Finding His Way Home. Barbara Gale

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СКАЧАТЬ my sartorial splendor?”

      “Well, thank goodness you didn’t tell me I was looking well,” she snorted.

      “Is something wrong, then?”

      Alexis seemed to find his question amusing. “I’m one of the richest women in the world, and one of the most powerful. What could possibly be wrong?”

      Hearing the telltale thread of anger beneath her words, he opted not to answer, but a chill foreboding traveled up his spine.

      “And you,” she stabbed the air for emphasis with an exquisitely polished nail, “as my executive editor and one of the most powerful men in the newspaper industry, you would be the first to know, wouldn’t you? I would hope so, in any case, since I’m the one who tutored you. Everything you are is because of me, isn’t it, Lincoln? The White House reads every damned editorial you write, even the lousy ones, before we even go to press. And I damned well know you have the president’s ear, since I myself gave him your private number.”

      Lincoln smiled—the deep lines carved along his gaunt cheeks told he was smiling—but his black eyes were cold. It was unusual for her to wave her flag. “I often wish you hadn’t. That man calls me at the most ungodly hours.”

      Alexis smiled, knowing he was angry, and perversely pleased. “Puts pause to your private life, does he?” she chuckled, although Lincoln heard it transform into a cough.

      “That I would not allow. But my sleep, now that is another matter. He is careless of such details,” he replied with heavy irony.

      “Perhaps, but enough of that. I called you in to talk about the rumors that are spreading.” Alexis rose to her feet, or wished to, but unable to muster the strength, fell back in her chair. “The rumors are true. More than true.”

      Lincoln’s black brow rose. “I don’t listen to rumors. Why don’t you tell me what I should know?”

      “You don’t listen to rumors?” Alexis mocked. “Aren’t they your bread and butter?”

      “Where people are concerned, rarely. And where the running of the paper is concerned, I look to the primary source.”

      “Good of you, but you’re in the minority these days. In any case, it seems that cancer makes no distinctions,” she announced with a harsh laugh.

      “It’s true, then?”

      “Those rumors you never abide?” she smiled unevenly as a sharp stab of pain underscored her words. “Yes, well, they’re true, all of them. All those wasted years exercising, eating all sorts of unspeakable green things, never smoking—not even breathing in secondhand smoke—and mortality laughs in my face. Ironic, don’t you think?”

      “Mortality?” Lincoln frowned, wishing she would not parry the question.

      “It’s pretty evident that when your doctor avoids your eyes, the news isn’t good. I had to force it from her. You don’t seem surprised.”

      “You’re wrong,” Lincoln protested. “I’m shocked. I just don’t know what to say. I’m not very good in this sort of situation but I’m sorry, Alexis, I really am.”

      “Lincoln Cameron, sorry? Now there’s a rare moment,” Alexis observed wryly. “Well, you may lose the pity, Mr. Cameron. I have no patience for that sort of thing.”

      Even at her most vulnerable, Alexis was insolent, but Lincoln simply nodded. “I’ll do everything I can, of course. I’ll go to Africa, in August, in your stead,” he offered, stifling a sigh.

      Alexis’s laughter was dry. “Knowing how much you hate to travel, I appreciate the offer.”

      “A major drawback to this job.”

      “The only one?”

      “I like to sleep in my own bed,” Lincoln said with a shrug.

      “Ah, yes, your nocturnal habits, again. Well, thanks, but I don’t need you to go to take over my job, not just yet. What I do need is for you to run an errand of another sort that does mean giving up your fancy feather bed for a few days. Of course, it’s up to you….”

      “Just tell me what you want, and it will be done.”

      “I’m glad to hear that,” she said, giving him a long look. “It’s about my sister, Valetta.”

      Lincoln sat up quickly. The mention of Valetta Keane was one of the few things that could touch him. “Vallie? Is something wrong?”

      “Absolutely not,” she reassured him. “On the contrary, I want her to come home.”

      An imperceptible sigh of relief escaped Lincoln. “And of course you tried calling?” he asked, striving for detachment.

      “Actually not.”

      For the first time in their conversation, Lincoln thought Alexis looked uncomfortable.

      “Valetta won’t return home without some very strong encouragement.”

      Lincoln’s black brow was high. “Your illness isn’t enough?”

      “She doesn’t know. Oh, stop looking at me like that! It’s not the sort of thing you say over the phone, and we haven’t spoken in over a year. What am I supposed to do, pick up the phone and say, Hi, Valetta, it’s me, Alexis, I don’t have long to live, can you come for dinner? Not to mention the fact that our last conversation wasn’t too winning.”

      “A year is a long time. Why have you let it go for so long?”

      “She thinks I’m too controlling. It’s her favorite word for me. Many such angry words have passed between us since she left home, a great many nasty words.”

      “Before she ran away, you mean.”

      Alexis sank back in her chair. “You’re right, of course. She did run away. A childish note left on her pillow, then out the window and down a ladder at three in the morning. Yes, I suppose that constitutes running away. The good part was that our aunt Phyla, my mother’s sister, took her in. I don’t think you ever met her, Phyla Imre. She lived in an obscure town called Longacre, in upstate New York. The bad part was Aunt Phyla died a few years later, but by then Valetta was—” Alexis left off abruptly. “But you’ve heard all this before.”

      He most certainly had not, and she damn well knew it. Once, he had been a small part of the Keane family, attending the occasional Friday night supper, Christmas dinners and the like. The Keane parents having died tragically, he had tried to be a brother to the orphaned child, a pleasure, because, much younger than Alexis, Vallie Keane had been an adorable little girl. The devil of a teenager, though. Always mooning about, star- struck. Living on another planet, Lincoln used to tease. But grown to a great beauty.

      Extraordinary how it had happened so quickly, too. Sixteen, seventeen, then suddenly, shortly before Valetta turned eighteen, his informal guardianship had ended. Giving no explanation, Alexis had made it clear СКАЧАТЬ