by Nancy Bush
“Which way?” He pushed against hers.
She held him back and stated coldly, “This your way to win me over about Stonehenge?”
He chuckled. “I don’t really care what you think about selling Wolfe Lodge to me. You and your sister think you have so much power, and the deal’s done. I was just being polite, acting like I cared what you thought.”
“Why did you buy the painting?” she sputtered.
“Your father thinks I’m a savior. Your brother, too. I figured why not add to that cred. And Grassley was so obviously eager to prove something to you, or maybe your family, by buying it that I had to shut him down.”
“You had to,” she repeated.
“So, now I’m thinking a little fifty-fifty here,” he suggested. “I do something nice for you, you do something nice for me.”
She very deliberately picked up his hand and shoved it away from her. For half a second, she thought he was going to grab at her again, but instead he shrugged.
When she set her jaw and stared through the windshield, calculating how long it would be before they reached her home, he tsk-tsked with his tongue, then said, long-suffering, “Now you’re going to be mad, right?”
She could feel tears burning behind her eyes, but she’d be damned if she let him see. Why did she always pick the wrong guys? Even for a ride home. It was humiliating how good she’d felt in those few moments when she’d thought she had some power over Neil and Courtney.
She stopped talking. He hadn’t made his move on her until they were over an hour into the ride. Somehow, she managed to hold it together until he pulled up in front of the coffee shop below her condo. She jumped out, having to pull at the handle twice in her haste, fearing for a wild moment that he’d locked her in, but finally the door opened, and he chuckled at her terror.
Face burning, she managed a tight, “Thank you,” racing to the door with the steps that led to the second floor.
“My pleasure . . .” were the words that followed her.
Ducking her head against a light drizzle, feeling exposed and vulnerable, she used her key fob and pushed through the door, hurrying inside. She closed the door behind her and took the stairs to the second floor. She half-screamed at finding a man standing outside her door, a backpack slung over one shoulder and slumped against the wall.
“Oh, shit. Ian,” she said, recognizing him belatedly.
“Hey, babe.”
She collected herself with an effort. “How’d you get in the outside door?”
“Had to stand in the rain till someone took pity on me.” She saw then that his man bun had been drenched. “That old guy on three recognized me.” His eyes slid over her. “You look good.”
She was so discombobulated, all she could do was nod jerkily. Pulling out her keys, she slid the one for her condo into the lock, pushing the door open. She didn’t want to deal with Ian. She wanted to be alone.
But she couldn’t just slam the door in his face. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Well, I wanted to see you. I just ... missed you.”
“Yeah?” She stood in the doorway, looking out at him.
“Yeah.”
He had a bedraggled-cat-in-the-rain quality that got to her even when she knew it shouldn’t. “Why now?”
“Can I come in for a little while?”
It was after ten o’clock, climbing to eleven. Not horribly late for a Saturday night, but Layla felt like she’d been on a marathon of keeping up appearances. All she wanted to do was lock herself in and think over the events of the evening, try to pick through what had really happened.
But Ian had never been a guy who made her feel small, or scared, or a pawn in some larger game. She opened the door wider.
“Thanks,” he said in relief, dropping the backpack near her couch. He was sporting a new blondish goatee that was also dewed with rain.
She had a feeling he was looking for a place to crash and she was an easy mark. “I’m going to bed. You can have the foldout,” she said, pointing to the couch.
He lifted his hands. “Thanks, Lay. I mean it.”
Sure thing.
“You look great in that, by the way.” He indicated her jumpsuit. “You dieting?”
“Just not able to eat.”
She left him sorting out the hide-a-bed, and fifteen minutes later, she lay in her own bed, staring at the ceiling. She grabbed the extra pillow and placed it over her own face, fighting back the urge to emit a primal scream.
* * *
Kate listened to Lyle’s breathing, which was uneven at best. He was on the edge of wakefulness and she didn’t dare grab his phone until he was fast asleep.
