From Glowing Embers

  ~ ~ ~

  Gray dealt another card to Jody. “Now what am I supposed to do?”

  “Look at your cards and see if any of them match,” the little girl instructed him. “If they do, put them down in pairs. If they don’t, just hold on to them. And if you’ve got a queen, say your prayers.”

  Gray smiled at her. “Are you an old maid card shark?”

  “What’s a card shark?”

  Gray laid down a pair. “A little girl with brown braids who whomps up on unsuspecting grown-ups.”

  Jody giggled. “You’re silly, Gray.”

  He nodded as he held out his cards for her to make a selection. She made a pair from the card she had drawn. “Hey, no fair, shrimp. You’re not supposed to beat me on my first try.”

  “All’s fair,” Jody said philosophically.

  Gray laughed at the very adult expression. His experience with children might be limited, but he had already realized that Jody was brighter than most, and more mature. He knew little about her personally except that she was eight and going into third grade. She’d informed him that she read on a tenth-grade level, and she was preparing to learn algebra in a special class at school. Clearly the special class was for gifted children.

  The only other thing Gray knew was that Jody was precious cargo, a child caught up in adult games that made old maid the child’s play it really was. She was the daughter of a friend of a friend, and Gray was delivering her to her mother in Hawaii because decency and compassion demanded it. Now that he knew her a little better, he was glad he had taken the risk.

  He watched her finger the shell necklace Julianna had given her. He wondered what had gone through Julianna’s head when she had seen him sitting next to the little girl. Did Julianna believe that Jody was his? From the stricken expression on her face, he imagined that she did.

  Gray would have liked to relieve her mind, and he would have, if he’d been allowed to talk to her. But he hadn’t been allowed to. What kind of a bastard did she think he was? Could she truly believe he had divorced her immediately and married again to produce this child?

  “Gray, it’s your turn.”

  From the way Jody said the words, Gray knew it wasn’t the first time she’d said them.

  “Sorry,” he apologized. “You mean I get a chance to go? I thought you had me beaten already.”

  Jody giggled. “We have to play to the end.”

  “You mean I have to wait to get beaten?”

  “I’ll try to make it quick.”

  “Maybe we should teach you blackjack and take you to Vegas.”

  Jody giggled. “I already know how to play blackjack. And I play five card draw and seven card stud, too.”

  Gray forced himself to concentrate on the game in front of him. He was grateful the little girl had interrupted his reminiscences. Thinking about Julianna wasn’t making things any easier. The past was over. There was no way to change what had happened. Ellie was gone. Julie Ann was gone, replaced by the successful and stunning Julianna. Gray, the young man torn between a love that had come too soon and a beckoning future, was gone, too. A man proverbially sadder and wiser was left. And one thing he was wiser about was not mourning the past. He had learned the hard way that it didn’t help.

  The game continued as the plane began a drop in altitude. The captain apologized over the loudspeaker for the increasing turbulence but assured them that it was to be expected. They had passed through the worst of the storm, and even though they were now low enough to experience the winds more fully, every minute of flying time took them farther from the storm’s center. Their landing should be trouble free.

  As he played, Gray thought of how the storm must be affecting Julianna. In ten years’ time he hadn’t lived through a storm without thinking of her. She had changed so much in a decade that he hadn’t recognized her, but he imagined one thing had stayed the same. She would still be frightened of storms. She might cover it with a veneer of sophistication, but she would still be afraid.

  “You’ve got the old maid.”

  “So I have.” Gray turned it over for Jody to see. “You win.”

  She nodded as if she had expected it. “Want to play again?”

  “We’ll be landing soon. I guess we’d better put the cards away.”

  Jody pouted, but she did as she was told.

  Gray settled back and wondered what he should do when he got into Honolulu. He wanted to talk to Julianna. There was too much at stake just to let it drop until he could track her down again. He wanted to get their discussion out of the way and put their past to rest as soon as possible.

  The time was long past for peace between them. In the days when she had still been Julie Ann to him, he had searched everywhere after her disappearance, but she hadn’t wanted to be found. The best professionals had finally told him it was useless to keep looking. If she was alive, she would eventually contact him. If she wasn’t...

  Gray hadn’t believed she was dead. He knew her for the courageous, intelligent woman that she was. Julie Ann would survive and make a new life for herself. Her disappearance was a clear message. She wanted that life to be far away from his.

  Perhaps he never would have found her if his friend Paige Duvall hadn’t gone to a fashion show last month in New Orleans and begun to put the pieces together. The clues had all been there. The young designer who was known only as Julianna was a Mississippi woman who had fallen in love with the islands and now made her home there. Paige had only glimpsed her, but her curiosity had been piqued by the vague resemblance to a picture Gray had once shown her.

  The information had been one more long shot to follow up on. Through the years there had been other long shots, and Gray might not have followed up on this one if it had been difficult. But it was easy to pick up a phone, call the department store in New Orleans and request their promotional material on the Julianna Islandwear Corporation.

  He had opened up the manila envelope, and there had been Julie Ann, hair drawn back from her face, a slight smile on her lips, staring back at him from a softly focused studio portrait on a brochure being distributed in better stores all over the United States.

  After that, it had been simple to find out about her. And it had been equally simple to get a copy of her schedule, even to the extent of finding out the exact flight she would be taking back to Hawaii. It hadn’t been simple, however, to decide what to do with the information.

  Since Gray had seen Julianna, he hadn’t once thought about the reason why he had decided to confront her personally. Now he did. Paige Duvall had a part in this, too. Paige was an old friend who had recently become something more. It was time for Gray to think about his future, time to start building something solid and sure and comfortable.

  Paige would be meeting him in Honolulu tomorrow. Gray shut his eyes and wondered why he felt no pleasure. His past was sitting in the next cabin of the airplane; his future would be waiting for him tomorrow in Hawaii.

  And he was suspended somewhere in the middle. Alone, just as he had been for ten long years.