The Second Time (2 page)

“Pop never said,” Jeeter admitted, referring to Dawn’s father. “I always got the feeling her husband didn’t want her having anything to do with her parents, like they wasn’t good enough for the likes of him, even if he did marry their daughter. He never did bring her back to visit after they got married.”

For his sake, Slater had been glad Dawn had left and not come back. There was a time when he had been driven wild by jealousy at the thought of her lying in Simpson Lord’s arms after she’d been in his. It still pained him to remember that last night together when they had made love till morning. He had been so certain that she couldn’t love him and leave him after that.

Yet she had dressed and calmly slipped that huge diamond sparkler on her ring finger, reaffirming her intention to marry the wealthy Texan, even though she didn’t love him. Until that moment, he had been prepared to believe that her young, eighteen-year-old head had been briefly turned by the gifts and attention Simpson Lord had lavished upon her. He had been angry and incredulous when he realized she intended to go through with the farcical marriage.

Her brash statement that morning continued to
haunt him. “I made up my mind a long time ago that I was going to marry a rich man,” Dawn had said. “The second time, I’ll marry for love.”

No matter how many times he told himself after that, that he was well rid of her, it never stopped him from loving her and wanting her. Dawn—with the red-gold blaze of the sun in her hair and the turquoise blue of the sea in her eyes. She was the sun and the sea to him—the heights and the depths.

Now she was coming back—a rich widow. He clamped his jaws together, wondering if she was coming back to claim the love she had discarded. At that moment, he hated her viciously. Did she think he’d still want her after all this time? Did she think she could stir up old fires and make them flame hot again? A rage seethed through him.

“How long is she staying?” Slater put his terse question to the aging guide.

“Pop never indicated that, but I got the impression he didn’t expect her to come for very long—a few days maybe,” he said with a vague shrug. “Course, with her money, I expect there’s more exciting places to go than Key West in the summer.”

“Yeah,” Slater muttered a disgruntled agreement and wondered why he didn’t feel more relieved.

“Look!” The urgent command from Jeeter was accompanied by a pointing finger, indicating a ten o’clock angle from the bow. “See him?”

Slater had been looking, but not seeing. “No.” Then straight ahead, his eye caught the swirl of water as the wide back of a tarpon broke the surface and rolled out of sight. “There’s another.”

“Looks like a whole school.” Jeeter leaned on the push pole to ease the skiff toward the large rolling fish. “I told you this was the place.”

“You did.”

With his quarry in sight, Slater made another check of his equipment to make certain the leader was knotted tightly and the line was coiled neatly where it wouldn’t tangle with his feet. He waited while Jeeter poled closer, trying to concentrate on the task at hand. The fly rod was in his hand, but the excitement of pitting his skill against such a large fish with such light equipment was gone. His pleasure in the morning had faded when the conversation had turned to Dawn.

When the skiff was near enough to make a cast, Slater went through all the right motions. The colored streamer settled onto the calm surface a few inches in front of the tarpon. When the big fish struck, Slater responded automatically, pulling back three quick times to set the hook.

There was a whine of line spinning out of the reel as the tarpon took off. Leaping and twisting out of the water, it shimmered silver against the blue sky. The huge fish was easily trophy size, but there was no sense of elation in Slater. Suddenly, the line went slack, the hook thrown.

“Lost him,” Jeeter announced flatly.

“It’s always the big ones that get away,” Slater
murmured with a degree of bitter irony in his voice.

He was unwillingly made aware of the comparison between the lost tarpon and Dawn. In both instances, they had appeared to be well and truly caught only to spit out the hook before he could reel them in. And he was the one left with a bad taste in his mouth.

Her designer blue jeans rode easily on her hips, the denim material softened and faded from many wearings. The hint of looseness about their fit suggested a weight loss that her already slim figure didn’t need. Her tan boots were custom-made from hand tooled leather and the topaz blouse she wore was made from imported silk.

Devoid of any jewelry, Dawn Lord nee Canady stood at the back screen door and stared through the wire mesh at her father so earnestly engaged in a conversation with her son—his grandson—on the rear stoop. He was trying so hard to make up for lost time—for the years when Randy had been growing up without the benefit of a grandfather’s company. She felt a twinge of pain—for the guilt that wouldn’t let her return to the Keys, and for the pride that had kept her parents from accepting money from her to pay their way to Texas.

