Searcy Country Club
Searcy, Arkansas
March 2012
Taylor's heels clicked across the wooden floor of the country club in a rapid staccato rhythm. She was just about to make her escape when Edna Stone intercepted her. Sporting a look of significant irritation, Edna was accompanied by several other ladies looking similarly distressed.
"Taylor, could we borrow you for a moment, dear? We seem to have a problem you could help us with. We've seemed to have lost our artist," said Edna graciously. The words had been phrased as a polite request, but Taylor knew it was a demand. One that Taylor had no intention of honoring. Holding on by a thread, she blinked several times, looking from Edna to the other ladies, and answered honestly, "I am sorry. I don't know how I can help you. I have no idea where Mrs. Thompson might be, and I wasjust on my way to…" said Taylor as she turned to escape out the pool door. But Edna was too quick for her.
Without allowing Taylor to complete her statement, Edna took Taylor by the arm and began steering her toward the small reading room at the other end of the room.
Taylor dragged a ragged breath into her lungs and prayed that whatever Edna was about to ask would not take long. In fact, Taylor planned to break free of Edna as quickly as possible. If not for her determination not to lose it right then in front of the entire room, Taylor would have refused the demand. But, saying no to Edna Stone in such a public place was not an option, so Taylor allowed herself to be pulled along. She could do this. She had faced worse things than Edna Stone. She would find a way to quietly leave without causing a stir.
By the time the entourage reached the library room, Taylor's long legs had allowed her to reach the door first. Turning back to the group, she opened the door and gestured for everyone to enter. As she did so, Taylor looked directly at Edna and said, "Look, I understand you are concerned because you seem to have lost your artist, but I have no idea how I can…" but whatever Taylor was going to say next disappeared. She stopped suddenly mid-sentence as her gaze drifted across the room and landed on a couple draped across a table. The sight that greeted her left her stunned and speechless.
On an antique table was a man and woman in a very compromising position. The man's back was to them, but the woman was lying on her back with her long red hair spread out over the table. Her floral dress was unbuttoned. Taylor could see the top of the woman's milky white breasts from the door. A man's head was buried in the woman's chest and could not be seen.
However, Taylor could plainly see the woman's face. Instantly, she recognized Poppy Thompson from the photos earlier. Taylorwas captivated by the haze of lust and desire playing across the artist's face. The whole scene was something out of a Renaissance painting.
For a second, no one said a word. Then, Edna screeched, "Oh! My! Lord! Poppy? Is that you?"
At that point, the lady on the table turned her head with a jerk toward the door and tried to cover herself.
Taylor felt a wave of sympathy for the younger woman for having been caught in such an embarrassing position. Her only thought was to get herself and, hopefully, the other ladies out of the room as quickly as possible. She had enough of her own issues to deal with, and obviously, so did Poppy and her companion. Taylor turned to the women surrounding her and said, "I think that Poppy and her…friend need a moment." Gesturing to the couple, Taylor said, "Why don't we all give them a few mmm…" Taylor had planned on staying a few minutes, but the words quickly died on her lips. Suddenly, everything in Taylor's world clicked into place for a split second. Then, her whole world went flying out of control as a jolt of realization hit Taylor like a punch to the throat. Her gaze stalled on the man's back and, specifically, on his suit. It was dark gray with a light check. Taylor recognized it instantly.
It was the same one she had custom-made for Bennett last month. When he had gotten caught up in something at work and had been several hours late meeting her, she had ended up shopping all day to fill the empty hours that he had promised they would spend together. She had gotten the all-clear from her doctor to start trying again for a baby that day in New York. The plan had been to spend the day making babies. Instead, she had spent it ordering him a custom-made suit that he would wear for his vice-presidential announcement. It was a gift from her to show that she always had his back and was in his corner as he had always been in hers. At that exact moment, Taylor recognized the suit and realizedit was her husband, currently enraptured in Edna's missing artist's arms.
"Bennett!?" Taylor cried out her husband's name in shock and horror.
Suddenly, Bennett Carrington, seemingly unaware of the ladies' presence before, whipped his head around toward the door. He had a horrified look on his face as he made eye contact with his wife and cried, "Taylor?"
The look of fear, shame, and guilt that flashed in her husband's eyes as his gaze met hers was permanently seared into Taylor's brain. If she lived to be a hundred, she would never forget it. A combination of guilt and shame that one only encounters when forced to accept you are not the person you thought you were, a true man-in-the-mirror moment. A moment most men avoid their whole life if possible. Taylor saw it all.
But that was not all Taylor saw. She saw something much more hurtful. She saw the child’s eyes. The eyes that she had spent the better part of the last hour watching grow up. Somehow, she knew that boy was Bennett's son.
On the table, the woman, who had been futilely struggling to cover herself, finally pushed hard against Bennett's chest in a scramble to get off the table. In the commotion, Bennett lost his balance and caused both of them to fall to the floor in a sea of red hair.
Taylor stood with her mouth hanging open as if in a trance. For once, Edna Stone proved as steady as her name suggested as she calmly began ushering everyone out of the room, saying, "Lynne, Michelle, Jacelyn, I think we need to give them a few minutes."
Taking Taylor's arm and guiding her out of the room, Edna shut the door behind her and said, "Everyone follow me. Now!"
This time, Edna made no effort to conceal her demand as a polite request. Instantly, all of the ladies obediently followed her to the nearest exit, everyone but Taylor.
She did not even consider following. Instead, she jerked her arm free and, with her head high, looked Edna in the eye and said, "If you will excuse me, I am leaving now." Walking way more calmly than she actually felt, Taylor crossed the room and went right out the club's front door. The second her feet hit the parking lot pavement, she took off running as fast as her heels would allow.
If anyone called after her or tried to stop her, she never heard them. Her entire focus was on getting out of there and away from Bennett, away from paintings of a boy with his eyes, and away from Poppy and all of that red hair as quickly as possible. One hateful thought kept racing through her mind as she ran. Bennett had a son, and it wasn't hers.
Chapter 3
Highways Between Searcy, Arkansas and Gulf Shores, Alabama
March 2012
Once she made her escape, Taylor didn't slow down. She walked out of the club, jumped in her car and drove. Almost immediately, her phone began ringing. Bennett's name flashed on the screen. Unwilling and unable to deal with him, Taylor turned off the phone and floored it. She knew she couldn't go home. The house she had lived in with Bennett for the last eleven years was his family estate, the home he had first shared with Poppy Thompson long before he shared it with her. Was the child conceived there? The child was at least eleven, if not older. The thought was so disconcerting that she forced it out of her mind. It was just too much for her to handle at that moment. Instead, she drove with no end destination in mind other than to get as far away from Bennett as possible.
Truthfully, she had no business driving, but she could not think of any place she wanted to go except as far away from Searcy as she could get. After two hours of off-and-on sobbing, Taylor was emotionally drained. Without her even realizing it, she found herself crossing the Mississippi River Bridge into Memphis. She had been driving for over two hours and was running low on gas. Wiping the tears off, she realized it was time to decide where to gofrom here. Groaning, she realized she meant that both figuratively and metaphorically. Finding a Quick Mart a mile past the bridge, she pulled in.
After filling her tank, Taylor checked her phone. Bennett had called repeatedly, leaving several voice messages and text messages. She skipped right over those.
