Wildfire (19 page)

Amanda was horrified at his conclusions. “Brady, I didn’t plan it like this. I had no idea you were thinking of marriage!”

But he wasn’t listening. “God, I should’ve seen it sooner,” he berated himself. “You were forever avoiding your friends when we were together. You got furious when I implied we had a relationship in front of them.”

“Why do you have to take this so personally?” she cried.

“Meaning any man would’ve done?” he lashed out.

“No, I don’t mean that.” The flush on her cheeks was now caused by equal parts of anger and embarrassment. “I don’t sleep around.”

“You weren’t a virgin,” he starkly stated.

“Neither were you!” she shot back, angered by this display of the old double-standard. Her previous sexual experience had been limited to one fling while she was at college, and Brady had no right slinging accusations about her moral standards.

Brady, however, had no way of knowing that her experience was limited. “Well, I’m sorry to shatter your dreams, but I don’t intend to provide stud service for you. I don’t like being used, lady!” His face was set in grim lines, all trace of boyish humor erased.

“I never meant to use you,” she fiercely denied.

“Really?” His inflection was one of scornful disbelief.

“Yes, really.”

“Get dressed,” he commanded in a flat tone. “We’re going back to Deerfield.”

Amanda wrapped the robe around her shivering form and got up off the bed. While gathering her suitcase she turned to steal a look at Brady, but his rigid back was turned to her, his fierce pride up in arms.

Once in the bathroom, anger carried her through the difficult task of putting on another matched set of lingerie similar to the ones Brady had stroked away only hours before. It wasn’t her fault that their romantic weekend had turned into a disaster. Brady was the one who’d ruined everything by bringing up marriage. Why couldn’t he have left well enough alone?

The flirtatiousness of her attire mocked her, making Amanda angrily button her blouse up to the collar. There, that was better. Now even
her wraparound skirt seemed more tailored. She opened the bathroom door to find Brady already packed and obviously eager to leave.

She felt it only fair that she be given a chance to defend herself. “I never meant to lead you on.”

“You’ll have to forgive me if I find that hard to believe,” was his savagely sarcastic retort.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized with haughty dignity.

“And I don’t buy that either.”

Brady headed out the door, leaving Amanda to follow with her suitcase in hand, feeling very much like a recalcitrant schoolgirl instead of a mature woman in charge of her life.

Their drive home was nerve-racking. It was snowing steadily and the roads were rapidly becoming a sheet of ice. Amanda stayed silent, leaving Brady to concentrate on his driving. The obdurate line of his jaw warned of his tightly leashed anger.

When they finally pulled up in front of her house, she let herself out of the claustrophobic confines of the Mustang. Brady retrieved her things from the trunk and handed it to her, studiously avoiding even the slightest physical contact. Huge flakes of snow nestled in his curly hair, their coldness matching the icy bleakness in his eyes. His farewell was equally glacial.

“Good-bye, Amanda. It’s been most educational.” She’d been dismissed.

CHAPTER TEN

It was one of the worst Christmases Amanda could ever remember enduring. She resented all the happy festivity, the smiling faces, the general good will. Her brusque manner at work had elicited worried glances at first, but as Amanda ruthlessly dispatched all attempts at sympathy, those glances became jaundiced. The library staff’s hopes that she would resume her normal equanimity after the week-long Christmas break were shattered on the first day back. Amanda was even worse than before. That’s when Beth finally took it upon herself to lodge a protest.

“Look, I know that in your present mood I could lose my job over this, but somebody’s got to talk to you, Amanda.”

They were in Amanda’s office, and both doors were closed to shut out curious eavesdroppers. “About what?” Amanda impatiently demanded, not bothering to look up from the report she was compiling.

“About the way you’ve been acting. What’s happened, Amanda? Was it something between you and Brady?”

Amanda’s already cool expression immediately frosted. “Beth, I realize we’re friends, but that doesn’t give you the right to discuss private matters during business hours.”

“They’re not private matters when they interfere with work,” Beth was forced to point out.

“Are you implying that I’m letting personal problems affect my work?” Amanda icily inquired.

Many would have been intimidated and given up, but Beth was genuinely concerned about the change in her friend’s behavior and she refused to back down. “Amanda, please talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.”

