by Marie Force
“I’ll be right there with you the whole time.”
She squeezed his hand. “And that helps, believe me.”
They were approaching the lobby elevator when Sam came face-to-face with someone she hadn’t seen in five years. She released a startled gasp that drew Nick’s attention to the woman who stared at Sam.
“Sam,” she said with a warm smile.
She hadn’t changed much. Her shoulder-length dark hair was run through with more gray than black these days, but her brown eyes were exactly as Sam remembered, attractively lined at the corners from a lifetime of smiling and laughing.
“And you must be Nick.”
“Yes,” he said, sounding confused.
“I’m Brenda Ross, Sam’s mother.”
So she’d gone back to using her maiden name. Sam wondered if that meant she was no longer married to the man she’d left Sam’s father for, but she didn’t care enough to ask.
“Oh.” Nick shook her hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“You too. I’ve heard so much about you. You’re even more handsome in person than you are in pictures.”
“Oh, um, thanks.”
Sam watched and listened as if the conversation was happening on TV rather than right in front of her. She had no idea what to say. Thank goodness Nick had saved her the trouble of having to say anything.
“Are you going to see Angela?”
“Yes,” he said.
“She’s on the fifth floor. I’ll ride up with you.”
Nick eyed Sam with uncertainty as he shepherded her onto the elevator ahead of him.
No one said a word as they rode to the fifth floor.
Nick waited for Brenda to step out before he put his arm around Sam, gave her a squeeze and followed Brenda down the hallway to Angela’s room, keeping a bit of distance between them. “Are you okay, babe?” he asked softly.
Sam nodded.
“Say something.”
“Something.”
“Okay, good. You had me a little worried for a minute there.”
“I was taken by surprise.”
“I know, honey.”
“I have to agree that you’re far more handsome in person than you are in pictures. That’s the first thing I’ve agreed with her about in nearly twenty years.”
He laughed, as she’d hoped he would. “Yep, you’re fine, and you can shut right up too.”
Thank God for him, she thought for the millionth time. Before he’d come back into her life, a random run-in with her mother would’ve thrown her off for weeks. This encounter had only taken minutes to get past because he was there to make everything better.
As they approached Angela’s room, Skip and Celia emerged, stopping short when they saw Brenda coming with Sam and Nick behind her.
“Hello, Brenda,” Skip said in the frosty tone he used to reserve for murder suspects.
“Skip.” Sam realized her mother was seeing her ex-husband in a wheelchair for the first time. “Congratulations on your new granddaughter.”
“Thank you.”
“You must be Celia,” Brenda said, extending a hand to Sam’s stepmother. “So nice to finally meet you.”
Because she was too polite not to, Celia shook Brenda’s hand, but Sam wanted to cheer when Celia didn’t say she was glad to meet Brenda.
“How’s Angela?” Sam asked.
“She’s wonderful,” Celia said, brightening considerably when she turned her attention to Sam. “The baby is beautiful.”
“Are you in a rush to get home?” Sam asked her dad.
“Not particularly.”
“I could use a minute before you go.”
“Then I’ll wait for you.”
“Thanks.” Holding tight to Nick’s hand, Sam led him around her mother, father and stepmother and went into Angela’s room, feeling determined to get through the emotional battlefield with a minimal number of new scars.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Sam!” her nephew Jack cried from his perch on the bed next to his mother. “Come see my new baby sister! She’s so pretty!”
Sam smiled at the darling little dark-haired boy who looked like his father. “Let me see,” Sam said, releasing Nick’s hand and moving in for a closer look.
Angela positively glowed as she held the baby. Her husband Spencer hovered on the other side of the bed, looking exhausted but happy.
Sam wondered how Nick would look after coaching her through childbirth and hoped she had the chance to find out someday. “You’re absolutely right, Jack. She’s one of the prettiest baby sisters I’ve ever seen.” Ella’s face was red and scrunched, her lips pursed and her feathery eyebrows so faint Sam could barely see them, but she truly was one of the most beautiful things Sam had ever seen.
Tears filled her eyes as she studied each tiny detail.
“Do you want to hold her?” Angela asked softly, navigating a minefield of her own.
“Would it be okay?”
“Sure it would.”
As she carefully took the sleeping baby from her sister, Sam marveled at how something that arrived in such a small package could be so hard to come by for some people. “Hi, Ella, I’m your crazy Auntie Sam, and this is your handsome Uncle Nick, but don’t tell him I said that, because he doesn’t like to be told he’s handsome.”
With his arm around her, Nick chuckled as he pressed a kiss to her temple.
“We can’t wait to get to know you and have you and your brother over for sleepovers at our house.”
“Can we schedule that now?” Angela asked, making everyone laugh and easing the tight grip of emotion that had seized Sam the second her sister placed the baby in her arms.
“Anytime,” Nick said, speaking for both of them.
Tears rolled down her cheeks, but they were happy tears that she had yet another child in her life to love and spoil. She looked up at her husband. “Want a turn?”
He brushed the tears from her face. “I wouldn’t say no to that.”
Sam transferred the tiny bundle into his strong, capable embrace.
