by Arlene James
The Sugarmans turned their smiles on for her, and Edward squeezed her hand between his own and his thigh. She felt-herself beaming with intense delight and surging hope. The doorbell rang, breaking the spell and sending Kendra Sugarman to her feet.
“That must be David,” she announced gaily, and just like that, Edward set aside Laurel’s hand and, it seemed to her, edged away.
Hope deflated and delight waned, but Laurel charged up her smile as Kendra led into the room a handsome blond in chinos and a blue polo shirt worn beneath a tweedy brown sport coat. Minus the gold-rimmed glasses, he was the type one expected to find on a beach in California with a surgically enhanced bikini model draped over his arm. He pushed his longish, sun-streaked hair off his forehead and targeted her with a frank, vividly blue gaze as Laurel introduced him.
“Dr. David Greenlea, allow me to introduce Laurel Miller.”
His smile was utterly charming as he leaned down, offering her his hand and said, “Just David, please.”
“All right, and I’m Laurel.”
“Pleased to meet you, Laurel.”
Kendra placed a hand on his arm, turning his attention. “You remember Edward, I’m sure.”
The sparkle in David’s inhumanly blue eyes took. on a mischievous glint. Laurel wondered if the glasses were calculated to blunt their effect. “Edward,” he said and slung his head in Parker’s direction. “You’ve been hanging around this clotheshorse over here too long, I see.” He stuck out his hand. “Good to see you again.”
Edward practiced his grip on David’s much leaner hand. “Looks like you’ve cleaned up your act some, too. Ponytail’s gone.”
David laughed and retrieved his hand, wiggling it to start the blood flowing again, “I’ve still got the jeans with the holes in them,” he said cheekily, “but I promised Ken I’d be on my best behavior tonight.”
Kendra laughed and said, “Thank you very much.” To Laurel she added, “The holes are in the seat.”
“The holes are the seat,” Parker quipped. “We’ve cataloged every pair of David’s underwear.”
“He favors boxers with cartoon prints,” Kendra teased.
“I never have figured out what they’ve got against ducks,” he said to Laurel, and she laughed, liking him immensely.
Kendra released him and went off to play hostess, saying, “I’ll get the drinks.”
Disappointingly, Edward got up and followed her out of the room, mumbling that he’d help her. David picked a spot next to Laurel and stretched out an arm along the back of the sofa, blatant appreciation showing through the lenses of his glasses as he looked her over. “You look familiar to me,” he said.
Laurel shrugged, but Parker said, “I thought that, too, at first Maybe we’ve seen her on the society pages or at a fund-raiser, possibly.”
“Oh, my,” David said, grinning, “are you someone we’d have seen on the society pages or at a fund-raiser?”
Feeling uncomfortable, Laurel looked away. “I doubt it.”
Parker spoke up again. “She’s being modest. You see here before you, David, my friend, the one, the only, Heffington heir.”
“Good God!” David exclaimed. “You must be Virdel’s granddaughter!”
Laurel blanched and softly admitted, “Yes.”
“She left over a million dollars to our program!” he went on.
Laurel forced a wan smile. “Did she?”
David cupped a hand against the back of his head and said baldly, “What a distasteful old snob she was.”
Laurel looked up in shock, certain she couldn’t have heard what she’d thought she’d heard. “I beg your pardon?”
But David was not the least undone. He went on as smoothly as if he were reciting poetry. “She tried to derail my appointment on the grounds that I was too young and, as she put it, my family heritage is ‘disappointingly unremarkable.’ I believe I told her that my unremarkable family was at least intelligent enough to practice basic civilities in public.”
Laurel’s mouth fell open. “You didn’t!”
“Why not?” He shrugged and went on. “She drew herself up in her wheelchair and demanded, ‘Young man, are you insinuating that I am rude?””