Amanda wearily shoved her hair away, from her face. “All right,” she finally sighed, “but I can’t talk about it here. If you’re free tonight, maybe we could go out to dinner and discuss it.”

They ate at a restaurant near the campus. Amanda ordered a chef’s salad, which she only picked at. Beth voiced her concern. “I’m worried about you.”

“Don’t be. I’m fine.”

“Sure. And I’m Bo Derek,” she retorted. “Come on, Amanda, what is it?”

Amanda absently crumbled a dinner roll with the back of her fingernail as she replied, “It was Brady, indirectly.”

“Indirectly?’

“We’re no longer seeing each other.” Amanda’s voice was deliberately matter-of-fact. “The entire thing was a mistake from the first. I should’ve known better.”

“Wasn’t he serious about you?”

“Too serious,” she bitterly retorted.

Beth was clearly puzzled. “How can you be too serious?”

“He wanted marriage,” was Amanda’s flat response.

“So?”

“I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

Amanda shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “I didn’t want it.”

“Why not?” Beth repeated. “You’re obviously in love with him.”

“I am not,” Amanda heatedly denied with more emotion than she’d shown in a long time. “I can’t love indiscriminately. I want to be discriminating in my emotions.”

“What you want and what you get are two different things. What’s wrong with being in love with Brady?”

“It wouldn’t work.”

“What wouldn’t work?”

“Marriage.”

“Why not?”

“Because the odds are bad enough when two people have a lot in common.”

“You mean come from the same background,” Beth interpreted. “Are you ashamed of Brady?”

“No. I’m just being sensible. I mean, look at the facts. He’s a down-to-earth cop who likes beer and baseball.”

“From what you told me he also likes strawberry-rhubarb pie and classical music.”

“He’s stubborn.”

“He’s independent,” Beth substituted. “Lefties are like that. Because they’ve encountered so many challenges to their competence and autonomy, they end up preferring to figure out problems for themselves.”

“Where did you hear that?”

Beth smiled. “I checked out the same book you did.”

Amanda avoided her friend’s knowing look, but Beth didn’t let up. “Amanda, he’s a great guy. He can be considerate and sensitive without having those characteristics in any way detract from his masculine sureness or strength. And while he may not be fancy, he is honest and straightforward.”

Part of Amanda acknowledged that all Beth’s accolades were true, but another part stubbornly questioned the practicality of their relationship. “It just wouldn’t work.”

“If you’re so sure it wouldn’t work, why are you so miserable?”

“I’m not miserable.”

“You’ve been reenacting the Reign of Terror at the library. The staff is afraid to even breathe for fear of setting you off.”

“I’m sorry if you think that I’ve been unusually harsh. You know John is retiring next month and I desperately want the position of head librarian. I’ve got to whip the place into shape before then, to show the administration what I can do.”

“That all sounds very convincing, but I don’t believe a word of it.”

Amanda refused to be drawn out and Beth was forced to give up. While she didn’t condone Amanda’s behavior, at least now she understood the reasons for it, even if Amanda herself didn’t.

Talking to Beth hadn’t helped the situation. At work the next day Amanda was even more short-tempered. Her patience was practically nonexistent, her temper icily volatile.

When Amanda saw Helen working on the same book-truck full of new acquisitions for the second day in a row, her temper flared. “Helen, why isn’t this material out on the shelves yet? It’s of no use to the students if you’re going to hide it back here in Technical Services. We’re not ordering these things for our own entertainment and use,” she said sharply.

Helen’s face reddened under the scornful inflection of Amanda’s chilly voice, but she remained silent.

“I don’t know how you have your task priorities listed, but getting new material out on the shelves is supposed to be on the top. See that this booktruck is shelved before the end of the day!” Amanda ordered with brusque efficiency.

Her reprimand delivered, Amanda pivoted and returned to her own office. Twinges of guilt were quick to make themselves felt, and she meant to get back to Helen and apologize for being so rough on her. But several vendor problems arose, long-distance calls that demanded her immediate attention and temporarily postponed her apology. It was a little after four before she got the time to search Helen out. Beth told her that the older woman was shelving in the stacks.

