The bed was empty. The room was empty. He flipped on the light, staring in disbelief. Where the hell was she? If she'd been downstairs Eric or Tony would have called him. His stomach knotted again, and apprehension made his stride unsteady as he whirled and headed for the stairs.
Something terrible had been wrong with her. She'd gotten worse, maybe had to call for help, or, worse yet, tried to go herself. And he, damn him, had been out on the town, leaving her here alone and hurting. There had to be a note downstairs somewhere, telling him what had happened.
There was nothing. He checked the kitchen, the entry table and the breakfast bar, where most of the paper clutter of his life wound up. The moment he explained, Eric and Tony dug into the search, with equally negative results. Tony checked the answering machine while Trace called his service. No messages.
"The paramedics?" Eric asked tentatively.
Trace closed his eyes in pain. "Maybe. God, maybe." He tried to dial, but Tony took the phone from his unsteady hand and made the call himself.
"They haven't been here," he said as he hung up, "but they gave me the numbers for all the nearest hospitals and clinics. I'll start calling."
"But how the hell would she have gotten there?" Trace was pacing now, neither knowing nor caring that his every thought, his every fear, was written clearly on his face.
"Your car was here, wasn't it?" Eric gestured toward the garage, and Trace ran to pull open the interior door. The silver coupe, bought for little reason other than that the color reminded him of her eyes, sat in its usual spot.
"Damn," Trace muttered. It wouldn't have helped, but it would have been a place to start.
"What exactly did she say was wrong?" Eric asked.
"Nothing much. Just that she didn't feel too well and wanted to lie down."
"No headache, nausea, anything?"
"No. Just tired." Trace flushed. "We … didn't get much sleep last night."
"Oh?"
"I … we … sort of had a reunion."
Eric stared at him. Realization, along with surprise, dawned in his clear blue eyes. "You mean she's been here all this time and last night was … the first time? Even though you'd been … together before?"
Trace's color deepened. "It's a long story, but … yes."
"Could that be what—no, you said she was fine this morning, that it came on suddenly."
"Yes." Trace didn't even bother to react to what Eric had begun to ask; he was too worried.
"Nothing," Tony said as he joined them. "She didn't go to any of the local places. Does she know anybody else here, someone she might call?"
"Other than the people at the publishers, just her agent—" Trace snapped his fingers. "Wait a minute, there was a letter here…"
He whirled and ran back to the blue and white tiled bar that separated the kitchen from the living area. He shoved aside the stack of messages he'd ignored, all from people demanding to know if the rumor they'd heard was true, and I picked up the pile of papers beside it. He pulled out the file folder on HPI's next project and set it aside, along with the note from Jack Morris advising him that the backers had agreed to let him direct it. On top of it he put the copy of the press release he'd approved announcing his retirement from acting and from Air West, then thumbed through the rest of the stack.
It wasn't there. He knew it had been; he'd seen it this afternoon when he'd been getting the glasses out. "Damn, I know it was here, along with some other stuff of hers. It was the letter from her agent acknowledging that he'd gotten the copies of the final contract for her next book. It had his number on it. And now none of it's here."
Trace searched the pile again, unaware of the speculative look his brother suddenly wore. Or of his quiet disappearance up the stairs.
When Tony came back he spoke quietly to Eric for a moment, watching his brother as he prowled the living room looking for some sign. The big blond's face became an impassive mask as he nodded, then walked to the phone. Tony crossed the room.
"Trace."
"There has to be something. Damn, if she was that sick, there would be some sign." Trace turned haunted eyes on his brother.
"I don't think she was sick," Tony said gently.
"What?"
"Sit down, Trace."
"But—"
"Sit down."
Trace sat; he'd never seen that look in his little brother's eyes before. He watched as the boy he'd practically raised until he was thirteen looked at him with an expression that was weary and loving and infinitely sad all at once.
"She's gone, Trace."
Trace stared at him as if he'd spoken in Greek. "Of course she is, that's what this is—"
"All her things are gone."
Trace went from pale to ashen in the space of a breath. "What?"
"Her bags are gone. The closet's empty, except for a dress. Silver and white. And the shoes I tripped on this morning."
Trace shook his head in an agonized combination of denial and pain, and his brother thought irrelevantly of a proud, beautiful horse he'd had to watch being put down for one of his classes; the animal had been wounded beyond saving. Perhaps not so irrelevant, Tony thought, his own heart contorting in the face of his brother's pain.
And then Eric was there, his big body crouching beside a stunned Trace as he sat numbly on the couch, in the spot where Christy had sat mere hours ago. "A cab picked her up an hour after we left," he said softly. "It took her to LAX."
Tony thought he'd never seen anything as tortured as his brother's eyes the day he had come to him in Corpus Christi and solemnly apologized for the past few years of his life. He knew now that that had been the mere tip of the iceberg. Looking into those eyes now was like looking into the depths of hell.
Trace didn't move, he just sat there, staring, looking like a man trying to stave off the knowledge that he was mortally wounded, as if not seeing the knife would make the mutilation disappear.
"No," Trace whispered brokenly. "Not again."
