Don Page 2

  "Yes, a vet, not an M.D."

  "Dad, I'm a vet."

  "Who should have been an M.D."

  Natalie sighed. This was an old argument. Old and impossible for her to win. Years ago Andrew had decided his daughter would become a surgeon like him. She'd balked. She had wanted to be a veterinarian since she was twelve, and she'd done exactly as she pleased. Andrew had not been happy about her career choice. He hadn't been happy about the most important romantic involvement of her life, either.

  "Dad, I love animals and I love being a vet," she said patiently. "And as for Kenny, he didn't cook breakfast for me and I didn't cook breakfast for him. Anicare is the biggest animal clinic in Columbus. We were both on the run." She was determined not to belittle Kenny in front of her father even if he was the reason she'd dragged her hurt and embarrassed self back to Port Ariel.

  Her mind drifted to three days ago when she'd come home early. Walking in on Kenny passionately having sex in their bed had destroyed an already eroding relationship. She'd suspected infidelities, but suspecting and actually seeing were different. She'd never felt such shock as she had when confronted by the sight of Kenny in flagrante delicto. She'd stood frozen in the doorway until the sweating pair finally noticed her.

  "Natalie!" Kenny had exclaimed, his blue eyes flying wide beneath his tousled hair. "This isn't-"

  "What it seems?" she asked, amazed by her calm voice when her entire body seemed to be quivering. "What is it?"

  "Natalie, shut the door. Go downstairs and-"

  "And let you continue?" She'd glared at the flushed young redhead wearing diamond stud earrings and nothing else. "I've seen you at the clinic. You have that white poodle Snickers. What a ridiculous name! He has a horrible disposition." Natalie couldn't stop babbling as the reality of the situation fought for acceptance in her mind. "No wonder he's always irritable. You drag him in constantly and there's nothing wrong with him. Now I know the reason for your frequent visits."

  "Natalie, please don't turn this into some ridiculous farce," Kenny said in a controlled voice as the woman fumbled frantically for the sheet to cover herself. "We'll talk later."

  "I think not," Natalie had replied coldly. "I don't think we will ever talk again."

  With that she had descended the stairs of the townhouse, crossed the small foyer, and walked outside. As soon as she closed the door behind her and heard the lock click, she remembered her purse. Her purse on the hall table holding her wallet and keys. The keys to Kenny's condo as well as her car keys. She was not only stranded without money and transportation, she was also denied access to the place she'd called home for the past eight months.

  Oh, dear God, she'd thought in despair. Could this get any worse? Humiliated, she had rung the doorbell repeatedly until a blazing-eyed Kenny swung open the door wearing only an old pair of jeans. "Why are you doing this?" he'd demanded.

  "My purse." Natalie wanted to cry. Her throat was tight and the words grated. She blinked frantically. "Just give me my purse with my keys so I can leave. I'll be back this evening to pack."

  "Nat-"

  "My purse!"

  He'd turned away from the door as tears spilled from her eyes. He retrieved the purse, handed it to her, and watched her stalk to her car.

  She'd gone to a good restaurant not crowded at such an early hour, and cried in the restroom for a good twenty minutes. Then she'd applied a lot of powder around her red nose and swollen eyes and sat in the darkened bar for the next three hours. She felt like getting drunk, but the objective part of her knew oblivion wasn't the answer. Instead she'd slowly sipped two small glasses of Chablis and wished she had a friend to talk to. For the first time she realized she had no really good friends in Columbus. Kenny had monopolized her time. No, she'd let him monopolize her time. She hadn't made close friends here because they might interfere with her time with Kenny. Her friends were back home in Port Ariel. Her very best friend from childhood, Lily Peyton, was there. Suddenly the place Natalie grudgingly visited only twice a year was where she wanted to be more than anywhere in the world.

  When she'd returned that evening, Kenny looked miserable. "Now you can explain," she said.

  "I can't. I mean I don't have a good explanation. I guess I just panicked. We've been in this semi-marriage situation for months and I got scared. Commitment. The old phobia."

