She’d sat down with her back to me, which left him facing our table. If he looked up to scan the restaurant, he’d see us. See me. I had to get out of here before that happened. But first I had to tear my gaze away from the expression on his face, and it wasn’t easy.
Rafe is a good-looking man, if you happen to like the type. Tall, dark, and dangerous, like the heroes of Barbara Botticelli’s bodice rippers.
Lately, he’s been growing his hair longer than usual, and while the perfectly styled espresso waves are attractive, I kind of miss his short crop. He has brown eyes, as dark and melting as those on a Jersey cow, surrounded by long, thick lashes, and whenever he looks at me—unless we’re in bed together, and sometimes even then—they always hold a hint of amusement. Warm amusement, like he’s enjoying the company; not like he’s secretly laughing at me.
And tonight he was looking at her that way. Like he enjoyed her company. Like being with her made him happy. Like she was interesting and beautiful and special.
The bastard.
“Dessert?” Todd said.
He always asked. Mother brought me up to eat like a bird whenever I go on a date—we wouldn’t want a potential husband to think I don’t care about my waistline—so I’ve never in my life ordered dessert when eating with a man. Todd still asked every single time he took me out. Sometimes I’m tempted to say yes just because I really like cheesecake, but the habit is too deeply ingrained. I shook my head with a smile at the waiter, who was hovering beside the table. “Just coffee. Black.”
The waiter nodded—it was more like a bow, really—and clicked his heels. Todd ordered the cheesecake. For himself. I wanted to scream at him that we had to leave, that every fiber of my being objected to sitting here demurely while a few yards away, the man I loved was wining and dining someone else, but I didn’t. I folded my hands in my lap, dug my fingernails into my palms deeply enough to leave dents, and prepared to wait it out. All the while sending prayers heavenward that Rafe wouldn’t look up and notice us. That was all I needed, for him to stop by our table to introduce his new girlfriend, the love of his life.
It seemed like an eternity before the coffee came, along with Todd’s cheesecake. And then another eternity passed while he took his time devouring it, rolling each bite around in his mouth before swallowing. If I hadn’t been so worried about what was going on behind my back, I would have resented the fact that he got to sit there, savoring raspberry chocolate cheesecake while I had to be satisfied with black coffee, but for once I didn’t even think about it. All my attention was focused on the table behind the pygmy date palm and what was happening there. I didn’t turn around to look, not after the first time, but every second I expected to hear his voice. “Evening, darlin.’ Didn’t expect to see you here.”
It didn’t come, but eventually the check did. Another thousand years passed while the waiter accepted Todd’s credit card and took it into the bowels of Fidelio’s to settle the bill. Then, finally, we could leave. Todd got to his feet first and came around the table to pull my chair out. He lifted my wool coat and held it for me. I slipped first one arm and then the other into the sleeves, and risked a glance over my shoulder.
Neither of them were looking at us. Their food had arrived, and they were busy eating. Rafe had ordered Chicken Marsala, the same thing he had when he was here with me, but instead of the plebeian bottle of beer that always gave the waiter conniptions, he was sipping red wine from a stemmed glass. Guess he was trying to impress her.
He’d never bothered to impress me.
“Ready?” Todd said.
I nodded and headed toward the front of the restaurant and the exit.
Just before we got there, I looked back one more time.
Dammit, I’d already known it was over—his actions in the hospital and his silence afterwards couldn’t have made it any clearer—but it still hurt to see him with someone else. I guess I just wanted one more look. And maybe a part of me wished, now that I was leaving, that he’d look up and notice me. That he’d acknowledge me, one last time.
But he didn’t. All his attention was focused on the woman on the other side of the table. As I watched, he laughed at something she said, then lifted his glass to her. She lifted her own, and they touched them together before drinking. I turned on my heel and walked out.
