PREMIUM STEELE BENEFITS
AUTHOR: Madeleine Gilbert
SYNOPSIS: One-shot continuation of the tag from "Premium Steele", from Steele's perspective. Something wonderful emerges from the murderous Perennial Corp scheme.
DISCLAIMER: This story is not for profit and is purely for entertainment purposes. The author does not own the rights to these characters and is not now, nor ever has been, affiliated in any way with Remington Steele, its producers, its actors and their agents, MTM productions, the NBC television network, or with any station or network carrying the show in syndication.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've always wondered what Mr. Steele thought of Norm Maxwell in the scene in "Premium Steele" where Laura introduces them. This was my chance to find out.
"Scarlett! Look at me! I've loved you more than I've ever loved any woman and I've waited for you longer than I've ever waited for any woman." Clark Gable as Rhett Butler to Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara, Gone with the Wind, Warner Brothers, 1939
Steele stood quietly in the doorway of the terrace at the Rossmore apartment, watching Laura gaze out over the nighttime cityscape.
She had been preoccupied, introspective, from the moment she'd arrived. On an ordinary night, he wouldn't have let it pass. Instead he would've found a way to draw her out of herself. He was adept at all the most effective strategies by now. Sometimes it was humor; sometimes it was needling her into an argument; sometimes it was letting slip a tantalizing nugget from his past, which she would invariably seize upon with a gleam in her eye, and try to puzzle out with a series of cleverly conceived, leading questions.
But none of them had seemed appropriate tonight. It had been, after all, a rough couple of days. No, scratch that. A potentially lethal couple of days.
That was why, when he opened the door to her earlier, noting that she'd changed from her disguise, combed out her hair and discarded the steel-rimmed granny glasses, he'd exhaled an audible sigh of relief. He'd been doing that a lot over the past twenty-four hours—been wound up and tense while she was out of his sight, not relaxing until they were together again. Earlier today at Perennial Corp; last evening at her loft. It was no wonder. On both occasions, he'd appeared on the scene just in time to save her life.
Tonight he'd been tense for a different reason. After they'd cleaned up the mess at Perennial Corp, which mostly meant handing Phil Lydon and Rob O'Connell over to the authorities, she'd turned to him. "Would you mind going back to the office alone? There's something I need to take care of."
Though he knew without asking what it was, somehow he'd needed to say it aloud. "Your friend Maxwell?"
"He'll be able to tell us exactly how they pulled this off. And…" She paused, seemed to be searching for words. "I don't want him to hear about Lydon on the six o'clock news. I feel like I should soften the blow for him first…or try to."
His words, by contrast, were out of his mouth before he'd had time to run them through his brain. "You don't want me to come with you?"
"I think it would be easier for Norm if it was just me."
It was part of what he loved about her, that inner compass that led her to go out of her way for others. How could he protest, when he'd so often been a recipient himself? "All right, then. I'll wait dinner. And, afterward, a screening of Gone with the Wind ? If Lester has solved the conundrum of the VCR, that is. I know how eagerly you've been looking forward to it." He offered a tentative grin.
"Maybe I have, at that." She'd gazed up at him a moment, her brown eyes clear and candid. Then, in one quick movement, she'd stood on tiptoe, pressed a kiss on his cheek, and was gone.
After a stop at the office to bring Mildred up to speed and pick up Lester Shane, he went on to Rossmore. There, while Lester lost himself in a maze of wires and gadgets, he'd focused even more than his usual care on dinner preparations. He'd no reason to be jealous of Maxwell, he kept telling himself. No reason at all. Not the fact that the man was clearly well off, successful and respectable--the type who could give Laura everything he, Steele, couldn't. Nor that he was presumably still so much in love that he was willing to risk face-to-face rejection, showing up at her loft last night to ask her out. Nor even that he'd had the guts to make himself vulnerable to Laura in the declaration Steele had unwillingly overheard: '…I would've thought, after four years, I'd have gotten you out of my system…Give me another chance to win your heart.' Now there was the kind of scene one wanted to eavesdrop on! It rated right up there with lying trapped under Creighton Phillps' bed while Phillips attempted to seduce her on top of it.
He had to hand it to Maxwell: he wasn't a coward. And he seemed an amiable enough fellow, in the few moments Steele had spent with him. His concern for Laura had been genuine, though the suggestion that they drop the Perennial case showed how little he understood her. That obvious lack of perception had made it easier to leave them together while he went off to deliver the tragic news about Monroe's delivery boy. No matter how well Maxwell thought he knew her, Steele knew her better. Well enough not to try to dissuade her from a case by broaching the danger argument with her, anyway.
It was only when he was en route to Monroe's that the doubts began to creep in again, the little nagging voices, saying that perhaps Maxwell would try again, that perhaps Laura would have second thoughts this time, that her low-voiced 'I'm committed' was only a deflection of unwanted attentions, and not a true statement of what she felt…
Ah, but the night that followed at the motel on Olympic and Bundy had negated all that! She'd never admitted that Perennial Corp's attempts on their lives had scared her, not in so many words. In fact, she'd maintained an enviable composure. It was another of the things he loved about her, that presence of mind. But she hadn't protested that she was fine, as she might well have done, when he'd taken her hand--hadn't tried to prove it by pulling away when he put his arm around her--had settled gratefully into his embrace when, exhausted by the strain, they'd finally climbed into bed. There the few words she said had played over and over in his head until he'd fallen asleep: 'Thank you for being you.'
