Handful of Dreams (26 page)

Especially since she was pregnant with his child.

“What’s the matter?” Jarod asked her over a meal of cracked crab at a pleasantly subdued fish house on Madison Avenue.

“Nothing.” She smiled brightly and ate her shrimp Creole.

He was a pleasant young man. He asked her questions about her brother and her family life rather than about the Lanes. He showed her a wallet full of pictures of his three-year-old twins and his infant daughter and pretty young wife. “We’re expecting again,” he told her with a flush and a grin. “One last try for a boy.”

“You don’t like girls, huh?” Susan teased him.

“Oh, I adore them!” he protested. “We both thought we’d give it one last shot. And if it should be another girl, well, that will be great too. She can inherit all the clothing we already have!”

By nine o’clock he had her back to her hotel room. He left, reminding her to be ready early; a car would be by to collect her for a drive to the airport at eight in the morning; her next stop would be Atlanta.

“I’ll meet you at the airport,” he assured her.

Susan smiled, closed her door, showered, and crawled into bed. She stared at a sitcom, a cop drama series, the news, and Johnny Carson. She didn’t see a thing. She kept thinking about being in New York. There might be millions of people there, but David Lane was one of them. He’d walked into the bookstore, but he’d walked out damn quickly, not even saying hello or good-bye. Damn him. She’d vowed to make her life without him, and that was exactly what she was going to do.

She rolled over but felt as if she didn’t sleep until five minutes before her alarm went off. Lord, was she tired! And horribly, horribly irritable—at David Lane. Thanks to him, she was going to go off to more interviews looking like a cadaver.

She lay in bed too long and had to rush to be downstairs by eight. Running so late, she didn’t have time for breakfast.

But just as Jarod had promised, there was a limo waiting for her. Susan forced herself to smile pleasantly at the portly driver.

The traffic was awful; it took almost an hour to reach Kennedy. By that time Susan was a wreck, frightened that she was going to miss the plane. She didn’t want to do that; she could just imagine Mr. David Lane’s contemptuous blue eyes when he was told that his author had missed her flight. No. She wasn’t going to mess this thing up in any way, shape, or form.

The limo driver turned her luggage over to a porter. Susan found her gate number and started running in the right direction. She tripped on the slick pavement, turned her ankle, and got a run in her panty hose.

She started half skipping and half limping toward the gate.

People were already boarding the plane, and only a few remained in line. Where the hell was Jarod? she wondered. He was supposed to meet her here! Maybe he had already boarded the plane? No, surely he wouldn’t board without her.

She had her ticket but not a seat assignment, and so she hurried to the young man at the desk.

“Hi, I—”

“There you are! Damn. I hate shaving things this closely!”

Susan froze while her ticket was snatched out of her hands and passed to the young man at the desk. Chills raced along her spine; they became hot like a dancing fever, then ran like icy rivulets again.

It was David Lane.

“This is Miss Anderson, the ticket we discussed earlier,” David said. Stunned and furious, Susan turned slowly. As usual, he was impeccable. He didn’t appear at all rushed or harassed, just thoroughly annoyed.

The airline employee prepared her ticket and handed it and a boarding pass back to David. “All set, Mr. Lane. Upgraded just as you wished. Uh…” He paused, clearing his throat politely. “If you could hurry a bit to board, please…”

“Let’s go,” David said.

His fingers were wound tightly around her elbow, and he was practically dragging her along, forcing her to put weight on her turned ankle. Pain fed on the frantic tempest she felt at seeing him, hence flaming her temper.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded harshly. “Where’s Jarod? What is—”

“Would you shut up and hurry, please?” he snapped back. At the end of the carpeted hallway leading to the plane, a young blond stewardess was watching them. She was trying to maintain an expression of polite patience; she wasn’t doing very well. It was apparent that she was very anxious to close the door.

Susan glanced up at David’s profile. “Hurry!”

The small muscles in his jaw were contracting; his mouth was tight and harshly grim.

“Wait. I’m not going—”

“Miss Anderson, may we please argue once we’re on the plane?”

