by Meg Tilly
Sixty-eight
“YOU ARE NEVER going to guess what just happened,” Eve said, unbuttoning her coat. “I was at the bank, making our deposits.” She hung her coat, inhaling deeply, filling her lungs with the warm, cozy smell of home baking that permeated the place. Her stomach grumbled, so she ambled over and leaned against the counter by Maggie, snagged another sugar cookie and bit into it. “Mm . . . so good. I could eat these delectable bits of tasty goodness until the cows come home.” She paused. “What does that mean, ‘until the cows come home’? Seriously. Is that supposed to imply that the cows never come home of their own free will? That you have to go out and get them? Or does it mean that the cows come home when the sun sets? Meaning I could eat these cookies until nightfall?”
Maggie didn’t bother commenting, just smiled softly and kept rolling her pie crusts.
A wave of sisterly affection rushed over Eve. She flung an arm around her sister’s shoulders. “I love you so much, Maggs,” she said, then released her quickly, because Maggie had a certain rhythm she liked to get into with her cooking, and it was best not to disturb it. Eve took another bite of her cookie. “So, I tried to make the payment on my mortgage and . . . Now, hold on to your hat, Maggie, because this is the funny part. They wouldn’t let me.” She laughed. “Some computer glitch. Thought I’d already paid the thing in full. I have to admit I was sorely tempted not to correct their mistake. But then I worried that someone else had scrimped and saved, or perhaps they’d received an inheritance, thought they’d gotten the old debt monkey off their back. Couldn’t do it. Damned morals!” She laughed again and popped the last bit of cookie into her mouth. “Anyway . . .” She turned and looked at her sister, who was standing stock-still, hand to her mouth. Clearly Maggie was in total shock. The expression on her face was so funny. “I know,” Eve said, shaking her head. “It’s hard to believe, but I do have them. Morals, that is.”
“Eve,” Maggie croaked, carefully placing her rolling pin down. “We need to talk.” She took Eve’s hand with her floury one and led her over to the faded celadon sofa against the back wall.
“What is it? Is everything okay? You look so serious.”
Maggie looked down at their clasped hands. “Eve,” she said, her voice tentative. “Remember how Great-Aunt Clare left me her estate?”
“Yeah.” Eve swallowed, but the clogged feeling in her throat didn’t abate.
“Didn’t you ever wonder why she left everything to me?” Maggie’s gaze rose from their hands to her face. She looked troubled.
“Well, she liked you best.” Eve patted her sister’s hand, prevaricating. “You were such a sweetheart of a child, with sturdy little legs, rosy cheeks, and lungs louder than a foghorn. Who wouldn’t love you? It didn’t bother me one bit that she gave it all—”
“Eve . . .” Maggie blew out a long, slow breath, as if she was bracing herself for something. “I was actually her biological daughter.” Maggie’s eyes filled up. “I didn’t know. I swear to you.” Words tumbled out now. “I wasn’t trying to pull the wool over your eyes. I didn’t find out until last year, when I had my stuff moved to Solace. I was sorting through old boxes and I came across a copy of her will. It was in a sealed envelope. I’d never opened it. I mean, why would I? Mom and Dad handled it all. I was practically just a kid when she died.”
She was crying hard now. Eve rubbed slow circles on her sister’s back, trying to sort out what to say.
“Maggie, it’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. And I wanted to tell you. Truly, I did. But I was scared, too. Worried that you wouldn’t want to be my sister anymore.”
“Maggie, you are my sister. You’ll always be my sister.”
“It was a horrible feeling to have my whole sense of self—of who I thought I was—ripped away. All these years I never understood why she left everything to me and nothing to you. The guilt was overwhelming at times. I was worried that deep down you’d resent me for it.”
“Maggie, honey, I’d never resent you for it. I kn—”
“Eve, please.” Maggie interrupted, holding up a hand, her face tear-streaked. “I need to get this out. Then you can talk. Okay?” She blew out a breath. “So, that’s why—when we were holidaying at Laucala and Luke asked me what I wanted most in the world—I told him about Great-Aunt Clare, and about you. The guilt I felt. The stress you’ve been under trying to pay your mortgage. And so he paid off the remainder of your mortgage.”
