The Night Remembers (12 page)

"They're fine, too, as far as I know," Sunny told her, pouring dishwashing detergent into the proper receptacle. "Still living in the old neighborhood, even though Adam was all prepared to buy them a big new house. They'd didn't want to leave their friends, apparently. But they did accept a trip to Hawaii last summer as an anniversary present."

"That must have made Adam happy."

"Tickled him pink," Sunny agreed. She shut the door to the dishwasher and pushed the On button with the knuckle of her index finger. Turning around, she crossed her arms and leaned back against the kitchen counter.

"Do you know," she said reflectively, "that this is the first—the
very
first—time I've even heard you willingly mention Adam's name since the divorce."

"Is it?"

"Yes," Sunny said softly. "Why is that, I wonder?"

"Because," Daphne replied firmly, "this will be the first time I've seen him since the divorce, that's why. Well, not counting the, uh, Children's charity thing, that is. Since he's back in the Bay Area now I'll probably run into him once in a while. Here, if no place else and, well—" she shrugged "—it's only sensible to try to be civil to each other."

"Hmm," was all Sunny would say. Then, she cocked her head slightly, listening. "I guess you'd better prepare to be civil. I think I hear Adam's voice in the front hall."

Daphne followed her friend out of the kitchen, hanging back as Sunny hurried up to greet her latest guest, watching as Adam bent his head to kiss Sunny's proffered cheek. He looked a little tired, she thought, but, then, who wouldn't after standing through hours of surgery? The hint of fatigue around his eyes and mouth in no way detracted from his golden good looks, and even without the tuxedo he was devastating. The polish he had acquired was not just a surface thing, she realized, drinking in the sight of him in his tan chinos and navy cable knit sweater. He had an indefinable something about him that went bone deep.
It drew her eyes like a magnet.

He laughed at something that Sunny said, his eyes crinkling up at the corners, and extended his hand toward Brian. The two men exchanged a warm handshake and quick quip that made Adam laugh again, and then he moved away from the door to greet Marcia with a brief, brotherly hug.

"I take it you knew about this little surprise," he said with mock severity.

Marcia nodded, obviously well pleased with herself. "Of course. How else do you think I could make sure that Ginny would get you here, come hell or high water?"

"So, Ginny was in on this, too, hmm?" He glanced back over his shoulder. "Well, come here and take your medicine, woman." He reached a long arm out behind him, circling the shoulders of a small, dark-haired woman, and hauled her up to stand at his side. As he turned back to his sister, still smiling at the surprise they pulled on him, he caught sight of Daphne standing in the open archway.

He went stock-still for a moment, his eyes on hers as the quick color came and went in his face, but Daphne wasn't looking at him. She was looking, instead, at the woman who stood so securely in the circle of his arm. She was dark-haired and dark-eyed and her full smiling lips were colored a soft becoming red. Her navy sheath dress was more classic than fashionable, and it covered a body that was slim-hipped, small-breasted, and long-legged. She was, Daphne thought despairingly, quite lovely.

And Adam had his arm around her.

Daphne felt all her plans go down the drain as surely as if someone had suddenly pulled a plug on them. It just hadn't occurred to her that Adam—
her
Adam—might have another woman. Not after the night in her hotel room.

Her eyes lifted to his face then, a half-accusing expression in their golden-brown depths as she stared at him. Adam stared back, seemingly as unable as she to look away. His blue eyes were full of wariness, she thought, as if he were afraid she might tell the whole room, and the woman by his side, what had happened between them the night of the charity dance.

Well, don't worry,
she telegraphed silently, her pride stung.
I want to keep it a secret as much as you do.

The exchange of glances lasted only a second or two, the duration of a heartbeat only, but everyone in the room seemed to be holding their breath, waiting for what would happen next.

And what happened next was that Daphne smiled, a lovely, warm, utterly false smile, and crossed the room to stand in front of her ex-husband. "Happy birthday, Adam," she said evenly, extending her right hand as she spoke.

He took her hand, his fingers clamping down on hers. "Thank you," he said, his voice just as even and apparently unemotional as hers.

And, then, their hands dropped back to their sides and they stood there like two people who had never been more than casual friends. Everyone seemed to let their breath out as the hoped-for explosion fizzled out, and they all started talking at once, wandering back in the direction of the living room or the dining room or down the hall to the bathroom. Even Sunny went, covertly dragged away by Brian.

"Aren't you going to introduce Ginny to Daphne?" Marcia prompted when Adam made no move to do so.

"What?" He shook his head slightly as if coming out of a trance and met his sister's eyes. "Oh, sure. Sure." He glanced from Daphne to the woman at his side. "Ginny Phelps meet Daphne Granger," he said stiffly, adding no more information than that.

The two women nodded at each other, exchanging cool smiles, neither of them sure of the status of the other in Adam's life.

Marcia was quick to fill in the gaps. "Ginny is a nurse. The best OR nurse he's ever worked with, Adam says." She looked up at her brother. "Isn't that right, Adam?"

"Yes." He gave Ginny's shoulders a halfhearted little squeeze and dropped his arm. "The best," he added, running one hand through the hair that fell across his forehead.

"They've been a team practically since the day Adam started at Children's." She shot a quick look at Daphne to see if the message was getting across. It was. "Adam hates to have to work with anyone but Ginny," she continued. "And—"

"Marcia, please," Ginny interrupted, laughing a little self-consciously. "You're making me blush."

