“It’s going to be a girl,” Dawn said.
“How can you possibly know that?”
“I just know. What about Patricia or Mabel?” Dawn asked.
“Or we could do flower names. Like Violet or Poppy.”
“Or Rhododendron. When you came to dinner that first night, that was the flower you brought. Right?”
“Yes.” Beth reached across the bench seat to rest a hand on Dawn’s leg. “You remembered.”
“Of course I remember. We can call her Rhoda to commemorate that night.” She squeezed Beth’s hand.
“We can’t name her after a fast-growing shrub. It’s silly.”
They shared a laugh. “I don’t care what we call her,” Dawn said, “Just as long as it isn’t some form of James.”
At the appointment, Dr. Hoffman stroked his white beard. “Two more weeks and you should move closer to the hospital here in town. Just to be safe.”
“Do we need to be worried?” Beth barged into the conversation. Usually, she just hovered in the background.
“No. The birth should all be very routine. Don’t worry. You’re not having the baby.” He chuckled, his belly shaking with his laugh.
Beth packed up all her writing books and other possessions into boxes and dumped them into the back of her truck. She meant to take them back to her parents’ house so she would still have access to them if the baby came early and the house was no longer open to her. But she never seemed to find the time, and they just sat in the bed of the truck. She did keep one notebook, though, by her at all times. The pages were filling up fast about Ameliah, a girl who wrote her secret wishes into a magic composition book at night and woke up the next morning to find them playing out in real life not at all how she expected.
She read Dawn to sleep every night with Ameliah’s latest adventure.
“Don’t stop.” Her voice was light with laughter. “That’s adorable.”
“That’s all I wrote today.”
“Rhoda wants more.”
“We’re not calling the baby Rhoda.”
“It’s actually kind of growing on me.” Dawn smiled, and Beth’s hearted melted.
“Do you really think this will work?” Beth asked. “Us? A baby? New York?”
“I do.”
Dawn flipped over, and Beth snuggled up, spreading her arms around Dawn’s stomach. Something tapped at her hand.
“Oh my God. Did you feel that?”
“Of course. You should feel it from the inside.”
“Hello, not Rhoda.” She buried her face into Dawn’s hair. That little voice telling her to be careful was barely audible anymore. Was it possible that they had weathered the storm? “I love you,” she said into Dawn’s curls.
“I love you back.”
Maybe the storm had rolled through and done its worst but hadn’t broken them. Maybe Dawn was right. The future was theirs for the taking.
One morning a couple of days later, a loud pounding jolted them out of bed. It came from downstairs, the front door, and they threw on bathrobes and rushed down the stairs.
Dawn pulled open the door. “What the hell—” She stopped dead.
There on the front stoop was James Montgomery, as cool, calm, and collected as a Hollywood superstar should be. He smiled like a snake that had slithered out of the grass.
“You know, I didn’t believe it,” he said. “When that woman called and told me what was going on out here, I didn’t believe it. I told her not my Dawn.”
Beth took a step back. What woman?
“Nope. I told her my Dawn, if she knew what was good for her, would never disrespect me like that. But clearly…” He let the words hang in the air so the venom could drip off them.
“Jimmy!” Dawn stiffened. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you still be on the set?”
“We wrapped. It’s in the can. Dailies look good. Especially yours truly. It’s going to be a big, big hit.”
“But you said on the phone…”
“You’re up to something. I said what I needed to keep you put.”
Dawn staggered back, and Beth instinctively put out an arm to catch her. She pulled it back at the last second before it grazed the back of Dawn’s robe. Too late. James had caught the action.
“Looks like your mother knew what she was talking about.”
His words registered with a blow. “My mother?” Beth asked.
“Yeah, she got a message to me all the way in Italy. How I don’t know. She’s got some follow-through, that woman. I should get her on my publicity team. I called her back. We had a nice chat, although what we were talking about was truly abhorrent.”
Now it was Beth’s turn to stagger back. What did he mean? Her mother was the cause of this horrible moment? Surely not.
He turned his attention to Dawn. “I thought we were done with all this.”
“Jimmy, stop—”
“She does this all the time. Goes off on little dalliances. Men, normally. There have been some babes. I guess now it’s whoever’s at hand, really. All she needs is to be adored.” He threw out his arm as if to discount everything that had happened in the last seven months. “She didn’t tell you that part, did she? Well, managing people and their expectations is a huge part of the excitement for her. I should know.”
“Don’t believe him. I told you he enjoys being cruel.”
Cruel or not, if what Jimmy was saying was true, he already knew about Dawn’s tendencies. Dawn had never told her that part. Omissions were as bad as lies. The plan was never going to work. How could Dawn not have seen that?
“We enjoy being cruel to each other,” he said. “That’s our thing. But, you know, she must actually like you on some level. Usually, this is where she walks away.”
“Beth, don’t listen. It’s not true. He’s just stirring up trouble between us. Don’t you see? This is how he wins.”
James, as if he didn’t have a care in the world, ambled back to the Corvette in the driveway, opened the door, and rooted around in the car.
“It’s like a game of chicken,” Dawn said. “We can’t be the first to back down or give up. Jimmy’s bluffing.”
