Picking Up the Pieces

“Hold on, Harry. I can take care of myself.”

“Now that I think about it,” Harry said, suddenly suspicious, “what are you doing here all alone? Where are your bodyguards? Shouldn’t there be a limousine waiting for you, princess? Come to think of it, Allie, where is your husband?”

Althea winced at his use of her nickname, but Harry only laughed. “Sorry. Old habits die hard. All right, Madame Boylan, where is that ambassador husband of yours?”

“Daniel’s in Paris, if you must know,” she said over her shoulder as she hurried down the airport terminal, not wanting to admit the truth to Harry yet.

When they stood toe-to-toe, Althea could feel Harry’s soft breath on her hair. She marveled that the touch of his hand could still make her shiver, that he could so easily elicit a sensual response from her, that ten years apart made little difference…. “Leave me be, Harry. If the snow ruins my shoes, I can always buy another pair.”

“Ah, yes, now that’s my old Althea. Buy, buy, buy. Everything to be had for a price.”

“Not everything,” Althea growled. Not by a long shot, she thought…and soon enough Harry would learn just what she was talking about….

Dear Reader,

Get ready to counter the unpredictable weather outside with a lot of reading inside. And at Silhouette Special Edition we’re happy to start you off with Prescription: Love by Pamela Toth, the next in our MONTANA MAVERICKS: GOLD RUSH GROOMS continuity. When a visiting medical resident—a gorgeous California girl—winds up assigned to Thunder Canyon General Hospital, she thinks of it as a temporary detour—until she meets the town’s most eligible doctor! He soon has her thinking about settling down—permanently….

Crystal Green’s A Tycoon in Texas, the next in THE FORTUNES OF TEXAS: REUNION continuity, features a workaholic businesswoman whose concentration is suddenly shaken by her devastatingly handsome new boss. Reader favorite Marie Ferrarella begins a new miniseries, THE CAMEO—about a necklace with special romantic powers—with Because a Husband Is Forever, in which a talk show hostess is coerced into taking on a bodyguard. Only, she had no idea he’d take his job title literally! In Their Baby Miracle by Lilian Darcy, a couple who’d called it quits months ago is brought back together by the premature birth of their child. Patricia Kay’s You’ve Got Game, next in her miniseries THE HATHAWAYS OF MORGAN CREEK, gives us a couple who are constantly at each other’s throats in real life—but their online relationship is another story altogether. And in Picking Up the Pieces by Barbara Gale, a world-famous journalist and a former top model risk scandal by following their hearts instead of their heads….

Enjoy them all, and please come back next month for six sensational romances, all from Silhouette Special Edition!

All the best,

Gail Chasan

Senior Editor

Picking Up the Pieces

Barbara Gale

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Gabrielle,

who travels with me to places unknown,

weaving a magical spell of words

Acknowledgments

To Jessica Faust, the best of agents; it’s that simple.

BARBARA GALE

is a native New Yorker. Married for over thirty years, she, her husband and their three children divide their time between Brooklyn and Hobart, New York. Ms. Gale has always been fascinated by the implications of outside factors, including race, on relationships. She knows that love is as powerful as romance readers believe it is.

She loves to hear from readers. Write to her at P.O. Box 150792, Brooklyn, New York 11215-0792 or visit her Web site at www.barbaragale.com.

Dear Reader

Picking Up the Pieces is the story of love lost, lost opportunities and second chances. It explores not only interracial romance and unwed motherhood, but the price one pays for personal happiness.

We all have hard choices to make as we grow; it is part of the life process. Ideally, they are our own decisions, but sometimes circumstance dictates otherwise. More often than not, it is a combination of the two. Every once in a while, though, we are allowed an opportunity to revisit the past and make some changes. Althea Almott once sacrificed her heart to the well-being of her family. Ten years later, she has a chance of stealing some happiness for herself, if she only has the courage.

Perhaps Althea’s story will provide some small comfort as you travel the road to your own destiny.

