The Backup Plan

by Sherryl Woods

  “No, I’ve been accommodating long enough,” he corrected. “Tonight I’m tired and I have no intention of going out again. If you don’t want to go alone, call Tommy Lee. I’m sure he’d be happy enough to escort you. Our son needs to spend a little time cultivating those people, if he expects to take over at the bank someday.”

  She’d stared at him in shock. “What do you mean if?” she’d demanded, her voice rising to a level she’d never in her life resorted to before. Then again, Marshall had never been more exasperating than he was being right at this moment.

  “I don’t mean anything,” he said in the tone that indicated just the opposite. It merely meant he was tired of the whole subject. To prove it, he’d walked away from her, gone into his office and slammed the door.

  Now she sat in front of her dressing table mirror and stared at her reflection. What on earth was happening to them? It was as if she was suddenly married to a stranger.

  Their marriage had never been the passionate love match that some of their friends claimed to have, but they’d been well-suited in many ways. They’d found a rhythm for their lives that worked, especially after their children were born. Her role had been to support Marshall’s busy career, raise their children and to be socially active in a way befitting their standing in the community. She’d always accepted that she and a small cadre of her friends were the style-setters in town.

  Charleston was, in many ways, still a small town with a well-defined hierarchy. With their combined family backgrounds, it had been a foregone conclusion that they’d be accepted as a part of the crème de la crème of Charleston society, but maintaining that lofty position required real effort. It wasn’t enough to send the occasional check to charity or to be seen at the right galas. They’d had to serve as chairmen of key events, which meant that she did the work and Marshall reaped the rewards. For a time she’d done it gladly.

  It was only in recent years that it had all begun to bother her. She’d found her own worthwhile causes and put her time and energy into those. Maybe that was where the gulf now evident between them had started. Tonight she’d been forced to face the fact that it would take a sturdy bridge to cross that deepening chasm.

  When someone tapped on the bedroom door, she assumed it was Dinah, but it was Marshall who entered. She regarded him with dismay. She wasn’t up to another angry exchange.

  “Unless you’ve come to say you’ve changed your mind about tonight, you can leave,” she said coolly.

  Instead of doing as she asked, he sank down on the edge of the bed. “I came to talk about Dinah.”

  “Now?” she asked incredulously.

  “Yes, now, dammit! I came to tell you that I just had a very disturbing conversation with her. I saw for the first time what you meant when you came by the office to discuss your concern, Dorothy. She’s obviously distraught over something. I think we need to get to the bottom of it.”

  Dorothy put aside her annoyance and turned to face him. The encounter must have been troubling indeed if it had put such a worried frown on his face. “What do you suggest we do?”

  He regarded her with a helpless expression. “I have no idea. This is your area of expertise.”

  She smiled at that. “At least I still have one skill that you admire.”

  He frowned at her bitter comment. “What the hell do you mean by that? Can’t you put aside whatever differences you have with me for one minute and concentrate on our daughter?”

  She bit back a sharp retort and held up her hand. “I agree that now’s not the time, Marshall. Let’s concentrate on Dinah. Did she tell you anything?”

  “Nothing,” he admitted. “But something happened to her over there. Something bad. I’d stake my life on it. She says it wasn’t that incident she was involved in a few months ago, but I’m not convinced she’s being entirely truthful.”

  Alarm spread through her. “You don’t think she was…?” She couldn’t even bring herself to say the word.

  “Raped?” he said with a visible shudder. “To tell you the truth, I don’t think we can rule it out. I don’t think we can rule out any sort of atrocity at this point.”

  “Oh, dear God.”

  He took her hand in his. “Come now, Dorothy. Don’t fall apart on me. We don’t know it was anything like that, but she’s been living in an uncivilized atmosphere. Anything’s possible. Since she refused to tell me anything, I tried to get her to agree to talk to a psychologist I know, but she refused. Do you think she’s talking to her friends?”

  “No. I don’t even think she’s seen anyone outside of Maggie.”

