“When?” she asked softly.
“I think it would be better if I went tonight.”
McCade went into the bedroom and quickly changed out of his tuxedo. He hung it neatly in Sandy’s closet, next to the pants and shirts she’d bought him. Where he was going he wouldn’t need a tuxedo, and he didn’t want to wear those other clothes.
He slipped on his jeans and a clean T-shirt. His other pair of jeans went into his duffel bag, along with the rest of his T-shirts and his underwear. He tried not to think as he packed, tried not to feel.
He carried the duffel bag to the entry hall and took his leather jacket from the closet, setting it all down by the front door. His camera case was in the living room, and he went to get it, checking to make sure the latches were locked.
“Stay for tonight, Clint.” Sandy’s voice was so soft, he almost couldn’t make out her words. Almost.
She was sitting on the couch, her face pale, her eyes big and full of hurt. McCade had to look away.
He wanted to stay. Lord, how he wanted to stay. But he wanted to stay for forever, not just for tonight. There was no way he could sleep in her bed tonight, no way he could make love to her without giving himself away.
And he wasn’t going to do that.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
It was obviously the answer she’d been expecting.
“I gotta go.” Hefting his camera in one hand and his duffel bag and jacket in the other, he went out the door, closing it tightly behind him.
Sandy didn’t go in to work for four solid days.
She scrubbed her condo until it was clean enough to eat off of the floors. She watched soap operas and reread her favorite books. She slept late and napped in the afternoon. She alphabetized her bookshelves, but didn’t like the way it looked, so she reshelved the books according to size and color. She watched her entire video library of romantic comedies, but didn’t laugh once.
McCade was gone.
On Thursday, she had a meeting with Simon Harcourt and James Vandenberg that could not be rescheduled. After so many days of wearing nothing but pajamas or baggy shorts, she dressed carefully in her blue-flowered sundress and took extra time with her makeup. She wore her hair down, the way McCade liked it.
It was strange leaving her condo, after four days of isolation. The sun was molten and the air felt like a furnace, hot and dry in her lungs. But it was only late spring. Summer was coming and it was going to be hell.
McCade had the right idea, Sandy thought as she cranked the AC in her car to high. It made sense to travel around the country, moving with the weather. Nothing beat Arizona in January, but July was a different story.
As she drove to work she wondered where McCade would go after he finished filming on Key West. She wondered for the five millionth time since he’d left if she’d ever see him again.
She’d toyed with the idea of buying a plane ticket to Miami and following him. What would he do if she just suddenly showed up in Florida? God, what if he’d already found another lover? But even if he hadn’t, nothing would be different, nothing would have changed. All she would have done was buy a little more time, put off the inevitable—because the sad truth was, McCade had finally admitted that he loved his freedom more than he loved her.
She pulled into the Video Enterprises parking lot.
McCade was gone. She was simply going to have to get used to that. McCade was gone, and chasing after him wasn’t going to bring him back.
According to the schedule, Frank Williamson was in studio A, shooting part of a music video. The red “in progress” light above the studio entrance was not on, and Sandy pushed the door open. The members of the band stood talking to Frank in front of a blue screen. The rest of the studio was dark. A camera was positioned near her in the shadows. She stepped inside.
“Gary, would you tell Frank I want to—”
It wasn’t Gary standing behind the camera. It wasn’t O’Reilly either.
It was McCade.
Shocked, Sandy stared directly into his eyes for a good five seconds before he looked away.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered, hardly daring to breathe, hardly daring to hope.
“I promised Frank I’d help him out with this video.” He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I don’t have to be in Key West for another four days, so…” He shrugged.
He obviously wasn’t there to see her.
She nodded, fighting the disappointment. “Will you please tell Frank I’d like to talk to him when he gets a chance.” Somehow she managed to keep her voice level.
“Sure.” He glanced into her eyes for maybe half a second before looking away again. But then he looked back. “You okay?” he asked softly.
Looking into his eyes was like being sucked into a whirlpool. Sandy realized at that moment that she was never going to recover. She was going to love this man for the rest of her life, whether he loved her back or not. She turned away before he could see her sudden tears.
No, she was not okay. She would never be okay again.
“I’m fine.”
