Honey Moon (27 page)

"You're not going to be a bad sport, are you, Honey?" Chantal stuck out her lip.

"We've had so much fun. You're not going to spoil it."

"Darn," Buck said. "We should of knowed."

"No," she said, her voice a tight, painful whisper. "I'm not going to be a bad sport. It—it was a great joke. Really. I'd—I'd better get cleaned up."

Turning her back on them, she fled through the hallway into the back wing of the house, clots of cake and icing dropping off her pretty silk blouse and linen slacks. The pain inside her made it hard to breath. She was going to move away. She would leave them and never come back. She would—

A choking sound slipped from her. And then what? Who would take their places? Not Dash. She had been building dream castles where he was concerned. He could have any woman he wanted, so why would he take her?

This family was all she had.

The clattering began in her brain. The lonely clickety-clickety clattering of a ghost roller-coaster car creaking up a wooden incline. She squeezed her eyes shut trying to block out a painful, persistent voice that told her all of her success, all of her money, all the pretty clothes in the world wouldn't disguise the fundamental unlovableness that lived at her core.

Black Thunder's coaster car creaked up the lift hill. But no matter how hard she tried to imagine it, she couldn't make it shoot over the top.

15

Honey and Dash flew into Tulsa the day after Christmas for his son's wedding.

They barely spoke to each other on the flight, and she suspected he regretted inviting her. She should have told him she couldn't come, but she had followed him just as she always did, ready to receive whatever crumbs of affection he tossed in her direction.

As she got off the plane, she told herself that anything was better than spending the rest of the holiday with her family. Even the birthday party the cast and crew had given her three weeks ago hadn't dulled the memory of what had happened. Since then, she had spent most of her time at home sequestered in her bedroom.

The Tulsa airport was crowded with holiday travelers. Inevitably, many of them recognized Dash, who was unmistakable with his tall stature, his Stetson, and an aged shearling jacket. She walked anonymously at his side. With her eyes shielded by large sunglasses and hair tumbling in sexy disarray, no one in the crowd recognized her as the tomboy Janie Jones.

She had chosen her clothes defiantly, not only because they were so unlike Janie's outfits but because she knew how much he would dislike them. A soft, golden-brown oversized sweater slipped off one shoulder. She wore it with a pair of slim-cut black leather pants, a belt of gold links, matching gold hoop earrings, and little black flats with a bronze diamond appliqued over the vamp.

A fur jacket was draped over her arm, completing an ensemble that looked both sexy and expensive.

Dash, predictably, had frowned when he met her at LAX. "I don't see why you had to wear something like that. Those pants are too damn tight."

"Sorry, Daddy," she had mocked him.

"I'm not your father!"

"Then stop acting like one."

He had given her an angry glare and looked away.

Now the holiday travelers gathered around him. "We love your show, Mr.

Coogan."

"Could I have your autograph for my daughter? She wants to be an actress someday. Of course she's only eight, but—"

"We sure like that Janie. Is she a dickens in real life, too?"

Dash glanced over his shoulder at Honey, who had moved off to the side and was attracting her own share of attention from several of the men, although not because of her celebrity. "She's a dickens, all right."

Later, as they got into the rental car, he began to scold her again. "I don't know why you couldn't have worn something respectable. Everybody was looking at you like you were—I don't know."

"Like I was your Playmate of the Month?"

He threw the Lincoln into gear and refused to respond.

The wedding was scheduled for seven that evening. They checked in at the same hotel where the reception was being held. Honey discovered that Dash had booked them separate rooms on different floors, as if closer accommodations would contaminate him. After getting rid of their luggage, they

headed for Wanda Ridgeway's house.

Thoroughbred Acres was one of Tulsa's newer upscale housing developments.

As they drove through the entrance pillars, Honey noticed that all the streets were named after famous racehorses. The Ridgeway house, a large colonial, sat on Seattle Slew Way. Although it was only noon, the Christmas lights surrounding the porch were lit, and milk cans decorated with sprigs of greenery sat in a cluster beside the front door. As Honey followed Dash up the walk, she recalled what she knew about him and his first wife.

