Daddy's Girls

by Danielle Steel

  She wondered if she would really divorce him for this. She wasn’t sure. But she was incredibly hurt. And she could guess where he had gone with his photos and his lube and his condoms, straight to Veronica Ashton, who was assuredly not a hooker or an escort, but probably someone he worked with.

  She washed her face in cold water, brushed her teeth, and went to her laptop, and looked up Peter’s firm, the directory of employees. And there she was, top of the list, alphabetically. Veronica Ashton, junior trainee. She had graduated from Stanford a year before. She was twenty-three years old. It made Caroline furious all over again. She typed in Peter’s email address.

  “Check out your staff registry for the firm. Veronica Ashton, top of the alphabetical list, trainee, twenty-three years old. Good one, Peter. She works nights for an escort service? You’re toast. I’m done.”

  He had been a total fool, and a liar. She wondered how long it had gone on. She put the ingredients for their dinner back in the fridge, unset the table, and didn’t bother to eat. She couldn’t have. She lay on her bed in the dark, until the kids came home. Billy came home first, dropped off by his friend’s father.

  “Where’s Dad?” were his first words to his mother. He was anxious to see him, after being away.

  “He had to work late,” she said vaguely.

  “He said he’d be home when I got in.” Billy looked disappointed and she wanted to say “He lied,” but she didn’t. She was going to have to tell them something if she didn’t let him stay there, but not tonight. She couldn’t deal with more than she already had. Billy went to his room to play videogames, and Morgan came home an hour later. She’d been happy to see her friends.

  “Is Dad home?” She looked hopeful, but tired.

  “No,” Caroline said, and Morgan didn’t press the point. She went to her room to call a friend, and that was the end of it. Caroline turned off the living room lights, closed the door to her bedroom, and turned off the lights in her room, wondering how many nights Veronica had stayed there. Just thinking about her and what they’d done made her feel sick. She lay there for hours, with the room spinning, as her world fell apart and lay in splinters at her feet.

  Caroline heard from Peter by email the next morning. All he said was “Were you serious about Aspen? You’re not going?”

  “Totally serious. No, I’m not, and neither are the kids,” she responded. She was not going to live her life as a fraud for the summer, pretending nothing was wrong. She was not going.

  “Fine,” he responded. “They won’t return our deposit.” She didn’t bother to answer, and three minutes later, he sent another email. “Caro, I told you, I’m so sorry. I was drunk out of my mind. She means nothing to me. She’s a total stranger. It was a moment of insanity. I love you.” Caroline didn’t respond to that email either. Instead, she called a friend’s husband, who was a lawyer. She trusted him, and she said she was calling as a client and it was confidential.

  “Sounds serious,” he said, trying to keep things light. “Client-attorney privilege. You’re covered. What’s up?” They had sons the same age in the same class at school, which was how she knew most people now, through her kids. She told him the whole sordid story and what she’d found.

  “I’m sorry, Caroline. That’s nasty, and it feels like shit when it happens.” He had a gentle style, and a sympathetic voice, which made her want to cry again.

  “Yes, it does,” she agreed.

  “What do you want to do?” he asked her.

  “I don’t know. I threw him out last night and told him he couldn’t stay here.”

  “That’s reasonable, in the circumstances. Now what? How can I help you?”

  “I haven’t figured that out yet. Do I divorce him? Make him move out? What do people do?”

  “There’s a whole range of possibilities here. It’s entirely personal, depending on how you feel about him, and your marriage, until now, and going forward. Can you forgive him? Could you get past it? Could you trust him again? Do you want to? Has he cheated on you before, that you know of?”

  “I don’t know if he has. Maybe. Probably. I think he’s having an affair with her. Not just a fling. She’s twenty-three, and a trainee in his office. She must have been staying at our house, if she had her datebook in the drawer of my night table.”

  “Sounds like a fair assumption. Do you want to suggest to Peter that you take a break until you decide? That’s reasonable too. He can’t expect you to just gloss over it and forget it.”

  “I think he did. He tried telling me he got her from an escort service and it was a one-off.”

  “Not with her things in your drawer.”

  “Exactly. What do I tell the kids?”

  “That’s up to you too. You hold the cards here. You need to decide if you want out of the marriage. What about telling the kids the same thing, that you’re taking a break?”

  “It’ll be shocking for them. I don’t think I should tell them why. Maybe that we need to figure some things out. I don’t think he’ll dare contradict me. He’s going to be scared I’ll tell them the truth. I can’t do that to them.”

  “Some women would.”

  “They don’t need to know that.”

  “Why don’t you try what we said? Maybe give it a time limit. Till the end of summer, when school starts. That gives you two months to figure out what you want to do. And he can make other living arrangements for eight weeks.”

  “He’ll probably move in with her,” Caroline said, sounding depressed.

  “Caroline, if that’s what he wants, you can’t stop him, and it’s best to know. If he’s in love or obsessed with this girl, you can’t win. So he either fights like a dog to get you back, or he’s made his bed with her, and that’s it. You don’t want to be looking for her underwear under the bed every time you leave the house to drive the kids to school. That’s no way to live.”

