LITMIR.BIZ

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man who can say no to you just isn’t human.”

      Touched, Sherry leaned over and kissed Rusty’s leathery cheek. “Thanks, Rusty. I needed that.”

      Rusty tried not to blush. “Shhh.” He pointed to Lori. “Teacher’s talking. You’ll miss something.”

      She was still smiling at him. “I’ll always have you to fill me in.”

      Rusty’s blush deepened beneath the bronzed, craggy suntan.

      Chapter Three

      “Ladies, I have a confession to make.”

      Lori sank her long-handled spoon into the mound of whip cream atop her fudge-ripple sundae before looking up at the other three women seated with her in the ice-cream parlor booth.

      The establishment, decorated to resemble something straight out of the early fifties, provided an informal atmosphere where they could each give voice to the concerns that were troubling them, concerns about the way their lives were about to everlastingly change because of the heart that beat beneath their own. It was something they all looked forward to far more than the classes that were to ready them for the upcoming big event.

      “Let me guess,” Chris interjected, deadpan. “You’re not really a Lamaze instructor, you’re actually an international spy.” Not being able to hold it back any longer, Chris grinned as she glanced around at the others. “Sorry, occupational habit. I’ve been bringing my work home with me a lot.”

      Joanna nodded knowingly. “Trust no one, right?” A healthy spoonful of cookie-dough ice cream punctuated her declaration.

      Chris acknowledged how good it felt to laugh about her work. So much of it revolved around darker elements. “That’s only a rule of thumb when you’re checking out aliens on Sunday nights, Joanna.”

      Sherry leaned forward. They were meandering again. That was usually a good thing as far as their conversations went, but Lori looked as if she had to get something off her chest. “What’s your big news, Lori?”

      Lori let her spoon all but disappear into the dessert. Sherry noted that, unlike the rest of them, Lori had hardly eaten any of hers. A distant bell went off in her head, but for now she kept her suspicions on ice.

      “Well,” Lori blew out a breath, “I don’t know if it’s big—” She hesitated.

      Chris was a firm believer in cutting to the chase. Even when she was trying to relax. “Sure it is, otherwise you wouldn’t be hemming and hawing. C’mon, woman, out with it.”

      There was no putting this off. Even if Lori wanted to, it would be evident soon enough. And these women had become her friends. Initially, she’d been the one to encourage them to turn to her and one another. Now she needed them. Life certainly had an ironic bent to it.

      Her glance swept around the square table. “I think that my ties to this little group are going to get stronger.”

      Joanna looked at her, slightly confused before a light slowly began to dawn. The light had already reached Chris, but before she could say anything, Sherry beat her to it. “You’re pregnant.”

      Pressing her lips together, Lori nodded.

      “And you don’t think you and the dad are going to get together.” It wasn’t hard for Chris to fill in the blanks, given the nature of the expression of Lori’s face.

      “Not anymore.” Lori looked down at her dessert. Rivulets of light brown were flowing down along the entire circumference of the tulip-shaped glass bowl, forming a sticky ring around the base. She dabbed at them with her napkin. “My husband is dead.”

      Chris looked at her sharply. “Oh, Lori, we’re so sorry.”

      “Yes, I know. So am I,” Lori said, her hand inadvertently covering her still-flat stomach, mimicking a motion she’d seen time and again in her classes. She tried to sound positive. “I’ll be all right.”

      “Of course it will.” Sherry could see that the woman didn’t really want to talk about it, that what she wanted right at this moment was to have the unconditional support of her friends at a time in her life that could charitably be called trying.

      Reaching out, she squeezed Lori’s hand. When Lori looked in her direction, Sherry quipped, “So, how about those Dodgers?”

      Laughing, the others took their cue, and the conversation drifted to all things light and airy, temporarily taking their minds away from the more serious areas of their lives.

      A great deal of ice cream was consumed within the next hour.

      The insidious ringing sound burrowed its way into the tapestry of her dreams, shredding the fabric before Sherry could think to snatch it back and save it for review once she was awake.

      The instant her eyes were opened, the dream became a thing of the past.

      The only thing she could remember was that it had created a warm haze of well-being within her. Something to do with a man loving her, caring for her, that was it. Instinctively she knew the man had been Drew during his better days, even though the face hadn’t belonged to him.

      Was it morning already?

      The phone. That horrid ringing noise was coming from the phone, not her alarm clock.

      With a huge sigh, Sherry groped for the receiver. It took her two tries to locate it. Her eyes were shutting again, refusing to surrender to the intruding morning. She tucked the receiver against her ear and the pillow.

      “This better be good,” she threatened.

      By no stretch of the imagination was she now, or ever had been, a morning person. As far as she was concerned, God should have made sure that days began no earlier than eight o’clock, which was still pretty obscene in her book, but at least doable.

      “Rise and shine, Cinderella. You told me to call when I had something.”

      Rusty. Rusty was talking in her ear.

      Her eyes flew open. She struggled to defog her brain. “What do you have?”

      “Not overly much,” he warned her.

      She knew better. Rusty wouldn’t be calling her at this hour, whatever it was, if it was nothing. He didn’t have a death wish.

      “It’s too early to play games, Rusty.” Blinking, Sherry turned her head and tried to focus on her clock. It was barely five o’clock. No wonder she felt like death. “God isn’t even up yet. Talk to me. What did you find out?”

      “There’s this mountain retreat. It belongs to someone else, somebody named Fletcher, but Adair likes to go to it just after he does a takeover—I won’t say a successful takeover because when he’s involved, they’re all successful,” he commented. “Going there is his way of celebrating.” The raspy sound that passed for his laugh undulated through the phone lines. “Personally, if I had his kind of money, I’d be out on the town. Hell, I’d be out buying the town.”

      Still lying against her pillow, Sherry dragged her hand through her hair. “So he’s shy, okay, we already know that. Where’s this retreat located?”

      “At the foot of the San Bernadino Mountains, just outside of Wrightwood.”

      She’d been to Wrightwood a couple of times herself. It was a small town, predominantly known for its noncommercial skiing. All the dedicated skiers went to Big Bear, which was located on the other side of Wrightwood. The former offered snow and gridlock during the winter months. Wrightwood offered scenery, charm and relative isolation. She could see Adair going there.

      Sherry waited, knowing, even in her semiconscious state, that there was more.

      Rusty paused dramatically. “I managed to find out that Adair’s going there this weekend. As a matter of fact, he’s already on his way.”

      Sherry

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