Laurel groaned, imagining the scene that must have ensued and what he must think of her based upon it. “I’m sure she didn’t know what she was saying. Her health was very poor and…”
David chuckled and said, “She was a pathetic shell of a woman with the heart of a tyrant, and I told her so. Pleasantly, of course.” ‘ He tossed off that last with an insouciant grin and a nod.
Laurel’s mouth was hanging open again. He shut it by chucking her under the chin and confessed, “It’s a bald-faced lie. I only wanted to say those things.”
Which meant, of course, that Virdel had not had the opportunity to lash him with her saber-edged tongue. Laurel sighed with relief and immediately began apologizing on her grandmother’s behalf. “I’m so sorry, Dr. Greenlea.”
“David,” he corrected her.
She barely heard him. “My grandmother was a very controlling person and, I think, an unhappy one. She could be very unpleasant. I do apologize if she gave you a difficult time, and I’m glad that at least she recognized the value of your program and supported your work financially.”
His gaze was utterly open. “It doesn’t bother you that I just insulted her?”
Laurel searched for the right words. “Well, yes, frankly it does, but mostly because she so often was everything you said.”
“You don’t mind that she left us all that money in her will?”
She could almost laugh at that. “I only wish she’d been as wise with all her bequests.”
He nodded. “Interesting.” And it was as if he’d given her his stamp of approval. The smile was equal parts charm and, unless she missed her guess, flirtation. Leaning forward, he popped one of Kendra’s tiny, bedecked crackers into his mouth and murmured between chews, “Very interesting, indeed.”
Laurel was slightly disappointed when David Greenlea hurried to pull out her chair at the dinner table, leaving Edward to do the same for Kendra and Parker to pour the wine and begin carving an absolutely luscious eye-of-the-round roast. Kendra passed around the vegetables and hot bread, Darla already having been fed and sent off to the multipurpose room to watch a video with the volume appropriately low and the door open. Laurel tasted her carrots, a personal favorite of hers, and murmured approvingly. David grinned and waved a potato around on the end of his fork.
“It’s a funny thing about these two,” he said, indicating their hosts. “Alone, each is a capable if somewhat limited cook. Together, they’re a gourmet chef.” He forked the potato into his mouth and closed his eyes in ecstasy as he chewed.
“There’s something you should know about David,” Kendra said from her end of the table. “He can eat his weight three times a day and never gain a pound. It’s disgusting, and he thinks he’s a gourmet because of it. Oh, and he loves to observe.” She waved a hand. “Doesn’t make any difference what or whom, he just likes to watch and figure things out”
“Is that so?” Laurel murmured lightly, feeling his eyes on her right then.
“Comes with the territory,” he said, cutting into his roast with relish.
“In other words,” Parker said, picking up the banter, “he’ll sit around your kitchen happily watching you labor over a hot oven and eat every bite of the meal without the least guilt.”
“Hey, I’m nobody’s fool,” David quipped as everyone else laughed.
Laurel picked up another thread of the conversation. “What territory is that?”
“Hmm?”
“You said it comes with the territory, being observant, I mean. I just wondered, specifically, what territory that is.”
Activity stopped all around the table, everywhere but over David Greenlea’s plate. Smiling benignly, he continued cutting off bite-sized pieces of his roast and said casually, “Psychiatry.” He laid down his knife and sh
ifted his fork to his right hand. “I’m a psychiatrist.”
Well, that explained a lot and seemed utterly irrelevant at the same time.
Kendra leaned forward and said, “Actually, David’s being modest. He’s acting head of psychiatry at our hospital—the youngest ever.”
“The children’s hospital?” Laurel said. “I think Edward said you were at the children’s hospital.”
“That’s right,” David told her, dispensing with a mouthful of beef and forking up another. “Our function there is primarily helping our patients and their families deal with the realities of serious illnesses.”
“Ah. I’d think that would be very sad work.”
He shook his head. “Not at all. We have, our share of losses, of course, and those are always tough, but the vast majority of our patients go home happy and healthier. It’s very rewarding, actually. It’s much harder just to make my rounds at the county hospital across the street.”
