He recovered quickly. "It was the wrong number. Someone wanting the Carlyles."

"You lying b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" Her cry of outrage was hoa.r.s.e and raw as she hurled a gla.s.s at his head, ice cubes and liquor spraying the air. He dodged it, and it crashed against the wall in an explosion of shattering gla.s.s.

"Luz, for G.o.d's sake-"

But she wasn't interested in anything he had to say. "You called her, didn't you? It was Claudia on the phone, wasn't it?" She was trembling with the violence she felt.

"Luz, I told you-"

"I know what you told me." Distantly she could hear the shouts and laughter of children filtering through the gla.s.sed front of the cabana. With the recognition came a sense of where they were and awareness that any of the family might walk in on them. Luz reached deep inside to get control of her emotions. "And it's obvious that the things you said meant nothing. But this isn't the time or the place to discuss it. Not now. Not until Rob and Trisha leave. Then we'll talk."

"I think that's wise," he said carefully.

"But remember this, Drew. If you can't get rid of her, I can." She shoved the other drink gla.s.s onto a table, the contents sloshing over the side, then walked stiffly to the sliding doors that opened to the beach. She slid it half open and paused to look over her shoulder at him. "You'd better ring one of the housemaids to clean up the broken gla.s.s." She left the cabana and walked down to the water, letting the seaspray sting her eyes.

CHAPTER IX.

With riding gloves, hat, and quirt in her hand, Luz left the stable and cut across the patio area around the pool. The physical tiredness was a good feeling, relaxing all her muscles and leaving them loose. She lifted the weight of her blond hair off her neck and let the warm breeze fan her skin, then shook her head to let it fall free.

Early evening was a good time to school Rob's horses, while the sun still lingered in the sky and before the night dew made the gra.s.s slick. Even the best-trained polo ponies needed routine practice in the basics-stops, backing, and turns--to correct any bad habits they might acquire. Sessions like today required her concentration, not allowing her any time to think about her problems or feel sorry for herself. Working with the horses was therapy for her.

Possibly she had needed such therapy today more than at any other recent time. Rob and Trisha had left for school this morning, which meant that tonight she'd have it out with Drew. One way or another, Claudia was going out of their lives.

The French doors into the living room were unlocked, and she entered the house through them. Luz was three strides into the room before she heard the clink of ice in a gla.s.s and caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. It brought her up short, and she turned toward it. After being outside in the glaring light of a setting sun, her eyes were not completely adjusted to the comparative darkness of the interior.

"Drew." She recognized him in surprise. "What are you doing home so early?" Then a second thought struck her. "Where's your car? It wasn't in the garage."

"It's parked out front." He remained behind the bar, a preoccupied frown crossing his tanned face while he swirled the ice in his drink with a circular motion of his hand.

"Oh." At least that explained why she hadn't seen his brown Mercedes.

"It's time we had that talk, Luz," Drew announced.

"I agree." She tossed her riding equipment onto a chair cushion and walked over to the bar, slipping her hands into the pockets of her tan jodhpurs. "This can't go on."

"I came to that realization, too." He took a swig of his drink. "By the way, I sent the cook home. I knew it was Emma's day off, and I felt it would be better if we were alone."

"It's probably best." She hoped this wouldn't turn into a shouting match.

He braced his hands on the countertop. "I want a divorce, Luz."

The floor seemed to go out from under her feet. Of all the things she'd thought he might say, that bald statement was not one of them. The shock of it left her numb with disbelief.

"No." Her voice was so faint she barely heard it herself.

"It's the hardest thing I've ever had to say, Luz. I've never wanted to hurt you," Drew insisted. "I love you. I'll always love you. That will never change."

"Then ... why?" The numbness was splintering, and the pain was coming through. It was crazy. It was insane. In these last weeks since she'd learned about the affair, she had told herself there were no more feelings left, that everything was gone, that there wasn't any way he could hurt her anymore. But the pain she was feeling now with those words pounding through her head-"I want a divorce, Luz"-was tearing her apart.

"Because I'm in love with Claudia. I can't give her up. I can't let her go. I've tried, believe me." The push of his body emphasized his claim. "But she and I share something very special, very rare. I can't expect you to understand how much I love her."

"My G.o.d, Drew, she's young enough to be your daughter. Don't be a fool!" she cried in protest.

"The age difference ... doesn't matter. Maybe in the beginning it bothered me, but neither of us thinks of that when we're together. It became insignificant a long time ago."

"What about twenty years from now?" Luz argued desperately. The panic she felt was almost terror. He couldn't mean it! He couldn't throw away their lives like this! "For G.o.d's sake, think of what you're saying, Drew!"

