Regrets Only (Sequel to The Marriage Pact)

by Pullen, M. J.

  “Thanks,” she muttered.

  “Ma’am,” he said, in a mock cowboy tone, tipping his hand to the bill of his camouflage cap in a salute. “Can I help you with the bandage, too?”

  Suzanne nodded and Dylan reached out for her injured hand. His playful tone disappeared. “Jesus, what happened?”

  “It’s a long story,” she said.

  “I’m not busy,” he said, rolling the gauze around her finger with practiced skill. “Just running errands for my baby sister and playing nurse to accident-prone event planners, as you can see.”

  “I have to say I was wondering about that,” Suzanne said, grateful for a potential subject change. “I am delighted to see you, of course, but I’m surprised that you are the staff member Yvette assigned to deliver Kate’s wedding binders.”

  “I’m the highest paid errand boy in Atlanta.” He smiled. His soft Tennessee accent was different, more casual than her dramatic Georgia drawl. “Nah, really, I have a few weeks off before the summer tour and I always like to spend time in Atlanta. I have an apartment here, actually. It’s nice to get lost in the city.”

  “Really?” Suzanne asked, surprised.

  “Well, that and Kate didn’t trust any of my guys with her stuff. I don’t blame her, honestly. They’re good guys, but I don’t see them having a deep understanding of why fabric samples and magazine clippings would be so important to a girl.”

  “And you do have this deep understanding?”

  He laughed. “I have five sisters. I had all kinds of feminine mysteries revealed to me very early on. Pounded into me, some of them. Trust me, I get it.”

  Suzanne could tell he was remembering something fondly. His eyes were on his work, taping her finger tightly, but they seemed distant. “So you’re an expert on women?” she asked.

  “Come on, now,” he said. “I’m not stupid enough to claim that. Any guy who knows anything about women knows better than to pretend he knows about women.”

  She laughed in spite of herself. “That sounds like one of your songs.”

  He grinned. “It does, doesn’t it? I should write that down. Wiggle your fingers.”

  She did as he instructed. He frowned slightly, took back her hand, and made an adjustment to the tape. “Seriously, though, I have been fully initiated into the female realm.”

  “That seems kind of unbelievable to me. You seem like such a guy’s guy. You know—camouflage, guns, girls…”

  “I keep telling you not to judge people on their appearances. Go ahead, test me.”

  “What?”

  “Test me. Send me to the store for tampons. Ask me to braid your hair. Cry on my shoulder about some guy who broke your heart. I’ll be back from the store before you can say ‘Ben & Jerry’s’.”

  She laughed loud this time, and he chuckled in response, pleased at having entertained her. His crooked grin was infectious beneath a day’s worth of stubble. I can see why people are so captivated with him.

  This realization reminded her suddenly who he was: a client. Her only client. A wildly famous one at that. She had to be careful not to fall under his spell, not to believe that his charms were meant for her, any more than they were meant for the millions of other weak-kneed girls who obsessed over him. One of the many pictures she’d seen in People with a young starlet on his arm flashed suddenly across her mind.

  “Well, Scarlett, you probably ought to get a stitch or two in there,” he said, looking finally satisfied with his handiwork on her finger. “But that should hold it for now.”

  “Thanks,” she said, pulling her robe tighter to her. He was looking her in the eye now, rather deliberately, she thought. “Is there any message?”

  “What?” he asked.

  “With Kate’s binders. Is it all self-explanatory?”

  “Oh, that. Yeah, I think so. She’ll be back in town next week. Did Yvette tell you?”

  “Yes. Prague, right?”

  “Yep. Church choir tour of Eastern Europe.”

  “Really?” Suzanne wasn’t sure why this should surprise her, but it did.

  “Yeah. Kate’s a better singer than I am, actually. She’s been going on that choir tour since we were kids. Of course, now she’s a chaperone. She loves working with the teenagers.”

  This wasn’t what Suzanne had expected. In the press, most of Dylan’s sisters were portrayed as entitled, self-centered brats. “That’s so nice,” she said.

