by Nora Roberts
“I took it easy on you” he said. “Cause you’re old enough to be my father.” Then he stopped, embarrassed by what he’d said, shaken by his own longings. Before he could figure out how to retract it, Paul had him in a headlock and was making him scream with laughter as knuckles rubbed hard on the top of his head.
“Okay, big mouth. Two out of three.”
Brandon blinked, stared. “Really?”
By God, Paul thought, he was falling for the kid all on his own. Those big, hungry eyes, that shy smile. All that hope, all that love. If there was a man alive who could resist that look, his name wasn’t Paul Winthrop.
Paul gave him a big, evil grin. “Unless you’re chicken.”
“Me, scared of you?” He liked being held there, in a male embrace, smelling male smells, exchanging male taunts. He didn’t try to wriggle out of Paul’s hold. “No possible way.”
“Prepare to lose. This time I’m going to demolish you. Loser buys the beer.”
When Paul released him, Brandon raced to the ball. He was laughing when he saw his mother come out of the garden and onto the path. “Mom! Hey, Mom! Look what Paul put up. He said I could use it as long as we’re here and everything. And I beat him first game.”
She was walking slowly, had to walk slowly. That first comforting sheen of shock was melting away, leaving smears of fear behind. When she saw her child, his face grubby with dirt and sweat, his grin huge, his eyes excited, she broke into a run. She swooped him up, pressing him hard against her, burying her face against the damp and tender side of his throat.
She was alive. Alive. And holding her life in her arms.
“Jeez, Mom.” He wasn’t sure if he should be embarrassed or apologetic in front of Paul. He rolled his eyes once, showing that this was something he had to put up with. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” She had to swallow, to force herself to relax her grip. If she started babbling now, she’d only frighten him. And it was over. All over. “Nothing, I’m just glad to see you.”
“You saw me this morning.” His puzzled look changed to astonishment when she. Released him to give Paul the same fierce, possessive hug.
“Both of you,” she managed to say, and Paul could feel her heart thundering against his chest. “I’m just glad to see both of you.”
In silence, Paul cupped her chin to study her face. He recognized the signs of shock, of stress, of tears. He gave her a long, soft kiss and felt her lips tremble against his. “Close your mouth, Brandon,” he said mildly, bringing Julia’s head to his shoulder to stroke her hair. “You’ll have to get used to me kissing your mother.”
Over Julia’s shoulder he saw the boy’s eyes change— wariness, suspicion. Disappointment. With a sigh, Paul wondered if he had the ability to handle both mother and son.
“Why don’t you go inside, Jules? Get yourself something cold and sit down. I’ll be with you in a minute.”
“Yes.” She needed to be alone. If she wasn’t going to fall apart, she needed a few moments to herself to scrape together those flimsy rags of control. “I’ll see if I can come up with some lemonade. You both look like you could use some.”
Paul waited until she was well on her way before he turned back to the boy. Brandon’s hands were stuffed into the pockets of his shorts. He was staring hard at the toes of his scuffed Nikes.
“Problem?”
The boy only shrugged his shoulders.
Paul mirrored the gesture before he walked over the shirt he’d tossed off during the heat of battle. He took out a cigar then fought a brief battle with damp matches.
“I don’t figure I have to explain to you the man-woman sort of thing,” Paul mused aloud. “Or why kissing’s so popular.”
Brandon stared so hard at his shoes, his eyes nearly crossed.
“Nope. I didn’t think so.” Stalling, Paul drew in smoke, then exhaled. “I guess you should know how I feel about your mother.” Brandon still said nothing, trapped in the silence of his own confusion. “I love her, very much.” That statement at least had Brandon lifting his head to make eye contact. It wasn’t, Paul noted, a particularly friendly look. “It might take you some time to get used to that. That’s okay, because I’m not going to change my mind.”
“Mom doesn’t go out with guys and stuff very much.”
“No. I guess that makes me pretty lucky.” Christ, was there anything harder to face than a child’s direct, unblinking stare? Paul blew out a long breath and wished he had something stronger than lemonade to look forward to. “Listen, you’re probably wondering if I’m going to mess up and hurt her. I can’t promise I won’t, but I can promise I’ll try not to.”
Brandon was having a hard time even thinking about his mother in the way Paul was describing. She was, after all, first and last, his mother. It had never occurred to him that anything could hurt her. The possibility had the inside of his stomach jittering. To compensate, his chin shot out, much the way Julia’s did. “If you hit her, I’d—”
“No.” Paul was instantly in a crouch so that they were eye to eye. “I don’t mean like that. Not ever like that. That is a promise. I mean hurt her feelings, make her unhappy.”
The thought cued into something nearly forgotten that made Brandon’s throat hurt and his eyes water. He remembered the way she had looked when his grandparents had died. And before, sometime in that misty before, when he’d been too little to understand.
“Like my father did,” he said shakily. “He must have.”
There the ground was too soft and unsteady for him to tread on. “That’s something you’ll have to talk to her about when you’re both ready.”
“I guess he didn’t want us.”
