Forget Me Not

by Fern Michaels

  His game plan was to drop off the file of papers for Lucy Brighton, then get in the truck and head to Miami. Luke closed his eyes as he imagined the hooting and hollering his crew would give him when they saw what he was wearing. On the job, he wore baggy cotton cargo shorts, sleeveless muscle shirts, his baseball cap, and work boots that came up to his ankles, with cotton socks sticking out at the top, a utility belt hanging down over his hips. All the guys dressed the same way. Even though he was their boss, he never tried to stand out.

  Luke took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He wondered what his father would say when he saw him duded up like a lovesick teenager. Plenty was the answer he came up with. The time was 10:45, and he still hadn’t eaten breakfast. He’d dawdled long enough; he’d grab a cup of coffee and a muffin and be on his way. Maybe he should forgo the muffin—the bran might stick in his teeth. How would that look to those magnificent green eyes?

  Luke Sr. blinked, then playfully shaded his eyes. “You going on a date this early in the morning, son?”

  “No, Pop, I’m just dropping off the covenants to Miss Brighton, and then I’m heading to Miami. I’ll be back on Saturday, and we can watch football all weekend. Did you forget?” Luke asked anxiously. He hated it when his father got what he called his blank looks and couldn’t remember things.

  “I was just funning with you, son. That’s why I didn’t make breakfast.”

  Young Luke relaxed. False alarm. His father was okay. As antsy as he was to be on his way, he sat down at the table to drink his coffee. “So, Pop, what’s on your agenda today?”

  Luke Sr. pretended to think. “Well, I’m going to watch a few cooking shows. Then I’m going to take some of my soup and the ham to a few friends.” The few friends, young Luke knew, meant the widow Barbara Axelrod and Calvin Sandler. “I’ll visit with them for a while, then take my daily walk. I might head over to the clubhouse to have a beer with Tom and Alvin. Haven’t done that in a few days. Then it’s back home to make dinner. Same old, same old.”

  “Why don’t you invite the guys over for a poker game tonight?”

  “You have to stop worrying about me, son, and let me do things my own way. I don’t mind being alone at night. I can watch a movie or do any number of things. I plan to call the grandkids, and they like to chatter for an hour or so. Like I said, I’ll be fine. More coffee?”

  “Nope. Gotta run. I’ll call you when I get to Miami. Answer the phone, Pop.”

  “Don’t I always?”

  “No. That’s why I’m reminding you.”

  “I hate that damn cell phone.”

  “I’ll call you on the house phone, so pick up when I call.”

  “All right, Luke. I will pick up the phone if you call.”

  Young Luke laughed. He hated leaving his father, he really did, but the old man insisted and reminded him that he wore a medical alert bracelet and Adel and Bud checked on him regularly.

  Father and son hugged. Luke hated feeling his father’s bones through his baggy shirt. “Don’t go getting into any trouble with the widow Barbara while I’m gone.”

  “You’ll be the first to know,” the old man cackled. “Shouldn’t I be saying that to you about Miss Brighton?”

  “No, you shouldn’t.” Young Luke grinned. “See ya, Pop.”

  Luke was in the car, the engine running, when he realized he’d forgotten the folder on the kitchen counter. He was about to open the car door to go and get it when he saw his father walking toward him, the folder in his hands, grinning from ear to ear. “Thought as how you might need this, son. And you worry about me forgetting things.” He guffawed.

  Luke reached for it, a sheepish grin on his face. Yep, one sick, sorry, dopey teenager going on his first date.

  Five minutes later, Luke was ringing the doorbell of the Brighton house. When there was no response, he rang it a second and third time. When there was still no response, he peered through the long windows on the sides of the door. There were no lights on, and the house looked deserted. Maybe Lucy Brighton was sitting out on the patio. He walked around the back, only to see that the patio looked just as deserted. He walked up to the kitchen door and peered into the glass portion of the door. Everything was neat and tidy, and there was no sign that anyone was in the house.

