by Kate Thomas
“Senator Perrodeaux? This is Dani Caldwell. Do you remember me?...Yes. it was a wonderful evening. Yes, he’s fine. Sleeping almost six hours at night now....”
Tears blurred the room around her. It was no good. Anger didn’t hold back the hurt for long. She loved Josh, wanted a life with him, but to make her dream come true, she’d have to destroy his chances of happiness.
Which made the hardest thing she’d ever had to do too simple to avoid.
Taking a deep breath, Dani made the only honorable move left to her. “I wonder, sir, if you could do me a small favor....”
Josh tried not to fidget while Reinholdt droned on. He didn’t bother listening. Hell, let the defendant’s attorney do that.
He was busy racking his brain for something convincing to say when he got home, something to add, something he’d left out....
Tangibles, you idiot. Josh smacked his forehead. Ignored the odd looks he got from the judge and the others in the courtroom.
And not just durable consumer goods like cars and houses.
Romantic tangibles.
Proposal-of-marriage tangibles.
Josh sneaked a peek at his watch. Damn, it was getting late. Wrap it up, would ya? he silently begged Judge Reinholdt. I’ve got to buy some flowers—lots of flowers.
And a ring. Yeah! That’ll show her I’m serious.
Hmm. Wonder if she’d prefer a traditional wedding ring set or an emerald to match her eyes and a gold band wide enough to be seen a block away?
He’d take her to dinner, he decided. Someplace quiet, elegant, intimate. Maybe he’d try one of those schmaltzy routines where the waitstaff conspires to hide the ring in her dessert.
Better make it the appetizer. If they got engaged tonight, they could marry tomorrow.
A flicker of panic flared through his insides. She’d turned him down once. Said she was leaving. What if she was already gone? Lord knows, Dani Caldwell was the kind of woman who waded right in and took action when she thought it needed taking...
His Honor continued to drone. Josh groaned. He had to get out of here!
He thrust his hand into his pants pocket, curled his fingers around the ignition key—
The car. “Oh, you genius you,” Josh muttered, relaxing tense muscles. No need to burn judicial bridges by yelling at Reinholdt to cut to the chase. Dani would still be there when he got home. Cabs take hours to show up in suburbs like Fallsboro, he thought with a smile at his accidental brilliance. Besides, she couldn’t possibly get the playpen, the crib and all the rest of Michael’s stuff packed before he got—
Suddenly his client was smiling and pumping his hand. We won. Josh rushed through the congratulations, declined an invitation to celebrate their victory and sprinted for the car.
Gunning the engine, he cut off a bailiff leaving the parking lot The court employee honked. Josh waved.
Now, back to the ring. No diamond could match the fire and sparkle of Dani’s green eyes, of course, but it was a romantic gesture with a clear meaning. Something she couldn’t misunderstand.
Mechanically jiggling Michael to quiet him, Dani was able to smile and wave goodbye to the senator as his limousine pulled away from the curb. Using sheer willpower, she managed to march into the bus station and stand in the ticket line. She even managed to say, “Little Rock, please,” when the clerk asked where she was going.
But Michael fell asleep while they waited for the departure announcement and so, left alone in a crowd of strangers, she dissolved into tears as she joined the line to board the silver and blue bus.
“Oh, my. Those look like heartbroke tears.” said the elderly woman next to her as they shuffled forward.
Dani nodded.
“You want to talk about it?” the woman asked as they climbed into the bus and took adjoining seats.
“No, ma’am,” Dani said, trying without success to smile or at least stop crying. “Thanks for your concern, but... there’s nothing to say.”
The woman nodded, accepting the assessment. “Well, I’m sure sorry, honey.” she said, reaching over to pat Dani’s hand. “But you’re so young—your heart will mend before you know it and you’ll fall in love again.”
The bus began to pull out of the terminal and Dani took the opportunity to break off the conversation by turning her face toward the window next to her, as if to watch the scenery slide away.
