Free The Hostage Bride by Janet Dailey

Adam’s voice on the other end of the line. “Hello, Adam. This is Bick. I called the house and Peggy gave me the number.”
    “Oh, hello, Bick. What can I do for you?” Recognition replaced the remoteness that had initially been in Adam’s voice.
    “I want you to transfer Tamara … Miss James to the corporate headquarters. Find her a position on your staff,” Bick ordered. There was a long pause. “Adam? Are you there?”
    “Yeah, I’m here.” He sounded vague, preoccupied, and Bick’s gaze narrowed. “I’ll find a place for her.”
    Bick detected a tone he didn’t like. “Don’t you feel she’s qualified?” he challenged.
    “Miss James is highly intelligent, skilled, and very knowledgeable.” Adam seemed to choose his words with care.
    “Then there is no problem,” Bick persisted.
    “None that I can see at the moment,” Adam agreed.
    “How come you’re working tonight? There isn’t any rush in finishing that audit.” Adam’s attitude troubled him.
    “I had some questions. I thought I’d clear them up tonight when I wouldn’t have any interruptions.”
    “Is anything wrong?”
    “I don’t know,” came the sighing answer. “I’ve got this feeling, but I can’t put my finger on it. It’s probably nothing.”
    A smile touched Bick’s mouth. Adam was definitely thorough, very definitely a company man. “Don’t stay late. Maybe you’d better give Peggy a call. I think I aroused her suspicions,” he joked.
    “She’s already called me twice. So far I have to bring home a half gallon of milk and a loaf of bread.”
    A low chuckle rolled from his throat. “Good night, Adam.”
    “Bick?”
    He had started to hang up the phone and stopped at the questioning use of his name.
    “Yes.”
    “What’s your schedule tomorrow?”
    “I have a board meeting in the morning, but I’ll probably be free about the middle of the afternoon. Why?”
    “No reason,” Adam hedged. “I just wondered. Good night.”
    There was a click on the line. Bick frowned and replaced the receiver. He didn’t know what had got into Adam, but he’d probably find out tomorrow when he went over to the office to seeTamara. That stirring ache in his loins returned and he wandered back into the living room to find his drink.
    Old man Sharvert was droning on. Bick leaned back in his chair at the head of the table and let his pen doodle on the note pad balanced on his knee. He glanced at the words scattered in the margins and a smile twitched at his mouth. A psychiatrist would have a field day interpreting his absent word associations. Profit = tonight. Loss = last night. Liabilities = lack of patience.
    The door to the boardroom was opened a discreet crack and a tall, slim elderly woman slipped in and tiptoed to his chair. Mrs. Davies had been his right arm and executive secretary since he had assumed the presidency of the corporation. He knew she would never interrupt a meeting unless she felt it was important. Like a self-conscious schoolboy, he covered his secret references to Tamara on the note pad and turned his swivel chair to listen to her whispered message.
    “Adam Slater is on the telephone. He says he isn’t going to have another chance to call you this afternoon.”
    That seemed strange, but Bick was willing to accept any excuse to end the boredom of the meeting. “Excuse me, Gil,” he interrupted the man issuing the latest, and longest, in a series of reports. “Let’s break for lunch. You can finish your report when we come back.”
    There was a general nod of approval at hissuggestion. Bick didn’t wait around to take part in the conversation that broke out, but followed Mrs. Davies out of the room to the privacy of his big office.
    “Line two,” she told him before closing the door.
    “Hello, Adam. What’s the problem?” He ripped off the sheet of his note pad and crumpled it into a wad before tossing it in a nearby wastebasket.
    “I’d rather not go into it over the phone. Were you