SHE WAS NOT GOING to cry. Abby refused to let him hurt her that much.
The bastard.
Is that fair, Abby? niggled her conscience. To crucify Durango for his motives when you wanted nothing more than to have a fling with him so you could stop fantasizing about him? He used you, yes. But face it, you used him too. You are not guiltless.
Moaning softly, she curled in a fetal position on her bed at the Tranquility Spa, uncertain what to do next. She had no idea where Tess had gone to. Her father had been calling repeatedly and leaving urgent voice-mail messages asking her to call him back, but she wasn’t up to facing him.
Not yet.
How could she tell the man who had always been her Rock of Gibraltar that she had made a horrible, horrible mistake and he was going to be the one to suffer the consequences?
How could she have been so foolish? So gullible? This wasn’t like her. But she had been vulnerable after getting ditched by Ken and then she had made the mistake of listening to Cassandra and Tess.
But she couldn’t blame them either. There had been a spark of rebellion simmering inside her for years, just waiting for the opportunity to burst into flames.
And burst she had. Like a moth to a lantern, wings singed.
She thought of that unholy photograph on the front of the tabloid, closed her eyes and groaned aloud. She thought of the smug radio interviewer. The talk-show host and the guest had enjoyed making fun of her. To them, her life was nothing but a big fat joke.
Her greatest fear had officially come to pass. She’d stupidly followed her passion and it had led her into temptation, and that temptation had brought about what she feared most in life.
Being disconnected from those she loved.
The only thing she’d ever really wanted, peace of mind and wholeness, seemed lost to her forever.
Here was her quandary. Accept that her life had changed irrevocably and she was the cause. Or put this awful passion back in the box, go home to her father, try her best to earn his forgiveness and forget she’d ever met Durango Creed.
It should have been an easy decision. Equanimity versus chaos. She was surprised to discover that it was not.
The door opened and Tess sauntered in.
“Tess?” Hugging her pillow to her chest, Abby sat up and blinked at her friend who drifted into their room with a beatific smile on her face.
“Hmm?”
“Are you all right?”
“Uh-huh,” Tess said dreamily and sat down on the edge of her bed.
“You look…”
“Yes?”
“Well, calm and tranquil.”
“I feel calm and tranquil.”
“This is too spooky and totally unlike you.” Abby furrowed her brow.
“I feel unlike me.” Tess beamed.
“What’s happened? Are you all right?” Abby felt alarmed. With her world knocked out of control the one thing she had been counting on was for Tess to remain her same sassy self. Tess had always been able to cheer her up when no one else could.
“Never been better.” Tess softly hummed a romantic love song.
“Were you with Jackson?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Wait a minute.” Abby grinned and snapped her fingers. Now she had the answer to her friend’s mysterious transformation. “Did you get laid last night?”
“No,” Tess whispered reverently. “I got made love to. Last night, this morning and lots of times in between.”
“Made love?” Abby had never heard Tess use those words to describe sex.
“It was incredible. No man has ever looked at me that way. Like I’m something really special.”
“But you are special!”
“No one else but you has ever made me feel special. Not even my parents.”
“That’s wonderful that Jackson makes you feel so good.”
Tess stopped humming. The expression on her face went from dreamy to unsettled. “Is it really?”
“Of course it is.”
“Even if I’m changing?”
“All change isn’t bad. Maybe you’re just growing into your womanhood.”
Tess bit down on her bottom lip. “I’m afraid it might be more than that. Abby, I want to be with him so badly.”
“Then be with him.”
“I’ve never felt this way before and I’m scared.”
“What are you scared of?”
“You know my family.” Tess waved a hand. “We’re such a mess.”
“Everyone’s family is a mess. This is about you, not them. Why are you afraid?”
“I’m nervous about the way he’s changing me. I act differently when I’m around him. I feel differently.”
Abby certainly understood that fear. Durango had changed her in inexplicable ways and now there was no way to get the old Abby back. Where in the hell was she supposed to go from here?
“He makes me feel so warm and tender inside I’m afraid of losing my toughness, you know,” Tess said softly, “I’m afraid of losing the thing that makes me, me.”
Abby was just the opposite. Durango made her feel so strong and brave she was afraid of losing her softness. But Durango was out of her life for good now, she had nothing more to worry about on that score.
