The Novels of Nora Roberts, Volume 4

by Nora Roberts

  There Are no words to express my sorrow, my sympathy, my grief for you. I wish I could hold you, could comfort you now with more than words on A page. Know that I’m with you in my heart, that my thoughts Are full of you. No mother should have to suffer the loss of her child, And then be forced to grieve in so public A manner.

  I know you loved your Johnnie beyond measure. If there can be comfort now, take it in knowing he felt that love every day of his short life.

  Only Yours

  “Is that fitting, is that fate?” Cilla said quietly. “That I’d choose the loss of a son to compare to the birth of another? It’s a kind letter,” she continued. “They’re both kind notes, and both strangely distant, so carefully worded, I think. When each occasion should have filled the page with emotions and intimacies. The tone, the structure. They could be from the same person.”

  “The writing’s similar. Not . . . well, not exactly exact. See the S’s in the card? When he starts a word—son, small—with an S, it’s in curvy print. In the letter—sorry, sympathy—traditional lowercase cursive.”

  “But the uppercase T’s are written the same way, and the Y’s. The slant of the writing. It’s very close. And they were written years apart.”

  “My and my in both really look like the same hand, and the upper-case I’s, but the uppercase D’s, not so much.” Ford knew he looked with an artist’s eye, and wasn’t sure if that was a plus or a minus. “Then again, in the card, that’s a signature. Some people write the first letter of their signature differently than they might a word. I don’t know, Cilla.”

  “Results, inconclusive. I don’t suppose you know any handwriting experts.”

  “We could find one.” He looked up, into her eyes. “Do you want to go that route?”

  “No. Maybe. I don’t know. Damn it. No easy answers.”

  “Maybe we could get our hands on a sample closer to when the letters were written. I can ask Brian to try for that.”

  “Let’s just put it away for now.” She folded the letter, slipped it back into the envelope. “We know one thing after this. It wasn’t Hennessy. I’d forgotten about the letter after Johnnie’s death. No way, even if he was crazy in love, would he have written that after the accident. Not when he was with his own son in the hospital.”

  “You’re right.”

  “So, if I had a list, I’d be able to cross a name off. That’s something. I guess it’s going to have to be enough for now. At least for now.”

  Ford closed the book, put it back on the shelf. He turned to her, took her hand. “What do you say we go buy a grill?”

  “I’d say that’s exactly what I want to do.”

  But he left the monogrammed note on his desk when he went to dress. He could find a graphologist. Someone outside Virginia to whom the name Andrew Morrow meant nothing. And he could see where that led.

  CILLA’S PLEASURE WHEN her walnut flooring finally arrived Tuesday morning hit a major roadblock before noon when her tile layer stormed over to her work area beside the barn.

  “Hi, Stan. You’re not scheduled until Thursday. Are . . .”

  She found herself backpedaling quickly as she caught the murderous look in his eye. “Hey, hey, what’s the problem?”

  “You think you can treat people that way? You think you can talk to people that way?”

  “What? What?” He backed her right up into the side of the barn. Too shocked at seeing the usually affable Stan with a vein throbbing in the center of his forehead, Cilla held up her hands as much in defense as a gesture of peace.

  “You think ’cause you come from money and got yourself on TV you’re better than the rest of us?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Where—”

  “You got some nerve, goddamn it, calling my wife, talking to her like that.”

  “I never—”

  “You got a problem with my work, you talk to me. You got that? Don’t you go calling my house and yelling at my wife.”

  “Stan, I’ve never spoken to your wife.”

  “You calling her a liar now?” He shoved his face into hers, so close she could taste his rage.

  “I’m not calling her anything.” Alarm lumped at the base of Cilla’s throat, so she spaced her words carefully. “I don’t know her, and I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “I come home and she’s so upset she can barely talk. Started crying. The only reason I didn’t come straight over here last night is she begged me not to, and I didn’t want to leave her when she was in that state. She’s got hypertension, and you go setting her off ’cause you decide you don’t like my work.”

