The Backup Plan

“Why don’t I find that nearly as reassuring as you evidently want me to?”

“Because you’re a suspicious kind of guy?” Cord suggested. Because he feared that sooner or later he’d slip up and mention Dinah, Cord balled up a piece of paper beside the mouthpiece of the phone. “Hey, Bobby, the connection’s going. We’ll talk again soon, okay?”

“Don’t you dare hang up on me. I know that trick,” he declared just as Cord hit the disconnect button.

Cord sighed, thanking his lucky stars that Bobby wasn’t the kind of man who asked about the latest gossip. When his phone immediately rang again, he ignored it.

The last thing Cord wanted to do was utter an outright lie. It was better for Bobby to keep right on working his tail off in Atlanta in blissful ignorance. Since Bobby also happened to have a fiancée, Cord could even tell himself he was being noble and protecting her interests as well.

Just then another fleeting image of Dinah Davis with her endless legs and lush curves popped into his head and made a liar out of him. That didn’t mean he intended to do anything about the attraction, he assured himself. He surely wasn’t going to go chasing after her.

But the best part of having known a female since childhood was the long-standing awareness of her weaknesses. Sooner or later frustration and indignation were going to kick in and Dinah was going to come to him.

Cord lifted his cup of coffee in a silent toast to predictability. God bless it! He’d gotten more women just by waiting them out than most men had with flowers and candy. Patience was a gift, no question about it. Luckily, he’d been born with an abundance of it.

4

Two weeks passed without a word from Bobby. Dinah was disappointed that he didn’t seem nearly as eager to renew their old relationship as she was. Or as she might be, she corrected. She wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. Was she just trying to find something to replace her career if she couldn’t conquer her post-traumatic stress issues and eventually go back to the network?

Acknowledging that possibility gave her a momentary twinge of guilt. Maybe Maggie was right. What right did Dinah have to disrupt Bobby’s life after ten years when she merely might be ready for marriage? Sure, at thirty-one her biological clock was probably ticking loudly, but she hadn’t even been listening to it until recently, not like a lot of women would be.

No, a relationship with Bobby was all about her desire to fill up her days with something that wouldn’t get her killed, to be around people who weren’t in danger of dying on a daily basis, to get her own equilibrium back.

Suddenly her reasons sounded damn selfish, but that didn’t stop her from wanting to meet Bobby and see how she would react. What was the point of having a backup plan if she wasn’t going to use it? If Bobby wasn’t interested in sticking to their deal then she’d have her answer. But how was she supposed to know how he felt without talking to him? Surely, after all they’d once meant to each other, he would at least tell her face-to-face that she was too late. He wouldn’t leave her twisting in the wind like this. It wasn’t one bit like him.

It was, however, a lot like Cord. There was always the very real possibility that Cord hadn’t gotten around to mentioning her visit to Bobby. It would be just like him to deliberately keep her message from his brother just to annoy her. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d done something totally underhanded to the two of them.

Another woman might have waited longer for Bobby to call on the off chance that he had made a conscious decision not to see her. Another woman might have feared being totally humiliated by the prospect of laying her heart bare and risking rejection, but Dinah wasn’t most women. She’d braved far greater risks than rejection.

Besides, she was growing restless and increasingly tired of trying to evade her mother’s worried interrogations. She’d come home on a mission. Perhaps it was a misguided one, but it was time she made something happen. Sitting around idle or being evasive wasn’t her style.

She intended to take Ray’s well-meant advice to heart. She was going to seriously consider getting married and having babies and put her dangerous, nomadic life behind her. She was beginning to wonder if she wouldn’t prefer being shot at, rather than bored to death but the instant that thought crossed her mind, she knew that she needed to find Bobby immediately. She couldn’t leave her fate in some other person’s hands, especially when that person was Cordell.

With that in mind, Dinah went shopping, found herself the prettiest little sundress in all of Charleston, then drove right back out to the Beauforts'. She planned on busting right past Cord if he was guarding the threshold again. This time she would see Bobby or find evidence that would point her in the direction of wherever he was.

As she made the trip, she realized what a wonder it was that she’d ever gotten to know Bobby and Cordell. They weren’t exactly poor, but they definitely hadn’t run in the same social circles as the Davises. They had been befriended by someone who did travel in the same circles and so Dinah had met them at an early age. Only much, much later had she realized the enormity of the gift that someone had given them by enrolling them in the best private schools in Charleston.

