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“Why, that’s blackmail!” David swore, jumping to his feet.
“Oh, John, what have you done?” Ellen whispered, her shoulders drooping.
David rose to his full height and glared down at Harry. “You can’t be serious!” he hissed. “Are we talking living together? Co-habitating? As in man and wife?”
Harry looked up, amused for the first time that morning. “Really, David, I think John intended something a little bit more…brotherly.”
“Dammit, Harry, you’d better talk quickly or some cat hospital is going to be very happy tomorrow!”
“Very well, David. Ellen is scheduled for eye surgery in early October. She needs someone to care for her till then. John needed someone he could trust absolutely, and you’re it! And just in case you’re thinking to hell with it, Ellen needs the money desperately, even if you don’t. Surgery is a very expensive proposition, exceedingly so, in her case, and Ellen has never been able to buy insurance. Preexisting condition, or some such nonsense. Anyway, no insurance company would take her on. So, as I said, my boy, you’re it!”
The room was silent as everyone digested Harry’s words. David felt murderous, although he knew he couldn’t blame Harry. His father was the sole author of this misdeed, and David knew that no one, not even Harry, had ever been able to sway John Hartwell once his mind was made up.
“Damn!” The sound of David’s fist resounded through the room as it came crashing down on the desk.
“Mr. Gold,” Ellen begged, her hands twisting in her lap, “surely you can see for yourself that this won’t do. There must be some way around it. John couldn’t have meant…he must have known that David wouldn’t…” Words failed her, but David knew what she meant.
“Ellen’s right,” David agreed coldly. “I’m not fit to live with. You know that better most, Harry.” Unconsciously he rubbed his scarred cheek, a gesture not lost on Harry Gold. But the gesture was futile. Harry’s hands were tied.
“I really am sorry,” he clucked sympathetically as he shuffled to his feet, “but there’s nothing I can do, absolutely nothing. It’s an airtight will. Unfortunately you both have only until tomorrow noon to decide what to do. That’s another stipulation of the will. John didn’t want things dragged out. I’ll return at twelve for your decision.”
Walking toward the door, he paused by David’s side, placing a sympathetic hand on the young man’s shoulder. “I’m terribly sorry, son. Believe me when I say I tried my best to talk your father out of this. But you know John. He refused to reconsider—said something about cats and canaries. His letter is on the desk, there. Maybe it will explain things better. I certainly do hope so.”
Stunned, neither Ellen nor David spoke for some time after Harry left. Ellen was a million miles away, while David perched on the edge of the desk, staring hard at the woman who had him trapped. It was Ellen who spoke first.
“I’m sorry, David, I really am. I had no idea. It’s kind of spooky the way John is trying to control your life almost from his grave.”
“What about yours?”
“I know, it’s crazy.”
“Do you at least know what’s in his letter?”
“No, I do not, but he was very thorough.”
“That he was.”
“And I might as well tell you now that he knew he was dying, for well over a year.”
“You’re joking! Harry said Dad knew he was ill, but not dying! And certainly not for a year!”
“I wish I were joking,” Ellen said sadly. “Maybe that will go a little way toward explaining his behavior. I begged him to tell you how sick he was. We had quite an argument over it, more than one, but he refused—the only thing he ever refused me. I even tried to call you myself, one morning, but he walked in while I was dialing and became absolutely livid. He insisted I hang up, and swore me to secrecy right then and there. He certainly knew how to tie up loose ends, though, and I guess I was one of them. I just wish he’d asked me what I wanted. He could be a little autocratic at times.”
“A little?” David snorted as he rose to his feet. “Now there’s an understatement!”
Ellen took a deep breath, courage fighting with her instinct to run. Courage won out, but the cost was high. John Hartwell’s high-handedness, coupled with David’s resentment, was upsetting. The way Harry Gold had kept apologizing to David had really begun to grate! Hey, what about her? she’d wanted to shout. Didn’t she rate the same consideration? What on earth was so special about David Hartwell, that everyone should feel sorry for him? After all, she was the one who was going to undergo surgery! If anyone should complain…
She stopped short, shocked by her display of self-pity. If she didn’t watch out, she was going to begin to sound like an off-key singer in a honky-tonk bar. Still, David Hartwell was so bitter, Ellen had to wonder, and not for the first time, exactly what had happened to him. It was awful, that much she knew, but only because of certain allusions John Hartwell had made about David, not because of anything specific John had told her. When pressed, John had always blown her off, and now, here David was, raising the same red flag to any and all trespassers who dared to cross the same line his own father had so carefully drawn. It was enormously irritating.
