Kitabı oku: «The Backup Plan»

Praise for the novels of
New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Sherryl Woods

“Woods … is noted for appealing character-driven stories

that are often infused with the flavor

and fragrance of the South.”

—Library Journal

“A whimsical, sweet scenario …

the digressions have their own charm, and Woods

never fails to come back to the romantic point.”

—Publishers Weekly on Sweet Tea at Sunrise

“What better way to welcome spring back into our lives

than to be able to sit down with a book by a beloved

author, a cool drink, and dreams of young love blooming?”

—Romance Review on Home in Carolina

“Woods’ readers will eagerly anticipate her trademark

small-town setting, loyal friendships, and honorable

mentors as they meet new characters and reconnect with

familiar ones in this heartwarming tale.”

—Booklist on Home in Carolina

“Warm, complex, and satisfying.”

—Library Journal on Harbor Lights

“Sparks fly in a lively tale that is overflowing with family

conflict and warmth and the possibility of rekindled love.”

—Library Journal on Flowers on Main

“Launching the Chesapeake Shores series,

Woods creates an engrossing … family drama.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Inn at Eagle Point

“Woods is a master heartstring puller,

and her endearingly flawed characters deal with their

plethora of problems in a predictable but satisfying manner.”

—Publishers Weekly on Seaview Inn

Also by New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Sherryl Woods

A CHESAPEAKE SHORES CHRISTMAS*** HONEYSUCKLE SUMMER* SWEET TEA AT SUNRISE* HOME IN CAROLINA* HARBOR LIGHTS*** FLOWERS ON MAIN*** THE INN AT EAGLE POINT*** WELCOME TO SERENITY* SEAVIEW INN MENDING FENCES FEELS LIKE FAMILY* A SLICE OF HEAVEN* STEALING HOME* WAKING UP IN CHARLESTON FLIRTING WITH DISASTER THE BACKUP PLAN DESTINY UNLEASHED FLAMINGO DINE ALONG CAME TROUBLE** ASK ANYONE** ABOUT THAT MAN** ANGEL MINE AFTER TEX

*The Sweet Magnolias

**Trinity Harbor

***Chesapeake Shores

Look for Sherryl Woods’s next original novel

DRIFTWOOD COTTAGE

available April 2011

And the next novel in

The Charleston Trilogy

FLIRTING WITH DISASTER

available August 2011

SHERRYL

WOODS

The Backup Plan

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Dear Reader,

I can’t tell you how delighted I am to have The Backup Plan back in print. Not only was it my hundredth book, but it’s set in one of my favorite cities, Charleston, South Carolina, and starts a trilogy set in the South Carolina low country. It’s followed by Flirting with Disaster, which will be reissued later this year, and by Waking Up in Charleston.

You may be reading The Backup Plan in the middle of winter, and if that’s the case, I think you can trust Dinah Davis and Cordell Beaufort to stir up plenty of heat for you. From the moment I met them, they were steaming up my reading glasses as I typed.

Dinah’s a woman at a crossroads of her life, an intrepid foreign correspondent who’s been through too much and is very close to coming unglued. Cord is one of those laid-back bad boys we all dream about, but at his core he’s one of the genuine good guys. For Dinah, he may turn out to be her greatest risk ever, but he also promises to offer her the greatest reward of her life.

I hope you enjoy traveling to the low country with these two wonderful characters and will be anxiously awaiting more when Flirting with Disaster and Waking Up in Charleston are reissued.

All good wishes,

1

Her producer was tiptoeing around bad news. Dinah could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice. After a decade of working in TV journalism with basically the same news team, she’d learned to recognize the signs.

Ray Mitchell was an outstanding producer, but he was lousy at subtle communication. Barking out directives was more his style. In fact, he belonged in another era, one of hard-drinking, cigar-smoking journalists and legendary war correspondents such as Ernie Pyle, Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather. They had brought battle coverage to new heights through shrewd performances. Watching Ray try to sheepishly soft-pedal whatever was on his mind was painful.

“What is it you’re trying so hard not to tell me?” she finally asked. “Is there something wrong with the piece I just turned in? It was a great interview.”

The pictures had been good, too, even if they weren’t as great as her previous cameraman’s would have been. But they were better than adequate.

Ray looked even more uncomfortable. “For somebody else, maybe,” he said with the familiar bluntness Dinah had always respected. “Not for you.”

On some level Dinah had been anticipating that comment. Still, she stared at him in shock. She wasn’t used to being even gently criticized for her work. The many years of accolades from her colleagues in the field and her superiors in their lofty New York towers made her expect praise. “What are you saying, Ray? Just spit it out.”

It was hot as blazes without air-conditioning in their makeshift newsroom, but Dinah knew that wasn’t the reason Ray needed to mop his round face with a handkerchief. He was so nervous that he looked miserable.

“Okay,” he said eventually. “You want the truth, here it is. You’ve lost your edge, Dinah. It’s understandable, given what happened a few months ago, but—”

Dinah tuned him out. Nobody ever mentioned the incident in front of her anymore. Not being able to talk about what had happened had been difficult for Dinah. Whenever she brought up the subject of that tragic nightmare, everyone’s eyes filled with pity as they murmured soothing nonsense and then cut off any further discussion.

That was partly because for weeks after the episode, Dinah had listened dry-eyed to everyone’s sympathy or made the kind of impersonal, caustic comments that all reporters made to keep their fears and grief at bay. They’d all taken their cues from her and had stopped discussing it. Now that she was finally able and eager to talk, their grieving was over and they didn’t want to be reminded that only through the grace of God had they not been on that deadly roadside. They no longer wanted to face their own mortality, or consider the risks inherent in this hellish assignment.

