Praise for KAREN YOUNG

“The suspense is almost unbearable.”

—Romantic Times BOOKclub on Never Tell

“Karen Young is a writer who delivers intense, gripping

and dark suspense…bound to keep you hooked.”

—Romantic Times BOOKclub

“Young skillfully mixes romance with

edge-of-your-seat suspense.”

—Library Journal

“…a powerful novel that was extremely

hard to put down.”

—Romance Reviews Today on In Confidence

“…a moving tale of second chances.”

—Romantic Times BOOKclub on Private Lives

“Karen Young is a spellbinding storyteller.”

—Romantic Times BOOKclub

Also by KAREN YOUNG

NEVER TELL

IN CONFIDENCE

PRIVATE LIVES

FULL CIRCLE

GOOD GIRLS

Belle Pointe

Karen Young

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Acknowledgments

As in all my books, I’m indebted to so many people who helped make this one happen. I took a leap of faith when I chose to build the story around a professional baseball superstar. Most of what I know about baseball I learned in grade school.

Therefore, I relied on guidance from Doug Simmons, my son-in-law, for the technicalities of the game and the effect of injuries on a pitcher. For guidance on the workings of a cotton plantation, I relied on Peggy Peal, my grandson’s other grandmother, whose family has lived on and worked a cotton plantation in the Mississippi Delta ever since God invented dirt.

For insight into the social culture of the Delta, I owe thanks to Gloria Dunbar. For the business stuff, Bob Wood, my lawyer son-in-law, proved, as always, a fabulous asset. Finally, to my editor, Valerie Gray, for insightful critique. Thanks to you all.

For my grandson, Josh.

Baseball, football, basketball—

the family’s very own super athlete!

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Epilogue

One

As it always happened at these events, the room was filled to capacity. Scanning the crowd, Anne Whitaker estimated the number at better than three hundred, well surpassing the goal of the nonprofit sponsor. Amazed that all it took for folks to plunk down five hundred dollars a plate was the appearance of the star pitcher of the St. Louis Jacks—who just happened to be her husband. Buck’s name was a strong draw, so he was constantly in demand. Not only was he a gifted speaker and utterly relaxed in front of an audience, but he was genuinely funny. And, perhaps most appealing of all, he came across as modestly unimpressed with his superstar status.

Anne smiled politely and murmured in response to a comment from the baseball commissioner’s wife seated on her left. With the din of voices and the music of a live band, it was impossible to have any real conversation. As distracted as she was, she wouldn’t have been able to talk anyway. She was ten weeks pregnant and feeling distinctly ill. It wasn’t the classic nausea that came with pregnancy, but something different and it filled her with panic. During the cocktail hour, she’d made no less than four visits to the powder room fearing the worst, but so far nothing. More than anything, she wanted to go home. But a glance at her watch told her it would be a while yet before that was possible.

When she glanced up to find Gene Winston, Buck’s agent, watching her narrowly, she managed what she hoped was a natural smile. No surprise that Gene had picked up on her distraction. Even if he knew the reason she was distracted, he would be unmoved. Buck’s public image was all he cared about. He never needed to remind her of her role at these events. She knew it and played it well.

Buck, finally sensing something, let his napkin fall to the floor. Leaning close on a pretext of retrieving it, he murmured in her ear, “You feeling okay, sugar?”

“I’m just a little…queasy,” she told him, hoping against hope that what she feared wasn’t happening.

“We’ll be out of here soon.” He squeezed her hand and turned his attention back to the commissioner.

She longed to lean against him just for the comfort it would bring but—again—not possible here and now. Even if she weren’t okay, there was nothing to be done about it. The sponsor’s spokesman would soon be up introducing Buck.

She shifted to allow a waiter to refill her water glass and caught the concerned look on Marcie Frederick’s face. Marcie, wife of Monk Frederick, one of the Jacks’ managers, had already commented on the odd fact that Anne was refusing wine lately. Although Marcie was a friend, she didn’t know about the pregnancy. No one knew.

Not even Buck.

Which was the cause of much of Anne’s agitation. She was going to have to tell him and soon. Probably tonight. But after the initial surprise, she told herself he was bound to be pleased. He knew she’d dreamed of having a baby for years. Time would tell if he’d be happy enough to forgive her for the way she’d gone about getting pregnant.

A waiter removed her untouched dessert, while another appeared at the table with after-dinner coffee. Anne put a hand over her cup to refuse just as sharp pain struck in her lower abdomen. She gave a small, involuntary gasp but, in the noisy ballroom, nobody noticed except Marcie. For a stunned moment, Anne didn’t move, and then another searing pain struck.

Rising shakily to her feet, she murmured a distracted apology to the table at large. Buck looked a little surprised at her untimely exit. It had been barely fifteen minutes since she’d last left. But she was too intent on getting to the now all-too-familiar powder room to explain.

Flashing a strained smile to a waiter who courteously opened the exit door, she slipped out and dashed down the hall. Thankfully, the powder room was empty. Her heart thumping with dread, she entered the first stall.

Please, don’t let it be blood.

But it was. Not much, but it was there. She closed her eyes and fought an urge to scream a denial. But no time now to panic. It wasn’t so much that it signaled disaster, she told herself, but she would have to leave. She had strict instructions from her doctor if there was ever any sign of spotting.

Go to bed immediately. Feet up. Total bed rest.

She would have to ask someone to deliver a note to Buck so that they could leave. As for Buck’s speech, he would just have to make some kind of explanation. Their baby’s life was at stake.

A few moments later, she stood at the ballroom door and saw, to her intense relief, that Buck was not on the podium yet. But it would not be long until he was introduced. She stopped a passing server and thrust a note into the startled man’s hand. “Will you give this note to Buck Whitaker, please?”

Slipping back out of sight, she watched as Buck was handed the note which he read without any show of emotion. He was good at that. He had plenty of practice keeping his cool under extreme pressure. No one who played major league baseball panicked easily.

Meanwhile, waiting for him, it was all she could do not to panic. With her insides in a knot and dread in her heart, she took a deep breath. The cramping was irregular, but every nerve in her body screamed at her to run to the escalator and leave. Which would definitely cause a stir. As it was, she was not going to be voted most popular when, because of her, the guest speaker had to bow out early, but there it was.

Their baby’s life was at stake!

Another peep through the crack in the door and she saw Buck finally making his way toward the exit. The instant he reached her, she opened her mouth to tell him, but he shushed her with a look. Taking her arm, he guided her toward an alcove across a sea of hotel carpeting. Even then, before he said anything, he checked to see that they were well out of earshot of anybody. Facing her finally, he asked bluntly, “What’s wrong?”

She struggled to keep a tremor from her voice. “Buck, we have to leave.”

“What are you talking about? We can’t leave. I’m on in five minutes.”

“I know, I know, but we have to go. Now.” She closed her eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to tell you this way, but I’m bleeding.”

His mouth dropped open. “Bleeding? What—”

“I’m pregnant, Buck.”

With a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, he said, “Are you kidding me?”

She couldn’t keep the terror from her voice. “No! No, I mean it, Buck. I’m pregnant and I’m cramping and there’s spotting.”

He made a restless movement, turning away before looking at her again. “How could you be pregnant?”

She shook her head, impatient with the question. “Can we just not talk about it, at least not right now? Right now I need to go home and go to bed.”

He rubbed at the side of his neck, still struggling to take in what she was saying. “I thought the Pills—I mean, they’re supposed to be just about foolproof, aren’t they?”

“Didn’t you hear me, Buck? I’m bleeding!” Her voice rose frantically. “Something is going wrong. Bleeding is a warning that can’t be ignored.”

“Ah…I guess you’ve sort of caught me off guard here.” He glanced back at the closed doors of the ballroom where three hundred plus guests waited. “Does…uh, this…uh, bleeding necessarily mean that something serious is happening?”

“I’m not sure, but I’m not willing to take that chance. Are you?” She’d had ten weeks to adjust to her pregnancy and he’d had less than ten minutes. Maybe he was entitled to a shocked reaction, but she didn’t have time to deal with his feelings. “I’m telling you we have to go home, Buck, now,” she repeated firmly.

“We can’t, Anne. Think about what you’re saying. I’m the freaking guest of honor. I can’t just up and leave. These people have paid a lot of money.”

“Money? Money? I don’t care about money! This baby is what I care about.” She pressed her fingers to her mouth, trying to calm herself. “Don’t you care at all, Buck?”

“I’m still trying to take it in that you’re pregnant. But one thing I do care about is that I have an obligation to three hundred people waiting in that room.”

What about their baby? Didn’t he feel an obligation there? She felt her heart sink. To her mind, the threat to their baby overruled everything else, but he was worried about disappointing a bunch of people who, if he’d just go in there and explain, would probably understand what was at stake. But from the look on his face, that wasn’t going to happen. His agent would be aghast and Jacks management wouldn’t be too happy either.

“Be reasonable, Anne,” he pleaded, looking at his watch. “It’s too late to walk out.”

“And I’m sorry, but the baby—” Words caught in her throat as she sighed. “I just don’t want to risk losing this baby, Buck.”

“Jesus.” He stood for a minute, thinking. Anne saw there was nothing on his face to reveal the gravity of their conversation. He had to be stunned to learn he was going to be a father, but he was so conditioned to keeping his feelings under wraps that she couldn’t tell one way or another. “Can you hold on for thirty or forty minutes? I’ll be done with the speech and as for the party afterward at the commissioner’s house, I’ll make some excuse for us to skip it.”

“Oh, Buck…” Her voice caught and she fought back tears. She didn’t have his expertise at hiding her emotions. “I know it’s awkward,” she said, pleading with him, “but I’m sure they’ll understand when you tell them it’s an emergency.”

“But is it really? You said yourself you’re not sure.” He frowned, struck with another thought. “You don’t need to go to the hospital, do you? It’s not that serious, is it?”

“I don’t know whether it’s serious or not, Buck,” she said, with bitter disappointment. “I just know my doctor told me if there was any spotting I was to go to bed immediately.”

“And you will.” He started back, taking her hand. “It’ll be okay to delay it an hour or so, won’t it? I’ll cut the talk short.”

She leaned into his shoulder and gave a dispirited sigh. “I guess another thirty or forty minutes won’t make much difference.”

“You’ll be sitting down the whole time,” he said, throwing a reassuring arm around her shoulders. He was already guiding her across the floor toward the doors. Before entering, he dropped a quick kiss on the top of her head. “C’mon, beautiful, let’s knock ’em dead.”

It was the longest forty minutes of her life. While waiting for Buck to make his excuses after the speech, she’d gone again to the powder room and found fresh spotting. Although it was still minimal, she was scared. Desperate to leave, she caught his eye across the ballroom and something in her face must have told him she was nearing the end of her rope. With a last quiet word to Gene Winston, he started toward her. She had to admire his skill in avoiding the many attempts to hail him in passing. Finally, he reached her and, with a flash of his famous smile, slipped his arm around her waist and whisked her away.

“You okay?” Buck said, as they pulled away from the hotel.

“I’m not sure. I just need to get home.”

“You can recline that seat,” he told her.

At least she was now in a prone position, she thought. Buck was quiet, winding his way toward the interstate ramp. Once on a straight stretch, he opened up the Porsche with a roar. He liked speed and tended to exceed the legal limit, especially when he was upset. “How could you be pregnant? Did you forget to take the Pill?”

“No, it was nothing like that.”

Hearing something in her voice, he glanced at her. “Then what?”

She thought about asking him to wait until they got home, but maybe it was best to get it behind them now. “It isn’t an accident that I’m pregnant, Buck,” she said quietly. “I quit taking the Pill.”

In the muted glow of the dash, she saw his features darken in a fierce frown. “You quit? Just like that?”

“Not just like that.” Her hand rested protectively on her abdomen. “I didn’t do it on a whim. I thought about it a long time.”

“I wish you’d thought to consult me.” Not quite openly sarcastic, but close.

“I’m not proud of the way I went about it, Buck ,and for what it’s worth, I apologize. We’ve gone round and round about this forever and you always come up with a thousand reasons to put off having a child. I knew what your answer would be if I told you.” With both her hands cradling her abdomen, she longed to make him understand. “I’m thirty-four years old, Buck. The longer we wait, the harder it’ll be for me to conceive.”

“I thought we agreed to put off having kids.”

“For how many years? Another four or five? Eight? Ten?” She swallowed disappointment. She’d so longed for a joyous reaction from Buck, but she now had to let that wish go. “It was your idea to wait, Buck, not mine.”

“So you just decided to ignore my wishes and go ahead with your idea.”

She turned away. They were in open country now and she was looking at total darkness. “I guess that’s one way to put it,” she said quietly.

“I don’t see any other way to put it,” he said, shifting restlessly in his seat. “This is something we should have decided together, Anne. Having a baby isn’t like going to the pound and picking out a puppy. A baby changes everything in a couple’s life.”

“And would it be such a bad thing to change our life, Buck?”

He gave her a quick look. “Does that mean you think something is missing?” When she took too long to answer, he added, “I guess you do. And you think having a baby will make it all better? Don’t you think that’s a bit naive?”

“Maybe to you, but not to me,” she said, bracing as he down-shifted and shot past a huge semitrailer truck. If she’d been uncertain about his state of mind, she now had no doubt that he was angry. “You should slow down, Buck,” she cautioned.

He did…barely. “I didn’t realize you were so miserable,” he said after a moment.

She thought about that, trying to fix on her feelings before deciding to get pregnant without telling him. Slightly bored? Somewhat unfulfilled? She’d had an interesting and successful career as a television journalist when she first met Buck at a Special Olympics event. She’d asked for that assignment when her research had revealed that Buck Whitaker was from Tallulah, Mississippi. During the civil rights struggle, her father, a journalist, had spent a summer in Tallulah with a PBS crew from Boston filming a documentary. Anne had grown up listening to him tell about his experience, which had so influenced him that he’d later written a book about it. She’d been thrilled at a chance to meet someone from Tallulah.

She studied Buck’s profile now, sternly set. So unlike that day at the Special Olympics when he’d smiled constantly at the kids. He had been so kind, so natural and at ease with them. She’d thought then what a great father he’d make. And within six months of that meeting, they’d been married.

Deep in her thoughts now, she was blind to the view out her window. She supposed other people might look at her situation and say she had it all. She was married to a pro baseball superstar who was generous and loving. He never forgot her birthday or their anniversary. He was outgoing and sociable on the surface—few people knew Buck was actually an extremely private man—so they had a busy life. Off season, they traveled extensively to interesting and exotic places. As a result of his incredible contract as the Jacks’ star pitcher, they had a fabulous home in St. Louis, condominiums in Vail and Palm Beach. But sometimes—more and more frequently of late—Anne had begun to wonder if she weren’t one of Buck’s possessions, too. Arm candy to his sports hero image. To her way of thinking, the prospect of a baby promised to give some measure of reality to their bizarre lifestyle. Children had a way of grounding a marriage.

In an attempt to make him understand, she said, “We live in a fishbowl, Buck, you posing for fans, me playing the adoring wife and smiling when I don’t always feel like smiling. And yes, I admit it. I haven’t found all that so fulfilling.” She paused, searching for words. “To me, a constant round of fun and games has become sort of…I don’t know…empty, I guess. Maybe I’ve outgrown it.”

“I didn’t hear all these complaints when I signed that last multimillion-dollar contract. And I didn’t see any misery when I bought you that sweet little Mercedes for your birthday. I also didn’t notice any pain on your face when we paid cash for the condo in Vail.” His foot was heavy on the accelerator again.

“I’ve never denied enjoying the things your job makes possible for us,” she said quietly. “But they’re only things, Buck. They don’t take the place of a baby. At least, not for me. I want us to be a real family.”

