White Picket Fences

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  A dog lover, Ben asked a lot of questions about almost every aspect of animal health before they returned to Zack’s office.

  “So you’re finally going to meet Cassie,” Zack said, pouring Ben a cup of coffee, then helping himself to one, as well. Ben dropped into a chair in front of Zack’s desk. Zack leaned against a corner of his desk, legs crossed in front of him.

  “The Montfords are having a party for Tory and me at the end of the month. They wanted to give us a wedding reception, but I managed to talk them out of that,” Ben said. “Anyway, invitations are being sent out this week and that motivated me to finally get my butt over here. I’d rather have my first meeting with Cassie privately, as opposed to in a room full of partying people.”

  Zack nodded. “She’s very special. I think you’ll like her.” She was also the ex-wife of Sam Montford, the cousin Ben had yet to meet.

  “I have no doubt about that. I’m more concerned with how she’s going to react to my presence. I’m hoping I won’t be a bad reminder of Sam. Lord knows, I don’t want to make things any harder on her.”

  Zack didn’t want that, either. He’d wondered a time or two whether Ben’s arrival in Shelter Valley would make a difference to Cassie. He hoped not, but he couldn’t be sure. Until the past September nobody had even known there was another Montford heir. Ben was the grandson of a Montford daughter who’d disappeared, believed to have been killed at fourteen.

  Cassie must have heard by now that Ben was here, but she’d never mentioned him. And Zack, respecting their long-ago pact never to mention that devastating part of Cassie’s life, hadn’t asked her about it. When she needed to talk, he listened. When she didn’t, he left it alone.

  He heard a door open down the hall, recognized Cassie’s voice giving instructions to a relieved pet owner. And then, as one set of footsteps faded toward the reception area, another grew closer. Cassie’s office was next to his. She was coming this way.

  “Cass?” he called out to her just as she would’ve passed by.

  “Yeah?” She stopped in the doorway and looked at Zack before she noticed the man sitting in front of his desk.

  As her gaze landed on Ben, she turned white, in sharp contrast to her red hair. Her brown eyes glinted with emotion, and though her mouth opened, not a word came out. Zack hurried toward her, intent on offering support.

  And then Ben spoke. “You must be Cassie.”

  “Ben Sanders, meet Cassandra Tate,” Zack said, his hand on Cassie’s back as he made the introductions. His partner looked as if she’d seen a ghost.

  “Ben.” Cassie nodded her head, obviously speaking with difficulty. Zack admired the way she’d found her composure, clung to it. “So…we finally meet.”

  Ben inclined his head, but raised it again almost immediately, his eyes taking in every detail. Cassie made an impressive sight, her slim body curved in all the right places, her striking hair and flawless skin, the intelligence in her eyes. Her clothes, what could be seen of them, were designer-quality and fit her well. And her lab coat lent a further impression of competence, of stature and success.

  “You look like Sam,” she said. The words seemed to catch in her throat.

  Ben withstood her stare with compassion, allowing her whatever time she needed.

  “Not your eyes,” she went on. “His were green. But the resemblance around your nose and mouth is uncanny.”

  At least she had her color back. Zack relaxed a bit, dropping his hand from Cassie’s back.

  “His mother said the same thing,” Ben said with an embarrassed grin. “The rest of my coloring comes from my Indian ancestors.”

  They made small talk then. Cassie asked how Ben was settling in, listened attentively when he told her about his school plans, asked about Ben’s new wife and the daughter he was in the process of adopting. Ben asked about Cassie, too. About her travels. Her pet-therapy program. A paper she’d written that the Montfords had given him to read.

  “Your aunt and uncle are really wonderful people,” she told Ben, her eyes filled with the sadness that had been so familiar to Zack in the early days that he’d known her.

  “They tell me you’re still in frequent touch with them,” Ben said.

  Cassie shrugged. “They’ve been like family to me my whole life. Something like that doesn’t just stop because of a…a divorce.”

