“Anything else, ma’am?” asked Susie, the part-Navajo owner, who manned the cash register.
Dana pulled herself back from her thoughts. She wasn’t jealous of Erica, which surprised her. “No, nothing,” she said distractedly. It was amazing that she couldn’t summon up even the slightest bit of envy of Erica, whose life now seemed far removed from hers.
Susie was in the process of counting change into her hand when Conn McTavish approached the counter. Today he was wearing snug-fitting jeans and a dark-green sweater over a white T-shirt. He didn’t seem to notice her until he sauntered up to the cashier’s desk, and his face registered surprise when he realized who she was.
“Dana,” he said, and he flashed her a smile that must have melted the hearts of countless women.
“Hello, Conn,” she said, but despite her appreciation for his heartily male good looks, she was already angling so that she could get a good view of the person behind him. She had so convinced herself that Conn’s companion of the last few days must be a woman that she was surprised to see that the person with him was decidedly male. He was a distinguished-looking man whose big-city patina fit him as comfortably as his impeccably pressed khakis and highly polished loafers. His clothes were so expensive and well coordinated that he looked like an ad in GQ. The ten-gallon hat he wore was at odds with his image and worn, she suspected, only for effect.
Conn cleared his throat. “Dana, this is my house guest, Martin Storrs. And Martin, Dana is my neighbor. She lives over by the creek.”
Martin inclined his head in acknowledgment. “It must be your place that we stopped off in the rain the day after I arrived.”
So it was this man she had seen as Conn drove away from the cabin! It hadn’t been a woman in Conn’s truck after all. Dana surprised herself by feeling a wash of relief so strong that it almost bowled her over.
Conn slapped a twenty-dollar bill down next to the cash register. “I haven’t forgotten that we’re going to fly the hawks again,” he said to Dana.
“I hope not,” Dana said. She was clutching the soup to her chest, feeling foolish for her fears about Conn’s visitor. It seemed as if she couldn’t stop smiling at Conn, couldn’t stop grinning. “Well,” she said. “I guess I’d better be going. I’m taking soup home for dinner, and there’s no point in letting it get cold.”
“No point at all,” Conn agreed, and he smiled down at her. That smile infused her with a pleasure and delight that she couldn’t fathom. Was she so lonely that she was grateful for any little crumb of interest? But this was more than a crumb. More like a bite, she’d say. And why did she care so much?
She’d better be on her way before she made a fool of herself. “Goodbye,” she blurted hastily to Martin. “It was nice meeting you.”
“Nice meeting you,” he replied, looking slightly puzzled and more than a little perplexed. Did he recognize her? She wasn’t sure. Maybe she was being too paranoid. No one in Cougar Creek had made the connection between Day Quinlan and Dana Cantrell yet, not even Esther.
She edged past the two men, as well as three other customers waiting to pay their checks, before walking rapidly to her car. Once inside, she settled the container of soup so that it was not likely to spill on the rough road out of town and caught a glimpse of herself still grinning when she glanced in the rearview mirror.
Conn’s visitor was a man! She still couldn’t get over her relief. And, secondary in importance but still not negligible in the scheme of things, Conn had mentioned flying the hawks.
Though she wasn’t in the mood to stop, she checked her box at the post office. Her mind was still focused on thoughts of flying the hawks again when she saw the letter from Philip. It had been forwarded to her from Chicago with her other mail.
It was the first time he had written her, or at least it was the first time a letter had been forwarded from him. She turned it over in her hands, thinking about the rage she still harbored in her heart after that last awful day, the day that should have been one of the happiest in her life.
The letter had been mailed in a General Broadcasting Network envelope, and it had probably been typed on a GBN letterhead by Philip’s administrative assistant. A slow-burning rage burgeoned behind her eyes, and without a qualm she tore the letter to pieces and crumpled it into a ball, which she aimed toward the trash can outside the post office. It was a perfect slam-dunk shot.
So much for attempts by Philip to reach her. She never wanted to have anything to do with that self-serving jerk again.