“Oh, that’s right. I’d forgotten they were affiliated.”
He nodded, busily swallowing another bite. “I’d rather deal with a diabetic child learning to deal with her illness any day than a coked-out prostitute convinced I’m her pimp come to kill her.”
Laurel shivered. “How awful! How do you stand it?”
He tilted his head. “I want to help, and sometimes I actually do. It’s definitely the successes that keep me going back.”
“David volunteers in the chemical dependency unit,” Kendra said. It was the last time she spoke until she rose to clear the table.
Laurel became aware, of course, that she and David were dominating the conversation, but he was an interesting conversationalist and her attempts to include the others, especially Edward, were greeted with little more than nods and smiles. She was not thrilled when Kendra rebuffed her offer to help clean up, saying that Parker and she worked best and quickest when it was just the two of them, then asking Edward to spend a few minutes with Darla. “I hate for her to spend the whole evening alone,” she explained, “and she does love to have her uncle Eddie to herself now and again.”
Laurel took that as a request to stay away and meekly followed David back into the living area, where he parked her in a corner of the couch, sat down next to her and casually asked her to tell him something about herself, since they’d talked primarily about him all through dinner. Laurel glanced longingly in the direction in which Edward had disappeared and forced her attention on David. It wasn’t his fault that Edward was ignoring her, and David did seem like a very nice man—very nice and very skilled. She didn’t realize how well he’d coaxed her to open up to him until some time later when she found herself sniffing back tears and his arm coming around her in support.
“You know, don’t you, that you were never the problem? The problem was always Virdel and those adults around you who failed to adequately stand up to her.”
She nodded, feeling foolish and exposed. “What I never understood, though, is what made her that way.”
He shrugged, holding her against his side. “It’s hard to say without having had the opportunity to analyze her, but I’d say a very poor self-image was at the bottom of it”
She sat up straight, surprised. “You’re kidding! My grandmother acted like she was God!”
“Perhaps she did that to hide her own fears of inadequacy and unacceptability,” he suggested. “We’ll never know now, but it’s a reasonable assumption. I’d go so far as to say, in fact, that she was probably intimidated and threatened by you. She must have been dismayed at your ability to recover after every setback, and frightened by your determined quest for her love, a love she obviously didn’t know how to give.”
Laurel could only shake her head. “I wanted to quit, you know, but I couldn’t help myself, not until very near the end, anyway.”
He nodded. “It’s perfectly normal to want the love and approval of the adults in our lives, Laurel. The only way to stop really is to realize that you’ve become more adult than they are capable of being.”
That made perfect sense to her. “Yes, I see what you mean. That’s pretty much what happened in my case. I gradually realized that I was the only reasonable, completely sane individual around, and it was more important for me to be that than to be loved.”
He patted her shoulder. “You’re a remarkable young woman to come to that conclusion on your own,” he said gently, and she smiled her gratitude.
“Thank you.”
“Personally,” he went on in that comforting tone, “I think you’re an extremely lovable person, too, but I suppose it’s up to someone else to convince you of that. I wonder, could it be Edward White, perhaps?”
Laurel caught her breath. Why would he ask that? Had he seen something in Edward’s manner toward her that she had not seen tonight? Her hopes for the evening suddenly lifted. As if summoned by the sound of his name, Edward walked into the room. His face seemed utterly impassive, but she thought she spied a flash of anger—or perhaps jealousy?—in the glance he directed at David Greenlea. David seemed to concur, for he smoothly but quickly withdrew his arm from around her shoulders and moved over on the sofa. Laurel followed, motioning for Edward to join them on her other side. He lowered his big frame into the corner she had just vacated and crossed his legs at the knee.
“You two have a nice chat?”
“A very nice chat,” Laurel confirmed.
“Yes, indeed,” David agreed.
“How is Darla?” she asked, just to make conversation with him.
