He drew in a deep breath.
Poor Jason. So afraid to say the words for fear the sky would fall. "Never mind." She yawned as she snuggled closer. "Isn't it exciting? We're actually going to live together. We'll have breakfast
and I'll watch you work and you can show me the house. ..."
"Very exciting," he said gently as he stroked her hair back from her temple.
She was drifting off to sleep when she heard his soft, halting murmur in her ear. It was only one word and not the three she wanted to hear but, nevertheless, the tenderness in his voice soothed and warmed her.
"Shining ..."
Daisy looked up from her book and said casually, "I have tomorrow night off and I thought I'd try out that space-age kitchen, I invited Peg and Eric for dinner tomorrow night."
"We've already tried out the kitchen. As well as most of the other rooms in the house." Jason didn't look at her as he bent over the keyboard. "And I prefer not to perform in front of guests."
"Lech." Daisy threw her novel aside, stood up, and strolled across the music room toward the piano. "You know what I mean."
"I know exactly what you mean." Jason darted her a smiling glance over his shoulder. "You're trying to save me from my solitude."
"No such thing." She made a face as she sat down beside him on the bench. "Well, maybe. You need to get into the swing of things again."
"You mean behave like a normal human being again.' He shook his head. "Call Eric back and tell him not to come."
"But I think you should—"
His fingers gently touched her lips, silencing her. "No. Not until we can be sure it's safe."
"It's been a week and she hasn't come back. Maybe she'll never come back."
He shook his head. "She's waiting, biding her time."
"You're probably right." She shivered.
He raised a brow. "Where's all that bold optimism you've been bolstering me up with for the last week?"
"It's still there. It just went behind a cloud for a minute. Well, if you won't let me have guests to dinner, there's something else you can give me." She moistened her lips with her tongue and said in a rush, "I've decided I'm tired of being a scarlet woman."
He lifted his gaze to her face. "Indeed?"
She nodded. "Will you marry me, Jason?"
He went still. "Aren't you robbing me of my prerogative?"
"I don't have any choice. You won't reach out and take what you want because you're afraid everything's going to come down around you." She leaned against his shoulder. "So I'm taking the bull by the horns."
"At least you flatter my sexual stamina by the simile."
She ignored the mocking evasion. "Will you make me an honest woman?"
"You were bom an honest woman." His lips brushed the tip of her nose. "But it would be my great honor to join with you in marriage."
"111 try to make it your pleasure too." Daisy looked away from him down at the piano keys. "And I'm glad I won't have to send a retraction to the newspapers."
He stiffened. "Retraction?"
"I sent the papers an announcement of our engagement. It should be out first in this afternoon's paper."
"Hell and damnation." He muttered a more violent curse beneath his breath and jumped to his feet. "That's a red flag and you know it. Why didn't you just give Cynthia the code for the front gate?"
"If I thought she'd come, I would have taken an ad out in the Times." She gazed at him soberly. "We can't live in Shangri-la forever. We have to get on with our lives."
"So you sent out a written invitation to Cynthia to come after you?"
"That's why I told you about the announcement. I thought you'd want to double the precautions."
Jason moved toward the door of the music room. "Nice of you finally to include me in your plans."
"Where are you going?"
"I'm going to call the police and the detective agency and tell them what you've done."
"I wanted to tell you but I knew—" The door slammed behind him, cutting off her sentence.
Daisy stared unhappily at the panels of the door. She had been afraid this would be Jason's reaction. Her description of this last week as living in Shangri-La had been very close to actual fact. It had been a magic time with nights filled with passion and days brimming with work and togetherness. The last thing she had wanted to do was spoil it. Since the first night she had come to Eaglesmount, Jason had carefully kept his fears for her hidden, but she had always been conscious of them lingering like an encroaching darkness in the background.
Well, she had made the only move she could think of to banish the darkness.
Dear heaven, she hoped she hadn't made a mistake.
Ten
Daisy did not see Jason for the rest of the day but found him waiting in the limousine when Sam brought the car around to take her to the theater that evening. His expression was not encouraging. His lips were set and she thought she could sense waves of tension coming from him.
As Sam drove through the gates and started down the winding road to reach the main highway, she said quietly, "You don't have to take me to the theater. I know you'd rather stay here and work."
