“Are you sure you want to do this?” Todd asked for at least the seventeenth time.
“I want my knife.” Sally leaned back in the contoured leather seat of his Saab, her sunglasses shielding her eyes from the glare of a brilliant Saturday afternoon on Connecticut’s Gold Coast. She knew her roots were buried in rocky soil miles from Beacon Hill, a culture away from the rarefied air of the Mondaga Colony, far enough from the world of Winfield College that during her two years as a student she’d sometimes felt she ought to be carrying a passport. But Gold Coast Connecticut was the worst, probably because Gold Coast Connecticut was where Paul’s parents lived, and Paul’s parents had never bothered to disguise their belief that she was a bottom-of-the-barrel slut who’d seduced their son and tricked him into marrying her.
She and Todd weren’t going to be visiting the Drivers. Todd had indicated quite clearly that he didn’t think much of Paul’s parents, either, which only made her love him more.
Southport clung with proprietary arrogance to the coastline of Long Island Sound. From the charming village center, roads radiated out into mansion territory. The closer to the water they drove, the grander the houses.
According to the directions they’d received at the gas station on Route 1, Laura Rose D’Orsini’s address put her home right on the water.
The Saab’s windows and sunroof were open, letting in the balmy May sunshine. Sally had worn a flowered cotton dress that tied at the waist in back. She focused on the comfort of the dress, the sweet, grassy scent of the breeze and the calm demeanor of the man beside her. She and Todd had gotten through Laura encounters before, and they’d survived. Now, when they were likely to face the real Laura, they were lovers, a united front. They’d get the knife and move on with their lives, just the way Sally had intended for them to move on with their lives before Helen had mentioned that Paul’s childhood baby-sitter had been the object of his undying love.
“I think you’re supposed to turn here,” she said, glancing at the directions she’d jotted on a scrap of paper as the gas station attendant had dictated them.
Nodding, Todd steered around the corner. The road was narrow, bordered by emerald lawns and canopied with maples and sycamores. Sally caught a faint whiff of salt water.
Laura Rose D’Orsini is going to be rich, she reminded herself. She’s going to be charismatic. She’s going to be sophisticated, elegant, glamorous. But she writes gushy letters. And she’s got my knife.
“That’s it,” she said, pointing to a pair of white gates that stood open on either side of a blacktop driveway.
“What would we have done if the gates were closed?” Todd asked wryly.
“Battered them down with the car.”
“Not my car.”
“Do you mean to say you care more about your Snob than about finding Laura?”
“You bet I do.”
The driveway wasn’t too long, and the house at its end wasn’t too big. White clapboard surrounded by slate patios, it sat on a promontory overlooking the sound. The land alone must have cost a king’s ransom—which, if Laura’s former husband was royalty, shouldn’t have put too much of a dent in her bank account.
“Who would have thought,” she muttered, “that a girl who grew up in a trailer could end up consorting with the ex-wives of princes?”
“Yeah, and cruising around in my cool car,” Todd teased.
Ignoring him, she shoved open the door and filled her lungs with the dense, sour fragrance of the sea.
“I wonder if they’ve got Swan Boats here,” Todd said as he climbed out of the car and met her by the front bumper. “The water looks a little choppy for paddleboats.”
“Let’s just hope she’s home so we don’t need to pass the time on a boat.” Sally hoisted the straps of her tote bag onto her shoulder and started toward the broad veranda that faced the water.
Todd touched the small of her back. “You sure you’re okay?”
She had to love him. How could she not, when he showed such concern for her?
“Of course I’m okay.” She spoke with enough resolve to convince herself. Why shouldn’t she be okay? She’d faced two other Lauras, both times assuming she’d found the right one. It was always possible that this Laura would turn out to be a wrong one, too. Just because there were a whole bunch of clues pointing to the prince’s American ex didn’t mean Sally and Todd might once again discover that this wasn’t the Laura they were searching for.
