One More Knight

Chapter 7

July 5, 1977

Dear Diary,

I’m so confused, I don’t even know how I feel.

Richie’s been calling all day, but I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t know what to say to him. What if he wants to go out with me again? I am so ashamed, I don’t think I can even look at him. Colin says I shouldn’t be ashamed. He came over a little while ago. I told him I didn’t want to talk to him, either, but he climbed up the back porch and came in my window, like he used to when we were kids. He was so sweet. We sat on my bed and he put his arms around me. I cried. He said it wasn’t anybody’s fault, that we’d both just had too much to drink, and that it was okay, nothing has changed, and as far as he is concerned we are still friends. He said we should consider it our secret, and go on as if it never happened.

But it did happen, and it seems like nothing is ever going to be the same again. I even keep looking in the mirror to see if it shows, but I can’t see any difference on the outside. I guess that’s a good thing.

Thought for the Day: I always thought losing my virginity would be something…I don’t know, special. So how come I feel like something the dog left on the lawn?

It was going to be a hot day, a typical June day in the South, already beginning to build toward the afternoon crescendo of thunderstorms. Charly thought she should have been prepared for it, but after twenty years in the land of sun worshipers, endless beaches and backyard swimming pools, she’d forgotten what humidity was like-the way it made the air feel heavy as wet cloth, and the softness of it, like a gentle mist on her skin. Southern California heat had the harshness of the desert in it, a burning dryness that baked the skin to delicious brownness, and then before you knew it, to old leather. In California people played in the sun. In the South they knew better. On days like this, Southerners sat in the shade and drank iced tea and fanned themselves. Those with any sense.

Which obviously didn’t include Troy. Charly, watching him from a shady spot on the steps of the bandstand in the middle of Courthouse Square Park, was ready to conclude that the man had not a lick of sense. There he was, gamboling in the heat with that incredible dog of his, playing tag and chase and fetch and wrestling around like a kid, showing off like some kind of grown-up Tom Sawyer. Just because he was-what?-in his mid-thirties, at least, and had a body like…

Oh, God, he did have a beautiful body, even fully clothed in basic polo shirt and blue jeans. Charly had just come from the land of beautiful bodies, and she’d never seen one that made her heart pound and her throat close up the way his did. And what a picture they made-beautiful man, beautiful dog, performing their own special ballet just for her, on a soft summer morning in the dappled shade of big old oak trees.

Watching them, she felt a strange sort of yearning welling up inside, one that succeeded in smothering temporarily the sharper pain that had already taken up residence there. This was a gentler ache, rather like homesickness. A misty prickling that almost-almost-made her want to smile. And deep within, the slightest warming, the beginnings of softening in the icy knot of rage she carried, now, in her heart.

Oh, no, you don’t! Charly, get a hold of yourself. She leaned forward and let her forehead rest on her knees. It’s this place, she thought, laughing silently, feeling not the least bit amused. It’s the South. I really think it must be a sickness, like malaria.

“Somethin’ funny?”

She lifted her head and watched them come toward her, both dog and master panting and grinning and looking vastly pleased with themselves. Bubba was once more attached to his leash, and Troy was carefully tying a knot in the top of a plastic bag, which he dropped into a trash can as he approached.

“What?” He hooked an arm over the bandstand’s wooden handrail beside her and leaned against it, just slightly out of breath, his face flushed and spangled with sweat, his grin tentative. Like a little boy, Charly thought, who knows he has mud on his shoes.

She looked away, keeping her ironies private for a moment longer, then shook her head and gave up a small huff of laughter. “You.”

“Me?” He looked around in exaggerated puzzlement. “What’d I do?”

What did you do? It was a question that was beginning to occur to her, and one she was afraid she wasn’t going to want to hear the answers to.

She tilted her head toward the trash can. “That something they teach you in the navy?”

His eyebrows rose. “What? You mean, pickin’ up after myself? Ah, hell no. I learned that a long time before I joined the navy.” He ran a hand over his short-cropped hair, his smile becoming wry. “My mama made the U.S. Navy look like summer camp.”