"I have thought about it. In these last few weeks, I've thought about little else. This isn't a decision I've reached lightly. Please understand that."

"Understand!" There was a catch in her choked voice, the sobs so close to escaping. "You're throwing away twenty-one years of our lives! Don't they mean anything to you?"

He bowed his head, shaking it slowly. The rocking of those silver wings seemed to mock her. "You're not making this any easier, Luz."

"You're a rotten b.a.s.t.a.r.d." She hurt so much inside she could hardly breathe, and she lashed out with the raw anger of a wounded animal. "Am I supposed to make it easy for you to leave me and go to that dark-haired young b.i.t.c.h in heat?"

"Let's leave out the name-calling, Luz. It's beneath you." The aggressive thrust of his chin seemed to carry a warning that he wouldn't tolerate any further deprecations of Claudia.

"What am I supposed to call her?" She heard the shrill ring of near hysteria in her voice, but there was nothing she could do to stop it. There were explosions inside her-waves of pain, panic, and anger. "That charming young woman who stole my husband? She's a scheming, conniving b.i.t.c.h! She may have you fooled, but not me. She got you the same way she got her law degree-on her back!"

His hand tightened around the drink gla.s.s. For an instant, Luz thought he was going to hit her. A second later, his expression showed iron calm. "That's an att.i.tude I should have expected from you. You can't accept that Claudia has the intelligence to obtain something on her own, because you've had to have everything given to you. So you fear all professional women like Claudia and try to tear them down. For your information, she graduated magna c.u.m laude, and you don't do that by s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g your professors."

Belittled by his words, Luz turned away to hide the tears filling her eyes. She didn't know what to say-how to reach him and stop this nightmare. There had to be a way to save their marriage.

"Don't do this, Drew." She issued the soft plea in a trembling voice as the tears spilled down her cheeks. "I need you."

"You don't need me. You've never needed me."

"That isn't true." He couldn't believe that. But when she looked at him, Luz saw the sardonic twist of his mouth that confirmed he did.

"I'd hate to count the number of times I've been reminded how lucky I was to marry a Kincaid. For years, people used to call me up and ask 'Are you the lawyer who is Jake Kincaid's son-in-law?' But I've finally earned a reputation of my own. You've never needed my name, and G.o.d knows you have more money than I'll make in a lifetime. You'll get along fine without me.

"But you're my husband."

"You say that the way you say 'my mink' or 'my diamonds.' I'm not a possession to wear on your arm, Luz," Drew stated tightly. "And after today, I won't be your husband. You can keep the house and everything in it but my own personal items. I'll take my car. As for the rest, I recommend that you retain Arthur Hill. He's represented the Kincaid family for years. Or anyone else you choose to work out a divorce settlement on the other properties and investments we've acquired during our marriage. Have them contact my partner, Bill Thornd.y.k.e. He'll be drawing up the separation papers for me."

It all sounded so final, yet none of it wanted to sink in. She couldn't believe that he meant any of this--that he could so coldly walk away from her after all these years. Her world was falling apart, and Luz didn't know how to hold it together.

"The children." She reached desperately for a straw. "What about them? Have you considered how this will affect them?"

She hated the pitying look he gave her. "As you pointed out the other day, they're practically adults. They are old enough to understand that these things happen. Marriages are breaking up all the time."

"But not mine," Luz protested, the sobs coming through and her body shaking with them.

"It's over, Luz. There's nothing you can say that will change it." He tossed down the rest of his drink and set the gla.s.s on the counter with a certain finality. "It will be better for everyone if you just accept that."

"How can I?" She wiped at the tears running into the corners of her mouth and appealed to his reason. "You say you love me, Drew. If you mean that, then why rush into a divorce? Right now you think you're in love with ... her. But what if you aren't? What if it just turns out to be infatuation? Don't you think you should wait and see if it will last before you throw away our marriage? A year from now you may wonder what you ever saw in her. It will all pa.s.s. You'll see, and things will be the way they were for us." At the moment, it seemed her only hope-to stall for time.

"No, Luz. You don't understand." Her arguments hadn't swayed him at all. She could see that in his steadfast expression. "Even if I had any doubts about my love for Claudia-which I don't-it wouldn't change my decision. Claudia is pregnant with my child."

"No." Luz recoiled in shock, conscious of the sickening lurch of her stomach.

"I didn't intend to tell you that today, because I didn't feel it was relevant. I want a divorce so that I can marry Claudia because I'm in love with her-not because she is going to have my baby. But I'm telling you to stress the point that even if I didn't marry her and we stayed together, nothing would be the way it was. It would be impossible for either of us to forget that I have a b.a.s.t.a.r.d child in this world."

