For All of Her Life

by Heather Graham

  Well, then...

  Things just might be destined to happen. Oh, yeah. Hell, yeah.

  Bang!

  Laughing, and yet in pain somewhere deep within him, he made his way up the stairs to wife number five who looked just like wives number two and three.

  Morning was dawning.

  Six

  TUESDAY WAS A MESS of a day.

  Kathy arrived at work early, because of or despite her nearly sleepless night. She’d thought to have some time to lay out her various projects and see just what she had to take care of herself and what she could delegate to her assistant. It started out all right, but first thing, her coffee maker blew, then an author called on her private line, nearly hysterical because she had forgotten to make a copy of the completed manuscript with the revisions. She had sent the only one she had by overnight mail last Thursday. Since no one had received it on Friday, she was certain it was lost. While Kathy was on the phone, calming the author and taking down the trace number, Jim Butler from the art department tossed on her desk the cover designs for two mysteries soon to be published. The first cover was perfect, an almost elegant layout of a candlestick, a flashlight, and a poker along with a pristine pair of white gloves. The colors were just right, enticing, the weapons were just as they were described in the book.

  The second cover was awful. She had seen the sketches for it, and they had seemed fine. Now, with color and detail added, it was absolutely awful. The book was a fictionalized biography of a French countess who had fallen in love with the English lord helping her to slip French royalty out of France and away from the guillotine. The English lord was in his early fifties, his countess not much younger. The gorgeous couple depicted on the cover appeared to be nearly eighteen, tops. Their dress, supposed to reflect the period of the French Revolution, looked like something dragged out of a medieval morgue.

  Jeannie Allison, the author who was sure her work was lost, was still talking.

  “Jeannie, stop panicking, we’ll check with the carrier and the mail room, I’ll find out what happened and get back to you within two hours, promise.”

  Kathy hung up, stared at the misbegotten cover again, gritted her teeth, and laid her head wearily on her desk.

  “Oh, my God, you’re not crying, are you?”

  She lifted her head, staring across her office to the doorway where Marty Rothchild, president of the small but prestigious Lightning Press, stood staring in at her.

  “Crying? The art is wretched, but I’ve yet to cry over it!” she said, confused.

  Marty, slim, graying, with the weary face of an aged bulldog and the heart and vigor of a lion, shook his head, laughed, and stepped on in, closing the door behind him and taking a seat in front of her desk.

  “I read the papers,” he announced to her. He pointed a finger her way. “And you did take back your maiden name, and you have certainly achieved a certain amount of anonymity, but despite the time passed—or perhaps because of it—Blue Heron is noteworthy. Jordan Treveryan was in town, and speculation has it, of course, that he was here to encourage his ex-wife to join in the reunion.”

  She arched a brow to Marty. “He was,” she admitted.

  “So are you going?”

  “Can I take the time off?”

  He mused over the question. “Are you going to give the art department a hard time over that cover?”

  “You know damned well I am.”

  “We have budgets here, you know,” he said, scowling.

  “I will not tarnish my author’s good work for a week off, which you are going to give me anyway,” she informed him sweetly. She pushed the projected cover art over to him. “It sucks. Right?”

  “Actually, they’re very attractive—”

  “It sucks.”

  “All right, it sucks. And I would have stopped it myself. We can only compete with the big boys these days because we can promise quality to our authors when the megapublishers are tied up with red tape on every level.”

  “I get new art?”

  “You do.”

  “And a week off?”

  “I wouldn’t have you miss it.”

  “Why?”

  “There’s a book in there somewhere. A bestseller.”

  She groaned, letting her head crash back lightly to her desk. “Marty, I’m an editor, not a writer. I can pick out the weaknesses in a manuscript, I can come up with great suggestions to strengthen it, but I can’t write. I—”

  “You’re a wonderful writer; you’re afraid of the subject matter.”

  “Marty, you’re right. I don’t have a writing career, and I don’t want to begin one with a book on my ex-husband.”