  “She’s a lot nicer than I am, too,” he said with another lopsided grin. “What’s all that?”

  Following his gaze, Suzanne wished she could melt into the floor. He was pointing at the posterboard along the dining room wall. In her astonishment, she had almost forgotten it.

  “It’s, um…I’m embarrassed to say this, but it’s a list of people I’ve been involved with. Romantically.”

  He let out a long whistle. “Damn. And people say I’m a player.”

  “Well, it includes people all the way back to college, and I am a few years older than you.”

  Stop, she commanded herself. For heaven’s sake, stop. You are making it worse.

  “Are you?” he asked absently. He had walked to the wall for a closer look. “So do you keep records in case they make dating an Olympic sport or something?”

  There was nothing to do but tell him the truth. “Well, it seems that I might be being…” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word stalked. It would make this too real and too scary. “It seems like one of them might be trying to hurt me, or at least scare me. Maybe someone I rejected. The police suggested I make a list.”

  He turned to face her, his expression darkened. “Someone is stalking you?”

  “Well, yes. It seems that way. But don’t worry, I’ve been in touch with the police and I am trying to figure out who it is. I have no reason to believe it will interfere with your sister’s wedding.” As she said it, Suzanne realized she was not at all confident of this. She had no idea what might happen next.

  Dylan crossed back to the box of flowers and looked at them more closely. “This is how you cut your finger.”

  “Yeah,” she conceded.

  “You’ve called the police?”

  “Not yet. I mean, not today. Not for this.”

  “I’ll hang out until they get here.”

  “Really, that’s not necessary—”

  “I’m not busy,” he said again. His tone left no room for argument.

  After another second’s hesitation, she went to the bedroom in resignation. She found Officer Caputo’s card, called to tell him what happened, and changed into jeans and a t-shirt. When she returned to the living room, Dylan was out on the balcony, talking on the phone. He was still there when the knock came on the door. This time it was a squat black female officer, with hair swept into a tight, neat bun on the top of her head. She gave her badge number when Suzanne got to the peephole, and instructed her to verify it with the APD dispatch before opening the door.

  “You always want to do that,” the policewoman said, once the door was open. “Anytime someone comes out here, you get their badge number and confirm it before you open the door. Even if you called us, okay? I’m Officer Bonita Daniels. I’ll be taking over your case.”

  Dylan came in off the porch. Officer Daniels eyed him with suspicion until Suzanne introduced him. “This is…” she hesitated. What was the protocol here? Should she use his real name? Explain who he was?

  He saved her the trouble. “I’m Dylan Burke. A friend of Ms. Hamilton’s.”

  “I recognize you,” said Officer Daniels seriously. Then a controlled smile spread across her features. “I have a fifteen-year-old daughter. We’re both fans.”

  Dylan smiled warmly back. “Thank you for coming so quickly, Officer Daniels. I’ll let Ms. Hamilton show you the package she received.” He waited a beat and then added, “Would your daughter like an autographed CD?”

  The police officer’s professional demeanor broke temporarily as her eyes lit up. Suzanne could tell she wa
s imagining the reception she would get at home if she walked in with an autograph from Dylan Burke. “Oh, Mr. Burke…that would be great. Thanks.”

  “I’ll just go out to my truck. Ms. Hamilton probably doesn’t have a CD handy. She’s not a big fan of my work.” He winked at Suzanne on the way out the door. Officer Daniels eyed her reprovingly before she began asking about the box of flowers. Clearly, Suzanne had been diminished significantly in the officer’s good opinion.

  Dylan returned from the truck with a new CD, signed it for the officer to her daughter Chrysaline. Officer Daniels bemoaned that she didn’t have her camera on her for a picture. She returned to asking Suzanne questions, though her cold professionalism had softened slightly.

  “Can you describe the driver who delivered your package, Ms. Hamilton?”

  “Suzanne. Please.”

