Handful of Dreams

by Heather Graham

  “The water has gotten stone cold,” she said a little desperately, noting that his eyes were still very tender as he looked at her. She felt a bit like panicking. She wasn’t ready if he meant to touch her. She wasn’t sure about anything.

  “Could I please go to bed now?”

  “Of course.” He was up, bringing her a towel for her foot. She barely dried it before leaping up, desperate to rush into her own room and slam the door against him.

  “Good night, Susan,” he called softly.

  “Good night.”

  Her heart leapt and sped when she had closed the door. She wondered if he would knock, if he would try to enter.

  He didn’t. She stripped off her clothes and fell to the bed, so exhausted that she quickly drifted off. And right before sleep claimed her, she realized that she was smiling.

  Maybe there was hope.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  SHE DIDN’T LOOK QUITE so bad, Susan decided, staring at her reflection in the mirror. The hollows beneath her eyes had faded along with the shadows. It was amazing what a night of sleep could do.

  Not to mention a change in attitude.

  She gripped the sink for a minute, closing her eyes. She couldn’t believe that there had been no one else from Lane Publishing to send on a tour. Yes, the book was important to him, and maybe he had been a bit frightened that she might say or do something in an interview that would reflect badly on the last year of his father’s life, but if that had been his fear, he wouldn’t have arranged for the tour at all.

  Which meant that he was with her because he wanted to be?

  “Susan?”

  She opened her eyes quickly, left the bathroom, and heard him tapping at the bedroom door.

  “Coffee’s here. Ready?”

  “Yes. All set and packed.”

  She hesitated just a second, smoothing down her skirt and twirling before the dresser mirror one last time. She would do. It was her most sophisticated outfit; a red skirt suit with a white tailored blouse, slim necktie, red belt, and daringly angled hat. It should have all clashed with her hair, but it didn’t at all; it brought out the dark highlights.

  And she felt good! Daring and reckless and feminine. Ready to fly into the battle zone and do deadly combat with Tacky Tina.

  She picked up a pair of soft kid gloves as she entered the living room. David, with his customary élan, was leaned against the window, hands in his pockets, a slightly brooding expression on his face. He looked like something out of GQ, and Susan smiled. If nothing else, they looked like a perfect couple.

  He turned to her, raised his brows, grinned, and slowly assessed her from head to toe. She spun around for him, returning a slightly haughty gaze, then laughing delightedly because she liked the glint in his eyes and wondered if her own mirrored it.

  “Shall I handle Tacky Tina, do you think?” she asked pertly.

  “Beyond a doubt, Miss Anderson. Beyond a doubt.”

  He left the window to bring her a cup of coffee, already poured and steaming hot. He lingered near her, hands in his pockets.

  “And you smell good too. It’s a shame they can’t get a whiff of that over the television tube.”

  “Why, Mr. Lane, thank you. And may I return the compliment? You smell…divine.”

  They were flirting, she realized. Like strangers who had just met, were attracted, and getting their toes wet.

  He moved away from her, stacking things into his briefcase and closing it. “It’s too bad we can’t have breakfast up here,” he muttered regretfully. “But the porter’s already on the way up, and”—he hesitated, shooting her a warning glance—“I really do hate them slamming the door behind me on a plane before I’m on it.”

  “It wasn’t my fault!” Susan protested. “I wasn’t driving, remember? You had a car pick me up, and the traffic was deadly. I wrecked my body to make it on time!”

  A soft curl played at the corner of his lip. He paused, surveying her very slowly again. “Your body looks okay to me.”

  “I’m talking about my ankle!”

  He started to respond, but there was a rap at the door. The porter was there; they had to get to the airport, leave the car and keys, and get on the plane.

  It was the first-class section again. David admitted a preference because of the length of his legs. “I feel like an accordion when I sit in the back,” he told her. “You really don’t mind, do you?”