Much good fortune.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Prologue

If he could have one wish, it would be that he were anywhere else. But he wasn’t. And neither was she. As Harry watched Althea, wrapped in lush sable, push past the revolving doors of Kennedy Airport, memories rushed to the surface. Carefully he set them aside. She was married now to an ambassador. Still he was left with a breathless feeling. Or was it simply the churning motion of a certain pain that filled his gut whenever he saw her picture in a newspaper or heard a story about her on the radio? Or thought about her? It didn’t matter. He knew, he just knew he should run in the opposite direction, but there was no way to stop his foolish feet; they were going to follow her through those shiny brass doors no matter what his common sense told him. Old wounds and his curiosity were a deadly combination.

The huge arrivals terminal was unusually empty. Not many people traveled in January at this time of night. The postholiday letdown, he supposed. The terminal, bigger than a football field, maybe even three or four fields, seemed quieter than he’d ever heard it. A few passengers wandered around aimlessly, a handful of limo drivers held up cardboard signs to attract riders, and a listless cleaning crew droned on. There were more security personnel than anything else. And nobody was going anywhere, because New York City had just been hit with a major snowstorm.

So it was no trouble to trail her out to the concourse. She was standing by a taxi stand, a lone figure fighting the bitter night air, watching the snow fall, no doubt weighing its implication. The way she was searching for a cab, she couldn’t know the storm’s extent. Judging by her attire, it was likely that she hadn’t even known about the weather when she’d taken off. She probably didn’t know how lucky she was to have even landed. Just moments ago he’d heard that all incoming flights had been diverted to Boston. But perhaps the most amazing thing was to find himself running into her here in the middle of New York, when there had been so many other more likely venues over the years.

Shifting his duffel bag, he ran a hand through his unruly blond hair and adjusted his well-worn baseball hat. He would try for cool and hope she didn’t hear the tremor in his voice. He was thirty-five, after all, and didn’t need to sound like a schoolboy, even if he felt like one.

“Well, well, well, what have we here? Althea Almott in the flesh.” He watched her spin round, startled. Her look of chagrin made him smile.

“Ah, sweet Althea, is that sigh for me or in spite of me?” he asked, stifling his disappointment. He watched her turn away, her pointy chin high as she tugged her fur coat snugly round her elegant shoulders.

Althea’s brown skin might hide her blushes, but he couldn’t know how wildly her heart was beating, how she strove to conceal her shock at meeting him. “Do I know you? You don’t look familiar. You must be mistaking me for someone else.”

“It might be ten years, but I’d know you anywhere, sweetheart. You haven’t changed a bit. Not your face, nor your sweet disposition.” He grinned.

“Nor yours, Harry,” Althea returned, hiding behind a veil of contempt, her sharp eyes sharp taking in his shabby denim jacket and unkempt appearance. Looking tired and in desperate need of a haircut, still, he was as tall as she remembered, as blond and handsome—and just as annoying, judging by the taunt in his voice.

“You don’t approve of my sartorial splendor?” Harry mocked, following the drift of her eyes. If only she knew how ill he had been, how exhausted he was at that very moment, wondering how long his legs would last, perhaps she would be more forgiving. But then, they always had fought over the silliest things, and now, after ten years, here they were together two minutes and at each other’s throats again. Oh, well. Giving himself a mental shrug, Harry tried for philosophical. “You look great, Althea. Traveling alone?”

Althea shrugged. “And you?”

“As always,” he said with a lopsided smile.

“Always? You mean you never married?”

“Nope. Married to my career, maybe. So,” he said, switching gears abruptly, “are you looking for a cab? In case you haven’t guessed, every available snow-plow is busy clearing the runways. They won’t get to the streets for hours. I guess that makes me the man of the hour.”

“I can wait,” she said softly, watching the snow fall hard and furious. Althea knew Harry was speaking the truth, and with every snowflake, she felt her plans slip away. Now that she thought about it, the dark night was as menacing as the snow, and she supposed she was lucky to have landed on the tarmac in one piece.

“What a good idea,” Harry drawled. “I’ll join you. We can wait out the storm together.” He picked up her bag.