It wasn’t until she was lying in bed that night recalling the episode in the diner that she recalled how Martin had looked at her with slightly more interest than most people around here did. That fact raised danger signals, but she honestly hadn’t felt he was any kind of a threat.
As she waited for sleep, she tried to remember Martin’s last name. Scores? Shores? Storrs? Yes, that was it.
The name seemed vaguely familiar to her, but perhaps that was only because in her line of work she’d met a lot of people. She was quite sure she’d never seen this man before, and his name was probably similar to that of somebody she’d encountered once upon a time.
ON THE DAY the phone installer installed the phone line, Dana woke up feeling achy all over. After breakfast her throat started feeling scratchy. Once the man left, she nestled down into the cushions of her father’s green chair, pulled a brightly patterned afghan over her knees and stared at the new phone. She had the urge to call someone, but she wasn’t friendly with anyone but Esther, who, though she seemed to be a kind person, was immured in a world bound by books and needlework and good things to eat, scarcely needing or wanting anything else.
Dana, chafing to know when she could fly the hawks again, wanted to pick up the phone and call Conn. But she wouldn’t feel right about it. She didn’t know if he still had a houseguest, for one thing. For another, she thought if they were going to get together, Conn should make the first move.
It was like high school all over again, when her mother had cautioned her against calling boys first. “Let them call you,” her mother had said. “If they have any interest, they will.”
She knew now that she should have followed that advice with Philip, but she’d thought that since she was an adult, she wouldn’t have to abide by her parents’ rules anymore. She’d pursued him after she caught his eye at a network party. And Philip had responded, and she’d thought he loved her, but in the end he’d found someone else. After more than a year together, he’d taken up with Erica, who had known what Dana hadn’t—that if you played hard to get, you’d eventually get your man.
Dana had known about Erica Soderstrom all along, had heard that Philip had the hots for her, knew that Erica kept pushing him away. She had thought that Erica was only a passing attraction and that their love—hers and Philip’s—was safe. She and her friend Noelle had speculated whether Philip had any interest in Erica, and the answer had always been no. It was clear, Noelle said, that Philip only cared for Dana. Wasn’t Dana smart and beautiful, and hadn’t Philip said she was a tiger in bed? So how could Philip like someone like Erica, who didn’t even encourage him?
Well, as it turned out, both Dana and Noelle had been wrong, wrong, wrong. Erica had capitulated in the end, and Philip must have felt something for her or he wouldn’t have risked his relationship with Dana to do something so stupid as take Erica for a tumble. In Dana’s bed, no less.
Dana would have liked to talk to Noelle. She wanted Noelle to know she was okay. But Noelle was a programming executive at the same network where Philip was a vice president, and what if after she and Dana talked, Noelle let down her guard, somehow gave away Dana’s hiding place? Dana didn’t want Philip to find her. She didn’t want him to know about the baby until it had been born. Philip was too powerful, too manipulative and too controlling by far. He would want the baby, if only to keep his mother from badgering him about getting married. “Do you want to be the last of the Granthams?” Myrtis had said to her son more
than once. “If you don’t pass on the family name, it dies with you, and we’re too proud a family to let that happen.”
And Myrtis would insist on raising the child, imbuing it with all her outmoded notions about the importance of being a Chicago Grantham, descended from the Boston Granthams, don’t you know, who were offshoots of the Cabots and the Lodges. Philip’s son, and of course it would be a son because it had to carry on the family name, would be sent to some snobby Eastern prep school and expected to matriculate at Harvard. The child would be raised by servants, because it was a sure thing that Myrtis wasn’t going to give up her extensive social life for a baby. As for Philip, once he had provided the world with little Philip Exton Grantham III, his responsibility would be over. He had never exhibited any real interest in children. No, once he’d provided Myrtis with a grandchild, he’d be on his merry way, chasing beautiful women from one bed to the other.
Before Dana would allow her baby to be brought up by someone else, particularly under the supervision of Myrtis and Philip, she’d die first.
The baby chose that time to send out one of those little rippling notices of its presence, and Dana laced her fingers over her abdomen. This was her way of hugging her child, and it would have to do until the baby made its appearance.
