The Daughter-in-Law (27 page)

“Sure,” Joe agreed. “And pour one for my lawyers. I’ll be calling them in a minute.” He laughed stupidly and provided even more entertainment for the crowd. Jack felt ridiculous. He had just defended the virtue of a woman whose virtue he had just sullied. What was the matter with him? Was he losing his mind?

He jumped a foot in the air when Alexandra came over and touched his shoulder.

“Oh, hi! Joe and I were just having a . . . conversation.”

“I heard,” she told him. “Some of our guests want to manage your boxing career.” Then she leaned solicitously to Tisdale and studied the discoloration that was spreading across his jaw. “Are you going to be all right?”

“I’m not feeling any pain at all,” he said and then laughed at his own joke. Alexandra turned her attention back to her husband.

“Where have you been?”

“Where? Here, of course. Where else would I be?”

“I mean during the fireworks. Several people were looking for you. No one could find you.”

“Oh, then,” he said, pretending to remember. “I was up at the house looking for Nicole.” He quickly switched the topic. “Whatever you said to her sent her off in a hurry. What exactly did you say?”

“That I understood her perfectly,” Alexandra answered. Then she got back to her question. “Was she at the house? Did you find her?”

He said that he had. “She told me she was leaving. I asked her to stay. She was pretty shaken, but I think I got through to her ...” He winced at the inappropriateness of his own metaphor.

“And then ...” Alexandra asked.

He pretended to be oblivious to her point.

“Then
where were you?” she persisted. “You didn’t spend the whole time asking her to stay?”

“Damn it, I don’t know. We talked and then she went up to Pam’s room. I watched from the house for a while and then I came down here.”

Alexandra looked around. “I haven’t seen her either. She didn’t come back with you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she left. Or maybe Pam came back and got her. But for God’s sake, what did you say to her that got her so . . . unhinged?”

Alexandra leaned closer. “She’s a hustler, Jack. Be careful with her.”

His eyes widened. He hoped he wasn’t giving himself away.

FORTY-FIVE

N
ICOLE WAS
early to brunch, and found her own table by the edge of the pool. But Pam, who was just home from the party out on the schooner, joined her.

“Coffee ...” Pam begged, and took the cup in both hands to steady it. “You missed some kind of blast. Do you believe that those people brought their own band along on the boat?”

Nicole nodded. She was ready to believe anything.

“I hope you’re not mad that I stood you up. I mean you didn’t wait up for me or anything?”

Nicole assured her that she hadn’t been inconvenienced and that she had gotten a good night’s sleep.

Jack came down with Alexandra and immediately spotted Nicole sitting with Pam. “Ah, she did stay,” he said with mock surprise. He nudged his wife and nodded to the table across the pool. “Now for God’s sake, say something friendly to her.”

“I’ll try to think of something,” Alexandra promised.

Their guests were arriving in various stages of recovery, again dressed for the cameras but looking less like beautiful people. Tables filled, but there was an edgy silence until second cups had been poured. Then the conversation sputtered and started like a long-neglected motor.

“I’ll see how she’s doing,” Jack told his wife when he had her seated with a group of friends. He wandered around the pool, exchanged greetings wherever he saw signs of life, and ended up in a chair across from Nicole and his daughter. Pam was in the middle of describing the party aboard the yacht, and went back far enough in the tale to get her father up to speed. The highlight of the evening seemed to be when the CEO of a chemical conglomerate started home, turned at the bottom of the companion ladder to blow kisses to the ladies, and then stepped off a few seconds after the launch had departed.

Jack listened patiently, nodding and laughing, but hoping that Pam would find some reason to leave so that he could have a moment alone with Nicole. He was feeling foolish, guilty, and compromised, all at the same time. He needed a chance to apologize and he hoped to hear Nicole’s assurance that their secret would remain their secret. But Pam’s recollections seemed endless. Then, when two of her friends joined them, Jack gave up. He wandered back to his wife’s table, now carrying a plate of eggs Benedict and the requisite Bloody Mary.

“How did she survive?” Alexandra asked.

“She seems in better spirits. Didn’t say anything about leaving . . .”

