Anything You Can Do(76)

She slipped from his grasp while she still could. "Why don't we not?" she snapped, moving into a chair so he couldn't sit next to her, couldn't touch her.

He perched on the arm of the chair. "Bailey, I've apologized. There's nothing else I can do. I admit I was wrong. The whole damn condo complex knows that by now."

"I accept your apology. But I see no point in further discussions. How can we be—" she hesitated "—friends if you don't trust me, if you have such a low opinion of me that you think—how did you phrase it? All that matters to me is winning. Right isn't even a part of my vocabulary."

Though she wasn't looking at him, Bailey felt Austin flinch. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I was angry about the merger deal. That's not an excuse, just an explanation." He took her face between his hands, turned her toward him, forced her to look into his eyes. "If I didn't love you so damned much, you couldn't make me so damned angry, your conduct wouldn't be so important to me."

Bailey pushed his hands away and rose, moving about the room, avoiding him. How was she supposed to think coherently when he looked at her like that, his soul in his eyes?

"You certainly didn't waste any breath correcting my erroneous assumption," he called after her.

"I shouldn't have to," she retorted, looking around the room for Samantha. She could definitely use some of the little dog's unqualified love right now.

"No," he agreed, "you shouldn't have to. But it wouldn't have hurt if you'd tried. I'm only human. I have been known to be wrong upon occasion, especially when my emotions are involved. And they are very involved right now. Will you stop running around the room and talk to me?"

He was wearing her down, getting to her, making her believe what she wanted to believe, what she was afraid to believe, setting her up for another letdown. "It's been a long day. Can we discuss this another time?" She peeked into the empty kitchen. "Samantha?" The dog didn't like it when people raised their voices, and was probably hiding somewhere.

"Fine," Austin said. "When?"

She had never met a pushier human being. "I don't know. Next week." Raising the sofa skirt, she peered underneath.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Nothing. Looking for Samantha. She has to be in here. Both bedroom doors are closed." She checked behind the drapes.

"She wouldn't go outside, would she?" Austin asked, joining the search.

"Sure she would if she could, but—the door! We left the door open!"

"She's probably around here somewhere," Austin soothed, and joined in the frantic search.

''I'm going to look for her outside," Bailey called, charging out the door.

"I'm coming with you," Austin responded, right behind her.

"You go that way," Bailey directed, flying off the last step. "Check all the bushes. She loves to smell. She'll sniff at one spot for ten minutes."

"We'll find her," Austin promised. "Traveling at that rate, she can't be far away."

In vain Bailey checked the dog's favorite spots—the patio where a Chow lived and both dogs issued bold threats as long as the fence stood between them; the garbage dumpster she always tried to steer Bailey toward; the tree used by the big dogs where she pawed the ground in her macho act.

Then, up ahead, she spotted a bit of black fur under a bush. "Samantha!" she called, rushing toward the bush.

A black cat hissed at her and bolted away.

From behind the condo complex, she saw Austin approaching, empty-handed.

"She couldn't get past that." Bailey waved a hand at the stockade fence separating the condominium property from the housing subdivision behind. "She must be in front somewhere."

"She could be back at her own front door by now," Austin soothed.

"Maybe." Bailey broke into a run, and Austin followed suit.

Peering under cars, they searched the parking lot. "I see her!" Austin called, and Bailey followed the direction his finger pointed.

In the middle of the busy four-lane street that passed in front of the complex, the little dog was inspecting a turtle. "Samantha!" Bailey called, starting to run.

Samantha looked up for an instant then returned to her interesting discovery, directly in the path of a large moving van just cresting the hill.