As her gaze lingered on Randy, there was a troubled light in the deep blue of her eyes. At ten years old, Randy was tall for his age—tall with unruly dark hair that never would behave, and gray-blue eyes that were more often confused and
uncertain than happy. At the moment, they were sparkling with eagerness as Randy finally prodded her father into action.

“Mom!” He glanced toward the screen door and saw her silhouette darkening the mesh. “Gramps and I are going for a walk.”

“Okay.” She acknowledged the information while her thumbs remained hooked in the belt loops of her jeans, not bothering to wave a farewell as grandfather and grandson wandered out of her view.

“Gramps.” Her mother’s voice came from behind her, repeating the term as if the sound of it gave her pleasure. “Your father will be busting his buttons if Randy calls him that in front of his friends. He’s been showing them pictures of that boy since the day Randy was born. Now, he’s finally got the real thing.”

“Yes,” Dawn murmured, swiveling slightly to glance at her mother when she came to the screen door to stand next to her.

“To tell you the truth, I don’t know which of them was more anxious to go for that walk,” her mother declared with a silent laugh.

“I know what you mean.” Dawn turned away from the door, but she thought she knew who would have won that contest, because she knew why Randy was so eager to explore the town. It worried her.

“There’s one slice of Key lime pie left. Are you sure you don’t want it?” Her mother offered for the second time. “Your father and Randy will just fight over it when they come back.”

“No, honestly I don’t have room for another thing,” she insisted, pressing a hand against a stomach that was already filled with her mother’s home-cooking. “Besides, it’s fattening.”

Reeta Canady skimmed her with an assessing look. “It seems to me you could stand to gain some weight.”

Dawn didn’t respond to that. “I’ll have a cup of coffee though, if there’s any left,” she said instead.

“You sit at the table and I’ll bring it.”

A protest formed, but Dawn sensed her mother welcomed an excuse to wait on her, wanting to spoil her as she always had. Dawn didn’t want to take that little pleasure from her mother. She had gone to so much trouble to fix a special lunch to welcome her home, but she still felt Dawn was accustomed to better. Better by whose standards?

Taking a seat, Dawn rested her hands on the table top. Her fingers twisted and weaved together in small movements, nervous movements that betrayed her inner agitation.

Reeta Canady was attuned to all the fine changes in her daughter since the funeral of her son-in-law. The subdued behavior, the weight loss, and the troubled distraction might all be attributable to grief, but Reeta didn’t think so. With two cups of coffee poured, she set one on the table in front of Dawn. It was a bit startling to her at times that she had given birth to this stunning and vibrantly beautiful creature. Pulling up another chair, Reeta joined her at the table. There was subconscious satisfaction that she might be
able to help her daughter in some way—a daughter who had everything—looks, money, and position.

“Something’s bothering you. I can tell,” she announced gently. “Would you like to talk about it?”

Dawn flashed her a surprised but grateful glance, then smiled ruefully. “Mother, I just got home less than two hours ago. Let’s leave all the confessions until tomorrow and enjoy being together.” Her problems would keep, and it wasn’t fair to spoil this homecoming day for her mother.

“Where’s all your jewelry?” her mother asked, sharply alert to the bareness of Dawn’s fingers. “Your wedding ring? And the big solitaire?”

Dawn resisted the impulse to hide her hands in her lap and curved them around the coffee cup instead. Without the rings, her fingers felt oddly light and naked. A long sigh came from her.

“I sold them.”

“There was a moment of silent shock before her mother managed to ask a confused, “Why?”

The corners of her mouth bowed down in a humorless smile. “I needed the money.”

“What are you talking about?” Reeta Canady showed her puzzled surprise, then didn’t wait for Dawn to answer as she leaped to a conclusion. “Did Simpson lose all his money? Is that why he had his heart attack?”

“No, Mother,” Dawn answered patiently. “If there was anything that caused his heart attack, it was overexertion and playing tennis in the heat
of a Houston afternoon. As for his estate, I’m not sure anyone knows the exact figure but it will be in the tens of millions.”

