"Silver Blooms"©

A novel by

Julie A. Rice

Sample Chapters 

(This material is copyrighted and cannot be reproduced without the sole permission of the author.)

Chapter 38

“Did you get her name?” Arthur asked as soon as he recovered from the appalling news of Mike Rosenthal’s demise.

“No,” Dodge answered, running a hand over his face in pure frustration.  What had started out as a day filled with the first light of hope he’d had in weeks had ended badly.  No, that wasn’t the word for it.  It was cataclysmic.  The chances of ever finding Holly had been sheered down to none, his last option having somersaulted out of a high-speed vehicle.  Now, with the day at an end and the crickets signaling the coming of darkness, not only was Dodge no better off, he had the added charge of yet another murder on his growing rap sheet of bogus crimes.  He glanced at his brother who was draped over a picnic table with his head in his hands, no doubt still absorbing the enormity of what had happened that afternoon.   Dodge gripped the roadside telephone receiver tighter to his ear and lowered his voice.  “But we need to meet up somewhere.  I think Chris has had it.  I’m worried about him.”

“Where are you now?”

“Back in Washington.  Can you make it to Yakima by morning?”

5:12 a.m.  Officer Lee Bradley groaned at the red numbers on his digital clock and grabbed for the phone on the third ring.  “Bradley,” he mumbled and stifled a yawn.  Seconds later, his sleep-riddled eyes popped open and his voice cleared instantly.  “What?  Right now?  Yeah, yeah, no problem.  I’ll be right there.”

Stumbling through the hall of the darkened trailer in his briefs, Officer Bradley yawned, reached around to scratch his left cheek and rubbed at a sore muscle in his shoulder on the way to the front door.  Squinting to clear his vision, he moved the curtain aside long enough to confirm who was loitering on his front doorstep, then slid the deadbolt aside.

“Halt, you’re under arrest,” he said with a lazy smile and stepped aside to let the three men enter.

“You’re a barrel of laughs, Bradley,” Dodge replied with his best attempt at a return smile and clasped the offered hand in a friendly welcome.  “Hey, thanks for this.  We were running out of places to go.”

“Glad to help.”  Lee greeted the other two men through another gaping yawn and vigorously ran a hand over tousled curly locks of mahogany brown.  “Let me get some shorts on and I’ll meet you in the kitchen.  Make yourselves at home.”

Arthur watched the man disappear into the darkened hallway and turned to his son as they headed toward the kitchen at the opposite end of the trailer.  This humble dwelling was definitely the home of a two-time divorcee who shelled out half of his meager paycheck to three kids-worth of child support.  “You sure he’s alright, Mason?”

Dodge, feeling a little more respectable having changed into his black T-shirt and slacks, settled his duffel bag on the linoleum floor and headed straight for the coffee maker.  “Lee’s been a good friend since college.  We played football together and took turns bailing each other out with the coach…for a variety of reasons.”  He moved through the cabinets checking for coffee.  “Probably stuff I wouldn’t want to tell my father, but you get the picture.  Anyway, he’s one of the few people I trust.”

“I remember Lee,” Christian broke in, unloading his own luggage beside his brother’s.  “Isn’t he the one who had that yellow Mustang with the booze dispenser under the driver’s seat?”

Arthur’s brow rose.  “Booze dispenser?”

Dodge shot a narrow look over his shoulder.

Christian met it with humor.  “I’m sorry, is that the stuff you wouldn’t want our dad to know?”

Overhearing, Lee strolled into the kitchen clad in black shorts and a white Hooters T-shirt.  “Hey man, that car was the stuff of dreams.  Those days, me and Dodge the Bullet, we were kings, isn’t that right?”  He aimed the last toward his old friend and relieved him of coffee duty just as Dodge was about to give up and use a paper towel in place of a coffee filter.

Dodge, only too happy to surrender coffee duty, leaned against the fridge and crossed his arms over his chest.  “I wouldn’t know what you’re taking about.  I spent my parent’s hard-earned tuition money with my nose buried in books the whole time.”

“Ha!”  The laugh came out as a snort as Lee took out four mugs with the Yakima P.D. emblem printed on the side.  “As I recall it was a rare night when your headboard wasn’t pounding against my wall, keeping me awake wondering why the hell the cheerleaders kept confusing my room with yours.”

Christian snickered at the table while Arthur sent his youngest a quelling look.

“Gee, thanks for the help,” Dodge mumbled dryly, pushing off of the fridge and taking the offered mug of hot coffee.  “Tell me you won’t be such a bucket mouth if the FBI comes knocking on your door.”

Suddenly, the atmosphere grew somber as the present reared its ugly head once again.  Lee joined everyone at the small table and took in the dour expressions and slumped shoulders.  “I’m sorry to hear about Angela,” he offered quietly, having lost his own humor.  “I take it you’ve gained some pretty powerful enemies since the last time I saw you?”

Dodge rubbed at tired eyes with his thumb and forefinger and nodded somberly.  “It’s a long story, but I’m sure you’ve heard some of it on the news.”

“You’ve got a lot of people out looking for you, man.  The station is covered in wanted posters with your ugly mug on the front, minus the beard, of course—which, I have to say, is a nice touch.  But I don’t believe a word about what they’re accusing you of and I never did.  You can count on me to have your back.”

Dodge managed a ghost of a smile.  “I knew I could, Lee.  Thanks.”

Arthur swallowed an oversized mouthful of scalding coffee and winced at the pain.  “So far we’ve been lucky.  Dodge has been able to avoid capture but there may be a new problem.”

“What’s that?”