“Wha . . . ?” Eve felt as if she’d been hit over the head with a two-by-four. “I . . . I don’t understand.”
“We paid off your debt. You have a clean slate, Eve!” Maggie’s tearstained face glowed so brightly, it was as if the moon had taken up residence.
“Maggie, honey,” Eve said, trying to find the right words. “That’s so sweet of you to even think to do that. I am so moved.” Humbled, actually.
“Don’t say ‘but,’” Maggie wailed.
“But I . . . I can’t accept.” She felt shaky, overwhelmed. “It’s my debt, Maggie. I took it on. I just . . . I wouldn’t feel comfortable letting Luke pay my mortgage.”
“He’s a multi-multimillionaire, Eve!” Maggie’s hands rose to Eve’s shoulders, attempting to shake sense into her. “It’s a minuscule amount to him.”
“But it’s not to me.”
“Anyway,” Maggie said quickly. “The money wasn’t from him. It was from me. It was his gift to me. You have to let me do this, Eve. Please.”
“First off.” Eve wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, then gently removed her sister’s hands from her shoulders and clasped them in front of her, holding tight and gathering the words she wanted to say. “There is no reason for you to feel guilty about Great-Aunt Clare’s estate. I knew why she’d left everything to you.”
Maggie studied her face. Eve could see the inklings of cautious hope dawning in Maggie’s eyes. “You did?”
“I’ve known she was your birth mother for years.”
“You have?”
Eve nodded, glad that she was finally able to talk about it, but cautious, too. “Do you remember the summer there was a terrible heat wave? You were eight and a half and I was almost twelve. Grandmother had rented a beach house for the summer.”
“Great-Aunt Clare was there. Mom was, too. Was Dad there? He must have been.”
“No. Dad had to stay in town on the job, and it was too far for him to drive back and forth on the weekends. He missed us something fierce.” Eve glanced down at their interlocked hands, shoring her strength, hoping that Maggie wouldn’t be mad that she’d kept something so important a secret. “I woke up one night, and Mom and Great-Aunt Clare were arguing. That’s how I found out. Grandmother found me at the top of the stairs crying.”
“You’ve known for”—Eve could see Maggie doing the math in her head—“nearly twenty years?”
Eve nodded. She could feel the prickles of heat rising up her neck, flooding her face.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Maggie said. Her face was usually so easy to read, but in this instance Eve had no idea what she was thinking. Was Maggie feeling angry and betrayed, outraged, or simply sad and disappointed in her?
“Grandmother made me promise not to,” Eve said softly. “You were such a happy child, so secure in your place. I’d always protected you, looked out for you. I didn’t want anything to ever cause you harm. You were—and always will be—the sister of my heart.”
Maggie was silent, digesting what she had just heard. Eve knew there were a million thoughts churning through her sister’s head.
“So,” Maggie said slowly. “You say I’m the sister of your heart . . .”
“You are,” Eve said, suddenly feeling fierce. No one, not even Maggie herself, was going to take away her sister. “Absolutely, one hundred percent.”
“Does family help family?”
“Of course. I’
ll always be there for you, Maggs, no matter what. You know that.”
“So, this whole Great-Aunt Clare thing doesn’t change anything? I’m family?”
“Yes!” What the hell was Maggie getting at?
Maggie nodded decisively and stood, smacking her hands together, sending little dust clouds of flour swirling into the air. “Great. I’m glad we got that sorted out. As family, I claim my familial prerogative to help you out, aka, dispense with your pesky mortgage.” A triumphant smirk appeared on her face.
“Maggie . . .” Eve protested weakly.
“Am I your sister or am I not!” Maggie demanded, tipping her nose in the air imperiously.
“You are. You know you are.” When had her sister become this fierce, tricky Amazon queen?