  “You’re right. I’ll tell him we’ll decide at the end of August. Can I take the kids away?”

  “You can do whatever you want. You don’t have a formal agreement. If he complains, or they do, you can negotiate it on a time-by-time basis. Where were you thinking of going?”

  “My family ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley.”

  “Sounds terrific. It’s not on the moon. He can drive down, or fly down if he wants to see them. Let him make some effort to redeem himself, that’ll tell you something too.”

  “Thank you, Charlie. I’m sorry to tell you all this.”

  “I’m sorry it’s happening to you. I’m going to charge you a dollar for this consultation by the way, to protect the attorney-client privilege.”

  “Thank you.”

  She felt better when they hung up. She had a plan. And a lawyer. She sent Peter an email, and told him they needed a break, or she did, until the end of August, and he needed to stay somewhere else in the meantime. She didn’t mention the children or the ranch, and wouldn’t until he did. She wanted to give them a few days to see their friends in Marin, which she had promised, and then she wanted to go back to the ranch until the end of the summer. She was happy she had it now. It was hers too. And this time, when she left, she wouldn’t be running away, as she always had before. She would be going home. There was a difference. And she wasn’t going to let Peter get away with this. He couldn’t cheat on her and lie, and not be accountable. She wasn’t going to be the silent, invisible wife anymore. Those days were over.

  Chapter 9

  Shortly after Caroline and the children left the ranch for San Francisco on Sunday afternoon, Gemma’s agent called her. He had an audition for her in L.A. He wasn’t overly enthused about it, and didn’t want to get her hopes up, but she had said she would try out for anything, and he took her at her word.

  Walking into the audition, Gemma had a shock. Most of the girls trying out were half her age. None of them had appeared i
n anything worthwhile, and it was a second-rate made-for-TV movie for a less than stellar cable network. They were auditioning her for the part of the star’s mother. She had no idea what they were going to pay her if she got it, but whatever it was, it wasn’t enough to humiliate herself to that degree. She was profoundly depressed when she left the audition, called Jerry on his cellphone, and got him in his car.

  “Okay. Uncle. I give up. I said get me anything, maybe we should notch that up a little.” Knowing that Thad was going to buy out her share of the ranch, and her summer tenant was promising to make an offer on her house and wanted to buy some of her art, she felt a little less desperate than when her show was canceled. “They wanted me to play some little hooker’s mother, and I think it was a vampire movie. Either that, or the starlet I auditioned with needs to see her dentist immediately and get her eye teeth filed down.” Jerry laughed at her description.

  “I’m sorry, Gemma. I took you at your word. I’ve actually got something interesting cooking right now. They’re not ready to cast it yet, but you’d be perfect. It’s being put together by a brilliant British producer/director who’s had nothing but hit shows. He does quality period dramas, and there’s a fantastic role for an American in it. It spans both world wars, and you’d play an American doctor who left the country for some reason. They won’t start shooting till the end of the year, and they’re casting in September. It’s high quality stuff for British TV, which will play in the States subsequently. There’s only one hitch, two actually.”

  “I need to be twenty-two years old, and the part’s for a guy. No problem. I’m not afraid of a little surgery.” He laughed again.

  “No. They shoot a lot on location, in some pretty exotic places. They’re starting off with a safari in Africa, and not everyone is dying to spend Christmas with a bunch of snakes and lions and tigers, living in a tent. The Brits love that stuff, and they don’t mind being miserable on location. You’d get double pay for it, which could be an incentive. And the other hitch is that the show is based in England. They’re shooting thirteen episodes to start out, and with a show like that with major costumes and complicated hair, you can’t commute from L.A. They want someone based in England. You’d have to move to London to do it. I didn’t know how you’d feel about that.” She thought about it as she listened to him, and she wasn’t sure herself.

  “It depends on how good the show is.”

  “The guy never misses.” He reeled off some of his shows and Gemma knew them all, and had watched them and loved them. It was high quality work.

  “Keep me in the running and I’ll think about it. I don’t really have anything to tie me down here, but that is a big change.”

  “I’ll let you know if they’re interested.”

  “What’s the age range?”

  “About right. Mid-to-late thirties. You can’t be a kid if you’re playing a doctor. They want someone with substance, experience, looks, talent, and a name.”

  “It sounds a lot better than the vampire movie, playing the mother of Dracula’s daughter with the pointy teeth. She almost deafened me when she screamed in the audition.”

  “I’ll keep you posted. How are you? Recovering from the shock of the show ending?”

  “Trying to. I miss it already.”

  “We all will, for a long time. I think they made the right decision, but it always hurts to shut down a successful show while it’s still working. You always wonder if you should have kept it going for a couple more seasons, but that’s probably the right time to call it a day. Sad, though. It’s a loss.”

  “Yes, it was.” It had been a hard two months between her father dying and the show folding, and being broke. But she was enjoying her sisters and the ranch, and she had loved connecting with her mother again, although it cast a terrible shadow on her father, who had cheated them all of Scarlett for their whole lives. She had a feeling Caroline would never forgive him, particularly since their relationship hadn’t been strong. But at least she had Peter and her kids. You couldn’t have everything in life.

