A Secret Identity (22 page)

And how would I know I was right, whatever answer I came up with?

My staring must have made him uncomfortable because he began fiddling with his bow tie. Then he ran his finger under his collar. “This shirt is slowly choking me to death. I must have gained weight since the last time I wore it.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Five years. I told you I didn’t like chitchat so I usually avoid evenings like this.”

“You’ve probably filled out a bit since then. Matured.”

He nodded. “I used to be quite skinny.”

I eyed his shoulders. “You’re not skinny now.” I smiled. Not broadly, but enough that he knew I wasn’t about to bolt on him or burn him at the stake.

His sigh of relief reached all the way to his toes. He grabbed my hands. “Cara, I have nothing but my instincts when it comes to Amos. I have no evidence that I can present to you to encourage you to go slow with him, no evidence that proves he’s really not a very nice man. I thought maybe if you saw him in action for a bit before you met him, before you knew who he might be, you’d be able to make a better judgment about how involved to get with him. Assuming he’s the right Amos Yost.”

I nodded. This whole discussion could well be moot. We had stopped walking and stood in a circle of two under a ring of giant hemlocks. From tiny cones and tinier seeds these giants had grown. From tiny trusts and small reliances grew solid relationships.

“I can see that my actions look selfish to you,” he continued. “And looking at them in hindsight, they look foolish to me too. I shouldn’t have let you get a shock like that. If the truth be known, I was probably just trying to protect myself.”

“Protect yourself?”

“I don’t want him in your life because if he is, I have to deal with him too. And I don’t want to deal with him any more than I’m forced to in court.” He ran his thumbs, slightly rough but so tender, across the backs of my hands. “It seems that more and more anything that touches you touches me.”

“Right,” I said, mildly sarcastic. “As you never fail to tell everyone, I’m your
client
.”

His thumbs stilled. “That is not the alliance to which I refer, and you know it.”

I glanced up at the towering evergreens and then looked at the intent face of the man before me. I chose to trust.

“I accept what you say about how you see Amos, Todd. And because I’m coming to know you well, I accept that you’re probably right in your judgment about his character. He’s not the greatest guy in the world, and I’m not going to be all that delighted to have him for a relative.”

His shoulders relaxed and he opened his mouth to speak. I beat him to it.

“But—and it’s a big but, at least to me—I have to make my own judgments. You have to give me that freedom. You want me to trust your instincts. Well, you have to trust mine too. You can’t decide unilaterally what’s good for me. Ever. If there is to be anything significant between us, you must be able to live with that truth.”

Todd stared at our clasped hands and was silent for a few minutes. Then he nodded slowly. “Fair enough.”

I smiled brilliantly at him. He was such a good guy.

He didn’t smile back. “This trusting the other guy to make sound decisions isn’t easy for a pair of controllers like us, is it?”

I looked up at the soaring hemlocks again. Little seeds. Little trusts. “No, but it’s necessary. That is,” and I swallowed hard, “if we want our friendship to go any further.”

He looked me straight in the eye. “I want. I want very much.”

My bones turned to liquid. “Me too,” I whispered. “Me too. But I’m not a controller. I’m the one Bentley who isn’t.”

“Right,” he said on a laugh.

I was about to protest, but his hug was warm and enveloping and I forgot. It was also over too soon. Slowly we walked hand-in-hand back toward the dinner tables and the other guests. As we moved toward the bar for another Perrier, Judge Wallace Marley Brubaker grabbed Todd’s arm.

“Son,” the little man said, “I’ve been looking for you. I’ve got to tell you how impressed I was with your work on MacKenzie vs. MacKenzie Inc. Your brief was a masterful presentation of your arguments, very cogent and well-written.”

“Thank you, sir,” Todd said. Pleasure oozed from his every pore. “Coming from you, that’s a great compliment.”

The men began talking shop, and I stood patiently, hoping dinner would be served soon. Late dinners might be elegant, but the sound of my growling stomach indicated how long ago lunch had been. It also shattered any illusion I might hold that I was as genteel as the setting.

“I’m afraid those two will be at it for some time, my dear. We might as well make the best of it.”

