The First Kiss

by Grace Burrowes

  “You never said anything.”

  “She begged me not to, told me time and again she was going to stop, she was going to get help, she was going to pray for the strength to deal with it. She’d even straighten up for a time if you or Trent were coming home between terms.”

  “I’m—” Mac swallowed and sat forward, his forearms braced on his thighs. “I thought it was the occasional lapse, an embarrassment, or an indulgence she was due. I never—Christ on a John Deere tractor.”

  “I disabled the stove when I wasn’t home,” James said. “She nearly burned the house down twice, trying to cook while she was drunk. Toward the end, I took her keys, but she called a locksmith and claimed she’d misplaced her set. I took her money, took her credit cards, and she cried and asked me what she was supposed to do in an emergency. Then she was off again, always able to buy her booze but somehow completely uninterested in buying groceries. I hated her, Mac. I hated my own mother. You think it’s grief I feel at the thought of her death, but I assure you, there’s as much guilt as anything else.”

  James found himself sitting beside his brother. The spoken words, for all they were words of sorrow rather than anger, shocked him in their honesty.

  They must have shocked Mac too, because he was silent for long moments.

  “You must hate me and Trent too,” Mac said eventually, “but, James, you did not kill that woman. Now that I hear what you’ve been carrying around, I’m not even sure it was the cancer that got her.”

  A glimmer of truth, and all James felt was a crushing sadness. “You saw her, that one Easter.”

  “I told myself it was the holiday, the sense of life renewing itself in the spring for everybody but not for Dad. I didn’t want to see what was in front of my eyes, and so I cleaned your clock when you tore into her.”

  “She and I went at it much worse than that,” James said tiredly. “Then she’d forget, until the next blowup.”

  “Every night, James?”

  For years, nearly every night, unless Mac or Trent was due home for a visit. “Sometimes, she’d get so mad she’d smack me when I hid her bottles or took a bottle away. Then she’d cry and start in with the promises. Getting smacked was so much easier than listening to her promises, Mac, and, God almighty, I wanted to belt some sense into her.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  James was not so far gone into introspection and memory that his brother’s words were lost to him, but for some reason, they didn’t land easily in his mind.

  “Say that again, Mac.”

  “You did not strike her, did not give in to the urge to slap her. You kept her confidences, though she was abusing you and betraying you as a mother at every turn. Of course you hated her, James. But you also loved her.”

  James had to clear his throat. Allergies were starting early this year. “Did not. Could not.”

  “Bullshit. You don’t care for a woman that way, watch her fall to pieces time after time, keep her secrets, and protect her dignity as best you can without loving her. You were a child, James. You were her child, regardless of how strong, tall, smart, and clever you were. You loved her.”

  James rose to put some space between him and a brother who saw too much too late. “I did not. I could not.”

  Because if he’d loved his mother, she’d turned her back on his love too. The love of the only child remaining under her roof, the only member of her family to still share her home.

  “You loved her,” Mac said again. “You did, and, James, I am so damned sorry.”

  * * *

  Mac spent almost two hours in James’s office, mostly listening, occasionally asking a question. James would have said there was nothing to talk about, but he admitted to himself he would have been wrong. The staff had the good sense to see they were undisturbed, and when James got to his feet, he could not recall what he’d been doing when Mac had walked in.

  “What about Vera?” Mac asked as James made a slow circuit of the room.

  “She’s had a couple of rough marriages, Mac. Trust isn’t her strong suit.” Nor apparently was it James’s, so they were zero for two in the long-term commitment category. Not good odds.

  Mac was back to roosting on the corner of the desk. “So that’s it? You’ll ride off into the sunset, older and wiser?”

  “And sadder. But grateful too.” Also minus one long, sorry list of wrong turns.

  “That is pure, unadulterated tripe, James Knightley. Vera is not Mom. She won’t let you go just because she hit a rough patch with you.”

  This from the guy who’d not been on date in years? “Vera did let me go, Mac.”

  “So get up on your hind legs and fight for her.”

  “Easy for you to say.” James collected a stray belly putter and nine iron from his umbrella stand and stashed them into the coat closet. This was a law office, after all.

  “No, it is not easy for me to say,” Mac retorted. “Neither is this: I would rather you up and quit the firm than watch you go through another year like last year. You hit on Hannah.”

  “That was”—stupid wrapped in pathetic tied up in asinine—“that was a trial balloon to see if she was serious about Trent.” A mashie that had belonged to James’s grandfather lurked behind the door. James hefted the club, rather than consign it to the closet.

  “Right, a trial balloon.” Mac did sarcasm well, well enough that James was back to wanting to deck him. “You hit on Hannah. You hit on every secretary in this building and half the female associates who weren’t nailed down in a marriage. You dated your clients, your competition, and I had my doubts about your neighbor’s heifers.”

  “MacKenzie.”

  “What I’m trying to say is this: you were going to pieces, James, and all Trent and I could do was watch while you worked harder and played harder. Vera Waltham waltzes into your life, and suddenly, you’re taking time off. You’re playing the piano. You’re finally interviewing the associates who can take some of the load off your shoulders. You’re taking in those equine Chia Pets Trent bought. You did most of the parenting when we watched Grace and Merle, you’ve taken the time to make a big impression on Vera’s daughter, and for the first time in more than ten goddamned benighted years, you’ve talked to me.”