War correspondents were a special breed of journalists. The burnout rate was high for those who favored ambition over self-preservation.

“They’re asking questions in New York,” Ray continued.

That got her attention. “What kind of questions?” she asked testily. She’d grown complacent about the network’s hands-off approach to most of her pieces.

“They want to know whether you shouldn’t be taking a break, you know, just until you’ve had time to deal with what happened,” Ray said carefully. “You’re due some time off, anyway. More than a little, in fact. No one can remember the last time you took a vacation.”

Her stomach sank. A break was the last thing she needed. Work defined her. It motivated her to get out of bed in the morning. Turning in one supposedly sub-par interview when she’d given them dozens of prizewinners and nearly single-handedly earned the upstart cable news operation industry-wide respect deserved better than this treatment.

“I don’t need time off,” she said flatly. “I need to keep working.”

“How about a different assignment then?” Ray suggested. “Go to the London bureau for a while. Or Paris. Maybe even Miami. Now there’s a cushy one. Sunshine, palm trees and beaches.”

The image didn’t impress her. In the days immediately following what she still thought of as the “incident,” she’d considered quitting. But then she had realized that this was the only work she truly wanted to do. If it was harder, if she was scared every minute of every day, she was determined to overcome her fears. Now when she walked out of the hotel and into uncertainty every single day she considered her actions a personal tribute to the bravery of every correspondent who’d died while making sure that the world had a close-up view of the action.

“Come on, Ray. I’d be wasted in London or Paris. And you can forget about Miami,” she said with a shudder. “Covering war is what I do. And I do it better than ninety percent of the other reporters around.”

He looked at her with concern. “Until recently you were better than all of them.”

“And I will be again,” she insisted. “I just need a little time to …” What? Adjust? Not possible. Go on? Maybe. That’s what she was aiming for, one day at a time.

“Wouldn’t it be better to take that time someplace else?” he asked, trying one more time. “You’ve paid your dues, Dinah. You were due for a break before any of this happened. We talked about it, remember? I thought you were planning to go home, see your folks. Why not do it now? People rotate in and out of here all the time because nobody can live like this without getting their heads all screwed up. You’re not Superman. Why should you be any different?”

Because if she left now, everyone would see it as a sign of weakness, she thought. They would think she’d folded in a crisis and she wouldn’t allow anyone to see her that way. She was used to commanding respect.

Ray went right on. “I’d think you’d want a chance to see your family, do something normal for a while. Weren’t you looking forward to that?”

She had been, but not any longer. Things had changed too drastically. Working was what she needed to do if she were to remain sane and maintain her self-respect. She wasn’t sure she wanted to go home until everyone there had forgotten whatever they’d heard about her. She didn’t want to face all the questions back home just yet.

“Not now, dammit!” she said more sharply than she’d intended. “Forget it, Ray! I’m not going anywhere.” Alarm flared in Ray’s eyes. “This is what I’m talking about. You never used to snap, no matter how tense things got. You’re not yourself, Dinah, and I’m worried about you. I don’t want you coming unglued on air one of these days.”

She stared at him with sudden understanding. “That’s why I’ve done so few live shots lately, isn’t it? You’re afraid I’ll lose it.”

He regarded her with obvious discomfort. “It’s a chance I’d rather not take,” he admitted. “For your sake, not the network’s. I don’t give a damn what they think.”

She suspected that much was true. Ray had always been an ardent advocate for his team. He babied his reporters and cameramen as if they were his own kids. He’d go to bat for them with the powers-that-be in New York whether it was in his own best interests or not.

Because she had faith in his motives, she deliberately forced herself to calm down before she replied. “You’re being an old fussbudget,” she accused lightly. “I’m fine. If that changes, if I think I can’t do the job anymore, I swear I’ll let you know.”

Ray looked doubtful. “You’ve never known your own limits, because you never had to set any for yourself. You did whatever it took.”

Listening to him, she felt guilty. If Ray knew what a struggle it was for her to walk out of the hotel on every assignment, he’d be even more adamant about sending her away.

“I still do whatever it takes,” she told him, knowing that much was true. It just cost her more. “Come on, Ray. Cut me some slack here.”

“That’s just it. I have been cutting you a whole lot of slack.”

This was another shock, and it was more humiliating than the first. She regarded him with dismay. “What are you talking about? Are you saying I’m not carrying my weight?”

He regarded her with discomfort. “Okay, here’s the plain, unvarnished truth. And listen up, because you need to hear this. We’ve missed some stories, Dinah. Things that never should have gotten past us. Everyone up top has been ignoring it, because of the circumstances, but they’re getting impatient back home. It’s been a few months now. I’m not going to be able to hold them off much longer. The decision of whether you stay or go could be taken out of my hands … and yours.”

Dinah tried to think of stories they’d missed. She hadn’t paid that much attention to the competition and what they were reporting. With her contacts, she’d always been so far out in front, she hadn’t needed to. Was it possible that the other journalists were taking advantage of her distraction? Maybe so, she admitted truthfully.

“Okay, that stops now,” she promised Ray, filled with a renewed sense of determination. “I’ll be back on top of things from here on out. If I’m not …”

He met her gaze. “If you’re not, you’re going home, Dinah,” he said flatly. “Whether it’s what you want or not.”