"Trace," Eric began, feeling helpless in the face of something that his great strength and greater heart could do nothing about. He put a hand on Trace's arm.
"No!" Trace recoiled, and something wild and savage came into those anguished eyes. He leaped to his feet and without another word he ran for the door to the outside deck.
"Trace!" Eric yelled as he started after him, coming out onto the deck in time to see Trace throw himself over the railing, stagger as he hit the sand and then take off running. Eric began to follow, but Tony grabbed his arm to hold him back.
"Let him go, Eric. We can't help him now."
"But what if he goes and does something stupid, like walk into the damned ocean?"
"He won't. He came too close to that once."
"I know." Eric met Tony's troubled gaze. "That's why I'm afraid of it. He might be thinking it's as close as he'll ever be to her."
Tony paled, then nodded. "You're right. Let's go." They started for the stairs down to the beach. "Damn it," Tony swore softly. "I liked her. And I could have sworn she loved him!"
"She does," Eric said flatly. "I don't know what this is all about, but I do know that girl loves your brother."
"Then where the hell is she? Why is she doing this to him?"
"I wish I knew."
The two men, so different in appearance and yet alike in their anxiety over the man they were following, made their way down the beach, following a single, lonely set of footprints, each wondering what on earth had driven a wide-eyed, tousle-haired woman to cast the man she loved into hell.
* * *
Twelve
« ^ »
Christy set down her glass of milk and picked up the lists again. She set aside the one that enumerated the items of clothing and gear she already owned that she would need to take and concentrated on the roster of things she would have to get before she left. For the last time. No more jaunts halfway around the world, she told herself. If this book did as well as the rest, or even if it didn't, it was
the last one. Her daughter needed a mother, not a world traveler.
She could live on what her investments brought in, thanks to the fact that the house was paid for. She'd bought the little remodeled Victorian mainly because of its huge backyard for Char to play in. She had also liked the cozy, homey feel of it, and the rich wood floors that complemented the few but quality pieces of furniture she had. It was full of deep, rich colors, and if it seemed a little heavy in comparison to a light, airy and open beach house, she made herself ignore it.
Quickly she rerouted her thoughts before they could slide into that old, familiar quagmire. She'd survived alone before, and she could do it again. If her own foolish lapse, her moment of believing in fairy tales, made it that much harder for her, then it was her own stupid fault. She set down the second list and picked up the third, the dates and itinerary for the trip to Australia she didn't want to take.
Dragon's people had insisted. There was a voracious market in the United States these days for all things Australian, and they wanted to cash in on it. Christy had dug in her heels, but in the end they had won; she couldn't help wondering if it had been because her mind—and heart—had been elsewhere during the negotiations. She could have persuaded them to accept something else, something closer, something that wouldn't require her to be gone so long. Char was only just now beginning to get over her absence of two weeks; how would the little girl deal with an absence of months?
She should take her along. She couldn't bear to be parted from her for so long, especially now. But Mrs. Turner had declared herself much too old to go gallivanting around the world to some "barely civilized place full of kangaroos and the like," and no matter how Christy tried to convince her of the truth, the woman wouldn't budge.
Only her innate sense of integrity, and the fact that she had given her word, stopped her from canceling out of the project entirely. That and a deeply buried, unstated need to get away, to leave the travesty of shattered hopes and useless dreams far behind.
She should have known. She'd been right from the start. There was no room in Trace Dalton's life for Char, and so there was no room for her. He'd said he loved her, they'd talked of marriage and a life together, but never once had he mentioned children. And that afternoon in his living room she'd found out why: he wanted no part of them.
Stop it, she ordered herself sternly. You've gone over it a million times. You did what you had to do to protect Char.
Blood tests. Headlines. Those weren't for her baby, that innocent little girl who had welcomed her home with such joy that it had almost wiped away the pain that clawed at her. Almost.
She dragged her attention back to the schedule in her hand. They had covered it all, she thought as she spread out the map of the huge island country. The coastal cities, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.
Then inland. Alice Springs, of course, and the world-famous Ayer's Rock, The Great Victoria Desert and more of the infamous Outback than she cared to think about. Ordinarily she would have jumped at the chance to see this audacious country, its genial, adventurous people and the odd set of animals indigenous to its shores. But now, when her precious little moppet was dearer to her than ever, it was tearing her apart to think of leaving. She'd done enough leaving lately…
Stop it! Just stop it, damn it!
Carefully she smoothed out the sheet of paper she had unknowingly crumpled in her fist and reached for the pocket calendar she'd bought to transfer times and dates and places into. She had just picked up her pen when there was the slam of a door and the clatter of feet from the back of the house.
"Mommy! Jimmy's here, an' Peaches. C'n I go out 'n' play?"
Christy smiled down at the eager little face, reaching out to straighten a lopsided pony tail of sandy-brown hair. "If you stay in the backyard. No leaving, not even to Jimmy's house, unless you ask first. Okay?"
"'kay. C'n we have cookies later?" The little girl eyed the plate that sat on the counter.
Christy laughed, giving the ponytail a tug. "I suppose."