Dodge lit a cigarette and blew smoke.  “There was an accident yesterday.  I caught up with a guy I’d been trailing for weeks who worked for Lionel Lininger.  We had him in the car doing seventy down Interstate-84.  I was pumping him pretty hard for information and I was actually getting somewhere…but he got tired of answering my questions.  He took a tumble out the door and joined that Road-kill Café high in the sky.  I guess knowing the people he worked for, they’d find out he talked to me and he wanted to die his own way.  I tried to grab him, but it was too late.  The son-of-a-bitch killed himself before I got what I wanted.”

“Anyone see this accident?”

“A trucker.  I don’t know if he got our plates.  They were bogus anyway thanks to a friend of my partner’s at the license bureau.”

“You still have the car?”

“No.  We sank it.”

“I’ll look into it, but I doubt they’ll tie you to the incident unless the car is found with evidence that you were in it.”

The smoke was easing the tremors from his hands, Dodge noticed, as he stared into the calmer surface of his coffee.  “I tried to save him, Lee.  But I’m afraid it might not have looked that way from behind.”

Lee folded his arms on the table and blew out a troubled breath.  “I’ll keep my eyes and ears open.  If your name comes up I’ll give you fair warning, but as far as the FBI is concerned you were never here which means I never heard a word about this.”

“I just don’t want another murder pinned on my ass.  It’s the last thing I need.”

“Point taken.”

Looking over his coffee mug, Lee took in the haggard, tired faces of all three men as he took a liberal gulp of the bitter hot brew.  His old friend looked very different, indeed, with the beard and long hair, but he said nothing about the man’s care-worn appearance.  Dodge had always taken great care in appearing as professionally groomed as possible and Lee felt a well of reluctant pity swell in his chest for his friend’s predicament… the predicament that was slowly eating away at the strength and the vital force that had driven the man as long as he’d known him, leaving an embittered, desperate shell in its wake.  “What sort of information were you trying to get before your friend took a dive?”

Unbeknownst to him, Dodge’s expression immediately took on a pained countenance noticed by all.  “A woman—” he paused and sighed, running a slow hand through his mess of windblown waves, carefully keeping his eyes lowered.  “A woman who was involved in the Atwater incident a month ago…I need to find her.  Before the wrong people do.  She’s out there somewhere thinking she’s safe when she’s not.  She never will be.  Unless I can get to her, that is.”

“Not to mention,” Arthur interceded, “she happens to be the only person who can vouch for Dodge’s whereabouts the night Angela was murdered.”

Lee’s brows raised as his gaze returned to Dodge.  “You actually have an alibi?  That’s something new.”

Dodge shook his head.  “That doesn’t even matter anymore.  I don’t need Holly for an alibi, it wouldn’t do any good anyway.”

“Sheeeit!”  Christian slammed back in his chair and threw his brother a disgusted look.  “You sound like you’ve already given up!  Well, I’ll tell you, little bro, I didn’t just put my life on hold to roam the country with you for the sake of male bonding!  I’ve been through some serious shit in order for you to find your girlfriend and it will not be for nothing, understand?”

Dodge kept his visage carefully blank, then leaned back in his own chair, his voice starting out calm and smooth.  The calm didn’t last.  “Understand this, Chris.  I don’t just plan to give up and let SB take me without a fight.  That will never happen.  But, remember these people have fought dirty in order to put me on that wanted list.  They killed my wife and falsified autopsy reports to pin her murder on me, then cremated her body by ‘accident’ to make further testing impossible.  Now, tell me.  What makes you think they won’t get around an alibi even if I were able to find Holly; which, right now, the chances of that are looking pretty damned slim-to-none?”

“Then why the hell look for her at all?”  Christian was yelling as well by now, equally frustrated by the never-ending layers of brick walls they seemed to encounter with every turn.  “If your future is so doomed, why not just cut your losses and haul yourself to Borneo while you still have the chance?”

“Screw that!  It may be easy for you, but I can’t just leave her out there to fend for herself.  I might as well just shove her under the bus!”

“And what do you think you can do for her, huh?  You can’t save everybody, man, and Holly made her choices.  She left you behind, remember?  And I’m thinking maybe that Polo guy was right.  Maybe she’s safe as long as you don’t poke your nose into her whereabouts and leave her the hell alone.”

“She didn’t leave me.”  It came out as a low growl that would have raised the hackles of most men.  “Or did you conveniently forget that part?”

Christian, who was seasoned by years of sibling friction, wasn’t phased.  “Oh, yeah.  Polo ‘forced’ her to escape death by the skin of her teeth.  C’mon, man, if she really cared about you she would have spoken up for you a long time ago instead of letting you sweat out this murder wrap alone.”

“Maybe she doesn’t know,” Arthur provided calmly, attempting to staunch the flow of animosity before his sons came to blows.  “And, Christian, you’re wrong.  Holly is not the type to put her own welfare above others.  Dodge knows that and I know that.  Polo even said as much when he conveyed the fact she wouldn’t cooperate with him unless he agreed to help Dodge.”

“Sure.  Leave the fox to look after the chickens.  What the hell was Polo doing when little brother here was getting his clock cleaned?”

Dodge shot out of his chair, his palms slamming against the table.  Arthur and Christian stood at the same time and prepared themselves for physical violence.  Lee looked on from below and prayed that his furniture would withstand the strain of two hundred-plus pounds in case his friend felt the urge to launch over the flimsy table at his brother.

“I wouldn’t go shooting your mouth off about things you don’t understand.”  Dodge stood tense, his voice gritty and shaking with suppressed rage.  “Now, I know you’ve been through a lot and I appreciate the sacrifice, but I didn’t ask you to put your life on hold for me.  So before this gets too sloppy, I think you should go home to your family, kiss your wife, hug your girls and be pretty damned thankful you got ’em to go home to.”