“What’s a real family? I can tell you from experience that mine is a dysfunctional, screwed-up bunch. You and I don’t need a baby to feel like a family.”

“I know you don’t have a good relationship with the Whitakers, but that doesn’t mean you won’t make a good father. You’d have a chance to change the things your parents did that were wrong.”

He gave a bitter laugh. “I couldn’t live long enough to do that.”

“Just think about it, Buck. Already you’ve endowed a program for inner city kids and almost every year you participate in Special Olympics. You make time to talk to high school athletes about avoiding drugs and getting a diploma. You do any number of things that show you’ve got a good heart. You sell yourself short when you say you wouldn’t make a good father.”

As an adopted only child, Anne’s childhood had been lonely. In spite of having very loving adoptive parents, she’d longed for brothers and sisters. When she married Buck, she’d dreamed of having her own babies, her own family. Buck’s heritage as the son of a “gentleman planter” in the Mississippi Delta was intriguing, so different from her rather ordinary roots in New England. Belle Pointe, his family home, fascinated her. Why couldn’t he see all the reasons they should start their own family?

“How far along are you?” he asked abruptly.

“Ten weeks.” But maybe not for long. While they’d been on the road, the cramping had worsened. Maybe she should call her doctor. Maybe going straight to bed wouldn’t be good enough. She might very well wind up in the hospital tonight. With a glance at the speedometer, she saw the needle pushing eighty and, feeling anxious to get home, she said nothing.

“To tell the truth, I’m having trouble with this, Anne,” Buck told her. He sat hunched over the steering wheel, a sure sign of his agitation. “I’ve got a lot on my mind that we haven’t had a chance to discuss. The Jacks are playing hardball in the negotiations on my new contract. It’s a disadvantage that I’m thirty-seven years old. They claim they’re uncertain whether my arm will hold out. Plus, they’re harping on the bad publicity that came after Casey’s death. I couldn’t help it that he was at my house when his heart gave out, but they don’t see it that way. The press hinted at steroid abuse and no matter how I deny it, I think the Jacks suspect I had something to do with it. So a baby right now is a complication I didn’t expect. I guess you could say it’s…well, it’s just bad timing. Frankly, I feel blindsided.”

He saw their baby as a complication? “When would have been a good time, Buck? I’ve apologized for the way I went about getting pregnant, but I’m not sorry for conceiving the baby. It’s done.”

“I would never have expected you to do something like this, Anne.”

“Well, I did it.” She crossed her arms stubbornly. “And I’m sorry it’s bad timing for you. You’ll simply have to get over it. It’s not like I can just reverse a pregnancy. There’s only one way to do that and I know you don’t want me to have an abortion. Do you?”

The words were tossed off impulsively, but when Buck didn’t instantly deny it, she looked at him in shock. He had a right to be upset, she gave him that, but surely he wasn’t contemplating aborting their baby. Appalled, she stared at his stony profile. “I’m waiting to hear you answer that, Buck.”

“Hell, Anne, it’s just that—” He broke off abruptly. “Hold on!” he shouted over the screech of brakes.

Anne’s startled gaze caught sight of a deer square in the Porsche’s headlights. Later, she’d recall the flash of its white tail as Buck instinctively swerved to avoid the animal. But with the maneuver, the Porsche fishtailed off the pavement onto the gravelly shoulder of the road. As it careened wildly, Anne realized they were going to crash. She had the odd sensation that the whole thing was happening in a kind of distorted slow motion. Her mind took it all in, the blur of trees as the car hurtled at breakneck speed, the sudden specter of a green highway sign and Buck’s desperate wrench on the wheel to miss it, then the drag as pavement gave way to a grassy bank. With the car now moving sideways at a dizzying speed, she realized it was going to tumble down into a deep ravine. Her last thought before the sickening impact was of her baby.

Please, God…

When Anne was wheeled out of the recovery room it wasn’t Buck who appeared instantly at her side. It was Marcie Frederick. Anne had no strength—or heart—to greet her. She still reeled from the news delivered by her doctor in recovery as she regained consciousness.

Miscarriage. Her baby, gone forever.

“So, how’re they treating you, sweetie?”

Anne felt a tear leak out of the corner of her eye. “I can’t say I recommend this place.”

“I know, darlin’.” Marcie lifted her hand and squeezed it. “I’m so sorry.”

“I d-don’t think I can b-bear it, Marcie,” she whispered brokenly. “I wanted this baby more than anything in this world.”

“Of course, you did.” Marcie dug in her purse for a tissue and gently blotted at Anne’s tears. “I feel silly for not guessing you were pregnant. After three pregnancies myself, I should have recognized the signs.”

“Nobody knew. I wanted to wait until all chance of m-miscarriage was over.” She felt another overwhelming urge to cry. “I’m sorry. I just can’t—”

“It’s okay, you just go right ahead and cry, honey. You’ve had more than enough trauma tonight to make anyone cry. That was a bad crash. I’m just thankful you both survived.”

Her mind was fuzzy, but she had no trouble recalling the accident. Buck, angry and speeding. The deer appearing out of nowhere. The horror as the car tumbled down into that steep gully. Anne closed her eyes. “Is Buck okay?”

“He’s banged up, but okay,” Marcie said as an orderly appeared. She didn’t volunteer details and Anne didn’t ask. Nobody spoke as they rode in the elevator to the third floor. Anne had been told that most patients recovered quickly from a miscarriage, but she’d taken a bump on her head in the crash and a few scrapes and bruises, so she would probably be staying in hospital for a day or two.

“Here we are,” the orderly said, maneuvering the gurney out of the elevator. “Third floor. We’ll just get you tucked in all nice and cozy, then the nurse will get a reading of your vitals and you can take a nice long rest.”

When he was gone, Marcie looked at her watch. “I expect Monk to show up any minute now. He’s with Buck on another floor and I made him promise to call us as soon as he can get away.” When there was no response from Anne, she asked, “Do you recall much of what actually happened in the accident?”

“I had my seat belt on, but my head hit the side window and I think I was out for a minute or two.”

“Time and details have a way of becoming distorted in a situation like that,” Marcie remarked.

“I remember enough.” Anne’s gaze was focused on the view from the window. “People were on the scene right away and the EMTs had me out and on a stretcher pretty quickly, I think.” She paused, remembering. “All I was aware of is blood…so much blood…”

“And Buck?”

“He was unconscious. I remember that. He didn’t have his seat belt on.”

Marcie clucked with disapproval. “That guy! What was he thinking? The high muckety-mucks at the Jacks aren’t going to be happy to hear that.” She picked up Anne’s chart and studied it with a professional air. She was a nurse, but hadn’t worked since having her first child. “They didn’t give me much information while I was waiting for you in the O.R.”

“Will I live?” Anne asked. Not that she cared at the moment. She didn’t care about anything.

“Yes, darlin’. And you’ll have more babies, too. Don’t you fret.” Marcie slipped the chart back into a holder on the wall. “I just wanted to make sure nothing was removed to keep that from happening. You and Buck can still have a houseful of young’uns.”

“I don’t think that’s in Buck’s life plan,” Anne said, turning her face to the window.

“Aww, no man thinks he wants a baby until he gets a look at that precious little face.”

“Buck is different, Marcie. He really doesn’t want any children.”

“Well, you could fool me. He’s so good with kids. They hover around him like bees to a honey pot wherever he shows up.”

“Those are other people’s children,” Anne said bitterly.

She saw the look on Marcie’s face and regretted saying anything. Fortunately, they were interrupted when a nurse appeared to get Anne settled. She was told how to use the remote which operated the television set, how to lower or raise the bed, how to turn a light on and off and how to summon help, should she need it. Since anybody could have figured it all out without help, Anne tuned the woman out long before the monologue was over.

“While you were in surgery your daddy called,” Marcie said when the nurse left. “He and your new stepmother were frantic. They were as surprised as the rest of us to hear about your pregnancy. Even though they know you’re okay, they’ll want to hear it from you. I told them you’d probably need to sleep off the anesthetic before making any calls.”

“That’s good. Thank you.” She didn’t want to talk to anyone. She turned her head to look outside. The view framed in the wide window was spectacular. Although it was long after midnight, high-rises were fully lit and traffic still flowed on the streets. “It’s so late, Marcie. You shouldn’t be here.”

“Shoot, girl, if I wasn’t here with you, I wouldn’t have anything to do.”

Anne managed a weak smile. “Tell that to somebody who doesn’t know you have three kids under six.”

“And they’re with their nanny, so don’t go worrying about them. You just worry about getting yourself on your feet again. The sooner you’re up and healthy, the sooner you can try again.”

Anne didn’t have to reply to that. Marcie’s cell phone buzzed. “It’s Monk,” she said, looking at the caller ID. She stepped outside the room, but Anne could hear bits and pieces of the call, but she had little interest. She was again gazing out the window when Marcie came back into the room.

“Well, looks like the two of you are in the same boat,” Marcie said with a determinedly cheerful smile. “Buck’s basically okay, but his knee took a bad hit. Also, he’s got a nasty concussion, which is the reason he hasn’t been up here checking on you.”

“Frankly, I don’t want to see him, Marcie. It’s because of his recklessness that I’ve lost my baby.”

“You can’t be sure about that.” Marcie moved closer and took one of Anne’s cold hands in both of hers. “Didn’t you say you were spotting at the hotel before you even got into the car?”

“Yes. And I wanted to leave, but he wouldn’t.”

“Oh, hon…” Marcie sighed and squeezed Anne’s hands. “Before I had my first child, I had a miscarriage, too. It happens. I was an emotional wreck, too. I cried for weeks. Even now, today, I think about that baby and wonder what he would look like, what personality he’d have. So I can understand your heart is breaking. But this is a time when you need Buck and he needs you. He’s suffered a loss, too. You know how these jocks are. Even when they’re dying inside they don’t whine, they don’t cry, they don’t get emotional. I understand you want to crawl in a hole and pull your grief in with you, but right now, you and Buck need each other.”

“Maybe that’s the way it is with you and Monk, Marcie, but Buck isn’t going to grieve over losing this baby,” she said sadly. “I actually think he’s going to be relieved.”

Marcie stared at her in amazement. “You can’t believe that.”

Anne tucked her hands beneath the blanket and wearily turned her face to the window again. “I’m not good company right now, Marcie. Please…just—” She swallowed, blinking back tears. “Will you please go out to the nurses’ station and tell them I don’t want any calls and I don’t want to see anybody?”

Marcie studied her in silence for a long moment. “Yes, of course. If that’s what you want. Your doctor has been pretty effective in keeping quiet that you’re here, so if your stay is short, you’ll probably be gone before the media figures out a way to bug you with a visit.”

Out in the hall, the hospital intercom paged a doctor by some anonymous number. Anne looked wistfully out the window. “Don’t you wish they could figure out a way we could be anonymous in this business, Marcie?”

“Most of the time, we wives are anonymous. It’s the players who can’t even go to the bathroom without somebody rubbernecking.” She bent and picked up a jacket from the small settee. “Look, I’m not wishing Buck any grief, but maybe it’s not all bad that this accident forces him to hang around the house awhile. The two of you can use the time to work through your problems.”

“There’s only one thing wrong with that plan, Marcie,” Anne said quietly. “Since I’m no longer pregnant, Buck considers our problem solved. You’re a good friend and I’m grateful you’re here tonight. Thank you for that.”

“Well, what are friends for, darlin’?” Then, with a resigned sigh, Marcie crossed her arms. “Okay, I can tell the nurses that you don’t want any other visitors, but you have to see Buck.” She held up a hand when Anne opened her mouth to argue and repeated, “You have to see Buck…for this reason. If I go out there with your no visitors message, the whole hospital would soon be abuzz with the juicy news that the wife of the St. Louis Jacks star pitcher, who was in the accident with him and has just suffered a miscarriage, has barred him from her room. How long do you think it would take that to reach talk radio and the six-o’clock news? They’ll have a field day with it, Anne. And it won’t stop here in St. Louis. Doggone it, they’ll follow you to the ends of the earth. You know I’m right.”

“I hate living in a fishbowl, Marcie,” Anne cried. “I hate it!”

“It’s not for wimps,” Marcie agreed. As the wife of one of the team managers, she knew firsthand how hard it was to have a private life. For every move a player made, he had to keep in mind that there was someone watching.

Anne sighed deeply. “I guess I have to see him.”

“You do.” Marcie leaned over and kissed her cheek. “One look at that guy’s pretty face and, trust me, you’ll feel a lot better.”

On Sunday mornings, Franklin Marsh enjoyed making breakfast for his wife. He was frying bacon for breakfast when he heard the phone ring. They’d both been anxious since learning of Anne’s accident sometime after midnight. Thinking it was early for calls, he quickly removed the skillet from the hot burner, turned off the stove and by the time he reached the bedroom, Beatrice was already talking. He knew instantly by the look on her face that it was Anne.

“Yes, he’s just starting breakfast, Anne. Oh, it’s so good to hear your voice. We’ve been so worried. How are you?” With a hand on her heart, Beatrice sank down on the edge of the bed to listen. They’d both been holding their breaths waiting to hear from his daughter.

“It was such a close call, Anne, but thank God you’re okay.” She paused, nodding slowly. “Yes, he’s right here.” Reluctantly, she handed the phone to Franklin. “She wants to speak to you.”

Franklin took the phone and sat down on the side of the bed beside Beatrice. “Hey, Annie-girl. You gave us a good scare last night, love.”

“I know, Dad, but I’m all right. Is this too early? Did I wake anybody?”

“Oh, no, we’ve been up awhile, both of us. Are you sure you’re okay? Marcie told us about…everything.”

“Uh-huh. I’m just…” He heard a catch in her voice. “…just so sad.”

“Of course you are. We’re both as disappointed as we can be. I know how much you wanted a baby. Buck must be hurting, too. How’s he doing?”

“He’s okay. I don’t know if you’ve heard the details of the accident yet. It’s already all over the news here.”

“And by the time I get to work, it’ll be the talk of the town here,” he predicted. “Tallulah’s favorite son doesn’t do anything that’s not reported up one side and down the other.”

“I wanted you to know some details since the media will distort it somehow.” She drew a shaky breath. “Buck was speeding, which won’t be a surprise to anybody. He swerved to avoid a deer that just appeared out of nowhere. It’s kind of murky, but I remember the car went careening down a steep embankment. I had my seat belt buckled, but Buck didn’t. He has a concussion and his knee is injured. I haven’t seen him yet so I don’t know how bad it is.”

“Uh-oh, that could mean big trouble for the Jacks if he’s out any length of time.”

“I guess.” He heard her take another unsteady breath and after a moment, she added in a different tone, “He should have thought of that before being so reckless.”

Franklin met Beatrice’s concerned gaze. “Are you sure you’re okay, Anne?”

“I will be, Dad. Don’t worry. I…I just haven’t been able to…to…” Her voice caught on a sob. “Actually, that’s why I’m calling. I was wondering if you would like some company.”

Surprised, Franklin again looked at Beatrice, who was watching him with anxious eyes, her fingers pressed to her lips. “If by company, you mean you and Buck, nothing could be nicer.”

“Not Buck, just me, Dad. I…I’d like to come for a visit, if that’s okay.”

“Well, sure, Annie-girl. But with Buck’s injury—”

“Buck has all of the St. Louis fan base and the whole Jacks organization rallying around him,” she said grimly. “He doesn’t need me. So I’d like to come for a visit if it won’t inconvenience you. I’m not sure how long I’ll be staying.”

“Come away. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like, you know that.” He stood up, now alarmed by her tone. “You sound…” He hesitated, worried about pushing her and maybe changing her mind about coming. Bea would kill him. “Are you sure it’s the right thing to do—leaving Buck by himself at such a…well, such a delicate time? He’s suffered a loss, too, you know.”

