Part 8 (1/2)

”Belly dancing?”

She could hear him smiling and her own lips tilted upward. ”Suffice it to say isolating and controlling individual muscle groups is even harder than it sounds.”

”I wouldn't mind watching you try.”

”Yeah, well, don't get too excited about the idea. As far as I'm concerned it was a one-time experience. I think my time would be better spent confirming that J.J.'s death really was an accident.” And researching her columns. Not to mention coming to terms with all the changes taking place in her body.

”What's going on with that?”

”I finally got hold of Blaine Stewart. He's still in the Atlanta regional office of the GBI, but he's out in the field more than he's in the office. The case is closed, and I'm a family member so there shouldn't be a problem with him talking to me and showing me whatever I ask for, but it's not exactly at the top of his to-do list.”

”Well, keep me posted,” Stone said. ”I'm getting ready to head out toward the Pakistani border. I think I've finally found the right contact to get me a shot at the interviews I've been angling for. But communication may be sporadic for a while.”

She could hear the barely concealed excitement in his voice, knew he could hardly wait to be off, chasing the story, hunting down the sources he sought wherever they might be hiding. However murderous they might be. Vivien was awake now, uncomfortably so.

”Wow,” she said. ”That's great.” She was careful not to sound anything but thrilled for him. This was who he was. This was what he did. As an expert on terrorism, Stone was at the top of the network news food chain. His live reports were featured regularly in prime time, and TV Guide had recently begun referring to him as the Afghanistan Adonis. If Vivien had even been considering telling him the truth, and that was a big ”if,” it was now out of the question. The last thing she wanted was for him to be worrying about what was going on at home.

”Yeah,” he said, and she could hear the satisfaction in his voice. ”The only downside is not being with you. I miss you, Vivi. A lot.”

”Me, too.”

”Hey,” he said. ”Maybe we could meet up in Europe for a few days next month. h.e.l.l, if I get the footage I'm hoping for, I might even be able to take a week. I was kind of picturing us back at that little villa we rented last spring in Tuscany.” His voice turned low and intimate and Vivi could picture it, too. Mornings in bed. Long walks through the lush countryside. Late dinners on the villa's ancient balcony.

His excitement built as he presented his plan. Everything was coming together for him now. For her, not so much. In fact, pretty much nothing in her life at the moment was of her planning. And a month from now? She'd be well into her fifth month. At which point, according to her trusty copy of What to Expect When You're Expecting, she'd probably be showing.

”Oh, I don't know,” Vivi began trying to think of some excuse that would sound reasonable. ”I, um, don't think I can do that.”

”Why not?” he asked, clearly puzzled.

Because by then her stomach and bulging b.r.e.a.s.t.s would be the first thing off the plane. Because she should have told him when she found out she was pregnant instead of waiting for the ”right” moment, which was clearly never going to materialize. Because the time for decision making was long past. She was having their baby in April and he might still be traipsing through caves in Afghanistan then. Or on his way to cover some new war or natural disaster on the other end of the earth.

When he came back to the States he could decide whether he wanted to be a part of that. Telling him now would do nothing but make her feel better-a.s.suming he reacted positively.

”I may have to be in New York then.” She didn't know where that had come from. ”I may have some new job interviews lined up.” Another big lie, though nowhere near as big as the thing she'd omitted. She just hoped that when everything came out, he would forgive her. It would be way too unfair to lose her career and Stone. It didn't even bear thinking about.

”That's great.” Stone's happiness for her was so genuine it hurt. He'd always been her greatest supporter. He didn't understand why she'd quit CIN or why she'd gone to Atlanta. Nor did he know how many jobs she'd already interviewed for. ”Do you want me to make some calls for you? I might be able to get you in to talk to some people at CBD; Randy Langford owes me. In fact, maybe I could get back to New York at the same time. Even a quick in and out would be better than not seeing you.”

Vivien's gut clenched at his eagerness. ”No, um, no,” Vivien said. ”I mean, the appointments aren't totally firmed up. I wouldn't want you planning a whole trip around my schedule when it's so . . . uncertain.”

”Vivi,” Stone said. ”I know you. You need to be working. I could help.”

Vivien could hardly believe how hard it was to have this conversation, to offer lie after lie to the one person she'd always told the truth to. ”I guess getting shot threw me a little more than I realized. I just need to take it easy a while longer,” she said. ”I want to hang out with my family.”

There was another silence. Even she couldn't believe she'd just said that.

”We're actually going to my parents for dinner a little later,” she added. ”When Melanie and the kids get back from church.”

”That's great,” Stone said. ”Be sure to give everybody my best.”

His tone telegraphed his hurt and surprise at her refusal to meet him. And who could blame him? If she were her usual proactive self she would meet him either in New York or Europe and explain everything face-to-face, being sure to let him know that he was under no obligation whatsoever. But between her whacked-out hormones, her inability to come to terms with her impending motherhood, and her loss of the career that had so defined her, she was about as far from herself as it was possible to be. And she couldn't face the possibility that by telling him the truth she might lose him. Or worse, bind him to her for the wrong reasons.

She, who had always sought the truth regardless of how deeply it was hidden and with little regard for the possible repercussions, was now afraid of it.

”Yeah. I will,” she said, hating how things had been left but unable to say the things that would fix it. ”I'll be watching for your reports. I know you'll get the story you're going after. You always do.”

