“Wow,” Deb said softly. “You certainly have had a busy day.”
“A messy day, is what you mean.”
“Don’t kill me for saying this, but maybe you should rethink things. I mean, I know he’s getting married and all, but maybe you do still have a thing for your ex.”
“I wouldn’t care if he were living in a monastery!” Annie’s eyes flashed. “I do not have a ‘thing’ for Chase. I admit, I’m upset, but it’s because my baby’s gotten herself married.”
“You know what they say, Annie. We only raise children to let go of them once they grow up.”
Annie tucked the hanky back into her cleavage, picked up the champagne bottle and headed for the kitchen.
“It’s not letting go of her that upsets me, Deb. It’s that she’s so young. Too young, I’m afraid, to make such a commitment.”
“Well,” Deb said, folding her arms and leaning against the door frame, “you were young when you got hitched, too.”
Annie sighed. “Exactly. And look where it led me. I thought I knew what I was doing but it turned out I didn’t. It was hormones, not intelligence, that—” The phone rang. She reached out and picked it up. “Hello?”
“Annie?”
“Chase.” Annie’s mouth narrowed. “What do you want? I thought we said all we needed to say to each other this afternoon.”
Across town, in his hotel room, Chase looked at the boy standing at the window. The boy’s shoulders were slumped and his head was bowed in classic despair.
Chase cleared his throat.
“Annie... Nick is here.”
Annie’s brows knotted together. “Nick? There? Where do you mean, there?”
“I mean he’s here, in my room at the Hilton.”
“No. That’s impossible. Nick is on a plane to Hawaii, with Dawn...” The blood drained from Annie’s face. “Oh God,” she whispered. “Has there been an accident? Is Dawn—”
“No,” Chase said quickly. “Dawn’s fine. Nothing’s happened to her, or to Nick.”
“Then why—”
“She left him.”
Annie sank down into a chair at the kitchen table. “She left him?” she repeated stupidly. Deb stared at her in disbelief. “Dawn left Nick?”
“Yeah.” Chase rubbed the back of his neck, where the muscles felt as if somebody were tightening them on a rack. “They, uh, they got to the airport and checked in their luggage. Then they went to the VIP lounge. I upgraded their tickets, Annie, and bought them a membership in the lounge. I knew you wouldn’t approve, but—”
“Dammit, Chase, tell me what happened!”
Chase sighed. “Nick said he’d get them some coffee. Dawn said that was fine. But when he came back with the coffee, she was gone.”
“She didn’t leave him,” Annie said, her hand at her heart, “she’s been kidnapped!”
“Kidnapped?” Deb snapped. “Dawn?”
“Did you call the police? Did you—”
“She left a note,” Chase said wearily. Annie heard the rustle of paper. “She says it’s not that she doesn’t care for him.”
“Care for him?” Annie’s voice rose. “People care for—for flowers. Or parakeets. She said she loved Nick. That she was crazy about him.”
“...not that she doesn’t care for him,” Chase continued, “but that loving him isn’t enough.”
“Isn‘t—?”
“Isn’t enough. She says she has no choice but to end this marriage before it begins.”
Annie put her hand over her eyes. “Oh God,” she whispered. “That sounds so ominous.”
Chase nodded, as if Annie could see him.
“Nick’s beside himself, and so am I.” His voice roughened with emotion. “He’s looked for her everywhere, but he can’t find her. Dear God, If anything’s happened to our little girl...”
Annie’s head lifted. As soft as a whisper, the front door opened, then closed. Footsteps came slowly down the hall.
“Mom?”
Dawn stood in the doorway, dressed in the going-away suit they’d bought together, the corsage of baby orchids Annie had pinned on the jacket’s lapel sadly drooping. Dawn’s eyes were red and swollen.
“Baby?” Annie whispered.
Dawn gave Annie a smile that trembled, and then a sob burst from her throat.
“Oh, Mommy,” she wailed, and Annie dropped the phone and opened her arms. Her daughter flew across the room and buried her face in her mother’s lap.
