Tempting Fate (23 page)

“Yes.” She studied him, sitting so stolidly beside her in the cool, dim room. “But there's more, isn't there?”

He was on his feet.

“Zeke—”

Stopping in the doorway, he turned to her. “I'm also used to keeping my silence. You'll be okay here?”

“I always have been.”

She let him go to her granddaughter, which, she thought, was as it should be.

Now that he knew he'd live, John was chafing to get out of bed. It was late afternoon, and two nurses had just finished picking and poking at him. He was sitting up cursing the entire medical profession when his father-in-law strode into his hospital room.

“What,” John said, “no roses?”

Eugene Chandler sniffed. “The police say it's a wonder you were found. You could have died out there.”

“Well, the Pembroke luck will kick in at the oddest times. Never when I'm calling a bluff, of course. I haven't called a bluff in ten years but my opponent's holding a straight flush.”

“I've never been more wrong about anyone in my life than I was about you. You're every bit your father's son.”

John shrugged. “Some things in life are just givens. Roger's done a better job for Chandler Hotels than I ever could.”

“Perhaps.”

And John saw—or, more accurately, let himself see—the disappointment in Eugene's eyes, and he remembered the affection they'd had for each other, even after Lilli had disappeared. They'd seen in the other what they'd wanted to see in themselves. Overlooking Eugene's rigidity, John instead had focused on his father-in-law's pride and sense of honor and duty. Eugene had seen in him an engaging personality and determination and energy, the same qualities that so frustrated him in Dani. With his own daughters, he'd believed their hopes and dreams would be determined for them simply by having been born Chandler women, rich and privileged, their roles set for them.

Eugene ran a trembling hand through his thin white hair. “John…what's going on?”

“I fell in the woods.”

“You know what I'm talking about. One thing after another's been happening. Danielle's cottage is robbed. She decides to join us on Friday and turns up at the track yesterday. You're here. I also understand a private security consultant has been seen with her.”

“Zeke Cutler.”

There was a flicker of recognition. John let it pass. No doubt the legions of Eugene's private detectives had checked out the Cutler brothers. Eugene did like to play his cards close to his vest. He said scathingly, “Next it'll be Mattie and Nick.”

“Nah. They're getting too old to tramp over the countryside.”

“I wouldn't place a wager on that if I were you.”

John grinned. “You know, Eugene, I've never met anyone more capable than you of slicing someone into ribbons without getting a drop of blood on his hands.”

Color rose in his pale, dry cheeks. “I didn't mean to be insulting—”

“Yeah, you did.”

Eugene clamped his mouth shut.

“You're worried about Dani,” John said. The levity had gone from his tone, and he realized his head was throbbing.

“It would be a tragedy if…” He lifted his bony shoulders, letting John finish his thought. He'd already been caught once at being slyly derogatory.

“If she ended up like me and Nick, you mean.”

Eugene pursed his lips. “It's not just recent events that have us—Sara and Roger and me—worried, although clearly they do. We are also deeply concerned that Danielle has overextended herself in business. Naturally we know nothing of the particulars of her affairs, but we've heard talk.”

“You could advise her,” John said.

His father-in-law smirked, incredulous. “And get my advice shoved right back down my throat? Thank you, no. If Danielle wants my advice, she can ask for it. I'd be glad to help her in any way I'm able.”

“Does she know that?”

“If she doesn't, she's more stubborn and idiotic than even I think.” Surprisingly, there was no condemnation in his tone. But John had never understood his father-in-law's relationship with Dani. It had been a complicated mess since the word go. Eugene straightened, inhaling through his nose. “Well, I just wanted to see how you were doing. If there's anything I can do—”

“Thanks, and no, there isn't, except to be a friend to my daughter.”

He looked away. “She doesn't make that very easy, I'm afraid.” Then he added formally, “A speedy recovery to you, John.”