  “Maybe Maggie knows something, then,” he suggested.

  “I’ll call her,” Dorothy said at once. “First thing in the morning. For now, though, I’d better finish dressing. I’m running late.”

  Marshall hesitated, then regarded her with a faintly sheepish expression. “Perhaps I will go with you to night, after all, unless you’ve made other arrangements.”

  “No. I did speak to Tommy Lee, but he and Laurie already had other plans.”

  “They’re probably line-appointment at some country-western bar,” he suggested, his tone scathing. “That seems to be the kind of entertainment they go for these days.”

  She frowned at him. “This isn’t the first time you’ve hinted that you’re unhappy with Tommy Lee. Would you care to explain?”

  “It would take too long and you said we’re already running late.”

  “I won’t let you put me off forever,” she warned. She wasn’t about to let her entire family unravel right in front of her eyes.

  “Fine,” Marshall said. “Meantime, I’ll meet you downstairs in what? Ten minutes?”

  She nodded.

  He stood up and started for the door, then turned back. “I’m sorry about earlier.”

  She glanced up in the mirror and met his reflected gaze. “Me, too.”

  Sadly, though, she knew that neither the apology, nor the last-minute decision to join her were going to solve the real problems between them. In fact, she had literally no idea what might end the sad stand-off they seemed to have reached in their marriage. They were drifting, not connecting, and not communicating. If there was a quick fix for any of that, she couldn’t see it.

  With a feeling of utter relief, Dinah heard her parents leave, presumably for the evening. Once the front door closed, she went back downstairs in search of something to snack on for dinner.

  In the refrigerator she found a covered plate of fried chicken and potato salad that Maybelle had left for her. Eat every bite, a note left on top commanded.

  Grinning, Dinah took the ridiculously huge meal and sat at the kitchen table. As a kid she’d always preferred to eat in here with Maybelle, rather than in the stiff, formal atmosphere of the dining room. She’d barely taken a bite of the chicken when the back door opened and Tommy Lee came in.

  “Coast clear?” he asked, looking harried.

  Tommy Lee was two years younger than Dinah, still in his twenties, in fact, but he looked older. Maybe it was from too much sun, but she suspected some of the lines on his face came from hard living and stresses she couldn’t even begin to imagine. Trying to walk in his father’s footsteps couldn’t be easy.

  “You trying to avoid Mother or Dad?” she asked as he plucked a chicken leg off the plate and sat down opposite her.

  “Both, as a matter of fact.”

  “Then you came to see me?” she asked, surprised.

  “Actually I came to beg some food from Maybelle,” he said with a grin. “Finding you in here is just a bonus.”

  “Laurie’s not cooking tonight?”

  “Laurie can’t cook worth a lick,” he said without rancor. “If it doesn’t come in takeout, we don’t have it at our house.”

  “You really were rebelling when you picked her, weren’t you?”

  “You have no idea,” he said, though without the slightest trace of self-pity. “So, what’s up with you? I thought you’d be bored to tears a
nd heading out of here by now.”

  “Already anxious to be rid of me?”

  “Hardly. With you underfoot, it’s taking the pressure off me.”

  “What pressure?”

  “To live up to Dad’s high expectations.” He stood up and reached in the refrigerator and pulled out a beer. He popped the top and swallowed a long gulp.

  Since no one else in the house drank beer, Dinah had to assume that these food forays of Tommy Lee’s were frequent enough that Maybelle had started stocking the beer for him.

  “What’s going on between you and Dad?” she asked him.

  “Nothing new,” he insisted. “He wants me to be somebody I’m not. He’s just now waking up to the fact that I’m never going to change.”

  “Out of spite?”

  “No, darlin’ sister, out of self-awareness. I’m not the least bit suited to a nine-to-five job hustling money. I know the banking business. I just don’t want to do it.”

  “And you’ve told him that?”

  “In every language I know.” He grinned. “Which is pretty much limited to plain old Southern. You’d think a man like our daddy would grasp that one.”

