“I’m going to miss you. So damn much.”
Until you meet someone else.
He tilted her head back and kissed her. Knowing that this would be the last time she ever felt his lips on hers, she poured all her love for him into that kiss.
When he pulled back, he let his thumb glide over her lips. “Kiss me like that a few more times, and I’ll be able to fly to California under my own power.” He hugged her quickly, fiercely. “See you in three weeks.”
Then he was gone.
She groped her way to the deacon’s bench behind the stairs and collapsed on it. She began to cry. Bitterly. Rackingly. And this time he wasn’t there to lend her comfort.
At least Rana’s days were busy. She finished her outstanding orders in ten days. Barry had promoted his idea of hand-painted upholstery fabric. She already had an order for three oversized cushions to decorate a poolside wicker settee.
To her delight, Trent called faithfully every night, and they talked until Tom, his roommate, demanded that he shut up and turn out the lights. He phoned with such regularity that it was with some surprise that Ruby called Rana to the phone one evening and said, “It’s a man, but it’s not Trent. And whoever it is, he got your name wrong. He pronounced it Rana.”
She avoided Ruby’s questioning eyes as she took the receiver from her. “Hello?”
“Rana Ramsey?”
A quick glance assured her that Ruby had already become engrossed in her television serial. “This is she.”
The caller identified himself as a representative of a life-insurance firm in New York City. “You are the beneficiary of a fifty-thousand-dollar policy, and I wanted to verify your current address. You’ll be receiving a check in the full amount, as the taxes were taken care of when the will was probated.”
Her throat constricted. “Who… Who…?“
“Oh, I’m sorry. Mr. Morey Fletcher.”
Her knees almost buckled beneath her. She certainly didn’t want to benefit financially from Morey’s suicide. The thought made her nauseous. She swallowed hard, fought off the dizziness, and wet her lips. “But in instances such as his, I didn’t think life-insurance policies were honored.”
The man was obviously taken aback. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. What do you mean by ‘instances such as his’?”
She couldn’t bring herself to say the hateful word. “I mean, the way he died.”
“The insurance company has found nothing irregular about Mr. Fletcher’s death, Ms. Ramsey. No one could have predicted his reaction to the medication.”
“Medication?” She virtually inhaled the word, making a wheezing sound.
“Yes, the drug to control blood pressure that his physician had prescribed for him. I apologize again. I thought you were acquainted with the circumstances of Mr. Fletcher’s death.”
“I thought I was too,” Rana murmured. The implications of this telephone call were just beginning to sink in. Facing her mother’s part in describing Morey’s death was going to be painful.
“His doctor had given him a new prescription that day to bring his blood pressure down.”
“I understood that he took the medication with alcohol.”
“Yes, the postmortem confirmed the police report, but the alcohol content of his blood was so low as to be negligible. He might have had one glass of wine with dinner. Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to prescribe the correct dosage of the drug he was taking, or to predict a patient’s reaction to it. If someone else had been present when Mr. Fletcher lost consciousness, his life might have been saved, but the glass of wine made no difference one way or the other. I’ve upset you, Ms. Ramsey. Forgive me,” he said when he heard her telltale sniffling.
“No, no, thank you. Thank you for telling me.”
Morey’s death had been an accident!
He might have been disappointed about her decision not to sign a new contract, but she hadn’t driven him to suicide. She would continue to grieve for him, but she no longer had to bear the burden of responsibility for his death.
Her heart was still soaring when Trent called later that night. She told him about her previous call. “You can’t imagine how relieved I feel, knowing that he didn’t die hating me.” Trent didn’t know that Morey had been her agent, merely that he’d been a very dear friend.
“I was never convinced of that, darling.” He let the contemplative moment pass, and then said, “Since you’re in such high spirits, I’ll ask you tonight.”
“Ask me what?”
“Will you go to the preseason party with me?”
She clutched the receiver tightly. “The preseason party?”
“Yeah, the owners of the team throw a big bash every year after training camp and before the first exhibition game. It’s a dress-up affair, quite a shindig, and I want you to be my date.”
“I don’t think I can go, Trent,” she said quickly.
“Why not? Stringing me along already? Aunt Ruby hasn’t rented my apartment to a Robert Redford type, has she? You like blonds better? Okay, I’ll bleach my hair.”
“Stop! No, I’m not stringing you along. I just don’t think a ‘bash’ sounds like me. Especially a dress-up one.”
“Hey, relax. You’ll be with me, and I’m a star.” She could envision his lazy, crooked, conceited grin, and her heart twisted with love. What would all his friends and teammates think of dowdy Ana Ramsey? She remembered Tom Tandy’s face when he’d first met her, and knew then that she would never subject Trent to that kind of embarrassment.
Nor would she break her resolve and go to the party as Rana. Trent would feel like a colossal fool, and she couldn’t do that to him either, not when the most important football season of his career was pending. He was feeling like a Super Bowl quarterback now. She wouldn’t do anything to imperil his regained confidence.
“We’ll see,” she said obliquely to postpone refusing him outright.
But she knew she would never attend that party.
“Mother!”
“Hello, Rana.”
Rana stood in the doorway, staring at Ruby’s guest, who was sitting with the elderly woman in the parlor. Rana’s face drained of color.
“Your mother arrived half an hour ago, dear,” Ruby said, trying valiantly to ignore the apparent antagonism between the two women. She had disliked Susan Ramsey on sight, and her initial impression hadn’t improved when the woman insisted that her daughter’s name was Rana instead of Ana.
Only inbred southern hospitality had compelled Ruby to invite Susan into the parlor and offer her tea while they waited for Ana, or Rana, to return from her errands. Ruby hadn’t liked Susan’s probing questions, either, and had answered them as evasively as possible. “Would you like tea, Ana, dear?”
“No, thank you, Ruby,” Rana said, never taking her eyes off her mother, who did nothing to mask her disapproval of the flamboyantly dressed landlady, the house, and her daughter.
“Then I’ll leave you two alone to visit.”
She bustled out, patting Rana on the arm reassuringly and whispering, “Just call out if you need me,” as she went past her.
“You look dreadful,” Susan began without preamble. “Your face is sunburned.”
“This is an island, Mother. I’m out in the sun frequently, and I love it.”
Susan sniffed her disapproval. “This Ruby person tells me that you have a beau.”
“Ruby told you no such thing,” Rana said calmly. She sat down in a chair opposite her mother’s, where Susan sat so erect that no part of her back touched the cushion. “You may have deviously gleaned enough information from her to come to that conclusion, but don’t suggest that my friend gossiped about me. I know better. Just as I know how persuasive you can be, Mother.”
Susan’s only reaction to her daughter’s show of spunk was a slight raising of one groomed brow. “Are you living here with a man?”