Except for the lonely aching deep within her heart.
“I think I could really get serious about Jackson. There. I said it.”
“You? Miss Commitment-phobe? Get serious about a guy?”
Tess shrugged. “Crazy, I know.”
“Have you told Jackson this?”
Tess looked aghast. “And risk getting my heart stomped to smithereens? Nothing doing.”
“Then how do you expect to get serious about him?” Abby asked, exasperated. One of them should at least get the man they wanted.
“It’s a stupid dream. He’s a stuntman from Australia.”
“So?”
“I don’t even have a passport.”
“Come on, Tess, what’s the real reason you’re holding back?”
“Okay.” Tess blew out her breath. “I’m worried I won’t be enough for him. He’s got groupies and he travels with his job and those long-distance things don’t work, as evidenced by how boarding school alienated me from my family.”
“Maybe he’ll quit the movie business for you.”
“You think?” Tess perked up.
“And even if he doesn’t quit, maybe you can just learn to trust him.”
Like you trusted Durango?
Bad example. Before she had a chance to retract her statement, Tess was headed for the door. “Thanks, Ab, you’ve been a great help. I’m off to lay my heart on the line. Hang around in case it doesn’t go well, okay?”
“Don’t worry, Tess. Men may come and men may go, but I’ll be here for you always.”
THE NEXT MORNING Durango marched into Judge Archer’s office and laid out the paper trail of Ken Rockford’s duplicity that Lance Peabody had provided him.
Judge Wayne Archer stared with stony-faced accusation until he reviewed the evidence. “Where did you get this?”
“Lance Peabody. The guy Ken hired to spy on Abby for Mack Woodruff, to ruin her reputation.”
Judge Archer peered down the end of his reading glasses. “From the external looks of things, I’d say you were the guy who ruined my daughter.”
Durango squarely met the older man’s steely eyes. “I’m sorry if I caused you any embarrassment, sir. It was never my intention to hurt your daughter.”
“But I know you wanted to get back at me. For sticking you in jail when you were a kid.”
“There was an element of that, yes. But I love Abby and I would do anything for her. Including tracking down the man who used her to create a scandal in an attempt to destroy your political career.”
Archer looked at the papers in his hand again, studying them carefully.
“You say you love my daughter,” he said after a long moment.
“Very much, sir.”
“You still a hell-raiser like you used to be?”
“I’ve mellowed with age,” Durango replied, and notched his chin upward, “but I still march to the tune of my own drum.”
“Good,” Judge Archer said. “Abby needs that.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’ve misjudged you, Creed. And I underestimated my daughter. She’s got her mother’s adventurous nature yes, but she’s got a mind all her own and she’s learning how to use it well. I guess you’re to thank for that.”
Durango blinked in surprise. He’d expected animosity from the judge, not an apology.
“I should never have put you in jail for spray-painting your stepmother’s warehouse. It was wrong of your father to ask me to do it, but I was wrong not to understand the damage it caused you.”
“That means a lot to me, sir, to hear you say that,” he said.
“When was the last time you saw your father?” Judge Archer asked.
“Ten years ago. When I left Silverton Heights for good.”
“Go see him. I think he just might be in the mood to mend fences.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you for the advice.” Durango got to his feet.
“Oh.” The judge waved a hand. “One more thing.”
“Yes?”
“Marry my daughter before you dangle her off any more bridges, will you?”
AFRAID TO DO anything in case it was the wrong move, Abby stayed in bed at the Tranquility Spa. She watched old movies, cried for no reason, tried her best not to think of Durango and waited for a sign.
Cassandra called to check on her. They had a nice conversation and Abby felt closer to her mother than she ever had, but she still hadn’t returned her father’s calls. She was much too ashamed.
Two days after the awful photograph ran in the Confidential Inquisitor Abby was propped up in bed watching the noon news when they broke into the program with a special press conference. Judge Archer was going to make an official statement concerning his daughter and the incident that was becoming known to the media as the Satan’s Bridge scandal.
Abby watched while her father announced that he was firing his campaign manager Ken Rockford and that he had changed his get-tough policy on juvenile offenders because he had come to realize the drawbacks and limitations to such a rigid stance.