Together they climbed the porch steps and approached the door, an artist’s fantasy of carved and polished wood and beveled glass. For the first time in all their Laura travels, the doorbell was easy to find. That could be a sign, although Sally wasn’t sure what it was a sign of.
She pressed the button, waited, and then saw motion through the glass, a shadow sweeping across the door before it opened.
She swallowed. Of course I’m okay, she repeated to herself, but the conviction was no longer there. Not when she stood toe to toe with a woman whose very appearance seemed to define the concepts of charisma, sophistication, elegance and glamour. She was tall and slender, with a neck so long it reminded Sally a little of an illustration in Rosie’s copy of Alice in Wonderland, on the page where Alice had taken a bite of the cake that said “Eat me.” This woman’s neck was much more graceful than Alice’s, of course. Her hair was ebony, her complexion alabaster, her eyes onyx. Her head belonged in a sculpture garden.
The woman had on an outfit of white silk, the slim-fitting slacks flattering her fat-free legs and the top a swirl of fluttering sleeves and sleek draping. Pearls the size of small onions adorned her ears, and an even larger pearl framed in diamonds dangled on a chain around her neck.
“You’re not the piano tuner, are you?” she asked, gazing at Todd and Sally.
Sally swallowed again. She was not going to let this splendid woman intimidate her. She was not.
“I’m Sally Driver,” she said.
The woman paused for a long time. She didn’t say, Sally who? She didn’t look confused.
This was their Laura. They’d found her.
Far from feeling victorious, Sally suffered a throb of dread so profound her entire body trembled from it.
This Laura was magnetic, majestic, magnificent. She was sleek and fashionable, poised and polished, a woman who would never walk around with a box of animal crackers in her tote bag. Sally’s gaze drifted to the pearl earrings again. She imagined South Sea oysters competing to see who could make the prettiest pearls for Laura Rose.
She wished Todd would touch the small of her back again. That was his signal to her, a light infusion of strength combined with an assurance that he had faith in her. He didn’t touch her now, however. He was too busy scrutinizing the woman standing in the foyer of the stately waterfront house.
“Sally Driver,” she said evenly, her eyes flashing, her manicured red nails fluttering as she wavered between offering her hand to her guest and reaching for the door to close it. “Ah.” Another long pause, and she turned to Todd. “And you’re…?”
“Todd Sloane.”
“Oh, yes! Todd Sloane. The newspaperman.”
Todd seemed to stand a little taller at that remark. Clearly, Paul had mentioned him to Laura, and he seemed rather pleased about it. Paul must have mentioned Sally, too—in her letters she’d bemoaned the existence of his wife—but Sally didn’t feel pleased at all.
“Well,” Laura said, studying them as if trying to guess their heights. “Why don’t you come in.”
She was going to be civilized, Sally thought ruefully. If Laura was civilized, Sally would have to be civilized, too, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to be. She might want to scream or throw things, but she wouldn’t be able to if they were all acting mature and diplomatic.
Reluctantly, she removed her sunglasses, hooked them over the neckline of her dress and stepped into the Palazzo D’Orsini.
Laura Hawkes’s Beacon Hill town house was a hovel compared with the ex-princess’s seaside abode, which turned out to be a lot larger than it had appeared from the driveway. Vast, airy rooms opened in all directions, one of them containing nothing but a concert grand—the instrument in need of tuning, Sally presumed. Did Laura play? Musical talent would only be gilding the lily. She didn’t need to do anything. She didn’t need skills or gifts. Her appearance alone was enough to justify her existence.
“Lyman?” she murmured into the air. If her voice were a fabric, it would be burgundy velvet.
A man materialized in one of the doorways. Silver-haired and tidily paunchy, he wore tailored trousers, a white shirt and a white apron similar in style to the aprons Sally and the staff wore at the New Day Café. He waited attentively until more burgundy velvet emerged from Laura: “Would you please fix us some lemonade? I believe we’ll retire to the back patio.” With a silent nod, Lyman departed.
A butler. The woman had a butler. Not a young, sexy one, either, although she could certainly afford any kind of butler she wanted. But then, she hadn’t needed a young, sexy butler when she’d had Paul.