Though the Denim and Diamonds benefit hadn’t been the debacle she’d feared after John had gotten sick—she’d expected his possible food poisoning to ripple through the crowd at some point and scare them all silly, which hadn’t happened, thank you, God!—neither had it been a rousing success. While no one else came down with the same symptoms of whatever he’d caught—undoubtedly some bad germ—the crowd seemed fairly restrained, enjoying themselves but not with the energy she’d hoped for.
The auction had proved a success, though, and Kate was still reeling over the fact that Jerome Wolfe had purchased Layla’s painting for twelve thousand dollars! For God’s sake, was the man made of money? Layla had seemed more stricken than happy at first, though maybe that had to do with the fact that Neil Grassley seemed to be squiring around a new woman. Kate couldn’t decide what she felt about that. The new woman was pretty enough, but she didn’t hold a candle to Layla, especially since her weight loss. Or maybe it was just that Layla looked like a country western star in that getup.
Maybe she should have gotten Naomi, the surrogate’s, number from Layla when she’d first offered it to her. Because Lyle had given her the cold shoulder almost as soon as Kate had slipped beneath the covers. No sex tonight, although she’d tried her damnedest, squeezing close, cuddling, massaging his limp penis for all she was worth. She’d had a mental picture of her fertility falling from a tap and circling the drain as Lyle ignored every desperate attempt she made to get his juices flowing. But she’d lost that battle. The wine she’d purposely plied him with—which, yes, she should have thought through more—had won out. Alcohol had never been Lyle’s friend in the bedroom.
Kate stewed on that a moment or two longer, feeling low and miserable, until she kicked herself back to reality. Why should she expect to get pregnant this time, when they’d had oodles of earlier chances that hadn’t panned out?
She thought back to the benefit, reminding herself that John’s illness hadn’t completely derailed its success. All the same, that didn’t mean Kate was out of the woods just yet. She shuddered at the possible headlines she could see over the next few days. As much as she’d looked forward to the event, now she wanted it to pass through the news cycle in a hurry.
As she fretted, Lyle rolled onto his side. His breathing slowed, began evening out. Okay, well. The night wasn’t a complete bust if she could get into his text and email lists. His cell was on the nightstand, inches from his hand.
Kate eased out of bed and stood for a moment in the semidarkness. Faint illumination from their outdoor lighting slipped through a crack in the curtains that covered the French doors leading to their back deck and yard. The house was Craftsman style, small but recently updated. In fact, that renovation had brought the taxman around and, of course, he’d noticed their new kitchen at once. The man’s weaselly, prying eyes had led to him scratching out some numbers, even though Kate had tried hard not to give him too much information. Didn’t matter. He’d ended up calculating their renovation costs on the high end, and their property taxes had zoomed up. Highway robbery, that’s what it was. Everybody with their hand out. Lyle had shrugged and said it was the price of living in an area with good schools. She’d nearly had a conniption fit right then and there. Good schools? Good schools? What was he thinking? She worked at a private school, for Pete’s sake. Where
was the tax break for them?
Her breath started coming faster at the thought, and she took a couple of moments to calm herself down. Wouldn’t do to wake Lyle up. Wouldn’t do at all. She tiptoed around the bed and gently lifted the phone. She then let herself out of the bedroom as quietly as she could and moved down the hall to the main bathroom, tucked herself inside.
Switching on the light, she tried a few last numbers and suddenly voilà, the screen showed all the icons for his apps. Yes! She pressed the little cartoon bubble that indicated texts and the screen opened to his list of last messages. She recognized many of the names and was curious about what he’d texted with Abbott and John, but she was more interested in what he’d sent to Pat.
Pat.
Kate unconsciously ground her teeth together. This person—this evil person—was at the root of her problems with Lyle.
Not problems, she reminded herself immediately. This was just a momentary speed bump along the highway of her marriage. It was nothing. A little slowdown she was going to fix.
Unfortunately, a quick scan didn’t list any Pat. There were several messages that were listed from just initials, so she looked for a “P,” but, again, there was nothing. Well, of course. That had been their little joke—way back when. She sorted through the texts from most recent to further back, her hands growing a little slippery as she sweated from tension. If Lyle should wake up and see his phone was gone ...