“That right?”

“Oh, yeah.” He glanced at Bubba, who was pulling against his leash, responding to some invisible siren scent, then straightened and held out a hand to Charly. She found herself taking it without a thought. She let him pull her to her feet, and they began to walk together slowly, aimlessly, not talking, letting Bubba sniff and ramble to his doggy heart’s content.

After a bit Troy went on in a voice rusty with reminiscence. “Yeah, my mama ran a tight ship. Had to, I guess. There were seven of us, and my dad was a trucker, so he was gone most a’ the time.”

“Seven,” Charly murmured, breathing a silent whistle. She’d heard most of this already, from Mirabella.

He laughed. “It didn’t seem like so many, growin’ up. Just every few years or so there’d be a new baby in the house, is all.”

“Are you the oldest?”

“Second. I’m the oldest boy-got one older sister. The rest are younger.”

“Well,” Charly said dryly, “then I guess you’ve done your share of baby-sitting.” Don’t think about it. Don’t think at all.

“I have that.” His laughter came so naturally. She was surprised at how much she was beginning to like hearing it, and how much she envied him the easiness of it. “Diapered, bathed, read to and done homework with more kids than most fathers ever do, I guess.”

Diapered, bathed read to… His voice seemed to retreat into distance, to be overtaken by a child’s laughter, and the image of a boy…a bright, beautiful little boy with golden curls…

She stumbled, and Troy’s hand was instantly there, a band of support around her arm.

“Anyway,” he said, going on as if there’d been no interruption, “Mama was a schoolteacher, so she was pretty much used to handling a bunch of rowdy kids. Lord, though, I can tell you it was tough growin’ up a teacher’s kid in a small town. Only thing worse I can imagine is maybe bein’ a preacher’s kid.”

“Or a judge’s…” She muttered it under her breath, and instantly wished she hadn’t. She could feel his head turn toward her like a sonar beam, and imagine the curiosity and speculation in his eyes.

God, there was so much he didn’t know about her. So much she hadn’t told him. And after the night they’d just spent together… God only knew what he must be thinking. It surprised her to realize she actually cared about that, cared what this man thought of her. She wasn’t in the habit of explaining herself, not to anyone, and she’d never told anyone the whole story about her past, not even Mirabella. But she found herself thinking about telling Troy. And wondering what she would say if he were to ask.

But he didn’t ask. All he said was, “Yeah, I guess you probably know what it’s like…” And he paused to let Bubba give a nearby tree his undivided attention, watching the dog now, his eyes in a thoughtful squint that fanned the creases at their corners. “Growin’ up in a small town like this, where everybody knows you, and your folks and everybody else’s business besides.”

“Somehow I don’t think my growing up was very much like yours,” Charly drawled, kicking at a gnarled tree root while she waited for him. Her chest felt tight, stifled.

“No? Why’s that?”

She found his voice soft but compelling, like gentle fingers tugging the strings of a guitar. Primed as she was, she could no more not respond than a plucked guitar string can refuse to vibrate. “For one thing I was an only child.”

“That right?”

His eyes were on her again, bright as searchlights. Meeting them was suddenly too intense, the light in their depths calling up memories even his touch had not. She caught a quick gulp of air, and with a toss of her head, broke the contact.

“And I never knew my mother. She died a few days after I was born.”

“Aw, hell. That’s tough.”

She shrugged away his sympathy, finding it an irritant, like a reminder of an itch she couldn’t scratch. “Not really. I never knew my mother. How can you miss someone you’ve never had?”

Oh, Lord, she hadn’t meant to say that, at least not that way. But somehow her voice had gotten away from her, had risen too fast and too sharply, so that when she broke it off it was with a ragged sound, like something tearing.

“Oh, I don’t know. I think you can.” It was an easy drawl, his manner gentle but with a core of firmness that, like the hand that had held her when she stumbled, would neither let her fall nor escape.

And oh, Lord, the temptation was strong to give in to that firmness, yield to the strength she could sense in him, lean against him and share her burden. He was giving her the openings she needed; the hand was there, and all she had to do was take it.

