“You here with Frank?” he asked.
“I am. I was hired to be his nurse. That turned out to be a joke, but I’m still here because . . .” She trailed off, not wanting to explain something so private. With her hand shielding her eyes, she watched the helicopter disappear over the horizon, then looked back at the man.
“Mike. Or was it Kane?” he asked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“If a joke was played on Frank, it would have to be either Mike or Kane.” When she didn’t respond, he held out his hand. “I’m Julian Wales. Frank’s assistant. Or actually, glorified gofer. And you are?”
She put her hand into his large warm one. “Miranda Stowe. I’m a nurse, but I’m also the cook-housekeeper.”
He gave her a look that made her blush. “Perhaps I’ll find myself becoming ill and have need of your services.”
She withdrew her hand from his—after two tugs. “Mr. Taggert is in there, and I have pumpkin scones for breakfast.”
“Gorgeous, and you can cook too. You wouldn’t like to marry me, would you?”
Feeling like an eighteen-year-old, she laughed. “Frank’s already asked.” She was horrified at what she’d revealed. “I shouldn’t have said that.” She had no idea how to cover herself, so she went back into the cabin. Julian, his eyes wide in disbelief, stared after her for a moment before following.
Frank’s only greeting was “You’re early.”
Julian’s reply was to remove the briefcase from his wrist, unlock it, and turn it over to Frank.
“Unfortunately,” Julian said, “I arranged for the ’copter to pick me up tomorrow morning. I’d planned to stay and do a little fishing, but I didn’t know you had a guest. If it’s not suitable for me to stay, I can walk out.”
Buried in the papers, Frank didn’t look up. “Take the couch.”
“Yes, sir,” Julian said, then winked at Miranda as she put a plate of scones and scrambled eggs in front of him.
“Have you had breakfast, Miranda?” Julian asked. When she shook her head no, he said, “How’d you like to join me outside? A morning like this is too beautiful to waste in here.”
She looked at Frank but he was absorbed by the papers. Smiling, plate in hand, Miranda followed Julian out the door.
He put his plate on a stump and began to remove his suit jacket and tie. “Hallelujah!” he said, unbuttoning the top of his shirt. “Twenty-four hours of freedom.” Sitting on the stump, the plate on his lap, he looked up at her. “There’s room for two.”
She smiled graciously but sat down on a rock a few yards away.
“Did Frank actually ask you to marry him?”
She nearly choked. “I truly should not have told you that. Sometimes I have an inability to keep my mouth shut. It wasn’t a real marriage proposal, just sort of a business arrangement.”
Julian cocked one blond eyebrow. “I see what he gets, but I can’t see what you get. Except the money, of course.”
His attitude and his words sent anger coursing through her veins. Miranda stood up. “You know, Mr. Wales, I think you and I are going in the wrong direction. I find Mr. Taggert to be a very likable man, and I won’t allow you or anyone else to disparage him.”
For a moment Julian looked too shocked to speak. He too stood up. “I apologize. It’s just that you are such a surprise that I don’t know how to react. Please stay and finish your breakfast. I promise I won’t be offensive.”
When she sat back down, he did too, but she didn’t say anything.
“You and Frank get along, do you?”
“Quite well,” she said and could feel herself blushing.
While he was eating, Julian couldn’t take his eyes off her. “Please forgive me for staring, but you aren’t what I’m used to seeing with Frank.”
The man was beginning to annoy her. “Mr. Wales, I am well aware that I’m not some romantic heroine from a novel. I am rapidly approaching middle age, I’m overweight, I’m a single mother, and I’m sure that suit you have on cost more than I earned last year. If any other woman on earth were here, I’m sure neither of you men would notice me.”
He was smiling at her. “Miranda, you know what you are? You’re real. I knew it the moment I saw you. Usually, the women near Frank are so perfectly beautiful they look as though they were manufactured. And you know that if he lost his money, they’d never look at him again.”
“Really, Mr. Wales, I—”
“Julian.”
“Julian, I am a perfectly ordinary woman.”
“Oh?” He took a big bite of his scone. “Ever been married?” When she nodded, he said, “When you divorced your husband, did you take him to the cleaner’s?” He didn’t wait for her answer. “No, of course not. Looking at you, I’d say you ‘understood’ his need to run off with some empty-headed Barbie doll.”
She looked down at her food. “You seem to be rather good at figuring out people.”
“That’s what Frank pays me for: to look into people’s eyes and keep the deadbeats and con artists away from him.”
At that moment, the cabin door opened and Frank came outside, a fishing rod over his shoulder. “I’d like to do some fishing myself. Shall we go?”
Miranda stood up. “I think Julian should change his clothes, and I’ll need to pack a lunch for you two. You can’t leave without something to eat.”
Frank turned his back to Julian. “Mrs. Stowe, I’d like for you to come with us, as you’re rather good with fish.”
His words were cool, even businesslike, but he was smiling at Miranda and once winked at her. She knew that he didn’t want his employee seeing what was between them.
With his face again serious, Frank looked back at Julian. “Sort out what is needed and follow us.” Turning away, Frank started walking down the trail, Miranda inches behind him.
