Baby, Oh Baby! (39 page)

Kelly's eyes narrowed to hateful slits. "I don't believe you."

Susanna raised an amused eyebrow. "Suit yourself, dear."

"I happen to know he hasn't slept with you in over a year."

The words cut right through Susanna's heart. How could Tom confide such an intimate detail to this woman? Pain tore through her, sharp and acute. But then, that was exactly what Kelly wanted to do—to inflict pain. Susanna wouldn't give her the satisfaction of knowing she'd succeeded.

She lifted the comers of her mouth in a dry, worldly smile. "Is that what he told you?"

"Yes.”

Susanna shook her head, her eyes pitying. "And you believed him?"

The look on Kelly's face was priceless. Susanna leaned forward and placed her hand over the younger woman's. "Take some advice from a woman who's older and wiser, dear. You can't believe everything a man in the midst of a midlife crisis tells you. Especially about his relationship with his wife."

"He doesn't love you," Kelly repeated coldly.

Susanna lifted her cup again. "Believe what you want, dear. But if I were you, I'd take whatever he says with a grain of salt." She lifted her wrist and waved to her friends, who'd appeared at the door of the restaurant. They headed toward her.

Her glance drifted back to Kelly. "Excuse me, but I have to go" Susanna scooted back her chair and smiled at the younger woman. "And dear, you really should try to get more sleep. You look like a princess who's had too many peas in her mattress."

Kelly's face turned an unflattering shade of fuschia. With a muttered word that was most unladylike, she turned and stormed from the table.

Susanna felt limp and shaken. She longed to flee to her room, to pull the covers over her head and have a good, long cry, but she refused to surrender to the urge.

She refused to surrender to anything. This was war. She'd just had her first direct encounter with the enemy, and she'd walked away victorious.

Tom finished gathering up his papers as the last of the seminar participants filed from the room, then turned around to find his friend Bob Bennett at his side.

The man smiled and shook his hand. "Nice presentation."

"Thanks. Are you going to the luncheon?"

"Yeah. I'll walk that way with you." Bob walked beside him to the door and out into the foyer.

"Susanna said she and Barbara were going on a tour

354Baby, Oh Baby!

of the Garden District today with some of the other wives"

Bob nodded. "So I heard. Evidently a group of the gals hit the antique stores on Royal Street yesterday. Barbara bought some Gawd-awful lamp, but from what I hear, Susanna didn't do much damage."

Tom smiled. "I'm surprised. She loves antiques."

Bob glanced at him as they rounded a bend in the foyer. "You know, I was really glad to see you bring Susanna with you on this trip."

"I'm glad she decided to come." And he was; he actually was, he realized with surprise. He'd forgotten what an asset she was to him at events like this, how her charm and warmth made people seek them out, how having her with him made him feel at the center of things.

Bob nodded. "I'd heard some rumors that the Blonde Barracuda had you in her sights. I'm glad to see you're not taking the bait."

Tom nearly stumbled over his own feet. "Blonde Barracuda?"

"You know. Kelly Banyon."

"Ah." Tom's heart pounding guiltily. "We've, uh, worked on a couple of cases together."

Bob nodded. I figured that was all there was to it. I knew you were too smart to fall for the likes of her." He shook his head. "She's one sick puppy."

"What do you mean?"

"You haven't heard about her?"

“No."

"Oh, sheeze." Bob rolled his eyes. "She's got a trail of wrecked marriages behind her that make Hurricane Georges look like a cakewalk."

"Is that a fact?"

"Oh, yeah. Seems she's got a reverse Oedipus complex or daddy fetish or some such thing going. You know Charlie Young?"

Charlie was an Oklahoma attorney who specialized in civil litigation. "Not well. I know who he is."

"Well, Charlie's one of her casualties. He told me she's a case straight out of a psycho thriller. She's got a thing for getting older men to swear their undying love and dump their wives. Once they do, she leaves them in the dust and heads on to her next victim. Seems her father ignored her as a kid and she was jealous of her mother or some such, and this is her way of getting even." Bob shook his head. "She's a real head case."

Jake had vaguely mentioned that Kelly had some kind of reputation, but Tom had refused to listen. Tom's upper lip broke a sweat. "So ... there were rumors about me and Kelly?"

