9

Brady Cormack wasn’t tired, and he had no intention of going to bed.

Sitting beside him on the sofa in the small family room, Quint watched his small son, who had been bathed and dressed in his dinosaur pajamas and was now sitting on Rachel’s lap enjoying the adventures of Bananas in Pajamas on video for the fourth—or was it the fifth?—time.

Brady didn’t passively stare at the screen; he expected interaction with whoever was watching with him. Rachel was good at it, answering the two-year-old’s incessant questions and asking her own while the pair of walking, talking bananas tooled around in their striped pajamas.

Quint admired her fortitude. When he watched TV with Brady, sitting through repeated showings of whatever video the little boy was fixated on at the time, he often tried to escape by reading or making notes on a case, or even flipping through catalogs. Anything to ease the brain-numbing boredom of repetition. Brady invariably caught him drifting and would demand full attention, capturing his father’s face between his small hands and turning it directly to him.

But Brady didn’t have to resort to those desperation tactics with Rachel. She remained totally engaged, her concentration never wavering, and the child was reveling in her attention.

What red-blooded male of any age wouldn’t? Quint thought drolly. Being held in Rachel’s arms with her warm hazel eyes focused exclusively on you would make any male feel like the most important, fascinating guy in the world. At two, little Brady experienced Rachel’s attentions as maternal interest. Quint wanted to experience her arms and her eyes and everything else she had to offer in a distinctly nonmaternal way.

Quint’s gaze lasered in on her neck and the dark purple mark he’d put there last night. His lips twitched into a reminiscent smile. When he and Brady had arrived at her apartment earlier this evening, she’d been wearing loose-fitting pleated beige slacks and a long-sleeved navy turtleneck, despite the eighty-two degrees outside….

While Brady made himself at home in her apartment, running around the living room, climbing onto her couch and jumping off, Quint plucked at the jersey’s cuffs around her wrists.

“Junkies wear long sleeves in hot weather to cover the track marks,” he observed.

Rachel was nonplussed. “Are you making conversation or insinuations?”

“I like to try to throw people off guard,” he admitted. “You can get a lot of information that way.”

“And a lot of unpredictable reactions, too,” Rachel added ruefully. “I remember some of the comments you tossed out at John Pedersen when he was on the stand. And I’ll never forget how my case went straight down the drain because his responses in front of that jury were an attorney’s bad dream come true.”

“I don’t want to talk about Pedersen,” muttered Quint. An understatement, to put it mildly. “Brady, get off the table.” Brady had climbed onto the coffee table and stood there, looking around while contemplating his next move.

“No!” Brady exclaimed gleefully.

“His favorite comeback.” Quint groaned.

“All two-year-olds love to say no. It’s a sign that they’re seeking a measure of independence. A completely normal developmental stage.”

“Thank you, Dr. Ruth. Knowing that every other two-year-old in the world is antiauthoritarian does sort of help.”

“The specialist I was quoting was Dr. Brazelton, a pediatrician.” Rachel regarded him archly. “As you well know, Dr. Ruth is a sex therapist.”

“I thought she’d branched out. She was on one of those talk shows Sarah watches, and I swear they were discussing kids. Brady, get down right now.” Quint started toward his son, who was cruising the length of the coffee table, nearly tripping over two thick books of photographic essays.

Brady held his ground as his father advanced. “No.”

Just before Quint reached him, the little boy dived onto the sofa and crawled across it, straight to Rachel. “Mommy, up!” he demanded, giggling.

A smiling Rachel scooped him up. “I think he outfoxed you, Daddy.” She settled Brady more securely on her hip as he investigated her gold hoop earrings.

“Earring,” he said, and Rachel nodded her approval. “Good job, Brady. You remembered.”

“Oh, he knows earrings,” Quint said dryly. “Sarah must have a dozen of them, total. It seems like overkill, but what does an old coot like me know about style?”

“It could be worse. Think nose ring or eyebrow ring or—”

“Stop!” Quint shuddered. “It may be trendy, but body piercing makes me queasy.”

