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Relief seemed to suffuse the room, as though blown from the heating duct. Relief and anticipation, judging by the buzz of conversations Duane was catching. They’d made a good choice. Or seemed to think they had.
Duane wasn’t so sure.
“You don’t look like a man who’s in the process of realizing his greatest lifetime goal.”
Turning, Duane grimaced at Will, who’d maneuvered them into a corner of the room where they could speak without being overheard.
“I can do this job.” Hands in his pockets, Duane looked his friend straight in the eye. “After twenty years of applying the laws in this state, I know where we need changes, and how to go about getting them. I know our weak points and our strengths—”
“Yeah.” Will might be a fifty-something university president, but he was also a very involved father—one child five and another one eight—and more and more his vocabulary was relaxing.
“I just…”
“You’re worried about Sophie.”
Duane’s eighteen-years-younger-than-him girlfriend was no secret between the two men. She was the reason for his frequent visits to Shelter Valley.
She’d been a student at Will’s school not all that many years ago.
“You know as well as I do that half the people in this room would change their minds about backing me if they knew about her,” Duane said.
His relationship with Sophie didn’t come to Phoenix.
“When’s the last time you asked her to marry you?”
“Before she left for Chicago.” Two weeks ago.
“And she turned you down?”
“Of course.”
Will, the only man in the room wearing a suit jacket, sipped from his glass of soda water. He rarely drank these days—one of the many changes that had accompanied Bethany’s advent into his and Becca’s lives when, after twenty-plus years of trying, they found out Becca was finally going to have a baby.
“Better be careful, man,” Will said. “She might surprise you one of these times and accept.”
Now there was a thought. One that brought more reservations than the party decision to back him.
Will’s eyes narrowed. “What would you do if she did?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“Maybe you’d better figure that out before you pose the question again.”
It sounded so easy.
With a quick glance over his shoulder at the men and women milling behind them, Will asked, “Do you love her?”
“You know I do.”
“I know you’re attracted to her. That’s a far cry from loving her.”
“Give me a break, man. I’m forty-six, not fourteen. And it’s been two years. It’s more than just lust.”
“So could you picture yourself spending the rest of your life with her?”
Who knew answers to such questions?
“I can picture myself at sixty, when she’s forty-two. In my mind, Sophie is full of energy and beauty and bored with me.”
“You don’t trust her.”
“It’s more than that, Will. I love my time with her, crave more time with her. But when we’re together we’re alone. The rest of the world, and things like generations, don’t matter. Can you honestly picture her here tonight? Hell, these guys would think she’s my daughter. Or they’d look at her like she’s on the hunt for a sugar daddy.”
Will seemed to commiserate with his chuckle.
“You don’t hold too high an opinion of the moral composition of our peers.”
Duane took in the room, the casually dressed men and women, and saw them for what they were. Intelligent, confident, successful. Many of them would do whatever it took to get where they were going. Use who they could. Stab who they had to. Some were quick to judge each other, while justifying, at least to themselves, their own sometimes questionable actions—and would blame others if someone got hurt.
He didn’t want to join the crowd. He simply wanted to change the world.
“I don’t want to make Sophie look like a whore.” He and Will talked straight. Which was one of the reasons Duane valued the friendship so much.
“Marrying her won’t do that.”
Whereas visiting her warm and vibrant home, leaving his car parked outside all night, did.
“And that’s not really the problem, is it?” Will asked softly, moving them a little farther away from the others.
“You of all people know her past, Will.” In his official capacity, Will had been apprised of the troubles of one of Montford’s most promising scholarship students. The invitations she’d offered to too many guys—including one of her instructors. The eating disorder that had almost killed her.
“It bothers you.”
“How could it not?”
“So you don’t trust her.”
“I don’t know.” Downing his Scotch, Duane turned away from a love life he couldn’t control, and stepped back into the persona he’d grown comfortable with over the years. The intelligent, confident, successful attorney who’d worked his entire life for this chance to make a difference. And who really believed he could.
Make a difference, that was.
Chapter Two
“OKAY, SPILL IT.” The Chicago pub’s late-Saturday-night crowd was the perfect size to allow Annie and Sophie to have a real conversation in privacy. Unfortunately.
Sophie wasn’t into comfy and cozy conversation. She wasn’t a kid anymore.
They had just shared a juicy hamburger, three quarters of which Annie made Sophie eat. She’d refused to do anything but encourage and watch until she’d witnessed Sophie chew and swallow every bite.
“I haven’t had a hamburger in ages.”
“And it was good, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah.” But the weight she instantly felt on her hips wasn’t. Duane might not be so attracted to a hippopotamus.
