The Backup Plan (6 page)

“It's a few phone books, Maybelle. Not top secret files.”

“In his mind, there's not much difference.”

Dinah laughed. “Stop fussing. I can handle Daddy.”

After the housekeeper left, Dinah finally found the
current Atlanta phone directory and flipped through the pages. She found two Robert Beauforts and one Bobby, but after calling all three numbers, it was evident none was the right man. She called information to see if there happened to be a more recent listing that hadn't made the directory, but she struck out there, too.

That left hotels and motels, she concluded with a sigh. She dragged over the Yellow Pages and started with the downtown hotels. It was a mindless, tedious task, but that was just about all she could cope with.

She'd made at least a dozen fruitless calls, when she heard her father's voice escalating in the foyer. It was countered by her mother's equally exasperated response. Dinah sat there in shock. She'd never heard either of them raise their voices. It wasn't that they hadn't had disagreements. It was just that her mother especially had been brought up to believe that a raised voice was unseemly. She soothed and placated when it was called for. She certainly didn't shout.

Listening to them now, but unable to discern what the argument was about, Dinah sat frozen in place. She'd always assumed that her parents' marriage was calm, if not passionate. She'd seen nothing since coming home to change that view. So, what had she missed? Was this heated discussion an anomaly or was it a significant symptom of a problem they'd been hiding from her? Did they feel free to argue now because they thought she was out of the house? Or were they so furious that they simply didn't care if she overheard? Whatever the explanation was, hearing them was an unwelcome shock.

She was tempted to open the door and step into the hallway, but concluded that would only embarrass all of them. She stayed where she was and hoped that her
father would go upstairs to change clothes, rather than stepping directly into his den as he usually did.

Luck wasn't with her. The door to the den opened and he stalked into the room, slamming the door shut behind him. When he spotted Dinah, he stopped short. Embarrassment sent a tide of red flooding his handsome, patrician face.

“You heard, I suppose,” he said, looking chagrined.

“Just that you were arguing,” she said. “Not what it was about.”

He nodded slowly. “That's good, then.”

“Can I help?”

His lips curved slightly. “Your mother and I have been working out our own problems for a lot of years now. I don't think we need counseling from you.”

He said it without rancor, but somehow it stung. Dinah busied herself with putting away the phone directories to avoid having him see the hurt that was in her eyes. Maybe she hadn't been around for years now, but she still considered herself to be a part of this family, not some intrusive outsider. Her father finally muttered a curse under his breath, then hunkered down beside her. “I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, Dinah. I was just trying to say that there's no need for you to get all worked up over this. Your mother and I have been doing this a long time now. We've survived so far.”

Dinah regarded him with disbelief. “I never once heard the two of you argue.”

“Because we didn't want you to,” he said reasonably. “Sounds as if we did one thing right.”

She studied him curiously. “You did a lot of things right. You were great parents.”

“Thanks for saying that, though it seems like you're revising history a bit,” he said, his eyes suddenly sparkling
with amusement. “Didn't you tell us we were smothering you right before you left for New York and college?”

“Of course I did,” she said, nudging him with her elbow. “How else do you think I'd have gotten out of here without drowning the two of you in tears? There was a part of me that wanted to stay right here in my safe little cocoon.”

His expression sobered and he gave her a penetrating look. “Is that what you're doing now, hunkering down someplace safe?”

Apparently Dinah had always sold her father short. It seemed he had more intuition than she'd ever given him credit for. “Maybe just a little,” she admitted.

“Did something happen over there?” he asked. “I mean something worse than the obvious mayhem you must have seen on a daily basis?” He searched her face, a worried crease in his forehead. “Dammit, Dinah, did someone hurt you?” he demanded angrily.

She winced at his sharp tone. “A lot of things happened over there,” she said a little too lightly, hoping to change the entire tenor of the conversation. She knew the kind of things he must be imagining and she didn't want to go there.

“You know what I mean, Dinah,” he chided. “If there's something on your mind, if you were hurt in some way—
any
way—you surely know that you can talk to me or your mother about it. Does it have anything to do with what happened a few months ago? Were you just covering up when you said you were fine so we wouldn't worry?”

“I am fine and I do know I can always talk to you.”

He lifted his brows at her quick response. “Of course, you should know that, but just in case you'd rather talk
to someone else, I do know a few people who are good listeners and more impartial than your mother and I.”