There was a moment of tense silence before Christian gave a stiff nod of assent.  “You’re right.  I shouldn’t have said those things.  I just don’t want to see you hurt any more than you already have been.”

“That’s my business.  And, for the record, if it weren’t for Holly I wouldn’t be alive today.  She saved my life more times than I care to admit and, call it what you like, but I feel the insane urge to return the favor.”

“And how are you going to do that?”

“I have a few aces up my sleeve.”

Arthur, realizing the danger had passed, broke in with a flourish of waving arms.  “Whoa!  Whoa!  Back the truck up!  If you’ve found a way out of this mess, I want to hear it.”

A long pause as Dodge seemed to contemplate the dangers of revealing his plan over the last drag of his cigarette.  Then, stabbing out the burning remnants, he came to a decision.  “I’ve been amassing my own arsenal of evidence against the members of Silver Blooms.  When I’m ready, I’ll use it to buy my life back.  Holly’s, too, if I can find her.”

Lee indicated the black canvas bag on the floor by the door of the kitchen.  “Is that what that suspicious looking tube is hanging out of your luggage?  Evidence?”

Dodge’s attention was temporarily diverted to the black plastic tube jutting out of the zippered opening of his bag.  With a heavy sigh, he sank back down to his chair and shook his head.  “No.  That’s just a souvenir I kept of Holly’s.  It was something special to her.”

Arthur’s interest was piqued.  “What is it?”

“That print of the livery barn that was hanging above her fireplace.  She had a thing about it, I don’t know.  But when I thought she was dead I took it just to have something of hers.”

Lee couldn’t ignore the melancholy in his friend’s tone.  “Call it a guess, but this woman must have been really something.”

Arthur suddenly couldn’t take his eyes off the black tube.  “You mind if I take a look?”  Without waiting for an affirmative, he moved toward it.  Just for the need to touch something of hers, the same need, he suspected, that compelled his son to take the print in the first place.

Dodge shrugged and emptied his coffee cup.  “Be my guest, but it’s nothing you haven’t already seen.”

The table was cleared of all mugs, ashtrays and the little wire-basket centerpiece that was littered with pens, pencils, opened mail and store receipts.  Lee and Christian both stood to hover over the work of art as Arthur spread it out over the clean surface of the table.  Dodge remained seated and diverted his attention to the various photos that were pinned to the bulletin board by the doorway with a variety of colorful thumbtacks.  The faces of three curly-haired children laughed at him in a jocular way that reminded him of his own childhood.  Looking at Lee’s kids was less painful than seeing that favored print of Holly’s for the first time since he’d bottled it up in that tube so many weeks ago.  There were too many memories in the drawing and, in the aftermath of such a horrid turn of events, he had no desire to be reminded of his most recent failure to find the woman who had burrowed her way into his heart.

“What the hell is this?”

His father’s tone was incredulous and effective in gaining Dodge’s attention.  “What?” he asked standing and twisting his head for a look at what had caught Arthur’s notice.

“These scribbles here on the bottom?  It’s almost as if a child got a hold of it with a green marker.”

Dodge shrugged and leaned a hip against the table.  “Looks that way.  Holly had a daughter.”

“But…” Arthur’s frown grew deeper and he hunched over for a closer look.  “This is different than the print your mother bought.  Bigger.  The print is cut off above these scribbles almost as if…” he paused again, his hand just barely skimming over the bottom of the drawing.  “Yes!  See here, there’s a faint outline of grass down lower as if the artist meant to include that in the drawing, but couldn’t because of the scribbles.”  He looked pointedly at Dodge, a slight flush coloring his aged skin.  “You don’t know much about art, do you son?”

Dodge became exasperated at the teasing mockery in his father’s tone.  “I’ve been accused of that once or twice.  So what?”

A moment of thoughtful silence as Arthur scanned the artwork once again.  “This isn’t a print.  It’s the original piece.”

That piqued everyone’s interest, but none more than Dodge.  He came around instantly and shoved Christian out of the way for a better look.  “How can you tell?” he asked, studying the drawing as if the answer would jump out at him.

“The prints are a numbered series signed by the artist, Gail Turner.  You would see the original signature as a part of the print, then another signature with a number telling you what print it is in the series.  This is only signed once and if you look hard you can see the texture of the paper, the color, which is different than the print we bought.  It’s a darker shade of cream and much rougher.  You can also see the texture of the graphite, which is different than printed ink.  This is the original piece!”

Dodge chewed on his bottom lip while his father openly gushed his excitement over discovering such a treasure.  While the drawing was nice, he simply could not share the same euphoria over a wall decoration.  “I guess Holly or the MacMillans bought the original.  Maybe that’s what she saw in it that no one else did.”  The memory of the look in Holly’s eyes when he’d given her his opinion of the drawing came back like a rousing slap to the face.  She was more than pleased by his appraisal, more than satisfied.  It was almost as if she were…proud.  And the love for him he’d seen reflected in those aqua pools had been so vivid and clear at that precise moment.  He remembered the effect it had on him, too.  As he was thinking of this, Arthur was beside him shaking his head emphatically.

“I don’t know, Son.”

Then, Dodge had a thought.  “Wait a minute.”  After digging through his bag, he produced a folded letter that looked as if it had seen better days.  He brought it to the table and held it close to the signature of the artist.  “This is the letter Holly wrote to me when I got her package.”

Reading his son’s mind, Arthur compared the slanted scrawl on the letter to the signature.  It was close, but not enough to be certain.  “Your mother and I bought this print off of Gail Turner’s web site.”

