Tempting Fate by Carla Neggers Page A

not make a scene.”
    Sara reddened, inhaling sharply. “I didn’t mean that.”
    Dani felt a stab of guilt, having forgotten—or simply not consciously reminded herself—that hers wasn’t the only loss, that her aunt had lost a sister. She dropped her feet to the stone terrace, warm in the afternoon sun. “I know you didn’t. Don’t you want to sit down?”
    â€œI can’t stay—we have a dinner party this evening. I just wanted to be sure that the note was in fact from you, that it wasn’t some sort of cruel practical joke. This is such a sudden change of heart on your part—although of course we welcome it—and I know you’re very busy.” She paused, looking around at the cracked marble birdbath that stood in the midst of the myrtle, at the hundreds of marigolds Dani had planted. There were perennials, flowering shrubs and trees, herbs, more annuals, all enclosed by a tall Victorian wrought-iron fence. “I saw the article on you.”
    Dani winced, taking another sip of her mineral water. The bottle was a handsome proprietary design of evergreen-colored glass, with a distinctive long slender neck and an ornate P engraved on one side. The label was a design Dani particularly loved: a red kite floating above a pine grove. Eugene Chandler—her grandfather, Sara’s father—considered her use of Pembroke for her profitable, visible company just one more example of his only grandchild’s thumbing her nose at him.
    â€œI didn’t mention you or Grandfather,” she said. “Or my mother.”
    â€œYou didn’t have to. Any article on you will dredge us up no matter what you say or don’t say. Having all that…history come out now is painful.”
    Dani refused to feel guilty. The interview had been on the spur of the moment, and she wasn’t supposed to do anything on the spur of the moment. She had too many responsibilities. She was half Chandler. She had a missing mother. Even Ira Bernstein had offered his two cents, threatening to take up a collection to buy her new sneakers. Her sneakers hadn’t even been in the photograph of her. “The holes,” he’d said, “were implied by the rest of your ‘outfit.’”
    There was no pleasing anyone anymore.
    â€œIt’s not as if our ‘history’ isn’t already on people’s minds,” Dani said. “It’s the hundredth anniversary of the Chandler Stakes, the twenty-fifth of my mother’s disappearance—people will talk, even if we don’t.”
    Sara straightened. “I’m not a fool. I might not run a company, but that doesn’t mean—” She stopped abruptly, replacing the demure stance, the stiff, polite smile with the look of a well-bred Chandler. “Let’s not argue. Father’s delighted you’re coming tomorrow—Roger is, too.” Her smile broadened at the mention of Roger Stone, her husband, and seemed genuine. “So am I.”
    Dani almost believed her.
    After her aunt left, Dani didn’t return to her flower beds, but propped her feet back up on her umbrella table and contemplated the blue sky, felt the cool afternoon breeze against her skin. Something must not be quite right in her head, she thought. Otherwise she’d have told her aunt that she’d changed her mind and wouldn’t be attending the annual Chandler lawn party tomorrow night after all.
    â€œDani, you back here?”
    She recognized Kate Murtagh’s voice even as her six-foot-tall, blond, gorgeous friend barreled through the gate at the far end of the garden. Kate marched up to the stone terrace. She had on an inexpensive chambray dress, her long hair held back with a jade-and-rose-colored scarf; she didn’t even have to work at looking stunning.
    â€œDo I take it from your auntie’s stiff-upper-lip exit that the rumors are true and you’re going