“What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded harshly. “Where’s Jarod? What is—”
“Would you shut up and hurry, please?” he snapped back. At the end of the carpeted hallway leading to the plane, a young blond stewardess was watching them. She was trying to maintain an expression of polite patience; she wasn’t doing very well. It was apparent that she was very anxious to close the door.
Susan glanced up at David’s profile. “Hurry!”
The small muscles in his jaw were contracting; his mouth was tight and harshly grim.
“Wait. I’m not going—”
“Miss Anderson, may we please argue once we’re on the plane?”
Susan did shut up—not because David had suggested it, but because they were reaching the pretty stewardess and public arguments were definitely not her style.
David smiled, said good morning, apologized for keeping the plane waiting, and handed their boarding passes to the woman. She graciously indicated their seats—close to the door, since the upgrading had meant first class. Susan had been scheduled in economy.
David took her carryall from her hands without asking and stowed it in the overhead compartment along with his briefcase and overcoat. “Sit down!” he said impatiently when she remained standing in the aisle.
The 727’s engines were revving. The stewardess touched her shoulders. “Excuse me, you must take your seats and buckle your belts.”
David slipped an arm around her waist, propelling her none too gently into the window seat.
“Damn you, David.”
Susan realized that the stewardess was still staring at them, and she felt a bit like an errant child.
She buckled her seat belt and stared out the window, seething. She was dying to verbally lash into David, but the quiet first-class section of the plane just didn’t seem like the place to do it.
The plane began to taxi; the stewardess moved to the front of the cabin, giving safety instructions. Susan continued to stare out the window, very painfully aware that David was beside her.
She closed her eyes, wincing. Yesterday … yesterday she had been expecting him to make another appearance. She had even hoped that he would make an appearance.
But now he was here. And apparently he was now the one who was supposed to be with her for the next week. How on earth would she ever manage it?
This was going to be impossible. He hadn’t called; he hadn’t written. She hadn’t seen him in three months—and suddenly he was next to her. If she’d really harbored any dreams for a future, they had been nothing like this. They had needed something gradual. A phone call here or there, maybe even another of his surprise appearances at the beach house. Not this.
How could she possibly act normal? Listen to him discuss a schedule in his smooth business voice, stare at him over quickly grabbed coffee and doughnuts before an interview? And all the while she would be thinking that they really hadn’t known each other to begin with, they were certainly as distant as two people could be right now, and she was pregnant with his child.
Think, think, think—it didn’t matter what she was thinking, she assured herself. She would just have to be careful. Very careful, because she couldn’t tell him. Dear God! What a dinner conversation that would be.
“Well, Miss Anderson, how have you been?”
“Oh, fairly well, Mr. Lane. Just a little uncomfortable now and then. Do you remember that night late last fall? You don’t? Well, I do. Very well. I can’t forget because—it’s just the damnedest thing—but that one stupid, reckless night has caused quite a change in the course of my life. What? Oh, I’m pregnant, you see. With your child…”
“A drink, Miss Anderson?”
“What?” Startled, Susan turned to him. That same pretty, smiling stewardess was hovering over them, her cordial and patient expression definitely wearing thin.
“Ah…”
David sighed deeply. “Susan, think quickly, please. This is difficult, I know, but would you or would you not like a drink?”
Lord, yes! She needed a drink. She wanted a double, very, very dry martini. She remembered the OB’s warning and ordered a light beer. The stewardess gave David a pitying glance, and Susan suddenly wanted to tear out a handful of the woman’s sleekly knotted hair.
Instead she took it out on David, lowering her voice to a hushed but vehement whisper. “What are you doing here? You’re the publisher, remember? Publishers have little or nothing to do with authors like me, remember? What the hell—”
“Miss Anderson,” he said, cutting in coolly, “Jarod’s wife gave birth early this morning. It didn’t seem fair to send the man out of town at such a time.”