  "Did you hear that on a morning talk show?" she'd asked scornfully.

  "No. It's the truth, Nat."

  "How many times, Kenny? How many times in the last eight months have you gotten scared and done something like this?"

  "Never."

  He was lying. She'd stared at him for a moment and walked upstairs. He followed, watching her desolately as she began taking her clothes out of the closet. "Stay with me, sweetheart," he said softly. "We love each other. We'll get engaged."

  She had glared at him. "You've just told me you're afraid of commitment, you spent the afternoon in bed with another woman, and now you're asking me to marry you?"

  "Yes. I'm serious."

  "I don't want to hear it," she'd snapped, throwing another blouse into the already overstuffed suitcase. "My father was right about you. I should have listened to him."

  "You did," Kenny finally shot back furiously. "Your whole life is about defying him. I always thought half of your attraction to me was the fact that he couldn't stand me."

  Now, sitting across the breakfast table from her father, Natalie wondered if Kenny was right. She gazed at Andrew with his husky build, his thick white hair, his piercing dark eyes. He'd lived in Port Ariel all his life and been an admired surgeon here for thirty years. The townspeople's respect and affection for him only increased after his flighty wife Kira ran off to join, a California commune in the late seventies and left him with a young daughter to raise. He'd devoted himself to Natalie. She loved him. He loved her and clung too desperately, fearing he'd lose her just like he'd lost Kira. He was strict, unrelenting, smothering. He'd wanted her to be perfect. And docile. Natalie was anything except docile and his attempts to turn her into a sweet, spun-sugar concoction of a little girl only made matters worse. They'd argued incessantly since she was six. She'd never been able to please him. She'd never stopped trying.

  "Are you thinking about Kenny?" Andrew asked abruptly.

  "No," Natalie answered truthfully.

  "You won't tell me why you're really here, but I suspect you two had a real blowup."

  No, she hadn't told him the truth behind her visit. It was too humiliating. Besides, she wasn't sure she would not be able to forgive Kenny and return to him. She didn't want to give Andrew any more ammunition to dislike him if that were the case. Besides, she didn't think she could discuss something so personal as Kenny's infidelity with her father.

  "Dad, I just wanted to spend some time back home."

  "Then why hasn't Kenny called?"

  "He did. Yesterday when you were out," she said, feeling no necessity to tell him she'd slammed the phone down on him. This was none of Andrew's business and she shot him a look that told him so.

  He relented. "Eggs okay?"

  "Great." Except I don't want them, Natalie thought. I'd rather have a bagel. I'm not used to all this heavy food in the morning.

  Andrew was having no trouble with his. He ate like a lumberjack and never put on a pound. All the outside work he did, Natalie thought. He always had some project going. If he wasn't improving his property, he was helping someone else.

  "Try that bacon. Thick-sliced. Really good," he said.

  "I don't eat meat."

  "A little meat isn't going to kill you."

  "I don't want to eat meat so please get off my back. After all, you don't drink."

  "Alcohol is bad for you. Meat isn't." He looked up. "And speaking of alcohol and those bloodshot eyes of yours, did you have a wild time with Lily Peyton last night?"

  Here we go, Natalie thought. Still the judgmental father chastising the forever-child. "We had fun, not a wild time. We went to
Panache. I had alcohol and lived to tell."

  "Humph." The famous, disapproving humph. "How is Lily?" Andrew asked. "Still got that store downtown?"

  "It's called Curious Things and doing very well. So is Lily."

  "A hellraiser. Her father let her get away with anything and her mother was too meek to object. I always wished you'd been closer to Tamara."

  Natalie put down her fork. "Lily is not and never was a hellraiser. She just likes to have fun. Tamara is more sedate."

  "You mean boring."

  "I mean sedate." Her father didn't look at her. He simply made pronouncements like God on high and never saw the need to justify his remarks. Natalie felt her back stiffening with the old tension, then forced herself to relax. I will not be baited into an argument that upsets me a hell of a lot more than it does him, she vowed silently. Taking a deep breath she said, "Lily and I are going to lunch today. Want to go with us?"