  “Okay, Suzanne. You can call me Bonita, then.” The officer smiled slightly and waited.

  Suzanne didn’t remember much about the driver, but she said what she could recall: white, mid-twenties, physically fit. He seemed to have the right uniform, and he did not look familiar.

  “So it’s unlikely that it was him. I’ll check into it. In any case, don’t open your door to any deliveries until we get this resolved, okay? Just tell the carrier company you want to pick things up at their local station.”

  “That’s going to be a pain,” Suzanne said.

  Behind her, Dylan snorted. “Well, ladies, I think you can take it from here.”

  He ducked out with an imaginary tip of the hat to Suzanne, and a brilliant smile for Bonita Daniels. The policewoman returned his smile, and then stayed with Suzanne for half an hour—longer than Suzanne had expected—reviewing the tips for stalking victims and encouraging her to stay calm.

  Easier said than done.

  Chapter 12

  If you have a ruined reputation, a broken arm, a sole client who is out of the country, and a stalker of unknown whereabouts or identity, it’s nice to live in a building with a rooftop pool. Suzanne had begun spending hours there each day, trying to balance the claustrophobia that frequently plagued her inside the condo. The only other places she went were to the Starbucks and tiny grocery store on the bottom floor, and even those made her feel unnerved because they were open to the public.

  By Friday afternoon, she had gone through Kate’s wedding binders twice, making notes and jotting down questions. Although she still was not looking forward to planning a wedding, Kate at least seemed to have decent taste, not the showy and ridiculous stuff some of the Burke girls seemed to favor. Maybe it was possible this wouldn’t be the worst experience of her life after all.

  Suzanne had also spent many bleary-eyed hours at her computer, searching online for traces of William Fitzgerald, the man who had once loved her enough to ask her to marry him. She was determined to find him again and figure out where things had gone wrong. The process was slow going, with one hand in a cast and a finger on the other hand throbbing painfully beneath a tight bulb of gauze and tape. Typing seemed to take forever and errors were frequent.

  William did not have a large online presence, which made him even more of a mystery to be solved. No Facebook page or blog. She found scant, outdated entries about his father’s law practice, and about his brother, who was apparently married and teaching economics at Georgia Southern down in Statesboro. She had found William’s parents’ old number, apparently living in the same house he’d grown up in. She had almost worked up the courage to call them.

  #

  Now she was sitting by the rooftop pool, which she had to herself because even in early May, it was still a little chilly for mid-afternoon swims. In a few weeks the seats all around her would be constantly flooded with the building’s young professional tenants, skipping out on Friday afternoons to get a head start on the weekend, going through papers in their reclining beach chairs while they tried to acquire a glow for the bar scene later in the evenings.

  Even if it had been warm enough, she couldn’t swim today with her cast and sliced finger. She had opted against getting stitches, hoping Dylan’s bandage job would do the trick. Two days later, it still throbbed painfully, but was now beneath a simple bandage, rather than the big gauzy mess it had been originally.

  She stretched out in her cargo shorts with her laptop and phone beneath the glare of the sun and city around her. She picked up the phone and stared at it for a long time. William’s parents’ number was in her pocket, but those weren’t the digits she was tempted to dial right now. This was the first time in years she and Marci had gone more than a day or two without speaking on purpose. She felt as if a part of her was missing.

  She dialed Marci and then hung up before the first ring. Can you honestly say you ever cared about anyone more than you care about yourself? Suzanne had always thought she did care about others. Wasn’t half her life spent in service of charity organizations? Paid service, her brain reminded her. She volunteered a few times a year at a women’s shelter, too. But was that the same as truly caring?

  These musings were interrupted when the phone in her hand buzzed suddenly, startling her almost off the pool chair. “Miss Hamilton?” said a soft, unfamiliar voice. “This is Kate Burke.”

  “Oh, hello, Kate,” Suzanne said. “I thought you were out of the country?”

  “I am,” Kate said. “I’ll be flying back tomorrow. We’re in the hotel today though, and it’s raining, so I had a few minutes. The kids are all watching movies downstairs.”

