by Margaret Way
Robert James’s hollowed-out gaze rested on his niece. “Does Nigel know about me?”
Mallory’s smile barely wavered. “I’ve left messages. I’m sure he’ll respond.”
“I won’t count on it.” Robert spoke wryly. “Stripped of the mask of learnedness, my brother is not a caring man. What heart he had went with your mother. I would have liked to see him, all the same. We are blood.”
Unease etched itself on Mallory’s face. “Goodness, Uncle Robert, you’re not dying.” She tightened her grip as if to hold him forever. “You’ve got plenty more good years left to you. I’m here now. Father will be in contact, I’m sure.” She was certain her father had received her messages. But her father hated confronting issues like illness and death.
Some minutes later, Blaine walked through the door, his eyes taking in the heartwarming sight of uncle and niece lovingly holding hands. “How goes it?”
“Wonderful, thank you, Blaine,” Robert responded, eyes bright. “Ted says I can come home tomorrow.”
“That’s great news. I can pick you up in the Range Rover. To make it easy for Mallory, I can pick her up on the way.”
So it was arranged, and they left the room.
* * *
She didn’t so much walk as glide on those long, elegant legs, Blaine thought. Mallory moved like a dancer; every twist and turn, every smooth pivot. It was high time he dropped the bombshell and then stood well back for the fallout. He knew Robb hadn’t told her. Robb simply wasn’t up to it. It was part of Robb’s avoidance program.
“Something I should tell you, Mallory.” He hoped if she was going to shoot the messenger she aimed high.
“I knew there was something.” Mallory came to an abrupt halt.
“Your psychic powers?” he suggested, that irritating quirk to his handsome mouth.
“Why don’t you double up with laughter? What powers I have—which you don’t believe is true—do work. I’ve been picking up vibes that something wasn’t right. I can see by your face you’d prefer not to be having the upcoming conversation.” Normally she spoke quietly. She was quiet with her movements as well. She never sought to draw attention to herself, but with Blaine her usually controlled manner became by comparison nearly theatrical.
“How right you are. I don’t think you could guess, so I’ll get right to it. Jason Cartwright has a job at Moonglade. On the farm.”
The shock was so great she felt like ducking for cover.
Blaine showed his concern. “Hey, are you okay?”
For a moment she was too dumbfounded to reply. “Okay? I’m the expert on okay. I’m actually delirious with joy. Jason at the farm! What luck!” Her blood pressure was definitely soaring well above her usual spot-on 119/76.
He didn’t relish this job, but he had promised Robb he would bring Mallory up to date. Robb tended to pull in the favours. “I’m sorry to spring it on you. Robb has never told you for his own reasons, but it’s something you obviously need to know now you’re here.”
Take your time.
Stare into space for a minute.
She felt more like shouting, only that would be so utterly, utterly unlike Dr. Mallory James. “I love Uncle Robert dearly, but we both know he evades difficult issues like the plague. I knew he was keeping something from me.”
“Your psychic powers didn’t fill you in?”
“Oh, bugger off, Blaine.” Abruptly she stalked off to her car, unlocking the doors with a press on the remote. She felt like driving back the way she came.
Blaine caught up with her with ease. “We can handle this, Mallory.”
“We?” she huffed, rounding on him. “We will, will we? I love that. Your offer of support only grates.”
“It’s well meant. I’ve another surprise for you.”
Her dark eyes flashed. “Don’t hang about. Get it out. It’s a bigger surprise than Jason working at the farm?”
For a woman who hated to lose her cool, Mallory’s dark eyes gave Mallory, the enigma, away. They were passionate eyes. “He runs it,” Blaine bit off. “No point in stretching things out.”
She tried to find words. None came. “Well, he’s had such a rotten time, he deserves a break,” she said finally.
“I share your dismay.”
“Then why didn’t you stop it?” She was trying without success to dampen the burn inside her. “You can do anything when you want to. I’ve seen plenty of evidence of that over the years. You’re the fixer. You run the town.”