  “Want me to talk to him?” Dinah asked.

  “Lord, no,” he said with a shudder. “If you start fighting my battles for me, he really will think I don’t have any gumption at all. No, this will all come to a head soon enough.” He finished the piece of chicken he’d stolen from Dinah’s plate, snagged a couple of forkfuls of potato salad, then drank down the rest of his beer. He sat back with a satisfied sigh. “Damn, I miss Maybelle’s cooking.”

  “Me, too,” Dinah said. “I used to wake up nights thinking about her corn bread and her mashed potatoes and gravy.”

  “Not a lot of that on the menu where you’ve been, I imagine.”

  “Not even close,” she said.

  He studied her intently. “You really okay, Dinah?”

  She groaned. “Don’t you start, too. Everybody thinks I’m cracking up. It’s getting tiresome.”

  He held up his hands. “Since nobody knows how that feels better than I do, I’ll quit poking around in your life right this second. You change your mind, though, I’ve still got a big ole shoulder you can cry on anytime you need it.”

  Dinah reached over and tucked her hand into his. “When did you turn into my big brother? You always were this puny little thing pestering me to set you up on dates with my friends.”

  His expression suddenly turned unbearably sad. “I grew up while you weren’t even looking, Dinah.”

  The momentary melancholy in his eyes disappeared so quickly Dinah wasn’t even certain she’d seen it. He stood up with his more typical jovial expression firmly in place.

  “Better get my butt home with the Chinese takeout.” He leaned down and dropped a kiss on her forehead. “I’ll see you around. You need anything, you call me, okay?”

  “Love you,” she said as he walked out the door.

  “Love you,” Tommy Lee echoed, but only after he was far enough away that she couldn’t see his face.

  He’d always been that way. He’d never wanted any one to see his sentimental side. In fact, after spending just this small amount of time with him, she couldn’t help wondering if he even knew he still had it in him or if the pressures of battling their father’s expectations had driven that little bit of self-awareness right out of him.

  It had been days now and Cord hadn’t been able to shake the image of normally confident, wisecracking, steady-as-a-rock Dinah Davis flat on her stomach in the dirt in a pretty little sundress, shivering so hard he’d wondered if he’d ever get her to stop. There was no question about how messed up she was, since she’d let him tend to her without uttering a single protest.

  As if that memory weren’t disturbing enough, he couldn’t seem to forget the way she’d felt in his arms, the way her body curved toward him, hanging on for dear life. He knew she’d been embarrassed by what she would consider a display of weakness. She’d never have done such a thing if she hadn’t been having a panic attack, but he couldn’t help wishing that she’d been in his arms for another reason entirely.

  Maybe that was why he lied to his brother.

  “Bobby, I need you to stay in Atlanta for another week,” he said right after Bobby had told him he was coming home. “Maybe longer.”

  “What!” his brother exclaimed. “Are you crazy?”

  Cord held the phone away from his ear at the expected explosion. He couldn’t very well blame Bobby for being anxious to get back to Charleston. Living in a hotel room wasn’t the same as being at home and he’d been doing just that for months now. Worse, he’d been separated from his fiancée for most of that time. They’d already had this conversation once, so Cord knew pretty much what to expect. He wasn’t looking forward to it.

  “I’ve been over here for months now,” Bobby reminded him. “All of the leases are signed. There are only so many nails left to be pounded and so much paint left to be applied. The crew is perfectly capable of finishing up.”

  Cord bit back an impatient sigh. How the hell was he supposed to argue with that logic? He desperately grasped at one last straw. “What about the old hotel we’ve been looking into restoring? Is that a done deal?”

  “I’ve greased every wheel there is to be greased,” his brother insisted, then added with a touch of defensiveness, “If we don’t get the job restoring that hotel, it won’t be for lack of trying on my part.”

  Cord could see that Bobby was about to misinterpret his words and jump to the conclusion that Cord was dissatisfied with his work. He needed to do some mighty fast tap-appointment to keep Bobby where he was with his morale intact. The success of their partnership depended on mutual respect for their very divergent talents. He was treading on Bobby’s toes right now, no question about it.