Chapter 2
Fidelio’s is off Murphy Road, on the west side of town. I live on the east side, on the edge of one of the historic districts. To get there, we drove down Charlotte Avenue and through downtown, where someone had put nets with small yellow lights on all the trees lining the streets, to celebrate the upcoming holiday.
Nashville’s downtown is quite small for a town with a million inhabitants. Most of Music City is suburban, while the downtown financial district is a pretty compact place. Until just a few years ago, nobody lived down there, although that’s changed in the past five or six years. Now there are expensive lofts all over the place. Most of the buildings are fairly short: the tallest building in downtown, the Batman Building—so called because of the two pointy towers that look like ears—is under thirty stories tall.
Before the Batman Building came along, the Tennessee Tower was the tallest. It sits on Charlotte Avenue just across from the State Capitol and the War Memorial building, and it has no distinguishing architectural features whatsoever. What it does have, is a nice flat surface for writing things. At the moment, the lighted windows spelled the words SANTA STOP HERE with an arrow pointing to the roof.
From downtown, James Robertson Parkway takes you across the Cumberland River and into East Nashville. I live about a mile from downtown, in an apartment and condo complex on the corner of North 5th Street and East Main. It’s gated, quite safe, and in a burgeoning urban neighborhood—and Todd asks me how safe it is every single time he drops me off after dinner. Tonight was no exception.
“I’ve lived here for almost two years,” I said, as I punched my pass code into the keypad next to the gate. It opened slowly. I slipped through, followed by Todd, and headed across the courtyard. “In all that time, nothing’s happened to me.”
I stopped in front of the door to my building and pulled my keys out of my bag.
“How about that break-in you had back in September?” Todd wanted to know. “That wasn’t nothing.”
He had a point. However, the break-in—during which the burglar had slashed my favorite nightgown to ribbons and written a bad word on my bedroom wall with blood red lipstick—had been targeted at me specifically, and had nothing to do with either the location of the apartment or the security of the building. It could have happened anywhere. And would have happened wherever I’d lived at the time.
“That was personal,” I said and pushed the door open. “Nothing to do with anything.”
I walked into the stairwell, again followed by Todd. The outside door closed behind him with a reassuring thud. The stairwell was freshly painted and carpeted, with adequate lighting and nowhere for anyone to hide.
“It had to do with Collier,” Todd said, as he followed me up the stairs.
“It’s hardly his fault that some old girlfriend of his went off the deep end and started murdering people. He hadn’t seen her for twelve years.”
I stopped outside the door to my apartment and sorted through the keys on my chain. There’s the outside key, the inside key, the key to the office, the key to my car, and the key to mother’s house in Sweetwater... there was even a key to Rafe’s grandmother’s house on Potsdam Street that I’d picked up when I spent a couple of nights with her once, and that I’d never returned.
“That was a pretty girl he was with earlier,” Todd said, obviously sticking his toe into the water to gauge the temperature. I made sure my back was turned when I answered.
“Very. Just the kind of girl you’d expect him to be with, too.”
My voice was steady, I’m happy to report. And my hands didn’t shake at all as I put my coat on a hanger and hung it in the tiny coat closet insid
e the door. I turned to Todd, a bright smile on my face. “Would you like a glass of wine before you drive home? Or a cup of coffee?”
Todd looked dissatisfied, somehow. I’d have thought my lack of reaction at seeing Rafe with another woman would have made him happy, but he seemed almost let down. He opened his mouth once, then seemed to think better of it and closed it again. “A cup of coffee would be nice.”
Of course. He couldn’t just get out of my way and let me kick, scream, and cry in peace.
“Just a moment.” I gave him another sunny smile and a wave toward the sofa. “Have a seat. I’ll be right back.”
Todd headed for the living room. I ducked into the kitchen and started the coffee. After putting together a tray with two cups on saucers, two spoons, two napkins, a pitcher of milk and a dish of sugar, I placed both hands flat against the counter and watched the coffee drip from the coffee maker into the pot one drop at a time, cursing Todd and Rafe and the new girlfriend and most of all myself, for having done what I swore I’d never do, namely falling in love with him.