They reached the back patio through a maze of rooms the functions of which Sally couldn’t begin to guess. Laura led the way, her gait so smooth it was almost as if she were gliding along on roller skates. Her shoulders didn’t rise and fall; her enviably slender hips didn’t sway.
Sally glanced at Todd as they followed Laura through a French door and outside to an expanse of slate on the opposite side of the house. Todd didn’t return her look. He seemed transfixed by his surroundings. Sally couldn’t blame him.
The back patio overlooked the water, which indicated that the house was set on a spit of land protruding into the sound. A flight of stairs led down from the patio to an Olympic-size pool surrounded by more slate, with a cabana and a bathhouse positioned conveniently on either side of the pool. From that level, another flight of stairs descended to a private beach.
Sally had to exert herself not to hyperventilate.
Had Paul felt at home in such surroundings? Had the opulence appealed to him? Or had he not even noticed it? In the presence of a deity like Laura D’Orsini, he might have found the pool and the beach superfluous.
They sat on comfortable white sling chairs on the top patio. The rear wall of the house was white, the sand on the beach below was white and Laura’s ensemble was white. Sally felt crude in her colorful dress.
She focused on her breathing: in, out, in, out. Laura D’Orsini breathed, too. Inside all that white silk, she had a pair of lungs no healthier than Sally’s. She was flesh and blood and bone—although Sally wouldn’t be surprised to learn that, as refined as she was, she never had to go to the bathroom.
Lyman emerged from the house carrying a silver tray on which was balanced a large crystal pitcher of lemonade and three crystal glasses. He filled the glasses, distributed them and receded into the house.
“I’m sorry about your loss,” Laura said to Sally.
Sally tried not to choke on her lemonade. Was she supposed to say she was sorry about Laura’s loss, too?
The afternoon light lent Laura a shimmer she didn’t need. “Paul was a special man.”
“I guess you’d know,” Sally muttered none too graciously. She was more than willing to concede first place in the graciousness competition to Laura.
Laura sipped daintily from her glass, then lowered it to a table at her elbow. “Sally, I want to assure you that if I’d known Paul was married, I wouldn’t have become involved with him.”
“Yeah, right.”
“I’m not that kind of woman. I would never knowingly get involved with a married man.” Laura’s lips were exactly the same color as her fingernails. “I would have insisted that he get a divorce first.”
Wonderful. Either way, she qualified as a home wrecker.
Evidently detecting the thunderbolts of animosity firing from Sally’s eyes, she turned to Todd. “How did you find out about me?”
“Short answer?” Todd smiled. “He saved your letters.”
“Oh, he did? How romantic.” She shot Sally an apologetic look, then turned back to Todd. “He told me so much about you, Todd. You were an anchor in his life.” She swiveled again to Sally, her exquisite face arranged in a pose of sympathy. “I want you to understand, Sally, that none of this was your fault.”
“That’s a relief,” Sally grumbled sarcastically. “I was feeling really guilty that my husband was having an affair with you.”
“What I mean is, it wasn’t just some thing.”
“Oh,” Sally snapped. “I’d been sure it was a thing.” Todd sent her a quelling look, a warning that she wasn’t acting civilized enough. She didn’t care.
“Paul and I had a history,” Laura explained. “Quite a complicated history. He’d been in love with me long before he met you.”
“Right. When he was seven, I heard. Some kind of pedophile thing, was it? Oops—I’m sorry. I forgot. It wasn’t a thing.”
Laura looked even more sympathetic, as if she felt just terrible about how painful this all must be for poor Sally. “I never knew he loved me until my marriage. He was a senior in high school then. His family and mine had been neighbors and friends, so of course he attended my wedding. He asked to dance with me, and as he spun me around the floor—it was a waltz, as I recall—he told me he loved me. Needless to say, I was stunned. He was just a child—well, a teenager—and I was a new bride. He had tears in his eyes. Of course there was nothing I could do. He was so young and adorable.”
