Trouble in Tourmaline (Silhouette Special Edition)

by Jane Toombs

  Sarah peered over into the front seat and said, “Are you going to carry her in like you did me the other night?”

  “She might not appreciate that.”

  “I liked it.”

  “I didn’t know you were awake enough to tell what was going on.”

  “I was only sort of awake, but I knew. I bet she’d like being carried. It makes you feel real safe.”

  He smiled at her. So many times his daughter’s words touched his heart. “Amy isn’t you, punkin.”

  “No, but she’s a girl.”

  He was saved further protests when Amy stirred, opened her eyes and said, “I must have fallen asleep. Are we home?”

  “I told Daddy he should carry you upstairs,” Sarah said, “but he didn’t think you’d like it. I told him you would.”

  “I’ll have to think about that,” Amy told her after a short pause. “I’m awake now, so I can make it on my own.” She unbuckled her seat belt. “Good night all.”

  As Sarah and David headed for their apartment, she said, “It still isn’t fixed.”

  “What isn’t?”

  “You know.” And she wouldn’t say any more.

  Sarah started school on Monday, and, without her “helping” him build Aunt Gert’s gazebo, the work went faster. Tuesday he took Hobo to the vet’s to be spayed and brought her home the same day. By Friday he had the floor of the gazebo in and had finished the steps. But he hadn’t even caught a glimpse of Amy all week.

  He had nothing planned except hanging out with Sarah for the weekend, which was just as well, because it rained. After her violin class on Saturday, he got out some of the games they’d bought during the summer.

  “It’d be more fun if there were four of us,” Sarah said. “I could ask Amy and then we could all go over to Great-aunt Gert’s. I bet she’d like to play.”

  “How about Betty?”

  She frowned. “Daddy, you should listen better. I told you Betty had to go somewhere with her mother.”

  “Sorry.” And he was. He’d been absentminded lately.

  “So can I ask Amy?”

  He gave in. “Okay, you ask Amy, but first let me tell Gert we’re coming over.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Gert told him. “You can have supper here.”

  He told Sarah. She punched in Amy’s number and, despite himself, he tensed. She might be out. Or refuse.

  “Hi, this is Sarah.”

  So she was home.

  “Daddy and I need you to play some games with us over at Great-aunt Gert’s. She invited us to eat supper, too. You can ride with us if you want.”

  He figured she wouldn’t go that far. But would she come at all?

  “Oh. Okay, then we’ll go by ourselves, too.”

  Bingo.

  When they got to Gert’s she already had a round card table set up in the living room. “I haven’t played Monopoly in more years than I care to remember,” she said.

  “I just started playing it,” Sarah said. “There’s lots to remember, but it’s not very hard.”

  “Is Amy coming?” Gert asked.

  “By herself,” Sarah said.

  Gert raised her eyebrows but didn’t comment.

  They began the game after Amy arrived. Gert so consistently lost that David suspected she was deliberately giving Sarah chances to win. After two games Gert insisted she couldn’t go on without popcorn.

  “No help needed,” she said. “It’s microwave.”

  When she left the room a silence fell, broken by Sarah’s plaintive voice. “I wish you two were friends.”

  “We are,” Amy said.

  “Not like before. I thought maybe it’s on account of me, but Great-aunt Gert says no. In case it is, though, it’s okay with me if you want to get married.”

  The two of them stared at her, stunned.

  “Danny told me about having two fathers. I asked him if he loved them both and he said sure. I only want one father, but it’d be awesome to have two mothers, ’cause I love Amy just like I do Mommy. It’d be fun to have Amy living with us, don’t you think so, Daddy?”

  Gert, who’d come back into the room, said, “Out of the mouth of babes. I told Sarah she’s got the makings of a great shrink.” She motioned to Sarah. “But right now I need your help in the kitchen.”

  Left alone with Amy, David had his second epiphany of the year. His daughter was right. He needed Amy in every way possible. Needed her as his wife.