“We’ll talk about that when I get there. I just needed to let you know before making any flight reservations. I’ll probably be discharged tomorrow morning. Once I get home, it’ll take me a while to pack. I don’t know which flight or my arrival time, but you needn’t worry about meeting me at the airport. I’ll rent a car and—”

“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” he told her. “I’ll pick you up no matter what time it is, day or night.” He glanced at Beatrice, who was nodding eagerly, pointing to herself. “We’ll both be at the airport. Just let us know when.”

“I appreciate this, Dad,” Anne said in a husky tone. “I know it’s short notice, but—”

He heard the catch in her voice. “Anne, a miscarriage can be emotionally devastating. You and Buck—”

“I need some time away from Buck, Dad. Don’t ask me to explain just now.” And before he had a chance to say more, she hung up.

“What’s the matter?” Beatrice asked urgently. “Tell me.”

Still holding the phone in his hand and looking troubled, Franklin shook his head. “I’m not sure, sweetheart. She wouldn’t say anything except she needed some time away from Buck.”

“And she’s coming here?” With a stunned look, Beatrice put both hands to her cheeks.

“That’s why she called. She was apologetic as it’s short notice, but she’s made up her mind.” He frowned. “She’s in an emotional state, Bea. I wonder—”

“I knew we should have left last night! The minute her friend called, we should have gotten a flight. We’d be there for her right now, Franklin. She’s all alone.”

“Hindsight,” Franklin said.

Beatrice stood at the window, looking out. “I know this is an awful thing to say and I grieve for her loss, but I’m thankful for an opportunity to have her visit. I had only a few hours with her on our wedding day before Buck whisked her back to St. Louis.”

“He sure doesn’t spend any time in his hometown if he can avoid it,” Franklin said, rising to go to her. “And even though the circumstances aren’t ideal, it’s—as you say—an opportunity for you to get to know her.”

With her hands clasped and pressed against her heart, Beatrice looked ready to cry. “I want that so much.”

“I know, my darling.” He went to her thinking to comfort her with a hug. Only when he tipped up her chin to kiss her did he see the tears.

Two

It was midmorning that same day before Buck made it to Anne’s room. She was awakened by a light kiss on her forehead. She opened her eyes to find him leaning close, fumbling for her hand. She evaded his touch by clutching the blanket.

“Hi,” he said.

She felt oddly detached, studying his face. One cheek was bruised and he had a black eye. Above it was a sizeable bandage covering what she assumed was the blow that caused his concussion. Day-old stubble darkened his jaws, giving him a rakish look that the nurses probably found sexy. “Hello, Buck.”

“Finding a way to visit my wife around here is harder than trying to finagle a pass to get out of jail,” he said with a smile. “Good thing I know some people.”

He was going to play it with humor, she thought. Okay. Whatever. “Should you be walking around? Monk seemed concerned about your knee.”

“Like they say, I feel like I’ve been rode hard and put up wet.” His smile was a little off-center, aimed at charming her. “But I’m okay. How’re you doing?”

“I’m fine.” She turned to look out the window. “How’s the Porsche?”

“Totaled,” he said wryly. Then a pause. “Anne, I—”

“The staff at the hospital’s buzzing over you being here.” She watched a couple of birds—blue jays, she decided—quarreling in flight. “More than one person has told me we’re both lucky to be alive.”

“Yeah. It was a close call…and stupid on my part. I was speeding and I didn’t have my seat belt on. Thank God you did.”

“The Jacks will no doubt think of some way to exonerate you.”

“But will you?”

“I don’t know, Buck.”

He put out a hand and caught her chin. “Anne, please look at me.” Reluctantly, she raised her eyes to his. “I’m sorry. I know those words won’t begin to be enough for you, but I am so sorry. I wouldn’t have this happen for the world.”

“You wouldn’t?” Her eyes locked with his. “Really? Even to rid yourself of a baby you didn’t want?”

He was shaking his head. “I know that’s how it sounded and I wish I had those few minutes in the hotel to live over again. I wish I’d left when you asked me to. I wish I hadn’t driven so fast.” He made a distressed sound. “I…you…I guess I was just floored when I heard you were pregnant. I know that’s no excuse—”

“You’re right. It’s no excuse.” She turned away again. “So what’s the point of talking? I’ve miscarried. The baby’s gone. I accept that you’re sorry. It’s just—” She shrugged. “I guess it just seems…too little, too late.”

“I need you to forgive me for this, Anne,” he said. “I want us to go home and spend some time talking. I want us to—”

She made an impatient sound. “It’s always what you want, isn’t it, Buck? Well, right now I really don’t care what you want. I don’t think you even begin to suspect what has happened to us—to our marriage. I know you made it plain that you didn’t want a baby, but I honestly thought that you’d come around once you knew we had created a child. I was wrong about that and you can rest easy that you won’t have to cope with my silly wishes for a baby ever again.”

She felt a wild urge to throw the covers aside. She wanted to go at him nose to nose to tell him exactly how completely beyond redemption he was to her now. Instead, she made an effort to draw a calming breath. “I want you to leave now, Buck, before we both say things we’ll probably regret.”

His face had gone pale at her attack. Shaken, he said, “I don’t want to leave you like this.”

“Too bad.” She sighed then and gave him a sad look. “Are we strangers, Buck? After six years of marriage, do we actually know each other? Did you really not realize how important it was to me to have a child?”

“I don’t think I did,” he said slowly, looking like a man walking a path through a minefield. “I know that sounds selfish and egotistical, but we can work this out, Anne.”

“I don’t know if I want to work it out.”

“You don’t mean that.” He paused, choosing his words cautiously. “I mean, you’re upset and you have a right to be. When we get home and you’ve had a chance to rest and…you know, sort of recover, we’ll talk.”

She gave him a straight look. “Recover from losing my baby? Just like that?”

“Not ‘just like that.’ Of course not.” Looking exhausted, he rubbed a hand over his beard. “I was told you’re going to be released tomorrow morning. Is that right?”

She was so emotionally spent that it was a moment before she answered. “I don’t know. I’d leave now, but my doctor insists that I stay another day. Which is irrelevant as far as you’re concerned. The Jacks aren’t going to let you leave.”

“I want to take you home.” He shifted on his feet, squared his shoulders and got a stubborn look on his face. “I mean, I’m going to take you home. They—the Jacks—do want to keep me in here, but I’m leaving when you do, so don’t go without me. As ticked off as you are, I wouldn’t put it past you to check out early.”

“What’re you going to do to stop me? Camp out in the parking lot?” She sighed, too tired for sarcasm. “Besides, you can’t drive with that knee. You’re in pain. I know the signs whether you admit it or not.” She could tell by the strain pulling at his mouth and the fact that he was sweating. “If you’ve really got a concussion, I don’t think it’s smart for you to be driving. If you don’t worry about your own safety, then I care about mine. Marcie will come for me if I call her.”

“I’ll hire a limo and driver. We’ll go home together. Then we’ll talk.”

“A limousine?” He blinked at the sudden fury on her face. “Do. Not. Hire. A limousine. I repeat, Buck, do not do it. I hate the publicity this has already stirred up. All I need is to get discharged and find a forty-foot limo with a driver waiting to take me away in style. I’m leaving to escape that kind of smothering publicity.”

He frowned as if he hadn’t heard her correctly. “What do you mean, you’re leaving?”

She closed her eyes and looked away again, unwilling to get into it with him now about her plans. “I’m tired, Buck. I don’t have the energy to talk about this anymore. You can go home with me tomorrow morning…if you’re able to leave. Otherwise, I will ask Marcie.”

“Is that a promise?” he asked.

She turned to look at him. “I don’t want more gossip, so that’s the way it has to be.”

“Then I’ll be here,” he said, speaking with a clamped jaw. “Come hell or high water, I’ll be here.”

She waved a hand weakly. “Whatever, Buck.”

“I’m sorry, Anne.” When the words came out huskily, he cleared his throat. “I swear to God I’ll make it up to you.”

She turned back to the window without speaking and after a minute, she heard him leave.

Buck was in mortal pain when he got back to his room. In order to get his doctors—and the Jacks on-staff sports medicine physician—to allow him a visit to his wife, he’d finally agreed to being pushed in a wheelchair by an orderly. Turned out, the guy was a Jacks fan and Buck bribed him with prime seat tickets to park him outside the door and wait. Somehow, in spite of his throbbing knee, he had managed to limp to Anne’s bedside. He had been determined not to be in a wheelchair when they talked.

But he was glad to be wheeled back to his room. The effort had taken a toll and he was shaken by Anne’s reaction. She might never forgive him for this. He didn’t know how he’d manage to drive her home tomorrow, but he was determined to do it. No way was he going to let her check herself out of the hospital and him not be there. Judging from her mood today, he wasn’t sure she wouldn’t go to a hotel to keep from looking at him. With his knee throbbing now, he was on the point of buzzing for a nurse when a huge black man strolled into the room.

“Time for your meds, Mr. Whitaker.”

Buck made an attempt to look less than half-dead. “Call me Buck. Mr. Whitaker is my big brother.”

“And you can call me Eddie.” He looked more like a wrestler than a nurse, but he moved with the grace of a dancer. He held out the tiny paper cup. “I brought you something that’ll take you to paradise…temporarily. Considering how you look, it should be welcome.” He watched Buck toss it back and offered water from a decanter on the bedside table to swallow it down.

“How long do these things last?” Buck asked, shuddering.

Eddie tossed the paper cup. “The concussion, the banged-up knee, the bruised ribs, the narcotics or your rotten mood?”

Buck rubbed a hand over his face wearily and grunted an obscenity.

“I guess you mean the dope,” Eddie opined. “With that concussion, a couple hours. It wears off, you can call me and there’s more where that came from.”

“I don’t want to sleep through checkout time tomorrow morning.”

“Why, you got a ball game?”

Everybody’s a comedian, Buck thought, staring at his knee, now elevated on some kind of foam wedge-thing and wrapped securely. It was worse than he’d thought at first. He’d seen athletes with similar injuries and he was worried that it could be a long time before he played ball again. “I can veg at home just as well as here,” he told Eddie. “I don’t want to sleep past six-thirty.”

“No problem there,” Eddie said cheerfully as he adjusted the wedge. “You know that old saying, doncha? A hospital is no place to get any rest. There’ll be folks in and out of here starting around daybreak. Sleep through all that and you’re closer to dead than alive.”

With that bit of macabre humor, he stripped off his disposable gloves and tossed them into a receptacle near the door. “You take my advice, you’ll do what your orthopedic man recommends with that knee. I can’t see him liking it that you want to leave here while it’s puffed up like that. You mistreat your knee now, you’ll pay for it later.” At the door, he added, “Whatever your reason for wanting to leave, you might ask yourself if it’s worth your career. ’Cause if you don’t treat it right, that knee can ground you for good.” He flashed a grin as he pulled the door open. “Just my take on it, buddy.”

Buck closed his eyes and prayed for the drug to kick in. He didn’t need homespun advice from anybody to know what to do to be back on his feet the soonest. The concussion was nothing new. He’d had more than a few. In a day or so he wouldn’t even have a headache. But the knee was serious. It could give him grief long enough to knock him out for the season. He worried whether or not he had the time. The Jacks had a major investment in him and would pull out all the stops to give him the treatment necessary to put him on his feet again. He wouldn’t have a choice about it. But Anne was the wild card here. She wasn’t thinking about his career. Hell, she wasn’t even thinking about him as he’d just discovered.

Jesus, he’d really screwed up this time.

Ten minutes later, he had a nice buzz on from the narcotic Eddie had given him. He turned drowsily at a cursory tap on his door as the coach of the St. Louis Jacks let himself in the room. Buck instantly came alive.

Gus Schrader was a squat, red-faced man with attitude. While most of the team he coached was bulked-up athletes who towered over him, Schrader, at about five foot nine, took no guff from anybody. His word was law and Buck respected him more than any coach he’d ever had. Last year, with Buck as starting pitcher, Schrader had shepherded the Jacks into a wild card status and it was his mission in life to actually win the league championship this year and wind up in the Series. He would not be happy that his star pitcher was laid up with a bum knee, especially when he heard how it happened.

“How’s it going, Buck?”

Buck struggled to clear a narcotic haze from his brain and stuck out his hand to greet Schrader. “I’m okay. Ears ringing a little from cracking my head on the windshield,” he said, tossing a grin and hoping not to show how he dreaded whatever the next few minutes would bring. “Otherwise, nothing’s broken.”

Schrader looked at the knee. “Think you’ll be able to walk on that anytime soon?”

“A couple weeks, give or take.” Buck used the remote to raise the head of his bed.

“That so?” Arms crossed, Schrader eyed him skeptically.

“What were you thinking, Coach?”

“I’m thinking your guestimate is a little too optimistic. Grissom’s take on it is more realistic.” He paused. “Plumb grim, if you want the truth.”

Buck winced. Steve Grissom was head of the sports medicine team for the Jacks. “What did he say?”

“Said he examined it within an hour of you checking in. No estimate of how long, but he thinks you’ll need extensive physical therapy before you can pitch. You put any pressure on that knee prematurely and get out on the mound…blam—” He snapped his fingers. “You think it’s in bad shape now. Wait’ll you see the damage then. No, we don’t want to be risking that.”

“I’m with you there, Coach.”

“So Grissom’s arranging a program,” Schrader said, as if Buck hadn’t already agreed. Not that it mattered. Nothing Buck could say was going to change Schrader’s mind if Steve had already passed judgment on the extent of damage to his knee. “It starts the day you leave the hospital.”

“That’ll be tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Schrader’s eyebrows rose.

“I need to get out of here, Gus,” he said, shifting to sit up straight. He had to pause to quiet a shaft of pain from his rib cage before he could speak again. “I know the knee will still give me some grief, but I need to be at home right now. I’ve got some personal issues I need to deal with. I’ll cooperate with the physical therapy. Whatever Steve suggests I’ll go along with a hundred percent.”

“Damn right you will.” He gave Buck a keen look. “What kind of personal issues? I know Anne’s in a room on another floor. Word is the accident brought on a miscarriage.” Schrader didn’t consider anything private if it interfered with an athlete’s performance.

“She’s having a bad time, Gus. I need to be with her right now.”

“Well, I’ll leave it to you whether you go home tomorrow, but if you damage that knee beyond repair, you’ll be writing your own ticket to nowhere. You know that, don’t you?”

“I hear you.”

“Bad publicity’s following you like stink follows a skunk, Buck. I don’t like it.”

“Tell me,” Buck muttered.

“What the hell were you thinking driving that automobile at top speed with your wife beside you and your seat belt off?”

“It was stupid. I was speeding. I admit it. Then that deer just materialized out of nowhere. I acted on pure instinct to avoid it.”

He cut Buck off with a disgusted snort. “Excuses. I don’t hear a reason for anything I mentioned.” His bushy eyebrows beetled with the force of his frown. “I don’t know what’s goin’ on with you and your wife, but after this caper, I’m surprised the woman isn’t ready to walk away from you. I’m assuming that’s part of the personal issues you mentioned, so I’m not ordering you to stay put here in the hospital. Been my experience that a man handling marital problems is almost as useless as tits on a boar hog. You get out on the mound, you need your head clear. You see where I’m coming from, Buck?”

“Yeah.”

“Then I’ll leave you to think it over…that is, if that stuff they’ve given you for pain hasn’t turned your brain to mush.” He turned on his heel without waiting for a reply and stalked to the door. Then, just before pulling it open, he turned back. “I’m heading up to see Anne right now. I’ve always considered you a lucky man having a woman like that for a wife. You screw that up, you’re more than a fool.”

