Native Affairs (19 page)

There was a man sprawled on the carpet behind the desk.

Cindy thought briefly of security, and then realized that the guard was at the other end of the building and there was nobody else around. She was backing out when the man sat up and regarded her sleepily, awakened by the noise.

It was Fox. He pushed his hair out of his eyes and yawned.

“Hi, princess,” he said, as if she had just encountered him in the checkout line at the grocery store.

“Hi!” Cindy exclaimed. “That’s all you have to say? What on earth are you doing here? And how did you get in?”

“I broke in last night,” he said casually, unfolding the jacket he had used for a pillow. “You should have that lock changed. I jimmied it in about three seconds, and then reset it once I got inside. Not very safe for all of your research, right?”

“Look,” Cindy said, trying not to lose her temper, “suppose you tell me why you broke in at all. I presume you still know how to use the telephone?”

“Your number is unlisted,” he answered, rising to his full height and stretching. “What a hard floor in here. Got to watch that. It could give you flat feet.”

Cindy could feel herself mentally counting to ten. “You have my address,” she said.

He shook his head, looking a little sheepish. “No, I don’t. Paula wouldn’t give it to me.”

Cindy stared at him.

“I asked her for it, twice, and she said that I’d get the keys to the pearly gates before I got your address from her.”

Cindy grinned. That sounded like Paula. “Now why do you imagine she said that?” Cindy asked him.

“She seems to think I treated you badly,” he answered, his green eyes seeking hers.

“And what do you think?”

“I think I treated you badly,” he said quietly.

That gave Cindy a moment’s pause. She cleared her throat and asked, “How is Paula?”

“The same as ever. Mad at me.”

“Good for her,” Cindy said crisply.

He fidgeted with the blotter on Richard’s desk. “Does that mean you’re not going to listen to me?”

“That depends upon what you have to say,” she replied, forcing herself to remain on the other side of the room. She wanted to run to him and fling her arms around his neck, but that would never do.

“Do you know why I came to see you the night before you left?” he asked abruptly.

‘‘Why don’t you tell me?”

“I knew that you were going, and I couldn’t stay away. I had to be with you that one last time.”

“And you were.”

His expression softened and his voice changed. “I can still see the way you looked, dancing all by yourself. You would never let go like that if you knew someone were watching.”

“I let go,” Cindy replied. “I let go with you.”

Fox lowered his eyes. “Does that mean I bring out the worst in you?”

“The best, I would have said.”

He drew a breath, then exhaled slowly. “That’s why I’m here,” he said. “Because we bring out the best in each other.”

Cindy watched him, hardly daring to hope. He had disappointed her so painfully already.

Richard chose that inopportune moment to arrive at his office. He looked from Cindy to Fox and his mouth fell open comically.

“Hi, Richard,” Cindy said quickly. “This is Andrew Fox; I met him when I was down in Florida. Drew, my thesis advisor, Richard Caldwell.”

The two men shook hands, and Richard tried not to stare at Fox’s wrinkled clothing or the backpack dangling by its strap from his arm.

“Drew, why don’t we go down to the lounge and talk,” Cindy said pointedly, taking his hand and practically dragging him into the corridor. “Richard, I left those notes you wanted on your desk.”

Fox followed her down the hall, oblivious to the stares of the arriving employees. He was like an exotic bird in a covey of sparrows.

“Just go inside,” Cindy said to him. “I’ll be right with you.”

She hurried down to the secretary and told her to greet her class and give them a reading assignment. Then she dashed back to the lounge, where Fox was drinking coffee and reading the notices posted on the bulletin board.

“Somebody’s selling three dozen used tennis rackets for seventy-five dollars,” he announced to her. “You ought to take advantage of that one.”

“I have to make this fast,” she said. “My class will be coming in soon.”

He turned to look at her, and his face was expressionless. “I’m sorry if I interrupted your schedule,” he said stiffly.

“Come on, Drew, be fair. I have work to do here and I didn’t know you were coming.”

“All right,” he said. “I’ll be quick. I’m here because I can’t live without you. I’ve tried, and I can’t do it.”

“You sound annoyed about it,” she observed, almost whispering. She wanted to ask him to repeat it. Had he really said it?

The outer door opened and Rachel Clarkson came in, carrying a stack of papers. When she looked up and saw the two of them her eyes darted back and forth, seeking an explanation.

“Do you mind?” Fox asked, displaying his most charming smile. “I am trying to talk to this young lady.” He ushered a stunned Rachel back out the door. Rachel was the worst gossip in the department; Cindy knew that the story would be legend by five o’clock that day.

“Drew, you can’t keep throwing people out of here,” she said, when he returned. “This is the department lounge, for heaven’s sake.”

“Really? I thought it was Grand Central Station.” He sighed with exaggerated patience. “All right. Where can we go?”

Cindy thought about it with a mind too dazzled by his latest admission to have a clear grasp of anything. “The catalog room should be empty.”

“I’m not even going to ask what a catalog room is. Lead on.”

She took him through the office maze and out into the classroom corridor.

As they passed her class, which was filling up, Cindy told him to wait for her.

She went inside and confronted her students, who were groaning when they saw the reading assignment written on the blackboard by the secretary. They quieted when they saw her take her place in front of the podium.

“We thought you wouldn’t be here,” Brian Talbott said. “What’s with the busy work?”

Cindy looked at them for a few moments and then said, “Class dismissed.”