She was just as composed, and even less inclined to talk, when she'd arrived at Rossmore tonight. "He's pretty much ruined and his clients are going down with him. When the news about Perennial breaks tomorrow, it's going to be rough," was all she would say of Maxwell. He was glad that Mildred and Lester were there, to carry on the dinner table talk; it had looked as if they were helping keep her mind off the impending disaster. And when she'd slipped away to the terrace after helping him clean up the remains of the meal, he'd let her go without a word.
She'd been out there quite a while by now. Long enough for him to have witnessed Lester's breakthrough with the VCR connections ("never let it be said that Uncle Sam's army can't train a decent engineer"); long enough for twilight to have shaded to full dark and for the city's neon illumination to blaze up in response. Long enough that worry about an old friend had soured into guilt over her share in his predicament? It would be just like Laura to feel that way.
She didn't turn at the sound of his footsteps on the stone floor. But when he slid his arm around her from behind, she nestled against him, tipping her head back on his shoulder. He bent low enough so that he could press his cheek to hers.
For a time they were quiet together, in a way they had rarely been before last night. There wasn't the lighthearted banter, or the sense of accomplishment they usually shared at the successful conclusion of a case. Probably that wasn't so surprising. Could many people have summoned up a celebratory mood in the wake of two needless deaths, financial ruin, and personal close brushes with mortality? He didn't know any, and wasn't sure he wanted to.
He said: "Thinking of your friend Maxwell?"
She was absently stroking his hand where it rested on her waist. "I don't know what I'd do if my world suddenly fell apart like that."
Don't be ridiculous, Laura, were the words on the tip of his tongue. Of course you do. I know, because I was there to watch it. How you gathered up the fragments of your life and home, transplanted them to a dingy warehouse, and, by some magic I don't quite understand, put them back together again in a new pattern—new, but no less lovely. How you went after the culprits with single-minded zeal, never wavering until you'd nabbed them. How you didn't collapse under the weight of your loss and fears, but came back stronger, smarter, more courageous than before.
But he didn't say it. She wouldn't have believed it, anyway. Quick to commend courage in others, she never realized her own, and would have dismissed it as nothing extraordinary, the normal reaction under the circumstances.
So he eschewed total honesty for the more politic reply. Why break with tradition, after all? "You'd go on…because that's the only choice any of us ever has."
He'd struck the proper note. The way she leaned back and turned her face towards his was the proof. Suddenly he was glad that last night hadn't resulted, as it could have, in their making love. It had occurred to him that it might be the right time, when they didn't know what danger tomorrow would bring, or how many hours together were left to them. But perhaps this was better, with everything still fresh in their minds, when he might possibly summon up the courage to—the courage to--
To--what? Tell her how he felt. To be a man, as Maxwell had been, and ask her for a chance to win her heart. To remember that she had said no to Maxwell because she was committed to him…
He was leaning down to her, drawing in his breath to speak before he lost his nerve, when a whoop of joy rent the silence.
"We've got picture!" shouted Lester Shane from the bedroom.
"And sound!" added Mildred.
Steele hesitated.
And knew that the moment had slipped from his grasp once again.
But Laura hadn't. She was looking up at him with an arch little smile. "They've got picture," she said. "And sound." Pointing out the options that lay before him, her smile saying that she never doubted for a moment that he found her the most irresistible of the two.
She was right. And the perfect way to convey it to her popped into his mind. With both hands on her waist he turned her to him, and replied, "Frankly, my dear? I don't give a damn…"
Ah, and there was something different about the familiar softness and warmth of her mouth as they kissed, the confident ardor with which she always responded to him. His instincts had been on target; tonight, it could have been. Underneath the unmistakable pull of desire between them, he felt a rueful pang for an opportunity squandered.
When he raised his head to look at her, she was laughing. "You've always wanted to say that, haven't you?"
"It's good for a man to achieve his long-standing ambitions," he agreed. "One of them, at any rate."
She regarded him with the unspoken understanding that was another of the things he loved about her. "Never give up hope, Mr. Steele. Think of it this way: 'After all, tomorrow is--' "
"Sh." He covered her mouth with his before she could get the rest of the quotation out.
This time she was the one to end the kiss. "Lester's waiting for us. And you don't want to miss your favorite part. 'It's the land, Katie Scarlett!' " The Irish brogue she attempted wasn't half bad. It kept him from commenting that Thomas Mitchell had never actually uttered that line.
"The beauties of VCR technology, Miss Holt: the rewind button. Besides, I'll wager Scarlett's not even entertaining the Tarleton twins yet. The opening credits last a long while."
But he let her take his hand anyway. She threaded her fingers through his the way he had done last night, and began to lead him from the terrace.
Suddenly he halted. When she turned to him in surprise, he caught her wrist and drew her partway back to him. "Laura…he's fortunate, Maxwell is, to have a friend like you."
Unmoving, they shared a long, silent glance.
"He's a wonderful guy," she said at length. "He deserves to find someone just as wonderful to love him. I hope he does, someday. I'll be first in line to congratulate her. And maybe you and I can dance at their wedding." She turned her hand to grasp his again. "Come along, Mr. Steele."
And in that instant, when their fingertips touched, he stopped thinking of missed opportunities, and felt the draw of new possibilities.
After all, not even Atlanta was rebuilt in a day. He loved Laura more than he'd ever loved any woman…and had waited for her longer than he'd ever waited for any woman.
One more day, or ninety, or three hundred sixty-five, wouldn't make any difference.
FINIS