But that didn’t bear thinking about.
She checked several text chains from people he seemed to know through business. She tried to see if any of them could be Pat, but it didn’t seem so. A text chain with the initials LP was likely from a woman—there was a reference to a pink scarf sometime back, which put new meaning to the meeting Lyle and she had scheduled for Monday at two p.m. at, of all places, the Pembroke Inn.
Jealousy ran through Kate’s veins like green poison, but though she read that text chain three times, trying to absorb the tone, she couldn’t rightly say it was romantic. It appeared to be a series of meetings, the pink scarf being a clue to LP’s identity. Maybe they hadn’t known each other that well. Or maybe that was the way they made it look on purpose. To throw anyone off who happened to view it.
Or maybe it was a blind assignation, a quick fuck with a stranger.
“Mom?”
The phone squirted from her fingers at the sound of her name from behind the bathroom door. She juggled frantically, trying to catch it. Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. She managed to catch it by her fingertips before it got completely away, and she drew it in to her chest like a wide receiver cradled a football, her heart pounding so hard it hurt.
“What?” she whispered through the panels to Daphne.
“I don’t feel good.”
Kate set the phone on the counter and cracked open the door. “What’s wrong?” she asked, trying not to sound impatient. She had to get the phone back before Lyle woke up.
“My stomach hurts.”
Kate’s own stomach clenched. Oh no. Was this the same thing John came down with? Maybe something Daphne had gotten from Evie? Please no.
“Well, come in here,” she said, drawing Daphne inside. “If you have to throw up, just go ahead. I’ll be right back.” She swept up the phone and headed down the hall.
“But you’ll come back?” she called, as if she needed reassurance.
Kate nodded, waving at Daphne to keep quiet.
Slipping inside the bedroom once more, she listened for Lyle’s breathing, barely able to hear it over her thundering heart. She realized he was still fast asleep, and she tiptoed back to his nightstand, replaced the phone, then softly retraced her footsteps to the hallway, willing her heart rate to decelerate.
When she got back to the bathroom, Daphne was lying on the bath mat in the fetal position.
“Oh, sweetie,” Kate said, brushing back her child’s hair. Now that the phone was safely away, she could concentrate on her daughter, though her mind was racing along its own course. Could the Monday meeting at the Pembroke be with Pat? And could Pat be Patricia, who’d once worked at Crissman & Wolfe? Why would the initials be LP? Was it a middle name, something like Linda Pat?
It would be easy enough to find out if she could figure out a way to be at the Pembroke in disguise and see who showed up.
“I don’t think I’m gonna throw up,” Daphne said.
“Oh, honey. Okay.”
Daphne shuffled to the toilet but curled up on the floor again.
After several moments, Kate asked, “Do you want to go back to your room? I can bring you a bucket, just in case.”
“Okay.”
Daphne slowly got to her feet and walked back to her bed. Kate tucked her in, then hurried to the kitchen, finding the white plastic bucket she kept under the sink. She quickly brought it back to her daughter, who was still lying down.
When upchucking didn’t seem imminent, Kate moved to the door. “If you need me, just call. I’ll leave both your door and mine open.”
“Okay.”
As Kate turned to leave, Daphne asked, “Mom? What were you doing with Dad’s phone?”
Chapter Sixteen
Lucy sat at the dining room table, her chin propped on her hand, regarding the remains of breakfast after she’d rushed out to take Evie to school, leaving John in bed. This norovirus was much worse than she’d initially imagined—coming out of both ends, as it were—and yes, she believed it was the norovirus, because no one else had gotten sick at Saturday night’s benefit and it had been practically a week. Of course, someone could come down with the norovirus at any time—it was highly contagious—but as far as she knew, that hadn’t happened yet. Kate had said Daphne had been ill on Saturday, but she hadn’t thrown up or shown other symptoms, so that didn’t seem to be part of the equation. John had gotten better for a few days, so she’d thought maybe the worst had passed, but now he didn’t want to get out of bed.
