Chelsea took it from beneath her T-shirt and fingered the silver swirls. “Was it yours?”
“It belonged to a music box that belonged to Katie. She got it from Oliver, who got it from Zee, who brought it from Italy.”
“Like the clock on his wall.”
“Like that.” He looked at the floor, withdrawing into a world of memory. “I loved that music box. I’d sit for hours winding it up, watching the figures move, listening to the music until it ran down, then winding it up again. She didn’t let me have it all the time. It was a special treat. But I loved it, boy, did I love it. It represented”—he struggled for the words—“freedom, I guess. It stood for a world beyond mine. I used to bug her to let me play with it—I mean really bug her, throw wicked tantrums.” He took in a deep breath, released it sadly. “That was how it happened.”
“What?” Chelsea whispered.
He looked her in the eye. “One of my tantrums made her so angry she threw a tantrum of her own and ran off into town with the key. I never saw it again, not until you came here.”
“But why did she do that?” Chelsea asked. It would take time for the fact of Katie being her mother, too, to sink in. She still felt a distance and now, on Hunter’s behalf, an anger.
“She said I didn’t deserve to play the music box. She said she wanted ‘her’ to have something and that it was only fair that if I had the music box, ‘she’ should have the key. From that day on, the music box was mine.”
“But you couldn’t use it without the key.”
“Right.” He leaned against the counter, crossed his ankles, and tucked his hands under his arms. “I really went wild after that. I threw a tantrum that lasted for days. I refused to eat. I refused to talk. I refused to read or write or do any of the things she’d taught me.” He looked away. “She got depressed then. I mean, she’d always been a little loony. She used to carry on conversations with herself. I thought it was normal. But when she got depressed, she talked nonstop to herself, rocking in her chair, staring at me. She thought I was messed up, and she blamed herself.”
Chelsea moved closer to Judd. She clasped his hand when it came around her waist. “Are you saying she committed suicide?”
“No.” He looked resigned. “I’m saying that she pretty much gave up the fight. She went into a kind of trance, a constant murmuring to herself. She got up from the chair, one of her legs folded under her, she fell and hit her head on the edge of the table, and that was it.”
“Oh, Hunter,” Chelsea breathed. He was the one her heart went out to, far more so than Katie. He had only been a child, a child who was totally unprepared to face the real world.
Leaving Judd’s side, she went to him and grasped the forearms that crossed his chest. “I’m sorry you had to go through that alone.”
He shrugged. “I survived. I told you once it wasn’t all bad. She loved me.” He paused. “She drew pictures of me all the time. Some of the early ones look just like Abby. I’ll show them to you sometime. And her quilts. They’re in the chest with her drawings, the drawings you cried over.”
Chelsea was about to cry again when he said in a heartrending voice, “I wouldn’t have let anything happen to Abby. She’s my flesh and blood, too.”
Chelsea smiled and nodded. Her throat was tight.
He cleared his. “So. Now that you know he’s your father, what are you going to do about it?”
She hadn’t given that much thought, what with the emotions of the night. “I don’t know,” she said as she considered the possibilities. “Not much, I guess. Maybe go see my real father.” She liked that idea. Now that she knew who she was, she really liked that idea. She would go home and see Kevin. She would introduce Abby to her grandfather, even to Carl, if the situation arose. She wanted Kevin to get to know Judd, and she wanted him to meet Hunter. They would probably hate each other, what with Hunter being the embodiment of Chelsea’s wild side. Still, she wanted them to meet. Then she had another thought that returned the tears to her eyes.
“What?” Hunter asked.
“I was just wondering what it would have been like if Mom and Dad had adopted both of us. If we’d grown up together. You’d have had an easier life.”
“But I wouldn’t have had Katie. I’d have missed that. I wouldn’t have had her drawings and her quilts. I wouldn’t have had the memory of her reading stories.” He smirked. “I wouldn’t have been as wild. What fun would I have been?”
Chelsea laughed.
Soberly he said, “And I wouldn’t have had the music box.”
“Where is it now?” she whispered.
“At my place,” he whispered back.
“Can I see it?”
“Now?”
She nodded. She’d waited so long. “I have the key. Don’t you want to use it, after all these years?” The question had barely hit the air when it occurred to her that he had used it. She sucked in a breath and let it out with an accusatory, “You!”
He shrugged with his mouth set in the negligent way he had— a way that was cute, when she thought about it. “You and the big guy took off for a weekend in Newport,” he said. “I figured it was only fair that I have a little fun.”
“So you stole the key.”
“I borrowed it.”
“Why didn’t you keep it? I wouldn’t have known.”
