“Cottonmouths?” Isaac gave a whoop of admiration. “Are they totally aggressive?”
“Not without severe provocation.” James smiled. “They’re sorely misunderstood. As are many of us. But before we do anything, Isaac, I want to make sure you understand one thing.” He placed his hands on Isaac’s shoulders. “You must never, ever try this. If you find a snake, any snake, you leave it alone. You with me, buddy?”
Isaac nodded as if he were pledging allegiance.
“Good. Even a nonvenomous snake can give a nasty bite if threatened.”
“Why don’t we leave this one alone?” Isaac asked in a reverential tone.
“Trapped in a walled garden with two noisy humans scaring away her food supply is far from ideal. And with that rabbit wire under the gate, I doubt she can escape without getting snared. Besides, your mom looks petrified. If we don’t move this snake, that’ll be the end of my gardening lessons.” James stood. “He’ll be fine, Tilly. I’ve done this many, many times.”
“You have. He hasn’t.”
“No, I mean I’ve done this with a kid. Well, not in a while. My son’s twenty-seven now and a successful environmentalist. Although he kept the promise he made at sixteen—to hate me. Nealys are stubborn to the core.”
Words scrambled around her mind, but sentences didn’t form. “Bloody hell,” she said.
“Mom!” Isaac giggled.
“Bloody and hell,” James agreed. “Both accurately describe fatherhood at eighteen.”
Eighteen. If she’d been a mother at eighteen, Sebastian would be her child’s father, a child who wouldn’t be Isaac. She and Sebastian would have stayed together. She might never have gone to college. She certainly wouldn’t have spent five years in London working as a publicist for a textile company. And she would never have met David. Or would they have met anyhow, and it would have been too late? So much of life was chance, wasn’t it? Stopping to ask directions and falling in love, picking a landscaper out of a phone book and finding someone to share your pain. But parenthood at eighteen? No wonder James had retired at forty-five. He must have burned out on life.
“I thought you said no spouses?” she croaked.
“I did. Marriage isn’t for me; I’m a serial monogamist. My son’s mother was my first great love, but she moved on to the captain of the football team with some haste.”
“Mom, what does mon-ogy-amist mean?”
“That you’re loyal and faithful to the woman you love,” James replied without missing a beat. Tilly shivered, a deep head-to-toe shiver. “Isaac,” James continued. “Rowena has some potato sacks in her shed. Go find one. We’re going to bag us a snake.”
“Aye, aye, Captain!”
“Tilly? See if Rowena has anything I can use as a snake hook. A long-handled grabber would be ideal. A yard broom will do if you can’t find anything else. An adder!” James cracked his knuckles and moved forward. Transfixed, Tilly watched, seeing the child inside the man. Had this boy, who was so thrilled by nature, been as carefree as Isaac until grief and fear had capsized his world?
“James,” Tilly said slowly. “You might want to look at where you’re standing.”
“Shit. I’m on the garden. I’m on the garden!” His hands shot to his hair. “Tilly?”
“Yes?”
“Help?”
* * *
James loomed out of the heat haze with an empty hessian sack slung over his shoulder like a slimmed-down, out-of-season Santa Claus. Isaac skipped to catch up, every step a bounce of joy. Their chatter filtered through the chirps and tweets coming from The Chase, but neither James nor Isaac acknowledged her; they were lost in boy pleasure.
Could it have been any more obvious that James was a father? How had she failed to notice? How had he failed to mention it? Once again, he had blindsided her with revelation. Or was that betrayal? If he could keep his fatherhood from her, what else was he hiding? He had confessed so much, yet held back more. What kind of a man revealed his secret fears, but never once bragged about his son? Was James cavalier with his parenthood, which was reason enough to dislike him, or did he not trust her enough?
Hate, James had used the word hate in the context of his relationship with his son, and yet Isaac lit up around James. How could that be?
Tilly walked toward them, trying not to run. Should she be worried? Had James committed some heinous act against his son? Or was he incapable of sustaining a close relationship? And why did that last thought hurt so much more than the others?
Her shoulder blade started to throb again. Truth was, she didn’t know what to think. She nipped at a stalk of seeded grass and pulled upward, catching the seeds in her palm. Then she tossed them toward the white-hot sky and followed their progress as they twirled back down. James had told her fighting OCD meant one step forward, ten back. But that was how she felt right now, about their friendship. Although this was more than a few steps backward. This was a ruddy huge leap in the opposite direction.
* * *
“Did you have lots of copperheads on the farm?” Isaac asked James.
“Yeah.” James gave a laugh and tried to push away the riot of memories. He shook back his hair but couldn’t dislodge the swarming images of his father cussing him. “I used to organize copperhead hunts to freak out my dad.”
“Whoa. Excellent. Would’ve freaked out my dad, too. He hated snakes and bugs and pretty much the whole outdoors.”
“That doesn’t seem to be a problem for you.”
“Nah. I get my love of nature from Mom,” Isaac said.
