Most of my friends have jobs now, and we no longer sweat together in the Meadow Branch exercise room. Some work part-time so they can continue being the family chauffeur. Others send their children to after-school care or to a stranger who’s paid by the hour to make certain they arrive at scheduled activities on time. So many rituals have ended.
I miss the rituals and the women, so I’m particularly grateful that our monthly dinners have continued. Each time I get an email announcing time and place, I close my eyes for a quick prayer of thanksgiving. Every month I wait to learn that this, too, has quietly died away.
Last night as I put my children’s dinner on the kitchen table, I tried to remember when I’d last seen all my friends in the same place. When the telephone rang I was still going over the past month in my head. The moment I realized Kris was the caller, I considered not answering, but I knew nothing would prevent him from leaving a message.
I took the telephone into the living room and asked him to wait as I yelled up the stairs to tell Nik and Pet to come down and eat. At twelve Nik likes to ignore my summons, but ten-year-old Pet managed an “okay.” Then I took the phone out to the front porch and closed the door behind me.
“Are you calling from the car?” I asked.
A pause. I pictured a bleary-eyed Kris checking his surroundings to see if he was on the road home.
“I’m still at the office.”
I lowered myself to our porch swing, which was swaying in a breeze growing colder as the sun dropped toward the horizon. “Kris, I have to leave in a little while. I’m riding to the restaurant with Gretchen, and she’ll be picking me up right on time. She’s nothing if not punctual.”
“You need to find somebody else to watch the kids tonight. I’m sorry, but a potential client just showed up, and this is important.”
I watched a heavier gust of wind ruffle the chrysanthemums I’d planted in brass pots flanking our steps. I fill the pots according to season. This fall they’re particularly beautiful, the chrysanthemums in hues of bronze and deepest purple interlaced with silvery dusty miller and trailing sedum.
At one time in my life I didn’t speak at all. No matter how badly I wanted to, I couldn’t push words out of my throat. Even now I sometimes fall mute when I feel strong emotion, but this time I managed a sentence.
“Kris, my plans are important, too.”
His sigh carried the necessary miles, and I pictured him sitting in his expansive Tysons Corner office with its coveted view of a nondescript street below. Without facial clues I couldn’t tell if Kris was upset that I hadn’t just snapped my heels and saluted, or if he was upset with himself for disappointing me. I didn’t want to guess.
He was speaking softly now, as if someone might overhear. “Listen, Robin, I know going out with your friends is important. I really do. But this guy flew in unexpectedly–”
“And Buff assumes you’ll drop everything and take him to dinner because you always do.” Buff is a senior partner at Kris’s law firm and the one with whom he most often works.
He fell silent.
I filled the gap, unusual in itself. “Pet and Nik will be fine alone for the time it takes you to drive home. Leave right now and tell Buff you’ll bring the client with you. Pick up pizza or Chinese. You can return him to his hotel once I’m back.”
“You always seem to be able to find a babysitter. Just call somebody. Promise you’ll pay them extra.”
“I’m supposed to leave in…” I looked at my watch. “Twenty-five minutes now. I can’t find a babysitter in twenty-five minutes.”
“Look, I don’t know what to tell you about that. But I am telling you I can’t come home. I’m sorry. If you can’t go out tonight, maybe you can arrange another dinner with your friends sometime soon.”
I closed my eyes. “Do what you have to, but please come home.”
“You should have arranged something ahead of time. Just in case.”
And there it was. I should have arranged for a babysitter, because I should have known Kris would disappoint me.
“I’m hanging up now.” I ended the call.
When the telephone rang again, I wondered foolishly if Kris was about to apologize. With the client, without the client, I didn’t care, but surely he wanted me to know he was on his way home to be a father to the children who rarely saw him.
Of course the person on the other end wasn’t Kris.
“Robin! Were you sitting on the telephone?”
I stared at the darkening sky and pictured Cecilia, auburn hair waving down her back, expressive, exquisitely pampered face scrunched up in question. I couldn’t picture the spot from which she was calling. She might be in a dressing room, getting ready to go on stage, or at her home in Pacific Palisades looking over the ocean.
“No,” I said, “I just hung up with Kris.”
When I didn’t go on she lowered her voice. “Is everything okay?”
“Not so much.” I blew out one breath before I gulped another. “In the scheme of things it’s nothing.”
“Tell me what it is.”
So I did. Cecilia doesn’t give up, and I had to leave time to call Talya and tell her that Gretchen wouldn’t need to stop at my house on the way to dinner. I wouldn’t be going.
After I finished, Cecilia was silent a moment. She doesn’t like Kris and never has, but she knows that criticizing him will drive a wedge between us. Cecilia would hate that worse than anything, even more than she hates the occasional scathing review of a concert or album.
“Call your next-door neighbor,” she said.
