“Because you still love her, that’s why. No matter how upset you are, you could never hurt her that way.”
“You’re right,” Jeff admitted, reddening slightly. “Abby’s the only woman I’ve ever loved. I’d take her back in a flash. Answer me this, Dodger, what’s the secret?”
“To what?” Dodge asked.
“You and Martine have been together all these years, you’ve got a terrific thing going on-how do you do it?”
Mitch watched closely as Dodge considered this, the older man’s face betraying not one bit of what he’d just revealed to Mitch. “Jeff, there are so many things that factor into it,” he answered slowly. “Shared values, common interests and goals. Affection, respect, tolerance. But if I had to narrow it down to one word, it would be the same one that’s the secret to a happy friendship.”
“What is it?” Jeff pressed him.
Dodge shot a hard stare right at Will Durslag before he replied, “The word is trust.”
CHAPTER 2
“Dodge is having an affair,” Martine Crockett informed Des in a soft, strained voice as the two of them crouched next to the overstuffed, foul-smelling Dumpster behind McGee’s Diner on Old Shore Road, waiting for the kittens to show.
Des drew her breath in. Martine had never confided anything even remotely intimate to her before. Now this, a bombshell out of nowhere. “Who’s the woman?”
“I don’t know,” Martine answered miserably. “I don’t want to know.”
It was just before dawn, which was happy meal fun time in the world of strays. Esme, Martine’s famous daughter, was crouched in wait on the other side of the Dumpster with Des’s roommate, Bella Tillis. It was Esme who’d spotted the two hungry kittens nosing around the trash bin late last night when she and Tito had pulled into McGee’s for a late meal of fried oysters after a night spent drinking tequila shooters on the beach. Somebody had dumped the kittens there, most likely. Summer people did that. Esme had decided that she had to adopt them, and since Martine was the unofficial queen of Dorset’s rescuers, the four of them were out there now with their dog cages, trying to lure the poor, starved things in with jars of Gerber’s strained turkey. A length of string was tied to each cage door. Once a kitten was inside, they could yank the cage door shut behind it.
The predawn often found Des, Bella, and Martine staked out near a Dumpster somewhere, strings in hand, discussing life, love, and men-three subjects they freely admitted they knew nothing about. They made for an oddly mismatched trio. One tall, cool, late-forties WASP from old Philadelphia money. One round, feisty, seventy-six-year-old Jewish grandmother from Brooklyn. And Des Mitry, ahighly gifted artist who was twenty-nine, black, and Dorset’s resident Connecticut State Police trooper. Throwing a bona-fide Hollywood movie star into the mix just added more flavor. Not that the girl looked like much at this hour. It was obvious to Des from her puffy eyes, disheveled hair, and soiled clothing that Esme Crockett hadn’t been to bed yet.
Unexpectedly, Martine had suggested that her famous daughter and Bella team up together. Obviously, it was so she could drop her bombshell on Des. But why had she?
Des studied her there in the early morning light. Martine was a strikingly pretty blue-eyed blond with good, high cheekbones. The age lines in her tanned face were like the gentle creases in fine leather. She wore her shiny, silver-streaked hair cropped appealingly at her chin, a hair band holding it in place. She wore a pink Izod shirt, khaki shorts, and a pair of spotless white Keds. Martine was almost as tall as Des, who was a legit six feet tall in her stocking feet, and she was very active. Played golf several times a week at the country club, swam for an hour a day at the beach club. It showed. Her figure was excellent-shoulders broad, hips narrow, her long legs toned and shapely.
At first, Des had had some trouble warming up to her. Martine was still very much the belle of the debutante’s ball, a privileged white aristocrat who’d never wanted for anything. All she’d had to do was smile and it all came right to her, just like mumsy and daddy had promised. It was all just so easy for someone like Martine Crockett. Des had her problems with such women. She, well, hated them. Couldn’t help it. But now that she was resident trooper of Dorset, which boasted even more millionaires per square mile than Easthampton, she was coming in contact with a whole lot of them. And she really did need to give them the benefit of the doubt. Besides, she genuinely liked Martine, who was unaffected and caring and sweet. She rescued feral strays, volunteered at the Shoreline Soup Kitchen, and the Dorset Day Care Center. Plus she was bright, perceptive, and good to talk to when you were camped out behind a stanky Dumpster waiting for a feral animal to show.
And now her husband was cheating on her, thereby confirming Bella’s old axiom: Most rescuers are ladies with good hearts and bad husbands.
This had certainly been Des’s own story. “How do you know he’s having an affair?” she asked, crouched there in her tank top and gym shorts.
“I can tell. You can always tell, can’t you?”
“Yes, I suppose you can.”
Not that Des had been able to herself. Not when it came to Brandon. They were living in Woodbridge at the time, a leafy suburb of New Haven. He was in the U.S. Attorney’s office. And she, the Deacon’s daughter, was flying high on the Major Crime Squad out of Meriden. After Brandon left her, Des crashed. Bella, the no-bull Yale faculty widow next door, recruited her as a rescuer. And saved her. Woodbridge was now in both of their rearview mirrors. When Des started her new life here in Dorset Bella unloaded her own big barn of a house and came with her. It was working out fine. Between the job, the art academy, and the doughboy, Des wasn’t home much. Plus Bella was a fastidious housekeeper, great cook, funny, independent, and thoughtful. True, theirs was not what other people might consider a typical living arrangement, but quite honestly Des couldn’t think of a single thing about her life these days that was typical.
“How long has this been going on, Martine?”
“A few weeks,” she replied, wringing her hands. She had strong hands with long, graceful fingers. She painted her nails pink. “I’m sorry to be burdening you with this. I just, I feel you’re someone who I can talk to. I don’t have anyone else.”
Des pushed her heavy horn-rimmed glasses back up her nose, frowning. Martine Crockett had a million friends, women who she’d known a lot longer than she’d known Des. Why not confide in one of them? One possibility jumped right out.
Because it was one of them.
“You won’t tell anyone about it, will you?” she asked Des urgently. Now she seemed sorry she’d brought it up.
“Of course not. But what will you do?”
Martine raised her chin, and said, “Oh, I’ve moved on.”
“I see,” said Des, although she flat out didn’t. Moved on meant what-that she’d gotten past it emotionally, taken a lover of her own, loaded up a van with her most precious possessions? God, these Dorset people could be so cryptic sometimes. No one just said what they meant.
Esme moseyed over toward them now, looking sleepy and bored. She was a blond like Martine with flawless porcelain skin and the same good, high cheekbones. Her hair was a wild, frizzy mane of curls that cascaded halfway down her back. To Des, Esme still looked very much like a child. Her heartshaped face bore soft, slightly malleable remnants of baby fat. Her big blue eyes held wide-eyed innocence. And her hands were a girl’s hands, chubby and unblemished by time or work. Esme Crockett was famous for her mouth. It was a pouty, highly erotic mouth with a short, upturned top lip that made her look as if she were in a constant state of sexual rapture. She was also famous for her figure. She was a good deal shorter than Martine, perhaps five feet six, but so ripe and voluptuous that she looked positively illicit in the outfit she had on-a deep Vnecked halter top cropped at the belly to show off her gold navel ring, super-low denim cutoffs slashed way high up on her thighs and cheap rubber flipflops. “Where are they, Mommy?” she demanded petulantly. “How long do we have to wait for them?”