After that first moment of shock at seeing her, his eyes turned as cold as blue Arctic ice. Before she’d been able to utter a word to him, he snapped out a clipped, “Nice to see you again,” and spun away on his heel. Since then, he ignored her, but she could sense the contempt and anger radiating off him, even from across the store. It infuriated her that she was still so attuned to him that she could tell without looking just what he was feeling.
What the hell did he have to be angry about? He must have thought he could keep his nefarious behavior a secret. Did he even know she called and ended up talking to his snotty fiancée? Probably not. If he did, he wouldn’t have bombarded her parents’ mailbox with all those letters for the next year.
For a moment she wondered again just what was in them. Not for the first time she regretted not reading them; she’d still like to know what pretty lies they’d contained. The conceited bastard was probably mad she had enough sense not to believe them. Well, fuck him and the guitar he rode in on.
An anxious glance at the clock showed her there were only fifteen minutes left before the signing would be over. Good. Get the band out and back to wherever they were headed next, let the crowd thin, and then her life could go back to normal. Derek would go on his merry way and she need never think of him again. Until she looked at Elizabeth and saw his eyes. And his hair. And that little half smile. Damn it.
Before she could stop herself, she looked toward the table where the band held court. Despite her anger at Derek, she admired the way they were handling things. At that moment they were not only signing autographs and carrying on conversations with excited fans, but fielding questions from a reporter from the local newspaper and a disc jockey from the campus radio station. It had been that way all day, with media outlets who never acted as if they knew Stax of Wax existed stampeding through the store trying to cash in on the band’s appearance. Though Athena was glad for the free publicity that would result, she kept their exposure to the band at a minimum so the guys could focus on the people who lined up to see them and buy their records. Those were the people who would come back to the store while she doubted she’d see representatives from those radio stations and newspapers again unless they wanted to sell her advertising.
A waving hand caught her attention, and she looked up to find the band’s manager, Simon Cooper, beckoning to her. She wove her way through the crowd to where he stood just behind the band.
“Excellent turn out today, love.” He slipped an arm around her and squeezed. After a rocky start, Simon had been one of her biggest supporters during that blissful summer. “But here’s the scoop. When we’ve wrapped this up we’re going to have the lads head upstairs to the offices, right? Then the bus will leave – empty – to draw attention away from the store.”
“Good thinking.” She cast an eye over the throngs of people crowding the aisles. “I’ll have Hal go out in a minute to try to disperse some of the crowd still outside.”
“Lovely.” Simon nodded. “After things calm down a bit we’ll call some cabs to take us to the motel.”
“Okay.” She noticed the disc jockey had left but the newspaper guy was still buzzing around the band. “Let me get rid of the reporter and then we’ll wrap things up.”
“Have at it. I’ll go speak to the driver.”
As Simon headed to the back of the store, Athena moved forward and touched the reporter on the arm.
“Hi, there. I hope you got everything you need, because the guys will be leaving in a minute.” As she spoke she used a gentle but firm touch to pull him away from the band. “We really appreciate you coming out today to cover the event, and I can’t wait to read the story.”
The young man’s look was anything but friendly. “And just who are you?”
Despite his hostility, she kept her smile calm and warm. “I’m Athena Chandler, the store manager.” Her peripheral vision caught movement as Derek turned his head in their direction, but she kept smiling at the reporter. “Be sure to call me if you need anything else. Again, we really appreciate your covering the event today. Shall I have one of my employees help you navigate the crowd?”
The reporter’s lips firmed with annoyance for a moment before he heaved a defeated sigh. “No, I can find my own way out.”
“Cool.” Athena turned him toward the door. “Looking forward to your write up.”
Thus dismissed, the reporter headed for the entrance. Athena beckoned to Hal, the store’s only other full-time employee besides herself, and pulled him to one side.
“Okay, here’s the fun part,” she told him. “You get to go outside and tell everyone who didn’t make it in that the event’s over and the band’s leaving.”
“I can’t wait,” he deadpanned.
Athena grinned. “You have the easy part. I have to disappoint all these people in here. On your way out, grab Buckshot and have him stand by the door to make sure no records that haven’t been paid for get smuggled out, and I’ll have Wally, Jeremy and Casey keep an eye out in here.”
Hal sighed and squared his shoulders. “We who are about to die salute you,” he said and headed for the door.
It took only a few minutes to get her troops into place, and as soon as everything was ready Athena stepped between the last person who had reached Ian and the next person in line.
“Excuse me! Can I have your attention, please?” She waved her arms for maximum effect and cringed at the way her dress rode up her thighs. “Thank you all for coming out today, but unfortunately we’ve reached the end of our time and Wolf has to be leaving.”
A sea of protest erupted and Athena gave it a few moments to run its course. Before it became too heated, she raised her voice again. “I know, and I’m sorry not everyone got to meet the band. But they do have other obligations and have to get on the road.” She heard the sounds of folding chairs behind her pushed back and was relieved the band was backing up her statements by preparing to leave. “Feel free to stick around and shop or just hang out, and thanks again for coming.”
