Almost A Wife. Eva Rutland

of perfume, that soft yielding.

      The ringing intruded.

      The alarm. He stretched a hand to shut it off.

      The ringing continued. The phone. He picked it up.

      “Tray, darling! Did I wake you?”

      “And how pleasant a wake up!” he managed to say, rousing from his stupor. “How are you, Chase?”

      “Missing you. And worried about you. You’re still stuck in that hotel.”

      “’Fraid so.”

      “Poor baby. We’ll have to do something about that.”

      We? “I’m okay.” What’s with this we? Haven’t reached that stage yet!

      Okay, he’d been rather flattered when Chase Smith-Lawson centered her attention upon him. Recently divorced, she had returned to her father’s palatial home, her maiden name and her role as leading hostess in New York’s social set. She was the spoiled apple of her father’s eye. She was also beautiful, glamorous, stimulating and…Face it. Officious!

      “Tray, are you listening?”

      “Sure. Trying to get a word in to tell you I want be here long enough to need an apartment.”

      Nonsense. “I knew you’d need me. I promised Daddy I’d be there to help you find the proper place, meet the proper people. Start you off on the right foot, so to speak.”

      That grated. Like his rapid rise at Lawson Enterprises wasn’t due to his business acumen, but to his relationship with Lawson’s daughter. “I think I’m getting my foot where it belongs. Into business, so to speak.”

      She missed the sarcasm. “I know. As always, you’re probably working your head off in that stuffy office and still stuck in that stuffy hotel room. Don’t worry. I’ll get you out of both.”

      “Listen, Chase. I’m fine. I—”

      She didn’t hear him. “But not right away,” she was saying. “Page Anderson wants me here to help with the Symphony Ball.”

      “Oh?” Thank God for Page Anderson.

      “Can you manage without me for the next six weeks?”

      “I’ll try.” He tried not to sound relieved. “I’ll try.”

      Later that morning, Tray looked across his desk at Sam Fraser, who, in his two short months at CTI, had become his chief aide. “Okay, Sam, get ready. We’re making some changes.”

      “What kind of changes?”

      “Diversification.” Anticipated changes that had been thrashed out at the corporate board meeting last week. “You must have expected it.”

      “Guess I did. Lots of relocations, huh?”

      “Yes. Guess there will have to be. Each operation with its own specialty. That’s Lawson policy. Production in Denver, research and development in—”

      Fraser interrupted. “What’s our role?”

      Tray, noting his wary expression, smiled. “Don’t worry. You’re not moving. We’re considering this as our marketing base. East coast, Asia and the Middle East, and you’re my number one man. Quite a bit of travel, however. Is that a problem?”

      “Not really. Not as big a problem as transplanting Sandy and the kids. Tim, the eldest, is at Cove High, basketball and all that stuff, and to take him away now would…Oh, you know how it is.” He spread his hands. “So what’s the procedure.”

      “Relocation. That’s a first. If we—” His buzzer sounded and he picked it up. “Yes?”

      “A Mr. Canson, sir, attorney at law, from Columbus, Ohio. He says it’s urgent.”

      “Put him on,” he said, wondering. “Canson? He didn’t know a Canson. Nobody in Columbus but… “Tray Kingsley,” he said into the phone. He listened, trying to absorb the shock, a creeping feeling of sorrow. Kathy Byrd dead. Sudden. A heart attack. “I am sorry.” Vaguely he wondered why he had been called. “Is there anything I can do?”

      He listened again, longer this time, astonished. “Of course,” he finally said. “I understand.” He didn’t understand, but he added, “I’ll be there as soon as possible.”

      At four that afternoon, he sat on a plane to Columbus, Ohio, still trying to understand. Trying to absorb the shock. Kathy Byrd dead. She was only…He added the years. Twenty-six. Strange. Same age Pete had been when he died two years ago.

      Pete and Kathy Byrd. Both gone.

      He stared out at the clouds, feeling a little numb. Of all the rotten luck.

      He remembered the lawyer’s words, “All of her affairs left in your hands. It has taken me some time to find you.”

      “Yes.” He had moved twice in the two years since he had seen her. Despite the sorrow, he felt a bit of irritation. Why me?

      And at this crucial time, just as he was about to get going with all these new developments. “I am sorry,” he had said again, “I can’t leave San Francisco at this time.”

      “Mr. Kingsley, it’s imperative that you come immediately because of the children.’

      That gave him pause. Poor little tykes…couldn’t be quite out of the toddler stage. “Are they all right?” he had asked anxiously. “I mean, who’s taking care of—?”

      “A friend,” the lawyer assured him. “They’ve been with her all week.”

      He felt relieved. Of course. Kathy would have long ago made some arrangement for the children in case of her death. She was that practical.

      Absently he wondered what was his role. Probably executor to be sure her plans were carried out. She was not one to skip details. He had been amazed at how well she had dealt with Pete’s death.

      He had come then because she called him. Even though she had been surrounded by friends and neighbors, she had clung to him.

      “You’re family,” she had said.

      He had been touched, but they were not at all related. She had been just one in the gang that hung around his house during the growing up years in Dayton, Ohio. His had been that kind of house. His mother that kind of mother, he thought, and felt the familiar lump in his throat. She had been so loving, full of fun and easygoing, never minding the noise at the Ping-Pong table or around the basketball hoop that hung above the garage door the constant splashing of the swimming pool. Kids from the nearby Children’s Home, Kathy and Pete among them, had been welcome and frequent visitors. Pete and he had been pretty close, same teams through Little and Pony League, same classes during high school. And Kathy, always and forever Pete’s girlfriend, had tagged along. The two of them had frequently double-dated with him and Gloria or whoever had been his current crush.

      After high school, they had gone their separate ways. He went on to Harvard, and would probably have lost touch altogether, had it not been for his mother who was on the board of the Children’s Home, and took a personal interest in several of the kids. She kept him informed. “Pete’s waiting tables, and studying to be a court reporter…Kathy’s working at the bank.” He had come home to be best man at their wedding, and later, godfather for their first child. But then…his mother died.

      For a moment he was back in that nightmare. She had had a heart attack and he returned home. Too late.

      He shook off the feeling that always haunted him when he thought of his mother.

      Anyway, Pete and Kathy moved to Columbus and, well, just faded into his past.

      Until Pete died, and Kathy called. He had gone to Columbus then and found capable Kathy distraught and trying to cope, saddled as she was with a babe in arms and a three-year-old. Though grief-stricken, she had not been in bad shape financially,