Tara nodded. Carol knew that after ending her relationship with Zeke and losing the baby, Tara hadn’t wanted to face the world at all, far less be involved in a cause that brought her into daily contact with young children. She hadn’t wanted to return to modeling, either, so had retreated behind closed doors to lick her emotional wounds.
But the storm of publicity surrounding her efforts to help the single parent with the triplets had refused to abate. Gradually she had been drawn into similar projects until it had become a full-time job.
She sighed. “I hope Zeke agrees with you. The publisher I’m seeing wants me to write a book about the foundation’s work, so he must think it’s on the level.”
Carol rested her elbows on the counter. “So why are you letting Zeke undermine your confidence? I can hear it in your voice and see it in your body language.”
Tara straightened, chagrined at being read so easily. Reading body language was part of a lawyer’s stock-in-trade, she told herself, but it didn’t change the fact that Carol was right. “How can I be the children’s spokesperson when the proof of my own failure as a mother was sitting in my audience last Monday?”
There, it was out. Tara had barely articulated her reasoning to herself, but as soon as she said it, she knew it had been nagging at her from the moment she’d seen Zeke in her audience.
“Losing the baby wasn’t your failure any more than it was Zeke’s,” Carol stated. She retrieved a jug of homemade lemonade from the refrigerator and added it and two glasses to a tray with the sandwiches. “Let’s go outside. It seems I have a pep talk to give.”
“I don’t need a pep talk.” But Tara followed her sister-in-law out to a table and chairs placed underneath the weeping branches of a crepe myrtle. From somewhere in the greenery, a Little-Wattle Bird gave its distinctive rusty-hinged cry. “It’s beautiful out here,” she said.
Carol wagged a finger at her. “Don’t change the subject.”
“Can I make a statement in my own defense, counselor?”
“Only if it doesn’t incriminate you.”
Tara poured them both a glass of lemonade. “Everything I can think to say fits that category.”
“Because you’re not as over Zeke Blaxland as you tell yourself.”
Tara felt her eyebrows lift. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”
“Sometimes defending a client involves making them deal with facts they’d rather not face.” Carol held out the plate. “Have a sandwich. They’re good if I do say so myself. Then we’ll discuss Zeke.”
About to refuse, Tara saw Carol’s expression. It was easier to eat than to get into an argument with someone who made a career out of it, so she took half a sandwich and bit into it, although her appetite had deserted her.
Was she avoiding facing facts? Perhaps so, Tara thought on a silent sigh. She was still attracted to Zeke, but it didn’t mean she had to give in to it. “Whatever he and I had is over. All I’m hearing are echoes from the past,” she said firmly.
Carol looked unconvinced. “As long as you’re sure.”
Tara wasn’t, but decided to let it lie. She appreciated Carol’s and Ben’s support, but there was nothing they could do. At some stage Tara knew she had to learn to deal with a world that included Zeke. Now was as good a time to start as any.
“You haven’t told me how the insider trading suit ended,” she said, seizing on the fastest way to divert her sister-in-law.
Her tactic worked. “We won. My client was completely exonerated. Didn’t you read this morning’s paper? We made the front page and the editorial.”
Tara had avoided looking at the paper. She choked back an instinctive protest as Carol went to fetch the paper. Seeing Zeke’s byline and knowing he was writing his column practically on her doorstep was another thing she must learn to deal with.
Carol came back and spread the paper across Tara’s knees. “Read the headlines then the editorial. I get a mention in both.”
Tara dutifully scanned the story, feeling pride in her sister-in-law’s accomplishment. “So the unwinnable case wasn’t as unwinnable as everyone predicted,” she said, a note of pleasure in her voice.
Carol nodded. “That’s pretty much what the editor says, too.”
Tara flipped pages until she came to the piece in question. It painted a glowing word picture of Carol’s handling of the difficult case. About to congratulate her, Tara’s eye strayed to the photo at the top of the next column and her heart almost stopped. A new photo of Zeke accompanied his column. It showed him seated behind a desk, making him look much more commanding and handsome than the previous head shot. More like the man she remembered so well, she thought.
Like someone drawn to touch a hot stove to prove it really can burn, she began to read and her blood turned to ice in her veins. “How can he do this?” she stormed after a few paragraphs.
Carol looked surprised. “I thought it was pretty flattering myself.” She glanced over Tara’s shoulder and saw what she was reading. “I didn’t mean to put that in front of you. I didn’t have time to read beyond the editorial this morning. Sorry.”
Tara shook her head although her muscles felt stiff and unresponsive. “I would have seen it sooner or later.”
Under the heading, Not-So-Sweet Charity, Zeke urged his readers to consider carefully where they donated their hard-earned money, suggesting that some organizations were designed as much to provide for their organizers as to help the underprivileged.
“How dare he suggest that I’m a do-gooder,” Tara demanded hotly.
Carol scanned the column and she frowned. “He doesn’t mention your name, or the foundation’s.”
“He doesn’t have to. After Australian Life publishes their piece and notes that top-gun reporter Zeke Blaxland was checking us out, it won’t be hard for people to put two and two together.”
Carol read on. “Are you sure you aren’t reading too much into this? Zeke may not flatter some of the fund-raising activities people do, but he doesn’t say anything that could give rise to legal action.”
“He only suggests that we’re in this for our own benefit.”
Carol gestured dismissively. “Nobody in their right mind will think he means you. You gave up a fortune in modeling fees to help set up and run the foundation.”
“Because I want the bulk of the money to go to the children. He doesn’t mention that part.”
“Maybe he doesn’t know it,” Carol suggested.
Tara stood up, adrenaline surging through her body. “Then it’s time he did, counselor. I may have no legal redress, but I can give that son-of-a-columnist a piece of my mind.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to cool down first?”
It was the last thing Tara wanted to do. “I’d rather tackle him while my blood is so hot I could burn him by bleeding on him.”
In spite of the situation, Carol laughed. “Poor Zeke. I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes when you get hold of him.”
Tara looked affronted. “How can you say ‘poor Zeke’? He’s the one using his position to take a cheap shot at me just because I didn’t leap into bed with him the moment he showed up.”
Carol shook her head. “I meant poor Zeke after you get through with him. From the look on your face, that cheap shot may turn out to be a lot more expensive than he bargained on.”
The Publishing House was a curious hybrid. Built behind a century-old sandstone facade, the new tower rose seventeen floors above Sydney’s historic Macquarie