Passion's Price by Gwynne Forster Page A

although he didn’t consider eleven days such a long time. “I brought us some supper. Thought we’d play a little gin. You up to it?”
    “What’d you bring to eat? The woman who looks after the place quit. She didn’t believe my story thatnobody was allowed to enter or leave here. I don’t much believe it, either.”
    “Why not? That’s how we met.” Mike said. He went into the kitchen and put the food on the counter and the ice cream in the freezer compartment of the refrigerator.
    “Darlene called me twice,” Boyd said. “She’s the sweetest woman I’ve met in years. I wish I had a daughter like her.”
    Mike regarded Boyd carefully. “We’d better eat before this stuff gets cold. Who’s doing your shopping?”
    “I am. Who else? I’m not a baby. At seventy-one, I’m a better man than some of these young Turks around here. I put a few beers in the bottom of the refrigerator in case you came by one evening.”
    Mike cocked an ear. Young Turks, eh? One of these days he’d find out who Boyd Farmer really was. Foolish, he definitely was not, no matter what anybody said.
    Boyd set the table, opened a bottle of beer and placed it where Mike was to sit. “I used to be a pretty good cook when I was young and entertained girlfriends, but I’m not doing fancy cooking for me to eat by myself. I just want to get full.”
    “Solid reasoning,” Mike said and sat down.
    After they finished the meal, Mike cleaned the kitchen and went into the living room, where Boyd was shuffling the cards. He put the cards down, looked at Mike. “I wouldn’t mind having you for a son, either.”
    Mike swallowed rapidly and resisted the urge to pat the old man’s hand. “I’m pleased, Boyd.”
    “Now, when I think of you, Darlene’s there with you. Aren’t you going to see her?”
    Mike thought for a few minutes. Hadn’t he come to regard the man as a friend? Why shouldn’t he share his feelings with him? “I spent the weekend with her, Boyd. So stop worrying about us. We’re working on it.”
    Boyd’s face beamed in a glowing smile. “Wonderful. I knew you could recognize a fine woman when you saw one. Deal.”
    Mike drove home hours later thinking that no matter what game they played, be it gin, pinochle, or blackjack, Boyd managed to win. He had discovered that he enjoyed the man’s company, that he could relax and be himself. And in his line of work, that was a luxury. Boyd neither asked anything of him nor expected anything; he merely accepted such friendship as Mike had to give.
    “The guy is growing on me,” Mike said to himself. Sometimes he wondered what his life would have been like if he hadn’t lost his parents four days after he went to college. A deep sigh flowed out of him. No point in reliving the past. His life was his job, and lately that hadn’t been so bad, he thought. He’d received three rewards from that job—getting to knowing Darlene and Boyd, and a promotion to chief of his unit. Not bad for six weeks of torture.
    Friday finally arrived, and he wanted to fly on his own wings to Frederick, Maryland. “Calm down, man,” he told himself. “Put your feet on the ground and keep them there.” But when he saw her running to meet him with her arms widespread and a smile blooming on herface, he said to hell with propriety, dashed to meet her, brought her to him and nourished himself on the loving she offered.
    “This was the longest week I ever lived,” he said as they walked arm in arm to her car.
    “It couldn’t have been longer than mine, Mike. I’m practically a basket case. Every night, I sleep for an hour, wake up and start waiting for daybreak.”
    “Now it’ll be my turn, ’cause I don’t expect to sleep with you down the hall from me.”
    She giggled, or he thought she did. “If Maggie’s so fond of you, maybe you can bribe her to go to the all-night movie, and I can—”
    “I hope you’re joking. She’d send me straight back to Memphis quicker than you can say