Unfinished Business

by Nora Roberts

  “And did you ever.” She pulled back. “Both of you. Lord, Van, where did you get that dress? Fabulous,” she said, before Vanessa could answer. “I’d kill to be able to squeeze my hips into that. Well, don’t just stand out here, come on in. We’ve got a ton of food, champagne, the works.”

  “Hell of a hostess, isn’t she?” Brady commented as Joanie rushed inside, shouting for her husband.

  Joanie hadn’t exaggerated about the food. There was a huge glazed ham, with a mountain of whipped potatoes, an array of vegetables, fluffy homemade biscuits. The scent of cooling apple pies wafted in from the kitchen. The home’s festive air was accented by candles and the glint of crystal wineglasses.

  The conversation was loud and disjointed, punctuated by Lara’s cheerful banging of her spoon against the tray of her high chair.

  Vanessa heard her mother laughing, more freely, more openly, than she could ever remember. And she looked lovely, Vanessa thought, smiling at Ham, leaning over to stroke Lara. It was happiness, she realized. True happiness. In all her memories, she could pull out no picture of her mother’s face when it had been truly happy.

  As the meal wore on, she nibbled lightly, certain that no one would notice her lack of appetite in the confusion. But when she saw Brady watching her, she forced herself to take another bite, to sip at the iced champagne, to laugh at one of Jack’s jokes.

  “I think this occasion calls for a toast.” Brady rose. He shot Lara a look as she squealed. “You have to wait your turn,” he told her, hefting his glass. “To my father, who turned out to be smarter than I always figured. And to his beautiful bride-to-be, who used to look the other way when I’d sneak into the backyard to neck with her daughter.” Over the ensuing laughter, glasses were clinked.

  Vanessa drank the bubbly wine and hoped she wouldn’t pay for it later.

  “Anyone for dessert?” Joanie’s question was answered by communal moans. “Okay, we’ll hold off on that. Jack, you help me clear the table. Absolutely not,” she said when Loretta stood to stack plates. “The guest of honor does not do dishes.”

  “Don’t be silly—”

  “I mean it.”

  “All right, then I’ll just clean Lara up.”

  “Fine, then you and Dad can spoil her until we’re done here. Not you, either,” she added when Vanessa began to clear the table. “You’re not doing dishes on your first dinner in my home.”

  “She’s always been bossy,” Brady commented when his sister disappeared into the kitchen. “Would you like to go into the living room? We can put on some music.”

  “No, actually, I’d like some air.”

  “Good. There’s nothing I like better than walking in the twilight with a beautiful woman.” He gave her a cocky grin and held out a hand.

  Chapter 6

  The evening was soft and smelled of rain. There were lilacs blooming, their scent an elegant whisper on the air. She remembered they had been Joanie’s favorite. To the west, the sun was sinking below the mountains in a blaze of red. Cows stood slack-hipped in the fading light. They walked around the side of the house toward a field thick with hay.

  “I hear you’ve taken on a student.”

  “Mrs. Driscoll gets around.”

  “Actually, I heard it from John Cory while I was giving him a tetanus shot. He heard it from Bill Crampton—that’s Annie’s father’s brother. He runs a repair shop out of his garage. All the men hang around over there to tell lies and complain about their wives.”

  Despite her dragging discomfort, Vanessa had to laugh. “At least it’s reassuring to know the grapevine still works.”

  “So how’d the lesson go?”

  “She has…possibilities.”

  “How does it feel to be on the other end?”

  “Odd. I promised I’d teach her how to play rock.”

  “You?”

  Vanessa bristled. “Music,” she said primly, “is music.”

  “Right.” He put a fingertip behind her earlobe so that he could watch the jewels she wore there catch the last light of the setting sun. And so that he could touch her. “I can see it now, Vanessa Sexton on keyboards with a heavy metal band.” He considered a minute. “Do you think you could wear one of those metal corsets, or whatever they’re called?”

  “No, I couldn’t, no matter what they’re called. And if you’re only along to make fun of me, I can walk by myself.”

  “Touchy.” He draped an arm around her shoulders. He was glad the scent of his shampoo was still in her hair. He wondered if any of the men he’d seen her linked with in magazines and newspapers had felt the same way.

  “I like Jack,” she said.

  “So do I.” They walked along a fence thick with honeysuckle.

  “Joanie seems so happy here, on the farm, with her family. I often wondered about her.”

  “Did you ever think about me? After you’d left, after you’d hit it so big, did you ever think about me?”

  She looked out over the fields. “I suppose I did.”

