Handful of Dreams Read online

  He ground his teeth together, realizing that Erica was almost out of the room. “Erica!” He called her back a little sharply.

  “Yes?”

  “Get the attorney’s office for me, will you? I need to see someone today.”

  Erica nodded and closed the door.

  “My, my, what a sudden temper!” Vickie commented. “What’s up?”

  “Just a little hitch in my father’s estate.”

  Vickie frowned. “I assumed everything but a few small bequests would have been left to you. I can’t imagine you begrudging anything to anyone, David. For that matter, I thought you hadn’t even seen the attorneys yet.”

  “I haven’t. I’m just expecting a little flaw,” David said smoothly. He frowned suddenly as his eyes were caught by words on the manuscript in front of him. There was no title page on it; it began with page one, and the author’s name was in the upper left-hand corner. The name rang a bell: S. C. de Chance. The title was The Promised Place.

  Vickie was talking, saying something about dinner, but he wasn’t really aware of her words. He had started to read.

  Jem didn’t see the fire or the smoking ruins. He couldn’t hear the shots in the background or the torn and anguished cries of women. He saw only the girl, Amy, who had loved him so dearly against family and heritage, blood, and the wrath of the Catholic God.

  Amy was tied to the post behind her. Black tar covered her beauty; feathers flew about her. There were tears in her eyes as she turned to look at him, tears and love and regret, but no anger, no resentment….

  There was a roaring sensation in David’s ears. He saw nothing but mist.

  It was Peter! In those few words he knew it. Jem was Peter, and Amy was his mother, Mary Lane.

  “Who the hell is S. C. de Chance?” he thundered.

  “What?” Vickie stared at his face, dark and gaunt and stormy.

  David’s thoughts seemed to come back into focus. “Oh, uh—”

  “You’re not paying the slightest bit of attention to me,” Vickie murmured ruefully as she rose. “My fault. I should have known better than to come here.”

  She moved around to the back of his desk, touched his broad, suited shoulders, and lightly brushed the top of his dark head with a kiss. “I’m leaving, Mr. Lane—before you toss me out. Are you coming to dinner or not?”

  “When?”

  “David, I just told you! Tomorrow night.”

  He stared down at the manuscript again. The words were blurring before him. He didn’t want to go to dinner. He didn’t want to laugh and enjoy Vickie’s fun-loving form of seduction.

  All he wanted to do was go back and find an emerald-eyed redhead; hold her, shake her, demand to know what it was that gave her such incredible power that he couldn’t think or reason, behave rationally, or forget her! To know how, and why, he had managed to lose all passion and interest in anyone else…

  “Sure, dinner sounds fine.” He stood up and distractedly kissed her. He forced himself to smile, swearing inwardly that he would forget Susan Anderson, sweep her from his mind and soul with all the scorn she deserved.

  He walked Vickie to the door. “Dinner tomorrow. I won’t forget.”

  “I’ll call. I don’t think you’re with me at all, David.”

  “I’ll be there!”

  “I’ll have the champagne iced for eight o’clock.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “Hmm,” Vickie murmured, appraising him. “Heaven knows why I chase you so, David! You’re a lost cause. You’re never going to marry me, Don’t—” She held up a hand when he would have said something. “You’re not, and I know it. It’s all right because I’m having a hell of a good time. And I have beaten out the competition so far, hmm?”

  David winced, feeling very guilty. He pulled her quickly into his arms. “Vickie, you beat the competition hands down.”

  “Thanks. You’re just too good-looking and too damn sexy, David. But watch it, son!” she warned him. “Someday some guy who does want to get married will come along.” She studied him critically, then chuckled. “The worst of it is that you’ll probably wish me all the luck in the world.”

  “Vick—”

  “I’m going, I’m going! I know that impatient, tough Mr. Businessman look. One last’ word of warning, Mr. Lane: Someday you’re going to fall in love. I mean, really in love, David. And I actually hope I’m around to see it. David Lane, rugged ice, tied up in a tempest! I hope she gives you your walking papers—nothing cruel intended.”