  He grinned at her. “Kind of a shock, but she has something there. What are the odds I’ll make a better husband than a patient?”

  As she tried to comprehend his words, what her brother had said to her at the barbecue flashed through her mind. Covert maneuvering. Trying to control David. Her eyes widened as she realized the truth. She had tried to do that, tried to control David, to make him do what she thought he should. Why, she was as bad as her father! Shocked at the revelation, she bolted from the room, out of the house and into her SUV.

  Unable to bring herself to go home, she drove aimlessly around for what seemed to be hours, too upset for tears.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Gert reassured Sarah that Amy was all right, then settled her in the TV room with popcorn and limeade before she’d allow David to say a word. Gert had also ordered him not to go after Amy until they talked things over. He paced impatiently, knowing Gert was right but increasingly worried about Amy.

  As soon as Gert came back into the room, he began, “All I said to her was did she think I’d make a better husband than a patient. Why would that upset her?”

  “I’m not sure. What would those words mean to Amy?”

  He explained how he’d accused her more than once of trying to psychoanalyze him. “She told me I wasn’t facing that I was in denial. Shrink lingo. I told her to cut it out. She agreed, but she broke her word. I got ticked off.”

  “Do you think you were in denial?”

  He shook his head. “Amy kept interpreting every legal matter I took on as facing down my denial. She was wrong. I had no incentive to return to practice until I found out from Judge Maguire the tremendous problem dead-beat dads are in this state. What I needed all along was a cause—and I found one.”

  “Did you tell her this?”

  “Not yet. We haven’t been on good terms.”

  “So Sarah told me when she asked my advice last week. I told her the two of you needed confronting, explaining to her what that was.”

  “No wonder she wouldn’t tell me what she was thinking about.”

  “You can’t blame her. It took a lot of courage for Sarah to speak out.”

  “I know.” He sighed. “I thought I was in love with Iris but realized too late that wasn’t what it was.”

  “I’m afraid poor Iris hasn’t learned how to love.”

  “So how was I supposed to understand what it was I felt for Amy?”

  “As Grandfather would say, ‘Trust your heart.’”

  “That’s not much help now. Do you have any idea what upset Amy?”

  “I believe what you said to her about being a better husband than a patient triggered something hidden within her—shooting it out to confront her. She fled because she needed to be alone to come to terms with it. That’s why I told you not to rush after her. She needs time and so do you. I want you to sit down and go over everything that’s happened between you and Amy since you met. The bad and the good. Somewhere in there you’ll find a clue to how you need to behave when you meet again.”

  With reluctance he dropped onto a loveseat.

  “I’ll bring you some popcorn and limeade, then I’m going in to watch TV with Amy. When you come up with the right answer, let me know.”

  He didn’t want to sit and think, nor eat popcorn, he wanted to find Amy. Gert, though, was no fool. And it was true he didn’t have a plan.

  Gert returned, set the popcorn and limeade on the end table beside him, hesitated, then crossed to the small purple CD player she’d bought for Sarah. “Music sometim
es helps,” she said. She shuffled through a few CDs, shook her head, opened a cabinet, brought out a multi-CD holder and chose one of the CDs. “I have a feeling sentimental songs from my era will work better than Sarah’s wailing rock stars,” she said as she inserted the disk into the player.

  “You’re too tense. Lean back and close your eyes,” she ordered before leaving.

  He tried his best to relax, not paying much attention to the background music as he struggled to go back to the beginning.

  He’d wanted Amy even before he’d known who she was, and, from her reaction to him then, he suspected she’d felt the zing between them, too. The zing had intensified as they got better acquainted, becoming impossible to ignore. But at the same time he’d begun to like Amy. By the time Sarah arrived he’d been captivated, at least sexually.

  Her warm acceptance of his daughter and her unobtrusive way of boosting Sarah’s self-image had warmed his heart. He understood now he’d been a damn fool not to understand what was happening to him.

  There’d been the camel ride and all the other excursions the three of them had taken. As a family, you idiot. How could he have been so blind?

