His mother looked more chagrined than hurt. “But I...we could give the child so much—”
“To make up for what you stole from her, you mean.”
His mother’s cheeks colored. “I suppose I deserved that.”
“Yes. You do.”
“But Mel doesn’t seem to have a problem letting Quinn be around your father.”
“Actually, she did. But at least I think she trusts Dad. You? Not so much. And why should she?” He leaned forward. “Did you think Mel wouldn’t tell me how you treated her? The despicable things you said to her? You did more than hurt Mel, Mother. You made her feel worthless. It’s going to take more than a simple apology to undo this damage. In fact, the word groveling comes to mind. Especially when you factor in what this little fiasco cost her mother. What you did—”
“For God’s sake, Ryder! I get it!” Shaking, Lorraine pushed herself up from the table and crossed the slate floor to one of the windows overlooking the leaf-flecked backyard and the water beyond, her arms tightly crossed over her ribs. The dogs heaved themselves to their feet and followed, worried. “I panicked, Ryder. And I know that’s no excuse, but...”
“But what?” When she pressed her lips together a second time, Ryder rose as well to come up beside her. “You may as well know...Dad already intimated to Mel that there’s more going on here than the obvious.” His mother’s startled eyes shot to his. “And no, I have no clue what that might be. But whatever the truth is, you owe it to her. Because without it, you can probably kiss any shot of having a real relationship with Quinn goodbye.”
“Boy’s right, Lorraine,” his father said from the doorway, making both of them spin around. Rumpled and obviously drained, David crossed to the buffet and poured himself a cup of coffee. “Half-assed isn’t going to cut it.” He lifted the cup to her. “Time to air the dirty laundry.”
Blushing furiously, Lorraine glanced at Ryder, then back at her husband. “But you said—”
“What I said more than thirty years ago,” his father said in the most forceful voice Ryder had ever heard, “has no bearing whatsoever on the present.” Then his expression softened. “Besides...there’s nothing to hold you back anymore, is there?”
Several seconds passed. Then, her eyes trained on David, as though trying to absorb strength from him, Lorraine finally said, “It doesn’t have anything to do with Mel directly.” Her gaze swung to Ryder. “But it does involve her grandmother. And...” She sucked in a breath. “And what I did to her.”
Chapter Nine
“You do realize it’s freezing out here?”
Hunkered down in one of the weather-ravaged Adirondack chairs on the equally weather-ravaged back porch, Mel aimed a wan smile from inside her fleece hood at Blythe, standing in the doorway leading from the gathering room. And who, in her ridiculously high-heeled ankle boots—how did anybody walk in those things?—and artfully draped layers looked like a damn goddess. As opposed to Mel, who felt more like a troll. With a hangover. And cramps.
“Suits my mood,” Mel said, looking back over the gloomy landscape, the sky and water the same shade of leaden gray, one eagle eye trained on Quinn and her new friend. “You just get in?”
“A few minutes ago, yeah.” Blythe rearranged several of the layers to sit in another chair a few feet away, a magnum of designer coffee clutched to her chest. “Can only stay a little while, though. Got an appointment in Falls Church this afternoon.” Mel grunted. “Who’s the kid with Quinn?”
“Name’s Jack something. Father’s a newish congressman in Washington.”
“Wes Phillips?”
“That would be him. He seems okay.” She’d actually met the boy earlier, fed him cookies, tried to get him to talk, decided the sperm bank mention was probably as bad as it was going to get. Then Mel felt a smile push at her unwilling lips. “The kid, I mean, haven’t met the dad. He’s off legislating. Or whatever our tax dollars pay them to do. I think they’re plotting world domination,” she said, watching her daughter and the boy, deep in conversation out on the pier. “The kids, I mean. Not congress. Then again...”
Blythe chuckled, then sobered. “So April tells me you went out with Ryder last night?”
Just who she wanted to talk about. The text a half hour ago had been short and to the point, that his mother wanted to “chat.” Mel cut her eyes to her cousin, then sank further into her grumpfest. “April sic you on me?”