  “Vickie, come on!” He groaned.

  She chuckled, collecting her gloves. “In the meantime I’ll settle on dinner—and a night at a time.”

  Blowing him a kiss, she departed. Before the door closed, David was striding back to his desk and hitting his buzzer. “Erica, get Stacy up here—now!”

  He sat down at his desk and started leafing quickly through the manuscript.

  It was there, it was all there: his Protestant father’s flight from Ireland with his Catholic mother during the Irish Free States’ battle for independence; his first sight of the Statue of Liberty; his confusion as a penniless immigrant. The days when he had sold apples on the streets, three for a dime. World War II. The boom that followed; his first job in a publishing company.

  David noted that there were two children born to the immigrants in the manuscript rather than one; the one who went into the service was killed. The boy, the son. The one who quarreled with the father … himself.

  Almost as if the writer thought that he should have been knocked off.

  A cold outrage settled over him, even as his objective knowledge told him that the manuscript was good. It had pathos and struggle, laughter and tears. It also had miniseries written all over it. And Peter Lane had been a fairly famous man. Written up in Time and Life, respected, honored. Many people would recognize his life; it was perfect for publication—publication right away.

  He started flipping to the end, his face set in a grim mask. Someone had really known Peter. Dug deeply into his life. Thank God, David thought, that he owned the book! He wanted to see how it ended, see if all the dignity and pride and quiet character that had been his father had been retained throughout.

  Or had the author tarnished it all at the end? Known to put a finale to an epic life that would include an October to September affair, an old man, lonely and broken, seduced and bled by a mercenary witch who knew she had only to bide her time to reap an income?

  He exhaled. There was no such ending. No mention of the woman who had overwhelmed his life as it ebbed away.

  Who the hell had written it? Who the hell had known Peter well enough to be privy to so many family secrets, to write in what might well have been his father’s own words, riddled with his father’s own feelings?

  His buzzer sounded. “Stacy’s here—” Erica began.

  David didn’t let her finish. He was on his feet, pulling open his door, and dragging his salt-and-pepper-haired, shrewd editor-in-chief into his office.

  “Who is S. C. de Chance?”

  Stacy Leigh looked at him over the clear rims of her bifocals. “Really, David! I’ve been asking you to—”

  “Who is it?” David demanded.

  “I know who it is, but not much more than that, David. Have you read the book yet?”

  He strode back to his desk, tapping a pencil furiously over the opening page. “Enough!”

  Stacy hesitated, a little uncomfortable. Then she frowned and walked over to take a seat. “It’s a wonderful book,” she said a little stonily.

  David leaned over his desk, staring at her to acquire her attention and force her eyes to his.

  “Stacy, this is my father’s life!”

  “Yes, I, uh, rather thought so,” Stacy murmured, then her smoky eyes seemed to flash with irritation. “David, I’ve been after you to read it for three weeks! Before your father died.”

  “You didn’t tell me why!” David exploded.

  “Well, I couldn’t!” St
acy said, defending herself. “First you were at the West Coast conference, then Peter … passed away, and when the funeral was over and it seemed that things were settling down, you suddenly flew off to Maine! I’ve been trying to tell you—”

  “Who is S. C. de Chance?”

  “David, if you’d give me a chance … Oh! I got a pun in there. Chance—de Chance … you see?” He was smiling. She cleared her throat and smoothed a pleat in her skirt. “She’s done a number of science fiction books for one of our dearest competitors; it’s a pseudonym, of course. And really a bit of a pun, if I heard the story right. Apparently she started writing as part of a team. She and her brother. The S. C. de Chance was just that—we’ll take the chance. At writing, that is. The brother passed away about a year ago, and Susan kept writing, maintaining the pseudonym out of sentimentality, I imagine. That’s what I learned from John Ketchem. I’ve only spoken with her once, but she seems to be a lovely person.”