Amanda saw the booktruck before she saw Helen. It was jutting out from one of the last aisles. As she got closer she saw that Helen was struggling to rearrange an entire unit, shifting books in order to fit in the new materials.

Amanda was just about to make her presence known when the older woman sat back from her squatting position and just seemed to keel over, clutching her throat. The carpeting protected Helen from severe injury after the fall, but Amanda didn’t have time to worry about that.

Automatically reaching for Helen’s pulse, she noted its feeble unevenness in dismay. When Helen suddenly stopped breathing, Amanda knew what she had to do. Shouting out for help, she immediately began administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation. She’d taken the lessons from the local Red Cross two years before, but had never before been called upon to use the lifesaving technique. Her arms were soon aching from the fatiguing exertion, but she didn’t falter. Two students had come running to her aid, but neither of them were familiar with CPR and were unable to assist other than to call an ambulance.

Amanda had no knowledge of how long she worked on Helen before the paramedics arrived. All she knew was that the older woman had resumed breathing, but it was still dangerously shallow. Helen was whisked away on a stretcher while a benumbed Amanda provided information about Helen’s family’s names and phone numbers.

Beth walked up and put her arm around Amanda, guiding her away from the attendant crowd that had gathered. John Abbington pompously pushed his way to the fringe of the assemblage, halting the women’s progress with his words.

“It’s incredibly bad management, Amanda, to work your employees until they literally drop!”

“It wasn’t Amanda’s fault,” Beth immediately defended, appalled at the head librarian’s insensitivity.

“I never said it was,” John fastidiously corrected, his bald head shining. “I was merely pointing out that I happened to overhear Amanda’s earlier confrontation with this assistant and thought it most unprofessional.”

“I’ve got to go to the hospital,” Amanda blankly stated. John was right, of course. Helen’s attack was her fault, all her fault. She should never have yelled at the older woman like that, should never have pushed her to get those books shelved.

“Let me drive you,” Beth offered.

Amanda shook her head. “I’ll be fine.”

Beth had misgivings, but Amanda was adamant. Concerned all the same, Beth called the hospital a short while later and asked about Helen’s condition. There was no news. When she inquired if Amanda was still waiting, the nurse told her that Miss Richards had left shortly after arriving.

When Beth dialed Amanda’s home number there was no reply. She even drove by and banged on the front door, but Amanda’s Porsche wasn’t in the driveway or in the garage. After four hours had passed, still without any word from Amanda, Beth became desperate and phoned Brady at the police station. Perhaps he’d know where to look for Amanda.

“Detective Gallagher here,” a deep voice barked into the phone.

“This is Beth Kent, from the college library,” she added, in case he’d forgotten her.

“I remember.”

“I’m calling about Amanda.”

Brady’s voice was decidedly cool as he said, “I’m not sure I’m the person you should be speaking to about her.”

“There’s been an accident.”

His tone immediately changed to one of harsh concern. “Involving Amanda?”

“Not directly.” Beth’s answer was somewhat disjointed. “Helen, she’s one of the assistants in my department. Well, she had a heart attack this afternoon, here in the library.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that. I don’t know Helen well, but I know Amanda admires her very much.”

“Amanda is blaming herself for what happened.”

“Blaming herself? Why?”

“Because she’d blown up at Helen a few hours before.” Beth then went on to briefly explain the situation, ending with, “I’ve called every place I can think of, I even drove over to Amanda’s house, but there’s no sign of her. She’s been gone over four hours now, and I’m getting worried.”

“You said the emergency room nurse told you that Amanda had been there?”

“Yes, but only for a moment, only long enough to be told that Helen’s condition was still critical. Brady, do you have any idea where she could’ve gone?”

“I might,” he replied. “It’s a long shot, but it’s worth a try. I’ll get back to you, Beth. And thanks for calling me. You did the right thing.”

It might be egotistical of him to think that Amanda would even remember going to his mountain, but something inside of Brady told him that that’s where she was. He had to find her. If she was suffering from the guilt of Helen’s heart attack, there was no knowing what her state of mind might be. Hell, he knew firsthand how devastating guilt could be, how destructive.