TWICE VICTORIOUS Page 16

  He could tell that her agreement was given grudgingly.

  * * * *

  "We've got to talk." Adam knew he should wait until they'd cooked and consumed the take-and-bake pizza he'd brought, but he didn't think he could wait. For weeks he'd been thinking about how to say to Stell what he must say.

  Something in his face must have warned Stell that she wasn't going to like what he had to say, for the incipient smile on her lips died. She stopped poking at the reluctant fire and sat back on her heels, dusting her hands on the seat of her jeans. "About what?"

  "About us. About your cycling." There just wasn't any way to say this but blurt it right out. "I don't want you to ride any more Cyclocrosses."

  She jumped to her feet. Against his will Adam admired the strength, the agility that allowed her to do so gracefully. "You're kidding." Her face was pale. For a long moment she stared at him. "Aren't you?"

  "I'm dead serious. If you won't, I'll have to stop seeing you."

  "Why?" Her face was paper-white, her eyes enormous.

  "I won't be an accessory to suicide. I can't."

  "And that's..." She took a deep breath and her voice steadied as she continued, "That's what you think I'm doing? Committing suicide?"

  "Part of it. Sooner or later you're going to seriously injure yourself, Stell. Maybe kill yourself." Even knowing he was assuring his own heartbreak, he went on. "What if you'd hit just a little harder in April? What if you'd fractured your skull?" He'd been doing a little research, this last week and hated what he'd learned. "The most common cause of death in accidents is head injuries."

  "I'm careful. And I never go without my helmet."

  "So were many of the cyclists who died last year," he said. "You probably know the statistics better than I do, Stell." He forced himself to appear relaxed, to remain in the wing chair. If he stood and faced her, this conversation would become a confrontation. "And if you won't believe it can happen to you as much as to the next cyclist, I'll give you another, better, reason to quit riding in Cyclocrosses."

  "Impossible."

  "Maybe," he said, wishing he didn't have to do this. "But I've got to try." Stretching out a hand, he grasped hers as she stood next to him, staring into the fire instead of at him. She pulled away, just far enough that he only held her briefly.

  "What will happen to us if you ride in a Cyclocross every weekend all winter?"

  She shrugged.

  "Stell, you've only ridden in one, and already we're having to steal time to be together. Tonight I should be at a meeting instead of here. Week nights are almost impossible for us to get together, and you say you'll be busy every weekend."

  "Not just weekends. I should be out riding tonight instead of..." Her gesture told him she'd only grudgingly stayed home when he suggested getting together.

  "God, when are you going to come to your senses? If you've got to throw your life away on a bicycle, why don't you at least go professional?" Adam could have bitten his tongue off. He'd been so careful to stay quiet and reasonable, but when she showed him just how low he was on her agenda, he couldn't contain his anger and frustration.

  Stell swung around to face him again. "Why do you hate amateur athletes so much?" she said, knowing that was the question she should have asked long since.

  "I don't," Adam said, his voice low, his words seeming to catch in his throat. "I don't hate them. I just know how much of their lives they waste, chasing fame and glory."

  "You! How could you know?" She raised her head and looked at him. Even his leisure clothes were styled for success, right down to the distinctive emblem on his shirt. "The closest you've come to competition is in the sporting goods stores." She let the mild contempt she felt for the athletic club jock show in her voice.

  "You're wrong."

  "Oh sure. Look, Adam, this is not getting us anywhere. Let's just agree that it's been a fun time and now it's over. You go your way and I'll go mine." She attempted a smile, but it didn't feel successful. "I'll send you a postcard from Idaho, next June."

  "Sit down!"

  She was so astonished she dropped into the opposite wing chair.

  "You keep telling me how I can't possibly understand what you're going through, Stell, that I have no idea of what it's like to be obsessed with being the best in the world."

  She opened her mouth to argue but he didn't give her a chance.

  "Okay, I'll tell you a story, and when I'm done, you can apologize for all your nasty little remarks about my ignorance."

