But things were looking up. Ever since Ben showed up again in Gold Creek. Tracy smiled to herself and closed the door. She finished with her makeup, adding extra lip gloss and heading downstairs to her job at the bank. She worked weekdays as a teller at the Bank of The Greater Bay in Coleville and a couple of nights a week in the lounge at the Buckeye. Sometimes, on Saturdays, she put in an extra shift for the lunch crowd. During her usual schedule, she was home for Randy in the morning and late afternoon and had a sitter come and watch him on the nights when she worked the late shift at the Buckeye.
She hadn’t had much time for men, but she planned on making time for Ben. The only problem was that about the same time he’d landed back in Gold Creek, so had Carlie Surrett. Gossip had been spreading around town—gossip that the old romance between Carlie and Ben was heating up.
Tracy frowned as she tilted her head and slid a teardrop-shaped earring through the tiny hole in her earlobe. She didn’t like thinking about Carlie, the woman who had everything that was lacking in Tracy’s life. Carlie was drop-dead gorgeous, while Tracy was merely pretty. Carlie had experienced a fleeting brush with fame while Tracy, bearing her illegitimate son in a small town had been infamous for a while—the target of any jerk who had the mistaken impression that she was easy. Also, Carlie had her independence, Tracy thought with a mild twang of envy. Carlie could do what she wanted, go where she wanted and when she wanted without worrying about a child.
Tracy grabbed her purse and jacket and locked the door behind her. Years ago, Carlie had found a way to sink her claws into the Powell boys with a tenacity that was awesome. But Tracy was older and smarter than she had been then. Also, she had an ace up her sleeve: her son. Ben, with all his lofty morals, wouldn’t stay clear of his brother’s boy. He couldn’t. His conscience would kill him if he did.
Also, Tracy had always made time for Ben’s father. George adored Randy and often teased Tracy about settling down with the right man. What George didn’t know was that Ben just happened to be that very man. With just a little pressure, George would be in her corner. Besides, he’d never liked Carlie and still blamed her for Kevin’s death.
There was also the little secret Tracy knew about Carlie, a secret no one else in Gold Creek knew. She smiled to herself as she remembered the day she’d seen Carlie at the Coleville Women’s Clinic. She’d been reading a magazine in the waiting room and had been screened from the hall by a potted palm. Carlie had rushed out of the doors leading to the examining rooms and she’d been white as a sheet. Her eyes were red and she looked scared out of her mind. A nurse had run after her. “Miss Surrett, please. The doctor thinks you should make another appointment. Next week—”
Carlie had disappeared and Tracy, acting unconcerned, had been led into an examining room. She had a few minutes before her appointment with Dr. Dodd and so she’d casually walked to the restroom and noticed Carlie’s chart obviously left on a desk near the scales when the nurse had taken off after the distressed girl.
Tracy hadn’t felt a single moment’s guilt as she read the report and figured out that Carlie had been pregnant but lost the baby. So far, she’d kept that information to herself. At the time she’d been worried that Carlie’s baby, like her own, had been fathered by Kevin, but she’d quickly changed her mind. According to Carlie’s chart, the timing wasn’t right. And Kevin was dead.
So the baby had to have been Ben’s.
He probably never knew how close he’d come to being a father. Tracy wondered how he would feel if, and when, he ever found out. She smiled a little wickedly and was grateful that Carlie hadn’t been able to carry the kid to term.
So, now, Tracy wasn’t really too worried about Carlie Surrett. Concerned, but not worried. She climbed into her little Pontiac. Humming to herself, she started the ignition. If Ben didn’t call tonight, well, she’d just have to drum up a reason to contact him. It was as simple as that.
* * *
CARLIE BRACED HERSELF. Her father had been moved home and, according to her mother, was cranky and irritable, tired of being cooped up. Opening the door, she heard the argument drifting from the dining room.
“I’ll talk to him myself!” her father bellowed. “Fitzpatrick can’t pull the rug out from under me. Not after all the years I’ve put in with the company! Damn it all, where are my cigarettes?”
Carlie started through the living room.
“The doctor told you—”
“I know what he told me and I said I’d cut down. But I’m not about to stop cold turkey.”
“Weldon, it’s been nearly two weeks and you haven’t had one. Why start now and—”
“Hi!” Carlie interrupted brightly as she breezed into the room. The dining room table had been shoved against the wall and a hospital bed had been set under the window.
Her father, half reclining, was glowering at his wife.
“You don’t really want to smoke, do you?” Carlie’s mom asked anxiously.
“Damn straight I want a smoke.”
“Dad—”
“Don’t you get on me, too. You women!” Muttering under his breath Weldon reached into the drawer of the night table that had been placed near his bed, but came up empty. As he scowled angrily, he slammed the drawer shut and muttered under his breath. “And where the hell’s my chew?”
“Weldon—” Thelma said.
“Hell!”
Carlie sat on the foot of the bed. “Hey, Dad, give it a rest, will ya?”
“Take it easy. Give it a rest. A lot you know,” he grumbled. His color was back to normal and he was talking much more clearly. His face, too, had improved, though there was a little droop at one corner of his mouth.
“Let me handle Fitzpatrick,” Carlie said, smoothing the folds of the old quilt.
“This is my fight, kid.”