Dana felt dreadful. She'd hated telling the lie, but it was the only way she could think of to do as Gannon had asked. Besides, she thought miserably, when he came back home and Lorraine realized that he could see again, it would all come right anyway. And Aunt Helen did have a serious medical problem, after all—her sharp and unthinking tongue.
"I'd better pack, then. You'll...explain to Mr. van der Vere when he comes home?" she asked, pausing on the lowest step of the staircase.
"I can't tell you how sorry I am that things didn't work out for the two of you," came the soft reply. "Layn will never make him happy, Dana. She's too shallow to give anything of herself. But men are so strange, my dear."
Dana smiled wistfully. "I have to agree that they seem it sometimes. I hope you'll keep in touch with me; I'd like to know how Mr. van der Vere does."
Lorraine frowned slightly. "But surely you'll be coming back?"
Dana cleared her throat. "Oh, I'm planning to, of course," she lied calmly. "But one never knows how things will turn out. It could be days or even weeks before I can leave Aunt Helen. And she is my only remaining relative—except for my father."
"I've grown very fond of you, Dana." Lorraine hugged her gently and kissed her pale cheek. "Don't worry about Gannon, will you? I'll take care of him. And there's every chance that he'll see through Layn's wiles eventually. Isn't there a saying that all things come to he who waits?"
"If he who waits lives long enough, I suppose," Dana said with an attempt at humor. She drew away with a sigh. "Do let me hear how things go."
Lorraine nodded. "I certainly will. Give my love to Mrs. Pibbs, will you?"
Dana smiled, remembering her supervisor. With any luck at all, she just might be able to get another job at the hospital. Of course, she'd have to swear Mrs. Pibbs to secrecy, so that she wouldn't let anything slip about Aunt Helen being in the bloom of good health....
"I will. I suppose I'd better get packed. I'll want to catch the first bus out in the morning."
"Gannon may be home tonight," Lorraine mentioned.
Dana almost assured her that he wouldn't be, but she bit her tongue. "Yes, he may," she said instead, and managed a wan smile.
"Don't you want to eat first?" the older woman asked.
Dana hesitated. But her stomach did feel empty, and starving herself wasn't going to help the situation. "Yes, I think I will," she said. She followed Lorraine into the dining room. But she didn't taste anything she ate.
Chapter Ten
Ashton hadn't changed in the weeks Dana had been away: It was still slow-moving and provincial and charming. But she thought when she got to the bus depot that she was going to miss the sound of the ocean at night, miss the whitecaps on the beach. Most of all she was going to miss Gannon, and that was going to be the hardest adjustment to make.
She got off the bus, suitcase in hand, and called Jenny. Luckily she was at the apartment and not working.
"You're back!" her friend exclaimed. "Am I glad! My other roommate got sick of picking up after me and moved out, and I'm so lonely—and there's a job available if you hurry! Mrs. Pibbs would give it to you; I know she would!"
Dana smiled gaily. Every thing was working out fine; the path was being smoothed ahead of her. For the first time in two days she felt a ray of hope for her life.
Mrs. Pibbs was waiting for her in the spotless office, looking puzzled but pleased.
"All right, Nurse, let's start at the beginning, if you please," she said curdy, leaning back in her chair to listen.
It was useless to put on a front with Mrs. Pibbs, who had a mind like a net. With a sigh Dana told her the whole wretched story, leaving out nothing.
"So I made up the fiction of Aunt Helen needing me and came home," she said quietly, avoiding the other woman's probing eyes.
"Are you certain that he was telling you the truth?" the supervisor asked shrewdly.
"Why should he lie?" Dana asked reasonably. "At any rate he wanted to be rid of me and the fiction of our engagement, and now he is. And there's Miss Dal-mont...."
Whatever Mrs. Pibbs was thinking, she obviously decided to keep to herself. She leaned forward. "Very well, when I speak with Lorraine, I won't blow your cover. But in fact your Aunt Helen could use some support right now. She's grieving over what she said to you before you left Ashton. I think she'd be grateful for the opportunity to see you and apologize."