  The part he had described to her sounded interesting but she also knew that the British were partial to their own, and more likely to hire a British actress who could do an American accent than a real American. She wasn’t counting on it for now. And they weren’t ready to cast anyway.

  He promised to keep her informed and they hung up.

  She had a meeting with her tenant that afternoon about the possible purchase of her house. Then she went to the hairdresser and got her hair colored. She was staying at a small hotel she knew that wasn’t too expensive. She was planning to spend a week in L.A., and see some friends. She was enjoying the ranch, but it was nice to get out of the sticks, and come back to the city, where she belonged. She might have been born in Texas and raised in the Valley, but they were never going to make a country girl of her. She had L.A. in her blood. Caroline felt the same way about it. She loved San Francisco, and any big city. But as a temporary rest stop the ranch was fine, even fun at times. And she loved being with her sisters. They each brought something different to the table, irreverence, in Gemma’s case, and glamour and style, which was good for Caroline and Kate.

  It seemed too quiet on the ranch to Kate after Caroline and the children left, and Gemma went to L.A.

  “Gemma will only be gone for a week,” Kate told Thad. They had signed all the papers for his purchase of the land, and were just waiting for approval from the county, to split it off from the ranch, but they didn’t expect any problems with it. They expected the approval to come through in July. He asked Kate to ride out there with him again at the end of a day’s work. He wanted her to see where he was thinking of situating the house he was planning to build and he wanted her advice.

  “You know, this is the first thing I’ve ever owned in my life,” he said shyly, when they got there and looked around. They had picked some beautiful acreage on the border of the property, with a stream running through it, and some handsome tall trees that would provide shade. He was planning to build a house for himself, a bunkhouse, and a barn, which was all he needed for a start.

  “My father felt that way too when he inherited his first piece of land out here.” He had told her about it often and what it meant to him. She felt guilty selling some of that now, even to Thad, but it was Gemma’s decision not hers. And she didn’t want to buy her out, nor did Caroline.

  “I’ve never owned a house, land, or even a horse. It feels like it’s time. Your father was about my age when he started,” he reminded her.

  “He was a little older. I think he was forty, or a few years older, when he started buying. But he had three kids. That makes a difference. He had started early.” Thad nodded, looking at her, remembering what she had looked like when he’d met her. She was twenty-three. She hadn’t changed much, in his opinion, she had only improved with time, and didn’t look very different at forty-two. He had been an eighteen-year-old kid when they met, just a boy.

  “I want to build a house like his, with a porch around it, and enough bedrooms, if I need them one day, but not so big that I’ll get lost in it. I’m used to living in a cabin barely bigger than a horse stall. It’s going to take some getting used to, having more space. I’m really grateful that Gemma is willing to sell me her share.”

  “She’s grateful to you too,” Kate said. “She wasn’t ready for it when they canceled the show. It really left her high and dry. So you’re helping her out too.”

  “I couldn’t do it without the money your dad left me,” he said, and pointed to the spot where he wanted to build the house. It looked perfect to her, with the tall trees nearby. “I don’t want anything too modern. I like old houses.”

  “So did my dad.” She smiled at him. “I like old houses too.”

  “I always wanted to live in a house like that when I was a kid, shuffling around from place to place. I never thought I co
uld do it, and now here I am.” He looked so proud, standing in the tall grass on the land that was about to be his. He had a manly quality to him, and the sexy appeal of real cowboys. It reminded her of her father and the kind of men she had always liked and used to meet at the rodeo. You couldn’t tell the cowboys from the ranchers sometimes, they all had that easy, sexy, masculine look.

  “You can do anything you want to, if you try hard enough. That’s what my dad always said. I believe that. No dream is too big if you keep plugging away at it. This ranch is proof of that. And now yours will be too.” They sat down on a log together, looking out over the land into the Valley, their horses tied loosely to a tree, happily grazing.

  “What about you, Kate? Do you think you’ll keep the ranch forever?”

  “I hope so. What else would I do? This is what I know, and there’s nowhere else I want to be. This is it for me.” She looked at peace. She had always known she belonged here, unlike her sisters. She had no yearning to be anywhere but where she was, doing what she did every day. All she wanted was to do it a little better, but it provided all the challenges she wanted, and she did it well. She was one of the most responsible ranch owners he had ever known, and she was more creative and open-minded than her father, which would take her far.

  “How’s your romance going?” she asked, and he laughed. She could never keep track of them.

  “She had a fling with the bartender at the bar where she works. That did it for me. That’s what you get with the young ones. Fickle, and no morals.”

  “And you’re so moral?” she teased him. “Shit, you have a new girl every week. I can’t keep up with you.”

  “I do them one at a time, though,” he said, and she grinned. “Besides, I’ve had a problem for years.” She was suddenly afraid that he was going to tell her something she didn’t want to know. They were pals, but there was a limit to everything. Most of the ranch hands thought of her as one of the guys. “I’ve been in love with the same woman for years. But I didn’t have anything to offer her. Nothing but a cabin and a horse I don’t own. It’s different now, with all this,” he said, with a wave at the land he was buying from her sister. “I’ve got some substance to offer a woman now. A real woman, not a kid.”