But she had never yielded to, leaned on or shared her burdens with anyone in her life. Not since Colin. It was too late to change now.

Face it, Charly, you’re alone. You always have been and always will be.

She shook herself, fighting free of the thoughts. “Anyway, I had…someone.”

“Your dad?”

Her chest tightened. She gave a bark of laughter, and after a moment cleared her throat and said in a carefully neutral voice, “Housekeeper. Her name is Dobrina Ralston. I called her Aunt Dobie. She’s the one who raised me.” She walked a few paces, keeping step with him, conscious of the heat, of the day and of his body. Wishing, suddenly, that he would put his arm around her and hold her close to him in spite of it Traitorous notion.

She took a breath and murmured, “I think… she loved me.”

Troy couldn’t answer. He was thinking of the home he’d grown up in, where the love was noisy, confident, taken for granted, a given-never, ever “I think…”

As he angled a look at the woman walking so silently beside him. he tried to think what it would be like to live in a house filled with that silence, instead of with the thud of footsteps, slamming of doors, yells and shouts and arguments and the occasional knock-down-drag-out fight, with laughter and singing, piano lessons and Sesame Street on television. He tried to imagine this woman in that house. He thought about taking her home with him.

That was a surprise. He told himself, Hold on, there, man, what in the hell are you thinking of? She’s not some orphan stray, like that little spotted pup you dragged home when you were ten. She’s a grown-up woman with issues that need settling, and whatever they are, they’re for her to settle, not you.

The only problem with that was, last night he’d made the mistake of letting himself get sidetracked. And what that had done was make it hard for him to remember what his mission was supposed to be in the first place.

Yesterday he’d come to the town of Mourning Spring, Alabama, as his brother’s best man with the sole purpose of rescuing one miscreant maid of honor and delivering her to his brother’s house in Georgia in time for a wedding. End of story. Right?

Wrong. Today he knew it wasn’t anywhere near the end of the story, or the beginning of it, either. He’d pretty much figured out that Charly’s story must have begun a long time ago, right here in this town, and that maybe it was about to end where it had started. And maybe that was what it was supposed to do, all along-like completing a circle. He didn’t know yet what the woman’s story was, or what it was going to take for her to complete that circle, or why it was important to him that she not have to do it alone. He just knew that all of a sudden it was.

Yesterday Charly Phelps had been a name, a general description, somebody he’d heard about. Today she was a woman he’d slept with. Which, oddly enough, had nothing to do with the fact that she was also becoming somebody he cared about.

That thought was unsettling enough to demand some sort of action, so he gave Bubba’s leash a tug and said, “What do you think, ol’ man? Checked out all the local action?”

Bubba gave the tree he was investigating one last snuffle, lifted his leg, then ambled on over and wallowed in between Troy and Charly as proudly as if he owned them both, thumping them each a couple of times with his tail.

Troy said, “Heel, Bubba,” without much hope, then turned to Charly. “How ’bout you? What’s next on your agenda?”

She lifted one arm and combed her hair back from her face with her fingers, closed her eyes and breathed, “My suitcases. Please.”

They’d started back toward the car, Bubba “heeling” so well Troy tripped over him. While he was untangling himself, he looked over at Charly and said, “You sure? I’d thought you’d be wantin’ your purse first thing.”

She gave one of her little signature snorts, and he saw the corner of her mouth go up in that way she had that wasn’t really a smile. “Oh, I do. I just think I’d like to look a little more presentable, is all.”

“Whaddaya mean, presentable?” He nudged her and grinned. “Woman, are you malignin’ my wardrobe? You look fine to me.” He thought she looked more than fine-damn cute, in fact-in one of his V-necked T-shirts, which she was wearing tucked into her own gray slacks and without any evidence of a bra that he could see. She’d looked even cuter earlier this morning, wearing the shirt with just his boxers, but he’d had to concede that the outfit probably wasn’t appropriate for running errands in a small Southern town.

