Mismatch (15 page)

“How dare you say such a thing to me you—you—you—
man
!” The word had become a curse to her once more. She turned to grab the sketches of the infamous ski lodge, intent on throwing them in Wade’s face, only to find Muffin had snatched them from Murphy and was making a snack of them. Camera lenses zoomed in on the sheep. Muffin bleated and bolted off the porch, dashing around the side of the house. Frustrated, Bronwynn grabbed Murphy’s portfolio and smacked Wade across the chest with it. “You can just take your ski lodge and stick it in your . . . home state. I wish I’d never laid eyes on you!”

“Believe me, lady, it’s mutual,” Wade said between his teeth.

Bronwynn stuck her tongue out at him, turned on her heel, and stormed into the house, not remembering or caring that there was a mob on her front lawn—a mob that had recorded every word she’d said for the evening news, the morning papers, and the weekly tabloids. Wade stomped down the porch steps and made a beeline for his car. Murphy hurried along behind him, toting Wade’s backpack. The reporters parted like the Red Sea lest they be mowed down, but they still shouted questions.

“Congressman, will you build the lodge in Indiana?”

“Did that bridge business have anything to do with the Safe Highways bill?”

“Congressman Grayson, does this mean your relationship with Ms. Pierson is over?”

Wade turned with one hand on the open door of his Lincoln and one braced on the roof. His eyes were trained on the door of the big old Victorian house. Pain dug its talons into him.

“Absolutely,” he said tightly. He glanced at the reporters and flashed them a pale shadow of his famous smile. “Feel free to quote me on that.”

“‘The Congressman and the Coquette: Land Deal or Liaison of Love?’” Zane read the tabloid headline aloud. She had arrived on the scene too late to protect her baby sister from the press, but not too late to offer a shoulder to cry on.

“
Coquette?
” Bronwynn said, making a face. “Uck!” She leaned her elbows on the kitchen work island, which also served as breakfast bar, and stared down at her untouched Twinkie and the plate of scrambled eggs her mother-hen sister had plunked down in front of her earlier.

Wizzer lifted another of the gossip rags Ross Hilliard had sent by special delivery. “‘Eccentric Heiress and Conservative Congressman—Moonlight in Vermont.’ The
National Inquisitor
calls it ‘a sizzling summer sex scandal.’”

Bronwynn groaned. In the back of her mind she worried what the headlines were doing to Wade’s career, then she scolded herself for caring. He’d taken the worst kind of advantage of her. What did she care if his conservative constituents back in Indiana wanted to string him up by his thumbs. They were the least of what she wanted to string him up by.

Zane reached across the table to pat her sister’s hand reassuringly. “It’s all over now, honey. With neither you nor that cad congressman making any statements to the press, the hoopla will die down in a matter of days. Just be thankful you found him
out and got rid of him before it was too late. I
knew he was trouble the minute I set eyes on him.”

Wizzer laughed. He seemed enormously amused by the whole thing. “You caught them in a clinch, too, huh?”

Zane lifted her slim nose haughtily. “I beg your pardon?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Bronwynn said, propping her chin on her hand. She stared morosely at her new screen door and the two raccoons that sat on the other side staring in.

“That’s all right, sweetheart,” Zane said with a sympathetic look. “It’s best to put it all behind you. Forget about the man. He was an unscrupulous cretin.”

“Rabbit raisins!” Wizzer bellowed, spreading a liberal layer of grape jelly on an English muffin. “You blew it, Red.”

Zane bristled. “How dare you speak that way to my sister!”

Wizzer snorted. “I’m an old hermit, I can say what I want.” He took a huge bite of his muffin then carefully wiped the grape jelly out of his mustache. His blue eyes were like lasers when he turned them on Bronwynn. “Use your noodle, Red.”

“Wizzer, he took advantage of me,” Bronwynn said defensively. It was really quite remarkable how fresh the pain felt every time she thought of what had happened.

“How?”

Bronwynn blushed. “He knew I was vulnerable . . .”

“And?”

And he took everything I had to offer him, then he hurt me and walked away.
Unfortunately for her conscience, her memory wasn’t capable of being selective. Other images of her time with Wade surfaced as well.
And he held me when I cried and listened when I needed to talk.

Guilt nipped at her with sharp little teeth, not for the first time since the big blowout two days before. Her sense of righteous indignation bit right back when she thought of the sketches of the would-be ski lodge. “All he ever wanted was Foxfire.”

