“I’m fine. I just needed to—um, to go to the bathroom. I’m sorry if I startled you.”
“I’m just glad you’re all right. But I can see why you’re losing weight. Maybe you should go back to your doctor.”
“No. He said it would take the pills a little time to become effective.”
“Well, maybe you should try to eat the rest of your pancakes.”
Diane shuddered. “I think I’ll just drink my tea.”
“Okay, if you’re sure.”
After they finished their breakfast and Elizabeth paid the bill, insisting it be her treat, they got back in the car.
Diane thought her friend was driving slowly. “Is anything wrong, Elizabeth?”
“No. Why do you ask?”
“We’re not going very fast. I don’t mean to rush you, but I need to get started.”
Just then, Elizabeth’s cell phone rang. “Hello? Oh, hi, Mark. Oh really? All right, I’m just taking Diane home. Yes, I’ll see you then.”
“Are you going to have lunch with Mark?” Diane asked.
“Maybe. He took the day off to look after the kids today. I’m having a minivacation.”
“What a nice idea. That’s sweet of Mark.”
“Yes, he really is a good guy, in spite of being a dull banker!” Elizabeth said with a laugh.
They didn’t speak again until Elizabeth pulled into the parking lot at the fourplex. “Oh, look, there’s the mover’s van,” she exclaimed.
“Yes,” Diane said, suddenly overcome with sadness. She didn’t want to leave. But she couldn’t stay. She had to cut her ties here, all of them.
Diane opened her door and got out. Elizabeth came around the car and hugged her.
When she released her, Diane spun around to go to her own car. Only she ran into a large mountain named John.
Chapter Fifteen
Diane gasped and nearly fell back against Elizabeth’s car. She was supposed to have left already, been on the road, when John returned.
He grabbed her when she wobbled. “I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said with a grin that lit up his eyes.
“I—I’m just surprised, that’s all. I thought you weren’t coming back until tonight.” Her voice sounded as breathless as she felt.
“A lucky break, then, huh?” He leaned down and kissed her. Right in front of Elizabeth and the movers, he wrapped his arms around her and claimed her.
Before she could stop herself, Diane kissed him back. It was a kiss goodbye, she told herself, rationalizing her actions. After all, she’d never be able to do this again, to press her body against his like this. Not when she was leaving him.
When his lips left hers, he finally noticed the moving van. “Who’s moving out? Is it Jennifer? I’ve heard so much about her, I’d love to meet her.”
“No!” Diane answered sharply. Then she stated in a calmer voice, “It’s not Jennifer. She and Nick and the kids already moved.”
“It’s the flight attendant, then.” He appeared relieved. “Now at least they’ll stop chasing me.”
Diane wasn’t about to correct him. Let him think that. It’d get her off the hook. But she didn’t have time to relax as the ground beneath her seemed to shift, the car behind her seemed to spin. Or was it her?
“Are you all right?” John asked. “You suddenly don’t look so good.”
She drew in a deep breath and kept her gaze focused on the van. “I’m fine.”
He tucked a finger under her chin, forcing her to look up at him. “Let’s go upstairs so we can be alone.”
“No!” she shrieked. “My—my apartment isn’t clean. I—I haven’t had time to straighten up.”
“It’s just me, Diane,” he said. “I promise I won’t mind. I want to be with you.”
She could feel herself panicking, her heart rate picking up. “No, I’d be horrified.”
John relented. “Okay, then let’s go to my house. We can have lunch with Gladys and Mildred and then go up to my room.”
“I can’t. I have to clean my apartment.”
He looked at her as if she was being irrational. “Then I’ll help you.”
“No!” Once again, the world was spinning too fast around her, and she could feel sweat beading on her forehead.
John looked over her shoulder to see Elizabeth standing there quietly. “Can you get a cleaning lady to take care of Diane’s apartment? It’ll be my treat.”
“No!” Diane exclaimed sharply. “No one is going up to my apartment except me. It’s my mess and I’ll clean it up.”
“Calm down, honey. I’m just trying to get some time alone with you. We haven’t had much the past week.”
“And whose fault is that?” The words were out before she could stop them. She didn’t want to have this conversation. She just wanted to go without making it harder.
“I know. I’ve been dealing with some things.”
“You mean, other than your dad dying? What else?”
For a moment he didn’t answer. His eyes searched hers. “I’ve been wanting you so badly, and I thought the feeling would go away if I held back.” He took her by the shoulders. “But it didn’t. I still need you more than ever, Diane.”
“I don’t believe you!” She couldn’t. She was leaving. Her head started to pound, to spin again.
“You kissed me like you believed me!” he retorted, losing his calm.
“Go away, John! I can’t deal with you right now!” She broke free, but was too dizzy to move.
“No, I won’t go away! You’ve got to deal with me!”
But as he finished his words, the ground went out from under her and she sank toward the pavement. John reached out and caught her just before she fell. Her took her in his arms, saying “Diane? Diane, answer me.”
But she was unconscious.
He looked to Elizabeth, who’d run to his side. “I’m taking her upstairs,” he said, turning toward the fourplex.
