Dare to Dream Read online

  "Two fifty-four," she answered automatically to the authority in his voice.

  "Fine. Six-thirty." He started toward the door.

  She stopped him as he reached for the doorknob. "Mr. Sanders," she asked, once again in control of her voice and thoughts, "how badly do you want this drilling prospect?"

  He spoke evenly. "Enough to sink a couple of million dollars of my own money into the hole."

  "Enough to take it if you can only get forty-five percent of the leasehold and no guarantee that you'll be able to drill before your leases expire?" she asked.

  "I'll make that decision by seven o'clock."

  "I would appreciate it if you would let me know before we meet Mr. Wilson."

  He nodded in acknowledgement of her request.

  "One other thing," she said. "I live in a large apartment complex. My apartment is—"

  "I'm familiar with the area, counselor. I believe I can find it." His lips twitched in a half smile.

  Only then did she remember that one of his smaller holdings was the sprawling apartment complex where she lived. He wasn't only her client; he was also her landlord.

  "Oh." She felt a flush creeping up her neck. "I guess you can."

  After Nick Sanders left, D.J. stacked his files to return to Marcie and began putting away the abstracts. As she slid them toward her, a nagging sixth sense within her again told her something was wrong. She felt it. She'd felt it from the moment she had been given this assignment.

  She flipped through the top abstract to the certificate on the last page. It was dated less than a month ago. She wished she could put her finger on one thing that could cause her discomfort, but she couldn't. It was the same feeling she had had about the city lot under the Brady Center. It was the same feeling she had had too many times, with good reason, to disregard it now. Perhaps a little more homework was in order. She swiveled her chair around to face the telephone and punched out the number of the abstract company in that distant western Oklahoma town.

  Later, responding to a hesitant tap on her door, she raised her head from the microphone into which she was dictating. Her frown eased into a smile as Marcie stepped into the office with a stack of folders in her hand.

  "It's after twelve. Do you mind if I go to lunch now?"

  "No, go ahead," D.J. told her. She indicated toward her dictation unit. "I'll have a tape on your desk when you return. I need it transcribed before I leave tonight."

  "Sure thing," Marcie said with a grin. D.J. never ceased to be amazed. The woman was unflappable, experienced, and more than competent, and she'd never know how she'd had the good fortune to draw her from the steno pool as her secretary.

  Marcie handed her the folders and a handful of papers. "Here are the Miller contract, your phone messages, and the mail you didn't get this morning. Do you want me to bring you a sandwich?"

  "No. That's okay. Enjoy your lunch. You're going to have your work cut out for you this afternoon."

  D.J. glanced at the files before returning to her dictation. Marcie wasn't the only one who would be busy that day. But hadn't that been what she wanted?

  Chapter Two

  As D.J. inched her way homeward in the late afternoon traffic, she wished she had taken Marcie up on her offer to bring her a sandwich. An apple from the coffee room vending machine at three o'clock hadn't satisfied her growing hunger at the time. It certainly wasn't satisfying it now.

  There was one advantage to working late, she thought as she waited in the backed up traffic for a car far ahead to complete a left turn. At least at the time she usually made this drive, most of the homeward-bound vehicles had completed their journeys.

  Her glance strayed to the clock on the dashboard. A quarter of six. She was going to have to hurry to be ready by the time Nick Sanders picked her up. She felt the beginnings of irritation growing at the surrounding cars and forced it back. They were trapped the same as she. Getting angry wouldn't get her home any faster.

  She took a deep breath and forced herself to relax. She was in a lovely neighborhood. When not in a hurry, she enjoyed this stretch of South Peoria Avenue. Impressive estates lined the east side of the street. Stately older homes graced several blocks down tree-lined intersecting streets leading to the west.

  She felt the tension leaving her body and a lethargic patience creeping over her as her glance played over the surrounding yards, until a picture from her past flashed clearly in front of her eyes, jolting her upright. Although most of the time she never knew what caused these moments of instant recall, this time she had no doubt. An ancient dogwood tree stood in full bloom across the street, each blood-tipped white petal standing out in relief against the dull red brick of the two-story house behind it.