“Just about ready for bed,” he said, fingering the crease in one leg of his slacks as if it was the most interesting thing he’d come across in a very long time.
Laurel glanced at her watch, reminded that Barry would be sleepy-eyed by now, too, and bit her lip. A few moments later, the Sugarmans descended the steps into the living area, Parker laden with a tray of coffee and cups that Kendra dispensed as soon as he set it down.
“I’m sorry it took us so long,” she said. “I didn’t realize we’d made such a mess this afternoon. And you know how it is, the longer you let it go, the more difficult it is to clean.”
Laurel nodded, accepting a cup of hazelnut coffee if the sublime aroma was anything to go by. The time had passed swiftly, but she was rather dismayed to realize how much of it had passed. Biding her time, she sipped her coffee and listened to the others chat. When Darla came into the room rubbing her eyes, Laurel suggested that perhaps it was time for them to go. To her surprise, the Sugarmans protested adamantly.
“Oh, no! We haven’t had much opportunity to visit yet,” Parker said, to which Kendra added sheepishly, “I’m afraid we’ve been lousy hosts tonight, Please give us a chance to make it up to you.” She looked pointedly at Laurel and then, oddly, to David, who seemed uncertain what response was expected of him. Edward, on the other hand, seemed to have no compunction about speaking for all three of them.
“We’ll hang around for a while yet.”
Well, Laurel told herself, it wasn’t that she didn’t want to get to know the Sugarmans better. She smiled and kept her mouth shut, wondering if Barry was missing her. Maybe she could slip away, find a telephone, and give Fancy a quick call. Meanwhile, she couldn’t help noticing that Parker was looking at David rather oddly. David, for his part, pretended not to notice, removing his glasses and polishing them on his shirttail. Parker sent a desperate glance at Kendra, who scooped up Darla and announced that they would just put her down for the night and be right back. Laurel took advantage of the moment to ask where she might find a powder room, and was directed to a narrow hallway to one side of the kitchen near the front of the house. Perhaps she’d find a telephone somewhere along the way.
Edward watched as she climbed the steps to the kitchen area, then immediately turned his attention to David Greenlea. “Well,” he demanded abruptly, “what do you think?”
David inclined his head, resettled his glasses and looked at Edward, realizing no doubt that Edward would have liked to use
his fists to permanently plant those glasses in his face. “I think she’s very lovely, very bright, and that I’d like to see a good deal more of her.”
It was all Edward could do not to wring his neck. “Meaning what exactly?”
David tugged his ear, leaned forward and picked up his coffee cup, sipped and set it down again. Taking his time, he settled back, spreading his arm across the space on the sofa where Laurel had been sitting. “Do you really want to know what I think?”
Edward ground his teeth together, managing to get out “Not really, no, but I don’t have much choice. Now do I?”
David smoothed the thigh of his chinos, then abruptly sat forward and pinned Edward with a direct look. “Let me ask you something. Just how far beyond business does your interest in Laurel go?”
Edward frowned. “It doesn’t.”
“Ah.” David sat back again, apparently at his ease. “In that case, I don’t mind telling you that she’s saner than you are.”
“That’s your official diagnosis?” Edward asked sarcastically.
“That’s my official diagnosis. Unofficially, I may as well tell you that I intend to ask her out.”
Edward blanched. He’d sensed, of course, that David was attracted to her, and he suspected that it might be mutual, but confirmation was a little hard to take. He told himself that she deserved better than David Greenlea. He’d never liked David, no matter what Ken and Parker might say, but he was responsible for bringing him here tonight, so what could he say, really, if David wanted to go out with Laurel? It didn’t have anything to do with the case. It wasn’t any of his business. He wondered if Kendra and Parker would speak to him again if he punched out David Greenlea’s lights in their living room. He swallowed down the impulse and several choice words that he couldn’t say, but they didn’t stay down. They climbed right back up his throat and got his tongue in a hammerlock. When he opened his mouth to breathe, they rushed right out.