For All of Her Life

by Heather Graham

  “Does that mean you’re calling me a sweet young thing, too?”

  She grinned. “Muscleman.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. I’m not sure you can really understand this, but I know Bren and Alex and they’ll always hope their father and I will get back together. Naturally, they’ll think Jordan will find me more appealing if I’m on the arm of a very handsome, younger man; so they’ll encourage his belief that we’re having a hot and heavy affair, but not one that embodies everlasting love!” she assured him.

  “Kathy, you read too much.”

  “That’s human nature,” she assured him. “Don’t we all tend to want something someone else has?”

  “Does Tara have him?”

  “Maybe no one really has Jordan,” she murmured.

  “I can’t salvage your heart, Kathy.”

  “My heart doesn’t need salvaging, but my ego can really use the booster. Jeremy, please, if I am going to go back, I need help.”

  “Help her,” said a third voice, a rich, smooth, masculine voice.

  Kathy missed a step. She and Jeremy both turned around, startled.

  Tony Grant, another one of the instructors at the gym, had come over and stood grinning ear to ear behind them. He was about Jeremy’s age, blond and tanned, and becoming a popular model in his spare time, though he loved being a personal trainer and had no intention of leaving the field even if he became an even more popular model. He liked people too much, working with them, helping them live their lives in a more healthful fashion.

  “How loudly were we talking?” Kathy asked, feeling a mortified blush settling into her cheeks, and whispering now, though she was aware she was probably doing so just a little too late.

  Tony shook his head. “I didn’t really hear much. Don’t look so panicked! Jeremy told me about your ex-husband’s arrival and what that ex-husband assumed was going on between you and him last night.”

  “I probably should have been discussing this with you both,” she said sheepishly. “Would you mind—?”

  “You’ve stopped stepping,” Jeremy said.

  “What?”

  “You’re on a stair machine, young woman! Start stepping!”

  “I’ve been on this thing long enough to have climbed the damned Rockies!” She groaned, stepping off the machine completely and drying her face with the small towel she had cast around her shoulders.

  “Kathy, this is not a proper workout,” Jeremy said firmly.

  “Jeremy, I will work my little butt off if you’ll just help me.”

  “The object is to work your butt off anyway!” he announced sternly.

  “Kathy, don’t pay any attention to him. He’ll do it. He’ll be delighted to do it,” Tony said.

  “I will?” Jeremy asked.

  Tony lifted his arms. “I’d do it! I’d do it in an instant. What’s the matter with you? They’re going to be making history down there! Besides, what are friends for if they don’t help each other out?”

  Kathy gave Tony an impulsive hug. “Whoops, sorry about the sweat!” she said.

  “Job hazard,” he said lightly.

  “I’m the one going,” Jeremy reminded her. “And he’s already soaked up the sweat. You may show gratitude and appreciation to me, as well.”

  She laughed and hugged him, too, then looked at them both. “Thanks guys, really. I know it’s childish, but I was married a long time. And he’s got a gorgeous young thing at his side. Now I—”

  “Will have one too,” Tony teased.

  She laughed. “That’s the point. Jeremy is absolutely gorgeous and young. He’s just not my gorgeous young thing. He’s borrowed for the occasion.”

  “With my blessing,” Tony told her.

  “If you two have got this all settled now...” Jeremy began dryly.

  “Hey, wait a minute. I want to be invited down for the big reunion concert,” Tony said.

  “You’ve got it,” Kathy told him. “And Alex’s birthday as well.”

  “Now it’s all settled,” Tony grinned again.

  “I’ll make it up to you both, I promise,” Kathy said.

  “I’m sure you will,” Tony said. “But I think this means you’d better be getting to the whole roomful of machines, Kathy, my dear. Back to work now. We’ll repair you before the big day so you don’t have to worry about any decay. The plane isn’t leaving yet! But do you know what?”

  “What?” Kathy said.

  He shrugged, and lifted her chin to meet her eyes. “Don’t underestimate yourself. You’re worth a dozen sweet young things. And I’m even willing to bet your ex realizes that!”

