don't tell me," she said with black humor, "someone from the local newspaper
recognized me and wants an interview."
"Worse," he returned. "A reporter from Houston is down here asking questions. I
think he's traced you."
DIANA PALMER
141
She put her head in her hands. "Wonderful. Well, at least I'm no longer an
employee of the Caldwell group, so it won't embarrass your cousin when I'm exposed."
"I haven't finished. Nobody will talk to him," he added with a grin. "In fact, he
actually got into Matt's office yesterday when his secretary wasn't looking. He was
only in there for a few minutes, and nobody knows what was said. But he came back
out headfirst and, from what I hear, he ran out the door so fast that he left his
briefcase behind with Matt cursing like a wounded sailor all the way down the hall.
They said Matt had only just caught up with him at the curb when he ran across
Page 49
Palmer, Diana - Long Tall Texans 21 - Matt Caldwell - Texas Tycoon
traffic and got away."
She hesitated. "When was this?"
"Yesterday." He smiled wryly. "It was a bad time to catch Matt. He'd already been
into it with one of the county commissioners over a rezoning proposal we're trying
to get passed, and his secretary had hidden in the bathroom to avoid him. That was
how the reporter got in."
"You don't think he...told Matt?" she asked worriedly.
"No. I don't know what was said, of course, but he wasn't in there very long."
"But, the briefcase..."
"...was returned to him unopened," Ed said. "I know because I had to take it down
to the front
142 MATT CALDWELL: TEXAS TYCOON
desk." He smiled, amused. "I understand he paid someone to pick it up for him."
"Thank God."
"It was apparently the last straw for Matt, though," he continued, "because it
wasn't long after that when he said he was leaving for the day."
"How did you know he was in jail?"
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]