Mac's Angels: The Last Dance: A Loveswept Classic Romance (10 page)

“The panel, Jessie. Let’s get that done first.”

“Oops! Sorry. This button turns it off and closes the window. If you want to choose another view, hit this button and it brings up a menu of choices. There are beaches, mountains, farms, cities, anything you want, so long as it doesn’t have to be real.”

Sterling hit the close button, then sat down. “I’m hungry, Jessie. Could we have lunch together and you tell me more about—how the doctors taught you to walk?”

She grinned. “I’d rather talk about my father.”

“Food first,” Sterling insisted.

“Okay. Want to eat here or … how about the Hard Rock Café?”

“You have a Hard Rock Café? No, don’t answer that. Just tell me how loud the music is.”

“We can have it loud, or we can turn it down. Haven’t you figured it out yet. This place makes Michael Jackson’s Neverland look like a cheap road show. We can have anything that money can buy.”

“Just so long as James Bond isn’t there, I’m ready.”

The Hard Rock Café turned out to be another hologram in the recreation room. Jessie pushed
Sterling’s chair into the small eating area complete with sports equipment and a jukebox.

Jessie handed Sterling a menu. “What would you like?”

Sterling studied the selection and decided on a HRC hamburger. Jessie nodded, picked up the phone, and ordered two burgers and extra french fries.

“Have you ever eaten at the real thing?” she asked, a tinge of excitement in her voice.

“No, have you?”

“Naw. But Burt, the chef, has and he duplicates anything they serve.”

Sterling studied Jessie. She might be twenty. But devoid of makeup and covered with a loose sweatshirt, she looked younger. “Wouldn’t the real thing be more fun?”

“No.” Her reply was a keep-off sign as big as a skyscraper. “I don’t leave the mountain.”

But Sterling never backed down, not when she was trying to help make someone else’s life better. “Why?”

“I … I just don’t. Why are you in that wheelchair?”

“Because I was in an accident—no, that’s not true. I must be honest with you. I was shot.”

“How? Was it your husband? Didn’t you two get along?”

“You must watch too many soap operas here Jessie. No, it wasn’t my husband. I was never married.
The man who shot me also robbed and killed the man I worked for. I just got in the way.”

“Wow! And Mac brought you here to learn to walk?”

“No, Mac brought me here to protect me.”

Jessie looked confused. Sterling knew she’d started the painful story, and now she would have to finish it. But that confession would demand that Jessie share her history as well. “If I tell you all my secrets, you have to tell me yours. Deal?”

Reluctantly, Jessie agreed. “I guess so.”

Sterling explained that she’d been late leaving the copy room, walked in on the killer as he was emptying the safe, and was shot. She’d fallen, hit her head, and lapsed into a coma that left her with a sketchy memory for months. “The medical staff determined that the bullet was too close to the spine to risk surgery and left it there. That was ten years ago.”

“You mean you’ve been walking around with a bullet still inside you ever since?”

“Yes, and it happened to lodge itself near my spine and interfere with my walking. I’m not really steady and it’s quite painful.”

“But Mac’s doctors can fix it. They can do almost anything.”

“I’m sure they can. But that’s not why I’m here.”

“I don’t understand. What is Mac protecting you from?”

“The man who shot me got away. Nobody ever knew where he was until yesterday. I saw him and he
saw me. Mac and Mr. Preston brought me here so that he can’t find me and harm me again.”

“Weren’t you scared?”

“I was scared. I’m still scared. But that’s enough of my story. It’s your turn. Why couldn’t you walk?”

“My mother and I were in an automobile accident. Both my legs were broken. She was killed.”

“Oh, Jessie. I’m so sorry. That must have been awful. How old were you?”

“About five, I think. It seems so long ago. I don’t remember much about it.”

“I know how that is. You just block out the pain, don’t you?”

“You too?” She looked up anxiously.

“Sure. You don’t think you’re the only one to close off everyone and everything, do you?”

“I guess I never thought about anyone else. There’s always been just me—since the accident.”

“But you walk fine now, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

Sterling looked around to see if anyone was listening, then asked, “Why don’t you get out of this place and find a real Hard Rock Café?”

But she’d have to wait for Jessie’s answer. The chef, a heavy, round-faced man who obviously sampled his wares, brought in their food.