Which pretty much summed up what Buck thought of himself. When Schrader was gone, he closed his eyes with a tired sigh and welcomed the oblivion of the narcotic.

Anne waited until the sound of the Fredericks’ SUV faded away before sitting up and tossing aside the soft throw that Marcie had thoughtfully tucked about her. The bedroom she shared with Buck was beautiful, a tasteful blend of buttery yellows with touches here and there of red and brown. The art on the walls was original, carefully chosen. The furniture was top-of-the-line. And why not? When they’d built the house, money had been no object and she’d taken a lot of pleasure in decorating it. Unfortunately, it would not echo with the sound of tiny feet, nor would she rock her baby in the chair she’d bought a month ago and secretly stowed away from Buck in the attic.

Her baby. Before she was engulfed in anguish, she went to the sumptuous walk-in closet and took down a piece of luggage. At the chest of drawers built in on her side, she began removing what she’d need for the foreseeable future—bras, panties, socks, T-shirts, pajamas. After packing them, she went back to the closet and chose a few pairs of pants and jeans, some tops, blouses, a running suit. It was too chilly right now for shorts.

Coming out of the closet she lifted her head to see Buck propped in the doorway on his crutches. He looked at the half-packed suitcase and then back at her with a ferocious frown. “What are you doing? You’re supposed to be in bed.”

“I’m leaving. And you’re supposed to be off that knee.” She dropped the clothes on the bed and began folding them.

“C’mon, Anne. This is no way to deal with our situation.”

“It’s the way I choose,” she told him. Her hands were shaking, so she kept them moving, folding, placing this piece and that in the suitcase, reaching for the next one. “However you deal with it is up to you.”

He was at the bed now, trying to get a look at her face. “I’ve said I’m sorry for the way I acted…about the baby and the accident. I mean it, I’m sorry. But it was…hell, I guess I was in a state of shock or something, Anne. For you to just quit taking the Pill…I never expected you to do something like that.”

Moving back to the closet, she picked up a pair of running shoes and came out with the shoes in one hand and another smaller carryall in the other. “I never thought I’d do something like that either,” she said, “but I did.”

“And you think what you did is justified because you wanted a baby?”

She stopped in the act of stuffing the shoes in the bag and looked him squarely in the eye. “I’m going to tell you this one more time, Buck, and if you don’t get it, then it’s plain that the differences in the way we think are so major that we really won’t be able to get beyond it.”

She briefly closed her eyes to gather her thoughts before laying it on the line. “My ovaries are thirty-four years old, which means I’m already past peak childbearing years. I simply couldn’t wait any longer for you to change your mind about having a family. I convinced myself that once you knew I was carrying our child, you’d be as thrilled as I was and your objections would just fade away. Okay, that was dumb. I was wrong about that. It was a serious betrayal of trust and I sincerely apologize.” She gave him a weak smile. “Serious mistakes require serious thinking and I need to be away from you to do it.”

With a bleak look, he watched her throw more stuff in the suitcase. “You blame me for the accident and bringing on the miscarriage, don’t you?”

She paused with a makeup bag in her hand. “Yes, I guess so,” she said slowly. “I wish you’d left when I begged you to.”

“I’ll make it up to you, Anne, I swear I will.”

“Just…leave it, Buck. Don’t go there right now. I need to be away from you for a while.” She closed the suitcase and began zipping it up. “I need to decide whether there’s anything left of our marriage worth saving.”

Seeing he was about to argue, she stopped him by raising a hand. “Please, don’t say any more. It’s not only our differences about whether we should have a baby, Buck. We have differences about the way we live our lives. I’m uncomfortable living in a fishbowl, you know that. I’ve said it enough. But I accepted it for the joy of one day having your babies. That’s something else that went with this miscarriage. I’m not so sure I’m willing to compromise about that anymore.”

“Jesus, are you saying you’re through? You want a divorce?”

“I’m not sure what I want right now. I am sure that I need some time to sort out my thoughts. So I’m going to stay with my dad and Beatrice.”

Buck sat down hard on the side of the bed. “You can sort your thoughts out here,” he said. “You don’t have to be in another part of the country—especially not there.”

“Like where, Buck? A hotel? How long do you think it would be before the media would be all over me if I were to check into a hotel? Or maybe the condominium in Vail? Same thing and you know it.”

“Yeah, but Tallulah?” He looked incredulous.

“My dad will welcome me. And Beatrice, too, I hope. I’ve called and made arrangements. It’s done, Buck.”

“Just like that?”

“Yes, just like that.”

He got up abruptly, forgetting his knee, then swore when it almost folded beneath him. Grabbing a single crutch, he glared at her. “This is bullshit, Anne! I’m up to my ass in trouble with the Jacks. I’m grounded with this damn knee for who knows how long and now my wife ups and leaves. Add that to the scandal of Casey dying at my house and the gossips will have a field day.”

“Well, too bad, Buck. I’m dealing with some pretty difficult stuff myself, in case you haven’t noticed. Your trouble with the Jacks is temporary—you’re too valuable to be cut and your knee will heal. The thing with Casey will eventually fade away, too.” She straightened then and looked him squarely in the face. “But my baby is gone forever.”

“I tell you, we can work this thing out here, Anne. You don’t have to go to Tallulah.”

“That would save you the embarrassment of explaining my disappearance, wouldn’t it? And it’s understandable for you to assume I’d fall in with what you want since before, when we’ve come to these bumps in the road, I’ve always been the one to compromise. Well, I’m not compromising this time, Buck. I need this time and I’m taking it.”

“Do you realize what’s at stake here? We could lose everything we’ve worked for all these years.”

“Everything you’ve worked for.”

“For God’s sake, Anne, be reasonable.”

“Reasonable.” She looked at him, shaking her head. “You know what? I don’t feel like being reasonable. I’ve had it with the struggle, the ego stuff, the loneliness when you travel and I’m home alone. I haven’t been able to pursue a career because we’ve never been in one place long enough. I don’t expect you to understand because I’ve been remiss in telling you, and that’s my fault. I’m sorry, Buck, but my mind is made up.”

With the suitcase now packed, she got ready to lift it off the bed, but he stopped her with a hand on it. “At least wait a few days. Christ, you just went through an ordeal losing the baby and the accident. You just got out of the hospital.”

“Meaning you think I’m overreacting because my hormones are in an uproar.” She smiled bitterly. “Wrong. My hormones probably are in an uproar, but I know exactly who I am and what I’m doing. And if you don’t like the real me, then for sure our marriage is over.”

She tugged the handle out of his grasp and walked to the door. Hampered by his crutches, it took him a moment to get going. “I’m driving myself to the airport,” she told him as she reached the stairs. “I’ll leave a message on your voice mail telling you where to send someone to pick up my car.”

Three

As if to challenge Anne’s decision about leaving Buck, the weather turned bad and she had to spend several hours in the airport waiting for her flight to depart. By the time she got off the plane in Memphis, she’d had too much time to think, but not enough to change her mind.

She caught the first glimpse of her father and Beatrice at Baggage Claim before they spotted her. Franklin Marsh was a tall man, lean and gangly. Anne’s nose barely came to the third button on his shirt, an Oxford button-down that appeared almost a size too large. As was the tan corduroy jacket he wore. He looked exactly what he was—an academic and an author/journalist whose thoughts were often engaged elsewhere.

With tears clogging her throat, she let herself be folded into his embrace. “Don’t ask,” she whispered, guessing that she must look ready to splinter into a thousand pieces. He held her for a long moment, sensing that she needed it, just as he’d done countless times when she was a child.

“Thanks for coming to meet me, Dad,” she managed to say with a little sniff.

He made a tsk-ing sound. “And wouldn’t I go to the moon to meet my Annie-girl. How are you, love?”

“I’m okay.” Swallowing a lump in her throat, she looked beyond her father and met the anxious blue eyes of her stepmother. “Beatrice. I’ve kept you away from your shop today, haven’t I?”

“A welcome break,” Beatrice said, holding out her arms. “Is there a hug for me, too?”

Her stepmother was about Anne’s height, an attractive woman whose once-dark hair styled in a casual pageboy was rapidly turning gray. The long sweater she wore over a gauzy tiered skirt made her look exactly what she was—an aging child of the sixties. Anne stepped naturally into a warm embrace that made her throat go tight, and her doubts about her welcome disappeared.

“I’m so happy you’re here,” Beatrice said in her ear. Pulling back, she studied Anne’s face intently.

Anne brought both hands to her cheeks. “Is my makeup a mess? I know I look like something the cat dragged in.”

Beatrice shook her head, smiling. “Was I staring? If so, it’s just to check that you’re as lovely as I remembered on my wedding day.”

Again, to her consternation, Anne felt herself on the verge of tears, but somehow managed a laugh. “I guess that means I don’t look as bedraggled as I feel.” They’d met only a year ago. And once Anne got over the shock of the idea of her father remarrying, she’d liked his new wife from the start. “And thanks for being so gracious about having me. You must think I’ve got some nerve just calling and saying I’m on my way without giving you any notice.”

“You don’t have to give notice to visit us, Anne…ever.”

“That’s nice of you to say, but it has to be an inconvenience.”

“Inconvenience?” Franklin, watching them with a smile, spoke up. “What kind of nonsense is that? I wish you’d stay a month.”

“Be careful what you wish for, Dad,” she said dryly.

An hour later, as they exited Interstate 55, the gently rolling terrain of north Mississippi abruptly changed to the stark flatness of the Delta. Now in early April the land lay fallow, but in high summer the fields turned lush and green with cotton plants and in August the bolls swelled in the scorching Mississippi sun until they finally burst. Everything that had been green turned suddenly, dramatically, to snowy white. It still seemed so different to Anne, reared in New England where winters were long and gray and cold and summers all too brief.

As they neared the city limits of the town, she read a signing proclaiming Tallulah as the proud hometown of Buck Whitaker. It was a reminder that, to the folks in Tallulah, Buck was a bigger-than-life hero. At the same time, she was reminded that his celebrity would make it hard for her to keep a low profile while she was here.

Another mile and she noticed a profusion of political signs. To her surprise, the biggest and most prominent featured Buck’s brother, Pearce. “I didn’t know Pearce was involved in a political campaign.”

“No?” Franklin frowned. “I would have thought he’d contact Buck for an endorsement. The state senate is turning out to be a horse race and Buck’s name would definitely be an asset to Pearce.”

“His opponent is giving him a run for his money,” Beatrice said, “but in the end I don’t see how anyone can beat a Whitaker.”

Franklin chuckled. “My wife is supporting the opposition.”

“And who are you supporting, Dad?”

“The Spectator remains neutral,” he said piously. “So far.”

Beatrice gave Anne a knowing smile. “I’ll win him over yet.”

“All it would take for Pearce to win, with or without an endorsement from the Spectator,” Franklin said, as they approached a huge billboard picturing Buck in pitcher’s stance, “is an endorsement from Buck.”

“I forget how big Buck’s name is in this town,” Anne said, now looking at his face painted on the side of the high school gym.

“It’s understandable when you consider the odds of a town this size producing a world-class athlete,” Franklin replied.

“I guess they’ve forgotten how long it took before he was recognized as world-class,” she remarked.

On her first visit to Belle Pointe just before their wedding, Buck had still been stuck in the minor leagues, frustrated and keenly ambitious, but it had not mattered to Anne whether he ever made it into the pro ranks. She was that much in love with him. What did matter was that he spent so little time with his family. His father had died before they ever met, but his mother and Pearce, his older brother, were in Tallulah. Although Buck harbored resentment and hurt over things that had happened after his father died, she wondered if he hadn’t overreacted. People said things, did things, in the wake of a family trauma that could be worked out. To Anne, it seemed a shame to simply withdraw from his family when he had such an interesting heritage.

“There’s the turn to Belle Pointe,” Franklin said now, as they approached the ornate iron gate. “Won’t be long before folks around here find out you’re back for a visit. They’ll wonder where Buck is. What’s your plan to deal with that?”

“I don’t have a plan,” she said, gazing at the house where Buck was born. Stretching on all sides were endless cotton fields, but the house itself was surrounded by shade trees, mostly oak, sycamore and the unique and stately magnolia. Brightening the grounds nearer the house were hot-pink azaleas in full bloom.

“It is a fantastic sight, isn’t it?” Beatrice said, following her gaze.

“Yes.” She knew she would never forget her first look at Belle Pointe. It was high summer when Buck took her to meet his family. They’d driven past miles of lush cotton fields and suddenly there it was, an antebellum gem of classic Greek Revival design. She’d gazed enthralled, thinking the place looked like something out of Gone with the Wind, a white pearl in a green sea.

Franklin slowed the car. “When I see it, I sometimes get a feeling that the clock at Belle Pointe stopped somewhere in the nineteenth century. Same thing with a few other landowners around here as well. How they’ve managed to hold on to such a unique lifestyle is truly remarkable.”

“Yes, remarkable,” Anne murmured, studying a tall water tower painted like a cotton boll. “I thought the same thing myself when I first saw Belle Pointe.”

“Of course, most of the original plantations were divided up as families came on hard times. Beatrice can tell you something about that.”

“My daddy lost our land when it was sold for back taxes,” she explained at Anne’s puzzled look.

“Oh, no,” Anne murmured.

“He was a very stubborn man,” Beatrice said.

“I’ll say.” With Belle Pointe behind them now, Franklin picked up speed. Anne guessed there was a story there, but neither offered more details.

“On the other hand,” Beatrice said, “the Whitakers have managed to hold on to Belle Point for five generations. They’ve even added to the original acreage. And with your mother-in-law managing things, that’s not likely to change—at least not in this lifetime.”

Anne welcomed any scrap of information about Victoria Whitaker. From the start, she’d been a bit in awe of Buck’s mother. “Buck doesn’t talk much about Belle Pointe…or his family, so while I’m here I’m going to try to get better acquainted.”

“The Spectator’s archives are a good place to start,” Beatrice said. “With your journalism background, you should feel right at home poking around down there, right, Franklin?”

He slowed as a farm vehicle pulled onto the road in front of him. “More than poking around in those dusty old shelves, I’d love to have you working right alongside me. I could use a good journalist.”

She hadn’t thought about going to work. She hadn’t thought about anything much beyond getting away. At the sound of an airplane, she turned her gaze skyward and watched a crop-duster preparing to land at a small airfield. Another mile or two and they would be at Tallulah’s town square, which was about all the downtown amounted to.

“Considering my own fascination for the Delta and its culture,” Franklin said, “it puzzles me how someone with Buck’s heritage could stay away for years, even with the exciting career he chose.”

“Maybe his career is exactly the reason,” Beatrice said. “He’s bound to be thinking about what he’ll do when it’s over, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable that he’ll want to spend more time here. I know John Whitaker expected Buck would eventually wind up farming at Belle Pointe. When he was a boy, he had a real connection to the land, far more than his brother, Pearce.”

She gave Beatrice a surprised look. “You knew Buck then?”

“I knew of him,” she said, smiling. “Remember, Tallulah’s a small town and I’ve been here all my life. Actually, I went to school with Victoria.” When Franklin stopped at the only traffic light on the square, she waved at two elderly women crossing the street. “We were classmates, but we didn’t socialize much and never at all after Victoria married John. My goodness, I remember the buzz when John surprised everyone and picked a local girl to marry.”

“It sounds like a storybook romance,” Anne said, fascinated at this glimpse of Buck’s parents. She was dying to know more. From the start, she’d been curious about her mother-in-law, but in their rare visits she’d found Victoria to be a very private individual, almost severely so. And although Buck talked about Belle Pointe and his childhood, he rarely said much about his parents.

Franklin eased away from the light. “Like I said, folks always figured Buck would come back to his roots one day.”

