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Chase had phoned with that in mind several times since.
She’d talked with him the first time, because she knew they’d had to agree on what to tell Dawn when she and Nick returned from Hawaii.
“What do you want to tell her?” Chase had asked, neatly dumping the problem into her lap.
“The truth,” Annie had answered, “that you lied and I was dumb enough to go along with it—but that would probably be a mistake. So why don’t we settle for something simple. Like, we spent the weekend together and it just didn’t work out.”
“We didn’t spend the weekend together,” Chase had said. “It was only one night. But it doesn’t have to end there.”
Apparently behaving like an idiot once didn’t keep you from behaving like one all over again. Annie’s heart had done those silly flip-flops that she hated and she’d waited, barely breathing, for him to say he loved her.
But he hadn’t.
“I know you don’t want to get involved again,” he’d said in the same, reasonable tone a TV pitchman might have used selling used cars, “but you have to admit, that night was—it was memorable.”
“Memorable,” Annie had repeated calmly.
“Yes. And I’d like to see you again.”
She could still remember how she’d felt, the pain and the rage twisting inside her so she hadn’t been sure which she wanted to do first, cry her eyes out or kill him.
“I’ll just bet you would,” she’d said, with dignity, and then she’d hung up the phone, poured herself a double sherry and toasted the brilliance she’d shown on having removed Mr. Chase Cooper from her life five long years ago.
At least he’d been up-front about what he wanted. And talkative, especially compared to the silent act he’d put on that morning on the island. He hadn’t said more than half a dozen words to her, after the guy had come to fetch them with the motorboat.
Not that she’d given him the chance to say much of anything. She’d done something foolish by sleeping with Chase but she wasn’t stupid: that remark about what a wonderful night it had been wasn’t anything but code for “Thanks for the roll in the hay, babe,” and she knew it. The quick brush-off had almost broken her heart, but she’d sooner have died than let Chase know it. So she’d put on what she’d figured was a look of morning-after sophistication, as if one-night stands were part of her life, and ignored him until they reached the airport, where she’d smiled brightly, shaken his hand and said it had been a delightful evening and she hoped his meeting with Mr. Tanaka went well.
Then she’d marched off, bought herself a ticket back to Connecticut, and done her weeping alone in the back of a nearly empty jet throughout the long flight home.
Sex, that was all Chase had wanted. But that was okay. Sex was all she’d wanted from him, too. She understood that now. Five years was a long time for a healthy woman to go without a man. And, she thought coldly, Chase was good in bed. It was just too bad that even in this era of female liberation, she’d had to delude herself into thinking she loved him before she could sleep with him.
Well, it wouldn’t happen again, despite his eager hopes for a repeat performance. Let him wrestle between the sheets with his fiancée—not that being engaged had stopped him that night. Why would it? Fidelity wasn’t his strong suit. He’d certainly proved that, five and a half years ago.
“Sex-crazed idiot,” Annie muttered, just as the door swung open and an elderly gentleman shuffled in.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, while water dripped from his bushy white eyebrows.
Annie’s face turned bright pink. “Not you,” she said hastily. “I didn’t mean... I was talking about...”
Oh, what was the use. She took a deep breath, yanked open the door and plunged out into the deluge.
* * *
The train to Stratham was half an hour late, thanks to the weather, and a good thing, too, because it took her twice as long as it should have to get to Penn Station.
She snagged a seat, even though the train was crowded, but her luck ran out after that. The guy who sat down next to her was portly enough to overflow his seat and part of hers, too. And he was in a chatty mood. He started with the weather, went on to the current political scene without stopping for breath. He was coming up fast on the problems of raising teenagers in today’s troubled world when Annie made a grab for somebody’s discarded newspaper, mumbled “Excuse me,” and buried her nose in what turned out to be the business section.
It was rude, perhaps, but she just didn’t feel like small talk with a stranger. Her visit with Laurel had upset her, on more than one level. She and Laurel and Susie, Laurel’s neighbor, had sat around the kitchen table, drinking coffee and talking, and of the three, only Susie had a husband who’d lived up to his marriage vows.
