Next Time...Forever

by Sherryl Woods

  “And what about our New Year’s Eve plans with the kids? They’re going to be at your apartment at three o’clock expecting to spend the night with us. We promised them video games, movies and pizza.”

  “Damn, I forgot about that,” he muttered. “It’s okay, though. You’ll be there and I won’t be at the office more than an hour. Two tops. I may even get back before they arrive.” He took her hand. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I know this isn’t fair to you. I’ll keep the meeting short, so you won’t be stuck with the boys alone for too long.”

  “Jonathan and Kevin are not the issue. We’ll have a wonderful time together. I’m looking forward to seeing them. They, however, are counting on seeing you.”

  Guilt increased his defensiveness. Since the divorce, he’d made an honest effort not to disappoint the boys. “Catherine, it’s not as though I’m cancelling anything. What’s the big deal?”

  She sighed and shook her head. “You honestly don’t see it, do you?”

  “And apparently you can’t accept that this is the way I am. I will always live up to my obligations.”

  “Your business obligations,” she corrected. “Family obligations seem to take a back seat.”

  Thoroughly frustrated by her refusal to understand, he slid out of the booth and threw some money on the table. “I’m going to the office. I’ll be home when I can get there.”

  At the door of the deli, he turned back for just an instant. Catherine was sitting ramrod straight in the booth, angrily tearing napkins into shreds. As if she’d suddenly realized he was watching, she looked up and the expression in her eyes almost broke his heart. She looked like a woman who’d just lost everything important in her life.

  Dillon knew exactly how she felt.

  * * *

  Catherine let herself into Dillon’s apartment with the key he’d given her when they’d arrived from Atlanta. In the hour before the boys were due to arrive, she took a long, hot bath and questioned every angry word she’d uttered at Dillon. Was she being so unreasonable to expect him to balance work and his life with her and his sons? Was she a harridan for being concerned that his compulsive, type-A personality was a danger to his health?

  Maybe the truth of the matter was that he was too much like Matthew and not nearly enough like her father. Rawley Devereaux had been born into family wealth. Though he worked every day of his life to maintain the family’s financial position, he’d never had to scramble. Catherine had led a secure, moneyed life. Her father had made it seem easily attainable. Matthew hadn’t had to claw his way to the top of the medical profession. He’d been naturally talented. He’d been to good schools. Everything had fallen into place for him, except the social position he’d wanted badly enough to marry her to get. Once he’d had money and a place in Atlanta society, he’d been free to indulge in the one thing he really loved: surgery. He’d spent all but the few hours he needed for sleep in the operating room.

  Still debating about the best way to handle this afternoon’s argument, she dressed in a hip-length red cashmere sweater and black wool slacks. She deliberately brushed her hair back in a smooth style that Dillon hated. He called it her country club look and said it made him nervous. Good, she thought, as she fastened it back with a black velvet clip. He ought to be nervous. He ought to be shaking in his boots. Guilty as sin. He ought to be…

  Before she could think up any worse fates, the doorbell rang, followed by the noisy arrival of Jonathan and Kevin.

  “Hey, Dad, we’re here. You in the den?” Jonathan called.

  Catherine met them in the hall.

  “Hey, you two. Happy New Year!”

  “Yeah,” Kevin said, running to throw his arms around her. “We get to stay up ‘til midnight? Are you gonna stay up, too?”

  “I don’t know,” she teased, kneeling down to help him get off his boots. “That’s pretty late for me. What about you, Jonathan? You think you’ll be up that late?”

  “Sure,” he said, standing just a little straighter. “I’m nine now. I stay up late all the time.”

  “You’re nine, huh? I thought you were eight just last month. That must mean you had a birthday.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I got some really neat stuff. You wanna see? I kept some of it here.” He peered into the den. “Hey, where’s Dad?”

  “He had to stop by the office for a little while. He should be back shortly.”