  He shook his head sadly. “Megamoney, the music worlds sudden, tragic death, the dead heat of the Deco glitz of Miami Beach, and you as an insider! But she won’t do a book!” He threw his hands up in dismay, shaking his head sadly.

  “Marty—”

  “Keith’s death was on the front page of every mayor newspaper in the western world.”

  “Marty—”

  “Sorry. You two were really close, huh?”

  “He was a good friend. A sad person in a way. A genius moving a million miles an hour all the time.”

  “Rumor was rampant. He died with a mystery lover, he was murdered, he committed suicide—”

  “No other body was found, Marty. And I can’t believe anyone killed him. I’m even certain he didn’t commit suicide. He’d just finished the music to a new song, he was very excited that day.”

  “What a book you’re going to write, Kathy!”

  “No book. Do I get to go anyway?”

  “Let’s see, on the norm, you work about a sixty-five hour week for a forty-hour paycheck. ’Course, it goes with the job, but... sure. You get to go.”

  “Thanks.”

  “But... think about a book, huh?”

  “Sure.”

  “Liar.”

  “Marty—”

  Her phone started ringing again. She picked up the receiver and Marty stood, giving her a thumbs-up sign as he exited her office.

  As if things were not going well enough already, her mother was on the phone.

  “Good morning, dear.”

  Sally Connoly was a cheerful person. She had been as long as Kathy could remember. Most of the time, she admired her mother very much for that characteristic; at the moment, though, it just seemed annoying.

  “’Morning, Mom.”

  She inhaled, ready for whatever she was about to get hit with, sure that Sally—like everyone in the world other than herself—had read the papers. She had to be calling about Jordan, and the reunion.

  “Are you going to Florida?” Sally asked, cutting straight to the chase.

  “I... think I am,” Kathy said evasively. She had the time off; she’d agreed to go. She just didn’t want to go alone, and she hadn’t yet had time to try to talk Jeremy into continuing his charade.

  “That’s wonderful, dear.” Her mother had always liked Jordan. So had her dad, who had passed away soon after Kathy’s marriage. Jordan had never been easily swayed. When they had been young and drugs had been prevalent, he had kept clear of them. Despite his chosen profession and the customary parental disapproval of musicians, her folks had always liked him. But then, they’d watched him grow from a very young man.

  “Mother, please don’t go getting any ideas. I’ve agreed to go because we can benefit a good cause—and because it’s Alex’s twenty-first birthday.”

  “Yes, that’s what I mean. It’s wonderful that you two can now be friends. I’ve agreed to go because of Alex’s birthday, myself.”

  “He invited you?”

  “Don’t sound so startled, dear, it’s not exactly flattering!” Sally chided. Kathy grinned sheepishly, shaking her head. She shouldn’t be surprised. She and Jordan had done a lot of their child-time exchanging through her mother when the girls had been younger, and Sally had been polite and sympathetic and fair through all of it. She had left he
r Miami home behind to follow her only daughter to New York after the divorce, but she’d always been as independent as a cat, choosing an apartment across town from Kathy’s and plunging into a social life of her own. She’d just been near in case Kathy needed help with the girls, and though her grandchildren were her first priority, Sally would cheerfully admit, she did maintain a busy life.

  She dated more often than Kathy, but then she’d been a young mother, marrying right out of high school, having Kathy soon after. Now a tall, slim, very attractive sixty-five, she didn’t look a day over fifty. In fact, Kathy thought just a shade resentfully, her mother reminded her of The Picture of Dorian Gray, Sally just looked better every year while Kathy sometimes felt she was catching up with her.

  “Do you not want me to go? I wasn’t planning on coming for long, just the weekend of Alex’s party and the benefit performance. I’m anxious to see you all up on stage together again! Jordan says he’ll have the girls doing some backup work. I think it’s wonderfully exciting.”

  “Mom, I guess it will be great, and of course I want you to come.”