“I meant your daughter.”

Jack reddened. “Quite a night out there! Did you hear Jay Johnstone missed the launch and went overboard?”

“That’s what everyone is talking about,” she answered. “That, and you punching out Joe Tisdale. So far, those are the most memorable events.”

Jack wished that they were. What he couldn’t forget was falling into bed with his daughter-in-law. His recollections of their sexual rumble were delicious. He could feel the excitement of opening her buttons and pulling her clothes away. He was still tingling from the silky touch of her skin. But his thrilling memories of conquest were buried in a gloom of self-loathing and the fear that his crime would surely be discovered. If only he had the evening to live over again he would never have followed her to the house or climbed the stairs.

Then it got worse. Joe Tisdale came over, his face obviously misshapen. Unlike the affable drunk of the previous evening, he was sour and serious. There was no hint of mirth in his swollen chin.

“Jesus, Joe, I’m sorry,” Jack said. He stood to help Joe find his chair.

“You should be,” Tisdale snapped. “Taking me by surprise, like that. What in hell got into you?”

Jack shook his head and threw up his hands. “I don’t know.”

“All I did was ask where Nicole was. We were going to watch the fireworks together.”

“Joe, there’s no excuse. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

But Alexandra was beginning to understand. She knew that Tisdale wouldn’t have asked in exactly those words. “Where’s Nicole?”
was probably his most self-serving spin on “Where can I get my hands on that piece of ass?” and she was sure the colorful starbursts wouldn’t have been the fireworks he alluded to. Joe Tisdale liked to play the dangerous lover. And that would be what her husband took exception to—a dirty remark about his daughter-in-law. Jack was feeling protective toward Nicole, hardly the state of mind he needed to drive a hard bargain. Could it be that he was changing sides?

She played the gracious hostess, meandering from group to group, joining briefly in conversations, and throwing her head back in laughter. But she kept herself aware of her husband and kept looking for signs of his defection. The plan had been to make peace and win Nicole over to a more accommodating position in the negotiations. She was beginning to suspect that Jack was the one who was being won over.

For his part, Jack’s entire focus was on getting a moment alone with Nicole. He avoided her scrupulously whenever she was with someone. But even as he chatted with his guests and endured the teasing about his first round knockout of “Canvasback Tisdale,” he kept an eye on her. On several occasions he had spotted her alone but had been unable to disengage from a conversation. Once he had begun his approach only to be beaten to her side by one of Pam’s young men who had set out to monopolize her.

Other guests returned from their rooms in swimwear. Another of Pam’s gold label rock groups arrived and blasted out an even more deafening sound. The party mood returned, banishing the alcohol-stunned stupor with which the day had started. As the mood swung, Jack’s feelings began to change.

He hadn’t been caught. No one had whispered in his ear that they knew his terrible secret. There were no smirks where there should have been smiles. At dawn he had assumed that everyone knew. Now he realized that no one knew anything. He was beginning to feel much less vulnerable and, for exactly that reason, much less guilty. After all, it wasn’t as if he had forced himself on her. What was it that she had said? She would have died if he hadn’t been there to love her. They were both consenting adults.

Not that the guilt didn’t continue to raise its ugly head. “She’s your son’s wife, for God’s sake,” he reminded himself from time to time. “In Pammie’s bed,” was another recurring thought, as if his daughter still slept in a cradle. And there were stabbing pains when-
ever he caught a glimpse of his wife. “In Alexandra’s house,” he told himself, thinking of the sanctuary of a cathedral.

And there was fear. Now Nicole held all the power with just the possibility that she might reveal his indiscretion. A word from her could destroy everything he had built. She would be calling the shots when their negotiations resumed.

But as the day progressed, the arguments justifying their liaison became more convincing. Jonathan was gone and Nicole was a free woman, her need all the greater because of her recent loss. He had done nothing to hurt his son. So what if it had happened in Pam’s room? His probably wasn’t the only illicit sex that her bed had supported. She wasn’t a child anymore. And it wasn’t Alexandra’s house. It was the open house that they used during one month of the year, sharing it with all who wanted to come and go. Best of all, he doubted that Nicole would ever want to talk about their night of fireworks. Wasn’t she the one who had needed it desperately?