Deb picked the phone up from the floor.
“Chase?”
“Dammit to hell,” Chase roared, “who is this? What’s going on there?”
“I’m a friend of Annie’s,” Deb said. “You and Nick can stop worrying. Dawn’s here. She just came in.”
Chase flashed an okay sign to Nick, who hurried to his side.
“Is my daughter okay?”
“Yes. She seems to—”
Chase slammed down the phone, and he and Nick ran out the door.
CHAPTER THREE
THE MOON HAD RISEN, climbed into a bank of clouds, and disappeared.
Sighing, Chase switched on the lamp beside his chair and wished he could pull a stunt like that. Maybe then people would stop looking at him as if he might just come up with a solution to an impossible situation.
But the simple truth was that impossible situations required improbable solutions, and he didn’t have any. His mind was a blank. At this point, he wasn’t even sure what day it was. The only thing he knew for certain was that a few hours ago, he’d been the father of—the bride. Now he was the father of—what did you call a young woman who’d gotten to the airport and then told her brand-new husband that they’d made an awful mistake and she wanted out?
Smart. That was what Chase would have called her, twenty-four hours ago, when he’d have given just about anything if Dawn had decided to put her wedding off until she was older and, hopefully, wiser.
Chase closed his eyes wearily. But his daughter hadn’t decided to put off her wedding. She’d gone through with it, which put a different spin on things. More than canceling arrangements with the church and the caterer were involved here. Dawn and Nick were bound together, in the eyes of God and in accordance with the laws of the state of Connecticut.
Severing that bond was a lot more complicated than it would have been a few hours ago. And it sure didn’t help that Dawn kept weeping and saying she loved Nick with all her heart, it was just that she couldn’t, wouldn’t, mustn’t stay married to him.
Chase put his hand to the back of his neck and tried to rub the tension out of his muscles. He had no idea what she was talking about, and neither did Nick, the poor, bewildered bastard. Not even Annie understood; Chase was certain of that, and never mind the way she’d kept saying, “I understand, sweetheart,” while she’d rocked Dawn in her arms.
“What do you understand?” Chase had asked her in exasperation, when she’d come hurrying out of the bedroom after she’d finally convinced Dawn to lie down and try to get some sleep. Annie had shot him one of those men-are-so-stupid looks women did so well and said she didn’t understand anything, but she wasn’t about to upset Dawn by telling her that.
“Dammit, Annie,” Chase had roared, and that had done it. Nick had come running, Dawn had started crying, Annie had called him a name he hadn’t even figured she knew...hell, he thought wearily, it was a good thing Annie didn’t have a dog, or it would have gotten in on the act and taken a chunk out of his ankle.
“Now see what you’ve done,” Annie had snarled, and the door to Dawn’s room had slammed in his bewildered face.
Chase groaned. He was tired. So tired. There’d been no sound from behind the closed door for hours now. Annie and his daughter were probably asleep. Even Nick had finally fallen into exhausted slumber on the sofa in the living room.
Maybe, if he just put his head back for a five-minute snooze...
“Dammit!”
Chase’s head bobbed like a yo-yo on a string. That was
just what he’d needed, all right. Oh, yeah. Nothing like a little whiplash for neck muscles that already felt knotted.
“Stupid chair,” he muttered, and sprang to his feet.
For a minute there, he’d forgotten he wasn’t in the den he and Annie had shared for so many years. Annie had dumped all the old furniture when she’d bought this house. She’d filled these rooms with little bits and pieces of junk. Antiques, she called them, but junk is what the stuff was. Delicate junk, at that. Sofas and tables with silly legs, chairs with no headrests...
“You kick that chair, Chase Cooper, and I swear, I’ll kick you!”
Chase swung around. His ex-wife stood in the entrance to the room. She’d exchanged her mother-of-the-bride dress for a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and from the way her hair was standing on end and her hands were propped on her hips, he had the feeling her mood wasn’t much better than his.