Her fellow passenger meant well—and maybe she was right. In two or three centuries she might be able to look at another man. Some guy without golden hair and turquoise eyes, without a jaw that could turn to granite in the flick of an eye, whose kisses didn’t melt her skeleton and sear her soul.... The scenery blurred as more tears slipped down her cheeks.
Get used to it, she told herself, shifting Michael’s carrier in her lap. It’s going to take an ocean of tears to wash away your love for Josh Walker.
Once more, Josh burst into the house.
This time, his arms were loaded with every rose in the county.
His pocket held a small, velvet box. He’d ended up just asking the jeweler for something flawless and exquisitely set; if she didn’t like it, they’d exchanged the damned thing for whatever made her happy.
“Dani!” he called, one foot on the first stair.
Silence.
“Dani, where are you?”
More silence. Awful, complete, empty silence.
Panic started bubbling up like water in an artesian well.
“No, God. Please.” Josh rushed upstairs, through the house, out the back, checked the garage. “Where the hell is she?” he muttered against his raging fear.
Finally he noticed the small rectangle tucked under the telephone in the living room. Roses slid unnoticed from his arms as he picked it up and read the number scrawled on it in expensive ink.
Josh gave it one last shot, but his fear turned to despair and swamped him like a monsoon capsizing a fishing boat when Perrodeaux’s aide confirmed the senator had received a call from a young lady this afternoon and unexpectedly cleared a meeting off his schedule.
She didn’t come back.
For twenty-four straight hours Josh sat at the foot of the stairs, watching the front door. Waiting. Then he tightened his jaw, stumbled into the living room and tried to work. He needed five pages of tightly written, exhaustively documented, well-reasoned argument for some damned “important” brief he had to file...oh, sometime.
He had three sentences. Only one of which had both a subject and a verb. “The hell with it,” he growled, and threw the yellow legal pad across the room.
The hell with the Supreme Court. The hell with everything.
Josh rubbed a hand tiredly over his eyes. He still couldn’t believe it. He still didn’t know how she could leave him like that. She wasn’t Carrie, with some weird agenda of her own.
It was him. This one was his fault—one hundred percent.
And now he understood what Dani had tried to show him. Taking responsibility, fixing blame, forgiving didn’t change anything.
She was gone. They were gone. Dani and Michael. His family.
And he was never getting over them. Never.
He’d lost his last chance at a baby. Last chance at happiness. Last chance at love.
And it hurt. Too much to stuff away. Too much to freeze out. Too much, maybe, even to survive....
An evening’s soft dusky light was shifting through the windows when Marietta walked in uninvited. She stood in the archway between foyer and living room with her hands on her hips. Gazing at the rubble of his life. Frowning.
“So this is where you’ve been hiding,” she said finally with a disdainful snort. “Walker,” she continued, striding toward him, “you’re pathetic.”
Chapter Ten
After looking around—for the first time in days, apparently—Josh supposed he was pathetic. Roses, wilted and brown, lay scattered on the floor where he’d dropped them. A pizza box and a couple of Chinese take-out cartons sat on the coffee table, so he mu
st have eaten. He rubbed a hand over his jaw. He hadn’t shaved in a while. Had he slept?
He couldn’t remember. All he knew was that the pain hadn’t gone away, hadn’t eased a bit.
“Did it occur to you to at least call in and let me know you were staying home to wallow in self-pity?” Marletta echoed his sister-in-law’s condemnation with a snarl in her voice.
“Sorry,” he said with a sigh.
“You sure are, Walker.” She pivoted on her heel and headed for the door. “And by the way, I quit.”
“Huh?” Dimly, Josh realized his work was all he had now—and without Marletta Langtry, he might as well close his doors. “You can’t do that,” he protested weakly.
Marletta turned around. Pointed a finger at him. “I can and I will,” she retorted, “if you don’t snap out of it, Walker. I’ll move to Los Angeles. My second oldest runs a body shop there. Or maybe I’ll—”
“Dammit, she left!” Josh sat forward and thrust his fingers through his hair. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Go after her, you fool.”
