Nobody's Fool

by Sarah Hegger

  Chapter Nineteen

  As the day got hotter, desperation drove Holly to try on the things in the package Lucy had given her. Locking herself in the bathroom, she prepared for all-out, total humiliation.

  The T-shirt fit, and it was a great color for her. The woman in the mirror looked like her, only Holly as she’d never seen her before. The emerald green turned her skin sort of peachy. Feeling marginally better, she dug out a pair of linen shorts. They slid easily over her hips and fastened. Holly made a small huff of amazement and turned to examine her reflection.

  The shorts were … quite nice. She pivoted to the side. Actually, they were very nice. She didn’t look too suckish. She turned for the all-important rear inspection and made another small noise in the back of her throat. She pirouetted and examined the effect. The shorts hung low on her hips, but her stomach was nice and flat, and they made her look curvy and sexy. Her thighs appeared firm and taut beneath the drape of fabric near the top. There was a definite Jennifer Lopez thing going on here. She rather liked it.

  Holly made a face of amazement in the mirror. Best of all, she dug out a couple of bras in the bottom of the bag. Holly’s breasts weren’t large, but it was a relief to have them rounded up and pointed in the right direction. It seemed she shared a cup size with the fecund goddess as well. A jaunty pair of beaded flip-flops completed the outfit.

  She sauntered into the kitchen. Looking good and feeling it.

  Portia sat at the kitchen table, crouched around a mug of something, as if she were afraid someone was going to take it away.

  “Good afternoon.” Holly’s ebullient mood disappeared like vapor.

  Portia jumped and turned. Her hair tangled in a disaster around her head. Portia’s eyes, puffy from sleeping most of the day away, tracked Holly into the kitchen. She scratched at her blotchy skin and went back to her mug.

  “Did you sleep well?”

  Portia shrugged one shoulder, her hair dropping over her face to hide it from view.

  Holly gently took a handful and smoothed it to the side. “We have the same hair curse,” she said. “Would you like me to tame the beast for you?”

  Shrug.

  So now what? Coffee. It would certainly make her feel better.

  “What have you got there?” Holly walked to the coffeemaker. Thank God, Josh’s mother was a sensible woman and didn’t go in for Italian stainless-steel beasts. She poured herself a cup and added cream.

  “Is that coffee?”

  Shrug.

  “Should you be drinking coffee?”

  Portia swirled the liquid in her mug before taking a sip.

  All righty, then, intervention time. “Portia?” Holly took a seat opposite her sister and placed her mug carefully on the table. “You’re in the middle of an episode.”

  Portia stared down at the table.

  “We spoke about this. Emma and I would tell you when you were showing signs of being in an episode?”

  “I can’t think.” Portia rubbed her head, screwing her eyes tightly shut. “My head is—I can’t think.”

  “Okay, Portia.” Holly waited for her sister’s expression to relax before she continued. “But you know this is part of your condition. You get tired all the time and you don’t want to do anything. This is how it is for you. We wrote it down on our action chart at home. Remember? We went to Dr. Foster and he gave us the chart to make notes of the warning signs and plans for what to do when we recognized them.”

  “I’m tired.” Portia put her head down on the table.

  Holly tightened her hands around her mug. Portia didn’t do this on purpose. It wasn’t personal either. It was important to keep that in mind or she would lose patience. “Portia, I know you’re tired, but if you aren’t going to take the medication, we’re going to have to deal with this.”

  Portia stared unblinkingly ahead.

  “We can break this down into small pieces and deal with them one at a time. Would that work for you?” Holly sipped her coffee and waited.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Portia picked at the wood grain with one nail. “None of it matters.”

  “Of course it matters, sweetheart.” Holly tucked a hair tendril behind Portia’s ear.

  Portia sat up, her expression suddenly keen and focused. “Do you think she knows I’m here?”

  “Who knows?” Holly did a quick mental gear change.

  “Mummy?”

  Everything inside Holly went on high alert. “Melissa’s dead, Portia. Mummy—” Holly forced the word out of her mouth—“is dead.”

  “I know she’s dead.” Portia frowned, as if Holly had missed the entire point. “But do you think she knows I’m here?”

  “I don’t know.” Carefully, Holly inched forward, not knowing where this conversation was heading. Melissa was dangerous territory. “Why?”

  “Do you think anyone who’s dead knows anything?”

  Holly breathed a soft sigh of relief, Melissa averted.

  “Again, Portia, I don’t know.” Talking about death with Portia freaked her out. Portia’s halfhearted attempt to hurt herself very early on in the manifestation of her condition had served as a loud enough warning. Holly would be damned if she let her sister go the same way as their mother. “We need to talk about the baby, sweetheart. The baby you’re going to have. We need to talk about what you want to do.”

  “I want the baby.” Portia glared at Holly, as if expecting resistance.

  “I gathered as much.” Holly kept any reaction off her face. She’d had plenty of practice over the years. “And in that case, we need to talk about the father of this baby.”

  “Joshua is—”

  “Josh is not the father.” The trick was to be firm but gentle and stick to the truth.

  “Why would you say such a thing?” Portia’s face screwed up in consternation. “Ask them at the hospital. They’ll tell you. Ask them, Holly.”