  Kevin’s eyes widened to big round circles. “Uh-oh, Mom’s gonna be mad. We’re not supposed to be here if Dad’s not here.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be okay, since I’m here,” Catherine said, wondering if that were really true. The boys were being supervised by an adult, but Paula didn’t know her. She very well might be furious. “Maybe I should call her. What do you think?”

  “I’ll call Dad,” Jonathan said. “Maybe he can call her.”

  Catherine nodded. It was his responsibility, after all. “Okay, you call your father. Kevin, why don’t you show me how to make some popcorn?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “I’ve done it before, but you’re probably much better at it than I am.”

  “Okay,” he said solemnly. “I’ll help.”

  “You get started then wait for me to remove the bag from the oven,” Catherine added. He ran off to the kitchen, while she lingered as Jonathan placed his call to Dillon’s office.

  “Hi, Aunt Helene. It’s Jonathan. Is my dad there?”

  His expression grew increasingly troubled. “Okay. Uh-huh. Okay. Bye.”

  “Everything okay?” Catherine asked.

  “She said Dad’s in a meeting.”

  Catherine felt her blood begin to race furiously. “You didn’t talk to your father at all?”

  “She asked me if I was here and said she’d have him call me the minute he got out of the meeting.”

  “Damn!” she muttered without thinking. She felt a small hand patting her arm.

  “It’s okay, Catherine. Mom won’t mind that you’re baby-sitting us.”

  “What if it had been an emergency?” she said, helpless in the face of his nine-year-old aplomb.

  “I would have told her, that’s all. Dad told me to be sure and tell her if it was really, really important and he would always take the call. I figured this wasn’t an emergency. We’re just fine here with you.”

  She reached out and hugged him. “Yes, Jonathan. You are just fine with me. Now let’s see how Kevin’s coming with the popcorn.”

  * * *

  When Dillon still wasn’t back by seven, Catherine called out for the pizza. They’d finished it and played three different video games by the time he finally walked through the door. She had to steel herself not to react to the exhaustion she could see in his eyes. She had to be equally adept to hide her fury.

  Jonathan and Kevin greeted him exuberantly, apparently unbothered by his failure to get home sooner. He scooped Kevin into his arms and ruffled Jonathan’s dark curls.

  “We’ve been having a great time, Dad,” Jonathan said. “Catherine’s real good at video games.”

  He stared at her over Kevin’s head. “I’ll bet she is. Did you guys leave me any pizza?”

  “It’s in the oven,” she said. “I’ll get it.”

  “Thanks, babe.”

  When she returned to the den, he was on the floor helping Kevin compete with Jonathan in yet another video game. Though the tired lines around his eyes were more pronounced than ever, he had one arm around Kevin. His attention was completely focused on the game. It was yet another indication that Dillon was a compulsive competitor, no matter the forum. Even a children’s game required his total energy. He lifted his head and turned the full force of his smile on her as he accepted the pizza.

  “Wine?” she asked.

  “I think I’d better have something with caffeine in it, if I’m going to stay awake ‘til midnight.”

  “Coffee or a soda?”

  “A soda.”

  When she returned with the soft drink,
she tried to stay aloof, but it was no time before Jonathan had drawn her into the game on his side, declaring that Kevin had an unfair advantage. “You’ve got to help, Catherine. Dad’s vicious.”

  “So I see,” she murmured. “Let’s see what we can do about that.”

  A half hour later, when she and Jonathan emerged victorious, Dillon laughed. “Tamed at last,” he said.

  “Hardly tamed, I’m afraid.”

  “Boys, why don’t you go get those horns and things I bought for New Year’s? They’re in your room.” When they were gone, he leaned over and kissed her. “I’m sorry about earlier.”

  Catherine sighed and ran her fingertips over the lines on his face. “You look exhausted.”

  “I am.”

  “Dillon, why…”

  “We’ll talk about it later,” he promised. “I’ll try to explain. I owe you that much at least.”

  “Then you are aware of what you’re doing to yourself?”