  Luke’s shoulders slumped as he walked back to the patio and sat down on one of the wrought-iron chairs. When he heard his name called, he looked up to see Adel Longhurst crossing her yard to enter the Brightons’ yard. Luke waited.

  “Lucy left yesterday, Luke. She was gone within an hour of Buddy and me dropping off her friend Angie. I showed Angie how to dress Lucy’s foot, and off they went. Buddy tried to talk her out of leaving until today, but she was adamant about not spending another night in . . . that house. Might I say you look particularly handsome this morning, Luke.”

  Luke forced a grin. “What do you think I should do with this, Adel?” he asked. He’d long ago given up calling Adel and Buddy Mr. and Mrs. Longhurst, at their insistence.

  “What is it?”

  “Copies of everything, along with the covenants. I guess I could mail them, but I don’t have her address. Do you have it?”

  “I do. Walk home with me, and I’ll give it to you. I suppose you could drop it off at the law firm she hired to handle the probate.”

  “I could do that, but I told her I would drop it off to her. I’m thinking she should be the one to decide if she wants to turn it over to the lawyers or not. Don’t you agree?”

  “You have a point, Luke. Come along. Have you had breakfast yet?”

  Now that he didn’t have to worry about food sticking in his teeth, Luke admitted that he hadn’t eaten.

  “Then it would be my pleasure to rustle up some pancakes for you. Why are you dragging your feet, Luke?”

  Luke looked over his shoulder at the Brighton house. He told himself it was just a house. A house he’d built for people he didn’t know. “Even though I built that house,” Luke said, pointing to the house behind him, “and I was damn proud of it, I don’t like it now. Not at all. There’s something not quite right back there.” He jerked his head to the side to make his point. “Bad vibes, and I know that sounds silly as hell, but it’s what I think and feel.”

  “No, it’s not silly at all. Buddy and I felt . . . feel exactly the same way, and I think that’s why Lucy was so eager to leave. Actually, Luke, it isn’t the house. Like all houses, it’s just bricks, mortar, and timbers. The house itself is beautiful, no one can deny that. It’s the people who lived in the house who left their bad vibes behind. To be perfectly honest with you, Buddy and I stopped sitting out on the terrace because we didn’t like looking at it. That’s why we planted all those oleander bushes that we allowed to grow wild. Another year’s growth on those bushes, and we won’t be able to see the house at all. Coffee, darlin’?” Adel said as they entered her house.

  “Sure.” Luke settled himself on a chair next to a round white table. He loved Adel’s kitchen. Everything was sunshine yellow, bright and cheerful, like the kitchen’s owners. It was the kind of kitchen his mother had decorated and basically lived in when they resided up north. Except his mother’s kitchen was full of brick, green plants, overhead beams, and red crockery. He really missed the hominess of it all, especially the one-of-a-kind fireplace in the kitchen, with the two rocking chairs next to it, where his mother liked to have her afternoon coffee. He felt his eyes start to burn at the memories.

  Adel placed a comforting hand on Luke’s shoulder. Just the way his mother used to do. His world was suddenly right side up at her warm touch. “Let me get you Lucy’s address and phone number. Then I’ll whip up those pancakes.”

  “If you don’t mind, Adel, I think I’ll skip breakfast and get an early lunch on my way to Miami. I’m not all that hungry right now, but I’ll take you up on your offer when I come back up for the weekend. You’ll keep your eye on Pop, right?”

  “Darlin’, of course we will. Buddy finds four or five excuses
a day to go see your father. That’s not going to change. Here it is. Lucy said the house number is unlisted, so you better not lose it, and she also said she’s not big on answering her cell phone. I also put her e-mail address on there. She called last night. Did I tell you that?”

  Luke did his very best to appear nonchalant, but he wasn’t really sure if he had managed to pull it off. “No, you didn’t tell me that.” He made a big production of pulling out his wallet and stuffing the small piece of paper in it.

  “They called when they got to Virginia. Lucy said Angie was tired, and Lucy’s foot was itching pretty bad. Once Angie changed the dressing, she was okay. The plan was to leave at five this morning, and she said that would get them home just about right now. I think I would wait a while and let her get settled in before you call her. That’s just a piece of motherly advice, darlin’.”

