Authors: Barbara Delinsky
From the maelstrom of her thoughts came the word
money
. Bill Longley. Money. Regular payments. “Oh, my God!” A trembling hand flew to her lips as the depth of the misunderstanding hit her. Was it misunderstanding—or purposeful malice? Who could have done this—planted such a story in all these papers? Surely not Bill, for his own name would necessarily be soiled. Any jealousy he had felt, if there had been any that night, seeing her in the restaurant with another man, would have been expressed in a very different way, if she knew anything about Bill Longley. But
this
—what was
this
all about?
Aside from the things that remained to be deciphered, one course of action was obvious and urgent. Drew had to be told the truth as soon as possible. Gaining strength with the decision, she looked up at the glowering face of his Hartford office head. “Would you excuse me, Stan. I have to get in touch with Drew.”
The near sinister grin that spread over Stan’s lips sent a chill through her. “I’m sure that’s what you would like to do. Good luck.” Without another word he left. In his wake she began to tremble uncontrollably, wondering exactly what he meant. It did not take her long to find out. Three times within the next fifteen minutes she tried to get through to Drew. The first time, John put her off, claiming that he was on another line. The second time, Leo did the chore, elaborating on an important meeting that he was headed for in the Caucus Room. In both cases their tones of voice had been cool and even. On impulse she spoke with the receptionist the third time, only to be told that Drew was channeling all calls through either Leo or John.
An hour later she tried again. The results were the same. As she had done earlier, she left word for him to call her. Then she sat and waited, then paced the floor. In desperation she left the hospital and drove home, dialing the number of his office immediately on her arrival. This time the receptionist was less patient. “Dr. Patterson, your message is here and waiting. The senator will get back to you as soon as possible. He is very busy today.” It could as easily have been a recording, a far cry from the young woman Daran remembered as being so friendly. Something was wrong—and it had everything to do with those articles. Leaving a revised message as to her whereabouts, she hung up the phone, then began the wait anew.
At first it was merely suspicion, wild and dreadful, based, she told herself, on pure imagination. Of course Drew would return her call. He loved her. Hadn’t he told her that just yesterday?
Yet, as the hours passed, she became less convinced. She knew his schedule, as did the other aides. He was in and out all the time; no one meeting or appointment ever lasted more than half an hour, save those more binding committee hearings and, of course, the Senate floor debates and votes. Had he wanted to return her call, he would have already done so. Or sent word through one of the others as to when he might. But nothing—nothing had come through on her silent phone.
When, by late afternoon, there was no sign of contact, she tried once more, one final time. Heart heavy, the receiver was as lead in her hand, falling instantly upon transmitting the news that the senator had left his office for the day. Blinded by the tears that flowed uncontrollably, she wandered around the house, stunned, hurt, aching for the love which had been, poignantly and with lightning speed, sabotaged.
There seemed but one thing to do. Suitcases that had but barely been put away were now opened and filled once more. The clothes she had worn that morning to the hospital would do for the trip. Pure habit directed her from Simsbury to the airport, where she parked her car and headed for the ticket counter. Suddenly the choice faced her. Cleveland had been her original destination. But the flight to Washington left in twenty minutes; she could be on it as easily. Then she recalled the chilling tones of the Stans, the Leos, the Johns of the political world, and she knew that she could not bear to hear that same icy note from Drew. Heartbroken, she headed for Cleveland.
CHAPTER 10
Mary Abbott had been an angel, sending her devoted Hugh off by himself while she attempted to soothe her distraught daughter. With infinite patience and understanding, she listened as the story unfolded, from the very first meeting nearly four months ago in that tiny office at Trinity to the glare of the newspaper headlines the day before. In a way she had not done for years, she held Daran while she cried, soulfully and mournfully, until the tears were finally spent. Then, in the wee hours of the morning, they worked together to try to understand what had happened.
