by Nora Roberts
purposes. But one was fueled by hope and energy, the other by despair and anger.
No matter how he’d prepared himself, it had been a shock to see Naomi, vivid, arrogantly alive Naomi, behind the security screen. The months between her arrest and her sentencing had taken their toll. Her body had lost its subtle feminine roundness, so she’d appeared angular and bony in the shapeless prison uniform. Everything had been gray—her clothes, her eyes, her face. It had taken every ounce of will inside him to meet her silent, steady gaze.
“Naomi.” He felt foolish in his suit and tie, his starched collar. “I was surprised you wanted to see me.”
“Needed to. You learn quickly in here that what you want is rarely a consideration.” She was three weeks into her sentence, and for the sake of her sanity had already stopped crossing off days on her mental calendar. “I appreciate your coming, Philip. I realize you must be dealing with a lot of backlash right now. I hope it won’t affect your position at the university.”
“No.” He said it flatly. “I assume your attorneys will appeal.”
“I’m not hopeful.” She folded her hands, linking her fingers tight to keep them from moving. Hope was another weight on her sanity that she’d coldly dispatched. “I asked you to come here, Philip, because of Kelsey.”
He said nothing, couldn’t. One of his deepest fears was that she would ask him to arrange for Kelsey to visit, to bring his child into this place.
She had a right. He knew in his heart she had a right to see her child. And he knew in his heart he would fight her to the last breath to keep Kelsey away from the horror of it.
“How is she?”
“She’s fine. She’s spending a day or two at my mother’s so I could . . . make the trip.”
“I’m sure Milicent’s delighted to have her.” The sarcasm whipped back into her voice. The ache crept back into her heart. Determined to finish what she’d begun, Naomi banished both. “I assume you haven’t explained to her, as yet, where I am.”
“No. It seems . . . No. She believes you’re visiting someone far away for a while.”
“Well.” A ghost of a smile flitted around her mouth. “I am far away, aren’t I?”
“Naomi, she’s only a child.” However unfair, he would use her love for Kelsey. “I haven’t found the right way to tell her. I hope, in time, to—”
“I’m not blaming you,” Naomi interrupted. She leaned closer, the shadows under her eyes mocking him. “I’m not blaming you,” she repeated. “For any of this. What happened to us, Philip? I can’t see where it all started to go wrong. I’ve tried. I think if I could pinpoint one thing, one time, one event, it would be so much easier to accept everything that happened after. But I can’t.” She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting until she was sure she could speak without a tremor in her voice. “I can’t see what went wrong, but I can see so many things that went right. Kelsey. Especially Kelsey. I think of her all the time.”
Pity, the overwhelming weight of it, smothered him. “She asks about you.”
Naomi looked away then, around the drab visiting room. Someone nearby was weeping. But tears were as much a part of this place as the air. She studied the walls, the guards, the locks. Especially the locks.
“I don’t want her to know I’m here.”
It wasn’t what he’d expected from her. Off balance, he fumbled between gratitude and protest. “Naomi—”
“I’ve thought this through very carefully, Philip. I have plenty of time to think now. I don’t want her to know they took away everything and put me in a cage.” She drew a deep steadying breath. “It won’t take long for the scandal to die down. I’ve been out of your circle for nearly a year as it is. Memories are short. By the time she goes to school, I doubt there’ll be much more than a murmur, if that, about what happened in Virginia.”
“That may be, but it hardly deals with now. I can’t just tell her you’ve disappeared, Naomi, and expect her to accept it. She loves you.”
“Tell her I’m dead.”
“My God, Naomi, I can’t do that!”
“You can.” Suddenly intense, she pressed a hand to the security screen. “For her sake, you can. Listen to me. Do you want her to visualize her mother in a place like this? Locked up for murder?”
“Of course I don’t want it. She can’t be expected to understand, much less cope with it, at her age. But—”
“But,” Naomi agreed. Her eyes were alive again, passionate, burning. “In a few years she’ll understand, and she’ll have to live with it. If I can do anything for her, Philip, I can spare her from that. Think,” she insisted. “Think. She could be eighteen by the time I get out. All her life she’ll have pictured me here. Would she feel obligated to come here herself to see me? I don’t want her here.” The tears came then, breaking through the dam of self-control. “I can’t bear it, even the thought of her coming here, seeing me like this. What would it do to her? How would it damage her? I tell you, I won’t take that chance. Let me protect her from this, Philip. Dear God, let me do this one last thing for her.”
He reached out so that their fingertips met through the iron mesh. “I can’t stand to see you in here.”
“Could any of us bear to see her sit where you are?”
No, he couldn’t. “But to tell her you’re dead. We can’t predict what that would do to her. Or how any of us would live with the lie.”
“Not so big a lie.” She drew her fingers back, stemmed the tears. “Part of me is dead. The rest wants to survive. Quite desperately wants to survive. I don’t think I could if she knew. She’ll be hurt, Philip. She’ll grieve, but you’ll be there for her. In a few years she’ll barely remember me. Then she won’t remember me at all.”
