The Good Provider (7 page)

“Indeed, we did. And we supported a local Sentinel Pass artist, as well. Hailey has excellent taste.” He set the bag containing the gifts to one side and held out the one containing their desserts. “You should probably pass these out, Hailey, before they get warm.”

To Daria, he said, “Milk shakes. B’nilla and Blu-nilla.”

Miranda, who must have been eavesdropping in the bathroom, opened the door across from them. “Really? You got me one, too? Thanks.” Aside from a little redness around her eyes, she looked fully recovered from her emotional outburst.

“Why don’t you open those in the kitchen?” Daria suggested. “I saw some spoons in the drawer if you need them.”

Miranda took the bag from William, flashing him a wide smile. Hailey hurried after her but stopped suddenly, turned around and came back. “Thank you, Mr. William. I love you.”

William’s throat closed tight, but he managed to smile. “You’re most welcome. And don’t forget your presents.”

Hailey gave a loud, excited squeal. “We both got new bears, M’randa,” she cried.

Daria grabbed the bag before Hailey could. “After your milkshake, please.” She peeked, inside then gave William a questioning look. “You bought all this with tickets? I don’t think so.”

William flushed under her scrutiny. “I’m a sucker for a sweet smile. She didn’t ask, I offered. And like I said, the gift for your grandfather is not only something useful, the sale helps a friend of mine fund a very good cause. Okay?”

Daria took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay.”

He wanted to ask if her phone call with her ex had gone
okay,
but he didn’t. This was her business, he reminded himself. “I’ll be next door if you need anything,” he said, stepping back into the hall.

He reached in his pocket for the key card, ignoring as much as possible the odd shake of his hand as he tried to swipe it. The red light remained red.

“Here,” Daria said, coming to his aid, “let me. You foreigners.”

Her tone was teasing, but he said in his own defense, “I have dual citizenship, I’ll have you know. I’m not a tourist, just clumsy.”

The light turned green on her first try. She pushed on the handle and the door opened smoothly. “Well,” she said, grinning, “that explains the skee ball, doesn’t it?” The mischievous twinkle in her eyes made him completely fumble with the key card when she tried to hand it to him. “Sleep well. See you in the morning.”

Then she disappeared back into her suite.

He walked into the ugly room, shrugged off his coat and kicked the foot of the ugly sofa as he walked past. His laptop was on the desk, waiting for him to wade through the hundred or so e-mails that were undoubtedly in his in-box. Instead of pulling out the chair, he emptied his pockets. Key card. Wallet. Phone.

He checked the number of messages. Eleven. “Later,” he muttered as he sat on the foot of the bed to remove his shoes. Directly across from him was a wide-screen TV. He could probably choose from several dozen channels if he was so inclined.

He wasn’t.

He suddenly felt terribly alone.

Seclusion was a good thing, he told himself. Silence and routine helped him compartmentalize and concentrate. Unfortunately, at the moment, all he seemed capable of focusing on was what was happening next door, and how much he wished he were a part of it.

Daria couldn’t decide if the ennui in her daughter’s tone was real or fake. Sometimes, Miranda tried to distance herself from things that seemed too childish, but Daria had seen her petting and admiring the highend stuffed animal when she didn’t think anyone was looking.

“I think your bear is handsome. Like Mr. William.”

“Daddy’s more handsome.”

“No, he isn’t.”

“Yes, he is.”

Daria picked up the large comb she always used on Hailey’s thick, curly hair. “Ahem. Ladies. Both men are very attractive. May we please leave it at that?”

She slowly, carefully teased loose a knot of snarls while Hailey cuddled her new toy. Hailey hummed a lullaby under her breath for a minute or two then brought the bear close to her lips and whispered, “And Mr. William is nicer than Daddy, too.”

Daria felt a lump form in her throat. She’d tried so hard these past few months to help her daughters through this difficult transition. She’d sacrificed, backpedaled, and had given up so many concessions she’d practically lost sight of her original divorce offer. She told herself that if she remained calm, patient and flexible, Bruce would play fair. He hadn’t. Not once. And even a child Hailey’s age could tell the difference.

“I wanna call Dad,” Miranda said, idly surfing the menu on the TV screen.

“He’s at a big party with the governor tonight, remember?”

Bruce’s boasting about the black-tie event had helped nudge Daria into making her move that day. She’d figured the party would make an excellent excuse to avoid that call.

“Maybe he’s Twittered about it. I told you we should have brought the laptop.”

They’d had this argument before. “If we were at Grandpa Cal’s, like we’d planned, you’d be able to check your social networking sites, so we had no reason to cart along something that could get dropped or broken. Plus, my laptop isn’t nearly as fast as your father’s, and half the time it won’t hook up with a Wi-Fi signal.” Bruce made sure he had the fastest, most current technical gizmos, and Daria got his cast-offs. If she was lucky. His last laptop had gone to the student intern who’d worked for Bruce over the summer.