The unflinching warning shook her as nothing had in weeks. “It won’t come to that,” she said grimly.

All she had to do was push those godawful images out of her head and focus on the here and now. She’d put aside horror in order to do her job a thousand times through the years.

She could do it again, she told herself staunchly. She was going to get it together and come back better than ever. She owed it to the viewers who counted on her to tell an honest, objective story on the nightly news. She owed it to the network that had given her a chance when she was barely out of journalism school.

Most of all, though, she owed it to herself. Without this job, who the hell was she?

Two weeks after her conversation with Ray, the sound of her cell phone ringing at 4:00 a.m. sent Dinah diving under her hotel bed. It wasn’t the first time she’d become skittish over nothing, but the incidents were becoming more frequent and more dramatic.

So were the nightmares that woke her in a cold sweat. She hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in weeks. It didn’t take a genius to tell her she was suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, but she’d been convinced she could weather it on her own through sheer will. It wasn’t working.

Eventually, she crawled out from under the bed, still shaking, and sat on the floor in the dark with her knees pulled up to her chest, waiting for the worst of the panic to ease.

Maybe Ray was right. Maybe she couldn’t continue working right now. But what could she do instead?

Home. When Ray had mentioned it, she’d been dismissive, but now she recognized a surprising hint of longing whenever she thought of that simple word. She had always thought of home with a sort of detached nostalgia. Home was where she came from, not where she wanted to be. Just a couple of weeks ago, she’d hated the idea of returning.

Suddenly, though, the images of South Carolina Low Country were appealing. Trees draped with Spanish moss, and the sultry summer air thick with the scent of honeysuckle seemed idyllic. It was certainly as far removed from the tumultuous, horrific world of Afghanistan as she could possibly imagine.

Not that she’d appreciated it all that much when she’d been growing up on the outskirts of Charleston in what she’d considered little better than a mosquito-infested swamp. She’d hated the slow pace, the unhurried speech, the steamy nights when it was almost impossible to catch a decent breath of air. She hadn’t been able to leave her overprotective parents quickly enough.

Being the debutante daughter of Dorothy Rawlings Davis, a woman able to trace her roots back to the first ship to dock in Charleston, and Marshall Davis, a man whose granddaddy had amassed a fortune in South Carolina banking, gave Dinah a skewed view of her own importance. She’d been wise enough to recognize that and to rebel against it. Her brother hadn’t been so lucky. He’d drifted along, not only in his daddy’s shadow, but that of all their proud ancestors. Tommy Lee had nothing he could point to with pride and call his own.

Dinah hadn’t been content to inherit her place in the world. She’d wanted to make one for herself. She’d needed to prove that she was as capable, as independent and as fiercely strong as the toughest of her ancestors. She wanted to be a successful woman first, a Southern woman second. Anyone who’d grown up in the South knew there was a difference.

She’d chosen television journalism for a career because it was a profession with noble ideals, and she’d taken assignments that had placed her in the line of danger just to prove that she could stand tall next to the brightest and best in her field. It wasn’t enough to be good. She was determined to be outstanding, the correspondent viewers relied on for learning the truth behind the headlines.

For ten years Dinah had accomplished exactly that by covering unfolding events in Chechnya, the Middle East, and lately Pakistan and Afghanistan. Whenever or wherever news was being made, Dinah was there.

Her last assignments had been the most challenging. It had been impossible to calculate the risks, impossible to find trustworthy sources, impossible to predict whether she would live long enough to get the story on the air. Many said it took a danger junkie to accept such assignments, but she’d never seen herself that way. She simply had a job to do. The risks were worth it because events that unfolded without the glare of news cameras often led to untold horrors and chilling secrecy.

Yet in all of her thirty-one years she’d never had such terrifying dreams. She figured she’d come too close to the edge and seen too much. She’d lost friends this time, some of the best and brightest in the business. That had sucked the life right out of her.

Maybe Ray had been right. Maybe it was time—past time—for her to go home. There was nothing left to prove here.

As she crouched beside her hotel room bed after being frightened by the unexpected ring of a phone, her heart finally slowed to a more normal rhythm. In that instant she realized that she couldn’t get home fast enough. If she stayed here any longer, she’d come completely unglued.

Later that morning when Dinah told Ray what she’d decided, she was hurt to see relief and not regret in his eyes.

“It’s for the best,” he assured her. “It’s not forever,” she replied because she needed to believe it. “A few weeks, a couple of months at most.”

Ray got up and closed the door, then gestured for her to sit down. “Listen to me, Dinah. You get back to South Carolina and make a place for yourself. Get a job at the local station. Be their superstar. Find yourself a good man. Settle down and raise a family. This is no life.”

“It’s my life,” she protested, horrified by what he was suggesting. It was too damn close to anonymity and suffocation.

“Not anymore,” Ray insisted. “I’ve seen it happen before. An excellent reporter goes through a close call, sees someone they know die right in front of them, whatever, and they start cutting back on the risks. They’re a little more hesitant, they play it a little safer. Or they do the opposite and turn into some sort of rogue I can’t control. Either way, a reporter like that is no good to me.”

Anger filled her at the grim picture he presented. “Are you saying I’ll never be able to do this job again?”

“Never as well,” he said bluntly. “You’re beautiful and smart and talented. Put all of that to work for you back home. If not in South Carolina, then at the network in New York or Washington. I can get a transfer authorized anytime you say the word. Find yourself a real life and live it. What we do over here, it’s necessary, but it’s not living. It’s courting death.”