"Sorry," Marcia said, but she didn't look sorry. She looked like the cat that had just cornered the market on canaries.

"Well, it's been lovely to meet you, Ginny," Daphne said then. "And so nice to see you again, Adam. And you too, Marcia," she added insincerely. "But, if you'll excuse me, I have to go find Sunny and say my goodbyes."

"You're not leaving already?" It was Marcia, not Adam, who made the required protest. Her tone was victorious.

"'Fraid so. I've been here longer than I'd planned already. I told Sunny I'd try to stop by for just a few minutes and—" her shoulders lifted in a little shrug "—well, you know how it is. We got to talking over the good old days and the time just slipped away. I've got an early meeting at I. Magnin tomorrow," she lied. "And I need to go over my presentation one more time." She glanced toward the living room as she spoke, her expression silently informing her hostess that she was about to leave.

Sunny came hurrying out to stop her. "You're not leaving already?" she said, meaning it far more than Marcia had. She glanced up at Adam. "Not when the guest of honor just got here."

"'Fraid so," she said again. "But it can't be helped. Now, Sunny," she continued when her friend would have made another protest, "I've already stayed much longer than I'd planned. I really have to be going."

"Well." Sunny's voice was little-girl sulky. "If you have to." She sighed theatrically. "Where's your purse?"

Daphne touched the back pocket of her leather pants. It held a car key, a credit card, and a twenty-dollar bill. "Right here."

"How 'bout your coat? Did you come in with a coat?"

"I didn't wear one. No." She stopped Sunny as she raised her hand to summon Brian. "Don't bother Brian, he's busy. Just say goodbye for me, okay? And tell him I'll see him next time I'm in town."

The two women exchanged a quick, warm hug. "Drive carefully," Sunny admonished.

"I will." She raised her eyes to Adam's one last time. "Happy birthday," she said and hurried out into the foggy night without waiting for his reply.

Chapter 7

Daphne was wide awake when the first pale fingers of sunlight started to pry their way around the edges of the blue brocade drapes of her hotel room. She lay on her back on the rumpled double bed closest to the window, one hand flung above her head, the other clutching a soggy tissue against the front of her ivory nightgown. She stared up at the ceiling, eyes dry now, thinking about the night before.

She was glad, she told herself fiercely, trying to believe it,
glad
that Adam had come to Sunny's party with another woman. It had kept her from making a complete fool of herself. Kept her from even attempting to start some damned, doomed, idiotic affair with him.

Which was a good thing, she thought, sniffling slightly, because she wouldn't have known how to start one, anyway, despite her intentions. What would she have said to him if he
had
come alone?

Elaine had suggested that she be straightforward and upfront. "Just tell him what you have in mind. Say 'Listen, Adam, I enjoyed the other night, let's do it again soon.' He'll take it from there," she'd promised.

But Daphne couldn't have said those words, or anything like them, in a million years. What she'd had in mind was something a bit more subtle. Invite him out for a birthday drink, maybe, and then let nature take its course. Yet, both of those alternatives sounded so... so calculating and Daphne was a woman who had always expressed her emotions more spontaneously.

Well, it was a moot point now. She might as well stop wasting her time thinking about what might had been and what might have been and deal with what was.

Besides, it wouldn't have worked, anyway. There was no way on earth that she was ever going to get over Adam, no way she was ever going to get him out of her system, no matter what Elaine or a hundred magazine articles said. To expose herself to more heartache by trying was foolish in the extreme.

She had lived the last eleven years of her life without him, she told herself firmly; she could live the rest of her life without him, too.

The thought brought a lump to her throat and fresh tears to her eyes. She blinked them back stubbornly, ordering them not to fall, and then sat up, switched on the bedside lamp and reached for the telephone. She was leaving San Francisco today—now—on the first available flight and to hell with I. Magnin and her other accounts. Elaine could fly out and handle them. She knew the business as well as Daphne did and it was high time Daphne started letting her assistant handle more things on her own. She had been meaning to do just that for months.

The phone rang just as Daphne put her hand on it and she jumped, starting back as if she had been burned. Who, she wondered, would be calling at this hour? It was barely past six o'clock. Not even Sunny, who would want to lecture her for leaving so soon after Adam had arrived, would be awake this early. She let it ring three times before finally picking it up.

"Hello?" she said, her husky voice made even huskier by the tears shed during a sleepless night spent remembering too many nights before.

"Daffy?" The voice on the other end was achingly familiar. "It's Adam. Did I wake you?"

"No. No, you didn't wake me," she said, startled to hear from him after spending all night thinking about the man. It was almost as if she had conjured him up. "I've been awake all—" She started to say all night. "For at least an hour," she amended. "Is there something I can do for you?" she said when he remained silent.

"Well, I thought... that is, we didn't get much of a chance to talk to each other last night. And I thought you might have time for breakfast before your business meeting." His voice was appealingly hesitant, like a little boy asking for something he wanted very much but wasn't sure he was going to get.

"Meeting?" Daphne said, forgetting for a moment that had been her excuse to leave the party last night. Comprehension dawned. "Oh, the meeting at I. Magnin. Yes, well, it's not for several hours yet." Actually, it wasn't until Monday. "But I—"

"Then you're free for breakfast," Adam said eagerly, not giving her a chance to refuse.