“I’ve never said that.”
“You don’t have to. Does the Queen tell everyone she’s the Queen? She doesn’t have to.”
“Are you hearing yourself?” He too was firing up. “Be fair. It was Robb’s decision, Mallory. It was never going to be mine. I couldn’t take matters out of his hands. Robb owns Moonglade and the business. I’ve never been a fan of Jason’s, but he’s not a criminal.”
“He is a criminal!” Mallory declared fiercely. “He betrayed me. He betrayed his family, Uncle Robert, even the town. That’s criminal in my book. Honestly, Blaine, this is too much.”
He agreed, but he wasn’t about to stoke the flames. “I can’t expect you to be happy about it. He’s good at the job. He works hard.”
Mallory shook her head. “The golden boy! That makes it okay for my married ex-fiancé to live and work on the doorstep? I suppose I can be grateful he wasn’t invited to live in the house. Why couldn’t Uncle Robert tell me himself? I don’t give a damn how efficient Jason is. Uncle Robert—” She broke off in disgust. “It’s the avoidance syndrome. It’s rife among men.” She propped herself against her car, in case she slid ignominiously to the ground. “Why does chaos follow me?”
“You’re doing okay,” he said briskly.
She waved off his comment. “What is wrong with Uncle Robb’s thinking?”
“Obviously, it’s different from yours.”
“Ss-o?” she almost stuttered.
“If someone’s decisions are different from our own, then we tend to assume it doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my thinking, thank you.” She became aware she was beating an angry tattoo on the concrete with the toe of her shoe. This wasn’t like her. Not like her at all. Blaine found the terrible weak spot in her defences. “You didn’t understand Uncle Robert’s decision, did you?”
“The milk of human kindness? Blessed are the merciful, and all that?”
“I love the way you guys stick together.”
“Oh, come off it, Mallory,” he said, exasperated.
“We never know people, do we? Even the people closest to us. We always miss something. Uncle Robert needed to tell me. You of all people should know that.”
“Damn it, Blaine, Jason’s working at Moonglade is an outrage. It chills my heart. So don’t stand there looking like business as usual.”
He rubbed the back of his tanned neck. “It won’t help to see it like that, Mallory. It’s a done deal. You’d moved on. You didn’t come back. It was well over six years ago.”
“An astonishing amount of time. So you’re saying I’m the one who is acting badly? Or am I an idiot for asking?”
“I don’t think you’re likely to hear the word ‘idiot’ in connection with you in a lifetime. Robb has a notoriously kind heart. He gave your ex-fiancé a job after it became apparent Harry Cartwright had disowned his only son. Robb is a very compassionate man.”
“A sucker for a sob story, you mean. Okay, okay, I was a sob story. A seven-year-old kid who had lost her mother. A kid who was abandoned by her greatly admired, gutless father because I’m the spitting image of my mother. He couldn’t look at me. I might have had two heads. I was his little daughter so much in need of a father’s comfort, but my appearance totally alienated him. It was like I should have had plastic surgery, changed the colour of my hair, popped in baby-blue contact lenses. Ah, what the hell!” She broke off, ashamed of her rant.
“Mallory, I can’t think of a sin
gle soul who didn’t find your father’s behaviour deplorable. You had a tough time, but you’ve come through with flying colours.”
“An illusion I’ve managed to create.”
“We all create illusions. I do get how you feel.”
She raised her face to his, not bothering to hide her agitation. “How do you get it? Selma didn’t run off from your wedding, so be grateful for that. Jason was an assassin. He stabbed me in the back, right on the eve of our wedding, remember? You should, you were there. You’re always there, letting me know what a fool I am. Will you ever forget how the news of Kathy Burch’s pregnancy spread like wildfire around the town? The disgrace. The humiliation. The shame. To make it worse, Uncle Robert had spent a fortune ensuring a fairy-tale wedding for me.”
“I did warn you.”
She felt the screws tighten. “Yeah, prescient old you! You must get great satisfaction out of knowing everything you said about Jason came true.”