With a last meaningful look at her employees, Athena turned to usher the band out so she could return to the store and help ride herd. Rondall waylaid her near the cash register.
“You go on up with them and I’ll take care of things out here.”
Panic made her heart beat faster. “No, that’s okay, I…”
“I’d rather,” he interrupted. “They kind of make me nervous. Besides, it’ll give you a little time to catch up with them before they leave.” He tilted his head to one side. “Why didn’t you tell me you know them when I booked this?”
She squirmed under his curious regard. “It was a long time ago, and only just for a summer. I didn’t think they’d even remember me.”
“Well, they do.” He patted her on the shoulder in dismissal. “Go on up and reminisce and I’ll watch the store.”
Feet dragging, she followed the band into the back room and up the narrow stairs that led to the offices. Only one of the five rooms was in use as Athena’s office; the other four, though still crowded with furniture from the bank that formerly owned the building, were covered in dust and crammed with junk that had accumulated over the years.
“You can wait in my office,” she told them. “It’s cluttered, but at least it’s clean.”
She opened the door and they filed in, collapsing on the sagging plaid sofa against one wall. Paul grinned up at her and stretched his legs out in front of him.
“You wouldn’t happen to have any beers, would you?”
Athena gave him a wide-eyed stare of amusement. “No, I don’t think it’s a good idea to have my underage employees drinking on the job. I can get you a Coke, though.”
“Coke’s good,” he laughed.
“Excellent. Anyone else?”
Of course, they all wanted Cokes, and Derek added a request as she was leaving the room. “Can you bring an ashtray, too?”
“No problem,” she said, avoiding his eyes.
By using the key to the
vending machine, she procured the requested beverages and took them upstairs. She handed a bottle to each of them and then steeled herself to face Derek.
“Come with me and I’ll show you where you can smoke.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Why can’t I stay in here?”
By taking a deep breath she was able to subdue the cutting comment that bubbled to her lips at Derek’s confrontational tone. “Rondall’s allergic to cigarette smoke,” she explained in a tone she might use to teach the alphabet to toddlers. “And there’s no window in here. When he comes to the store he uses this office, too, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to make him sick in his own place of business.”
He pinned her with an annoyed blue gaze. “Right.” Derek handed his beverage to Paul and heaved himself off the sofa. “Lead on.”
To keep the smoke as far away from her office as possible, Athena led him to an unused room at the other end of the hall. It was unnerving to have him behind her; she could almost feel his eyes on her and her spine stiffened in response. She swept into the dusty office with feigned nonchalance and strode to the window. To her knowledge, none of the upstairs windows had been opened since before she started working there, and this one was stuck fast. After checking to make sure it wasn’t painted shut, she tried tugging on it again.
“When exactly did you get the stick up your arse?”
Damn it. She knew he’d been watching her walk down the hall. The suppressed amusement in his voice waved a red cape in front of her strained temper. “Screw you,” she muttered as she side-stepped to the next window to try her luck with it. A gray cloud of dust was stirred by her movements, and she pressed a finger under her nose to halt the resultant sneeze.
“You weren’t so uptight the last time I saw you.” No amusement in his voice now. Now he sounded pissed. “Perhaps it’s just one of the by-products of your marriage.”
Athena pressed her lips together, but couldn’t stop the sarcastic comment that refused to be contained. “Not that you’d know about that, right?”
“Touchy.” Derek lit a cigarette and smoke swirled around her to join the dust cloud. “So touchy you’re not even making sense.”
Transferring her anger to the recalcitrant window, she gave it a mighty heave. With a shriek of wood on wood, it deigned to go up a couple of inches and she called it good.
“When’d you get married?” No amusement, no anger, just a bored indifference this time.
“Who says I’m married?” She dusted off her hands and wiped a bead of perspiration off her forehead. A wary glance in his direction found him regarding her with narrowed eyes.
“You told the reporter your name is Athena Chandler. The girl I knew was called Athena Hill.”
“I used to be married,” she said with clenched jaw, the strength of her reluctance to divulge her personal business rivaling that of the stuck window. “Now I’m divorced. Any more questions? And blow that smoke out the window, please.”
With a sigh, he moved to the window and she was quick to back out of his way.
His eyes narrowed further. “I’m not going to bite, you know.” He studied the dirty windowsill with a grimace, and then set the small ashtray on one side. With quick swipes of his hand, he brushed dust from the other side before leaning against it. “And yes, I do have more questions, except you haven’t answered my first one yet. When did you get married?”
“Why is it important?” she snapped. As far as she was concerned, he’d lost any right to know about her personal life the minute he got engaged to someone else.
“It just bloody is, okay?” It was clear his temper joined hers in straining its leash. It appeared he had changed in the years since she’d last seen him. The Derek she knew had the ability to remain unruffled in almost all situations when everyone else was falling apart, and rarely lost his temper. “When?”
“November.” She squirmed under that blue gaze, sudden guilt twisting in her belly. From the moment she’d seen her daughter in the hospital, she’d known the little girl would look just like Derek. Seeing him again in the flesh made it more apparent how much Elizabeth resembled him. Despite her anger at him, it hit her how wrong she was to keep it from him that he had a child. If he kept pressing her for information he was bound to figure things out, but she didn’t want him to find out like that. Just how she wanted to impart such news she wasn’t sure, but she knew it shouldn’t be when they were both angry.