He also didn’t see anything wrong with her hair, which she’d washed in the shower, she’d told him, using one of those little bars of soap for shampoo. She’d been complaining about it ever since, something about it not having “body,” which he’d heard women moan and groan about before and still didn’t get. It looked great to him, sleek and shiny as a crow’s wing, with a slippery look that made him want to touch it. And not just with his fingers. She had great hair, thick and mostly straight but cleverly cut in a way that made it bend and curve and lie just right around her face and neck. Probably cost her a pretty penny, too, if he knew anything at all about women’s upkeep. But worth it. Definitely.

As for makeup, well…like most men, he wasn’t real observant about things like that. He supposed, if she looked close enough, she could probably find all those flaws women worry about and like to fix, cover up or improve on. But as for him, he was more apt to notice what was in a woman’s eyes than painted on them. And a lot more interested in what came out of her mouth, and the way it moved, the way her lips curved and quivered and pouted, than he was in what color lipstick they were wearing. But that was just him…

“I’ve also got to see about getting a new rental car,” Charly was saying. “I’m going to have to call them and break the news about the accident, see what they’re going to want me to do.”

“You’re insured, I hope?”

She gave him a “What kind of an idiot do you take me for?” look. “Fully. I just hope they’ll be willing to deliver a car to me here. I’d hate to have to go to the nearest rental office, which is probably going to be in Huntsville or someplace like that.”

“No problem if you do,” said Troy with an easygoing shrug. “I’d be glad to take you wherever you need to go.”

She muttered, “Thanks, that’s nice of you,” in a stiff, unnatural voice, as if it was a difficult thing for her, being beholden to someone. For a woman in as much difficulty as she seemed to be, she did have an overabundance of pride.

She walked a ways, watching her feet, then cleared her throat and said bluntly, “You know, once I have a car, there’s no need for you to stay around.” That was so close to Troy’s thoughts that he gave a bark of laughter, which seemed to surprise her. She looked at him almost in alarm, and added hastily, “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, I really do.” She stopped there, with a look on her face that told him she was probably remembering the way they’d spent the night, realizing how that sounded in light of it, and getting more and more embarrassed by the minute. She tried again. “Um, what I mean is, I know you must have things to do, places you need to be. Once I have a car, and I get my purse back, you don’t have any…”

“Obligation?” Troy said huskily, stopping her with a touch on her arm and turning her to face him. He heard a tiny break in her breathing that sounded almost like fear, and then her shoulders relaxed and her cheeks went pink, which he personally thought looked good on her. She muttered something under her breath, looking away, looking down at Bubba, looking anywhere except at him. He touched her chin, bringing her face back to him, although her eyes wanted to stay hidden under the cover of her lashes. “Hey,” he said, teasing her, “why are you so anxious to get rid of me?”

She laughed-a small, painful sound-then pulled away from him and walked on. He fell into step beside her. After a moment she drew a quick, catching breath and asked, “Have you…ever done anything you were ashamed of?”

It was so out of the blue, he let go the breath he’d been holding in a gust of surprise. “Hell; yes. Hasn’t everybody?” She made a small, impatient sound. Still off balance, he glanced at her and saw only a profile that looked as if it had been carved in marble. “Hey, look, this isn’t still about last night, is it? Because I have to tell-”

“No!” Her eyes leaped to his face and hung on for one amazing, intoxicating moment. Whiskey eyes. Then she said it again on a slow exhalation and looked away, shaking her head. “No. At least…no, it’s not about that. I mean in the past, like maybe…when you were young.”

That was when he realized how important it was, and what it meant. That was when his heart started to beat faster, and prickles of fear mixed with excitement began to crawl along his skin. Because he suddenly knew it was her own story she meant, and that maybe she was trying to figure out a way to share it with him at last. And because he could see that opening up after a twenty-year silence might not be as easy a thing as he’d thought.

Scared to death he was going to say or do the wrong thing and make her change her mind about telling him, he gave it some thought, then said carefully, “Matter of fact most of the things I’ve done that I was ashamed of were when I was young. I think it goes with the territory.”