Too bad. Too damned bad, considering that she was the one had gotten them into this mess in the first place. If only she hadn’t been so damned permissive. If only she’d put her foot down right at the start, told Dawn she was too young to get married—
“It deserves kicking,” he grumbled, but he stepped aside and let her swish past him, snatch up the chair cushions and plump them, as if that might remove any sign he’d sat there. “How’s Dawn?”
“She’s asleep.” Annie tucked the cushions back in place. “How’s Nick? I assume he’s still here?”
“Yes, he’s here. He’s asleep, in the living room.”
“And he’s okay?”
“As okay as he can be, all things considered. Has our daughter told you yet just what, exactly, is going on?”
Annie looked at him. Then she ran her fingers through her hair, smoothing the curls back from her face.
“How about some tea?” Without waiting for his answer, she set off for the kitchen. “Unless you’d prefer coffee,” she asked, switching on the overhead fluorescent light.
“Tea’s fine,” Chase said, blinking in the sudden glare. He sank onto one of the stools that stood before the kitchen counter, watching as Annie filled a kettle with water and put it on the stove. “Has she?”
“Has she what?” Annie yanked open the pantry door. She took out a box of tea bags and put it on the counter. “Would you like a cookie? Of course, I don’t have those hideous things you always preferred, with all that goo in the middle.”
“Just tea,” he replied, refusing to rise to the bait. “What did Dawn say?”
Annie shut the pantry door and opened the refrigerator. “How about a sandwich? Swiss? Or there’s some ham, if you prefer.”
“Annie...”
“You’d have to take it on whole grain bread, though, the kind you always said—”
“—that I wouldn’t touch until somebody strapped a feed bag over my face and a saddle on my back. No, thank you very much, I don’t want a sandwich. I don’t want anything, except to know what our daughter told you and what it is you don’t want to tell me.” Chase’s eyes narrowed. “Has Nick mistreated her?”
“No, of course not.” Annie shut the refrigerator door. The kettle had begun to hiss, and she grabbed for it before it could whistle. “Hand me a couple of mugs, would you? They’re in that cupboard, right beside you.”
“He doesn’t seem the type who would.” Chase grabbed two white china mugs and slid them down the counter to Annie. “But if he’s so much as hurt a hair on our daughter’s head, so help me—”
“Will you please calm down? I’m telling you, it isn’t that. Nick’s a sweetheart.”
“Well, what is it, then?”
Annie looked at him, then away. “It’s, ah, it’s complicated.”
“Complicated?” Chase’s eyes narrowed again. “It’s not—the boy isn’t...”
“Isn’t what? Do you still take two sugars, or have you finally learned to lay off the stuff?”
“Two sugars, and stop nagging.”
Annie dumped two spoonfuls of sugar into her ex’s tea, and stirred briskly.
“You’re right. You can wallow in sugar, for all I care. Your health isn’t my problem anymore, it’s hers.”
“Hers?”
“Janet Pendleton.”
“Janet Pen...” He flushed. “Oh. Her.”
Annie slapped the mug of tea in front of him, hard enough so some of the hot amber liquid sloshed over the rim and onto his fingers.
“That’s right. Let your fiancée worry about your weight.”
“Nobody’s got to worry about my weight,” Chase said, surreptitiously sucking in his gut.
He was right, Annie thought sourly, as she slid onto the stool next to his. Nobody did. He was still as solid-looking and handsome as he’d been the day they’d married—or the day they’d divorced. Another benefit of being male. Men didn’t have to see the awful changes that came along, as you stood at top of the yawning chasm that was middle age. The numbers that began to creep upward on your bathroom scale. The flesh that began to creep downward. The wrinkles that Janet Pendleton didn’t have. The sags Chase’s cute little secretary hadn’t had, either.
“...make him normal. That’s not what happened with Dawn and Nick, is it?”