“This past November? And you’re already divorced?” He must have picked up pointers from the news reporter downstairs, or maybe he had experience in being interrogated by law enforcement. Whatever it was, he was putting some tenacious questioning techniques to use. “Let me guess. You stopped talking to him, refused to communicate in any way until he buggered off. Right?”
Rage flashed through her, hot and scalding. He was talking about those letters she never answered. How dare he try to turn everything back on her? “We got married in 1967 and got divorced in 1968 when he just took off one day. Happy now?” So much for keeping her personal business under wraps.
“You got married two months after you left England?” His hip bumped the bottom of the window as he straightened with a jerk, and it slammed shut, knocking the ashtray to the floor. Venom colored his voice acid green. “You didn’t waste any time, did you?”
Wound up and ticking, she answered with venom of her own. “I waited longer than you did, baby.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean? I’ve never been married.” Ignoring the ashtray, he dropped his half-smoked cigarette to the peeling linoleum floor and crushed it out with his heel.
“Oh, really? What happened? Did you leave poor Tina at the altar or something?”
Profound bewilderment clouded his face. “Who the fuck is Tina?”
Athena forced a humorless laugh. “Have there been so many you can’t remember their names? Tina is the one who broke the news of your impending nuptials when I spent every last dime I had to make a transatlantic phone call to you. And that was in October 1967, so you beat me by at least a month. Geez, Derek; you must have proposed to her the day I left.”
“You have gone completely daft. The only person I ever proposed to was you, and I don’t know anyone called Tina.”
“Oh, right.” Athena rolled her eyes. “So why is it when I called you that day she answered the phone in your flat and told me you were her fiancé and that she didn’t care for strange women communicating with you?” To her disgust, hot tears stung her eyes and she made haste to blink them away.
“I still have no bleedin’ idea what you’re talk-“ He broke off as a look of enlightenment widened his eyes. “…-ing about,” he finished in a hushed voice. “Tina.” His mouth firmed beneath his moustache. “She was Janie’s friend from school. They stayed in my flat weekends when I was on the road. I only ever spoke about five words to her the whole time Janie knew her and I sure as hell was never her fiancé!”
“What?” Athena took a step back, her hands crossed in protection over her heart. “You weren’t engaged to her?”
“Hell, no, I wasn’t engaged to her! She was just one of my sister’s friends, and I never knew her.”
Confused thoughts swirled like startled bats in her brain, and her eyes darted around the room as though searching for truth. “But she told me you were. She said you were her fiancé, and I …”
“And you believed her,” Derek interrupted with a sneer. “Just wrote me off because of something some crazy bitch told you over the telephone. Christ, Athena! Thanks a lot for thinking I was the kind of person who would be in love with you one day and get engaged to someone else the next.”
She sat down abruptly on the edge of the desk, unmindful of the thick coating of dust and what it might do to Andi’s dress. Her heart galloped in her chest at the realization that she’d been played for a fool, and because of it she’d made the most colossal mistake of her life. Sure, she’d been confused and scared by her unexpected pregnancy, but why was she s
o quick to think Derek would do something so callous as to throw her over?
“I didn’t know,” she said in a scratchy voice. “It was a hard time for me and she was so adamant about it.” A lump formed in her throat and she squeezed the words past it. “I’m sorry.”
Derek shook his head. “Too late for sorry, Athena. You should have rang again or written to me. Damn it, you should have asked me instead of being so quick to believe the worst about me! If you hadn’t sent my letters back…”
“I didn’t,” she interrupted. “Steve did.”
“Who is Steve? The concerned husband? No matter who sent them back, really. The point is that they were all unopened. If you’d taken a few moments out of your busy life to just read them, you’d have known there was no one but you. But no; you couldn’t even be bothered to open the envelopes!”
“We weren’t here,” she tried to explain. “We were in New Mexico and we didn’t come back to Memphis until after Elizabeth was born…” She stopped in horror at her slip.
Derek froze for a moment, and then closed his eyes. “You have a child.” It was more statement than question. “And when did that happen?”
Here it came. He was going to detonate when he put two and two together. “She’s six.”
His foot hit the ashtray and it skittered across the floor as he stomped toward the door. “You really didn’t waste any time, did you? Well, thanks for immediately thinking the worst of me, marrying someone else a scant month later and having his child. Nice catching up with you.”
“Derek…”
Without acknowledging her further, he left the room.
CHAPTER FIVE
London; June 19, 1967
Athena looked into the small mirror resting on her bed as she swirled her blush brush over her cheeks. The part of her mind not occupied with applying makeup ticked through a mental list of Things To Do, including packing, finding a train station, and deciding where to go next. Though she loved the freedom to make her own decisions and chart her own course, it would still be a good idea to sit down and make a rough schedule of her remaining time in the UK. There was so much she wanted to see, and if she allowed herself to just drift around she was sure to miss something.
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