“He wasn’t the most desirable candidate for your hand. Certainly not the husband of choice.”
“Not your choice for me.”
“Not Robb’s choice either, even if he avoided saying so, which is a great pity, but seriously not worth getting into now. It didn’t make me happy to say what I said then.”
“I don’t believe that for one moment. You relished the breakup. I was under so much stress, but you, superior old you, had to punch my stupidity home.”
An answering heat of anger was rising in him. A certain amount of conflict with Mallory was par for the course. “How unfair can you get? If I’d told you I thought Jason Cartwright was absolutely perfect, you might have broken off the engagement.”
She stared at him, wondering in consternation if he had spoken a truth. “There’s always friction between us, isn’t there?” she said, angrily puffing at a stray lock of her hair. “Bottled up forces.”
“That’s what you want, Mallory. Not me.” Blaine stared down at her. Radiance had a way of playing around Mallory. The hot sun was picking out the gold strands in her hair and at her temples. The delicate bones of her face he found not only endearing but intensely erotic.
“Jason was kicked out of his home and the thriving family real estate business for reasons unknown. Was it money?” Mallory pondered. “Money causes big problems. Were the twins robbing their father on the side? Surely Uncle Robert pressed Jason for some explanation?”
“None forthcoming to this day.” Blaine fixed a glance on her narrow, tapping foot.
She stopped the tapping. “You’ve always been able to get to the bottom of things.”
“Wasn’t my place, Mallory, as I said.”
“Well, I can’t accept you don’t have some idea as to what the breakup was all about. You have your little network. All the businessmen in town want to hook up with you. They all know Harry. What about the grapevine?”
“Oddly, the breakup hasn’t become the talk of the town. It’s a mystery, destined to remain so.”
She gave another dismissive wave of her hand. “I don’t like mysteries, especially when they impact on my life. His parents doted on Jason. Could the fallout have been because of me? That would make me very uncomfortable indeed.”
“I think not.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I know that much, Mallory.”
She felt another quick surge of anger. “Of course you do, and a whole lot more you’re not telling. Jason married Kathy Burch. They have a little girl.”
“Her name is Ivy, a cute little kid. Kathy, however, is a very subdued young woman these days. Marriage and motherhood have—”
“Taken their toll?”
“The short answer is yes. Kathy is very much under Jessica’s thumb.”
She took a deep breath. Counted to ten. “A bigger bombshell is coming? Jessica is still on the scene?”
“Try to pry her away from her brother,” Blaine said, his tone bone dry.
“Can no one kill her off? Or at least start looking into it?”
“No way of doing it without landing in jail,” Blaine said laconically. “Those two were always joined at the hip. Jason and Kathy live in the old manager’s bungalow, by the way. Robert remodeled it for them.”
Mallory put her fingertips to her aching temples. “I didn’t come prepared for these disclosures, Blaine. To think of all the phone calls, the e-mails, the visits, and never a word.”
“Not so surprising, is it?”
She shook her head. “Not really. We both know Uncle Robert avoids unpleasantness. It’s his problem area. As for you! You too left me completely in the dark.”
“Mallory, I couldn’t go over Robb’s head.”
“I had rights, didn’t I?”
“You left, Mallory, telling us you were never coming back.”
“Who would blame me? You’re not the most compassionate man in the world, are you?”
“Compassion wasn’t, still isn’t, what you wanted,” he said testily.
Mallory gave up. She would never win with Blaine. “I can’t believe the Cartwrights would turn their backs on their only grandchild. Kathy might remain the outsider, but cutting off the little girl, the innocent victim, their own flesh and blood? The Marge Cartwright I remember was a nurturing woman.”
“Maybe Jason is hitting back at his parents by not allowing them to see the child. She has a few problems apparently.”
“Problems? What sort of problems?” Immediately Mallory started ticking off childhood disorders in her head.
“Health problems, and I believe she’s a little wild. The whole town knows. Kathy is always at the hospital with her.”