“I’m bored,” Miranda said.

“Not for long. We’re going to watch a little TV then go to sleep early in case William decides we need to leave first thing in the morning to beat another storm.” She had no idea if that was even a possibility, but it sounded logical. Fortunately, neither of her daughters argued with her, for once.

I’m bored,
Daria decided two hours later. Both girls were sound asleep in the king-size bed beyond the room divider that made the place a suite. The TV cast an eerie glow in the otherwise darkened room, although Daria had long since turned the volume to mute. She’d settled into bed with the girls to watch the animated show they’d finally compromised on, but had dozed off even before they had.

She’d awoken with a start, panic-stricken that she was home and Bruce would find her asleep when she should have been working. Unfortunately, the adrenaline rush had robbed her of the ability to go back to sleep.

Maybe a cup of cocoa,
she decided, poking around the small kitchenette. She filled a cup with water from the tap and set it in the microwave. Resting one hip against the counter, she listened to the loud hum. A sharp “ping” made her jump to retrieve the cup.

She was in the process of stirring the thick, aromatic powder into the water when she heard a soft knock on the door between William’s room and hers. She opened it hesitantly. “Yes?”

He smiled apologetically. “I heard your microwave ding. Mine isn’t working. I wondered if you’d mind me heating a cup in yours. You can take a Brit out of England, but you can’t take away his tea.”

Mind? You’re paying for this room. How could I mind?
“Of course not. Come in.”

He shook his head. “Are the girls sleeping? I don’t want to disturb them.” He handed her a mug identical to her own. “Give a knock when it’s ready and I’ll come back.”

As he closed the door on his side, she caught a glimpse of an open laptop. Miranda’s comment about Twitter had started Daria thinking. Maybe Bruce
had
posted something about the gala that night. Or maybe he’d made good on his threat to put out an Amber Alert.

Once the water was boiling, she carried both cups into the adjoining room, leaving the door open slightly behind her. “Here you go,” she said, setting his near the basket of tea bags and premeasured coffee packets.

William, who was standing at the window staring out, looked around. “Thank you.” He started toward her. “I was checking the sky. Nothing but stars as far as I can see. Hopefully that bodes well for our travel tomorrow.”

“Hopefully,” she repeated.

He walked past her with a tentative smile. “Are you a tea drinker, too?” he asked, nodding toward her cup.

“Not at night. Caffeine would not be a good idea right now. My mind is having a hard time shutting down as it is.” She took a sip and licked her lips before adding, “This is cocoa.”

“Ah.” He ripped open two tea bags and plopped them into the cup, then used a second cup to cover the steaming brew. “Not a fan of late-night television?”

She shook her head. “Not since Miranda was born. Once you have kids, you take all the sleep you can get.” She stepped closer to the coffee table where his laptop sat. “Do you have Internet service?”

He nodded. “Do you need to check your e-mail or something?”

“Would you mind?”

He motioned her to join him on the sofa, then he quickly saved what he was working on and opened his home page. “Help yourself.”

He returned to his tea preparations while Daria typed in Bruce’s full name. He’d hired a professional communications coach last year to help him update his image and make his Web site more accessible—at least on the surface. “You want your constituents to feel as though you’re there for them,” Bruce had parroted, attempting to explain away the cost. “Not that I actually intend to read their e-mails, but one of my staffers can.”

Indeed,
she’d thought, wondering if there was a watchdog group that welcomed anonymous tips from concerned citizens about their representatives. Naturally, she never took the idea any further.

“Is that your ex?” William asked.

She hadn’t heard him circle around. He was leaning against the partition that delineated the bedroom from the living area. She nodded. “He was supposed to be at a big gala reception tonight. I thought he might have Twittered about it.”

She clicked on the appropriate link and, sure enough, his most recent post appeared. Twelve minutes earlier. Banal chatter including some celebrity name-dropping. William leaned over slightly to read the entry. “Ah…Denzel is there. Good man.”

She chuckled softly. “How come it doesn’t sound pretentious coming from you, but Bruce sounds like a total gossip?”

He appeared to consider her observation carefully before answering. She liked that he listened—actually listened—as if what she was saying had value. “When you work with famous people on a daily basis, you see aspects of their lives that make them more…ordinary, I guess you’d say. They’re human. Fallible. Temperamental. Subject to the vagaries of life that plague the rest of us.”

“Do you like your job?”

A wry smile touched his lips. Hailey was right—he really was a lot more handsome than her father. “Not all of the time, but then who does? What I like best is knowing that I’ve contributed to the growth and development of most of my clients’ careers.”

“I read a biography of some older film star…his name escapes me, but he had a real love-hate relationship with his agent. He likened it to a parent-child thing.”