Then he looked straight into the camera. “Abby, sweetheart,” he said. “I understand. All is forgiven. I love you. No matter what happens. Please come home.”
It was all the sign she needed.
Abby’s heart swelled with love for her father. She still belonged. She could go home. Eagerly she packed her bags, bade goodbye to Tess and Jackson, who were cuddling and cooing like lovebirds and practically ran all the way back to Silverton Heights.
“DAD?” Durango pushed through the backyard gate to find his father sitting on the deck staring forlornly at the empty pool.
Slowly Phillip Creed craned his neck to look at his only son.
“Durango?” he said, staring hard as if he were seeing a mirage. “Is that you?”
He hadn’t expected it to be so easy to walk right into his father’s embrace, but it was. Neither had he expected the rush of emotions to be so high.
Anxiety, sadness, longing but most important, forgiveness.
His dad leaped up from his patio chair, spread out his arms and hugged Durango tight. “My God, you look wonderful.”
He patted his dad’s shoulders and then stepped back. He wished he could say the same for his father. A decade had passed since Durango had last seen him, but by the worry lines on Phillip’s weary face, he appeared twenty years older.
“Sit down, sit down.” Phillip waved at a chair. “I was just having breakfast.”
Durango looked down at the glass of tomato juice and the Blood Mary mix on the patio table. His dad was drinking on Wednesday morning when he had to be at the office in less than an hour?
Not a good sign.
Glancing around, he noticed other portentous signals. The deck was sagging, the hot tub needed restaining and Durango couldn’t remember a time when the pool hadn’t been clean and filled with water. The glass tabletop was cloudy, the lawn chairs flecking paint and the cushions were faded and frayed. Rusted scrap metal and other debris were piled in the corner of the lot. It looked as if it had been there for a while.
The once luxurious backyard had gone to ruin.
His father was watching him survey the place. “It’s a mess, I know. I’ve let things get a little run-down.”
“What’s happened?”
Philip paused, sighed, took a long drink of his Bloody Mary and said, “Meredith left me.”
Durango leaned toward the man. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”
“No reason to be sorry.” He snorted. “You were right about her all along.”
“I don’t take comfort in that fact.”
“You have a right to gloat. Go ahead. She cleaned me out, son. Not only did she take a huge chunk of my money in the divorce settlement, but her dirty business dealings landed me in legal hot water. By the time I get through with lawyer fees, there won’t be much of this to pass on to you.” He waved a hand at the house.
Durango cracked a slight smile. “You’re undisowning me?”
“I never disowned you. Never even changed my will even though Meredith was driving me insane to do it. I made a bad mistake, son. I was hurting so badly after your mother died I couldn’t see Meredith for the shark she was. I stayed with her because I was too proud to admit I was wrong.”
“We all make mistakes.”
“I made a doozy. And I don’t expect you to forgive me so easily. I hurt you badly.”
“There’s just one thing that still bothers me,” he ventured.
“What’s that?”
“How could you have believed that I would try to force myself on Meredith?”
“She was young and sexy and I was jealous. I saw the way she looked at you. I was afraid you wanted her in the same way.” Philip made a derisive noise. “Can you believe it? Jealous of my own son.”
“Water under the bridge, Dad. I’m back and I forgive you. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive you for, son. You did nothing wrong.”
“I let my stubbornness and my hurt feelings keep me from coming back to see you. I let my resentment toward you and Meredith and Judge Archer and even the whole of Silverton Heights color my entire outlook.”
“Would you consider coming back home, Durango? And helping me straighten out the business, before I lose it, too?”
“Nothing would please me more.”
“Thank you.”
They hugged again.
“But first we need to get rid of this.” Durango reached over for the Bloody Mary and emptied the glass into the dirt.
“You’re right. I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Me, too.”
Were those tears in his father’s eyes? Durango felt a tightness in his throat and in his heart.
Happiness filled him. He and his father had bridged the gap. They could start fresh, build a new, stronger relationship than the one they’d had even before Durango’s mother had died. He was so glad he’d taken the chance and come home.
And this change in him would never have been possible if it weren’t for Abby. She had shown him that he was already enough. He didn’t have to do or be anything more than he already was in order to earn love. Without even knowing it, she had taught him how to forgive.
Now all he had to do was get her to forgive him.