Handful of Dreams (17 page)

Susan didn’t want to hear about David. “I just wanted to say that I would be glad to go out with you all on Friday,” she told Mindy.

“Great! Hang on, Jerry’s saying something…. Oh, we’ll pick you up, okay?”

“Why don’t I just meet you in town? There’s no reason for someone to have to drive out here.”

“Yes, there is. Mrs. Hennessy’s house was broken into today. A guy with a mask shoved her around quite a bit.”

“Is she hurt?” Susan asked anxiously. A frown tightened her brow. Crime was unheard of in this tiny northern town.

“She’s going to be okay. Bruises, scratches, a lump on the head, but Jerry doesn’t want you coming in alone late at night. Okay?”

There was a plea in her friend’s voice. “Sure, that’s nice of you both. I’ll see you Friday night, then.”

“Eight o’clock?”

“Eight sounds fine.”

Susan hung up. She was going to go out with her friends and have a good time. She would work—totally professional at all times!—and when she wasn’t working, she wasn’t going to worry about anything. Especially not David Lane.

Especially not David Lane, dammit!

T
HE CROWD, AS JERRY
called the group of friends, consisted of himself and Mindy, Lawrence Ewell and Carrie Smith—two more natives of the area—and Dr. Harley Richmond and his wife, Nora. Lawrence and Carrie had returned to Maine after painful divorces from separate spouses; Susan thought they would eventually leave again, that they only came home to lick their wounds. But, except for the Richmonds and herself, it was a group that had long known the ups and downs of friendship. They were warm and fun to be with. She didn’t feel like a seventh wheel at all in their company.

They chose Badacini’s for dinner, a fresh fish place on the water. The food was good, and after the meal they trekked upstairs where a trio played a bit of everything and the dancers ranged from ten years of age to eighty.

During the meal, during which they’d all passed their chosen entrees around the table for everyone to sample, Susan had been between Nora Richmond and Mindy. Nora had quoted humorous anecdotes about the things that came home from school in her children’s lunch boxes; Mindy had laughed about her and Jerry’s most recent attempts to begin a family themselves. The conversation had been pleasant and easy.

But upstairs, when they were all seated around the circular cocktail table, the conversation changed. Jerry mentioned that he was sorry he hadn’t had a chance to see David Lane, and Carrie instantly picked up on it.

She was a pretty woman of about thirty-three with large, soulful brown eyes and sleek chestnut hair cut in a slant across her cheek, a pleasant angle to her heart-shaped face. She looked at Susan with curiosity and no rancor.

“David was here? Oh, what a pity! I’d have loved to have seen him myself.”

“Rekindling old flames, eh?” Jerry teased, idly running his thumb along Mindy’s cheek.

“Oh, you’re just jealous!” Carrie said, flaunting back lightly. She gazed at Susan again, her eyes sparkling. “It’s a good thing that Jerry cornered Mindy—and that she had a streak of kindness and pity in her! David had it all hands down when he was here! How is he?”

“He’s … fine, I guess,” Susan replied a little stiffly. “I barely know him; it would be hard for me to say.”

“I’ll bet he’s aged well,” Mindy murmured. Then she laughed. “Jerry’s right; when I was a kid, I had a crush on him that wouldn’t quit. What’s he look like? Any distinguishing gray at the temples yet?”

“Ah, no. He’s still dark,” Susan murmured, playing with the lime in her gin rickey.

Jerry chuckled softly. “I didn’t get the impression that Susan and David hit it off very well.”

“You didn’t?” Carrie persisted, astonished. “David is impossible to dislike!”

“Oh, no, he’s not!” Susan snapped before she could prevent herself. She smiled quickly, wishing she could have kept her feelings to herself. She looked across the table at Mindy. “Would you get your husband up on the dance floor with you, please? Then I won’t feel guilty about trying to steal him for a dance later.”

Mindy chuckled. “Sure.” She and Jerry departed for the dance floor; the Richmonds followed them, and Lawrence charmingly assured Susan that he’d dance with her anytime she liked. And Carrie, too, of course.

As the numbers went on they all changed partners a half dozen times. Susan wound up on the floor with Harley, who gave her a look of concern. “How are you, Susan? I mean, really, how are you?”