  Mac was on his feet, staring out the window as a muscle jumped in his jaw. Had they really not talked since their mother had died?

  “I like Vera Waltham,” Mac went on. “I don’t like anybody, except my family. I think Vera could be family, James. Your family, and thus mine too. You’ve never been a quitter. Never. You didn’t give up on Mom, and I hope to God you haven’t given up on Trent and me. If you need to bow out of the practice of law, go. We’ll manage without a corporate law partner. We will not manage without our brother.”

  Those words were precious, also unnecessary. “You finished, MacKenzie?”

  Mac scowled at him over his shoulder. “I am, and it will take me another decade to recover from this little tête-à-tête, James.”

  While James would recall it for the rest of his life. “You going to buy the home place, Mac?”

  Another scowl, more thoughtful.

  “Nah. Farms take family, and that means recruiting a brood mare, and I’m getting too old for that.”

  James took a half swing with the vintage golf club. “You’re ancient. Remember me in your will.”

  “Shut up, and make Vera give you another chance.”

  “Maybe I will, and, Mac?” Mac turned this time. The Knightley men could be first-class fools and even sluts, but they weren’t cowards.

  “What now?” Mac asked.

  “Thanks.”

  * * *

  James’s words lodged in Vera’s memory like a vamp, a few bars of music repeated over and over until the actor on stage was ready to burst into song. What did it mean when a man called himself a wounded bird
?

  She made herself wait a few more days, teaching lessons that were hard to focus on, watering the pansies when they went five days without rain, and listening to Twyla mention James in every other sentence.

  When Friday rolled around, Vera got her technique out of the way, made a batch of brownies, and squared her mental shoulders. If James was home, she’d ask him for an explanation, and for some assurances.

  For the first time in her life, she was in love, not with a piece of music, not with an instrument of wood and metal, but with a flesh-and-blood man who was only human. If she loved James, she owed him an open mind, and some trust. Not a lot, but more than she’d shown him so far.

  And if he loved her—

  She cut that thought off as she turned her truck up his lane. As Vera drove by, Inskip’s cows placidly chewed their cud while they eyed the greener pasture of James’s front lawn. Vera’s foot hit the brake, her car rocking on its tires.

  Hannah’s blue Prius sat in James’s driveway in the middle of a Friday. The children were in school, and Vera knew the law office was open, because Trent had left her a message earlier in the day.

  What could possibly explain why Hannah’s car was parked in James’s driveway, when by rights, both Hannah and James ought to be at work?

  * * *

  James paused in his playing, bringing Beethoven to a resonate cadence. He could have sworn he’d heard something, tires maybe on his gravel driveway, but when he looked, he saw nothing but Hannah’s little Prius sitting where he’d left it last night.

  He went back to his playing. He’d tuned up the car, changed the oil, and would trade cars with Hannah again tonight, but for now…

  He played Chopin. He played the waltzes, and the nocturnes, going through the little E minor at the end of the book repeatedly. The passion of it reminded him of Vera, and of the few nights he’d spent with her.

  Since he and Mac had passed most of an afternoon rehashing family business, his brothers had found reasons to keep an eye on him, aided and abetted by Hannah. His brothers, James could have easily dodged—he’d spent more than a decade dodging them, hadn’t he?—but Hannah looked at him with those big brown eyes, and he could not find it in himself to bark at her.

  Hannah brought him cookies. Trent stopped by to pick up Grace’s unicorn box of pencils. Mac had to borrow a tool, when Mac’s own shop was a shade-tree mechanic’s paradise.

  Then Mac had to return the tool; Hannah had to fetch her cookie tin; and Trent had to come by and inspect Wellie and Jo as James groomed, long-lined, lunged, and coaxed them into a semblance of their former glory.

  Trent said the horse and pony were ready to be added to the family herd, while James was reluctant to part with them. Josephine in particular was a treat-hussy, and needed patience if she was to mend her ways.

  Grace told James that Twyla had passed along greetings to him, and James damned near adopted himself a dog so they’d all back off.

  When he wasn’t at work, breaking in his new underlings, he was home playing the piano, fussing Wellie and Jo, or out walking the greening fields.

  The winter wheat was reaching for the sky again; the daffodils were up all along the lanes and hedgerows. Canada geese honked on their way homeward, and James spotted robins in his yard. When he heard the first peepers chirping in the woods one night, he realized Vera wasn’t going to come to him.

  He would have to go to her, and soon.

  * * *

  “I cannot believe he’d do this to me.” Vera heard the tremor in her voice and unclenched her fingers from the strap of her purse.

  “Slow, deep breaths,” Trent said in the exact, well-meant tone of voice guaranteed to piss Vera off. “Anybody can bring suit against anybody, Vera. It’s supposedly how our society handles conflict without violence.”

