Danielle Steel - Full circle

He was staying at the Huntington. And he offered her a drink at L'Etoile before he left. Of all the people there, they had had the most thoughts in common, and Tana had found him a pleasant companion on the various panels they'd been on. He was hard working and professional, and pleasant almost all the time.

“How do you like working in the D.A.'s office?” He had been intrigued by that. Generally, the women he knew didn't like it there. They went into family practices, or other aspects of the law, but female prosecutors were rare everywhere, for obvious reasons. It was a damn tough job, and no one made things easy for them.

“I love it.” She smiled. “It doesn't leave me much time for myself, but that's all right.” She smiled at him, and smoothed back her hair. She still wore it long, but she wore it in a knot when she worked. She was given to wearing suits and blouses when she went to court, but she still lived in jeans at home. And she was wearing a gray flannel suit now, with a pale gray silk shirt.

“Married?” He raised an eyebrow and glanced at her hand, and she smiled.

“No time for that either, I'm afraid.” There had been a handful of men in her life in recent years, but they never lasted long. She ignored them for weeks on end, preparing trials, and just never had enough time for them. It wasn't a loss that had bothered her very much, although Harry kept insisting she'd be sorry one day. “I'll do something about it then.” “When? When you're ninety-five?”

“What were you doing in government, Drew?” His name was Drew Lands and he had the bluest eyes she'd ever seen. She liked the way he smiled at her, and she found herself wondering how old he was, and correctly guessed that he was around forty-five.

“I had an appointment to the Department of Commerce for a while. Someone died, and I was filling in until they made a permanent change.” He smiled at her, and she realized again that she liked the way he looked, more than she had anyone in a long time. “It was an interesting job for a time. There's something incredibly exhilarating about Washington. Everything centers around the government, and the people involved with it. If you're not in government, you're absolutely no one there. And the sense of power is overwhelming. It's all that matters there, to anyone.” He smiled at her, and it was easy to see that he had been part of that.

“That must be hard to give up.” She was intrigued by that, and she herself had wondered more than once if she would be interested in politics, but she didn't really think it would suit her as well as the law.

“It was time. I was happy to get back to Los Angeles.” He smiled easily and put down his scotch again, looking at her. “It almost feels like home again. And you, Tana? What's home to you? Are you a San Francisco girl?”

She shook her head. “New York originally. But I've been here since I went to Boalt.” It had been eight years since she arrived, and that in itself was incredible, since 1964. “I can't imagine living anywhere else now … or doing anything else.…” She loved the district attorney's office more than anything. There was always excitement for her there, and she had grown up a lot in her five years on the job. And that was another thing … five years as an assistant D.A. That was as hard to believe as the rest … where did the time run to, while one worked? Suddenly one woke up and ten years had drifted past … ten years … or five … or one … it all seemed the same after a while. Ten years felt like one felt like an eternity.

“You looked awfully serious just then.” He was watching her, and they exchanged a smile.

She shrugged philosophically. “I was just thinking how quickly time rushes by. It's hard to believe I've been out here this long … and in the D.A.'s office for five years.”

“That was how I felt about Washington. The three years felt more like three weeks, and suddenly it was time to go home.”

“Think you'll go back one day?”

He smiled, and there was something there she couldn't quite read. “For a while anyway. My kids are still there. I didn't want to pull them out of school halfway through the year, and my wife and I haven't resolved yet where they're going to live. Probably half and half, eventually. It's the only thing that's fair to us, although it might be difficult for them at first. But kids adjust.” He smiled at her. He had obviously just gotten divorced.

“How old are they?”

“Thirteen and nine. Both girls. They're terrific kids, and they're very close to Eileen, but they've stayed close to me, too, and they're really happier in L.A. than they are in Washington. That's not really much of a life for kids back there, and she's awfully busy,” he volunteered.

“What does she do?”

“She's assistant to the Ambassador to the OAS, and actually she has her sights on an ambassadorial post herself. That'll make it pretty impossible to take the kids with her, so I'd have them then. Everything is still pretty much up in the air.” He smiled again, but a little more hesitantly this time.

“How long have you two been divorced?”

“Actually, we're working it out right now. We took our time deciding while we were in Washington, and now it's definite. I'm going to file as soon as things settle down. I'm hardly unpacked yet.”

She smiled at him, thinking of how difficult it had to be, children, a wife, traveling three thousand miles, Washington, Los Angeles. But it didn't seem to shake up his style. He had made incredible sense at the conference. Of the six attorneys involved, she had been most impressed with him. She had also been impressed with how reasonable he was about being liberal. Ever since her experiences with Yael McBee five years before, her liberalism had been curbed considerably. And five years in the D.A.'s office was making her less liberal by the hour. She was suddenly for tougher laws, tighter controls, and all the liberal ideas she had believed in for so long no longer made as much sense to her, but somehow Drew Lands made them palatable again, and even if the actual positions no longer appealed to her, he didn't alienate anyone expressing his views. “I thought you handled it beautifully.” He was touched and pleased, and they had another drink, before he dropped her off at her place in his cab, and went on to the airport to go back to Los Angeles.

“Could I call you sometime?” He asked hesitantly, as though he were afraid there might be someone important to her, but at the moment there was no one at all. There had been a creative director in an ad agency for a few months the year before, and actually no one at all since then. He had been too busy and too harassed and so had she, and the affair had ended as quietly as it had begun. She had taken to telling people that she was married to her work, and she was the D.A.'s “other wife,” which made her colleagues laugh. But it was almost true by now. Drew looked at her hopefully, and she nodded with a smile.

“Sure. I'd like that.” God only knew when he'd be back in town again anyway. And she was trying a big Murder One case anyway for the next two months.

But he astounded her and called her the next day, as she sat in her office, drinking coffee and making notes, as she outlined her approach for the case. There was going to be a lot of press involved and she didn't want to make a fool of herself. She wasn't thinking of anything but the case when she grabbed the phone and barked into it. “Yes?”

“Miss Roberts please.” He was never surprised by the rudeness of the people who worked for the D.A.

“That's me.” She sounded playful suddenly. She was so damn tired, she was slaphappy. It was almost five o'clock, and she hadn't left her desk all day. Not even for lunch. She hadn't eaten anything since dining the night before, except for the gallons of coffee she'd consumed.