James had forgotten how he loved kid-conversation. Why had he walked away from fatherhood? Laziness, he supposed. Or possibly guilt over whether his unreasonable demands for perfection had contributed to his son’s adolescent breakdown. Whatever the cause, nothing could alter the truth that he had failed Daniel as a parent. He had never intended to mention the disastrous fact of his fatherhood to Tilly. Ever. Must have been the excitement of finding the adder. What a beauty, and interpreted by his warped brain—that sought meaning in everything—as a good omen, one that had lowered his guard.
James had never believed in sharing. Sharing was not good; sharing just tore you apart. The shock on Tilly’s face had pretty much confirmed why he kept his personal life private. Now she knew the whole truth: that he had no family left to call his own. How long before she figured out he was to blame? And how would such a devoted mother, daughter and wife respond to that?
James sighed. “And what do you get from your dad?”
“Love of math.”
“He was a math professor?”
“Nope. Economics. He wrote a book about globalll-izzz-ation that was so famous it was on the New York Times bestseller list. We still get money from it, money Mom uses for my education.” Isaac gave a proud nod. “She says Daddy would have liked that.”
Isaac skipped on ahead but James stopped. Silverberg. David Silverberg?
“I don’t suppose your father was David Silverberg?” James said.
“Yup.” Isaac looked around like a startled jackrabbit. “You’ve heard of him?”
What were the chances, eh? What were the fucking chances. “I’ve read his book.” Not only read it, but bought twelve copies for Christmas gifts. He felt he owed David some royalties.
“You and every other businessperson in North America,” Tilly said, striding toward them, looking pissed as hell.
Daniel, David… Panic tightened across his chest. Th
ank God he didn’t believe in tarot, because if he did, he’d be holding a deck of death cards. That was it. The end of any hope he’d ever, ever had with Tilly. Talk about cruel cosmic jokes. Wasn’t it bad enough that he had to deal with the pretty-boy ex-lover who represented everything James wasn’t: dad-of-the-year and a man so stable other people trusted him with their money? Now James had to contend with ghosts, too?
“Where’s the adder?” Tilly said.
“We relocated it.” Isaac swaggered up to her. “Down near the stream. We thought that was best, didn’t we, James?” Tilly wrapped her arms around her child—a little too tightly, given Isaac’s resistance. The glance she threw at James was definitely a warning to back off. See? Sharing was bad. No way would he tell her about David.
“Hey, James.” Isaac bobbed free. “Rowena’s taking me badger watching tomorrow while Mom and Sebastian have their hot night out. I get to stay up really late. Wanna come?”
“Hot night?” Tilly said. “What are you talking about?”
“Ro says you and Sebastian have always had the hots for each other. She says you like each other so much you might have a sleepover.”
“Isaac!” Tilly blushed. “Sebastian and I aren’t… We don’t—”
“Thank you, Isaac,” James said. Slow down, James, slow down everything, then walk away. “I’d love to come badger watching. But if you’ll both excuse me—” he turned toward the Hall “—I have a migraine coming.”
Chapter 17
“KBO, keep buggering on.” Rowena sat cross-legged on the floor, wearing a blue camisole that barely covered her breasts and what had to be the ugliest pajama pants James had ever seen. They were covered in tartan Scottie dogs. A bottle of single malt and two cut glass tumblers sat next to her on the threadbare Oriental rug. So much for sneaking out into the night.
James leaned against the archway at the entrance of the great hall. “Keep buggering on—is that English for ‘suck it up’?”
“More like British war mentality. Sir Winston Churchill used to say it. He also said, ‘If you’re going through hell, keep going.’ Wise man, for a politician.”
With its leaded window three stories high, empty stone fireplace the size of a carport, and oil still lifes of dead game birds, the room that had once hosted Queen Elizabeth I was definitely a suit of armor short of a Scooby-Doo soundstage. And yet each time James stepped down into the great hall, as he did now, the room reached out and welcomed him, despite the plethora of lamps. The artificial light was overly cheerful, but the squishy floral sofas and sagging armchairs said, “Come sink in us,” and the sound system, ten years out of date but still impressive, begged to be switched on and cranked to full volume. There was a hint of raucous parties and sedate social gatherings long gone, but no personal detail beyond two photographs—one of a smiling baby Isaac, the other of Tilly as a radiant bride. James swallowed shame and glanced away. How could he look at that picture now and not see the man whose absence filled the silver frame? How could he not have realized Tilly’s husband, a brilliant man with the last name Silverberg, was the David Silverberg? But why had she never referred to his first name? And why didn’t Virginia have at least one photograph of her son-in-law in the house? What a sick comedy of errors.
“You could venture forth on another nocturnal walkabout and brood over tomorrow night’s date—” Rowena patted the floor next to her “—or get shit-faced with me. It’s good to have options, isn’t it?”
James hesitated. He desperately, pathetically, wanted approval from Tilly’s oldest friend, but Rowena made him wary. She was charming and eccentric, but her flamboyant surface concealed ice and steel. She was a werewolf in a Wonderbra. Although clearly she wasn’t wearing one tonight.