“Gotcha.” James pulled out a magazine with a bright red cover. He set the keys on the hood of the car while he flipped through the pages.
“Beth, come back inside. Don’t listen to him. He will ruin everything.” Dawn reached out a hand, but Beth took a step across the threshold to the front stoop and shuddered. She literately stood in between husband and wife, a position that she had been in since the beginning. Every single doubt about Dawn and their relationship came rushing back and dug in tight.
“Oh, here it is.” James held the magazine open to a story for Beth. “Look.”
She hesitated so long that he thrust it into her hands. Even so, she held it just with her fingertips. Dawn with her hair up and big, glittery earrings jumped off the page. She was in a party dress, at a premiere Beth gathered, but the headline read: The Lowdown on Dawn Montgomery’s Night Out…Without Her Husband.
Beth scanned the article. It spoke to Dawn carousing at a club downtown.
“See, you probably thought you were special. Nope. You’re just a new kind of fun.”
“That’s not true.” Dawn snatched the magazine out of her hands. “For Christ’s sake, Jimmy, we both know that we went to that club to pick up your grass and God knows what else. Have you forgotten that I’m the discreet one?”
Beth flashed on herself dumping all the magazines in the outside bin at home. “Is that why you wanted me to get rid of everything months ago? Because you didn’t want me to see stories like that? What, you thought I’d be an easier target that way?”
“I told you it was all different in the beginning.” Dawn’s voice cracked with emotion. “Besides, it’s not true. The studio threw me at that rag in order to save him. They thought Jimmy, who can’t act his way out of a paper bag, was the bigger star.”
“That’s good, baby. Really good. But save
the acting for the cameras. Fun time’s over. Come home to LA and have my son.”
“Jimmy, shut up. I’ll fight you if I have to, in the courts, in the magazines, but I’m staying here. With her. And if you try to take this baby from me when it’s born, I’ll go public with how you treat me and a thousand other things. I will lie through my teeth if I have to. No studio head will be able to get you out of the hot water this time. And no court will award you this child.”
James’s whole body went rigid, and his fist curled into a ball at his side. “Dawn. Don’t do this. You’ll be sorry. You’re really going to throw your career away?”
Dawn said nothing. Her hands were balled up against her side in a weird mirror image of his fists.
“Over this short, little nothing of a chick?”
“Yes.”
But Beth had seen what Dawn hadn’t said. The brief look of uncertainty that slid over her face before she opened her mouth. The slight shuffle in her feet after she had closed it. Beth screwed her eyes shut so she couldn’t see anything else. The doubts raged in her like a whirlwind.
What it came down to was she had no idea whether Dawn really loved her. Dawn for sure hated Jimmy, but that wasn’t at all the same thing. She loved Dawn; she really did. She probably would never love anyone else the way she loved this woman standing two feet away from her. But was love supposed to turn your family against you? Rip you apart and shatter you into tiny pieces?
She opened her eyes. “I can’t be a pawn in this game between you anymore.”
Dawn’s mouth dropped open. James grinned, showing each of his perfect teeth.
Beth licked her lips, trying to find the words to explain, but nothing came.
“Beth, please. You can’t possibly think—”
“I don’t know what to think anymore. That’s the problem. You need to figure this out.” She darted inside to the side table in the foyer, where they kept the car keys. One set for her truck and another for the El Dorado still in the garage. Fumbling, she knocked all the keys to the ground and then bent over to grab hers.
“What are you doing? You can’t leave me.”
“I can’t stay either.” Tears flooded her eyes as she looked at Dawn. “I just need time to think.”
“Don’t leave me with him. I need you to stay strong. For me. For us.” Dawn’s breath quickened.
Beth needed to get out of there. Now. If Dawn started crying, her resolve would vanish. She dashed for her truck.
Dawn grabbed for her arm as she slid by her, but Beth, for the first time in their relationship, twisted away from her touch.
James laughed at the show in front of him. His cackle came at her as she slid the key into the ignition and threw the car into reverse. She just barely slammed on the brakes before she backed into the Corvette. He had completely boxed her in.
“Beth! Stop,” Dawn cried out.
She shifted the car into drive and pulled onto the unpaved service road right off the driveway. She had no idea where it led or if it was even passable, but this was her only out. Gunning the engine, she flew down the road. The truck careened over potholes and through low-hanging branches before finally hitting the main road.
A right-hand turn took her away from town and everything she knew. At some point she would have to deal with the betrayal from her mother and from Dawn, but that was way in the future. Now she was just running.
As luck would have it, her boxes still bounced around in the truck’s bed. She had her notebooks, a stash of clothes, and all that money rolled up in rubber bands. She would use it to set up a new life and then pay Dawn back.
The road stretched out ahead of her, winding in and out of the forest and eventually ending at the Pacific Ocean. She took the first turn too hard and slid sideways into the dirt. Her wheels spun out of control for an instant before they grabbed the road again.
Slow down. Slow down. She had to make it to the coast in one piece. What then?