“You know, John hasn’t asked you to do all that much, just help me out for a couple of months. Does my blindness make you uncomfortable? People sometimes do have that reaction. Being handicapped is not a popular venue.”
David’s silence was awful.
“Yes, well, perhaps we need a break,” she decided, fiddling nervously with her cane. “I know we have an important decision to make, but this whole thing has been a big surprise to both of us. I know I certainly need time to sort things out. John was very good to me, but this… I need to try and figure out what he meant.”
“The answer may be in this envelope,” David said, forcing himself to speak as Ellen rose to her feet.
“I’m sure it is,” she agreed with a tight smile, “but you must read it first, alone. It’s what John wanted, or it would have had both our names on the envelope.”
A curious brooding filled David’s heart as he watched her escape to the safety of her rooms. How much had she known? How hard had Harry Gold really fought this will? How much had John laughed? He hardly knew what he was doing as he opened his father’s letter.
Greetings, my son, from your dying father,
Now, I ask you, how’s that for an opening? I trust it got your attention, something I wasn’t very good at doing in real life. My truest regret is that we won’t have time to make our peace—we would have, you know. I believe that with all my heart—because if you’re reading this, then the worst has happened—but you’ve come home.
The car accident you suffered as a boy left a void you never allowed me to fill. Well, I am going to fill it now. However you have rewritten history is the quarrel of a young child, but suffice it to say—to the wounded man that poor, scarred boy has become—I leave my most valued possession. You’re the only one to whom I can entrust the well-being of Ellen Candler. She needs you, although she would never admit to it and I know you will protect her with your life. In return, she will give you back yours. I only wish I could be there to enjoy the fireworks.
Your loving father,
John
David stared down at the letter crumpled in his fist. Got me! Just as he knew he would. He closed his eyes and massaged his brow, fighting the onslaught of a headache. This was no time for a headache, not when he needed his wits about him—for Ellen’s sake, if nothing else. Even if it was she who had unwittingly opened the old wounds of that poor, scarred schoolboy! Wounded man! Let’s not forget that part! But hey, he could be forgiven a lot of sins for what happened one night, twenty long years ago! And the personal cost to him—well, hell, only his damned face—and all semblance of normal life! And if anybody doubted that, they just had to watch people gawk when he walked down the street, or went to a museum, or entered a restaurant, or…or looked in a goddamned mirror and saw what he saw every goddamned day of his tormented life!
Two million dollars and a blind girl!
Fireworks? David shook his head sadly. More like murder in the first degree—and who’d be holding the smoking gun was anybody’s guess.
Ellen kept to her room that afternoon, perhaps unable to summon the energy to go another round with him. Relieved by her disappearance, David decided to hike the three miles to the summit of the mountain. If he stayed in that mausoleum one minute longer, he thought he would go crazy. It made his skin crawl. Too many memories haunted the place. Every turn he made, he expected to see his father and every room he entered, he looked for his mother, his beautiful mother, always ready to laugh, always ready to stop what she was doing and gather him up in her soft, perfumed arms. Almost as if she had known their time together would be short. Sometimes he thought that when she’d died, she’d taken his laughter with her. His father’s, too. Laughter, perfume, hugs and kisses—all the soft, sweet things in life that her two grieving menfolk never managed to make up for.
It was dark, nine-thirty, when he finally returned to the house. The housekeeper met him at the door.
“Miss Ellen asked me to tell you that she had a headache and would see you in the morning. She took a dinner tray in her room. I thought you would like the same.”
David’s windblown hair almost hid his scars, but they couldn’t disguise the tired lines that pulled his mouth taut. Still, he managed a faint smile. “Dinner and a headache? Sounds fine to me.”
Hurrying upstairs, he paused by Ellen’s door and almost knocked, but a glance down at his stained jeans and muddy work boots changed his mind. When he finished showering, his dinner tray was waiting in his room, the aroma of beef stew and freshly baked rolls reminding him how hungry he was. He was so famished, he ate in his bath towel, downed the entire jug of iced tea and practically licked the dessert plate clean. Feeling more human, he threw on a pair of cutoffs and made his way down the hall to Ellen’s bedroom. He knocked lightly, but when there was no answer, he turned the knob.
The room was dark but a sliver of moonlight let him see exactly where everything was, including Ellen. Huddled beneath a silvery sheet, she was sound asleep. Her red hair curling around her delicate face, a hand tucked beneath her cheek, she was a vision he thought existed only in fairy tales. Annoyed with himself for being so fanciful, he nudged her awake more roughly than he meant. And when she woke with a start, he cursed himself for a fool, for not realizing how sensitive she must be to touch.
“Whoa, Nellie! It’s only me, David.” He caught her just before she toppled off the bed in panic.