  “So you’ll be at the party they’re having at the end of the month?” Ben asked. “I’d like Tory to meet you.”

  “I have to be there,” Cassie said. “I’m doing the desserts.”

  “Cassie makes fabulous desserts,” Zack interjected.

  Ben stood, slinging his backpack onto his shoulder. “My wife’s friend, Phyllis Langford, is eager to meet you, too,” he said. “She’s a psych professor at the U and very interested in the pet therapy you’re doing.”

  “I’ll look forward to speaking with her,” Cassie said. “As a matter of fact, she might find herself drafted. I have a couple of challenging cases I could use some input on….”

  Ben and Cassie talked for several more minutes before saying goodbye. As Zack listened, he felt the immediate bond between these two people—and suddenly thought of Randi. Of their decision to be a couple…of sorts. Of her family. And all the friends he’d be meeting at that birthday party later this week.

  He felt that same kind of bond.

  Life was good.

  RANDI DIDN’T GET nervous often. Playing professional sports, especially at such a young age—and being a woman in professional sports—required nerves of steel. She had them.

  Which didn’t explain why, walking up to the Millers’ imposing front door, her stomach was fluttering and she almost giggled for no reason at all.

  Giggled. Randi didn’t giggle. Found it extremely irritating, in fact. For that matter, she was finding herself rather irritating at the moment. This was just a party. She’d been to more of them than she could count. She’d even brought Sean to some when they were together.

  But she hadn’t been in love with Sean.

  Randi stumbled, almost dropping the bottle of wine and the gift bag she was carrying.

  “You okay?” Zack murmured, slipping an arm around her waist.

  “Fine.”

  She wasn’t in love. She was not. It was not a good idea. She hadn’t made that decision. She just plain wasn’t going to go there. Period.

  “You looking forward to the evening?” he asked. He certainly appeared to be. His face was relaxed, smiling.

  He looked great in off-white shorts, a black polo shirt and black leather sandals. With his blond hair, blue eyes and toned body, he could have walked right off a Hollywood movie set.

  “Yeah.” She answered Zack’s question with her mind only half-focused on what she was saying.

  “It’ll be good to see my friends again. It’s been a few months since I’ve gone to any of these events.”

  And she was going to be walking in on the arm of Adonis. She’d dressed up for the occasion. Bought herself a new pair of tennis-style shorts. Black ones. And a silky white blouse that tied at the waist. She hadn’t been able to make herself buy the black sandals with heels that the salesgirl had told her would finish off the outfit. But she’d compromised with a new pair of dressy flat sandals. She was even carrying a small purse, rather than cramming things into her pockets or leaving them in the console of the car as she usually did.

  And she’d put on some makeup. Not a lot. But enough to make her feel like a princess going to the ball.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  LINDSEY GREETED THEM at the door, looking beautiful in a black designer swimsuit with black lace inlays and a matching skirt. She seemed genuinely glad to meet Zack, and pulled them into the middle of the fray immediately. There had to be at least seventy-five people milling around the huge backyard and around the downstairs of the house.

  Within minutes Bruce had put drinks in their hands and Zack had been dragged off to be the fourth in a game of doubles table tennis. />
  “You’ve done it again, Randi,” Lori Ryan said. Lori was married to Billy Ryan, a golf pro at one of the premier clubs in Phoenix. He’d been Randi’s coach a long time ago. Billy was currently standing across the Ping-Pong table from Zack.

  “Done what?”

  “Gone straight to the top. That man’s gorgeous. He has a great ass.” She laughed lightly. “Oh, and the warmest eyes I’ve ever seen.”

  “You noticed, huh?” Randi asked, making a long slow perusal of Zack’s backside. It was hers for the looking now. Had been, officially, for a week and one day.

  “I don’t think there’s a woman here who hasn’t noticed,” Lori drawled.

  Laughing, Randi shared an amused glance with her friend. She’d always liked Lori. Younger than her husband by about ten years, she had the body and face of a model, and the heart of Florence Nightingale. She’d helped heal a lot of hurts over the years. Including Randi’s.