“Stop!” mimicked Brady. His busy little fingers moved from Rachel’s earrings to the high cotton neck of her jersey. He tugged at the material and unerringly found what she’d tried to hide. “Boo-boo.” Brady was sympathetic. “Awww. No cry.”

Rachel knew she was blushing and the more she willed the blood to pool elsewhere, the hotter her cheeks grew. Quint immediately came to investigate Brady’s discovery, and he towered over her, his fingers tracing the mark.

Rachel shivered under his touch. This was getting too intimate. His nearness was stirring up last night’s memories, the ones she’d been trying all day to suppress. Not that she’d succeeded at suppression, or even come close. Aside from intermittent anxiety attacks over the Tilden will after Aunt Eve’s tirade this morning, her thoughts had been dominated by Quint Cormack.

Rachel swallowed. All day long, her thoughts had been perilously close to what some might call sexual fantasies. And now here he was, the star of those vivid daydreams, right here beside her. Touching her, making her skin heat and her pulses throb.

In sheer self-defense, her arms tightened around Brady and she artfully stepped away from Quint, out of his reach. “Let’s eat dinner, Brady,” she said with credible enthusiasm.

“Eat it all up!” Brady crowed.

“Before we go, why don’t you change into something more comfortable, Rachel?” Quint’s tone was an intriguing mixture of tease and challenge.

When she raised her face to meet his gaze, he flashed those impudent arched brows at her. “Since I’ve already seen my—handiwork—there’s no need for camouflage any longer, is there?”

“Your hands had nothing to do with it,” she retorted, and her blush deepened.

Though she hadn’t intended to reveal his handiwork, now that the secret was out she decided his crime should not go unacknowledged. She’d had to suffer with winter clothes and odd stares all day, because of him.

“Maybe orally branding women is a habit of yours, but I am not enchanted, Quinton,” Rachel said sternly. “I am too old for this kind of—”

“It’s not a habit, and I don’t blame you for not being enchanted.” He was beside her again, lightly stroking her hair. “I’m sorry, Rachel. It won’t happen again.”

Her defenses were effectively breached. She felt breathless, unable to move.

“Where anyone can see,” he added in a low growl. His lips brushed her temple.

Rachel whimpered.

“I’ll take Brady while you change,” Quint said smoothly, taking the baby from her arms.

In a daze, Rachel retreated to her bedroom and returned a few minutes later wearing an apricot-colored matte jersey dress. The cut was slim yet fluid and not clingy, the length several inches above her knee, shorter than she normally wore.

Quint wondered how she managed to make such a simple dress radiate a tantalizing mix of sex and class. Merely looking at her made him feel so physically charged he wouldn’t have been surprised to find himself emitting voltage.

The T-shirt-style neck of her dress exposed the purple mark on her neck, and though she’d applied makeup, it still showed.

“I didn’t mean to do this, Rachel, I don’t blame you for being ticked off.” Quint touched the small bruise again. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but you have an uncanny effect on me. When we’re together, my mind doesn’t work the way it normally does.”

Rachel felt warm and flattered, aroused and sexy—until her rational thought processes kicked back in. He was clever, she conceded; his wry little admission had affected her the way he’d wanted it to, at least for a moment or two. She eyed him with a mixture of admiration and resentment.

Quint Cormack knew exactly what to say and how to say it, keeping her so off-balance that she could easily be manipulated by him. He’d done it professionally to her in the unfortunate Pedersen trial and was now using his technique to affect her outside the courtroom, too.

Rachel rebelled. She would not play marionette to his puppeteer, her every action controlled at his direction. She picked up Brady, grabbed her handbag, and headed for the door.

“Then I can only hope that my uncanny power over you will affect your mind in the Tilden case, Quint. When you lose, feel free to blame me.” Her tone and expression made it clear that she wasn’t buying his irresistible-impulse defense.

Quint frowned. He was not handing her a line and felt vaguely insulted that she saw it that way. “The Tildens have nothing to do with us, Rachel. Or Pedersen either,” he added hopefully.

“They will if we’re adversaries in the courtroom again.” They walked to his car, Brady in her arms.

“If the Tildens insist on contesting that will, Saxon Associates is going to be trounced in court, Rachel.”