“Oh, yes. Paul was so adorable,” Sally muttered.
Laura overlooked her surly tone. “I’d heard from my parents that he went to college and law school. I was happy for him. Alas, my own marriage was not particularly happy.”
It was damn profitable, though, Sally almost said.
“When I got divorced, my husband retained the vineyard in Tuscany and I took this house. Todd must have heard about the divorce from his parents, and he contacted me. I swear to you that I didn’t know he was married.”
“So he lied to you. Welcome to the club.”
“He did tell me eventually, Sally. He told me about your lovely daughter—”
“Keep my daughter out of it.” It pained Sally to think Rosie might have been named after this gorgeous, privileged, extraordinarily blessed woman. Why couldn’t her little girl have been named after a grotesque loser?
Laura sighed, a whisper of breath that seemed to say, Well, I’ve tried to be pleasant. I’ve given it my best effort. Then she shifted in her chair and crossed her legs in Todd’s direction, cutting Sally out of the conversation. “Paul’s death was a terrible loss. I grieved as much as anyone.”
Todd nodded. He was obviously willing to be civil enough for himself and Sally both. “It was a nasty accident,” he said. “Black ice. You don’t see it until you’re on top of it, and then it’s too late. He shouldn’t have been driving his Alfa Romeo, of course.”
“Not an appropriate vehicle to drive in that weather.”
“He probably thought he was indestructible.”
“I suppose we all do, to some extent,” Laura agreed, lifting her glass and holding it before her, almost as if she wanted to clink glasses with Todd.
How nice, Sally thought. They were making friends, bonding in their shared belief that Paul had thought he was indestructible. Todd stared into Laura’s face as though it was physically impossible for him to look away. Maybe it was. She was that spectacular.
Sally watched the two of them talk, paying less attention to the words than to the movements of their mouths, the alternation of their voices. Todd was telling Laura about rooming with Paul at Columbia, how Paul’s meticulousness had forced him to become a neater person. Laura said she thought Todd appeared to be a remarkably neat fellow. Todd told her about the time he and Paul took the IRT downtown to a punk club in SoHo and Paul freaked out at the sight of all those rockers with spiked hair and pit bull collars. Laura commented that she couldn’t believe Todd would have been freaked out. “Paul was provincial, in his own way. As a journalist, I’m sure you’re much more open to adventure.”
“I try to be,” Todd admitted.
Sally’s vision narrowed on Todd. He was basking in Laura’s approval, savoring it. When Laura touched his arm he leaned toward her.
Why did she have to fall for the type of man who would fall for Laura? That probably included every type of man in the universe, but here she was, watching Todd, the man she loved, sucking up to the same rich, alluring woman who’d possessed Paul’s heart.
Sally couldn’t bear it. She was who she was—the Not-Laura, the Un-Laura, the antithesis of Laura—and she was losing Todd to Laura the way she’d lost Paul to her, the way she’d lose any man to her.
“Excuse me,” she said, breaking into their charming chatter. “I need to find a bathroom.”
Laura seemed dazed for a moment, as if she’d forgotten Sally was there. “Oh—well, there are several. If you don’t find one, ask Lyman to direct you.”
“Thanks.” Sally pushed to her feet, walked to the French door with as much dignity as she could muster and entered the house.
She didn’t want to find a bathroom. She just wanted to get the hell away from Laura’s mansion, away from the woman who could so easily woo away the man Sally loved.
Todd. She wanted to weep. Todd was as smitten as a thirty-three-year-old man as Paul had been as a young boy. He was entranced. He was enchanted. One smile from Laura, one touch, and he was melting like ice cream in the sun.
She’d thought he was better. She’d thought he’d cared for her, wanted her…even loved her. And maybe he had. Maybe it was easy enough to love Sally until someone like Laura came along.
The hell with him. She knew how to survive a heartbreak. She’d done it before, in the very recent past. She was getting the hang of it.
It took her less than a minute to retrace the route to the front door. She stepped outside, closed the door quietly behind her, slipped her sunglasses on and headed down the driveway to the road.