  “But, Trent, this is worse than when Donal raised his hand to me. That was a blow, plain and simple. It hurt, I knew it was wrong, and I suspect Donal would admit as much if I confronted him.”

  “Which you will not do.” Now, he used his Stern Daddy voice, which was no improvement. “Suing you over the performance contracts is a way to stay connected to you, Vera, a legal way. Donal probably anticipates that you’ll attempt to confront him, and he’ll have what he wants.”

  “Which is?” And why did what Donal wanted matter?

  “Maybe he wants a sense that he controls you? Or a renewed connection? The satisfaction of getting your goat once and for all?”

  Vera tried to follow Trent’s reasoning when she’d rather have thrown his little glass statue of Justice against the wall.

  “Getting my goat by making me perform?” She loved to perform, mostly. Or she had once upon a time.

  “You haven’t canceled these dates,” Trent reminded her, “and Donal does have third-party beneficiary status with respect to your performance contracts.”

  The pear trees in the parking lot were starting to bloom, the grass was turning green, and the tops of the oak trees were showing a pale, reddish cast. Why did trees that would eventually leaf out green look red—and what did it matter if Donal was a third-party whatever?

  “You OK?” Trent spoke from close enough beside her that Vera could catch a whiff of his aftershave. Something of James echoed in him, in his tone of voice, in his build, in his blue eyes, but the scent was wrong.

  The feel was wrong.

  “I’m rattled,” she said, missing James very much, particularly when she knew he was likely right down the hall, possibly on the phone with one of the ladies on his infernal list.

  “You look a little tired, Vera. Things going OK with the music?”

  “That’s not a legal question.”

  “There’s more to me than my law degree.”

  Was Trent scolding her? Reminding her he was James’s brother?

  Vera paced back to the couch and took a seat. Where was a piano when she needed one?

  “My music is doing better than ever, at least in my own opinion. Something has come together, between my heart and my hands, something I don’t know how to teach my students, something I can’t even properly describe with words.”

  Olga approved though. Vera had played for her twice in recent days, and Olga’s praise had been nerve-rackingly effusive, while her sly references to Vera’s “young man” had been simply nerve-racking.

  Whatever was afoot with Vera’s music, a grieving Bach, a deaf Beethoven, and a lonely Brahms had all understood it well.

  James might have understood what Vera was saying; Trent could not. But then, Trent was happy practicing law, and with respect to James’s sense of a legal vocation, the jury was still out.

  “I’m tempted to keep the damned dates,” she said. “It’s what Donal wants, and while you say he’s trying to control me, his agenda could well be purely financial. He’s broke, and without me to represent, all he has is that damned house.” And two teenagers in a world of hurt.

  “That house is worth a pretty penny,” Trent commented.

  “If he can sell it, but then where do his children finish growing up? Does he make Katie change schools halfway through high school?”

  Katie, who hadn’t exchanged a word with Vera for months.

  Trent took a seat not beside her, but in the armchair at an angle to the couch.

  “That is not your problem, Vera. They are not your children. They have a mother and a father, and they’re not infants.” Trent spoke gently, but his words were no comfort. Had he told himself James was not his problem when his younger brother struggled to keep an alcoholic mother from harm, while he also ran a farm and carried a full load of advanced placement classes?

  That thought was petty, unkind, and none of Vera’s business.

  “I’ll think about this, Trent. How long do I have to file something in response?”

  “Thirty days, but, Vera, I want
you to consider something else.” His expression was cautious, something of a novelty in Vera’s experience with her lawyer.

  “Spit it out, Trent. I’m a big girl. Donal can’t go after custody of Twy, and not much else matters.”

  Except James. He mattered, and Vera didn’t know what to do about that.

  “I am not an expert on contract law,” Trent said. “I know enough to navigate the ins and outs of separation agreements, but Donal is referencing the contract you signed that made him your agent—years ago—and there will be clauses in that document I’ve never seen. I’ve never tried a case involving third-party beneficiary rights. I don’t know the case law. I’m not an expert on the laws of agency, which is a fairly complicated concept from a legal standpoint.”

  “You’re dumping me?” Every man in her life had been dumping her or disappointing her since her own father had—

  Insight rippled over her, half chill, half tingle. If the first man in a girl’s life leaves her, does she then choose men who can fulfill an expectation of disappointment?

  Does she shoehorn every guy she cares about into that same posture?

  Chapter 17

  “I’m not dumping you,” Trent said, the very irritability of his tone assuring Vera he was sincere. “I accepted service of process on your behalf, and that means we’re joined at the legal wrist, if you want it that way, for the duration of the litigation. You have a wiser choice though.”

  Vera’s heart sped up as that skittery tingle suffused her limbs. “You want me to retain James?”

  “I want you to have the most competent representation this firm can offer, and that would be James. No question, your best hope of getting what you want out of this suit is to entrust yourself to James.”

  Tried that… Or had she? “Trent, you’re talking like a lawyer, and I appreciate that, but James and I aren’t… I don’t think we’re…”

  He crossed his arms. Vera had seen him do the same thing when he was making a witness squirm on cross-examination, so she tried again.

  “Whatever was between your brother and me, I don’t think it’s going anywhere.”