Fall: a ROCK SOLID romance

by Karina Bliss

  4. Break them up.

  She calmed her breathing by reminding herself that this was a hypothetical, last-resort-only-if-all-else-fails option. She’d started leading them along the path today, but at any time they could take a detour, a side road. One of you, please, have an epiphany soon.

  She returned to number three and put two exclamation marks after Still in play. Underlined it twice.

  If it was still in play, then she wouldn’t have to take drastic measures. Not yet.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dimity had been in the office for two hours, reading comments on Rage’s Facebook page and fan sites and monitoring Zandergate chatter on social media, when her boss strolled in. “Good morning.”

  Refusing to show self-consciousness—the last time he’d seen her, she’d been leading Seth to her bedroom—she didn’t glance up from the screen. “Hi…that weirdo I blocked is using another IP address to send more abusive threats. I’m wondering if we should forward them to Luther, get his take on whether we should contact the poli—” A mug of steaming coffee and a plate with two pieces of wholemeal toast and mashed avocado landed on the desk beside her.

  “Doc and I thought you might be starving.”

  Glancing up sharply, she met an innocent blue gaze.

  “Thank you.” She narrowed her eyes at him—a warning never hurt. “So, the threats of violence.”

  “Last night when you and Seth dropped the we’re-dating bombshell and you said don’t make a big deal about it, you meant…?”

  “Let’s not ever discuss it.”

  “That’s what I figured.” Zander settled in his chair—a Captain Kirk Starship Enterprise number—leaned back with his arms behind his head, and crossed his feet on his desk. “On a completely related subject, I didn’t expect to see you at your desk so early.”

  “Work comes first, always,” she said, trying to concentrate on it.

  He ignored the hint. “So, where’s Loverboy now?”

  “I have no idea,” she returned coolly. “I’m not his keeper.”

  “Well, I hope you left him with enough energy for our run later.”

  “If you think you’re being funny…you’re not.”

  Chuckling, he dropped his feet to the floor and sat up. “Okay, I’ll stop teasing, but if you want my opinion—”

  “I don’t. Not in my personal life.”

  “—you’ll be good for each other,” he continued, unruffled.

  “We need to work,” Dimity said. “I’ve got business in the city later.”

  “Eat your breakfast,” he said, finally turning to his computer. “Have you started Doc’s manuscript yet?” he asked as he keyed in his password. Time zone differences meant most of their US emails started flooding in overnight.

  “No.” She picked up a piece of toast, careful not to get the slathered avocado on her fingers, and took a bite. She was hungry. “I hope to get to it this afternoon.” Which reminded her of a question she’d been meaning to ask him. Spinning around in her chair, she gave him a quizzical look. “Why haven’t you read her book yet?”

  Busy scanning an email, he answered absently. “Because it doesn’t matter.”

  “And I thought I was callous.”

  “If the book’s crap and causes people to burn effigies of me, it doesn’t matter. Nothing Doc does will change how I feel about her. Not now, not ever.”

  It should have been touching, but instead she found it dispiriting. Suddenly the toast didn’t taste as good. How the hell can logical argument counter such passion?

  But it had to. The first thing she’d done this morning was make a paper airplane of her list and fly it across the room. Night terrors. In daylight she acknowledged the truth. She’d gone soft.

  Breaking them up wasn’t an option.

  “No one’s bulletproof, Zee…which brings us back to this internet troll who’s making death threats.”

  He rose to read it over her shoulder. “‘Dear cowardly piece of shit,’ yada, yada.” Sadly, they were getting blasé about the hate mail, but this guy was persistent. “‘You think you can stop a patriot exercising his right to free speech, asshole? You disrespected our flag, you spat in the faces of the brave men and women who have given their lives for this great country. You can’t hide from me in cyberspace or on the ground. Watch out motherfucker, I’m coming for you.’”