She gave him a startled look. “You mean a shrink?” It was the very last thing she'd ever expected to hear her father suggest.

He seemed amused by her surprise. “Yes, a shrink. There's no shame in asking for help, Dinah. I imagine a lot of folks coming home from that war over there could use professional counseling to deal with what they've been through. When I came back from Vietnam, I wish I'd done that, rather than wrestling with all those demons on my own.”

His admission barely registered, though she knew it was something she would ponder later. It wasn't the same for her. She wasn't a troubled soldier.

“I don't need a psychiatrist,” she said sharply. “I'm just a little tired. A couple more weeks of rest and I'll be good as new.”

Her father didn't look as if he believed her, but he nodded finally. “So what were you looking for in here? Can I help?”

She realized that he might very well know exactly how she could get in touch with Bobby, but she didn't want to ask. She wasn't entirely sure why, either. Maybe it was because she didn't want to have to explain to her very traditional father why she wanted to find a man she hadn't seen in more than a decade. Or maybe it was be cause she was afraid he, like Cord and Maggie, would not agree hers was a good idea and then withhold some crucial piece of information.

“I'd just like to borrow one of your phone books, if you don't mind,” she said.

“Of course,” he said at once. “Just put it back when you're finished.”

“Believe me, I will,” she said fervently, taking the Atlanta directory and giving her father a quick kiss before heading back up to her room.

She assured herself it was better to finish this search the way she'd started…on her own.

After all, she thought a little ruefully, she'd been independent and proud of it for a number of years now. Somehow, though, in recent months independence had lost its allure.

D
orothy was still seething over her argument with Marshall. He refused to attend an important function Dorothy had arranged for them to attend together.

“Go on your own,” he'd told her when he'd arrived home from work just as she'd walked in the door after a rather tedious meeting. “You love that sort of thing, but you know I hate it.”

She'd stared at him incredulously. “Since when?”

“Since forever.”

“You were always eager enough to go in the past, when it suited your business interests,” she'd reminded him, her voice ringing with impatience.

“No, I've been accommodating long enough,” he corrected. “Tonight I'm tired and I have no intention of going out again. If you don't want to go alone, call Tommy Lee. I'm sure he'd be happy enough to escort you. Our son needs to spend a little time cultivating those people, if he expects to take over at the bank someday.”

She'd stared at him in shock. “What do you mean
if?
” she'd demanded, her voice rising to a level she'd never in her life resorted to before. Then again, Marshall had
never been more exasperating than he was being right at this moment.

“I don't mean anything,” he said in the tone that indicated just the opposite. It merely meant he was tired of the whole subject. To prove it, he'd walked away from her, gone into his office and slammed the door.

Now she sat in front of her dressing table mirror and stared at her reflection. What on earth was happening to them? It was as if she was suddenly married to a stranger.

Their marriage had never been the passionate love match that some of their friends claimed to have, but they'd been well-suited in many ways. They'd found a rhythm for their lives that worked, especially after their children were born. Her role had been to support Marshall's busy career, raise their children and to be socially active in a way befitting their standing in the community. She'd always accepted that she and a small cadre of her friends were the style-setters in town.

Charleston was, in many ways, still a small town with a well-defined hierarchy. With their combined family backgrounds, it had been a foregone conclusion that they'd be accepted as a part of the crème de la crème of Charleston society, but maintaining that lofty position required real effort. It wasn't enough to send the occasional check to charity or to be seen at the right galas. They'd had to serve as chairmen of key events, which meant that she did the work and Marshall reaped the rewards. For a time she'd done it gladly.

It was only in recent years that it had all begun to bother her. She'd found her own worthwhile causes and put her time and energy into those. Maybe that was where the gulf now evident between them had started.
Tonight she'd been forced to face the fact that it would take a sturdy bridge to cross that deepening chasm.

When someone tapped on the bedroom door, she assumed it was Dinah, but it was Marshall who entered. She regarded him with dismay. She wasn't up to another angry exchange.

“Unless you've come to say you've changed your mind about tonight, you can leave,” she said coolly.

Instead of doing as she asked, he sank down on the edge of the bed. “I came to talk about Dinah.”

“Now?” she asked incredulously.

“Yes, now, dammit! I came to tell you that I just had a very disturbing conversation with her. I saw for the first time what you meant when you came by the office to discuss your concern, Dorothy. She's obviously distraught over something. I think we need to get to the bottom of it.”