  Andrew looked up, his eyes widening as if she'd just invited him to a slumber party. "Lunch! What in the world would I have to talk with you two about?"

  "Oh, I don't know," Natalie said airily. "Boys. Makeup. Curfews. Our paltry allowances. The usual things twenty nine-year-old career women discuss."

  Her father stared at her for a moment before a grin cracked the stone of his face. "Okay. I keep forgetting you're not thirteen."

  "I noticed. And thank goodness I'm not. My teen years were miserable."

  Andrew shoveled in more scrambled eggs. "Don't be silly. You were the smartest girl in your class, the most popular, and the prettiest."

  Natalie burst into laughter, almost choking on her orange juice. "Dad, being the smartest girl in your class isn't a plus when you're a teenager." She dabbed at her mouth with a napkin. "I was popular with girls but not with boys, and as for being pretty, I was skinny and I had braces. You wouldn't let me have contacts and forced me to wear those glasses with the horrid blue frames. I was a geek."

  Andrew shook his head. "Never believed in contacts. And you've always exaggerated. You were lovely. You looked just like your mother when she was your age."

  Her mother, who had never even allowed her daughter to call her "Mom." She was always "Kira." And she had left both of them. One day she was there, the next she was gone, off to join a commune. They hadn't heard from her for over six months after she left. "Don't ever compare me to that woman," Natalie said with quiet venom.

  Andrew's white eyebrows slammed together. "That woman is your mother," he said fiercely.

  "Being a mother involves a hell of a lot more than giving birth, so don't tell me about how much respect I owe Kira St. John, no matter where she's living with and with what man-"

  "Do not say anything else!" her father erupted. He took a couple of deep breaths and looked out the huge kitchen window at beautiful Lake Erie beyond. Last night's storm had left the surface littered with leaves and twigs, but the smooth water reflected the sun and puffy clouds. Harvey Coombs from next door already sat in his rowboat, fishing diligently, stained canvas hat jammed on his bald head. He'd once been a brilliant chemistry teacher. Then alcoholism had taken control of his life.

  "Kira has always been the flashpoint between the two of us," Andrew said finally.

  "Which would please her because it means she's the center of attention. But, Dad, I really don't want to talk about Kira. I want you to understand about Lily. No one else had a mother who ran off to join a commune. The other kids teased me mercilessly about my crazy mother. Lily defended me like a pit bull. She's always been my best friend and she always will be."

  "She encouraged you to sneak out your bedroom window at night and roam around with her."

  "All we did was go to The Blue Lady and work on our music."

  "The Blue Lady Resort!" Andrew looked appalled. "I had no idea that's where you went. The hotel burned down!"

  "Not the dance pavilion. We thought it was romantic. And the acoustics were great."

  "Acoustics? Who cares about acoustics? It suffered damage from the fire. It's not safe. It should have been condemned years ago."

  "It's still romantic."

  "A long time ago it was romantic. The hotel was lavish. The pavilion was beautiful, built out over the water. Some of the biggest bands in the country played there. Quite the tourist draw. Then there was that awful business in 1970."

  "In the hotel, not the pavilion. The hotel is gone."

  "I don't care. The pavilion is a wreck. A danger. It should be destroyed."

  "It should be restored. You're handy with a hammer and nails. Maybe you should do it. It would give you something to fill up your empty life."

  Andrew scowled. "I don't have an empty life."

  "I know you have your medical practice and your gardening and fishing and those civic clubs you belong to, but I'm talking about a real life."

  "Define real life."

  "Companionship."

  "I see Harvey Coombs next door regularly."

  "A wonderful companion. When he drinks too much he thinks you were CIA operatives together."

  "And many dangerous missions we worked if you'd only give him a chance to tell you about them."

  " Harvey should have written novels, not taught chemistry. I'm serious, Dad. You should see someone romantically."

  "I did. Viveca Cosgrove."

  Natalie rolled her eyes. "Three years ago and not for long, thank goodness. Oh, I know she's beautiful but she's such a snob and she can't seem to stay with a man. She broke things off with you so she could date Eugene Farley who was too young for her."

