by Gail Dayton
“Clara.”
“That’s better.” She patted Sherry’s hand. “Don’t you worry about a thing. It’ll all work out.”
Sherry’s smile got even bigger. “Thanks, Clara. I’m sure it will.”
Mike rolled his eyes. “Well, since you two have your little mutual admiration society going here, I guess I’ll go get ready for work.”
They didn’t so much as blink when he left.
Sherry had more fun keeping Mike’s mother company than she’d had in a long time. Maybe ever. At least since her own mother died. She did remember a few good times from back then. But her time with Clara was definitely the best since. They looked at old photo albums, while Clara told stories about the mischief Mike had gotten into as a child.
Finally they put the albums on the shelf beneath the coffee table. “That was fun,” Clara said. “But it’s time to get serious. It’s time to eat.”
“What would you like?” Sherry reached for the phone book. When she’d informed Mike earlier that she didn’t cook, he had told her to call La Jolie and have something healthy delivered. Besides the regular menu selections, his chefs always had healthy specials. It was one of the things that made La Jolie popular among the older, richer Palm Beach set.
“None of that rabbit food.” Clara worked her way out of the chair to her feet. “Let’s see what there is to cook.”
“Clara, you heard what Mike said. You don’t need to be on your feet for so long.” Sherry took the frail woman’s arm and walked with her into the kitchen, unable to stop her determined progress.
“Oh, I’m not cooking. You are.”
“I can’t cook!” Panic began to simmer inside Sherry. “I don’t know how. I never had to.”
“Well, don’t you think it’s time you learned?” Clara sat in a wooden chair in a room the mirror image of Mike’s kitchen, right down to the black-and-white-checked floor tile and granite-topped cabinets. “I’ll just sit here and tell you what to do.”
Clara seemed so out of breath, Sherry ran back into the living room and got her oxygen. Clara took a few breaths from the mask, then smiled. “Thank you, dear. I tend to be a little more tired in the evenings.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Sherry hovered, her panic rising. She didn’t want to kill Mike’s mother the first night she stayed with her. She didn’t want to lose this bright friendship before it had even begun.
“I’m fine. Go see what I have in the freezer.” Clara pointed and Sherry went.
As she followed Clara’s instructions, thawing a piece of snapper in the microwave, putting water on to boil for rice, Sherry began to believe she might actually be able to cook without making a total muddle of things.
“I’m not really trying to torture Micah, you know,” Clara said, “when I pretend to be dead.”
The abrupt change in the conversation startled Sherry. “You weren’t asleep?”
“Your water’s boiling. Pour the rice in and put the lid on, then turn the fire down low. Yes, that’s right.” Clara nodded as Sherry did as she was told. Then she sighed. “Not pretending exactly. More like—practicing. Or maybe hoping.”
The tears in Clara’s eyes worried Sherry, and she came to sit beside the older woman.
“I’m just so tired,” Clara said. “And I miss Roger so terribly. I’m ready to be with him again. But I can’t leave Micah, yet. He’s not ready. He’s so alone.”
“He loves you.”
“I know.” Clara patted Sherry’s hand, comforting her, instead of the other way round. “But I’m his mother. He needs someone of his own to love.”
Sherry read the hope in Clara’s eyes and shook her head. “I’m not that person. He can barely tolerate me.”
“He likes you. I can tell.” Clara pulled back her hand, then lifted both in a warding-off gesture. “Oh, I know. I’m being a meddling old fool. I’ll stop. But I’d like to wring that spoiled brat’s neck.” Her eyes narrowed, and her hands made twisting motions in the air.
Sherry watched, fascinated. She’d never seen anyone speak so eloquently with hand motions.
“I just want to pop her little head right off,” Clara said. “She ruined him, you know. Broke his heart. And now he won’t even try.”
“Who? Mike?”
“Well, who else have we been talking about?”
“What happened?” Sherry asked, curiosity aroused in spite of her best intentions.
“That’s not my story to tell.” Clara waved her away. “Go check on the fish. It broils fast.”