Ellen relaxed as David’s voice began to register in her clouded mind. Rubbing sleep from her eyes, she remembered she wasn’t dressed and covered herself, but not before David got an eyeful. One beautiful lady, he thought, and sighed wearily as he released her.
Scurrying back against the headboard, Ellen pulled the bedding around her. No one invaded her privacy, it was a cardinal rule. If she didn’t answer a knock at her door, it was understood by the household that she didn’t wish to be disturbed. David’s invasion—although she dimly understood he was unaware of his trespass—made her want to rage and cry at the same time. It reminded her of her vulnerability on about a thousand different levels. Still, she didn’t want to start an argument with him in the middle of the night, and her in a flimsy nightgown, to boot. Maybe he’d seen hundreds of half-naked women and would find her modesty laughable, but it wasn’t anything she was used to. So she struggled to remain calm, trying to find him with her sightless eyes.
David understood immediately. “I’m here, to your right. We have to talk.”
“Now? In the middle of the night?”
“Sorry, but I wasn’t watching the clock. Unfortunately, Harry Gold is. And I wanted to know why you disappeared today.”
“Why I disappeared? What about you? You made yourself pretty scarce, too!” Ellen sniffed.
“True.” He couldn’t help the faint smile that tugged at his mouth. Her indignation was charming, but in giving him the cold shoulder, Ellen had unintentionally given him another wonderful eyeful. Scanning the smooth sweep of her elegant shoulder, the delicate curve of her spine, the satin sheen of her skin in the moonlight, he thought it was ironic that he’d been asked to protect the one woman in the world who might need protecting from him. Having not seriously looked at a woman in years, he was susceptible to a pretty face. A few years back, when he’d still harbored hopes of a normal life, he’d fallen hard for a little blonde from Lake George. It had been a complete disaster. Although the girl had been willing to see him, her parents had come down on him as if he were a freak. It was his last attempt at a normal relationship. The enchantment of romance would never be his. If it happened sometimes that the grief that lingered challenged the thin veneer of his pride, like now… Well, he thanked God that Ellen couldn’t see his fists clenched at his side, see how dry his lips had become, see how hard he strove to speak.
“Look, lady,” he finally rasped, trying to sound as normal as possible, “let’s not equivocate. Harry needs our decision by noon. What’s it going to be?”
“That’s up to you, isn’t it?” Ellen reminded him, impatience coloring her voice.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That I’m at your mercy, for goodness’ sake! Either you agree to help me, or you don’t, but I certainly can’t win an argument over this. I can’t force you, can I?” she exclaimed.
In the face of such odds, David admired her spunk. “True enough. Okay, then. This operation of yours. What’s it all about?”
Ellen didn’t know how to answer. How did she explain the chance of a lifetime—or at least, the hope of one? How could she describe what successful surgery would mean to her? How could she describe its failure? It served no purpose. Since David had no idea what it meant to be handicapped, she wasn’t sure she could find the right words to explain it. In the end, she decided not to try, to just stick to the facts. He wasn’t stupid, just ornery. He’d figure the rest out for himself.
“There’s a doctor in Baltimore named Charles Gleason. Have you ever heard of him? He’s been doing a great deal of research on my type of eye condition, using laser beams. He’s had success—in varying degrees—returning sight to the blind. It gets him a lot of press coverage. And guess what?” she laughed, though there was no humor in the sound. “It seems his father was a friend of your father’s from their college days. When John read about this research, and found out who was doing it, he begged—well, maybe ordered is a better word—the famous Dr. Gleason to examine me, to see whether I was a viable candidate for his research. I had nothing to lose, you see.”
She shivered, but David knew she wasn’t cold because he heard the resignation in her voice. Disturbed, he paced the room. For the first time he noticed how carefully the furniture skirted the walls. In deference to her blindness, he supposed. Come to think of it, most of the house was set up like that, even if it was a fancy mansion. Was this what his father intended for him to do the next two months? Keep Ellen out of harm’s way; wrap her in cotton wool until the big day?
Baby-sit, for chrissake?
“Go on,” he prompted her while he tried to get comfortable on a delicate lady’s chair never meant for his bulk. “The operation?”
Ellen jumped, startled by the sudden force of David’s deep resonant voice, so how unlike his father’s light lilt. In her world, so heavily invested in sound, David’s husky voice was mesmerizing. She could have listened to him speak for hours, he cut right through to her senses. Too bad the rest of him came with that great voice. Even now she could detect the irritation he tried so unsuccessfully to hide.
“Right,” she sighed. “Dr. Gleason. Well, there’s not much else to tell. No one could refuse John Hartwell once he’d made up his mind, and he convinced Charles to take me on.”