  Her chair squeaked as his hands tightened on the backrest. “Yeah, forward it to Luther,” he said with his usual casualness. “We need to identify all these nutcases before Elizabeth goes on her book tour.” He returned to his desk. “So what’s on the agenda today? Or are you too busy starring in your own lov—”

  “Finish that word and I’ll come for you myself.” Baiting each other dissipated the lingering malevolence in the air. Gave a two-fingered salute to the haters.

  Grinning, Zander returned to checking his inbox. “One from our chief counsel…the insurer has made an offer to settle. Low, as expected.”

  “How much?”

  He told her and she snorted. “See you in court, assholes.” While their offer would clear the cancellation costs associated with the next tour leg, it wasn’t anywhere close enough to reimburse Zander for the money he’d personally paid to the small contractors who’d go under if they had to wait for the court case to settle—the truckers, the caterers, the local sound tech firms.

  Zander had mortgaged everything to go on tour and skimped on tour insurance. If his voice hadn’t given out, the payoff would have been huge for everyone. Now, they needed a full payout by the insurers just to recoup his losses.

  He didn’t respond, and glancing over, she saw he was pensive.

  “You can’t seriously be considering that offer, it’s far too low. Opening salvo stuff…a shot across the bow.”

  “Uh-huh. What time is it in New York?”

  She did a conversion on her cell. “Three. Why? What are you plotting?” He was throwing and catching a pen, always a sign of deep thought. Today, it made her nervous.

  “Nothing. Maybe nothing. That fight Doc and I had last night was our first since becoming a couple.”

  “Wow, that woman has the patience of a saint.”

  “Very funny. Something’s wrong and I think I know what it is.”

  Dimity swallowed. “You do?”

  “As soon as she started talking about the real world intruding. She’s having second thoughts about this book project, isn’t she?”

  Facing her screen, Dimity tapped the forward icon on the email. “You’ll have to ask her.” Her tone was completely neutral.

  “Yeah,” he said, not fooled. “That’s what I thought.”

  She changed the subject. “While I’ve got you alone, I wanted to remind you of your promise not to tell Seth or anyone you’re quitting until we work out—”

  “Today or in a few days, there’s no miracle happening here. Surely you’re not still expecting one?”

  “I’m thinking of the timing for Elizabeth,” she said tartly, entering Luther’s email address. “She’s got enough pressure meeting her deadline.”

  “So I am right,” he said. “This is tough for her.”

  Dimity kept her eyes fixed on the screen. Should we be worried about this? she typed, asking herself the same question about Zander. His newfound empathy was making him dangerously unpredictable. To her note, she added: Please tell me the threat’s benign. Stared at what she’d written.

  Aloud, she said, “Any message for Luther?”

  * * *

  Amid the lunchtime bustle of a harborside restaurant, Dimity looked across the table at Seth’s mother and said, “You’re a cheap drunk, you know that?”

  She’d nearly canceled this lunch, reluctant to leave Zander to his own devices after their conversation this morning. But helping Seth—and Gayle—was important, too.

  Her lover’s mother propped her head between her hands. “I’ve always been a lightweight with alcohol,” she admitted.

  On the bright side
, getting tipsy had improved Gayle’s mood. She’d been round-shouldered with remorse when they’d first sat down at the Viaduct for lunch—ironically at the same restaurant-bar where Seth had found Dimity drowning her sorrows.

  “It might have helped if you’d told me this before I ordered a bottle of wine, Gayle.”

  “Yup, but I figured if I got you drunk you’d talk about Seth.” Gayle picked up the wine bottle to refill Dimity’s glass, discovered it still full, and swung it toward her own empty one.

  “A cunning ploy.” Dimity confiscated the bottle before Gayle could pour and raised her hand to catch the attention of the waitress. “May we have some water, please?”

  She turned back to see Gayle stealing her full wineglass. She grinned at Dimity over the rim, her eyes as mischievous as her son’s. “So tell me—”

  “I told you. I promised Seth I wouldn’t discuss—”

  “Yes, yes.” Impatiently, Gayle waved her glass, then licked the spilled chardonnay off her knuckles. “You have the right to remain silent et cetera, et cetera. So let’s talk about how you feel about my son.”

