Reckless Seduction. Gwynne Forster
After raspberry sherbet and coffee, Jon stood. “It’s time to call this wonderful evening to a halt. May I see you home, Haley?”
“Oh, I live way over on the west side.”
“Where on the west side?” Jon asked her.
“Well, Riverside Drive. That’s probably out of your way.” It was twenty-five blocks out of his way, if he was concerned with distance. But his instincts told him that it was the most direct route to where he wanted to be.
“No, it isn’t out of my way. I’ll give you a call, Nels.”
Haley hugged Nels and thanked him for the party, and it annoyed Jon that she put her arms around Nels and kissed him on the cheek. He refused to ask himself why he should get sore about a thing like that.
“Shape up, man,” he said to himself. She didn’t belong to him and never would. What had he been thinking all evening, anyway? As they reached the elevator, he felt himself withdrawing.
They were silent as the elevator descended the twenty-two floors to the lobby. She didn’t look at Jon, but he looked at her. Why hadn’t he told Nels that he’d be busy? He’d had a suspicion that she would be there. Damn, he’d wanted her to be there, had wanted to see her again. He knew that she sensed his withdrawal and was hurt by it, but he made no move to bridge the chasm that he had deliberately erected between them. He was never going to give another woman the opportunity to crush him—and that included the elegant Dr. Feldon.
As they reached the street, Haley sighted a taxi, flagged it and reached for its door.
“Now, wait a minute, here. I told you that I would see you home.”
“No, thank you. I am perfectly capable of seeing myself safely home, and I won’t have to contend with any lightning fast mood changes, since I don’t have them.” She closed the door and gave the cabbie her address. The taxi moved away from the curb, leaving a stunned Jon staring at its taillights. No goodbye, no see you, no nothing. Well, what should he have expected?
“You young people are always quarreling. Now, me and my Beth, we never had a cross word from the time we met, and we’ve been married forty-three years. Soon as I set eyes on ’er, I knew she was for me. Your man seemed like a nice one,” the cabbie said. “What’s the problem? Think you two can work it out?”
Haley blew out a long breath. “The trouble with him is that he goes from tepid to hot to cold in a couple of minutes, and I like dependable personalities and stability in my life. Anyway, he isn’t my man.”
“From what you just said, I can tell he’s ’bout hooked. You listen to me, here. When a man acts like that, he’s interested—don’t want to be and fast losing the battle. You’ll see. Well, here ya are, little lady. That’s thirteen-eighty. Mark my word, you ain’t seen the last of that one.”
Haley leaned back in her desk chair and let her gaze sweep the autumn colors that beautified her office. She’d been in that rut ever since Nels’s party. Three weeks down the drain. If she didn’t get that proposal written, she could just forget about the health education program for reservation children. She swore vehemently. Why couldn’t she get Jon Ecklund out of her head? She couldn’t think of anything except the way she’d felt in his arms when he held her and danced with her. She’d felt his masculine strength, the force of his personality and his barely controlled passion. She knew he wanted her, and she also knew that something restrained him. She told herself that it was best to forget about him. Come hell or high water, she would.
The ring of the telephone invaded her thoughts. “Yes, Amy?” Amy had been her secretary since the doors of IISP first opened. The stunning fifty-year-old redheaded grandmother had a husband who had practically worshipped her for 28 years. She was fiercely loyal to Haley.
“Mr. Andersen. Can you take it?”
“Hello, Nels. What can I do for you?”
“Well, you can begin by being less officious. What in heaven’s name have you done to Jon? He came over yesterday, asking all kinds of questions about you. But he didn’t want any answers. I think he just wanted to get tanked, and believe me, he got tanked. And he didn’t even get high once when we were in college. I still can’t believe he did what I saw him do yesterday.”
“You were in college with him?”
“Yeah. We were roommates and best friends for four years as undergraduates and two years in graduate school. We both got degrees in journalism. Haley, Jon is about the finest man I have ever met. If I had a sister, I would do my best to make him my brother-in-law. He’s straight. And you’ve got him spinning. We’ve got to talk about this.”
“Nels, I’ll talk about anything you want after I finish this grant proposal. I am trying to get funding for a project to improve health education among reservation kids in the first through ninth grades.”
“Are we speaking every kid on every reservation?”
“No, I’m just going to try two or three pilot projects, just to demonstrate what can be done with a small investment.”
“Are you going to include the Comanche, since they’re your own people?”
“Nels, the Comanche do not live on a reservation, though most of us are settled out in Oklahoma.”
“Haley, I’m not about to go into the geography of the Native Americans right now. I want to talk to you about Jon.”
“Nels, give me a break. I don’t want to talk about Jon Ecklund. Period. That man is the reason why I’m struggling with this proposal and getting nowhere.”
“Why, what did he do?”
“Nothing” was the nettled response. She said goodbye and placed the phone in its cradle. It was enough to have to think about the man; she’d be damned if she was going to spend the afternoon talking about him. Besides, anybody with sense could see that Jon Ecklund was more than man enough to fight his own battles and win his own wars.
What I need, she thought, after a moment of reflection, is better information about the schools on these reservations. She punched the intercom button. “Amy, please tell Spencer that I want to see him now.”
“Right, Haley.”
“Spencer, I want a report on the national ranking of primary and secondary students attending school on these three reservations—students per teacher, average attendance and annual education expenditure per student. And I want it by ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”
“You don’t want much,” a chastened Spencer observed.
“No, I don’t. See you at ten o’clock in the morning.” As Spencer walked out, it occurred to her that she would probably fire him within the next six months. His arrogance was becoming intolerable.
Maybe she should make on-site visits to the schools, using Spencer’s report as preparatory material. Where was she going to get all of this time? Her mother might have some ideas. Haley telephoned her in Washington, and indeed she did. Gale Feldon had taken early retirement from her university post as professor of history, but retirement didn’t sit well with her. Haley wasn’t surprised when her mother offered to make the trip out to Oklahoma and undertake an on-site investigation. Unlike her daughter, Gale understood and spoke the language and had good contacts among her own people. That was all the entrée she would need to speak to the neighboring tribes. They agreed that she and Gale would leave Wednesday morning, carrying Spencer’s report and a consultant’s contract from IISP. Haley would visit schools of the other two tribes.
Haley was back in her office the following Monday morning with everything she needed for the proposal. Gale Feldon’s highly professional report awaited her. Now, she only had to put it together and polish it off. “Yes, Amy.”
“Mr. Ecklund. He’s called half a dozen times since you left on Wednesday. I left the notes on your desk.”