“Hold on, Harry. I can take care of that myself.” Spend four hours with the only man to ever leave an imprint on her heart? She didn’t think so! But the challenge in Harry’s overly bright eyes gave Althea pause. Turning back to the road, all she could see was the swirl of snow intent on burying the city. Where once she might have appreciated its pristine elegance, now she was simply annoyed. She couldn’t even make out the sidewalk. Ridiculous.

“Now that I think about it,” Harry asked, ignoring her comment, “what are you doing out here all alone? Where are your bodyguards? Shouldn’t there be a limousine waiting for you, princess? Come to think of it, Allie, where is your husband?”

She winced at his use of her nickname, but Harry only laughed. “Sorry. Old habits die hard. All right, Madame Boylan, where is that ambassador husband of yours?” he repeated, all trace of humor gone.

“Let’s have it, Allie. What are you doing state-side? I seem to have missed something, here. Why, pray tell, are you here on the wrong side of the Atlantic, Allie? An ambassador’s wife doesn’t just wake up one morning and grab a flight to New York, not even for the winter sales at Saks.”

“Daniel is in Paris, if you must know,” she said over her shoulder as she hurried back into the terminal, her long stride an elegant testimony to her modeling days. And that is all you must know, she vowed silently.

Harry frowned as he chased after her. “Damn it all, Althea, you know you shouldn’t run around unescorted. Does the ambassador know you’re here by yourself?”

One look at her face told him everything. He clasped his hand on her elbow and effectively trapped her. “Unless I’m mistaken,” he said, giving her legs a long glance, “those are custom-made shoes on your lovely feet. Given the weather, you don’t seem to have prepared very well for your trip. What’s going on, Allie?”

Standing toe-to-toe, Althea could feel Harry’s soft breath on her hair. She marveled that the touch of his hand could still make her shiver, that he could so quickly elicit a response from her, that ten years could make little difference. She tried to pull away but Harry’s grip was as firm as the glare in his eyes.

“Leave me alone, Harry. I know what I have on my feet,” she said crossly. “If I’d had time to listen to the weather report, I would be wearing boots. But I didn’t.”

No boots, no taxi, just Harry Bensen. Poetic justice, after her mad dash from Paris. Shrugging free of his hand, Althea stepped back and stared up at him proudly. “This is Kennedy Airport. A taxi will turn up eventually, so don’t waste your time on my behalf. I can take care of myself.”

“Nobody knows that better than I do,” Harry agreed crisply. “But those pretty shoes, it would be a pity to ruin them, don’t you think?”

“I can always buy another pair.”

“Ah, yes, now that’s my old Althea. Buy, buy, buy. Everything to be had for a price.”

“Not everything,” Althea snapped. “Oh, of all the airports in the world… Honestly, Harry, I wish I hadn’t met you.”

“Your good luck,” he snapped, “if only you knew.”

“Harry, why don’t you simply turn around and walk the other way?”

“And forget I ever saw you?” Harry snapped with an amused smile.

“Something like that.” Althea’s eyes were hopeful as she forced a plaintive smile to her lips.

“I thought so. Well, it’s too late, darling. Your ambassador husband would be furious—and rightly so—if I left you alone like this.”

“It doesn’t matter what my husband thinks,” Althea retorted. “I prefer to wait alone.”

“Wait for what?” Harry asked as he held open the terminal door. “Come on, let’s go get some coffee. I’m freezing.”

Althea’s anger was evident as she rushed past Harry, rudely brushing him aside. But Harry was unimpressed. Feeling the onset of a headache, a sure sign that his fever was rising, he wasn’t in the mood to argue. “Playing this one close to the breast, Allie?” Watching her flinch, he guessed that his remark hit home. “Ah, the rich and famous at play.”

“This is not a game. I do not play games.”

“Then times have changed,” he retorted, suddenly too tired to take her on. Too bad she didn’t understand the facts, or she would appreciate his foul mood. Four months photographing a South American rainforest would exhaust anyone, but one hour with Althea Almott would be just as exhausting. Maybe he should take her advice and move on, pretend he never saw her. The mysterious infection he was fighting that was turning his insides out would be a handicap in dealing with her. And the damned snow was rotten luck when he was weak as could be with no energy to fight the elements. He should have flown to Cancun the way the doctors suggested and slept on the beach until summer.