  “So, tell me,” Lori said, guiding Randi to a couple of lawn chairs within eyesight of the fiercely competitive table-tennis game, yet private enough to allow for personal conversation. “Does his being here mean what I hope it does?”

  Randi set the glass of wine she’d been carrying on the little white table placed between the two chairs. “It’s too soon to be sure of anything,” Randi said, dying to confide in the woman who’d nursed her through some hellish nights that first year after her accident. Yet afraid to mention the fragile thread that was spinning itself between, around and through her and Zack.

  “You care about him,” Lori said.

  Randi couldn’t lie to the older woman. Had almost stopped lying to herself. “Yeah,” she said.

  “You love him.”

  Randi let the words go unanswered. It was clear from the way Lori studied her, eyebrows raised, that her silence was telling.

  Watching Zack, she saw him make a shot that was impossible to return. It made her itch to be on the other side of that table, taking him on.

  He’d probably win, but she’d have a hell of a time making him work for it. And if they played often enough, she’d get lucky eventually.

  Maybe she should buy a Ping-Pong table. There was plenty of room on her back patio. And just think what else they could do with it…

  “He obviously cares about you, as well,” Lori said, pulling Randi back from her X-rated fantasies. She discovered that Lori was watching Zack, too.

  “It’s almost imperceptible, but do you notice the way he keeps checking to make sure he knows where you are? Even while he’s holding his own in that life-and-death game they’ve got going on over there.”

  Randi smiled, warmed by Lori’s observation. She had noticed, but it was nice to have confirmation that she wasn’t just imagining things.

  “We’re still in the very early stages,” she felt compelled to tell her friend. She didn’t want to give Lori false impressions.

  “Honey, I’m just thrilled to see you in any stage at all.” Lori took a sip of her scotch. “It’s been ten years since that damned accident, and I was beginning to think you’d died in that Florida hospital, after all. Emotionally speaking, that is.”

  The words hit Randi hard. Was that what she’d done? Let the accident kill parts of her that really mattered? Because while it had certainly killed a big part of her—her golf career—there was more to her than that, wasn’t there? She had a successful new profession, her family, lots of friends…

  “Just because I choose to live alone doesn’t mean I’m not very much alive,” she said with defensiveness born of fear.

  She’d thought she handled the aftermath of her dead career remarkably well. That she’d adjusted completely.

  That she was happy. Or at least content.

  “It was more than your just wanting to live alone,” Lori said bluntly. Lori had a certain right to speak to her this way. After the accident, Randi had been so busy putting on a cheerful face for her family, for everyone at home, because they were all so devastated for her, that it had fallen to her coach’s wife to see what Randi was really suffering.

  “I made it through the first time I had my dreams snatched away,” Randi said, her voice hard. “I’m not sure I’d make it a second time.” She took a sip of her wine. And then another.

  “So why’s he here?” Lori asked as bluntly as before.

  Randi glanced at Zack, then at Lori. “I’m not sure,” she answered honestly. “I don’t know why he’s in my life at all, except that since the day I met him, I can’t get him out. Out of my head, I mean…” She stared down at her glass.

  “Out of your heart?”

  Randi forced herself to look up again. “Maybe.”

  “Does he know any of this?”

  Randi nodded. “He’s got his own plateful of insecurities to deal with, and he isn’t any more sure than I am about embarking on something that might not last.”

  Lori smiled sadly. “You two make quite a pair.”

  “I know. But at least we understand each other.”

  The game of table tennis ended and while Zack, a member of the winning twosome, was challenged by his partner, Brad Armstrong, to a game of darts, Billy came over to join his wife and his former protégée.

  “Couldn’t you have left that one at home?” he groused, jerking his thumb at Zack. His voice was gravelly with age and with years of working outside in the desert sunshine and the unpredictable dust storms.

  “I could’ve, but then how would I have made your life miserable?” Randi quipped.