  “Come dance with me,” a tenor sang, and the words catapulted him back to the deck of the Frivolous, dancing with Frivolous Amy in his arms. A night he’d never forget as long as he lived. Thanks to old Joe Haskell.

  Haskell must be almost a contemporary of Gert’s. No wonder the music sounded familiar. As Gert had said, the songs were sentimental. Romantic.

  Romantic. Amy had arranged a romantic night for them to discover the depth of what was between them. What had he ever done for her that was romantic?

  “Moonlight becomes you,” another man sang, a baritone this time. Which reminded David of Amy’s definition of moon love as not the real thing. He knew what the real thing was now, all right, and it damn well better not be too late.

  That’s when he had a third epiphany. Leaping to his feet, he rushed to the CD holder, pulling out each CD and reading the label on both sides. He found what he wanted on the last one. He shut off Sarah’s purple CD player, removed the CD, inserted the new one, turned it back on and, jiggling with impatience, let it play until the song he wanted came on. Shutting it off again, he disconnected the cord from the player—luckily it was a battery player—picked up the purple case and called to Gert.

  “Do me a favor.”

  She came into the room. “Of course.”

  “I figured out what to do. After you put Sarah to bed upstairs, would you call Amy and ask her to come back over here? I don’t care how you do it, but get her to go out to the gazebo.”

  “It’s unfinished.”

  “No problem, the floor’s in.”

  Gert raised her eyebrows.

  “Romance,” he said. “Trust me.”

  She nodded. “And where will you be?”

  “First I have to move the truck so Amy won’t see it here. Then I’ll just be waiting.”

  “You realize it’ll be a while.”

  He sighed. “You might say I deserve a long wait.”

  “Yes, in the truck, wherever you park it,” Gert told him. “That way I won’t have to tell too many lies to Amy.”

  Amy finally stopped her aimless wandering and drove home. As she parked, she noticed David’s truck wasn’t in its place. Good. The last thing she wanted was for him to come knocking on her door.

  She hadn’t had anything to eat since lunch, but food had no appeal to her. Aware she’d have a problem sleeping, though, she warmed milk and made a piece of toast to go with it.

  After considering whether or not to turn on the TV, she decided against it, ate the toast, drank the milk and sat brooding. The way might have been roundabout, but David had asked her to marry him and she’d run out of Gert’s house like some brain-fried nutcase. What must he think? That he’d insulted her? She sighed. The truth was much worse. She’d fled because she’d uncovered an unacceptable truth about herself. How could she ever face him again?

  When the phone rang she checked the caller ID and saw the number was Gert’s. She hesitated—it might be David—but finally picked up the phone on the chance it could be Gert.

  “Amy, I need you to come over here,” Gert said.

  “Is David there?”

  “Sarah’s upstairs sleeping, but David’s gone.”

  Alarm struck Amy. Where had he gone? Not home. She’d been compulsively checking his slot, the last time only a few minutes ago, and his truck hadn’t been in it. Surely David was too levelheaded to do anything foolish. Wasn’t he?

  “I’ll be right over,” she said.

  On the way, she decided Gert must want to talk to her about what happened. She really didn’t want to, but she owed Gert some kind of explanation.

  David’s truck wasn’t in the driveway. Not that she’d thought Gert wasn’t telling the truth, but after all, he was her nephew. When Gert let her in, Amy noticed she was hobbling.

  “Are you all right? What happened to you?” she asked.

  “I tripped and twisted my ankle after I put Sarah to bed. I really hated to bother you, but, before I injured my ankle, I promised her I’d bring her that purple CD player that she left out on the floor of the gazebo. I simply can’t make it out there to get it and I hate to disappoint her. I’m sorry to disturb you after whatever happened earlier, but I decided after you bring in the CD player we can talk.”

  Amy had known the talk would be somewhere on Gert’s agenda. “You should be sitting with your foot elevated and ice on that ankle,” she scolded.

  “That’s where I’ll be when you come back in.”