She gave her head an angry shake and then for a while said nothing. Just when Troy was thinking to himself, Okay, man, that’s it, that’s all, you blew it-she drew an uneven breath and said, “You’re talking about…like, smoking and drinking, sneaking out at night, lyin’ to your mom, playin’ hooky, two-timing your girlfriend-”

Troy interrupted with mock horror. “Damn, you were a wild child, weren’t you!”

“You don’t know the half of it.” Her smile flickered on and off as if it had a faulty connection, and when she went on, her voice had the gruffness of embarrassment in it. “No, what I’m saying is, those kinds of things, yeah, you did them when you were young, and maybe you were ashamed then, mostly because you knew you were supposed to be. But now? Think about it. Tell me honestly-do you really regret most of the stuff you did back then? I’ll bet you even brag about it.”

He rubbed the back of his neck while he thought about it, then gave a soft chuckle of acceptance. “I guess I don’t. No more’n I regret havin’ been young.”

She nodded tensely. Another moment or two went by. Then she pulled in another breath she didn’t really need. “What I’m talking about is something…bigger. Something that not a day goes by you don’t think about it. Something you dream about, and wake up in a cold sweat thinking about. Ever do anything like that?” Her voice had taken on a new hardness, as if, he thought, she were pushing it through clenched jaws.

He didn’t say anything for a minute. He was thinking about a night lit up by burning buildings instead of stars, a night when the smells of the sea and jungle mingled with the smells of petroleum and blood. And of the friend he’d held in his arms while the life drained out of him.

He drew a careful breath of his own. “Yeah, I have.”

“How do you live with it?”

He thought about it, but didn’t have any answers for her. Not the ones she wanted. “I guess you just do,” he said gruffly. “You move on.”

She gave him a look and said no more, leaving him with a black, angry feeling that he’d failed her.

After that walk in the park, reuniting Charly with her luggage was a breeze. The officer on duty at the police station directed them to the impound yard where the Taurus’s remains had been taken, where they were informed that the suitcases had been removed from the trunk of the wrecked vehicle and transferred to a locked storage facility. A short half hour’s wait later, the suitcases had been retrieved and signed over to their rightful owner. Even Charly had had to admit that there were some advantages to small-town living.

Troy had figured she’d want to go back to the motel and change, but she had him pull into the first gas station they came to instead. He got the key for her, and she hauled a big old garment bag and an overnight case into the hot, scuzzy little rest room with her and shut the door.

When she came out, he almost didn’t recognize her. She was wearing a pale gray suit that fit her like a glove, with sable velvet trim on the collar that exactly matched her hair, and a narrow skirt that stopped just above her knees, and that, along with the black high-heeled shoes she was wearing, made those long legs he’d noticed this morning a sight to behold. Her hair seemed to have all but disappeared, slicked magically away from her face and up into some kind of twist at the back of her head, which made her neck look a mile long-reminded him a little bit of Audrey Hepburn. Her lips were the color of hot fudge, and looked every bit as tasty, too. He thought he might have to rethink his position on makeup.

He realized he was staring when Charly said, “Well?” in a sharp, uneasy voice.

He swallowed saliva and muttered, “You look great.”

“Thanks,” she said dryly, and handed him her overnighter.

“Uh, don’t mind my askin’,” he said as he loaded the suitcases into the Cherokee, “but is there a reason you need to get so dressed up just to go pick up your purse? You look like you’re fixin’ to go to court.”

“Funny you should say that.” He looked at her and saw that she was smiling. It wasn’t a pleasant look; there was something about it that made a tingle go down his spine. Something dark, and full of secret resolve. “As a matter of fact this happens to be my favorite ‘impress the hell out of the judge’ outfit.”

“I hope she ain’t female,” he muttered, watching her hike up her skirt in order to lever herself into the Cherokee.

She laughed with a kind of fierce jauntiness that suited her about as well as hot pink vinyl shoes would have matched that outfit.