She looked into his kind eyes with surprise. “I’m fine, Harley. Really fine. Why?”

He shrugged, stepping on her toe as he moved awkwardly to the music. “I’m just worried about you, that’s all. I mean, you’ve had more than your share of it. Coming to the clinic with Carl, then working the hospice with him. Your home life was watching your brother die. Your professional life was helping other people die. And when you finally left it, it was to go and help Peter Lane die. Susan, Peter’s gone now, and you’ve got to get on with living.”

“Hey, Doc!” Susan protested, giving him a dazzling smile. “I was the psychology major, remember? The psychology major turned writer. I’ve been out of the hospice for a year now.”

“You haven’t been out of it. You were with Peter. And your own social life consisted of those characters in your novels.”

“I loved Peter. Peter was there when I did crack, when Carl died. He was the healer on that one, Harley. If I’m not being social now, warn me and I’ll try harder!”

“Peter was the best,” Harley said softly. He stopped moving to the music and just looked down at her with the concern of an old friend. “That’s just it; you did love him. You were involved again. Susan, a person can only take so much. Of course you’re being social, but I meant that you should be a whole lot more social with someone than you could ever be with any of us! You need a good man, Susan—one who’s under forty! Please, Susan, tell me you’re not going to come back to work now!”

She laughed reassuringly. “Harley, I guess I haven’t had a chance to tell you yet, have I?” She tried to keep the edge of bitterness out of her voice. “I’m going to be a rich and famous author. It turns out that I sold Peter’s life story to Peter’s son, and if he’s on the up and up, David Lane intends to create a best-seller.”

He frowned at her when Susan thought he should have smiled and congratulated her. “Did you ever tell David the truth about his father?”

Susan lowered her eyes, shaking her head. “I never told David or anyone else. Peter wanted it that way.” She hesitated. “I almost told David once.” She looked back up at Harley, her bitterness shining brightly in her eyes. “I should have. I believe he thinks I excited his father to death!”

“So why didn’t you tell him the truth?” Harley demanded, his eyes narrowing so protectively toward her that she wished she hadn’t spoken.

“Harley, to what good sense could I correct the man now? He condemned us both. Let him stew in his own juice. Besides, Harley, I’d like to do some serious damage to the man, really I would, but it would just be too awful to make, him realize that he avoided his father when Peter knew that it was the end.”

“Oh, Sue,” Harley murmured. He pulled her head against his chest. She felt a little like a child again, protected by an elder brother. It had been like this with Carl. Comfortable.

Not like being touched by David Lane. Touched and set afire with longing…

“I assume he resents Peter’s terms regarding the beach house?” Harley murmured.

“You assume right.”

“I thought you were going to give your interest in it over to David.”

“I was—until I met David.”

Harley didn’t answer for a minute. He made a wide sweep to the music, which had changed; it had become a slower number.

Susan chuckled softly. “Harley, don’t you think we ought to go back to the table now? I don’t want Nora to start thinking the worst of me!”

“Nora never would,” he replied absently. “Susan, I don’t want you tangling with David Lane.”

“Harley, you don’t even know him!”

“But it seems to me that you’re set on a dangerous course. Dad has known David for years, he likes him a lot, but he thinks he’s tough as nails.” Harley hesitated a minute, as if he were doing a little soul-searching before going on. “According to Dad, David was one of the most easygoing guys you’d ever want when he was in high school and college. He fought with Peter because Peter set impossible standards for him. But he’d do anything. Jerry almost got kicked off the summer baseball team once, but David pulled him through, doing extra practice with him. If a homely girl had a crush on him, he’d be nice and gentle. If someone laughed at her, he’d be all the more gallant. He had everything and it didn’t affect him. And then…”

Susan stared at him wonderingly. “And then what?”

“He went away.” Harley shrugged. “Dad says he could never put his finger on it but that something had happened to David. Something you couldn’t see on the surface, but he had changed. Not that he wasn’t still courteous. Just that there seemed to be a ruthless quality to him underneath the surface. As if you’d be a fool to underestimate him.”

“I’m sure that’s true,” Susan murmured lightly. Oh, yes, there were numerous qualities to David Lane. She wouldn’t put a damn thing past him. Not after their initial meeting. Not after she had found herself on the floor….