The man’s hand cupped the boy’s shoulder. “I do.”
Brandon looked away again, over Paul’s right shoulder. A bird zipped into the garden in a bright flash of blue. “I guess you’ve been fooling around, hanging around with me because of Mom.”
“That’s part of it.” Paul took a chance and turned Brandon’s face back to his. “Not all of it. Maybe I thought it’d go a little easier for me with Julia if you and I got along. If you didn’t like me, I wouldn’t have a shot. The thing is, I like hanging around you. Even if you are short and ugly and beat me at basketball.”
He was a quiet child, and by nature an observant one. He heard the simplicity in Paul’s answer, understood it. And, looking into the man’s eyes, trusted it. His nerves settled, and he smiled. “I won’t always be short.”
“No.” Paul’s voice roughened even as he answered the smile. “But you’ll always be ugly.”
“And I’ll always beat you at basketball.”
“I’m going to prove you wrong there, a little later. Now, I think something’s upset your mom. I’d like to talk to her.”
“By yourself.”
“Yeah. Maybe you could go over to the main house and charm some cookies out of Travers. Again.”
Faint, embarrassed color stained Brandon’s cheek. “She wasn’t supposed to tell.”
“She wasn’t supposed to tell your mom,” Paul said. “People tell me everything. And the thing is, Travers used to sneak me cookies too.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He rose then. “Give me about a half hour, okay?”
“Okay.” He started off, then turned at the edge of the garden. A young boy with dirt on his face and scabs on his knees and the disconcertingly wise eyes of childhood. “Paul? I’m glad she didn’t hang around with guys and stuff before now.”
As compliments went, Paul couldn’t remember better. “Me too. Now, beat it.”
He listened to Brandon’s quick, appreciative laughter, then turned toward the guest house.
Julia was in the kitchen, slowly, mechanically squeezing lemons. She’d slipped out of her suit jacket, stepped out of her shoes. The sapphire-colored shell she wore made her shoulders look very white, very soft, very fragile.
“I’m nearly finished,” she said.
Her v
oice was steady, but he heard the underlying nerves. Saying nothing, he pulled her over to the sink to rinse her hands under cool water. “What’re you doing?”
He dried her hands himself with a dishtowel before he switched off the radio. “I’m going to finish it. Sit down, take a couple of deep breaths, and tell me what happened.”
“I don’t need to sit.” But she did lean against the counter. “Brandon? Where’s Brandon?”
“Knowing you, I thought you’d hesitate to let it loose in front of him. He’s over at the main house for a while.”
Apparently Paul Winthrop knew her much too well, much too quickly. “So Travers can sneak him cookies.”
Paul glanced up as he added sugar. “What, have you got a hidden camera?”
“No, just a mother’s primitive sensory skills. I can smell cookie breath at twenty paces.” She managed a weak smile and finally did sit.
He pulled a wooden spoon from the rack and stirred. When he was satisfied, he filled a glass with ice and poured the tart drink over the cubes so that they crackled. “Was it the interview with Kenneth that upset you?”
“No.” She took the first sip. “How did you know I was seeing Kenneth this afternoon?”
“CeeCee. When I came by to relieve her.”
“Oh.” She looked around blankly, just realizing CeeCee wasn’t there. “You sent her home.”
“I wanted to spend some time with Brandon. Okay?”
Struggling for calm, she sipped again. She hadn’t meant to question him so sharply. “I’m sorry. My mind keeps going off on tangents. Of course it’s okay. Brandon looked as if he was enjoying himself. I’m not much competition on the basketball court, and—”
“Julia, tell me what happened.”
With a jerky nod she set the glass aside, then linked her hands on her lap. “It wasn’t the interview. In fact, that went very well.” Had she put the tape in the safe? Unconsciously she unlinked her fingers to rub them against her eyes. Everything seemed so fuzzy, from the time she had clasped her hands over her head. She started to get up, to go to him, but her legs wouldn’t allow it. Funny that her knees would go weak now, when everything was all right again. The kitchen smelled of lemons, her son was sneaking cookies, and the faintest of breezes was nudging a tinkle out of the wind chimes. Everything was all right again.
She started when Paul scraped back his chair and went to the refrigerator. He yanked out a beer, twisted the top, and drank deep.
“I’m not thinking straight,” she said. “Maybe if I start at the beginning.”
“Fine.” He sat across the table from her, ordering himself to be patient. “Why don’t you do that?”
“We were flying back from Sausalito,” she began slowly. “I was thinking that I’d finished nearly all of the hard research, and that in a few weeks we’d be going home. Then I was thinking about you, and what it would be like to be there while you were here.”
“Goddammit, Julia.”
But she didn’t even hear him. “I must have dozed off. I took dramamine before the flight, and Kenneth served wine with lunch. Made me sleepy. I woke up when the plane … I might not have told you I’m afraid of flying. Well, it’s not flying so much as being cooped up in there with no way out. And this time, when the plane started to buck, I told myself not to be a wimp about the whole thing. But the pilot said—” She wiped the back of her hand over her mouth. “He said we had a problem. We were going down so fast.”