“Then, I don’t understand.” Her mother leaned back in her chair, fully confused. “Why did you need money?”

“It’s very simple.” She stared into the black coffee in her cup, sightlessly watching its shimmering surface catch the sunlight through the window. “Simpson didn’t leave me any—or very little.” Which was more precise.

“But—” Her mother faltered over the protest. “—you are his widow. That makes you entitled to a major share of his estate.”

“Yes, I could contest the will and demand a widow’s share,” Dawn admitted. “But I’m not going to do that. Simpson did make a provision for me in his will to receive fifteen thousand dollars a year until Randy comes of age or I remarry. I think he was afraid I might embarrass the Lord family and wind up on the welfare rolls.” It was meant as a joke but its humor was weak. In her heart, she knew that hadn’t been Simpson’s intention although some of his relations believed that.

“It still isn’t fair,” her mother protested. “You were married to him for eleven years.”

“Yes. But we both know I married him because of his money. Simpson knew it, too, but it didn’t matter to him as long as he was alive.” Taking a sip of her coffee, Dawn felt no bitterness for his decision not to leave her more than a stipend. In a way, there was a certain justice in that. “On the
whole, they were good years. Eventually I grew to care a lot about Simpson, even love him a little. I honestly tried to be a good wife to him. I owed him that.”

“You were so young,” her mother insisted poignantly and reached to cover Dawn’s hand, squeezing it in deep affection with a mother’s unwillingness to believe the worst of her child.

“That was no excuse.” If she had learned anything in these last eleven years, it was the high price of selfishness. So many people had been hurt by it, including herself. “Now I have a chance to start over.”

“What will you do?” Reeta asked with worried concern, wanting to help and not knowing how.

“I don’t know.” Giving rise to her agitation, Dawn pushed away from the table to stand. She wound her arms around herself in an unconsciously protective gesture, and wandered again to the screen door, half-turning to keep her mother within sight. “All the gifts Simpson gave me—the jewels, the furs—were mine to keep. But I certainly didn’t need them anymore—or want them. So I sold them. They were worth three times the fifty thousand I got for them, but it’s enough to buy a small house.”

“Where?”

Her sidelong glance held her mother’s for an instant then slid away. “I had planned to stay in Texas so Randy wouldn’t have to change schools and leave his friends.” Her expression became grim and resentful. “You remember that old saying:
Nobody knows you when you’re broke? When everyone found out I wasn’t the rich widow, you’d be surprised how many friends I suddenly didn’t have. Neither did Randy. That’s really why I decided to leave Texas—because of Randy.”

“What about Randy? How is he taking all this?” An anxious frown creased her forehead as Reeta Canady watched her daughter, feeling her pain and anger.

“It’s difficult to say.” Dawn sighed again and looked through the screen. “Randy holds so much inside that I don’t really know what he’s feeling. When Simpson died, he was angry at first, then hurt by his friends’ rejection. I’m sure he’s confused . . . and desperate.”

“Didn’t Simpson . . . I mean, in the will, did he—”

“No. Two years ago, Simpson set up a trust to fund Randy’s college education but other than that, he left him nothing.” Dawn arched her throat, fighting the tightness that gripped it, and shoved her hands deep into the hip pockets of her jeans. “I’m so glad now that Simpson insisted I had to tell Randy the truth when he was small. If I hadn’t, I don’t know if Randy could have handled all this—I don’t know if I could have handled it. Now it’s a relief that he’s known for a long time that Simpson wasn’t his natural father.”

Dawn had to give full marks to her late husband for being so good to her son. He hadn’t loved him like a father, but he had liked him and been kind to him. His belief in blood ties was too fierce
for Simpson to ever consider adopting Randy. Only his flesh and blood would inherit the fortune his family had amassed.

“Does he know who his real father is?” her mother asked hesitantly.

Turning slowly, Dawn retraced her steps to the table and sank down in the chair. “Yes. He asked me, so I told him. I thought he had the right to know the name of his father.” It was said flatly, all emotion pulled from her voice.

“I suppose he does.” But it bothered Reeta.