“Well, looks like folks were wrong,” she said as Franklin negotiated the square.

“Speaking of John Whitaker,” Franklin said, as if picking up a thread of conversation, “I met him when I came down in 1971 with that PBS crew. He was a real Mississippi aristocrat. I recall us getting into a discussion of the literary influence of Faulkner and Hemingway and other great Southern writers.”

“He gets into those discussions frequently if he can find any takers,” Beatrice said, with a wink at Anne.

Franklin cleared his throat loudly. “Well, it was right up my alley, that discussion. I’ve always regretted not having a chance to know John a lot better. His death a few years later was a great loss to this town.”

“Buck was in his senior year of college when it happened,” Anne said. “He was devastated. It was so sudden.”

“Yes, indeed.” Franklin slowed for another stop sign. “At the time, your mother and I were still in Boston, of course.” He glanced over and smiled at Beatrice. “I never dreamed then that I’d wind up here.”

“That makes two of us,” Anne said dryly.

“Surprised you, didn’t I?” he said, chuckling.

“On a scale of one to ten?” she asked. “Only about ten and a half.”

“If we want to talk of surprises, how about the one where my daughter wound up married to John Whitaker’s son?” Shaking his head, he added, “Now there was a whirlwind courtship if ever there was one.”

“He warned me that I didn’t know Buck well enough,” Anne said to Beatrice.

Franklin braked as a pickup backed out of a parking space in front of the Piggly Wiggly. “Well, isn’t that what fathers do?”

Anne, fighting a smile, put a finger to her temple. “I believe you said something like, ‘Marry in haste, repent at leisure.’”

Beatrice made a face. “Not very original, was it?”

“Fathers don’t have to be original,” Franklin said sagely.

“And apparently they have one set of rules for offspring and another for themselves,” Anne said, still teasing him. “What if I’d said the same thing when you suddenly retired and moved here, then while I was still trying to catch my breath over that, you announced you were marrying again?”

Franklin reached for his wife’s hand, brought it up and kissed it. “I’d have done the same thing you did,” he said, still smiling. “I’d have ignored you.”

Watching them, Anne realized how right her father’s decision had been to marry Beatrice. They seemed so much in love. And yet, shock had been her first reaction when, shortly after the death of her mother, Franklin suddenly retired from his job at a major newspaper in New England and moved to Mississippi to edit the town’s small weekly Tallulah Spectator. Anne had worried he was having a midlife crisis. Buck, with a shrug, said she should be relieved that Franklin’s crisis prompted only a job change rather than falling for some big-breasted gold digger. But even Buck was taken by surprise when Franklin called a year later and said he intended to marry a Tallulah woman. Fortunately, on meeting Beatrice, Anne had been instantly reassured.

“Were you serious when you said you needed a journalist at the Spectator?” she asked Franklin as they cleared the town square.

“As a heart attack,” he quickly replied.

“I’m rusty,” she warned him. “I’ve worked only sporadically since marrying Buck. I don’t know if I can meet the Spectator’s high standards.”

Franklin met her eyes in the rearview mirror. “You must be joking. Your career was on the upswing when you were able to pursue it. Even if you weren’t my daughter, I’d consider a journalist with your talent and credentials an asset to the Spectator.”

Anne flushed at the warmth of her father’s approval and, again, found herself on the verge of tears. Oddly, at the same time, underneath her emotional reaction was a sense of the rightness of what she was doing…and a stir of anticipation at the prospect of working again. She’d been too long without any true purpose in her life other than fulfilling her role as wife of the Jacks’ star pitcher. She realized that her stepmother was watching her with a gentle smile on her face.

“Don’t look now, Franklin,” Beatrice said, “but I think you’ve just hired a reporter.”

The Marshes’ house was a classic Victorian built at the turn of the century. Franklin had bought it upon arriving in Tallulah and, although it was in good shape, he’d set about restoring many of its original features with as much attention to detail as he put in his books and articles. Anne had seen it only once—when she came for the wedding. She wondered about its history now. Who’d built it? Who’d had children and raised them here? Who had lived and loved and died here?

“I love your house,” Anne told them as she climbed out of the car.

“So do I.” Beatrice stood gazing at it fondly.

Franklin looked up after retrieving her luggage from the trunk of the car. “Ask her if she has any special reason for loving it.”

“It once belonged to my family,” Beatrice said, linking her arm with Anne’s to walk with her to the front door. “Four generations of Joneses, for what it’s worth,” she added.

“Oh, that’s wonderful!” Anne cried, genuinely thrilled. “I was just thinking about the people who’d lived here, imagining births and deaths and marriages. Now I can find out from my very own stepmother.” She gave Beatrice a little hug. “How neat is that?”

“Bea is full of Tallulah history,” Franklin said, pulling up the rear with Anne’s luggage. “And she’s probably dying to share it with you. But I have first dibs. For this reason. I can’t see Buck letting you stay away all that long. With his injury and enforced downtime and the season just opening, he’ll be in a very unsettled frame of mind. He’ll want his wife nearby.”

What Buck wanted did not concern her at the moment, but Anne didn’t comment. She knew people often regretted saying things to others while in the throes of a personal crisis. Somehow, it didn’t seem fair to Buck when he wasn’t around to defend himself.

Beatrice seemed to sense her struggle to come up with a vague reply. “We’ll both have lots of time for talking,” she said, sweeping her over the threshold. Once inside, she turned and spoke softly. “Welcome to our home, Anne.”

The woman was really a sweetheart, Anne thought. No wonder Franklin had fallen head over heels for her.

“And now,” Beatrice said brightly, “what we need is tea. Franklin, if you’ll take Anne’s luggage to her room, I’ll brew some of that nice Darjeeling.” She turned to Anne. “I think I recall from your last visit that you’re partial to Darjeeling.”

“I am and thank you. I’d love it.” As her father disappeared up the stairs, Anne followed Beatrice to the kitchen and found it stamped with her stepmother’s warm personality. The walls were painted a buttery cream and the cabinets were a soft off-white. In the middle of the room was a polished oak pedestal table with four chairs set for tea. It was difficult to decide which was older, the table and chairs or the delicate china.

“You’ve made lots of changes in the house since Dad bought it,” she said, admiring the room. “It was nice before, but now it’s wonderful.”

“We make a nice team,” Beatrice said, her gaze following Anne’s. “I’m not quite such a stickler for detail as your father, but I think I do have an eye for style. Franklin had furnished the house with antiques, but they were arranged without much style.” She touched Anne’s shoulder, gently urging her to sit. “Here, let me pour the tea. There’s sugar and lemon…and if you like it, cream.”

“No, it’s fine just like this.” Holding the cup with both hands, she closed her eyes and inhaled the bracing aroma before sipping cautiously. When she looked up, she found Beatrice watching her with a faint smile.

“There’s just something about tea, don’t you think?”

Anne nodded. “Yes, I do. It’s so…comforting.” She set her cup down with hands that weren’t quite steady. “I don’t know why I keep tearing up like this,” she said, her voice rising with emotion. “Ordinarily, I never cry. Just do me a favor and ignore it, please.”

“I would hardly call your present circumstances ordinary,” Beatrice said gently. “You’re dealing with two emotional crises, trouble in your marriage and a miscarriage. You’re entitled to tear up. In fact, you’re entitled to cry your heart out. In your shoes I know I would.”

Anne studied the tea swirling in her cup. “I’m still having trouble believing all that’s happened. If you’d asked me last week where I’d be and what I would be thinking, it wouldn’t be here and I wouldn’t be contemplating a divorce.”

“Is it that serious, Anne? I know absolutely nothing about your personal life and I won’t presume to make any judgments. I will only say that you’ve gone through an emotional upheaval with your miscarriage. Are you sure you want to end your marriage as well?”

“I’m not sure at all,” Anne said with a sigh as her cell phone rang. Although there was nothing intrusive about her stepmother’s remarks, Anne wasn’t ready to confide in anyone that Buck hadn’t wanted their baby and now that she’d miscarried, was probably relieved that their lifestyle was unchanged. It made him seem insensitive and selfish. She found she didn’t want Beatrice—or her father—thinking of Buck that way.

Checking the caller ID, she saw that it was Buck calling. Feeling Beatrice watching, she let it ring and ring without answering, then turned it off. “It’s Buck. I don’t want to talk to him.”

“Oh, Anne…”

“He’ll keep trying. He’s as tenacious as a bulldog.” She crammed the phone in a deep pocket of her purse. “I told him I needed time to think, time away from him. So when I don’t answer my cell, he’ll try calling your number. I’m not taking his calls, Beatrice. I’d appreciate it if you would simply tell him that.”

“If you’re sure…”

Seeking to change the subject, Anne said, “I’m looking forward to a tour of your shop. I never got a chance to drop in when we came for your wedding, but a lot of people had nice things to say about it at the reception.”

It took a moment, but Beatrice rallied. “I love my shop,” she said, offering Anne cookies on a small platter. “I was critical of Frank furnishing this house in a hodgepodge way, but when you visit my shop, you’ll see what real hodgepodge means.”

Anne managed a smile. She was still a little shaky after refusing to talk to Buck. “Is that how you describe it?”

“It’s not only how folks around here see it because I have such a wide array of things, but I named it Bea’s Hodge-Podge.”

“What does a wide array include?”

“Well, let’s see…” Nibbling at a cookie, Beatrice brushed at a few crumbs on the table. “I’m partial to local artists, so there’s a good selection of handcrafted pottery and quite a bit of jewelry—all signed pieces. A couple of local artisans make hand-dipped candles and soap for me. Oh, and linens. I have some really lovely linens, napkins, tablecloths, pillowcases.”

“I thought your place was a bookstore.”

“Oh, did I forget to mention books?” Beatrice poured herself more tea. “Yes, in fact, fully half my space is devoted to books.” She touched her lips with a napkin. “See what I mean by a hodgepodge?”

“I can’t wait to see it.”

“Well, fortunately for you, it’s too late today.” Beatrice stood and began collecting their empty cups. “Because you must be tired. I know air travel just wipes me out. And after all you’ve been through, you’ll want to rest for a while before we have dinner, which will be something light. Does that sound about right?”

“It sounds just perfect. Thank you.” If it meant going out, she would have skipped eating altogether. As it was, she didn’t know if she could manage to swallow food.

Beatrice looked up as Franklin appeared. “Did you put Anne’s luggage in her room?”

“I did.” He helped himself to cookies. “Yummy. Just what I need to hold me over until dinner.”

Beatrice gave him a playful tap on his wrist. “Just what you don’t need, you mean.” She looked at Anne. “Do you have as wicked a sweet tooth as this guy? In spite of the fact that he never gains an ounce, I can’t keep sweets in the house because as soon as they appear, he gobbles them up.”

“It’s not natural to go without a cookie now and then,” Franklin said. “Isn’t that right, Annie-girl?”

“You and Buck should get together,” Anne said. “He can’t pass up anything loaded with sugar.”

“Well, then,” Franklin said, munching happily, “since it looks like I’m outnumbered here, the sooner he shows up, the better.”

Anne turned, heading for the stairs. If her dad was counting on Buck to show up to balance the numbers, he was in for a disappointment. Buck might be determined to talk to her on the phone, but the last place he wanted to be was in Tallulah.

Four

Buck peered through the keyhole on the door and recognized Monk Frederick, then swore when he saw Steve Grissom standing beside him. Although he counted Monk as one of his best friends, he knew he didn’t come in friendship if he was with Grissom. Instead, he’d be wearing his Jacks management hat. Dropping his head with a tired groan, Buck debated whether or not to ignore them until they went away. But even if they left, they’d try again tomorrow and the day after that. Sooner or later, he’d have to let them in and hear them out.

“Can I get y’all a beer?” he asked after ushering them into the den.

“Nothing for me.” Grissom was known to be a teetotaler.

“Same here, Buck,” Monk said with a nod at the crutches Buck was using. “Take a load off. You don’t need to be walking around on that knee.”

“It’s okay.” But he shuffled over to a recliner and after placing his crutches where he could grab them in a hurry, he carefully sat down. “I take it this isn’t a social call,” he said.

In Grissom’s line of work, crabby and ailing athletes were a given, so he spoke in a tone meant to soothe. “Just checking on how you’re doing, Buck. With a concussion, you can’t be too careful. In fact, after I look at that knee and have a chance to judge the extent of your injury, I’m thinking of recommending a trainer around the clock for you.” He hardly paused at Buck’s muffled oath. “That way, there would be less chance of you doing further damage if you should fall or…” he paused, cleared his throat, “I mean, with Anne having left, it’s risky to be alone with that kind of injury.”

Buck shot Monk an accusing look. “How is it that folks know I’m alone?”

Monk’s big shoulders rose in a shrug. “Not from me and not from Marcie, so be cool. You ought to know that you’re too big a celebrity to have any privacy, Buck. Anybody could have seen Anne at the airport—without you. Words gets around.”

“Shit.” He turned his head and gazed out the window.

“So—” Grissom was on his feet now. “You don’t object to me taking a look, do you?”

As much as Buck longed to, refusing was not an option. He was an owned asset of the Jacks and Grissom was here to inspect their property, after which he would report back to Gus Schrader about whether or not a multimillion-dollar investment was going south. Buck did his best not to wince as Grissom poked and probed and prodded. Then, as he pressed a certain spot, Buck nearly came up out of the chair.

“Holy shit, Steve!”

“That’s where I’d inject steroid ordinarily,” Grissom muttered, unmoved by Buck’s agony. Frowning in thought, he rose and stood with his arms crossed. “Steroid would be only a short-term solution, of course, but in the long run…no, I don’t think so.”

“Short term sounds good to me,” Buck said, shaken at the thought of an extended leave of absence. “I’ll worry about long-term stuff later.”

Grissom gave a stiff smile. “Fortunately, Buck, that decision isn’t up to you.”

Buck had been miserable before the two men showed up at his front door, but he was ten times worse after they were gone. He was shaken by Steve’s stubborn refusal to do a quick fix. In spite of everything Buck could think of to argue otherwise, he’d hung tough. Steve’s official report would land on Schrader’s desk within the hour. With the season starting soon, sitting out could mean the death of his career.

He accepted that Jacks’ management worried over their investment and were concerned for his rehabilitation, but he discounted everything else they said now that he knew they were recommending an extended leave of absence to get him on his feet again. It sounded like a kiss-off. No doubt about it, unless he made a startling recovery, his career was in jeopardy.

He reached for the handle on the side of the recliner and pulled up to a sitting position. Just that small movement triggered searing pain that went hot and deep. With his teeth set, he groped for his crutches and painfully managed to get on his feet. For a second, the room spun, reminding him that he’d also suffered a concussion.

Propped on his crutches with his vision blurred and his knee throbbing, he made his way cautiously out of the den and across the vast foyer, splendid in Italian marble, heading for the kitchen. By the time he reached the butler’s pantry, he was sweating and feeling a little sick. He’d been injured many times, but mostly stayed away from painkillers. But this time, between the knee and the concussion, he’d been desperate for relief and it was telling on him now.

At the pantry he stood thinking. He wasn’t washed up yet, by God. A few weeks favoring his knee and he’d pick up where he left off…provided they didn’t put him out to pasture as Steve Grissom might recommend and as the powers that be might sanction. Grissom was not known for his creativity as regards rehab, so any plan he devised would be traditional, slow to achieve results and in the end, possibly not particularly successful.

Head hanging low, Buck faced facts. He hadn’t survived in the cutthroat world of professional baseball by just sitting back and accepting what a couple of so-called experts said. If he’d done that, he would have quit before he was twenty-five years old. Nearly ten years in the minors had taught him a thing or two about survival. Hell, being raised by his cold-hearted mother had taught him a thing or two about survival. Balanced on the crutches, he opened the door to the pantry.