  “He’ll have a full house,” Sally said, and hesitated. “You’ll be all right, going back, won’t you, sweetheart?”

  There was an anxious tone to her mother’s voice.

  “Sure.”

  “I wish he’d moved. I can’t imagine you going back to that house... and not, and not, oh, dear, I don’t know how to say this!”

  “My old house—with Tara Hughes as hostess in it?” Kathy inquired dryly.

  “I guess that’s it,” Sally admitted.

  “Mom, I left that house, remember.”

  “And I’ll never know why!”

  “Mother—”

  “Sorry! I don’t meddle! But I do intend to be your moral support!”

  “Mom, I’m going to bring a friend. I’ll be all right.”

  “A friend. Who?”

  “Just a friend. You’ll see. And I’ll be fine. I’m delighted you’re going. I’ve got to get back to work, though, okay?”

  Her mother was silent on the other end.

  “Mother? I’m hanging up now,” she said.

  “Yes, of course, dear. I was just thinking that it might be a good idea if you were to go alone.”

  “Mom,” Kathy said very gently. “Jordan is seeing a very beautiful young woman.”

  “Such a mistake.”

  “I don’t think Jordan sees it that way.”

  “But it is a mistake. Women outlive men.”

  “Mom, Dad was quite a bit older than you.”

  “Yes, dear, I know that. I was the one married to him. And he was wonderful, wasn’t he?” she queried, her voice both light and sincere. She didn’t really want an answer—they had both loved Kathy’s father deeply. “But the point of it is, sad but true, men usually are the ones dating younger women. And women outlive men, so the natural thing would be for more women to date younger men and more men to date older women.”

  “Interesting concept, Mom. It may or may not catch on,” Kathy murmured ironically.

  “And we all know that men are at their sexual peak when they’re barely children, right around the age of eighteen. While women reach their prime in their late thirties, some even in their forties. Dear, just look at what you’re doing with your prime.”

  Kathy held the phone receiver away from her ear and stared at it as if doing so might somehow help her make sense of her mother’s very strange and taunting words.

  “Mom, I’m leading a happy life.”

  “A content life. A safe life.”

  “Mother,” she said sternly, “be that as it may, I am content, and Jordan is involved, so don’t you and the girls go around thinking you can play ‘Parent Trap’ for the reunion.”

  “Kathy, I wouldn’t dream of meddling. But it’s a shame he’s involved with that Miss Hughes. You two would be much better for one another now. You’re both past your prime.”

  “Gee, thanks, Mom.”

  “Statistics and research, dear.”

  “I don’t think Jordan considers himself past his prime, and, apparently, neither does his actress.”

  “Does that mean you consider yourself past yours?” Sally queried with sweet innocence.

  “Mother, I am hanging up now. For real!”

  “’Bye, sweetheart,” Sally said.

  “See you soon, Mom.”

  Sally chuckled softly. “Tell Jeremy, that hot date of yours, hello for me, will you?”

  “He hasn’t agreed to go yet,” Kathy admitted.

  “Tell him I insisted.”

  “I’ll try,” Kathy said. “And don’t you dare mention a word about the fact that Jeremy and I are only friends to Jordan!”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it!” Sally promised. “I’m hanging up now, dear!”

  And she did.

  The phone clicked in Kathy’s ear. Shaking her head with a wry smile, she set the receiver back into its cradle and started from her desk. She’d have Angie, her assistant, start tracking the lost manuscript, and then go right on to the art department.

  By six-thirty that evening they’d found the manuscript which had been delivered to the wrong department, and Kathy had had a satisfactory meeting with the art director, who’d decided she should talk directly to the artist, who had been charming and willing—for a price, of course—to start from the very beginning now that he clearly understood what was needed. One of Kathy’s marketing meetings hadn’t gone as well as she had hoped, but she had managed to scrape together something of a campaign for one of her new authors. She hadn’t gotten any editing done nor had she read any proposals on books to be scheduled for publication, but despite her job title, she did do most of her editing at home.