  “And I’m telling you, I never called your house, I never spoke to your wife, and I’m not dissatisfied with your work. In fact, the opposite. Or why in God’s name did I contract you to lay the floor in my kitchen?”

  “You tell me, goddamn it.”

  “Well, I can’t!” she shouted back at him. “What time was I supposed to have made this call?”

  “About ten o’clock last night, you know damn well. I get home about ten-thirty, and she’s lying down, flushed and shaking because you screamed at her like a crazy woman.”

  “Have you ever heard me scream like a crazy woman? I was at Ford’s last night at ten o’clock. I nodded off in front of the TV. Ask him. Jesus, Stan, you’ve been working here off and on for months now. You should know I don’t handle things that way.”

  “Said it was you. Cilla McGowan.” But puzzlement began to show through the temper. “You told Kay she was a stupid hick, just like most of the people around here. How I couldn’t lay tile for shit, and you were going to make sure word got out. When I lost work, I’d have nobody to blame but my own lazy ass. How maybe you’d sue me over the crap job I did for you.”

  “If your wife’s a hick, I am, too. I live here now. I don’t contract with subs who do crap work. In fact, I recommended you to my stepmother just last week, if she ever talks my father into updating their master bath.” She realized she was breathless from reaction, but the alarm had dissolved. “Why the hell would I do that, Stan, if I thought your work was crap?”

  “She didn’t just make it up.”

  “Okay.” She had to draw in air. “Okay. Is she sure whoever called gave my name?”

  “Cilla McGowan, and then Kay said you . . . they,” he corrected, obviously ready to give Cilla the benefit of the doubt, “said, ‘Do you know who I am?’ in that bitchy way people do when they think they’re important. Then just laid into her. It took me almost an hour to calm her down when I got home from the summer league. I had to make her take a Tylenol P.M. to help her sleep. She was that upset.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry somebody used my name to upset her. I don’t know why . . .” Pressure lowered onto her chest, pushed and pushed. “The flooring supplier said I called in and changed my order. Walnut to oak. But I didn’t. I thought there’d just been a mix-up. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe somebody’s screwing with me.”

  Stan stood a moment, stuck his hands in his pockets, pulled them out again. “You never made that call.”

  “No, I didn’t. Stan, I’m trying to build a reputation, and a business here. I’m trying to build relationships with subs and service people. When someone broke in and went at the bathrooms, you juggled me in for the repair and re-lay, and I know you cut me a break on the labor.”

  “You had a problem. And the fact is, I was proud of that work and wanted to make it right.”

  “I don’t know how to make this right with your wife. I could talk to her, try to explain.”

  “Better let me do that.” He blew out a breath. “Sorry I came at you.”

  “I’d have done the same in your place.”

  “Who’d do something like this? Mess with you, get Kay all upset?”

  “I don’t know.” Cilla thought of Mrs. Hennessy. Her husband was doing two years in a psych facility. “But I hope I can head it off before it happens again.”

  “I gues
s I’d better swing by home, straighten this out with Kay.”

  “Okay. You still on for Thursday?”

  His smile was a little sheepish. “Yeah. Ah, you got any reason to call me at home, maybe you should come up with a code word or something.”

  “Maybe I should.”

  She stood in the shadow of her barn, with trim propped against the wall and laid out to dry, stretched across her saw-horses. And wondered how many times she’d have to pay for the crimes, sins, mistakes of others.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Cilla stood in her bedroom, staring at the freshly painted walls while her father tapped the lid back on the open can of paint. She watched the way the strong midday light flooded the room, and sent those walls to glowing.

  “The trim’s not even up, and the floors still have to be done, and still, standing here gives me an ecstatic tingle.”

  He straightened from his crouch, took a long look himself. “It’s a damn fine job.”

  “You could make a living.”

  “It’s always good to have a fallback.”