Using one of his crutches, he snagged the leg of a stool and, moving cautiously, climbed a couple of rungs until he could reach the topmost shelf where he stored liquor, purchased by the case. Fumbling behind a case of Dewar’s, he found a small box containing a vial of a clear substance and a syringe. Stepping down from the stool, he stood for a moment with his head pressed back against a shelf loaded with bottles of champagne. He took several long, deep breaths until the pain subsided to a bearable level.

A few minutes later—still sweating like a pig—he made his way out of the pantry, through the kitchen and the huge foyer to the den and finally to his recliner. This time, he simply dropped his crutches to the floor without caring whether he would be able to reach them if needed and sank into the chair. He was whipped.

A long, long three minutes passed. Then, with shaking hands, he fumbled at the seal on the box. No way he’d be able to inject his knee until he could hold the syringe steady, he thought. But he had the vial out now and he’d watched the procedure enough in the hands of other athletes to know what to do and how to do it. By the time he had the syringe filled with the powerful steroid, he was calm.

Fortunately, he wasn’t wearing jeans, but pajama bottoms, which had been a gift from Anne at Christmas. Since he always slept buck naked, when he’d opened the box on Christmas morning and saw what was inside, they’d both laughed at the absurdity.

“Wear them just once…for me,” she’d teased that day. “I have a reason.”

“Such as?” Suspicious, but he’d played along.

“Since you always have so much fun taking mine off,” she said, smiling and kissing him at the same time, “I thought I’d try the same thing.”

What would Anne think if she saw him now?

He quickly banished his wife from his thoughts and ripped the side seam of the pajamas all the way up to the knee. Steve’s exam and the trek to the kitchen and back hadn’t done good things for the injury. Gingerly feeling it up, Buck found the spot he thought would be about right and took a calming breath. Holding it, he pushed the needle into the spot and blinked rapidly at the pain. Slowly and carefully, he injected the drug.

For a minute, he was caught in a blankness of thought and time. Anne’s face floated before him. She looked so sad. Was she still crying for the baby, he wondered, or was it because of what he’d just done? What had he done, he asked himself as tears welled in his eyes. With sudden and profound shame, he flung the needle across the room and bowed his head in his hands.

In spite of the many opportunities he’d had over the years, he had never used chemicals to enhance his performance on the mound or for any other reason. It was cheating, pure and simple. How had he reached such a low that he turned his back on every honorable standard he’d prided himself on from the time he first held a baseball in his hand while his father smiled at him proudly? The game was sacred to him. The ethics of play were sacred. What did it say about him that staying in the game was so vital to him that he’d not hesitated before shooting up if it meant he’d play again?

A sudden deep, agonizing need for Anne welled up in him. Jesus, she would be horrified over what he’d just done. Using the fingers of both hands, he wiped his cheeks and let his gaze move to a photo of the two of them when they’d been married only a few months. Anne was leaning into Buck who was Mr. Cool in sunglasses, a crooked smile and shirtless, while she laughed and raked at strands of her dark hair whipping in the wind. No sunglasses, so you could see her eyes, those incredible, beautiful turquoise-blue eyes. God, he missed her. He hadn’t realized how empty the house was without her. Or how long the nights could be. Or how desperate he was to hear her voice. A dozen calls and she still refused to talk to him. He was flat-out scared that he’d hurt her so much she might never forgive him.

It came to him then that he needed to get his life in order. Still reclined in his chair, he considered what that entailed. First of all, he needed to win his wife back, but he could hardly do that if she was in another state and wouldn’t even talk to him. Next, he needed to get back in shape enough to play baseball. In time, the concussion would take care of itself, but the knee was a problem. The chemical he’d just injected was only a temporary fix. A lengthy physical therapy plan was vital. He sat up in the chair. But who said that it had to be done here? There were physical therapists all over the planet, even in Mississippi.

Hell, he could kill two birds with one stone. The Jacks wanted him nearby so they could keep an eye on his progress. But what could they do if he left? He wasn’t going to be able to play and Schrader wouldn’t want him visible to the fans walking like a cripple. If he arranged to have his physical therapy in Mississippi, he could be near Anne. He’d have to pay for it out of his own pocket, but it was an expense he’d gladly bear.

His adrenaline was flowing now. He was a man of action. Instead of sitting on his butt, he was going to do something. But first he had to get to Mississippi. With his knee messed up, he couldn’t drive. And he didn’t want to fly commercial. Too public. Too embarrassing. He’d have to charter a plane. Simple enough. For the first time since driving the Porsche off into that ditch, he felt he was in control again. He could handle Gus Schrader’s reaction, no matter what it was. His biggest worry was what kind of reaction he’d get from Anne.

By the third day in Tallulah, Anne was sick of her own company. The baby was her first thought upon waking and her last at night, a sore and tender spot on her heart that felt as if it might never heal. She appreciated the fact that Beatrice and Franklin took her at her word that she wasn’t ready to talk, but a part of her wanted to tell someone how she’d felt when all was well in her pregnancy. She’d been so joyful. If a boy, she’d imagined him a carbon copy of Buck, complete with that rakish smile and easy charm. Or a girl with those same gifts. Would she be a tomboy? Would Buck’s son have his athletic gifts or would his talents be similar to hers? Or would their baby be nothing like either of them?

Lord, enough of that. To keep from dwelling on her troubles, she was headed to the Spectator to take her dad up on his job offer. She was genuinely eager to resume her career, but it was icing on the cake that she’d have access to the Spectator archives. According to Beatrice, who had proved to be a walking encyclopedia of Tallulah’s history, the archives would be chock-full of references to Buck’s family. The things Buck told her about his family had only whetted her appetite to learn more. It was a golden opportunity to fill in the blanks.

She had not spoken with Buck. She simply wasn’t up to arguing with him. After she’d refused to take his calls, he’d stopped trying. Maybe after thinking it over, he was relieved that she was the one who dared to say their marriage was in trouble. Maybe he’d been looking for a way out and just hadn’t found a way to tell her. God knows, there were scads of women who’d love to be with Buck Whitaker. And not a single one of them would complain about not having his baby.

Her stepmother had generously offered the use of her car and Anne was halfway to the newspaper office when she realized the gas light was on. She was torn between irritation and amusement at Beatrice. The woman was a crackerjack businesswoman with a creative bent but Anne noticed that, in practical matters, such as keeping gasoline in her car or stocking the pantry with groceries or picking up clothes at the cleaners, she was woefully forgetful. Franklin groused about it when it affected him directly, but Anne had seen right away that he was so besotted with Beatrice that it would take a lot more than a depleted pantry or a wardrobe mishap to make him truly angry with his wife. In the time that Anne had been their houseguest, she was completely convinced that her father was happier than he’d ever been. She suffered a pang of conscience every now and then, feeling a bit disloyal to her mother, but Beatrice really was a sweetheart.

At the service station, she swiped her card and prepared to pump gas into the tank of the small car. For just a second, she thought of her Mercedes and wondered if Buck was driving it in St. Louis. He shouldn’t be driving at all, but she couldn’t imagine him staying cooped up in the house even when ordered to stay put. Of course, he may have already replaced his wrecked Porsche with something equally fast and expensive. And for just a second, she wondered if he was missing her.

“Anne! Anne Whitaker? What the hell—”

With her hand on the nozzle, Anne turned to see who’d spoken. Coming around the hood of a large black Lexus on the opposite side of the pump station was Buck’s older brother.

“Jesus, it really is you, Anne.” While still a yard away from her, Pearce Whitaker opened his arms wide and smiled, showing a lot of teeth. He swept her up in a bear hug, his kiss just missing her lips when she turned at the last second. Then, holding her by the arms, he looked her over. “Talk about surprises, honey, I about drove into the pump when I saw who it was gassin’ up Beatrice’s bug. How the hell are you?”

“I’m fine, Pearce. And you?”

“Couldn’t be better.” He’d removed his sunglasses and was still studying her as if he wasn’t sure she was real. Her own sunglasses were firmly in place in the hope that she’d go unrecognized once she left her father’s house. And of all those who might have recognized her, she would have wished it anybody but Pearce. Or possibly his mother.

“Where’s Buck?” He glanced at the passenger seat of the Volkswagen looking for his brother. “After the accident, I thought he’d be confined to quarters in St. Louis by the Jacks. You’re looking great, but how’s our fair-haired boy?”

“He’s okay.”

“He didn’t sound okay when I called him Sunday. Grouchy as a bear with a burr up his—” He caught himself. “And he didn’t say a damn thing about coming to Tallulah. So, how long y’all been here?”

“Just since Tuesday.” Skirting the truth. If she could get by without telling him outright that Buck was not with her, she would avoid questions about why. Let Buck break the news.

“And you haven’t called us at Belle Pointe?” He was shaking his head. “I know Buck would rather kiss a snake than have a conversation with Mama, but y’all can’t hole up at your daddy’s house and pretend she’s not just five miles down the road. She’ll have a fit like you never saw when she finds out. Hey!” His eyes lit with a new thought. “I assumed Buck would be playing, which is why I haven’t called him to set up an appearance in my campaign, but now you’re here it changes things. He’s able to get around?”

“More or less.” She looked at the gauges on the pump and willed the gas to flow faster. “How is your campaign going?”

“Couldn’t be better,” he repeated, reaching into the breast pocket of his jacket. He took a business card out of a small leather case and used the surface of the pump to scribble a number. “Here’s my cell. Tell Buck to call me. Today. Within the hour. His name’s gold around here. I’ve been lucky the way support is growing, but word gets around that Buck’s gonna make an appearance, the voters will love it!” He grinned, handing her the card. “This is just great. Couldn’t happen at a better time. The polls say I’m the front-runner, but it’s early yet and you can never be too far out front. A couple of appearances with the great Buck Whitaker and it may even scare my opponent into pulling out!”

The pump clicked off automatically. “You’ll need to talk directly to Buck about that,” she told him, with a glance at her watch. “I’m sorry to run, but—”

“No problem. Got things to do, huh?”

“I’m heading for Dad’s office.”

He spread his hands wide with another grin. “Another major advantage for me, having connections at the Spectator. I’m hoping Franklin will do more than just an endorsement. I’d like a nice profile piece, from the standpoint of the Whitakers. You know, playing up the contributions made to the town—hell, the state!—by my ancestors, emphasis on me, of course.” He gave her a playful wink. “Get folks thinking it’s the natural thing, having a Whitaker in the Capitol.”

Anne bent to screw the cap of the tank in place thinking Pearce had found his calling as a politician. With his profound conceit he assumed not only the cooperation of her father in his campaign, but Buck’s as well. Fortunately, it wasn’t her place to disabuse him of this notion.

She closed the lid with a thump. “Good luck, Pearce.”

“Wait a minute.” He opened her car door for her with the courtesy that seemed innate in Southern men. “How about coming out to Belle Pointe tonight? No joke, Buck can’t hole up at the Marshes’ and avoid Mama. Y’all need to make an appearance, if nothing else.”

“I’m sorry, but I really can’t speak for Buck.” She reached over and turned the key in the ignition. “And I’m afraid I really do have to run, Pearce. Tell Claire I said hello, will you?”

“Sure, sure.” He stepped back as she put the car in gear. “And you tell Buck I’ll be looking to hear from him today, okay?”

With a smile and a wave, she drove off. He would know the truth before the day was done, but he was right about one thing. Now she was here, out of courtesy she must pay Victoria a visit. And soon. But she didn’t have to look forward to it.

“Hello, Tyrone?”

“Yeah. Who’s this?”

Nursing a Coke in one hand and the phone in another, Buck leaned back in his recliner. “Somebody who knows you were the one who tied Ray Dixon’s jockstrap in a knot fifteen years ago, then forced Coach Randall to use you to pinch hit for him while Dixon spent precious minutes trying to straighten it out.”

A moment of stunned silence. “Buck? This Buck Whitaker?”

Buck grinned and felt something ease in his chest. “Yeah, you sonofagun, who else?”

“Buck! Man, how you doin’? I saw on TV where you like to’ve killed yourself and your wife in that expensive car. Y’all okay, man?”

“Yeah, we were both lucky. I’m stove up some, but with a little physical therapy, I’ll be okay.” He took a sip of Coke. “How you doin’?”

“Fine. Fine. But I gotta say if what they reported is anything like accurate, you got a knee injury that needs more than a little physical therapy. You gotta be careful underestimating the damage and what it takes to overcome it, you know what I mean?”

Buck held the Coke can against his forehead. Cold seemed to ease the ache. “That’s why I’m calling, Ty. I hear you’re one of the best physical therapists in the South.”

Tyrone gave a snort and then chuckled low. “I don’t know about that, but I’m enjoying regular employment here in Memphis.”

“How would you like to spend the next, say six months working in a place outfitted with the best state-of-the-art equipment, be your own boss, right in your own hometown?”

“That would be Tallulah, right?”

“Right.”

“I would say it would cost a nice chunk of change and where would it come from?”

“Here’s what I was thinking, Ty. I’ve chartered a plane and I’ll be flying in to Tallulah in a few days. I need a PT and you’re the best. The setup will be wherever I’m staying in Tallulah, which is a little up in the air at the moment. But after you check me out, you’ll have an idea what kind of equipment and all the other bells and whistles I’ll need for therapy. Are you with me so far?”

“I guess…so far.”

“We could meet, talk, work out the details. I’d leave it to you to set the schedule and start the torture.”

“What time frame we talking here?”

“I need to start right away. And I’d like to hire you exclusively for as long as it takes, Ty. I realize this means you’d have to ask for a leave of absence from your employer. If you need me to make a call or even to see somebody personally, I’ll do it.”

When Ty remained silent, Buck said, “If a leave of absence puts your present job in jeopardy, I’d be willing to subsidize a private clinic here in Tallulah, Ty. That’s how bad I need you. You have any heartburn about being in business in your hometown?”

“I’ve still got family there,” Tyrone said. “I guess you know that.”

“To tell the truth, I wasn’t sure.” After Buck had left Tallulah, he’d lost touch with Ty, who had been an athlete—a good one—but had never quite made it to the pros. From the time Buck was a boy, Oscar Pittman, Ty’s daddy, had been employed by the Whitakers operating and repairing machinery at Belle Pointe. Buck and Ty had played together, gone to school together, been busted for smoking together. They’d done a few other things together that Buck didn’t like to think about. Only by the grace of God and Ty’s mother, Frances, they hadn’t wound up as outlaws. The woman was a saint.

“I know it’s a lot to ask, Ty, but I’d count it a personal favor if you’d consider my offer. I know you probably have a life in Memphis—”

“Like a wife and eight kids?”

“Holy—” Buck stopped himself. “Are you serious?”

Tyrone laughed. “Gotcha goin’, didn’t I? No kids, but I married Lily Thigpen, you remember her, don’t you?”

“I do. Lucky you.”

“She keeps reminding me. You say your lady’s okay after the crash? I’ve seen her at the games and she’s nearly as pretty as you are.”

“Anne. I’ll introduce you when you get here.”

“Sounds good.”

“So, you like the plan? You think you can wrap up things there in Memphis and be in Tallulah within, say a week or two?”

“For a chance to add to my credentials a patient whose name is as big as Buck Whitaker’s? I think I can manage that.”

For the first time in the conversation, Buck relaxed. “Then here’s my cell phone and the number of the Jacks sports medicine director who can give you the technical details of my injury and will no doubt tell you the treatment regimen he recommends, which you can decide to follow or not. Name’s Steve Grissom.” He reeled off the numbers and waited as Ty wrote them down. “Give it a day before calling Grissom, okay?” he added.

“Why? I assume the Jacks are okay with this?”