They drove through town in silence, except for Bubba’s heavy panting and Charly saying things like “Turn left here,” and “Right at the next corner.” Troy felt uneasy but couldn’t put his finger on why. As he drove through sun-dappled neighborhoods past white-haired ladies on riding lawn mowers, shirtless guys washing their cars and kids playing in sprinklers, for some reason he was thinking about last night again, the thunderstorm and what came after, and all the electricity and sexual tension in the air. There was tension and electricity in the air now, too, so thick he could cut it with a knife. But this time he didn’t think it had anything to do with sex.

“This is it,” Charly announced. “You can pull into the driveway, if you want.”

Troy nodded, put on his blinkers and turned right between two brick gateposts topped with carriage lanterns. “This is where you left your purse?” He gazed through the windshield at the huge brick house with its white columns and graceful porches, surrounded by old trees and an aura of gentility, and let go a long, low whistle. “Okay, I think I can see why you might want to dress up a little.”

She gave that snort of mirthless laughter. “Yeah, well, don’t be too impressed. I grew up in that house, and trust me, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.” She grabbed hold of the door handle. “You can wait here in the shade. I shouldn’t be too long.”

“You sure you don’t want me to come with you?”

She hesitated, then shook her head and muttered so softly he could barely hear it, “This is something I have to do myself.” As she opened the door and stepped out, he thought she added an unsteady “But thanks.”

This time Charly didn’t bother to go to the front door. Instead she went straight across the lawn and through the banks of azalea bushes, following a path of stepping stones where many had gone before-the trade and service people, the milkmen and meter readers, gardeners and plumbers, delivery people of every kind and description. The pathway led to the garages and outbuildings and the parklike grounds behind the house, and eventually to the woods beyond. Once upon a time it had meandered on through those woods to the huge stone mansion on the other side, where her best friend, Colin Stewart, lived.

But first it detoured to the trumpet-vine-covered back porch, and across that to the kitchen door. Which, as Charly knew very well, was seldom locked. And it was not now. Nor was anyone in the kitchen, it being Saturday, which had always been Dobrina’s shopping day. Charly closed the door carefully behind her and crossed the mellowed hardwood floor, her heart beating in cadence with her footsteps, loud in the silence. Oh, how she remembered that silence.

She knew the judge would most likely be in his study. Unless, of course, he was in his office at the courthouse. She’d thought of that possibility-that after all this, he wouldn’t be here. But she remembered that on Saturdays he’d almost always waited until Dobrina had returned with the groceries before going to his office. She was betting that, like everything else in this place, the old routine wouldn’t have changed that much.

And it hadn’t.

The study door was closed, which meant that it was occupied. Charly hesitated, her hand on the doorknob, trying to take deep, fortifying breaths for which there was no room in her chest. Her heart was pumping wildly, taking up far too much space, and her stomach felt hollow and fluttery, the way it did when she was about to stand up before a new judge and jury for the first time. Which, in a way, was a reassuring thought; she knew from experience that none of what she was feeling would show on the outside. She knew that to all appearances she was C. E. Phelps, attorney-at-law-cool, confident and very much in control. Let the trial begin.

She held her breath, turned the knob and pushed the door open.

Judge Charles Phelps was seated at his desk, smoking his pipe and reading his morning newspaper. He was dressed in the Saturday-morning uniform that hadn’t changed since Charly’s childhood-old slacks with suspenders and a cotton dress shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, unbuttoned far enough to reveal grizzled chest hair above a vest-type undershirt. He looked up casually when he heard someone come in, no doubt expecting to see Dobrina, back from her shopping.

When he saw who it was, he straightened as if he’d been poked, then peeled off his reading glasses, dropped them onto the newspaper and sat back in his chair, his fingers working the bowl of his pipe. The white tufts of his eyebrows lowered over his cold, pale eyes as he watched her close the door behind her, but he said nothing. She hadn’t expected that he would. To say anything at all-a greeting, a question, even a challenge-would have given her an opening, making it easier for her. She could hope for no such concessions from him.

“Hello, Father.” She said it in her best attorney’s voice-dry and cool. Good morning, Your Honor.