  She looked at him, sipping tea that morning, and shook her head. “I’m willing to suffer for professionalism, Mr. Lane.”

  They really didn’t speak that much on the plane. David read the paper again; Susan did a crossword puzzle. But it was nice to have a comfortable silence between them. Toward the end of the flight David folded up his paper and pointed out the river separating Detroit from Windsor. He asked her casual questions about the beach house and wanted to know how Jud was doing out in his hunter’s lodge. With a little catch in her throat Susan cheerfully talked about Christmas, how pretty the pines had looked, coated in snow that had frozen over to glitter like panes of glass. She asked him about his Christmas; he evaded the question and told her that John and Erica seemed to be getting quite serious.

  Despite some miserable drizzly weather, things began quite well in Detroit. Again the newspaper people were charming. The young man doing the interview had done a short piece for the previous day’s issue on Peter Lane—with speculation about the book—so her stint at the bookstore was marvelous. Lunch was a quickly grabbed sandwich between appointments. David spent time on the phone again, and Susan bought a horror novel to entertain herself during the in between moments and plane rides. She called Madeline, promising that she would be at the Cock’s Crow in Windsor by eight for dinner.

  And then it was time for Tacky Tina’s show.

  The “tacky,” Susan quickly realized, definitely had to do with the woman’s barbarous tongue, because appearance wise she was quite stunning. Her hair was so dark, it was almost black, and it was cut in a very contemporary pageboy. She was tall and lanky, dressed in the height of fashion in a beige silk dress that clung to her with a savvy negligence. She had a lovely smile, a low, cultured voice, and dark, dark eyes that carried a pure streak of either mischief or malice.

  The studio was like any other: large, cavernous, filled with cameras, cameramen, and production assistants. Susan was quickly miked and told to get comfortable on a white sofa that faced her hostess’s chair on a dais. Tina assured her the questions would be chatty and’ easy, and then they were given a ten-second warning.

  And ten seconds later Susan learned that Tacky Tina did indeed plan to skewer her. In her introduction to her audience Tina allowed her voice to drip with insinuation. “Neither Miss Anderson nor Lane Publishing try to hide the fact that the book is based on the Peter Lane. And when we come back, we’re going to get to the…nitty-gritty, shall we say?” A delicate little laugh, a lowering of her voice, a movement that brought her conspiratorially closer to the camera. “We’re going to delve here today and find out just how well—and how intimately—Susan Anderson actually knew Peter Lane.”

  There was to be a sixty-second commercial. Tina smiled at Susan, and Susan smiled right back, certain that she could handle the woman. She felt as if she had been challenged to a fight, and there was nothing like that feeling of being armed for combat—righteously!

  But something happened in that sixty seconds. She didn’t see exactly how, nor could she understand why or quite what happened in that short span. Before the camera rolled again, however, David Lane was miked and sitting next to her—to her surprise and apparently to Tina’s surprise, as well, for there, was definitely a glint of annoyance in her eyes as she saw David sit.

  “What—”

  “I’m David Lane, Tina,” he said smoothly, and he managed to look as if he hadn’t acted on the spur of the moment, as if he hadn’t moved like the speed of lightning to be where he was. He smiled, and that smile was a better warning and challenge, Susan was qu
ite certain, than any that Tacky Tina ever had been given in her life.

  Tina tossed her head and smiled plasticly to the camera. “A surprise guest! The late publisher’s son himself, Mr. David Lane. Now, Mr. Lane, do come clean! What are we hiding here?”

  “Hiding?” David managed to sound completely surprised and innocent. His smile deepened. “I don’t think there’s a thing to hide. My father’s life is an open book, which you can discover by opening the pages.” He went on and on—smoothly, silkily. Tina was as lulled by the sound of his voice as Susan was amazed. He was managing to keep her included in the interview, and somehow keep Tina out of it. He also managed to imply that anyone looking for skeletons in closets surely hid a few of their own—that, or they were dreadfully bored with life.

