The Backup Plan

by Sherryl Woods

  Yet second thoughts were now raging in her mind al most as wildly as passion had earlier. She’d wanted a moment out of time, just one moment, but Cord evidently wanted more. As wonderful as she’d felt for that fleeting moment, Dinah wasn’t sure she had anything more to give him. And even if she found it was possible, would she want to? This man had betrayed her and his brother once. Why would she allow herself anything more than a casual fling with him?

  “For a woman who insisted she was starving for a hamburger, you haven’t made even a dent in that one,” Cord chided, breaking into her troubled thoughts. “Is there something wrong with it?”

  “No, it’s great,” she said, taking a dutiful bite. It was charcoal broiled, juicy and topped with a thick slice of cheddar cheese, ripe summer tomato, onion, mayonnaise and ketchup. As burgers went, it was sublime, but it might as well have been sawdust.

  Cord rolled his eyes, clearly not believing her act. “How about some steamed shrimp?”

  “No, thanks. This is plenty.”

  “Ice cream?”

  She gave him the kind of horrified look she would have expected from her mother, who was of the clean-your-plate era. “Before I finish my meal?”

  He laughed. “You’re a grown-up now. You can have dessert first. I’m thinking a huge hot fudge marshmallow sundae we can share. How about it?”

  “You are definitely talking my language,” she admitted. She eyed the burger with regret. “It seems a shame, though, to waste food like this.”

  He held out his hand. “If it will help allay your guilt, I’ll finish it,” he said a little too eagerly to be perceived as a martyr. “You order the sundae.”

  “I’m impressed with the nobility of your sacrifice,” she said dryly.

  “You should be. I’ll have to add a couple of miles to my run in the morning.”

  “You run?” For some reason, she was surprised by that. She’d always envisioned him spending every spare second lazing around in that well-used hammock of his. That he had the discipline to run destroyed another leftover judgment she’d made about him.

  “Every day.”

  “I used to,” Dinah told him. She hadn’t been out in months, not since the day Peter had died. All the running they’d done together hadn’t done him a damn bit of good, so she hadn’t seen the point in continuing the exercise.

  But it might have been what saved your life, a voice in her head nagged now as it had been for months. She sighed. Running hadn’t saved her life. Peter had, when he’d given her the chance to slip away.

  When she looked up, Cord was studying her curiously. “If you stayed over at my place tonight, you could come with me in the morning.”

  Her lips twitched, despite herself. “And that’s sup posed to entice me? Running’s hard. I hated every second of it.”

  “But it clears your head,” he said. “Keeps you in shape. Releases all those good endorphins.”

  She frowned at that. “Is there something wrong with my shape?”

  “Truth be told, you’re still too skinny,” he taunted.

  “I didn’t hear you complaining back on the beach,” she reminded him.

  “No reason to complain then. I had more important things on my mind.”

  “Your mind was disengaged from the minute you hit the water,” she retorted.

  Cord laughed. “I suppose that’s true enough.” His expression sobered. “So what about it, Dinah? Will you come back to my place tonight? I’m not asking for a lifetime commitment, if that’s what’s worrying you. I’d just like to hold you in my arms for one night.”

  “And one night will do it for you?” she asked, amused.

  He grinned. “Depends on whether you snore or steal all the covers.”

  She weighed all the reasons it would be a perfectly awful idea against the one powerful reason for saying yes…that it would guarantee her the kind of exhaustion that might lead to a dreamless sleep, something she hadn’t had in what seemed like forever.

  “Yes,” she said at last, impulse overruling her head for the second time that day. She met his gaze and gave him a long, lazy grin that had a justifiable wariness stirring in his eyes. “But you’re gonna have to be the one to explain it to my mother.”

  His eyes danced with amusement at the challenge. “You sure you want me to do that, sugar?”

  “I think it will be absolutely fascinating to see what you come up with,” she said. “If you can turn it into some G-rated explanation, you will earn my undying respect.”

  “G-rated, huh?”

  “That’s the rule.”

  Dinah stared in disbelief as Cord pulled out his cell phone and punched in a single number. “You have her on speed dial?” she asked incredulously.

  “This is your mother we’re talking about. She’s the ruler of all things out at Covington,” he explained. His expression brightened as the phone was apparently answered. “Hey, Mrs. Davis, how are you?”

  Dinah felt her stomach tighten as she waited to see if Cord would stick to the rules or say something absolutely outrageous to her mother that Dinah would never be able to live down.

  “Your daughter asked me to give you a call and let you know that she’s going to be spending the night at a friend’s. She didn’t want you to worry.” He grinned at whatever her mother said. “Yes, ma’am, I surely will tell her that. You enjoy the rest of your day, okay?”

  When he’d hung up, Dinah frowned at him. “What did she want you to tell me?”

  “To be sure to use protection.”

  Dinah choked on her sip of diet cola. “She did not!”

  “Sugar, your mama is an enlightened woman. I don’t think you give her half enough credit.”

  Dinah knew that was probably true enough. She switched gears. “You broke the rules.”

  “Me? Did you hear one thing come out of my mouth that a six-year-old wouldn’t say if he was going to have a sleepover at a playmate’s?”