  “Susan who?” David thundered.

  Stacy frowned, inadvertently sinking a little into her chair. She was one of the best at what she did, and she knew it. She had been in publishing for decades. She also loved working at Lane, for David, in particular. When he gave her free rein, he meant it. He trusted her judgment. He paid her highly to keep the larger houses from snatching her away, but she would never want to leave, anyway, because she cherished his respect for her judgment more than she did her salary. In the years she had worked for David she had learned to respect him greatly in return. He could snap out orders in a meeting, and when something went wrong, he found out where and why. He would peg an employee to the wall and demand better performance, but he’d be the first to remember that same employee’s birthday or anniversary. He could give brusque orders one minute, then wish you a pleasant night in the next and really mean it.

  Stacy had known David for ten years. She had never, never seen him look like this, as if he could pick up his desk and crush it between his hands.

  “Her name is Susan Anderson.”

  “Susan Anderson!”

  “David,” Stacy mumbled, nervous and distressed. “What’s the matter? You’re scaring me to death!”

  His fingers unclenched slowly. He straightened, relaxing his shoulders as he did.

  “Sorry, Stacy.”

  “What on earth is wrong?”

  David picked up his coffee cup and walked over to view the river far below his windows. “You don’t know who she is?” He asked quietly.

  “Do you? You know her?”

  “Yes,” he said simply, and he realized ironically that naturally Stacy would not know Susan or anything about her. Susan’s “salary” had come out of the private account. Peter had never come into the office with her. The one time she had come in alone, Erica had been the only one to really see her, and that had been only as a vague Miss Anderson who had been there for all of thirty seconds—and left him in an explosive temper all day.

  “She was a friend of your father’s?” Stacy breathed. “Oh, I knew it! I called Peter and told him about the book and he seemed so smug. No wonder!”

  “Oh, yes,” David commented, staring out beyond the windows. “She was a friend of his. And my father knew about the book, you say? I’ll be damned.”

  “Well, he wouldn’t say anything,” Stacy told David. “When I said I could have sworn I was holding his life story in my hands, he just said that America was well populated with Irish immigrants. I laughed and said that maybe I should be careful; I joked about his suing his own company. He told me he was quite certain that the author was very careful to assure that no legal action could be taken against her.”

  “Oh, I’ll bet she was,” David murmured.

  “Do you know, though, David,” Stacy mused, absently tucking her pencil behind her ear, “Peter did seem a little surprised. He knew about the book but seemed startled that I had it.”

  David turned around to glance at her. “What do you mean?”

  “He asked me if we bought it under the Lane imprint. I told him no, that it was going out under the Puma imprint.”

  David turned back to the window, frowning. He had been thinking that Susan Anderson must have been truly enjoying herself the other night, aware that he would eventually be signing different checks to her—royalty checks.

  And his father hadn’t even told him! But Peter must have loved the whole situation. He loved secrets and surprises.

  Maybe he’d intended to tell both David and Susan about the delightful turn of events when David went up for Labor Day.David started to laugh dryly, bitterly. Oh, God! The joke certainly was on him.

  “David,” Stacy said a little hesitantly. “I—I realize that it must hurt you. We all loved Peter. But it’s really a wonderful book! It’s Peter, and it shows all the strengths and frailties and greatness that were Peter; why we loved him. I wasn’t so adamant that you see this to hurt you. I thought that…”

  David tightened his fists; relaxed them. Then he turned to Stacy with a pleasant smile. “Stacy, I haven’t read it through yet, but I’m certain that it tells my father’s story beautifully.”

  Stacy swallowed. “We’re going to publish it? There’s really no reason for us to renege on the contract.”

  “I wouldn’t think of letting anyone have this book. We’re most definitely going to publish it. As soon as possible.”

  “Well, next June—”

  “Is much too late. Three months from now.”

  “Three months!” Stacy gasped. “David, we can’t do it! I have the art sketches, but—”

  David chuckled softly, his emotions under tight rein. “Stacy, don’t be ridiculous. Anything is possible. We got out the book on that new fighter the day he took the championship.”

