“What do you do?” Elizabeth was looking her over again, and Julie was watching them both, as Tana smiled, shaking back her mane of pale blond hair. Elizabeth had envied her that since they first met.

“I'm an attorney like your dad. In fact, that's how we met.”

“So's my mom,” Elizabeth was quick to add. “She's assistant to the ambassador of the OAS in Washington, and they might give her her own ambassadorship next year.”

“Ambassadorial post.” Drew corrected her and glanced at the three “girls.”

“I don't want her to do that.” Julie pouted. “I want her to come back here to live. With Daddy.” She stuck her lower lip out defiantly, and Elizabeth was quick to add, “He could come with us wherever Mom's sent. It depends on where it is.” Tana felt an odd feeling in her gut, and she looked at him, but he was doing something else, and Elizabeth went on. “Mom may even want to come back here herself, if they don't offer her the right job. That's what she said, anyway.”

“That's very interesting.” Tana noticed that her mouth felt dry, and she wished that Drew would regain control of the conversation again, but he didn't say anything. “Do you like living in Washington?”

“Very much.” Elizabeth was painfully polite and Julie hopped into Tana's lap again, and smiled up into Tana's eyes.

“You're pretty. Almost as pretty as our mom.”

“Thank you!” It was definitely not easy talking to them, and other than with Harry's children, it was rare for Tana to be in a spot like this, but she had to make the effort for Drew. “What'll we do this afternoon?” Tana felt almost breathless as she asked, desperate to divert them from the topic of his almost ex-wife.

“Mommy's going shopping on Rodeo Drive.” Julie smiled up at her, and Tana almost gasped.

“Oh?” Her eyes turned towards Drew in astonishment and then back to them. “That's nice. Let's see, how about a movie? Have you seen Sounder?” She felt as though she were running up a mountain as fast as she could and she wasn't getting anywhere … Rodeo Drive … that meant she had come to Los Angeles with the girls … and why hadn't he wanted Tana to come down yesterday? Had he spent Christmas with her after all? The next hour seemed to trickle by as Tana chatted with the girls, and finally they ran outside to play, and Tana finally turned to him. Her eyes spoke volumes before her mouth said a word. “I take it your wife is in Los Angeles.” She looked rigid and inside something had gone numb.

“Don't look at me like that.” His voice was soft while his eyes avoided her.

“Why not?” She stood up and walked towards him. “Did you spend the holiday with her, Drew?” He couldn't avoid her now, she was standing directly in front of him. And she already assumed he had. And when he lifted his eyes to face her, she knew instantly that she was right and the girls had given him away. “Why did you lie to me?”

“I didn't lie to you. I didn't think … oh, for chrissake…” He looked at her almost viciously. She had cornered him. “I didn't plan it that way, but the girls have never had a Christmas with us separated before, Tan … it's just too damn hard on them…”

“Is it, now?” Her eyes and voice were hard, concealing the pain she felt inside … the pain he had inflicted on her by lying to her … “And just exactly when do you plan to let them get used to it?”

“Goddammit, do you think I like seeing my children hurt by this?”

“They look fine to me.”

“Of course they do. That's because Eileen and I are civilized. That's the least we can give them now. It's not their fault things didn't work out for us.” He looked at Tana sorrowfully and she had to fight the urge to sit down and cry, not for him or the girls, but for herself.

“Are you sure it's not too late to salvage it with Eileen?”

“Don't be ridiculous.”

“Where did she sleep?” He looked as though he had received an electric shock.

“That's an inappropriate thing to ask, and you know it damn well.”

“Oh, my God…” She sat down again, unable to believe how transparent he was. “You slept with her.”

“I did not sleep with her.”

“You did, didn't you?” She was shouting now and he strode around the room like a nervous cat as he turned to face her again.

“I slept on the couch.”

“You're lying to me. Aren't you?”

“Goddammit, Tana! Don't accuse me of that! It isn't as easy as you think. We've been married for almost twenty years, Goddammit.… I can't just walk out on everything from one day to the next, and not when the girls are involved,” he looked at her mournfully and then walked slowly to where she sat. “Please…” There were tears in his eyes. “I love you, Tan … I just need a little time to work this out.…” She turned away from him and walked across the room, keeping her back to him.

“I've heard that before.” She wheeled to face him then, and there were tears in her eyes too. “My mother spent seventeen years listening to bullshit like that, Drew.”

“I'm not giving you bullshit, Tan. I just need time. This is very difficult for all of us.”

“Fine.” She picked up her bag and coat from a chair. “Then call me when you've recovered from it. I think I'd enjoy you more then.” But before she reached the door, he grabbed her arm.

“Don't do this to me. Please…”

“Why not? Eileen is in town. Just give her a call. She'll keep you company tonight.” Tana smiled at him sardonically to hide the hurt. “You can sleep on the couch … together, if you like.” She yanked open the door and he looked as though he were going to cry.

“I love you, Tan.” But as she heard the words, she wanted to sit down and cry. And suddenly she turned to him and her energy seemed to drain as she looked at him.

“Don't do this to me, Drew. It's not fair. You're not free … you have no right to…” But she had opened the door to her heart just wide enough for him to slip into it again. Wordlessly, he pulled her into his arms, and kissed her hard, and she felt everything inside her melt. And when he pulled away from her, she looked at him. “That doesn't solve anything.”

“No.” He sounded calmer now. “But time will. Just give me a chance. I swear to you, you won't regret it.” And then he said the words that frightened her most. “I want to marry you one day, Tan.” She wanted to tell him to stop, to move the film back to before he had said those words, but it didn't matter anyway, the girls came running in, laughing and shouting and ready to play with him and he looked over their heads at her and whispered two words to her, “please stay.” She hesitated. She knew she should go back, and she wanted to. She didn't belong here with them. He had just spent the night with the woman he was married to, and they had had Christmas with their two girls. Where did Tana belong in all this? And yet when she looked at him, she didn't want to leave. She wanted to be part of it, to be his, to belong to him and the girls, even if he never married her. She didn't really want that anyway. She just wanted to be with him, the way they had been since they first met, and slowly she put down her bag and coat and looked at him, and he smiled at her, and her insides turned to mush, and Julie hugged her around the waist while Elizabeth grinned at her.

“Where were you going, Tan?” Elizabeth was curious, she seemed fascinated by everything that Tana did and said.

“Nowhere.” She smiled at the pretty adolescent child. “Now, what would you girls like to do?” The two girls laughed and teased and Drew chased them around the room. She had never seen him as happy as this, and later that afternoon they went to the movies, and ate buckets of popcorn, then he took them to the La Brea Tar Pits, and to Perino's for dinner that night, and when they finally came home all four of them were ready to fall into bed. Julie fell asleep in Drew's arms, and Elizabeth made it into bed before falling asleep, too, and Tana and Drew sat in front of a fire in the living room, whispering, as he gently touched the golden hair he loved.

“I'm glad you stayed, sweetheart … I didn't want you to go.…”

“I'm glad I stayed too.” She smiled at him, feeling vulnerable and young, which didn't make sense for a woman her age, at least not to her. She imagined that she should be more mature than that by now, less sensitive. But she was more sensitive to him than she had ever been to any man. “Promise it won't happen again.…” Her voice drifted off and he looked at her with a tender smile.

“Baby, I promise you.”





“You know, kid, I think you finally did good for yourself.” She made a face and he laughed. “I mean it. I mean, look at the guys you used to drag around. Remember Yael McBee?”