  He nodded, then managed a bright smile as his sons returned and engaged him in more rambunctious horseplay. If it weren’t for the serious talk hanging over them, Catherine would have been thoroughly content. This was the family she’d always wanted. The boys had welcomed her into their lives as naturally and easily as any woman could ever hope. If she accepted Dillon’s oft-repeated proposal, she would be with the man she loved, with his children, maybe even with a child of their own. That was so much; more than many women ever had. Why was she clinging so stubbornly to the one flaw in the arrangement?

  Because it wasn’t some tiny, incidental character trait. It wasn’t that Dillon left his socks on the floor or his whiskers in the sink. Socks were easily picked up. Whiskers could be washed away. A husband who was never around, who put his job above his marriage was something else entirely.

  “Catherine, look,” Kevin said excitedly. “It’s almost midnight. That big ball is starting to move.”

  The television announcers and the mob in Times Square rang in the new year. Kevin and Jonathan blew their horns. Dillon drew her into his arms. “Happy New Year, sweetheart!”

  “Happy New Year,” she said, tears streaming down her cheeks. If only they could capture this moment, maybe it would indeed be a happy new year.

  * * *

  When the boys were in bed at last, Dillon pulled her down on the sofa beside him.

  “Dillon, maybe this should wait until tomorrow. It’s nearly 1:00 a.m.”

  “No. You’d better catch me while I’m feeling mellow. This isn’t something I normally talk about.”

  Catherine’s heart filled with dread. He looked so sad. “What, Dillon? Don’t you know there’s nothing you can’t tell me?”

  “I know that. I know you want to understand what makes me the way I am about business. It all started thirty years ago.”

  “But you were just a boy then.”

  “That’s right. Just about Jonathan’s age. Very impressionable. My father lost his job. It happens to a lot of men, right? The company was badly managed. It went into bankruptcy and my father was out on the streets. At first he and Mom tried to hide that there was anything wrong. He left the house every day looking for a new job. But he was older. His skills were becoming obsolete. He was willing to take job skills training, but there weren’t so many programs for that then. He took odd jobs. My mother took in laundry and cleaned houses. We survived, but my father was never okay after that. We never stopped loving him, but he lost respect for himself. A man can’t survive that.”

  It wasn’t so much Dillon’s words that moved Catherine as the haunted expression in his eyes, the sadness of his memories. “It must have been terrible for all of you.”

  “Just a lesson. I swore I would never be dependent on another human being for an income, that whatever business I was in, I would own it.”

  “You’ve done that, darling. You’re successful. Your business is flourishing.”

  “I have to see that it stays there, not just for myself, Catherine. Not even for the boys. I have employees. Over a hundred of them now, here and in Los Angeles. I have a responsibility to them, too, and to their families.”

  It was too much, Catherine thought, far too much burden for one man to shoulder alone. But she understood at last; she could feel his need to stay on top, to provide for those who’d been loyal to him.

  “Dillon, couldn’t you share some of that responsibility?”

  “It’s mine, Catherine. I accepted that the day I opened the doors of the business.”

  “And what if you ruin your health? What if you drive yourself so hard that you have a heart attack and die?” she said angrily. “Who will be responsible for all those people then, Dillon? Who will see that they’re provided for? Are you so sure that you’re not being selfish? You’re everyone’s hero. You’re sacrificing your life to see that all those people have food on their tables. It must make you feel wonderful. If you had to share that, it would lessen your role as hero, wouldn’t it? But I ask you again, what if you kill yourself in the process? Who’ll be the hero then? And what in God’s name will your sons and I do without you?”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Valentine’s Day

  “Have you heard from Dillon today?” Beth Markham asked as Catherine paced up and down the jammed aisles of St. Christopher’s tiny thrift shop idly picking up merchandise and putting it back again. “Cat, some of that stuff is practically threadbare as it is. If you keep fiddling with it, it will fall apart. Why don’t you just sit down and tell me what’s on your mind?”