Sherry felt like growling herself. But she didn’t. It was none of her business whether Mike’s heart was broken. Nor was his supposed loneliness any of her business. Just because so much of her own life had been spent drowning in loneliness didn’t mean they had anything in common. It didn’t mean they were the answer to each other’s problem. It didn’t mean anything, at all….
Dinner proved astonishingly delicious. Afterward, Sherry settled Clara in her recliner with the TV remote and cleaned up the kitchen. She had a little trouble figuring out how to load the dishwasher. It looked a little strange when she was done, but with any luck, the dishes would still get clean. When she returned to the living room, Clara had drifted to sleep to the sound of some raucous comedy.
Sherry was thumbing through old copies of Southern Living and resisting the urge to look at the photos again when the phone rang. Probably Mike, checking to see how things were going.
“Scott residence. Who’s calling please?” she said in her best Easton School for Girls voice.
“Sherry? Is that you?” Definitely not Mike.
“Juliana? How did you get this number?” Why would her sister be calling? Sherry took the phone into the kitchen to keep from disturbing Clara. “What do you want? Did Tug put you up to—”
“Tug doesn’t know anything about this. I just wanted to be sure you were okay.” Juliana sounded worried. Sherry didn’t want to worry her more. Her sister was sweet and shy and couldn’t do anything to help.
“I’m fine. How did you get this number?”
“From Tug. From his desk. He doesn’t know I have it.”
“But how did he get it?” Dread settled over Sherry’s shoulders.
“I don’t really know. Does it matter? What’s going on, Sherry? Why did you leave?”
“I’m going to live in the real world, kid. It’s time, don’t you think?” She needed to change the subject. “What’s going on with you?”
“I think I’m getting married.”
“What? What do you mean, you think you’re getting married?”
“It’s not definite.” Juliana paused, and when she went on, her voice had faded, as if she were embarrassed. “One of those arranged things.”
Now Sherry was worried. Surely Tug wasn’t pulling the same trick on Juliana? She was the favorite daughter, the pride and joy. Then again, maybe Tug thought he could count on Juliana not to refuse. “You’re not going through with it, are you?”
“I think I am. If he wants to. It’s Kurt Collier, Sherry. At the very least, I want the chance to be engaged to him for a little while, to have a gorgeous man like him paying attention to me. If he pays attention to me.”
And there was the difference between the daughters. Juliana got a marriage arranged with handsome, debonair Kurt Collier. Sherry got a marriage arranged with fish-lipped, frightening Vernon the Geek.
“You be careful, Julie.” She used the old pet name. “Don’t get in over your head.”
A breathy laugh came over the phone. “It may be too late for that. I mean, me? With a man like that? How can I not get in over my head? I’ll just have to keep telling myself ‘It’s just business, it’s not real,’ and keep paddling as fast as I can. What else can I do?”
“Don’t let Tug and Bebe push you into anything. You can come stay with me if you need to.”
“Thanks, Sher, but I don’t think it’s necessary.”
“Are the parents the same?”
�
�Tug was pretty mad when you ran away.”
She didn’t exactly run away, but Sherry didn’t see any reason to burden Juliana with the truth. Not yet, anyway. Maybe later, if the situation changed. “Has he calmed down, yet?”
Juliana hesitated before speaking. “Not really. He’s still mad. I heard him yelling at somebody on the phone about you earlier. He said he knew where you were. That’s why I came in to look for your phone number. Are you sure you’re okay? Where are you staying?”
“With a very nice elderly lady. I’m helping to take care of her. And I’m fine. Honestly.”
“Stay that way. Call me and let me know how you are. You’re the only sister I’ve got, you know.”
“I know. You be careful, Juliana. Hear me?”
“You be careful, too. Tug sounded awful mad. Scary.”
“I will. Promise.” Sherry carried the phone back to the living room and set it gently in the base, glancing to see if Clara was still asleep, hoping she was.
