Table For Five

“I’m taking Echo Ridge.”

“Then you’ll have to go through town to get to the sitter’s,” she pointed out.

All right, thought Derek. He might as well go for broke. “Ashley isn’t there. She’s with Jane.”

She sucked in an audible breath. “Well, that’s just peachy. The thought of my baby in the hands of your jailbait girlfriend makes my day.”

“Jane Coombs is twenty-four and already has her Ph.D.”

“You love reminding me of that. I don’t give a shit about her academic credentials.”

Derek knew she did. Crystal joked about getting out of college with only her “MRS” degree, but the fact that she had never finished her education was a sore spot, something probably only Derek knew.

“Jane loves Ashley,” he said. Then he took a deep breath. “And you might as well know she’s moving in with me.”

“Ah, living in sin. You’re such a perfect role model for our children.”

“We won’t be living in sin.” His hands were suddenly drenched in sweat, slick upon the steering wheel. “Crystal, we’re getting married. We plan to tell the kids next weekend.”

“You bastard,” she said, her voice eerily quiet. “You damned, fucking bastard.”

He glanced over at her and had the strangest sensation of déjà vu. And then he laughed. He was a bastard. His stepfather used to remind him of that all the time. And the fucking part? Well, that was certainly true. He fucked anything that twitched a tush at him, and on a pro golf tour, there was a lot of twitching.

“You think this is funny?” Crystal demanded.

“I think it’s hilarious. We’re hilarious. God, look at us, Crystal. Look at the mess we made, me with my pecker and you with your purse.” He chuckled, feeling giddy and light-headed as though he’d just slammed down a shot of tequila. He looked over and caught her staring at him with her heart in her eyes.

“Damn it, Crystal,” he said, “I was so damned in love with you, but you made it so damned hard to stay that way.”

Her eyes misted and for just a moment he saw the girl she had been, the dream lover he thought he wanted for the rest of his life. She had worshiped him with a fervor that was a turn-on. Where had that gone?

“God, Derek,” she said, “it’s so much easier than you—look out!”

He yanked his gaze back to the road in time to see a doe and her spotted fawn gambol down the fogged-in bank, stepping directly into the roadway right in front of him.

Derek had grown up in this place. He knew every curve of the road and every outcrop, every sheer cliff, and every thick-girthed cedar and Douglas fir that bordered the wild highway. He even knew that the Huffelmanns owned property for the next mile along the road and had posted it No Trespassing. Old man Huffelmann would not even give the highway department permission to put a guardrail alongside the steep incline, so there was no barrier to keep him on the road.

The tires screamed on the wet pavement and he dialed the steering wheel frantically in the opposite direction of the skid. Crystal stayed completely silent, though she threw her hands in front of her and braced them on the dashboard. Somehow, Derek wrestled the car back into its lane.

Crystal glowered at him. “You drive like a maniac.”

“You used to like that about me.”

“I used to like a lot of things about you.”

“Hey, at least I didn’t cream Bambi and his mom.” He could tell she was in no mood. Fine, he thought. He might as well get on that last nerve of hers right now and get it over with. “I suppose this is as good a time as any to tell you I have to miss Ashley’s birthday party.”

“Derek, come on.”

“I’m sorry, but I have to be in Vegas for a big tournament, so I need you to change the party date.”

“I’m not changing a thing.”

“She’s only two. She’ll never know. She’s just a baby. It’s no big deal.” A pair of madronas, the bark peeled off to reveal bloodred branches, grew beside the sharp curve in the road ahead. He ignored the yellow-and-black caution sign and accelerated.

“No big deal,” she echoed, her voice soft with restrained fury. “Well then, I suppose that now would be as good a time as any to tell you the baby isn’t yours.”

part two

The beauty of a strong, lasting commitment is often best understood by men incapable of it.

—Murray Kempton

chapter 6

Friday

5:00 p.m.

And here’s the challenger, Sean Maguire, aiming for the green and a possible eagle putt. No one in the crowd is breathing as the challenger selects a Titleist forged-iron pitching wedge, assuming his famous stance. An easy, athletic swing, a flawless follow-through and…he’s on, ladies and gentlemen. He’s on the green and rolling twenty, fifteen, ten! He’s just ten feet from the hole, and that’s one putt away from a historic win. Not only will he take home one million dollars and the championship trophy, but he’ll also be having sex with identical blond twins who magically turn into beer and pizza at midnight. Ladies and gentlemen, you can hear a pin drop as the challenger steps up to address the ball. All that stands between him and victory is ten feet of putting green. This should be no trouble for the legendary Maguire. He adjusts his stance, glides into his famous backswing, preparing to make history. Smoothly the club head descends toward the ball, flawlessly aimed, and—

“Hey, mister.”

Sean’s arm jerked and the head of the putter missed. The golf ball bobbled away from the hole. Gritting his teeth in frustration, he straightened up and scowled at the kid, who stood at the edge of the practice screen.

“Yeah?” Sean immediately regretted the annoyance in his tone. The wide-eyed kid was probably a fan, asking for the autograph of the legendary Sean Maguire. “What can I do for you?”

“You got change for a dollar?”

Great. He scrounged the change from his pocket. He had only thirty-five cents. The coins felt light and insubstantial in his hand.

He leaned down and grabbed the ball from the rain-soaked green. His four o’clock lesson hadn’t shown, probably due to the weather, so he’d passed the time practicing his own game. To what end, he had no idea.

“What do you need, kid?”

“Change for the Coke machine.” He shuffled his feet and, probably prodded by some latent lesson from Mom, added, “Please, mister.”

“You can call me Sean.”

“Really?”

“I just said you could. I can make change in the clubhouse.” He jerked his head toward the long, low building. His place of employment. He’d capped off his stellar career as a professional golfer right where he’d started, here at Echo Ridge.

As the kid fell in step with him, Sean asked, “What’s your name?”

“Russell Clark.”

They shook hands and kept walking.