  “I don’t need to ask them at the hospital, sweetheart, because Josh couldn’t be the father of your baby.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes, I do. Listen to me.” Holly kept her tone carefully neutral. No judgment, no condemnation, and no unruly tail of emotion for Portia to latch on to, only the truth, spoken calmly. “You are fifteen weeks pregnant, Portia. Josh Hunter couldn’t possibly be the baby’s father, but somebody is, and that person is going to need to know.”

  “Why?” Portia’s face twisted. “This is my baby. They might try to take my baby from me.”

  “Portia,” Holly said before her sister could build momentum. “The father has to know.” She locked eyes with her sister.

  Portia looked away first. “How do you know I haven’t told him?”

  “Have you?”

  “No.”

  Holly sipped her coffee. It gave her something to do with her hands. The bitter truth was, the father could be anyone. Hypersexuality was another one of those manic behaviors Portia could exhibit. It was a new one for her, but it meant her sister could be frighteningly promiscuous. And pregnancy was only one concern because Portia had, clearly, not bothered with protection.

  Holly pushed the unwelcome thought aside. She would deal with this one thing at a time. She needed to establish who this anyone was, and if he was someone Portia and this baby could count on. Most especially the baby, because there might come a time when this child was going to need all the help it could get. Holly was willing to lay money on it.

  “I want to keep the baby.” Portia’s face grew more animated. “I didn’t plan it.” Portia surprised her further. Her tone sounded reasonable. “It just happened.”

  It just happened? Three words that prefaced nearly every fuckup in history.

  “Okay,” Holly said calmly, instead of allowing the hot words to bubble up. Portia would refuse to accept any sort of accountability. In Portia’s world, sex just happened. You couldn’t fight her take on reality. “Have you thought what you’re going to do now? I mean, in terms of your medication and the p
regnancy?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s good,” Holly said. “Do you want to develop an action plan?”

  “I already have.”

  Holly managed to keep the surprise off her face. The action plans were something they’d started on the recommendation of Portia’s support group, but her sister generally hated them and her contribution was, at best, reluctant.

  “That’s good.” The desire to see the plan throbbed like a festering wound, but Holly would have to wait for Portia to offer.

  “I want you to tell me about Mummy.”

  “What?” Shock held her frozen. They never spoke about Melissa. “She died here in Willow Park, and before that she was sick for a long time.”

  “She wasn’t always sick, though.” Portia shook her head “There must have been times when she wasn’t.”

  “There were.” There had been long stretches, before the disease grew too marked, when Melissa had been almost like everyone else’s mum. Only prettier and more bubbly, and Melissa had seemed younger and full of fun. Holly exhaled sharply and the tightness was gone.

  “Tell me something.” Portia leaned forward. “Something from when she was all right.”

  “She liked to bake.” The anxiety of going back clawed through her belly. “Just like Emma does. She liked to bake and she was good at it. There were times when she would fill the kitchen with her baking.”

  The pain raked inside and Holly wanted to make it go away. Long-forgotten images tumbled through her head. “She would laugh when she baked and make the most beautiful cupcakes for us. She made butterflies on them and flowers and sometimes creatures like fairies and dragons.”

  The happy times hurt even more than the awful ones, because they always ended too abruptly.

  Portia watched her with wide, shining eyes.

  “And she liked to dance. She would put the music on and we would dance around the house, all day. All of us would dance everywhere we went.”

  “I don’t remember her baking,” Portia said. “I don’t remember the dancing or the cupcakes. Only that she was sad a lot, and you and Grace would come and tell us Mummy needed some alone time and we were to try very hard to be quiet and good.”

  Guilt slammed into her. She’d hated that feeling as a child and, somehow, she’d managed to transfer it to her sister. “Sorry.” It sounded inadequate, because it was. “It was all we could think of to say.”

  “You were kids yourselves.” Portia shrugged. “I have no memories of her when she was well.” She went back to staring at her coffee mug. “And now I’m like her.”

  “No, you’re not.” Holly’s skin crawled. She took one of Portia’s hands. It lay limp and motionless on her palm.

  Portia had long, shapely fingers, their father’s hands.

  “Melissa was alone in her illness. She was totally alone and with nobody to help her or to try to understand what it was like for her. She had four children to manage with no family and no help. We kept moving from place to place, and it must have been torture for her. She was totally isolated, and the stress accelerated her condition all the time. You’re not like her.”

  Holly shook the dead weight of Portia’s hands. “You’re not like Melissa because we’re not going to let you be. You have an illness, Portia, but we’ve been managing. Haven’t we?”

  Portia took her hand back and wrapped it around her cup.

  “I miss Emma,” Portia said. “I want to go home to Emma. Emma understands.”

  She got up and slunk out of the room.

  Holly rubbed the dull ache in the middle of her chest. It was all so damn hopeless. A doorway shut down the hall.

  Portia would probably crawl back into bed and sleep for most of the day.

  Holly would get up and check. Later.

  She should know better, but the guilt was like an open nerve ending. In some festering place inside her, Holly knew she could’ve done something to prevent the condition manifesting in Portia. Doctors and therapists, counselors and experts had all said otherwise.

