Carla Neggers - Tempting Fate

“Joe Cutler’s younger brother is in Saratoga,” she said.

“Go on.”

She told her grandfather everything. When she finished, he didn’t say a word.

Dani panicked. “Granddad?”

“I haven’t kicked off yet,” he said in his sarcastic, gravelly voice.

“I just want answers. Is there anything you can tell me that would help?”

“No.”

“Is that the truth-”

“Dani…” He gave a small, fake cough. “Ouch…I’m having chest pains.”

“Then call a doctor,” she said and hung up on him. But she immediately felt guilty and called him back. “I’m sorry, Granddad.”

“Just take care of yourself, urchin.”

Of course, he sounded fine.

As she made her way back through the train, she spotted Zeke munching on a bag of peanuts in a window seat. The seat next to him was empty. Dani wasn’t surprised. Even when he was in a good mood, the man had a grim look about him that didn’t invite company.

She leaned over the aisle seat. “All that salt’s not good for you.”

“I’m from the South,” he said. “We’re immune to salt.”

“Did Kate tell you where I was?”

He smiled innocently but didn’t seem to try too hard to be convincing. “Just taking a trip to the Big Apple.”

“I won’t have you bird-dogging my every move.”

His look cut her short. It was dark and serious and bored right through to her soul. “Dani, you don’t have to do this alone.”

“That’s my decision.”

He popped a handful of peanuts into his mouth. “Fine. I’ll just see you at Mattie’s.”

Now she was surprised.

His smile seemed genuine, if not innocent. “You’re not as difficult to predict as you think you are.”

“My coffee’s getting cold.”

“Then sit down and drink it.”

It was her turn to smile. “You aren’t as tough as you think you are.”

He laughed. “There goes my reputation.”

“How’s my father?”

“In pain but on the mend. And worried.”

She nodded and sat beside him, not because her coffee was getting cold but because she really didn’t want to be alone-which unnerved her probably as much as anything else that had happened in the past few days.

“I read the book on your brother,” she said.

“I figured as much.”

“Zeke…”

He looked at her. “Talk to Mattie first.”

Nick didn’t bother to pack. These days even picking up an empty suitcase was an effort. But Mattie would have something he could wear. If not, he’d buy what he needed. He was feeling quite flush, having called a Hollywood memorabilia collector he knew. “What would you give me for the dress Mattie Witt wore the same day she arrived in Hollywood?” he asked.

The collector was at his front door within the hour, cash in hand.

Having a reclusive film legend for an ex-wife had its uses.

Now he wouldn’t have to beg Mattie or Dani for the money for a plane ticket east. He had his own money. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t hocked that dress years ago. He wasn’t sentimental.

He settled back in the cab, on his way to LAX.

His eyes burned. He knew he was taking a physical risk and might not accomplish a thing beyond hastening his own death by going to New York and then Saratoga. But he couldn’t stand to have Dani hate him. He was ninety years old, and nothing he’d accomplished-the movies he’d made, the awards he’d won, the place he’d earned in film history-meant more to him than that spitfire of a granddaughter back East. Didn’t she know that?

Yeah, he thought. She knew it. But she was still furious with him.

He’d take the first flight he could get. He’d sit down with Mattie and talk. Tell her everything. Even about the blackmail. Then, if she didn’t kill him, he’d take the train up along the Hudson River to Saratoga Springs, just as he and his mother had done so long, long ago, when the world had been a different place and Ulysses Pembroke’s black-haired grandson had been filled with dreams.

Both his parents had died young, and Nick, just a kid himself, had fled west to sunny California and fast proved he had a knack for directing movies. But it was a fishing trip to Tennessee that had changed his life.

He’d chosen Tennessee because it was warm and crisscrossed with streams and rivers, and because it was far, far from the social whirl of show business. Lean, dark and charming, Nick had discovered the possibilities of being the grandson of a murdered gambler and a director with growing power. Women had flocked to him. He’d needed a rest.

Determined to be off by himself, he’d told no one his destination. He wanted to be utterly alone and try to remember the man he’d meant to become.

On his third day of fishing east of Nashville on the snaking, slow-moving Cumberland River, he’d startled a dark-haired girl bent over on the riverbank, absolutely still and silent as she’d stared into the water. So complete was her surprise that she’d slipped on the muddy riverbank and slid, without making a sound, all the way into the Cumberland, her blue cotton dress billowing out around her.

Nick had paddled furiously to get to her, then leaped from his canoe into the water. He’d meant to rescue her, but she came up dripping wet and fighting mad, a rock in one hand. She was small and slim and had the most dynamic black eyes he’d ever seen. Her dark hair was yanked back in a severe braid, with wisps, damp from the humidity and the river, escaping all around her hairline.

She’d raised her rock with the clear intention of striking him. “You get away from me.”

“Easy there.” Nick’d had no desire to return to California with stitches in his head. “I’m sorry-I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You’re not sorry. You’re laughing.”

“No!”

But he was, because he’d never seen anyone so beautiful look so mad and so ridiculous. And here they were in the middle of nowhere, not a soul in sight.

“My name’s Nick Pembroke,” he’d said, studying her for any sign of recognition.

There was none. Apparently she’d never seen any of his films. Nick wasn’t insulted. He’d bitten his tongue trying not to laugh lest she knock him on the head with her rock after all.

“I fail to see what’s so funny.” She hadn’t given him a chance to respond, but plunged ahead in her educated Tennessee drawl. “I have been coming out to this river for years and years, and I have never had anyone sneak up on me and scare me half to death.”

“I didn’t mean to. I was just fishing. What’s your name?”

She’d eyed him dubiously, then said politely, “Mattie Witt.”

“Pleased to meet you, Miss Witt.”

He’d extended his hand, but she didn’t take it. Regal even when soaked through to the skin, Mattie had looked very young, and although she was slender, her wet dress clung to some flattering curves. Nick had struggled to keep his gaze from resting too long on the outline of her breasts against the thin, wet fabric. But her eyes, expressive and yet secretive, had enchanted him.

“I saw your last movie at the picture show on the square,” she’d said, catching him by surprise.

So she had heard of him, Nick had thought. The picture show. The square. He couldn’t imagine anywhere more remote than wherever the devil she came from. But his heart was pounding, and he’d felt as if he’d come all the way from New York to California to Tennessee just to meet dark-eyed Mattie Witt.

“I should let you get back to your fishing,” she’d said. “I’ll have to tell my father I slipped from the riverbank out of pure clumsiness. He wouldn’t be pleased to know I was speaking to a Hollywood movie director.”