  The interview ended with Tina furious yet not sure exactly what he had done.,

  And Susan wasn’t sure what she felt herself. A certain anger because, dammit, she could have handled it herself. And because, she thought, wincing as he led her out of the studio, he had stepped in simply because he had believed exactly the opposite of what he had said. In his eyes Susan Anderson did have a whole packet of sins to hide—sins that might degrade his father’s memory.

  “What’s the matter with you?” he asked sharply as he opened the passenger’s seat to the Camaro they were driving in Detroit.

  “Nothing.”

  She sat in the seat, anxious to get back to the hotel—and then anxious to get away from him. In just a ’few hours she could find a harbor in this strange storm, the company of her open and honest cousin.

  He folded himself into the driver’s seat and turned on the ignition, his teeth grating like the motor. “Don’t tell me nothing. What’s the matter?”

  “All right!” She spun in the seat. “I’m supposed to thank you, right? For saving me from her clutches? Well, I’m sorry! I resent what you did! You implied that I was a bumbling fool! And you didn’t come up there for me, anyway! You came up to save the very precious Lane name because you’re so damned convinced that there’s something to save it from!”

  “There is, isn’t there?”

  “Go to hell.”

  He shot her a glance, his eyes crystal blue with anger. Susan noted a taxi jamming on its brakes ahead of them. “David! Watch the road!”

  “I know how to drive!”

  “You almost hit him!”

  “Then shut up!”

  She did, compressing her mouth tightly. He watched the road, and she stared straight ahead until they reached the towering hotel. She was out of the car before he could help, striding toward the lobby to call a cab.

  “Susan—”

  “I’m off, Mr. Lane. I have a dinner engagement.”

  “I’ll drive you.”

  “No thank you.”

  The doorman was signaling a cab. David narrowed his eyes on her very sharply and spoke softly, “Suit yourself, Miss Anderson. But remember, please, that we leave Detroit at ten A.M. The weather is bad—leave yourself enough time to get back here at a decent hour tonight.”

  A cabbie sprang out and opened the door to his battered taxi for her.

  “Thank you very much, Mr. Lane. I do live alone, and I’m quite capable of looking after myself. Good night!”

  Susan gave the cabdriver the address to the restaurant in Windsor. He sighed and told her that he would have to charge her an arm and a leg to drive her over the Canadian border. Susan was sure she could have found someone who wouldn’t rip her off so outrageously, but she wasn’t about to get out of the cab with David still watching her from the doors of the Westin Hotel.

  At the border she was questioned. Susan mused that if she were carrying a pack of explosives, she certainly wouldn’t admit it. But maybe the bored guard was more experienced than she could imagine; maybe he knew from her face that she wasn’t the type to be an international weapons smuggler.

  She arrived at the restaurant thirty minutes early, yet was glad that she had. The night was a dark and ominous one; snow fell from the sky and turned to slush on the ground. A little guiltily, she made a mental note to start back to the hotel early, no matter how she and Madeline got to talking.

  Sitting by herself and sipping a seltzer while she waited for her cousin, Susan felt her temper cool. The restaurant was a nice one, filled with warm, varnished wood tables, the walls lined with pewter trenchers and tankards, like an old English establishment.

  She leaned back, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. David hadn’t said anything at all to her this time around that could be construed as mocking or demeaning. Oh, they’d argued over his appearance, her tardiness, and all, but he’d apologized too. It was as if he wanted to forget the past, almost as if he cared, even though he still believed that her “sordid past” did exist.

  There had been moments so special and so nice between them! If only she could tell him the truth. But to what avail? Why should he believe her now? To convince him she’d have to tell him where she had really met Peter; she would have to tell him that his father had known he was dying almost a full year before the heart attack had struck. And no matter how angry she had been, she had never wanted to hurt him in such a fashion.

  “Praying? Or meditating?”

  She opened her eyes at the sound of her cousin’s warm, amused voice.