Josh knew she wanted him to fight back. But he couldn’t. He was paralyzed by the pain of losing Dani. And his baby.
“And do what when I find her?” he asked wearily. “If I could find her....”
“How should I know?” the secretary snapped. “Just don’t sit there dying inside and let her go.”
“What more can I do?” Josh spread his hands helplessly. “I asked her to marry me. She refused.”
“Why?”
“How should I know? Because she didn’t want to marry me, I guess.”
“You guess?” The hair on the back of his neck rose at Marletta’s tone. “What in the name of heaven is wrong with you, Walker? I saw the way she looked at you that night you went to dinner with the senator. She was in love with you then. What did you do to change her mind?”
Josh suddenly knew how badgered witnesses felt. “Nothing,” he said with a defensive shrug. “She said she couldn’t many me. She had her own life to live.”
“What the heck does that mean?”
“I don’t know!” he shouted desperately, leaping to his feet. “Look, after I got rid of Graves, I came home, explained that he’d located her and told her we should get married. That way, I could adopt Michael and she wouldn’t have to worry if the Caldwells sued for custody. Then she—”
He stopped in midsentence. Marletta seemed to be having some kind of attack. Her eyes bulged. She sputtered, apparently having difficulty breathing.
Well, that released him from the lethargy of hopelessness that had held him prisoner of the sofa for the past four or five days! Josh raced to her side. “What is it?” he cried. “Should I call 9-1-1?”
Marietta shook her head, then bent forward and put her hand over her heart as she—
“You’re...laughing?” Josh asked in astonishment “What the hell is so funny?”
“Y-you are, Walker. For a brilliant lawyer, known for his silver-tongued oratory in court, you take the—” Gales of laughter burst from the secretary again. When she finally regained a semblance of control, she asked him, “Did you bother to tell Dani that you love and adore her?”
“We never talked about love!” Josh retorted, then closed his eyes as the full extent of his stupidity sank in. “Oh, sh—” He clapped his hand against his forehead. “I didn’t... But couldn’t she—She doesn’t know...”
He spread his hands wide as he appealed to his secretary’s superior wisdom. “Do you think I stand a chance if I throw myself at her feet and declare undying love?”
“Might be a start,” Marletta said with a grin. “’Course you ought to follow that with some concrete proof. Like, a ring or....”
Josh rummaged around until he found the velvet box. Showed his secretary—and savior—the diamond solitaire set in a band of baguettes. “A ring like this, you mean?”
Marietta whistled silently, then nodded.
“But...how am I going to find her?” he asked with a frown. “It’s a big country—she could be anywhere!”
“If she loves you,” Marletta assured him, “she won’t be that hard to find.” She pulled the ubiquitous pencil from her hair and produced a notepad from her purse. “Now, let’s get you organized to make that declaration.”
As they conferred, Josh thought that if Congress really wanted a balanced budget or social programs that actually worked, they’d hire Marletta Langtry and let her red pencil loose.
Within minutes they’d formulated a plan and plunged into action. Marletta made a list of appointments to reschedule while Josh contacted Senator Perrodeaux and studied the atlas. Reaching a mutual conclusion, they considered calling the Caldwells—telephoned Delbert Graves instead. Then Josh raced upstairs to shower, shave and change.
He scooped up some additional clothes, threw them in a bag and headed for the airport.
Boarded the next appropriate plane, which deposited him in Houston, where he rented a car and drove north on a red asphalt highway cutting its way into the green, forested heart of East Texas.
Beautiful country, Josh thought idly as the car ate miles. If Dani wanted to move back to Lufkin, he’d agree in a heartbeat With faxes and E-mail, he could office anywhere; when he needed to make personal appearances, Houston had two airports and so did Dallas. What was a few hours’ drive compared to her happiness? And his.
Whatever Dani wanted, she’d get—as long as she’d take him, too.