  “It’s just sex,” Dimity assured her, then wondered if that was how normal people talked to mothers.

  Gayle appeared unfazed. “I see, how interesting.” Her smile was positively enigmatic and Dimity squirmed.

  The older woman’s smile softened to maternal. “Tell me about your family, sweetie. Do you have any brothers and sisters?”

  “Only child.” She sketched in her upbringing. Normally, her precocious brat anecdotes got people laughing, but when she’d finished a story about being twelve and trying to pay a plumber who’d fixed a blocked toilet with a bottle of Dom Pérignon—it had been a cash job and her mother had forgotten to go to the bank—Gayle reached across the table for her hand.

  “Did you have a pet at least, growing up?”

  Her earnest enquiry amused Dimity. “We traveled too much. And now I travel too much, which is why I timeshare a cat in LA.” She told Gayle about Diamanté. “Cats are independent so I’m confident she doesn’t miss me too much. But if I ever stay in one place I’ll get a Jack Russell terrier—tan face, white muzzle and body.”

  “That’s very specific.” Gayle hadn’t removed her hand.

  “When I was six, we lived in Paris, and I walked past a pet shop on the way to school. My nanny and I would stop and pat all the animals. There was a Jack Russell puppy who was always so pleased to see me. She took so long to sell, I started thinking of her as mine. I even gave her a name—Madeline, after the books.”

  “Wonderful children’s books,” Gayle said. “Janey had the whole set.”

  “I begged my parents to buy her but they said we moved too often, Madeline would spend more time in quarantine than at home with us.” You wouldn’t want that for her, would you, darling? That would be too selfish. “They were right, of course.”

  Gayle’s hand tightened, reminding Dimity it was there. Her nails weren’t manicured and the roughened skin identified her as a fanatical gardener. “It wasn’t all bad,” Dimity assured her. “They gave me a soft toy—a Jack Russell—for my birthday, which I pretended was real for years.” Smiling at Gayle, she slid her hand free and picked up her water glass. “I still have it.”

  She hadn’t meant to add that, but the older woman simply nodded and lifted the wineglass.

  “To bitches,” Gayle toasted.

  Inexplicably, Dimity felt tears prickle. She picked up her water glass. “To bitches… We’re talking dogs, right?”

  “Whatever works.” They chinked glasses.

  Gayle took a sip and yawned widely. “Oh boy, this lunchtime alcohol has made me tired.”

  There was no way this woman was fit to get behind the wheel. “How about I drive your car home,” Dimity suggested. “I can catch a taxi to the ferry from your place.” With Frank at work there was no danger of breaking her word to Seth.

  “Would you? That’s so sweet.”

  Gayle gave directions when they left the parking building but it still took all Dimity’s concentration to stay on the right…left…hand side of the road. It was fortunate she recognized Seth’s “landmarks” because his mother was asleep when they reached his neighborhood, only waking when the car stopped.

  “Oh dear, I’m making a fool of myself, aren’t I?”

  “You were probably due.”

  “Come in, I’ll make you coffee.”

  “Thanks, but the ferry leaves on the hour. I just need the number of a local cab company.”

  “I’ll do better than that, I’ll phone them for you.” Gayle unlocked the front door. “Frank, I’m home.”

  Oh, no. “He isn’t at work?”

  “Half day.”

  So much for your fabled work ethic, Frankie.

  He walked out of the living room, and looked about as pleased to see Dimity as she was to see him.

  “Hi,” she said cheerfully. “Gayle had a couple of wines on a restless night’s sleep and no breakfast.” And we all know who’s responsible for that. Dimity didn’t say it—she was keeping her word to Seth. “She’s feeling a little under the weather, so I drove her car home.”

  He put an arm around his wife. “Honey, are you okay?”

  “I will be after a lie-down. Will you call Dimity a taxi, Frank?”

  “Of course,” he said politely.

  Gayle hugged her tight. “Thank you for your company, sweetie, and we’ll see each other soon. Tell Seth I love him.”