  “You did enough of that when you were fifteen, Miranda, always arguing with me about every damn swing.”

  “You were a hard man to please.”

  “You were too good not to give you my best. And, being good, sometimes you were a little too cocky.”

  “And too stubborn,” Randi had to admit.

  “Ah, no, my dear,” Lori interjected, smiling between the two of them. “That stubbornness is what kept you giving your all. It’s what took you to the top. And saved you when everything toppled.”

  “Probably had something to do with that basketball team of yours winning the title last season, too,” Billy said.

  Maybe.

  Randi couldn’t help wondering if that stubbornness would also be there to keep her and Zack together for the long haul. Dared she hope she had what it took to hold him? Dared she hope for a real future? Could she hang on until it arrived?

  It was another hour before she and Zack had any time together long enough for a conversation. They were huddled by a pillar on the patio, sharing what was left of Randi’s second glass of wine, as she filled him in on bits of gossip and observation about the people around them.

  Angela Mooney caught her eye and waved, pointing at Zack with her half-full glass of gin and giving Randi a thumbs-up.

  “That’s Angela,” Randi told Zack, smiling before she turned toward Zack again. “Her family owns a chain of sporting-goods stores, and she was always hanging around the big events when we were younger. She married an ex-basketball player and has a couple of kids, neither of whom has any athletic ability at all. Every time she comes to one of these things, she makes a big production of ordering gin and tonic with only half a shot of gin. Like we all don’t know she carries little bottles of it in her purse and dumps in a couple more shots.”

  “She’s an alcoholic?” Zack asked, glancing over Randi’s shoulder at the pretty though overdressed woman.

  “Probably just a party drunk,” Randi said. “Her husband’s inside with Walt Brown playing poker. His passion. I think she spends a lot of time alone.”

  “That’s a sha— Shiittt.”

  The change in Zack was so instantaneous it was frightening. One second he was sympathizing with a lonely woman, and the next his entire body had gone rigid, his face harsh.

  “What?” Randi asked, her heart thumping. Was he in pain? Having some kind of attack?

  He was staring over her head. He hadn’t moved.

  Randi turned to look, won
dering what could have caused such a reaction. All she saw over there, by the corner of the pool, were a couple of lawn chairs and a table. Some landscaping. And her friend Barbara with a woman Randi didn’t recognize.

  Must be Barbara’s new lover, Randi thought.

  She hadn’t seen Barbara, hadn’t even realized she was at the party. She’d figured her friend must not have made it back to Phoenix in time. Whenever they attended these things, they usually spent a while chatting, catching up on news. But that was before Barbara had a companion.

  She was glad to see Barbara, not only because she’d missed her these past few months, but because she’d been waiting for her to get back to town so they could discuss possible scholarship funding. She was also a little curious to meet Barbara’s friend. Barbara usually didn’t bring her around, choosing to keep her private life private.

  But all of that would have to wait. Zack was starting to look really ill.

  “Maybe you’d better sit down,” Randi said, tugging at his arm. He didn’t even seem to notice.

  “Please, Zack, tell me what’s wrong,” she begged. He was scaring her. His eyes, when he glanced down at her—almost as though he’d forgotten she was there—were lifeless. Cold.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” he said eventually. Shaking his head, he took her arm and led her back toward the bar. “Come on, let’s get a drink.”

  He seemed steady enough on his feet. If anything, there seemed to be more energy than usual emanating from him.

  Confused, worried, Randi allowed herself to be led. She waited as Zack ordered two more glasses of wine, handed her one and downed the other in a couple of swallows.

  “Tell me what’s wrong,” Randi said, her voice brooking no refusal.

  “Nothing’s wrong.” He smiled at her, his eyes looking right inside her, and Randi began to feel better. She wasn’t convinced he was being completely straight with her, but she was extremely relieved to have him back in the same world.

  He asked for another glass of wine, and her worry returned. To the best of her knowledge, Zack wasn’t much of a drinker. And he was driving, besides. She’d never known him to have more than one glass when he was driving.