Helen R. - A Man To Count On

Drawing a deep breath, she forced herself to ask calmly, “At least tell me if Dani ate something today?”

“She tried, she couldn’t keep anything down.”

Her poor baby. “Please call Dr. Warren if things aren’t better tomorrow. What about Mac? How’s his asthma? He was pretty upset after he heard us last night.” E.D. had come home late yet again and at first had assumed all was well and that the kids were in their rooms doing homework or visiting with friends. Within minutes that assumption had been shattered, and by the time Trey had stormed off to bed, it was obvious that all of their lives were changing forever.

His silence brought her attention back to the present. “I’ll hold. Please go check on him. Do it, Trey.”

After another hesitation, Trey muttered, “Okay.”

His acquiescence surprised and worried her. Did this mean he’d not seen Mac for hours and only now remembered him? Their son was the true introvert, a quiet soul who could get lost in his projects and painstaking study forgetting everything including the need to breathe.

“He’s fine.”

Startled at Trey’s abrupt bark, E.D. took a second to regroup. “He has his inhaler? There haven’t been any episodes?”

“I said he’s fine. Don’t start acting like I don’t know what I’m doing. Everyone in the neighborhood knows that I’ve been holding down the fort for years. Now if you’ll excuse me—”

“Trey, wait!” E.D. hated the sound of desperation in her voice, but she hadn’t nearly covered all that she wanted to. “Just do me the courtesy of answering one or two more questions. Please.”

“What?” he snapped.

E.D. wrapped her free arm around her waist. The ache there warned her that if she didn’t reduce the stress and intense emotions in her life, she would soon be fighting an ulcer. “Has that Web site you mentioned that has Dani’s pictures on it been shut down?”

“Uh…I don’t know.”

What did he mean he didn’t know? “Every hour it’s up has to be an unbearable humiliation for her, Trey.”

“I’ve been busy!”

Doing what? Figuring his options after he finished taking her to the cleaners? “What do the police say? Have you hired someone to take on this photographer? If you haven’t, please don’t. I’m working on—”

“It’s too late for you to try to insinuate yourself into this,” Trey interjected. “You’ve done enough damage.”

E.D. barely held back an expletive. Insinuate? Dani had acted with lightning speed on this modeling opportunity and had ignored their one conversation where E.D. had voiced her reservations and refusal to commit without more information and a meeting with the photographer.

“Just give me the Web site address,” she pleaded.

“I don’t know it offhand. Do you think I have the stomach to look at it?”

“Take an antacid because the longer you allow it to stay up, the more perverts and testosterone-flooded schoolboys will be drooling over our daughter.”

“I didn’t say—it’s being looked into,” he amended sullenly.

“By whom? Damn it, give me names. That’s what my office is for!”

Instead Trey hung up on her.

Breathless, impotent with fury, E.D. stared at the dead phone. Last night when he’d declared their marriage was over and that she was to blame for Dani’s troubles, she’d been too dumbstruck and horrified for her daughter to really take in what was about to happen. Today with the restraining order and the appearance of her luggage, he’d humiliated her. She’d stood by and taken it, mostly because she had a case to finish, but nonetheless, she’d done nothing thinking it was all a bad dream that could somehow be worked through for the sake of the kids. But this…this set her free.

Dylan was right in his thinking. First thing in the morning, she was cutting her husband loose and going on the offensive on behalf of her daughter…and for herself.

Trey better find the common sense he hadn’t shown yet and get out of her way.

“You’re kind to fit me into your schedule.” E.D. smiled at Ivan Priestly as he beckoned her across the patio of his home toward an umbrella-covered table. It was only hours after she’d called him on this Thursday morning, and she still couldn’t believe that he had not only agreed to meet with her, he’d invited her to lunch. Easing down onto the white wrought-iron chair he drew out for her, she wondered if this, too, was somehow Dylan’s doing? She hoped not. Gratitude aside, her wounded self-esteem needed to believe her reputation as well as the summary over the phone had convinced this icon in their legion of her worthiness.

Smaller built and frailer than she’d expected, the famous litigator suavely took his time taking his seat to her left, which shrewdly kept his back to the sun. She noticed the hearing aid in his right ear and wondered if it was fine-tuned to capture soft sighs or to make her grit her teeth if he asked, “Pardon?” once too often because he wanted to get rid of her. She quickly got her answer.

“I have no schedule, my dear. I’m at an age where I take leisure seriously, and no longer need to suffer fools or be nice to boors because it’s politically correct. I had no plans for today except to finally drag out War and Peace and read it in a week as has been recommended.”

E.D. nodded at the tanned grandfather with his shock of white hair that looked as if it hadn’t seen a comb since the last blue northern. “I have heard about your sense of principle, but I’ve never read as much as a whisper that you’re indifferent about anything.”

His laughter held private merriment. “Stay tuned. My detractors will have plenty to say when my ashes are thrown to the wind. In the meantime, you’re right, the cunning remain like hyenas in the shadows and call their conduct circumspect.” He gestured to the glass-topped table laden with beautiful china, fruit, a seafood salad and crackers. “Will you pour the tea? I miss my wife spoiling me and I’m sorry to say a neurological condition makes me too unsteady to do it without embarrassing us both.”

She had noted his subtle trembling and immediately reached for the elegant teapot trimmed in what had to be eighteen-karat gold. “Should I leave extra room for milk?”

“No, I drink mine as is, thanks.”

“Ah, a purist.”

“More like a doctor’s senior nurse nipping at me like a rabid terrier to cut calories and cholesterol.” Sighing, Ivan sat back in his chair and studied her. “I won’t pretend any longer—I’m intrigued with your dilemma.”

E.D. glanced into his wise, gray eyes and thought she saw sympathy as much as curiosity, even for a privileged child of a successful prosecutor. “I know my daughter’s situation suggests an outrageous negligence.”

“Which on first and second glance appears so incredibly unlike you, that I didn’t easily accept it as a possibility. If anything, I see you carrying over your meticulous work patterns to where you should be a borderline suffocating mom.”

She accepted his deduction with a nod that felt like an apology. “I may have ended up so, except for a life decision or two along my way.” Such as whom she had chosen to marry and the demands of her job that made family often come second, whether she liked it or not. Perhaps marrying Trey had been something of a rebellion, but it had also been liberating. If so, though, she was paying—would be paying—a hefty price.

“Indeed. Which is why I suspected immediately that you’re not part of this situation at all—unless you’re the most foolish person ever to pass the bar, let alone become Emmett Garner’s pride and joy. Since neither seems likely, it suggests a third intention more distasteful.”