“Hard Rock Special burger for you, Jessie, and another one for Ms. Lindsey, just like you ordered. Ms. Lindsey, are you sure you wouldn’t rather have something else?”

“Nope. When in Rome, do as the Romans, or in this case the rock stars.”

“If you need anything, just ring” he said as he left. “And turn up the rock-and-roll music, Jessie. If you’re going to give Ms. Lindsey the food, she might as well have the atmosphere.”

“Do you want it turned up, Ms. Lindsey?”

“Please, no. The food and the decor is enough. I want to hear some answers.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Why you never leave this mountain? Don’t you go to college?”

“Oh, yes. I’m a sophomore. I have my own private tutors.”

“Which college lets you stay at home with a private tutor?”

“The one where Mac built a new wing. I’m not the only one there. Sometimes there are others, people who can’t go to regular classes.”

“Of course. If you have enough money, you can have anything. You told me. But don’t you miss having friends?”

“I have friends. The people who work here have kids. Of course, they’re mostly younger, but some of the workers and I watch movies in the rec room. We play billiards. Sometimes they come to my pool.”

“But what about my original question? Why don’t you just walk right out of here?”

“I—I can’t.”

Sterling looked up. “You mean Mac won’t let you?”

“Mac lets me. Or he would.”

Sterling continued, “You don’t look sick. You’re not in a wheelchair. You could live on campus. Why don’t you?”

“You don’t understand. I just … can’t.”

Jessie’s hands started to shake. Her face went chalk white and her breathing became labored.

“Jessie, it’s all right. I won’t force you to tell me if you’d rather not talk about it.” Sterling laid her hand on the girl’s arm. “Breathe slowly. In and out. In and out.”

The hyperventilating slowed and color started to return to Jessie’s face.

“Just remember, Jessie, I’ve been in some bad places in my life, so I understand your troubles. And, as one recluse to another, I’m here if you want to talk about it. Now finish that burger and tell me what the chef’s favorite dessert is.”

“How’d you know he, likes dessert?”

Sterling gave her young friend an amused look. “You must be kidding. I just saw him, remember?”

As quickly as Jessie’s fearful mood had come, it disappeared. “Well, I hate to disappoint you, but Burt loves everything. He can even make yucky things good. Mac won’t let me in the kitchen anymore. He says that I’ll end up looking like Burt, and he’ll have to roll me around.”

“Mac—why do you call your father ‘Mac’?”

“I don’t know. I guess I just copied other people. When I was little, I never heard anyone say ‘father,’
or ‘daddy’ or even ‘dad.’ I never thought about it before.”

Sterling wiped her mouth with her napkin and laid it on the table. “Okay, enough bad stuff. Let’s talk about something fun. What are you getting for Christmas?”

Jessie went blank. “For Christmas? I don’t know. Usually, all I do is ask for something and Mac gets it. There’s nothing special I want.”

“You haven’t written a letter to Santa?”

Jessie grimaced. “Sterling, Santa doesn’t come to see me. I’m twenty years old. I haven’t believed in Santa Claus since I was eight.”

“Well, no wonder he doesn’t come. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that so long as you believe, he continues to show up?”

“No. Who told you a dumb thing like that?”

“My—no, not my mother. My mother told me that Santa Claus was a rich old man with a bag full of money. She kept believing that until she found a real man who fit the description.”

“What happened then?”

“She put me in a boarding school and left the country.”

“That’s awful. How old were you?”

“I was twelve.”

“But she came back for you, didn’t she?”

“No. Her husband eventually found someone younger and left my mother. He gave her enough money to buy her alcohol until she died, and he paid
for my schooling. Mother was right—he was Santa to me.”

“Your real father,” Jessie asked, “what happened to him?”

“Don’t know. I never knew him. The only thing I was told was that he ran out of money.”

“Well, then, Mac’s perfect for you. He’ll never run out of money.”

“Mac isn’t for me, Jessie. Mac’s just a friend.”

Jessie grinned. “You’re the first person he’s ever brought into our quarters, except Uncle Conner. I’d say he thinks of you as more than just a friend.”