They were less than a mile from the pretty downtown village where they’d stopped for directions. Her sandals were comfortable, and the leaves of the arching trees lining the road provided shade—although she had a tube of sunblock with her, just in case. She could walk to town, find out where the nearest bus station was and take a cab there. She was pretty sure she had enough cash for a cab, and she could put the bus ticket on her credit card.
She’d go home, get Rosie from Trevor’s house and swear off men. Not an impossible task. Not even an especially difficult one when she considered what assholes the men in her life were. Her father, her husband, her lover. One she’d never even met, one she’d never really had and one…
One she hated.
She’d fought with him. She’d let him see her anger and sorrow. She hadn’t knocked herself out to make him happy, and it hadn’t mattered. He’d been happy with her just the way she was.
Until now. Until he’d discovered that a princess was more desirable than a peasant.
Screw him.
A Jaguar convertible drove slowly past her, the driver gaping at her as if he’d never seen a pedestrian before. She ignored him. She also ignored the woman driving the Mercedes SUV and the man driving the dark green Bentley. She just kept walking. The exertion simultaneously soothed and fueled her. By the time she reached town, she’d be over Todd. She promised herself she would.
The distance to town seemed to expand with each step she took. Her feet puffed in the heat, and sweat filmed her skin. Her hair felt heavy on her back, but when she paused to excavate in her tote bag for a barrette, she couldn’t find one. The damn bag seemed to have gained five pounds during her walk, but for all the clutter inside it, she couldn’t even find a ribbon to tie her hair back with.
It didn’t matter. She wanted to feel lousy, and being hot, sticky, frizzy haired and puffy footed fit her mood perfectly.
Eventually she reached the village. An eatery beckoned—the Southport equivalent of the New Day, a small café with round tables and drinks for sale. She’d buy herself a real lemonade, not one served in priceless crystal but one served in a plastic tumbler, the way lemonade was meant to be. She’d drink it, catch her breath, then inquire about cab service to the bus station.
The café was cool and gloomy after the bright sun. Sally stood in the doorway until her eyes adjusted, then removed her sunglasses and peered at the prices posted on the wall above the counter. For the cost of a glass of lemonade in this joint, a person could enjoy a tall iced cappuccino and a bagel at the New Day.
But then, this place was probably patronized by the ex-wives of dukes, not college kids and seedy professors, cops and housewives, newspaper staffers and a man writing the Great American Novel, which he would undoubtedly dedicate to Sally for having kept him in coffee during its creation.
She greeted the middle-aged woman behind the counter with a smile of sisterhood and ordered a lemonade. “Is there a bus station near here?” she asked.
“There’s a train station just up the block,” the woman said helpfully as she filled a textured plastic cup with lemonade for Sally, who gratefully wrapped her fingers around its humdrum surface.
“Can I get a train going north from there?”
“The trains go west and east. Where do you want to go?”
“North.”
“Well,” the woman said, collecting the dollar bills Sally extended to her and handing her back a pathetically small amount of change, “you can take the train east to New Haven and then pick up the Amtrak there. That’ll get you north.”
“Thanks.” Sally stashed the pennies in her wallet, plucked a napkin from the dispenser on the counter and carried her glass to a marble-topped pedestal table away from the window. She didn’t want to look out on the picturesque street. She wanted to sulk and fume. She wanted to pout and be ugly.
The sweat began to dry on her, chilling her. A sip of the lemonade chilled her even more. She lifted her hair off her neck and fanned it up and down, then let it drop against her back again.
She sorted her thoughts.
What surprised her the most was that she was more upset about Todd’s betrayal than about Paul’s. Paul had been her husband; he’d committed adultery; he’d had a torrid love affair with that woman, that paragon, that golden goddess.
All Todd had done was embody a bunch of clichéd male reflexes, gazing at her with stars in his eyes and hanging on her every word. All he’d done was indicate to Sally that, given a choice, he’d pick Laura.