First Ross had wanted her for her money, then Wade had wanted her for her land. It stung like the dickens to think neither had wanted her for herself.

“Bullfrogs,” Wizzer said, pouring himself another cup of tea.

Zane nibbled on her toast with a disapproving
frown. “The man was obviously devious. He wasted no time making contact with Bronwynn, trying to take advantage of her emotional state—”

“He stayed here that first night because he was worried about me,” Bronwynn said, bewildered by her need to defend the man who had betrayed her.

“—and forced his company on her continually after that—”

“Actually,” Bronwynn interjected, thinking of how often she had intruded on Wade’s privacy in an attempt to lure him away from his work, “it was more the other way around.”

Zane’s black brows pulled together in annoyance as she turned her gaze on her sister. “Just whose side are you on?”

Wizzer lifted a bushy brow and waited for her answer. Bronwynn squirmed on her stool, wrestling with the question inside her. She frowned at her hermit friend. “Why didn’t he ever tell me about the ski lodge?”

“Maybe because it wasn’t important to him anymore.”

“But the sketches—”

“Don’t prove donkey doodle. Maybe he was interested in the land once. Are women the only ones
who are allowed to change their minds?”

“No, but Murphy—”

“Obviously didn’t know the whole story. Did you give College Boy a chance to explain, Red?”

Wade had told her he could explain, but she’d been too hurt to let him. He could have set things right at the press conference. Had he been too hurt to try again? Not only had she questioned his love, she had questioned his integrity as well. She remembered how furious she had been when Ross had wrongly accused her. How must Wade have felt when she had done the same thing?

If he was indeed innocent. Bronwynn still felt safer clinging to her pain than believing in him.

“Open your eyes, Red,” Wizzer said, gesturing to their surroundings with his English muffin. “Look around you. How many hours did the two of you spend working on this house? Why would he if he was planning to buy the property? Why would he spend his vacation time helping drive up the value of this place if he wanted to buy it and bulldoze the house? You think he’s a moron?”

“No,” Bronwynn said softly, feeling properly chastened. She looked around the kitchen. The soot had been scrubbed away, the water cleaned
up, the floor polished. She didn’t need to coax the
memories of Wade helping her in the room to have
them come to the surface. He had helped her sand and size the walls. He had helped her pull up the ugly carpet. Color rose in her cheeks as she remembered the day they had steamed the old wallpaper off the walls and had ended up on the floor beneath the stuff.

He might have helped her just to get into her good graces, she thought. Maybe he had done it as some kind of perverse private joke. Neither possibility seemed very likely. As hurt as Bronwynn was, she still couldn’t believe he was a monster. In truth, beneath her hurt she couldn’t think he was any kind of a monster at all.

Wade had the power to set her ablaze with a look or a touch. He had the tenderness to comfort her, the audacity to tease her. The only thing they had agreed on was their attraction to each other. She had known him only a few weeks, but he was no stranger. There had been a deeper sense of communication between them from the first. Now she felt ashamed for letting fear and distrust override her instincts.

Taking her Twinkie with her, Bronwynn slid off her stool. “Excuse me for a few minutes, will
you?” she said to Zane and Wizzer. “I need to
think.”

She sat down on the back steps, glancing at Bob and Ray, who sat a discreet distance away, their eyes on her Twinkie. With a resigned sigh, she broke her Twinkie and tossed each half to a raccoon.

Wizzer was right, she had blown it. Ross’s betrayal had left her wary, ripe to believe the worst of Wade. The evidence against him had been circumstantial, but damning to someone who so recently had been deceived. She simply had reacted to the situation instead of holding her pain at bay long enough to look at the facts. She had done him a terrible disservice. If only Wade had explained about the land deal earlier. If only they had had more time together to build trust. If only—

“If only’s aren’t going to solve this mess, are they, Muffin?” she asked, rubbing the head of the sheep that had scaled the steps in search of attention.

What was she going to do? She loved Wade Grayson. Even when she’d believed he’d betrayed her, she had loved him. That was why it had hurt so very badly, far worse than Ross’s deceit had. Only true, deep love had the power to cause such pain. She loved Wade the way she had always dreamed of loving someone—with every fiber of her body and soul. The thought of losing him was unbearable.

She loved Wade, but would he believe her after the way she’d treated him? She had accused him of some rotten things. Why should he take her back? In a moment of desperation he had told her he loved her, too, but had that fragile feeling been crushed by her lack of trust?