Cord had been a pain in the neck even then. Two years older and precocious, he’d seemed to sense that he and his brother were tolerated rather than accepted. He understood that they were in that fancy private school because of someone’s charity and he’d resented it. He’d set out to stir things up in a way that pretty much guaranteed that he wouldn’t even be tolerated by the time he hit his teens. Whoever their benefactor had been, he or she had let Cord’s ungrateful behavior pass. Maybe the person had even understood the cause of it. Dinah certainly hadn’t, not back then, anyway.

Of course, as time went by, that dangerous, rebellious streak had only made Cord more attractive to a certain group of risk-taking debutantes intent on giving their mothers the vapors. Dinah had most definitely not been one of them. If she’d held a secret fascination for the black sheep Beaufort brother, she’d been far too sensible to act on it. Even-tempered Bobby had suited her then and he suited her now. She’d come home in search of someone comforting, not a man who exasperated her at every turn, no matter what Maggie thought to the contrary.

Unfortunately, after she’d jarred her teeth driving over the rutted road that supposedly passed for a driveway, she found only Cordell. He was again sprawled in that shaded hammock, beer at his side, jeans riding low on his hips, his amazing abs now in full view. Her impression that he hadn’t changed from being a lazy, good-for-nothing jerk was correct. But for the first time Dinah couldn’t help but admire his body. Maggie had been right. God had given this man a real gift and he was wasting it out here in the middle of nowhere. He ought to pose for his own calendar, so women everywhere could ogle him in the privacy of their own homes. Dinah realized that even that would be too enterprising for Cord Beaufort.

When Cord didn’t immediately call out some insult, she concluded with relief that he was asleep. She decided to creep past him and go in search of Bobby.

She’d almost made it, when Cord’s hand snaked out and grabbed hers, hauling her to a stop. She couldn’t help noticing that despite his annoying, powerful grip, there was something amazingly sensual about the way her hand fit into his, the way his thumb rubbed a lazy little circle over her pulse. She swore to herself that the heat suddenly sizzling through her blood was due to the steamy afternoon temperature and had nothing at all to do with his almost hypnotic touch.

“I thought you were sleeping,” she accused, struggling to free herself.

“That’s not the first mistake you’ve made about me,” Cord said, his mouth curving into a grin. “I imagine you’re still prowling around looking for my brother.”

She saw no reason to deny it. “Yes.”

“He’s still out of town.”

Something in his overly-pleased tone told her that he most likely had something to do with that. “How much longer is he going to be gone?” she asked.

His gaze caught hers and held. “How long are you going to stick around Charleston?”

His words all but confirmed her suspicion. She scowled at him. “Why don’t you want me to see Bobby?”

Cord gave her a stunned look that was all innocence, or would have been if he were the sort to be constitutionally capable of maintaining an innocent act. Dinah acknowledged that it was a fairly decent attempt, though. Lord knew, he’d had enough practice perfecting it.

“Hey, my brother’s a grown man,” Cord told her. “He can see anyone he wants to see.”

“Then you’ve told him I’m here?”

He considered the question with a thoughtful expression. “Could be that it slipped my mind,” he finally admitted.

“Why?”

“I have a lot going on these days,” he said with a shrug. “I can’t remember everything.”

“Yeah, right. I can see for myself just how busy you are. It must be purely exhausting walking clear across the lawn to get your next beer.”

“Sugar, surely you’re not suggesting that I’m lying to you,” he said with a trace of feigned indignation.

“That’s exactly what I’m suggesting,” she retorted.

“Why would I want to keep you and Bobby apart?” he asked, feigning innocence once more.

“I was wondering that very thing myself. I don’t understand it today any better than I did ten years ago when you made up a whole passel of lies to try to come between us. What is it, Cord? Can’t you bear the thought of your brother being happy?”

“With you?” he asked with such blatant skepticism that Dinah winced.

“He loves me,” she retorted.

“Is that so?”

“He proposed to me.”

“When exactly was that?”

“A while back,” she said, unwilling to admit just how long ago it had been.

“Ten years,” Cord said, proving he knew more than Dinah had suspected. “And you assume he’s been sitting around here pining for you all this time? How insulting is that? Bobby and I may not be a bit alike, but saint that he is, he’s still a man with needs, if you know what I mean.”

As smart and intuitive as Dinah had always thought herself to be, she was forced to concede that she’d never seriously taken into account the possibility that Bobby might have moved on. She assumed he’d dated, but she’d only considered then dismissed the possibility he’d found a new love of his life. But maybe Cord was right. Maybe she was taking Bobby’s affections for granted. In light of the deep feelings she’d developed for someone else during the past ten years, she had to acknowledge the possibility Bobby had indeed found someone else.