  “When I get to work, I’ll package this up and put it in the mail. I’ll give her a call tomorrow if I have time. Thanks for the coffee, Adel. Don’t forget to check in on Pop.”

  Adel gave the tall young man, who was like a son to her, a bone-crushing motherly hug. “You behave yourself now, Luke, and drive carefully. Send me a text when you get there so I won’t worry.”

  “Don’t I always?” Luke said, enjoying every second of the warm motherly hug.

  Just as Luke pulled into the Miami construction site, Angie Powell swerved into the driveway that led to the back of the Brighton house and the garage. She hopped out of the Rover and pressed the security code Lucy called out to her. By the time she got back into the truck, the garage door was all the way up. She drove in, set the parking brake, and turned off the engine.

  “Home sweet home.” She giggled. “I am tired, Lucy. How about you? And how’s your foot?” Neither one got out of the truck until the garage door slid all the way down.

  “I’m just as tired. My foot is itching, but the pain is totally gone. I can’t wait to take a shower and put on some clean clothes. I can’t remember the last time I slept in my clothes, got up, and went somewhere at five in the morning. We didn’t even brush our teeth. How gross is that?”

  “Who’s going to know that unless we tell them? So, do we shower first, and then I fix your foot, or the other way around?”

  “Right now all I want is a good cup of coffee. You go ahead and take your shower. And then I’ll take mine. I have to put a plastic bag over my foot and use duct tape to seal it around my ankle. I’ll get all that ready. Take whatever room you want upstairs.”

  “I put all my stuff in the powder blue room on the left. You sure you can manage till I get back down?”

  “Of course I can manage. I’m not helpless. Listen, Angie, thanks. I really appreciate your flying down to Florida and being such a good sport about driving all the way back here.”

  Angie made a face. “That’s what friends are for, you dodo. Make the coffee strong, okay?”

  “Will do.”

  Alone in the kitchen, Lucy fixed the coffeepot. Then, with the aid of the rolling heel on her foot, she scooted over to the window seat and looked out at the backyard, which was full of colorful leaves swirling in the strong wind. Typical harvest weather, with Halloween just a few days away. She thought about the promise she’d made to herself to decorate the wide front porch. She wasn’t sure now if she even wanted to do that, or if Angie would mind tromping through a pumpkin patch up on Route 206. And if she didn’t decorate the porch, so what? She knew that the sky wouldn’t come tumbling down.

  As hard as she tried, Lucy couldn’t keep her gaze from the kitchen door that led to the garage. What am I going to do with all the stuff in the Range Rover? As soon as the question surfaced, she revised it. Where am I going to hide all the stuff in the Range Rover?

  She also had to make a decision as to what to do with the two urns in the Rover. Should she put them on a shelf in a closet upstairs? Or should she take them to a mortuary or mausoleum and let them keep her parents? She wished she knew what her parents wanted done in terms of their remains. What if I choose the wrong thing? she thought as perspiration beaded on her brow. What if my parents wanted to be buried? “Well, then, dammit, you should have let me know. I’m sick and tired of all these secrets,” she mumbled through her clenched teeth.

  “Hey, who you talking to, girl?” Angie asked, looking around. “No, no, don’t get up. I’ll get the coffee. Damn, that shower felt sooooo good. What did you decide about your foot?”

  “You can change the bandages after I take my shower. I was talking to myself. No, that’s not true, Angie. I was railing at my parents for not . . . Why didn’t they trust me with their wills, to let me know what they wanted done just in case . . . you know?”

  Angie brought her cup to her lips. “Some people don’t even make wills, Lucy, because they don’t want to think about their own demise. Then there are those who are prepared. They pick out their own cemetery plots, plan the eulogy, let it be known what kind of flowers they want, the particular prayers they want said. And they prepay everything so their kids won’t have that burden. I read about that all the time in the paper. Look, stop torturing yourself. You can’t unring the bell, and you did the best you could under the circumstances, so stop beating yourself up.”