Almost before his father had finished the sentence, Dodge turned on Lee.  “Do you have a computer?”

Minutes later, the four men were huddled in the small spare bedroom which had been made into a crude office, grouped around Lee’s second-hand Hewlett Packard and staring at the 17” screen like flies at a bug zapper.  Gail Turner's web site glowed at them in Old West shades of brown and cream.  Arthur backhanded his youngest son on the shoulder as they bent over Lee, who was at the keyboard.

“That’s it!” he exploded, giddy over the clues he’d just uncovered and the fact that he was the one to uncover them.  “All the prints for sale have a description and a price and also the price of the original if it’s available.  The original of ‘Town Livery,’ instead of saying ‘SOLD’ like the others, says ‘UNAVAILABLE.’  I remember that baffling your mother and I when we read it the first time because it was the original we would have been interested in buying.  We didn’t know what that meant.”

“I still don’t know what that means,” Christian piped in, wrinkling his brow in confusion.  “How is this significant?”

“Because,” Arthur continued in a superior tone, “the artist must have either given the original away as a gift or…” his brown eyes met and clashed with the identical ones of his youngest, “…kept it for herself.  Which means that, if either were true, Gail Turner could know who Holly is.”

Dodge knew the reason his father hadn’t outright voiced the other alternative was because he was too afraid to hope for something so simple.  Things didn’t just happen this way, this easily.  With his luck these days, Gail Turner would prove to be another dead-end and this lead would fizzle just like the others had.  But then he remembered Mike Rosenthal’s words when he described Holly’s accident and voiced them out loud.  “Polo said something that’s been bothering me all night.  Something that made it sound as if Holly lead a double life of some kind and that she didn’t appreciate her life at home.”

“A double life?  That’s rather extreme.”  This came from Arthur, the only other one in the room who had known the woman in question.

Dodge bobbed his head in complete agreement and, squeezing his eyes shut tight, pinched the bridge of his nose in concentration.  “He said that she’d been seriously injured in the accident that killed her husband and daughter.  After the accident, all he had to do to check on her progress was ‘log on' and read about it in the newspaper.  With all that happened afterward, I got sidetracked and didn’t think about it much…until now.”  He opened his eyes and stared at the computer screen.  “The only way he would have been able to do that is if…” he left the sentence open so that anyone could jump in at any time.

“If Holly was newsworthy?” Arthur finished, pleased that he and his son were on the same page.  “That would certainly explain her connections at The Kansas City Star, now wouldn’t it?”

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Dodge had asked her, remembering her emotional response to his assessment of the framed drawing those many nights ago.

“Because you make me so happy.”

Because he had just unwittingly complimented the artist herself?  The possibility was staggering as it slammed into him with the force of a wrecking ball.  If it were true, under any other circumstances, Dodge would have been angry at what he considered game-playing deception.  But these were very, very different circumstances and he had to suppress the frivolous smile that threatened to curve his lips.  His gaze locked with Arthur’s.  “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

Arthur couldn’t suppress his own smile.  “That The Kansas City Star might have a picture of Gail Turner somewhere in their archives?”

It was some time later that morning.  Lee had suited up and left for work an hour before and Arthur and Christian were in the kitchen putting together something to eat.  The trailer was quiet save the random hooting of young children playing somewhere in the park close by.  Dodge was in the small office alone, sitting at the computer and leaning forward with his elbows on the desk.  His fingers were interlaced and his chin rested on them as he stared at the image before him.

There she was.  Holly.  Otherwise known as Gail Holland Turner, wealthy socialite-artist from the Ozarks.  So many frustrating weeks of knowing absolutely nothing about her and now her life was an open book with so many pages it was hard to keep the information straight.  Her bright liquid eyes glowed at him from the computer screen as he studied a newspaper photo from 1995.  She and her husband, Warren Turner—standing close by her side with a possessive arm at her waist—were attending a political fund-raiser in Kansas City.  Warren, the same tall, good looking man he’d seen in Holly’s cherished photograph only this time in black tuxedo and tie, was engaged in deep conversation with the ex-president George H.W. Bush.  Holly, or Gail as he would have to think of her now, stood out like a shining jewel in a tasteful aqua-green shimmering gown that exposed her creamy shoulders and hugged every curve as if it were made just for her.  The color matched her eyes so perfectly that Dodge had no doubt it had been.  Those soft tendrils of coffee-brown hair had been swept up in a French twist that was just messy enough to be sexy as hell, revealing the slim column of her neck and shiny diamond teardrops that hung from dainty lobes at each side of her angular face.  She was in the act of twisting around as if to acknowledge someone’s greeting from behind and had a smile on that incredible face of hers that would have melted marble.  God, she was positively radiant!  So beautiful it made him want to cry.  And the fact that she was actually wearing make-up had nothing to do with it.  It was the sheer happiness that put the healthy glow on her skin and the fervent glint in her eyes.  This woman was right where she wanted to be, on the arm of the man she loved and with the entire world at her feet.

Dodge swallowed as his throat involuntarily constricted against the swell of emotion the photograph evoked.  The vision he was looking at right now was nowhere near the same woman he’d gotten to know in those mountains.  Holly had been a wounded, tragic version of Gail Turner in the aftermath of her family’s death.  And, even though the world was still at her feet, the experience was far different without her husband and child by her side.  Whereas her position on the social ladder used to be open and enjoyable, it was now constricting and painful; however she desperately clung to that top rung as if it were the last link to the woman she used to be.  Which explained the need to escape every now and then.

