by Julia London
“Don’t ever be sorry, baby!” her father said. “I’m so proud of you, girl! You finally stood up for yourself, and that’s what I’ve been trying to get across to you these last two years—stand on your own two feet,” he said, and grabbed her in a fierce bear hug, holding her tightly. And when he released her, she thought she saw a glimmer of a tear in his eye, but he quickly turned to Robin. “You could take a page out of her book, you know.” To which Robin groaned as she came to her feet and hugged Rebecca.
“Way to stir up a party!” she said proudly.
“Are you coming with us?” Rebecca asked.
Robin looked at Jake, then both of them looked at Dad, who was beaming at Rebecca. Robin shook her head. “Are you kidding? We can’t wait to see what happens next!”
“We better go,” Matt said low, nodding to where Tom, Doug, and Jeff were making their way through the tables to reach them.
“Yeah, get the hell out of here and enjoy yourselves,” Dad said, and put his hand on Rebecca’s cheek, smiling at her again before pushing her to leave.
Hand in hand, she and Matt walked quickly out of the gates, headed for her truck.
But once they were out of the gate. Matt abruptly stopped her.
“Come on,” she urged him.
“No. I have to say this. I mean, what you did back there . . .” He paused, shook his head, his gray eyes dancing with laughter. “When you take the silk gloves off, you’re one tough cookie. You know, I love how weird you are, how beautiful you are, how righteous you can get. I love everything about you. And I realized tonight when you had the guts to stand up and ask what we’ve all been wondering, that I don’t think I can live without you.”
She laughed, flung her arms around his neck, and kissed him. “And I never loved anyone as much as I loved you when you stood up for me. Thanks for standing by me, Matt.”
“Are you kidding? I should have stood up a long time ago. I knew there’d be trouble the moment I met you, but now I am prepared to follow you all the way to the ends of Planet Rebecca if I must.”
With a grin, she grabbed his hand and tugged. “The way things are going, it might at least be Mexico,” she said, and laughing, they ran for the monster truck.
Chapter Thirty-Five
When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on . . .
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
Robin and Jake brought an enthusiastic Dad back to the lake house with them a couple of hours later, and Rebecca broke out the champagne and ice cream.
Dad looked a hell of a lot better having heard the news of Robin’s pregnancy. After the usual interrogation about marriage and college funds (which earned a groan from everyone), Dad turned his attention to what Rebecca had done, giggling like a schoolboy.
Robin said that Senator Masters spent the rest of the evening going from table to table, frantically assuring his sponsors that he did indeed care about ranchers. And she added that Pat Griswold had asked her to tell Rebecca that she wished she had said it. Dad said again he was so proud of her for standing up, and proclaimed the bastard Tom Masters had it coming, and the five of them laughed and made a game of thinking up new campaign slogans for Masters the Bastard.
But the next afternoon, when her family had left and it was just the three of them again, Matt and Rebecca pored over news from around the state, slowly realizing that they had effectively ruined any political aspirations for Matt. He said he was glad, that he didn’t think he had the stomach for it and thought he could do more good elsewhere.
“Like where?” Rebecca asked.
“I’m not sure,” he said honestly. “But I’d like to give people who don’t have money a chance at decent representation,” he said. “That’s what I want to do.” It helped when Matt’s father called later and asked him about all the flack. He told Matt he was relieved and heartened that his son wouldn’t be going into politics. “I spent my career there, and son, you’re above politics.” he assured him, “You deserve a better life.”
As for Rebecca, she felt exhilarated, scandalized, enlightened, and most importantly, finally and completely free to be herself. She felt shiny and new on the inside. She felt like her own person, one who was less than perfect, the evidence of which was played up in the local papers for several days following the event while she and Matt hid out at the lake house.
It was surprising to her that Matt seemed like a new person, too.
Matt didn’t see how he could ever be the same again having witnessed firsthand what it meant to stand up for one’s principles. Once the furor had died down and he returned to his offices, he quickly began looking into some questions he’d had for a few weeks, particularly after hearing the names Franklin and Vandermere. In the middle of one night, he had awaked with the answer—Franklin and Vandermere was a big road construction firm, and several years ago, they had been party to a lawsuit in which he had been peripherally involved. His memory was that they had paid themselves for contracted work on a toll road near Houston that was never completed. The details were foggy, but he recalled that they were a shady outfit. After the events of that night—the closeness between Rebecca’s ex-husband and Tom, along with Franklin and Vandermere reps, he knew there was something rotten going on, and he was determined to unearth what it was.
While Matt was quietly looking into Tom’s ties to Franklin and Vandermere, Rebecca had begun to pull things out of the old barn in her quest to return to her artistic roots. She told Matt that maybe she would create and sell pottery, or paint for a living until she figured out what she might do, and who knew? At the moment, she was just ecstatically happy being free of the old Rebecca and planning on her life as the new Rebecca.
But a couple of weeks after her astounding fall from grace, Rebecca’s phone rang, and a male voice asked for her. “Ah, Ms. Lear, my name is Russ Erwin, and you and I met at a little candidate deal up there in Georgetown,” his deep voice rang out.
