Hide and Seek Read online

  “You think so?” he asked.

  “Yes, I do. I definitely believe that. I'm sure of it.”

  “Well good, there's an object lesson, ’cause I'm not ten percent as sweet as you. The way you talk, the way you think, raise your beautiful girl, Jennie, what comes out in your songs. That's why your music's so popular, don't you know it?”

  “I do—”

  “I know—and you don't. I have a favor, a big favor.”

  I tensed a little.

  Patrick winced. “See what he did to you, sweet Maggie? I hate it when you're afraid. That reflex. Your back is like a washboard.”

  “I'm getting better,” I said.

  “I know that you are. Now don't clutch. Here's the favor. It's the most wonderful thing I can imagine.”

  I couldn't imagine. I wasn't tense anymore—Patrick had made me comfortable—but I couldn't figure where he was heading with this.

  “All right,” I finally said, “I'll do anything. That's how much I trust you.”

  “Excellent. The best words I've heard you speak so far. Now what I'd like, Maggie, what I'd love—would you sing me one of your songs. Any song of your choosing. Right here, just the two of us, would you softly sing a beautiful song just for me?”

  It was a beautiful request, and I sang for Patrick.

  CHAPTER 30

  ONE NIGHT, IT must have been a week or so later, I had a light dinner with Jennie. Around eight, I drove her to her friend Millie’s house where she was having a sleep-over. Then, I went to Patrick’s house for a second meal.

  Patrick had excused his “chief cook and bottle-washer” for the evening. He said that he wanted to do the honors: roasted lobster with garlic butter, thickly sliced and crisped french fries, succulent corn on the cob. A simple, satisfying feast.

  After dinner, we took a walk on the grounds to a grove of apple trees, at the far end of his estate. There Patrick slid his arm around me and gently kissed the top of my head.

  “You smell like orange blossoms. How is that?”

  “More like No More Tears shampoo from Johnson and Johnson.”

  “Whatever. You smell wonderful.” He kissed both my cheeks, then my forehead, my nose, the tip of my chin. He kissed me on the lips, and I felt his tongue touch mine.

  I pulled away. We had kissed before, though I had never really felt his passion; I always drew back. Tonight was different. He kisses absolutely beautifully, I thought. I just felt his heart and I like the feeling.

  I felt safe with him. The night wind whispered softly through the grove of trees. He kissed me again, and this time I could feel myself responding.

  I can’t shut myself off any longer. I can’t spend my life afraid, even if I am.

  “Let’s go inside,” Patrick said. “I slept at your house once. In the den, and without your permission, as you constantly remind me. Will you sleep at my house tonight?”

  I turned my body into his, smiling at the two of us. For once, I was happy about one of Jennie’s sleep-overs. “Not in the den, I hope.”

  I could feel him grow hard against me. “No,” he whispered. “Come with me. Please. Trust me.”

  My reluctance must have been stronger than I imagined, for he had surely sensed it. Trust him. Oh, how I wanted to, yet as we turned toward the house I could see Phillip’s face, feel the menace of him. I shuddered involuntarily. Damn him. We should have pulverized the bones.

  “We don’t have to,” Patrick said, reading my fear. “I don’t know everything that happened to you long ago, but we can wait. You’re the first woman who’s meant anything to me in a while. But I want this to be exactly right for both of us.”

  He was the most considerate and loving man. I did trust him.

  “I want to,” I said, conscious of how tight my throat felt, how cold my skin. “I do, Patrick. Let’s go inside.”

  CHAPTER 31

  WE WERE UNUSUALLY quiet as we slowly undressed in Patrick’s sprawling, moonlit upstairs bedroom. In the spun-out silence the beat of my heart was electric, loudly amplified. All sorts of questions and self-doubts began circulating through my head. I’m too tall for him. He won’t like me once he really gets to know me. Do I know enough about him? Relax, Maggie. Please, just relax.

  He looked wonderful in the moonlight. Hard, working-man’s stomach. Well-muscled legs. Broad chest lightly covered with silver and light-brown hair. Sexy, I thought, and I liked what I was feeling.