  She waited while he poured them second cups of coffee. She knew she couldn't possibly forgive him his insensitive demands, but she was curious.

  He leaned forward, resting elbows on knees, and stared into the fire. "I started fencing when I was seven years old," he said. "Parks and Recreation offered classes one spring and it sounded like fun. I'd already discovered the old Douglas Fairbanks movies and decided that I wanted to be a pirate when I grew up.

  "By the time I was ten, I was competing in regional meets. People were talking about my unusual aptitude, and Pop was making noises about the Olympics."

  His mouth twisted, but whether in bitterness or regret, she couldn't be sure.

  "Several of the families whose kids were enthusiastic about fencing went together and lured a fencing master here from France. He set up a Salle d'Armes--that's a gym for fencers--and managed to make enough by giving lessons so the parents didn't have to support him totally. We started a fencing club and for several years it was the sport for the in crowd. Some of the high schools around the area hired Jules to teach fencing as part of their Phys Ed programs.

  "All this time I was competing more and more, getting better and better."

  Now she knew where his unusual grace had arisen. Fencers were like dancers, totally in control of every movement.

  "I even took ballet lessons." His dry chuckle was the first sign of humor she'd heard since they left the racetrack.

  "I'd love to see you in a tutu," she said.

  He didn't respond to her feeble attempt. "Steve and I held nearly every title in North American Fencing. He was my best friend and toughest opponent. If I wasn't first, he usually was, and vice versa. We were the best." There was bitterness in his voice where there should have been pride.

  "We were sure bets for the Olympic Team. There just wasn't anyone in the U.S. who could beat us consistently. I was on top of the world. God! It was wonderful. A hero. A whole room in my folks' house held nothing but my medals and trophies.

  "Then my father died. He just fell down one day at work." His voice faltered.

  Stell reached out to touch his hand, but he pulled it away. She knew how he must have felt the loss of his father, how it must have hurt to know that his father would never see his triumph.

  "It was like the end of the world." He faced the mantel, buried his face in his hands. "Pop... Pop had... Damn!"

  She saw him wipe tears from his eyes, but knew instinctively that visible sympathy was the last thing he needed right now.

  "Pop had mortgaged everything. The house, the drugstore. They were living on Mom's part-time wages from a fabric store, while all the profits from his business went either to repay the loans or to keep me fencing."

  "But why? What had he used the money for?"

  "For me. He'd put up most of the funds to bring Jules over, I discovered, and had been the major contributor to the Salle. He and Mom had sacrificed everything, had even made Juliana work her way through college, just so I'd have my chance at fame and glory."

  "How they must have loved you! I hope you brought home the gold, to honor your father's memory."

  "Brought home the gold?" He stood, looming over her, rage replacing the misery on his face. "Didn't you hear me, Stell? They'd sacrificed everything. There wasn't any more to give. My mother was a widow at forty-eight, and a pauper to boot. She had to give up the house, let the drugstore go. She didn't realize a penny on either one of them."

  "That's really tragic, Adam, but you
shouldn't feel guilty about it. After all, they chose to do it for you." She thought it was the most wonderful thing she'd ever heard. And the saddest, that Adam's father had died before he could reap the reward of seeing his son acclaimed among the best in the world.

  "Guilty! Lady, you don't know the meaning of the word. My mother was homeless. My father was dead. And all I knew how to do was play with a sword."

  "Adam...." What could she say? He seemed consumed with rage.

  "It took my father's death to bring me to my senses, but at least I finally saw how senseless, how stupid the whole amateur sports scene is. I didn't bring home the gold, Stell. I got a job and brought home something infinitely more useful." His mouth twisted in a bitter travesty of a smile.

  "I brought home money."

  "You quit?" She couldn't believe what he'd implied.

  "I quit. I walked away from fame and glory and came home to do what really mattered." He faced her again, his arms tight across his chest. "Now do you see why I keep trying to make you see how you're wasting your life?"