Susan did shut up—not because David had suggested it, but because they were reaching the pretty stewardess and public arguments were definitely not her style.

David smiled, said good morning, apologized for keeping the plane waiting, and handed their boarding passes to the woman. She graciously indicated their seats—close to the door, since the upgrading had meant first class. Susan had been scheduled in economy.

David took her carryall from her hands without asking and stowed it in the overhead compartment along with his briefcase and overcoat. “Sit down!” he said impatiently when she remained standing in the aisle.

The 727’s engines were revving. The stewardess touched her shoulders. “Excuse me, you must take your seats and buckle your belts.”

David slipped an arm around her waist, propelling her none too gently into the window seat.

“Damn you, David.”

Susan realized that the stewardess was still staring at them, and she felt a bit like an errant child.

She buckled her seat belt and stared out the window, seething. She was dying to verbally lash into David, but the quiet first-class section of the plane just didn’t seem like the place to do it.

The plane began to taxi; the stewardess moved to the front of the cabin, giving safety instructions. Susan continued to stare out the window, very painfully aware that David was beside her.

She closed her eyes, wincing. Yesterday … yesterday she had been expecting him to make another appearance. She had even hoped that he would make an appearance.

But now he was here. And apparently he was now the one who was supposed to be with her for the next week. How on earth would she ever manage it?

This was going to be impossible. He hadn’t called; he hadn’t written. She hadn’t seen him in three months—and suddenly he was next to her. If she’d really harbored any dreams for a future, they had been nothing like this. They had needed something gradual. A phone call here or there, maybe even another of his surprise appearances at the beach house. Not this.

How could she possibly act normal? Listen to him discuss a schedule in his smooth business voice, stare at him over quickly grabbed coffee and doughnuts before an interview? And all the while she would be thinking that they really hadn’t known each other to begin with, they were certainly as distant as two people could be right now, and she was pregnant with his child.

Think, think, think—it didn’t matter what she was thinking, she assured herself. She would just have to be careful. Very careful, because she couldn’t tell him. Dear God! What a dinner conversation that would be.

“
Well, Miss Anderson, how have you been?
”

“
Oh, fairly well, Mr. Lane. Just a little uncomfortable now and then. Do you remember that night late last fall? You don’t? Well, I do. Very well. I can’t forget because—it’s just the damnedest thing
—
but that one stupid, reckless night has caused quite a change in the course of my life. What? Oh, I’m pregnant, you see. With your child
…”

“A drink, Miss Anderson?”

“What?” Startled, Susan turned to him. That same pretty, smiling stewardess was hovering over them, her cordial and patient expression definitely wearing thin.

“Ah…”

David sighed deeply. “Susan, think quickly, please. This is difficult, I know, but would you or would you not like a drink?”

Lord, yes! She needed a drink. She wanted a double, very, very dry martini. She remembered the OB’s warning and ordered a light beer. The stewardess gave David a pitying glance, and Susan suddenly wanted to tear out a handful of the woman’s sleekly knotted hair.

Instead she took it out on David, lowering her voice to a hushed but vehement whisper. “What are you doing here? You’re the publisher, remember? Publishers have little or nothing to do with authors like me, remember? What the hell—”

“Miss Anderson,” he said, cutting in coolly, “Jarod’s wife gave birth early this morning. It didn’t seem fair to send the man out of town at such a time.”

For several seconds Susan just stared at him with shocked dismay. What had she been expecting him to say? That he just had to see her so he had changed the plans for the tour?

She turned back to the window. “Surely, Mr. Lane, you had someone else you might have sent?”

“Not really,” he said remotely. “We’re a small house. Besides, this book is important to me, as you well know.”

“Oh, yes. That’s right.”

Their drinks came. Susan sipped hers in silence. She realized that David was drinking coffee, and then she remembered that it was only about ten o’clock in the morning. Oh, the hell with it all! Let him think she was a lush!

David was ignoring her, reading a paper. A little belatedly, she thought of Jarod.

“Excuse me, Mr. Lane. What did Jarod’s wife have?”