“Talya’s going to the dinner, too.”
“Her husband isn’t going, is he?”
“Michael?” Michael Weinberg is an anesthesiologist and never on call at night. “Ask Michael to babysit?”
“Why not? He’ll be babysitting their daughter anyway. What’s her name?”
“Channa. But Michael bores Nik to death. He’s always trying to get him interested in chemistry or astronomy, and Nik hides when the Weinbergs come over, just to avoid him.”
“Too bad for Nik, but who’s more important, you, a grown woman who needs to see her friends, or a twelve-year-old boy? Besides, Nik’s probably really hiding from Channa. The last time I saw her she was growing up and out, and I bet he doesn’t know what to say around her anymore.”
I carefully weigh advice from Cecilia, at least advice of a personal nature. Her life is larger than mine, larger than almost anybody’s. There’s not much room for simple matters, and other people, like Donny, her personal manager, handle those.
Still, she’s often surprisingly insightful, and this time she was right about Michael, and about Channa, who one day in the not so distant future would be as pretty and well-endowed as her mother. Cecilia has been behind me pushing hard since the day we met. And this time I needed the shove.
“You nailed it again. I’m going to hang up and call him.” I glanced at my watch. “Can we talk another time?”
“Okay, but don’t put me off. Something important’s come up, and we need to talk. So call when you’re free and I’ll drop everything.” She hung up.
I could probably put my children through college on what a tabloid would pay me for Cecilia’s private cell number.
Twenty-five minutes later, Talya and I climbed into Gretchen’s car, me in the front, Talya in the back next to another neighbor, Margaret. Our neighborhood is made up of young to middle-aged professionals, but the similarities stop there. We represent every religion and political outlook. Gretchen, a Reese Witherspoon look-alike, is a professional fund-raiser for the Republican Party. Brown-haired ordinary me assembled campaign literature during both Obama campaigns. Black-haired Talya is a Conservative Jew; red-haired Margaret planned to shut herself away with the Carmelites until she fell madly in love in her senior year of college. The other four women we were meeting at the restaurant are just as diverse, one from China, another who grew up on a farm in South Africa.
I wasn’t
looking forward to a confrontation with Kris when we both got home, but I was looking forward to conversation and a meal with my friends in the meantime.
Two hours later, as we stood up to leave the restaurant, I was sorry I had come.
On the way out the door Talya and Gretchen were still locked in the conversation that had consumed them throughout dinner. I had been sitting beside Talya, but we had hardly exchanged a sentence. She and Gretchen had discussed their jobs, volleying questions and responses back and forth across the table. Talya, who is now managing a small local theater, wanted Gretchen to give her tips for their next fund-raising drive.
On my other side Lynn, who had once been my favorite tennis partner, had chatted with another woman about camps their children might attend next summer. Margaret, across from me, spent a large portion of the evening texting a colleague, apologizing for texting, and then texting some more.
Our lives are now separate. My neighbors are moving forward without looking back. The common ground we once shared is giving way under our feet.
Halfway through the meal I’d finally admitted to myself that I was the only one at the table with nothing new to say.
In the parking lot Gretchen unlocked the car, but instead of sitting in the front passenger seat, as I had on the trip there, I opened the rear door.
“Robin, I’ll be happy to sit there again,” Talya said.
“No, you sit up front with Gretchen. You two haven’t finished your conversation.”
Talya looked puzzled, as if she heard the undertone to my words. I felt her hand on my shoulder. “Why don’t you and I both sit back here so we can catch up? We hardly had a chance tonight, and I never see you anymore.”
How differently the evening would have ended if I’d said yes. But I didn’t. I remember smiling. I remember that the smile felt like aerobic exercise. I remember the seconds the exchange took, seconds that later might have made all the difference. Then I remember shaking my head and gesturing to the front. “We can talk another time. You go ahead.”
Talya and I had been friends for so long that she knew I was hurt. Recognition flashed across her face, but she smiled, too, as if to say, “We have a date,” and climbed into the passenger seat beside Gretchen.
Ten minutes later Talya took the brunt of the impact when a driver streaked through a stop sign and plowed into the right side of Gretchen’s car. I think I remember seeing the small SUV inexplicably heading for us. I do remember terror rising in my chest, like the bitterest bile.
I don’t remember the crash itself. When I came to in the hospital a doctor told me Talya was gone.
Talya died instantly, and I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering what might have changed if she and I hadn’t traded seats.
Copyright © 2016 by Emilie Richards
ISBN: 9781488025334
Duncan’s Lady
Copyright © 1995 by Emilie Richards McGee
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New to e-book, a classic romance from USA Today bestselling author Emilie Richards…
Iain Ross has spent his life alone as the laird of a small Highland community. Alone, that is, until he rescues a soaked, half-drowned Billie Harper from an icy loch. Before he knows what’s happening, this earthy and utterly irresistible woman has turned his carefully guarded world upside down.