  “Thanks!” she told him softly. “You guys are really good friends.”

  “Yeah. We try. And we really like a good party, too!” he teased.

  As he walked away, leaving her and Jeremy to their work, a sudden surge of tremors swept through Kathy.

  It was going to happen.

  She was really going back.

  Quite suddenly, the thought was almost paralyzing.

  Because she was afraid of going home...

  Seven

  THE HOUSE ON STAR Island was huge, with a full ten thousand feet of living area plus a number of patios and the guest house.

  It had been constructed along the lines of a Mediterranean villa, in the style popular in South Florida in the twenties when the place had been built, when men such as Mizner, Fink, and Paist had been creating homes—on small and large scales—with unique architectural overtones. In fact, Jordan’s home had been built in the very early twenties, before the hurricane of the mid-decade had devastated nearly all of the growing area, and it had stood up to the winds and water, as it continued to do today. Hurricane Andrew hadn’t managed to do much more than sweep away a few roof tiles.

  The only real damage ever done to Star Island occurred when the fire decimated the guest house. Five years ago, Jordan had had it replaced. Since the home was on the historic register, he’d been determined to restore it. It was a two-story structure with arches and loggias, a glassed-in porch on the first floor, a balcony on the second. The single bedroom was upstairs, a small living area and kitchen were on the ground floor.

  The main house was shaped like a horseshoe, the sides curving around the courtyard, patio, and pool; the guest house being to the left of the back of the house, almost directly on the water. The view was outstanding. Although the rear of the home was on a curve of the island, the yard afforded views of the bridge out to Miami Beach, nearby Hibiscus Island, and, at night, the dazzle of light from downtown Miami. From the small private dock, it was an easy sail or motor out to the open bay. From the first time he had seen the place, Jordan had thought it a paradise.

  He’d just never imagined that he’d wind up living in paradise alone. And he wasn’t sure why, at first, after the fire and the divorce, he had kept the house. Doggedness, maybe. Or perhaps the view. Maybe because it was a paradise, and he’d wanted it for his daughters and himself. No one could alter that, no circumstance change it.

  He stood by the pool, leaned against one of the columns that was part of the trellised walkway on the bay side of the crystal water. From his vantage point, he had a view of the main patio and the guest house.

  “Where are you going to put everyone?” Tara asked him.

  He turned to her.

  Blond hair straight down her back with an unbelievable silky sheen, eyes shaded with dark glasses, skin honed to a perfect golden tan—and a great deal of it proudly displayed in a small yellow bikini—she was elegantly draped on a patio chair, a notebook and pen in her hands. She’d just come in from a shoot, and she was on her way back out to a shoot in the morning. He wondered if she would have flown back in if she hadn’t been concerned about helping him with his guest list and the positioning. It somewhat amused him that she was so worried about where he’d put people for the reunion. Actually, he was quite certain she worried only about where he put Kathy.

  The deep end of the
pool might have suited Tara.

  “Only the band members are staying at the house. And my father. My mother-in-law.”

  “You’re divorced. You don’t have a mother-in-law.”

  He shrugged. “I was only married once. And Sally is a great lady.”

  Tara wisely kept quiet on that one.

  “The girls have their own rooms, so they’re taken care of,” Tara murmured. “For guests we need seven rooms, two for the parents, then there are your ex-wife, Larry Haley, Shelley Thompson, Miles Reeves, and Derrick Flanaghan. And they’re all married or paired up, right?” She removed her glasses and stared at him. Her eyes were huge, a pure sky blue. She smiled. He felt guilty.

  “We need eight,” he said.

  “Eight?”

  “Shelley and Miles are coming alone. Larry has a new wife, and Derrick has been married forever. But I can’t just presume that Kathy wants to be housed with this friend she’s bringing.”

  “If she’s bringing him, she probably wants to be ‘housed’ with him,” Tara snapped.

  “I doubt it. This fellow doesn’t live with her in New York.”