“Wouldn’t be out here freezing my butt off otherwise. And I’m guessing ‘went out with’ is a euphemism?”
“We went out. On a boat, even.”
Blythe snorted. Elegantly, of course. “And you don’t think this is going to complicate things? With Quinn?”
“Not that this is any of your business, but it was a one-shot deal. An agreed-upon one-shot-deal, at that. So, no. No complications here.”
“For Quinn? Or you?”
“Anybody,” Mel said, staring really hard at all that gray.
Because damn her cute little hide, April had been right. If Mel had never been a fan of just-for-fun sex before, what on earth made her think she’d be okay with it now? Even with Ryder? Especially with Ryder—? “You tell her yet?”
“Working up to it. I’ve got a job interview in Baltimore next week, so before then. Depends on...things.”
“As in, the Caldwells?”
Mel turned to her cousin. “I assume April’s already told you that Quinn met Ryder’s father. With whom she instantly bonded, natch. And the thing is...” She looked away again. “He’d make a terrific grandfather. I always did like Dr. David. There’s a good guy there.”
“Despite his collusion?” Mel felt Blythe’s eyes on the side of her face. Or her hoodie, in this case. For a long time. Until Mel finally tugged back the edge of the hood to peer at her cousin. “What?”
“I know you always wondered about Nana’s issues with Aunt Maureen.”
Mel frowned. “Not really. It was pretty obvious she was irked because Mom went to work for the Caldwells—”
“Apparently it went way beyond that,” Blythe said quietly as a besweatered April joined them on the porch, struggling to shut the stubborn patio door behind her before coming to stand beside Mel. Who looked from one to the other, her stomach doing a slow, nauseating turn.
“What’s going on?”
“Not what’s going on,” April said, squatting beside Mel’s knees. “What went on. Long before any of us were born. You remember those boxes of papers Blythe and I divided up?”
“Yeah...”
Blythe dug inside underneath her many layers of garments to pull out a brittle, yellowing piece of paper which she handed to Mel. “I found this among them.”
* * *
Lorraine was stacking the few breakfast dishes into the dishwasher when the doorbell rang, making her jump out of her skin and the dogs to their feet, barking.
“Lucy! Ethel! Quiet!”
Already unnerved from the little family meeting that morning, she hurried to the front of the house, the dogs hot on her heels as the chime bong-bonged over and over, as though someone was in dire straits on the other side. David and Ryder had already left for work; the cleaning service wasn’t due for another hour yet. Sunlight streamed through the clerestory windows in the two-story foyer as Lorraine opened the door...and felt every drop of blood drain from her face.
“Melanie!”
Cheeks ablaze, eyes sparking, the young woman thrust a folded-up piece of paper practically in Lorraine’s face.
“You had an affair with my grandfather?”
Oh, hell. Not this way. Not—
“Why don’t you come in...?”
“All those names you called me, all that crap you accused me of, when you’d slept with someone else’s husband! So not only were you a snob, but a hypocrite,
to boot—!”
“And we are not having this conversation on my doorstep,” Lorraine said, attempting to regain control of the situation. She stepped aside, gesturing toward the foyer. “In. Now.” The dogs wisely stumbled out of Mel’s way as she torpedoed inside. “Go straight ahead—”
“To the den, got it.”
Lorraine followed Mel into the same room where they’d had a certain discussion all those years ago, gesturing to the sofa. “Have a seat.”
“Not necessary,” Mel said as she scanned the room before spearing Lorraine with her gaze, definitely not the same cowering young woman who’d stood here then. “Nothing’s changed, I see.”
“More than you might guess, actually,” Lorraine said, willing her racing heart to still. “I was going to tell you—”
“Yeah, right—”
“I was. You beat me to it.” She looked down at the letter, still in Mel’s hands. “Where did you find that?”
“I didn’t, my cousin did. In my grandmother’s things.” At the pain and anger—every bit entirely justifiable—in the young woman’s eyes, Lorraine felt her own sting.