Dorothy put aside her annoyance and turned to face him. The encounter must have been troubling indeed if it had put such a worried frown on his face. “What do you suggest we do?”

He regarded her with a helpless expression. “I have no idea. This is your area of expertise.”

She smiled at that. “At least I still have one skill that you admire.”

He frowned at her bitter comment. “What the hell do you mean by that? Can't you put aside whatever differences you have with me for one minute and concentrate on our daughter?”

She bit back a sharp retort and held up her hand. “I agree that now's not the time, Marshall. Let's concentrate on Dinah. Did she tell you anything?”

“Nothing,” he admitted. “But something happened to her over there. Something bad. I'd stake my life on
it. She says it wasn't that incident she was involved in a few months ago, but I'm not convinced she's being entirely truthful.”

Alarm spread through her. “You don't think she was…?” She couldn't even bring herself to say the word.

“Raped?” he said with a visible shudder. “To tell you the truth, I don't think we can rule it out. I don't think we can rule out any sort of atrocity at this point.”

“Oh, dear God.”

He took her hand in his. “Come now, Dorothy. Don't fall apart on me. We don't know it was anything like that, but she's been living in an uncivilized atmosphere. Anything's possible. Since she refused to tell me anything, I tried to get her to agree to talk to a psychologist I know, but she refused. Do you think she's talking to her friends?”

“No. I don't even think she's seen anyone outside of Maggie.”

“Maybe Maggie knows something, then,” he suggested.

“I'll call her,” Dorothy said at once. “First thing in the morning. For now, though, I'd better finish dressing. I'm running late.”

Marshall hesitated, then regarded her with a faintly sheepish expression. “Perhaps I will go with you to night, after all, unless you've made other arrangements.”

“No. I did speak to Tommy Lee, but he and Laurie already had other plans.”

“They're probably line-appointment at some country-western bar,” he suggested, his tone scathing. “That seems to be the kind of entertainment they go for these days.”

She frowned at him. “This isn't the first time you've
hinted that you're unhappy with Tommy Lee. Would you care to explain?”

“It would take too long and you said we're already running late.”

“I won't let you put me off forever,” she warned. She wasn't about to let her entire family unravel right in front of her eyes.

“Fine,” Marshall said. “Meantime, I'll meet you downstairs in what? Ten minutes?”

She nodded.

He stood up and started for the door, then turned back. “I'm sorry about earlier.”

She glanced up in the mirror and met his reflected gaze. “Me, too.”

Sadly, though, she knew that neither the apology, nor the last-minute decision to join her were going to solve the real problems between them. In fact, she had literally no idea what might end the sad stand-off they seemed to have reached in their marriage. They were drifting, not connecting, and not communicating. If there was a quick fix for any of that, she couldn't see it.

 

With a feeling of utter relief, Dinah heard her parents leave, presumably for the evening. Once the front door closed, she went back downstairs in search of something to snack on for dinner.

In the refrigerator she found a covered plate of fried chicken and potato salad that Maybelle had left for her.
Eat every bite,
a note left on top commanded.

Grinning, Dinah took the ridiculously huge meal and sat at the kitchen table. As a kid she'd always preferred to eat in here with Maybelle, rather than in the stiff, formal atmosphere of the dining room. She'd barely taken
a bite of the chicken when the back door opened and Tommy Lee came in.

“Coast clear?” he asked, looking harried.

Tommy Lee was two years younger than Dinah, still in his twenties, in fact, but he looked older. Maybe it was from too much sun, but she suspected some of the lines on his face came from hard living and stresses she couldn't even begin to imagine. Trying to walk in his father's footsteps couldn't be easy.

“You trying to avoid Mother or Dad?” she asked as he plucked a chicken leg off the plate and sat down opposite her.

“Both, as a matter of fact.”

“Then you came to see me?” she asked, surprised.

“Actually I came to beg some food from Maybelle,” he said with a grin. “Finding you in here is just a bonus.”

“Laurie's not cooking tonight?”

“Laurie can't cook worth a lick,” he said without rancor. “If it doesn't come in takeout, we don't have it at our house.”

“You really were rebelling when you picked her, weren't you?”

“You have no idea,” he said, though without the slightest trace of self-pity. “So, what's up with you? I thought you'd be bored to tears and heading out of here by now.”

“Already anxious to be rid of me?”