There was only one sure way to find out, she thought resolutely, swallowing down a major case of nerves. She had to go to Wade and ask him.

The old Bronwynn might have just waited to see if Wade would come back to her. The old Bronwynn would have drifted along with the tide and accepted whatever happened as her fate. But she wasn’t the old Bronwynn anymore. She had vowed to take control of her life. She had made a mistake and she would rectify it. She loved Wade Grayson, wanted Wade Grayson, and she was going to do whatever she had to to get him back.

ELEVEN

M
URPHY
M
ITCHELL TOOK
one look at his boss and said defensively, “All you ever told me was that she was a pain in the—”

Wade held up a hand to cut him off. It was the first thing his aide had said to him every morning since their return from Vermont. “Good morning” and “Hello” had disappeared from the man’s vocabulary entirely. Wade’s head was pounding hard enough from his own arguments, he didn’t need to hear Murphy’s again. Leaning his elbows on the desk, he pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger and sighed heavily. “I know, Murphy, I know.”

“Polls today are running thirty-four percent for you, twenty-nine percent against. Eight percent thought you were the quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings, and the other twenty-nine percent want to know where in hell is Rangoon and what does it have to do with Indiana.” Murphy poured himself a cup of coffee, checking his appearance in the reflection on the metal pot. “I’m losing my hair over this, Wade. I tried to warn you. Women like that are nothing but trouble.”

“Women like what?” Wade bristled. He was still furious with Bronwynn for having doubted him, but it didn’t mean Murphy was free to insult her.

Mitchell’s heavy shoulders lifted. He fussed with the knot in his tie. “Women like Bronwynn Prescott Pierson. Rich bit—”

Wade cut him off with a flaming look. “Bronwynn isn’t a ‘woman like that.’ Bronwynn isn’t like anybody.” How true, he thought! No one on earth had the power to exasperate him the way she did.

“Hey!” Murphy raised a hand in surrender. “I’m on your side, remember?”

“Then let’s just drop it.” Wade massaged his temples, counting the seconds until he could take
some more aspirin. Twelve thousand six hundred, twelve thousand five hundred ninety-nine . . .

“I can understand if you’re still hung up on her, Wade.”

“Murphy.” One word had never held so much menace.

“Okay.” Mitchell wisely backed off the topic. He flipped open an appointment book on the desk and made a note. “I managed to put off your meeting with Lawrence Brockton until next week. Things will have cooled down a little by then.” Murphy rolled his eyes as he spoke of one of Wade’s biggest backers. “You know the man thinks politicians should be as celibate as priests. He’s going to rake your butt over the coals, friend—”

“Dammit, Murphy,” Wade said. His temper had worn as thin as old flannel in the days since the press had descended on him and Bronwynn. “I don’t need another blasted lecture from you! I know what my obligations are. I know what mistakes I made. I sure as hell don’t need you browbeating me with it all. Just leave the damn paperwork and get out.”

Murphy stepped back, his mouth thinning at the dressing-down from his boss. He dropped a sheaf of file folders on the desk and said tightly, “Fine.”

When the door to his office closed, Wade
dropped his head into his hands and raked his fingers back through his already-ravaged hair. He hurt too much himself to worry much about Murphy’s feelings. In fact, he was having a devil of a time not blaming Murphy for part of his pain. Murphy had been the one to bring up the land deal, but the man had only been doing his job, after all, trying to protect his boss’s reputation. And it wasn’t Murphy’s fault Wade never had told him about the situation between Bronwynn and himself.

Hell, how could he have apprised Murphy when he had only just figured out for himself that he was in love with the woman? He hadn’t even told Bronwynn about it—not in time, at any rate. What a mess, he thought.

Picking up the tabloid he had snatched away from his secretary on his way into his office, he read the headline aloud. “‘Representative’s Romantic Rendezvous Ruined: Fur Flies At Foxfire.’” The photograph showed Bronwynn sticking her tongue out at him.

As Murphy had pointed out with tedious regularity over the last week, they were the sex scandal
of the year. It was going to take months to smooth
all the feathers the headlines had ruffled.

Wade knew a politician’s private life was not strictly his own, but still it irked him to have his put under a microscope, dissected, and twisted around. More than once over the past week he had been tempted to try to set the story straight, but Murphy had talked him out of it. History had proven the best way to deal with gossip was simply to ignore it. The fire would die out if no one added fuel to it.

