'Not good enough.'
'I need time.'
'There isn't any.'
'Don't do this, Sam. Please don't badger me like this.'
'I want to know, Suzie. Right now. Make up your mind. Are you in or out?'
She felt as if she were eons older than he was instead of only a year-millennia older in experience. A lifetime of dinner-table conversations drifted back to her. She saw hurdles he couldn't imagine, difficulties his visionary's eyes hadn't begun to glimpse. Everything she had learned from the day she was bom urged her to tell him she couldn't help him and then to run back to Falcon Hill and beg her father's forgiveness.
But she loved him, and she loved the new spark he had ignited inside her-a spark that had been lit by his reckless energy, a spark that wanted to grow brighter and become stronger. A spark that was urging her to follow this restless young man she had so unwisely fallen in love with right off the edge of the earth.
When she finally spoke, her voice was shaky and barely audible. 'I'm in.'
Chapter 10
Yank's Duster coughed like an emphysema victim as Susannah drove north to Falcon Hill several days later. She had owned high-performance automobiles all her life, and until this moment she hadn't realized a car could behave like this one. She thought about using the car as an excuse to go back, but then imagined how Sam would scoff at her if she returned without getting the things she needed.
Each day it had grown more difficult for her to live without her possessions. Sam had given her money to get a new prescription filled for her birth control pills, and although that had been her most pressing need, it was only one of them. She needed her reading glasses and her driver's license. She needed clothes to replenish her borrowed wardrobe. No matter how much she wanted to avoid it, she hadn't been able to postpone going home any longer.
The gates loomed ahead of her. Sam had given her the small electronic gadget he had used to release the locks, but she didn't need it. It was Thursday morning and the gates were open for a grocery delivery. As she turned into the drive, she remembered the newspaper gossip column from last Sunday's paper that she had stumbled upon. It had contained a sly account of what had happened at her wedding and was accompanied by a picture of herself and Cal 'in happier times.' Sick at her stomach, she had tried once again to reach her father, this time at his office. His secretary had pretended not to know who she was and informed her that Mr. Faulconer was currently out of the country.
Her trepidation grew as she parked the Duster in the motorcourt and climbed the front steps to the house. While she waited for someone to answer the bell, she wished a familiar household retainer would appear-one of those mythic housekeepers of fiction who would welcome her home with a tart scolding and a warm plate of cookies. In reality, Falcon Hill's current housekeeper had a small tattoo on the back of her hand and had only been with them a few months.
The slim hand that opened the door, however, bore no tattoo.
'Paige?'
'Well, well, the runaway bride returns.'
Susannah was astonished to see her sister, but even more surprised to see that Paige was wearing one of Susannah's own silk dresses instead of her customary blue jeans. Antique gold earrings glimmered through her hair. They were the ones Joel had bought Susannah as a high school graduation present.
A smirk distorted Paige's pretty mouth. 'I can't believe you have the nerve to come back.'
'What are you doing here?'
Paige's eyes skimmed Susannah's tidy hair and untidy outfit, then flicked to the battered Duster in the driveway. 'Falcon Hill is my home, too. Or have you forgotten that?'
There was an expression of such smugness on her sister's face that Susannah felt sick. 'I'm just surprised, that's all. Is Father home?'
'Luckily for you, no. You've been declared persona non grata for the rest of your natural life. He's left orders that your name is no longer to be spoken in this house. You're being disinherited, spurned-I actually think he's trying to find a way to un-adopt you. Right out of the Old Testament.'
Susannah had known it would be bad, but not this bad.
Like someone deliberately probing a sore tooth, she inquired, 'What about Cal? How is he?'
'Oh, he's just peachy-considering the fact that he's been publicly humiliated. It's a miracle the newspaper story hasn't gotten bigger play, but you've still managed to make him look like the Bay Area's biggest asshole.'
Susannah didn't want to think about what a terrible thing she had done to Cal. She couldn't bear any more guilt.
'Actually, it's been pretty interesting around here. It's starting to feel as if you never existed. As if you never came into our lives.'
Susannah didn't want to hear any more. She moved forward, ready to slip past Paige and get what she needed, but Paige sidestepped, blocking the way. 'You can't come in, Susannah. Daddy's forbidden it.'
'But that's ridiculous. I need to get some of my things.'
Triumph glittered in Paige's eyes. 'Maybe you should have thought of that before you ran off with your stud.'
'He's not a-'
'I thought you were a virgin. Isn't that a hoot? If you had to have a toy boy, Susannah, you could at least have been nice enough not to wave him in Daddy's face.'
Susannah mustered her dignity. 'I didn't mean to hurt anyone. I just couldn't help it.'
'Don't tell me you couldn't help it!' Paige's smugness dropped away, and for a few moments she looked as befuddled as a child. 'I thought I knew you, but that's not true at all. The person I knew wouldn't have run off like that. God, Susannah…' And then her hostility slipped back into place like the click of a lock. 'Not that I care.'
Susannah tried to make her understand. 'I couldn't stand it any longer. I love Father, but I felt as if he was choking me to death. And Cal was becoming an extension of him. They were making me feel old. I'm only twenty- five, but I felt like an old lady. I didn't really expect either of them to understand, but I thought you would.'
'I don't understand any of it. All I know is that perfect Susannah isn't so perfect anymore. For the first time in my life, Daddy has stopped waving all those unlimited virtues of yours in my face. Do you know how long I've waited for this? He talks to me at dinner now. He tells me about his day. He doesn't even miss you, Susannah!'
Susannah felt weak under the strength of Paige's antipathy. A bittersweet image passed through her mind of a crayon picture Paige had drawn when she was in kindergarten. The two of them had been holding hands and standing together under a rainbow. Whatever had happened to those two little girls?
'We're sisters,' Susannah said. 'I've tried to watch out for you.'
'Half sisters. And you're not the only one who knows how to play Lady Bountiful. Wait for me here. I'll put some of your things together and bring them out to you.'
Before Susannah could react, the door to Falcon Hill had been firmly slammed in her face.
Paige delivered Susannah's possessions in two shopping bags from Gump's. She had included the reading glasses and driver's license as well as miscellaneous pieces of clothing, none of it Susannah's best. There was no jewelry, nothing of monetary value. When Susannah returned to the Gamble house, she put the clothes neatly away in Sam's closet and tried not to dwell on Paige's vindictiveness.
While the printed circuit boards were being finished, Sam had been trying to raise money to buy the parts they needed. He brought his former coworkers to the garage and enveloped them with his rhetoric, speaking of a new society in which ordinary people would have the power of the universe at their fingertips. Exactly what they were to do with that power, he never defined. Gradually Susannah realized that he had only the vaguest idea himself what ordinary people would really do with a computer.
Even as she stood mesmerized at his side, she found herself growing increasingly uneasy. Not only didn't they have a definable market for their product-they couldn't even tell future customers what to use it for. By the