Annie frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Reality, that’s what. I was telling you that I just heard about this guy, married a girl even though he knew he was a switch hitter, hoping that having a wife would make him normal—”
Annie choked over her tea. “Good grief,” she said, when she could speak, “you are such a pathetic mate stereotype, Chase Cooper! No, Nicholas is not, as you so delicately put it, a ‘switch hitter.”’
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah, well, it might not hurt to ask.”
“Nick and Dawn have been living together, the past three months. And Dawn hasn’t so much as hinted at any problem in bed. Quite the contrary.” Annie blushed. “I dropped in a couple of times—not in the morning, or late at night, you understand—and I could pretty much tell, from the time it took them to get to the door and the way they looked, that things were perfectly fine in that department.” She looked down at her tea. “I don’t drop by without calling first, anymore.”
“What do you mean, they’ve been living together?”
“Just what I said. Didn’t Dawn tell you? They took an apartment, in Cannondale.”
“Dammit, Annie, how could you permit our daughter to do that?”
“To do what? Move in with the man she was going to marry?”
“Didn’t you tell her no?”
“She’s eighteen, Chase. Legally of age. Old enough to make her own choices.”
“So?”
“What do you mean, ‘so’?”
“You could have told her it was wrong.”
“Love is never wrong.”
“Love,” Chase said, and shook his head. “Sex, is more like it.”
“I asked her to take her time and think it through, to be sure she was doing the right thing. She said she’d done that, and that she was.”
“Sex,” Chase said again.
Annie sighed. “Sex, love...they go together.”
“Yeah, well, they could have had the one and still waited for the other, until after the wedding.” Chase glowered into his tea. “But I suppose that’s too old-fashioned.”
“It was, for us.”
Chase looked up sharply. Color swept into his face. “What we did, or didn’t do, has nothing to do with this situation.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” Annie stood. She picked up her mug of tea, cupped it with both hands and walked to the deep bow window that overlooked the garden. “I’m afraid we have everything to do with this situation.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Do me a favor, will you? Shut off the light. My head’s pounding like a drum.”
“You want some aspirin?”
Annie shook her head. “I already took some.” She sat down on th
e sill, her knees drawn up to her chin, her eyes on the darkness beyond the glass. “You want to know what Dawn said? Okay, I’ll tell you, but you’re not going to like it.”
“I don’t like much of anything that’s already happened today,” Chase said, getting to his feet and walking toward her. “Why should this be any different?”
“The first thing she said was that she loves Nick.”
“Uh-huh.” Chase folded his arms and leaned back against the window frame. “Why do I get the feeling we’re about to play, ‘good news, bad news’?”
“She said she knows that he loves her.”
“That’s the good news, right?”
Annie nodded. “The bad news is that she ran away from him for the same reason.”
Chase’s brows knotted. “Let me be sure I’m following this. Our daughter fell in love, got engaged, moved in with the guy, married him, went off with him on her honeymoon...and then decided to bolt because it dawned on her that she loves him and he loves her?”
Annie sighed. “Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that.”
“I’m relieved to hear it. For a second there, I thought I was going completely nuts. What’s the rest?”
“She’s afraid.”
“She’s afraid,” Chase said, trying to stay calm. He had the feeling they were moving into the sort of emotional deep water that women swam through effortlessly and men found way over their heads. “Of what?”
“Of them falling out of love.”
“Annie.” Chase sat down on the sill, his knee brushing hers. “You just said, girl loves boy. Boy loves girl. They’re just starting out. There’s no reason for her to think—”
“She’s afraid of what’s going to happen.”
Chase waited, but Annie said nothing. He could almost see the water rising.
“What’s going to happen?” he said carefully.
Annie shrugged. “Their love will shrivel up and die.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I said the same thing.”
“And?”
“And, she said...” Annie swallowed hard. “She said she’d watched us today, at the wedding.”
“Us?” Chase nodded, as if he had a clue as to what they were talking about. The only thing he was sure of was that the water was definitely getting deeper. And rougher. “As in you, and me?”
The Millionaire Claims His Wife Page 4