He scanned the worn carpet for dog hairs and dirt but it looked surprisingly clean. Old but well cared for. Finally, he sat and eased his legs into the Lotus position.
“How’s the headache?” she said.
“Be a lot worse tomorrow if I drink tonight.” He reached for the bottle.
“Did you know—” Rowena moistened her lips “—that Sebastian and Tilly were about to reconcile when she met David?”
“Clearly not from Tilly’s point of view.”
“Actually, yes. Tilly always bounces back to Sebastian. He’s her foundation, her rock.”
God Almighty, when those green eyes locked on you, you felt like prey.
“She’d invited him for the weekend,” Rowena continued, “but he had to cancel at the last minute—some crisis at work. A decision that haunts him still, I suspect.”
Outside, an owl hooted. James downed his whiskey in one gulp and winced as it burned his esophagus. “Is there a point to this?”
“James, I like you. I see you as a kindred spirit, another reformed wild child. Or not so reformed?” She flashed a smile that made him shiver. “Tilly barely knows where she belongs these days. She needs space, she needs time, she needs to sort through her feelings for Sebastian. She doesn’t need—no offense—you.”
He couldn’t fault her on that one. “Are you in love with her?” James said. The question shocked him; he had no idea why he’d asked it.
“I owe Tilly my life.” Her green eyes hardened. “Never underestimate what I will do to protect her and Isaac.”
James refilled his glass and raised it in a toast. “In that case, you and I have more in common than you realized.”
* * *
Perfection—unless you were a Virgo—was vastly overrated. Sebastian was clucking over some hairline scratch on the passenger door when Tilly swung around to unfasten her seat belt and froze midwhimper. Her back ached so much she wanted to laugh. She should listen to her body more, read the symptoms that shouted, “Stop!” But quitting had never been one of her talents. If it had been, she wouldn’t have spent years drifting across Sebastian’s wake, dragging him through the mess of on-again, off-again. And here they were once more, on the brink of something that felt precarious even before it had begun.
“Is your back bothering you?” With one hand resting on the roof of his Jaguar, Sebastian reached in to help. Tilly nodded, unease squirming in her stomach. He was too close, his aftershave too thick, and oh cripes, his head was parallel with her boobs. Ugh, she had forgotten these tussles of sexual attraction, the thrill of sensing your body spark pitted against the terror of feeling you were attempting to stand in a dinghy that was pitching in a monstrous swell.
“My back hasn’t been this bad since I was pregnant.” Bugger it. Was her speech filter completely defunct? “God, Sebastian, I’m sorry. My brain, my mouth, there’s a missing link.”
“Don’t worry about it. I don’t intend to.” He unclicked her seat belt and paused to touch her arm. “How did you get those scratches?”
“Pruning. Well, James prunes. I haul away debris.” She gave her we’re-one-big-happy-family smile and tried to pull herself from the car. Sebastian gave a huh, which could have been a sigh or a laugh—who knew—and, slipping his arm around her waist, heaved her out like a sack of spuds.
“I thought James was the pupil.” Sebastian released her. “Did you skip the lesson on indentured servitude?”
“Ha. Ha.” She fumbled with the rayon of her short, flippy dress, desperately searching for pockets, or rather, a way to keep her hands busy. Were they shaking?
Sebastian aimed his key ring at the Jaguar, and the car flashed and beeped. Once, she would have teased him for locking a car in Bramwell Chase, but that w
as before a national gang of thieves stole lead from the church roof and the butcher was robbed at gunpoint. Tilly wanted to believe that Bramwell Chase had remained the dozing hamlet of her childhood, where the most salacious news was that a dog had worried the sheep, but since she was currently facing a cookie-cutter housing development on what had once been her favorite pasture, Tilly knew that was no longer true.
“James is a little phobic about soil, so he chops and I pick up,” she said. Was that a betrayal of James?
“He’s phobic? About soil?”
“We’ve got it under control.” She strode toward the pub, and Sebastian followed.
A car whooshed past and Sebastian stepped around her so that they could walk as they had always done, with Tilly tucked safely on his inside.
“Tilly.” This time there was no mistaking Sebastian’s sigh. “You’re alone with a strange man all day and Rowena’s alone with him at night. How much do you really know about James?”
Tilly shrugged. Plenty…enough…nothing.
* * *
She stepped down into the cool stillness of the pub, and a memory blasted. The last time she came here with Sebastian was to drop the news that she planned to marry another man. Well, that was an auspicious beginning to Sebastian-and-Tilly Act Two-and-three-quarters. Except this wasn’t a date. Sebastian had made that clear.
She grabbed at an older, happier memory—Sebastian reeking of Brut cologne and giggling as they huddled behind the inglenook where no one could see them grope. Bugger. That just reminded her that they were picking at the carcass of a teenage relationship.
She walked carefully across the uneven sixteenth-century flagstones. This was a floor to pay attention to, a floor that had tripped up many a drunk, including Sebastian the night he had learned about David. Shit. Was she becoming obsessive? Could you contract OCD through osmosis? Tilly shook the thought away.
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