“It’d probably be better if they stayed out here,” Riley said, frowning. “Danell, do you think you could-”
“Oh, sure-no problem.” She shooed them off with a wave of her hand and a toothy grin for the children. “We’ll be fine-won’t we, hon? Hey, you guys like to draw pictures?”
Riley murmured, “Thanks,” and put his hand on Summer’s waist, his heart already beating like a trip-hammer.
“Can I watch you work the computer?” he heard David ask shyly as he ushered Summer into the hallway.
And his secretary answered, “Well, sure, I guess you can if you want to. How ’bout you, ladybug? Hey, that is a very pretty dress you’re wearing.”
And Helen’s response, in a tone of uncharacteristic sweetness: “Uh-huh-Mr. Riley buyed it for me. He buyed us lots of stuff-books…even one about dinosaurs. An’ you know what else…?”
Riley closed his eyes and gave an inaudible sigh as he opened his office door and waved Summer in ahead of him. Oh, Lord. Danell was never going to let him hear the end of this.
The feds had gone. The outlines of the plan to trap and capture Hal Robey were in place; all that remained was the phone call that would set it in motion. Summer looked drained but resolved; Riley felt as if he’d spent a week in court. He felt exhausted, but wired, too, a mood he normally might soothe with a quiet evening in feminine company… an elegant dinner…good wine…soft music… He tried putting Summer into that picture, but it just wouldn’t work, somehow. Somehow he’d known it wouldn’t. No matter how lovely she was in that yellow dress and high-heeled shoes, she was always going to be more at home in blue jeans and sneakers.
In his secretary’s office, they found David jammed in between Danell’s knees and the computer, avidly click-clicking away with the mouse. When she heard them come in, Danell threw a look over her shoulder long enough to say indignantly, “Hey, did you know there are card games on here?” And then, turning back to David, she said, “There you go-red nine on that black ten right there. See it?”
“Is Helen-”
Danell jerked her head toward the waiting room. “She’s out there paperin’ the place with pictures of dinosaurs on sticky notes.”
“Could I please use the rest room?” Summer murmured.
“Sure,” Riley said. “Down the hall on the left.” While she excused herself, Danell surrendered her chair to David and came around her desk. Riley saw the look in her eye and held up a hand. “Don’t even start.”
“Don’t tell me don’t start,” she huffed in a whisper. “That woman and those kids been livin’ with you.”
“Oh, hell.” He scrubbed a hand over his eyes and whispered back, “It’s not what you think.”
“Hey-you don’t even know what I think.” He looked at her then and saw that she had a sparkle in her eyes and a big grin on her face-clearly tickled to death.
“Hush, Danell-you know she’s not my type.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Seriously-you’ve known me how many years now? How many women have I been out with in that time? Now, tell me-have you ever known me, even once, to date a woman who had kids?”
She didn’t say anything, just nailed him with one of her looks. Riley rolled his eyes; he knew he wasn’t off the hook yet. Sure enough, Danell folded her arms, moved in close and poked him in the chest with one of her inch-long silver-blue fingernails. “Now, you tell me somethin’. If all those women you been datin’ all these years were your type-how come you never married any of ’em? Hmm? Tell me that.”
Riley just looked at her. He’d have come up with an answer for her, though; he was sure he would have, except that right then Summer came back into the room, looking like she’d just washed her face and brushed her hair. Looking as fresh and lovely as a field full of daffodils. And his words, his breath, and it felt like his whole beating heart, somehow wound up stuck in his throat. “Ready?” he asked in a garbled croak.
She nodded and said breathlessly, “Mrs. Johnson, thank you so much,” but her eyes were on Riley’s face.
And he couldn’t take his eyes away from hers. He thought, Why not? At least…dinner? And he was seeing her sitting across the table from him, candlelight shining in her eyes and in her hair.
“Can we go now?” Helen whined, shuffling in from the waiting room. “I’m hungry.”
“Yes, honey, we’re going.” And Summer turned her face away from him, reaching out to pull her child against her in a one-armed hug, leaving him feeling strangely off balance and bereft, as if something precious had been wrenched from his grasp. “Do either of you need to use the rest room before we leave?” That was directed at the children, of course.