These deductions were ones only he could put together considering the fact he knew the real Gail Turner – Holly – the unkempt version of herself that she had tried to hide from the world.  It made him feel as if he’d been awarded a very special prize.  That and the knowledge that he had been the one man to return that glow to her visage—even if it was for a short time.

“What are you thinking about?”

His father’s question brought him around to the present and, while he leaned back in his chair, his eyes never left the computer screen.  “Just remembering.”

Arthur sighed and plunked the plate holding a tall ham sandwich down on the desk beside the telephone.  “I don’t know about you but I nearly wet myself when her face showed up on that computer.”  He leaned against the desk and frowned at the new photo that now filled the screen.  “Is that George Bush?”  At his son’s nod, he raised his brows in approval, then sobered at the sight of flannel-and-jeans Holly dressed in such finery.  “She looks…different in that picture, doesn’t she?”

“She’s happy.”

Arthur shrugged.  “I guess that’s it.  Have you been able to find any recent photographs of her?”

“No, but there have been plenty of articles.  Her tragedy made her famous but I don’t think she felt much like being in the spotlight after the accident.  She tried to hide which made her all the more interesting to the public eye.  And she wasn’t lying when she said she didn’t have any family.  Her mother left when she was only five years old and her father was old enough to be her grandfather.  He and his family have all died off.”

“Damn, that car accident must have been hard on her.”

Dodge leaned forward and took the sandwich in both hands.  After picking at it disinterestedly for a long, drawn-out moment, he crossed his outstretched legs and said matter-of-factly, “She’s going to hate me, you know.”

This was something Arthur had been expecting.  Still, he feigned ignorance.  “What makes you think that?”

“I said some pretty despicable things to her when I thought she was working for Lininger.”

“Which is understandable.”

“No,” Dodge countered with a wry laugh.  “It’s not.  I should have known what was going on.”

“But your emotions got involved.”  It was a hard lesson, but one Arthur felt the need to point out.  “You were hurt because you loved her and thought she had betrayed you.”

The tips of Dodge’s ears grew red and he finally took a huge bite of sandwich before mumbling, “Who said anything about love?”

That earned him an amused chuckle from a man wizened beyond his years.  “Still afraid to admit it, huh?”

Dodge paused long enough to swallow.  “We spent one night together.  That doesn’t usually constitute love.”

Arthur thought about this and his gaze flew to the lovely vision smiling at him from the computer screen.  He knew the real problem behind the denial was the fear of rejection.  He sighed again and shifted, crossing his arms over his chest.  “She won’t hate you, Son.  She might be pissed for a while, but Holly has a kind heart and you’re too important to her to turn her back on what you can give her.”

Another wry laugh as Dodge swallowed another bite and jerked his head toward the monitor.  “She’s not ‘Holly,’ Dad, she’s Gail Turner.  A wealthy socialite who attends $5,000-a-plate dinners and eats swordfish with ex-presidents.  I had ‘The Darling of the Creative World,’ as one article dubbed her, handcuffed and kneeling at my feet while I called her a whore and threatened to beat the crap out of her.  Yeah, she’ll welcome me with open arms, alright.”

“And she still managed to care about you enough to refuse her own freedom without Polo’s agreement to help you out of that playing field alive.”  The acknowledgement hung heavily in the air for a moment as Arthur gave his son time to digest that bit of truth.  He forged on while Dodge sat stock-still, the sandwich forgotten in his lap.  “I hate to tell you this, young man, but that takes love.  The kind of love you deserve to have in your life.  Holly, or Gail, or whatever the hell you want to call her, she’s more than just a petty face on the social pages of a major newspaper and you know that.  She’s a soft, warm-blooded human being who needs someone who understands who and what she really is underneath all the glamour and hype.  She needs you and, damn it, you need to find your spine and lay claim to her while you have the opportunity.  If you think she’ll hate you, drag her off kicking and screaming if that’s what it takes, but don’t let her push you away.  Remind her what you two had together and show her that it’s not something she wants to live without.”  He smiled then, a shit-eating grin that put a wary frown on his son’s brow.  “Quit smoking, get a haircut, shave that bushy lip of yours and flash that charming Dodge smile.  I guarantee you it won’t take long.”

Dodge laughed through his nose and brought a hand up to the bristly hair covering his mouth and chin.  “You don’t think she’ll like my new look?”

Arthur’s smile vanished and was replaced by an expression filled with pride.  “I think she’ll take you any way she can get you.  But, let’s face it.  You don’t need the disguise anymore.  Now that you’ve found Holly—er—Gail, you can get your life back in order, which means you’ll be getting your job back soon.  No need to look like an ape in the process.”

Chapter 39

“Surpriiiiiiise!”

A large crowd was illuminated and throwing confetti at her before she had time to blink.  Gail yelped and clamped a hand over her heart in genuine astonishment, glancing wide-eyed and smiling at the familiar faces filling her gallery.  “What in the world is all this?” she asked, turning to Nick who stood behind her grinning like the Cheshire cat.

“Happy Birthday, Sweetheart,” he said, hazel eyes glimmering with mischief, and he bent to plant a not-so-brotherly kiss on her mouth.

His lips were warm and soft, but they failed to produce the flutter of excitement she’d experienced in another man’s arms not so long ago.  The memory was still too new to shake off and Gail pulled away and gently laid a hand on the lapel of Nick’s tuxedo.  “My birthday was yesterday and I thought you were taking me dancing tonight,” she admonished good-naturedly, relieved to see that the kiss was behind them both.  It was all the time she had before the crowd was upon them.  She spent the next fifteen minutes greeting and thanking and hugging and giving air-kisses and generally performing the duty that was expected of her.