Dana smiled. "I'd like to see her, too. I've had a lot of time to think since I've been away. I think I've come to grips with it all now."
Mrs. Pibbs lifted her eyebrows. "God's will?"
The younger woman nodded. "God's will. I won't question it anymore."
"Just as well too. Now, here's the job that's open. It's only night supervisor on the east wing, but you'll make a go of it, I'm sure. You have only to readjust to the new schedule, or have you been keeping late nights anyway?"
"Mr. van der Vere liked to talk into the early hours," Dana confessed. "I've been staying up relatively late, so it shouldn't be too difficult to get used to the eleven-to-seven shift again."
"Good girl. And Jenny tells me she's without a roommate," she added, glancing at Dana's suitcase on the floor beside her chair.
"Yes, ma'am," Dana laughed. She got to her feet. "With your permission I'll dash over and stow my luggage. Do I start tonight?"
"With my blessing." Mrs. Pibbs actually smiled. "Welcome home, Dana."
"Thank you," she replied earnestly.
Dana unpacked, having barely enough time to say hello and good-bye to Jenny, who went on duty minutes later. Then, when she'd rested for a few minutes, she resolutely lifted the receiver of the phone and dialed Aunt Helen's number.
It rang five times before it was picked up, and Dana had almost given up when she heard her aunt's honeyed tones on the other end of the line.
"Aunt Helen?" she asked hesitantly.
"Dana! Dana, is it you? Oh, my dear, I've been sick to death about what I said to you.... Can you forgive me?"
"Of course I can, you were hurting just as much as I was," Dana said on a sigh. It was such a blessed relief to have things patched up again. "How are you?"
"Can you come over?" Aunt Helen asked, ignoring the question. "I'll make a pot of coffee and we'll talk, all right?"
"I'll be there in ten minutes," she replied.
It took fifteen, by the time she changed into jeans and a T-shirt, but her aunt lived only about two blocks from the apartment
Helen's house was an old, rambling white frame Victorian, with a long front porch where white rocking chairs and an equally white porch swing invited visitors to sit among the potted flowers that lined the entire porch. Helen came rushing out, still wearing her apron, and grabbed Dana in a crushing embrace. She was crying, and Dana cried too.
Helen dabbed at her eyes through a smile and handed Dana a tissue.
"Silly women," she muttered. "Want to have our coffee out here?"
"I'd love it," Dana replied. "Can I help?"
"No, the tray's all fixed. My best silver, too, I want you to know."
"I'm honored!"
Helen disappeared into the house and returned with a huge silver tray laden with cake and cookies and coffee.
She put it on the white wrought-iron table by the rocking chairs and invited Dana to sit down. It was delightful on the porch, cool and quiet and homey. Dana could remember so many lazy summer days spent there while Mandy visited her only sister.
"How are you?" Helen asked while they sipped coffee and nibbled on homemade cookies.
"I'm better. Much better. And you?"
Helen shrugged. "Getting over it, I suppose. I still miss her, as I'm sure you do. But life goes on, doesn't it?"
Dana smiled wistfully. "Inevitably." She finished a cookie and took a sip of black coffee. "How's Dad?"
Helen gave her a sharp, probing look. "Hurting. He thinks you blame him for Mandy's death. He calls me once a week to see how you're doing."
That was painful
. "It was hard," she said after a minute, "getting used to being two families, when we'd been one most of my life. Always it was Mom and Dad. Now it's Dad and someone else, and no Mom." She sighed bitterly. "I honestly feel like an orphan."
"Dear, we've agreed that life goes on. Now answer me just one question honestly," Helen said, leaning forward intently. "Would you want your father to live all his life alone, with no one?"
Dana blinked. "Well, no, I don't suppose so."
"Would you want him to be a playboy and take out a different woman every night?''
"No!" Dana said, horrified.
"You've never even met Sharla formally," Dana was reminded. "She's a lovely woman, Dana. Very old-fashioned and sweet. She likes to cook and grow flowers and do needlepoint, and she loves the whole world. She's a...motherly woman. And she has no children of her own; she'd never been married before she met Jack."