  “I will.” Over Gayle’s shoulder, Dimity glared at Frank. Not using words, not breaking her promise.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to help you upstairs, honey?” he asked his wife.

  “I’m drunk, not infirm,” she grumbled.

  “Okay, then.” His gaze followed Gayle as she walked upstairs and Dimity was startled by the concerned tenderness in his expression. Frank caught her watching and his lips compressed.

  “I’ll phone a taxi.” He gestured to the sofa. Please. Have a seat.”

  After he’d made the call, they sat in a silence Dimity was determined not to fill with small talk. After a minute, Frank cleared his throat.

  “When do you return to LA.?”

  “End of next week.”

  Is Seth going with you? She could see the question in his eyes. But of course he didn’t ask. Instead, they sat in that warm, friendly home in a chilly silence while everything she longed to say burned inside her. “I’m Switzerland,” she chanted silently. “Neutral.”

  “Gayle didn’t mention you were the lunch date,” he commented. “I didn’t think you’d have a lot in common.”

  Even Switzerland had an army for self-defense. “Out of interest,” she inquired nicely, “is there something about me personally that offends you, or do I just remind you of the lifestyle your son chose over this one?”

  Frank looked at her a long moment. “I haven’t decided. Do you talk to your own parents as freely?”

  “God, no! My mother and I have never had an honest conversation in our lives. And I don’t get beyond small talk with my father. We only see each other once a year.”

  “You surprise me,” he said dryly.

  She continued as though he hadn’t spoken. “After their divorce when I was eleven, my mother made me choose between them. We got out of the habit of each other, I guess.”

  Frank shifted awkwardly. “I misspoke, I’m sorry.”

  “Apology accepted.” A toot sounded outside the house and they both stood with relief and exchanged cursory goodbyes. It took every ounce of Dimity’s self-control not to say, “Want me to give Seth your love?”

  She managed it, though, running through a gusty rain shower to climb into the cab. “Downtown ferry terminal, thanks.”

  The taxi was reversing down the driveway when Frank exited the house holding an umbrella, and waved at the driver to stop. On a heart-skip of hope, Dimity pushed the down button on her window.

  “You went out of your way for Gayle,” he said
gruffly. “Let me pay for this.” He handed her a fifty-dollar note.

  Dimity stared at him. “That’s it?” she said, before she could stop herself.

  “What else is there?”

  For a long time, Seth took all the shit you dealt out as though he deserved it, when all he did was follow his dream, not yours. Your son must really love you.

  “Nothing,” she said. “Forget it.” I gave Seth my word.

  He walked toward the house. The cab started reversing again.

  “Wait!” Dimity cried. The taxi jerked to a halt and she scrambled out of the car. Frank had reached the porch and was closing his umbrella.

  “I didn’t finish my story about my father,” she said, standing in the rain.

  “What?” he said, confused.

  “You’d think I’d miss him less as the years go by but the weird thing is, I miss him more.” Pinning his gaze, Dimity dropped her guard and let him see her pain. “I wish he’d tried harder. I wish…Dad hadn’t let me go so easily.”

  Without waiting for a response, she ran to the cab. As she closed the passenger door she glanced up, but Frank had already disappeared into the house.

  Another fail. They were piling up now. But she’d kept her word. She hadn’t talked about Seth. God, she needed to get a win, needed it so bad. Grabbing her cell, she logged onto the internet and found Swimming New Zealand’s training schedules for elite athletes.

  “Driver…”

  “Let me guess. You want me to turn around.”

  “That depends on where the Millennium Centre’s located.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “So,” Zander said from behind Seth, some twenty minutes into their run. “You and Dimity.”

  “Yep.” Seth jumped a tree root pushing through the trail like a gnarled fist, leading the way to the summit. The surrounding native bush grew so thickly that little rain made it through the green canopy.

  Zander grunted as he followed suit. “Serious?”

  “For me.”

  “Shit.”

  Trust Zander not to sugarcoat Seth’s chances. “Yeah.”

  “Good luck.”