  “You’ve damn near painted the entire house.” She turned to him then. She still couldn’t quite think what to make of that, or what to say to him. “That’s saved me weeks of time. Thanks doesn’t cover it.”

  “It does the job. I’ve enjoyed it, on a lot of levels. I’ve liked being part of this. This transformation. We missed a lot of summers, you and I. Spending some of this one with you, well, it’s made me happy.”

  For a moment she could only stand, looking at him, her handsome father. Then she did something she’d never done before. She went to him first. She pressed a kiss to his cheek, then wrapped her arms around him. “Me too.”

  He held on, hard and tight. She felt his sigh against her. “Do you remember the day we first saw each other here? I came to the back door, and you shared your lunch with me on the sagging front veranda?”

  “I remember.”

  “I didn’t see how we’d ever get here. Too much neglect, too much time passed. For the house, and for us.” He eased her back, and she saw with some surprise, some alarm, that his eyes were damp. “You gave it a chance. The house, and me. Now I’m standing here with my daughter. I’m so proud of you, Cilla.”

  When her own eyes flooded, she pressed her face to his shoulder. “You said that to me, that you were proud, after the concert in D.C., and once, earlier, when you came to the set of Our Family and watched me shoot a scene. But this is the first time I believe it.”

  She gave him a last squeeze, stepped back. “I guess we’re getting to know each other, through interior latex, eggshell finish.”

  “Why stop there? How about we go take a look at the exterior.”

  “You can’t paint the house. The rooms, that’s one thing.”

  Lips pursed, he scanned the room. “I think I passed the audition.”

  “Interiors. It’s a three-story building. A really big, three-story building. Painting it’ll require standing on scaffolding and really tall ladders.”

  “I used to do my own stunts.” He laughed as she rolled her eyes in a way he could only describe as daughterly. “Maybe I didn’t, and maybe that was a long time ago, but I have excellent balance.”

  She tried stern. “Standing on scaffolding and really tall ladders in the dog-day heat of August.”

  “You don’t scare me.”

  Then simple practicality. “It’s not a one-man job.”

  “True. I’ll definitely need some help. What color did you have in mind?”

  And felt herself being gently steamrolled. “Listen, the old paint needs to be scraped where it’s peeled, and—”

  “Details, details. Let’s take a look. Do you want it painted by Labor Day, or what?”

  “Labor Day? It’s not even on the schedule until mid-September. When it’s, hopefully, a little cooler. The crew who painted the barn—”

  “Happy to work with them.”

  Completely baffled, she set her hands on her hips. “I thought you were kind of—no offense—a pushover.”

  His expression placid, he patted her cheek. “No offense taken. What about the trim, the verandas?”

  She puffed out her cheeks, blew the breath out. She saw it now. Pushover, her ass. He just ignored the arguments and kept going. “Okay, we’ll take a look at the samples I’m thinking about. And once I decide, you can work on the verandas, the shutters. But you’re not hanging off scaffolding or climbing up extension ladders.”

  He only smiled at her, then dropped his arm over her shoulders the way she’d seen him do with Angie, and walked her downstairs.

  Though it wasn’t on her list—and she really wanted to get up to her office and check on the progress of her floors, see if Stan had finished the tile, start running the bedroom trim—she opened the three pints of exterior paint. “Could go deep, with this blue. The gray in it settles it down a few notches, and white trim would set it off.” She slapped some on the wood.

  “Makes a statement.”

  “Yeah. Or I could go quiet and traditional with this buff, use a white trim again, or a cream. Cream might be better. Softer.”

  “Pretty and subdued.”

  “Or I could go with this more subtle blue, again gray undertones keeping it warm, and probably go with a soft white for the trim.”

  “Dignified but warm.”

  She stepped back, cocked her head to one side, then the other. “I thought about yellows, too. Something cheerful, but soft enough it doesn’t pop out of the ground like a big daffodil. Maybe it should wait. Maybe it should just wait.” She gnawed on her lip. “Until . . .”