I turned and found Mrs. Brubaker, pouter pigeon body corsetted and stuffed into a gown of the most lovely blue I’d seen in quite a while. Her blonde hair was fluffy and her gown too ruffled and frou-frou, but her eyes were intelligent and aware.

“I’m Hannelore and he’s Wally,” she said, indicating the judge.

I smiled, delighted that Hannelore was rescuing me. Now I wouldn’t have to look like Todd’s not-too-bright appendage for the duration of his conversation. “I’m Cara Bentley.”

“And what do you do, Cara? I assume you have a profession? All the young women do these days.”

“I’m a writer.”

“Of what?”

“Romances.”

“Romances? I
love
romances.” She got a faraway look in her eyes, not uncommon with romance readers. Suddenly her eyes widened. “Cara Bentley?”

I nodded.

“Oh, my dear!” She giggled. “This is so exciting. Stay right here,” she ordered. “Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

When she returned, she had two women with her.

“Judy, Pat, this is Cara Bentley.” She said it like I was a recently discovered, strange life form.

Judy and Pat immediately grabbed my hand in succession and shook it vigorously.

“It’s a pleasure,” Pat said.

“A real pleasure,” Judy concurred.

“We belong to a book club,” Hannelore explained.

Pat nodded. “There are five others of us, but they’re not here.”

“They’re not in the legal professions.” Judy obviously pitied them this lapse.

“We meet every month,” Hannelore said. “And last month guess what book we discussed?”

“
As the Deer
,” all three women said in unison.

“And we loved it,” Judy said.

“All except Mindy.” Pat made a face. “But Mindy never likes anything unless it’s so dark and obscure that you can’t understand it.”

“I just finished
So My Soul
last week,” Hannelore said.

“Me too,” Pat said. She was a handsome woman in her forties wearing a black number like Audrey Hepburn wore in
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
. “I want to know where you found the hero.”

“You liked Scott?” I said. “Me too.”

“But does he exist?” Pat asked. “Is there a Scott out there? I sure haven’t found him if there is.”

“Pat’s single,” Hannelore said as if I couldn’t figure that out. “She’s a lawyer—a marvelous lawyer—and she scares most of the men away. Too strong.”

“But I wouldn’t scare Scott,” Pat said, accepting Hannelore’s assessment of her without batting an eye. “That’s why I want to know if he even exists.”

It was Hannelore who answered the question. “He exists,” she said emphatically. “But he’s already taken.”

“Aren’t they always,” Judy said. Her hair was so black it was almost blue and she had the most vivid and unusual blue eyes I’d ever seen. She looked somewhat like a husky minus the tan markings. Her dress matched her eyes.

“Judy’s a judge,” Pat said. “She’s been on the bench for five years now. She was married, but the jerk couldn’t stand her success and left her for a beautician.”

“A beautician twenty years younger than me,” Judy added.

“So you see why we want to know if Scott exists in real life,” Pat said.

I never knew how to answer that question, especially when asked by mature, successful, professional women who should know better. Heroes were larger than life, magnifications of all the qualities we wanted or dreamed of in our men. They were stronger, more resilient, more understanding, and more sensitive. They were braver, wiser, more loving. They never got killed because, obviously, if they did, they couldn’t be the hero. And when the chips were down, they always came through for their women. In romances especially, heroes were way beyond mortal. They had to be for the happily ever after to be satisfying. Who would read a romance where the heroine, strong woman that she was, married a weak man?

“I don’t know if Scott exists or not,” I said. At that moment Todd’s arm brushed my back as he gestured about something to Judge Brubaker. I smiled. “Real men tend to be human with flaws that require trust and understanding on the part of their women. But I guess we never live up to the heroines in romance novels either.”

“I disagree,” Hannelore said.

We all looked at her with her fifty-something body and her fluffy blonde curls.

“You think we live up to the heroines?” Pat asked.

“She says that because she’s never seen me when I wake up in the morning.” Judy made a face. “Bed head, bleary eyes,
non compis mentis
.”

We all laughed.

“I’m not talking about the heroines,” Hannelore said. “I’m talking about Scott. He exists. I know he does.” She swept her hand wide in her enthusiasm. “And there he is!”