McCade watched her close the door gently behind her. She looked good, a little tired maybe, but good. She said she was fine; hell, she was probably half over him already.
That was good, that was what he wanted, right?
So how come it made him feel so bad?
TWELVE
T
HE TELEPHONE WAS
ringing as Sandy unlocked the door. Once inside the condo, she threw down her briefcase and ran for the kitchen. As she picked up the phone the answering machine clicked on, and she shouted to be heard over the recorded message as she struggled to turn the damned thing off.
“Whew!” she said triumphantly, finally. “Sorry. I’m here. You caught me walking in the door.”
“That was pretty intense, sweetheart. And you’re supposed to be some sort of technical genius or something? At least that’s what McCade said. Sure coulda fooled me.”
The voice was familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it. Was it…“Tony?”
“Bingo,” the hairdresser answered happily. “Good ear, pumpkin. Is McCade around?”
“Um. No, actually he’s not.”
“That’s okay,” Tony said. “I really wanted to talk to you, anyway. When’s the happy day?”
Sandy leaned against the kitchen table as she kicked off her shoes. God, her feet hurt. “The what?”
“The happy day,” he repeated. “You know, the big event…‘Here comes the bride. All dressed in white…’” He sang loudly and very off-key. “Is it going to be a big wedding or a small one? Have you picked out your china pattern yet? Did McCade talk you into going to Key West with him for the honeymoon? Come on, sister, tell me. This inquiring mind needs to know.”
She sat down heavily in the nearest chair. “Tony, did someone tell you that McCade and I were going to get married?” she asked carefully.
“Someone sure did, dollface.” He wheezed slightly as he laughed. “I heard it straight from the horse’s mouth.”
“That’s one hell of a rumor.” She fought back the tears that were, again, threatening. “Which horse exactly did you hear it from? I assume you’re not talking about Mr. Ed.”
“The expression ‘the horse’s mouth’ implies I heard it from the guy who oughta know,” Tony said. “You know,
McCade.
”
Sandy hung on to the arms of her chair to keep from falling over. “Tony, McCade moved out Saturday night.”
“He did?” His voice rose up a full octave. “But—”
“What did he tell you?” she asked. “Was it something about a guy named Frank and an office bet? Because that was just a joke.”
Silence. She could almost hear him thinking.
“Noooo,” Tony finally said. “McCade was in here on Saturday afternoon for a haircut. He told me he was planning to stop at the jewelers on his way home. The ring was sized and ready to be picked up. From what he told me, I figured he planned to pop the question that night.”
Saturday night. The night McCade had punched Aaron Fields in the nose. The night she had lost her temper and yelled at him, accusing him of God only knows what.
She closed her eyes. “Well, he didn’t ask me anything. We had a fight and now he’s gone.”
Tony swore. “I tell you, that man can be a real fool.”
“Are you sure you heard him right?”
“Ain’t nothing wrong with my ears, sweetcakes. I remember, I told him he should take the job in Florida, because it was the only way
you’d
ever believe he was going to stick around.”
Sandy shook her head. “You lost me there. Leaving doesn’t seem to be a very good way to prove that you won’t leave.”
“Snap to it, Einstein!” Tony barked. “You’d know he was going to stick around when he
came back,
get it? Anyway, after I said that, he said he wasn’t going to go to Florida because he was going to ask you to marry him. Or something like that. He
did
use the word ‘marry.’” He pronounced it very slowly. “As in get hitched. As in happily ever after?”
It didn’t make sense. McCade had claimed he was leaving because it was time to move on, because he wanted to take that Florida job. Yet that very day he’d told Tony he was going to ask Sandy to marry him, and
not
take the job? What was going on?
“Oops, a customer just walked in. I’ve gotta go. Call me if you need me for
any
thing, all right, honey?”
Sandy thanked him and slowly hung up the phone.
Marriage.
Marriage?
She stood up and went into her bedroom. She opened the closet door and stared at the clothes McCade had left behind. He had been wearing his tuxedo that night. What if…?
She took the suit out of the closet, unable to resist holding it up to her face to inhale his familiar scent. Oh, God, she missed him.
