Temptation

“That’s okay, dollface,” he reassured her. “If you can’t, you can’t. I’ll survive.”

Jason scowled at him. “Walker, you’re not the only one whose career is at stake,” he reminded him.

“Oh?” Neil said nastily. “Yours, too?”

“I was referring to the rest of the cast.” He fixed his gaze on Callie. “Please, it’s not as if I’m asking you to work the coal mines or to dig ditches. It’s an acting job, a very lucrative acting job. You might have fun.”

“And I might be publicly humiliated.” She met his gaze evenly. “No. I’m sorry. I can’t do it.”

She looked around the table. Terry appeared resigned. Jason seemed to be gearing up for another battle. Only Neil shot her a look of understanding, even as he tried to cheer up Terry.

“I have to go,” she said suddenly, tossing her napkin onto the table and taking off. To her relief, no one followed. She wasn’t sure she could have said no a second time, knowing how much depended on her relenting.

Miserable over having to let Terry down twice when he’d asked for her help and furious with Jason for putting her in that position in the first place, she detoured to Central Park West and walked along the edge of the park to get a grip on her mixed emotions before finally venturing home again.

When she eventually trudged up the stairs, she fully expected Terry’s door to be thrown open and at least two people to accost her for another round of badgering. When the door remained tightly shut, she sighed and continued to climb. She couldn’t help wondering if her friendship with Terry would weather her letting him down.

Not until she turned on the third-floor landing and started up the last flight of steps did she realize that someone was waiting in the shadows.

“Jason?”

When no one replied, her steps became slower and more cautious. “Who’s there?”

“Callie?” a frail, tentative voice called out.

Callie stopped in her tracks as the voice registered. “Mother? Is that you?”

“Yes.”

She took the remaining steps two at a time to see for herself. Sure enough, sitting on the top step and huddled against the wall in a coat far too warm for the beautiful spring day was Regina Gunderson.

“Mother, what on earth? What are you doing here?”

“Eunice said she’d told you I was coming.”

Callie thought back to the threat her sister had made a few days earlier. She’d forgotten all about it. Or maybe she’d just taken for granted that Eunice’s temper would cool and the latest crisis would pass. Apparently it hadn’t. The proof was right before her.

An hour ago she would have sworn that her life couldn’t possibly get any more depressing, any more complicated. She sighed heavily. It appeared she’d been wrong about that, too.

7 (#uc47a5e72-ba83-553d-82f3-722658220266)

Eunice had lied. Regina had figured that much out the minute she got a good look at Callie’s face. Her daughter no more wanted her in New York than she wanted to be here.

The city hadn’t improved in the thirty years since she’d last seen it. It was filthy and, if the TV news shows were anything to judge by, it was overrun by thugs and gangs. From the minute she’d gotten into a cab at LaGuardia Airport, she’d been overwhelmed by the changes...all for the worse, from what she could see. The enormity of what she’d done by leaving the safety of the farm had terrified her.

The changes weren’t restricted to the city, either. Callie was showing signs of similar wear and tear. Her beautiful, full-of-life daughter appeared to have been beaten down by the twists her life had taken. First the divorce, then losing that job she’d been so crazy about. It was little wonder she appeared shell-shocked.

Regina regretted that more than she could ever say. She knew, though, that Callie would never believe her if she told her that she had envied her for breaking free of the farm, for fighting to go her own way. She had left such support unspoken for far too long, convinced that her loyalties lay with Jacob, who had violently opposed Callie’s leaving home, especially to go to New York.

Still, feeling a little blue was no excuse for letting herself go to seed. If Callie had tried to wear those decrepit clothes she had on to go out in Iowa on a Sunday, Regina would have sent her back to her room to change. Her own circumstances were so uncertain, however, that she kept that opinion to herself and tried not to let her dismay show on her face.

“I suppose you’re going to send me straight back,” she said to her daughter.