“Uh-uh,” said Helen with a decisive shake of her head, and David elaborated without looking away from the monitor, “We just went.”
“Why don’t I take you out for dinner?” Riley said to Summer, ignoring Danell’s smirk. He was still thinking of nice restaurants-one of Charleston’s less touristy seafood places, perhaps. Somewhere the children wouldn’t be too out of place…
“Pizza!” yelled Helen, doing her bunny-hop thing, and David looked up long enough to echo, “Yeah, pizza! Can we, Mom? We haven’t had pizza in a long time. Please?”
Riley’s vision of a romantic dinner vanished like a puff of smoke.
“There’s a very nice pizza place right down the road-would you like me to call and make you a reservation?” Danell purred with a perfectly straight face.
Riley looked pointedly at his watch, then said with a pained grimace, “Danell, it’s past quittin’ time-don’t you have someplace you need to go?”
“Yessir, boss-” she shut off the computer’s monitor to David’s yelp of disappointment “-I am goin’ home to mah man an’ mah kids.” She made two syllables out of both “man” and “kids,” which she could do when she chose to lay the Southern molasses on thick. She swooped down to collect her pocketbook from under her desk and slung it over her shoulder. “Hey-I’m serious about that pizza place. Down the road to the left, ’bout a mile on your right. Poppa Joe’s.” She gave them a wave, and Riley a wink. “Y’all have a nice evenin’, now.”
“It was nice of you to do this,” Summer said an hour or so later as she dropped a crust onto the pizza platter with a small, replete sigh. “They’ve had a good time.” Her eyes were on the children as she said it; they were across the room in an alcove that held a dozen or so video games, and she could see David’s head jerking as he worked the controls, and Helen’s head bobbing up and down beside him as she watched.
She didn’t want to look at Riley; she didn’t have to know how uncomfortable he was in these surroundings. His look of abject misery was like a black storm cloud on the horizon-enough to cast an uneasy pall on the picnic, but not enough to cancel it. She almost felt sorry for him-the suave and elegant Riley Grogan, brought to this. Pizza and video games! What next? Almost. To her surprise, what she did feel was annoyance. Even anger. Like a mild undercurrent of electricity running just beneath her skin.
“It’s all right,” she said, unable to keep that little burr of irritation out of her voice, “the effects aren’t permanent, you know.”
He came back from the dark place where he’d been with a small start and a puzzled “What?”
“This place…us…our life-style. It won’t rub off on you-unless you wanted it to, I suppose-which I’m sure you don’t. Once this is all cleared up and we’re out of your life, you’ll have no trouble at all going back to the life you’re used to.”
He shifted uncomfortably, but didn’t smile or deny. Instead he held her eyes with a long, dark look and said quietly, “I’d rather not talk about my life right now, if you don’t mind.” Then, in abrupt reversal of that, he looked down, released a long, audible breath. “It’s just that sometimes places… things…remind me of places I’ve been in my life…places I’d just as soon not be reminded of. Do you understand?”
Summer nodded, the anger tremors inside her becoming something else-tension…awarenes
s…anticipation. But she didn’t want to let it go. “A pizza place?” she murmured, smiling a little, letting him see the compassion-and a little of the sadness-in her heart. “Can that be so bad a memory?”
And then he smiled, too, finally. “Not the place-the time. Reminds me of when I was in college, if you want to know the truth.” The smile slipped sideways and he abandoned it in a swallow of beer. “My college days were a time of-” he searched for a word and found it “-struggle. Not the best time of my life. Nor the worst.” He laughed suddenly. “Even the music’s the same.” And he tilted his head, listening to the song-an old one of Olivia Newton-John’s that had just come on the jukebox.
Summer sat up straight “I remember that It’s from the movie Grease. I was in high school when that came out.” She began to sing softly, and after a moment, he did, too. Then they both stumbled over the lyrics and stopped at the same time, laughing together.
“Hey,” said Riley suddenly, “would you like to dance?”
She blinked and said, “What?”
“Dance. You know-man, woman, step-together, one-twothree…”
Dance? Oh, God, thought Summer. I will not think of Cinderella… I will not! She felt an overwhelming desire to laugh, but there was no room in her chest for anything except her rapidly beating heart. She made a small, desperate sound. “I-I don’t think they do that here.”