But neither could she doubt the power of his charm, she thought bitterly. Not after she had felt the brush of his whisper, and then his kiss, and then fallen into his arms without a grain of sense, willing to forget everything in the heat of the desire he had so expertly kindled.

She stiffened, remembering the night. The utter sense of magic. And then the morning, finding the check.

She laughed and lifted her chin to Harley. “I don’t give a damn about the man’s past, Harley,” she said coolly. “If he wages war against me, he’s got a battle on his hands.”

Harley shook his head dolefully. Lawrence tapped his shoulder, and Harley gave up his dance partner to go find his wife.

It was a good evening. Lawrence was a nice man, tall, well dressed, pleasant in appearance, and even more pleasant in manner. He was a nice, nice break after David Lane, complimentary and polite. He suggested that Susan go to a movie with him the next week, and she hesitated. She liked Lawrence, but there was simply no chemistry between them, and even if the movie was just a casual date, she didn’t want to take chances with him, not when he was recuperating from a divorce.

She didn’t want to hurt his feelings. She told him she had to catch up on some work and that maybe in a month or two they could get together.

It was about two
A.M.
when they finally decided to leave. Lawrence offered to drive both Susan and Carrie home, and because of it, Susan got to hear about David Lane all over again from Carrie—in glowing detail.

“I’ll never forget what he did for me once,” she said with a laugh. “It was the summer after our senior year. I’d realized by then that he wasn’t going to wake up one morning and be madly in love with me. I had a date for one of the summer dances, but my date started by spending the evening trailing after one of the town beauties. David must have noticed, because he danced the night away with me. And consequently, of course, everyone else there thought I had to be magic if David thought so! I left that place the belle of the ball. It was great.”

They’d reached the beach house. “Let’s walk Susan in,” Lawrence told Carrie. “It’s so dark and deserted out here.”

“Oh, yes, we should, shouldn’t we?” Carrie murmured. She looked at Susan with an unhappy grimace. “Seems our new burglar was at it again. He broke into one of the cottages just south of here.” She paused, not willing to go any farther.

Lawrence continued, apparently assuming that it was better for Susan to be frightened and careful than unfrightened and comfortable.

“Things got a little worse. A young college professor’s wife was assaulted.”

“Oh!” Susan said nervously. “Then thanks—I’ll check out all the closets while you two are still here.”

Carrie and Lawrence waited in the foyer while Susan gave the house a fleeting check. She looked into her own room, then Peter’s, but the door to David’s bedroom had been closed the morning he had left and not reentered since. Susan couldn’t open it; the whole thing was actually silly, anyway. The front door hadn’t been tampered with and neither had any of the windows. She was alone and a little gun-shy, that was all.

“Seems to be clear,” she told the two in the foyer cheerfully. She gave them both friendly kisses on the cheek. “Thanks for a great evening.”

“My pleasure,” Lawrence told her. “I’ll be looking forward to getting together again soon.”

“Me too,” Carrie said with a grin and a yawn. “Umm, I think I need to get home, too, my dear escort.”

He shook his head, looking at Susan. “She’s always been as bossy as all hell!”

“Oh, I am not!” Carrie protested.

Still grimacing, Lawrence prodded her out the door. “Lock up!” he called back to Susan.

“I will!” she promised, and she did, smiling and thinking that those two friends might be just what the other needed. Maybe after all the years, after separate paths, they just might discover each other.

She leaned against the door, reflecting that she had enjoyed the evening and that there would be many evenings ahead in her life to enjoy. On one of them the right man might come along, someone gentle and supportive and completely charming.

Someone who could touch her with the same fire as David Lane.

Someone who wasn’t David Lane!

She pushed away from the door, flicked the foyer light off and the stairwell light on, and hurried up to her room, delightfully tired. Her feet even hurt. She hadn’t danced so much in ages.

In her room she quickly changed into a nightgown and flounced onto her bed, certain that she would be sound asleep in minutes—so dead to the world that she couldn’t possibly dream.

And she was drowsy, so much so that her eyes closed and she felt sleep begin to encompass her like a warm blanket. The wind was rustling gently and the waves were rolling onto the beach outside in a lulling cadence. Her sheets were cool and clean, and everything seemed to be deliriously comfortable.