But Iain and Billie have history they don’t even realize–until it’s almost too late. An age-old family curse threatens their love and even their lives. Can they remain apart if it means saving themselves? Or are they willing to face their fates–as long as they’re together?
Don’t miss the other two books in the Men of Midnight series—Duncan’s Lady and MacDougall’s Darling.
Originally published in 1995
Iain Ross’s Woman
Emilie Richards
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
PROLOGUE
Even though it was blasphemy, Margaret Henley wished that she had not lived long enough to see the terrible black cloud creeping toward Druidheachd. She would not be alive when it settled over the tiny village in the Scottish Highlands, and although she didn’t know the exact hour of her own death, she knew it would be well before Druidheachd faced its greatest test.
How she wished that the second sight that had so often warned her of tragedies in the lives of village folk had dimmed with age, as her eyesight had.
A voice called her back to the present. “Mum, ye’ve no’ eaten for a day, and ye’ve no’ been out of yer bed! Now, I will no’ have such a thing in my house. Either ye let me help ye to a chair by the window, or I’ll be calling Dr. Sutherland to come and take ye to the wee cottage hospital. And that’s a fact.”
Margaret opened her eyes and decided that her eyesight had not dimmed enough, either. Unfortunately, she still could see Flora, her terrible scold of a daughter, glaring down at her. “I’ve no wish to get up.”
“And I’ve no wish to bury ye in yer bedclothes! If ye’re that determined to die, at least get out of bed and put on yer best dress.”
Something bubbled deep inside Margaret, something she had believed impossible. She could feel the corners of her mouth lifting and laughter struggling to free itself. “Flora, ye’re a trial, and I rue the day I conceived ye.”
“Shall I call the good doctor?”
With great ceremony Margaret sat up. Her joints creaked audibly. Hadn’t she eaten enough good mutton fat in her ninety-odd years to keep them well greased? “I’ll never ken why I see the things I do.”
“Because the good Lord intended it that way, and because ye’re a crotchety old woman who’s too strong to stay abed over a vision now and then.” Flora wasn’t young herself. When she bent to help her mother swing her legs over the side of the bed, her own joints creaked in protest.
“I’d sooner have died!”
Flora held out a hairbrush to Margaret. “Shall I brush it for ye?”
“What bits there are, I’ll brush myself.” Margaret took the brush and began making short strokes that chiefly polished her scalp.
“There’s gossip from the village.” Flora set her hands on her narrow hips and pursed her lips. “But I think I will no’ tell ye ‘til ye’ve eaten.”
“I’ve no wish to hear yer gossip.” Margaret paused, her arm uplifted. “Unless it concerns the laird.”
“Aye, it does.”
“Then I’ll have my breakfast at the window.”
Margaret waited until
Flora left the room before she got out of bed, dressed and crossed to the little wooden table at the wide window that looked out over the mountains. She was quite spry enough to eat with Flora and her husband, and did so on occasion, but most of the time she pleaded fatigue or the ache of old bones so that she could enjoy her solitude. Flora did prattle so about nowt.
Flora returned with a tray. “A lovely, fresh bap and porridge with cream. Ye’re as thin as a stick. And when I’m an old woman, I hope my own daughter is as good to me.”
“Ye are an old woman, and ye have only sons.”
Flora folded her arms. “I’ll no’ tell ye a wee morsel of news ‘til ye’ve eaten it all.”
Margaret was famished, but she grumbled anyway, since it was expected. Then she poured an extra dollop of cream from the pitcher Flora had thoughtfully provided—she really was an excellent daughter—and ate all but a token spoonful. Finally she buttered the bap and savored every last yeasty morsel. “There, will ye be satisfied now?”
“Enough.” Flora took the chair across from her mother. “And I’ve been the soul of self-discipline to wait so long to tell ye.”
“It’s certain I am there’ll be a reward waiting in heaven,” Margaret said dryly.
“Lady Mary Ross had her child last night.”
“Hallowe’en night?”
“Aye. Here, in Druidheachd. At the cottage hospital with Dr. Sutherland doing the delivering.”
“A child at last.”
“But that’s no’ all.” Flora sat back, obviously savoring the rest of what she had to pass on.
“Let’s have it all. I could die before ye finish.”
“Melissa Sinclair had her bairn at the same time! The very same time.”
“Surely ye dinna mean the same moment?”
“But I do, and that’s no’ all.” Now Flora leaned forward eagerly. “Jane MacDougall had her child at the same time, as well. All three weans were born at the same moment. It’s no’ even known which was born first, Mum. Think of it!”
“And who did the delivering, if Angus Sutherland was catching Lady Ross’s bairn?”
Men of Midnight Complete Collection Page 25