  “What about that whole protection thing?”

  “I didn’t say that. Your mama did. I can’t be held accountable for her having the intuition to figure out what you and I are up to.” His gaze narrowed. “You’re not in tending to back out now, are you?”

  Dinah shook her head. How could she, when she’d laughed more and felt more alive in the past couple of hours than she had in months? “I must be crazy,” she said, half to herself. She met Cord’s gaze. “But, no, I’m not backing out.”

  Dorothy hung up the phone, a smile on her lips. Thank goodness her daughter was finally showing some sense. A decade ago Cordell might not have been the man she would have chosen for Dinah, but times had changed. People changed.

  Not only had Cord proved himself to be respectable and hard-working, but recently he’d shown himself to be caring where Dinah was concerned. And goodness knows he’d apparently dedicated himself to dragging her out of this depressed state she was obviously in. If he accomplished that and nothing else, Dorothy owed him her gratitude.

  “Was that Dinah?” her husband asked when she joined him.

  “No, it was Cord. He was calling on Dinah’s behalf, though. I think they’re becoming something of an item,” she said with undisguised pleasure.

  Marshall lowered the Sunday sports section and stared at her over the rim of his reading glasses. “Are you telling me that our daughter is getting mixed up with Cordell Beaufort?”

  She heard the unmistakable disdain in his voice and responded with a touch of defiance. “Yes.”

  “And you’re encouraging it?”

  His censure grated. She frowned at him. “I most certainly am. Neither you nor I have been able to do a thing to shake Dinah out of this lethargy she’s been in. If Cord can do that, then he has my blessing.”

  “I don’t understand you, Dorothy,” Marshall declared with unmistakable disappointment in his tone. He raised the paper, putting an abrupt end to the discussion.

  “There’s nothing new about that,” she retorted under her breath.

&nb
sp; Apparently Marshall heard her, because he tossed the paper aside with a scowl. “What the devil is that sup posed to mean?”

  She decided that for once she would see the argument through to its conclusion. Placating him, trying to smooth things over every time they talked hadn’t worked. Maybe a rousing good argument would.

  “It means that you haven’t understood me for years,” she said. “In fact it’s been decades since you even tried. If I were a less secure woman, I’d have to wonder if you weren’t having an affair.”

  To her surprise a wounded expression crossed his face. He slowly removed his glasses and stared at her with the deep blue eyes that had once been her undoing. Now she merely returned his gaze with an unblinking stare of her own and waited to see if he’d confirm her half-formed suspicion. She convinced herself it would be a relief to know the truth.

  “Are you mad at me simply because I don’t see what you see in Cord Beaufort?” he asked. “Or are you fishing around to see if I’ll admit to something?”

  She regarded him with impatience. “Neither, Marshall. The truth is I’m not mad at you at all. I’m just sad.”

  He looked totally confused. “About what? Dinah?”

  “No, you idiot. About us.”

  “Us! What’s wrong with us? You know damn well I’m not having an affair.”

  If he’d been so dismissive of her fears and asked such a ridiculous question a few weeks ago, she would have walked out of the room in frustration, but watching Dinah struggle with her own demons had shown her that there was nothing to be gained by waiting for things to change. It was up to her to make something happen.

  “I don’t know any such thing, as a matter of fact. At least that would explain why we’re simply coexisting, Marshall. You go your way. I go mine. I want something more out of marriage, don’t you?”

  His face suddenly registered a combination of dismay and fear. “You want a divorce?” he asked, his voice flat. “Is that what this is about? After all these years, you want to end our marriage?”

  She actually thought about the question before responding. A divorce would certainly shake them out of this awful limbo. But how many of her friends had seized on that option and found themselves no happier than they were before? And if she were being totally honest, she felt genuinely bereft at the thought of losingMarshall. That, in itself, was a shock.

  “No,” she told him slowly. “I want to fix our marriage, if at all possible. I’m not ready to give up on it yet. But things have to change, Marshall. We have to put some effort into this relationship. Are you willing to do that?”

  He looked thoroughly baffled by her question. “I have no idea what you think we need to be doing that we’re not doing already.”

  She didn’t find it all that hard to believe that he was clueless. She didn’t know exactly what she expected either. And that was precisely the problem. It was impossible and unfair to ask a man to change if she couldn’t even tell him how she wanted him to change. Maybe that’s why it had taken her so long to get around to having this conversation. She’d never known what to ask for.

  “Am I the wife you wanted me to be?” she asked in stead.

  “Of course you are,” he said at once. “I love you, Dorothy. You’re an amazing woman. You juggle a hundred balls in the air and you do it with such finesse it leaves me in awe.”

  She stared at him in amazement. “You’ve never said anything like that before. I didn’t think you even paid attention to anything I was doing.”

  “Of course I pay attention and I say it all the time,” he contradicted, then paused, his expression turning thoughtful. “But perhaps not to you.”

  “Then who on earth do you say it to?”

  “I brag about you to my colleagues.”

  “Really?” she said, oddly touched. “I always thought you were simply happy that I had enough to keep me occupied and out of your hair.”