As she stepped onto the faded Oriental rug-which had no doubt lain in that same spot since the reign of Queen Victoria-it occurred to her that she was doing so for the first time as a full-grown adult. The thought made an odd little thrill go shooting up her spine-a sense of her own worth and power that wasn’t new to her exactly, but was certainly new to her here, in these surroundings. It was a heady feeling, a little like a straight shot of bourbon on an empty stomach. She accepted it gladly for the courage and confidence it gave her and didn’t stop to remember, then, that whiskey courage is almost always false.

“I’m glad I caught you in,” she continued in the same brisk, businesslike manner. “I assume Dobrina’s out shopping?”

The judge nodded, making no other concession to civility.

Charly gave him a lawyer’s smile, cold and dangerous. “Well. I will need to speak with her later, but right now it’s you I’d like to talk to.” She chose a chair, an upholstered Queen Anne wing-back, and shifted it slightly to suit her.

She’d thought about it-whether she would sit or stand. Standing would give her a height advantage, of course, but then she’d be too much like a supplicant, coming before the lord of the manor hat in hand, while a chair, on the other hand, especially a comfortable one placed at a slight angle, would put her more in the position of equal.

She sat, crossed her legs and leaned back, outwardly relaxed. “If you have a minute…?”

Her father had placed his pipe in its ashtray and was rubbing absently at a spot on his chest just below his left shoulder. “I b’lieve everything that needs to be said between us has already been said.” His voice was heavier than she remembered it-thick and Southern as blackstrap molasses.

Charly determinedly brightened her smile. “Yes, well, apparently Dobrina doesn’t share your belief.” She paused a beat, then continued in a conversational tone, “I suppose you heard about me getting arrested last night?”

The flash of surprise in his eyes gave her a brief moment’s satisfaction, before he closed them and said in quiet disgust, “Oh, my Lord.”

“No?” Her face felt rigid. How much longer could she maintain the smile? “Well, I guess the local news must be runnin’ a little slow this morning. Yeah, it seems that while you and I were having our little tête-à-tête yesterday, Dobrina took my purse out of my car-” she ignored his exclamation of disbelief “-and replaced it with an open bottle of Black Jack. And then, just to make sure that didn’t get overlooked by the proper authorities, after I left she called them up and reported my rental car stolen.”

The judge shook his head and muttered under his breath, something about lies, replete with distaste. “Now, why on earth would ’Brina do such a thing?”

“I don’t know,” Charly said lightly, “maybe you can ask her when she gets home. Personally I think she just underestimated my resources. See, I believe she thought, since I’d been away from this town for so long, that I wouldn’t know anybody else, and if I were arrested with no ID and no money, I’d have no choice but to call you for help.” She made an ironic clicking sound with her mouth: C’est la guerre.

“Failing that, well, there was always Plan B. Dobrina’s a smart lady. She knew that eventually I’d have to come back here to get my purse-by the way, you haven’t seen it around anywhere, have you? No? Well, I expect she’ll be back soon.

“In the meantime I’ve had time to do a little bit of thinking, and I’ve decided that, misguided though her actions were, Dobrina was right about one thing.”

She paused, and felt as if she’d scored a victory when he murmured on cue, “Which is?” It was a small but gratifying shift in the balance of power.

She replied quietly, “That you and I have some unfinished business to attend to.”

He made a sound somewhere between a hiss and a snort and rocked back in his chair, his hands gripping the arms almost spasmodically. His voice was harsh, his face contorted, drained of color.

Charly surged forward, pressing her advantage like a street fighter. “Look, you can hide your head in the sand all you want, but do you really think for one minute, now that I’ve seen those pictures on your mantelpiece, that you can just make me go away?” Her voice had begun to tremble and her heart was hammering painfully. Careful, Charly, careful. Whatever you do, keep it businesslike. Remember, you are your own attorney. With a valiant effort she reined in her emotions and sat back once more.

“I want to make you a proposition.”

Her father’s lips curled disdainfully. “You’re in no position to be making anything of the sort.”