“May I see it?”
“Go right ahead,” Mel said, handing her the letter. “Although I imagine you probably know it by heart. Since you wrote it.”
“Very true. On both counts,” Lorraine said, carefully unfolding the brittle paper. Her best vellum, a wedding gift from some aunt or other, long dead. Her handwriting had been prettier then. Neater. Her heart cramping, she scanned the apology Amelia Rinehart had demanded she write, three years almost to the day before Ryder’s birth, her promise to never see or speak to George Rinehart again. A promise she’d had no trouble keeping, as it happened—Lorraine had been stupid and George a womanizing bastard who apparently continued to assault Lorraine’s dignity with pathetic regularity for the rest of his life. But while Amelia had never been able to control her philandering husband, she’d held a hatchet over Lorraine’s head for the rest of her life.
She refolded the letter, tried to hand it back. Her arms crossed, Mel shook her head. “That’s all right, you keep it.”
Lorraine set it on a nearby lamp table, tapping her fingers on the polished wood surface for a moment before lifting her eyes to Mel’s. “For what it’s worth, it didn’t last long. And I ended it.”
“But who started it?”
“It was...mutual.”
“My God, he must’ve been, what? Thirty years older than you?”
She laughed without humor. “I suppose that was part of the allure.” When Mel pulled a face, she said, “I was a newlywed, very young and very lonely—David was away a lot, doing his residency at Johns Hopkins. For two years I rarely saw him, and when I did, he was distracted. And exhausted—”
“Which was no excuse to cheat on him.”
“Of course it wasn’t. But I was a spoiled daddy’s girl who had no clue how to deal with real life,” Lorraine said sharply. “Or how to resist temptation. So I made a dreadful error in judgment. One your grandmother never let me forget.”
“Does Ryder’s father know?”
She nodded. “I told him. Some time before your grandmother found out, in fact.”
That seemed to take Mel aback. “And he—”
“Forgave me? Eventually. And a helluva lot more easily than I forgave myself.”
* * *
For all Mel really, really wanted to hate Lorraine, with every passing minute the fury slipped away a little more. Not that she was ready to fall on Ry’s mother’s freckled neck and forgive her—woman still had a whole lot of ’splainin’ to do—but damned if she wasn’t beginning to see her as almost human. Who knew?
“You really never saw my grandfather again?”
“I saw him, of course. It’s a small town. But spoke to him? Not one word.”
Finally Mel sat on the edge of the sofa, distractedly playing with one dog’s ears when the beast wedged herself between the sofa and the coffee table to lay her head on Mel’s knees, her big brown eyes nearly as importunate as her mistress’s. And slowly but surely things began to make sense. “But that wasn’t enough for my grandmother.”
“No. As far as she was concerned, what had been done couldn’t be undone.”
“Yeah,” she conceded, “that was Nana, all right. Which was why...crap.” Her face lifted to Lorraine’s. “Why she could never forgive my mother for marrying my father and coming to work for you.”
Lorraine walked over to a small chest by the window, littered with silver-framed family photos, her nervous toying with them reminding Mel so much of Quinn she nearly lost her breath. “Honestly, I had no idea Tony and Maureen were even seeing each other—I guess Maureen somehow knew Amelia wouldn’t approve. First I found out about it was after their marriage—you know they eloped?”
“Lord, yes. Mom only told me the story a hundred times.”
A slight smile touched Lorraine’s lips. “My housekeeper had just retired. Maureen volunteered to replace her. And afterwards, there were...scenes.”
“With my grandmother?”
“Yes. She accused me of ‘stealing’ your mother the same way I’d stolen your grandfather. Even though years had passed since then. And when you were born and Ryder glommed on to you...” Abruptly, Lorraine walked over to the armchair across from Mel and sank onto it, her hands tightly folded in her lap. “Your mother and I both knew Amelia would blow a gasket, but we figured the novelty would pass, that he’d soon lose interest in you. When he didn’t...”