“Good. Then our problem is solved. Your mortgage and line of credit have been paid in full. I don’t want to hear another word about it!” With that final pronouncement, she marched over to the counter and returned to rolling out pie dough, humming happily to herself.
Sixty-nine
RHYS HEARD THE clatter of Eve’s feet racing up the metal stairs leading to her apartment above the café. He quickly rolled up the brochure he’d been reading, threw himself on the sofa, sliding the leaflet under the pillow beneath his head.
Eve burst into the living room, the door slamming shut behind her. “You are never going to guess,” she said, her face glowing, “what just happened to me!” She laughed breathlessly. “Goodness, I hardly believe it myself.” She spun in a circle, hugging herself, then flopped on the sofa beside him.
Luckily, I have good reflexes, Rhys thought as he uncurled his legs and draped his knees comfortably over Eve’s warm thighs.
“Maggie knew!” Eve exclaimed. “She found the old will buried in a box. She knew! She’s still my sister. Oh, Rhys, I’m so happy I could spit!” She flung herself on him, careful not to jostle his shoulder as she hugged him fiercely.
He wrapped his good arm around her, breathing her in with all his senses. Rhys wasn’t sure what it was Maggie knew about, but it was important to Eve, so it mattered to him. And whatever it was, it was more important than dealing with the ever-ready erection that always seemed to arise when she was in close proximity. “That’s wonderful,” he said.
“Not only that, but she paid off my mortgage, Rhys. My mortgage and my line of credit!” She was excited, her words tumbling over one another like a basket of kittens. “She wouldn’t take no for an answer. I tried, Rhys. I really tried. I’m her big sister.” She bumped her fist on her chest. “I’m supposed to take care of her. But she insisted. Trapped me with that interminable logic of hers. Refusing her gift wasn’t an option.”
She sat up, her gaze flying around the living room with unseeing eyes, her hand rising to her mouth. He wanted to kiss the slight tremble from her lips, but that would need to wait, too.
“Oh, Rhys.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe it. My crushing, suffocating, overwhelming debt has been wiped clean, and I . . .” She had the stunned look of a child whose first tooth had been yanked out. “I . . . I just feel so damn grateful . . . but guilty, too. I don’t want to take advantage of her good nature . . . her good fortune. Yet she wouldn’t let me say no. Oh God, Rhys, I love her so much—” And then no more words were able to come out because she was sobbing too hard.
He held her, his heart and arms full of the most remarkable woman he’d ever met. He held her and let her cry and then laugh and then cry again.
He wondered for a second if perhaps she was pregnant, with her emotions seeming to swing from one extreme to another. He was shocked to realize that if she was indeed carrying his child, it wouldn’t freak him out. The idea of having a child with her actually caused a warm glow to take up residence in his chest.
After she had run the gamut of emotions, he made her a pot of Darjeeling tea and set her favorite teacup on the table. The teacup was a delicate bit of whimsy. With a pale robin’s-egg blue exterior, white interior, and the rim and dainty handle, gold.
That teacup was imbued with magical properties. It never failed to shore Eve up and had gotten a lot of use since they had arrived back from the hospital. He could tell when she was thinking about Levi or the events in the underground bunker because she’d march to their little kitchen area. Out would come the pot of Darjeeling, her favorite teacup, and his mug. He’d drop whatever he was doing, and they’d sit at her small Formica table from the forties and sip tea, holding hands. Sometimes they’d talk, and sometimes they’d be silent, letting the warm liquid and the delicate, slightly flowery scent of the tea wrap around them and soothe their jangly senses.
When the Darjeeling was sufficiently brewed, Rhys poured some in her cup, added a half teaspoon of sugar, and handed it to her.
“Thanks,” she said, smiling at him. Her eyes were puffy and pink from all the weeping. Her nose was red, and her hair was falling out of its tortoiseshell clasp.
I’ve got it bad, he thought, smiling to himself, because she’d never looked more beautiful.
Seventy
EVE’S THROAT WAS getting sore, her voice rocking a huskiness that it sometimes got when she’d been overenthusiastic at a concert or was recovering from a cold.
