CHAPTER 1

The morning dawns gray and humid. By the time I arrive at the fashionable uptown restaurant my hair has seized-up into “brand-new-perm” mode. That and the fact that I’m ten minutes early and I know Reena will be her usual twenty minutes late puts me in a sour mood.

The maître d’ gushes when I mention Carpenter. A regular for years, he says. So lovely.

Damn. If Reena’s been a regular at Rudi’s for years. Why did it take her so long to track me down?

He leads me through the dimly lit room to a table in the far corner. Refusing the offer of a glass of champagne, I spend the next few minutes composing myself and dealing with that cold stone at the bottom of my stomach that is fast becoming a boulder.

Reena has arrived. A buzz rolls through the crowd. She unloads five Neiman Marcus shopping bags on the hapless maítre d’, then threads her way through the gawkers toward me.

She is still devastatingly beautiful, a startling clone of Farrah Fawcett who paraded across the UT campus some twenty years before we did. No wonder the Tri Delts were thrilled to pledge Reena. All the Greeks were after her. It didn’t matter she hailed from a hole in the middle of the road, they knew she would be the talk of the campus and she was. Susie and I were simply drawn along in her wake.

Not that there weren’t plenty of benefits. Reena played a role in every prank the guys thought up, so Susie and I not only visited every fraternity house on campus, but went on more beer busts than I care to count.

She gives me an air-kiss, settles in the offered chair, then leans across the table to cover my hand. She rasps, “I’ve missed you, Allie. Please say you’ve missed me. Just a little?”

I only hesitate a nanosecond. “I haven’t had much time to miss anybody.”

It’s almost the truth. My dogged pursuit of the law and my burgeoning career saved my sanity. After I lost Paul, I buried myself in a three-year grind at University of Houston Law including summer internships and Law Review. Now, the job with the DA and my blooming relationship with Duncan have almost filled the gaping hole my first love left.

I see Reena’s smile brighten to a full ten on the sparkle-meter. It’s her Farrah Fawcett number, aptly dubbed by my sister Angela who noticed the resemblance the first time she came to visit. Susie added validity when she caught Reena looking at one of the movie star’s pictures in a magazine, then practicing in the mirror. I grin to myself remembering how Susie and I shortened “Farrah Fawcett” to “Double F” so Reena wouldn’t catch on.

Suddenly anxious to put a quick end to this meaningless charade I say, “Maybe we should order.”

When the waiter arrives, Reena orders vodka-on-the-rocks and, seemingly oblivious to his presence, bends forward as her face collapses. “Oh, Allie, seeing you is the best thing that’s happened to me in years.” She pauses to let a single crocodile tear roll slowly down her cheek, dabs it away with her napkin, then blurts, “Lately, my life has been one living disaster.”

Above us the waiter clears his throat. “And what about you, ma’am?”

I flash him a knowing grin. “My life is fine, thank you.”

Reena glares at my small joke and I order a white wine. When he walks away, I say, “What do you mean disaster? You have a huge mansion with staff and a Citation jet to boot.”

Those limpid pools dry to dark holes and she hisses, “Don’t believe everything Susie Baxter tells you.”

I start to add that Darden is now Susie’s last name, but think better of it.

We trade trivia until the drinks arrive.