“Hey there, little one,” he said, his expression a mix of awe and wonder. “Welcome to the world.”
The sight of him holding the newborn did weird things to Sam’s insides, which were already scrambled from running into her mother and meeting her new niece.
Jack came over to her and raised his arms.
Sam hoisted him up the way she always did.
As if he knew exactly what she needed, he wrapped his pudgy arms around her neck and gave her a big hug.
“Oh, you give a good hug, buddy.”
“How’s your boo-boo?” Jack placed a very gentle kiss on Sam’s cheek, below the bandage that covered her stitches.
“Much better,” she said, even though it still hurt like the dickens. Keeping a tight hold on her nephew, she moved over to Angela’s bedside. “How was it?”
“I’ve had better days, but it’s over now.”
“She was a trouper,” Spence said, squeezing his wife’s shoulder.
“Mom is out there,” Sam said.
“Oh, really? She said she might come up when the baby came, but I didn’t think she was in town yet. Tracy must’ve called her. She left to go get Abby and Ethan to bring them to meet their new cousin. Apparently, Brooke had other plans.”
“There’s a shocker.” Sam rolled her eyes. Their formerly lovely teenage niece had turned into a real pill in the last year. “You and Trace are in tight with Mom, huh?”
“I wouldn’t call it tight, but we’re in touch. You knew that.”
Sam shrugged. “I guess.”
“Did you talk to her?”
“Not really.” Sam gave Jack one more big squeeze and then settled him on the bed with his mother. “Is there anything we can do for you guys?”
“Nope. We’re good. Spencer’s parents are coming tomorrow to help with Jack, and Dad and Celia are taking him tonight.”
“I’m having a sleepover at Pop Pop’s,”
Jack said. “Celia said we can make popcorn when we watch Madagascar.”
“Wow, that sounds like big fun.” Sam leaned over to kiss Angela. “Congratulations, you guys. She’s gorgeous.”
Nick brought the baby back to her mother and gave Angela a kiss. “Ditto. What she said. Adorable.” He reached out to shake hands with Jack and Spencer. “Good job, you guys.”
“What’d they do?” Angela asked dryly.
“We can’t talk about what I did in front of the boy,” Spencer said with a shit-eating grin.
“Why not?” Jack asked. “I want to know!”
“On that note,” Sam said, laughing at the mortified expression on Angela’s face, “we’re going so Mom can come in. We’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Hopefully, we’ll be home tomorrow afternoon.”
“We’ll see you there with presents.”
Jack lit up at that news.
Sam trailed a finger over the baby’s downy soft cheek. “Love you, guys.”
“You too,” Ang said. “Thanks for coming by.”
Sam preceded Nick out the door, where her mother leaned against a wall, apparently waiting for them to come out so she could have her turn. Sam’s father and Celia were nowhere in sight. While Sam would never admit it to anyone, she appreciated the space her mother had given her to visit with her sister’s family without their feud hanging over the proceedings.
She nodded to her mother and started down the long hallway, hoping she’d find her dad and Celia in the waiting room.
“Sam!”
Sam took a moment to gather herself before she turned back to face the woman who’d hurt them all so deeply. She’d left Skip the day after Sam graduated from high school for a man Brenda had been secretly sleeping with for quite some time. And now Sam had to wonder if she’d been wrong about everything she’d assumed about her parents’ marriage.
“I’d like to see you,” Brenda said haltingly. “To talk to you. There are things you should know, things I should’ve told you a long time ago.” She glanced at Nick, who slid an arm around Sam’s waist. “Hasn’t this gone on long enough?”
“I don’t have anything to say. Come on, Nick. Let’s go.”
Before she turned away, she saw her mother’s face fall with disappointment. Sam didn’t want to be moved by that, but damn, it bugged her. What right did she have to be disappointed about anything? She was the one who left! She was the one who put herself before everyone else! Maybe Tracy and Angela had been able to forgive her, but Sam never would.
“Take a breath, babe,” Nick said as they moved as one down the hallway.
Sam took a series of deep breaths that helped to calm her rampaging nerves. “Will you entertain Celia for a minute while I talk to my dad?”
“Sure.”
“Thanks. I only need a few minutes.”
In the waiting room, which Skip and Celia had to themselves, Celia read to him from the latest issue of Newsweek.
“Celia,” Nick said, extending his arm, “could I interest you in a drink? I hear this place has a great bar.”
“I won’t say no to an offer like that,” Celia said as she stood and kissed her husband’s cheek before taking Nick’s outstretched arm.
“Don’t go too far with my girl, Senator,” Skip said.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Nick said with the charming grin that made Sam’s heart race.
Celia giggled like a schoolgirl, which made Sam smile as she took the seat her stepmother had occupied.
“You okay, baby girl?”
Sam appreciated that he knew how tough it would be for her not only to meet her new niece but to see her mother for the first time in years.
“Sure, I’m good. You?”
“I’m great. I’ve got a brand-new baby granddaughter who’s as pretty as her mama, her aunts and her cousins. Life is good.”
“Yes, it is.”