By the time I carried the tray into the living room, I had myself under control again. I was able to put it down on the coffee table and bestow another smile on Todd. “Sugar? Milk?”
“Just black,” Todd said, watching me. “Are you all right, Savannah?”
“Of course I’m all right,” I said, and gave him his cup with a steady hand. “Why do you ask?”
“I thought you might be upset about Collier,” Todd said, stating the obvious. He was leaning back, his suit jacket neatly draped over the arm of the sofa and one leg folded over the other, holding the cup and saucer on his knee and watching my face.
I sat down across from him and crossed my own legs. “It was a bit of a shock at first. I didn’t expect to see him. I had no idea he was back in town. I thought someone would have told me.”
Todd nodded, sipping his coffee.
“But I wouldn’t say I’m upset.” Upset wasn’t near strong enough for what I was feeling. Hollow, maybe. A bit devastated. Holding it together by a thread. However... “I always suspected there were other women. He never struck me as the faithful kind.”
It was true. And since our relationship had consisted of exactly two sexual encounters a couple of months apart, plus a handful of kisses and the fact that he’d saved my life once, it wasn’t like I had a right to expect fidelity, anyway. There’d been nothing in writing, nothing verbal, no actual reference to any kind of understanding between us. I’d been a willing participant when he wanted company, that was all.
Hell—excuse me—I’d pretty much thrown myself at him, at least the first time. Showing up at his house late at night, wearing a dress that practically begged to be ripped off, telling him that Todd had proposed and I had said no because I’d spent two years faking orgasms for my ex-husband and I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life doing it.
Poor man, it wasn’t like I’d given him a choice, was it? Maybe he really hadn’t wanted to sleep with me. Maybe he’d felt trapped and like he had to give me what I wanted so I’d leave.
Squirming with a mixture of guilt and memory, my cheeks flushed. I added, “He made it pretty clear that he didn’t care in the hospital last month, when he walked out and left me there.”
Granted, he’d left me in the loving arms of my family and friends, after mother looked at him down the length of her nose, but I’d sent my sister Catherine after him to explain, and he still hadn’t come back inside. And he hadn’t written and he hadn’t called, not even to let me know he was back in Nashville. Instead he’d just shown up with another woman. A woman he looked at the same way he used to look at me.
“I’m glad you can be so reasonable about it, Savannah,” Todd said with approval.
I didn’t feel reasonable. I wanted to scratch her eyes out and tear that pretty dark hair right off her lovely head. Barring that, I wanted him dead.
Or perhaps a case of genital warts would be sufficient. A severe case.
Todd placed his cup in the saucer with a click, and then placed the cup and saucer on the coffee table. “I should be going. It’s getting late.”
He wouldn’t get back to Sweetwater until after eleven, and although it rarely gets very cold in Middle Tennessee, the temperatures do drop below freezing this time of year, especially at night. The roads might get icy.
For just a moment I toyed with the idea of asking him to stay. Spending the night with Todd would go a long way toward sticking it to Rafe in absentia. Pardon my French. But he’d never know, and it was likely he wouldn’t care anyway, and I didn’t really want to sleep with Todd. If I did, I’d have to marry him, since I wasn’t brought up to sleep around and Todd knows it. The only reason no one expected me to marry Rafe after sleeping with him, was that no one in the family wanted me to marry someone like that.
And since he didn’t want to marry me in any case, since he’d already replaced me with someone else, the point was moot.
I got to my feet and smoothed down my skirt. “I’ll walk you out.”
Todd nodded, shrugging on his suit jacket. “Thank you for another wonderful evening, Savannah.”
“Likewise,” I said. At least it had been pretty good until that moment in the restaurant when Rafe walked in.
“Would you like to go out again next weekend?”