Sterling didn’t have an answer for that. She turned to her lunch and pushed the half-touched plate of food away from her. Finally, Jessie stood and took the handles of Sterling’s chair. “Guess I’d better get you back so I can get to class. I’ve already used up lunch hour and recess.”

“Recess?”

“Yeah. Can you believe a college student having recess? That’s Mrs. Everett for you, still living in the Dark Ages.”

Sterling shook her head. She was still having trouble seeing Jessie as a college student. “Mrs. Everett’s your teacher?”

“No, she’s just my—my keeper. She’s nice, but she just doesn’t understand how lonely it gets around here. I wish … well, if wishes were horses …”

Later, back in her room, Sterling decided to learn how to operate her window to the world. She
punched in the numbers to view her choices. The beach scene was nice. And she particularly liked the Parisian slide. A spring rain streaked the canvas, falling on artists scurrying to cover their work. Trees, heavy with blossoms, lined the sidewalks and the gutters. She could almost smell their blossoms. So romantic. So impossible.

The next scene was James Bond and his sex kitten. She studied Bond. He was a sophisticated man with a hint of the devil in his eyes, much too dashing for her.

And so was Mac. She started to sit down, then saw the tape.

Danish: the Words of Love in Six Easy Lessons
.

Sterling groaned, picked up the tape, and threw it at the wall. “Take that, you … you smooth-talking man. Put it where your Danish is.”

This time the tape struck James in a spot safely covered by a satin sheet. The sheet didn’t help; the imagination was always more powerful than any projected image, no matter how realistic. In spite of her best attempt at focusing on James Bond, the man she was seeing was Mac.

Sterling’s choice would have been to avoid the office for the afternoon. No, not avoid the office, avoid Mac. But when she finally talked to Conner, he informed her that he was indeed transferring her work to the mountain. Ten years of good work habits
and responsibilities finally won out and she rolled herself back to Mac’s hideaway.

He wasn’t there.

Half-disappointed and half-relieved, she took her place at her computer and turned it on. Special orders and inquiries had backed up to an alarming degree, and she spent the better part of the afternoon answering E-mail messages. One of the messages she sent was to Conner. She didn’t know how candid she could be on the Internet, so she settled for a simple
Please call me. Sterling
.

Work, she decided later as she returned to her quarters, was therapeutic. For four hours she’d avoided thinking about Vincent Dawson. She couldn’t say the same about Lincoln McAllister.

As she rolled down the corridor she couldn’t help feeling the vast emptiness around her. Little difference existed between Jessie and herself; neither left the secure cocoons in which they lived their lives. But then she realized that there was a difference. Her light, airy apartment and her office opened to the world, even if she didn’t venture outside. Both were filled with constant visitors.

Here there was a constant hush, as if even the walls were holding their breath.

There was something unnerving about reaching a solid door and having it glide silently open before you as the one to her apartment had just done.

Inside, all the lights had been turned down to a soft glow. Music was playing. She didn’t recognize the piece, but it was a haunting flute melody.

She rolled her shoulders, trying to relieve the tension that came from sitting before her computer. She longed to talk to Conner, but he hadn’t returned her call yet. Her emotions bounced around like a pinball in one of those arcade machines.

In the bedroom she noticed that more clothes had been added to her meager wardrobe, among them a swimsuit. “Good idea,” she said. “To whoever thought of it, thank you. A swim might be nice.”

She wiggled out of her clothes, pulled on the suit, wincing at the brevity of the one-piece garment cut high at the thigh. But it was all she had. With the matching oversized towel slung over her shoulder, she wheeled herself to the rain forest.

It must surely be dark outside. Late December in New Mexico would bring nightfall early. Inside the pool area the lights had been lowered, but the sun was still shining. It was disconcerting. Glancing around, she couldn’t see anyone, but there could be an army hidden in the thick greenery and she wouldn’t know it. Almost reluctantly, she stood and walked to the pool, leaving her towel on one of the cushioned chaise longues.

Gripping the rocky ledge that lined the steps, she made her way carefully into the water. “Ahh.” It was warm and inviting. The current rushing against her body at the base of the waterfall produced the same comfort and relief as the water jets in her Jacuzzi. She caught hold of a rail that ran around the rock, just under the surface, and floated there, allowing
the plunging water to fall over her head and neck. It was heavenly.