“Are you telling me this just because I’m a woman?” she asked heatedly. “That’s a little sexist even for you.”

“Maybe so,” he admitted candidly. “Mostly, though, I’m telling you this stuff because I like you. I want to know you’re out there somewhere safe and happy. I don’t ever want to have to make the same call to your folks that I’ve had to make to other reporters’ relatives.”

Dinah drew in a deep breath and asked him the question that was burning in her gut. “Spell it out for me, Ray. Are you telling me I can’t come back, that you don’t want me here?”

Ray hesitated before replying. “No,” he said with obvious reluctance. “The network would have my head for saying this, but I’m telling you I hope like hell you won’t.”

He regarded her with a worried frown. “Listen to me, okay? Think about what I’m saying. You’ve done the heroics, proved whatever you set out to prove to yourself. You’re a top-notch journalist, one of the best, but maybe it’s time to stop and figure out who Dinah Davis really is.”

Her stomach sank. She thought she had figured that out the day she turned in her first television news report. Now this man she trusted was telling her she’d gotten it wrong.

“Then you think I should quit?” she asked, hating the fact that her respect for him ran so deep that she was actually considering doing as he asked.

“Yes,” he said firmly. “Get a real life, Dinah.”

She tried to picture the peaceful, ordinary life he was describing. The image eluded her. “You actually think I’m destined to be somebody’s wife and mother?” she asked.

“Why the hell not?”

“And if I decide that what I am is a foreign correspondent, that it’s all I was ever meant to be?”

He gave her a sad look. “Then I pity you.”

“It’s what you’ve done all your life,” she reminded him.

“And look at me. No wife. No family. No one who gives a damn whether I come home or not. That’s not a fate I’d wish on you. Isn’t there someone back home you think about from time to time, some man who got away?”

Dinah started to shake her head, but then an image of Bobby Beaufort appeared in her mind. She couldn’t stop the smile that spread across her face. It had been ages since she’d thought about Bobby. He’d been in her life almost as far back as she could remember. He’d wanted to marry her, but she’d turned him down to chase after her dream.

“There,” Ray said triumphantly. “I knew it!” “He was no one special,” Dinah insisted. “Just a friend.”

A good friend who’d promised to be around if she ever got tired of roaming the globe. If she was ready for love, she was supposed to turn to Bobby. She would always own a piece of his heart, at least that’s what he’d claimed. All she had to do was come home, say the word and they’d be married before she could say Las Vegas. That was what they’d agreed when she left town. He was her safety net, her backup plan. She’d never expected to need him.

She didn’t need him now, she asserted silently. All this stuff Ray was saying meant nothing. She’d straighten herself out and come back here … eventually.

In the meantime, though, she met Ray’s worried gaze. “Okay, then,” she said at last. “I quit. I suppose there’s no point in doing this by half measures.”

She said it halfheartedly, but Ray gave her an encouraging smile.

“Good for you, Dinah! It’s the right thing to do.”

Maybe so, she thought despondently, but just in case she’d made a huge mistake, maybe the first thing she ought to do when she got back to South Carolina was look up Bobby Beaufort. Maybe he was meant to save her from the kind of lonely life Ray was describing. She’d know when she saw him.

Bobby had never made her palms sweat or her pulse race, but he was a good guy. Soothing and dependable, he’d never, ever let her down. In fact, his sweet attentiveness had nearly suffocated her, but maybe she’d changed. Maybe she was ready for someone to lavish her with love and attention.

She thought of that and her lips curved once more. Yes, indeed, a woman who’d just impulsively quit her dream job needed to keep her options open.

2

After four dinner parties in a row to welcome her home, Dinah called a halt.

“Mother, that’s enough! I’m pretty sure there’s not a soul in Charleston, at least in certain social circles, who doesn’t know I’m back in town.”

Dorothy Davis regarded her with dismay. “Just one more,” she coaxed. “A few people from the committee to save Covington Plantation.” Her eyes suddenly lit up. “In fact, Dinah, if you’d give a little talk, we could turn it into an impromptu fund-raiser. I’m sure people would be fascinated with all your adventures. And these renovations are going to cost a fortune. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could work together to raise some additional funds?”

Dinah glanced at her mother. Her adventures were precisely what she was trying to forget. If Dinah tried to explain that to Dorothy it would heighten her mother’s overprotectiveness. It had taken her several unnerving calls months ago to convince her mother that she was fine and that there was nothing for her to worry about. Apparently she’d been successful in downplaying what had happened because her mother hadn’t mentioned a word about it. Dinah didn’t want anything to kick those maternal antennae back onto alert now. She tried another tactic.

“Haven’t your friends pumped me for every bit of information they’d care to hear, Mother? No one wants to know what it’s really like over there.” Dinah was a hundred percent certain of that. “It’s not great dinner table conversation,” she added. “They’re content knowing it’s happening on the other side of the world.”

“Not everyone here is shallow, darling,” her mother scolded. “You’ve always sold us short.”

Dinah sighed. It was true. She had. But she’d heard nothing since coming back to change her impression of her parents’ friends. They lived in their monied, insulated world and were happy enough if it didn’t rain on their golf games.

“Forget the fund-raiser, Mother. I’ve never been any good at that sort of thing. And please don’t plan another dinner party. I came home for some peace and quiet. As it is, I’ve barely had a minute alone with you or Dad or Tommy Lee and his family.” Not that she was all that unhappy about missing out on the questionable joy of being around her brother’s children. From what little bit she had seen, they were holy terrors.

