The Backup Plan by Sherryl Woods Page B

established that, let’s talk about dinner. Are you free tonight?”
    So she could listen to more of Maggie’s absurd theories? Not a chance, Dinah thought. “I’m busy tonight,” she said.
    â€œDoing what? Trying to track down Bobby?”
    â€œYes, as a matter of fact. If he doesn’t have a number listed with information, I will call every hotel in Atlanta till I find him,” she said with grim determination. Maggie and Cord might be totally opposed to this, but she knew what she needed and it was Bobby Beaufort. “If there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s how to work the phones to find someone who doesn’t want to be found.”
    â€œWouldn’t it be easier just to ask Cord?” Maggie repeated.
    â€œBeen there, done that,” Dinah reminded her. “Whatever his reasons, Cord doesn’t seem inclined to share what he knows.”
    Besides, if there was any chance at all that Maggie might have it exactly right about her attraction to Cordell, Dinah needed to keep the contact between them to a minimum. She couldn’t afford to be distracted by something that didn’t have a chance of turning into any thing more than a wild, no doubt self-destructive fling.
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    The minute Dinah got home she headed straight for her father’s den. He kept all sorts of phone books around. There was bound to be one for Atlanta. The bank probably did a lot of business there.
    She was sitting on the antique Aubusson carpet, pulling phone books out of a credenza and piling them haphazardly on the floor, when Maybelle came in.
    â€œWhat on earth are you doing in here?” the housekeeper demanded, looking dismayed. “Besides making a mess of your daddy’s stuff, that is. You know how helikes everything in order. Never known a man to be so set in his ways.”
    Dinah grimaced. Maybelle was right about that. When he noticed them at all, Marshall Davis liked his life and his surroundings to be orderly.
    â€œI’ll put it all back,” Dinah promised, then grinned. “How many times do you suppose you came in here and had to set things to rights before Daddy came home and pitched a fit?”
    â€œOnce a day from the time you could walk,” Maybelle responded at once, a tolerant smile on her face at the memory.
    â€œAnd how many times did he find me out, anyway?”
    â€œMost every one,” Maybelle said, grinning. “That daddy of yours surely did dote on you, though. If your mother or me got so much as a paper clip out of place in here, he’d raise the roof. If it was Tommy Lee, he’d paddle his behind. But if it was you who turned things upside down, he’d just smile and say one day that curiosity of yours was going to pay off big-time. Turned out he was right about that.”
    Even so, Maybelle frowned at the chaos Dinah had created. “You’re too big for me to be following around after you and cleaning up your messes, young lady. You put those things back before your daddy gets home, you hear. He might not be so tolerant these days. You’re a grown-up woman who ought to know better than to mess with someone else’s things.”
    â€œIt’s a few phone books, Maybelle. Not top secret files.”
    â€œIn his mind, there’s not much difference.”
    Dinah laughed. “Stop fussing. I can handle Daddy.”
    After the housekeeper left, Dinah finally found thecurrent Atlanta phone directory and flipped through the pages. She found two Robert Beauforts and one Bobby, but after calling all three numbers, it was evident none was the right man. She called information to see if there happened to be a more recent listing that hadn’t made the directory, but she struck out there, too.
    That left hotels and motels, she concluded with a sigh. She dragged over the Yellow Pages and started with the downtown hotels. It was a mindless, tedious task, but that was just about all she could cope