“I wonder if it’s good that you seldom hear my voice,” she said out loud to the baby. “I wonder if it would be better if I talked more.”
She knew that babies could hear before they were born and that muffled tones penetrated her abdomen and the watery cradle where her son or daughter awaited being born. She knew that hearing her talk would accustom her baby to her voice.
“I’ll never leave you in the care of someone who doesn’t love you, never.” For an answer, the baby kicked her hard in the stomach. “Now that’s not nice,” Dana chided, but she couldn’t help laughing. This was going to be a feisty kid.
Her friend Noelle had borne two children and knew all about matters of pregnancy and childbirth, claiming to have had a difficult time with both. She would be a valuable resource, someone Dana could call up in the middle of the night if she had a question about the changes in her body.
But Noelle didn’t know she was pregnant. No one from her former life did.
And her present life sometimes seemed very lonely.
She pictured Noelle in her office at the network, businesslike and impeccably groomed with her gleaming pale hair and conservatively applied makeup. Philip had always said that Noelle was the most beautiful of all Dana’s friends. Dana remembered the many lunches that she and Noelle had shared. They’d gone skiing together once a year on a women-only jaunt to Vail, and they’d laughed and cried together time and time again throughout their seven-year friendship. In the course of that friendship they’d talked over the foibles of their various boyfriends, discussed the pros and cons of schools for Noelle’s children and debated whether or not to get tattoos. Noelle had been against tattoos, but Dana had been in favor of the idea, if only to annoy Myrtis. Even though they never actually went through with getting them, it had been fun to speculate about Myrtis’s reaction. Oh, Dana missed Noelle. She missed her very much.
Without giving herself time to think about it any longer, Dana scooped up the phone and punched in call-blocking numbers so that Noelle wouldn’t be able to trace the call to Cougar Creek. The phone on the other end rang four times, five. Dana was ready to hang up when Noelle answered.
“Noelle?”
A stunned silence greeted her voice. Then, cautiously, “Day? Is that you?”
The name fell upon her ears as if it belonged to a stranger, as now it did. Dana no longer knew the woman who had been known to the world as Day Quinlan. She was Dana now, and perhaps that’s who she would be for the rest of her life.
“It’s me, Noelle.”
Noelle sounded frantic. “Day, where are you? Are you okay? Everyone’s been talking of nothing else, and Philip is—”
“I can’t tell you where I am. I wanted you to know that I’m fine.”
“Philip is so upset, Day. How could you run off like that, how could you leave all of us wondering what on earth is wrong?”
“It’s over with Philip, Noelle.”
“Because of Erica?” Noelle asked cautiously.
“You could say that.”
“Well, Erica’s broken off her relationship with him.”
So Philip had been dumped by the woman he’d dumped her for!
Noelle went on talking. “Erica and Myrtis didn’t get along. I promised Philip that if I heard from you—”
“No!” Dana said sharply. “Please don’t tell Philip I called. I don’t want him to know anything about me.”
“He loves you, Day. You know he does.”
“Noelle, it doesn’t matter. I don’t love him. I called to talk to you. Can’t we just chat?”
Noelle hesitated. “About what?”
“About the things we used to talk about. About cooking. Or…or…” For the life of her, Dana couldn’t think of any other mutually acceptable topic. Work was out of the question, since Dana no longer worked. Clothes would seem to be a useless subject, since, of necessity, Dana’s taste now ran to shapeless smocks while Noelle presumably was still into Hermes scarves and designer suits. Noelle’s children? At the moment it was as if Dana had never known them, never met them. She couldn’t even recall how old they were.
Noelle picked up the conversation, biting off her words sharply so that Dana knew right away that she was harboring resentment and possibly anger. “You disappear for a couple months after shocking everyone by walking off the set of your hit talk show and you want to talk about cooking?” Her voice rose on an incredulous note.
“I guess I do,” Dana said.
Noelle laughed, sounding more like her own self. “Oh, Day, that’s funny. I’ve missed you, you know. And so have Tricia and Raymond. The tabloids have been having a field day with this disappearance of yours. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t hear from a reporter from Celebrity World, the National Probe, or Tattletales Weekly.”