None of it made sense. It seemed such a simple misunderstanding, that to have been turned into something as odious as it had been was ludicrous. For some unfathomable reason, someone had dug into Daran’s past, twisted the facts dramatically, and thereby set off a chain reaction. There were the obvious whos and whys. What bothered her most, however, was Drew. What had become of his love for her, if its basic trust could not survive a test such as this?
Exhaustion took its toll at dawn, drawing Daran into a restless sleep from which she awoke, several hours later, as miserable as ever. The only gratification was her mother’s tireless presence, the best friends she had always hoped that one day they might be. For everything Daran might have resented in her childhood, Mary Abbott came through for her now.
Yet all of their searching left them lost. Drew
had
to have known of the falsehood of the newspaper reports. He had always, and would always, make his own decisions; even the most ambitious of his aides knew that. Could it be possible that he suspected she may have intended to do something, when her outspokenness had first goaded him into seeking her out? Again it boiled down to that matter of trust.
As the day wore on and Mary and Hugh prepared to go to a dinner at the Club, Daran was left to her own brooding. With the wearing off of the initial shock and a faint dulling of the excruciating pain she had felt earlier, two things became clearer.
The first was that what had happened, as sketchily as she could outline it, had been very much what she had feared. Once before she had been singed by the political fire. Even given the differences, monumental as they were, between Bill and Drew, the surrounding forces were the same. Hadn’t she been skeptical of the unqualified happiness she and Drew had temporarily found? Hadn’t she had a premonition?
The second was the nagging thought that, by running as she had to Cleveland, she had shown some guilt. What
had
prompted her to bypass that Washington shuttle to head to Ohio? The answer was not a hard one for a counselor, trained as she was, to discover. Loneliness. Thought of being without Drew, of having him taken from her so crassly, created such a pit of loneliness and despair that it had been an instinctive urge to return home, to the womb, as it were. Then it had seemed the only course. Now she wondered.
“Are you sure you won’t come with us, dear?” Her mother stood at the door to the kitchen, where Daran sat, alone, curled on a low window seat. “The Foxes will be here very soon, but you could still change and come. They’d all love to see you.” There was a hint of mother coaxing child, as had been Mary’s wont, in the words, a luring lilt in the tone. A pitiful semblance of a smile was Daran’s only response to the memory.
“No, Mother. You go ahead. You’ve been wonderful to sit with me like this all day.”
Her mother walked farther into the room to stand by Daran. “There has to be some explanation, Daran. I know what you think of us political creatures, but you are one too. And you always have a rational explanation for everything you do.”
Sarcasm edged Daran’s words. “Rational is one thing; appropriate is another. I think I may have blown it, flying out here as soon as the fur began to fly. But—” her amber eyes looked beseechingly up at her mother’s kind face “—why didn’t he return my calls?”
“What calls? I never
got
any calls!” The sound of the deep voice, agitated and weary, brought both heads, mother’s and daughter’s, to the door.
Daran bolted from her seat. “Drew!” It was a whispered exclamation of disbelief at this latest turn. Frozen to where she stood, she merely stared at the vision at the door. He was tired, though properly groomed, as she would have expected. Age seemed to have etched another five years on his features since she had seen him two days ago. The lines around his eyes and his mouth were more distinct, the tension gripping the bridge of his nose unmistakable. The strides that brought him into the kitchen and toward the two women were measured tautly.
“Mrs. Abbott, I’m Drew Charles.” His introduction was formal, as was the hand that reached to clasp hers for a minute. The clenching of his jaw told of his attempt at restraint. So he
had
believed at least part of that malicious gossip!
The pain that shot through Daran’s chest nearly robbed her of her breath. His fury was in check, but nonetheless real. As tears gathered at the backs of her eyes, the urge to flee gripped her once more. She darted toward the door, only to be stopped short by the force of a steel clamp on her arm.
“You wait for me!” he seethed, the gray of his eyes cold and merciless. Then the expression grew milder as he turned to Mary Abbott. “Daran will be returning to Washington with me as soon as she can get her things together. She has a lot of explaining to do for this little stunt!”