For several seconds Susan just stared at him with shocked dismay. What had she been expecting him to say? That he just had to see her so he had changed the plans for the tour?
She turned back to the window. “Surely, Mr. Lane, you had someone else you might have sent?”
“Not really,” he said remotely. “We’re a small house. Besides, this book is important to me, as you well know.”
“Oh, yes. That’s right.”
Their drinks came. Susan sipped hers in silence. She realized that David was drinking coffee, and then she remembered that it was only about ten o’clock in the morning. Oh, the hell with it all! Let him think she was a lush!
David was ignoring her, reading a paper. A little belatedly, she thought of Jarod.
“Excuse me, Mr. Lane. What did Jarod’s wife have?”
His eyes flashed briefly to hers. “A boy.”
She started to smile with pleasure for the man who had wanted a son so badly but turned quickly away again. She was so tired, she could feel the pinpricks of tears behind her lids. Oh, this was never, never going to work!
“Sally wasn’t due for another three weeks,” David continued, ignoring her back. “But the baby is fine, and so is she.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Susan murmured.
A man walked by them, glanced down, and exclaimed, “David! How are you?”
David glanced up, smiled, and began speaking to the other man. He was apparently someone in the upper echelon of another publishing company. David introduced the two of them, then excused himself to look at a new book the other man had in his briefcase a few seats forward.
The stewardess came by then with breakfast. Susan stared ruefully at the beer in her hand.
“Oh, think nothing of it!” The blond said, flashing her a smile that suddenly seemed very real. “Lots of people are afraid to fly. They drink at six A.M. too!”
Susan started to protest that she wasn’t afraid of flying. She decided not to and smiled a little weakly instead.
The stewardess went away; David returned to his seat. Susan started wondering how long it took to reach Atlanta. She felt as if she’d already been on the plane for a week.
“What did you do?” he demanded a little sharply, and she realized that he was looking down at her leg and the long tear in her stocking.
“I tripped!” she snapped back. “And you needn’t look so appalled. I have other stockings. I’ll change them before we land.”
“Good.”
So this was first class, she thought wryly. She tried to bite into her eggs; they tasted like sawdust. She didn’t think the food was the problem; she was quite sure that it was her.
She still felt stunned. Nasty. Like picking a fight. It was so nerve-racking to have him there….
She leaned back, smiling acidly. “Do you know, Mr. Lane, my ticket was supposed to be economy. I assume Jarod would have flown economy. Things changed for you, I suppose.”
He pushed his eggs away too. “Yes, Miss Anderson, but it’s a matter of preference. Lane foots the bill for the economy ticket. Anyone who wants to is welcome to upgrade on personal expenses.”
“I didn’t wish to upgrade,” she said waspishly.
He turned back to his paper and sipped his coffee without bothering to reply. Susan knew she was being ridiculous
. She just didn’t seem to have much control over herself.
Breakfast was cleared away. The flight continued. Susan was sure she could have flown to China much more quickly under normal circumstances.
“I’m surprised you didn’t choose to fly around the country by yourself,” Susan commented, annoyed that he could display such total interest in the news when he had no right to be there.
“Arrangements were already made,” he said without glancing away from the page.
A few minutes later Susan excused herself, clenching her teeth as he smiled and helped her crawl over his legs rather than moving to allow her easy passage.
After changing her panty hose she stared at her reflection in the small mirror in the bathroom. She was white! Oh, she looked like hell, and she was supposed to be sparkling and enthusiastic. She didn’t know whether to feel numb, remain furious, or hope that this could be … something. She didn’t know what.
When she returned to her seat, it seemed that the arduous journey was at last about to come to an end. The pilot was announcing their approach to the airport.
But they didn’t land. There was a backup in the skies, and they kept flying around in circles, the pilot apologizing. Winter weather was causing all kinds of delays.
David was glancing at his wristwatch. It was really stunning—a new one, Susan thought, with a wide gold band and beautiful work on the face.