"What an asinine remark," he said roughly. "What am I supposed to do? Just wait at home for a telephone call to tell me that you've been attacked and kill—" He broke off and reached for the cloak she carried over her arm. "And you don't even have enough sense to put this thing on. You know the hills are cool after the sun goes down." He draped a rust and cream-colored wool cloak over her shoulders with a gentleness that belied the harshness of his tone. "Did you eat supper?"
"I wasn't hungry. I'll grab something after the performance."
"And probably collapse onstage. I'll get you a sandwich after we reach the theater."
"That's not necessary, Jason."
"Yes, it is." He scowled at her. "I may as well watch over you while I still have you to—"
"Don't you dare say it." Her face was suddenly alight with laughter. "Lord, you're a gloomy Gus."
He gazed at her glowing face for a moment before he smiled grudgingly. "Sorry. We all can't shine like you do."
"But you don't have to give me that menacing Othello look either."
"It doesn't phase you anymore. You just tweak my nose and go your own way."
"Because it's good for you to be tweaked occasionally."
His eyes lingered on her face with a warmth that filled her with relief and joy. She hated him to be displeased with her; she hated to have any discord between them.
"You do it more than occasionally." He frowned. "But you deserve a little gloom and doom after the stunt you pulled."
"On the contrary, I deserve praise for my bravery and perseverance . . . and brilliance!" She gave him a half-veiled look and added flippantly, "And if you think I may soon be history, I'd think the least you could do was stop being mad at me."
"I'm not mad at you, I'm merely saying you should have ..."
She realized he was continuing to speak but lost the thread of his words as she caught a pale glimmer in the rearview mirror.
White and small and gleaming. A car? But they
had not crossed any roads and were still on Eaglesmount property. A car could only have been waiting on one of the shoulders for them to pass.
"Daisy?"
She pulled her gaze from the mirror to Jason's face. "What?"
"Is something wrong?"
It must have been her Imagination or an errant glint of fading sunlight on the mirror, for she saw nothing now. "No, I guess I'm just a little nervous."
"It's about time." His hand covered her own. "That's the result I've been hoping to bring about since you moved into Eaglesmount. Not only nervous but as scared as hell. Maybe it will stop you from taking crazy chances."
"Then you've certainly attained your—"
She broke off as the limousine rounded the corner and drove into a sheet of flame!
Sam stomped on the brakes and screeched to a halt. Th
e entire right side of the road had been blocked by an ancient pickup whose cargo of hay and the cab of the vehicle itself was engulfed in flame.
"What the hell!" Jason jumped from the car at the same time as Sam. "Stay here, Daisy 111 see if anyone's still alive." He ran toward the flames.
Dear heaven, what a horror. Daisy got out her side of the limousine and ran toward the pickup. She had to help if she could. It seemed impossible that the driver could have gotten out before—
"Daisy!"
Her gaze flew to Jason's face. He was staring at something beyond her shoulder.
She glanced over her shoulder and stopped in the middle of the road, frozen.
A white streak of a sports car barreled down the road toward her. She caught a glimpse through the windshield of a smiling face framed by lustrous black hair. Cynthia! Terror surged through Daisy, breaking her thrall. She started at a run toward the side of the road.
The sports car was too close!
It was almost upon her!
Then Jason was beside her, snatching her cloak from her shoulders and pushing her to the side with such force she fell to the ground.
What was he going to do?
She knew in the next instant when the car whizzed by her with only a scant inch to spare.
Jason dove after her and, at the same time, hurled her cloak over the windshield of the sports car. The wind instantly plastered the material to the glass.
Daisy heard a shrill scream of panic from inside the car as the blinded woman careened wildly across the highway and then off the road and down the hill.
An explosion rocked the earth and vibrated the tarmac on which Daisy lay. She jumped to her feet and dashed to the edge of the road to see inferno in the valley below. Cynthia's car had rammed into a tree and exploded, and now both the wreckage of the car and the tree itself was in flames.
She heard the sound of the sirens in the distance and saw Sam carefully making his way down the hill toward the wreckage, but she knew it was too late for either of them to help Cynthia Hayes.
"Are you okay?" Jason was beside her, his arm encircling her. "She didn't hurt you?"
"No." She glanced back at the burning pickup truck. "What about the truck across the road? Was anyone in it?"
"I don't think so. I couldn't see anyone inside. My guess is that she parked the junkheap across the road and then set a radio charge to explode it when she saw us leave the house."
