“Maybe.”

“You don’t think so?”

“If that were all, I might think that was the reason.”

“What else?” he asked.

“Mandy, for one. Carole’s a different person around her. Have you ever seen Carole as worried about Mandy as she was last night after her nightmare? I remember once when Mandy was running a temperature of a hundred and three. I was frantic and thought she should be taken to the emergency room. Carole was blasé. She said that all kids ran fevers. But last night, Carole was as shaken as Mandy.”

Nelson shifted uncomfortably. Zee knew why. Deductive reasoning annoyed him. Issues were either black or white. He believed only in absolutes, with the exception of God, which, to him, was an absolute as sure as heaven and hell. Other than that, he didn’t believe in anything intangible. He was skeptical of psychoanalysis and psychiatry. In his opinion, anyone worth his salt could solve his own problems without whining for help from someone else.

“Carole’s growing up, that’s all,” he said. “The ordeal she was put through matured her. She’s looking at things in a whole new light. She finally appreciates what she’s got—Tate, Mandy, this family. ’Bout time she got her head on straight.”

Zee wished she could believe that. “I only hope it lasts.”

Nelson rolled to his side, facing her, and placed his arm in the hollow of her waist. He kissed her hairline where the gray streak started. “What do you hope lasts?”

“Her loving attitude toward Tate and Mandy. On the surface, she seems to care for them.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

“If it’s sincere. Mandy is so fragile I’m afraid she couldn’t handle the rejection if Carole reverted to her short-tempered, impatient self. And Tate.” Zee sighed. “I want him to be happy, especially at this turning point in his life, whether he wins the election or not. He deserves to be happy. He deserves to be loved.”

“You’ve always seen to the happiness of your sons, Zee.”

“But neither of them has a happy marriage, Nelson,” she stated wistfully. “I had hoped they would.”

His finger touched her lips, trying to trace a smile that wasn’t there. “You haven’t changed. You’re still so romance-minded.”

He drew her delicate body against his and kissed her. His large hands removed her nightgown and possessively caressed her naked flesh. They made love in the dark.

Twenty-Two

Avery agonized for days over how to contact Irish.

Once she had reached the soul-searching conclusion that she needed counsel, she was faced with the problem of how to go about informing him that she hadn’t died a fiery death in the crash of Flight 398.

No matter how she went about it, it would be cruel. If she simply appeared on his doorstep, he might not survive the shock. He would think a phone call was a prank because her voice no longer sounded the same. So she settled on sending a note to the post office box where she had mailed her jewelry weeks earlier. Surely he had puzzled over receiving that through the mail without any explanation. Wouldn’t he already suspect that there had been mysterious circumstances surrounding her death?

She deliberated for hours over how to word such an unprecedented letter. There were no guidelines that she knew of, no etiquette to follow when you informe

d a loved one who believed you to be dead that you were, in fact, alive. Straightforwardness, she finally decided, was the only way to go about it.

Dear Irish,

I did not die in the airplane crash. I will explain the bizarre sequence of events next Wednesday evening at your apartment, six o’clock.

Love, Avery.

She wrote it with her left hand—a luxury these days—so that he would immediately recognize her handwriting, and mailed it without a return address on the envelope.

Tate had barely been civil to her since their argument over breakfast the previous Saturday. She was almost glad. Even though his antipathy wasn’t aimed at her, she bore the brunt of it for her alter ego. Distance made it easier to endure.

She dared not think about how he would react when he discovered the truth. His hatred for Carole would pale against what he would feel for Avery Daniels. The best she could hope for was an opportunity to explain herself. Until then, she could only demonstrate how unselfish her motives were. Early Monday morning, she made an appointment with Dr. Gerald Webster, the famed Houston child psychologist. His calendar was full, but she didn’t take no for an answer. She used Tate’s current celebrity in order to secure an hour of the doctor’s coveted time. For Mandy’s sake, she pulled rank with a clear conscience.

When she informed Tate of the appointment, he nodded brusquely. “I’ll make a note of it on my calendar.” She had made the appointment to coincide with one of the days their campaign would have them in Houston anyway.

Beyond that brief exchange, they’d had little to say to each other. That gave her more time to rehearse what she was going to say when she stood face-to-face with Irish.

Tags: Sandra Brown Mystery
Source: readsnovelonline.net