Julian stood where he was, staring in openmouthed astonishment after his boss. He’d worked with Frank Taggert for over ten years. During that time Frank had never once told Julian—or anyone else for that matter—about himself, but Julian had been able to piece together a great deal. He knew his boss very, very well.
“He’s in love with her,” Julian whispered as he watched them walk away. By all that’s holy, he’s madly in love with her. Only deep love could make Frank leave corporate merger papers and go fishing. Julian watched as they disappeared down the trail. Of course Frank knew so little about women that he’d mess this up—as he’d destroyed every relationship he’d ever had with a woman. But Julian had to admit that Frank had never thought any woman was worth missing a meeting for or even postponing a call. And when the women’s complaints become intolerable, it was always Julian who had the task of telling them to leave. He’d had dishes thrown at him and heard curse words in four languages as he removed women from Frank’s life.
It was this part of his job that was making him begin to wonder if there was more to life than just doing whatever Frank Taggert wanted done.
Julian went into the cabin to change his clothes. But now Frank had asked a woman to marry him. And knowing him, he’d presented the proposal as he would present something to a corporate board. No passion, no fireworks, no declarations of undying love. Just “I have a proposition to make you: Will you marry me?” As usual, everything Frank acquired came easily to him.
As Julian changed into jeans and a sweater, he couldn’t stop thinking. While it was true that Frank kept rigid control over himself, his loyalty was unbreakable.
When Julian had smashed a Ferrari, it was Frank who’d flown in doctors from London and New York. When accounting’s Mrs. Silen’s husband had nearly taken her children away from her, it was Frank who’d secretly stepped in and got the decision of the court reversed. Frank often helped people; he just hated anyone knowing he’d done it. He liked his image of ruthless negotiator.
In his dealings with his employees an
d his relatives, he was always fair. Never warm, but always fair.
Two years ago something had changed Frank, had made him even more remote, but Julian didn’t know what had caused it. And this broken arm seemed to have made him pull back even more. He’d been playing handball as fiercely as he worked at business and he’d slammed against the wall, pinning his right arm under him. It was a nasty break, and Frank had been in the operating room for two hours. The next day, Julian had been there, along with most of the Taggerts. They were a loud, happy family, exactly the opposite of Frank with his cool reticence. They’d teased him mercilessly about his injury proving that he was as human as other people.
As far as Julian knew, Frank had never so much as flinched from the pain, but that day something seemed to have happened inside him. Days later Frank canceled some very important meetings and announced that he was retreating to his cabin high in the Rockies and he was not to be disturbed. Julian didn’t dare ask Frank why, but one of his brothers did, and Frank had said he’d wanted to heal and to think.
Julian might not know what was wrong with his boss, but his intuition told him that Miranda Stowe was part of it. Whether she was a cure or part of what was wrong with him, he didn’t know—but he meant to find out. He grabbed a fishing rod and headed out the door.
4
The three of them spent a very pleasant day beside the lake high in the beautiful Rocky Mountains—and Frank was so different from the man Julian knew that he wondered who he was. Identical twins ran in the Taggert family and it crossed his mind that Frank secretly had one of them.
He and Miranda laughed and chatted and teased and shared inside jokes with such ease that a person would think they were long-term friends. There were no outward displays of affection but Julian was sure they were sleeping together. Glances, quick eye contact, lingering touches gave them away.
They talked about a gold miner’s cabin, of returning to it and combing the surrounding area in search of treasure. There was talk of almond oil. It didn’t take much for Julian to understand the sexual undertones to their words.
As the day wore on, Julian stepped back into the shadows—and they didn’t notice. But then, they only saw each other.
And the more they smiled, the more Julian frowned. He knew that what he was seeing wasn’t real. Frank Taggert in his denim and flannel wasn’t the man who did corporate mergers before breakfast. The man pulling fish off a hook wasn’t ruthless—as you needed to be in the real Frank Taggert’s world.
Most of all, Julian looked at Miranda. This pseudo-lumberjack was the only man she knew. He doubted if she’d even seen the real one.
Julian remembered the tears of the women Frank had sent him to. The questions! “I did everything he wanted,” they said. “I ran his entire social life. He needed me. So why is he dumping me like I’m some high school girl?”
Julian never had an answer for them because he didn’t know. He felt bad for them but at the same time he knew they’d land on their feet. They were all so perfectly beautiful, so educated, so competent, that they’d have another man in no time.
But Miranda was different. Standing away from them, he saw the looks she gave Frank. If she wasn’t in love with him, she would be soon. Then what? Some megabucks wedding that would be expected for Frank’s status? Julian couldn’t imagine Miranda in a wedding dress with a twelve-foot train walking down the aisle of some cathedral. And didn’t she say she had children? Would they be her attendants?
And after the honeymoon, would Frank go back to being . . . well, to being Frank?
Miranda made lunch for them, serving perfectly cooked fish and potatoes roasted over a campfire. As Julian watched the two of them, he saw that they were lost in the here and now, that the outside world didn’t exist for them.
But Julian was very aware of what awaited them. Their worlds could not be more different from each other. His fear was that Frank would survive at the expense of Miranda. She would go into a marriage expecting the man she’d spent time with in the glorious mountains, but she’d get the Frank Taggert that Julian knew.
