low, because thinking of Molly was like popping a pleasure pill. And he'd mentally catalog all her charming assets: her radiant beauty; how she could make him laugh; the way she felt when she clung to him, lush as silk, hot and wanting him with a ferocity that matched his own. And her smile. It was the eighth wonder of the world.
“How independent has your independence become?” he asked cautiously, remembering her fierce streak that had generated many clashes that summer when his own independence met hers. They'd never quite learned to deal with it then.
“I'm not eighteen anymore,” she said and looked him straight in the eye.
“In that case, a quick refresher in the Queensberry rules might be in order.” One dark brow rose in provocative challenge.
“Is that the sound of the bell?” she asked, but her eyes were amused.
“We'll have to see how much you've learned in ten years. How many rounds can you go now before I win?”
“What makes you think you'll win?”
“I always win,” he murmured. Her eyes were emitting little sparks now, so he touched her cheek with a caressing finger and whispered, “Used to win… And,” he said with a grin, “in the interests of future universal harmony, I'd better see that you get home, for your mom and dad and Carrie.” He glanced at the clock. “We'd better fly.”
“What about my car?”
Junk it, I'll get you a new one, he thought. “Someone will drive it back,” he said instead.
“Someone?”
“There's about two hundred people up here on my payroll. I'm sure one of them has a driver's license.”
“What if I say I'll drive myself back?”
Carey smiled. “I'd forgotten how difficult you could be. Don't you like to fly?”
“I'm used to running my own life. You get a taste for it, like rattlesnake meat.” She slid away from him and sat up.
“Okay, okay, no problem… I'll drive back with you and Jess can fly down and pick me up.”
“Carey!”
“Hey,” he responded, wondering what he'd said wrong now. “I'm being understanding as hell. You make your own decision.”
“From a list of your choices?” Molly asked testily.
“Look.” His voice was quiet, his glance placid. “Arrange it anyway you like, only I'm staying with you until you get home because I don't want to miss a minute of our first night together in ten long years. In the morning I've got to shoot come hell or high water. Delays cost eighty thousand a day.
“You love me?” Molly said so softly her words wouldn't have carried another inch.
“Always have,” he said, equally softly.
“I wish I would have known…”
“I know, Honeybear… It's been the longest ten years of my life. But,” he went on briskly, shaking away his melancholy and reaching for her, “the next hundred are going to be great.”
As it turned out, they were chauffeured down to the Cities in Carey's limousine while Molly's car, driven by one of Carey's numerous employees followed behind.
Isolated in the plush darkness of the backseat, Molly and Carey watched the late show and the late, late show, seated hand in hand, kissing occasionally or just squeezing each other's hand in a message of contentment.
The sun was rising when they reached Molly's.
“I'll call you tonight,” Carey said. “Don't go away.”
“You're going to be late getting back.”
He debated his answer for a moment. “Jess is waiting at the airport.”
She grinned. “I can see it's going to take awhile to whip you into shape.”
His brows rose and fell like Groucho Marx. “I'll hurry back.”
And they were both giggling when they kissed good-bye.
CHAPTER 19
M onday started out well in a haze of tumultuous feeling. Carrie was brightly vivacious all the way to school, interested in her mother's weekend, full of details of her own visit with Grandma and Grandpa. Molly's employees welcomed her back warmly with a hand-painted banner over her office door. She had never missed a day of work before. And, to top it all off, one of her largest accounts decided to redo their executive offices. It was the key to solvency; the commission and profit would bring her company solidly into the black by the time the project was completed. So when Molly faced Jason Evans across his polished walnut desk at precisely eleven, she greeted him buoyantly.
His response was less enthusiastic, but she didn't notice, insulated by her own special happiness. “This may be the last time I have to renew the note, Jason. United Diversified just came through with a marvelous contract. By December-February at the latest-I should be in the clear.”
“I can't renew the note, Molly.”
“Do you realize what that means to my company? It's only been two years since I put together financing and-” The apprehension showed in her eyes first. “What did you say, Jason?”
“I said I can't renew the note.” Picking up a pen, he tapped the point lightly on his pristine desk blotter.
“Seriously?” Molly's stomach tightened convulsively. “Why not?” Panic was accelerating her heartbeat; she could feel the added flurry tingle through her body.
“The interest rates are going up on short-term notes.”
“So rewrite it. I don't mind paying higher interest for a few months.” She waited for the answer with the terrible feeling that her life depended on it.
Setting his pen down, Jason moved it precisely in line with the edge of his desk. This martinet was concerned with symmetry when her business was at stake, she thought bitterly. “I can't,” he said, not quite meeting her glance. “We're not going to be writing short-term notes anymore.”
An awful, sinking feeling overwhelmed her. “Does Bart have anything to do with this?” she asked suspiciously, carefully watching Jason's face. He wouldn't give her an honest answer if Bart was involved, but maybe she could read something from his denial. Although not close friends, she'd discovered during one of Bart's infrequent visits that they'd been fraternity brothers in college.
“Of course not,” Jason replied, adjusting his perfectly arranged tie.
“Don't of-course-not me, Jason, not after last time. Bart's little dealings through First National and Chip Ballay cost me a business, and you know it.” It annoyed her how the old-boy network supported each other exclusive of their employers, like a well-ordered, smoothly run mutual aid society.
“That was all perfectly accountable.”
“But not ethical, and you know it,” Molly snapped.
“I'm sorry, Molly,” he said in a tone that was bland and hardly sincere. “Maybe some other bank could give you an interim loan. My superiors are on my case. We've renewed this four times now.”
“I'll be able to pay the balance by the first of the year. Can't you tell them that?” She bit hard on her bottom lip to stop the tears from filling her eyes.
He only shook his head.
Composing herself with superhuman effort, Molly heard her calm good-bye, heard her reasonable voice telling Jason she'd call him by Friday and then in numbed panic she spent the next hour walking the downtown streets frantically totaling her assets, re-arranging payrolls, operating expenses, accounts payable and receivable in an