And the good news was that no reporter was around to take notes. He could just imagine the headlines: Ambassador’s Wife Snowbound with Lover.

Harry didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Just look how she sat, perched on the edge of the plastic chair, trying to hide behind those huge rhinestone sunglasses—at three o’clock in the morning, for Pete’s sake. As if any reporter worth his salt wasn’t going to spot the world’s most famous black model—or anybody, for that matter—wrapped in a fifty-thousand-dollar fur coat.

Ex-model, he corrected himself.

Wife, now, to the American ambassador to France. No longer the hillbilly country girl from Alabama he’d been so wild about a decade ago. Refashioned: buffed and polished till her smooth black skin glowed like a pearl; her long, slender neck dripped with diamonds; her clothes custom-fitted by Versace. Beyond his touch. She was royalty now; she dined with princes.

It was the sight of her fellow passengers scattered around the drafty building, trying to get comfortable in a place designed to keep them moving, that finally convinced Althea she really was stuck at the airport. Her frustration was clear. She removed her sunglasses to reward Harry with a long, hard stare. “Harry, your concern is commendable, but I didn’t ask for your help, and I surely don’t appreciate your lousy mood. Like I said before, why don’t you put down my bag and disappear?”

Her thick-lashed amber eyes may have made her famous, but flashing as they were, Harry was immune. “Althea, honey, I swear I would if I could, but my conscience would never let me sleep. There’s about two, maybe three more inches of snow due to come down before this storm is done, so like it or not, we’re stuck with each other. So, what’s it going to be? How would you like to play this out?” Harry gave her a long searching look.

He watched as she considered the question, her beautiful face a portrait of uncertainty as she scanned the terminal, looking for an alternative. In the end, he merely shrugged. “All right, Allie, a compromise. We hang out together, and I ask no questions. That way my conscience won’t bother me, and your privacy won’t be invaded.”

Flopping down beside her, he suddenly didn’t want any answers. He was too busy trying to deny the band of sweat that had broken out across his brow, trying to force down the bile rising in his throat, control the furious way his head was spinning. Christ, was he really going to embarrass himself right there in the terminal? Hell, there was no way he was going to make it home if this kept up. Why weren’t the damned pills working?

Althea…

But he couldn’t work words past his parched lips.

Althea…my head…I can’t breathe… Althea, stop swaying…

Althea…

Chapter One

The waiting room in Elmhurst Hospital was chilly and poorly lit, but Althea didn’t mind. She had her fur coat to warm her and hospital protocol to distract her. Waiting for an ambulance at the snowbound airport had been a major distraction of worry, too, but eventually it arrived to whisk them away. Then the paperwork, and all those questions for which she didn’t have answers. But as long as they were tending to Harry Bensen, wherever he was, having been swallowed up by the medical machine, she didn’t care what the admitting nurse wrote down.

How strange it had been to run into him. Of all people, didn’t one always say? Old lover, lost love. The set of his shoulders, the way he walked, the tilt of his head, the color of his hair. Had he honestly thought she could ever forget? A woman never forgot her first love. Never.

When finally she was allowed to see him, every inch of Harry’s torso was wired to various monitors, and an IV was dripping magical curatives into his arm. Although Althea was able to smile with some measure of relief, she couldn’t help noticing how frail he seemed, lying against the starched linen of the hospital bed, his lips white and chapped, the rest of him an alarming shade of yellow. Fighting an odd impulse to brush her lips across his brow, she instead allowed her fingers to skim his burning temple. Harry’s eyes fluttered at the featherlight touch.

“Hey soldier, how are you feeling?” she whispered.

Depleted by his illness, tremendously dehydrated, and dazed by the drugs dripping into his arm, Harry was grateful to feel a cool hand on his body. Barely able to open his eyes, his smile was tenuous as he fought the surge of happiness he felt when he saw who was standing by his bedside.