"Jimmy 'n' Peaches, too?"
"Are you going to give that big one on top to Peaches?" Christy asked with a grin, knowing the child had had her eye on that particular chocolate chip cookie since it had come out of the oven this morning. The bright little face scrunched up as she considered that.
"Okay. Peaches needs it more, cuz she's just a puppy and has to grow lots."
Christy laughed, a little loudly, but she was trying to hide the sudden tightness of her throat; Lord, she loved this precious, sweet child.
She watched the little girl trot eagerly out the back door, then got up to open the drapes so she could keep an eye on the backyard. She could see Jimmy, his hand entwined in the fur of his wriggling puppy, a golden retriever that had to be the most patient, gentle animal Christy had ever seen. She had no qualms about them playing with the dog; if Peaches could put up with Jimmy's five-year-old rambunctiousness, she could tolerate anything Char could dish out.
And she trusted Jimmy, as well; bigger than Char, he exhibited a gentlemanly conduct toward the little girl that would have been amusing if Christy hadn't been so grateful for it. The boy lived next door and, for now at least, was a wonderful, convenient playmate. And she didn't mind in the slightest if Char had more than once come in grass stained and muddy; Lord knows she'd been a tomboy through and through herself, even at Char's tender age of two.
Actually, two and a half, Christy realized with a little shiver of shock. Time was slipping away from her, and her baby was growing up so fast. It seemed as if she'd matured frighteningly even during the two weeks Christy had been gone; it hadn't been her tiny baby who had looked at her with those too-familiar eyes and solemnly asked, "What's wrong, Mommy? You been cryin'."
The memory of those tiny hands reaching to wipe away her tears, of the tears shed by that precious child for no other reason than that her mommy was crying and that made her sad, had the power to bring the sting of tears back to Christy's eyes.
God, she'd thought she was done with crying. She'd done nothing but weep late into the night, every day of the three weeks since she'd left that house on the beach. That lovely, airy, beautiful house where she had felt so at home, so safe, so secure. The house that had been bought and furnished for her. Oh, God, Trace, why couldn't you—
Stop it! She slammed her fist against the table, but the pain wasn't enough, and the tears began to slide down her cheeks once more. She, who had never cried in all the cold years of her childhood, had cried enough in the past three weeks to make up for all that abstinence.
She'd thought nothing could be worse than the days after the hurricane when she had made the painful decision to stay away, only to find she had a much more painful decision to make weeks later. She'd been sadly, pitifully wrong. Nothing in her harsh, barren life had ever prepared her to live with the wrenching, tearing pain she felt now.
Every time she dropped her guard he was there, blazing bright and clear in her mind. From the moment when she had first seen him, wet, hurt and shivering, to the sweet moment when she had looked at his beautiful, naked body above hers for the last time, he was there, and she couldn't fight him off. She cradled her head in her hands, heedless of the tears dripping through her fingers onto the map spread out before her.
"Running to Australia this time?"
Christy froze. The voice, so familiar and yet so strange, had come from behind her, near the door she always left unlocked in this quiet little town. Every muscle in her body stiffened, braced too late for a blow that had already fallen.
"Don't bother."
Every syllable was crusted with the ice that had replaced the gentle warmth she'd grown so wonderfully used to. With an effort she set down the pen she'd been clutching, marveling with an odd detachment that her hand trembled only slightly. Slowly, suppressing a shudder, she turned around.
He was leaning in the doorway, one shoulder against the jamb, his legs crossed casually at the ankles, his hands in his pocket
s as if he'd stopped in to cheerfully pass the time of day. Any semblance of normalcy ended there, though; he looked gaunt and haggard, new lines in his chiseled face making him look older than his years, and the bulk of his sweater couldn't hide the fact that he'd lost weight. She would still have thought him beautiful, but his eyes chilled her to her soul; they were cold, solid ice, and utterly unforgiving.
He glanced at the map he'd obviously seen. "Tears, Christy? Something go wrong with your travel plans?"
The words were harsh, cutting, and she smothered a gasp; a cruel glint had appeared in his eyes, the eyes that had been able to set fire to her with a glance. She'd seen them angry, laughing, loving—oh, God, how loving—but never had she seen them cruel.
"How … why…?" she stammered.
"How? Eric still has a lot of friends in the airline industry. It only took him a couple of calls to find out where you'd flown to. I'm surprised you didn't use a phony name." She blinked. "No, I see you didn't think of that. Odd, you're such a clever little bitch."
He said it flatly, without inflection, not even with anger. Christy paled, her hands clenching, nails digging into her palms. She tried to move, but her muscles only quivered. As if he read her intent, he crossed the room in three long strides, slamming his hands down on the table, staring at her with a glacial coldness that made her shiver once more.
"Why? I've asked myself that more times than I can count. Why should I give a damn about a bitch who plays with people's hearts like they were cheap little trinkets?"
Christy drew back, frightened by the icy control in his voice more than she ever would have been by anger.
"Funny," he said, in the uninvolved tone of a scientist whose specimen had just done something unexpected, "I never would have expected cowardice from you."
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