When his father-in-law retreated, stiff-backed as ever, John found himself pitying the repressed old fart. He and Lilli—and Dani—could have been a part of a happy old age for Eugene Chandler. But he'd made one mistake too many with his granddaughter, and Lilli had been gone a long time, and John couldn't even remember how to tie a tie, it'd been so many years.

Then a well-dressed, solidly built man walked into his room. “Hello, Mr. Pembroke,” he said, putting out his hand. “I'm Sam Lincoln Jones. Zeke Cutler asked me to look in on you.”

John shook the man's hand. There seemed to be no other choice. “To look in on me,” he said, “or to watch me?”

Jones smiled. “Either way, I'm here.”

D
ani had her freezer door open, her tiny galley kitchen enough to keep Kate Murtagh awake nights. But it was charming and functional, just like the rest of her small apartment in the large prewar building across from her grandmother.

There was no food whatsoever in the freezer, just a near-empty pint of ice cream and some pathetic-looking ice cubes. She was suddenly hungry, still shaking from the ordeal with Mattie. She'd never seen her grandmother so subdued, so unsettled.

Zeke came in behind her. He had caught up with her in the courtyard and followed her up the elevator, but she'd dashed ahead of him into her apartment, leaving the door open. Part of her wanted to be alone, and another part wanted him there.

He peeked into the freezer. “Grim.”

“I haven't been around much. I was down last week, but I ate out—I had wall-to-wall meetings.” She shut the freezer and said hopefully, “But I have cans.”

“Let me,” Zeke said and smiled. “I'm good with cans. Take a break, Dani. You've had a lot thrown at you today.”

“I'm fine.”

“I know. But take a break anyway.”

She smiled back at him. “Are you telling me what to do?”

“Wouldn't dream of it. I'm just offering to fix us something to eat, and it just so happens there isn't room for two in your kitchen.”

“There is—”

“Not the way I cook. And since I am cooking—” He took her by the shoulders and maneuvered her out of his way.

Still feeling his strong hands on her, Dani went through the small living room—it had just enough space for bookshelves, a television and an overstuffed chair—and down a short hall to the bathroom. It wasn't an elegant apartment. She kept furnishings comfortable and simple: antique quilts on the bed, handwoven cotton rugs on the hardwood floors, a blue-painted country pine table in what passed for a dining area. Whatever bent toward elegance she had was served by the Pembroke.

She splashed her face with cold water at the pedestal sink. Water dripping, she stared at her reflection. She looked bleary-eyed and stressed out. “Ingrate,” she told herself. What right did she have to judge Mattie? Even to pretend to judge Mattie? She regretted her anger. She could yell at Nick and her father—they yelled right back. But she couldn't yell at Mattie. She was different. Always had been.

She dried her face, dabbed on lipstick and headed back to the kitchen.

It was disconcerting to see Zeke there. This was her space, and she wasn't used to having a man like him there. Or, these days, a man at all. He'd pulled out a bag of dried pasta, an onion, cans of tuna, tomatoes and tomato sauce, jars of herbs. He had a pot of water coming to a boil on her little gas stove and half the onion cooking in a frying pan and was rummaging in drawers. In a moment he emerged victorious with her handheld can opener. He said, “Everything's up to date in the Pembroke kitchen, I see.”

“Space is a premium.”

“Yes, I've noticed.”

He opened the three cans, drained the tuna and the tomatoes into the sink, checked the onion. “You wouldn't have a bottle of wine squirreled away here somewhere, would you?”

She pointed to the wooden wine rack on top of the refrigerator, and he pulled down a bottle of chardonnay she'd forgotten she had. He went back to the same drawer where he'd produced the can opener and got out her corkscrew. Dani quickly set the table while he opened the wine.

She sat down and looked at the pigeon outside her casement window. “I have a lot of questions.”

“It's your nature.”

“And you think you know my nature, do you?”

“In my business,” he said, filling her wineglass at the table, “you have to learn to size up people fast. Not the nuances of who they are, just the bare bones. You're honest and open by nature and very direct—some would say blunt. You make a lot of demands on yourself and the people closest to you, even if you're incredibly tolerant in general and—again in general—a lot of fun to be around.”