Wondering when the fire in his belly would die out, Wade peeled the last antacid tablet from the roll on his desk, popped it in his mouth, and promptly dug another roll out of the box in his top drawer. The way things were going, soon he would have to look into buying the stuff wholesale. His stomach was boiling and churning inside like an acid pit. He hadn’t had a decent meal in a week. Since his return to his office in Lafayette, his diet had consisted mainly of coffee, antacid tablets, scotch, and more antacid tablets. Food held no appeal. Neither did the cigarette he picked up and rolled between his fingers.

He was dying to light it up. He really was. But he couldn’t. He hadn’t smoked one single cigarette since leaving Vermont, even though his nerves were shot and practically screaming for nicotine. Tormenting
himself, that’s what he was doing. He was being perverse in the extreme. But, dammit, every time he picked up a cigarette he thought of Bronwynn—of how she would disapprove, of her subtle campaign to get him to cut down.

She could be extremely clever when she wanted to be. It had been days before he’d realized he hadn’t been smoking nearly as much as usual—and that Bronwynn had been behind it, sneaking his cigarettes away, distracting him from the harmful habit. His renewed trouble with his ulcer had come as something of a shock after having gone several weeks without so much as looking at a bottle of antacid. The taste of the stuff—to which he had once been nearly immune—now came close to making him gag. Bronwynn was at the root of that too. She had seen to it he’d had decent meals. In her own quirky way she had looked after him as no one had in years.

A wry smile twisted Wade’s mouth as he wondered how much of her haplessness with tools had been an act. Keeping busy at Foxfire, saving Bronwynn from what he considered imminent disaster, had kept him away from work and the worry that went along with it. Dr. Jameson himself couldn’t have prescribed a better remedy for stress. He had unwound with Bronwynn, had relaxed, and had fun.

He had fallen in love with her, and she had hurt him. Oh, how she had hurt him. Giving her his heart had also given her the power to cut him deeply. The depth of his pain when she had doubted him had left him stunned, had left him both unable and unwilling to defend himself.

Now that he’d had some time to recover and think about it, he could see the mistakes he’d made. He should have told her at some point about the aborted ski lodge idea. He should have told her sooner that he loved her. He should have been more understanding of her reaction to his supposed betrayal—after what she’d been through with Hilliard, it had been natural. He should have made her believe in him. The way he’d behaved had only confirmed her suspicions that he was a bastard.

He wondered about what to do. Common sense tried to tell him to let go, to leave her alone. She was where she wanted to be, he was where he needed to be. She had Foxfire, he had his work. It had always been enough for him before.

As he ran his unlit cigarette back and forth
across his lower lip, Wade cast a cursory glance at the files Murphy had tossed on his desk. Before Vermont, he would have dug into them with relish, he would have felt guilty ignoring them for even five minutes. Now he couldn’t rouse enough interest to lift the covers on them. His career had been knocked into second place in his life, bested by a red-haired minx he had virtually nothing in common with.

It was true. They were as mismatched as Bronwynn’s eyes, but stil he loved her. Everything else in his life was going to be on hold until he either got Bronwynn back or exorcized her from his soul completely.

Somehow Wade didn’t think the latter was going to be possible.

He opened the bottom right-hand drawer of his desk and lifted out the only thing of Bronwynn’s he had other than memories. The kaleidoscope had been carefully wrapped and tucked into his backpack with the words “I love you” scrawled on the paper. The polished wood cylinder with shiny brass bands was unmistakably Wizzer Bralower’s handiwork, but it wasn’t the kilt-clad hermit Wade thought of when he lifted the toy to his eye and stared at the brilliant, beautiful patterns. He thought of Bronwynn. She had brought color and whimsy to a world made gray by work and responsibility. Now she was gone from his life, and he felt worse than dead.

Setting the kaleidoscope aside, he leaned forward and punched the button on his intercom. “Mrs. Griffin, would you please call the airline—”

The sound of his secretary’s shrill voice on the other side of the office door brought Wade up short. “What is the meaning of this?” she shrieked. “Who do you people think you are? You can’t come barging in here! Congressman Grayson is not available.”

Wade was halfway out of his chair when the door burst open and a television camera crew bustled in. Reporters and photographers followed them, jostling each other for position as they crowded into the room.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Wade demanded, echoing his secretary’s words. Hadn’t they intruded on his life enough in the past week? If the blasted press hadn’t shown up when they had, he would have had a chance to talk over the future with Bronwynn and his life wouldn’t be such a miserable hell.