  “Easier said than done. I’m going upstairs to take my shower. Poke around in the freezer and see what you want for dinner. I have tons of food in there.”

  “Can you make it up the steps by yourself?”

  “Did you forget the chair rail? The one my father put in when he broke his leg?”

  “I did forget, and I did see it at the bottom, but I wasn’t really paying attention to it. It was just there. You know what I mean?”

  “Okay, I’ll be down in a bit. Hey, do me a favor, Angie. Go out to the studio and turn on the heat. I set it at fifty-five when I left.”

  “Okay. Take your time and be careful.”

  “Always.”

  At the top of the stairs, Lucy stood still for a moment, looking at the closed door to the room that had been her parents’ when they had lived in this hateful house. She was tempted to turn the knob and walk in, but she fought the impulse. When she entered that room, she wanted Angie with her, because she knew what she was going to find. She could feel it in every bone in her body. She marched on down the hall to her own room and started to shed her clothes.

  Think about something pleasant for a change. Think about something happy. Think about Lucas Kingston, the good-looking dude who built your parents’ house and who has a killer smile. She wondered if she could come up with some reason to call that good-looking young guy.

  The covenants. He said he was going to drop them by this morning. She wondered if he had tried. Well, that was reason enough to call him, to tell him she’d left and to mail everything to her and to also send a copy of everything to the Schwager law firm. She frowned as she tried to remember if she’d already told him that or not. She’d been so busy reading his mind, she just couldn’t remember exactly what she had said. Well, mind reading was certainly worthy of a ten-minute phone conversation.

  Her foot wrapped in a double plastic bag and secured with duct tape, Lucy stepped into the shower, where she blissfully allowed the steaming spray to pound at her body. She washed her hair and lathered up twice. She didn’t get out until she felt her skin starting to pucker.

  In her opinion, a nice hot shower was the cure-all and end all to any and all of life’s problems. At least on a temporary basis.

  Chapter Ten

  Angie poked her head in the door. “You decent, Lucy?”

  “I am now. You ready to do my foot?”

  Angie held out the packet of bandages and the honey mix Adel had sent home with them. She peered down at Lucy’s charred foot. That was how she thought of it, charred. “I think it looks good. It’s healing. That’s obvious. How does it feel?”

  “Good but itchy. No pain. That’s a plus. Not to worry. I will take the meds until they run out as per the doctor’s orders. Hey, is it m
y imagination, or is the temperature dropping?”

  “You are spot-on. I turned the heat up downstairs. It’s getting dark out. Looks like a typical New Jersey snow day. And all the leaves aren’t even off the trees yet. You sure you don’t want to move back to Florida? You could see that good-looking guy you told me about every day. Don’t start reading my mind now. Promise, Lucy!”

  Lucy laughed. “I promise to do my best not to read your mind. Hold on, hold on! Quick, Angie. Toby is ringing the bell. Go get my FedEx. Explain who you are, and he should give it to you. Hurry, before he leaves!”

  “Lucy Brighton, you are absolutely shameless.”

  Lucy cackled to herself. She just knew, knew that Toby Nesbit and Angie Powell would make the perfect couple.

  Lucy hobbled over to the bedroom window that overlooked the studio and the mailbox outside. She smiled as she watched the couple talking. Even from the second floor, she could see that shy Toby was finding Angie interesting. Now, if Angie didn’t frighten Toby off with her forthrightness, they might get something going. She crossed her fingers that it would happen as she made her way back to the chair she’d been sitting on.

  Lucy passed the time waiting for her friend’s return by staring down at her sticky, black, ugly foot. It was enough to scare anyone, she thought. Yes, the doctor had told her, her foot would be scarred, and it would remain pink for a very long time. Well, wasn’t that why they made bronzers that you could spray on? In the scheme of things, her foot was the least important on her list of problems.

  Twenty minutes later, just as Lucy was dozing off, Angie bounded into the room, her cheeks flushed, her hair looking like a haystack. “How come you didn’t tell me he was such a cutie?”

  “Since when are you into red hair and freckles?” Lucy teased. Yessssss.