Althea leaned over him, her concern plain as she brushed his hair from his forehead. Obviously fighting, too, an ineffable sadness. “Oh, Harry, why didn’t you tell me how sick you were? No, don’t answer that,” she hushed him with a timid smile. “It was my fault, I had no idea, I should have noticed. Malaria. Who would have thought? You sure scared the heck out of me, back at the airport, collapsing like that without any warning.”

“Next time…I’ll send…a telegram.”

“I wish you would,” Althea admonished him tenderly, recalling her horror as Harry had slid to the cold ground, a ballet in slow motion. “Never mind. The doctors aren’t quite sure what you have but they’re pumping you up with antibiotics. Your blood count is high so they’re running a few tests, but they do promise you a full recovery. They said you have to take better care of yourself, though. No more trips to steamy climates, for one thing.”

“They…said so?”

“That and more, way more than I should know about your body,” she teased gently. “I think they assume I’m your wife.”

“You didn’t correct them?”

“The path of least resistance.” She thought he was smiling but couldn’t be sure, his lips were so cracked. It probably hurt to speak, it probably hurt for him to move anything, given his high fever.

“Hush now, I’ll do all the talking.” Gently she pressed a piece of ice to his parched mouth. With the lightest touch she bathed his face and hands with a wet washcloth, trying to cool him down. Eventually he seemed to be more comfortable. You poor guy, she thought, what on earth have you been doing to get to this point? I sure hope this is the worst you’re going to go through. But she knew that was wishful thinking; she hadn’t seen anyone this ill in ages.

Not wishing to disturb him, but unwilling to leave him alone, Althea sat by his side for an hour, until a nurse came to check on his IV. Although the nurse told her she could stay as long as she liked, Althea knew she still had to battle the snow and figured this was a good time to leave. Quietly she gathered her belongings.

“I think I’ll be getting home, now that he’s safely settled,” she whispered.

His head barely turning, Harry’s eyes flickered open when he heard the scrape of her chair.

“You’ll come back?” he begged hoarsely as he followed her with his eyes.

How could she refuse? Nodding, Althea pressed his hand gently, ignoring the wrench in her heart.

Once, long ago, when she’d had choices to make, Harry Bensen had been one of them. Leaving him behind had not been the high point of her life, and she would never fool herself that he forgave her. Looking down now at his ravaged body covered with wires, she knew all he wanted was a lifeline to the outside world. Glancing at the machines surrounding his bed, monitors attuned to his every heartbeat, an oxygen tank helping him to breathe, she could appreciate that. All right, then, she would give him what she could, and maybe—in the smallest way, of course—it would make up for what she had refused him in the past. Giving in to her impulse, she lowered her lips to kiss his brow and promised to return.

Dawn was breaking as Althea left the hospital. A path plowed by the maintenance crew enabled her to make her way to the express bus, the only vehicle big and heavy enough to dare the city streets after such a storm. Glittering with six inches of newly fallen snow, New York was a prism of beauty now that the sky had cleared, and as the bus lumbered into Manhattan, she was treated to the sight of a skyline that seemed just short of unearthly. Against the expanse of white snow that covered the buildings and floated on the river, a red-orange sun was creeping into the early-morning sky, painting the city with a Technicolor wand. For one brief moment, suspended as she was between her old life and new, Althea wondered if the sight was an omen. It pleased her to think it was.

The bus left her two blocks from her West Side co-op, but treading carefully, she managed to make her way home. It had been nearly a year since she had been back, but Broadway seemed the same. She dashed through the heavy brass doors of the lobby, hungry for its familiar warmth.

In the year she had been gone, its ornate vestibule remained unchanged. Heavy gold-framed mirrors still decorated the walls; the vestibule was still crowded with cabbage-rose sofas and fake greenery. Its familiarity was a comfort, and yet a strong sense of disquiet disturbed her as the doorman greeted her uncertainly. He was new and didn’t know who she was. He saw only a black woman rushing through the door, tracking snow into his immaculate lobby. Scrambling to his feet, he gave her a hesitant smile, but she noticed that, very tactfully, he blocked her path.