  There had been a dogwood in their backyard, and the picture seared through the years, blinding with its clarity—a stop-action photograph of a two-year-old Bobby, his eyes dancing with pleasure, holding a double handful of dogwood blossoms toward her.

  "Don't think about that now," she said raggedly as she clenched the steering wheel.

  A car horn sounded impatiently behind her, and it finally penetrated her consciousness that now she held up traffic. She eased her foot onto the accelerator. Just think about getting home. Think about what you're going to say to Nick Sanders. Think about how Sam Wilson is going to react. Think about how you're going to make it through the rest of this day. And night.

  She was dressed and waiting when Nick Sanders arrived, but just barely. After a quick shower, she had dressed in a mauve silk blouse and an ivory linen suit with a softly gathered skirt. In deference to the evening, she added eye shadow, blusher, and a light cologne to the limited makeup she wore, but she made certain she did not alter the image she had long ago adopted. This was to be a business encounter, not a social engagement.

  She glanced confidently around her when she heard his knock on the door, thankful that Wednesday was the day Mrs. Jennings cleaned. The one-bedroom apartment was spotless.

  She composed an impersonal smile as she opened the door. "Mr. Sanders—" The smile froze on her face, and she found herself without words. Gone was the khaki-clad workman of the morning. The thought that ran irrelevantly through her mind was if the women in word processing could see him now they wouldn't be able to talk about anything else for a week. Impeccably dressed in an obviously hand-tailored dark suit, he would not be mistaken for a common laborer—a common anything. His bronze coloring, accented by the white of his shirt, could no longer be attributed to weathering. It called forth pictures of long, lazy days in the sun. The silk blended wool of his jacket draped flawlessly over his broad shoulders but could not hide their inherent strength. Green lights danced in his eyes as he looked down at her, and the harsh line of his mouth softened in a smile exposing dazzlingly white teeth.

  "May I come in, or are you ready to leave?"

  She realized she must be gawking like a schoolgirl and mentally shook herself for her lack of poise.

  "Please come in," she said. "We have a few things to discuss before we join Mr. Wilson."

  She could tell that he took a quick note of her furnishings as he crossed to the couch and sat down, although his words made no mention of his impression.

  "You want to know what I've decided about the prospect."

  "Yes."

  He glanced at the low table in front of the couch. "You don't smoke, do you?"

  "Why, no," she said, puzzled at his abrupt change of subject. No. She didn't. Not anymore.

  "Do you, by any chance, have an ashtray?" he asked, taking cigarettes and a practical lighter from his pocket.

  Why should it bother her? she wondered. He'd smoked in her office. But still she hesitated before she went into the kitchenette and selected a saucer for him. When she placed it in front of him, he was staring absently around the room.

  "I'm always amazed when I visit in one of these apartments," he said. "The unit itself is designed without personality so that the tenant can make his own statement. I was t
rying to decide on the way over here what kind of a statement you would make in your home."

  "Did you?" she asked.

  "No. I was hedging my bets between suede, chrome and glass, or printed chintz and Chippendale."

  What he refrained from saying, D. J. realized, was that even furnished, her apartment remained impersonal. It had been decorated as a model, and when she leased it, she also made arrangements with the furniture-leasing company to retain what it had chosen as suitable decor. She had not added to it nor changed the location of one picture. What she refrained from saying was that the impersonality he detected was her statement. She couldn't become too attached to the apartment so long as it remained that way.

  "Do you have a good reason for requesting me to tell you my decision now?"

  "I didn't ask out of idle curiosity." She spoke carefully as she acknowledged to herself that probably only a handful of persons would dare to question what he was going to do in a given situation. "If I am to take an active part in the discussion, I need to be sure that I don't inadvertently say something that would work against what you really want to do. Even if you only want me to answer direct questions, I need to know in which direction you're leaning so that I can phrase my answer appropriately."

