Authors: Janet Dailey
Stiffening, Andrea met his mocking gaze. "Sometimes we just sit and talk."
"About tennis?" There was a faint jeer in his tone.
"No, about a lot of other things."
"What business is it of yours anyway, Tell?" Nancy challenged.
"Just curious, my pet," he smiled coldly at his sister. "Considering the amount of time they spend together, I was just wondering how friendly Mrs. Grant was with her instructor, Mr. Towers."
"Leslie Towers and I are fairly good friends and quite close, Mr. Stafford,"
Andrea retorted. "Leslie is not only a friend but she's a female. So if you're through with your insults, lets play tennis. Shall I serve first or will you?"
Tell stared at her, hard, black eyes boring into her as if to seek some sign that she was lying. Andrea met them without flinching.
"What's the matter, Mr. Stafford? Are you disappointed to discover that I'm not having an affair with my tennis instructor?"
"Andrea." Nancy touched her arm in a placating gesture.
She sighed and bounced the ball to Tell. "You serve."
"Ladies first," he countered, flipping the ball back to her and walking to the near side of the court.
With his blazing return of the first serve, Andrea knew this would be no friendly tennis game. He intended to challenge her skill with every ball over the net. During the first set, she managed to stay close with the help of some lucky saves.
By the middle of the second set, as she chased his returns from one end of the court to the other, she knew he intended to run her into the ground. He was in command and on the offensive. Her defense was rapidly crumbling under the onslaught.
Lobbing a return to Tell, Andrea saw him set up for a blazing crosscourt smash. She ordered her tiring muscles to race to meet it. The ball was traveling at such a speed that there was only a slim chance that she could reach it. Stretching, she managed to get her racket on it, but her momentum sent her tumbling onto the court and the ball ricocheted off her racket and out of bounds.
Winded and beaten, she lay for a few precious seconds on the court. Her knee throbbed where she had grazed it in the fall. She pushed herself upright into a sitting position, breathing heavily from the exertion of the game. Overwhelming tiredness pounded through her, a physical and mental weariness that left her drained and vulnerable.
As she brushed the back of her hand over her forehead, her vision was momentarily blurred—whether by perspiration or weak tears, Andrea didn't know or care. Then Tell was towering above her, his dark gaze without even a glimmer of sympathy in their depths, glittering over her half-prone figure.
"Are you all right?" he asked with indifferent coldness.
Andrea swallowed the lump in her throat. "I bet you're sorry I didn't break my neck. But yes, I'm all right." She brushed at some imaginary dust on her pale yellow top.
"Give me your hand. I'll help you up," Tell ordered.
She stared at the tanned hand extended to her, wanting to feel his strong grip so desperately that it hurt. "No thank you," she said firmly.
"Give me your hand." It wasn't an offer. It was an order.
Glancing at his tightly clenched jaw, Andrea placed her trembling hand in his. Immediately, his hold tightened, and she felt the strength of his muscles easily pulling her to her feet. Whether or not it was accidental or deliberate on Andrea's part, the impetus carried her against his chest.
His hands quickly closed over her shoulders, keeping her there. Her head was tilted back to gaze into his face. Her heart raced like rolling thunder when she saw his dark eyes focus on her mouth.
Blind to everything but the rock wall of his chest, the pressure of his muscular thighs, the possessive grip of his hands and the glorious nearness of his masculine mouth, Andrea let a sparkle of hope and love shine in her eyes. His expression hardened. In the next instant he was roughly shoving her away, keeping only a steadying hand on her shoulder.
Why had she let him see? She blinked at the ground, humiliated that she had allowed herself to suffer his rejection again. She drew a shaky breath and shrugged free of his hand.
"Oh, Andrea, are you all right?" Nancy asked, coming to a breathless halt beside them.
"Of course she is," Tell answered. "It was only a little tumble."
"The game, set and match are yours, Mr. Stafford." Andrea's chin quivered in proud anger. "I declare you the winner."
"You've grazed your knee," Nancy observed.
"It's nothing," Andrea responded tautly as Tell accepted her declaration of forfeit without comment. "I'll put some antiseptic on it up at the house and it'll be fine."
"Would you like some help?" The large blue eyes expressed concern and sympathy.
"Don't waste your sympathy on her, Nancy," Tell cut in sharply. "Despite her fragile appearance, Mrs. Grant is quite hard underneath. She's more than capable of taking care of herself."
"How would you know?" Andrea retaliated bitterly. "You don't know anything about me."
His mouth thinned with hard cynicism. "I've met your kind before."
Scalding tears sprang to her eyes as Andrea turned abruptly away. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Nancy's movement to follow her and the restraining hand Tell placed on her shoulder to stop her.
"Let her go, Nancy," he ordered in a low voice.
More words followed, but by then Andrea was too far away for them to be audible. She succeeded in slipping up the stairs to her room without being noticed. John and Rosemary were in the living room visiting, making up for lost years by bringing each other up to date on the happenings of their lives.
In the shower, Andrea didn't attempt to check the welling tears in her eyes, but let them mingle with the water spray. Later, wrapped in her short terry cloth robe, she sat curled in the center of her brass bed, her toweled head bowed, her hands resting listlessly on her crossed legs. Consciously, her mind was blank, but there was a whirl of torment around her.
There was a light rap on her door. "Who is it?" She rubbed any telltale traces of tears from her cheeks.
"It's me, Nancy," was the soft reply. "May I come in?"
"Yes, of course," Andrea replied, blinking several times, hoping there wasn't too much betraying redness in her eyes.
As the door opened, she pulled the towel from around her damp hair and began rubbing the strands in its folds. A faint smile was directed briefly at the girl who entered the room and closed the door behind her.