Her mouth pressed tight, Lorraine looked at her lap.
“What?”
Her eyes lifted. “Before you were born, Ryder was very quiet. Too quiet. In fact, he barely spoke. David and I took him to every specialist and child psychologist imaginable, and they all said the same thing, that there was nothing physically or neurologically wrong, that he’d outgrow it eventually. Then you came, and he blossomed. No one had any rational explanation for that, either.”
Stunned, Mel froze, not moving again until the dog nudged her hand for another pat. “So that’s why you turned a blind eye to our friendship.”
Lorraine hmmphed. “Blind? Hardly. But within a few months of your birth he was like any other child his age. So his father and I were actually very grateful to you. And no, Ryder doesn’t know, since we never said anything.”
“So you’re saying my grandmother never knew about Ryder and me?”
“No. Your mother and I...we made sure of it. That he never went over to Amelia’s to see you girls unless she wasn’t there. Or that your mother would pick you all up first when you went on your little...” She smiled. “Excursions.”
“Then why the hell did you—”
“Treat you like dirt?” Lorraine’s eyes glistened. “Do you have any idea how impressed I am, that you’re here?”
“Excuse me?”
“If I’d had half your balls back then none of this would’ve happened. But I didn’t. And I know you have no reason to trust me, or believe me, even, especially considering all those awful things I said to you. But when your grandmother found out what happened, she blamed me. And she threatened to tell everyone in our circle ‘the truth’ if I didn’t send you—and your mother—away.”
“Wait...” Mel frowned. “Are you saying she knew I was pregnant before you did?”
Lorraine lifted a hand to her throat, a tear slipping down her cheek. “Yes.”
“How—?”
“Because your mother told her.”
Her breath leaving her lungs in a rush, Mel collapsed against the back of the sofa. Holy hell. “Why on earth would she do that?”
Lorraine plucked a dog hair off her knee. “Were you aware your mother was trying to reconcile with Amelia?”
“What? No.”
The older woman nodd
ed, then sighed. “Your father’s death shook your mother to the core. Which you know. And I think it hit her that she didn’t have forever to repair the relationship with her mother. And that it was up to her to make it happen, if it was going to happen at all. She had no idea, of course, about...about what had happened between your grandfather and me. And I seriously doubt that Amelia told her.”
“So you’re saying the reconciliation took?”
“They’d begun to talk, I know that much.”
“Enough that my mother felt she could confide in Nana that I was pregnant?” When Lorraine shrugged, Mel belted out a harsh laugh. “Ryder’s and my friendship, she kept in the closet, yet she told her I was carrying Jeremy’s kid. That’s rich.”
“I didn’t say it made sense. And your mother...she was still grieving. I don’t think she was thinking straight in those days. She probably thought there was no one else she could tell.”
Mel sat up, pressing her fingertips into her temples. “And Nana used it against you.”
“Basically, yes. You see, in her mind her husband’s cheating reflected negatively on her almost as much as it did on him. And of course I wasn’t exactly keen on anyone discovering my indiscretion. So for a long time we both had a stake in making sure the truth stayed well hidden.”
“Hence her making you promise to keep quiet about it.”
“Exactly. But at George’s death, she discovered...” She blushed again.
“That you hadn’t been the only one.”
Lorraine nodded. “At which point outing me would have been no skin off her nose. But it still would have been off mine. Not that I didn’t want to protect Jeremy—heaven knows I’m not laying the entire blame for this at your grandmother’s feet. And I was ashamed, and mortified. But—”
“Nana held it over your head,” Mel breathed out.
Hope shone in the older woman’s eyes. “So you do believe me?”
“Considering that Nana never spoke to me again? Never responded when I sent her pictures of Quinn after she was born?” She felt her mouth pull to one side. “That if I’m being honest, I remember my grandfather flirting with every female over sixteen who crossed his path? Yeah. I believe you. But...”
The Doctor's Do-Over Page 16