  He exhaled heavily and leaned back against the soft cushions of the sofa. "I want it. You asked if I would take forty-five percent of it with no guarantee that I'd be able to drill. There are no guarantees in the oil patch, counselor, and I don't require one here. What I do require is some indication that arrangements can be made to drill during the term of. my leases. Otherwise, I'd just be donating several hundred thousand dollars to Sam Wilson, and I see absolutely no reason for me to do that."

  "How well do you know Sam Wilson?" she asked.

  "Not well. I've seen him at the Petroleum Club and on the golf course a few times, and I've been to a couple of cocktail parties he's also attended."

  "Do you know anyone he's done business with?"

  "Only a couple of drilling funds. No one that I deal with on a regular basis. Why?"

  D.J. picked up her purse from the desk near the door. Inside the purse were two envelopes. She took out the one with Nick Sanders's name on it and handed him a typed sheet of paper from within the envelope.

  "This is your copy of the demands I propose we set forth for Mr. Wilson. I don't think that he will be able to meet them."

  As Nick scanned the page, his brow furrowed, and when he reached the bottom of the sheet, he looked up at her intently. "This is pretty tough, lady. It calls for complete cancellation of the escrow contract if he can't perform in thirty days. What about my options to try to clean up this mess or to pick up a part of the package?"

  D.J. handed him a second closely typed page. She watched as he read it and his expression changed from curiosity to disbelief. When he looked up at her this time, his mouth was again set in a harsh slash, and his eyes reflected a cold rage that, even though not directed at her, sent a shiver down the back of her neck.

  "Who knows about this?." he asked in a voice that matched the expression in his eyes.

  "It came from various sources. Only you and I, and my secretary, have seen the pieces put together."

  "No one," he ground out the words, "makes a fool of Nick Sanders."

  "No one has," she assured him quickly. "And although it does appear that Mr. Wilson has tried, there is a chance that both of us have drawn the wrong conclusion from these facts."

  His clenched fist struck the sofa.

  She spoke softly. "Why don't we reserve judgment until after we talk with him?"

  Nick shook his head silently and looked up at her. "You're right," he admitted reluctantly. "Why did you do this? Technically, your job was over when you wrote the title opinion. Why did you keep digging when you didn't have to?"

  "It didn't feel right," she said simply. "Are you ready to go now? It's getting late."

  He shrugged himself to his feet and stared down at her. "You look too damned competent."

  "What?"

  "I'm serious. The man obviously thinks he's pulled something over on me. If I show up with you looking the way you do, he'll be on his guard."

  Disappointment tugged at her as she realized that she had been looking forward to joining forces with the man standing in front of her in a battle of wits with the unknown Sam Wilson.

  "I don't have to go with you," she said, hiding that disappointment. "You're certainly capable of handling anything that comes up."

  "That's not what I meant," he said, studying her intently. "Would you mind taking down your hair?"

  Nick continued to study her as slowly she unpinned the smooth coil at the nape of her neck and shook out her heavy mane of hair, fluffing it forward around her face as she did. He smiled approval at the mass of waves falling about her shoulders.

  "Now the jacket."

  She tried to read the expression in his eyes as she unbuttoned the jacket and slipped out of it. He was seeing her as a woman again, that much she could tell. She waited while he crossed the two short steps separating them. His fingers brushed feather light against her skin as he unbuttoned the next button of her shirt, and she trembled, but she could not tell whether it was from fear, or anticipation, or simply the almost forgotten feeling of having a man's hands touching her.

  He took the jacket from her and draped it over her shoulders. "It's chilly outside," he said, resting his hands on her arms as he looked deeply into her eyes. "You'll need this. And you need a name. I can't call you Miss Simms, and I'll be damned if I'll call anyone as beautiful as you are now D.J. What is your name?"

  Her throat was dry, her mouth was dry, but she was unable to swallow, unable to do anything but meet the probing intensity of his gaze. "Danielle," she whispered.

