“I am not so sure,” Cole countered.
“What can I do?”
“You can find out who the hell is behind it and how far it’s already gone.”
“I’ll find out what I can,” Sam promised, but before he hung up, he added awkwardly, “Until this little tempest in a teapot blows over, it might be best if you don’t call me at the office or at home, son. I’ll call you. Oh, and give your new wife a great big hello from me,” he added.
Cole swore in disgust at that last piece of hypocrisy, then leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He tried to conjure an image of Diana to calm the chaos of the day, and she appeared in his mind, walking with him in the backyard just after they’d announced their marriage to her family.
“For a man who’s impressed, you’ve been looking awfully grim,” she’d said.
“That isn’t my ‘grim’ look.”
“It isn’t? What’s your ‘grim look’ like?”
“I don’t think you want to know.”
“Oh, go ahead,” she’d teased. “Let me see it—”
The memory made Cole chuckle out loud.
Chapter 44
COREY POINTED TO THE EIGHT-BY-TEN glossy photographs she’d arranged across the conference table in Diana’s office. “What do you think? Should we use this one or that one?”
“What?” Diana said, staring out the window and watching a big jet make a slow turn and begin heading west.
Leaning forward, Corey put her hand on her sister’s arm. “Diana, your mind isn’t on any of this, and if you’re not going to be able to concentrate, why don’t you join Cole at his uncle’s today instead of waiting until tomorrow?”
Diana shook her head. “No, I told him I couldn’t leave today. I’ve taken next week off, but I have too many things to do before I can leave. He’s going to fly in and pick me up tomorrow.”
“Don’t you think he’d be happier if you went today instead?”
“I know he would,” Diana said with a quiet smile. Cole had been disappointed that she couldn’t join him until tomorrow, but he’d understood. “Anyway, he’s on his way to Austin with his uncle right now. Even if Cole’s secretary could reach him and tell him that I could leave today, I doubt his uncle would be up to the flight here and then all the way back to where he lives.”
Corey could tell Diana was wavering, and it made her happy. All her instincts told her that Cole Harrison was exactly the man for her sister. “You could find out Cal’s address from Cole’s secretary, fly there yourself, and call Cole to come and get you when you land.”
“Don’t tempt me,” Diana warned. She got up and wandered over to the window, so distracted by the desire to leave right now for Jeffersonville that at first she didn’t pay any attention to the black Mercedes convertible pulling up in front of the building. When she did notice it, the young woman who got out of the car captured her attention first. In her late teens or early twenties, she was wearing a thigh-high pink skirt that displayed long, beautiful legs, and a pink strapless knit top stretched taut over full breasts. Everything about her was voluptuous, from her clothing to her full lips, flowing hair, and pouty expression. The man who was driving reached across from inside, tugged her hand, and drew her back into the car, as if he didn’t want her to go inside with him, then got out himself.
Diana’s voice dropped to a dazed whisper. “Dan’s here. And he’s brought his bride.”
“What!” Corey said, racing to the window. The new wife got out of the car again, in obvious defiance of his wishes, and while Dan laughed and tucked her back into the car, Corey got a good look at her. “Can you believe that!” she exploded. “She looks like a—an oversexed teenager.”
Diana felt a stab of jealousy and hurt that vanished in moments. “She’s perfect for him,” she decided aloud. “She’s obviously jealous and insecure about him coming up here, and he loved it! He was laughing.”
“He’s a pig!” Corey said angrily. “He obviously needs constant reassurance of his virility. What can he possibly talk to her about?”
Diana thought back to her relationship with him and realized that while he had said he was proud of everything Diana had achieved in her career, he had always given her the subtle feeling that she was lacking in other areas. “Your career takes so much out of you, Diana.” He’d said that a thousand times. On the other hand, even without a career, she’d never have had his new wife’s breasts or long legs. And if she had had them, Diana wouldn’t have been caught dead in that outfit. “How could I have been so blind?” she murmured. Then she turned from the windows and walked over to her desk.
“Are you going to see him?”
“Just for a moment,” Diana said, pressing the intercom button that buzzed on her secretary’s desk.
“Do you want me to stay?” Corey asked.