Still, there had been precious little of the quiet she’d anticipated. Aside from the dinner parties her mother had held at their house, she’d been trotted out to lunch with her father’s business cronies half a dozen times. She had yet to see a single one of her own friends, not that she’d kept in touch with that many of them since she’d left for college.

She wasn’t exactly excited about seeing anyone at all. Every chance she got, she stole off to the solitude of her room or sat in the back garden with an unopened book in her hands. She’d told herself the inertia was only temporary, that she’d snap out of it in a few days, but she was beginning to wonder if it wouldn’t be easier just to give in to it.

Judging from the worried frown that creased her mother’s otherwise unlined face, Dorothy had taken note of Dinah’s reluctance to leave the house.

“Is something going on that you haven’t told me?” her mother asked. “Sitting around in this house all day is not like you.”

“I don’t just sit in the house. Sometimes I sit in the garden.”

Her comment drew another chiding look. Dorothy Rawlings Davis had never known what to make of her only daughter. Dinah had scoffed at tradition. Though she’d reluctantly agreed to go through with it for her mother’s sake, Dinah had made a mockery of her debutante ball. She’d attended private school under protest and, worse, had chosen to go to college out of state, to New York, no less. It had grated on her father, who’d attended the Citadel and then Clemson, and her mother who’d graduated from the University of Charleston without ever leaving home.

Her brother had thankfully followed tradition or her parents would most likely have died of shame. Dinah’s celebrity had allowed them to hold their heads up just a bit higher these last few years. She wondered what they would think if she told them she was thinking of giving it all up forever.

Even at eight o’clock in the morning the vast differences between Dinah and her mother were apparent. Her mother was wearing an expensive, tailored suit, antique gold jewelry that winked with diamonds, Italian designer pumps, a perfect French manicure and had every strand of her perfectly highlighted hair in place. Dinah wore a favorite pair of old shorts, a halter top and she was barefooted. She hadn’t had a manicure or pedicure in years and her hair was cut in a haphazard style that could best be described as wash-and-wear. In less than a week she’d fought off six attempts by her mother to change that with a spa day. When it came to style Dinah was still a bitter disappointment to her socialite mother.

Even so, her mother did seem to be touchingly happy to have her home. Dinah could even understand her desire to cash in on Dinah’s reflected celebrity. She wasn’t a bit surprised that her mother wasn’t taking no for an answer.

“Darling, it’s just that you’re so rarely here,” her mother said. “I want to be sure that everyone gets a chance to see you before you go gallivanting off on your next assignment.”

Dinah told herself she should admit that she wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, but she wasn’t ready to do that. Silence allowed her to go on pretending that this was a temporary sabbatical. It would be another few weeks before she started to wear on her mother’s nerves. Then her parents would start asking the really tough, unanswerable questions about how such a fabulous career had wound up in the toilet. Right now they were proud of her and it was nice to bask in that, at least in small doses.

She forced a smile. “I know, Mother, but let’s put it off a few days, okay? Let me catch my breath. I haven’t even seen Maggie yet or any of my other friends.”

Maggie Forsythe was the one person Dinah truly was anxious to see aside from Bobby. She was the only one Dinah dared to mention. If she uttered a peep about tracking down Bobby Beaufort, her mother would draw the wrong conclusions. The prospect of a wedding was just about the only thing that might distract Dorothy from her daughter’s news about being all but kicked out of Afghanistan by her worried boss.

“Okay, if you insist, I’ll reschedule for the week after next,” her mother finally relented. “You will still be here, right?”

“I’ll be here,” Dinah assured her.

Satisfied, her mother rounded the dining room table and pressed a kiss to Dinah’s cheek. “I’m so glad you’re home. Your father and I have missed you.”

Dinah’s eyes stung at the sentimental tone in her mother’s voice. She had always shunned her mother’s overt displays of affection, but all of a sudden the little impromptu hugs and kisses made her weepy.

“I have to run. I have a meeting about the renovations at the plantation this morning. It’s likely to drag on all day,” her mother said. “What will you do today? If you don’t have anything in mind, you could come with me and take a look around. We’re making excellent progress. I think you’d find it fascinating.”

Dinah knew her eyes had probably glazed over at the suggestion, so she tried to feign enthusiasm for her mother’s latest pet project. “If you’re involved, I know it’s bound to be amazing,” she said. “I promise to get there, just not today.”

Her mother hid her disappointment well, but Dinah knew she’d hurt her. It had always driven her crazy that Dinah showed no interest in any of her favorite civic or historical preservation projects.

“Okay, then, I’m off,” her mother said. “Will you be here for dinner?” “Of course,” Dinah said. “If that changes, I’ll call or leave word with Maybelle.”

“I’ll see you later, then.”

When her mother left, the sound of her heels tapping on the hardwood floors, the scent of Chanel lingered in her wake. Dinah felt the tension in her shoulders ease the minute she was finally alone.

Coming home had been harder—and easier—than she’d expected. She’d been welcomed like the prodigal daughter, pampered by their longtime housekeeper, and treated like a celebrity by her family’s friends.

The hard part was lying and keeping the pretense that she was just fine, that her career was perfect, her life amazing. She kept it up because she wasn’t ready to admit the truth, not to them, not even to herself.

Some days she could convince herself that she was fine. As if her body sensed that she was in a safe haven at last, she hadn’t had a major panic attack since she’d arrived. The nightmares had even diminished. She’d only awakened a couple of times in a cold sweat with her heart hammering so hard she’d felt it might burst from her chest.