Fighting the tears yet again, she went through the pockets. There was nothing in the pants. His black bow tie was neatly folded in one of the outside jacket pockets. The other held a matchbook from the Pointe. But inside the jacket—
There was something….
Sandy reached in and pulled out a jeweler’s ring box.
It was small and dark blue velvet, with rounded edges.
She held it in her hands, still refusing to believe that there could be a diamond ring inside of it. It couldn’t be—
But it was.
The diamond was huge and elegant in its simple setting. It glittered, reflecting the light with all of its planes and edges. Sandy carefully slipped the ring out of the box. The inner band was engraved with the letters
C.M
. &
S.K
., simple and sweet, like lovers’ initials carved on a tree.
It
was
an engagement ring, and he’d gotten it for her.
So what the hell had happened to make him change his mind?
She’d shouted at him, that’s what had happened. She’d said some awful, unforgivable things. But he’d been no prince that night either. Punching Aaron Fields in the nose…
They’d both behaved badly. But was that a reason to do a complete one-eighty? He’d bought this ring. He must’ve thought long and hard about marriage.
What else had happened that night?
Sandy closed her eyes, trying to see that night from McCade’s point of view.
Fields had obviously provoked him. After he punched Fields out, James had escorted him outside and virtually kicked him out of the party, and—
James.
Right before McCade left for good, he’d said something about James. He’d said that James had been right or something like that. Sandy hadn’t understood, and Clint hadn’t explained, and the time wasn’t right to press the issue.
All right, what else?
McCade had walked home and waited for her in the carport. She got home and—God, she’d been so angry with him! She’d told him to go to Florida, of all the stupid things she could have said! But later she’d apologized and told him that she hadn’t meant it.
Of course there was always the possibility that McCade had simply gotten cold feet. Marriage meant settling down, not disappearing into the Brazilian jungle or the Alaskan tundra for four months at a time. Four weeks, sure, but not four months.
Sandy slipped the ring onto her finger. The fit was perfect.
Why had he changed his mind?
She had to know.
She reached for the telephone. She didn’t have to look up Frank’s number, it was on her automatic dialing. She keyed in the code and waited for the phone to ring.
Frank picked it up right away. “’Lo?”
“Frank, it’s Sandy,” she said. “I need to find McCade. Do you know where he’s staying?”
“Yeah,” Frank replied. “He’s staying with me. Or he was. Boy, am I glad you finally called, boss. I don’t know what you guys fought about, but I’ve never seen a guy more down. The man is seriously depressed. I was going to call you, but he told me if I as much as breathed a word to you about it, he’d rip out my lungs.”
“Is he there?” she asked breathlessly. Was it possible that Clint was as upset about their breakup as she was? Was it possible that he still loved her?
“No. He’s freelancing tonight for Channel Eight news. He’s with the news team covering the mayor’s birthday party downtown. They’ll be shooting live from the mayor’s house for the ten o’clock news report. But he’s not coming back here afterward.”
“Why not?” Sandy asked.
“He’s leaving for Florida.”
“
Tonight?
”
“His bike’s all packed,” Frank told her. “He’s leaving directly from the mayor’s.”
“Oh, no.” Sandy looked at the clock on her bedside table. Eight twenty-eight. It was eight twenty-eight, and McCade could be on the highway anytime after ten. “Frank, if he calls you, tell him that if he leaves before he talks to me, I’ll…I’ll…”
“Rip
his
lungs out?” Frank suggested helpfully.
“Just tell him not to go anywhere.”
She hung up and scrambled around looking for her briefcase. She found it in the entryway, and she quickly pulled out her date book, flipping to the list of phone numbers in the back. She got the cordless phone from the kitchen and dialed James Vandenberg’s home phone number as she walked back down the hall to her bedroom. Please let him be home, she prayed.
“Hello?”
“James, it’s Sandy,” she said. “Kirk. Sandy Kirk. I need to get into the mayor’s birthday party, and I figured if anyone could think of a way I could sneak in, it would be you.”
James laughed. “I’m flattered, I think. And yes, I can think of a way, and you wouldn’t be sneaking in. I have an invitation somewhere on my desk….”
She could hear the rustling of papers. Then: “Here it is. You know, the party’s already started.”