"I suppose your brother was the winner in your game, too," Andrea murmured dryly at the solemn look on Nancy's face.
"Of course. I…I brought your jacket back. You left it on the fence," Nancy replied with a bright and forced nonchalance.
"Thank you. I'd forgotten all about it. Just toss it over the end of the bed. I'll put it away later."
There was a moment of hesitation. "That isn't why I came," Nancy sighed. "I just used your jacket as an excuse."
The drying motion of the towel stopped for a brief second before it started again, more vigorously than before. "What was it you wanted, Nancy?" Unwillingly, a wariness crept into Andrea's voice.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, the attractive young woman stared at her hands, twisting them nervously in her lap. "I wanted to talk to you about Tell."
"Your brother?" Something cold froze in Andrea's chest, sending icy tendrils of fear through her system.
Nancy nodded mutely "I know how insulting he's been toward you. I can't begin to apologize for the way he's behaved, but I want you to know that it's not your fault. He's not really picking on you."
"Isn't he?" Andrea responded grimly.
"What I mean is that he's not specifically singling you out. He seems to be—" Nancy paused, searching for the right word to explain what she meant "—contemptuous of all women, not just you. A few months ago he met this girl. I know I probably shouldn't be talking about it, but…"
"It sounds very personal." Andrea could see where the conversation was leading. Somehow, she had to stop it. "You probably shouldn't tell me."
"No, I want you to know. Maybe if you do, his sarcasm won't hurt so much," Nancy explained, glancing anxiously at Andrea who slid to the side of the bed and walked to the dresser. "Each December, Tell arranges to take a long skiing weekend during the first part of the month before the Christmas rush starts at the stores. This last time he met a girl at Squaw Valley. Now, my brother is no saint. He's dated a lot of women and probably had affairs with several, but he's never really been seriously interested in any of them."
"Nancy, please?' Andrea's fingers curled around a comb, the teeth biting into her palm. Thank goodness her back was to the bed and Nancy couldn't see the agony that she couldn't hide.
"Let me finish," Nancy insisted. "I want you to understand why he is the way he is. The morning of the day he came home, Tell called saying he was bringing this girl home for us to meet. He told mother to bring out the champagne so they could toast the girl he was going to marry. But when he came home, he was alone."
"Did…did he tell you about her?" Unwillingly the question was asked. "Did he say what had happened?"
"He didn't say much about her on the phone except that she was the most beautiful woman in the world. He said we'd find out all about her when we met her. Of course—" Nancy breathed in deeply "—he didn't bring her home. Afterward, the only explanation he gave was that he had been lucky enough to discover what a cheap, scheming tramp she was."
Andrea winced, "I see," she murmured.
"He's become embittered and cynical because of her. When he lashes out at you, it's really that other girl that he's remembering," she concluded.
"Thank you, Nancy." Andrea had to speak softly to keep her voice from trembling with pain. "I do understand now."
"I know it isn't an adequate excuse for his behavior, but it is a reason," Nancy added hesitantly.
There was a moment of silence that Andrea was too choked to fill. Tell despised her so much.
"Well," Nancy sighed brightly, "I suppose I should go and shower and change before dinner. I think I have time. What time are mother's friends supposed to arrive?"
"Er—" Andrea breathed in, biting her upper lip as she tried to reply calmly "—around six thirty. John planned to serve cocktails first and eat around seven thirty."
"I can hear it now." Nancy walked toward the door, a smile curving her cupid's bow lips. ""My Nancy, how you've grown! I hardly recognize you.'" With a grimace of resignation at her own mimicry, she opened the door into the hall.
Andrea wished that Nancy had not reminded her of the small dinner party that John was giving for Rosemary Collins. The only thing she wanted at this minute was escape. But escape was impossible. A plea of a headache or illness would perhaps be accepted by John or Nancy, even Rosemary. Tell would guess the truth and all of John's friends would draw their own conclusions.
She raised her eyes. When was all this going to end? Would it ever end?
Clenching her hands into fists, she vowed that she would make it through the evening. Neither Tell's contempt nor the hostility of John's friends would make her collapse. She owed it to John not to make a scene, not to embarrass him in front of others.
Standing beside his wheelchair that evening, a glass of ginger ale concealing the nervous tremors of her hands, Andrea glanced about the room, away from the older couple talking to John and excluding her from their conversation. It was always this way whenever John invited his friends.
Since she had married John, they had never attempted to hide the fact that they thought John had made a fool of himself. In front of him, they treated her with grating politeness; alone, they were more than rude: they cut her out completely.
That was true of all of his friends except two or three who had known Andrea's father and were more sympathetic to the circumstances surrounding their marriage. It made entertaining difficult. Andrea had tried not to let John see how much his friends upset her because she didn't want to deprive him of their company. After all, they were his friends and had been for years.
With a softly murmured excuse to John that she wanted to check on dinner, Andrea slipped into the dining room. She knew that under Mrs. Davison's expert touch there was no need to be concerned about the meal. But she was glad to escape the suffocating atmosphere of the living room if only for a few minutes.
Walking to the filmy lace curtains covering the windows where the gold drapes were drawn back, Andrea stared at her reflection in the night-darkened window. Wearily, she sighed, knowing that in a few minutes her disappearance would be noted and she would have to return.
"Aren't you enjoying the party?" Tell inquired mockingly.
Andrea pivoted swiftly. A minute ago she had seen him in the living room talking to Judge Simpson, retired now but still using the title. Quietly, he closed the double doors behind him.
"I…I was checking on dinner," she said nervously, stepping toward
the table and realigning the already straight silverware.
"Is that what you're doing in here?" he asked complacently. "I though perhaps you were bored. You hardly spoke to anyone in the other room."