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The dark maroon Lincoln stopped before the entrance of the spacious whitewashed brick country house Wayland Sawyer had built overlooking the river. As the chauffeur came around to open her door, Suzy decided that Sawyer couldn’t have found a better way to let the people of Telarosa know that he’d made a success of himself than by building this magnificent estate. According to local gossip, he planned to continue using it as a weekend retreat even after he’d closed Rosatech.
As the chauffeur opened the door and helped her out, her palms were damp. Ever since her meeting with Sawyer two days ago, she’d been able to think of little else. She’d chosen to wear loosely fitted cream-colored evening trousers instead of a dress. The matching tank top and hip-length silky jacket were printed with wearable art, a fanciful Chagall village scene in jewellike tones of coral, turquoise, fuchsia, and aquamarine. Her only jewelry was her wedding band and the large diamond studs Bobby Tom had given her when he’d signed his first contract with the Stars.
A Hispanic woman Suzy didn’t recognize admitted her and escorted her across the black marble floor into a spacious living room with Palladian windows that’ soared two stories and looked out on a softly illuminated rose garden. Silk-shaded lamps cast warm shadows on glazed ivory walls. The sofas and chairs sitting in pleasant groups were upholstered in cool shades of blue and green touched here and there with black. Matching shell-shaped wall nooks on each side of the marble fireplace held unglazed terra-cotta urns massed with dried hydrangeas.
Way Sawyer stood next to a shiny ebony baby grand piano positioned in front of the largest window. Her uneasiness increased as she saw that he was dressed entirely in black, like a modern day gunslinger. But instead of chaps and vest, his unstructured designer suit was Italian and his shirt silk. The room’s soft lights did nothing to temper the harsh lines in his face.
He held a cut glass tumbler in his hand and gazed at her with dispassionate dark eyes that seemed to miss nothing. “What would you like to drink?”
“White wine would be fine.”
He walked over to a small chest that held a mirrored tray filled with an assortment of bottles and glasses. While he poured her wine, she tried to calm herself by wandering around the room and studying the art hanging on the walls. There were several large oils and a number of watercolors. She paused in front of a small pen-and-ink drawing of a mother and child.
“I bought that at auction in London a few years ago.”
She hadn’t heard him come up behind her. He extended a gold-rimmed wineglass, and, as she took a sip, he began telling her a bit of the history of each painting. His words were slow and measured, giving her information but not putting her at ease. She had difficulty reconciling this man who spoke calmly of a London art auction with the sullen-faced hoodlum who had smoked cigarettes by the gym and gone out with the fastest girls.
In the past few weeks, she’d done some research to fill in the holes about Sawyer’s past. According to the story that she’d been able to piece together from some of the older residents, his mother, Trudy, at the age of sixteen, had claimed to have been gang-raped by three highway workers, one of whom was Way’s father. This had happened several years before the end of World War II, and no one had believed her story, so she had become an outcast.
In the years that followed, Trudy had barely scraped together a living for herself and her son by cleaning the houses of the few families who would let her in the door, and apparently the hard work and social ostracism had gradually broken her down. Around the time Way had started high school, she seemed to have given up and accepted everyone’s judgment of her. That was when she began selling herself to the men who passed through town. At the age of thirty-five, she had died of pneumonia, and Way had joined the marines not long after.
As Suzy studied him over the rim of her wineglass, her uneasiness grew. Trudy Sawyer had been the victim of grave injustice, and a man like Way Sawyer wouldn’t have forgotten it. To what lengths would he go in order to even up the balance sheet?
To her relief, the maid appeared to announce dinner, and Way escorted her into a formal dining room decorated in pale green accented with jade. He made polite, meaningless conversation during the salad course, an
d by the time the main course of salmon and wild rice arrived, her nerves felt raw from the strain. Why didn’t he tell her what he wanted from her? If she knew why he’d insisted she dine here with him tonight, maybe she could relax.
The silence that fell between them didn’t seem to bother him, but it became unbearable to her, so she broke it. “I noticed your piano. Do you play?”
“No. The piano was my daughter Sarah’s. I bought it for her when she was ten and Dee and I divorced. It was her consolation prize for losing her mother.”
It was the first personal remark he’d made. “You had custody of her? That was unusual for the time, wasn’t it?”
“Dee had trouble being a mother. She agreed to the arrangement.”
“Do you see your daughter often?”
He broke a poppy seed roll in half, and for the first time that evening, his features softened. “Not nearly often enough. She’s a commercial photographer in San Francisco, so we get together every few months. She lives in this fleabag apartment—that’s why I still have the piano—but she’s self-sufficient and happy.”
“These days, I guess that’s the most a parent can ask.” As she thought of her son, she toyed with a piece of salmon on her plate. He was certainly self-sufficient, but she didn’t believe he was all that happy.
“Would you like more wine?” he said brusquely.
“No, thank you. If I have more than one drink, I get a headache. Hoyt used to say I was the cheapest date in town.”
He didn’t even smile at her weak attempt to lighten the atmosphere. Instead, he abandoned all pretense of eating, settled back in his chair, and gazed at her with an intensity that made her conscious of how seldom people truly looked at each other. She was startled to realize that if she’d been meeting him for the first time, she would have found him attractive. Although he was the polar opposite of her sunny-natured husband, his rugged good looks and powerful presence had an appeal that was difficult to ignore.
“You still miss Hoyt?”
“Very much.”
“The two of us were the same age, and we went through school together. He was Telarosa High’s golden boy, just like your son.” His smile didn’t make it to his eyes. “He even dated the prettiest girl in the sophomore class.”
“Thank you for the compliment, but I wasn’t even close to being the prettiest girl. I still had braces on my teeth that year.”
“I thought you were the prettiest girl.” He took a sip of wine. “I’d just worked up the nerve to ask you out when I heard you and Hoyt were dating.”
She couldn’t have been more startled. “I had no idea.”