The news that her father knew where to find her unnerved Sherry. No, it flat-out frightened her. Tug must have gone off some deep end. Locking her out of the house was extreme behavior, but what Juliana had described seemed to go further.
What if Tug came up to Clara’s looking for Sherry? When he was in a temper, he had a lot in common with a bull in a china shop. He’d knock Clara over without even thinking about it. Frail as she was, any fall could break a hip. Plus she had that bad heart. A severe fright could be fatal. Though Clara didn’t seem to fear much of anything, from what Sherry could tell. She’d be more likely to become so angry she’d have a heart attack. Sherry didn’t much like the idea either way.
She needed a way to convince Tug to leave her alone. She could move out, keep him from Clara that way, but without transportation or any way to pay for an apartment, she had nowhere to go and no way to get there. If only she could buy some time.
In a few more months—three months and sixteen days, to be exact—she would turn twenty-five and gain control of the trust fund her mother had left her. Then she would have plenty of money to do whatever she wanted. But with Tug on the rampage, she didn’t know if she could wait it out.
She had never seen him so out of control. Then again, Tug had never seemed to be under this much stress before. The arguments between Tug and her stepmother, Bebe, had always been a constant, but the tone had become much more strident, more angry over the past few months. Sherry had figured out the reason when she’d started answering phone calls from creditors dunning for payment.
Somehow Tug and Bebe must have gone through all their piles of money. They still owned the house and all its fabulous holdings; but God forbid that they sell anything, or stop buying new items. Appearances must be kept up, after all. Sherry figured that was why Tug had come up with his brilliant daughter-auction idea. He had to be getting desperate.
Still, she didn’t believe he would go so far as physical violence. If he did anything to Sherry, he couldn’t marry her off. When he locked her out of the house, he had obviously expected her to come running back begging to do whatever he wanted. But she hadn’t. What tactics might he resort to next? Kidnapping?
Sherry couldn’t see Tug giving up on his insane plan. Unless she took herself off the market. He couldn’t marry her to Vernon…if she were already married to someone else.
Four
Mike got home not long after midnight, leaving a little early so he could check on how things went with his mom and Miss Nyland—Miss Nyland who was now sitting cross-legged on the floor outside his apartment in her tiny white shorts and a tiny blue top. Didn’t she own anything that covered more skin?
“Anything wrong?” he asked, striding down the hall in a hurry. “Is Mom okay? I left numbers for you to call—”
“She’s fine. Sleeping like a baby. Better. She doesn’t wake up and cry.”
He slowed his pace. He wanted to keep hurrying till he reached her side, but he didn’t want to want it, so he dawdled. “What brings you out here, then? You’ve got work again tomorrow. It’s a little late, isn’t it?”
“Earlier than we got in last night.”
“True.” Mike stopped in the hallway, looking down at her, resisting the urge to reach down and lift her to her feet. She was farther away sitting on the floor. “Did you want something?”
Sherry took a deep breath. Mike didn’t watch the way it made her breasts rise and fall beneath the snug-fitting top. Not much.
“I wanted to talk to you,” she said. “I have a proposition to make.”
“Sounds serious.”
And she looked so cute. He wanted to smile, just looking at her, but she’d probably think he was laughing at her. Besides, why should he smile? She was a Palm Beach trust-fund baby with no idea of what life was like in the real world and no interest in finding out. This was just temporary, as she said. Just a phase brought on by desperation, because she didn’t like the rich geek Daddy picked out. She’d find a guy with lots of money who suited her better, and Micah Scott wouldn’t even be a fond memory.
But he could see something in her expression, or maybe in her eyes. Fear? “Come on.” He held his hand out to her. “We can talk inside. I never discuss propositions in public.”
Sherry took his hand and let him pull her to her feet. He unlocked the door and ushered her into his bachelor quarters for the second time.
“So,” he said. “What’s up?”
“Mike?” She twisted her hands together, like she wanted to tie them in knots.
“Yeah?” What could have her in such a dither?
“Will you please marry me?”