She shivered. "I'm glad no one else is hurt."
"She's dead." Jason's hoarse voice held a note of wonder as he looked down at the flaming car. "It's gone on so long that it's hard to believe it's over." He tore his gaze from the wreckage and looked down at her. "Are you sure the car didn't clip you? You're shaking."
"She didn't hit me." But it had been a terribly close call. She wondered if she was callous not to feel a flicker of regret for the woman who had gone to such a horrible death only a few moments before. Surely every life had value and potential on this earth. Yet she felt nothing but relief that Cynthia Hayes could no longer inflict pain and destruction on those around her. More, she was thankful because Jason would at last be released from darkness. "I'm fine, Jason." She moved closer to him. "We're both going to be fine now."
A long red carpet had been unrolled beneath the elegant steel-gray canopy leading to the rich, dark teakwood doors of the Von Krantz Gallery.
Daisy and Jason arrived an hour before the exhibition was scheduled to open, but already long, gleaming limousines were depositing guests clad in evening wear, and a television truck was parked at the cross street.
Sam let them out before the front entrance of the gallery, but they still had to fight their way through television and newspaper reporters to reach the front door. A gallery assistant unlocked the door, whisked them inside, and then quickly locked the door behind them.
"It's a good thing you called us to be on the alert for you, Mr. Hayes," the chic older woman said. She grimaced. "Everyone wants an advance look at the painting. I'm Mrs. Petersen. Elizabeth Petersen." Her gaze went to Daisy. "The painting lives up to your beauty, Miss Justine. You must be very proud of your father."
"Yes, I am." She smiled. "And it's Mrs. Hayes."
"I'm sorry, I didn't realize that—"
"Nobody does." Daisy took Jason's hand. "We took care of it this afternoon. I confess I wanted to hear how it sounded, but we'd appreciate if you wouldn't tell anyone. We don't want to deflect attention from the exhibition. This is Charlie's night."
"Of course." Mrs. Petersen nodded understand-ingly. "May I get you a glass of champagne?"
"No," Jason said. "But like the rest of the world, we'd like a preview of 'Daisy.' "
"Certainly, right this way." She led them through the elegantly furnished anteroom. "We're expecting great things from the critics, Mr. Hayes. It's really an extraordinary painting."
"Is it?" Daisy asked eagerly. "You like it?"
Mrs. Petersen raised her brows in surprise. "We'd hardly have accepted the painting if we hadn't believed in it."
"I thought perhaps all the publicity—"
The woman lifted her chin. "We do not enjoy providing a circus for the media at Von Krantz." Her patronizing facade vanished and she added ruefully, "Though it does seem necessary some-
times to encourage the public to embrace a new artist." She had stopped before a silk-draped painting that had been mounted by itself on the far wall. With a flick of a beautifully manicured hand she removed the cloth and took a step back. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a million things to do in the next thirty minutes before we open the doors."
"No problem." Jason smiled. "We promise to put the cloth back in place before the media arrive."
Daisy dimly heard the click of Mrs. Petersen's four-inch heels on the polished floor as she walked away, but she couldn't take her gaze from the framed painting.
You've done it, Charlie. You've caught the brass ring at last.
"I didn't expect it to look this impressive," she whispered. "We were too close to it at the cottage, too close to him. She's right, it is extraordinary."
"You should have expected it. It's your portrait. You're extraordinary."
She shook her head. "No, this painting isn't about me. It's about love."
"Yes." Jason's arm went around her. "You once said Charlie was good at that."
"He is good at that." Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes sparkling with radiance. "Don't you feel it, Jason? Charlie did it! It's all here. It will always be here for you and me and everyone who looks at the painting."
"Yes, I feel it." Jason's voice was husky, his gaze fastened on the painting, and his next words came haltingly. "I . . . love you, Daisy Justine . . . Hayes."
It was the first time he had said the words. She had known it would take a period of adjustment after all these years before he could accept the love between them without fear for her, and she had tried to be patient as she waited for this final commitment. Now such heady joy surged through her that she had to swallow to ease the sudden tightness of her throat.
Dawn after darkness.
Safety after the storm.
She stepped closer to Jason and lovingly laid her head against his shoulder, but her gaze never left the painting.
Thanks, Charlie.
Iris Johansen, An Unexpected Song
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