  "What I see, Adam, is how you devalued your parents' sacrifice." She stared up at him, wondering how she could have ever thought she loved him.

  "I see a man who took the easy way out, who used his father's death as an excuse to quit while he was still the best." She stood and faced him, toe to toe and nose to nose. "You didn't think you could do it, did you?

  "You didn't really believe you could bring home the gold."

  "You're out of your mind!"

  "Am I? I don't think so." Stell turned her back, knowing he would read the contempt in her face otherwise. "Prove it."

  "I don't have to prove anything. The record speaks for itself."

  "Hah! What 'the record' says is that you're a super entrepreneur, Adam. I never doubted that for a minute."

  "But you think I'm a quitter."

  "I can't think anything else. As you said, the record speaks for itself." With shaking hands she stacked their coffee cups together. She'd known it was going to hurt when they parted, but never, not in her wildest imaginings, had she dreamed it would hurt this way. She felt tricked, betrayed. The Adam she'd fallen in love with was her own invention. The real man was someone she could neither respect nor love.

  "I think you'd better go." It took willpower to keep her feelings from blazing from her eyes. Of all the human failings she could accept, his hypocrisy was the one exception. How could he? How could he fatten himself from the sweat and dreams of people like her?

  "Damn it, Stell!" The words exploded from him. "I don't understand you. So I quit? Is that such a crime?"

  "No, but lying to yourself is, Adam. And that's what I can't stand." She shouldered her way past him, the cups and saucers rattling in her hands. Outside the kitchen door she turned and looked back down the long hallway. He was standing at the living room archway, staring at her. His face was sidelit, the deep creases that usually made his smile a thing of beauty giving him a haggard look.

  "I finally understand why you're so against my racing. Go, Adam. I can't fight you any more." And she pushed through the swinging door before he could hear her heart shatter.

  Long minutes later the solid thump of a closing door released her from the frozen discipline that was keeping her eyes dry. She buried her face in her hands and let the tears flow.

  They brought no healing, not this time.

  Chapter Twelve

  BONKED: weak from exhaustion

  He hadn't had to tell her. Pounding the steering wheel, Adam called himself all kinds of fool. Fencing was no longer a popular sport in Portland. It had been long enough that she might never have learned about his last minute abandonment of the sport that had been his life for so long.

  God knows, he'd sometimes wondered what would have happened if he'd stayed with the team. He probably could have taken the bronze, at least, and maybe even the silver. Steve had won the gold, after all. They'd never resolved which of them was the better fencer.

  What right did she have to accuse him of being afraid of failure?

  None, by damn! All she'd been doing was accusing him of what she herself was fearing. It might be too late for her to regain the fine edge that was the difference between a world class competitor and one who was merely good.

  She knew it. She had to know she didn't have a chance at winning the Sawtooth Classic, so she was already building her list of excuses.

  If anyone was afraid of failure, it was Stell McCray.

  How he'd laugh, if she didn't even qualify for the team. Too bad he wouldn't be there to remind her that she'd only set herself up for failure.

  How could he have thought he was in love with her? Stubborn damn woman.

  * * * *

  "We've been asked to sponsor a bicycle racing team."

  Adam looked up from the papers on his desk. Roger was leaning against the wall beside his door.

  "So?"

  "So I thought you'd jump at the chance."

  "Not bloody likely." Adam looked back down at the November production figures, hoping his brother-in-law would take the hint.

  "I thought you said you'd finally come to your senses." Juliana strolled past Roger and sprawled in the chair facing his desk. Behind her, their mother entered and leaned against the wall beside the door.

  "What I said was," Adam spoke slowly, so there would be no danger of being misunderstood, "that I finally realized I can't decide what's best for anyone but myself." And what soul searching it had taken him to accept that idea emotionally as well as intellectually. "If you want to sponsor, go ahead. The ActiveWear Division is your baby." Waving at the piles of papers spread across his desk, he said, in as mild a voice as he could manage, "Look, I've got a lot to do..."

  Nobody moved.