“They don’t know about it yet.”

“Whoa now, Buck! How can you—”

“I’ll handle it. And Ty…”

“Yeah?”

“I know what I’m asking is a lot, so I’m prepared to put my promises in writing. We’ll have a contract, all right and tight and legal. You think it over and if you decide it’s too risky or you just don’t want to go there, I’ll…well—”

“You’ll think of another incentive,” Ty said with a smile in his voice.

“Yeah, probably. But if you do this, I’ll owe you and I won’t forget it, Ty, I swear.”

“I’ll hold you to that, buddy.”

Five

On her way to the Spectator, Anne impulsively decided to stop at Beatrice’s shop. She’d probably be recognized, but now that Pearce had outed her at the gas station, she might as well satisfy her curiosity about her stepmother’s place of business.

A bell tinkled over the door of the Hodge-Podge as she entered and somewhere in the back of the store Beatrice called out, “I’ll be with you in a minute.”

“It’s just me,” Anne said, wandering over to a display of pottery. She had always loved pottery and had once joined a class to learn the craft, but like other projects she’d undertaken, she’d had to quit when Buck’s career forced yet another move. Somehow, she’d never re-enrolled.

“What a nice surprise,” Beatrice said giving her an affectionate hug. “You’ve decided to come out of hiding.”

“Might as well since my cover’s blown,” Anne told her. “I had to stop for gas and who else but Pearce pulled up at the same time. He assumes Buck is here with me and hasn’t bothered to call his mother.”

“Seems a reasonable assumption. Did you explain?”

Anne sighed. “No, I lied. More or less. I didn’t admit Buck was still in St. Louis. I thanked him for his invitation to Belle Pointe and told him Buck would be in touch.”

“Naughty girl.” Beatrice clicked her tongue and wagged a finger at Anne.

“I know,” Anne said with chagrin. “You can believe I’ll soon have to come clean because he’s counting on Buck’s endorsement for his campaign. I bet he’s trying to reach him right now, probably at your house, which is where he thinks Buck and I are staying.” She stopped. “But enough of that. I’m here to see your shop. It’s wonderful.”

“Do you think so?” Beatrice said with a pleased look around. “I mean, is it wonderful? I try, of course. What you see is mostly the work of Mississippi artists, pottery, candles, soap and all local whenever possible. I—”

She stopped as the bell over the door tinkled. “Oh, shoot! Let me take care of this customer while you look around and—” She stopped again, recognizing the woman entering. “Oh, Victoria. Goodness, it’s been a while. How are you?”

“I’m well, Beatrice.” With a regal nod, Buck’s mother headed toward them. “And you?”

“Good, I’m good.”

Victoria’s cool gaze shifted to Anne. “Hello, Anne. I thought I might find you here. Pearce called after running into you a while ago and no one answered the phone at the Marshes’. I was a bit surprised to hear you were in Tallulah.”

“It was a spur-of-the-moment decision.” Anne managed a smile, uncertain about greeting her mother-in-law with a hug. It would be like embracing a mannequin. When Victoria kept her distance, Anne relaxed. “And how are you?”

“Busy. Very busy. I imagine Buck has described the flurry of activity at Belle Pointe this time of year. We’re up at dawn and we don’t stop until dark.”

“It must be exhausting,” Anne murmured. In fact, Victoria looked tired. Upon meeting her for the first time, Anne had been struck by the woman’s vigor. She guessed her mother-in-law’s age at about sixty, but she’d always looked fifteen years younger. Today, however, even with skillfully applied makeup, she looked her age.

“Well, of course, it is exhausting, but not so much so that I couldn’t find time for a phone call, if not a visit, from Buck. His trips to Tallulah are rare enough that I would have decided to have a little celebration,” she said. “Of course, I would have to know he was here.”

Anne sighed. It was silly to think she could be in Tallulah and avoid explaining Buck’s absence. “Buck is not here, Victoria,” she admitted. “I came alone.”

“Really?” Perfectly penciled eyebrows went up a notch. “Does that mean he was more seriously injured in the accident than he told me when I called?”

“I don’t know what he told you.”

“Well, knowing the media’s habit of sensationalizing anything about him, I wanted to hear from him personally the extent of his injuries. When I finally got beyond his answer machine, he said the media exaggerated. He’d be up and playing before long.”

Anne sighed. “He had a concussion, Victoria, and he’ll need extensive physical therapy before he can pitch again. When I left, it wasn’t clear just how long that would be.”

“And you left…when?”

“We were both discharged from the hospital on Monday. I left Tuesday.”

“I’m finding it somewhat puzzling that you chose a time when Buck is…handicapped to take a vacation.”

“Buck would be the first to say he doesn’t need me to hold his hand at any time, Victoria. You must know that he isn’t the type to tolerate anybody hovering over him.”

“Hmm…yes.” Victoria paused, studying Anne as if sensing something more than what she was being told. “And have you recovered from your injuries? Buck danced around my questions about you, too.”

“I’m just fine.” If Buck hadn’t shared the fact that she’d miscarried, Anne wasn’t in the mood to tell her mother-in-law.

“So, how long do you intend to be here in Tallulah? Naturally, we’d like to have you over for dinner and soon.”

“Thank you,” Anne said. “In fact, I was just thinking today that I’d call and find a convenient time to visit. I’ve hardly done anything but putter around Beatrice’s house. She and Dad have been very gracious in just giving me the run of the place.”

“It’s been our gain,” Beatrice spoke up. “In just two days, Anne’s got everything in the house spic and span. Next, I expect her to start doing yard work.”

“That sounds as if you might be bored,” Victoria said, still studying Anne’s face keenly. “If so, there’s plenty to do at Belle Pointe.”

Anne smiled. “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about farming cotton.”

“And I wouldn’t expect you to. I meant there were other diversions. You’ve never spent much time with us and Belle Pointe has an interesting history.”

“I’ve always thought so. I’d love to know more.”

“Well, now’s a good time, wouldn’t you say? I’ll check with Pearce and Claire about their calendars and we’ll fix it. Now, I should be on my way.” With a nod, Victoria headed toward the door. Just short of her destination, she paused and turned back. “By the way, with Pearce’s campaign in full swing, as he must have mentioned, it occurs to me you’d be an asset. I’ll have Pearce call to see how best to use you.” With a tinkle of the tiny bell, she was gone.

Anne met Beatrice’s amused eyes. “Use me?”

Beatrice laughed. “I’m sure she didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

Anne sighed. “That woman scares me to death and has from day one. I feel as if I’m back in the fourth grade and I’ve failed to turn in my homework.”

“She has presence all right,” Beatrice said. “But rest easy, you were very gracious and respectful. Which is as it should be.” She watched Anne pick up a platter from one artist’s display. “Maybe it would help to remember that Victoria hasn’t always been the chatelaine of Belle Pointe. She wasn’t born a Whitaker, you know. She married into the family.”

“I know that, of course, but it’s hard to imagine her as anything except the quintessential Southern matriarch.”

“Which is exactly how she wishes to be perceived.” Beatrice moved a beautifully glazed bowl to a different position. “However, in high school, she was Vickie Hinton.”

“Vickie?” Anne gave Beatrice an astonished look. It was hard to visualize Victoria Whitaker as a schoolgirl, let alone being called Vickie.

“Yes, Vickie. Before she married John Whitaker, her father worked for the Whitakers. Benny Hinton was a master mechanic and since farming at Belle Pointe is highly mechanized, his job was important. Still, he was hired help. In fact, he died in an accident while on the job and Victoria’s widowed mother moved somewhere up north, I believe.”

“That is so amazing. It explains why Buck’s memories of his maternal grandparents are pretty vague.”

Beatrice studied her thoughtfully. “The Whitakers figure prominently in Tallulah history, which is the reason I’ve suggested you might want to drop in at the Spectator and poke around a bit in the archives.” She paused, tweaking a quilt displayed on the wall. “If, as Victoria suggested, you’re a bit bored, I’ll bet that once you start digging, you won’t be bored for long.”

Anne wondered at Beatrice’s prediction as she surveyed the newsroom at the Spectator a while later, finding it as calm and quiet as a doctor’s office. The level of activity was nothing like the frenetic energy that characterized the news-rooms in a daily newspaper or a television station and, from her observation, unlikely to relieve anybody’s boredom. On the other hand, one reason Franklin gave for leaving his job in Boston was his desire to work under less pressure. He’d certainly managed that.

His face brightened when he looked up and saw her. “Anne!” He rose from his computer and motioned her inside. “Bea called and told me you were headed this way.”

“Don’t let me interrupt whatever you’re doing, Dad. I’ll just look around and get acquainted until you’re free to talk.”

“You aren’t interrupting anything and I mean that literally.” He looked at the screen of his monitor with disgust. “I’ve spent the afternoon trying to write next week’s editorial. So far, I’ve deleted almost everything I’ve written.”

He waved at a chair. “Bea suggested you might want to look at the Spectator archives. Curious about the Whitakers, are you?”

“The Whitakers and other Tallulah history. The Mississippi Delta is a very unique place. Maybe I’ll write a book.”

Franklin looked delighted. “Good idea. And I think you’ll find the Whitakers figuring pretty prominently in your research.”

“I was kidding, Dad.” Unwilling to interrupt him, she lingered at the door. “Actually, I was thinking that since there’s a political campaign going on I might do something with that. I ran into Pearce as I was pumping gas and he gave me the idea himself. Of course, he suggested an article favorable to him, but I thought it would be interesting to put Pearce and his opponent in the same article, showing the contrasts in their platforms.”

“Good idea. I’ll schedule it for next week’s edition.”

She gave a small laugh. “Just like that? What if it doesn’t meet your standards?”

“Then I’ll act like an editor and demand revisions,” he said.

“Gosh, you make it sound like I have a real job.” But she was smiling. Just the idea of working again and her adrenaline was flowing. “By the way, who is Pearce’s opponent?”

“Jack Breedlove, the current chief of police and a hometown boy who returned to Tallulah after a stretch in the army. He was discharged after an injury in the Gulf War. He’s about the same age as Buck, so I bet he could give you a few insights into Jack’s character.” He gave her a sly look. “Of course, you’d have to call Buck to pursue that source for your research.”

“Give it a rest, Dad,” she told him. “I think I can research the article without Buck, who probably hasn’t seen Jack Breedlove since they both graduated from high school.”

Franklin, still smiling, shrugged. “Just a suggestion, Annie.”

“Okay, now I’m really fired up.” She gave two quick taps to the door frame and stepped back, ready to begin. “Just point me in the right direction and I’ll get started.” Without turning, she backed into a person hovering in the doorway. “Oh, excuse me! I didn’t know there was someone there. Did I step on you?”

“No.” The reply was terse, almost rude.

“You remember Paige, don’t you, Anne?” Franklin asked.

“Of course.” Somewhere beneath a mass of coal-black hair tipped with neon orange, Anne recognized the youthful and vaguely familiar face of Buck’s teenage niece. She had missed seeing Paige at Franklin and Beatrice’s wedding. The teenager had been away on a skiing trip to Colorado. “How are you, Paige?”

Appearing utterly bored, the girl turned, exposing an ear pierced with no fewer than six tiny silver rings. “I’m okay.”

In light of her bizarre appearance, okay was not the word that came to mind, Anne thought. Paige’s eyes were outlined in dark mascara, which matched the hideous purple on her lips and nails. Slim to near anorexic, she looked even more wraithlike in a long, straight black coat and boots, which appeared to be at least one size too large and more suitable for combat duty in a war zone than for the rigors of middle school.

“You’ve grown since I was here last,” Anne said faintly, hoping her reaction wasn’t revealed on her face.

“People grow.” She looked beyond Franklin to the window that framed a view of the town square. “Is Uncle Buck with you? Is he going to recuperate from his accident here in Tallulah?”

“No, Buck stayed in St. Louis.”

Paige frowned. “Shouldn’t you be with him?”

“He has tons of people helping him,” Anne said. “He won’t miss me.”

Paige turned then and studied Anne briefly. “They said you were in the accident, too. Were you hurt?”

“Not seriously.”

“Paige,” Franklin explained, “is spending some time here at the Spectator after school to earn extra credits toward her grade in English.”

Paige rolled her eyes. “He makes it sound like I volunteered or something,” she said to Anne. “It was do it or die. When my grades in honors English tanked, the Dragon spoke and the parents agreed, of course. I swear people in prison have more choices than I do.”

“The Dragon,” Anne repeated. “That would be your…teacher?”

“No, it would be my grandmother. My teacher is actually okay. Almost.”

“Isn’t honors English a class for students with exceptional talent?” Anne asked.

“I wouldn’t know since I don’t have exceptional talent,” Paige replied dismissively. “Which I tried to tell everyone, but when have they ever listened to me? When has anybody ever listened to me? It’s like I’m expected to turn into Maureen Dowd or Ann Coulter or somebody.”

“Are you into politics?” Anne asked, trying not to smile at mention of the famous female pundits. It was remarkable that Paige even knew their names.

“God, no! One person in the family with politics on the brain is already one too many.” She huffed out a disgusted sound. “That’s all my dad ever wants to talk about and it’s so, like, boring.”

“You know, it occurs to me that Paige’s current project makes her the logical person to give you a tour of the archives,” Franklin said. “She’s organizing a shipment of records that came to me from the estate of a professor at Vanderbilt. Paige,” he turned to the teenager, “would you show Anne around down there while I try and finish this editorial?”

“I guess so.” Paige wasn’t exactly gracious, but she didn’t refuse. As Anne followed her down the hall, she wondered why Paige chose to dress as if auditioning for a role in a horror movie. What she’d read about kids who were into Goth was that they were, for the most part, troubled teens. Certainly, Paige’s bizarre dress, grades that had tanked and open hostility to authority were danger signs. As much as she longed for motherhood, Anne wasn’t blind to the challenges of raising kids.

“How is your mom, Paige?”

“Claire?” A shrug and an exaggerated look at her wristwatch. “Hmmm, probably on her way home from Memphis about now. She goes there at least three times a week. She’s a shopaholic. But when I want something really, like, cool to wear, she flips out. Like my taste in clothes just sucks and her taste is perfect.”

Claire was very attractive and dressed beautifully. Although Anne didn’t know her sister-in-law well, Anne guessed that Paige’s bizarre appearance probably drove her crazy. She wondered, too, what effect it had on voters that Pearce’s teenage daughter seemed a bit out of the mainstream compared to other kids.

“Fashion tastes can be a generational thing,” Anne suggested, seeking a reply that wouldn’t set them at odds at the outset. “I remember trying to convince my mom to let me have a tattoo when I was about fifteen. I just couldn’t understand why she refused to let me do it. It was going to be a butterfly…” With a smile, Anne lifted her hair and pointed. “…right here. Now I’m truly grateful that she put her foot down. Wouldn’t it look ridiculous when I’m all dressed up for a formal event and there’s an insect on my neck?”

“I think it would be way cool.” Paige lifted her clingy little T-shirt beneath the heavy black coat and bared her tummy. Curling around her navel, which had a silver ring in it, was a snake.

“Oops.” Anne covered her mouth to hide her dismay. “Guess your mom didn’t put her foot down fast enough, huh?”

Paige gave another disgusted huff. “I don’t know why Claire is so paranoid about my behavior considering what a real hellion she was at fourteen.”

Anne wondered if Claire knew Paige referred to her by her first name. “How many tattoos does she have?”

“None. And if she had done it, my dad would have forced her to remove it. He doesn’t want any of us to have an original thought or do anything without consulting him.”

“Let me guess. He takes exception to…ah, the way you dress?”

“It drives him wild. But at least I have the guts to do stuff out in the open, which Claire could never get up the gumption to do.”