Elizabeth stopped him. “You can’t. They’re packing up her apartment. Take her to our house.”
Her words didn’t register. They were packing Diane’s apartment. Why? He banished the questions and dealt with the woman in his arms.
John carried her to his car and laid her down on the back seat. She never opened her eyes. He slid behind the wheel and started the engine, turning the air-conditioning on full force. As he was backing out, he called Gladys on his cell phone.
“I’m bringing Diane to the house,” he told her. “She needs a bed prepared for her.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“I don’t know. She passed out.”
“Get her here quickly, John.”
That was what he intended to do. It suddenly occurred to him that Elizabeth seemed to know what was going on. Had Diane told her what was wrong with her?
John pressed his foot on the accelerator. Three minutes later, he pulled into his driveway.
Sliding her out of the car into his arms, he strode across the front lawn and leaned on the doorbell. When Gladys had opened the door, she immediately led him up the stairs to the first bedroom on the right. The covers had been turned down on the bed. Gladys quickly removed her shoes and helped tuck her in.
“What caused her to pass out?” she whispered.
“We were having a—an argument,” John admitted, his head bowed. “She wouldn’t go up to her apartment with me. She said it was dirty.”
“You shouldn’t have pushed her,” Gladys said. “Maybe she didn’t get enough sleep last night.”
He shook his head. “All I know is that I’m staying with her. She won’t know where she is when she comes to.”
But the front doorbell diverted his attention. “That will be Mark and Elizabeth. I think Elizabeth knows what’s wrong with her.” John turned and ran down the stairs. He threw open the door and welcomed his friends inside.
“Elizabeth, do you know what’s wrong with Diane?”
She lowered her eyes. “Not for sure, but she said she went t
o the doctor because she was losing weight. This morning she took a vitamin the doctor had prescribed for her.”
“So she passed out because she’s not eating enough? Didn’t you take her to breakfast?”
“I did,” Elizabeth said, then paused, as if trying to think of what to say. “She didn’t eat much.”
“You know something you’re not telling me!” John accused. Even her husband was staring at her suspiciously.
“No, I don’t!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “She didn’t tell me what was wrong and she didn’t explain why she was leaving.”
John speared her with his gaze. “But you’ve figured it out, haven’t you?”
GLADYS TIPTOED into the darkened room. When she got to the bed, she gently shook Diane’s shoulder to see if she would open her eyes.
After a moment, her eyelashes fluttered.
“Diane, it’s Gladys. You’re in John’s house because you passed out. Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Is John here?” At Gladys’s nod, she tried to sit up, but the housekeeper held her back. “Don’t let him come up here. I don’t want to see him.”
“Don’t worry, honey, I won’t let him come in, not until you say so. Meanwhile I brought you some fresh lemonade.”
“Thank you, Gladys.”
With her help, Diane sat up and took a drink. Then she ate some of the oatmeal cookies the woman had brought, and drank more lemonade. But the action seemed to exhaust her, and she finally leaned back and murmured, “I think I want to sleep now.”
“Of course, dear. Sleep as long as you want.” Tucking the blanket around Diane, she tiptoed out of the room.
As soon as she reached the kitchen, John turned away from his conversation with Elizabeth. “Gladys, did you check on Diane?”
“Yes, she’s sleeping nicely now. I think she must not’ve gotten much rest recently.”
“I guess that could be, but—” John suddenly remembered Diane not answering her phone when he’d tried to call back last night. Had she gone out for the evening, perhaps?
He looked at Elizabeth. “Was she seeing anyone else?”
The woman stared at him. “When would she have had time?”
“I wasn’t in the picture much last week.”
“And you think Diane is the kind of person who must be entertained all the time? Who can’t handle being without a date on a Saturday night?”
“No, but something’s going on.”
“Obviously, since she’s moving,” Elizabeth retorted. “But you’ll have to ask her what’s happening. Quit asking us to guess. That’s not fair to Diane.”
“She’s moving?” Gladys asked in surprise.
“Yeah. She quit her job and called a moving company yesterday. She’s going to Atlanta.”
Gladys opened her mouth to speak but then turned away, supposedly to help Mildred with the sandwiches she was taking out of the oven.
John pressed her. “Gladys, did Diane tell you anything?”
“Only that she needed to sleep.”
He turned and slumped into a chair. “What am I going to do?”
“There’s no reason you can’t go to Atlanta, too,” Elizabeth suggested carefully watching his facial expression. “I mean, she’ll be at the same bank, only in that city.”
“So I should chase after her when she’s made it clear she wants nothing to do with me?”
Elizabeth said softly, “I thought you loved her.”
“I never said that!” John growled.
“Maybe you should. Maybe you should figure out what you want and what Diane wants. Then you’d know if it would be worth whatever she wants to keep her.”
“What do you want?” Mark asked John. “Women like Diane, and Elizabeth, expect more than a few tosses in the hay before you walk away. She’s trusted you and let you have your way with her. She’s played by your rules. So you have no room to complain. If you want to change the rules, you’ll have to let her know.”