He nodded. “I can appreciate that. There’s a tricky balancing act that takes place when you’re intimately involved in another person’s livelihood. It’s easy to get sucked into aspects of their lives where you don’t belong.”

“Has that happened to you?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

His honesty surprised her. She wanted to hear more, but he switched subjects. “But one lesson I learned early on in this business is to never underestimate the value of respect. A little deference can go a long way.”

“Even if the person demanding respect doesn’t deserve it?”

“In that case, the key is knowledge. With the right information at your fingertips, you never have to apologize.”

She shivered slightly. A nice guy with an edge of steel. She scanned through a few other entries Bruce had made during the day. “Uh-oh. Here’s a post about his wife being AWOL. Absent without leave. Like I’m a grunt soldier missing from duty.” Her cocoa gurgled unpleasantly in her belly.

“I can’t help noticing he still calls you his wife. He hasn’t acknowledged that you’ve separated?”

She shook her head. “He keeps telling me this is a private matter and he isn’t ready to make that sort of announcement. I told myself it didn’t matter who he told or when, as long as I was moving forward with my plans.” She swallowed. “I think I was in denial.”

“Was he ever physically abusive?”

Daria closed the laptop and blew out a breath. “Bruises and broken bones are only one kind of abuse. In a way, I wish he had taken a swing at me. It would have made the process easier to document, but Bruce is too smart to leave a mark.”

“Don’t be too sure. It only takes one time.”

His tone was so flat and stark it chilled her. “What do you mean?”

He polished off the last swig of tea in his cup and walked to the small sink beside the non-operational microwave. He rinsed it thoroughly and turned it upside down on a paper towel. Not something she’d ever seen her ex do.

Then he walked to the armchair adjacent to the coffee table and sat down, kicking out his feet. “Do you remember an actress by the name of Bianca Del Torres?”

“Sure. She was beautiful and talented. She died a few years ago. Something tragic. I don’t remember the details. Overdose?”

William shook his head. “Murder-suicide at the hands of her live-in boyfriend. Ocho was part of her past. They grew up together in a little town near Jalisco. They went to Mexico City, where she got her start in Telemundo soaps. Eventually, she moved to L.A. Ocho followed.” His sad, inward-looking smile nearly broke Daria’s heart.

“She was one of my first clients. So young and needy and talented. In addition to championing her career, I became a sort of a big brother or a father-figure. She came so close to making it big. But, in the end, she couldn’t cut loose the baggage that kept weighing her down.”

Daria swallowed harshly. She heard a warning in the subtext of his message.

There was real pain in his eyes when he looked at Daria. “Every time Ocho knocked the stuffing out of her, she’d call me. ‘William to the rescue,’ she’d joke afterward, when things calmed down. She’d hide out at my house, walk on the beach. Vow never to give him another chance.”

“But she did, didn’t she?” Daria asked, remembering the headlines all too vividly. Murder-suicide. Promising young star dead.

“Every single time. He knew how to work her. He’d weep and beg for forgiveness. Swear on his dead madre’s grave that he’d change. That no one would love her more than he did.” Daria could read his anger, but there was something else there, too. Guilt. “The last time she caved in and took him back, I told her I was done. Finito. She assured me that this time was different. Ocho really meant it. He’d seen a priest and confessed. God was helping him.”

Daria sat forward, wishing she was brave enough to reach out and comfort him. “It wasn’t your fault.”

His gray eyes looked tormented. “That’s what everyone told me. But I’m the one who turned off my phone after her first call. By the time my guilty conscience kicked in and I called to check on her, the police answered. She was dead.” His lips curled back in a snarl. “Ocho had killed her then turned the gun on himself. The newspapers reported that he’d bought the gun that morning. Like I said, it only takes once.”

She realized that this poor woman’s story was probably the reason he’d agreed to put his life on hold to fly her and her daughters to South Dakota. She owed him some assurance that history was not going to repeat itself where she and Bruce were concerned.

“I didn’t suddenly wake up one morning and decide I wanted a divorce. I’ve known for a long time that my marriage was an unhealthy place for me. I fooled myself into believing that I could stick it out until my children were grown. For some reason, that seemed like the adult thing to do.

“But last summer, I had a health scare. A side ache that turned so horrible I thought I was going to die. Bruce was in Alaska on a fishing trip with his brothers, and my mother-in-law was out of town. It seemed as though the whole Fontina family was AWOL,” she said, liking the tie-back to their earlier conversation.

“What did you do?”

“I called a friend. Julie and I hadn’t really talked in several years. Her husband kept the girls and she stayed by my side the whole time in the emergency room. Talking with her, once the pain meds kicked in, made me realize how isolated I’d let myself become. I’d dropped her as a friend because Bruce didn’t like her. I think he felt threatened by her.”