“You don’t know that,” Rachel countered, irked.

He sounded so matter-of-fact, as if reciting an established fact. George Washington was the first president of the United States, Independence Day is July Fourth, Saxon Associates will get trounced in court. By him!

“Honey, I do.” Quint strapped Brady into his car seat in the back of the tan Mercury station wagon, the one he’d bought after trading in his carefree single-guy little red Corvette when Brady came to live with him.

He seated Rachel in the front seat beside him. “Tell your aunt Eve that the Tildens ought to offer to buy Misty out. I doubt that living permanently in Lakeview is a priority of hers, so if they want the old family mansion back, they can get it—plus the stuff inside that oversize museum—by paying her for it.”

“If that’s what you plan to tell Aunt Eve and the Tildens when you meet with them, they’ll laugh in your face, Quint.”

“Their mistake, Rachel. And a big one.” Quint shrugged and started up the engine. “I know it’s a cliché, but ‘he who laughs last, laughs best’ is right on the mark when it comes to this case.”

“You must be a fabulous poker player, I don’t think anyone could tell you’re bluffing,” marveled Rachel. “You’ve almost managed to make me nervous even though I know that will is—”

“Want out!” Brady demanded from the backseat.

Rachel glanced around to see him struggling against the confines of his car seat. “We’ll be there in a just a minute, Brady,” she cajoled, and diverted him with a silly word game.

Quint had been grateful for the reprieve. They’d enjoyed dinner with Brady without further mention of the Tildens or the will. When Rachel agreed to Brady’s demands that she come home and give him his bath, they stopped by her apartment first, so she could pick up her car.

“You’re invited to spend the night at our house,” Quint said, knowing she wouldn’t agree. Hoping that she might. “I can drive you back to your place in the morning.”

“I’ll drive myself home after Brady is in bed, thank you very much,” she drawled.

“Sarah is gone for the weekend. You can have her room.” Quint grinned as he said it. If he convinced Rachel to spend the night with him, she would not be spending it in any other bed but his, and they both knew it.

And though sexual tension stretched and hummed between them, Rachel stuck to her plan, got her own car, and followed Quint and Brady home.

The video, mercifully, came to an end.

“Again!” Brady decreed.

“No more, Brady, time for bed,” said Quint.

He saw the little boy shoot him a curious glance. His voice definitely lacked the paternal authority such a demand required, and Brady knew it.

“Again, Mommy,” Brady pleaded, smiling from one adult to the other.

The little conniver knew that his dad wanted Rachel around and would bend the rules to keep her. Quint was both amused and surprised by the two-year-old’s insight. Because the kid was absolutely, positively right. “Well, maybe one more time.”

Rachel heaved a groan. “I’d like to peel those bananas and put them in a cream pie. Brady, let’s watch something else. Winnie the Pooh? Looney Tunes? Barney?”

“Bananas,” Brady said firmly.

The doorbell rang just as the opening credits rolled again. Quint jumped to his feet. “Probably some neighborhood kids hawking their latest fund-raising products.”

“I’ve never seen anybody so eager to buy from a door-to-door salesman,” Rachel mocked. “We know an escape when we see one, don’t we, Brady?”

“Why bananas run?” Brady asked, already engrossed in the program.

“Yeah, Mom, why are the bananas running?” Quint teased, as Rachel patiently explained the plot point to Brady yet again.

Laughing, Quint left the room but during his trek to the door, his mirth faded fast. The doorbell was ringing incessantly. Whoever was out there had a finger jammed on the bell and wouldn’t let up.

He grimaced. The neighborhood kids never did that, but it was standard Carla behavior. Apprehension gripped him. What had his father done now, to send Carla over here in a frenzy? It could be something ridiculously trivial, it could be something horrendous and life-altering. With his father one never knew, and Carla reacted to everything in the same way. With hysteria, screams, and tears.

He cast a regretful glance back at the family room where he and Rachel and Brady had been spending a normal, pleasant evening together and knew it was all about to come to an abrupt end. His father had a near-genius knack for disrupting anything good.

But when Quint opened his front door, it wasn’t Carla but Misty Tilden who stood on the cement stoop, a vision in chartreuse from her talonlike fingernails to her high-heeled slides.