  "Petr Rozinski, the fellow who called this morning, wants to put together a sponsorship package, start a new team. He manufactures performance bicycles, and he's not happy with the team sponsor he's been with for the past three years," Juliana said. "I'd talked to him last spring, when we were getting ready to launch, looking for an endorsement."

  "Okay," Adam said. He looked back down at the paper, not seeing it, but hoping they'd take the hint.

  "Oh, for pity sakes, Adam, stop acting like a spoiled brat!"

  He turned an outraged gaze on his mother. Before he could speak, Roger said, "I think we're missing the point here. The question on the table is do we co-sponsor Petr's team?"

  "I say we do," Juliana said.

  Joyce echoed his sister, then looked at him. "Adam?"

  "Oh, hell, I don't care. Do whatever you want. You will anyhow."

  "I'll call Petr back." Juliana didn't move. For a moment she eyed Adam with a curious expression on her face. "I imagine sponsors automatically have seats at the finish line."

  "Should I care?"

  "Are you afraid, Adam?"

  He glared at his sister. "Afraid? Of what, for God's sake?"

  "Of being remembered? Are you afraid some media person will see you, remember who you are, what you might have been?"

  "That's a rotten thing to say."

  His snarl coincided with Roger's "Juli, let him be!"

  Juliana was immediately contrite. "You're right. It was a rotten thing to say. I'm sorry, Adam."

  He shrugged, not trusting his voice. If the truth be told, he was afraid. Afraid he'd made the worst mistake of his life. But that had nothing to do with his past, or with whether KIWANDA sponsored a cycling team.

  "You're all jumping to a lot of unwarranted conclusions. In the first place, whether KIWANDA sponsors a team--any team--is not my decision to make. You're the marketing whiz, Juliana. If Roger says we can afford it and you say it's a good idea, who am I to argue?"

  His sister muttered something.

  Adam refused to rise to the bait. "In the second place," he went on, aiming a finger in her direction, "my picture was in Forbes last winter. You can't get much more noticeable than that."

  "Oh, pooh! How many sports med
ia people read Forbes?"

  "More than you'd think. But that's beside the point. I am not afraid of having my past dragged out, because it's old news. Nobody cares any more."

  Juliana made a face at him, but didn't say anything.

  "My only objection is one I've voiced all along," Adam said. "Amateur sports are a snare for starry-eyed youngsters, who see them as a quick trip to fame and, if they're lucky and very, very good, to fortune. I hate encouraging that sort of thing, hate seeing them break their hearts"

  "Are you sure, Adam?" His mother slipped past Roger and perched on the arm of Juliana's chair. "Do you really feel that way, or are you just finding reasons to condemn Stell McCray's dream?"

  Stunned, he could only stare at her. "Good God, how could you think that?"

  Joyce shrugged. "Easy enough. You've avoided anything connected with amateur athletes for all these years. You argued against us using them in our ActiveWear campaign. Then you got involved with Stell, and you seemed to forget your bitterness."

  "I am not bitter."

  "Could've fooled me," Juliana said.

  "Hush, Juli." Roger pulled his wife out of her deep chair. "Let's go. Adam's busy, and we've got work to do, too."

  Joyce lingered after her daughter and son-in-law departed. For several moments she sat on the chair arm, watching Adam.

  He did his best to ignore her. It was a losing battle.

  At last she said, "Do you love her, Adam?"

  What kind of a question was that for his mother to be asking? She'd never even met Stell.

  He shook his head, not trusting his voice for the second time this morning.

  "I don't need an answer. I can see it in your eyes. You love her and you're fighting it, tooth and nail." She rose to her feet, turned away toward the door. Then she looked over her shoulder. "If I were you, son, I'd ask myself just how much pride has to do with your feelings about amateur sports. And about Stell McCray."

  Silently she walked out of his office, leaving Adam alone with a question he honestly couldn't answer.

  * * * *

  Warren kept his arm around the young woman at his side. "This is Whitney." The pride and love in his voice almost made Stell cry.