  “I know that,” he said hurriedly. “You’ve done a fantastic job, Bobby. I just think it’ll pay off if you’re right there and accessible if any questions come up. I want the other investors to know we’re as committed to that project as we have been to the one we’re finishing up. In fact, it might make sense for you to think about buying someplace permanent there.”

  “You want me to move here? No way in hell, Cord. If you think one of us needs to be here twenty-four/ seven, it’ll have to be you. You can move over here and prove how committed we are,” Bobby retorted. “You’re not the one who hasn’t seen his fiancée in four freaking months, except on weekends.”

  Unfortunately, Bobby had a point, Cord conceded. Rianna was sweet and smart and totally in love with his brother. She was also the primary thing standing between Bobby and that crazy agreement he’d made years ago with Dinah. Cord definitely wanted to keep Rianna happy and his brother otherwise occupied.

  “Have her come on over to Atlanta for a week or so,” Cord encouraged. “The company will spring for a luxury suite and all the champagne you can drink. You can talk wedding plans, maybe even write out your engagement announcement for the paper. That ought to make her happy.” And it would finally put Dinah on notice that she was too late to make her play for Bobby.

  “Can we afford even a few days in some fancy hotel?” Bobby asked doubtfully, his mind immediately going to the bottom line. “I thought we were doing all this stuff on a no-frills expenses budget, so every penny would show up in the work.”

  If the money had to come out of his own pocket, Cord would see that there was enough. “Absolutely. We’ll find the money. You deserve some R & R after all the time you’ve put in.”

  “You’re right about that. Thanks,” Bobby said, appeased for now. “Maybe I can convince Rianna to get married while she’s here and skip the fancy shindig,” he added wistfully. “Just the thought of it is beginning to give me hives.”

  “Great idea,” Cord said with more enthusiasm than the idea normally would have merited. It probably was best not to stir up questions about exactly why he was suddenly so eager for his brother to get a wedding ring on Rianna�
�s finger, when he’d expressed doubts about the big rush in the past. Still, since Bobby had given him an opening, he asked, “You two ever think about running off to Vegas?”

  “I think about it all the time,” Bobby said with a laugh. “Rianna’s a tough sell, though. She wants tradition and an impressive guest list. Much as I would like to skip all the hoopla and elope, I know I’ll never hear the end of it if I talk her out of having the wedding of her dreams.”

  Cord chuckled, despite his dismay. “Yep, sooner or later, we always pay when women don’t get exactly what they want.”

  In fact, something told him if he continued to be the roadblock between Dinah and his brother, all those other visions he was entertaining about getting her into his own bed were going to go right up in smoke. Last time he’d tried it, not only had Dinah ripped him apart with language totally unbefitting a lady, but it had almost cost him his relationship with Bobby. Best not to carry round two too far.

  Dinah had no luck in tracking down Bobby. It was as if he’d fallen off the face of the earth. She’d tried every hotel in the Atlanta directory and was debating starting on the outlying suburbs.

  In one last desperate attempt to locate him without going back out to tangle with Cord, she got on the Internet and did a search of the Atlanta newspapers to see if there had been any mention of whatever business he had over there. Unless he was a lot more high-profile than she imagined, it was a long shot, but it was all she had short of going to Atlanta and doing a whole lot of tedious legwork. Of course, that might be preferable to sitting around the house much longer while her parents watched her with their increasingly worried expressions.

  She typed in Bobby’s name, hit the search button and was stunned to see three stories listed, all with glowing headlines about the work of Beaufort Construction in Atlanta. The most recent feature, which had appeared just last Sunday, had pictures of the detailed craftsman-ship in their new project. The architecture critic who’d written the piece had given it a raving review. There was even a picture of Bobby, wearing a very expensive navy blue suit, crisp white shirt and silk tie. There was no question that Bobby was a success.