  “Madeline!” With a little cry Susan was on her feet, hugging her tiny cousin. Madeline was in her mid-thirties but looked as if she were twenty-two. Her eyes were the same sparkling green as Susan’s, and she, too, had inherited the dark, flaming hair from some distant ancestor.

  “Oh, kid, it’s so good to see you!”

  For a few moments they stood there, laughing and hugging each other. Then Madeline sat down opposite her, and Susan plunged into a spate of questions about Madeline’s husband, Bill, and their children, five-year-old Timmy and two-year-old Amy. Madeline told her that Bill just hadn’t been able to get out of work, that the kids were fine, and they couldn’t wait until she could make a real vacation visit.

  “Oh, you’re a liar! Amy’s too young to remember that I exist!” Susan accused her.

  Madeline denied it with a grin, then ordered a glass of burgundy from the waiter. She frowned slightly as Susan hesitated and then ordered a light beer. They decided to split a giant prime rib, the house specialty, then continued to chat over idle things for a time. After the food had been served, however, Madeline sat back, studying Susan.

  “You look awful.”

  “Thanks a lot. I thought this was one of my better outfits.”

  Madeline shook her head. “You look too thin and pale.”

  “It’s winter. The Caribbean isn’t on my tour schedule.”

  “Mmm,” Madeline murmured, sipping her wine. “And you’ve been on tour so long already, you’re even avoiding me! Hey, we only have a few hours here, so spill the beans, sweetie!” She tensed and asked slowly, “God, Sue, you’re not … sick, are you?”

  Susan shook her head vehemently. “No, I’m fine, really. I’m … pregnant.”

  “Thank God!” Madeline murmured, not batting an eye. She took a bite of her prime rib.

  “That’s it?” Susan asked incredulously. “I make an announcement like that and that’s all you have to say?”

  Madeline continued to chew serenely, then swallowed and took another sip of her wine. “Well, you’re either going to tell me about it or not, aren’t you?”

  Susan laughed then, feeling as if she had come home in a way. “Yes, I’m going to tell you all about it. I’m desperate to tell someone all about it!”

  And she did, leaving out nothing except for David’s name and his connection with Peter. Madeline informed her without mincing words that she was a fool. “Where have you been? That child is his responsibility! And”—she paused—“it sounds to me like you’re in love with the guy.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. But, Madeline, don’t you see? I refuse to be a responsibility.” She told her cousin about the pretty model she was c
ertain held some kind of sway with him, and that she was equally certain he would never believe a word she had to say, anyway, that he was capable of being judgmental, arrogant, and opinionated, a condition which she had certainly contributed to by being so flippant instead of indignant.

  Madeline didn’t say anything else—nothing pressuring, at any rate. She was very glad that Susan had decided to have the baby and convinced her to come to Windsor instead of going somewhere else where she would have no family or friends.

  “I’ll protect you,” Madeline promised, half joking, half serious. “Really! It will be fun and wonderful. We can make it so. Except I still think that you should look at the other alternative.”

  “Like?”

  “Like telling the father the truth.”

  Susan hesitated. “I can’t, Madeline. Not unless he can fall in love with me for myself—and believe me because he believes in me.”

  Madeline shrugged, then glanced at her watch. “Sue! It’s past midnight. I promised Bill I’d meet him at the tunnel at twelve. He didn’t want either of us getting into a taxi alone, you see.”

  “Oh! We’d better get going.”

  Sue insisted on paying the check, then she and Madeline slid into their coats and rushed out to the street. The slushy snow was still falling, yet the street was filled with traffic. Madeline managed to hail a cab, but they were in it for fifteen minutes and had barely moved a block.

  “What the heck is going on?” Madeline asked the driver.

  “Don’t know,” he mumbled. “I’ll turn around and take the bridge.”

  “No, you can’t! My husband is meeting me at the tunnel,” Madeline told him.