He looked around. “Don’t see why not-there’s plenty of room.” It was true; at that hour on a weeknight the place was nearly empty. He slid off the end of the bench, braced his hands on the table and leaned close to her. His voice, when he spoke, was low and held a current of urgency. “Come on, Mrs. Robey, dance with me.” And he tilted his head and smiled with heart-melting charm. “You know, I was gonna take you out on the town, after that ordeal this afternoon, but… well, that seemed a little impractical under the circumstances. So this looks like the only opportunity I’m gonna have. Dance with me.”
Why do you want me to? It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him that. But she was too afraid of the answer. And it was on the tip of her tongue to say yes. She wanted to-oh, how she wanted to. But her tongue, her whole body felt heavy, weighed down by the wash of memories of all the times and ways he’d touched her, heart, soul and body…of Cinderella’s Prince, Rhett in a blue silk dressing gown, and a wounded hero with her child in his arms…of his hands enclosing hers around a perfect sand dollar, the feel of his mouth on hers. Her lips had felt swollen, hot, on fire, that day. Now she felt like that all over.
“Could I dance?” It was Helen, who had come without either of them noticing. She was standing at Riley’s elbow, smiling up at him and squirming with unwonted shyness, winsome as a kitten, and as irresistible.
For a moment longer his eyes clung to Summer’s, burning with a strange, wild light. Then he dragged them from her and in one graceful motion, straightened, turned and swept Helen’s small hands into his. “Can you…? Sure you can.” He bowed low over their clasped hands, making her giggle. “Miss Helen, may I please have this dance?”
Helen wriggled, almost overcome with shyness, pushed her tongue into the side of her cheek and finally mumbled, blushing rose-pink, “But…I don’t know how.”
“Ah,” said Riley. He thought about it. “Okay, I think I have it.” He winked at Summer as he led his diminutive partner to the open space next to the jukebox. “I think I saw this on a television commercial once…okay, missy, stand on my feet-that’s right, put your feet right…there.”
And he carefully guided Helen’s Marvin the Martian sneakers onto the tops of his polished leather dress shoes, wincing only slightly as her weight settled onto his injured instep. Then, with a grace and ceremony worthy of a palace ballroom, he danced the utterly dazzled little girl around and around while Olivia Newton-John sang sweetly of hopeless devotion, and Summer, watching, pressed her hand over her mouth and struggled with all her strength to hold back tears.
Oh, God, what have I done? They’ve fallen in love with him. And so have I.
The song ended, the music stopped. Helen immediately cried, “More! I want to do it again! Please, Mr. Riley, can we?”
But he shook his head and said firmly, “Nope-now it’s your mother’s turn. Here, tell you what-” he fished a coin out of his pocket and gave it to her “-you put this in the jukebox. Yeah, right there, like that. We’ll find that song again…okay, here it is. Now.” And then he was beside Summer, and her hand was warm in his grasp. She felt herself rising, standing up on legs that felt hollow, fragile as blown glass.
“You’re trembling, Mrs. Robey,” he said softly as his arms came around her and his hand pressed warm and strong against her back. “Why is that?”
She tried to laugh. “It’s been a long time since I’ve danced.”
“I was sure it had been.”
There was a strange timbre in his voice that made her shiver even more, and her voice was bumpy as she said, “What if I’ve forgotten how?” In her high-heeled sandals she was almost as tall as he was; his finely chiseled lips were on a level with her eyes.
He smiled, and the movement drew her hungry gaze. “Would you like to stand on my feet?”
“I’m wearing heels,” she said with a husky chortle. “You’d be crippled for life.”
He laughed and said, “I doubt that” But she thought, No, it is I who will be crippled. After this, when we leave here, how will I-how will we ever forget you? After you, Riley Grogan, what man can there ever be…for me?
When he checked suddenly in the middle of the song, she gave a small, almost guilty start, as if he’d walked in on her private thoughts. But his hand had gone to his side and was pushing back his jacket to unhook a beeper from the waistband of his slacks.