“No,” said Charly quietly, “I don’t think you have that quite right. It’s you who are in no position to deny me.” She paused. Her father glared at her in frigid silence. His eyes, his face, even his skin color seemed to have frozen. She took a breath. “I believe you know what I want. I want to see him.”

She could hear his breathing-short, shallow gasps. It suddenly occurred to her that he looked awful-even ill. She felt a quiver of doubt, uncertainty. But then his lips curved and his eyelids dropped to half-mast, and he said in that viscous drawl, “What makes you think he’d want to see you?”

The calculated cruelty of it nipped any concerns she might have had for him in the bud. Killed them dead, like peach blossoms in a March blizzard. Once again, just as she had the last time she’d faced this man, she felt herself go cold and still. “What have you told him?” she whispered. “About me?”

He jerked back, pretending insult. “I told him the truth.”

“The truth?” And suddenly she was on her feet and leaning toward him across his desk, all resolve forgotten. “You don’t know the truth!”

His eyes flew wide. “Don’t I?” He coughed, then drew himself up, pressing down on the arms of his chair, his voice rising as he did. “Which truth am I in ignorance of? The fact that his mother was a spoiled, selfish girl whose wanton behavior destroyed her own reputation and one of the finest families in this town? Or the fact that she abandoned her child the day he was born and then ran away? Nevah once looked back?”

Charly was trembling so hard that, but for her hands braced on the desktop, she doubted she could have kept her feet. She was seething with rage, words sizzling like hot coals on her tongue. “I will…see…my…son.”

“Selfish, spiteful girl.” Her father all but spat the words at her. “Have you no shame?”

She was too angry to recoil. “Have you? I did not abandon my son, and you know it. I gave him up for adoption-on the advice of so many supposedly wise and compassionate people, not the least of which was my own father! And I did it-” she sucked in a desperate breath “-I did it so he could have the kind of warm, loving home I never had.”

“How…dare…you-”

“How dare you! What did you do, Your Honor? Did you use your judicial power and connections to gain custody of my son? Did you adopt him yourself? In God’s name, why? Why would you do such a thing?” He didn’t answer, just stared at her from a frozen half crouch, his face like stone. Sensing victory, she straightened and gave a high bark of laughter.

“Did you actually think you’d be a better father to him than I would have been a mother? How? How could you, when you were never a father to me, your only daughter? How could you possibly think you could give him more love than I could, when you never gave me any? Whatever love and affection I got, Dobrina gave me. You were never there for me-never.” The last word was a growl, harsh with pain. But there were no tears. There would be no more tears, not in front of him. Never again.

She turned away from him, her voice brittle now with self-control. “Did you know I used to sit in my room in the evenings, doing my homework, getting ready for bed, and I’d look out my window to see if I could see the light in your office window, just so I could feel near you? But you never had time for me. You never listened to me. You just judged. Hell, you aren’t even listening to me now. You know that? When I walked in here, I was ready to compromise. All I wanted was to see him-not even to let him know who I am, just…introduce me as a distant cousin, or something, I don’t care. Just…to see him. But as always, you didn’t give me a chance to tell you that. You wouldn’t even listen.”

She had run out of words, finally. Shaking violently, gasping like a marathoner, she caught her breath and held it, fighting to regain control and somehow slow her runaway heartbeat. And in that sudden stillness, she heard a faint choking sound.

She turned, jerky and off balance, like a malfunctioning windup toy, and felt herself go numb with shock. Her father was lying across his desk in a half crouch, his arms clutched to his chest. What she could see of his face was a dreadful, slaty blue.

Charly never did remember much about what she did then. The next thing she knew, she was on her knees beside her father, who was lying flat on his back on the floor, and she was blowing into his open mouth, and pumping away at his chest with all her might and saying furiously, in time to the beats, “Don’t… you… dare…die. Don’t… you… dare… die. Dammit, I’m… not… finished… yet.”

She was still at it when Dobrina came home, she had no way of knowing how many minutes later. Then she paused just long enough to say tersely, “Thank God you’re here. Call 911. My father’s had a heart attack.”