What I Did for Love (Wynette, Texas #5)(99)

He shifted his weight, nodded. “I…just wondered if you had any idea where the fuse box is located in the guesthouse. One of the circuits blew, and I didn’t want to poke around without asking first.”

“Fuse box?”

“Never mind. I’ll check with Chaz.” His footsteps faded down the hall.

She stared at the empty doorway. He’d been acting so strangely since the splashing incident in the pool. She needed to talk to him—really talk—but hadn’t she been trying to do that for years?

She glanced toward her monitor. He had a good eye. She wished she could show him some of the footage she’d shot, but she needed his support, not his criticism. If they could only…relax together.

A wisp of memory skidded through her.

A small, shabby room…an ugly gold carpet…books strewn everywhere…Her parents were fast dancing…and then they started tickling each other. Chasing around the room. Her father hopped over a chair. Her mother grabbed Georgie. “Now what are you going to do, big guy? I’ve got the kid.”

All three of them falling on the floor, laughing.



Her father went out to dinner, so Georgie couldn’t ask him whether her memory was real or not, although it probably wouldn’t have done any good, since he had a habit of brushing aside her questions about the past. Georgie gave him credit for at least trying not to speak badly of her mother, even though it was obvious their marriage had been a mistake.

The next morning she woke up a jittery mess. The party was a week away. Her father had moved in. She had the most important audition of her career coming up for a part no one believed she could pull off. And…now that her fake husband had his film deal, he might decide he didn’t need her fifty thousand a month and bail on her. The zit that broke out on her forehead was almost a relief. A small problem that wouldn’t hang around for long.

She spent the rest of the morning having her hair highlighted and her brows shaped. By the time she got home, she felt like jumping out of her skin. She was too agitated to concentrate on prepping for her audition. Instead, she decided to pack up her camera equipment and drive outside the paparazzi zone, maybe Santee Alley to interview some of the women selling designer knockoffs.

She hadn’t seen her father all morning, but he appeared just as she was coming downstairs with her equipment bag. He slipped his hand into the pocket of his khaki pants and jiggled his keys. “Do you want to go to a movie this afternoon?”

“You mean in a theater?”

“It’d be fun.”

The word sounded strange on his lips. “I don’t think so,” she said.

“Then maybe lunch?”

She needed to get this over with, and she hitched her equipment bag higher on her shoulder. “You don’t have to be so polite. It makes me nervous. Go ahead and say what you want to—that I’m a shitty, ungrateful daughter. That I don’t understand the business. That—”

“You’re not shitty or ungrateful, and I don’t have anything more to say. I just thought you might want to go out for a while.” He pulled the keys from his pocket. “It’s all right. I have some errands to run.” He left through the front door.

She frowned at his uncharacteristic retreat and followed him outside.

She’d always loved the covered entry porch of Bram’s house, with its blue-and-white-tiled floor and arcade of twisted stucco columns. A purple bougainvillea formed a shady screen at the far end, and Chaz had recently added a few more terra-cotta pots along with a heavily carved Mexican bench and matching wooden chair.

“Dad, wait.” Without thinking about it, she reached inside the bag.

His expression shifted from quizzical to suspicious as she pulled out her camera and set the bag aside. “I had this dream,” she said. “Not really a dream. A memory…” The camera was her shield, her protection. She raised it to her eye and turned it on. “A memory of you and my mother dancing and teasing each other. You jumped over a chair. We were all laughing and…happy.” She moved in closer. “These memories I sometimes get…I’ve made all of them up, haven’t I?”

“Put that camera away.”

She winced as she bumped into the sharp bench corner, but she didn’t stop shooting. “I’ve made them up to cover the truth I don’t want to face.”

“Georgie, really…”

“I can count.” She sidestepped the bench and pinned him with her lens. “I know that you only married her because she was pregnant with me. You did the honorable thing. And you hated every minute of it.”

“You’re overdramatizing.”

“Tell me the truth.” She’d started to perspire. “Just once, and then I won’t ever bring it up again. I’m not going to blame you. You could have run out on her, but you didn’t. You could have run out on me, and you didn’t do that, either.”

He sighed and stepped back up on the porch, as if this were a tedious meeting he needed to suffer through. “It wasn’t like that.”

She circled him, moving backward, putting herself between him and the steps, so he couldn’t get away. “I’ve seen the pictures of her. She was so pretty. I know she loved having a good time.”

“Georgie, put that camera down. I’ve told you that your mother loved you. I don’t know what more you—”