“Yes, of course! I remember it well.”
“Well, now, I’d be less than honest if I said I hadn’t followed with some glee what happened out there at Tom Masters’s big fund-raiser, and I thought I’d just touch base, see if you were interested in coming over to our side. You sound like the type of lady we want.”
Rebecca sank onto a bar stool. “You want me to help you with your campaign? But the election is less than a month away.”
“It’s creeping up, isn’t it? Still, I’d like your help—not without some study on your part, though. What I’d like to do is send you some material, and after you look it over, see what I’m about, maybe you can call with any questions you have and we can decide if there’s a fit, and what sort of place we might have for you in our organization, before and after the election.”
She grinned broadly at Grayson, who was sitting at the bar eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “I’d like that, Mr. Erwin.”
“Please, call me Russ. We’re just a few folk who came together and are trying to do the right thing. Where should I send the material?” he asked.
Rebecca gave him her address, and they talked a little longer about what had happened at the Three Nines Ranch. When she at last hung up, she was thrilled, as was Matt when she called to tell him. “It sounds like a great opportunity,” he agreed.
“But I thought we’d sworn off politics,” she laughingly reminded him.
“No, we’ve sworn off politicians we don’t believe in,” he said. “There’s a big difference.”
“You’re sure you wouldn’t mind if I got involved in another campaign?”
“All I want is for you to be happy, Rebecca,” Matt said. “Whatever it takes.”
She loved that man.
Rebecca did indeed join the Independents and was so immersed in it leading up to the election that she didn’t really notice how much time Matt was putting in at the office.
Matt was pretty immersed himself in two issues: the first, and most important, was to come up with a buy-out plan that Ben could live wit
h. Ben wasn’t exactly anxious to split up, but he agreed with Matt that the time had come to go their philosophical ways. The trauma was too much for Harold, and, having branched out a little with Rebecca during the campaign, decided he had what it took to run a biker coffee shop. Which is precisely what he and Gary moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, to tackle.
To each his own, Matt thought.
The second issue Matt had on his mind was Tom’s campaign, and he quietly, methodically, followed up on his suspicions. In the course of his follow-up, he had a chance to study Tom’s voting record on hundreds of boring bills, and mentally kicked himself for never having done it before, because there were, indeed, some interesting voting patterns.
In the week before the election, Matt packed up his personal belongings, said good-bye to Ben, and stopped by the attorney general’s office on his way out to the lake, where he intended to spend several days, thinking.
That night, he and Rebecca watched TV for a while with Grayson. Tom seemed to be rebounding from the disaster at the fund-raiser as the election entered the eleventh hour, and had bombarded the airwaves with negative ads. Later, when Matt and Rebecca went to bed, he told her about his visit to the attorney general’s office. Rebecca listened quietly, nodding thoughtfully as he explained what he suspected. “That actually explains a lot of things,” she said, but what, exactly, she did not elaborate. “It’s water under the bridge now.”
Over the next few days, the TV stayed off, while Rebecca and Matt took Grayson fishing, or sat out on the dock at dusk, or made deep love in the early-morning hours, after which they would whisper about their future. Matt would have a little one-man office, handle cases for the poor. Rebecca would ease into event planning, but also focus on her art. They would live at the lake, where they could believe they were on top of the world, safe and sound and happy. And then they would talk about a brother for Grayson, or maybe a sister. Or two. Or three. And then they would dissolve into laughter and love again.
On the eve of the election, Matt went to Sam’s Corner Grocery, had a chat with Karen and Dinah, and when he came back to the Flying Pig Lakehouse, Rebecca met him at the door barefoot, wearing shorts, a dirty T-shirt, and her hair in a ponytail. She handed him a beer as he walked in. “We’ve got a new addition,” she told him after he kissed her hungrily.
“A new addition?”
She grabbed his hand and pulling him out back, where Grayson was busily trying to wrestle a small weiner dog and the hose that Bean was unwittingly lying on. “Meet Radish,” she said, smiling.
“Radish? What kind of name is that for a dog?” he exclaimed, and went to help Grayson tackle the feisty little dog while the regular slackers just lay there, panting indifferently.
Inside, on the TV Rebecca had left on when she spotted the little dog, an image of Tom Masters surrounded by lawyers, walking into some courthouse, flashed across the screen.
“In a startling development on the eve of the statewide election,” the announcer intoned over the images, “Senator Tom Masters was brought in this morning for questioning about an alleged series of kickbacks from the Franklin and Vandermere Construction Firm in exchange for state contracts. Sources tell us that in addition to Franklin and Vandermere, other notable firms, such as Reynolds Chevrolet and Cadillac, may also have been involved. An unnamed source at the attorney general’s office claims that there is enough evidence to show that the senator solicited contributions from other major Texas corporations with the promise of billions of dollars worth of contracts and a prearranged kickbacks, should he be elected lieutenant governor. Early voting has concluded and the polls open at seven a.m. . . . ”
Chapter Thirty-Six
The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning . . .
IVY BAKER PRIEST
Bonnie was home from Seattle, had finished putting her things away and going through her mail. She had just picked up the phone to call Robin and let her know she was home when she heard the doorbell ring.
Bonnie put down the phone and walked to the door, opened up the peephole, and peered out. Then shut it. And stared helplessly at the door, pressing one arm against it to hold herself up. After a long moment, she straightened and opened the door. “Hello, Aaron,” she said. But even as angry as she was, she couldn’t help noticing how gray he looked.
“Just give me five minutes,” he said, holding up an aged arm to keep her from shutting the door in his face. “That’s all I’m asking, Bonnie. Please.”
“I asked you not to come here,” she said angrily as the tears burned in the back of her eyes.
“I know,” he said, lowering his arm. He looked old, she thought. “But I couldn’t stay away, Bonnie. I couldn’t just . . . fade away without talking to you, if even for the last time. Please listen. And after you’ve heard what I have to say, if you want me to go. You have my word, I’ll go, and I won’t bother you again. Ever. I swear it.”
Bonnie stared at him, wondered how many times in her life would they do this. Ten? Twenty? But looking at him now—How ill he looks—she still couldn’t bring herself to shut the door in his face and move on with her life. More than thirty years had gone by, thirty up and down years, and she couldn’t let go of them, no matter how badly she wanted to.
Slowly, reluctantly, she stepped back so that he could come in. “Five minutes, Aaron. That’s all,” she said, knowing the moment that the words were out of her mouth that it would never be all, not until they both had gone into that long, long night.
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Miss Fortune (Book Three)
FORKLIFT DAMAGES PRICELESS ARTIFACTS
By Mary Finnegan
NEWPORT, Aug. 21—A priceless Revolutionary-era hutch, inlaid with gold and ivory, as well as some china bowls and plates, on loan to the Rhode Island Historical Preservation Society (RIHPS) from the Hamblen family, were damaged beyond repair last week when a forklift, involved in the repair of the foundation of the historical Botwick House in Newport, Rhode Island, collided with an exterior wall.
An assistant curator, Professor Myron Tidwell, 38, said that in the course of repairing the foundation, the forklift gears jammed and the front loader hit the wall, damaging the contents inside. “We are assessing the incident now,” Professor Tidwell said. “If we find the driver was at fault, we will take appropriate action, but at the moment, it looks like a tragic accident and a loss to America of precious pre–Revolutionary War artifacts.
“The loss value of the hutch and china could very well be in the thousands. The damage to the structure could likewise be costly. We are quantifying the claim,” Tidwell said. The RIHPS insures its structures and their contents.
Chapter One
New York City
They were seated in two overstuffed chairs that put their heads below that of the marriage therapist across from them, who, with his legs comfortably crossed, drummed idly on the armrest as he peered down at his notes.
Aaron Lear thought this guy probably liked this setup, lording himself over all the poor slobs who couldn’t make their relationships with even their underwear work. His name was Daniel (he preferred the use of first names), and he was wearing a custom-made suit and square matchbox glasses. He had a dozen or more certificates framed and hung on the wall behind him, and boxes of tissue on every conceivable surface.
Frankly, Aaron hated him and his psycho-crap and how he looked down his nose and asked them to describe their feelings. Honestly, Aaron couldn’t say which was worse—enduring the pain and sickness and overwhelming disappointment of having to undergo chemo and radiation again for a cancer that had come back with a vengeance? Or that he had to share his feelings? Either way, it all led to the same, mortal conclusion, and he preferred not to sit around pondering the inevitability of his life coming to an end.
He was a year away from being only sixty years old and he still had too much to do.
Granted, in the last two years he had seen his oldest two daughters find lov
e and contentment, which was his most pressing pre-death desire. But he still had another daughter who needed him, the most hapless of his girls, his baby, Rachel. She hadn’t found her way in life. How could he go before he had seen her through to . . . something?
And of course there was Bonnie, the love of his life, the mother of his children, the woman he had treated like shit for more than thirty years, which, incidentally, was why they were sitting here waiting for Daniel the Overpriced Therapist to review some notes.
Actually, Aaron still thought it pretty remarkable that he and Bonnie had reconciled. The day he had strapped on a pair of balls and gone to Los Angeles to beg her to give him one more chance he didn’t deserve, he’d seen her face and knew at once he’d do anything. He’d seen the beautiful blue eyes that still glistened after all these years, the shiny dark hair with just a hint of gray . . . and the unforgiving set of her jaw.
That was the moment he’d known she’d not allow him back into her life, would not sully one more day with him. Frankly, he’d been more certain of that than he had been that the cancer had returned.
But somehow—perhaps through divine intervention, who knew?—Bonnie had let him in one last time. But with concessions. A host of them he couldn’t really recall right now except for the pompous ass seated across from them.
The pompous ass must have felt Aaron’s despising vibes, because he looked up, smiled and said, “We did some good work Monday. We learned about our mutual feelings surrounding the first separation, didn’t we?”
Bonnie nodded. Aaron just glared at him