“We’re going to run a little late for the first interview,” he murmured. “But it’s a newspaper, so we should be all right.”
He didn’t seem tense or nervous. Susan was already so nervous that she couldn’t possibly become any more tense.
At last the plane glided down.
“Hurry,” David urged as they left it behind and started to rush through the busy airport.
“I’m hurrying as fast as I can!” Susan grated in reply. Already her ankle was killing her again.
They reached the gliding electric shuttle, and David pushed the button. Susan stopped to adjust her shoe. “Surely these people will understand that airplanes can be delayed!”
“Come on!”
David, unaware that she was adjusting the ankle strap on her shoe, stepped into the shuttle.
“Susan!”
She looked up just as the shuttle door was closing, just in time to see total impatience and anger explode across his features. The window and the shuttle disappeared.
Susan winced, wondering what to do. There was a moving sidewalk in front of her. She rushed to it, grimacing each time her foot hit the ground. She assumed the sidewalk would take her to the next shuttle stop, but it didn’t. She’d never been in the Atlanta airport before; it was immense.
“Oh, hell!” She muttered aloud, drawing a dour look from a pristine little old lady who happened to be walking by.
“Sorry!” Susan smiled weakly, then grew irritated with herself. Anyone with a grain of sense would get off an airplane and head for the baggage claim. If she went there, she decided, she would certainly find David.
It sounded perfect. It sounded fine, logical, and intelligent. Except that David wasn’t there. She found her bags and tugged them toward the exit. She glanced at the clock on the wall and realized that she had been there over half an hour.
It was then that David appeared; his features more severe and dark than any storm she’d ever seen hit the Maine coastline.
“Where the hell have you been! Why didn’t you get on the shuttle? I hope you realize that we haven’t a prayer in hell of reaching that newspaper on time! And you’re due at a bookstore on Peachtree in less than an hour! Why didn’t you stay put?”
“Stay put? Any idiot would go for their luggage.”
“Dammit, I’ve been over the entire length of this airport!”
“I did say any idiot, didn’t I?”
His coat was over his arm, his briefcase in his left hand. He used his right to spin her around, wave to a porter, and usher them both out into a dreary day. Susan cried out as his forcefulness made her ankle buckle again.
“I just told you how late we are! Is this all being done on purpose? What is—” He paused, eyes narrowing as he took in the pain in her eyes. “What’s wrong?” he asked quietly.
“My ankle!” she gasped out.
“Just now?”
“No, you imbecile!” Susan clenched her teeth together, fighting tears. “I hurt it in New York, and the way you’ve been dragging me around like a sack isn’t helping it at all!”
He hesitated. “Can you stand?”
“Yes! I can even walk—as long as you stop trying for the four-minute mile!”
He paused, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. The grip of his fingers on her arm eased. “I’ll have to reschedule the newspaper. We’ll go to the hotel and you can soak it.”
“No. I’ll be all right.”
“Susan, it’s not worth—”
“I will be all right!”
“Okay, we’ll try it. Our car should be here somewhere.”
He left her and returned a few moments later. A man with a rental agency cap on his head took her luggage while David took his own and helped her into a new Olds Supreme.
Susan had a feeling that this service was also especially for David Lane. Other people were entering shuttle buses to be driven to the rental agencies. Their car was awaiting them just like a pumpkin that had magically become a coach.
From that point on the day went exceptionally well. Susan was certain that it was because she had no more than five minutes to be near David alone. The book reporter on the newspaper was a lovely silver-haired woman who was an optimist; curious rather than interested in tearing anyone down. The employees in the bookstore were wonderfully gracious. There was an hour and a half gap between her session at the store and her five minutes on the evening news, but even that went smoothly because she sat in a cafe with a tea while David spent at least an hour on the phone to New York.
They had dinner with the southeastern sales manager and his wife, another very smooth event. Susan stayed in the kitchen, insisting on helping with the preparation and cleanup. After dinner she sipped amaretto, and by the time they were driving to the hotel, she was exhausted. Much too tired to argue.