“She wanted you to have it. It was yours. Besides, it wasn’t the same listening to it now. I mean, it’s a nice little box, but I hear better music on my stereo. I’m feeling freer than I did then. I’ve seen something of the world. Don’t get me wrong—I still cherish the box, but not for its music. It was a gift from my father to my mother.”
Chelsea hadn’t pegged Hunter for being sentimental, but then she hadn’t pegged him for being her brother, either, which showed how intuitive she was.
“Get the music box for me?” she asked again.
Hunter shot Judd a look that Chelsea had no trouble reading.
“Don’t worry,” she said with a smile. “He’ll get his later. This time’s for us. Go now. Please?”
JUDD HAD TO ADMIT THAT FOR THE SECOND TIME THAT NIGHT he’d been a little peeved. Having gone through a hell of a day, having reached momentous understandings and made landmark decisions, having held Chelsea Kane’s naked body against his while she nursed her baby, which had to be the most erotic thing in the world for a man to watch, he had wanted “his,” as she’d so succinctly put it, damn soon.
But Hunter was fast on his cycle, five minutes up, five minutes back, and then Abby woke up wanting to play, and after the trauma she’d gone through, whether she remembered it or not, no one had the heart to let her fuss herself back to sleep, least of all Judd.
Then it didn’t matter, because what happened was another one of those things in life, those pictures that the mind took and framed and kept for posterity. With Chelsea holding Abby on her lap, Hunter produced the music box. It was a beauty. Made of silver, like the key, it was crescent-shaped. Its top lifted to form a canopy over a miniature orchestra pit, which contained a conductor, a violinist, a cellist, a trombone player, and a harpist.
Chelsea took the key from around her neck and gave it to Hunter, who wound up the box. Then the figures began to move, each in directions suitable to its role, while the tinkle of something symphonic and sweet wafted into the air between them. Chelsea caught her breath. Judd could feel her delight. Abby waved a hand that Hunter promptly caught and held so gently that Judd was touched.
Did he feel left out? No way. He had the best seat in the house to view a family portrait. There was a place in it for him, but later. He could wait. For good things, always.
Acknowledgments
In the course of researching granite quarrying and small-town New England life, I had the good fortune of talking with many fascinating New Hampshirites. Among the most generous with time and information, and to whom I now give heartfelt thanks, were Jane Boisvert of the Office of State Planning in Concord, Vic Mangini of the Greenfiel
d Inn, SueAnne Yglesias of the Fitzwilliam Inn, and Howard Holman, mail carrier to the citizens of Fitzwilliam for sixty incredible years. Deepest thanks also go to architect Margot Chamberlin of Three-Point Design, Cambridge, Massachusetts, for her time and expertise.
I would like to thank my editor, Karen Solem, both for her unwavering faith in my work and her determination that more readers enjoy it. Likewise, I thank my agent, Amy Berkower, for her patience and the solid advice she has given me over the past few years.
Finally, always, I give thanks and love to my family—to my husband, Stephen, who unfailingly takes time from his law practice to answer my questions, to our oldest son, Eric, who has helped me with more than a plot twist or two, and to the twins, Andrew and Jeremy, who monitor my career with a savvy far beyond their years.
About the Author
Barbara Delinsky was a sociologist and photographer before she began to write. A lifelong New Englander, she and her husband have three sons, two daughters-in-law, and a cat. More than thirty million copies of her books are in print — and, title-by-title, HarperCollins e-books is catching up with new e-book editions. Please visit www.barbaradelinsky.com.
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By Barbara Delinsky
FICTION
An Accidental Woman
The Carpenter’s Lady
Coast Road
Fast Courting
Finger Prints
For My Daughters
Gemstone
An Irresistible Impulse
Lake News
Moment to Moment
More Than Friends
Passion and Illusion
Rekindled
Search for a New Dawn
Sensuous Burgundy
Shades of Gra
Suddenly
Sweet Ember
Three Wishes
A Time to Love
Together Alone
Variation on a Theme
The Vineyard
The Woman Next Door
A Woman Betrayed
A Woman’s Place
Within Reach
NONFICTION
Uplift: Secrets from the Sisterhood of Breast Cancer Survivors
Credits
Jacket design by Barbara Levine
Jacket illustration by John Patrick
Jacket typography by David Gatti
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A mass-market edition of this book was published in 1992 by HarperPaperbacks.
THE PASSIONS OF CHELSEA KANE. Copyright © 1992 by Barbara Delinsky. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub © Edition DECEMBER 2003 ISBN: 9780061749131
Version 08172017
First William Morrow edition published 2003.
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The Passions of Chelsea Kane Page 47