Mike stared at her. He closed his eyes, then opened them again, in case this was some weird hallucination, but she was still there. Still twisting her hands together, looking anxious.
“Come again?” he said. Surely he couldn’t have heard her right. He tilted his head to hear better.
“Will you marry me?” Sherry started to pace along with the hand twisting. “I know it sounds crazy, but it’s the only way.”
“The only way to what? Get yourself locked up in the nuthouse?”
“Don’t use that word.”
“What word? Nuthouse? Honey, if the shoe fits…”
“Don’t call me honey, either.”
“Why not? You just asked me to marry you. Honey.” Now he was pacing, at right angles to Sherry. Her pacing had rubbed off on him.
“Because you don’t mean it.” She stopped to watch him walk back and forth. “Besides, I didn’t really ask you to marry me.”
“You didn’t? Gee, that’s what it sounded like to me. What did you say? ‘Mike, will you please marry me?’ Yep. That sounds a hell of a lot like a proposal to me. Note I said proposal and not proposition.”
“If you’ll just calm down and let me explain, you’ll see that it’s not really such a big thing.”
“It sounds like a big thing to me. A damn big thing.”
“Mike, please.”
The plea in her voice made him stop. He turned to face her, arms crossed. She couldn’t possibly have any explanation that would make sense, that could make him agree to such a whacked-out idea. Even if the idea of snuggling up every night to Miss Sherry Nyland’s sweet curves had him breaking out in “want-to” hives, he couldn’t do it, precisely because the idea held so much appeal.
But he would listen. She was obviously worried about something. He could at least find out what it was. “All right, talk.”
“I got a call this evening from Juliana. She called your mother’s number. She got it off my father’s desk. I don’t know how he got it—probably somebody who was in the club today called and told my father I was working there, though how he got Clara’s home number, I don’t know. But I know Tug has the phone number. And the address.”
Mike swore. He didn’t know Sherry’s father, but he didn’t like the idea of a guy who would kick his own daughter out on the street knowing where his mom lived, no matter how good the security was h
ere. “What does that have to do with you wanting to marry me? Is it money?”
She frowned. “I’m not exactly sure. Probably. It has to be. Why else…?”
“How can you not know? Either you want the money or you don’t.” He advanced on her, angry. These trust-fund kids were all the same. Damn her for proving it. Damn him for wanting her anyway.
Sherry backed away, putting her hands over her ears. “Stop distracting me. You keep talking and it gets me off-track. Just let me explain, okay?”
“Okay.” Mike glared down at her, hands on his hips.
She ducked away from him, crossing the room to start her pacing again. “Juliana told me she heard Tug shouting today. Yelling on the phone at somebody.”
“What does that have to do with you wanting to marry me?”
“I don’t think either Tug or Vernon is going to back down till they get what they want. Which is me, married to Vernon. I don’t know exactly why they’re so determined, but it has to have something to do with money. I think— I’m not sure—but I think Vernon must be paying money to Tug so I’ll marry him. I don’t know why he’d want to do a crazy thing like that, but that’s the only reason that occurs to me.”
Mike knew why, running his gaze over her sleek figure and classically beautiful face, but if she didn’t know, he wasn’t going to be the one to tell her.
“But if I’m married to someone else,” she went on, “then obviously I can’t be married to Vernon. All I need is to be married till I turn twenty-five. Then we can get a divorce.”
“What’s so important about twenty-five?”
“That’s when I get control of my trust fund.”
“I knew it!” Mike bit out a curse. He’d hoped, just a little, that Sherry might somehow be different. He should have known better.
“I just need some time. I need to get Tug to back off till I can get my trust fund. There’s twenty million there, more or less. I can make it worth your while to do this for me.”
Mike went cold inside. He shouldn’t. He already knew the truth. In her circles, money always came first. This time she was offering him money instead of expecting to get it from him, but it made him feel the same way. He stalked toward her, advancing as she backed away, until he had her backed into a corner. “Is that what you think?” He kept his voice soft. “That I can be bought with your money?”
