"They don't mean a goddamn thing."

"They do!"

"The hell they do!" He sat back, glowering at her, his jaw working with pent-up rage. "The touches and sweet good-night kisses I can stomach if I have to. If you want to pretend that we're a loving, affectionate couple, go ahead. Make a fool of yourself. Just don't expect me to return the phony affection. Even the Senate seat wouldn't be enough inducement to get me into bed with you again, so thatshould tell you just how much I despise you." He paused for breath. "But the thing that really galls me is your sudden concern for Mandy. You put on quite a show for her last night."

"It wasn't a show."

He ignored her denial. "You'd damn sure better plan to follow through with the maternal act until she's completely cured. She couldn't take another setback."

"You sanctimonious. . ."Avery was getting angry in her own right. "I'm as interested in Mandy's recovery as you are."

"Yeah. Sure."

"You don't believe me?"

"No."

"That's not fair."

"You're a fine one to talk about fair." "I'm worried to death about Mandy." "Why?"

"Why?"she cried. "Because she's our child."

"So was the one you aborted! That didn't stop you from killing it!"

The words knifed through her. She actually laid an arm across her middle and bent forward as though her vital organs had been impaled. She held her breath for several seconds while she stared at him speechlessly.

As though loath to look at her, he got up and turned his back. At the counter he refilled his coffee cup. "I would have found out eventually, of course." His voice sounded as cold as ice. When he turned back around to confront her, his eyes looked just as piercingly cold.

"But to be informed by a stranger that my wife was no longer pregnant. . ." Seething, he glanced away. Again, it was as though he couldn't bear looking at her. "Can you imagine how I felt, Carole? Jesus! There you were, close to death, and I wanted to kill you myself." He swung his head back around and, as his eyes bore into hers, he clenched his free hand into a fist.

Out of her cottony memory, Avery conjured up voices Tate's:The child. . . effects on the fetus?

And someone else's:Child? Your wife wasn't pregnant.

The fractured conversation had meant nothing. Its significance had escaped her. It had blended into the myriad confusing conversations she had overheard before she had fully regained consciousness. She had forgotten it until now.

"Didn't you think I'd notice that you failed to produce a baby? You were so eager to flaunt it in my face that you were pregnant, why didn't you let me know about your abortion, too?"

Avery shook her head miserably. She had no words to say to him. No excuses. No explanations. But now she knew why Tate hated Carole so.

"When did you do it? It must have been just a few days before your scheduled trip to Dallas. Didn't want to be hampered by a baby, did you? It would have cramped your style."

He bore down on her and loudly slapped the surface of the table. "Answer me, damn you. Say something. It's about time we talked about this, don't you think?"

Avery stammered, "I. . .I didn't think it would matter so much." His expression turned so ferocious, she thought he might actually strike her. Rushing to her own defense, she lashed out, "I know your policy on abortion, Mr. Rutledge. How many times have I heard you preach that it's a woman's right to choose? Does that pertain to every woman in the state of Texas except your wife?"

"Yes, dammit !"

"How hypocritical."

He grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet. "The principle that applies to the public at large doesn't necessarily carry over into my personal life.Thisabortion wasn't anissue.It was my baby."

His eyes narrowed to slits. "Or was it? Was that another lie to keep me from throwing you out, along with the other trash?"

She tried to imagine how Carole might have responded. "It takes two to make a baby, Tate."

As she had hoped, she had struck a chord. He released her arm immediately and backed away from her. "I sorely regret that night. I made that clear as soon as it happened. I'd sworn never to touch your whoring body again.

"But you've always known which buttons to push, Carole. For days you'd been curling up against me like a cat in heat, mewing your apologies and promises to be a loving wife. If I hadn't had too much to drink that night, I would have recognized it for the trap it was."

He gave her a scornful once-over. "Is that what you're doing now, laying another trap? Is that why you've been the model wife since you got out of the hospital?

"Tell me," he said, propping his hands on his hips, "did you slip up that night and get pregnant by accident? Or was getting pregnant and having an abortion part of your plan to torment me? Is that what you're trying to do againamake me want you? Prove that you can get me into your bed again, even if it means sacrificing your own daughter's welfare in order to prove it?"

"No," Avery declared hoarsely. She couldn't endure his hatred, even though it wasn't intended for her.

"You no longer have any power over me, Carole. I don't even hate you anymore. You're not worth the energy it requires to hate you. Take all the lovers you want. See if I give a damn.

"The only way you could possibly hurt me now is through Mandy, and I'll see you in hell first."

That afternoon she went horseback riding. She needed the space and open air in which to think. Feeling silly wearing the formal riding clothes, she asked the stable hand to saddle her a mount.

The mare shied away from her. As the aging cowboy gave her a boost up, he said, "Guess she hasn't forgotten the whipping you gave her last time." The mare was skittish because she didn't recognize her rider's smell, but Avery let the man believe what he wanted.