His eyes flashed briefly to hers. “A boy.”

She started to smile with pleasure for the man who had wanted a son so badly but turned quickly away again. She was so tired, she could feel the pinpricks of tears behind her lids. Oh, this was never, never going to work!

“Sally wasn’t due for another three weeks,” David continued, ignoring her back. “But the baby is fine, and so is she.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Susan murmured.

A man walked by them, glanced down, and exclaimed, “David! How are you?”

David glanced up, smiled, and began speaking to the other man. He was apparently someone in the upper echelon of another publishing company. David introduced the two of them, then excused himself to look at a new book the other man had in his briefcase a few seats forward.

The stewardess came by then with breakfast. Susan stared ruefully at the beer in her hand.

“Oh, think nothing of it!” The blond said, flashing her a smile that suddenly seemed very real. “Lots of people are afraid to fly. They drink at six
A.M.
too!”

Susan started to protest that she wasn’t afraid of flying. She decided not to and smiled a little weakly instead.

The stewardess went away; David returned to his seat. Susan started wondering how long it took to reach Atlanta. She felt as if she’d already been on the plane for a week.

“What did you do?” he demanded a little sharply, and she realized that he was looking down at her leg and the long tear in her stocking.

“I tripped!” she snapped back. “And you needn’t look so appalled. I have other stockings. I’ll change them before we land.”

“Good.”

So this was first class, she thought wryly. She tried to bite into her eggs; they tasted like sawdust. She didn’t think the food was the problem; she was quite sure that it was her.

She still felt stunned. Nasty. Like picking a fight. It was so nerve-racking to have him there….

She leaned back, smiling acidly. “Do you know, Mr. Lane, my ticket was supposed to be economy. I assume Jarod would have flown economy. Things changed for you, I suppose.”

He pushed his eggs away too. “Yes, Miss Anderson, but it’s a matter of preference. Lane foots the bill for the economy ticket. Anyone who wants to is welcome to upgrade on personal expenses.”

“I didn’t wish to upgrade,” she said waspishly.

He turned back to his paper and sipped his coffee without bothering to reply. Susan knew she was being ridiculous. She just didn’t seem to have much control over herself.

Breakfast was cleared away. The flight continued. Susan was sure she could have flown to China much more quickly under normal circumstances.

“I’m surprised you didn’t choose to fly around the country by yourself,” Susan commented, annoyed that he could display such total interest in the news when he had no right to be there.

“Arrangements were already made,” he said without glancing away from the page.

A few minutes later Susan excused herself, clenching her teeth as he smiled and helped her crawl over his legs rather than moving to allow her easy passage.

After changing her panty hose she stared at her reflection in the small mirror in the bathroom. She was white! Oh, she looked like hell, and she was supposed to be sparkling and enthusiastic. She didn’t know whether to feel numb, remain furious, or hope that this could be … something. She didn’t know what.

When she returned to her seat, it seemed that the arduous journey was at last about to come to an end. The pilot was announcing their approach to the airport.

But they didn’t land. There was a backup in the skies, and they kept flying around in circles, the pilot apologizing. Winter weather was causing all kinds of delays.

David was glancing at his wristwatch. It was really stunning—a new one, Susan thought, with a wide gold band and beautiful work on the face.

“We’re going to run a little late for the first interview,” he murmured. “But it’s a newspaper, so we should be all right.”

He didn’t seem tense or nervous. Susan was already so nervous that she couldn’t possibly become any more tense.

At last the plane glided down.

“Hurry,” David urged as they left it behind and started to rush through the busy airport.

“I’m hurrying as fast as I can!” Susan grated in reply. Already her ankle was killing her again.

They reached the gliding electric shuttle, and David pushed the button. Susan stopped to adjust her shoe. “Surely these people will understand that airplanes can be delayed!”

“Come on!”

David, unaware that she was adjusting the ankle strap on her shoe, stepped into the shuttle.

“Susan!”

She looked up just as the shuttle door was closing, just in time to see total impatience and anger explode across his features. The window and the shuttle disappeared.