“It’s up to you. He wants to absolve himself of guilt by creating some sort of friendly relationship with me.” Sally answered the intercom, and Diana asked her to call Cole’s secretary and get specific information about Cal’s address and phone number. Sally was also to ask her to tell Cole that Diana was on her way, and then to make the flight arrangements for today. As soon as she was finished, Sally’s voice dropped to an apprehensive whisper. “Mr. Penworth is walking down the hall,” she warned.
“Diana!” he exclaimed a moment later, looking windblown and suntanned and charmingly embarrassed. “I got back yesterday, and I came straight here as soon as I could.”
Diana leaned back against her desk and folded her arms over her chest. “I see that,” she said mildly, filled by the strangest feeling of relief mixed with disgust. She hadn’t lost someone wonderful. He was weak and selfish, and he was a coward. Cole had been right when he made that toast the first time she encountered him on the balcony.
“I wish you’d say something to make this a little easier,” Dan said, looking genuinely disappointed in her lack of helpfulness. “Look, I know you were hit hard by what happened between us.”
“Of course I was,” Diana said. He actually looked flattered and pleased by her admission. “After all,” she added with an irrepressible smile as she quoted Cole, “I was jilted by ‘the scum of the earth.’?”
In a fit of righteous indignation, he turned on his heel and stormed out of her office. After a moment, Diana looked over at Corey, who was leaning against the wall opposite Diana’s desk. Her face alive with mirth, Corey shoved away from the wall. Very slowly and very loudly, she clapped.
Chapter 45
DIANA HAD TO CHANGE PLANES in Austin and again in San Larosa. She wasn’t naïve enough to expect the flight from San Larosa to Ridgewood Field near Kingdom City to be aboard a 747, but neither had she anticipated that she would have to hike a half mile in high heels across the tarmac to board a miniature plane that she might have thought was “cute” if it had a solid coat of paint in one color and jet engines instead of old-fashioned propellers.
The closer she got, the smaller the Texan Airline plane looked. She picked up her pace to a near run, trying to keep up with the baggage handler, who had also taken her ticket and checked her in at the gate.
Evidently, the young man noticed the rapid clicking of her high heels, because he stopped and turned. “Right this way, Miss Foster—or is it Mrs. Harrison?” he said with a grin. “I saw you and your husband on the news.”
Diana’s attention was riveted on the small dilapidated aircraft she was expected to board. “Is that fit to fly?”
“I trust it,” he said with a smile.
“Yes, but would you fly in it?”
“I do it all the time.”
The interior of the plane was shabby and dirty. Her seat tipped from side to side when she sat in it, so she felt around on the floor, located both ends of the seat belt and buckled it snugly in place, using it to anchor herself and the wobbly seat to the floor of the plane. The ticket agent-baggage attendant winked at her as he bent in half and squeezed into the cockpit; then he slid a pair of aviator
sunglasses onto his nose, and assumed a new role. Pilot.
The plane lumbered down the runway, bumping and clanking, engines straining, swaying from left to right with enough force to jar Diana’s seat partially loose from its seat belt mooring; then at the last moment the plane heaved itself into the air with an audible groan and began straining toward the sun.
Satisfied that having made it up, the old plane could make it down, she opened the envelope to look over the instructions to Cal’s ranch. Unfortunately she made the mistake of glancing into the cockpit just as the pilot raised his hand to shade his eyes and he began scanning the horizon. Right to left. Left to right. No radar.
Diana could not believe it! Gripping the sides of her little seat, she watched the pilot’s head make its slow, constant swivel, and without realizing it, she began to help him. Leaning forward, she peered out through the tiny windshield, compulsively scanning the horizon with her heart in her mouth . . . left to right . . . right to left . . . left to right.
An hour later the aircraft slammed onto the landing strip at Ridgewood Field and galloped to the terminal. The pilot smiled at her as he unbuckled his seat belt, opened the plane’s door, and put down the steps. Then he turned to offer her a hand. “Did you enjoy your flight?” he asked.
Diana stepped onto hot solid pavement and drew her first easy breath of the past hour. “If you’re taking up a collection for radar, I’d like to contribute,” she said wryly. He laughed and nodded over his shoulder. At the end of the airstrip, surrounded by an assortment of small planes, Cole’s jet gleamed in the sun, a sultan among peasants.