John got up and started pacing. “I’ve been thinking about it. But I wanted her so badly after my father’s death, I forced myself to stay away. Don’t you see? If I love her, then she has the upper hand. She can do whatever she wants and I can’t say no! I’d be losing control.”
Mark actually laughed. “Yeah. I lost control, too. And I’ve never been happier.” He clapped his friend on the back. “It makes you human, John. Waking up to the same woman never gets dull. And at night, when we tuck the kids in bed, they put their arms around our necks and tell us they love us. It’s a great thing. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”
The mention of children, put John on overload. “No one’s mentioned kids!” he snapped.
Gladys set a plate in front of John. “Maybe someone should.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t mean anything, but to your daddy, you were the best thing that came from his marriage to your mom. Unfortunately, she didn’t live long, but Mildred tells me he really loved you and your mom.”
“Yeah, but he didn’t pay much attention to my brothers.”
“That’s because he hated their mommas. Do you hate Diane?”
“Of course not!”
“Do you love her?”
“I’m not prepared to say that!”
Mark interrupted. “But you want her to say she loves you?”
“I thought it was fair to find out where I stand.”
“I guess she answered you,” Elizabeth said quietly.
“What do you mean?” John seemed ready to jump across the table.
“She’s moving, isn’t she?”
“If I’ve done something so bad that leaving is the only way she can respond, I need to know what it is.” He turned to go upstairs to Diane, but Gladys stopped him with a hand on his arms.
“You can’t go up, John. She asked me to keep you out of that room.”
His eyes flashed with anger. “How dare she! It’s my house!”
Gladys held her ground. “I promised,” she said calmly.
“So I guess she said a little more than you told me earlier.”
Caught in her lie, Gladys averted her eyes. “Yes, she did, but not much more. She said she needed to rest, and to please not let you come in.”
“I think maybe we should call a doctor.”
“I know the doctor she went to see yesterday morning,” Elizabeth interjected. “He won’t tell you anything confidential, but he’d let you know if you should bring her in.”
“Why didn’t you say so?” John demanded.
“You mustn’t try to force him to tell you what’s wrong.”
“I’ll let you talk to him. Fair enough?”
“Okay.” Elizabeth pulled out her cell phone and checked the number. During one of their dinner conversations, she and Diane had discovered they shared the same doctor. Now she dialed the number and asked for the nurse.
Elizabeth explained what had happened, and then asked if the doctor needed to see Diane.
“Did she hit her head?” the nurse asked.
“No.”
“Has she spoken since she passed out?”
“Yes, but she went back to sleep.”
“She should be all right. She just needs lots of rest right now. Let her sleep as long as she wants.”
“Yes, of course.”
Elizabeth hung up the phone and said, “The nurse says she’s fine. Just let her sleep.”
Gladys breathed a sigh of relief.
John, however, was not satisfied. “Why didn’t you talk to the doctor? She could have something terribly wrong with her.”
“I promise you the nurse knows or she would have consulted the doctor. But if Diane shows other symptoms than she has so far, we can call back.”
“Why don’t we follow the nurse’s advice and let her sleep,” Gladys proposed. “I have a feeling she’ll be out for hours. You might as well go about your work,” she said to John. “I’ll take good care of her.”
“You won’t let her leave?
She’ll start her drive to Atlanta if you do.”
“No, I won’t let her do that.”
John nodded. “I do need to check on my projects.”
Mark stood. “And I need to check in with my office. Elizabeth, you want me to drive you home first?”
Gladys hurriedly said, “She could stay and have another glass of lemonade. I’ll take her home when she wants to go.”
Once the two men had left, Gladys brought Elizabeth more lemonade and she and Mildred joined her at the table to eat their own sandwiches. They ate in silence until Gladys blurted, “I think she’s pregnant.”
“But she said she’s on birth control pills,” Elizabeth said cautiously.
Gladys shrugged. “The Davis men are virile, and Doug was certainly potent. And pregnancy is the only reason I can see for her to run away.”
“What happened at breakfast?” Mildred asked.
“Everything was fine. I teased her about not drinking coffee. But she said she was wide-awake and didn’t need coffee. Then, suddenly, her eyes widened and she jumped up and ran for the bathroom. For a second I thought she was pregnant.”
“Is that the first time she’s thrown up?” Gladys asked.
“I don’t know. But it may be why she went to the doctor.”
“Makes sense. She’s never been around a pregnant woman.”
“She hasn’t,” Elizabeth agreed. “Her parents weren’t much in the picture during her childhood. And Mark says she never sees them.”
Mildred shook her head. “It’s a shame. She’s a very sweet young lady. When she came to dinner, Angi was her usual difficult self, but that didn’t phase Diane. She let Angi do her worst and just smiled at her. It made my heart feel good. And Doug was really impressed with her. He told me he thought John had finally found his woman.”
“Not if he doesn’t realize it,” Elizabeth muttered.
“True. And if she is pregnant and she goes away, we’ll never see the baby. Worse, she’ll be taking care of the child all alone. You know a new mother needs help. It breaks my heart to think she’s going away.”
The others shared Mildred’s concern and quiet reigned for the remainder of lunch, until they heard someone on the stairs.
The Marrying Kind Page 14