“Oh, Gail, you look hot!”  This came from Pam, business partner and childhood friend, who moved in when the guests seemed to settle.  Pam, looking very sophisticated in a lemon-yellow sheath that nearly matched the color of her shoulder-length hair, took Gail’s hands in her own and spread the other woman’s arms wide to whistle at the sexy new style her friend was wearing.  Gail Turner was, as usual, the most noticeable woman in the room in a backless silver halter that was secured to her slender torso by three sets of black, silk spaghetti straps that tied in the back: one around her neck, one breast-level, the other around her waist.  The scooped neckline showed off the creamy skin of her bare shoulders and throat and accentuated the round curves of her unbound breasts while the metallic fabric was thick enough to conceal the details.  Her short, nearly-black hair was tamed into a French twist with a few loose curls deliberately escaping the style in a windblown look that always set off her features well.  Black silk slacks that flowed around her ankles and matching five-inch high-heeled sandals gave the appearance of mile-long legs made longer by a narrow waist—quite a feat for a woman with a five-foot three-inch stature.  The halter did not require a necklace; however, diamond and onyx earrings dripped from her lobes and a matching bracelet dangled at her wrist.  The overall effect was quite stunning.  “I would give my left arm to be able to set that outfit off like you do.”

Gail laughed and enfolded Pam in a tight hug that bespoke of twenty-five years of friendship.  As children, the two had been inseparable since the third grade until Gail moved to Kansas City in her early twenties to be closer to her father who, at the time, had just landed a job there as a photographer for Merrill and Dunmore.  The two girls had ridden bikes together, learned to water-ski together, fished together and shared dark confessions of girlhood crushes.  They had kept in touch enough to keep the friendship alive, both having been Maid-of-honor at each other’s weddings and Godmother to each other’s children, but the friendship had waned after Warren and Claire’s deaths.  Since then, Gail had been closed off to most people.  The business partnership had come about at Nick’s suggestion when he, as Gail’s first choice, refused.

Embarrassed by the compliment, Gail smiled warmly, all the while mentally preparing herself for a very long night.  Though her friends meant well, she knew the surprise birthday/4^th of July party would last for hours on into the night.  This, unlike a night of simple dancing and fireworks, would be impossible to escape until the end.  “Did Nick put you up to this?” she asked with her plastered smile and was mildly surprised when Pam shook her head no.  The party was already in full swing around them.  A band struck a cord somewhere behind the wall of people.

Pam answered, pausing politely when a well-wisher swooped in for a hurried “Happy Birthday” peck on the cheek, then swooped out just as quickly.  “Actually, it was my idea.  You’ve seemed a little stressed lately so I thought you could use a pick-me-up.  Not to mention this gallery of ours happens to have a spectacular view of the fireworks.”  She leaned back with the force of her Betty Rubble giggle.

Gail’s smile stayed the same.  “Oh, you shouldn’t have.  That’s really sweet of you, but what makes you think I’ve been stressed?  I haven’t felt better in years.”  She accepted the glass of sparkling cider that Nick brought her and fought back the urge to replace it with something stiffer.

“Well,” Pam explained, leaning closer for the sake of confidentiality, “you haven’t been getting enough sleep for one thing.”

“I’ve been sleeping more than usual, actually,” Gail countered with an affronted look.

“You look dead on your feet half the time because you spend your mornings, noons and nights here at the gallery working and that awful couch in your studio can’t be that comfortable.  I don’t even know why you’re looking for a new house when you don’t even use your condo!”

“Raider needs a back yard to run in.”  She daintily sipped her cider.

Pam dismissed that with a wave of her well-manicured hand.  “That neurotic dog of yours is always here with you.  He seems perfectly happy peeing on the weeds at the edge of the cliff.”

Gail moved with her friend toward the table of hors-devours and eyed the shrimp cocktail with half-hearted interest while Pam loaded a plate.  She sensed Nick close behind her, arguing with Teddy Trimble over the proper way to fry a turkey, which was a popular 4^th of July culinary activity at the Lake of the Ozarks.  There were possibly over two hundred bodies crammed into the gallery; some were simply talking and laughing, some were admiring the art, some were dancing in the designated area by the band, all were in a noticeably celebratory mood.  The party had obviously been planned as a black-tie affair, therefore alleviating most of the rowdy behavior, which was necessary to keep the damage to a minimum.  Gail found herself praying for an uneventful night if it could not be a short one.  Looking at all the bodies, she was doubtful.

“Where are all the cars?” she asked, nibbling on a succulent shrimp.

Pam glanced at her, mouth filled with toast points and liver pate.  “Hmm?”

“The cars.  I didn’t see any cars in the parking lot.”

“Oh!”  Both women winced at the sound of breaking glass and the riotous laughter that followed.  The distraction gave Pam time to chew and swallow.  “Nick arranged for everyone to park at the church across the street.  And don’t worry about the mess,” she threw in, sensing Gail’s unease.  “He also hired a cleaning crew.”

“That’s Nick for you,” Gail said lightly, sipping more cider.  “He always thinks of everything.”

Pam nodded in agreement, then excused herself to join her husband, Wayne, who had just beckoned to her from the back of the room by the sliding glass doors.  Obviously the man wanted a private moment with his wife out on the lower deck facing the lake.  The sky was darkening and Gail knew without looking that the main channel below was filling up with boats by the thousands.  The Lodge of the Four Seasons put on quite a show and most lake-goers preferred to watch the fireworks from the water.  The result was a vast floating carpet of twinkling lights and distant sounds that marked the preliminary moment before the main event.