Her room turned out to be a suite. Another change in honor of the publisher being on the tour, she was certain. There was a sitting room with a wet bar and two bedrooms. She was ready to go into her room and fall into bed, but when the bellboy left, David propelled her to the sofa despite her very verbal outrage.
“I ordered some epsom salts for your ankle,” he replied impatiently. “Let it soak or you’ll be sorry in the morning.”
Giving up, Susan leaned back on the sofa, watching him with narrowed eyes. He pulled off his jacket and played with the television, paying her little attention. A few seconds later room service appeared with a bucket. David tipped the boy and he left.
David knelt down by her, pulling off her shoe. “I can get it myself,” Susan protested.
“Would you quit behaving like such an idiot?” His fingers were over her nyloned flesh, and she shivered miserably.
“May I please get my stockings myself?” she asked primly. His eyes fell on her, a smoky blue, suddenly soft with amusement.
“Why, most certainly,” he told her graciously.
“Well, you can turn around, or I can hobble into the bedroom.”
Chuckling softly, he swiveled on his knee to stare at the television. Susan was in such a hurry to shed her panty hose that she tripped over the half on, half off nylon and fell into his shoulders. He straightened her, a half smile curving his mouth, and pulled the nylons the rest of the way off, gently setting her foot and ankle into the tub of water.
“Any better?” he asked a little huskily.
His shirt was open at the throat and his hair was slightly tousled over his forehead, but his cheeks still appeared freshly shaven. There was a subtle, pleasant aroma of aftershave lingering about him. His lips remained just slightly curved, mocki
ng or amused, and the pulse at his throat seemed to touch an answering beat somewhere inside her.
She looked away from him quickly. “Yes.”
“Good.”
He slipped off his shoes, picked up his briefcase, sat at the end of the sofa, and, quite comfortable, stretched his legs out over the coffee table.
He started going over the next day’s schedule.
“We’ll have coffee up here first thing; it’s another early flight. Nine-fifteen to Detroit. Noon is lunch with the regional sales manager, two-thirty is Croft’s Books, and—”
“The evening is free!” Susan said, interrupting him a little defiantly. He glanced at her questioningly, that smile still in place, and she found herself flushing. “I asked your publicity department,” she said a little defiantly. “I have a cousin in Windsor, and I’m meeting her for dinner.”
“Ah, yes, the Canadian cousin,” he murmured, and Susan remembered that she had mentioned Madeline once. She was somewhat surprised that he remembered.
“It is all right?”
“Sure,” he said smoothly, “but you didn’t let me finish. Four-thirty is Tacky Tina. She’s going to hit at you for everything—subtly. She’ll knock your science fiction as being pure trash for illiterates, and she’ll sweetly try to hang you. Think you can handle her?”
Susan couldn’t help but laugh. After all, she’d been through the best of the “hangers,” David himself.
“I’ll be just fine,” she assured him. His eyes were still on her, and suddenly he seemed very close. Relaxed and comfortable, as if he could easily reach out and slide her down to his lap…
If he wished to.
“I’m sorry, Susan,” he said softly.
“For?”
“Snapping at you today. You were right—luggage was the most logical place to go.” He grimaced ruefully, and she was suddenly very desperate to get away from him. An answer she couldn’t give was at the tip of her tongue.
She wanted to tell him that she was sorry, too, for many, many things. For the way they met, for the way she led him to believe circumstantial evidence. She was sorry that they couldn’t seem to start over, sorry that she was deceiving him right now. They were going to be parents, and she couldn’t tell him because it would be so wrong for him to feel guilty or responsible. A relationship couldn’t be forced for such a reason; there either was one or there wasn’t. She would love him to fall in love with her, could so easily love him, even if he did have a rotten temper and really didn’t trust women for some elusive reason….
Handful of Dreams Page 21