“That would be lovely,” I said demurely. Mother has always said to play hard to get, but I think I’m giving Todd enough of that with the marriage proposals; I don’t have to refuse to have dinner with him, too. And free food is always nice. Especially free food the way Fidelio’s makes it.
“I’ll pick you up at seven,” Todd said. He leaned in for a kiss. Usually—at least lately—I’ve turned my cheek. This time I didn’t. There was a moment’s hesitation when his lips found mine, almost like he hadn’t expected it, and then he deepened the kiss.
I let him. I even responded in kind. It wasn’t because I felt anything; just because I knew I was supposed to. I didn’t feel anything beyond the guilt. Why couldn’t I love Todd? He was loveable. Nice, caring, considerate and pleasant. And he loved me. It didn’t seem fair that I couldn’t love him back.
Maybe I could fake it. I’d faked it with Bradley for a few years, without even really realizing I was doing it. It hadn’t been too bad. Unsatisfying, but hardly painful. There were benefits. The money. The status. The fact that I wouldn’t be alone.
I could marry Todd and go back to Sweetwater with him. And settle into the life my mother had always wanted for me. Her life.
There was only one problem. Back when I married Bradley, I hadn’t known what it meant to really love someone.
Now I did. For all the good it did me.
But it did mean I couldn’t settle for less again.
Todd let me go and stepped back. I smiled. “Good night, Todd.”
“Good night, Savannah,” Todd said. He walked through the door and into the hallway. I waited until he’d started down the stairs before I closed and locked the door and let the mask slip.
I won’t detail how I spent the next few hours. It involved comfortable clothes, mocha fudge ice cream straight out of the container, and a sappy movie on cable, that let me shed copious tears over something that didn’t directly relate to my own situation. It also involved a phone call close to midnight, at a time when I was pretty well cried out and practically catatonic, my eyes so puffy they were almost swollen shut and my stomach upset by all the ice cream.
My heart literally jumped when the phone rang. For a second I considered ignoring it, but that proved to be impossible. The Hallelujah-chorus rang like a siren song, and I dragged myself off the sofa and padded barefoot across the room and into the kitchen, over to the counter, where the phone was plugged in to charge.
Trying hard to get my vision to cooperate, I squinted at the display. The number belonged to a girl I’d made friends with a few months ago: my late colleague Brenda Puckett’s daughter Alexandra. We’d met at Brenda’s funeral back
in August, and over the next couple of weeks had become unlikely friends. She was a little young for me—sixteen to my twenty seven—but she seemed to like my company, and to be honest, I don’t have a lot of female friends. It’s one of the side-effects of being a Southern Belle. We tend to look at all other women suspiciously. Life is very much a contest when you’re a Magnolia. But because Alexandra was so much younger, and because we weren’t competing in the same category, I was able to move past those feelings and enjoy her company.
I still considered letting voicemail pick up. It was late, way outside the proper limits for calling someone. But she’d once before called me late like this because she’d gotten in trouble and needed a ride home, and just in case something was going on and she needed help, I thought I’d better answer.
“Hello?”
My voice was thick, and I had to clear my throat.
“Savannah?” Alexandra said. “This is Alex. Did I wake you?”
I thought about lying. It would make a handy excuse for the froggy voice. But just because I felt bad, there was no need to make her feel guilty, too. “No, you didn’t. I’ve just got a stuffy nose.”
“Oh. A cold, huh?” She didn’t wait for me to confirm or deny, just continued. “Can we get together?”
“Now?” A glance at the oven clock showed me it was a few minutes past twelve. She really ought to be in bed. I should be there myself.
Alexandra giggled. “Of course not now. Unless you want to?”
“No,” I said, “I’d rather not.”
“Tomorrow?”
“That would be fine. I’ll have to spend the morning in the office. I always do floor duty on Saturday mornings. But I’ll be done by noon. We could meet somewhere at twelve thirty or one. Maybe grab some lunch?”
A Done Deal Page 2