As the torments of self-hatred and fears of discovery began to fade, Jack started to recognize the familiar feelings of pride. It was like one of his financial takeovers where feelings of concern for the lives he might be wrecking and the people unemployed gradually gave way to the cockiness of being a winner. He had gone into battle and come out victorious. Why sully the moment with regrets for the bodies he had left on the field?

There were a hundred men at the party, probably more. Two-thirds of them were married to the women standing at their sides. Every one of them, Jack told himself, had licked his lips when Nicole stood by the pool. Every one of them would have gladly dragged her up to Pam’s bedroom if they thought they could get away with it. What had stopped them wasn’t moral rectitude, or concern for the rights of others. What had stopped them was fear. None of them had any balls!

Except for him. He hadn’t been afraid of the risks, or hesitated in the face of danger. He had followed her up the stairs, charged into her room, and locked the door behind him. He had claimed the prize of the party for himself. So why was he whining about the few bruised egos he might have caused? He had triumphed. He shouldn’t be hiding his victory with an innocent face and a fawning demeanor. He should ride out with his conquest tossed across his
saddle so that everyone could see the spoils of war. What the hell was there to apologize for?

He jumped when Nicole was suddenly standing beside him, and let the story he was telling tail off into meaningless words. “Hello,” he said, and then panicked when he couldn’t think of anything to add.

“So, this is Jonathan’s wife,” one of the men in the group said, coming to his rescue. “Terrible thing, losing someone like that. You have my deepest sympathy.”

Jack found himself in time to introduce her to the group, and then ask if she was having a good time. She showed a full smile, and laughed easily as she joined in the praise of Pam’s efforts. It was obvious to everyone that just a word of sympathy was enough. Nicole Donner had no intention of wallowing in her widowhood.

She has no regrets, Jack told himself. She likes being near me and she doesn’t care who notices. His spirits lifted to an even higher level.

Alexandra looked up just in time to see them standing together, holding court before a group of the country’s outstanding citizens. She watched as Pam joined in, putting her arm around her sister-in-law’s waist. It was a perfect domestic moment. Except she was missing. As Alexandra watched, she could feel her family changing sides. Her husband and her daughter were going over to the enemy, and she was being left alone to defend all that she held dear. A current of renewed determination shot through her body, tensing her muscles and heightening her senses. Nicole had to go, and the sooner the better.

FORTY-SIX

J
ACK FINALLY
caught Nicole alone as she was walking back to the house. He had seen her take her leave from a cluster of Pam’s friends, and then start off on her own. He had set his drink on someone else’s table, and taken a roundabout route to follow her.

“Nicole!” He was short of breath as he ran up behind her.

She turned as if she had expected him to follow her. “Jack, I’ve been looking for a chance to talk to you since this morning.”

He glanced around furtively. There were guests everywhere, but they were all involved in one another. His approach to Nicole didn’t seem to have attracted any attention. “Where are you going? I’ll walk with you,” he said, flashing his most innocent smile for the benefit of anyone who might happen to notice them together.

“Just to get my things together. I’ll be leaving right after the banquet. But I do want to talk to you.”

He fell in beside her. “I know I should apologize for . . . last night. And if that’s what you want to hear, then I’m sorry for mistaking your feelings.”

“You didn’t mistake my feeling,” she said.

But Jack wasn’t listening. He had a rehearsed speech that he was determined to deliver. “But the fact is, I have never been more attracted to anyone than I am to you. You said that you needed me, but
I
needed
you.
I know that makes me ridiculous, but I don’t really give a damn. Last night was wonderful, and I’m glad that it happened. So, what does that make me, a liar or an arrogant bastard?”

She squeezed his hand and he loved it, until he realized that someone might be watching. He pulled his hand away. “Jack, I’m not sorry either. But we’ve created one god-awful problem for ourselves. I don’t know where to go from here.”

“I’ll call you,” he promised. “As soon as we’re back in the city we have to get together and talk. There are a lot of things that we
have to straighten out, and I don’t think that there’s anyone who can help us.”