“I don’t care.” Sandy flipped through the clothes in her closet. What did people wear to a mayoral birthday party? “I need to get in there. McCade’s there, and I need to talk to him before he leaves at ten. Can I swing by and pick up the invitation?”
“It’s not going to get you into the party unless I’m with you,” James told her. “Security’s pretty tight and the invitation’s in my name. No one’s going to mistake
you
for James Vandenberg.” He laughed. “You’re just not tall enough. Among other things.”
Sandy swore.
“This is really that urgent?”
“Yes.”
James was silent for a moment. “Funny, I heard through the grapevine that McCade was leaving town.”
“He is.” She grimly pulled out the white dress McCade had bought her. It had been his very favorite. “But he’s not leaving tonight—not if
I
can help it.”
“You once told me you knew he was going to leave sooner or later. You said it was inevitable.”
“I love him,” she said quietly, “and dammit, I’m not going to let him go without a fight.”
Another long silence. Then: “All right. How about I change my clothes and pick you up in about twenty-five minutes? Can you be ready?”
“Are you serious?” Sandy wasn’t sure she heard him correctly.
“Meet me outside,” he told her. “It’ll save time.”
“Thank you for doing this.” Sandy looked over at James. His face was lit by the soft glow of light from the dashboard of his Jaguar.
He smiled. “You look beautiful.”
“Thanks.” Sandy glanced down at her left hand. She was wearing the ring McCade had bought for her. He may not have asked the question, but she was giving him an answer anyway. Yes, she would marry him. Now, if only they got there in time…
“You sure McCade is worth all of this effort?”
“Absolutely.”
“You really love him that much?”
“If he leaves, I don’t know what I’m going to do.” She was silent for a moment, then added, “Yeah, I
do
know what I’m going to do. I’m going to be miserable forever.”
James slowed the Jaguar to make a right turn. “I guess I was wrong.”
“About what?” she asked, checking her watch. It was closing in on ten o’clock. Had it been a light news day? If it had been a light news day, Channel 8 would most likely use the mayor’s party as a lead story. They’d spend two, maybe three minutes on it at the most….
“I really thought that you’d be better off without McCade.”
Sandy stared at him.
“But I was wrong, wasn’t I?” he said.
“You didn’t—” She took a deep breath and started again. “You didn’t, by any chance, tell McCade that, did you?”
He had the decency to look embarrassed. “Well, yes. I guess I probably did.”
“Saturday night?” she asked, even though she knew the answer.
“Yeah,” James admitted. “It was after his fight with Aaron Fields. I also told him…” He grimaced, not wanting to say the words.
“What?”
“That he wasn’t good enough for you. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have interfered.”
“Damn right you shouldn’t have!” Sandy squeezed her eyes shut, remembering her own words to McCade. What had she said—something about stupid low-class behavior?
How could she have said such a thing? McCade was sensitive to such put-downs, he always had been. She should have known. And then when she had told him to go to Florida…
“Cassandra, I
am
sorry.”
“Call me Sandy,” she said absently, staring out the window. “I’m not Cassandra, I’m Sandy. I always have been, and it’s stupid to try to change this late in the game.
When
are we going to get there?”
The live report from inside the mayor’s house was finished but McCade continued shooting the crowd. The station wanted him to scan for local celebrities.
A rock-and-roll band was up on the stage in the big ballroom, turned up so loud it was impossible to talk, damn near impossible to think. But that was good. McCade didn’t want to think.
Another ten minutes and he’d help load up the truck, and the TV crew would be on their way.
His Harley was back at the television station. He’d originally intended to leave directly from this gig, but the news editor had told him he’d have a hell of a time parking. The mayor had recently received an anonymous death threat, and while he didn’t want to cancel the party, extra security measures were being taken. No vehicles were being parked within a two-block radius of the house, and no one was getting in without an invitation.
McCade’s invitation was the video camera he held on his shoulder. He made one more slow circuit of the crowd, slowly moving his lens back to the door, adjusting the focus, tightening the frame—
It
was
Sandy. And she was with James Vandenberg.
McCade stood frozen in place, stunned.
They were glancing around the room. As he watched, Vandenberg put his hand on Sandy’s arm. She turned and looked up into his eyes.