She wasn't sure what she was going to do, but she knew she couldn't stay in Destiny Bay waiting for Ross to come back and spare a few minutes for her and the baby. She had to get out. The first thing she did was make ar rangements for Nancy to take over at the restaurant for an extended period of time.
Before she could think of what her second thing was going to be, Mason called.
"Hi, Char," he said cheerfully.
"Ah. The prodigal brother." But she was smiling. She always enjoyed hearing from Mason. "Where are you?"
"Mammoth Lakes. I've been here for a few weeks, and I think I'll stay for the winter."
Good old Mason. He never stayed in places like Pico Rivera or West Covina. It was always Aspen or Chile or Mammoth Lakes. "Is Mandi still with you?"
"Mandi?"
"Faith's protégée."
"Oh, her. No. You didn't think I ran off with her, did you?"
"That was the impression we were under."
His laugh was short. "Well, you can lose it. All I did was take the poor girl home. Faith had her so bamboozled with the search for her past identity, she didn't even have her current identity firm yet. She needed to get home to Den ver and get herself straight. So I took her."
That made her feel better. She hadn't much liked the thought of her brother seducing the strange girl.
"You really ought to let Faith know. She thinks you're Blue beard and Casanova all rolled into one."
"Faith will survive," he said. "But how about you? How's your gargoyle?"
"My what?"
"Ross. Have you married him yet? For real, I mean."
Charity swallowed hard, forcing her voice to stay light. "What makes you think I'm going to marry him?"
"The way you two looked at each other. The way elec tricity sizzled every time you passed one another. It looked like a pretty good match to me."
Tears welled up in her eyes and she thanked her lucky stars that this was a telephone conversation so he couldn't see them.
"No," she said quickly, trying hard to keep the tremor from her voice. "As a matter of fact, he's in Australia. We won't be seeing each other for a while." She sailed right into her next topic before he had a chance to ask more questions. "I've been thinking. I ought to take a card from your deck and try a change of scenery."
"Oh?" Mason always did know how to read her and he knew she was avoiding the subject of Ross, but she knew he wouldn't come right out and ask for a full explanation. He was much too subtle for that.