There was that inn right on the coast. She could stop there, change out of her pajamas, and make a plan that went beyond remembering to breathe. She lifted her foot off the accelerator, and the trees around her returned to solid forms. She drove on slowly, trying not to think about anything but the road ahead of her and putting distance between her and what she had left behind at Fern House. She was having a hard time voicing Dawn’s name even in her own head.
Out of nowhere a streak of blue came at her in the rearview mirror. James’s Corvette zoomed down the road, slipping erratically into the dirt bank on the edge of the street with every turn.
What the hell? Were they coming after her?
The Corvette started honking.
Beth dropped her foot back onto the accelerator and sped away.
The sports car was thrown into another gear—badly, the whine of the transmission so loud it echoed in the cab of her truck.
Beth watched it in the rearview mirror. It was swerving all over the road. The person at its wheel was in imminent danger of losing all control.
Another car, this one bright red, rounded a curve behind the Corvette. She would recognize the big fins anywhere. The El Dorado from the garage. Two cars. Two drivers.
Dawn was driving? But James had said she couldn’t drive. No. The conversation flooded back into Beth’s mind. She had said later that she was a terrible driver. A car crash waiting to happen.
The Corvette slid dangerously near a redwood on the shoulder.
No! Beth pumped her brakes. She had to slow down, to help her.
The Corvette slowed as well, righting itself to the road.
The El Dorado took advantage and pulled alongside the Corvette. James was honking, and Beth could see in the rearview mirror that he was motioning for Dawn to pull over.
Dawn gunned her engine, and the Corvette charged ahead.
James swerved toward her, trying to cut her off.
Dawn must have jerked at the wheel to get away from him, because the Corvette veered one way and then the other.
A loud skidding noise filled the air. Beth hit her brakes hard, and her truck slid to a stop. She craned her head around.
The Corvette was up on two wheels, careening dangerously toward a tree on the side of the road. With a deafening smack, the car crashed into the tree, unbelievably righted itself, and swung back onto the road, still moving out of control.
Beth swung her door open, leapt out of the car, and began to run back up to Dawn.
James jammed on his brakes, sliding down the road. He skidded past the moving Corvette and right into Beth’s path.
Holy shit! She jumped out of the way, and the car slid by. It missed her only by inches. She came down hard on her ankle. Pain shot through her as she twisted and fell.
The Corvette ran across the road and smashed hard into another tree. Glass flew in the air. A wrenching sound of metal being torn off the car filled the air. The front of the Corvette crumpled as if it were made of paper.
“Dawn!” Beth struggled to her feet. Her ankle screamed in response, and the pain ran all the way up her body. She dropped back down to the ground and began to crawl, trailing James, who was also on the move. A burning smell like acid assaulted her nose as she came closer. And then the worst noise imaginable drifted over.
A moan—full of pain and agony…and regret. It was soft, but it cut right through the chaos.
Beth dragged herself to the car and pulled herself up on a door handle, using it like a crutch. Empty. The moaning rose again. She spun, fighting another jolt of pain, to find its source.
Dawn, thrown from the convertible during the crash, lay on the ground, her leg jutting out at an unnatural angle.
She took a step toward Dawn, but her ankle wouldn’t hold. She crumpled to the ground.
James was already by her side, bending down to her. “Get away.” His voice was a low hiss. “See what you’ve done to her!”
Beth fought to breathe as panic surged over the pain in her body. Oh my God! If she hadn’t jumped out of the way
, he would have killed her.
Dawn’s eyes fluttered open, and she raised a hand. “Beth?”
James slid his arms under Dawn’s body, staggered to his feet, and began to carry his wife to the El Dorado.
As they passed, Dawn reached out toward her.
But Beth couldn’t move, rooted to the ground by the stabbing pain in her ankle and the crushing weight of the guilt pushing down on her.
James slipped Dawn into the back of the Cadillac and, without even a backward glance, sped off down the road back toward town.
All she could manage was a half crawl, more like a drag to the side of the road. Her whole leg contorted in pain, but the rest of her was numb. Her heart and her head had both balled into little leaden weights that would not crack.
She sat in the dirt, how long she had no idea, watching her ankle swell up to three times its size; black and blue marks spread like ink under the skin.
At some point, a man pulled his van right up to her and rushed out. “Oh my goodness, miss. Are you all right?” He bent down to her. The briny scent of the ocean clung to him.
“No,” she said so quietly he had to tilt closer. “I shouldn’t have left her with him.”
CHAPTER 11
“I got them! They’re here!” The big woman from the bakery flew gracefully between the people coming in the front door and standing by the stairs.
Nikka jumped back to avoid the collision.
The woman slid to a stop and thrust the set of boxes at Todd Mason, who waited in front of the dining room. His face was so red, he looked as if he would explode.
“About time.”
When Nikka rounded the corner, reporters, bloggers, and other invited guests mingled in the living room. Their grumblings were getting louder by the minute.
Things had gone from bad to worse this morning. She had no idea what was happening with the cupcakes or, more importantly, the microphone and a badly wired mot-box on the podium, whatever that was. Thankfully, the culinary and audio issues were out of her hands. What was firmly in them, however, were Lea’s problems. The press conference should have already started; there wasn’t adequate parking, and the reporters’ deadlines loomed large on this Friday afternoon.
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