Even she recognized the odd combination of resignation and hope in her voice. She’d viewed this trip as a mixed blessing from the beginning. If she’d had her way, she’d have stayed on the farm where she’d spent the past thirty years of her life, but Eunice had insisted that Callie wanted her to come. She had practically packed her bags for her. Relief had shone on her face when she and that sorry husband of hers had dropped Regina at the airport. They’d stood at the gate until the last possible minute, probably to be sure she didn’t flee the plane before takeoff.

Regina would never understand her younger child’s compulsive need to meddle in her life. She understood her son-in-law far more clearly. He was as transparent as an old piece of lace. Tom wanted the farm. Everything he did, every helpful gesture, was meant to ingratiate himself with her so that she would see that he and Eunice got all of it when she died, cutting Callie off completely.

It just proved they didn’t know her at all. Even though she knew perfectly well that Callie wanted no part of the farm, her oldest was entitled to her share and Regina meant to see she had it. If Callie turned right around and sold it or gave it to her sister, that was her decision.

She risked another look at her daughter. “Do you want me to go?” she asked straight out. “Will I be in your way here?”

“Of course not,” Callie declared with obviously forced enthusiasm.

Unlike Eunice, Callie was a lousy liar. The truth was plain as could be on her face. A deep sorrow spread through Regina when she thought of the wide gulf between herself and her firstborn child. She knew, too, where the blame for that could be placed, squarely on her own doorstep.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Callie insisted despite whatever reservations she was harboring. “I’ve been asking you to come ever since I moved to New York.”

That was true, Regina conceded. But her husband had never wanted to set foot in a city he claimed was so filled with evil and she’d never been brave enough to cross him. Besides, she’d always feared that coming back to New York would remind her of all she had given up so many years ago. Her regrets ran deep enough as it was.

“I’m tired,” she said because she couldn’t bear to force more lies from Callie’s lips. “I think I’d like to rest for a bit.”

“Don’t you even want to take a look around the apartment?” Callie asked.

“Maybe later,” she said wearily, ignoring the vague note of hurt in her daughter’s voice. Maybe later she wouldn’t feel this deep resentment at having been shuffled off like an unwanted piece of furniture.

Callie nodded, then led the way to the guest room. She had a sympathetic expression on her face, as if she could read her mother’s mind.

Maybe she could, Regina thought as she slid between the cool, expensive sheets on the antique brass bed just like the one in Callie’s room back home. She turned her face toward the wall to avoid meeting her daughter’s eyes. After all, they’d both been trapped by Eunice and her selfish, controlling ways.

* * *

“How could you?” Callie demanded in a hushed, furious voice the minute she got through to her sister. “Why didn’t you warn me she was coming? She was sitting out here in the hallway all alone like some poor, homeless woman. It was awful, to say nothing of dangerous. What if she’d gotten lost coming from the airport? Or hadn’t had enough money for the cab? If she can’t cope in Iowa, how did you think she’d manage here?”

“I told you I was putting her on a flight to New York unless you came up with a better solution,” Eunice reminded her, her tone self-righteous. “I gave you until the weekend.”

“You still could have let me know she was on the way.”

“So you could have tried to buy more time with promises you never intended to keep?”

“So I could have met her at the airport or at least been here to welcome her.”

“Yeah, right,” Eunice said sarcastically. “Let’s not kid ourselves. You’re not mad because I didn’t tell you. You’re mad because she’s there.”

Callie clung to her patience by a thread. “Maybe so,” she admitted honestly. “It’s not the best time for me, but I wouldn’t have let her see it. She’s our mother, for goodness’ sake, not a shipment of corn.”

“I’m surprised you’re aware of the distinction, for all the effort you’ve put into her care.”

“God, Eunice, you are such a selfish pig,” Callie muttered, and slammed the phone down before she really got angry. Maybe in her own way, she was just as selfish, she admitted to herself, but she wasn’t cruel. That was the real difference between her and her sister.