booths away, a slim blond woman wearing a tailored suit stood up and stared. Catherine recognized the title company closer who had processed the paperwork for Catherine’s house purchase. Jeffrey claimed he and the woman were good friends, but at the closing the woman had seemed uncomfortable and not friendly in the least. At the moment, she appeared horrified.
Noreen, Catherine finally remembered. Her cheeks burned, but she forced a smile. “Well, hello, again. Noreen?”
Noreen shifted her stare to Jeffrey. “I thought I recognized your voice, Jeff. Did I hear right? You guys are engaged?” A sickly smile thinned her lips. She lowered her gaze to the cart holding the champagne. Her voice rose an octave. “You’re going to get married?”
Jeffrey had said “good friends,” but Noreen’s reaction clearly showed they’d been closer than mere friends. Catherine had never asked Jeffrey about his past relationships—she’d never cared. All she cared about at the moment was escape.
“Nice seeing you again, Noreen. I’d love to stay and chat, but I have…” Her ability to continue the lie ran out of steam. “Goodbye, Gus.” She fled the restaurant.
Jeffrey caught up to her in the parking lot while she unlocked the door of her Blazer. “Darling, what’s the matter?”
“You know I’m not comfortable with public scenes. How could you do that to me? I’m so embarrassed.” She stared miserably at the toes of her woven sandals. “I’m sorry, I need some time to be alone. To think.”
He opened the car door for her and reached past her to place the bouquet of roses on the passenger seat. “You do love me,” he said. “I know it, you know it.” He pressed the ring box into her hand. She resisted, but he persisted until she closed her fingers around the box. “We can’t fight fate, darling.”
The velvet box seemed to weigh a hundred pounds. “I can’t—we don’t—you don’t know me!”
He stepped back and hung his head, his sheepish smile painted gold by the parking lot lights. “I’m a fast learner. I’ll never do anything to embarrass you again.” He pulled his fingers across his lips in a zippering motion. “I won’t pressure you either. I won’t say a word about it. All I ask is that you take the ring and think about how much I love you.”
Somewhat soothed, she nodded dumbly. He pressed a tender kiss to her forehead.
“I’ll make you the happiest woman in the world. I’ll devote my life to making you smile. Think about it.” He gave her room to slide behind the steering wheel. “I love you.”
She wished she could say, “I love you,” back at him. Except she could not say what she did not mean. Until she trusted him enough to tell him the truth about herself, she could not love him. Unless she loved him, she could not tell him. She hoped he returned to the restaurant and shared the champagne with Noreen. They could rekindle their romance, and Catherine wouldn’t have to deal with Jeffrey anymore.
Ambiguous emotions wore on her during the long drive home.
At home she set the ring box on the fireplace mantel in her studio. She tried to forget it. It was like trying to forget a sore tooth. She refused to open the box, refused to try on the ring—Mrs. Jeffrey Livman.
She didn’t sleep well that night.
“WOULD MARRIAGE BE SO BAD?” she asked Oscar and Bent, the greyhounds, when the three of them took their morning run. Up and down the hilly red graveled road she jogged, trying to regulate her breathing in the thin high-country air. The greyhounds focused straight ahead, their long legs springing in graceful motion.
The dogs liked Jeffrey. Or at least, they tolerated him with the same regal aloofness with which they tolerated most visitors. She frowned at their knobby, bobbing heads. If the greyhounds judged character, they kept it strictly to themselves.
Later, when her agent called from New York, Catherine asked, “Margaret, what do you think about marriage?”
“I think it’s a hell of an expensive way for a man to get his laundry done.”
A grin tugged Catherine’s lips. “I forgot. You’re a cynic. Never mind.”
“Does this have to do with that car salesman you’re dating?”
“He’s a real-estate broker, and yes.” She fixed her gaze on the ring box and sighed. “He asked me to marry him.”
“Cars, real estate, it’s all the same. Forget it.”
“He gave me a ring. You ought to see it, it’s beautiful. A sapphire.”
“Keep the jewelry, dump the man. I need your full attention right now, sweetie.”
“Lots of artists are married. In fact, all the ones I know are. So are the writers and the editors and the art directors.” Catherine laughed. “Considering that my work is for children, don’t you think having a few of my own would be a plus?”
Margaret groaned loudly. “Babies and diapers and nannies and preschools—don’t do this to me! You are about to become very, very hot. Tabor Publishing is now talking a twenty-book series.”
Catherine sobered; her hand tightened on the telephone. Her stomach suddenly felt very heavy. “Twenty?” The word emerged in a squeak. “I thought they wanted three?”
“Doc Halladay loves your work. He’s renegotiating the book series. He’s convinced it’ll be as big, maybe bigger than his television show. He’s full of crap, of course, nothing is bigger than TV, but these books are going to sell millions.”
Catherine didn’t doubt it. Doc Halladay, the Science Brain, had taken the media world by storm. With a winning smile, a magician’s shtick and a gift for making the complicated sound easy, he’d won a bigger preadolescent audience than Barney the dinosaur and Sesame Street combined.
“If we put this together, this could make your career and set you up for life. You could end up being the hottest children’s book illustrator of the century. Of two centuries! You’ll win a Caldecott.”
“Twenty books?”
“After Doc Halladay saw those mock-ups you did using photographs of him along with paintings, he flipped. As far as he’s concerned, you’re the second coming of Michelangelo.”
“How much money are they talking?”
“A cool million. Of course, that’s a five-year commitment, and we’re still squabbling about royalties, but it’s a very nice package.”
Catherine had to take several deep breaths to calm her fluttering belly.
“The contract proposal needs a Rosetta stone to decipher it. I’m overnighting you an outline of the terms and payouts. It looks complicated because it is complicated, but try not to be intimidated. I’ll have the whole thing vetted by an attorney before anything gets signed.”
Catherine loved her work, which combined her two great passions—art and science. In college, believing there was no future in fine art, she’d earned a biology degree with the goal of going to veterinary school. Then a friend had asked her to illustrate a children’s