“Want to go outside and look?” Nick asked close to her ear, startling her into turning around.

Gail shook her head demurely before bringing the cider to her lips.  “No, it’s too hot.  Does this have lemon in it?  It smells like there’s lemon in it.”

Nick took a sniff of the drink she shoved under his nose.  “Smells like cider to me.  You sure you don’t want to get a look at the boats before it gets too crowded out there?”

“Nope.  I’ll wait.  The fireworks don’t start for another hour.”

He dragged her onto the dance floor instead.  Once there, she was unable to step off of it for quite some time.  After two dances with Nick, four other men came to take their turn with her until she finally pleaded exhaustion and breathlessly declined the offer for another.

The evening seemed to be going surprisingly well.  With the help of the music and dancing, Gail began to relax a little and found the chore of mingling less painful than usual.  After all, the party was for her and she should be damned grateful to be alive to see her thirty-third birthday—a day she once feared would never come.  With that common reminder to bolster her spirits, she smiled a little brighter, spoke more vividly and listened more attentively.  These people were her friends, or fancied themselves her friends.  Some she knew from high school, some had known her mother and father, some were fellow artists, and some were merchants and fellow entrepreneurs.  But no matter whom she spoke with, Nick was always close by.  As usual.  Good ole’, solid, handsome Nick.

Her eyes regarded the wide shoulders and lean muscular form of her brother-in-law as he bent his sandy-blonde head to listen to the ramblings of a starry-eyed redhead who had been openly chasing him for months.  Just one of many unmarried (and a few married) women who had their hearts set on the wealthy entrepreneur with the power to melt the coldest female with a single glance.  Nick Turner was a force to be reckoned with in his own right, in business and in the bedroom.  Not that Gail knew from experience, of course, but his reputation preceded him.  If the rumors were true, the only time he didn’t bring a woman home with him was when he was out with her.  Out of respect, maybe?

Gail sighed and nodded absently at whatever was being said to her and quickly reverted back to her own thoughts.  What was wrong with her?  Why couldn’t she love Nick the way she should?  He was everything a woman could possibly want in a man; dangerously good looking—just as his brother, Warren, had been—well schooled, charming, brilliant, sexy…just as his brother had been.

But he wasn’t his brother.  And therein lie the problem.

Besides, Gail had been awakened to the fact that she could experience the same chemistry she had once shared with her husband.  Knowing that it was even possible was, in itself, a double-edged sword of sorts.  Good because there was always hope, always another chance.  Bad because the man she’d experienced it with was a man she could never have.  Also bad because now she would never be satisfied settling for a safe, one-sided love affair with Nick.  Perhaps it could have been possible…in time…before...

Gail took another, larger gulp of sparkling cider and emptied the glass.  Before, she thought with rancor.  Before last May when a nosy Immigration Agent changed her life forever.

The lights dimmed, everyone standing on the deck outside moved inside and the crowd gathered around her.  Gail, the obvious target, having once again been joined by Nick, glanced around in bewilderment.  Before she could ask what was happening the room broke into a loud rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ and a giant cake was wheeled through the parting crowd.  She laughed, thanked, blew candles, hugged, accepted another glass of cider and suffered through a bite of cake.  The flowery confection was gorgeous and large enough to feed an army, but the smell of sugar and lard and nerves was enough to set her cider-coated stomach into a nauseating roil.

When the threatening urge to vomit subsided, she excused herself and headed toward the downstairs office.  Much to her dismay, the line to the bathroom was five-long.  Upstairs, however, her studio was blissfully empty and, with a peak through the sliding glass doors, the private upper deck was also empty.  She closed her own private bathroom door and, after a few touch-ups to her nose and lips, just stood for a moment, taking in her own private air.  The alone time was vital in calming her frazzled nerves, necessary for recharging her draining resolve to stick it out for the duration of the party.  When Warren was alive and by her side, she actually enjoyed their shared social life—mingling with friends, attending parties and fund-raisers, burning the midnight oil with the knowledge that their comfortable bed awaited them at home where they would burn the remaining hours making love.  Those were such carefree times when Warren made everything easy for her.  He was the necessary link that made it possible for a small-town moppet to thrive on the glamour of social status.  He—wealthy son and talented career man—had fallen in love with her—his photographer’s scrawny, starving-artist daughter.  Against incredible odds, she had bloomed under the canopy of his loving guidance and attention until there was no sign of the shy, ill-mannered waif her father had raised.  She coined it as the miracle metamorphosis.  Warren would laugh at that and assure her the charming beauty had been inside her all along.  It just took the love of the right man to make her see it for herself.

Apparently so.  Because without him it was a hell of a struggle to maintain the outer poise she no longer felt inside.

Gail jumped when a knock vibrated against the wooden door at her back.

“Gail, you alright?”

“Yes, Nicki, I’m fine.”  To prove it, she opened the door wide and beamed.  “Just freshening up a little.”

Nick looked her over appreciatively, but thought better than to comment on her appearance.  He would only bungle any attempt to describe how beautiful she was to him and scare her off if he tried.  “Are you having a good time?”  At her nod, he chucked her under the chin.  “Good because your guests are starting to miss you.”

She took his proffered arm and they descended the spiral staircase together.

Something, a strange tingling on the back of her neck, gave her the uneasy sensation that someone was watching her in the crowd below.  Someone who’s presence was strong and unique enough to set the air around her crackling with awareness.  The feeling was unsettling for a woman who constantly feared for her life.  Her eyes narrowed slightly and scanned the sea of heads while she was still elevated enough to do so, over the two-hundred or so bodies milling around under the cheerful clusters of gold balloons and the scalloped canopy of white crepe streamers.  The band was playing a snappy tune that no one could seem to stand still through, which made the perusal of her guests all the more difficult.  With a mental shrug, she told herself that it was only social claustrophobia, a condition she greedily coined as her own in an attempt to make sense of the constant need to flee her occupied life.