“Can you live with that?”
“I’ll have to. I won’t contact her or interfere in any way. I won’t ask you to visit me here again, nor will I see you if you come. I’ll be dead to her, and to you.” She braced herself. Their time was almost up. “I know how much you love her, and the kind of man you are. You’ll give her a good life, a happy one. Don’t scar it by making her face this. Please, promise me.”
“And when you’re released?”
“We’ll deal with that when it happens. Ten to fifteen years, Philip. It’s a long time.”
“Yes.” It made his stomach knot to imagine it. What, he thought, would it do to a child? “All right, Naomi. For Kelsey’s sake.”
“Thank you.” She rose then, fighting nausea. “Good-bye, Philip.”
“Naomi—”
But she walked straight to the guard, through the door that clanged shut behind her. She hadn’t looked back.
“Dad?” Kelsey put her hand on Philip’s shoulder and gave it a little shake. “What century are you in?”
Flustered, he rose. “Kelsey. I didn’t see you come in.”
“You wouldn’t have seen a fleet of Mack trucks come in.” She kissed him, drew back, then with a laugh kissed him again. “It’s good to see you.”
“Let me look at you.” Did she seem happier? he wondered. More settled? The thought caused a quick, ungenerous tug-of-war inside him.
“I can’t have changed that much in two weeks.”
“Just tell me if you feel as good as you look.”
“I feel great.” She slipped into a chair and waited for him to settle across from her. “The country air, I suppose, someone else’s cooking, and manual labor.”
“Labor? You’re working on the farm?”
“Only in the most menial of capacities.” She smiled up at the waitress. “A glass of champagne.”
“Nothing else for me, thank you.” Philip looked back at his daughter. “Are you celebrating?”
“Pride took his race at Santa Anita today.” Kelsey was still flushed with pleasure at the win. “I muck out his stall when he’s at Three Willows, so I feel some part of responsibility for the victory. In May Virginia’s Pride is going to take the Derby.” She winked. “That’s a sure thing.”
Philip sipped his wine, hoping it would open his throat. “I didn’t realize you’d become so involved . . . with the horses.”
“They’re wonderful.” She took the glass the waitress set in front of her, lifted it in a toast. “To Pride, the most gorgeous male I’ve ever seen. On four legs, anyway.” She let the bubbles explode on her tongue. “So, tell me, how is everyone? I thought Candace would be with you.”
“I suppose she understood that I wanted you to myself for a couple of hours. She sends her love, of course. And Channing. He has a new girl.”
“Of course he does. What happened to the philosophy major?”
“He claimed she talked him to death. He met this one at a party. She designs jewelry and wears black sweaters. She’s a vegetarian.”
“That ought to last about five minutes. Channing can’t go much longer than that without a burger.”
“Candace is certainly counting on that. She finds Victoria—that’s her name—unsettling.”
“Well.” Kelsey opened her menu and skimmed. “She wouldn’t find anyone settling right now where Channing’s concerned. He’s still her baby.”
“The most difficult thing any parent ever does is to let go. That’s why most of us just don’t.” He covered her hand with his. “I’ve missed you.”
“I haven’t really gone anywhere. I wish you wouldn’t worry so much.”
“Old habit. Kelsey”—he tightened his grip on her hand—“I asked you to have dinner with me for a couple of reasons. I’m not sure you won’t find one of them unpleasant, but I felt you’d prefer to hear it from me.”
She stiffened. “You said everyone was all right.”
“Yes. It’s about Wade, Kelsey. He’s announced his engagement.” He felt her hand go limp. “Apparently it’s to be a small wedding, in a month or two.”
“I see.” Odd, she thought, that there should still be so much emotion to swirl and collide inside her. “Well, that was quick work.” She hissed out a breath, annoyed by the edginess of her own tone. “Stupid of me to resent it, even for a minute.”
“Human, I’d say. However long you were separated, the divorce is barely final.”
“That was just a paper. I know that. The marriage ended in Atlanta, more than two years ago.” She picked up her glass, considered the wine bubbling inside. “I was going to be civilized and wish him the best. Nope.” She drank deeply. “I hope she makes his life hell. Now, I think I’ll try the blackened redfish. I feel like something with a little bite to it.”
“Are you going to be all right?”
“I’m going to be fine. I am fine.” She closed her menu. After they’d given their order, she found herself smiling at her father. “Were you afraid I’d throw a tantrum?”
“I thought you might need a shoulder to cry on.”
“I can always use your shoulder, Dad, but I’m finished crying over what’s done. Maybe working, really working for a living’s changing my outlook.”
“You’ve been working for years, Kelsey, since you graduated from high school.”
“I’ve been playing at jobs for years. None of them mattered to me.”
“And this does? Mucking out stalls matters to you?”