“Quint, thank God, you’re here!” Misty rushed inside, breathing hard, her enormous chest heaving.

“Misty, what—”

Misty proceeded to supply the answers before he could ask the questions. “Quint, they were in the house when I got back tonight.” Misty grabbed his arm in a viselike hold. “They were trying to take stuff! I caught them red-handed with some jewelry and Townie’s collection of gold coins and that old stamp album, too. When I told them to get out, they wouldn’t. They cursed at me.” She burst into noisy sobs. “It was horrible, Quint. They wouldn’t leave. They said—”

“Misty, I assume you’re talking about the Tildens and not some ordinary, run-of-the-mill burglars you caught in the act.”

“I woulda rather caught ordinary burglars, they woulda treated me nicer.” Misty sniffed. “The Tildens were so mean! Without Townie there to shut them up, they said the most hateful things. They were even worse than they were at the funeral and remember how nasty they were that day?”

Quint well remembered Townsend Tilden Senior’s funeral and Misty in her short, tight black mourning dress and five-inch spike heels. Her widow’s veil, which she’d rush-ordered from New York, resembled something Queen Victoria might’ve worn to her husband’s royal funeral. Town Junior had looked as if he were going to have a stroke, right there in the middle of the church when Misty walked in and seated herself with the family in the first pew. Words had been exchanged between the widow and Town Senior’s surviving relatives, forcing the minister himself to intervene before continuing the ceremony.

“I think reality is finally beginning to dawn on the Tildens. Town Senior is gone and you’re still in the house. Which family members broke in, Misty?”

“That son of a bitch Town Junior and his prick son Town Three. And that witch Marguerite and her wimpy husband and snotty daughter Sloane and jerk son Tilden. I hate them, Quint, I hate them so much.”

“You’re certain you didn’t give them permission to enter the house?”

“Permission? Are you nuts? I wasn’t even there! I went out to dinner with—a—a friend and when I got home that crew of vampires was there. I shoulda expected them to show up at night ‘cause that’s the only time they can come out of their coffins.”

“Do you know if any of them has a key to the house, Misty?”

“If they do, they stole it. I changed the locks the day Townie died, just like you told me to, Quint.”

“Okay. We can definitely nail them on breaking and entering. Tell me more. Did you call the police, Misty?”

“Like the cops would ever be on my side!” Misty gave a harsh, bitter laugh. “You know they’d suck up to the Tildens like everybody else in this damn town. Everybody but you, Quint.” She squeezed his arm and gazed up at him. And though she’d been sobbing, there were no tears on her face and her dark, heavy eye makeup remained intact. “Everybody but you and—and my new friend who is a real sweetie-pie.”

“Are the Tildens still at the house?” Quint pressed. “Did they drive you out, Misty?”

“My friend drove me over here,” Misty misinterpreted. “He’s outside in the car waiting; he said he’d better not come in.”

Quint didn’t let himself wonder about who her new-friend-the-real-sweetie-pie was. Why summon a potential headache before its time?

“My friend wanted to call the cops and since I wouldn’t, he said I should come tell you what happened right away.”

“Your friend was right, Misty. And I am going to call the police and file a complaint which could lead to criminal charges. I definitely want a written record of this incident on file.”

“The cops don’t care about me. They’ll just blow you off, Quint.”

“No, Misty, they won’t. Now, are the Tildens still at the house? And if not, what did they take with them when they left?”

“They’re gone. My friend made them leave, and they didn’t take nothin’.” Misty smiled, her eyes shining. She looked almost girlish as she talked about her heroic friend.

“They were bad-mouthing me and threatening me and meanwhile, my friend had a brainstorm. He grabbed one of those guns from Townie’s collection and said he’d shoot them all on the spot if they didn’t get out.” Misty was positively glowing now. “Quint, he made them empty out their pockets! Tilly had some gold coins stuffed in his and that bitch Sloane had some of the jewelry in her purse!”

“Your friend held them at gunpoint?” Quint did not share Misty’s elation. This was a complication he did not want.