As they reached the base of the stairs, Gail spotted Pam with her husband “getting down” on the dance floor not three feet away.  The women exchanged amused glances and Gail was about to allow Nick to lead her toward a late-arriving couple who wished to make their presence known, when Pam waved her over.

“Hold on,” Gail said to Nick over her shoulder, loud enough to be heard above the music, when it was apparent her business partner wanted a word with her.

“I forgot to tell you,” Pam yelled close to Gail’s ear without letting the exchange interrupt the gyrating swivel of her hips, “a man came to the gallery looking for you today.  Said he was a friend of yours and that it was important he see you.”

Gail nodded and returned Wayne’s friendly smile with one of her own.  “Did he give you his name?”

“I asked but he wanted it to be a surprise so I told him to come to the party tonight.”  Pam’s light blue eyes took on a rascally gleam and she lowered her voice a notch.  “I’ve got one word for you, girlfriend.  Babelicious!”  She laid a placating hand on her husband’s arm and added, “Not as good-looking as you of course, Darling, but on the Gail Scale of one to ten he was a definite ninety.”

“The Gail Scale?” Wayne—a seasoned firefighter with the Osage Beach Fire Department—repeated thoughtfully, amusement lighting his face.

“She’s referring to my infamous lack of interest in the ‘common man’,” Gail interpreted with dry humor, “a completely unjust reputation I, myself, find more irritating than comical.”

Pam let loose with another twittering giggle and put a consoling arm around Gail’s shoulders.  “I still say it’s better than Ice Queen, which doesn’t suit you at all.  Anyway, I saw him come through the front door a couple of minutes ago, so I thought I’d warn you—there he is!”

Gail turned immediately to follow Pam’s gaze, but recognized no one she hadn’t already seen.  “Where?”

“There!  The tall guy by the ‘Peacekeepers,’ behind Mr. and Mrs. Bumgarner.  I think he’s on his way over.”

Her eyes moved to the area where her small, black-and-white drawing of a nineteenth century mounted posse hung illuminated on the wall near the refreshment table.  The crowd was thickest there, but suddenly Mrs. Bumgarner bent to seize the last stuffed mushroom before anyone else could and, in doing so, exposed the man standing behind her.

Oh, no!

Every fiber in her body froze, robbing her of the power of mobility.  This isn’t real.  I’m seeing things.  He’s not really here.

“Gail?”  Wayne was the first to notice the obvious loss of blood to her face.  “Is something wrong?”

She barely heard him, so rooted with alarm that she didn’t even notice Nick’s hand on her shoulder.  No more than a second passed as her brain registered the bedroom eyes with the tendency to dip at the outer corners, the firm brow, straight nose and tender mouth…it was all she could focus on because everything else was so different.  No wonder she hadn’t recognized him until he turned around.  His jaw was clean-shaven, absent of the day’s-worth of stubble that had always shadowed the lower portion of his face.  The light-brown hair was shorter than she remembered, neatly trimmed above the ears and neck.  The broad, expansive shoulders and upper torso were well disguised beneath a white tuxedo shirt and black jacket that had to have been custom tailored to fit.  Gone was the rough denim and suede that seemed to fit the man she thought she had come to know so well.

Dodge.

The name hovered silently on her parted lips before she regained enough brain function to turn her back.  Maybe he hadn’t seen her yet.  He had been focused on a woman at his side, making his apologies, it appeared, and excusing himself to walk about the room.  Maybe she could escape through the sliding glass doors before he spotted her and attempted to approach her.  Her heart was beating a mile a minute and her knees had turned to jelly.  Her friends were looking at her as if she’d sprouted horns.  She had to think of something fast.

“I think the fireworks are about to start,” she stammered and blanched at the double-entendre.  “I’ll go and check.”

Her leaden feet were about to carry her away to safety when Nick stopped her.  “We have about twenty minutes, Gail.  Right now you look as if you need to sit down.  What has you so flustered?”

His words were a verbal fist punching through the mush that had temporarily rendered her brain “out to lunch.”  Wake up, Gail, and pull yourself together, she admonished, squaring her shoulders and ordering her lungs to breathe.  “Flustered?  I’m not flustered—probably just a slight case of claustrophobia.  Nothing a little fresh air won’t cure.”

Worry creased his brow when Nick brushed the back of his fingers against her cheek.  “You sure?”

“Yes, definitely.  I’ll be back in a minute.”

“I’ll go with you,” Pam improvised, deeply suspicious as to the cause of her friend’s sudden distress.  And the cause was, at that moment, closing in fast.

“No!”  Gail had to tame the urge to shake off Pam’s restraining hand and run for her life.  She noticed those blue eyes flit up and over her head and rest on a presence behind her.

A presence she could feel if not see.

Even before he spoke—before his deep, husky voice moved over her like hot water causing her skin to break out in a wave of irrepressible goosebumps—Gail realized her time had run out.

“Happy birthday, Holly.”

Her widened gaze streaked toward Nick in a brief instant of panic and saw that his own eyes had narrowed hatefully on the man behind her.  Without a doubt, she knew that Nick was very much aware of the identity of the man addressing her by a different name.  The heat was rising and the time for damage control was at hand.  And by the looks of her escort, the job was solely hers.

She gathered her strength, turned, and met his brown-eyed gaze for the first time since she’d left him in the woods with Iris that stormy day in May.