The snap in his voice warned her. She chose her words carefully. “I suppose I feel a part of a system there. It’s not simply one race or one horse. There’s a continuity, and everyone has a part in it. Some of it’s tedious, some of it’s rushed, and it’s all repetitive. But every morning it’s new. I can’t explain it.”
And he would never understand it. All he knew at that moment was that she sounded so much like Naomi. “I’m sure it’s exciting for you. Different.”
“It is. But it’s also soothing. And demanding.” Might as well get it done, she told herself, and she continued quickly. “I’m thinking of giving up my apartment.”
“Giving it up? And what? Moving permanently to Three Willows?”
“Not necessarily.” Why did it have to hurt him? she wondered, then sighed. Why had it hurt her to hear Wade was about to remarry? “That hasn’t been discussed. But I’ve been giving some thought to moving out to the country. I like seeing trees out of my window, Dad. Seeing land instead of the next building. And I enjoy very much what I’m doing now. I’d like to keep doing it, see if I’m good at it.”
“Naomi’s influencing you. Kelsey, you can’t let these kinds of impulses seduce you into rushing from one way of life to another. You can’t possibly understand the world you’re toying with after so short a time.”
“No, I can’t claim to understand it fully. But I want to.” She held back as their salads were served. “And I want to understand her. You can’t expect me to walk away from her until I do.”
“I’m not asking you to walk away, but I am asking you not to leap in without considering all the consequences. There’s more than the romance of a horse at dawn, or that last gallop over the finish line. There’s ruthlessness, cruelty, ugliness. Violence.”
“And it’s as much a part of who I am as the smell of books in the university library.”
“Why, it’s Kelsey, isn’t it? Naomi’s lovely daughter.” Bill Cunningham sauntered over, a drink from the lounge in one hand, his diamond horseshoe winking on the other. “No mistaking that face.”
Perfect timing, she thought, and forced a smile. “Hello, Bill. Dad, this is Bill Cunningham, an associate of Naomi’s. Bill, my father, Philip Byden.”
“Why, I’ll be goddamned. It’s been years.” Bill stuck out a hand. “Don’t believe I’ve seen you since the day you snatched Naomi out from under my nose. Teacher, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” With the coolness he reserved for careless students, Philip nodded. “I’m a professor at Georgetown University.”
“Big time.” Bill grinned, laying a hand on Kelsey’s shoulder for a quick, intimate squeeze. “You got yourself a real beauty here, Phil. It’s a pure pleasure seeing her around the track. Heard your mama’s top three-year-old outdistanced the field at Santa Anita today.”
“Yes, we’re very pleased.”
“Things are going to shake down different in Kentucky. Don’t let her talk you into laying your paycheck on Three Willows’ colt, Phil. I’ve got me the winner. You give your mama a kiss for me, honey. I’ve got to get back to the bar. Little meeting.”
As he walked away, Kelsey picked up her salad fork and began to eat with every appearance of interest.
“That’s the kind of person you want to associate with?”
“Dad, you sound like Grandmother. ‘Standards, Kelsey. Never lower your standards.’ ” But Philip didn’t smile. “Dad, the man’s an idiot. Very similar to the pompous, blustering idiots I’ve run into at the university, in advertising, at galleries. You can’t escape them.”
“I remember him,” Philip said stiffly. “There were rumors that he bribed jockeys to lose, or to deliberately force another horse into the rail.”
She frowned, and shoved the salad aside. “So add sleazy to pompous and blustering. He’s still an idiot, and not someone I intend to cultivate a friendship with.”
“He runs in the same circle as your mother.”
“Parallel lanes, perhaps. There’s a great deal I don’t know about her, or trust about her, at this point. But I do know that Three Willows is more than a farm to her, the horses more than business assets. It’s her life.”
“It always was.”
“I’m sorry.” Kelsey reached out helplessly to take his hands. “I’m sorry that she hurt you. I’m sorry that what I’m doing now has brought all that hurt back. I’m asking you to trust me to look at the whole, to make my own choices. I need a goal in my life, Dad. I may have found it.”
He was afraid she had, and that when she reached it he would no longer recognize her. “Just promise me you’ll take more time, Kelsey. Don’t commit to anything, or to anyone, without more time.”
“All right.” She hesitated. “You haven’t asked about her.”
“I was working up
to it,” Philip admitted. “I wanted your impressions.”
“She seems very young. She has this incredible well of energy. I’ve seen her start at dawn and keep going until after dark.”
“Naomi loved to socialize.”
“I’m speaking of work,” Kelsey corrected. “She never socializes. At least she hasn’t since I’ve been there. To tell you the truth, with all the work, I don’t see how anyone would have the strength left to party. She’s usually in bed before ten.” No point, she thought, in mentioning that Naomi wasn’t always sleeping alone. “She’s very controlled, very contained.”
“Naomi? Controlled? Contained?”
“Yes.” She paused, waiting while their entrées were served. “I take it she wasn’t always, but that’s exactly how I’d describe her now.”
“How do you feel about her?”