He and Wanda had met when the rodeo Dash was riding in had come to the small Oklahoma town where she lived. By the time he had left, she was pregnant, a fact he didn't find out about until three months later when she tracked him down in Tulsa. He was nineteen, she eighteen.

According to Dash, Wanda was the sort of woman who wanted to stay in one place all her life and organize charitable fund-raisers. From the beginning she had hated his nomadic life-style, and the marriage was over even before their second child was born. She had never forgiven Dash, not for his wandering eye or for throwing her life off track.

Her enmity was carefully concealed, however, as she admitted Dash and Honey into the two-story foyer and greeted her ex-husband with a hug. "Randy, darlin', I'm so glad to see you."

She was plump and pretty, a bit overdressed in ruffled silk. Her hair was arranged in the sprayed blond helmet so comfortable on the heads of well-to-do women in the Southwest, and her fingers flashed with diamonds. The Ridgeway Christmas tree stood directly behind her, decorated entirely with wooden hearts, burlap bows, and miniature flour sacks.

"Josh said you wouldn't show up, and you know how Meredith is with all that prayin', but I told him his daddy wouldn't miss his wedding, not for anything.

And his bride, Cynthia, is just the sweetest thing. Josh! Meredith! Your daddy's here. Yoo-hoo! Oh, damn, Meredith's still at her Bible study and Josh had to make a last-minute trip to the travel agent."

She turned to Honey. "Now who's this? You didn't get married again, did you?"

But unlike the fans at the airport, Wanda had the eyes of a hawk, and even before Honey had slipped off her sunglasses, she recognized her ex-husband's traveling companion. Her lips thinned ever so slightly. "Well, if it isn't your sweet little costar. What a surprise. And aren't you the dearest little thang.

Edward, you'll never guess who's here? Edward!"

A middle-aged man with thinning hair, gentle eyes, and a slight paunch appeared in the foyer from the back of the house. "Well, hello there, Dash. I had the fan on in the bathroom and didn't hear you come in."

"Edward, look who Randy brought with him. Little Honey Jane Moon, one of your favorite TV people next to J. R. Ewing and
Three's Company.
Isn't she just cute as a baby's behind?"

"Hello, Miss Moon, and welcome. Well, now, this is an honor. Yes it is. My, you sure do look grown-up in real life." His glance was admiring but not lecherous, and Honey decided she liked Edward, despite the fact that his red bow tie was embedded with blinking green lights.

After their coats and Dash's Stetson had been disposed of in a closet lined with peg hooks and organizer shelves, Wanda led them into a cavernous family room complete with every variety of painted wooden goose, straw wreath, and wicker basket. The room smelled of clove-scented potpourri bubbling away in ceramic pots printed with fat red hearts.

Wanda pointed toward a bar at one end decorated with pewter tankards and golf prints. "Get Randy a drink, Edward. And there's some soda pop in the refrig for Honey."

"If you don't mind, I'd rather have wine," Honey said, deciding she'd better assert herself before Wanda bulldozed her six feet under.

Dash frowned at her. "A Seven-Up'd be fine for me." He sank down onto a couch strewn with ruffled red-checked gingham pillows. Honey took the seat next to him and contemplated the character of a woman who would offer liquor to a recovered alcoholic.

The telephone rang. Wanda bustled off to answer it, and Edward was making enough noise with an ice-cube tray for Honey to whisper to Dash without being overheard.

"I don't know how you ever had the nerve to say that I talk more than any of your ex-wives. Wanda could set a land-speed record."

For the first time that day, he smiled at her. "Wanda settles down after a while.

You never do."

Wanda had barely returned to the room before a young woman appeared in the doorway. She was thin and, at first glance, rather plain, with auburn hair and a wan complexion. Closer inspection, however, revealed fine, regular features that would have been attractive if they had been enhanced with a few basic cosmetics. When she saw Dash sitting on the couch, her pale lips drew up in a smile and she became almost pretty.

"Daddy?"

Dash had jumped up the moment he saw her, and he met her in the center of the room, where she disappeared into his arms like a rabbit diving into a hole. "Hi, there, pumpkin. How's my girl?"

As Honey watched them together, the ache of familiar pain spread through her.

Despite separations and divorces, these people were still a family, and they had bonds that nothing could ever break.