  Open yourself up to him, Maggie. Don’t be afraid. This time it’s right.

  He held me in his arms for the quietest moment, kissing my hair and my neck. He held me as we stood before the moonlit window and waited for me to relax. I sensed that he was willing to wait for a long, long time.

  He kissed me again, and I had the feeling that we were falling toward each other. He kissed my cheeks, my forehead, my nose, then both my eyes. Soft, lingering kisses. Finally, I began to kiss him back. I kissed his cheeks, his forehead, his eyes. I continued to fall toward him, at least I had that sense.

  “Dear sweet Maggie,” he whispered. He knew that I was still a little afraid. He always knew what I was feeling. He was wise, intelligent, but he never showed off, never seemed impressed with himself.

  “You are such a lovely and special woman. I adore you, Maggie.”

  It was Patrick’s voice, Patrick’s arms, and as he lifted me up and carried me to the massive bed, I felt a release, as though he had severed the invisible chains that had held me captive. This was such a sweet, slow dance. It was so new for me—either forgotten, or never experienced. He took his time, and then entered me gently, carefully.

  From a fragile place inside me, a place forgotten, pleasure rippled through me, and I shivered. I felt a deep, warm sensation flowing, spreading, rushing out. It was a feeling that had been missing for so long. And it went on and on that night.

  “Gentle Patrick,” I said finally, and I didn’t think I would ever stop smiling. I touched his face once again. He was smiling too. “You’re so good for me. You’re so good, period.”

  “It will be better and better,” he said. “Trust me.” Then he whispered, “Trust us.”

  I did. Finally, I trusted someone again.

  CHAPTER 32

  WILL SHEPHERD SHOULD have felt at the absolute top of the world, but somehow he didn’t. He was certainly famous, and filthy rich, but he hated it. That night, he was also dangerously high. The were-wolf of London, he thought. Beware.

  The cocaine he’d taken as the concert began, and again immediately before the appearance of Maggie Bradford, made him feel all-powerful. And why the hell not? He was a star not only on the football field, but also among the elite attending the special performance at Albert Hall.

  Will looked around, grinning, waving. Pete Townsend was there, and Sting, and Mick Jagger—a new rock group: the Hasbeens—along with Rupert Murdoch and Margaret Thatcher, the two people currently destroying England.

  They had come to hear Maggie Bradford soothe their tortured souls. Her ballads did that to people. Her songs were rare, a miracle actually—strong melody, lyric, and mesmerizing. No singer put so many different emotions into one song—all of her songs imitated the dizzying complexity of modern life, or so it seemed to Will.

  She came onstage to loud, adoring applause, and yet she seemed so shy. Tickets had been sold out for months. She sat at the piano … and simply began to sing.

  Will had no memory of the scene at Lady Trevelyan’s party, and so he looked at her with a fresh eye. There was her long, flowing blond hair. And the simple beauty of her face.

  But she seemed to glow on this particular night. He wondered why? What was her secret? What had this woman learned that he hadn’t?

  Her voice wasn’t large or particularly dramatic; there was no melodrama in her style. She sang with a purity that pierced his heart like a sword, and he could actually feel the pain as well as the honest beauty of her music.

  She was singing about the sadness of lost dreams, about a fall from
grace. Will felt she was singing about him.

  Tears rolled down his cheeks. The music moved him in ways he couldn’t understand, but it was as though a great light were embracing him from the stage, and then transporting him from the concert hall into a place for only the two of them. What the hell am I thinking? he wondered. He was tempted to laugh at himself. He felt like such a damn fool.

  God how he loved the sound of her voice though. He could listen to it for the rest of his life.

  He had the strange, haunting feeling that Maggie Bradford could save him from himself.

  “Did you forget I was with you in there? You did, didn’t you, Will? You bastard!”

  Will looked at the slender, dark-haired woman who was holding on to his arm as he left the concert hall. He had forgotten about her—hadn’t a clue who the hell the beautiful woman behind the dark glasses was. Ah, the werewolf strikes again!

  She was stunning, but they all were. Model? Actress? Would-be-actress? Shopgirl? Where the hell had he met her? Christ, this was embarrassing—even for him it was a new low.