  “Nonsense!” He peered at her intently. “Is that what you think is missing, a few compliments?”

  She smiled at his wistful expression. “If only it were that simple, but we’re making a start right now, Marshall. We’re talking, really communicating, for the first time in years.”

  “We talk all the time,” he protested with a faintly baffled expression still plastered on his face.

  “Not about anything important. We talk about what time we’re expected at some dinner party or what happened at the bank. We never talk about what we’re thinking and feeling or what we want. Do you realize you’re getting close to retirement age and we’ve never discussed what you’d like to do or if you even intend to retire?”

  “To be honest, I haven’t given it any thought,” he said. “I’ve been too busy.”

  “Maybe you need to start thinking about it,” she said, then held up her hand when it was clear he intended to debate the point. “I’m not saying you need to plan your retirement tomorrow, just think about the future. Maybe we both do.”

  His gaze held hers. “I may not know a lot about what I want for the future,” he said. “But there is one thing I do know with absolute certainty.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I want you by my side. I’ll do whatever it is you want me to do or that you think we need to do together to make that happen.”

  Tears stung her eyes. “What if we can’t figure it out?” she asked, voicing her greatest fear.

  “We will,” he said confidently. “Between us, thank heaven, we still have two great minds. If we put them together, I think we can do anything.”

  She wished she were as certain. She couldn’t even figure out a place to begin.

  “How about this?” Marshall said, taking the initiative in a way that stunned her. “From now on we set aside one night a week for the two of us. It’ll be our date night. No dinner parties, no galas, just us.”

  She grinned at him, touched by the effort he was willing to make. It told her more than anything else might have that she’d gotten through to him. “Are you sure we won’t bore each other to tears?”

  “Not if we throw ourselves into it.”

  “I suppose we could take turns planning the evenings,” she said thoughtfully. “That way there’d be a little something surprising about every date.”

  He gave her a wonderfully wicked look, one she hadn’t seen in years and years. It made her regret not forcing this issue a long time ago, instead of drifting along in silent misery.

  “Just be sure you take your vitamins, Dorothy, because I intend to give you a run for your money.”

  “And you think you still have it in you?” she challenged, amused by the sudden pep in his voice.

  “I suppose we’ll see about that. Which night shall we set? And who’s going to plan the first date?”

  “Let me check my datebook,” she said, starting to rise.

  “No,” he said so firmly that she sat right back down. “If we’re going to do this, it has to be a priority. Whatever’s on either of our calendars can be changed to accommodate us. Pick a night.”

  She grinned. “Given that glint in your eye, it ought to be on the weekend. You’re going to need your rest the next day,” she teased. “But as a practical matter, it probably shouldn’t be Saturday. We’re bound to start running into conflicts with various events that neither of us can possibly cancel.”

  “I agree. We’d be doomed before we start. So, Fri day then?” he asked. “Is that the deal?”

  She saw a long list of potential problems with Friday, but none of them were worth losing out on this chance to get some life back into her marriage. “Definitely Friday,” she said. “And since you seem to be the one with all the ideas, why don’t you plan the first one, Marshall? Just keep in mind, I expect to be dazzled.”

  “You always did have impossibly high standards,” he scolded. “But I promise you this, it will be an evening you won’t forget.” He winked at her. “Perhaps since you have such good things to say about the way Cord’s handling Dinah, I’ll ask him fo
r advice.”

  “Perhaps you ought to keep your own counsel,” Dorothy replied, then added dryly, “If you and I try to mimic Cord and Dinah, we’re likely to throw our backs out.”

  Someone who obviously had a death wish was trying to drag Dinah out of bed.

  “Go away,” she muttered. She cracked one eye open and noted that it was still dark. “It’s not even daylight.”

  “It will be in a few minutes,” Cord said, grabbing hold of the covers and yanking them away.

  “Unless you intend to crawl back into this bed and make love to me, you are a dead man,” Dinah said, burying her face in the pillow.

  “A fascinating offer, but last night you agreed to go running with me this morning.”

  “I lied.”

  “Too bad. I believed you and I am not leaving this house without you.” He smacked her lightly on the bottom. “Move it, sugar.”

  “I don’t have running shoes here.”

  “We’ll stop by your house and get them.”

  Her eyes snapped open at the absurdity of the suggestion. “You want to arrive at my house at this ungodly hour and go inside, where my parents will most likely be waiting to cross-examine us about our relationship?” Even the thought of it made her shudder.

  “I doubt your parents are even up yet,” Cord said. “Stop making excuses, unless of course you don’t think you can keep up with me.”

  Dinah debated rising to the challenge, but it required too much effort. “I can’t keep up with you. I’ll slow you down, so you’ll hardly get any workout at all.”

  Cord laughed. “Nice try, but I think I can cut back a little just this once.”

  “You said you needed to work off all that food you ate yesterday,” she reminded him.

  “I think we got a good enough start on that during the night,” he said, amusement playing over his face.

  Dinah was beginning to get the idea that she wasn’t going to win this debate, no matter what she said. She rolled over on her back, hoping the sight of her would give him some ideas about another form of exercise they could engage in. As he’d just noted, it had worked several times before during the night.