Why did it hurt so much she wanted to weep? Why did she suspect that at least some of the perspiration on her face was actually tears? Why did the thought of going back to Winfield alone and spending the rest of her life loathing that no-good son of a bitch leave her feeling desolate?
The door swung open, and a couple of teenage girls bounced in, skinny and giggly. Sally lowered her eyes to her glass and took a heady sip. Sweet and bitter, just the way lemonade was supposed to taste. Sweet for what love could be like, and bitter for what love too often was.
She loved Todd. She hurt because she loved him in a way she’d never really loved Paul. Oh, of course she’d loved Paul, because he was her husband and the father of her daughter, because circumstances had compelled them to make a life together and Sally’s motto always was to make the best of the life you were living, and if the life you were living was that of a wife in a marriage, you might as well love your husband.
But with Todd…With Todd, circumstances hadn’t compelled her. She’d known him long enough to experience a gamut of emotions with him, and all those emotions had come together to create love. Todd had exasperated her. He’d infuriated her. He’d challenged her. He’d actually taken the time to consider who she was and how he felt about it.
Paul never had. He’d married her because it had been the decent thing to do, and then he’d never really given her much consideration at all—except to snicker about her behind her back when he’d met Todd for drinks after work.
Todd had never done anything with her because it was the decent thing to do. He’d done what he’d done with her because he’d wanted to. Chosen to. Needed to. Because he’d felt something for her, deep inside.
And now he was flirting with the belle of the Connecticut Gold Coast. What he’d felt for Sally deep inside wasn’t strong enough to keep him from looking elsewhere, looking for someone wealthier, fancier, classier, lovelier.
The door opened again. She bowed over her drink, uninterested in viewing more giggling teenagers. The lemonade bathed her tongue and sent another chill down her spine. She prayed she wouldn’t start blubbering in the back corner of this overpriced café.
A click on the table caused her to shift her eyes. There, lying on the veined-marble surface, was her pocketknife.
She lifted her gaze high enough to view Todd’s midsection, then focused back on the knife. It looked okay, the plastic handle faded to a creamy beige, the hula girl’s lei draped discreetly to conceal her breasts, her smile nearly rubbed off but still saucy.
“This is all I’ve got of your dad,” her mother had told her. “This and you. You’re the best thing he left me. So if you want, you can have the other thing.”
Her knife. The knife she’d given Paul because she’d wanted to believe he meant that much to her.
Todd pulled out one of the wire-backed chairs and dropped onto it. Sally avoided looking at him.
“I’ve been driving around this fucking town for a half hour, trying to find you,” he said.
“Well, you found me.”
“Why did you disappear like that?”
Because I was jealous. Because I couldn’t bear to see you gazing at Laura the way Paul must have gazed at her, the way a man gazes at a woman he adores. “You and Laura seemed to be getting along just fine without me,” she said. “I wasn’t really needed.”
“You weren’t needed? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s supposed to mean that you and Laura were getting along just fine without me, reminiscing about what a swell guy Paul was. The two of you have so much in common. She’s beautiful and you’ve got eyes. She’s wealthy beyond words, and you drive a Saab. She loved Paul and so did you.”
“Paul was a two-timing asshole. He cheated on Laura, too, don’t forget. He didn’t tell her he was married for quite a while.”
“You’re right. Gee, I feel so sorry for her.” Sally silenced herself with a sip of lemonade. It definitely tasted more bitter than sweet.
“And meanwhile, you decided to disappear. One minute I’m talking with Laura, and the next minute I’m worrying that you took a wrong turn on your way to the bathroom and wound up in Long Island Sound.”
“Big deal. I can swim.”
“You know what?” He sounded seriously pissed off. “You’re crazy.”
“I am not.”
“I can’t believe you just vanished like that.”
“It was what I wanted to do,” she said, at last feeling defiant enough to look at him. Her vision filled with him, his dark eyes, his gloriously thick hair, the sharp angle of his jaw, the sensuous line of his mouth even when he was scowling. “I wanted to walk away from the whole thing. Laura, my stupid marriage, my cheating husband, everything. I just wanted to walk away, and I did.”