She’d talked long into the evening, told Rhys all about their Great-Aunt Clare, that long-ago summer when her life had tilted on its axis. She told him about her brooches, their significance in her life. How she’d used them to stop her attacker and how it had felt as if her grandmother were there, fighting alongside her. She’d told him about Maggie, too. And as she spoke, the burden of that secret gently detached itself from her shoulders and floated up and out the window like a helium balloon.
Finally, hunger forced its way through the deluge of memories, their stomachs growling like ravenous beasts. It was after eleven o’clock, so going out for dinner wasn’t an option. The restaurants in Comfort had closed hours ago. Even the kitchen at Toby’s Pub was locked down by ten.
“Wait,” Eve said, remembering the pies Maggie had been rolling out that afternoon. “Come on.” She tugged his hand. Out the door they went, the night air cold and crisp, the crescent moon high in the sky, their bodies wrapped around each other for warmth as they dashed down the metal open-rung stairs. Neither of them had bothered with a coat.
She unlocked the door, flipped on the lights, both of them blinking for a moment under the bright fluorescents.
“Right,” she said. “Let’s see what we have.” She strode over to the fridge and swung the door open. “Hmm . . . Looks like some kind of berry and . . . apricot-apple maybe. Not sure.”
“Let’s try the mystery pie,” Rhys said, switching on the oven. “I love how fast these industrial ovens heat. We’re going to have to get one installed at our place.”
Eve laughed. “Honey,” she said, picking up the pie and swinging the fridge door shut with her hip. “I hate to break it to you, but there is no way one of these monsters is going to fit in my little apartment.” She put the pie on the counter and removed the plastic wrap.
“What?” she said, because he had gone still. “You okay?”
He blinked, looking a bit dazed. “I can’t believe I forgot,” he said, a slight smile tugging the corners of his lips.
“Forgot what?”
“Hold on one second,” he said, his index finger rising into the air, and then he was gone.
He returned a couple of minutes later, the night air rushing in with him. He carried rolled papers in his hand. “All right, now, don’t freak out. I don’t want you to feel any pressure whatsoever . . .” He ran his hand through his hair, rumpling it even more. “But I went house hunting today.”
“You went what?” she squeaked.
“I know. It was ballsy of me. We haven’t discussed me moving here. But in my defense, I was just kicking tires. I was bored being laid up with this stupid shoulder, unable to help, lis
tening to the hustle and bustle down below. I thought it would be fun to look at some real estate. What I didn’t expect was to find a home that I totally love . . .”
“Rhys, you live in Los Angeles.”
“I don’t have to. I’m at the point in my career where I can live anywhere I like.”
Her mind was spinning. Rhys might buy a home here? There’s a possibility this could become more than a short-term fling?
“I could totally make it work. It’s easy to fly down and visit my mom. The jobs come to me . . .” The indigo blue in his eyes was almost black with suppressed emotion, his face wide open and vulnerable. This must be what he looked like as a boy, she thought. Before life knocked him around.
“Now, I am fully aware”—he was pacing now and wringing the hell out of the papers in his hands—“that you might not feel ready to move in together . . .”
Move in together!
“But I want you to know I am committed to you one hundred percent. I’m willing to wait for you, to do whatever it takes for you to feel comfortable.”
The oven dinged. He laid the crumpled papers on the counter and smoothed them out. “Here’s the brochure for the house.” He shrugged like it was no big deal, but she could tell that it was. “No pressure,” he tossed over his shoulder as he strode to the oven and put the pie in. “Just something to consider.” He shut the oven door and turned to face her, nervous tension tightening the corners of his eyes. “I know we’ve got brunch scheduled at Luke and Maggie’s tomorrow, but I was hoping you’d be willing to swing by the property with me beforehand. Take a look at the place, give me your thoughts?”
“Rhys,” she said, going to him, sliding her hands around his waist and leaning in. His heart was pounding against her cheek. “I would love to check out the house with you.”