That was interesting. Dana sat up straight, staring across at her aunt. "She hadn't?"
Helen smiled. "No, she hadn't So, you see, marriage was a very special thing for her. She can't have children anymore, of course, and she was looking forward to having a grown daughter."
Tears stung Dana's eyes. She turned away. "That might be nice, to be wanted by someone," she whispered.
Helen frowned. "Whatever do you mean, darling?"
"Mother told me."
Helen blinked. "Told you what?"
"That because of me, Dad and Mom had to get married. That he never wanted me, that he blamed me for being the cause of a marriage they both hated," she said, letting the bitterness and hurt pour out.
Helen got up and drew the weeping girl into her arms. "How could Mandy tell you such a thing?" she ground out, rocking Dana slowly. "It wasn't true! They'd been married over a year when you came along. And your father was the one who wanted you, my dear, as much as I hate to admit it. Mandy wasn't domestic, even in those early years. She hated the restriction of a child and refused to have another one. You spent so much of those early years with me, didn't you know?" she added wistfully, tears welling in her eyes. "Mandy would leave you with me while she partied. And since I had no children and no husband, you became the light of my life. You still are."
Dana wept unashamedly. "Why did she tell me that—why?"
"Because she'd grown bitter with advancing age, darling," Helen said soothingly. "She was unhappy and afraid of being alone, and she wanted to make you hate Jack for her own misery. He did try, Dana, he did. But your mother was such an unhappy person. Eventually she turned to alcohol because she couldn't endure reality. Her whole life turned into a waking nightmare. She would have destroyed the entire family if she'd lived, and you know it Don't you, Dana?"
Dana's lower lip trembled. "Yes," she ground out. "I knew it all along, but it hurt so much to admit it. And I felt guilty...."
"That was my fault. I always say the wrong thing, and I never blamed you; I was just hysterical." She drew back. "Dana, it was God's will. He decides the hour of death, not you and I. And Mandy's so much happier now with Him, don't you imagine?"
Dana smiled wetly. "Yes, I imagine she is. I just miss her so!"
"I miss her too. But we want what's best for her, after all. And she's at peace."
Dana nodded, dabbing again at the tears. "How about some more coffee?" she asked.
"Suits me. Some more cookies too?"
"I'd like that." She sat back and accepted a second cup of steaming black coffee. "Aunt Helen, would you tell me some" more about Sharla?" she asked after a minute.
Helen turned away to pour her own coffee, smiling secretly before she sat back and began to talk.
By the end of the second week Dana was back in the swing of things. The only hard moment had come when, catching a late-night newscast with Jenny, she'd seen Gannon van der Vere being interviewed by one of the anchormen.
"Say, isn't that the man you worked for? What a dish!" Jenny exclaimed, leaning forward to watch the screen intently.
Dana felt her face go white as she looked again into those deep-set eyes as Gannon's tanned face filled the screen. Her heart did a backflip just from her looking at him, looking into the eyes that could quite plainly see again.
"My own struggle with blindness," Gannon was saying, "taught me the value of proper tools to cope with it. This new device we're working on is a revolutionary concept. It will translate forms and shapes into a kind of braille that can be read by the holder's fingers, giving him the pattern of places and even people and traffic directly ahead of him. The impulses will be fed onto a screen in a piece of equipment about the size of a portable cassette player. In theory it's quite unique. We hope that theory will translate well into a useful product."
"Amazing," the newsman murmured. "Mr. van der Vere, we've heard that your company may take a tremendous loss on this particular product to make it affordable to the general public."
"That is so," Gannon replied quietly. "In order to be effective, it must be accessible to the people who need it. We're cutting corners to keep the cost of production down, and in cases of dire need we plan to have a loan program as well."
"Would you term that good business?" the newsman asked dryly.
"A question of definitions," Gannon replied. "Our stockholders have no complaints about their profit, and one such sideline as this shouldn't have any disastrous effect on our finances. However, before I'll let the stockholders lose one penny, I'll pay for this new product out of my own pocket. I've been there, you see," he added softly. "I know what it is to be blind. I think those of us who are sighted and have access to the technology are morally obliged to help those less fortunate."
