Sooner or Later by Elizabeth Adler Page A

And her eyes, looking into his, were a delicate pale gray-blue.
    “Do you need help?” she persisted, still staring anxiously at him.
    “No, no, it’s okay. I’m all right.” He pulled his wits together. “Thank you …”
    “Good afternoon, then.” Her long red hair swung prettily around her shoulders as she walked away, and Buck knew he was looking at Ellie Parrish Duveen.
    His heart was doing double time. A pain cleaved suddenly through his chest, making him gasp, and he pressed a hand to it, feeling his heart jumping.
    “Your car, sir.” The valet had the BMW’s door open, waiting.
    Buck shook his head, unable to speak. Turning away, he walked slowly back into the hotel, and sank onto acouch, waiting for his heart to find its normal rhythm. He hadn’t been prepared for this … he’d thought he would choose the moment … his mind was in chaos.
    When his pulse slowed sufficiently and the pain had lessened, he followed Ellie into the pretty high-ceilinged room overlooking the ocean, where tables were set with pink finen cloths and tea was being served. Waitresses hovered near Lottie Parrish’s table and the old lady sat there, regal as a queen, except for an old green celluloid eyeshade crammed over her eyes.
    Ellie pushed back her chair and went around the table to her.
    “Miss Lottie, there’s no need to wear your eyeshade. We’re indoors now.”
    “I know we’re indoors, Ellie. I’m not stupid.” She glared at her granddaughter and the waitresses giggled.
    Ellie ignored them. “Of course you do. And I’ll bet you know exactly what you want to order.”
    “Salmon and cucumber sandwiches, hot scones with Devonshire cream and strawberry jam. And Earl Grey. No teabags, mind you. Tea simply doesn’t taste the same out of bits of paper.”
    Buck had heard her voice in his dreams for what seemed like a thousand years, which it might as well have been, incarcerated as he was in that lunatic asylum. And she had not even recognized him. He wondered whether it was because of his successful new image: the dark hair instead of the red; the mustache; the dark glasses. Or whether old age had simply blotted him from her memory. He shrugged. Either way, she was as good as his.
    Taking the table next to theirs, he ordered tea, then pretended to read a newspaper, watching and listening.
    Choosing a smoked salmon sandwich on crustless brown bread, Miss Lottie took a dainty bite. “So, Ellie, what do you have to say? Why is there no man in your life? A lovely girl like you?”
    Ellie sighed. This was obviously one subject her grandmother was not going to forget. “I told you, I’m too busy, Gran, I’m a working girl, six days a week, endless hours a day. It’s been like that for a year now and it’s likely to continue that way, or at least, until I make enough to open a second cafe.” She laughed, just thinking about it. “And then it’ll probably get even worse. Seven days a week and all hours that God sends.”
    Miss Lottie thought Ellie looked so pretty when she laughed, so young and gay. She wished passionately that her granddaughter didn’t have to work so hard. “I was thinking,” she said, carefully selecting a scone, “perhaps we should sell Journey’s End.”
    Buck’s suddenly nerveless hands dropped the newspaper.
Had the Parrishes come down in the world? What the hell had happened to all that money? It had flowed like water from an endless reservoir last he’d heard. That must be the reason they’d let him out, she couldn’t afford to keep him there anymore. Christ, what would he do now?
    He poured Earl Grey tea with a shaking hand, then stuffed a sandwich into his mouth. It choked him and he took a gulp of the boiling tea, gasping, agonized. He cast an angry glare at the large noisy group at the next table; he could no longer hear the conversation.
    “We’ve been over this before, and there’s no chance,” Ellie replied, serenely. “You can’t sell the house.”
    “I don’t see