Then, as she had so gratifyingly done during the last day, Mary Abbott came to Daran’s aid. “Now just a minute, Senator. This is
my
daughter, and I think you’d better begin by taking your hand off her. You’re hurting her.” Later Daran would be able to laugh at the spirit her mother had shown. Now, however, she was only thankful that the hand slowly slipped from her arm. So engrossed was she in a massage of the bruised area that she missed the hint of a smile that twitched at the corners of Drew’s mouth.
“Thank you.” Her mother went on, chin lifted by her momentary sense of power. “Now perhaps you would tell me exactly what you have in mind for my daughter?”
Though somber, Drew’s anger had waned. For a long moment he turned to stare at Daran, his gaze as unfathomable as the ocean depth. Then he addressed her mother. “I’ll be more than happy to do that while your daughter packs. A plane is waiting, not to mention the taxi outside.”
Daran had no intention of going anywhere with Drew, considering his mood. But she was more than glad, at that moment, to escape the room. The sight of such fury directed at her by the man she loved to distraction was more than she could bear. Within minutes she had taken refuge in the sunporch at the other end of the house, where she sank into a corner hammock and hugged her stomach protectively. She did not even have the strength to ponder the content of the discussion going on in the other room. A gasp of mixed emotions slipped through her lips as the slam of a car door and the turn of an engine filtered across the yard, through the trees, and into the private screened enclosure in which she sat huddled in misery. So he had left …
“Okay, Daran. Let’s go!” He hadn’t left. That must have been her parents leaving—deserting her. What next?
Slowly she shook her head. “I’m not going back to Washington, Drew. I didn’t want to go there in the first place. It was a mistake. I knew it would be. You talked me into it then,” she spat out in weak accusation, “but you won’t do it now.”
Fully believing her, he took a different approach. Without a word, he left the porch, going back into the house. Within minutes he returned, her suitcase and purse in one hand, grabbing her arm with the other. “Let’s go. You can change on the plane.”
Her protest was fully expected and met by the same steel front. “Look, I’ve never abused a woman, and I don’t intend to begin now,” he growled, half-dragging her to the door. “Your mother will be calling you tomorrow morning in Washington. I gave her the number of my condominium. Now let’s get a move on. The pilot is waiting.”
“I’m not going to your condominium!”
With deafening thunder, both of voice and eye, he turned on her, towering ominously. “Shut up, Daran! So help me, you’ve pushed me to the limit. Now keep still!”
It was not so much fear as a sudden lethargy that sapped her strength to resist. The ride to the airport was a silent one. Eyes glued to the window, she avoided those that studied her so closely, drawing prickles at the back of her neck with their intensity. Once aboard the airplane, she changed into a skirt and blouse, donned high heels and make-up, tugged her hair mercilessly into a tight bun away from her face, and resumed the identity of Dr. Daran Patterson, child psychologist. There was an impersonality about her professional side which suited her now, though whether the tentative shell of composure that accompanied it would last long, she wasn’t sure. Throughout the flight Drew sat before her, excusing himself only for intermittent breaks to use the telephone in the cockpit.
“I can’t go anywhere,” she snapped sarcastically, when the gray gaze became an irritant. But he merely continued to stare at her, searching and punishing in turn.
The evening hour saw her ushered into Drew’s office, where, to her chagrin, the three people with whom she had spoken briefly and abortively on the phone the day before sat, suddenly more alert with her appearance.
“Thank you for coming over,” Drew greeted them, firmly escorting Daran to a seat by the window, farther from the others than the desk, behind which he now took refuge. “There’s something that has to be clarified. And I’d like to do it now.” The others nodded their heads as though there had been some choice in the matter; in fact, they either had to show up or they would have been shipped out in the morning. Daran waited, apprehension gnawing at her insides much as the gypsy moth caterpillars had gnawed at the huge maples beyond her Simsbury door last spring. Was she to be confronted on her part in the alleged bribery scheme before these others? Willing a poise she far from felt, she crossed one knee over the other, smoothed her skirt, and calmly folded her hands in her lap. With a sharp look in her direction to assure her attention, Drew began.