Mystery Lover(8)

''I tried to warn you. "

"I know." . "You know what?" Tony asked. "Is there something wrong?"

"Not really. I suppose it's from being alone so much. I have a habit of talking to myself."

Tony shook his head. Jennifer knew he was beginning to wonder about her.  She looked out the window, trying to hide her smile. Tony obviously  didn't have too good an opinion of women anyway. She doubted if it would  improve staying around her.

"I take it you live alone?" he asked after they had bounced along in silence for a few miles.

"Sort of. I share an apartment with a five-year-old cat named Sam." She  would no more consider that she owned Sam than that he owned her. They  had a workable relationship where each understood the other. Sam allowed  her to feed him, pay his rent and keep him entertained. In turn, he  looked after her, pointed out when she stayed out too late or tried to  get away with oversleeping in the morning, and made judgments on any of  her friends who happened to drop in.

"I thought about getting a pet, but I'm not home enough to look after one."

"Sam's been a lot of company to me. Since I don't travel much, he's  never been much of a problem. This is the first time I've ever gone off  and left him for a weekend."

"Aren't you afraid he'll get hungry?"

"Oh, no. I left him plenty of food and water. That's never the problem.  He doesn't like being left alone. He's learned to tolerate it during the  day, since he knows I have to work. But he gets very irritated when I'm  out all evening. I have a feeling he's going to be irate by the time I  get home."

"You know, there really wasn't any reason for you to come out here with me, once you let me know where he is."

"That's what Chad said," she muttered under her breath.

"Did you say something?"

"I was just agreeing with you. If I'd known what the roads were going to  be like, I might have given more serious thought to returning home."

She turned her head to look at Tony and a brief flash of light caught her eye. She stared out the back window.

"Something wrong?" he asked.

"I thought I saw a light flash behind us."

Tony glanced up in the rearview mirror and they hit a particularly deep  hole. Jennifer almost hit her head on the ceiling of the cab. "Sorry. I  don't dare take my eyes off the road for a second. What sort of a  light?"                       
       
           



       

She continued to watch out the back window. "I'm not sure. Could there be another car coming this way?"

"There could be, but it's rather hard to believe." He was quiet a  moment. "Unless it's the same person or persons who brought Tiger out  here and left him."

Jennifer discovered a knot in her chest that was making it difficult for  her to breathe. She had no idea what she was getting into, but this  wasn't her idea of a fun evening at all.

Tony cleared his throat nervously. "You know, this really isn't my  style. I mean, I can handle myself all right in my own environment, but  getting out here in the Great Outdoors-Well, Tiger's able to handle  anything, anywhere. But not me."

"He wasn't able to handle this particular situation or he wouldn't be stuck out here."

"Don't rub it in, Sunshine."

"Keep watching and see if you catch a glimpse of that light again,  okay?" Tony asked, continuing to concentrate on the road in front of  them.

They were silent during the next hour, each watching the road-Tony the  front, Jennifer the back. Twice she thought she saw a flicker of light,  but the curving roads didn't reveal much.

"Not much farther now. I bet Tiger is going to be glad to see us."

Jennifer had been growing more and more tense. She didn't know how she  was going to react when she saw Chad for the first time, particularly  since he had made it clear that he didn't want her there. She was sorry  she had insisted on coming along. After all, he had as much right to his  privacy as she did to hers.

The light hadn't appeared in several miles and Jennifer decided that if  it had been a car, the car had long since turned off, turned around or  reached its destination.

"Ah hah!" Tony exclaimed with a sound of satisfaction. "He's got a light  on, waiting for us." He pointed across a wide ravine and, perched on  the side of a steep slope, she saw a small cabin with a dim, flickering  light in the window.

"Are you sure that's the right place?"

"Fairly sure. Of course, we have several more miles to go to wind behind the ravine and get over there, but we're almost there."

By the time they pulled up in front of the cabin, Jennifer was shaking.  As soon as the truck stopped, Tony jumped out of the cab and hollered,  "Hey, Tiger, it's me-Tony."

The door of the cabin opened and a man stepped through, caught in the  glare of the truck lights. Jennifer had no trouble seeing him very  clearly.

He was tall, over six feet, with thick brownish-blond hair that was  tousled. He wore khaki pants tucked into combat boots and a  red-and-black plaid shirt. The sleeves were rolled up to above his  elbows, emphasizing his muscular arms. He stood there in the light, his  hands resting casually on his hips and waited patiently for them to join  him.

Jennifer could not seem to make herself move from where she sat inside  the truck. Frozen, she continued to stare at the man who had been such  an integral part of her life for the past twenty years.

Snatches of intimate conversations they had had came back to her and she  cringed. How had she dared to be so open with him? He knew everything  there was to know about her-her thoughts, her dreams, her ambitions.

She knew nothing about him. Most particularly she hadn't known that Chad was also the man she worked for, C. W. Cameron.

"You might as well get out of the truck, Jennifer, now that you're  here," Chad said in a voice that clearly carried to where she sat.

How could he have done this to her? She continued to stare at him in  shame and disbelief. There was no way she could have known. C. W.  Cameron was nothing like Chad. Absolutely nothing.

She would never forget the first time she had been introduced to him.  She had worked for his company as a stenographer for almost three  months. Of course she had caught glimpses of him as he came in and out  of his office, but that was all.

His assistant, Marlene, had recently announced her engagement to a man  from Chicago and was happily making plans to move. Everyone had been  wondering who would take her place. There was a chance someone might be  promoted. Then again, they might look for someone outside the firm to  fill the position.

When Jennifer was called into his office, she wasn't sure whether to be  pleased or not. She hadn't been out of school long and probably had the  least experience of anyone there.

C. W. motioned for her to sit down in the chair across from his desk.  Timidly she perched on the edge of the chair. She glanced down to see  what he was reading arid saw her name on the folder. He must have gotten  her file from personnel.

He glanced up without smiling. "I apologize for the delay in this  meeting, Ms. Chisholm. I generally get acquainted with all of my  employees within a few days after they arrive."                       
       
           



       

Jennifer forced herself to relax. So. She wasn't here to be interviewed  for a new position. This was just a delayed welcome-on-board type of  meeting.

C. W. continued, "I'm afraid things have been a little hectic lately and  my schedule has not gone as smoothly as I would have wished."

Jennifer didn't know what to say, so she sat there with her hands  clasped together in a death grip, trying to look relaxed, intelligent  and at ease.

He glanced down at her folder, then back at her. "I notice that you made very high grades at the business college you attended."

"Yes, sir," she admitted shyly.

"I'm curious to know why you didn't go on to college."

She looked at him in surprise. "There weren't enough funds for that, I'm  afraid, and it would have put an even greater burden on my mother. I  needed to go to work as soon as possible."

"Have you thought about taking night courses?"

Again she looked at him in surprise. He was treating her more as a counselor would than an employer would.

"I'm not against that, of course. I just don't have a particular field I would be interested in pursuing."

"I see."

She could almost hear him thinking "no ambition." Perhaps that was true. She enjoyed her work and was quite content with it.

"You've done a remarkable job since you've been here, Ms. Chisholm," he offered quietly.

"Thank you."

"I have noticed, though, that when you transcribe my dictation it does  not come back to me in the same form in which I dictate it."