  “So, how long have you been getting this royally fucked-up on coke? You have, haven’t you? Can you play like this?”

  Ahhh, Will sighed with relief. Reporter! Now he remembered who the hell she was. She was the Times. She wanted to do a piece on him. He wanted a piece of her. Fair trade.

  He recovered his poise, and immediately went into one of his best Prince Charming acts. He could, he knew, fool the pants off any of them. Even a Times reporter.

  “No, it wasn’t drugs, Cynthia,” he said. Cynthia Miller! That was her name. He was so proud of himself. “I love her songs. I really do.”

  “So you said on the way over. Your car is full of her tapes.”

  “Her music is so damn real, comes right out of her life,” Will continued. “Do you like it much yourself?”

  “As I told you, on the way over, I do like her music, indeed. I also enjoyed the concert, but maybe not as much as you did.”

  Will pecked her on the cheek—gently, very chastely. “Now what shall we do?” he asked. Careful, Will. She’s a reporter.

  Cynthia Miller smiled a sly grin. “I’d like to hear more about the Blond Arrow,” she said. She was typical of most reporters, an incredible cynic, a romantic gone bad.

  “Would you like to see it?” Will teased. He added a twinkling smile.

  He knew that she did. All of them did—except maybe one.

  Maggie Bradford! That’s who he wanted, he needed—a real person to understand and challenge him.

  CHAPTER 33

  THE DOORBELL RANG, and Will stopped reading the morning newspaper. He peered out the window. A showy, silver-blue Rolls-Royce was parked in his driveway. He could hear his maid greeting the new-comer, then footsteps approaching the living room.

  “Mr. Shepherd, Mr. Lawrence.”

  At the entrance stood a smiling, sandy-haired man, perhaps ten years older than Will. Will knew who Winifred “Winnie” Lawrence was. The man was a major force behind the development of soccer in the United States, a man determined to bring the beauty and grace of this refined sport to a nation overdosed on American football mayhem. Lawrence was a lawyer, an agent, but most of all, a hustler par excellence.

  Will waited in his chair until Lawrence had entered the room; then he got up slowly, uncoiling as though from a nap, and shook hands with the American. Like so many people from his country, their country, Lawrence skipped preamble and pretense, and got right into it. Cut to the chase.

  “Tell me, Will, why do you think the Germans remain so powerful a threat to win the Cup?” Lawrence said, his smile seemingly pasted across his face. “Year after year, no matter their personnel, they seem to have a powerhouse team.”

  It was actually a question Will had often asked himself. “Discipline, I suppose,” he said. “It’s more their team style than any individual, and that makes them strong.”

  Lawrence beamed, reveling in the obvious, as Americans so often do. “It’s a style I’ve incorporated into the American team. But we need world-class individuals as well. We need a scorer, a striker.”

  “I figured that’s why you came here.”

  “Yes, that’s right. I’ve come to persuade you to play for the United States. I will not leave your house until I do.”

  Will laughed at the idea, not to mention Lawrence’s gall. “It’ll take some doing. There’s no way America can compete, with or without me. Why should I do all that training just to go out in the qualifying rounds? What am I too dim to see?”

  Lawrence reached into a stuffed briefcase and withdrew a computer sheet, spreading it out on the living room table. The two men bent over it.

  “Look here, Will. Suspend your disbelief for just a few moments. Look. CONCACAF. Zone Norte. Zone Centro. Zone del Caribe. The official schedule for the American team in the North Zone qualifiers.”

  “So what?”

  “Don’t you see? Let me help you then. The Americans don’t have to beat anybody worthwhile. Not until they’re into the final twenty-four.”

  Will laughed again. He enjoyed Lawrence’s first-class act, but this was simply too much. “Maybe you haven’t heard, Mr. Lawrence, Winnie, but the American team isn’t considered anybody either. Any national team will be absolutely thrilled to play the United States. They’d think the game would be a complete walkover.”

  “And that’s to our advantage!” Lawrence put his arm around Will’s shoulder. Actually, he was rather a good salesman, the great American huckster. Very compelling in his way. “We’ll have the benefit of surprise. What if I tell you that Wolf Obermeier has agreed to coach the American team?”