  "And I thought I was the judgmental one," Andrew said dryly.

  Natalie ignored him. "He was completely out of his depth with someone like Viveca and look what she did to him."

  "You didn't even know Eugene Farley," Andrew said quietly. "And his death was not Viveca's fault."

  "Not directly, but she was the root of the problem. Thank heavens she's ancient history," Natalie said briskly. "What worries me is that you haven't dated anyone since her."

  "Who says?"

  "Come on, Dad."

  He drained his coffee mug and pushed his chair back from the table. "I happen to be seeing someone now."

  Natalie's eyes widened. "What? Who?"

  "I'm not telling you. You'll be driving past her house, asking your friends all kinds of personal questions about her, maybe even dropping by her place to offer free veterinary service to her cat just to get in the front door."

  "I wouldn't dream of prying into your life any more than you'd pry into mine," Natalie said slyly.

  Andrew rose, gathered his dishes, and carried them to the sink. "You have many wonderful qualities, Natalie, but subtlety isn't one of them. You'll find out about her when I'm ready for you to. That is if you stay long enough."

  "Oh, Dad, that isn't fair!" Natalie exclaimed. "A bribe to get me to stay?"

  "I like to look at it as an incentive."

  "You think you're pretty smart, don't you?" Natalie asked. "Well, don't be too pleased with yourself. You've already given away something about her."

  "And what would that be, Detective?"

  "She has a cat."

  Andrew smiled. "Good luck tracing her in a city of twenty thousand people with that piece of vital information." He turned on the faucet, drenched his dishes in water, and looked up at her. "I have work to do. Enjoy yourself today and Natalie, for once, try to stay out of trouble."

  Lily was picking her up at twelve-thirty for lunch. Dinner and clubbing last night, lunch today. I'm turning into a regular party girl, Natalie thought. Well, what better way to get over a broken heart? Except that this round of socializing couldn't go on forever. She needed to make a decision about Kenny.

  Natalie shook her head. She'd promised herself a week of relaxation with old friends. Next week she'd try to figure out the rest of her life. Right now all she needed to figure out was whether to wear a chain of silver or gold with her pale blue blouse. Silver. She tossed her long hair to one side and fas
tened the chain. First major decision of the day. "Natalie, you're making fantastic progress," she told her reflection in the mirror as she applied sienna-colored lipstick.

  The doorbell rang. Her father claimed he had errands.before rounds at the hospital and had left over two hours ago. Natalie thought he'd taken flight because he feared she and Lily might drag him to lunch. No matter. It was better to have Lily to herself. She might be able to find out something about Andrew's mysterious new girlfriend.

  When she opened the door, Natalie marveled as always at Lily's youthful appearance. Her long blond hair hung thick and straight to her shoulders with a fringe of bangs across her forehead. She wore tan linen slacks and a matching jacket over a green silk shell. Her large hazel eyes sparkled. She'd pushed her designer sunglasses atop her head and she flashed an impish grin. "How much trouble did you get into for not coming home until one a.m? Drunk."

  "Dad pretended to be asleep, but I know he wasn't. Still, he didn't rise to deliver a lecture. He doesn't want to drive me away in just three days, so he's going easy."

  "That won't last long. Your father is a good man, Natalie, but he never did cut you much slack. Hey, are you starving!"

  "No," Natalie said as she stepped out on the porch and pulled the door shut behind her. "Dad fixed me a huge breakfast."

  "He is working hard to keep you here. I live alone so I had a stale doughnut and a cup of lukewarm coffee. I could eat one of the hamburger deluxe platters at The Hearth. And a big piece of cheesecake with raspberry sauce."

  "I will never understand how you and Tamara eat so much and stay so thin. What are you? One-ten soaking wet?" Natalie asked, climbing into Lily's red Corvette. Ever since Lily was twelve, she'd wanted a red Corvette.

  "One hundred and fifteen," Lily said. "My sister, however, has dropped at least five pounds. Maybe more."