“How very worrying.” Mallory’s stance had softened considerably. “Is the child on medication? There are so many underlying reasons for behavioural problems. Sometimes it can be hard for a GP to differentiate. Kids are hyper for a wide range of reasons.”
“I’m sure you’re right, Doctor James.”
Ah, the suavity of his tone! “Helping problematic children is my area, Blaine,” she reminded him sharply. “I’d like to point out, while we’re on the subject, I didn’t allow bitterness over what happened to me and Jason to eat me away. What’s past is past.”
“Faulkner didn’t see it that way.”
“Okay, the past is never past. That way of yours of constantly having the last word drives me crazy.”
“As I’ve suggested, it could be your bad case of ‘sibling’ rivalry. You were lucky you didn’t marry Jason. He didn’t break your heart.”
“Did Selma break yours?”
He only shrugged. “Forget Selma. Look, I’m not in the mood for this, Mallory.”
“Then you’re welcome to go on your way. I’m not stopping you.” She tilted her chin.
“Take a chill pill, why don’t you.”
She flared up. “Chill pill? I don’t pop pills.” She had been on antidepressants for some years. Occasionally she had panic attacks, but she worked to contain them without medication.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Mallory! Why do you work so hard to misunderstand me? You’re a psychologist. You know all about chill pills to control moods. I know this is difficult. If it helps, Cartwright is working hard. Jessica too.”
For a split second she allowed her shoulders to droop. Then she straightened. No way was Blaine going to see her crumple. She’d do that when she was alone.
“Jessica Cartwright mightn’t be a bucket of fun, but she’s extremely competent,” he went on. “She’s far better than Jason at getting the best out of the staff.”
“That’s her big rap, is it? Jessica Cartwright gets the best out of the staff. Does she do it with a whip? Jessica was the nastiest kid in the school. She tormented the life out of Kathy Burch, when Kathy had suffered enough with that appalling father. Dare I ask how she wrangled the job?”
“Good question.”
“With no good answer. Uncle Robert never liked her. He once called her a little monster.”
“Tell me who di
d like her? Being pleasant never caught up with Jessica. She needed a job. The prospect of her finding work in town was uncertain at best.”
“Most people had had kids in school with Jessica,” Mallory said tartly.
“She mightn’t have a winning personality, but Jason’s life doesn’t seem to be complete without her.”
“Repressed development. Jessica is the alpha twin. She’s always been in charge. But Jason is a married man now. If Jessica is around she probably spends her time ensuring every day is a real bad day for her sister-in-law. It’s cruel for Jason to subject his wife to Jessica’s TLC. God forbid he does it on purpose.” Mallory felt up to her neck in unwelcome disclosures. “She’s not his identical twin. They don’t share identical genetic material. Jason was as pleasant as Jessica was downright nasty. Having said that, twinship is a deeply symbiotic relationship. I hope it’s not too rude to ask, but what now? Is there a way out?”
“Not at the moment. Jessica lives in an apartment in town.”
“I expect you own the complex?”
“I expect I do,” he said.
“Modesty doesn’t come in your size, does it?”
“If you say so, dear Mallory,” he drawled. “To try to balance the good with the bad, Jessica has stuck by her brother.”
“She’d stick with him if he were a total nutter. I really liked the Cartwrights.”
“And they loved you.” He went heavy on the loved.
“It was what it was,” she said soberly. “So you got me here knowing all this?”
“I got you here for Robert. You owe him.”
Memory after memory was sidling up. All of them full of angst. “I do so love you when you’re righteous!”
“Me, righteous?” He spread his shapely hands.
“That’s one of your big problems, Blaine. You’re most righteous when you’re in the wrong. And this is wrong.”
“Would you have come back had you known?” He pinned her with his luminous eyes.
“So you deliberately kept me in the dark?”
“What would you have done had I told you the truth?”
She averted her gaze. “You don’t know the workings of my mind, Blaine.”
“You don’t know mine, either.”
