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He drove out of the parking deck as fast as he could, and did a few switchbacks on the city streets just in case some of those guys had spotted them. And was glad he did; while they were waiting at a light, he saw Channel 4’s van go gliding down a side street like a shark patrolling the shallows. He nodded grimly. Yes, their star reporter, Andrews: he was a smart one. But, judging from the way Andrews was scanning the convention center, it looked like the little weasel had bought his story about the hotel.
And so he’d been thrown right off the scent by a college intern who wasn’t even a real reporter yet. Brad exhaled with a sigh, and scanned the rearview. To his relief, he didn’t see anyone else, but he didn’t relax until he’d cleared downtown and was on the highway again.
Because he knew what would happen if one of his rivals got hold of Jemima. They’d dissect her like a lab specimen, and then spin every innocent thing she might say in the most sensational terms possible. God knew, he wasn’t the most ethical man in the world, but at least he had stuck to Jemima’s story, and what few things she’d said about it.
Not her personal life. And that was a big, fat, red dividing line between him and professionals like Andrews.
Not that Andrews was the only one. Even Delores would do it, if she could. He took another drag on the cigarette and frowned.
Jemima was watching him with a puzzled expression.
“Why did we drive around and around in circles for so long?” she asked. “Are we lost?”
He glanced at her. “No.” He looked out the window, had a brief argument with his conscience, and lost. He turned to her.
“Look, Duchess – you’re a very rich person. That’s a wonderful thing, but you have to be a little more careful now than you used to be.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, there are people who” – he paused – “might try to take advantage of your good nature. Now that you’re rich.”
She crossed her arms. “Like who?”
He raised his eyebrows and looked at her ruefully. “Let’s just say that I know some of them.”
Jemima stared at him again out of those lovely green eyes. “Are you one of them?” she asked.
He winced inside – it was a reasonable question – but he met her gaze.
“No, I am not.”
He was gratified to see her blush, and lower her eyes; but he wasn’t entirely sure that he’d told her the truth.
“It’s your life, and I don’t have the right to tell you what to do. I’m just saying that it’d be smart not to make any new friends right now. Because there are going to be lots of people who will want to be your new friends.”
Jemima looked troubled. “You mean people will be coming out to our farm.” She turned to him. “Like you did.”
This time it was his turn to go red, but he nodded. “That’s right.” He attempted a sickly smile. “But they won’t have my sterling qualities – or my charm.”
She felt quiet again, and didn’t say anything else for more than an hour, during which time he chain-smoked and she sat quietly watching the countryside. The passing landscape slowly melted from skyscrapers, to smaller skyscrapers, to office buildings, to shopping malls, to suburbs, and then to open countryside.
Now and then he stole a glance at her out of the corner of his eye, wondering what she was thinking. It was hard to tell, and even harder to concentrate, because he could never look at her for long without his brains getting scrambled by her beauty. Today, it was the riotous curls of bright coppery hair. Even her severe hairstyle couldn’t control them. Little curling wisps escaped all around the edge of her cap, and framed her face more poignantly that any painting. She looked like some Dutch Renaissance masterpiece. She had that dreamy beauty and melting feminine softness.
That could, unfortunately, turn in an instant to Puritanical indignation.
Suddenly, and apropos of nothing recent, she twisted to look at him, and her eyes were stern and unblinking. “You lied to me, Brad Williams. You told me, that you were only going to come out to my house once, and no more, and you came back and back. You said that you weren’t going to take my picture, but you took it anyway – with that other man’s hands! You told me that you were going to respect my wishes, but you’ve done just what you wanted to do, from beginning to end!”
Brad nodded dryly. That was the trouble with the Amish – they didn’t understand ethical complexities or completely acceptable shades of gray.
“Now, Duchess–”
“And you call me some name that isn’t mine, and why I don’t know, because I never invited you to!”
By this time the truck was bouncing along the back roads just minutes from her farm. Rows of shoulder-high corn blocked the view on both sides. Brad felt his heartbeat quickening, and his face going red. He objected: “A friendly nickname. Why all the sturm und drang, Duch– Jemima?”
She was warming to her subject. “It’s not a nickname. And when you call me this, it means you have no respect. No respect for what I say, no respect for my home, no respect even for my name!”
Now he was getting a little alarmed. She sounded really angry, and it was important not to let her get him stirred up, too. He put out one hand, as if to reassure her. “Sweetheart, please calm down, now...”
For some reason, those words acted on her like an electric shock. She straightened to her full height, and her eyes blazed.
“I am not your sweetheart,” she cried, “I am not your Duchess, I am not a–” she struggled for words – “a doll without a face!”
He could feel his own face going red. He wasn’t mad, but yes, he was plenty – something. He told himself that it was important not to get stirred up. But a wave of heat surged through him from the bottom up and made his heart pound in his neck – and scrambled his brain.
Again.
“Why are you making me out the bad guy?” he sputtered. “Hey, I just helped you become the richest girl in the county! I would think I’d earned a little something – if not genuine gratitude, then at least a token thank you!”
She acted as if she hadn’t even heard him. To his dismay, she wasn’t even looking at him. She was staring out the windshield as if she saw some drooling monster on the other side of it.
“No, and you don’t even have respect for me, for my – for my person! You even grabbed me and kissed me, without so much as a handshake or, or a question, much less permission! You’re a-a–” she sputtered, and lapsed into angry German again.
He jerked the truck to a stop in front of her house and turned to face her. She already had her fingers on the door handle. In an instant she’d be gone.
He bit his lip. What the heck. If she was this angry with him now, she wasn’t going to let him come back, anyway. And he couldn’t bear to leave her without even a goodbye.
He grabbed her by the shoulders, looked down into those blazing green eyes for a split-second, and gave her the kiss of his life. It was even crazier and more desperate than the last one, more fiery, more frantic, and more likely to ensure that she’d never speak to him ever again.
But he didn’t care.
Mother of mercy, the lips – he’d never met anything like them, they melted like a receding wave into that silky mouth. His heart jumped into his throat.
That mouth that was kissing him back. Yes, yes, yes!
But that delightful moment suddenly came crashing down. The sound of an outraged voice boomed from outside. Brad raised his eyes over Jemima’s head, and to his horror, the red-haired giant filled the window behind her. The giant grabbed the door handle, and when he found it locked, he simply ripped the passenger side door right off the truck. It peeled off the hinges with a hideous sound of tearing metal, and Jemima pulled out of his arms and shrieked crazily in German.
Jemima’s father reached in and lifted his tiny daughter out of the passenger seat and set her down on the grass. Then he turned back.
Brad grabbed the wheel and gunned the motor, and the truck lurched over the dirt road with a roar. He sent it hurtling towards east Egypt without any clear idea of where he was going, or any real concern. He lifted terrified eyes to the rearview.
The giant was standing in the middle of the road with one hand on his hip, and the other clenched in a fist. He was shaking it.
Brad almost closed his eyes in relief. When he looked down at his hands they were trembling – whether from passion or terror, he couldn’t tell. But one thing was for sure. He turned his eyes to the open cavity on the side of the truck. He was going to have a time explaining this to Delores.
