The Best Way to Lose

“You Could Always Arrange to Have a Male Escort to Parties, Pilar…”

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright © 1983 by Janbil, Ltd.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce
this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
For information address Simon & Schuster Inc.,
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

Originally published by Silhouette Books.

ISBN: 1-416-58875-2    ISBN: 978-1-416-58875-7
eISBN: 978-1-451-63982-7

First Pocket Books printing August 1986

Map by Ray Lundgren

POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.

Printed in the U.S.A.

THE BEST WAY TO LOSE

D
r. Webster. Dr. Webster, please report to Emergency. Dr. Webster.” Striking chimes preceded the call by the disembodied voice paging through the hospital corridors.

The sounds, the smells permeating the air, all seemed intensified to Pilar Santee as she stood by the window in the waiting room. Her slim body was tense almost to the point of rigidity. Everything seemed so loud—the hushed murmur of worried voices within the room, the rustle of polyester uniforms in the hallways, the alerting chimes of the hospital page. Like the strong, medicinally antiseptic odor that burned her nose, they had a highly irritating quality.

“Would you like some coffee, Pilar?” The
soft, solicitous inquiry came from a point near her elbow.

Stiffly Pilar turned from the window and checked the impulse to respond with a sharp negative. The rawness of her violently churning emotions and aggravated senses had darkened her eyes to near-black. For an instant Pilar could only stare at the lingering traces of shock and tears in Sandra Kay’s face. The sight of all that sympathy from her friend nearly sickened her.

“No, thank you.” It was a taut and quick reply.

Her glance swung to the others who had gathered in the waiting room to share this vigil with her. All their expressions showed some form of deep concern. It seemed such a contradiction to her own feelings, which were dominated by anger. Her agitation increased because it was so wrong to feel this way. Pilar glanced at the heirloom ring on her wedding finger and rubbed it absently as if it were some kind of talisman. She didn’t understand why her eyes were so dry. Why wasn’t she upset like the others? Elliot was her husband.

It became imperative to get out, to get away from all this caring sympathy. She didn’t understand the raw, raging anger that was bottled inside, and she was much too well bred to let it show.

“Excuse me,” she murmured tautly as she started to walk by Sandra Kay Austin. “I’m going to step out for a moment.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“No.” Pilar paused, fighting the hot urges to scream at her friend that she wanted to be alone. With brittle control she managed to insist, “I’d rather you would stay here with the others. I won’t be long.”

There was hesitation in Sandra Kay’s expression, an unwillingness to accept that Pilar really meant what she said. Before the searching gaze could uncover the feelings Pilar was trying to contain, she walked to the door and into the hallway. Her steps immediately slowed, her glance drawn to the closed door of the Intensive Care Unit room. She’d been allowed to see him once—for a very few minutes only.

Her unusually acute hearing caught part of a remark made by someone in the waiting room. “—taking it very well.” She wanted to laugh, because she was “taking it” badly. Snatches of other conversations came rushing back. “—collapsed on the tennis court—massive coronary—heart damage—” Rage tumbled inside her, driving her forward.

The chapel sign beckoned to her. With a challenging tilt of her dark head, Pilar entered the hallowed sanctuary. Beneath all the taut anger, there was a desperate wish that, here, she would find relief from these bitterly resentful feelings.

A deep stillness surrounded her as she moved quietly to the polished oak pew in the front and sat down. Her gaze became fixed on
the cross at the altar. The strength of her faith had always been something she could rely on, but it seemed to have forsaken her.

Pilar sat very still and very quiet, her hands folded calmly in the lap of her smoke-blue skirt and her head unbowed. Light spilled from the altar to shine on her proud features and sable-black hair. Her mind’s eye brought back the riling image of Elliot as she had last seen him—so deathly pale, tubes stuck in his arms and nose, with all sorts of monitoring gadgets attached to him and surrounded by beeping machines.

A raw groan came from her throat, almost animal in its origin. It wasn’t fair that this should happen to Elliot … with no warning … no reason. He was in excellent physical shape, trimly muscled and lean. Someone, attempting to comfort her, had tried to assure her that sudden attacks were to be expected for a man of Elliot’s age. Pilar violently rejected that reasoning. Elliot Santee was unquestionably the youngest fifty-five-year-old man she’d ever met.

Anger trembled again, an emotion that should have been alien in this place of worship. Pilar quietly sank to her knees in front of the altar, clasping her hands in a prayerful pose and resting them on the smooth railing. But no words of prayer came to her lips.

All she could remember was the way she constantly teased Elliot about his daily ritual of exercise—jogging, swimming, and weight lifting, plus a couple of games of golf or tennis
each week. And Elliot, so handsome and charismatic, had always teased her back, insisting that a man his age had to stay in shape when he had such a young bride. After five years of marriage he still referred to her as his bride, surprising her with gifts of flowers or jewelry for no reason at all other than a desire to give.

Their May-December marriage had raised many an eyebrow in Natchez and brought forecasts of its early demise, but their age difference had never bothered them. It was something they joked about. Elliot was always fond of bragging that he’d swept Pilar off her twenty-four-year-old feet when they’d first met.

So many plans for the future had been made, so many things they wanted to do together. It wasn’t right that he might be taken from her. Pilar railed against the thought, violently opposing the very idea of it.

A hand touched her shoulder and she cast a startled glance upward into the benignly sympathetic eyes of the minister from their church. He smiled gently.

“I thought I might find you here, Mrs. Santee.” When she started to stand up, his hand increased its pressure slightly to prevent the movement. “Let me join you in prayer.”

As he knelt at the railing beside her, Pilar was plagued by the hypocrisy of her emotions. She didn’t want to pray; she wanted to demand. She wasn’t righteous—she was indignant.

“Our heavenly Father…” As the minister
began Pilar shut her eyes and ears to the words she couldn’t genuinely support. His quiet voice droned in the background of her hearing while she remembered how Elliot had carried her up the stairs of their beautiful antebellum home in Natchez just last week. Which was hardly the sort of thing to be recalling at this particular moment. “… and give comfort to those who love him. Amen.”

Unclasping her clenched fingers, Pilar pushed at the railing to lever herself upright the instant he finished. “Thank you, Reverend Chasmore.” Her finely controlled expression showed none of the emotions smoldering within.

He was slower to rise. “It was my pleasure, Mrs. Santee.” Again he spoke in a comforting tone. “I hope you haven’t tried to reach me earlier. I was out calling on some of my parishioners and decided to stop by to make my hospital rounds before returning to the parsonage. Mrs. Parker in Admissions told me the news about your husband.”

“Yes.” She searched for something to say. “It was very good of you to come.” Words without meaning, polite phrases spoken because they were expected.

“Have you taken the time to eat something since you’ve been here?” The minister fell in step with her as she turned away from the altar and walked to the door. Her soul had supposedly been nourished by prayer, so now he was trying to see that her body was fed.

“No. I’m really not hungry,” she replied
firmly even though she had missed the late breakfast Cassie had been preparing for her when Field Carlton had come by to break the news to her.

“Mrs. Austin told me you haven’t left the waiting room since you arrived this morning.” It was a benevolent reproach. “Why don’t you come to the cafeteria with me and have some coffee?”

“Honestly, I don’t want anything,” Pilar insisted, struggling not to snap at him. She sensed his desire to press the issue, but the set of her features seemed to make him hesitate as he opened the chapel door for her to exit the quiet room.