  “I’ve seen you make decisions, over everything that has to do with this house, with the grounds. Why are you having such a hard time with this?”

  “It’s what everyone will see. Every time they drive by on the road. A lot of them will slow down, point it out. ‘That’s Janet Hardy’s house.’ ” Setting down the brush, Cilla wiped her hands on her work shorts. “It’s just paint, it’s just color, but it matters what people see when they drive by on the road, and think of her.”

  He laid a hand on her shoulder. “What do you want them to see when they drive by here?”

  “That she was a real person, not just an image in an old movie, or a voice on a CD or old record. She was a real person, who felt and ate, who laughed and worked. Who lived a life. And she was happy here, at least for a while. Happy enough she didn’t let it go. She held on, so I could come here, and have a life here.”

  She let out an embarrassed laugh. “And that’s a hell of a lot to expect from a couple coats of paint. Jesus, I should probably go back into therapy.”

  “Stop.” He gave her shoulder a quick shake. “Of course it matters. People obsess over something as mundane as paint for a lot less important reasons. This house, this place, was hers. More, it was something she chose for herself, and something she valued. Something she needed. It’s been passed to you. It should matter.”

  “It was yours, too, in a way. I don’t forget that. That matters more now than it did when I started. You pick.”

  He dropped his hand, actually stepped back. “Cilla.”

  “Please. I’d really like this to be your choice. The McGowan choice. People will think of her when they pass on the road. But when I walk the grounds or drive in after a long day, I’ll think of her, and of you. I’ll think of how you came here as a little boy, and chased chickens. You pick, Dad.”

  “The second blue. The warm and dignified blue.”

  She hooked her arm with his, studied the fresh color over the old, peeling paint. “I think it’s going to be perfect.”

  WHEN FORD WALKED over late in the day, he saw Gavin on the veranda, scraping the paint on the front of the house.

  “How’re you doing, Mr. McGowan?”

  “Slow but sure. Cilla’s inside somewhere.”

  “I just bought a house.”

  “Is that so?” Gavin stopped, frowned. “You’re moving?”

&n
bsp; “No. No. I bought this, well, this toxic dump that Cilla says she can fix up. To flip. The seller just accepted my offer. I feel a little sick, and can’t decide if it’s because I’m excited, or because I can see this big, yawning money pit opening up under my feet. I’m going to have two mortgages. I think I should probably sit down.”

  “Pick up that scraper, give me a hand with this. It’ll calm you down.”

  Ford eyed the scraper dubiously. “Tools and I have a long-standing agreement. We stay away from each other, for the good of mankind.”

  “It’s a scraper, Ford, not a chain saw. You scrape ice off your windshield in the winter, don’t you?”

  “When I must. I prefer staying home until it thaws.” But Ford picked up the spare scraper and tried to apply the process of scraping ice from glass to scraping peeling paint off the side of a house. “I’m going to have two mortgages, and I’m going to be forty.”

  “Did we just time-travel? You can’t be more than thirty.”

  “Thirty-one. I have less than a decade until I’m forty, and five minutes ago I was studying for the SATs.”

  Gavin’s lips twitched as he continued to scrape. “It gets worse. Every year goes faster.”

  “Thanks,” Ford said bitterly. “That’s just what I needed to hear. I was going to take my time, but how can you when there isn’t as much as you think there is?” Turning, he waved the scraper, and nearly put it through the window. “But if you’re ready, and she’s not, what the hell are you supposed to do about that?”

  “Keep scraping.”

  Ford scraped—the paint and his knuckles. “Crap. As a metaphor for life, that sucks.”

  Cilla came out in time to see Ford sucking his sore knuckles and scowling. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m scraping paint and a few layers of skin, and your father’s philosophizing.”

  “Let me see.” She took Ford’s hand, studied the knuckles. “You’ll live.”

  “I have to. I’m about to have two mortgages. Ouch!” he said when Cilla gave his sore fingers a quick squeeze.

  “Sorry. They accepted your offer?”