“Town Junior was so pissed!” Misty exclaimed happily. “He cursed a blue streak, sounded like my old boss at Fantasy’s. He said that gun was used in the Civil War or something and that my friend wasn’t allowed to touch it.”

“So it was an antique pistol that probably wasn’t even loaded,” Quint thought aloud, visualizing the police report in his mind.

“Nuh-uh. That jagoff Tilden Lloyd started blabbing about how the gun doesn’t take bullets, only balls or something and while he was talking, I got a brainstorm of my own. I sneaked up to go get my own gun from my bedroom.” She smiled triumphantly. “It was loaded and I fired once, just to show them I could shoot. They put down the freakin’ stuff and ran out of there fast!”

“You’re the homeowner and you were defending your life and your property. You’d been threatened and actually found your possessions on their person. Do you have a permit to have that gun, Misty?”

He would’ve said a prayer if he thought that was the kind of thing one could pray for. But he didn’t think it was, so he held his breath and hoped.

“Sure, Townie got me a permit,” said Misty.

“Good.” Quint allowed himself to exhale. “Now, concentrate, Misty. Is there a chance that one of the Tildens might’ve managed to take something from the house, something they smuggled out without you or your friend seeing? Maybe a rare gold coin or a priceless stamp or something?”

“Robbery! Cool!” Misty grinned. “Sure, there’s a chance they swiped a stamp or coin or two. I didn’t check out the collections. I don’t even know all the stuff in ‘em.”

“Robbery would involve attempted or sustained violence. Without it, the crime is larceny. Hmm, those coin and stamp collections are worth a fortune. That escalates it to grand larceny. Okay, I’m going to call the police and—”

“Daddy!” Brady ran into the living room. “Come see Bananas.”

Rachel had followed and stopped dead on the threshold of the living room, when she saw Misty Tilden standing beside Quint. Her eyes widened. She’d seen the woman at a distance and heard many tales about her but none of the Tildens’ remarks had prepared her for Misty Tilden in the flesh.

She exposed plenty of it. The young widow wore an eye-popping chartreuse spandex minidress, her heels were impossibly high, more like stilts than shoes, and her makeup and hair color defied description. Rachel stared at her, transfixed.

Misty had noticed her too. “Who’s that?” she asked loudly, as if she had every right to know.

“That Mommy,” Brady said helpfully.

Misty’s reaction amazed them all. “So you’re back, huh?” she shrieked at Rachel, and started toward her. “You rotten bitch!”

Fortunately, her heels were so high and her dress so tight, she could only take tiny, mincing steps. Rachel positioned herself safely behind a high-backed armchair, knowing she could easily outrun the other woman, if need be.

Misty obviously decided the same thing, for she stopped in her tracks and settled for a verbal attack instead. “You have the goddammed nerve to come back here after you already dumped that baby? Do you get off on jerking people around or are you just set on trying to ruin the kid’s life?”

Rachel was speechless. She remembered feeling this way in a college physics class, uncomprehending and impossibly confused, yet expected to understand and participate. It had been as hopeless then as it was now.

“So what happened, bitch?” Misty’s face was contorted with rage. “Did your boyfriend dump you over in Romania or wherever the hell you chased him to? So now you’re back to grab some bucks from Quint and plan to use the kid to do it?”

Rachel met Quint’s eyes. Either Misty was truly insane or she knew quite a bit about Quint’s ex-wife—except what she looked like, of course—and was righteously infuriated by her past behavior.

Quint cleared his throat. “Misty, I don’t want Brady to—uh—hear any of this.”

Brady was tugging on his father’s hand, ignoring the adult conversation. “C’mon, Daddy. See Bananas.”

For once Quint was grateful for the toddler’s one-track mind, firmly set on his beloved video.

“I’ll put him to bed,” Rachel said quickly, hurrying over to take Brady from Quint. She cut a wide path around Misty, half-expecting the other woman to spring at her like a wild jungle cat. Those chartreuse claws of her looked like they could slash through internal organs.

“Bitches like you oughta be shot,” Misty called as Rachel fled the room with Brady. “They oughta rip out your ovaries so you can’t have any more kids to—”

“Misty, this is only making things worse,” Quint cut in, but Misty was not to be appeased.

