Recognizing the wisdom and clinging to the tiny shred of hope in what she’d said, Brandon stood and scooped his granddaughter-in-law up in a bear hug.
“Damn, I did right by Jason when I picked you,” he said with satisfaction. “My grandson is one very lucky man. I hope he knows that.”
“I remind him all the time.”
“I think I’ll just stop by his office and tell him myself. At the same time I’ll tell Kevin that I’m leaving the two of them in charge. I’m officially retiring as of today. Tonight I’ll pack my bags, and in the morning I’ll take the first flight to California. Don’t you dare have that baby while I’m gone,” he warned.
“I wouldn’t dream of it. I promise,” she said.
The next morning Brandon dug the detective’s report out of his desk at home and made note of all the pertinent addresses and phone numbers—Lizzy’s and those of her daughters. Then, his step lighter than it had been in days, he left for the airport. He refused to even consider the possibility that Lizzy wouldn’t see him when he got there.
* * *
“Mother, what are you doing here?” Ellen asked when she walked into her own kitchen and found Elizabeth sitting there, staring out the window at the rain, a pile of socks on the table in front of her.
Elizabeth avoided her daughter’s gaze.
“Not that I’m not glad to see you,” Ellen added hurriedly as she plunked her bag of groceries onto the counter and dropped a kiss on her mother’s cheek. She shrugged out of her raincoat, then ran her fingers through her short sandy hair. The damp strands fell back into enviable waves.
Finally she sat down across from Elizabeth, her expression worried. “Are you okay?”
“Of course I’m okay. I’m just darning Jake’s socks,” Elizabeth said defensively, picking up another pair of her son-in-law’s heavy athletic socks from the stack of laundry. She reached for needle and thread.
“Why on earth would you be doing that?”
“It needs to be done.”
Ellen plucked the socks from Elizabeth’s hands and tossed them into the garbage. “It does not need to be done. You’re bored, Mother. You’ve been restless ever since you got back from Boston and you haven’t said a word about Brandon Halloran. I haven’t wanted to press before, but enough is enough. Did something go wrong between you two? I thought you stayed on because you were having such a wonderful time.”
“It was okay,” she said, feeling heat climb into her cheeks at the memory of that last night. That was the second time in her life she’d made a dreadful mistake with Brandon. It had taken her decades to get over the first time. She didn’t have decades left this time.
“Just okay?” Ellen asked, reaching for the teapot Elizabeth had filled and set in the middle of the table. She poured them both a cup of tea.
Elizabeth met her daughter’s intense gaze and sighed heavily. “No,” she admitted reluctantly. “It was more than okay.”
“And?”
“And what?” she snapped, sitting her cup down so hard that tea sloshed onto the table. She ignored the mess and reached for another sock. “Why are you so interested, anyway?”
“Because when you left for Boston, there was a sparkle in your eyes and a spring in your step. When we talked on the phone, you sounded excited, alive. Now you look as though you’ve lost your best friend, and you sound perfectly miserable. To top it off, you’re darning socks, something no one in this family has done since I was a child. Even then you only did it when you were angry or distraught,” Ellen said bluntly. “Now if that man did something to upset you, I want to know about it.”
Elizabeth hesitated, then finally blurted, “He asked me to marry him.”
She dared a glance at her daughter. Ellen’s mouth dropped open. The next instant she was on her feet, enveloping her mother in a hug. Elizabeth endured the embrace stiffly.
“He asked you to marry him?” Ellen said, barely containing her exuberance. Her blue-green eyes sparkled. “Mother, why didn’t you say something sooner? That’s wonderful. When’s the wedding? Does Kate know? Penny will go nuts. She said you were probably…well, never mind what Penny said. I should have washed her mouth out with soap.”
“Penny is entirely too precocious. Besides, I turned him down.”
Looking stunned, Ellen sat back down and simply stared at her. “Why would you do that? Weren’t the sparks still there, after all? They must have been for him if he wants to get married. I could have sworn they were there for you, as well.”
“Oh, yes,” she admitted reluctantly. “The sparks were there.”
“Then what happened? Why did you say no?”
“It was a little frightening,” she explained. “Brandon can be a bit overpowering when he sets his mind to something.”
“Which is what you always said you wanted. Dad let you run the show.”
“Don’t criticize you father, Ellen,” she said sharply. “He was a good man.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake Mother, I never said he wasn’t. But you know what I said is true. He gave in to you on everything. I always thought you would have been better off with a man who would stand up to you. Now what’s the real reason you said no to Brandon Halloran? You weren’t worried about our reaction, were you?”
Elizabeth picked up her cup of tea, then set it back down. She wished more than anything that she could have this same conversation with Kate, so she could say everything that was on her mind. But, ironically, Kate was the one who wouldn’t understand and the only one she could tell.
“Not exactly, but I couldn’t go off and leave all of you,” she said eventually, giving the truth a wide berth.
Ellen moved her chair closer to Elizabeth and took her hand. “Mom, are you sure that’s not just an excuse? How often do you see us, anyway? I know we’re all in the same city, but the only times we get together as a whole family are holidays. We could still manage that.”