  “I kept thinking you would write.”

  Too much, she thought. Too often. “Time passed, Brady. And at first I was too angry and hurt. At you and at my mother.” Because she wanted to lighten the mood, she smiled. “It took me years to forgive you for dumping me the night of the prom.”

  “I didn’t.” He swore and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Look, it’s a stupid thing and long over, but I’m tired of taking the rap.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I didn’t dump you, damn it. I’d rented my first tux, bought my first corsage. Pink and yellow roses.” Now that he had brought it up, he felt like a total fool. “I guess I was probably as excited about that night as you were.”

  “Then why did I sit in my room wearing my new dress for two and a half hours?”

  He blew out a long breath. “I got arrested that night.”

  “What?”

  “It was a mistake,” he said carefully. “But by the time it was straightened out, it was too late to explain. The charges were pretty thin, to say the least, but I hadn’t exactly been a Boy Scout up until then.”

  “But what were you arrested for?”

  “Statutory rape.” At her astonished look, he shrugged. “I was over eighteen. You weren’t.”

  It took almost a full minute before it could sink in, before she could find her voice. “But that’s ridiculous. We never…”

  “Yeah.” To his undying regret. “We never.”

  She pulled both hands through her hair as she tried to reason it out. “Brady, it’s almost too ludicrous to believe. Even if we had been intimate, it wouldn’t have had anything to do with rape. You were only two years older than I was, and we loved each other.”

  “That was the problem.”

  She put a hand on her stomach, kneading a deep ache. “I’m sorry, so sorry. How miserable you must have been. And your parents. Oh, God. What a horrible thing for anyone to go through. But who in the world would have had you arrested? Who would have—” She saw his face, and her answer. “Oh, no!” she moaned, turning away. “Oh, God!”

  “He was dead sure I’d taken advantage of you. And he was dead sure I would ruin your life.” And maybe, Brady thought as he stared out over the fields, he wouldn’t have been far off. “The way he put it, he was going to see I paid for the first, and he was going to do what needed to be done to prevent the second.”

  “He could have asked me,” she whispered. “For once in my life, he could have asked me.” She shivered against a quick chill. “It’s my fault.”

  “That’s a stupid response.”

  “No,” she said quietly. “It’s my fault, because I could never make him understand how I felt. Not about you, not about anything.” She took a long breath before she looked at Brady again. “There’s nothing I can say that can make up for what he did.”

  “There’s nothing you have to say.” He put his hands on her shoulders, and would have drawn her back against him if she
hadn’t held herself so stiff. Instead, he massaged her knotted muscles, patiently, with his competent physician’s hands. “You were as innocent as I was, Van. We never straightened it out, because for the first few days I was too mad to try and you were too mad to ask. Then you were gone.”

  Her vision blurred before she blinked back the tears. She could picture him all too easily—young, rebellious, angry. Afraid. “I don’t know what to say. You must have been terrified.”

  “Some,” he admitted. “I was never formally charged, just held for questioning. You remember old Sheriff Grody—he was a hard-edged, potbellied bully. And he didn’t like me one little bit. Later I realized he was just taking the opportunity to make me sweat. Someone else might have handled it differently.”

  There was no use bringing up the way he’d sat in the cell, bone-scared, helplessly angry, waiting to be allowed his phone call, while the sheriff and Sexton consulted in the next room.

  “There was something else that happened that night. Maybe it balanced the scales some. My father stood up for me. I’d never known he would stand up for me that way, no questions, no doubts, just total support. I guess it changed my life.”

  “My father,” Vanessa said. “He knew how much that night meant to me. How much you meant to me. All my life I did what he wanted—except for you. He made sure he had his way even there.”

  “It’s a long way behind us, Van.”

  “I don’t think I can—” She broke off on a muffled gasp of pain.

  He turned her quickly. “Vanessa?”

  “It’s nothing. I just—” But the second wave came too sharp, too fast, doubling her over. Moving fast, he scooped her up and headed back for the house. “No, don’t. I’m all right. It was just a twinge.”

  “Breathe slow.”

  “Damn it, I said it’s nothing.” Her head fell back as the burning increased. “You’re not going to cause a scene,” she said between shallow breaths.

  “If you’ve got what I think you’ve got, you’re going to see one hell of a scene.”

  The kitchen was empty as he came in, so he took the back stairs. At least she’d stopped arguing, Brady thought as he laid her on Joanie’s bed. When he switched on the lamp, he could see that her skin was white and clammy.

  “I want you to try to relax, Van.”