“You gotta take a stand, Quint. She doesn’t give a damn about that baby and she’ll—”

The voices became indecipherable as Rachel reached the top of the stairs but she didn’t slow her pace until she reached Brady’s room. She closed the door, feeling safe in the quietude and cheerful colors of the nursery.

“Who that?” Brady asked as he ran to his shelves to rummage through one of the bright plastic baskets filled with toys.

“Cruella De Vil’s tacky cousin,” said Rachel, then felt a twinge of shame because one shouldn’t prejudice a child in such a way. “A lady to see Daddy,” she amended, though Brady seemed uninterested in either of her answers.

He found what he was looking for, a small banana doll dressed in striped pajamas, a replica of the character in the video.

“Is he going to listen to your story with you?” Rachel asked, and Brady nodded his head. She found his ritual storybook and carried him over to the rocking chair. He clutched the toy banana while she read and rocked.

Brady was almost asleep by the end of the story, and she placed him carefully in his crib. He smiled up at her, looking as cherubic as a little angel, and Rachel felt her heart ache with tenderness for him. Then he stretched out his arm, grabbed the generic raccoon by its striped tail and tossed it out of the crib.

Rachel laughed as the toy hit the floor. “Reject Raccoon is foiled again. Even half-asleep, you can spot those gatecrashers, can’t you, Brady?”

She wanted to tell Quint that Brady’s eviction record still stood. But as she crept down the stairs she could hear Quint’s and Misty’s voices in the kitchen. It sounded as if they were talking on the telephone, and Rachel decided not to hang around. Why bother to correct her mistaken identity when her true identity—an attorney for the Tildens—would hardly inspire any overtures of friendship from the widow, either. Not that she wanted to be Misty Tilden’s friend.

But Misty was Quint’s friend. Her drop-in visit, her knowledge of Brady’s mother was evidence that her relationship with Quint Cormack extended beyond the formal limits of attorney-client. Rachel felt jealousy spiral through her. Was Quint sleeping with Misty Tilden? The thought made her sick. And where did Dana Sheely fit into the equation?

Thoroughly dispirited, Rachel left the house. She felt as if she were trapped in a soap-opera plot, an unwilling part of a quadrangle—or was it a pentagram?—because there was also Carla Cormack to add to the roster. Rachel pictured Quint’s pretty young stepmother, who’d clung to him like he was her rock during the fire.

There were already too many women in Quint Cormack’s life, and possibly more she didn’t know about. Perhaps enough to form a sorority all their own. Rachel, never one for large groups, made a resolute vow not to join.

She was surprised to see lights shining from her apartment windows as she walked from her parking space to the front door of the restored Victorian gingerbread house, which had been subdivided and remodeled into four apartments. Each apartment consisted of only three rooms—kitchen, living room, and bedroom plus bath—but the rooms were large with high ceilings and window seats and other interesting turn-of-the-century touches that distinguished them from the dull high-rise apartment buildings which abounded along the highways surrounding Lakeview.

Only two people had keys to her apartment, her aunt Eve and sister Laurel. Rachel glanced at the wide wooden staircase as she inserted her key in the lock and wished that she lived on the upper floor instead of at ground level. At least she would have an extra few moments to compose her thoughts, for she was certain that Aunt Eve was waiting for her inside, ready to plan their Tilden strategy.

And to indulge in some major Quint Cormack and Misty Tilden bashing?

Rachel swallowed hard. She remembered everything she’d ever said about Quint, but her antipathy to that demonic lawyer felt unconnected to the man she’d come to know over the past few days. She couldn’t summon the requisite hostility, and she wondered if Aunt Eve would notice.

Nervously, Rachel pushed open the door. Maybe, just maybe, it might not be in her own best interest to disclose where she’d been tonight. Or with whom.

But Eve Saxon wasn’t waiting inside for her with stacks of will-busting law texts.

Laurel sat curled up on the flowered chintz sofa, leafing through a yellowing-paged paperback. Rachel read the title from across the room. Games Mother Never Taught You. Upon Aunt Eve’s suggestion, Rachel had read it years ago but couldn’t imagine Laurel ever picking up a book about corporate gamesmanship for women. Then again, she couldn’t imagine why Laurel was here on a Friday night without her husband and child.