  “How do you know?”

  He sighed. “My daughters would have informed me of the situation.”

  “Then maybe she’d like to be housed with him for a change.”

  He shook his head. “I think she’d be uncomfortable. Her mother and her children will be here. I need two rooms for Kathy, so we need eight.”

  The house actually had fourteen bedrooms. The master was his, and the connecting bedroom he had turned into his office. His daughters each had a room. The largest bedroom in the right wing of the house was occupied by Joe and Peggy Garcia, the couple who were butler and housekeeper, managed everything regarding the home for him. A second room in the right wing housed Joe and Peggy’s son, Angel, who was working his way through the U. of Miami by being a handyman and doing some gardening. Tara also had a room. She liked her separate space—and certainly needed it. She’d never “lived” with him, though she’d stayed with him often enough, and even on those occasions, had wanted her own space. She took up... space. Her bathroom was filled to the rim with different lotions, hand things, face things, body things. For a good night’s sleep before a shoot, she liked to stretch out alone. But Jordan had also wanted his own space. The arrangement had worked out.

  Despite the size of the main house, for the party he was planning, they were short a room.

  “I can move into your room for the time,” Tara said. “That will be easy enough.”

  “It isn’t necessary.”

  “But I don’t mind at all.”

  “No. My father and my daughters will be here, remember?”

  “Oh, they don’t know we sleep together?”

  “Tara, we’ve always kept separate rooms.”

  “Jordan, you’re over forty! Your daughters are grown up now, they know you have relationships—know that we have one! Under the circumstances, we should just give up the luxury of a little extra space. I don’t mind.”

  “I do.”

  “You are beginning to hurt my feelings.”

  “I don’t mean to. This is just one time when I need my space.”

  “So” she inquired with a sudden streak of rancor, “Do I just slip your ex-wife in with you?”

  “You don’t need to slip anyone anywhere, Tara. Peggy will work out who goes where.”

  “I’m trying to help you, Jordan.”

  Maybe he was being a louse.

  “The main house has fourteen rooms, but,” he reminded her, “you’re forgetting the guest house.”

  “I am, as you should be!” she said, lifting her glasses again to stare at him. “The last time you all were together, the guest house burned to the ground. Who is going to want to stay where Keith died? You’re not going to be able to put anyone else out there!”

  “I’m not going to try to.”

  “Honestly, Jordan, you’ve become so damned weird over this whole thing! If you’re not going to put a guest out there—”

  He glanced her way, arching a brow, smiling slightly. “I’ll be out there myself, Tara. It’s exactly where I want to be.”

  Shelley Thompson sat in her small dressing room, staring at her reflection in the mirror. She moved closer. Good. A few little lines, that was natural. But all in all, she looked really good. The surgeon she was using now had the most deft hands in the universe. Up close, she might look thirty-five. At a distance, she could pass for a woman in her twenties. All right, late twenties. But she did look good. It wasn’t going to be difficult to go back. Not on that level, at least.

  Her hair had always been a dusty blond, and she kept it highlighted a few shades more to the gold. Her eyes were her best feature, large and green. Her nose had been fixed quite nicely, and she knew she had a pretty face.

  The last decade had been both hard on her and good. For all of her life before, she’d had the band. She hadn’t made decisions, she had gone with the flow. The money came in; she spent it. Then Blue Heron had been gone, and there she’d been. Like the others, she received a decent income. But she had expensive tastes—especially in plastic surgeons. And she did love jewelry. And clothes. On her own, she had one hell of a tendency to run into debt.

  Jordan, though he had dissolved the band, would have helped her at any time. Any of the guys would have helped her. Kathy would have helped her.

  But she hadn’t wanted to go to them. To go back. She’d been afraid to go back. Keith was dead. Buried. Doors once closed were best left that way.

  Sometimes, it seemed that the past came after her. Every once in a while, she’d get a phone call, a letter in the mail, and she’d know that the past never really let go.

  But she wasn’t going to confront it. Not alone.