Maybe John had picked up the germ somewhere else. Lucy had quizzed him about his whereabouts and who he was with prior to the benefit, but he was too sick to do much more than wave her off . . . or make another snide comment about “the bartender.” She was really getting tired of that. He didn’t even know what had really transpired, and Lucy had zero motivation to tell him. She had no defense for her actions, and she certainly regretted them, but did they need a total postmortem? He knew she’d done something and for the moment, that was good enough for both of them. She’d made a poor choice. If he wanted a full accounting when he was well, she’d see about it then. For now, she just wanted him better. If it was the norovirus, three days was usually the worst of it. She was counting the minutes.
Picking up several dirty plates, she carried them to the sink, her mind moving on to her next problem. She was going to have to quit her job. There was nothing for her there any longer. Her father and brother had begun treating her like an outsider even before this downsizing of the company and the pending sale of Stonehenge. So, fine, she would be the outsider. Layla had made herself a life away from the family business; so would she.
Layla.
Lucy felt guilty about ditching Layla to face Neil and his new girlfriend alone, but criminy—that was her new word; old-fashioned but expressing just the right amount of mild frustration to get the point across without hitting the bitch range—she had enough problems of her own. And anyway, Layla had seemed fine when Lucy called to apologize. She said she’d gotten a ride home with someone at the benefit but hadn’t elaborated when Lucy had said she was sorry for running out on her, even though she’d had a good reason.
Layla had told her not to worry. Everything had worked out, which had eased Lucy’s guilt, but there was something odd in her sister’s tone, something she’d asked about but Layla had brushed off.
“I’m going back to Dallas Denton on Wednesday,” Layla had said, changing the subject. “I want to move ahead with the lawsuit full-bore. Neil is trying to be nice, and that’s almost worse than when he puts his cards on th
e table.”
Dallas Denton. Lucy had winced at the name. With everything else going on, she had pushed that piece aside, but every time Layla mentioned Dallas’s name it was like microphone feedback, screeching in her ears. She wanted to clap her hands over her ears and moan.
Dallas Denton. He whose name could never be mentioned.
But now he had entered her circle of acquaintances and friends. Her sister’s lawyer no less. She tried speaking his name as she put soap in the dishwasher and hit the Start button. “Dallas Denton.”
It wasn’t so bad ... was it so bad? No. It was a long time ago, and she had other worries now.
And let’s face it, he’d given her Evie.
Walking to the bathroom, she looked at herself in the mirror. She squinched up her face, examining the lines around her eyes. Not too many. She had to work pretty hard to make them appear, thank God. Still, she’d barely been more than a kid when she’d connected with Dallas. A freshman at Oregon State University. Over ten years ago. At a fraternity party no less.
She’d gone to the party reluctantly, attending with a long-ago friend who’d begged her to go, though in truth that friend had only wanted to be with her boyfriend. She’d promised Lucy she wouldn’t just lock herself in a room with him, which is exactly what ended up happening. So, Lucy had wandered through the house, alone and somewhat morose, ready to leave and walk back to the dorm alone. That’s when she noticed Dallas Denton, who apparently wasn’t a fraternity brother, but she hadn’t learned that till later. She knew he was older—quite a bit older, as it turned out—and she’d learned later that he’d been there, much like she had, at the behest of a friend who was trying to corral his younger brother, a frat boy who loved every bad thing there was about being a frat boy. Dallas had agreed to try to help the friend with his brother, only it hadn’t worked out that way as, not so many months later, said brother ended up getting in trouble for hazing and was subsequently kicked out of the fraternity and the university.
What Lucy noticed that night was that Dallas Denton was tall, dark, handsome, and serious. The seriousness was something she prized in a man, and it was in short supply among the first-year boys she met on campus. Dallas’s sense of gravitas even while he smiled and joked with the other guys drew her to him. He was having a beer from the tapped keg, drinking from a plastic cup. He wasn’t guzzling it. He wasn’t acting crude or rude or dumb. A number of girls came up to him and tried to win his attention, but though he was polite, he didn’t give them any encouragement, so most of them drifted away, looking back hopefully to see if he might notice them, but he never did.