All she needed was for some reporter to get wind of her whereabouts and she could kiss her privacy goodbye. Despite the warmth of Noelle’s tone, a shiver of dismay ran up Dana’s spine. The uneasy thought occurred to her that she might not be able to trust Noelle the way she once did. “Don’t tell Tricia and Raymond I called, okay? And please, please, Noelle, don’t give the tabloids anything to work with.”
“I won’t leak even the slightest crumb to the tabloids, but not tell Tricia and Raymond? They’ll want to know you’re all right. Speculation is rife, Day. People say that you’ve got some awful wasting disease, that you’re having a complete cosmetic surgery overhaul, that you’ve eloped with a sultan from an oil-rich island in the Indian Ocean. Which is it, huh?” Noelle was teasing now, and Dana smiled.
“You can cancel the disease, the surgery and, what was it? Oh yes, the sultan. I’ll let you know in my own sweet time what’s happening, but until then, you’ll have to remain curious. And silent, Noelle. No talking.”
“Well,” Noelle said. She sounded dubious.
“Noelle? I thought you were my friend.”
Noelle sighed. “I am. I’ll keep it quiet, Day, if you’ll let me hear from you from time to time.”
“You got it, girl. Now I’d better hang up.”
“I’m glad you called. You can’t imagine how glad, Day. How about leaving me a number where you can be reached?”
Dana chose not to respond to this. “’Bye, Noelle,” Dana murmured before she hung up.
She sat staring at the phone for a minute or two, tears misting her vision. God, she missed Noelle. They’d been best friends since Dana’s show was picked up by the network, and their too-short contact only reminded Dana that she had chosen the hardest path of all. There had been valid reasons to choose self-exile over the other options, but even now she still had a hard time coming to terms with her choice.
Anyway, all that talki
ng, short though the conversation had been, had made her throat feel raw. Dana wiped the tears from her face with the end of her sleeve, pulled the afghan up over her shoulders and closed her eyes.
The baby would be here in two more months. That was plenty of time for Dana to decide if she wanted to resume her former life with its in-your-face media attention or try something new.
CONN HAD TO FORCE HIMSELF not to depress the gas pedal all the way to the floor as he drove home to Cougar Creek after delivering Martin to the airport in Flagstaff. The city’s traffic, its hustle, were anathema to him after these months spent in Cougar Creek. As the truck ate up the miles between there and Cougar Creek, he went over his last conversation with Martin in his mind.
“Please take my job offer seriously,” Martin had said firmly in the few minutes between the boarding call and getting on the plane. “I hope you’ll be thinking about it.”
Conn hadn’t been able to offer Martin much encouragement, but he also didn’t close the door on the opportunity. And that’s what the Probe job was—an opportunity that wouldn’t benefit him at all but would certainly ensure his mother’s well-being. Conn knew very well that his mother had never shirked, back in Clay Springs, South Carolina, when she’d had to do something unpleasant to improve his lot. So why was he balking?
Clay Springs had been a decent place to grow up. Conn had kept his same friends from kindergarten through middle school, and it was a typical small-town growing-up experience—roller skating on Saturday mornings with the gang and sneaking into the town’s only movie theater most Friday nights. But, though she’d grown up there herself, Clay Springs had never been good enough for Gladys McTavish.
Conn had always assumed that he would go to work at Clay Mills, the town’s only employer of any appreciable size, like almost everyone else did. True, a lucky few managed to secure employment elsewhere—in faraway Greenville, perhaps, or maybe Columbia.
Everyone in town knew that you could earn a decent living at Clay Mills. You just couldn’t advance very far, the main reason being that the company was owned by the Clay family, and they produced lots of offspring. The sons and daughters of the owners grew up, graduated from exclusive private colleges and found positions as upper-level managers; middle managers were considered hired help and imported from elsewhere. Although they were all college educated, there wasn’t much chance for a middle manager to progress past that level unless he happened to get lucky and marry a Clay. And as far as being a “linthead,” which was the pejorative term reserved for the hourly workers, including Gladys McTavish, his mother soundly vetoed that idea for her only child.
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