She’d managed to accommodate her parents’ meet-and-greet dinners as well as the thankfully brief lunches at her father’s club. Increasingly, though, the mere prospect of leaving the house had made her palms turn damp. Although she’d been able to face the possibility of a roadside ambush or a car bomb a mere week ago, she now could barely stand the thought of walking down the comparatively safe, familiar streets of Charleston. She knew that hiding out wasn’t smart, or healthy. Nor was it one bit like her. Always full of energy, Dinah was determined to recapture some of her old spirit.

She decided to start by looking for Bobby. It would be good to see him, catch up a little, figure out if there was a single spark that could be fanned into a conflagration that might help her forget what she would have to give up to stay here.

She gathered up her dishes and took them to the kitchen.

Maybelle Jenkins, who’d run the Davis household Dinah’s entire life and her mother’s family’s before that, immediately rushed to take them from her. “What do you think you’re doing?” she scolded. “You trying to get me fired? Tidying up is what I do around here.”

Dinah grinned at her. “We both know you do a whole lot more than that. You keep this place running. You hold this family together.”

Maybelle swept her into a hug, one of many she’d readily dispensed since Dinah’s homecoming. “Lordy, but I’ve missed you. You’ve been away too long, girl. It’s about time you came back to see us. Some of us, we ain’t getting any younger, you know.”

Though she looked ageless with her smooth brown complexion, Maybelle had to be at least seventy-five. She’d been almost twenty when she’d gone to work for Adelaide Rawlings when Dinah’s mother was born. That was fifty-five years ago.

Dinah grinned at her now. “Who’re you kidding, Maybelle? You’ll outlive all of us.”

“Especially if you keep getting in the way of them guns and bombs,” the housekeeper chided. “That close call you had ‘bout gave me a heart attack. Never saw the sense of you doing such a thing. Thought we raised you to be smarter.”

Dinah met the dark brown eyes of the woman who’d been such a constant in her life. A sudden need to unburden herself nearly overwhelmed her. Maybelle had always patiently listened to every one of her childhood hopes, dreams and heartaches.

“Can I tell you something you can’t repeat to anyone? “ Dinah asked.

“You askin’ if I can keep a secret? I’ve kept enough for you and that brother of yours, don’t you think?”

Dinah laughed. “Yes, I suppose you have.”

“So what’s one more?”

“I might not go back,” Dinah said, testing the words.

“Well, praise the Lord and hallelujah!” Maybelle said exuberantly. “That’s the best news I’ve had in years. Why you want to keep such a thing a secret?”

Dinah regarded her sadly. “Is it good news?”

“If it means my baby’s gonna be safe, then it’s good news to me.” She gave Dinah a penetrating look. “You don’t seem too happy about it, though. You quit or get yourself fired?”

“I quit, but no one around here’s to know that. I don’t expect you to lie for me, but hem and haw if anyone asks, at least for now.” She gave Maybelle a stern look. “Promise?”

“I gave you my word, didn’t I?” She hugged Dinah again. “Whatever’s going on with you, you’ll work it out. I know how you like to mull things over in that head of yours. But if there comes a time when you need someone to talk to, I’m here, same as always.”

“Thank you. I love you.”

“And I love you, same as all those children I gave birth to, and those grandbabies and great-grandbabies that are coming along,” Maybelle told her. “You’re family to me.”

Tears welled up in Dinah’s eyes. She swiped at them impatiently. “Now you’ve gone and made me cry,” she teased. “I’ll have to redo my makeup before I go out in public or Mother will be totally humiliated.”

“Since when you put on makeup?” Maybelle asked wryly. “Your mama cares way too much about stuff that don’t matter a hoot to anybody but her and those social-climbing women she spends her days with.” At Dinah’s amused look, Maybelle added, “And don’t think I wouldn’t say the same thing right to her face. I knew her when she was in diapers, too.”

“Ah, Maybelle, you keep telling us like it is. Maybe one of these days we’ll all get our priorities sorted out.”

Maybelle laughed. “You, maybe, but I think it’s too late for that brother of yours. He’s fallen into the same pattern as your daddy. They’re both so full of themselves it’s little wonder they can never see eye to eye on anything.” She shooed Dinah toward the door. “Now get along out of here, girl. You might be unemployed, but I’m not. This old house doesn’t clean itself and it takes me a mite longer to get around than it used to.”

Dinah wandered upstairs, intending to freshen up and change her clothes before heading out in search of Bobby, but she found an old high-school yearbook and got distracted.

By the time she’d closed the book, it was past lunchtime. Still wearing the same old shorts and halter top, she added a pair of sandals, ran a brush through her hair, then begged a sandwich from Maybelle. It was nearly four o’clock when she finally set off to look for Bobby. Maybe once she saw him, some magical something would click and she’d know whether or not she was home to stay. In her experience, though, life was rarely that clear-cut.

All during the tedious meetings at Covington Plantation, Dorothy had been distracted. She couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that something was going on with her daughter. Dinah hadn’t been herself since she’d arrived home.

Her gentle resistance to all the dinner parties was to be expected. She’d always hated that sort of fuss. But isolating herself in the house and only reluctantly talking about her work made Dorothy think that the close call Dinah had minimized months ago might have taken more of a toll than she’d led them to believe.