“I love that they named her after my mother,” Skip said. “That pleases me.”
“I knew it would.” Ella Holland had been one of Sam’s favorite people as a child, and she missed her. “Was it hard to see Mom?”
“Nah. She has no power over me anymore. Hasn’t for a long time.”
“It kind of bugs me that Tracy and Angela keep in touch with her.”
“It’s their prerogative. Regardless of what I think of her, she’s their mother and your mother. Things went very bad between us in the end, but I’ll always be grateful to her for the three beautiful daughters she gave me.”
Even though he couldn’t feel it, Sam wrapped her arms around his arm and rested her head on his shoulder, needing to be close to him.
“What’s on your mind?”
She closed her eyes and imagined his strong arms around her, his big hand stroking her hair, the safety she’d always felt in his embrace. “I know about Alice.”
He gasped.
“I know why you did what you did with the Fitzgerald case.” She paused, giving him a chance to say something if he chose to.
He didn’t choose to.
“I understand,” she said after a long moment of silence.
“Who told you?”
“Jeannie talked to Morganthau. He connected the dots for us.”
“What’re you going to do about it?”
“Nothing,” Sam said, deciding as she said the word. What good would it do now?
“For what it’s worth, it was an accident. Cameron didn’t intend to kill him, and when he realized he was dead, he panicked. He led us to the body, which never would’ve been recovered without what he told us. I didn’t feel he was a danger to anyone but himself, which is why I let him leave as planned to go into the army. He’s paid for that night every day of his life since then, and I’ve questioned my judgment almost as often.”
Hearing confirmation that Cameron had been the killer brought a certain measure of closure for her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to put you in a position of having to do something about it, of having to choose between me and justice for Tyler or me and your obligations to the job.”
“Did you think I wouldn’t understand about the murky gray area after all these years on the job?”
“I didn’t want to say it out loud. It was bad enough that I knew, Alice and her husband knew, Cameron and her other son Caleb knew.”
“Did Mom know?”
“Yeah.”
“Is that why she left during the investigation?”
“How do you know about that? You were too young to remember.”
“Tracy said something about it. I put two and two together.”
“She was furious with me for risking my job and reputation for Alice. She never liked the time I spent with Alice. She was threatened by it.”
“Did she have reason to be?”
He paused long enough for Sam to draw her own conclusions. “I had feelings for her, and she had them for me, but we never acted on it. Not once. I was dating your mother when Steven was killed, and we almost came undone over the time I spent with Alice after the shooting. We managed to hold it together and got married a few months later, but the fact that I took care of Alice was always an issue between your mother and me, especially after Alice got married again.”
“Why then?”
“Jimmy’s a good guy, but he hadn’t been through what we had, you know? He wasn’t part of her life with Steven, and I was, so she held on to me. Probably longer than she should have. Your mother grew to hate her, which I never understood but accepted as a fact of my life with her. Sometimes I think she felt that my relationship with Alice justified her behavior at the end.”
“Thanks for telling me all this. It helps to fill in some blanks.”
“Who else knows about this, besides McBride and Tyrone?”
“Nick.”
“Is it too many people? Do you want me to come clean? I’d do it to save you the heartburn. Cameron has always known there might come a day when I couldn’t protect him anymore
.”
“What about Alice?”
“I love Alice, and I always will, but I love you more. If you want to do something with what you found out, I won’t stop you, and I won’t hold it against you.”
“None of the people who know would ever speak of it, so I don’t see any reason to undo what was done years ago. But there is one thing I’d like to say, because I need to get it off my chest.”
“I’m listening.”
Sam was glad she was resting on his shoulder and not looking at him for this conversation. “You put me in a very difficult position by ordering me to leave this alone. I understand now why you did it, but that doesn’t mean you can use our bond to bend me to your will. You’re the one who taught me the job always comes first. You all but forced me to choose between you and my job on this one, and I didn’t appreciate that.”
“You’re absolutely right, and I was absolutely wrong.”
“Really?” Sam hadn’t expected such easy capitulation.
He snorted out a laugh. “Surprised you, huh?”
“Yeah, you could say that.”
“I was scared of what would happen to Alice if it got out. I was also scared about what my sins might do to your career if people found out what I did.”
“Your intentions were honorable.”
“I’d like to think they always were, but sometimes life gets in the way.”
“You don’t have to tell me that.” Sam raised her head and met the blue-eyed gaze that was exactly the same as hers. “So we’re okay?”
“You bet we are.”
“Good.” Sam returned her head to his shoulder, flooded with relief. “I hate when we disagree. It makes me physically ill.”
“Believe it or not, I hate it just as much.”
Sam stiffened when she saw her mother coming down the hallway.
Brenda caught sight of Sam snuggled up to him and stopped in the doorway, propping her hands on slender hips. “Still two peas in a pod, huh?” When neither of them replied, she shook her head and continued on her way.
“You really ought to make peace with her, Sam. She’s your mother—the only one you’ll ever have. I’d hate for you to have regrets someday.”
“I’ve been angry with her for so long I don’t remember not being angry with her.”