His voice seemed to come from a great distance as her mind reeled with the humiliation and embarra.s.sment the announcement portended-for herself as well as Rob and Trisha. "She ... she can have an abortion-or move away to have the baby and give it up for adoption."

"It's her body, and it's up to her to decide whether or not she wants an abortion. Not you, Luz. Or me," Drew stated flatly.

"You're a lawyer. Talk her into it," she declared wildly.

"I wouldn't even try." He moved out from behind the bar, a calm deliberation in the way he carried himself. "She wants the baby."

"She wants you!"

"And I want her. And I'd take the child myself before I would let anyone else raise it," he said.

The walls seemed to be crashing down around her. She looked at Drew and felt so helpless, so utterly powerless. It frightened her. She was like a lost child, not knowing which way to turn to find her way out, too scared to cry, all the panicked screams locked inside.

"I'm sorry, Luz." Drew paused, his glance shifting away from her. "I'm truly sorry for both of us that it turned out this way."

It was a full second before she realized he was walking toward the door. Luz ran after him. "Where are you going? You can't leaver!"

"I can't stay here." Although he stopped, there was some invisible barrier between them that prevented Luz from reaching out to cling to him. "I've packed my clothes. They're in the car. I'll arrange to pick up the rest of my things another time.... Goodbye, Luz."

She stood rooted to the floor, unable to move, as he walked to the front door and opened it. His clothes were already in the car. They had been there when she came home. There had never been any chance of changing his mind. She wanted to die remembering the way she had pleaded with him to reconsider, abandoning her pride and self-respect.

"You're going to her place, aren't you?" Luz accused, loudly and bitterly. "You're going to live with that cheap b.i.t.c.h you knocked up, aren't you?"

Drew paused briefly in the opening and faced her with an impa.s.sive look. "If you need me for any reason, contact the office. My answering service knows where to reach me."

"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d! Get out! Get out of my house!" She began grabbing things and throwing them at the door when it shut behind him. Vases of flowers and ceramic figurines, magazines and umbrellas, anything she could find, crashed into the general target area while she hurled a string of obscenities after him.

She never heard the slam of the car door or the low rumble of the motor. When she ran out of a ready supply of things to throw, her strength waned. She sagged onto the stairs and hugged the newel post for support. "Don't do this, Drew," Luz whispered brokenly. "Don't leave me."

The weeping began, slowly at first, then with gathering force until her shoulders shook with wracking sobs. The rejection went too deep; it was too total. There was no release for the pain. So she cried herself to a state of numbed exhaustion.

Darkness swallowed the house, and she welcomed its enveloping black coc.o.o.n. It was a place to hide away from the world, and that's what she wanted. A shrill sound broke the silence, and Luz was slow to identify the ring of the telephone. It roused her briefly, then she sank back into her torpor, trying to block out the annoying sound.

Belatedly it occurred to her that it might be Drew calling to say he had changed his mind. She hurried to answer it, stumbling over the shards of pottery and gla.s.s in the dark foyer, and fearing he might hang up before she could get to the phone.

"h.e.l.lo?" There was an anxious pitch to her husky voice as she gripped the receiver in both hands and waited for the sound of Drew's voice in response.

"I was beginning to think no one was there," a woman answered with a trace of exasperation. "This is Connie Davenport. Let me speak to Luz." Luz couldn't say anything for several seconds. "h.e.l.lo?" The woman demanded a response.

"She isn't here." Luz groped for the telephone and pushed the receiver onto its cradle, abruptly hanging up on her friend before she could say more.

The darkness became alien, and she searched for the wall switch and flipped on the overhead light. The phone started ringing again. This time she backed away from it, the debris crunching under her feet. A noise came from the rear of the house, and Luz swung around in vague alarm. The phone was silenced in midring as it was answered elsewhere. Some distant part of her mind registered that Emma had returned. She didn't want to see her. She didn't want to see or speak to anyone. She headed for the oak stairs, seeking to escape the questions she wasn't prepared to answer.

"Mrs. Davenport is on the phone, Luz. She wants-" Emma Sanderson stopped abruptly in the foyer, her usually unshakable composure broken by the wreckage she saw. Luz's haunted and tear-stained face did little to rea.s.sure her. "My gracious, what happened? Should I call the police?"

"No," Luz answered dully and faced the stairs, wanting to hide. She didn't know what to say. She didn't know how to explain to anyone that Drew had left her ... for a younger woman ... an intelligent woman.

"Are ... are you sure, Mrs. Thomas?" her secretary said. "If you've been harmed ..."