  “I can’t sit down,” she said. She continued pacing, but she kept her hands to herself. Beth waited patiently, until finally Catherine admitted, “I think I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

  “What mistake?”

  “I told Dillon he was killing himself and that I’d never marry him unless he stopped it.”

  “Okay,” Beth said slowly, as she obviously struggled to absorb the implications of the blunt pronouncement. “I think I get it. What’s so terrible about that?”

  “What if he can’t? It’s a long story, but all his life Dillon’s had this terrible need in him to succeed. What if he can’t ever put it into perspective?”

  “Have you talked to him about this?”

  “I haven’t talked to him at all, not since I left New York after New Year’s. He hasn’t called once.”

  “I see. Tell me something, Cat. If you had it to do all over again, would you still fall in love with Dillon?”

  Catherine grinned. “I wasn’t aware that we got to choose the people we fall in love with.”

  “Now you sound like me,” Beth chastised. “You know what I mean. When you first met Dillon, you didn’t even know his last name. He didn’t know how to find you. You could have left it like that. It would have been some lovely romantic memory. Knowing what you know now, would you have done anything differently? Would you have ended it right then?”

  She thought about that, remembered how much stronger and more self-confident she was for knowing Dillon, how much love she’d felt in his arms. “No.”

  “Why? What was it about the man you met that night that drew you?”

  “He was warm and supportive and attentive. He made me feel incredibly special in a way I had never felt before.”

  “Do you still have times like that?”

  “Some,” she said, beginning to understand the point Beth was trying to make. “Mostly in Savannah.”

  “Then it seems to me that the answer is obvious.”

  “I don’t think I can talk Dillon into moving to Savannah. Not in a million years. The one time I even broached the possibility of his leaving New York, he threw a fit.”

  “What if he opened up a branch office down there? He already has a couple of accounts in Savannah, doesn’t he? It would be a natural step. I don’t know all that much about advertising, but wouldn’t it give him a presence in the southeast?”

  “It makes sense to me, but he really seems adamant about staying in New York. I’m no
t sure he’d even listen to the idea.”

  “Maybe he would if you present it properly, say with a little wine and candlelight. It seems to me like Valentine’s Day would be a good time to try.”

  “What would I do without you?” Catherine said as the idea took hold and began to blossom. She hugged Beth in an unusual display of affection. “Thank you. You’re wonderful.”

  “Just trying to keep my rating as the best matchmaker in town.”

  “You didn’t introduce me to Dillon,” she reminded her. “You don’t even know him.”

  “But who sent you back to Savannah to see him again? Who pushed you to move down there so you could see him more often?”

  “Okay, okay,” she said, laughing. “If it works out, you get the credit.”

  “I don’t want credit, just an invitation to the wedding.”

  “You’ve got it. Keep your fingers crossed for me, will you?”

  “I always do. Something tells me that this time you don’t need it.”

  “I hope you’re right. I really do.”

  * * *

  Catherine packed her bag without the slightest regard for neatness. She tossed it into the back of the car, then ran back inside to call Dillon’s office.

  “Mrs. Devlin,” Helene said, clearly surprised to be hearing from her. “How are you?”

  “I’m just fine, Helene. Is Mr. Ryan in?”

  “No. I’m terribly sorry, but you just missed him. He left on a business trip.”

  Catherine had to bite back her disappointment. Maybe it was better this way. Maybe it would be more effective if she didn’t speak to Dillon directly. If he was furious with her, a message passed through a third party might be more likely to get his attention.

  “Can you reach him?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then please tell him that I must see him at once. It’s urgent. I’m leaving Atlanta now and I should be back in Savannah by midafternoon. Can you get that message to him?”

  “Right away, but…”

  Catherine hung up before the secretary could say anything that might dissuade her from her plan. The last thing she needed to hear was that Dillon’s trip was also urgent or that he’d flown off to Los Angeles to engage in mortal combat to save Ruben Prunelli’s soul.