  So she’d managed on her own, and she hadn’t done so badly. Most of the time, she did “oldies” in Vegas. A few times, she had gotten roles on Broadway. She went under the stage name of Shelley Adams, since she’d discovered different receptions to her past at different auditions. Some of the young kids directing now weren’t very familiar with Blue Heron. Some of the directors were. Some wanted to gossip, and some didn’t think rock stars belonged on Broadway, no matter what others had done in the past. As Shelley Adams, she’d done all right, though. She hadn’t gotten a lead, hadn’t stormed the Big Apple, but she’d worked steadily and she’d kept her five-foot-three-inch form in damned decent shape, to keep up with the twenty-year-olds.

  She glanced at her watch. Fifteen minutes until showtime. Fifteen minutes. She had to call and call now.

  She set her hand on the phone and plucked it up, then dialed the number she had known a very long time, but never used before.

  She went through a receptionist, and was finally connected with Kathryn Connoly.

  “Shelley?” came the surprised voice.

  “Kath?”

  “Yes. My God! How are you? What have you been up to? What have you been doing?”

  Shelley smiled, twirling the wire in her fingers. It was good to hear Kathy’s voice. So natural. The warmth was all there, the enthusiasm that was so Kathy.

  “Working.”

  “Where?”

  “All over. Mostly Vegas.” She hesitated. “In New York now and then.”

  “Shelley! Why didn’t you ever let me know? I’d have loved to have seen you!”

  “Well, you know, the way you and Jordan split up, I guess we just all kind of assumed you wanted a new life with the past completely erased.”

  “You don’t erase old friends!” Kathy admonished.

  “Can you really erase old husbands?”

  “Not completely,” Kathy agreed.

  “I... uh... have to be on in just a few minutes, lunch show out here, but I wanted to ask you—you are coming back for the reunion, right?”

  “Yes. Are you?”

  “Yeah, sure. I can’t wait to see you!” Shelley rushed on. She meant it. The words were sincere. Kathy Treveryan—
Connoly now—had been the best friend she’d ever had.

  “You too, Shelley. You too. I can’t wait to catch up.”

  “No new husbands, huh?”

  “Nope. How about you?”

  “I never married. You know me. Too fickle. I guess I’d better go now, the lunch crowd is the sober one, they know whether a show starts on time or not. Really, Kathy, I just can’t wait.”

  “Me, too.”

  “’Bye then. See you next week.”

  “Next week.”

  Shelley set the receiver down. She hesitated, picked it up, dialed, listened to the ringing. It was answered.

  “She’s coming.”

  “Definitely?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Good.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, then, we’ll all see each other next week, right?”

  Shelley swallowed hard. “Right.”

  There was a click in her ear. With another hard swallow, she set the receiver down.

  She stood, startled by the little blur in her eyes. She was afraid.

  Showtime!

  She worked for a living. She couldn’t afford to forget that. Not for a minute. Not for anyone. Not even for herself.

  Derrick Flanaghan wheezed, gasped, and dripped more sweat—but kept going, running hard on his treadmill. He still had a week before going down to Florida, and if it halfway killed him, he was going to knock off ten more pounds before getting there.

  From her armchair in their comfortable L.A. home, Judy shook her head, not looking his way. “You’re going to kill yourself, Derrick. Drop dead of a heart attack.”

  He didn’t answer her; he didn’t have the breath to do so. But the timer on his machine mercifully buzzed then, and he slowed his gait. Down to a walk, he glanced at his wife.

  Judy was wraith thin. She had a metabolism that moved a thousand miles an hour, or so it seemed. It might have come from sheer cussedness. Judy spoke her mind, did what she wanted, and moved mountains when she chose. What she lacked in tact she made up in energy. She hadn’t wanted children; they didn’t have any. Pets ruined carpets—they didn’t have any of those, either. According to Judy, he couldn’t really make music on his own. He’d never really tried. Actually, he was glad they’d never had children. He believed in the theory that children lived up to or down to their parents expectations. Judy was, in her terms, a realist.