It was almost sunset when they walked back to the cabin. Miranda served them a lovely dinner of fish and vegetables flavored with wild herbs, and Julian sat in near silence as he continued to watch them. He felt like he’d interrupted two people on their honeymoon. As the meal ended, he could see that they wished he weren’t there.
Miranda made up the couch for him, and as he lay there, he listened to the two of them whispering to each other from their separate beds that were so close together.
It was a long time before Julian could sleep.
In the morning, as Frank helped Miranda make bacon and eggs, Julian knew he had to talk to his boss. Even if it meant losing his job, he had to say his piece.
When Frank took his coffee outside, Julian went with him. On purpose, when they weren’t too far from a window, he began to talk. To give himself courage, he took a deep breath. “Have you told Miranda you want her in your life?”
Frank didn’t say anything.
“You might be able to fool the rest of the world but not me. When you look at her, it’s the same way you look at corporate papers.”
Frank took a while to answer. “When I first met her, she didn’t like me.”
“Frank, a lot of people don’t like you.”
He gave a one-sided smile. “They don’t like what I stand for or that I have money and they don’t. It’s not me they dislike.”
Julian snorted. “Don’t kid yourself, Frank, it’s you people don’t like. Freezers are warm compared to you.”
Frank smiled. “Women don’t think so.”
“True. Women do make fools of themselves over you when they first meet you. I’ve always wondered why.”
“Money and power equal sex.”
“Miranda is different, isn’t she?” Julian waited for Frank to answer.
“She is everything that I’m not. She loves easily while I find it difficult to conjure that feeling. If Miranda were to love a man, she’d do so unconditionally, with or without money. I need that . . . that security. Women change toward a man. They love him today, but if he forgets her birthday, she withdraws her love.”
“Miranda wouldn’t like a man to forget her birthday.”
“If I forgot it on the true date, I’d take her to Paris a week later and she’d forgive me.”
“Probably,” Julian said. “For the first seven or eight times anyway, but how would someone like Miranda fit into your life? If I remember correctly, your last love interest—the one before Gwyn—had a doctorate in Chinese poetry and spoke four languages.”
“She was a bore,” Frank said with contempt. “Julian, something’s happened to me in the last two years. I’ve had a change of heart. Many people have asked me what I’m earning money for, but I’ve never had an answer. I think it’s been the challenge and the goal. You above all people know that I haven’t wanted to buy anything. I’ve never wanted a yacht that costs a hundred grand a day to run. I’ve just wanted to—”
“To win,” Julian cut in. Sometimes he was sick of seeing Frank win.
“Julian, you know how I make money? I make money because I don’t care. I don’t care whether I win or lose. If there is a deal I really truly want, then I step out of it. You can’t be ruthless if you care.”
“What happened two years ago?”
“I met a kid, and it was like looking into my own eyes. He was so ambitious, so hungry for achievement.” Frank chuckled. “He steals office letterhead and writes letters to people on it.”
“That’s illegal.”
“Yes, but he does it to help people. I looked at him and thought, ‘I wish I’d had a son just like him.’ It was the first time in my life that I ever wanted a child of my own.”
“The Taggert bug,” Julian said. “Bitten at last.”
Frank sm
iled. “Ah, yes, my prolific family. They seem to be born with the urge to procreate. I don’t want the mother of my children to be anything but a mother to them.”
“And a wife to you, I take it.”
“Yes. I . . .” He took a deep breath. “When this happened”—he nodded toward his arm—“I had some time to think and to remember. If I’d broken my neck, not one of those billion dollars I own would have missed me. Not one of them would have cried in misery at my death. And worst, when I got out of the hospital, there wasn’t a soft, sweet woman whose lap I could put my head on and cry.”
At that Julian raised an eyebrow in disbelief.
“I could have cried that day. The Chinese-poetry lady called me and you know what she wanted to know? She asked me if breaking my arm and being in that much pain was arousing. Was my pain sexually exciting?”
“Tell her,” Julian said fiercely. “You must tell Miranda what you feel.”
“Tell her what? That I’ve been looking for a woman like her, someone who’d get on a horse and ride into the middle of nowhere to nurse an injured man? As far as I can tell, she asked no questions. She was told she was needed, so she went. For a ridiculously low sum of money.”
“Then tell her you need her.”
“She’d never believe that. What do I need her for? I have a cook. Sex is easy to come by, so what else do I need?”
“Frank, no wonder women come to hate you.”
“Women hate me when I refuse to marry them and make them part of my community property.”
“What are you going to change for her? The life you have now doesn’t favor a woman like Miranda.”
“I don’t know what you mean. I have to earn a living and now I’ll have a reason for what I do. If there’s a house, or anything she wants, of course I’ll give it to her.”
Julian was quiet for a moment. “That’s not what I meant. In spite of what you say, some women have genuinely cared for you. You, not your money. But without exception you dropped them. If Miranda got a nudge from you, I think she could actually love you. But then what? You drop her somewhere and see her when you aren’t too busy to stop by and say hello to her and the kids?”