“Congressman, is it true you’ve had no advance warning about this press conference?”

“Press? . . . Murphy!” Wade bellowed, anger overriding decorum. He raked the reporters with his scowl. “Who the hell let you people in here?”

“I did,” Murphy said from the doorway, meeting his boss’s baleful glare with a look that was a strangely familiar cross between irritation and resignation.

Wade was ready to launch into him when a voice from behind Murphy added, “At my request.”

If he hadn’t been braced against his desk, Wade was certain he would have keeled over at the sound of the voice. His knees actually turned rubbery. It was all he could do to keep his jaw from dropping when Murphy stepped aside and Bronwynn walked into the room.

He might not have recognized her on the street. Except for a recalcitrant tuft of bangs, her fly-away hair was slicked back into a neat ponytail. Ragged jeans and baggy T-shirt had been traded in for a pencil-slim beige skirt and a boxy, masculine-styled brown plaid blazer over a silk camisole top. Framing her almond-shaped eyes was an enormous pair of professor-style horn-rimmed glasses. Wade thought she was the most incredibly sexy thing he’d ever seen.

“Congressman,” Bronwynn said in careful greeting when she reached Wade’s desk. Her teeth nibbled nervously at her neatly painted lower lip.

If Wade was overjoyed at seeing her, he was doing a bang-up job of hiding it. He looked surprised and a little bit wary. Well, she couldn’t blame him, but she had hoped for a smile at least. After the fight she’d had with Murphy Mitchell to get in she could have used some encouragement.

Wade cleared his throat and took the hand she offered across his desk. “Ms. Pierson,” he said, then bit his tongue to keep from groaning at the feel of her flesh against his. Electricity hummed through him, reminding him that he’d lain awake night after night aching for her.

Bronwynn fought the urge to turn tail and run. At this point she was certain she was doomed to failure and public humiliation, even though she did have the advantage of surprise. Wade was a politician, and not one who had to have his every word phonetically spelled out for him by a speech writer either. He was very capable of thinking on his feet. Sweat trickled down between her breasts. He was going to fly her alive and leave her carcass for the press she had invited into his office.

“You have me at a loss,” Wade said neutrally. She hadn’t given anything away yet. He found himself hoping she wasn’t still furious with him, hoping she hadn’t taken a page out of Ross Hilliard’s book and arranged some kind of revenge. “Would you care to explain all this?”

“Umm . . .” Shaking like a leaf, Bronwynn clutched at the leather folder that held her notes. She surprised herself by sounding remarkably calm when she answered. “Certainly. It occurred to me that the press has been misled on certain points concerning our relationship. I took the liberty of inviting them here today to set the record straight.”

Wade’s eyes searched hers for deeper answers. What he saw was hope, apology, and stark terror. Optimism ribboned through him. “I see. Well, yes, I would have to agree with you—the reports haven’t been accurate at all, at least not concerning my feelings.”

“Or mine,” she added, praying she hadn’t imagined the added meaning in his words. “If I can have a seat, I have a statement to make, and I would also like to ask you a few questions.”

Wade motioned her to the conference table along the far wall of his office. Noisily the press rearranged themselves for the best view. Bronwynn took the seat Wade pulled out for her. She was never so glad of a place to sit down in her entire life. Another second standing in front of his desk, and she was certain she would have wilted like week-old celery.

As microphones were set up on the table, Wade took the chair beside Bronwynn’s and looked at her expectantly, then glanced at the long, slender legs she crossed demurely over each other. Lord, but she was sexy in that outfit, he thought. His fingers itched to pull her glasses off and free her hair, to shove her businesslike suit jacket off her shoulders and cup her breasts through the fabric of the little slip of silk that was masquerading as a blouse.

With trembling fingers, Bronwynn opened her folder and glanced at the notes scribbled on the lavender legal pad. Straightening the glasses she wore merely for effect, she addressed the reporters, squinting into the bright lights the television people had set up.

“First of all, I would like to say that I did not go to Vermont with the intention of meeting Congressman Grayson. Prior to my arrival at Foxfire, I had no idea who he was.” She couldn’t quite nip back a little smile as she caught Wade’s disgruntled scowl from the corner of her eye. “I went to Vermont because I needed to get away so I could get my life back in order. Until the day of our last press conference, I had no knowledge of the congressman’s interest in my property.”