“Charles?” David frowned.
“Dr. Gleason insists that I call him Charles,” Ellen said lightly. “He says it’s more friendly-like.”
I’ll just bet, David swore to himself as he stared at the rise and fall of Ellen’s breasts in the watery moonlight.
“Be that as it may, there was quite a waiting list and I couldn’t be scheduled for surgery until this fall, October fourth, to be exact. It’s been a long wait, well over a year, and something tells me John knew he wouldn’t be there. Now that I think about it, that would explain his curious will, wouldn’t it?” she said thoughtfully.
David didn’t answer. He was still mulling over Charles.
“Anyway,” Ellen continued, reining in her sorrow, “I need to be in Baltimore a day or two prior to the operation, for a battery of tests. I can stay in a hotel, but I obviously can’t negotiate Baltimore alone. I need an escort and I guess John thought you were the best candidate.” She shrugged helplessly. “I’m sorry.”
David was incredulous at her casual apology. “Sorry? What do you have to be sorry about? You’ve just inherited two million dollars. That’s a helluva lot of seeing-eye dogs!”
Ellen’s mouth twisted wryly. “You don’t mince words, do you, Mr. Hartwell? I’m simply trying to say that I’m sorry you’ve been assigned this distasteful job, I’m sorry that you’re being blackmailed for your share of your rightful inheritance, and I’m sure sorry that I can’t do something about it. But like I said, you don’t have to help me.”
“Oh, sure, right, like I have a choice. I just walk away and live with my conscience for the rest of my life, knowing that I blew your opportunity to live a normal life!”
“I know,” Ellen agreed sadly. “It’s blackmail, any way you look at it. I just hope you believe that I had no hand in the matter.” She waited for his assurance, but wasn’t surprised when it wasn’t forthcoming. A hex on the strong, silent type, she swore silently, and tried another tack.
“Would it help if I said I wouldn’t be too much trouble?”
His skeptical laugh ruffled her feathers.
“I’m perfectly able to care for myself,” she continued. “I can even cook, once I know where everything is…sort of.”
David’s silence was unnerving until it occurred to Ellen that she was looking at the situation solely from her point of view. “Oh, you’re afraid I’m going to invade your privacy! Oh, don’t be,” she begged. “I’ll be the original invisible woman. Women!” she gasped. “Oh! You’re afraid I’ll be in the way of you and your…er…women friends.” She blushed hotly.
“Dammit all!”
“Oh, I won’t be,” Ellen hurried on, ignoring David’s groans now that she understood the situation. “Do you have a girlfriend? I know you’re not married, but a girlfriend, yes, I can see how that might concern you. Well, don’t you worry. I’ll explain everything to her. And when you want to be alone, I’ll stay here in my room. You won’t hear a peep out of me.”
“For heaven’s sake, Ellen, stop babbling! Just stop!” David sprang from his chair. Frantic, he made a decision.
“Get dressed. We’re leaving in an hour.”
“What?” she gasped, jerking upright.
“I didn’t hear anything in my father’s will that indicated that we had to stay in Montana.”
“I just assumed…I thought…I can’t! This is my home!”
“So what? It’s mine, too. And I hate it! So, like I said, Miss Candler, we’re leaving in an hour. I just ate, and I slept away half the afternoon on top of this bloody mountain. I’m set to drive.”
“But I have to pack. It will take me time.”
“You have plenty of time. I’ve got to make some phone calls. Sixty minutes should do it.”
“An hour?” Ellen protested. “I can hardly dress in that time, much less pack!”
“Look, sweetheart, you’re a millionaire now. If you forget anything, you can buy it by the gross.”
“I won’t go! I can’t! That’s all there is to it!” Her arms folded on her chest, Ellen was a study in rebellion, but David Hartwell was unimpressed.
“Listen, lady, my father wasn’t the only bastard in the family,” he swore, giving a sharp tug to her blanket. With a screech, Ellen scrambled to conceal herself, but David’s breath was the only thing to warm her as his massive hands grasped her waist.
“I’ll be back in an hour, princess, so you might want to put on some clothes. Personally, I have no objection to your traveling as you are, but the airline might.”
“O-oh, you…you…monster! I won’t go!”
David’s hands tightened at her use of the word monster, even though he knew her choice of words was merely unfortunate. “Oh, you’ll go, sweetheart, make no mistake, because I’ll carry you stark-naked and screaming out of this mausoleum, if need be!”
“You snake! You wouldn’t dare!”
David shrugged, his voice unsympathetic. “It’s time to come down from the mountain, Ellen.”
Time for both of us, if only you knew.
Chapter Three