Bob lifted his shoulders. "Oh, a few. I never paid them much attention. You know how people talk. Some- one saw you out with her a couple of times, that's all."

"We discussed the case over lunch a few times."

"Well, that's all it takes to get tongues wagging. I knew there was nothing to it. I mean, with a gorgeous woman like Susanna at home, why would you bother to look twice at anyone else?"

Because I'm a fool, Tom thought ruefully. A blind, stupid, self-pitying fool. Hell—I must have taken temporary leave of my senses.

It all washed over him, the magnitude of what Susanna meant to him, of what he'd nearly thrown away. Jesus Christ, he was an idiot. A woman like his wife was worth a thousand Kellys. A hundred thousand. Hell, a hundred mullion.

She was one of a kind, a real treasure. She was the best thing that had ever happened to him-the very foundation of his life. Sure, they'd had some rough times—probably the roughest a couple go through. They'd lost a child, their only child, the child they'd created out of their love, the child they'd loved as much as they loved each other.

They'd handled their grief in different ways, and those differences had pushed them apart. It had backed them into cold, painful, lonely corners, into cold, painful, lonely beds.

They'd grown apart. Well, hell—at least that meant they were still capable of growing. If they could still grow, then maybe they could grow pack together.

More than anything, that was what Tom wanted.

"Oh, there's Peter Carpenter," Bob said. "I need to speak with him about something."

"Go ahead," Tom said. "I'll see you inside." He turned toward the ballroom, only to hear a familiar voice at his elbow.

"There you are," came a slinky murmur. "I've been looking everywhere for you."

He froze, his chest cold with dread. He didn't have to turn to know who it was. "Hello, Kelly."

"You've been ignoring me, you naughty man."

Tom took a deep breath. He might as well get this over with. "Listen, Kelly—we need to talk."

"We need to do more than that. Want to go my room?"

"No. Look Kelly ..." He stepped to the side of the ballroom, out of the flow of traffic. He needed to end this now. "Look—I've done you an injustice. I've been confused, and I'm afraid I've misled you about the nature of things between us."

She plucked an imaginary piece of lint off his lapel. Her eyes flashed an X-rated message. "I'd like to put a little more nature between us."

Tom stepped back. "Look, Kelly... I really don't know how to put this. You're a very attractive woman, and I'm extremely flattered at your interest in me, but I'm... well, I'm just not in the market for an affair."

Her eyes iced over. "You brought me all the way to New Orleans to give me the brush-off?"

"I didn't bring you anywhere. You brought yourself." "You haven't even given me a chance!"

"This has nothing to do with you. It has to do with my marriage. I've realized I still love my wife, and I want to make my marriage work."

"No, you don't. You just can't work up the nerve to tell her it's over." Kelly's mouth curved into a smug smile. "Well, you don't have to worry about that anymore. I've taken care of it for you."

Tom froze. "What do you mean, you've taken care of it?"

"I talked to her this morning. I told her you were planning to leave her for me."

Oh, dear God. Tom's stomach sank like a block of cement. "You're kidding."

"I'm not." Her eyes were cold as a reptile's. "But if you don't believe me, ask her."

He wanted to. Immediately. But she was off on an all- day sight-seeing expedition with the other wives. He would have to wait until this evening to talk to her. A lump as hard as a cannonball formed in his throat. "What—what did she say?"

Kelly lifted her shoulders. "Not much. She really didn't seem to care."

Oh, Lord. If Susanna didn't care, then things were in worse shape than he'd imagined. "Did she say any- thing?"

Kelly's mouth curled. "Yeah. She said you were having a mid-life crisis." The woman's fingers slowly played on his arm, doing a two-step up to his shoulder.

"So you see, now there's nothing standing between us."

Tom stepped back, beyond her reach. "Kelly, there is no `us.' I'm married, and I intend to stay that way. I'm sorry if I've misled you."

"This is a one-time-only offer. Pass it up now, and it's rescinded forever." She toyed with the neck of her blouse, a seductive smile on her face. "You don't know what you're missing."

Oh, yes, I do, Tom thought. What I'm missing is my wife. And I intend to make up for lost time.

The poolside reception was in full swing late that afternoon as Tom checked his watch for the fifth time in as many minutes. "I thought our wives were supposed be hack by now."