  Except that she wasn’t going straight home. She left the office and headed for the gym, where Jeremy was at first all business, reminding her that she needed some warm-up time before working with the free weights, and that she’d been such a couch potato lately she deserved to start on the Stairmaster.

  This was fine with Kathy. The most wicked machine in the place was alienated in its own little area, leaving her free to talk to Jeremy while she worked. She explained to him that she had decided to go to Star Island, but that she wasn’t thrilled about doing it, that she was going to be very uncomfortable—and that she needed him.

  He listened, intrigued. But when she finished, he shook his head uneasily. “You’ve got to come with me!” Kathy said firmly. She marched hard on the Stairmaster, heedless for once of the pain shooting through her legs. She didn’t mind really working this evening because it was one way to get Jeremy’s complete and undivided attention. “Please!” she begged.

  “Kathy,” he said firmly, standing at her side, arms crossed over his chest as he stared at her, “it was one thing to pretend last night that we’re involved—that was a very sticky situation—but we’re all grown-ups here, and you can’t keep that kind of pretense up. Your daughters will know—”

  “My daughters will not say anything.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  She stopped, breathing heavily, leaning over the stair machine rail. “Because they’re daughters, Jeremy, girls. They understand pride and the like.”

  “I can’t get the time.”

  “You’re dying to see the Star Island estate, I know it.”

  She had him there. He shrugged, then snapped at her. “Don’t you dare stop stepping, you’ve got another ten minutes to go here!”

  “Jeremy—”

  “Kathy, will you listen to this? You want me to come to Florida with you and pretend that we’re having a hot and heavy affair so your ex-husband won’t worry about you!”

  “Ummm, something like that,” she said evasively.

  “Kathy—”

  “My mother’s coming, too,” she said.

  “You are in a sad situation!” he agreed.

  “She said to insist that you accompany me. She wanted you to know she thinks you should d
efinitely come.”

  “Is that a bribe? She’ll start working out, too?”

  “I think so.”

  “Kathy—”

  “Jeremy, he’s dating a little kid!”

  “Ummm. Tara Hughes. Sexy little kid.”

  “My point exactly. She’s very young.”

  “She’s around thirty, I think.”

  “I’m at least fifteen years older.”

  “But very well preserved!” Jeremy said cheerfully. “No new decay today that I can see.”

  “You might not be looking closely enough,” Kathy murmured. She sighed deeply. “Please try to understand. She’ll be there. Hostess in what used to be my house.”

  “You left it,” he reminded her stubbornly.

  “Right. And I didn’t mean to go back to it.”

  “But you agreed to do so.” She nodded, stepping harder on the exercise machine and still not noticing the pain of such determined effort. Were she only this worried on a daily basis, she’d have the best thighs in all New York.

  “You told me I had to do it, remember?” she said to him. “‘The party of the century?’”

  “When do you ever listen to me?”

  “I feel I need to for some reason. Didn’t you notice, last night, Jeremy? He was tense; this whole thing really means a lot to him.”

  “He didn’t seem tense to me.”

  “That’s because you don’t know him.”

  “He was completely the gentleman. Not in the least tense. Even when the police had their guns in his face. I thought you said he had quite a temper.”

  “He does. On occasion. And we’re getting off the subject.”

  “You mean about me going with you?”

  “Right. Jeremy—”

  “Kathy, we’d be living a lie,” he reminded her very politely, as if explaining ethics to a stubborn child.

  “It will not be a long trip—you just can’t imagine how hard it would be to go back there alone!”

  “Your daughters will be there,” he reminded her stubbornly. “I consider them my friends as well. And they will know the truth about you and me.”

  “I know they won’t say anything.”

  “He’s their father.”

  “Right. And they’re protective of both of us. Since he’s the one really dating the gorgeous, sweet young thing—”