Carole Rutledge had been a monsteraabusive to her husband, her child, everything she had come into contact with, it seemed. The scene over breakfast had left Avery's nerves raw, but at least she knew what she was up against. The extent of Tate's contempt for his wife was understandable now. Carole had planned to abort his childaor one she claimed was hisathough whether she had done so before the crash would forever remain a mystery.

Avery pieced together the scenario. Carole had been unfaithful and had made no secret of it. Her faithlessness would be intolerable to Tate, but with his political future at risk, he decided to remain married until after the election.

For an unspecified period of time, he hadn't slept with his wife. He'd even moved out of their bedroom. But Carole had seduced him into making love to her one more time.

Whether the child was Tate's or not, Carole's abortionwasa political issue, and Avery believed she had planned it that way. It made her ill to think about the negative publicity and grave repercussions if anyone ever found out. The public effect on Tate would be as profound as the personal one.

When Avery returned from her ride, Mandy was assisting Mona with baking cookies. The housekeeper was very good with Mandy, so Avery complimented Mandy's cookies and left her in the older woman's care.

The house was quiet. She had seen Fancy roar off in her Mustang earlier. Jack, Eddy, and Tate were always in the city at this time of day, working at either the campaign headquarters or the law office. Dorothy Rae was secluded in her wing of the house, as usual. Mona had told her that Nelson and Zee had gone into Kerrville for the afternoon. Reaching her room, Avery tossed the riding quirt onto the bed and used the bootjack to remove the tall riding boots. She padded into the bathroom and turned on the taps of the shower.

Not for the first time, an eerie feeling came over her. She sensed that someone had been in the rooms during her absence. Goose bumps broke out over her arms as she examined the top of her dressing table.

She couldn't remember if she had left her hairbrush lying there. Had her bottle of hand lotion been moved? She was certain she hadn't left the lid of the jewelry box opened with a strand of pearls spilling out. She noticed things in the bedroom, too, that had been disturbed while she was out. She did something she hadn't done since moving into Carole's roomashe locked the door.

She showered and pulled on a thick robe. Still uneasy and distressed, she decided to lie down for a while before dressing. As her head sank into the pillow, it crackled.

A sheet of paper had been slipped between the pillow and the pillowcase.

Avery studied it with misgivings. The paper had been folded twice, but nothing was written on the outside. She dreaded opening it. What had the intruder expected to find? What had he been searching for?

One thing was certainathe note was no accident. It had been cleverly and deliberately placed where she, and only she, would find it.

She unfolded it. There was one line typed in the center of the white, unlined sheet: Whatever you're doing, it's working on him. Keep it up.

"Nelson?" "Hmm?"

His absent reply drew a frown from Zinnia. She laid her hairbrush aside and swiveled on her dressing table stool. "This is important."

Nelson tipped down the comer of his newspaper. Seeing that she was troubled, he folded the paper and depressed the footrest of his lounge chair, bringing himself to a sitting position. "I'm sorry, darling. What'd you say?"

"Nothing yet."

"Is something wrong?"

They were in their bedroom. The ten o'clock news, which they watched ritualistically, was over. They were preparing for bed.

Zee's dark hair was shining after its recent brushing. The silver streak was accented by the lamplight. Her skin, well tended because of the harsh Texas sun, was smooth. There weren't many worry lines to mar it. There weren't many laugh lines, either.

"Something is going on between Tate and Carole," she said.

"I think they had a tiff today." He left his chair and began removing his clothing. "They were both awfully quiet at supper."

Zee had also noticed the hostility in the air tonight. Where her younger son's moods were concerned, she was particularly sensitive. "Tate wasn't just sullen, he was mad."

"Carole probably did something that didn't sit well with him."

"And when Tate is mad," Zee continued as though he hadn't spoken, "Carole is usually her most ebullient. Whenever he's angry, she antagonizes him further by being frivolous and silly."

Nelson neatly hung his trousers in the closet on the rod where all his other trousers were hung. Messiness was anathema. "She wasn't frivolous tonight. She barely said a word."

Zee gripped the back of her vanity stool. "That's my point, Nelson. She was as edgy and upset as Tate. Their fights never used to be like that."

Dressed only in his boxer shorts now, he neatly folded back the bedspread and climbed into bed. He stacked his hands beneath his head and stared at the ceiling. "I've noticed several things here latelythataren't like Carole at all."

"Thank God," Zee said. "I thought I was losing my mind. I'm relieved to know somebody besides me has noticed." She turned out the lamps and got into bed beside her husband. "She's not as superficial as she used to be, is she?"

"That close call with death sobered her up."

"Maybe."

"You don't think so?"

"If that were all, I might thinkthatwas the reason." "What else?" he asked.