"Harmed" was such a gentle word that Luz almost laughed. "Destroyed" was more apt. "No, Emma." She paused with one foot on the first step. "I don't want to speak to anyone ... except Drew." She held out the hope that he'd come to his senses and spare her all this humiliation-that he'd miss her and come back. "If he calls, I'll be upstairs."

"Shall I try to reach him?"

"No." It was a forceful reply. She had virtually begged him not to leave. She wouldn't plead with him to come back.

She climbed the stairs to the master suite and shut the door, hoping to shut out the world a little longer. She ventured as far as the door to his bedroom. The dresser drawers and closet doors were open and emptied of clothes. No personal items remained in the room. It looked bare and abandoned-the way she felt. She went into her own bedroom and closed the door.

For three days, Luz didn't venture outside those four walls, refusing all calls and returning her meal trays virtually untouched. None of the household staff commented on Drew's absence or his missing clothes, not even Emma, but Luz knew they had guessed that he had deserted her. Sometimes she sat for hours staring into s.p.a.ce. Sometimes she cried until there seemed to be no more tears left, but there always were. At night, she prowled the room, bitterness and anger running deep, hating him and swearing she'd never take him back even if he came crawling on his knees.

Each time she saw her reflection in the mirror-the pale and drawn face with its faint age lines deepened by sleeplessness-her resentment toward him grew. All their years together had been for nothing, thrown away for someone younger. What man would want her now-a forty-two-year-old woman with grown children? They all wanted twenty-year-old nymphs who could make them feel young and virile again. She'd seen those pathetically lonely middle-aged divorcees, starving for affection, and didn't want to be one of them.

So she waited, half hoping he'd come back before anyone found out he'd left her and postponing the moment when she'd have to admit to someone that Drew had walked out on her. She dreaded facing her friends. Worse was the prospect of telling Rob and Trisha.

There was a knock on her bedroom door. "Go away!" But her sharp command was ignored; the door was opened. Luz glared at Emma. "I told you I didn't want to be disturbed for any reason."

The plump woman hesitated only briefly, then crossed the room to hand Luz a thick envelope. "This came for you. It looked important." She quietly withdrew from the room, leaving Luz alone to open the envelope.

She stared at the return address printed in the left-hand corner. Thomas, Thornd.y.k.e & Wall-Attorneys at Law. Mechanically, she lifted the sealed flap with a fingernail and removed the official-looking doc.u.ment. She scanned the first page. There was no need to go farther. It was a notice that Drew had filed for a legal separation. He wasn't coming back.

With the notice in hand, Luz walked out of the bedroom where she'd slept alone for so many years and down the stairs to the living-room bar. The first drink tasted like water, so she fixed a second, stronger, and reached for the telephone.

"This is Luz Thomas calling. Jake Kincaid's daughter. I want to speak to Arthur Hill." She took a swallow of the drink while she waited for the attorney to come on the line. When he did, she explained the facts to him with as little detail as possible.

"I strongly advise against any hasty action, Luz." He'd known the family too long not to speak to her as a father. "A reconciliation is always possible-and preferred."

"No." Her tone was decisive and cold. "I want a divorce as quickly, and as quietly, as one can be arranged. No delays."

The desire for revenge was strong, but she was thinking clearly if only temporarily. She stood to lose more in a messy divorce than Drew did. Dragging a pregnant Claudia into divorce court would likely illicit sympathy for both the woman and Drew, and bare her humiliation to public ridicule. Not to mention how awkward it would be for Rob and Trisha. A quick and quiet dissolution was the way to handle it. Reluctantly, the attorney acceded to her wishes.

The doorbell chimed as Luz hung up the phone. She ignored its summons to take another drink while Emma's footsteps sounded in the long corridor. The minute the door opened she heard her mother's imperious demand: "I have come to find out what is going on here. You have repeatedly refused to put my calls through to my daughter. Now I insist that you take me to her." During the past three days, Luz had not bothered to ask who had called for her, but she wasn't surprised to learn her mother was one.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Kincaid, but your daughter left very definite orders not to be disturbed-by anyone." Emma stood up well to her, respectful yet firm.

"Emma, I'm in the living room," Luz called to break the stalemate that was bound to occur. She slid off the bar stool as her mother swept by Emma and entered the living room, followed closely by Mary. The wry thought crossed her mind that at least she'd be spared from telling all this twice. "You're just in time. What can I fix you to drink? Gin and tonic, Audra?"

"Two o'clock in the afternoon is much too early to be drinking." Her mother took the gla.s.s out of Luz's hand and set it on the counter with a resounding thump.