  "Danielle." He tasted the sound of it.

  "Did anyone ever call you Dani?"

  The mood shattered. "Almost everyone," she said tensely. "But that was a long time ago."

  For a moment he seemed disappointed by her answer, but he grinned at her. "Then Dani it is," he said lightly. "And if you let so much as one 'Mr. Sanders' slip from your pretty lips tonight, I will plant my toe in the middle of your shin."

  She grinned back at him. "A discreetly placed foot under the table? I've heard about that method of warning someone to silence. I'll be careful."

  "Are you ever anything else?"

  They were told that Sam Wilson had not yet arrived when they reached Lynde's, the supper club on the top floor of the tallest of the three Brady Center towers. The maitre d' ushered them to a round table a few steps up from a small dance floor and against a windowed wall overlooking the lights of the city. The table waited for three, the chairs evenly spaced around it, but with no apparent effort Nick seated her and himself side by side so that there was a visible barrier in the distance between them and the chair Sam Wilson would occupy.

  A combo across the room played subdued, romantic music, reminiscent of the era of big bands.

  "What would you like to drink?" Nick asked as he helped her with her jacket.

  "Nothing, thank you," she murmured as she settled into her chair. "I don't drink."

  He toyed with the cut crystal water goblet in front of him before asking slowly, "Do you have problems with it, or do you just prefer not to?"

  Problems? What a strange question for him to ask her. The only problem she had was that alcohol relaxed the tight hold she kept on her emotions and let too many unwanted images float through her mind.

  "I just prefer not to," she said, smiling hesitantly.

  "Then humor me. I want Wilson to feel free to drink as much as he wants."

  The first sip of Chablis sent pleasant tingles through her arms and shoulders before difusing warmth throughout her body. She toyed with her glass while the waiter accepted the news that they would not be ordering dinner until the third member of their party arrived, removed the menus, and returned with a tray of appetizers.

  She assuaged her hunger by
nibbling on the boiled shrimp and chunks of flaky crabmeat. The wine warmed and soothed her. Music from the thirties and forties lulled her. The lights of Tulsa spread out before her like millions of stars. As she sat close to Nick, exchanging only small talk, skirting around the edges of any topic that threatened to become too personal, something stirred within her that had lain dormant for years—an enjoyment of something other than her work, a tentative feeling of pride in her femininity, and, not the least, pleasure in the company of the attractive, attentive man beside her.

  Dani, he had renamed her, and for now that's who she would be. Not D.J. Not for a while longer.

  The arrival of Sam Wilson thirty minutes later snapped her back to reality.

  "Sorry I'm late." Wilson waved the waiter away with a command for a gin and tonic, and his eyes flicked over Dani in shrewd assessment. "I thought you were bringing your lawyer."

  "Yes. And isn't Dani a pleasant surprise?" Nick said, not denying the man's wrong assumption, but not actually saying anything to confirm it. "Dani, this is Sam Wilson."

  "How do you do, Mr. Wilson." She studied him surreptitiously. Compared to Nick, he was a small man, although he must have been five ten or eleven. He wore a dark suit as carefully tailored as the one Nick wore and tastefully expensive jewelry. There was nothing obvious about his appearance to cause her to mistrust him, but she detected a thinly veiled hunger in his eyes, and a wariness, and knew that this man wanted something from Nick and was treading a careful path to get it. It was inconceivable to her that money alone, even the thousands of dollars at stake, could tempt a man onto the tightrope Wilson walked.

  "Not so formal," he insisted. "Sam. Dani, is it?"

  She nodded.

  "An unusual name for an unusual lady."

  Wilson accepted his drink gratefully when it arrived. Dani could tell that it was not his first, but he was far from drunk. He dominated the conversation, making no reference to the reason for the meeting, and Nick let him ramble on about persons in the oil industry, stories about two new discovery wells in Montana, rumors of increased leasing activity in Michigan, commenting only enough to keep Wilson's words flowing, until the wariness faded from his eyes.