Free A Lyon's Share by Janet Dailey Page A

would be suicide to stay working for him forever, knowing the way she felt.
    "Damn!" she whispered, clenching her hands into tight fists on the desk top. The problem would be in surviving those pride-saving weeks.
    Then she got hold of herself. These constant recriminations over her actions had to stop. To keep reliving those painful moments after the electricity had been restored was serving no purpose. She had no idea how long Brandt would be gone, but she had to occupy her mind with something other than thoughts of him. She pulled the plastic cover off the typewriter and began typing the letters Brandt had dictated the first night. She was barely through the third letter when he walked into the office.
    "Are you ready?" His quiet, calm voice stopped her fingers for a split second before they continued their flight across the keys.
    "I'll be finished in a moment," she replied, not letting her gaze stray from the shorthand pad.
    When the letter was finished and it and the carbon copy were placed with the other two, Brandt was beside the desk, handing her the fun-fur coat that had been in his office. Her already wounded nerves smarted at his eagerness to be rid of her, but a swift glance at his rugged, aquiline face revealed none of the impatience she had believed she would see. He stood silently by as she put the coat on, his hands thrust deep in the pockets of his own jacket, a withdrawn expression in his eyes.
    He ushered her without haste to his car parked in front of the building, its motor still running. The coldly invigorating air made the warm interior seem stifling as Joan settled into the passenger seat.
    "Where do you live?" Brandt slipped the car into gear and turned into the street.
    Joan gave him the directions and leaned back in the seat. Her side vision gave her an unobstructed view of his hawklike profile, but she kept her gaze firmly to the front. In other circumstances, she might have enjoyed the white purity of the landscape that had transformed the city streets into a wintry wonderland. The snow was firmly packed in thin layers on patches of the street, making the driving still slightly treacherous in spite of the considerable efforts of the snowplough. The lean hands on the wheel were competent and experienced and the nearly two miles to Joan's apartment were without mishap.
    The pavement leading to the front entrance of the old brick structure had not been cleared of snow. The untouched white drifts indicated that no one had as yet ventured out on this grey morning. Pushing open the car door, Joan silently wished that some premonition last Friday had warned her to wear snowboots. Wading through those drifts would not be pleasant.
    Before the sole of her smart leather shoes had become buried in the snow, Brandt was out of the car and around to her side. She glanced at him in surprise, fully expecting him simply to drop her off to make her own way into the building. A gasp of shock was torn from her lips as he reached down and easily swung her into his arms.
    The corners of his mouth turned in a humorless smile at her quick, "Put me down!"
    His long strides were already covering the short distance from the curb to the apartment's entrance. "There isn't any need for you to freeze your feet in the snow."
    "I'm too heavy," Joan protested, but they had already reached the door and Brandt was setting her down at the same time that he swung the wooden door open.
    "You're tall, but you're not heavy," he stated without any emotion as he turned his blank gaze on her.
    Her pulse refused to settle back to its normal pace. Just when Joan had thought she had regained control of her senses, she had been cradled against that rock-hard chest and lost anew. He stood solemnly in front of her, blue eyes unreadable, the staircase to her second floor apartment behind him. She bent her head to conceal the swift rise of confusion.
    "There isn't any need for you to come into the office until noon tomorrow," he told her. An