We turned en masse to follow her pointing finger, and there stood portly Judge Brubaker.

“My Wally,” Hannelore said. “Scott in the flesh.”

Judge Brubaker flushed though he had no idea why we were all staring at him. Hannelore went to him and kissed his cheek. Again he flushed, but he looked quite pleased with his wife as he slid his arm about her ample middle. They made me think of Mom and Pop, and I had to swallow the lump in my throat.

“Beauty is certainly in the eye of the beholder,” Pat whispered in my ear. “But I’m still jealous that she even thinks he’s Scott.”

“Of course there’s Todd.” Judy eyed him speculatively.

“That there is.” I smiled at him. “And he comes pretty close.”

“But he’s too young for us,” Pat said with a exaggerated sigh, grabbing Judy and pulling her away. Judy gave a small wave and the two women disappeared into the crowd.

When it was finally time to sit down for dinner, Todd and I found our table. We had a pleasant, but uneventful meal making small talk with our table mates. The only time things got really interesting was when one of the wives confessed to liking romances, and she and I had a pleasant conversation that clearly bored or appalled everyone else.

The candles on the tables, the fairy lights gleaming about the property, the women in formal dresses, and the men in tuxes gave the illusion of a more gracious, genteel era when one dressed for dinner each evening, ate multiple course meals served by retainers, and lingered over clever conversation instead of rushing away to the mall. I loved the glamour of it all and planned a scene in my next book where my heroine attended just such a gala.

The waiter removed my dinner plate with the remains of chicken topped with crab imperial, green beans seasoned with bacon and a sweet/sour sauce, julienne potatoes, and grilled tomatoes. Unfortunately he stepped back at precisely the same time as the waiter at the table behind us. Their collision sent what was left of my dinner onto my lap.

“Ack!” I stared at the stain spreading over my beautiful sunrise dress and thought I should have worn the old cream number I’d bought for last year’s Romance Writers of America convention. Its loss would have been no big deal.

“I’m fine,” I hastened to assure everyone, especially the young man who had deposited the food on me. He looked stricken. “It’s okay. Really.”

I mopped at the mess while Todd picked up my dish from the ground where it had bounced and swept the dinner debris off my lap back onto the plate. My romance-reading friend dunked her napkin in her water glass and handed it across the table to me. I dabbed a bit at the ugly blotch, but in the dimness I couldn’t see clearly.

I stood. “I’ll just go up to the house and see if I can get something to put on this to keep the stain from setting.”

“Soda water,” a lady suggested.

Everyone nodded agreement at this positive recommendation, and I started across the lawn, making a detour to the bar for the soda water.

We were seated at one of the tables furthest from the house. As I made my way through the company, I realized Todd was walking with me. He took my elbow and smiled at the people we passed, just like it was normal for his date to have big stains running down the front of her dress. I noticed Amos and Jessica spot us and felt warmed by their look of consternation at my ill fortune.

“Will it come out?” Todd asked.

I looked down and made a sad face. “I doubt it.”

“But it’s such a beautiful dress.” He was genuinely distressed for me.

“You just like it because it’s not beige,” I said.

“No,” he said. “I like it because you’re in it.” And he tucked my arm tightly against his side.

We went inside where I asked the first person we saw the way to the bathroom.

“I think it’s down there,” the girl said vaguely. “But I’ve never been here before. I’m part of the caterer’s staff.”

“I’ll find it,” I said with more confidence than I felt.

“I’ll wait right here,” Todd said, sitting on a deacon’s bench in the front hall.

After a couple of turns I found the powder room and went to work on my dress, not an easy task when the skirt was too slim to hold over the sink. By the time I was finished, I had a wet streak from waist to hem, sort of like a skunk’s stripe, only down my front instead of my back, deep orange instead of white, and made of water instead of fur. I wasn’t sure that the greasy blob from dinner wasn’t preferable, especially since it was probably still there, buried under all the wet.

Shaking my head, I left the powder room and trekked down the dimly lit hall back to the front of the house.

“Hey, Morgan! What are you doing? We’re waiting!”

The voice was that of a young man, and the tone indicated that he was not very happy with Morgan.