"Mandy, for one. Carole's a different person around her. Have you ever seen Carole as worried about Mandy as she was last night after her nightmare? I remember once when Mandy was running a temperature of a hundred and three. I was frantic and thought she should be taken to the emergency room. Carole was blase She said that all kids ran fevers. But last night, Carole was as shaken as Mandy."

Nelson shifted uncomfortably. Zee knew why. Deductive reasoning annoyed him. Issues were either black or white. He believed only in absolutes, with the exception of God, which, to him, was an absolute as sure as heaven and hell. Other than that, he didn't believe in anything intangible. He was skeptical of psychoanalysis and psychiatry. In his opinion, anyone worth his salt could solve his own problems without whining for help from someone else.

"Carole's growing up, that's all," he said. "The ordeal she was put through matured her. She's looking at things in a whole new light. She finally appreciates what she's gotaTate, Mandy, this family. 'Bout time she got her head on straight."

Zee wished she could believe that. "I only hope it lasts."

Nelson rolled to his side, facing her, and placed his arm in the hollow of her waist. He kissed her hairline where the gray streak started. "What do you hope lasts?"

"Her loving attitude toward Tate and Mandy. On the surface, she seems to care for them."

"That's good, isn't it?"

"If it's sincere. Mandy is so fragile I'm afraid she couldn't handle the rejection if Carole reverted to her short-tempered, impatient self. And Tate." Zee sighed. "I want him to be happy, especially at this turning point in his life, whether he wins the election or not. He deserves to be happy. He deserves to be loved."

"You've always seen to the happiness of your sons, Zee."

"But neither of them has a happy marriage, Nelson," she stated wistfully. "I had hoped they would."

His finger touched her lips, trying to trace a smile that wasn't there. "You haven't changed. You're still so romance-minded.''

He drew her delicate body against his and kissed her. His large hands removed her nightgown and possessively caressed her naked flesh. They made love in the dark.

TWENTY-TWO.

Avery agonized for days over how to contact Irish.

Once she had reached the soul-searching conclusion that she needed counsel, she was faced with the problem of how to go about informing him that she hadn't died a fiery death in the crash of Flight 398.

No matter how she went about it, it would be cruel. If she simply appeared on his doorstep, he might not survive the shock. He would think a phone call was a prank because her voice no longer sounded the same. So she settled on sending a note to the post office box where she had mailed her jewelry weeks earlier. Surely he had puzzled over receiving that through the mail without any explanation. Wouldn't he already suspect that there had been mysterious circumstances surrounding her death?

She deliberated for hours over how to word such an unprecedented letter. There were no guidelines that she knew of, no etiquette to follow when you informed a loved one who believed you to be dead that you were, in fact, alive. Straightforwardness, she finally decided, was the only way to go about it.

Dear Irish, I did not die in the airplane crash. I will explain the bizarre sequence of events next Wednesday evening at your apartment, six o'clock.

Love, Avery.

She wrote it with her left handaa luxury these daysaso that he would immediately recognize her handwriting, and mailed it without a return address on the envelope.

Tate had barely been civil to her since their argument over breakfast the previous Saturday. She was almost glad. Even though his antipathy wasn't aimed at her, she bore the brunt of it for her alter ego. Distance made it easier to endure.

She dared not think about how he would react when he discovered the truth. His hatred for Carole would pale against what he would feel for Avery Daniels. The best she could hope for was an opportunity to explain herself. Until then, she could only demonstrate how unselfish her motives were. Early Monday morning, she made an appointment with Dr. Gerald Webster, the famed Houston child psychologist. His calendar was full, but she didn't take no for an answer. She used Tate's current celebrity in order to secure an hour of the doctor's coveted time. For Mandy's sake, she pulled rank with a clear conscience.

When she informed Tate of the appointment, he nodded brusquely. "I'll make a note of it on my calendar." She had made the appointment to coincide with one of the days their campaign would have them in Houston anyway.

Beyond that brief exchange, they'd had little to say to each other. That gave her more time to rehearse what she was going to say when she stood face-to-face with Irish.

However, by Wednesday evening, when she pulled her car to a stop in front of his modest house, she still had no idea what to say to him or even how to begin.

Her heart was in her throat as she went up the walk, especially when she saw movement behind the window blinds. Before she reached the front porch, the door was hauled open. Irish, looking ready to tear her limb from limb with his bare hands, strode out and demanded, "Who the fuck are you and what the fuck is your game?"

Avery didn't let his ferocity intimidate her. She continued moving forward until she reached him. He was only a shade taller than she. Since she wore high heels, they met eye to eye.

"It's me, Irish." She smiled gently. "Let's go inside."

At the touch of her hand on his arm, his militancy evaporated. The furious Irishman wilted like the most fragile of flower petals. It was a pathetic sight to see. In a matter of seconds he was transformed from a belligerent pugilist into a confused old man. The icy disclaimer in his blue eyes was suddenly clouded by tears of doubt, dismay, joy.