  Obermeier had coached championship teams in his native Germany and in Argentina. He had the reputation of having one of the most brilliant minds in football—and the harshest tongue.

  “I’d be somewhat impressed,” Will granted. “At least now you’ve gotten my attention. Tell me more, Mr. Lawrence. Maybe I need a challenge right now.”

  “Or a crowning achievement?” the American said, and grinned.

  CHAPTER 34

  “TRY TO IMAGINE the World Series, the Super Bowl, the Kentucky Derby, and the Democratic and Republican Conventions all rolled into one great event,” wrote Mickey Trevor Jr. in the popular American magazine Sports Illustrated.

  Then you have some small idea of the power and glory of the World Cup.

  Next imagine Rio de Janeiro, where soccer may be more important than sex and the samba, and the World Cup makes Mardi Gras seem like a Girl Scout jamboree.

  That’s where the World Cup final will be played.

  And now think of the two teams matched in that final: heavy favorite Brazil, three-time previous winner of the cup, whose lineage is as impressive as the New York Yankees—and upstart, unheralded, pipsqueak America, the miracle men in the red, white, and blue, whose rise from nonentity to heroic challenger has all the elements of a classic fairy tale—only, miraculously and unbelievably, it is true.

  Folks, this here is a fairy story to rank with “The Lion King”! You may not have taken much notice when America quietly won the North Zone qualifying tournament, thus reaching the World Cup finals. It might have quickened your pulse a bit when our boys made it past the qualifying round, with only a loss to Germany to mar their record. Good for us, good for my kids, who love soccer because they play it in school, you probably figured, but that’s the end. It’s all over. And so you turned your attention back to the pennant races, and the wonderful baseball season of Barry Bonds, still a bit puzzled as to why the rest of the world takes soccer so damn seriously, and meanwhile, our team edged past Nigeria into the last eight.

  But when the U.S. beat Italy—Italy!—in the quarterfinals (the score was 3–2, and each of the American goals was scored by America’s star of stars, Will Shepherd) and then edged Germany 2–11 in the semis, surely your attention returned, and by now if your temperature isn’t boiling, if your heart isn’t pounding, if you haven’t canc
eled all plans for Sunday night so you can stay home to watch the final, then you’re not an American, you don’t like sports—or you’re dead.

  The American team has Will Shepherd and ten other guys who probably couldn’t make the starting lineups of any of the leading clubs in the competition.

  But Shepherd. Ah, Shepherd!

  Soccer is a team sport, but even Wolf Obermeier, the U.S.A. coach, admits that in this case Will Shepherd is the team. “Without Will, we wouldn’t have qualified,” Obermeier said. “With him—well, look where we are now. Look where we are.”

  “Bravo! My congratulations to Sports Illustrated! Finally something of value, beyond their beloved swim-suit issue!”

  Will finished the article and grunted with satisfaction. “Shepherd is the team,” he said. “Has a nice ring to it. Accurate reporting for a change too. Bravo!”

  “I read it while you were asleep,” Victoria Lansdowne said. The leggy British actress was sprawled luxuriously on top of the covers. Her striking, cobalt-blue eyes admired the physique of the man she had met for the first time the evening before. The Blond Arrow. Right now, the most famous athlete in the world.

  Despite the air-conditioning in the Rio Hilton, the suite was hot, and neither of them had put on any clothes after a long bout of sex. They looked every bit as good as their starry reputations suggested. The sheen of sweat glistened on their beautiful bodies.

  “What did you think of it? Just another puff piece?”

  “I think that if you play football as well as you do certain other things, you’ll beat the living doo-doo out of Brazil tomorrow.”

  He smiled. “Satisfied, I take it.”

  “Never. Not even close, sweet thing. I’m insatiable. Don’t you read the papers? My ‘string of lovers.’ ”

  He looked at her full breasts, the slender, very tan legs that had spread for him so willingly, yet seemed to have a mind of their own. She reminded him of Vannie. Many of them did. Maybe that was why he was beginning to feel a touch angry at vainglorious Victoria.