"Praise the Lord," she said softly. "I knew He would bring you here today."

"A seven-forty-seven brought me here, Merry."

"No, Daddy. Our Lord did." An expression of intense certainty settled over her, and Honey watched curiously to see how Dash would respond.

He chose to retreat. "Meredith, I want you to meet somebody special. This is Honey Jane Moon, my costar on the show."

Meredith turned. As she spotted Honey, she looked as if her father had just kicked in her rabbit's hutch. Her pale lips narrowed until they almost disappeared, and her gray eyes grew opaque with hostility. Honey felt fried, as if Meredith had hit her with a lethal dose of electrical current.

"Miss Moon. The Lord be with you."

"Thank you," Honey replied. "You, too."

Wanda tossed down a Jack Daniels in one gulp. "No more Jesus stuff, Meredith. You could take the fun out of an orgy."

"Mother!"

Dash chuckled. Wanda looked over at him and smiled. For a few seconds the hostilities fell away and Honey had a brief glimpse of what it must have been like for them when they were young.

She was glad to see the moment fade as Wanda began outlining the afternoon's schedule. Relatives would be arriving any minute, she told them. The caterers had set up a buffet table in the dining room and she hoped no one was allergic to shellfish. Everybody needed to be at the church by six-thirty sharp. The dinner-reception at the hotel was dressy and she hoped dear little Honey had brought something special

to wear.

Dear little Honey excused herself to use the powder room. A conch shell full of pastel soap conch shells sat on the basin along with another bubbling container of potpourri. The room smelled like pumpkin pie served with lilacs. When she emerged, Wanda had gone to the dining room to badger the caterer and the groom had returned.

Although Meredith Coogan bore little resemblance to her father, her twenty-four-year old brother Josh looked like a blurred and softened version of Dash, one in which all of the older man's angular lines and hard planes had been tamed and weakened. Josh acknowledged the introduction to Honey and was making a polite inquiry about their trip when Wanda returned to the room and interrupted.

"Did Josh tell you about his new job with Fagan Can?"

"No, I don't believe he did," Dash replied.

"He's going to be a supervisor in their accounting department. Tell your father all about it, Josh. Tell him what an important man you're going to be."

"I don't think I'll be all that important, sir. But it's steady work and Fagan is a well-established firm."

Wanda gestured toward him with a glass of bourbon. "Tell your father what a nice office they're giving you."

"It's very nice, sir."

"On the corner of the third floor," Wanda reported.

"The corner?" Dash tried to look suitably impressed. "Well, now."

"Two windows." She held up her fingers in case Dash couldn't count.

"Two. Isn't that something."

The doorbell rang, and Wanda once again excused herself. Dash and Josh regarded each other uncomfortably, each at a loss for anything more to say.

Honey stepped in to ease the tension. "Too bad you didn't have Josh working for you in your wild days, Dash. Maybe he would have kept the scum suckers away."

Dash smiled.

Josh looked puzzled. "Scum suckers?"

"She's referring to my well-known problems with the IRS," Dash offered.

Josh's forehead crumpled in an earnest furrow. "You shouldn't joke about the IRS, sir. Not with everything you've been through. Tax problems aren't a laughing matter."

Dash glanced longingly toward the bar.

Wanda and Edward's relatives began to arrive until the house was rilled with a dozen more people. Honey's head had started to ache, and she tried to find sanctuary next to a silk ficus tree potted in a milk bucket. A brief lull fell over the room only to be broken by Meredith's small, sincere voice.

"I'm holding a prayer meeting in the living room at six o'clock. I'd like everyone to attend."

Wanda threw up her hands. "Don't be ridiculous, Meredith. I have a million things to do, and I certainly can't waste time praying."

One of the aunts giggled nervously. "I'm sorry, Meredith, but it's going to take me forever to do my hair."

Others chipped in with their excuses, obviously having already experienced one of Meredith's prayer sessions.

Dash took a few steps toward the door. "Honey and I have to go to the hotel to change, so it'll be easier

if we just meet you all at the church."

Meredith looked crestfallen, and perhaps because Honey had been feeling so miserable herself, she experienced a moment's sympathy.