The address Graves had given him belonged to a rambling, redbrick fifties-style ranch house, set way back from a wide, tree-lined street Josh pulled into the drive, cut the engine and got out. Walked to the front door and rang the doorbell, torn between hope and hostility.
A beefy, middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair, sunleathered skin and hands that had done plenty of physical labor opened the door. “Can I help you?” he asked with a drawl so like Dani’s that Josh felt homesick.
He shook it off and said in a carefully neutral voice, “I’m looking for Pete Caldwell.”
“You found him,” the man conceded without releasing his grip on the door. “What can I do for you?”
Josh hesitated. He’d spent the plane trip devising various approaches for this meeting, depending on the amount of resistance he encountered—but he couldn’t get a reading on this man to know which one to take.
Might as well keep it simple, then. “My name’s Walker,” he said. “Josh Walker. And the reason I—”
He broke off in midsentence because he heard a familiar sound coming from the back of the house. The sound of a baby crying. And not just any baby, dammit.
“Where is he?” Josh demanded, pushing his way into the house. “Where’s Michael?”
The older man indicated a doorway at the far end of the room. “In the kitchen. I take it you’ve met my grandson?”
With a curt nod, Josh headed in the direction Caldwell pointed. The kitchen contained the usual appliances—in harvest gold—and an Early American dinette set. A shelf ran around three walls of the room near the ceiling, every inch of it filled with commemorative plates and china poodles. In the center of the room stood a short, round woman with brown hair and eyes. Trying to get Michael to take a bottle. The poor darling baby, whose little face was streaked with tears, spit out the nipple and turned his head away.
Josh reached her in one stride. “Come here, precious,” he crooned as he lifted Michael from her and cradled him against his own chest. Once the baby was secure, he prepared to lash out at the cruel, brown-haired woman. “Aside from the fact that he’s lactose intolerant—” he began, only to be cut off.
“So was his father, young man,” she snapped. “This is a soy product designed for that very problem and he’s been doing fine on it.”
“Then he’s not hungry,” Josh declared while the baby snuggled closer. “He’s tired.”
“Well, that’s what I thought but he kept on crying when I rocked him. I couldn’t think of what to do.” The woman smil
ed sheepishly. “To tell the truth, it’s been so long since I had a baby this small that I’ve forgotten most of what I knew—and how much work they are.”
“He only likes to be rocked at night. Naptimes, he likes this—” Josh demonstrated the pat-circle, pat-circle stroke he’d discovered. Sure enough, within a few moments, Michael hiccuped, stopped crying and yawned against Josh’s neck.
Pete Caldwell had followed Josh to the kitchen. Now he crossed the room to stand behind his wife, resting his hands protectively on her shoulders. “We appreciate the advice, Mr. Walker, but maybe you’d better explain why you’re here.”
“I’m looking for Dani,” he declared, glaring at the older couple over Michael’s back. “Where is she? If you think you can just grab this child without a fight, you’re sadly mistaken. Kidnapping is a federal offense—”
“Hold on, son,” Pete Caldwell said quietly, raising one hand and holding it palm outward. “I think there’s been a mistake—”
“You can say that again, buddy,” Josh snarled.
Caldwell squeezed his wife’s shoulders. “Looks like you were right, Edna,” he said, chuckling. “There’s a little more between these two than good Samaritanism.”
He turned his attention back to Josh. “That baby you’re holding so expertly is our grandson and we intend to be a part of his life, young man, but we’ve no desire to have custody of Michael full-time.”
“Then why did you threaten Dani with—”
Edna interrupted him. “That was grief talking, Mr. Walker. I don’t know if you can understand how—” The woman paused to wipe tears from her eyes.
“How much it hurts?” Josh asked softly. “Yes, ma’am, I do.”
“Well,” Edna went on more briskly, “the past couple of days reminded us why kids need to be raised by young folks. We’re too old to do this full-time!”
“Michael needs grandparents, too,” Josh assured her. “But—where’s Dani?”