  As she headed for the dark backyard, Amy thought of returning to her SUV for a flashlight but shook her head. The moon’s light, though dim, would be enough to locate the player, and Tourmaline was practically crime-free compared to any community in California.

  Did she hear music? It was so faint the sound must be coming from the house up the block, coming through open windows. It wasn’t until she was almost to the unfinished gazebo that she recognized the tune. Just as the singer began his solo, David’s voice froze her in her tracks.

  “Ms. Frivolous,” he said, “may I have this dance?”

  The next she knew, he’d grasped her hand, led her up the steps onto the gazebo floor, and then she was in his arms, dancing in the dark. He didn’t say a word as he swung her around and around. With the memory of the first time they’d danced like this overwhelming her, all she could do was follow where he led. Gert had lied to her, but she didn’t care, nothing mattered except David.

  When the song ended, another she recognized began. “This isn’t moon love,” he whispered in her ear. “This is true love. I do love you, Amy.” He danced her over to the steps, then pulled her down to sit beside him.

  “I’ve found my place as a lawyer,” he told her. “I’ll be helping women find dead-beat dads, like Betty’s.”

  Amy promptly burst into tears. He put his arm around her, letting her weep onto this chest. When at last she’d cried herself out, he offered her a bandanna to mop her face, telling her, “Lucky us yardmen always carry bandannas.”

  “Do you know what I tried to do to you?” she asked, pulling away from him to sit up straight.

  “Tell me.”

  “I’ve been trying all along to control you. I’m just like my f-father.” Her voice broke, but she fought back more tears. “My only excuse is that I didn’t realize what I was doing until today.”

  “Until I asked you to marry me. Is that what was wrong? Hey, no problem. You didn’t succeed—I made my own decision. Actually I’m as uncontrollable as you are. I’ll take my chances with you if you’re willing to take your chances with me.”

  “You taught me to take chances again,” she told him. “And I’ve loved you for what seems like forever. Why wouldn’t I want to marry you?”

  Pulling her to her feet, he stepped back onto the floor and, holding her in his arms, danced with her as a tenor sang about
racing with the moon. “This gingerbread man is through running,” he murmured, stopping. She raised her face, eager for his kiss. Just before his lips met hers, he whispered, “I remembered to bring a quilt, so don’t worry about splinters.”

  And then they were lost in each other.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Two months later, they were married in the completed gazebo with Sarah as the proud flower girl, Gert as the matron of honor and Russ as best man. At the last minute, David’s sister Diane flew in from Hawaii, barely in time for the ceremony, but a wonderful surprise. The only disappointment was Amy’s father, who, because of an emergency appendectomy, couldn’t get there.

  Because he knew Amy needed to connect with her father, David made up his mind to remedy the situation.

  His chance didn’t come for more than six months, when Nell Archer scheduled a violin recital for her pupils.

  The recital was held in an old theater building that no longer showed movies. The building had escaped destruction, because in Gold Rush years it had been an opera house, which gave it a place on the historic registry. The children had been rehearsing on the stage for several weeks, so no longer were in awe of their surroundings.

  Sarah’s group of attendees included David, Amy, Gert and Grandfather, as well as Mari and Russ. Brent and Iris Murdock had been invited as well, but had sent regrets from Bermuda. As the group was about to get settled in their seats, an older man strode down the aisle toward them.

  Amy couldn’t believe her eyes. “Dad?”

  Lou Simon wrapped her in a bear hug. “David called to invite me,” he said after he let her go. “That damn appendix made me miss your wedding, but I wasn’t going to miss this. It’s not every day a man gets a bonus granddaughter who’s a violin virtuoso.”

  When the curtains parted, he sat down next to Amy. David was on the other side of her and she leaned over to whisper “Thank you” in his ear.

  Sarah not only had a duet with Betty, but a violin solo as well. Through her own tears, Amy noticed David’s misty eyes as he watched his daughter perform. Their daughter. Sarah was as much her child as the one growing inside her.