“Laurel, what’s happened?” Rachel was concerned. “Is something wrong?”

“You think there’s something wrong because I’m out alone on a Friday night past nine o’clock?” Laurel tossed down the book and stood up. “Can’t I even drop by to visit my own sister without everybody assuming that something happened?”

She looked sulky and defiant, without a trace of her usual people-pleasing smile. And she was wearing tight jeans—Laurel never wore jeans because her husband didn’t like them—and one of those short clingy T-shirts that Katie Sheely favored. The kind that Aunt Eve had deemed unsuitable office attire but Katie wore anyway because she paid no attention to Eve’s wardrobe advice. The kind that the always conservatively dressed Laurel never wore.

“Where are Gerald and Snowy, Laurel?”

“At home, of course. Where else would Gerald be on a Friday night?”

Rachel felt anxiety strike her solar plexus and radiate outward as her sister’s face grew harder. Laurel Saxon Lynton smiled and flirted and wept, but this rebellious attitude of hers—which even included her clothing—was something new. Something worrisome.

She followed Laurel into the kitchen, watched her open the freezer portion of the refrigerator and stare at the contents inside.

“Everybody else in the world might have plans for Friday night but never Professor Gerald Lynton. Oh no, he wants to stay home on Fridays and have his dinner served to him on a tray so he can watch C-SPAN while he eats. That’s his idea of kicking off the weekend—eating dinner in front of the TV set watching Congress doing nothing. Wow! Really wild, huh, Rach?”

“You two had a fight,” Rachel surmised.

Laurel sneered. “Duh!”

Rachel studied her sister closely. Laurel was something of a drama queen. She and her husband used to fight a lot but in the past year, their quarrels seemed to have diminished in number and ferocity. Rachel had been frankly relieved. It seemed to her that Laurel and Gerald were heading toward a higher realm, a comfortable mature companionship.

Now it appeared the couple had relapsed and were back in the lowlands of fighting and tears. Except Laurel’s eyes were dry, not even slightly red-rimmed. She had not been crying, an observation that filled Rachel with trepidation. Laurel always cried!

“You don’t have any ice cream.” Laurel closed the freezer and turned to Rachel to flash her adorable smile, the one that Wade often joked she should patent because it worked so well. He had a similar version of his own.

“I know what, Rachel. Let’s go out for ice cream. Please!” Laurel caught her sister’s hand. “We can go to Richman’s in Cherry Hill and we’ll get banana splits, like we used to. Oh let’s, Rachel. It’ll be fun!”

Was it destiny or a peculiar coincidence that bananas seemed to be play an integral part of this evening? First, Brady with his video, now Laurel with her demand to go to the ice-cream shop. Scarily enough, Laurel was acting a bit like Brady, clutching Rachel’s hand, practically jumping up and down … ready to throw a tantrum if thwarted? All of that was perfectly normal for a two-year-old, but Laurel was a married woman, the mother of a three-year-old girl.

Rachel thought of her small niece and her heart clenched. “Laurel, I think you should go home and make up with Gerald right now. Does he know where you are? I didn’t see your car outside. How did you get here?”

“Gerald wouldn’t let me have the car keys, so I ran out of the house.” Laurel pouted, all traces of adorable amiability gone. “I decided to walk over here, and who should be driving along Lake Avenue but Wade, so I hitched a ride with him. He was in a horrible mood—he just about bit my head off when I asked him why he was alone on a Friday night—but he dropped me off here.”

“Did you tell Wade you’d had a fight with Gerald?”

“I told him what I told Gerald, that I was sick and tired of acting like I was forty instead of twenty-three. I want to have some fun, I want to have a life!”

“You have a life, Laurel. You’re married and a mother; it’s what you’ve always wanted.”

“You sound just like Wade!” Laurel snapped. “Well, I’ll tell you what I told him. It’s not enough! I don’t have any friends, I don’t have anyone to talk to or do fun things with. Gerald expects me to hang around with those dull faculty wives and most of them have kids as old as me or even older! Well, I have nothing to—”

“What did Gerald say when you told him all this?” Rachel made herself ask.