“Hardly. With you underfoot, it's taking the pressure off me.”

“What pressure?”

“To live up to Dad's high expectations.” He stood up and reached in the refrigerator and pulled out a beer. He popped the top and swallowed a long gulp.

Since no one else in the house drank beer, Dinah had
to assume that these food forays of Tommy Lee's were frequent enough that Maybelle had started stocking the beer for him.

“What's going on between you and Dad?” she asked him.

“Nothing new,” he insisted. “He wants me to be somebody I'm not. He's just now waking up to the fact that I'm never going to change.”

“Out of spite?”

“No, darlin' sister, out of self-awareness. I'm not the least bit suited to a nine-to-five job hustling money. I know the banking business. I just don't want to do it.”

“And you've told him that?”

“In every language I know.” He grinned. “Which is pretty much limited to plain old Southern. You'd think a man like our daddy would grasp that one.”

“Want me to talk to him?” Dinah asked.

“Lord, no,” he said with a shudder. “If you start fighting my battles for me, he really will think I don't have any gumption at all. No, this will all come to a head soon enough.” He finished the piece of chicken he'd stolen from Dinah's plate, snagged a couple of forkfuls of potato salad, then drank down the rest of his beer. He sat back with a satisfied sigh. “Damn, I miss Maybelle's cooking.”

“Me, too,” Dinah said. “I used to wake up nights thinking about her corn bread and her mashed potatoes and gravy.”

“Not a lot of that on the menu where you've been, I imagine.”

“Not even close,” she said.

He studied her intently. “You really okay, Dinah?”

She groaned. “Don't you start, too. Everybody thinks I'm cracking up. It's getting tiresome.”

He held up his hands. “Since nobody knows how that feels better than I do, I'll quit poking around in your life right this second. You change your mind, though, I've still got a big ole shoulder you can cry on anytime you need it.”

Dinah reached over and tucked her hand into his. “When did you turn into my
big
brother? You always were this puny little thing pestering me to set you up on dates with my friends.”

His expression suddenly turned unbearably sad. “I grew up while you weren't even looking, Dinah.”

The momentary melancholy in his eyes disappeared so quickly Dinah wasn't even certain she'd seen it. He stood up with his more typical jovial expression firmly in place.

“Better get my butt home with the Chinese takeout.” He leaned down and dropped a kiss on her forehead. “I'll see you around. You need anything, you call me, okay?”

“Love you,” she said as he walked out the door.

“Love you,” Tommy Lee echoed, but only after he was far enough away that she couldn't see his face.

He'd always been that way. He'd never wanted any one to see his sentimental side. In fact, after spending just this small amount of time with him, she couldn't help wondering if he even knew he still had it in him or if the pressures of battling their father's expectations had driven that little bit of self-awareness right out of him.

 

It had been days now and Cord hadn't been able to shake the image of normally confident, wisecracking, steady-as-a-rock Dinah Davis flat on her stomach in the dirt in a pretty little sundress, shivering so hard
he'd wondered if he'd ever get her to stop. There was no question about how messed up she was, since she'd let him tend to her without uttering a single protest.

As if that memory weren't disturbing enough, he couldn't seem to forget the way she'd felt in his arms, the way her body curved toward him, hanging on for dear life. He knew she'd been embarrassed by what she would consider a display of weakness. She'd never have done such a thing if she hadn't been having a panic attack, but he couldn't help wishing that she'd been in his arms for another reason entirely.

Maybe that was why he lied to his brother.

“Bobby, I need you to stay in Atlanta for another week,” he said right after Bobby had told him he was coming home. “Maybe longer.”

“What!” his brother exclaimed. “Are you crazy?”

Cord held the phone away from his ear at the expected explosion. He couldn't very well blame Bobby for being anxious to get back to Charleston. Living in a hotel room wasn't the same as being at home and he'd been doing just that for months now. Worse, he'd been separated from his fiancée for most of that time. They'd already had this conversation once, so Cord knew pretty much what to expect. He wasn't looking forward to it.

“I've been over here for months now,” Bobby reminded him. “All of the leases are signed. There are only so many nails left to be pounded and so much paint left to be applied. The crew is perfectly capable of finishing up.”

Cord bit back an impatient sigh. How the hell was he supposed to argue with that logic? He desperately grasped at one last straw. “What about the old hotel we've been looking into restoring? Is that a done deal?”