  “I’m fine.” But the burning hadn’t stopped. “It’s just stress, maybe a little indigestion.”

  “That’s what we’re going to find out.” He eased down beside her. “I want you to tell me when I hurt you.” Very gently, he pressed on her lower abdomen. “Have you ever had your appendix out?”

  “No.”

  “Any abdominal surgery?”

  “No, nothing.”

  He kept his eyes on her face as he continued the examination. When he pressed just under her breastbone, he saw the flare of pain in her eyes before she cried out. Though his face was grim, he took her hand soothingly.

  “Van, how long have you been having pain?”

  She was ashamed to have cried out. “Everyone has pain.”

  “Answer the question.”

  “I don’t know.”

  He struggled for patience. “How does it feel now?”

  “It’s fine. I just want—”

  “Don’t lie to me.” He wanted to curse her as pungently as he was cursing himself. He’d known she wasn’t well, almost from the moment he’d seen her again. “Is there a burning sensation?”

  Because she saw no choice, she relented. “Some.”

  It had been just about an hour since they’d eaten, he thought. The timing was right. “Have you had this happen before, after you’ve had alcohol?”

  “I don’t really drink anymore.”

  “Because you get this reaction?”

  She closed her eyes. Why didn’t he just go and leave her alone? “I suppose.”

  “Do you get gnawing aches, here, under the breastbone?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “And in your stomach?”

  “It’s more of a grinding, I guess.”

  “Like acute hunger pangs.”

  “Yes.” The accuracy of his description made her frown. “It passes.”

  “What are you taking for it?”

  “Just over-the-counter stuff.” And enough was enough. “Brady, becoming a doctor’s obviously gone to your head. You’re making a case out of nothing. I’ll take a couple of antacids and be fine.”

  “You don’t treat an ulcer with antacids.”

  “I don’t have an ulcer. That’s ridiculous. I’m never sick.”

  “You listen to me.” He propped a hand on either side of her head. “You’re going into the hospital for tests—X rays, an upper G.I. And you’re going to do what I tell you.”

  “I’m not going to the hospital.” The very idea of it made her remember the horror of her father’s last days. “You’re not my doctor.”

  He swore at her richly.

  “Nice bedside manner. Now get out of my way.”

  “You stay right here. And I mean right here.”

  She obeyed, only because she didn’t know if she could manage to stand. Why now? she wondered as she fought against the pain. Why here? She’d had nasty attacks like this before, but she’d always been alone, and she’d always been able to weather them. And she would weather it this time. Just as she was struggling to sit up, Brady came back with his father.

  “Now, what’s all this?” Ham said.

  “Brady overreacting.” She managed to smile, and would have swung her legs off the bed if Brady hadn’t stopped her.

  “She doubled up with pain when we were outside. There’s burning in the abdomen, acute tenderness under the breastbone.”

  Ham sat on the bed and began his own gentle probing. His questions ran along the same lines as Brady’s, and his face became more and more sober at her answers. At last he sat back.

  “Now what’s a young girl like you doing with an ulcer?”

  “I don’t have an ulcer.”

  “You’ve got two doctors telling you different. I assume that’s your diagnosis, Brady.”

  “It is.”

  “Well, you’re both wrong.” Vanessa struggled to push herself up. Ham merely shifted the pillows behind her and eased her back. With a nod, he looked back at his son.

  “Of course, we’ll confirm it with X rays and tests.”

  “I’m not going in the hospital.” She was desperately hanging on to one small bit of control. “Ulcers are for Wall Street brokers and CEOs. I’m a musician, for God’s sake. I’m not a compulsive worrier, or someone who lets tension rule my life.”

  “I’ll tell you what you are,” Brady said, anger shimmering in his voice. “You’re a woman who hasn’t bothered to take care of herself, who’s too damn stubborn to sit back and admit when she’s taken on too much. And you’re going to the hospital if I have to hog-tie you.”

  “Easy there, Dr. Tucker,” Ham said mildly. “Van, have you had any vomiting, any traces of blood?”

  “No, of course not. It’s just a little stress, maybe a little overwork—”

  “A little ulcer,” he told her firmly. “But I think we can treat it with medication if you’re going to hang tough about the hospital.”

  “I am. And I don’t see that I need medication, or two doctors hovering over me.”

  “Testy,” Ham commented. “You’ll have medication or the hospital, young lady. Remember, I’m the one who treated you for damn near everything, starting with diaper rash. I think a cimetidine might clear this up,” he said to Brady. “As long as she stays away from spicy food and alcohol for the length of the treatment.”