“Oh, sweet God.” He was up, too terrified to realize how rough he was when he hauled her to her feet. His hands were moving over her, checking for injuries, making sure she was whole. “Are you hurt? Julia, are you hurt?”
“No, no. I think I bit my tongue,” she said vaguely. She thought she remembered the taste of blood and fear in her mouth. “Jack said we were going to make it. The fuel—there was something wrong with the fuel line or the gauge. I realized it when it got so quiet. The engines shut down. All I could think of was Brandon. He’d been robbed of a father, and I couldn’t bear to think of him being alone. I could hear Jack swearing, and the radio crackling with voices.”
She was shaking now, hard and fast. He did the only thing he knew and picked her up off her feet to cradle her against him.
“I was so scared. I didn’t want to die inside that damn plane.” Her voice was muffled with her face pressed against his throat. “Jack yelled back for me to hang on. Then we hit. It felt like I was hitting the tarmac instead of the plane. Then we bounced—not like a ball. A rock—like a rock if rocks could bounce. I heard metal screaming, and the wind rushing in. There were sirens. We were fishtailing, like a car out of control on ice, and there were sirens. Then we stopped, we just stopped. I must have already unstrapped because I was getting up when Jack came back. He kissed me. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not a damn bit.”
“Good, because I kissed him back.”
Still rocking her, Paul buried his face in her hair. “If I get the chance, I’ll kiss him myself.”
That made her laugh a little. “Then I got out, and I came back. I didn’t want to talk to anyone.” She sighed once, then twice before she realized he was holding her. “You don’t have to carry me.”
“Don’t ask me to put you down for a while.”
“No.” She laid her head on his shoulder. Safe, secure, treasured. “In my whole life,” she murmured. “No one’s ever made me feel like you.” When the dam burst, she turned her face to the curve of his throat. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Cry as long as you want.”
He wasn’t very steady himself as he carried her into the living room so he could sit on the sofa and hold her to him. Her sobs were already quieting. He should have known that Julia wouldn’t draw out any bout of weakness.
And he could have lost her. That thought swam over and over in his mind, forming its own whirlpool of fear and rage. She could have been taken from him that quickly, that horribly.
“I’m all right.” She straightened as far as he would permit to wipe the tears away with the backs of her hands. “It hit me, really hit me, when I saw you and Brandon.”
“I’m not all right yet.” The words were jerky. He closed his mouth over hers, not as gently as he might have wished. His fingers speared through her hair, closed into a fist. “How useless everything would be without you. I need you, Julia.”
“I know.” Her system settled, but she was content to stay cradled in his arms. “I need you too, and it’s not nearly so hard as I thought it would be.” She brushed her fingers over his cheek. How wonderful it was, how liberating, to know she could touch like that whenever the whim struck. And how liberating it was to trust. “There’s more, Paul. You’re not going to like it.”
“As long as you’re not going to tell me you’ve decided to elope with Jack.” But she didn’t smile. “What?”
“I found this under my seat on the plane.” She got to her feet, yet even when she was no longer touching, she felt connected to him. She knew before she took the paper out of her skirt pocket and offered it, what he would be feeling.
Rage, that impotent, useless fear that went with it. And an anger that was different from rage, less combustible and more consuming. She gauged them all in his eyes.
“I’d say this is a little more direct,” she began. “All the others were warnings. This … I guess we’ll call it a statement.”
“Is that what you’d call it?” He saw more than the words. She’d crushed the paper in a palm that had been damp with a fear and had smeared the type. “I’d call it murder.”
She moistened her lips. “I’m not dead.”
“Fine then.” When he rose, his anger spilled over and lapped at her. “Attempted murder. Whoever wrote this sabotaged the plane. They meant for you to die.”
“Maybe.” She held up a hand before he could explode. “It seems more likely they wanted me to be scared. If they’d wanted me to die in a crash, why the note?”
Fury burned in his e
yes. “I’m not going to stand here and try to reason out the criminal mind.”
“But isn’t that what you do? When you write about murder, aren’t you always dipping into the criminal mind?”
The sound he made was somewhere between a laugh and a snarl. “This isn’t fiction.”
“But the same rules apply. Your plots are logical because there’s always a pattern to the murderer’s psyche. Whether it’s passion or greed or revenge. Whatever. There’s always motive, opportunity, and reasoning, however twisted. We have to use logic to figure this out.”
“Fuck logic, Jules.” His fingers closed over the hand she’d laid lightly on his chest. “I want you on the next flight to Connecticut.”
She was silent for a moment, reminding herself he was being difficult only because he was frightened for her. “I thought about that. At least I tried to think about it. I could go back—”
“You damn well will go back.”
She only shook her head. “What difference would it make? It’s already started, Paul. I can’t erase what Eve’s told me— More, I can’t erase my obligation to her.”
“Your obligation ended.” He lifted the paper. “With this.”
She didn’t look at it. Maybe it was a form of cowardice, but