Since there was never a chance to talk to Marshall about any of this—or anything else—at home, Dorothy made a detour to his office at the bank. Based on the stunned reactions of everyone she greeted there, she concluded it had been far too long since she’d paid her husband an impulsive visit. In fact, there had been little spontaneity in their lives for a very long time. It was just one worrisome aspect of their marriage lately.

When she entered his office, Marshall was on the phone. He gave her a distracted wave and kept right on talking. She gazed around at the room she’d helped him to decorate years ago when he’d first taken over the presidency and was shocked to discover that many of her carefully selected furnishings had been replaced. The color scheme was bolder and, to her eye, far more modern and jarring than suited a sedate banking establishment. Nothing in the room spoke of the bank’s conservative tradition.

She doubted the change had been Marshall’s idea. Her husband cared little for that sort of thing. He must have given carte blanche to someone to redecorate. She found that oddly disturbing. There had been a time when they discussed everything going on at the bank, when he relied on her opinion and taste. When had that stopped? Months ago? Years?

Were the bright artworks and sleek leather and chrome furnishings symptomatic of the problems she’d been ignoring in their marriage? Had they grown so far apart, communicated so little, that something like this could happen without her even knowing about it? It was a minor thing, but it forced her to face the fact that she hardly knew what was going on in her husband’s life anymore.

She looked at her husband with dismay and wondered where they’d gone wrong. They were only in their early fifties, too young to have drifted so completely apart.

When Marshall finally hung up, he regarded her not with the delight he once would have shown, but with a trace of impatience.

“I didn’t know you were coming by,” he said. “I have a meeting in less than ten minutes.”

She swallowed the first bitter retort that came to mind and said briskly, “Then I’ll finish what I have to say in nine minutes. I want to talk to you about Dinah.”

He looked startled by that. “What about her?”

“Something’s wrong, Marshall. Haven’t you seen it?”

He shook his head, his expression still blank. “She seems fine to me.”

“You don’t find it odd that she’s barely left the house?”

“What are you talking about, Dorothy? She’s left the house. She’s had lunch with me three or four times in the last week.”

“Because you made the arrangements and told her where to go,” she said impatiently. “And she turns up for dinner because I tell her what time to be downstairs. But there’s no life in her, no spark. She stays in her room or sits in the garden and broods. It’s not like her.”

He looked bemused. “She’s rarely home, so you can’t say if it’s like her or not these days. Hell, after all she’s been through, she’s entitled to some peace and quiet. All this commotion we’ve stirred up has probably been too much for her. After all, this entertaining we’ve been doing is a far cry from the kind of life she’s been used to the past few years. Maybe we’ve crammed in too much of it at once.”

“That’s pretty much what she said,” Dorothy acknowledged.

“Well, there you have it,” he said, clearly satisfied that the problem was solved. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get ready for this meeting.”

His dismissal was annoying. Dorothy stood and started for the door, but then she turned back. “When did you redecorate in here?”

Marshall looked up from his papers, clearly disconcerted by the question. “A few months ago. Why?”

“I’m just surprised you didn’t ask for my help.”

“You’ve been tied up with your own projects,” he replied. “I had my secretary hire a decorator.”

“And you like what they did?” she asked, not sure why any of it mattered so much.

He looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time. He shrugged. “It’s a change.”

“It certainly is,” she said tartly. “And not for the better.”

Feeling thoroughly disgruntled by the whole exchange, Dorothy stalked out of his office, her back rigid, her temper barely in check. She’d started the day with one worry on her mind—her daughter. Now she had two.

Her marriage, which she’d always accepted as faintly staid, but solid, was anything but secure. She’d been around long enough to know that enough tiny little fissures could seriously undermine the foundation of the most fortified structure. Discovering that her marriage was riddled with such fissures was a shock.

Unfortunately, for the moment Dinah had to be her priority. She simply had to hope that when she got around to focusing on her own life, it wouldn’t be too late.

Cord Beaufort lazily swatted at the fly circling his bottle of now-lukewarm beer. It was the end of a steamy, grueling day, a day that had tested his patience and sent his nerves into more of an uproar than the last time he’d engaged in far more pleasurable, rambunctious sex.

He’d met with the board of directors for Covington Plantation and to a man—and woman—they were the most impossible, exasperating group of self-important human beings he’d ever had the misfortune to work for. They wanted to micromanage everything and not one of them had the expertise for it.

Worse, he’d had to wear a suit and tie, even though the temperature was pushing ninety. If there was one thing he hated more than placating a bunch of wealthy, egotistical bosses, it was wearing a suit and pretending not to be bored to tears while they yammered on and on. Things that should have been decided in less than an hour had taken the whole damn day.

Stretched out in a well-used Pawleys Island hammock strung between two ancient live oaks, he now wore comfortable jeans and nothing else. He was trying his best not to move a muscle until a breeze stirred, which probably wouldn’t happen until November. He was not feeling especially optimistic at the moment.

The sound of a car bouncing along the dirt lane leading to his house did nothing to improve his mood. He wasn’t feeling any more sociable than he was optimistic. He’d left all the ruts in the damn road as a way of discouraging visitors. Most people had long since gotten the message.

When the car finally came into view, he tried to place it and couldn’t. The sight of a pair of long, shapely, bare legs emerging from the front seat, however, did improve his outlook marginally. Only one woman in all of South Carolina had legs like that. And she pretty much hated his guts. He couldn’t say he blamed her.

If all the rumors he’d been hearing were right and Dinah Davis had decided to come home and appear on his doorstep it could only mean one thing. She was here to redeem the idiotic offer his brother Bobby had made to her years ago. Bobby, much as Cord loved him, was a damned fool. Who’d want a woman whenever she felt like it, even if that woman was as drop-dead gorgeous as Dinah Davis?