“Oops,” he said, glancing at it, “I’m going to have to see about this. Do you mind?” It was a formality, of course; she shook her head. Riley was looking around for a pay phone.
“Back there, I think,” she murmured, pointing. “Behind the video games.” He nodded, muttered his thanks and went off to find it, weaving his way among long wooden tables, while Summer went back to their table and Helen, who awaited her with smiles and eyes that sparkled with delicious feminine conspiracy.
I guess it’s like that with lawyers, too, she thought, remembering that she’d summoned hers in the middle of a black-tie affair. Remembering, too, the times when she’d still had her own veterinary clinic and had so often been beeped in the middle of family outings to tend to some pet emergency or other. The children were used to hurried endings. Thinking of that, remembering that she’d once had a life, and a good one, long before Hal’s desertion, crime syndicates, the FBI and Riley Grogan, helped to restore her equilibrium, calm her panic, and quiet her soul. She would have a life again, someday. After all this. After Riley Grogan. For the children’s sake, I must.
She had just settled onto the bench and gathered her daughter against her side in a one-armed hug when Riley came back to the table, steering David along with a hand on the back of his neck. His face was grim, and his eyes held a hard, steely glitter.
“I’m afraid we’re going to have to cut this short,” he said quietly. “We need to get home-now.”
Summer was already on her feet, her heart pounding. “What is it? It can’t be-” He shook his head, glancing at the children. “Okay, guys, clean-up time,” Summer said briskly, picking up his cue. “David, you take the trays. Helen, you gather up the trash. Hurry up-chop-chop.”
While they were thus occupied, Riley moved close to her and spoke in a low voice, for her ears alone. “That was the police. My security monitoring service called them. Somebody tried to break into the house this afternoon.”
Chapter 13
The phone rang while Mirabella was giving Amy Jo her bath. Since Jimmy Joe was out on a cross-country haul and J.J. was spending the night at his friend Rocky’s house, she had no choice but to let it ring until the machine picked it up. And then it was a hang-up after all. She really hated tha
t.
It rang again while she was getting Amy Jo settled down, reading her her bedtime story and tucking her in for the night, and there was no way she was going to let a phone call interrupt that! Especially a phone call from somebody who didn’t even have the courtesy to leave a message.
Consequently, when it rang for the third time just as she was sitting down to the computer to work on the plans for Blue Star Lines new company offices, she was a wee bit short tempered and out of sorts.
“Yes!” she barked. And then, slowly, she said, “Yes, this is Mirabella Starr.” For some reason the voice on the other end of the line, though polite as could be, made a chill go down her spine.
“Mrs. Starr, this is Special Agent Jake Redfield, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I’d like to ask you-”
“The FBI?” Mirabella’s first impulse was to laugh. For some reason, instead, she asked very quietly, “Is this a joke?” And her heart had already begun to beat faster.
“No, ma’am, this isn’t a joke. This concerns-”
“It’s my sister, isn’t it? Which one? Oh, God, it’s Evie, isn’t it? I knew something was wrong-I knew it.”
“Ma’am-calm down, please. Ma’am, this does concern your sister, Summer Robey-”
“Oh, God-”
“Your sister’s fine, Mrs. Starr. However, we would like to ask you for your help in resolving a matter that concerns her.”
“A matter-hey, wait just a minute,” Mirabella cried, relief restoring her naturally bossy and forthright nature, “how do I know this isn’t some kind of joke? Just because you say you’re with the FBI-”
A sigh interrupted her. “Mrs. Starr, here’s what I want you to do, okay? I want you to hang up, and then dial long distance information for Savannah. Ask for the number for the FBI. When they answer, I want you to ask for Special Agent Redfield-would you do that for me, please?”
Mirabella gulped and gave a grudging “Okay.” There was a distant “click.”
She had to look up the area code for Savannah. But a few minutes later she was listening to a flat male voice droning, “Federal Bureau of Investigation,” while fear fluttered in her stomach and icy sweat beaded like dew on her forehead. She had to unstick her tongue from the roof of her mouth in order to ask for Special Agent Redfield, but a moment later heard the chillingly neutral voice saying, “Thank you for calling me back, Mrs. Starr. Are we okay now? All squared away?”
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