She looked at him, dubious. “You figured all that out just since Thursday.”

“Yep.”

“No way. You've just been talking to Kate.”

The humor in his dark eyes made her want to smile, in spite of everything. “Nope.”

“Ira.”

Zeke filled his wineglass. “Well, he is indiscreet, but no, I've just been observing you.”

Dani tried her wine, which was smooth and very dry. “My father.” From Zeke's look, she knew she was right. “He just thinks I'm hard on him. Any other daughter would have let him rot. Me, I put him up for the night, and he repays me by sneaking off at the crack of dawn—”

“He says he shouldn't have to check in with his own daughter. He's not in junior high.”

She snorted. “He might as well be.”

“You see? You've got that hard-nosed Witt streak.”

Sipping her wine, Dani studied the man dumping pasta into the boiling water. Could she size up the bare bones of Zeke's character? He had a sense of his own limits. A sense of duty and honor. A sense of humor. But those were guesses. There was so much about him she didn't know. So much she wanted to know.

“You know my great-aunt,” she said.

He nodded, giving the pasta a quick stir. He'd already dumped the tuna and tomatoes and tomato sauce into the frying pan with the onion; she'd missed that. He stirred the sauce, too. “I've known Naomi Hazen all my life.”

She was real to him, a person. “I hardly even knew she existed—and I didn't know about the affair she and Nick had.”

“It happened even before you were born. If you were Mattie, is it something you'd tell your only grandchild?”

“That's a fair point,” Dani conceded. She watched Zeke take a dish towel by the ends and lift the bubbling pot, then empty the pasta into a colander in the sink. She lost his face in the steam. She asked, “What's Cedar Springs like?”

He set the empty pot on the stove, not answering.

“I don't mean to pry…”

“No, it's okay.” He walked over to the table and picked up the two plates, taking them back to the counter. With a slotted spoon he scooped out the spirals of pasta onto the plates. “I just don't think about Cedar Springs every day, and I haven't lived there in a long time. I guess it's pretty much an ordinary middle Tennessee town. It's got oak-lined streets, magnolias, dogwoods, a slew of churches, good people, bad people. It's changed since your grandmother was a kid. I barely recognize it these days myself.”

“Is the house Mattie grew up in still standing?”

He spooned sauce over the pasta and brought the plates over to the table, setting one in front of Dani. “I suppose I should have picked a few flowers on my way in.”

She smiled. “Not around here. Too many stray dogs.”

Sitting opposite her, the pigeons fluttering at the window, he drank more wine. “Yes, the Witt house is still standing. It used to be the fanciest house in Cedar Springs, and Jackson Witt was about as rich a man as any of us could imagine. But he wasn't rich at all. Well off, but not rich—not by Chandler standards.” He shrugged. “I reckon the Witt house hasn't changed a bit since he built it.”

His southern accent had become more noticeable, whether deliberately or unconsciously Dani didn't know. She tried to picture an oak-lined street and a fine old southern house, but she knew the image in her mind was mixed up with fantasy and stereotypes and probably wasn't accurate at all. She'd never even been to Tennessee. “Mattie's never told me much about her childhood.”

“I don't blame her,” Zeke said.

“I don't, either—”

“Yeah, you do.”

It wasn't an accusation but a simple statement of fact.

She tried the pasta. It was surprisingly good. “I'm trying not to.”

“Mattie and Naomi had a tough childhood. They had money, which a lot of people in those days didn't, but their mother died when Mattie was eight and Naomi just a tot, and their father wasn't fit to raise two little girls by himself. He was a complicated, difficult man. But the Witts did a lot for Cedar Springs. They started the woolen mill to give people work, planted trees, paved streets, donated land for a public library, kept their church going.”

“Then he wasn't a total bastard,” Dani said.