  “Ah,” said Suzanne. Then, uncertainly, “What can I do for you?”

  “Oh, um, I just wanted…” The voice was sweet and a little nervous-sounding. “I wanted to just say how much I am looking forward to meeting you, and to thank you for planning our wedding at the last minute. I know it must seem like such a small event by your standards.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Suzanne said reassuringly. “I’m very happy to be doing it, and I’m honored that you chose me.”

  “Thank you,” Kate said. “Um, I talked to my brother earlier, and he thought it would be good if we met at the cabin, because that’s where the wedding will be? There will be lots of people there this week, music people, planning for the summer tour, including my fiancée, Jeff. Jeff Wendell. He’s Dylan’s promoter—did Dylan tell you? Anyway, it could be fun, if that’s convenient for you?”

  “So, would you want me to come up for a day?”

  “Well, you can stay for a few days, if you want,” Kate said. “It’s a very pretty place.”

  Suzanne hesitated. Of course, there was nothing keeping her in Atlanta at the moment, no reason she shouldn’t leave town. But something about being thrown into Dylan’s world and being stuck there made her uneasy. Still, it seemed ridiculous to refuse.

  Before she could answer, however, Kate jumped back in. “I’m so sorry. I told Dylan it would be better for me to come to you in Atlanta, Miss Hamilton. Please don’t feel obligated to come all the way to Tennessee. I’m sure you are busy.”

  “Not at all, Kate. I’d love to come. I was just…checking my calendar. Can someone email me directions?”

  “Dylan said he can send a car for you, Miss Hamilton.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll drive myself. And Kate?”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Please, call me Suzanne. ‘Miss Hamilton’ makes me feel about a hundred years old.”

  The tinkling laugh on the other end of the line sounded genuine, if a little marred by transatlantic static. “Sure thing, Miss—um, Suzanne.”

  “I’ll see you next week, Kate. Safe travels.”

  #

  She returned downstairs to the condo, where she paced several miles around her living room, until she summoned the courage to call William’s parents to ask about him. Her heart pounded as she dialed, blood echoing in her ears while the phone rang on the other end. It turned out to be anticlimactic, however, when she got the Fitzgeralds’ answering machine and William Senior’s long, rich drawl invoking her to leav
e a message.

  She did so, with a bit of hesitation, trying to sound as chipper as possible: “Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald. It’s Suzanne Hamilton. I was just—I was just thinking about William and wondering how he was doing. I thought I would call to say hello. If you could just pass on the message at your convenience, that would be great.”

  She left her number, thanked them, and hung up. She could only guess whether they would relay the message, and if they did, whether he would call her back. Ten years was a lot of water under the bridge, but Suzanne’s mother had gathered over the years, through the club grapevine, that resentments were still going strong.

  Chapter 13

  By Friday evening, Suzanne was seriously contemplating whether she might actually go insane in her condo. After being cooped up alone all week, her desire for human interaction was beginning to outweigh her fear. What was she going to do? Stay locked in her apartment forever? She remembered years ago, she and Marci had gone to see a scary movie, in which Sigourney Weaver played a woman with severe agoraphobia who couldn’t leave her apartment. Even then, it had sounded like the worst kind of hell to Suzanne. She didn’t even like wearing the same pair of shoes for too long, and she had not left the building in five days.

  She had received an email from Yvette with directions to Dylan’s cabin in Tennessee, along with a paragraph of dire warnings and legal ramifications if she were to reveal its location to any member of the media. The email had suggested she arrive around 3:00 on Tuesday afternoon to meet with Kate at 4:00.

  “Dinners at the cabin are informal,” Yvette had written. “I think you will find that jeans and a comfortable blouse will be sufficient and appropriate. You may wish to bring a sweater, considering evenings in the mountains can be chilly. Shorts and t-shirts are acceptable for daytime wear. You’ll have a room in the guesthouse. Please plan to stay until as late as Friday.”