  And Holly believed them.

  Except for that dark little part that always believed if she could have done better; the same part that always insisted if she had been quieter as a child, an easier baby, a better daughter … perhaps?

  Holly made a harsh noise and got to her feet. This was getting her nowhere.

  “Holly?”

  She jumped as Josh materialized beside her. How much had he heard?

  “You okay?”

  It was tempting to tell him how she was. To let it all hang out, and Holly hesitated.

  There was real empathy on his beautiful, serious face. He did care, but she didn’t have any idea what to do with that.

  She understood how to be alone. She understood how you stood and managed on your own. This sharing was new and alarming. “I’m fine.”

  He went to put his arms around her, but she ducked to the side. If he touched her, she would shatter. “No.”

  One dark eyebrow shot up in response.

  “We can’t.” She tried to gentle her tone.

  He stilled, as if she were some sort of wild and unpredictable beast. “Can’t what?”

  He read her too well, and it annoyed Holly more than she could say. “You can’t do things like that.”

  “Like hold you?”

  “Yes.” Holly stalked around the table to put the solid wooden barrier between them. “That and more.”

  “More?” His voice was a silky purr, but the lines of his face were carved and perfectly immobile.

  She sensed the emotion he kept carefully concealed, and even his caution made her want to lash out. It certainly wasn’t rational. “Portia thinks …” She had to remind both of them of that sickening reality or this would go too far, again. “You know what Portia thinks.”

  “But she’s wrong.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Was she the only person on the planet who got this shit? “The truth isn’t important in Portia’s world right now. It’s what she thinks and feels that matter. She will react on those and … and we can’t.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck.

  She had to find the words, strong words that would end this thing. Forever. Last night she’d allowed herself to be swept away by lust or passion or whatever, but she couldn’t afford to let her unruly hormones guide her.

  Portia depended on her to do the right thing.

  Holly always did the right thing. The pit of her stomach dropped like it was lead filled. And the right thing, right now, did not include the beautiful man looking at her intently.

  She needed to end this thing between her and Josh. Holly didn’t even know what to call it, and she resisted the idea of putting a name to it. Even in the privacy of her mind.

  “You know … you understand … Portia? Me. You?” Holly swung around to break eye contact. She couldn’t do this while he was looking at her. She was raw inside; she didn’t want to put distance between them, but there was no choice. No fucking choices here but ugly ones. Holly massaged the dull ache settling above her breasts with her palm.

  “I understand the situation is messy and difficult,” he said.

  Holly closed her eyes to try to block the effect of his voice. There was a lot he didn’t say, but she heard it anyway. Holly desperately wanted to believe in the small flicker of hope he held out to her. She couldn’t afford to, though. “Then you know why we can’t … carry on.”

  “Look at me, Holly.”

  She shook her head.

  “This isn’t what I expected after last night.” His quiet voice carried a steel undertone.

  Holly winced under the impact, because throbbing under the anger was hurt. “Last night shouldn’t have happened. This isn’t about me.” Her throat closed convulsively. It had been so easy to forget in the beauty of what they’d shared. “It’s about Portia.”

  “And where does what you want fit into all this?” He said it softly enough, but it hit her like the sharp lash of a whip. “Port
ia is ill and I understand that, but there has to be a way for you to have a life outside of that.”

  Her legs were moving before she had fully formulated the thought. Her body escaped before her mind could catch up. She didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t know. He didn’t understand. He couldn’t know what went on in her mind. Her needs didn’t matter. They hadn’t mattered when Melissa was alive, and now they would get lost in the aftermath of their mother’s legacy.

  “I’m not giving up on you, Holly. We’ll find a way.”

  She stalked away from him.

  Josh had ended things with more women than he could recall. Some had cried, others had gotten mad, some even violent, and still others had quietly accepted what he said and slunk away with their dignity.

  Laura, the sadness in her eyes impenetrable and soul deep. He’d failed Laura, too full of what worked for him to see her pain.

  It sucked. It really, really sucked. And it was definitely worse being on the receiving end. His head reeled. The entire situation had spun out of control faster than he could blink.

  Holly had been sitting at the kitchen table looking like a kicked mongrel. He’d caught enough of the conversation with Portia to know how much her last remark must have been like a kick in the balls. And, yes, his lady did have balls. She swaggered around like John Wayne wearing them, and her fierce independence, like some sort of badge of honor.

  In his head, the scene had played something like: he walks in, puts his arms around her. Holly sighs and leans her slight weight into his strong, manly chest and allows him to share her pain. Josh laughed. The hollow sound echoed across the silent kitchen.

  In the depths of the house, a door slammed shut.

  Josh swallowed past the bile in his esophagus. Of course he could take his unloading with dignity and get on with his life. Except a woman like Holly deserved somebody by her side.

  Holly Partridge thought she was done with him. One night of mind-blowing sex and so long, sweetheart. But there was this one factor she’d left out of her equation. Him. She needed his help and, dammit, she was going to get it. There had to be a way to manage Portia and for Holly to have a life of her own. And he had a growing certainty that he wanted to be part of whatever future Holly had planned.