Zeke shook his head. “Maybe it would have been easier if he had been. Dani, Jackson Witt was the most unforgiving man I've ever known. He was deeply religious, but he missed or plain didn't get the lessons on forgiveness. His expectations of other people—especially his own children—were unrealistic. He demanded Mattie and Naomi fit his ideal of feminine perfection—subservient, obedient, soft-spoken, religious, industrious within very proscribed limits of acceptable work.”

Dani shuddered, trying to imagine her grandmother living under such conditions.

“He forbade them to wear pants or cosmetics or fix their hair in ways he considered inappropriate, never mind offensive. They couldn't dance, play games, ride bicycles, read popular novels. He despised movies. Anything they did for fun was done behind his back. They were supposed to be an example to the rest of the town, proof of his own holiness, I suppose. It's one thing to live a puritanical life out of choice and conviction, to teach your personal values and principles to your children. But he crossed the line into psychological abuse.”

“You're a lot younger than Mattie and Naomi. How do you know all this stuff?”

“Everyone in Cedar Springs knew.”

“So if they were to have lives of their own, they had either to believe in their father's rules or break them.”

Zeke nodded. “There was no middle ground.”

“But it still must have been hard for Mattie to leave.”

“With the particular kind of abuse her father dished out,” Zeke said, staring into his wine, “she had to have suffered enormous guilt. Add to that leaving a little sister behind. Naomi was just eleven when Mattie took off with Nick. It's been rumored around town for years that she tried to get Naomi to go with her, but she wouldn't leave. Anyway, Naomi found her own way out from under her father's thumb.”

“Nick again,” Dani said.

Drinking his wine, Zeke studied Dani over the rim of his glass. She felt warm under his gaze, but not uncomfortable. That surprised her. He said, “Naomi married the vice president at the mill. He was a widower, considerably older than she, and about as hard to live with as her father. Rumor has it he beat her. I'm not sure if she knew that going in or not. Probably. She's always been remarkably clear-eyed about people. Her affair with Nick—it lasted barely a summer—allowed her to be free and still stay in Cedar Springs.”

Dani shook her head. “I don't get it.”

“Once her father and husband had disowned her, they also relinquished any control over her. By breaking their rules, Naomi could live on her own terms. She couldn't have left the way Mattie did. She loved Cedar Springs, belonged there.”

“Mattie's never talked to me about her. And I mean never.”

“Maybe she couldn't,” Zeke said. He set down his wineglass. “Don't judge her, Dani. Naomi never has.” He smiled warmly, sadly. “You should go to Cedar Springs one day. It's a pretty town. Naomi will serve you peach pie, and you'll never guess she ran off with a rake of a Hollywood director and her sister's ex-husband while she was married to another man.”

For all Zeke's toughness and competence, Dani was struck by how thoughtful and perceptive a man he was. That comforted her. With all her confusion and anger—the mind-numbing mix of emotions brought on by the last few days—she appreciated that gentle side of his spirit. But she didn't want to look to him for answers, for a cure for what she was feeling. And there were the questions about his brother and the gold key, questions about her mother. About her father lying in a Saratoga hospital. She needed to call him, find out how he was doing.

Zeke pointed at her with his fork. “You'd better eat.”

She looked at him, suddenly grateful for his solid presence. “Thank you.”

He grinned, sexy, irreverent. “I can scramble an edible meal together on short order.”

“I'm not thanking you for the cooking,” Dani said, “but for talking.”

She didn't think it was his long suit, but that was fine. These days, listening didn't seem to be hers.

After dinner Dani popped on
Tiger's Eye,
the movie that had transformed her grandmother from an overnight sensation into a true star. When people thought of her, they tended to think of the woman in
Tiger's Eye,
young and sexy and beautiful—so incredibly beautiful—and still a little vulnerable, a little awed. Dani and anyone else who'd come to know her grandmother in her “retirement” had had to reconcile the eccentric, independent, mature Mattie Witt with this glamorous movie star.