“For example…” Anne held her breath, not having a clue what the girl would say next.

“Well, she objects to me smoking a few cigarettes,” Paige continued, “while she goes through a pack a day.”

Bad grades, smoking, tattoos, body piercing and what else, Anne wondered, feeling sympathy for “the parents.” “Maybe she’s trying to help you avoid making the mistakes she made.”

“And maybe when she quits, I might listen. And how about Dad throwing away those smelly cigars? No way, Jose. Anything he does is fine.” Paige threw open a door revealing steep stairs. “The archives and stuff are down here,” she said, taking the stairs with surprising grace in her clunky boots. “Over there on those shelves is the stuff I’m working on that came from that old professor who croaked. Good luck trying to figure out the rest of what’s in here.”

Along with the archival material boxed and stacked to the ceiling, pictures of significant happenings in Tallulah lined the walls of the long and narrow room. The light was bad, air circulation poor and the dust thick enough to clog the sinuses. Anne didn’t wonder that Paige was grumpy if she spent much time alone down here.

Studying the wall of pictures, she instantly recognized a photo of John Whitaker posing with a past governor. This was definitely the place to fill in the gaps about Buck’s family before interviewing Pearce.

Paige looked around, wrinkling her nose. “Pretty bad, isn’t it?”

“I would say that we have our work cut out for us,” Anne said. “We’ll just think of it as a treasure hunt.”

“Huh?”

“Going by these photographs, there’s probably oodles of stuff about your dad’s family here…and since I married into it, I’m pretty curious, too.”

Paige looked around as if viewing the place from a different perspective. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” Anne looked at her, expecting a question about the archives.

“What’s it like being married to somebody like Uncle Buck? I mean, besides being famous and the Jacks star pitcher, he’s like, really hot. Isn’t it exciting just being his wife and getting to be with him every single day?”

Anne smiled. “Sounds like you see that as a wonderful life.”

“Well, sure. At school, all the boys want to be like Uncle Buck. They want to know all about him. I get a lot of that because I’m his niece.” She made a face. “I know it’s not about me.”

“But you do like baseball?”

“Sure, don’t you?”

“I’ll tell you a secret. Just because I’m married to a man who plays baseball doesn’t mean that I have to love the game, too.”

“But you go to the games. I see you on TV when they show special people in the stands, wives and all.”

“I go because Buck’s fans expect to see his wife at the games. And besides, I’ve learned to appreciate many aspects of baseball. But when I met Buck, it was a different story. I was a reporter and I knew next to nothing about sports. I wrote human interest pieces for the features section of the paper.”

“Then how did you ever meet him?”

“I was assigned to cover a Special Olympics event and Buck was one of the athletes scheduled to appear. I was interested in meeting him, not because I cared anything about baseball, but because I knew he was from Tallulah, Mississippi.”

Paige wrinkled her nose, puzzled. “Why did that matter? This place is, like, nowhere, the end of the universe.”

“Oh, I think many people would argue with you there, my dad, for one. I grew up hearing him talk about the Mississippi Delta. The civil rights movement interested him, so when he came down with a PBS crew from Boston, what he saw made such an impact that he wrote a book about it.”

“I know about the book. We had to read it in honors English.”

“Did you like it?”

Paige nodded. “It was, like, way cool. All the stuff that happened back then seems like something out of a bad movie. So, what happened when you met Uncle Buck that day? Was it love at first sight?”

Anne’s gaze shifted from the young girl’s face to the gold band on her finger. Buck had bought her a large yellow diamond after signing his first million-dollar contract in St. Louis but it was in the wall safe back in St. Louis. Even in her disillusionment, she couldn’t bring herself to take off her wedding band. “I don’t know if it was love at first sight, but it was certainly something very powerful.”

“Like a wild crush or something, huh?”

Smiling, she looked at Paige. “Have you ever had a wild crush?”

Paige shrugged. “Not really, but I can understand how it would happen, especially if the boy was like Uncle Buck. Which is impossible because there’s nobody at school like Uncle Buck. He is so cool. I think you’re just about the luckiest woman in the world to be married to him.”

Anne’s opportunity to interview Pearce came sooner than expected. When it was time for Paige to leave that day, it was her father, not Claire, who came to pick her up. When Anne asked if he had time to answer a few questions for an article in the Spectator, he was more than ready to make time.

“Before we get started,” he said, making himself comfortable in front of her newly assigned desk, “tell me, where the hell is Buck? Nobody’s home at the Marshes’, he’s not picking up his phone messages, nobody’s seen him. Man, I need to talk to him.”

Anne sighed. Apparently Victoria hadn’t yet filled Pearce in. “He’s not here. The Jacks are concerned about his injury. He’s undergoing pretty intensive physical therapy in St. Louis.”

“How long are we talking here?”

She shrugged. “Who knows? It was a serious injury. He could be out for the season.”

He studied her thoughtfully. “And you’re here…working for your daddy?” He let his eyes roam around the office. “What does Buck think about that?”

She crossed her legs and gave him a speaking look. “In this interview, I ask the questions, Pearce.”

“O-kaaay…” He studied her, narrow-eyed, letting her know he guessed interesting things were going on in his brother’s marriage, but he wouldn’t press her…for now. “So, where do you want to start? The voters know my background, but it won’t hurt to remind them that we Whitakers go back five generations here.”

Anne wished for a tape recorder, but since she’d occupied the tiny office for less than half a day, she hadn’t collected supplies, not even a notepad. At least there was a computer, albeit an aging one. She grabbed a few sheets of paper from the printer and prepared to take notes. “I have a standard list of questions that I use when interviewing,” she told him, “but don’t worry, I won’t use everything we discuss. It just helps to know as much about an individual as possible.”

“Well, sweetheart, you know about all anybody could know about me,” he said, propping an ankle on his knee. “We’re family, aren’t we?”

“What I meant was this, Pearce. To decide how to shape the piece that eventually emerges, some of my questions that may strike you as personal, but most of that won’t show up in print.” She gave him a professional smile. “Okay?”

With the survival instincts of most good politicians, he took a while to consider the implications of that. “Hmm, I’m getting a little nervous.” He didn’t look nervous. Instead he looked relaxed and confident. Leaning back, he reached inside his jacket and brought out a cigar. “Do you mind if I light this?”

She glanced at the wall where a No Smoking sign was posted and clearly visible. “I’m new here at the Spectator,” she reminded him, “but it appears there’s a no smoking policy.”

“I sure wouldn’t want to get you in trouble with your boss,” he said, winking at her as he tucked the cigar back in his pocket.

“Thank you,” she replied dryly. With her pen poised, she asked, “What person do you most admire, living or dead?”

He laughed and shook his finger at her playfully. “Looking to trip me up, aren’t you? If I say George Washington, I alienate half of the voters in the district. If I say Martin Luther King, I alienate the other half. Can’t win for losing.”

“I’m not looking to trip you up, Pearce. Knowing whom you admire gives me an idea of your value system.”

“I’ll match my value system with my opponent’s any day,” he said darkly, suddenly losing all trace of good humor.

“Your opponent,” Anne said, her pen flying across the paper. “That would be Jack Breedlove.”

He shifted in his chair, both feet now on the floor. “He’s the chief of police…at the moment. Have you ever known an honest cop?”

“It sounds as if you’re accusing Mr. Breedlove of something illegal. Would you care to be specific?”

He looked at her notepad and swore under his breath. “Erase that, sweetheart. It’s off the record. I shouldn’t have said it.”

She made a mark on the paper. “Do you call every woman you talk to ‘sweetheart’?”

He winked at her again. “No, only the pretty ones.”

She made another note and without looking up asked, “What made you decide to run for the state senate?”

“Hey, wait a minute. I’m kidding. You put that in the article and every feminist in Mississippi will turn out against me.”

She put her pen down and folded her hands on top of the desk. “Okay, if you act as if you’re taking this interview seriously, I’ll do the same.”

“Agreed. So…let’s start with why I think my opponent’s qualifications to hold the office are pitiful.”

She hid a smile. He was determined to control the interview and it suited her to let him think he was doing just that…for now. She could hardly wait to write up her notes and put in a call to his “pitiful” opponent.

The ring of his cell phone woke Buck from a half doze. Groggily, he stared at the caller ID. His mind cleared instantly upon seeing the area code for Mississippi. His wife…finally. “Anne?”

“No, Buck,” Victoria Whitaker replied. “I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

“Ma. Hey.” He cleared his throat and settled back in the chair. “How are you?”

“I’m fine. How’s that knee coming along?”

“I can’t complain.” Between his mother and Pearce, he’d received more phone calls from Mississippi in the last few days than he had in the past five years. “Everything okay there?”

“We’re in the throes of spring planting, as you know. Up early, working late. It’s demanding.” Many women in her situation spent their days playing bridge or golf at the country club or shopping in Memphis, but not his mother. She was busy ramrodding the hired help at Belle Pointe.

“I hear you.” And his mother wasn’t one to call and chat either. Something was up.

“I was surprised to see Anne at Beatrice’s shop this morning,” she said. “It seems odd that she’s here and you’re there.”

“Anne claims when I’m injured I’m like a bear with a sore paw, so she took off to visit Franklin and Beatrice.” And he’d be joining her in a week. It was killing him to wait, but he was afraid of a setback if he put too much stress on his knee too soon.

“Yes, she mentioned that you didn’t tolerate much coddling. What was it she said…hmm, something like you’d have the entire Jacks organization looking out for you. That you wouldn’t need her.”

Buck rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. His head ached. It wasn’t the concussion. His mother always gave him a headache. “How’s Pearce’s campaign going?”

“That’s one of the reasons I’m calling. Pearce is preoccupied with his campaign, which is a complication. It makes us shorthanded at Belle Pointe.”

“Ma, you’re not trying to tell me he ever gets his hands dirty at planting season or any other time, are you?” he asked.

“I can only tell you I miss every pair of hands, especially now that Will Wainwright gave notice.”

“Will has quit?” Buck’s mouth fell open.

“Retired.” She gave an offended huff. “He gave me some excuse about wanting to see more of his grandchildren. It was terribly inconvenient.”

“Holy sh—Um…holy schmolie,” he breathed. Wainwright had been her right-hand man for fifteen years. “Now there’s a pair of hands you’ll definitely miss.”

“I must agree with you there,” she said. “However, I think I’ve resolved the problem, Buck. With Pearce caught up in this campaign and you idle for the season, the stars seem aligned.”

“The stars seem aligned?” Now what, he wondered.

“Yes, indeed. We’re in a bind at Belle Pointe and you always understood what was required to get the crops planted and maintained until it was time to start picking. You’re well able to step right into Wainwright’s shoes.”

“Ma, if you’re asking what I think you’re asking, forget it. I’ve got my hands full with rehab. I—”

“Added to that,” she went on, “it looks odd that you’re in St. Louis and your wife’s here. People talk. Do you really need more bad publicity, Buck? After that boy, Casey—”

“Ma, it’s not a good time for me,” he argued, keeping his travel plans to himself. If she knew he was heading for Tallulah, she’d probably meet him at the city limits on a tractor and hog-tie him to the nearest cotton field.

She sighed. “I expected just that reaction from you, Buck, but I also know that after you think about it, in the end you’ll do your duty. You love Belle Pointe. Don’t deny it. You won’t be able to resist helping out. It’s what your father would want you to do.”

Somehow, he managed to keep his outrage in check. She had her nerve mentioning his father. Fifteen years ago when John Whitaker died, Buck had wanted nothing more than to step in and fill his father’s shoes, but she’d had different plans then. “I appreciate the problem you’re having, Ma, but I’ve got other priorities right now. You need to find a good manager to replace Will. As for somebody to step into Pearce’s shoes, I can’t think it would be too difficult since he never knew jack shit about growing cotton anyway.”

“I don’t appreciate your vulgarity, Buck,” she said frostily. “And I might remind you of your responsibility as a Whitaker.”

“What’s different now from the day Dad died, tell me that. You reminded me then that Pearce was the primary heir to Belle Pointe, that when I finished my degree, I was to forget coming home to grow cotton.”

“It worked out well, didn’t it? You had excellent prospects for a career in professional baseball and you made it. I knew you could.”

“After about ten miserable years in the minors, Ma!”

“And would you have tried as hard if your real goal was simply to return to Belle Pointe?” she replied. “I think not.”

His laugh was short and mirthless. “You’re telling me you practically disinherited me for my own good? And now, because Pearce is temporarily distracted, I should forget all that?” He stopped at a sudden thought. “What if he wins that senatorial seat as you predict and then decides he doesn’t want to play at being a gentleman farmer anymore? What if he wants to live most of the year in the state capitol? What then, Ma?”

“Pearce knows where his duty lies. Which is exactly what I expect from you. To use a baseball metaphor, I expect you to step up to the plate, Buck. Do your duty.”

He was shaking his head at the gall of her. “Again, no disrespect, Mother, but you’ll have to find another pinch hitter.”

It was almost a week after interviewing Pearce that Anne was able to secure an interview with Jack Breedlove and nothing about the man struck her as pitiful. Far from it, Breed-love was tall and lean with severe features that were not quite handsome, but powerfully male. She was used to world-class athletes with an excess of testosterone and this man, she thought, would fit right in with Buck and his teammates.

The slight limp was a souvenir of his tour of duty in the Gulf War, she thought, as he came around his desk to greet her, but she quickly forgot his handicap as he took her hand and smiled down at her from striking green eyes. “Anne Whitaker. I feel as if I know you considering how often I’ve seen you in the Jacks VIP box. Welcome to Tallulah.”

“Thank you.” A little flustered, she took the seat he offered. “I know you’re busy, so I won’t take up too much of your time. As I mentioned when I phoned you, I thought it would be interesting to contrast the platforms of the two leading senate candidates, especially since you’re both from Tallulah.”

He didn’t return to his chair, but propped one hip casually on the side of his desk and crossed his feet at the ankles. “I’m up for that, of course, but first, how’s Buck? Bad news, that accident. I’ve been following it in the media. Word is he’s out for the season.”

He probably knew as much as she. By refusing Buck’s calls, she relied on Marcie for updates on his injuries. “He’s undergoing pretty intensive physical therapy,” she said. “And yes, he’s out for the season.”

“Rotten luck,” he said. After a pause, he added, “We played baseball together in high school. He pitched. I played shortstop.”

“The thinking man’s position,” she said, smiling.

“I don’t know about that, but we made a good team.” He gazed at his feet, remembering. “Those were good times. I was thrilled when he finally made it into the majors.”

“Not as much as Buck, I bet,” she said.

He turned his head to look at her. “And now here you are reporting on an obscure political race in Mississippi while he’s recuperating in St. Louis. What’s wrong with that picture?”

She pulled a tape recorder from her bag and set it on his desk. After checking to see that it was on, she asked, “Is that how you see the position as state senator in this district…obscure?”

He paused with a look of chagrin. “I apologize if I trespassed into personal territory.”

“Apology accepted.” She let her gaze wander to the window. Then, because she liked him, she said, “For what it’s worth, Chief Breedlove, Buck belongs to his public, but I don’t. So I’m just having a little break from all that while I’m here in Tallulah.”

It was probably more than he wanted—or needed—to know, but it was the explanation she planned to give while in Tallulah. He wouldn’t be the only person who would ask outright why she wasn’t with Buck.

He straightened from his desk. “Call me Jack,” he said.

She smiled. “Okay, Jack.” While he went back to his chair, she checked to see the tape was still running, then opened the flap of her notepad and clicked her pen to start writing. She liked to have tape as backup, but she usually wrote from her notes. “First question: Why do you think you’re the better man for the job than your opponent?”

“Are you kidding?” He grinned, enjoying himself. “How much time do you have? This could take a while.”

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