“But now I know you’re just a phone call away.”
Ellen grinned at her. “There are airplanes. We still would be a phone call away.”
“I couldn’t just drop in like this.”
“Which you haven’t done in months. You’re usually too busy. You’ve spent more time here moping around since you got back, than you did in the entire six months before you left.”
“I guess that’s true.”
Ellen’s expression grew puzzled. “Mother, don’t you want to marry him?”
Elizabeth took a deep breath, then met her daughter’s gaze evenly. “More than anything,” she said before she could stop herself.
“Then I say go for it.”
“But there are things you don’t know,” she began, her voice trailing off helplessly. Things she could never tell her.
“What things?”
She shook her head, knowing she’d already said far too much. “Never mind. I’m just prattling on. I made my decision. I’ll just have to learn to accept it.”
“Mother, you’re not making a bit of sense.”
“Nobody ever said love made sense,” she observed.
They both jumped at the sudden pounding on the front door. It was interspersed with the impatient ringing of the doorbell.
“What on earth?” Ellen muttered as she went to get it. “I suppose Penny must have forgotten her key.”
But it wasn’t Penny. Even from the kitchen Elizabeth could hear enough to send panic racing through her. There was no mistaking the gruff timbre of Brandon’s voice.
“Oh my Lord,” she whispered, wishing she could flee out the back door. He’d come. He’d actually come all the way to California for her, even though he’d sworn he wouldn’t.
And he’d met Ellen, she realized with sudden, heart-stopping fear. My God, he’d met her daughter. She could practically feel the color drain from her cheeks as she stood up, uncertain whether to run to him or hide.
“Elizabeth,” he said softly from the doorway, his voice a low command.
Just hearing him did ast
onishing things to her insides. Drawing on all her reserves of strength, she faced him sternly, wanting him gone, out of the house before he ruined everything. Even so, she couldn’t help noting his haggard face, the glint of determination in his eyes—both were equally worrisome.
“Why have you come? You know I don’t want you here,” she said, her voice trembling with anger and frustration.
“I don’t believe you. For just an instant, before you caught yourself, I could see the expression in your eyes. It wasn’t dismay, Lizzy. It was longing.”
“That’s ego and imagination talking,” she said, dismissing them. “Please, Brandon. Leave now. I meant what I said in Boston. It would never work between us.”
“I’m not leaving without you,” he said stubbornly. “I’ve made up my mind. You just might as well accept it.”
She was as certain that he meant that as she was of the next sunset. Knowing that and desperate to have him out of Ellen’s house, she snatched up her bag.
“Have it your way, then,” she said grudgingly and marched through the house. “Dear, we’ll be going now,” she told her daughter.
“It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Halloran,” Ellen said at the door. “I hope we’ll see more of you while you’re in town.”
“Believe me, I would love to get to know you, as well,” he said. “I’ve heard a lot about you from your mother.”
Elizabeth brushed past the two of them and hurried down the sidewalk to her car. Brandon’s fancy rental car was parked right behind the small economy car she’d owned for five years. She turned back just once and saw that Ellen was watching them go with an expression of satisfaction on her face.
If only she knew, Elizabeth thought. If only they both knew.
But they couldn’t and that was that, she thought with a sigh of resignation. She would not destroy her daughter’s life, not even for a few years of happiness for herself. The secret she’d kept all these years was so explosive it might destroy that prospect for happiness, as well.
Without another word, Brandon climbed into his own car and followed Elizabeth home. For one wild instant she wished she had the evasive skills of some TV criminal, who could skid around corners and lose the police car following. The effort would be wasted, anyway. If Brandon had tracked her to Ellen’s house, then surely he could find her own.
As she drove up in front of the small stucco house with its red-tiled roof and pink bougainvillea climbing up the sides, she tried visualizing it through Brandon’s eyes. It came up wanting, especially when stacked against that lovely, roomy old mansion he owned in Boston.
Once inside, he stalked through her house so possessively, she wondered if she’d ever be able to forget his presence here. He paused in front of a credenza on which there were pictures of both her daughters and all the grandchildren. The photo he lingered over, though, was the one of her on her wedding day.
“I always imagined you just this way,” he said regretfully. His gaze met hers. “You were a beautiful bride, Lizzy. David Newton was a lucky man.”
“I was the lucky one,” she said staunchly.
He went back to studying the pictures one by one, picking them up and gazing at them, his expression sad. He put the one of Ellen back last and turned to face her.
“I’ve made up my mind to something, Lizzy. You might as well know it up front.”
“What?” she said nervously.
“I won’t leave California without you,” he said.
“I suppose I owe this visit to that detective, too.”
“He did supply the addresses, if that’s what you mean.”
For the first time, she viewed the detective’s invasion of her privacy as something less than romantic. “What else did he tell you?” she asked, a note of alarm in her voice.
“That was the gist of it,” Brandon said, regarding her with an expression of puzzlement. “Why?”
To cover her anxiety she injected an edge of sarcasm into her tone. “I just wondered if he’d bothered to include the color of my wallpaper and made a note of the salon where I get my hair done.”