Bob stuffed a dollar bill into the tip jar at the poolside bar and took the beer the bartender handed him, squinting from the late afternoon sun. "They were. Knowing my wife, though, she probably talked the driver into stopping somewhere to shop."

Tom took a drink of his scotch and soda. His stomach was tense and knotted, and it had felt that way ever since his conversation with Kelly. It was eating at his guts, Imagining what she might have told Susanna.

If she'd really spoken to her. For all he knew, Kelly Was lying, trying to trick him into ruining his marriage himself.

But if she had spoken to Susanna ... The very thought made him feel like he'd eaten a dozen rotten oysters. Susanna would assume that things had gone further than they had. She'd think that he and Kelly had actually done the deed instead of just danced around it.

Hell, he was an idiot—a fool, a moron, a lowlife cad. How could he have been so stupid? He couldn't wait to we Susanna, to talk to her, to make her understand, to beg her forgiveness. He didn't know what he'd say or do, but somehow, he had to make things right.

Bob poked Tom's arm with his elbow. "Hey, man— check out the Barracuda. I told you that gal was a head case." He angled the neck of his beer bottle toward the pool.

Tom looked where Bob indicated, and felt a burst of alarm shoot right through him. Kelly was sitting on a lounge chair, peeling off her shirt to reveal a skimpy red bikini top. She shot him a pointed stare.

"Oh, Christ," Tom muttered, abruptly turning his back on her.

Bob continued to gawk. "Oh, wow—now she's taking off her skirt." Tom felt Bob's elbow dig into his rib cage. "Holy mother of Batman! She's wearing a thong! A thong, can you believe it? I've only seen those things on pinup calendars. Are they even legal? Come on, Tom, you gotta get a load of this."

Tom took a long swig of his drink and refused to turn around.

Bob obviously couldn't pull his eyes away. "Now she's rubbing suntan lotion all over herself."

"Suntan lotion?" Tom said derisively. "It's five in the evening."

"Well, I guess you can't be too careful when you're exposing that much skin. Man, check out her glutes!" "No, thanks."

"Wow, Tom, she's looking right at you. I think this show is for your benefit." Bob poked him with his elbow again and chortled. "You know what she's saying, don't you? `This butt's for you!'"

Tom tried to smile, but he couldn't seem to find one. If there was anything he hated, it was a public spectacle. He placed his empty glass on a passing waiter's empty tray. "I'm going up to my room to wait for Susanna.

She'll probably stop there to change clothes or freshen up before coming to the reception."

Without another word, Tom strolled away, never turning back.

"Bob will kill me for the money I spent, but that figurine was just too cute to pass up," Barbara Bennett said as she and the six other wives descended the wide steps to the pool terrace.

"It is adorable," Susanna agreed cordially, but her mind was far removed from china trinkets. She scanned the hotel terrace, looking for her husband among the sport-coat clad men milling around the pool.

Barbara abruptly stopped as they reached the bottom of the terrace. "My goodness—would you look at that! That woman barely has a stitch of clothing on. Wouldn't you think that the hotel would close off the pool to swimmers and sunbathers when a group like ours rents out the area for a reception?"

"I'm afraid she's a member of the association," said a diminutive wife of another attorney from Tulsa. "That's Kelly Banyon."

"No!" gasped a wife from Texas. "She's an attorney?" "I'm afraid so."

"I've heard about her," said another wife. "She's supposed to be a real little home wrecker. Wasn't she the other woman in the Youngs' divorce?"

The stocky brunette wife of an Arkansas attorney craned her neck for a better look. "I heard she collects divorces like wild Apaches collected scalps."

"What does she think she's doing, baring herself like that?" asked another wife.

"Getting every man in the place to look at her, that's what. Imagine showing up for an affair like this in a bikini!"

"Well, it
is
a pool party," Susanna said automatically. She immediately regretted it. Why should she stand up for. Kelly? It was just her nature to come to the defense of anyone being publicly maligned, and she'd spoken without thinking.

"What kind of woman actually wears a swimsuit to a pool party?" Barbara demanded.

The other wives nodded in agreement. "One who wants to flaunt herself before a bunch of bug-eyed men," said the Texan.

"Look! She's turning over," one of the other wives announced.