“Oh, the usual. He tried to tell me what to think and what to do and how to feel; he acted like he’s the brilliant master and I’m the nitwit slave.”

Rachel was very nervous indeed. She remembered Aunt Eve predicting this outcome, this very argument, during Laurel’s engagement to Gerald Lynton, the professor who taught the required freshman course Government and the Constitution at Carbury College. Eighteen-year-old Laurel had found the subject boring but the bachelor professor fascinating. She and Lynton carried on a secret romance for a year before gossip reached the administration, forcing the taboo relationship into the open.

Aunt Eve wanted to press sexual-harassment charges against Professor Lynton for violating teacher-student strictures, she wanted him fired from his faculty position, tenure be damned. Laurel wanted to get married and her mother, though expressing a few reservations about the couple’s age difference, was eager to begin planning the wedding.

Rachel remembered Laurel’s big elaborate wedding—she’d been a reluctant maid of honor—with mixed feelings. She couldn’t forget Aunt Eve’s prediction of disaster for the couple whom she descibed as “criminally mismatched in age and in every other way.” But Laurel had been a lovely happy bride, Gerald seemed very much in love with her, and their mother was genuinely thrilled. Professor Whit Saxon, as usual, had little to say. He believed daughters were the main province of their mother and rarely offered opinions or advice to either Rachel or Laurel.

Since Snowy’s birth, Rachel’s doubts about the couple’s future had begun to fade, she’d even taken a liking to her sometimes pedantic brother-in-law. She was certain Gerald loved his wife and child, and that elemental fact was what really mattered, wasn’t it?

But now, here was Laurel claiming that her husband was old and dull while she was young and wanted to have fun.

Rachel didn’t know how to deal with this new strange version of Laurel, who talked about having “fun.” Was fun a euphemism for something as simple as Laurel taking tap-dancing and aerobics classes at the community center, which she’d once signed up for, then quit because Gerald deemed it a waste of her time? Or did this rebel-Laurel equate fun with the ominous concept of sexual freedom?

Rachel gazed assessingly at her sister. A reality check was definitely in order. “Laurel, this alleged fun you think you want to have is vastly overrated. You’ve been involved with Gerald since you were eighteen, and you went with Brian Collender for four years before that. You’ve been protected from the sadistic dating hell that’s been misnamed fun. You already have what every woman wants, Laurel. A husband who loves you, an adorable child who—”

“Every woman doesn’t want that, Rachel. You don’t,” countered Laurel. “Aunt Eve sure doesn’t. And I can finally see why. Both of you do important, interesting things, you have exciting lives. You take trips and buy cool cars and don’t have to ask anybody’s permission to go where you want or get what you want. You don’t have anybody hovering over you telling you what to do and say and wear.”

“Your life isn’t like that, Laurel,” Rachel argued weakly because her sister’s marriage was a lot like that. Gerald was the dominant partner; his word was final, no matter what. Aunt Eve had said from the start it would be that way. But it was what Laurel had claimed she wanted more than anything else in the world.

“Yes, it is and we all know it!” Laurel’s voice rose, and she spoke with a force and an intensity that was totally out of character for her. “I’m miserable, Rachel! It’s been building and building inside me. I haven’t said a word to anybody, but this past year I realized that marrying Gerald was a big mistake!”

“Oh, Laurel, no!” Rachel gasped her dismay.

Which incited Laurel even more. “It’s true, and I can’t take it anymore! I want what you have, Rachel. I want a life like yours and Aunt Eve’s. It’s not too late for me to start over, is it? I’m only twenty-three, I can go back to school and—”

The telephone began to ring and Laurel paused in mid-sentence. “Aren’t you going to get that?” she asked when Rachel remained immobile, not bothering to take the three necessary steps to pick up the receiver.

Rachel shook her head, and the answering machine automatically clicked on at the sixth ring.

“Rachel, this is Quint. Pick up, I know you’re there,” Quint’s voice came over the line. “Misty is gone, and we need to talk.”