“No, Lizzy,” Brandon said impatiently. “Now stop trying to change the subject. Are you going with me or am I staying here?”
Her heart thumped harder with a beat that was surely as much anticipation as panic. She couldn’t afford the eagerness. “You have to leave, Brandon. Alone. This is pure craziness. I can’t just pick up and go traveling at the drop of a hat.” She ignored the implied marriage proposal entirely.
“I don’t see why not.”
“Because I have responsibilities, a family.”
“You’re making up excuses, Lizzy. I wonder why? What are you so afraid of? Are you worried you will fall in love with me again, and then I’ll disappear like before? I can promise you that won’t happen. What I want for us means taking a risk, I know, but isn’t that better than leading a lonely, solitary existence? Surely you feel something for me, enough to make a commitment, enough to build on.”
Of course she did, she thought miserably. But that changed nothing for her. She had to deny her heart in favor of cool logic. “Brandon, what makes you so sure you know what I feel? No matter what you want to believe, I’m not the same silly girl you once knew.”
He regarded her with an intensity that made her blood race. “Maybe not,” he conceded. “But that daughter of yours didn’t throw me out. In fact, she acted downright glad to see me. That must mean you’ve spoken of me favorably. I’ll take that as a promising start.”
The man had always had the perceptiveness of a clairvoyant, she thought dully. How could she convince him to go, when he read her so easily?
She weighed her options, then drew in a deep breath. “I told you before, Brandon. I’m willing to compromise. I’ll travel with you, if you wish. I’ll visit you in Boston as often as you like. But I won’t marry you and I don’t want you here.” She recited the conditions as if they’d been etched in her mind, then waited for the explosion of impatience.
Instead he nodded slowly. “Okay,” he said, his agreement coming far too readily. “I can see we’re going to have to do this your way. We’ll go to New Mexico to start with. There’s a place there I’ve been wanting to visit. Pack your bags, woman. I’ll call the airlines.”
Despite herself, Elizabeth felt the dull pain in her chest begin to ease. A few days, she thought all too eagerly. She would have a few more days with Brandon before she did what had to be done and let him go.
Chapter Ten
Brandon hadn’t expected to win quite so easily. On the flight from Boston to Los Angeles, he’d come up with an entire arsenal of arguments to convince Lizzy to marry him or at the least to take off on an adventure with him. That she herself had again suggested they go away together delighted him. It didn’t, however, erase his confusion over what the devil made her tick.
Now, more than ever before, he was puzzled by her almost panicky determination to keep him away from California. He had the sense she would have agreed to follow him to Timbuktu, if it had meant catching an earlier flight away from her home.
Brandon waited until they’d reached Albuquerque, settled into very proper, separate rooms in a hotel and found a lovely restaurant that served fiery Mexican food before he dared to broach the subject. Even then he took a circuitous route.
As he sipped a glass of fruity sangria, he studied the woman seated across from him, her blue eyes luminous in the candlelight, her gray hair softly feathering around her face.
“Having fun so far?” he asked.
Elizabeth smiled at him, clearly amused by his obvious impatience and his need for reassurance. “Brandon, we’ve only been gone a few hours. What do you expect me to say? The flight was smooth. The hotel seems quiet and clean. This salsa is the best I’ve ever eaten. Unless you want me to praise your tipping technique, I don’t know what more I can say about the trip so far.”
He chuckled. “Okay, make fun of me, but I’m damned proud of my tipping technique,” he s
aid. “I can calculate the proper percentage in no time. I can manage it in at least a half dozen foreign currencies as well.”
“Then I assure you I’ll praise your technique lavishly the next time the matter comes up, along with any of the other experiences we share.”
He reached across the wooden table and rested his hand on top of hers. Gazing deep into her eyes, he tried to read her thoughts. He couldn’t. “Seriously, Lizzy,” he said then, “are you looking forward to all of this or have I simply pressured you into it by turning up on your doorstep?”
“You’ve done your share of pressuring and you know it, so don’t look for absolution from me,” she accused.
To his relief she didn’t really sound angry about it. If anything, there was a teasing note in her voice.
“Even so,” she admitted, “It’s a heady thing at my age to have a man sweep into town and carry me off to a place I’ve never seen before. It’s the stuff romance novels are made of.”
“And do you frequently indulge in romance novels?”
“They do remind me of a certain time in my life,” she said with that now familiar wistful note in her voice.
“Dare I ask if that was the time you and I first spent together?”
“I suspect you’d dare just about anything. Don’t fish for compliments, Brandon. You know remember those days just as vividly as you do.” A nostalgic note crept into her voice. “There is nothing in a woman’s life quite like falling in love for the first time. If you’d asked me a few months ago if I would ever have the chance to recapture those feelings, even in some small measure, I’d have told you no.”
“Do you regret my finding you, Lizzy? Has it been…” He searched for the right word, the one that captured the impression he had of her nervousness. “Has it been difficult for you?”
Her gaze rose and collided with his. “Why would you ask that?”
More than the question itself, the tone of her response bordered on panic, it seemed to him, confirming what he’d guessed. “I asked because it’s been obvious from the start that you don’t want me around your family. Is that because you never told them about me?”
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