Mystery Lover(22)

"Mom, I have something to tell you that I know you're going to find hard  to believe," Jennifer said that evening, over coffee. They had enjoyed a  leisurely meal at one of her favorite restaurants near where her mother  lived.

Her mother smiled. "Nothing you could say would ever surprise me,  Jennie. I have never known anyone with an imagination such as yours. I  can remember so many of your stories-" She laughed. "But go ahead,  dear." She patted Jennifer's hand. "Tell me."

Great. With a leadoff like that, Jennifer knew her mother would think she had made everything up.

"Mom. Some of this I have known for a long time. Some of it I've slowly  found out over the past few months. Please bear with me, because I'd  like to take it in sequence."

Jennifer paused, gathered her thoughts. "Do you remember the accident  that caused Daddy's death, when two boys.. . " She began the story. She  took her time, telling her the little bit that she could remember from  that time. Then she told her all that Tony had shared.

Finally she told her mother how Chad had been able to mentally communicate with her.

Her mother's eyes had grown larger with the telling. But she had not interrupted Jennifer. Not once.

Jennifer continued the story through her growing-up years, and how she  and Chad had finally lost touch with each other. Or so she thought.

"A couple of months ago I accidentally found out who Chad was."

Her mother looked confused. "I thought you said you knew. He was the young boy who-"

"No, I mean who he is now." »

A tiny crease appeared between her mother's brows. "And who is that, my dear?"

"My boss, C. W. Cameron."

Her mother stared at her in astonishment. "I don't believe it. That cold, callous, arrogant man-"

Jennifer grinned at the description her mother had gained from the many  stories Jennifer had told her. "That's right, Mom. The same man."

"But you describe Chad as so warm and loving, so very caring."                       
       
           



       

"He is."

"How could one man be so different?"

"I've given considerable thought to that over the past few months. I  believe that the Chad I knew felt free to express himself. There were no  conditions placed on him, no expectations of a certain behavior, no  need to prove anything to anyone. In the fullest sense of the word, he  allowed his inner self, his very essence, to unfurl and grow without  hindrance."

Jennifer leaned back in her chair and sipped on her coffee. "I don't  know the whole story, but from what I have learned through the office  grapevine, Chad's father was a ruthless sort of a man, very demanding,  who insisted on perfection from everyone around him, and considered that  he gave nothing but the best, as well." She set her cup down and idly  toyed with the handle. "I've tried to picture what Chad's young life was  like. I have no idea who else was in his family, but obviously his  father expected him to follow in his footsteps. So Chad did. He bottled  all of his softer emotions away so that nobody ever saw them."

"Except you," her mother murmured.

They sat there quietly together, thinking about the young Chad Cameron and the conflicts he must have had to master.

"The only real coincidence in the story is that I went to work for  Chad's company. That isn't as much of a coincidence as you might think,  since the secretarial school I attended was only a few blocks away and  the agency was always looking for stenographers. I understand the  Camerons, both father and son, were difficult to work for, and they had a  high turnover of personnel."

"I thought you said that changed, after you came to work."

"It did, and I'm beginning to understand why. Somehow I became a buffer  between Chad and the rest of the staff. I was the one who caught most of  the flak, and I could take it. At least most of the time. As he became  accustomed to working with me, he calmed down."

"It probably didn't hurt that you were his childhood friend."

Jennifer grinned. "Good point. I hadn't really thought about that. But  maybe he knew me so well he didn't need to intimidate or browbeat me  into doing what needed to be done."

"As I recall, he did enough of that anyway."

"I know. I often look back and wonder why I stayed with him. He used to make me so angry!"

"I never could understand that, myself. You used to call me in tears.  Whenever I suggested you quit, you said you didn't want to admit he  could get the best of you."

They looked at each other. "I still don't, Mom, which brings us to the rest of the story, as they say."

"You mean, there's more? You know, this beats some of the wildest  stories you used to tell as a child. I don't think even you have  imagination enough to have dreamed up all of this."

"Just wait, Mom. You haven't heard everything. You see, last Friday, my  boss, Mr. C. W. Cameron, and I flew to Las Vegas and were married."

Jennifer's mother looked as though a bucket of ice water had just been  tossed in her face. She sat there staring at her daughter, her mouth  slightly open.

Jennifer nodded. "I know, Mom. Unbelievable."

"But you never hinted, never by a word, that anything was going on between you."

"There wasn't, at least not in the way you mean. You see once I found  out that Chad and C.W. were one and the same, I began to spot the  similarities. He tried his best to keep the two personalities separate.  But I started treating him differently in the office. I talked to him  the same way we mentally communicated-easy, casually, and with a great  deal of warmth."

"What did the people in the office think about your change?"

"Oh, they didn't see it. People avoid him as much as possible in the  office, so no one would stick her head in my office whenever he was in  town. It's almost comical, really, the lengths people will go to to  avoid him."

"Well, what do they think now? Were they surprised to hear you're married to him?"

"Nobody knows."

"Aahh. That makes sense. He wants to keep it a secret."

"I have no idea what Chad wants, Mom. That's why I'm here telling you  all of this. You see, he brought me back from Las Vegas after the most  beautiful weekend, dropped me off at my car, told me he would be out of  town all this week and he'd see me later."

Jennifer's mother choked slightly on her water. Coughing, she waved away  her daughter's help and eventually exclaimed, "The man has to be the  most insensitive, irritating, boorish oaf I've ever heard of."                       
       
           



       

"That's one explanation. There might be others."

"Name one."

"I was a little underhanded in my attempts to get him to spend more time with me."

"In what way?"

"Let's just say that I used our unique manner of communication to help  him visualize some of the delightful ways we could spend our evenings,  and nights, together."

"Jennifer Chisholm! You didn't!"

"I'm afraid so, Mom. I can't say that I'm particularly pleased with my  tactics, but they did provide some results. Not exactly what I had in  mind, though."

"Are you saying you were hoping for an affair with him?"

The way her mother said that caused Jennifer to bite her lip to keep  from smiling. Her mother's words were spoken in a tone that indicated  how hard she was trying to make an affair seem like an everyday  occurrence. But Jennifer knew for a fact that her mother had shown no  interest in a man since she'd lost her husband.

"I'm not sure what I was hoping for, to be honest. I hadn't given any  long-range thought to what effect I was having on him and how he would  handle it."

Her mother sat back and studied her for a moment in silence. Then she smiled. "So you're married, are you?"

She nodded. "It looks that way, doesn't it?"

"What do you intend to do about it?"

"Fight for my marriage. What else?"

'' Do you have any idea how? "

"No. I'm open to suggestions."

Jennifer's mother gathered up her purse and stood up. "Well, let's go  home and see what we can do. At least you can't say you don't know the  man. Surely with all that knowledge, you can figure out what to do to  convince him the two of you belong together."

Jennifer followed her mother from the restaurant, a sense of expectancy  invading her being. Somehow, someway, she had to convince C. W. Cameron  that he had made the best decision in his life when he married her.





Chapter Eleven


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"Are you awake?"

"Just barely. What is it?"