No freshman class ever argues with that. Whooping their delight, they were gone in seconds, brushing past a grinning Fox who greeted her with, “You can handle my classes anytime.”
 

“That was very irresponsible of me,” she said faintly. “I’ll have to make it up later.”

“Worry about it tomorrow,” he instructed. “Right now we have more important things to consider. Where’s the catalog room?”

Cindy took him there and unlocked the door. Once they were inside he pulled her into his arms and kissed her until she was breathless.

“Wait a minute,” she said, holding him at arm’s length when she finally managed to break away. “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?” he asked, seeking her mouth with his.

“Making love to avoid facing our problems.”

“I’m here. We have no problems.”

“Yes, we do. Why did you let me come back here, Drew? Why didn’t you do anything about us when I was leaving Florida? Is this just going to be more of the same, seesawing back and forth? We’ll have a great time until you get scared and run off again?”

He released her, his face set. “Boy, did you get tough all of a sudden.”

“That’s what happens when you cry yourself to sleep every night over a man who can’t make up his mind. You get tough.”

He touched her cheek. “I didn’t mean to make you cry, princess. And I have made up my mind. That’s why I’m here.”

“And do you think I’m just going to forget what you put me through as if it never happened?”

He glared at her, his back to the wall. “You love me. You said it in Florida, and you still do. You wouldn’t have slept with me if you didn’t. And I think you always will.”

She shook her head. “Your humility is touching.”

“Are you trying to tell me you don’t?”

“Of course not. You know better. But I’ve been thinking lately that love isn’t everything, Drew. I loved you enough for three people and that still didn’t make it work.”

“That was the problem,” he said, so softly that she almost didn’t hear it.

“What?”

‘‘You loved me too much.”

Cindy put her hands to her temples. “Drew, you’re not making sense.”

“Yes, I am. Listen to me.” He took her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. “You were right when you said I was scared. I could see that in such a short time I’d become everything to you. I didn’t know if I could live up to that. You were giving me so much, all you had, and that made me want to run.”

Her eyes filmed with tears. “I don’t understand you, Drew. Most people are afraid they’ll never be loved like that.
I’m
afraid I’ll never be loved like that.”

He embraced her tightly, rocking her back and forth. “You are,” he murmured. “You are.”

‘‘I wish I could believe that,” she sobbed.

Fox led her to an empty chair and pulled a wad of tissues from his pocket. “I came prepared,” he said, and she had to smile.

He sat on his haunches before her and took her hands. “Princess, I know I’ve given you a very bad time, not because I wanted to but because I couldn’t help it.” He took a deep breath. “I’ve been alone all my life. I never trusted anyone except my family, and my job didn’t exactly encourage me to believe the best about people.” He brushed a loose strand of hair back from her forehead. “And then you arrived, with your satchel full of books, your gentleness, and your honor.” He shrugged one shoulder slightly. “I couldn’t resist you. You seemed to be everything fine and noble that was missing from my life.”

“Oh, Drew,” Cindy said, sniffling. “You make me sound like the Statue of Liberty or something.”

“Are you going to listen?” he asked, arching an eyebrow.

“I’m listening.”

“I kept telling myself,” he went on, “that I would see you just one more time and then stop, like you were a drug. But you weren’t. You were something I needed in order to live, something I’d been lacking and then found.”

She didn’t move, her eyes fastened on his face.

“Then when you got hurt and wound up in the hospital it looked like it was my responsibility.”

“Only to you, Drew. I never thought that.”

He shook his head. “Come on, Cindy, that wouldn’t have happened to you if I were an accountant.”

She was silent, unable to dispute him.

“I felt so guilty, like I had...defiled you. All I could think about was the way you looked when I brought you in to the hospital, all white and cold, as limp as a rag doll.” His face changed at the memory and she could see the impact it still had on him. “And Paula screaming at me in the emergency room, ‘This is your fault! You did this to her!’”

“She was upset, Drew. She didn’t know what she was saying.”

“She knew,” he countered quietly. “And she was right.”

“I didn’t blame you.”

“Of course not, you wouldn’t. But I blamed myself. There didn’t seem to be anything to do but to let you go.”

“And I had no say in the matter? That was a decision you had to make all by yourself?”

He turned her hand over in her lap and studied it. “I knew what you would say. You would have stayed with me even if you thought it would happen again. So I handled it.”

“You handled it by returning my love to me like a gift you didn’t wish to open.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, his head bent, and she believed that he was.

She touched his hair, so soft and silky, so unlike the rest of him. “Then why did you come after me, Drew? Has anything changed?”

He didn’t answer for a moment, then said, “Once your thesis is accepted and you get your degree, you’ll be free to go anywhere and look for a job, right?”

“Right.”

He raised his eyes to hers. “What about coming to Florida?”

“To do what?”

“To be my wife,” he answered, clearly afraid that she would refuse him, but determined, as always, to complete his mission.

Cindy bent forward to rest her head on his shoulder. She put her arms around his waist and closed her eyes.

“Is that a yes?” he asked huskily, stroking her back and arms as if to assure himself of her reality.

“I want to marry you, more than anything in the world. But what you just said about your life is still true, and I don’t think I could stand worrying about you every time you went out on a case,” Cindy said.

“I know. That’s why I got a new job.”

Cindy raised her head.

He nodded. “I’ll be running a security agency in Tampa. With the connections I had from working with the police it wasn’t hard to arrange.”

Cindy stared at him, hardly daring to believe it.

“I want you, princess,” he said. “And I’ll do anything I have to do in order to get you.”