“So if it’s been ages since you’ve had a burger, does that mean there’s been no bingeing?”
Scared at the recurrence of an illness she’d struggled so hard to beat, yet still falling prey to its symptoms, to feeling guilty for having consumed so much fat, Sophie shook her head. “None. I told you, I didn’t see any obvious signs.”
“So you haven’t been restricting your diet?”
Translation: not eating.
“I’ve been busy.”
“So you have been missing meals.”
“Some.” Theater work, making everything perfect in the two-day or two-week span allotted to them per show, wrought more tasks than hours in a day. And she could get twice as much accomplished during meal breaks, when the stage was empty.
Annie’s disappointed look didn’t weigh as heavily as the beef Sophie had consumed, confirming her fears that she’d fallen back to a day she’d promised herself she’d never see again.
She was feeling bad about herself for eating. And eating was necessary to sustain life.
“How many?” Annie’s question wasn’t a surprise.
Sophie glanced up, once again facing the truth of her weakness. “Too many,” she admitted as she thought back over the past weeks. She’d been careful not to eat. Hadn’t had a real meal since she’d arrived in Chicago. “I feel good, emotionally, when I don’t eat. Like I’m doing myself a great favor, you know? I’m strong enough to beat base appetites. I’m in control—”
She sounded like the pamphlets and books she’d read.
But she wasn’t speaking from them. Not eating truly gave her a sense of strength. Of control. Of power.
“There’s been no weight fluctuation outside of a fivepound range,” she offered softly. She’d been watching—weighing herself in the hotel workout facility. She cared.
And was determined to remain in control.
Of course, weighing yourself all the time was a symptom, too.
“What’s got you so down this time, Soph? You have a home you love, in a town you love and are incredibly successful in a career you love—” Annie broke off, eyeing her steadily. “It’s a man, isn’t it?”
Duane’s face came clearly into view, transposed upon Annie’s sweet, concerned features. “Maybe.”
“So is there someone serious? You haven’t mentioned anyone in years, other than that Duane guy who helped you with your LLC articles of incorporation. You said you two were just friends.”
Sophie had forgotten she’d told Annie anything about Duane.
And Annie had it right. She and Duane were just friends. All they ever could be. Friends who happened to sleep together. Several nights a week. But that was their business.
“No, there’s no one serious.” Serious meant a future. It meant a life together. And that definitely was not what she had with Duane.
Annie’s face, naked as it always was when not caked with stage makeup, struck a familiar chord—reminding Sophie of a day when she’d poured out her heart.
She’d been such a pathetically weak little thing back then. It hurt to even think of that girl. Hurt more to think of the things she’d done.
“What’s wrong then?” Annie asked. “Surely you aren’t feeling bad about yourself for being unattached. My gosh, you’re only twenty-eight, Soph. You have your whole life ahead of you. And you and I both know you could have had any number of guys if you wanted to settle down to a family right away.”
Sophie shook her head. She’d changed a lot since Annie had known her. Gained confidence over the years, making choices she could be proud of.
So why did she feel like that lost twenty-year-old kid again?
“I’m in love with Duane.” She couldn’t believe she’d said that. Her feelings for him were her business. And his.
“Oh!” If Annie was hurt by the fact that Sophie hadn’t confessed about her love life, she didn’t let it show. “And he just wants to be friends? Did you tell him how you feel? I’d find it hard to believe that he doesn’t love you back.” As though everyone would have to love Sophie.
“He says he loves me.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“Problems,” Sophie said. “Plural.” She hesitated. Speaking about Duane felt wrong. Maybe even disloyal. Duane and Annie occupied two completely separate parts of her life.
“Soph?”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“You’re in danger of falling back into a huge psychological health risk.” Annie’s voice was brisk. Firm. “Talk or you could die.”
Sophie couldn’t help the smile that spread across her face. And grew larger as Annie grinned, as well.
“I never claimed to be undramatic,” she said.
“And exaggerative.”
“That, too. But the point is—”
“I got the point. I already had it. And you’re right. I’m apparently not handling things as successfully as I thought I was.”
Or maybe they’d escalated to the stage that something had to be done. Which might be what was scaring her. If she and Duane couldn’t continue as they had, where did that leave them?
Annie’s smile faded and she leaned across the cleared table. “Tell me what’s going on.”
Taking a deep breath, Sophie glanced up. “Duane’s forty-six.”
“Oh,” Annie said again. A little less enthusiastically this time.
“That’s almost twenty years older than us.”
“I might have a degree in dance, but I do know how to add.”
“He’s old enough to be my father.”