"Philanthropy, Mr. van der Vere?"
He laughed softly. "God's business, sir," he replied with a grin.
The interviewer asked several more questions, but Dana didn't hear them. She was lost in the pleasure of what she'd already heard.
"Isn't he a dish?" Jenny said in awe when the interview was over and the screen was blank. "How in the world were you able to drag yourself away from him?"
"Oh, I managed," Dana hedged. She'd told Jenny nothing about what had really happened during her absence. And she wasn't going to. It was too painful to rehash.
Friday night came and she dressed very carefully for dinner with Aunt Helen. She chose an off-white shirtwaist dress with red accessories and a flashy red scarf, letting her long pale hair stay loose and free. She didn't know why her aunt had insisted on such formality, but then, Helen did occasionally get eccentric.
Of course, there was another possibility too—one Dana was afraid to ponder. She'd mentioned to Helen that she wanted very much to meet Sharla and make her peace with her father, but was too ashamed of her own behavior to approach him and risk another rejection. Helen had murmured something about things working out and had gone about her business. But this dinner sounded faintly suspicious.
Sure enough, when Dana got to Helen's house, there was a strange car parked in the driveway. She gripped her purse as if it threatened to escape, and forced herself to walk onto the porch and ring the doorbell.
Helen came rushing to answer it, her face flushed, her eyes apprehensive.
"There you are," she said, opening the door. "Come in, come in. Uh, I invited two more for supper..."
As Dana entered the living room, she came face-to-face with her father and Sharla, and she felt all the blood drain slowly out of her cheeks.
Chapter Eleven
"Dana, I'd like you to meet Sharla," Helen said,
faintly ruffled as she dragged Dana forward. "I think it's about time the two of you were formally introduced."
Sharla was tall and slender, with whitish-gold hair and pale blue eyes. She looked as nervous as Dana felt, but she looked delightful in a simple cotton shirtwaist that mirrored Dana's own unruffled style of dressing.
"Hello," Sharla said, extending a hand. She smiled hesitantly. "I...I wanted to meet you before, but..."
Dana nodded, taking the hand. It was warm
and strong, and it was a hand that was no stranger to housework—a far cry from Mandy's delicate, well-manicured ones.
"How are you?" Jack Steele asked quietly, watching his daughter closely. "Helen said you'd completely recovered, and you...look well."
"I'm doing nicely, thanks," Dana replied. Her eyes scanned the familiar face, finding new lines and new gray hairs. He looked older, tired. But there was a light in his eyes when he glanced down at Sharla that she'd never seen before. The same light she knew was in her own when she'd looked at Gannon.
She glanced away, embarrassed.
"Sharla, why don't you help me with supper?" Helen said, with a meaningful glance toward father and daughter.
Sharla joined her quickly. "I'd love to."
When the other women were gone, Dana shifted from one foot to the other uncomfortably, searching for words.
"I've been worried," Jack Steele said finally, hesitantly. He shrugged. "1 wanted to call you, but we've been so far apart for so long, and I knew I wasn't on your list of favorite people. I just let the time go by, I guess."
She nodded. She clasped her hands in front of her. "Yes, I know. That's how it was for me too."
"I didn't marry Mandy because I had to," he blurted out, avoiding her eyes. "I loved her. I really loved her, Dana. But when you came along, and she refused to settle down and take care of you—when she began enjoying parties and alcohol more than she enjoyed her marriage and her daughter—" He lifted his hands helplessly. "I don't even remember when it stopped being love. One day I woke up and realized that my life was too empty to bear. I thought if we divorced, perhaps she could find love again in someone or something. I didn't expect that she'd deteriorate so quickly. And by then there was Sharla...." His voice lowered with emotion. "Sharla. And I was in love, truly in love, for the first time in my life."
She studied his averted face and she understood. Because of Gannon she understood at last.
"It's a kind of madness, isn't it?" she asked wisely, wryly. "It takes over your life and your mind, and you have no control whatsoever over what you do."
Books By Diana Palmer Page 225