Cord watched her as she exited her car, wondering if her uppity mama knew she was going around town in a pair of shorts that left little to the imagination, and a halter top that wasn’t exactly on the approved fashion list for a one-time Charleston debutante who never strayed from the straight and narrow. Right now she looked more like somebody he wouldn’t mind taking a tumble with, which would flat-out horrify her mama.

Then again, maybe Dinah’s choice of attire explained why Mrs. Davis had been on such a royal tear at the board meeting today. A rebellious daughter, even one who was thirty-one or so and internationally famous, could unsettle an uptight woman.

“Well, well,” he murmured as Dinah lifted her chin with a familiar touch of defiance and started in his direction. “Just look at what the cat dragged in.”

Bright patches of color immediately flooded her cheeks and her devastating, dark blue eyes flashed with irritation, but her good breeding quickly kicked in. She was, after all, on his turf. An uninvited guest with manners, Cord thought with amusement as he awaited her response.

“Good evening, Cordell,” she said, her voice as sweet as syrup, yet unmistakably insincere. “I see your manners haven’t improved with age.”

“Not much,” he agreed, refusing to take offense. “Time’s been kind to you, though. You’re as pretty as Miss Scarlett and twice as tough, judging from what I’ve seen of you on TV.”

“I’m amazed you watch network news,” she said. “I thought the cartoon channel would be more to your liking.”

“Sugar, I’m a man. Surfing channels is in my nature. Even I slow down when I see a hometown girl lighting up the screen in my living room, while bombs blow things up behind her.”

“Yes, I imagine it gives you something to fantasize about on one of your lonely nights,” she said, her voice cool with disdain.

“I am never lonely except by choice.” Lately, though, he was making that choice more and more. Women, gorgeous and fascinating though they could surely be, were proving to be more trouble than they were worth. Dinah gave him a withering look signaling that she found his claim laughable.

“As pleasant as it is chatting with you,” she said in that same syrupy voice that was all about properly bred, South Carolina manners, “I’m here to see Bobby. Is he around?”

Cord took a long, slow sip of beer and an insolent, long, slow head-to-toe survey of her before replying.

“Nope.”

She regarded him with unmistakable impatience. “Expected back?”

Cord saw no reason to help her out when he disapproved so heartily of her apparent mission. “Eventually.”

“Which means exactly what?”

He grinned. Riling Dinah had always been a snap. It was a pure pleasure to see that hadn’t changed. “I thought I was clear enough. He’ll be back when he gets back. You know how it goes with us lazy, good-for-nothing Beauforts. We’re not much on timetables.”

Dinah sighed heavily, which had a fascinating effect on the rise and fall of her barely clad breasts. Cord wondered if she had any notion of the raw sensuality she projected or just how close he was to summoning the energy to drag her straight into his arms and give her the kiss she was half-begging for. Probably not or she’d have hightailed it out of here, instead of pestering him for answers he would not give her. He intended to protect Bobby from his own foolishness.

“Is Bobby due back tonight? Tomorrow? Next week?” she asked, her tone impatient.

“Could be next week,” he said, then shrugged. “Maybe not.”

“Has anyone ever told you how impossible you are?”

“Before you?” he asked. She scowled.

Cord grinned. “Now that you mention it, I believe your mama said something very similar to me just this afternoon.”

Her eyes widened, pleasing Cord with the fact that he could still surprise her. Shocking Dinah had been one of his primary delights back when she and Bobby had been dating. It had been a long time since he’d taken such pleasure in stirring a woman’s temper or her dismay.

“Where on earth did you see my mother?” she inquired.

Her tone suggested he surely must have done something illegal to have such an encounter with an upper-crust paragon. If Dinah weren’t so cute up there on her high horse, he might be insulted that she couldn’t imagine any circumstance under which he and Dorothy Rawlings Davis would cross paths.

“Out and about,” he replied mildly. “Charleston is, after all, a small town in many ways. In fact, I do believe that was why you were so anxious to leave.”

“I left to attend college and pursue a career,” she said, her voice tight as her cool gaze raked over him. “Maybe that’s something you should consider doing.”

He held up his beer and gestured around him. “Why leave? If you ask me, it doesn’t get much better than this—a roof over my head, a little money in the bank, a cool drink and up until a few minutes ago plenty of peace and quiet.”

“Thank heaven your brother doesn’t share your total lack of ambition,” she said.

Her uppity little tone of voice was starting to get on his nerves. He frowned at the comparison in which he came out wanting. He could have told her a few things about what he’d been up to, but why bother? She enjoyed thinking of him as a low-life. Why take that pleasure away from her when she’d just gotten back to town? It would be so much more fun for him watching her eat those words later.

“Please tell Bobby I’m home and looking forward to seeing him,” she said. “You can remember a simple message, can’t you?”

“If I put my mind to it,” Cord agreed. Not that he intended to. Dinah Davis would eat his brother alive. Bobby didn’t need the aggravation. Of course, the last time he’d tried thinking for his brother and interfering in his so-called romance with Dinah, there had been hell to pay.

“Well, try real hard,” she said.

Then she sashayed back to her car, providing him with a fantastic view of her very fine derriere. Cord shook his head. Too bad she was so aggravating. Otherwise, he might enjoy tangling with her himself. Instead, he’d just content himself with keeping Bobby out of her clutches.