Moments In Time Read Free Page A

carefully looked over the desk. It was just the thing. She asked the dealer to hold it for her while she ran back to the hotel to fetch her husband in hopes that he would like it as much as she did.
    She had entered the suite and gone directly to the bedroom, then seeing the bathroom door partially open and hearing the water from the shower, she called his name just as the sound of water ceased.
    She would never, she knew, forget the way it had all appeared to her as she opened the bathroom door. The scene replayed itself in slow motion every time she closed her eyes: J.D.’s look of surprise and confusion, Glory’s smug little smile as she turned to face Maggie.
    The pain and shock had knocked the breath from her lungs, numbed her mind.
    “Oh, Jamey, no … ” she had heard herself whisper, then had turned and stumbled blindly from the room, out into the hallway, where she had leaned against the wall awaiting the elevator, a fist pressed tightly into the excruciating pain exploding in her abdomen. Her mind had been frozen, and she later recalled having prayed that she would not scream or throw up in the elevator as she descended to the lobby and sought a cab.
     
     
    I t had never occurred to her that J.D. would be unfaithful to her. Maggie had honestly believed she knew him to the depths of his soul. Yet, hidden deep in her heart had always been the fear that Glory, who never seemed willing to abandon a desire to rekindle that old flame, would someday succeed at taking him from her, as she’d so often taunted she would.
    Glory Fielding was every wife’s nightmare. Even now, in her midthirties, she was still a most spectacular-looking woman with long golden hair and the face of a beautiful, innocent child. Three days ago, on Friday morning in a London hotel suite, Maggie’s nightmare had become reality.
    She had fled to the sanctity of Rick Daily’s country home some twenty miles north, grateful to find that Rick had gone to the city with his daughter for a few days. The housekeeper, well acquainted with the entire Border crew—Rick, J.D., and Maggie having been friends for years—permitted her to stay without asking any questions and had, upon Maggie’s instructions, denied her presence when J.D. had called. The message that had been relayed to Maggie was that he needed desperately to speak to her, that she must give him a chance to explain.
    He’d been caught with another woman under the most incriminating circumstances, she had indignantly scoffed. What on earth could there be to explain?
    Swallowing the lump that had risen in her throat in response to the memory, Maggie raised her chin resolutely, blinking away the burning in her eyes. All she wanted right now was to conclude this ordeal with her dignity intact. She commanded herself to somehow manage to keep her hostility toward him cloaked for the next two hours, then she could slam the door in his face. By this time tomorrow she would be on her way back to the States with her children. Just two more hours and I will never have to be in the same room with him again. Just two more hours …
    “Well, we’re all set. Camera one,” Hilary gestured behind her, “will be rolling f irst… Watch for the lights, there’s the cue … Smile, you two,” she commanded her guests as the lights glared and Hilary’s recorded theme song signaled the start of the show.

 
     
     
     
     
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    “ T ONIGHT, FRIENDS, WE’RE PRIVILEGED TO HAVE AS our guests one of the mainst ays of the pop music scene, J. D. Borders, and his wife, Maggie. We’re pleased you both could join us this evening. J.D., you’ve given us better than twenty-five years of popular music. So many of your contemporaries have come and gone and come back again. Yet you, for the most part, managed to remain something of a permanent presence in the business all this time. Why do you suppose that’s so?”
    “Well, I’m not sure that I’ve done anything that’s quite that notable,” he