  “But we were prepared.”

  “We’ve got the complete manuscript, and you said we’ve got an art sketch. I’ll call sales and promotional meetings this afternoon. I want it to be a January title. We won’t bump anyone from the present lineup; we’ll put this out as a special release.”

  “David…” Stacy shook her head.

  He sat down at his desk and looked at her with eyebrows raised a little autocratically. “Is there a problem, Stacy? Do you feel there are numerous revisions?”

  “No, no,” Stacy murmured. “It looks almost as if it were edited before it got here.”

  “Then get to the line work today. Anyone who wants to see you for the next two days can see me instead. We can get it to the copy editors tomorrow night. Chris is great with the language on this kind of thing. Give it to him.”

  Stacy nodded slowly, rising. “But the publicity, David. Publicity takes time to line up—”

  “Leave that to me, Stacy, okay?”

  His imperturbable editor-in-chief was still sitting there.

  “Stacy!” he said softly. “Is there anything else?”

  “No, no.” She shook her head and rose, still dazed. David followed her quietly to close his doors behind her. She stood in front of Erica’s desk.

  “I couldn’t even get him to read the damn thing!” she wailed softly, “and now he wants to have it out in January!”

  “Is he upset?” Erica asked nervously.

  “Darned if I know!” Stacy murmured. “I thought he was going to strangle me for a minute. Now he’s all calm efficiency and determination again. Erica, if I were you, I’d go to lunch early.”

  David silently closed his doors and leaned against them. He didn’t know whether to laugh again, slam his head against the wall, or fly back to Maine and shake the life out of S. C. de Chance.

  He walked over to his desk and called the contracts department. Charlie Haines, head of the department, answered.

  “Charlie, get John Ketchem on the phone. Tell him we’re putting a rush on Susan Anderson’s book, that it will be out in January. Tell him that it will be a special release and we’ll go all out on publicity and support. But tell him I want an amendment to the contract. I don’t want a pseudonym used. I want her re
al name on the cover.”

  Charlie agreed to do David’s bidding and hung up. David sat staring straight ahead of himself, seeing nothing.

  It was going to be his book, all right. It was his father’s life, and by God, he’d do everything in his power to give the story justice—even if it was going to be Susan Anderson who would reap the rewards. It seemed the greatest irony to him, but he’d see that it was all done right. He’d keep his hand on it every step of the way.

  And he’d see that Miss Anderson’s involvement with his father was kept from the pages of the book and from the press. He’d help her hide from the public. But not from herself. Her name—her real name—was going on the cover.

  David called Erica in and dictated a memo about the book to all departments, calling meetings to get it all rolling. Erica quickly informed him that the attorney would meet him for lunch, that Gordon would bring cover art by for his approval at one; they could schedule the first meeting for two, if that met with his approval.

  “Perfectly,” he told her, then, when she would have hurried out to start on it, he called her back.

  “Get Vickie Jameson on the phone for me, please.”

  “Yes, David.” She stood there, staring at him miserably.

  “What is it?”

  “David, are you upset with me? I didn’t mean to do anything wrong. I just got a chance to see the manuscript and I knew it had something really substantial to it, so I started assuring John that under the Puma imprint we could do just as much with it as any of the big publishers could do. I did it because I thought it was good. I thought it was warm, and—”

  “Erica,” he said, interrupting her, “it’s a wonderful book. You did good, kid, really good.”

  She still stared at him, uncertain.

  “Erica! You did great. Now do me a favor and wake up—it’s going to be a long day.”

  She nodded and left, quietly closing the doors.

  A second later she buzzed him. Vickie was on the phone.

  “Vick, listen, can you give me a rain check on dinner? Next Tuesday instead of this one?”

  She sulked a moment, quizzing him. He told her he was just awfully busy and really tense; she promised that she could relax him but acquiesced pleasantly at last.