”Things will work out for you, too, Vivi,” he said, making her feel even worse about deceiving him. ”You're way too talented and experienced not to find something even better than what you left. Dan was an imbecile to let you go.”

”Yeah,” she said. Dan was an imbecile not to ignore her rantings and ravings. A moron for listening to consultants who'd told him she needed to be replaced.

As she and Stone said their good-byes Vivien knew exactly who the real imbecile was, and it wasn't her ex-boss, Dan Kramer. It was the middle-aged pregnant woman presently cowering in her sister's guest room bed, staring forlornly into the dresser mirror.

12.

THE DRIVE TO Magnolia Hall was not an especially cheerful or talkative one. Vivien rode silently beside Melanie, her gaze on the traffic, her thoughts her own. In the backseat Shelby's thumbs flew over her cell phone keyboard in constant communication with . . . someone. Trip listened to his iPod, his eyes closed, his head nodding to the tinny beat.

Melanie, who with Clay's help had wrestled both children out of bed and then threatened them into continued wakefulness through what even to her had felt like a never-ending church service, was already exhausted. Finding her sister still lolling around in bed when they returned at noon hadn't helped her mood one bit.

Driving south on Highway 400, she struggled to tamp down her irritation; going to her parents already agitated was like taking coals to Newcastle. As she wove in and out of traffic, she noticed a spanking-new sign declaring 400 the Hospitality Highway, but none of the other drivers looked any more hospitable than she felt.

At the Lenox Road/Buckhead exit she merged off of 400 and turned eastward, taking Piedmont across Roswell Road. They were now in the heart of Buckhead's residential neighborhoods, which the same people who'd tried to make the Atlanta interstate system kinder and gentler liked to refer to as the ”Beverly Hills of the South.”

On wooded multiacre lots mansions in the making sprang from gaping gashes in the red earth, their ma.s.sive footprints declaring their owners' wealth and aspirations. There were European and Mediterranean villas next to the latest version of Tara, s.h.i.+ny new and trying to look historic. But there were also original Greek Revival and southern Colonials built by Atlanta's leading architects. Of these, Magnolia Hall, barely visible from its gated entrance on Tuxedo Road, was one of the best known.

Four breaths were drawn in a silent girding of the loins as Melanie punched in the security code and waited silently for the ma.s.sive iron gates to swing open.

Inside they crossed a wooden bridge that spanned the small creek that ran along the front of the property. From there, the drive wound gently upward through a stand of trees and up the swell of a hill.

Once this had been virgin forest belonging to the Creek Indians. After the United States government wrested it from its original owners, it held a lottery. And in the early 1820s a Gray widow by the name of Matilda won fifty-five acres, on which she and her young sons built a farm. During the Civil War Federal troops closing in on Atlanta camped in fields around the area, including those belonging to the widow Gray.

Melanie smiled as she remembered her grandmother's telling of her ancestors' harrowing story. The widow Gray was buried on the land she'd won; her descendants sold off parcels of it to fund a lavish lifestyle and to underwrite their social and political ambitions. In the early 1900s, when the increasing popularity of the automobile turned the still-rural area into a year-round residential suburb, the current crop of Grays retained Neel Reid, one of Atlanta's most prominent architects, to draw up plans for a magnificent Greek Revival-style mansion. He positioned this masterpiece at the top of a hill in the very center of Widow Gray's remaining six and a half acres. They named it Magnolia Hall.

Melanie had often been uncertain about her role as a Gray and her relations.h.i.+p with her parents. But she'd never questioned her love for the home in which she'd grown up, or the pull she felt each time she pa.s.sed beneath the allee of ma.s.sive oaks that led her to it.

Pulling to a stop in the circular drive, Melanie nudged Vivi, who'd fallen asleep, her chin digging into her chest, her breathing slow and even. If sleeping were an Olympic sport, Vivien would have more medals than Michael Phelps. ”Wake up,” Melanie said. ”We're here.”

Vivien's return to consciousness was slow; Shelby and Trip's less so. By the time Melanie had gotten Vivien out of the car, the kids were already up the front sweep of steps, past the initial phalanx of Doric columns and halfway across the sprawling porch. Evangeline, Magnolia Hall's longtime housekeeper, stood in the opened front doorway, a huge smile on her elegant ebony face. Her arms were open. One foot tapped impatiently.

Evangeline, who was approaching her eighth decade, stood tall and regal as befitted the descendant of Nubian royalty she claimed to be. She had come to Magnolia Hall while Warren Gray was a teenager and had never left. After a brief power struggle with Warren's bride, the two women had ultimately created a working relations.h.i.+p both could live with; Caroline told Evangeline what to do and Evangeline sometimes pretended to do it.

”Why, I swear you two are lookin' mighty fine,” Evangeline said to Shelby and Trip as she took them up in a bone-crus.h.i.+ng hug and then released them to the bas.e.m.e.nt rec room, where they would hang with their older cousins.

Melanie noted Evangeline's impression of Mammy from Gone with the Wind, a delivery she used to irritate Caroline. She could tell from Vivien's grin that she had caught it, too.

”Now you two,” the housekeeper sniffed at Melanie and Vivien. Her dark eyes glinted with affection. ”You two look a might too much like something the cat drug in.”

Melanie ignored the jibe, which she suspected was all too true, and instead focused on the accompanying hug, an embrace she knew would not be duplicated by their mother.