“You wanted to walk away from me?”
“As you said, you were talking to Laura—for more than one minute, if you want to get technical about it.” He was too handsome. Too big and strong and angry, and sexy. She lowered her gaze back to the knife lying on the table.
“The lady needed to talk. She missed Paul. She’s still in mourning for him. I didn’t think you’d mind, since you don’t seem to be in mourning for him anymore.” He hesitated, and when he resumed, he sounded troubled and tense. “Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you’re still in mourning for him.”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Then you. You were obviously turned on by her—”
“You’re crazy.” But he sounded less angry. “She was like something from another planet, Sally.”
“The rich, gorgeous planet.”
“The affected, pretentious planet. She was—God, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but she was too thin. I’ve recently discovered that I’m a breast and thigh man.”
“Wonderful. I’ll order you a chicken.”
“You’re the chicken. You’re the one who ran away.”
“I didn’t run,” she snapped, although her anger was fading along with his. “I walked. I didn’t feel like sitting on the sidelines watching yet another man make a fool of himself over Laura.”
“Oh, so letting her talk about Paul makes me a fool? Maybe I’m just a nice guy.”
Sally snorted. The hula girl looked as if she was winking at her. “Did she tell you why Paul gave her this?”
“She said he’d wanted to give her something she could never get anywhere else. With all her money and connections, she could have bought pretty much anything she wanted. But she couldn’t have bought anything as tacky and cheap as that knife. That was why Paul gave it to her.”
“And she didn’t mind giving it back?”
“Not once she heard how much it meant to you.”
“In other words, she thinks I’m tacky and cheap.”
“Well you are, aren’t you?”
She glanced up sharply to discover Todd grinning. Pursing her lips, she reached for the knife. He clamped his hand over hers, warming her skin, warming all the chill out of her.
“You’re not going to stab me, are you?” he asked.
“Not today. If I stab you, I can’t get a ride back to Winfield with you.”
“Admit it—you love my car.”
“I hate your car.”
“I love you, Sally.”
Her mouth softened. So did her heart. Her eyes filled with tears, tears she’d never wanted Todd to see, tears she’d never expected to shed. He’d said he loved her, the only thing she needed to hear, and she wanted to bawl her head off.
“Do you mean that?” she asked.
“No. I’m lying. I think we’ve both discovered how much lying can enrich a relationship.” He shook his head. “Laura is the end of a story, that’s all. I’m a newspaperman. I had to see the story through to the end, and maybe make a little sense out of it. How on earth could you think that meant I was turned on by her?”
“Given her attributes, it’s hard to imagine you wouldn’t be turned on by her.”
“Well, I wasn’t. You’re the one who turns me on, Sally. You.” Even as he pinned her hand to the table, he moved his thumb gently against her wrist. “I don’t know how this happened. I sure wasn’t planning to fall in love with you.”
“But you brought Band-Aids?”
It took him a minute to understand what she was saying. Then he smiled. “You make me laugh. You make me feel. And then—the thought that my talking to Laura could make you jealous—”
“I wasn’t jealous. Just because she’s everything I’m not—”
“Which is exactly why I’m here, with you.”
A few tears escaped and slid down her cheeks. “I love you, too,” she whispered.
His fingers tightened on her, letting her know he’d heard her. Then he released her wrist and handed her her napkin, which she used to wipe her tears. “Let’s go.”
“I’ve still got half a glass of lemonade.”
He lifted the glass to his lips and drained it in three gulps. “There. It’s finished.”
He set down the glass, rose from his chair and pulled her out of hers. When he wrapped his arms around her, she very nearly started crying all over again, and laughing, and demanding that he tell her one more time that he loved her, just so she could be sure. But she was sure. His hug told her he loved her. The kiss he planted on her lips told her. The passion and tenderness in his gaze told her.
“Let’s go home,” he said.
She dropped the knife into her tote bag, took his hand and walked out of the café with him, into the blazing sun, thinking there was nothing in the world she’d rather do than go home with Todd.