Cherish

by Sherryl Woods

  With each hour that passed, each day, she anticipated the worst. Every time the phone rang she flinched. When Ellen’s car turned into the driveway, she panicked, certain that her daughter was coming to denounce her for a lifetime of lies.

  “Okay, Mother, I’ve had it. What’s wrong?” Ellen asked when she arrived unexpectedly on a Saturday morning in early May.

  Elizabeth had been home for nearly a week and was still as jumpy as she had been on her first day back in Los Angeles. “What do you mean?” she asked quietly, trying to calm her nerves.

  “You haven’t been the same since you went on that trip with Brandon Halloran. You look exhausted. You haven’t been out of the house, even to visit us. You don’t call. Kate’s worried that you’re ill.”

  She was ill, heartsick in fact, but not in any way she could explain to them.

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  “You look as if you haven’t been sleeping.”

  “Just a touch of insomnia. I’m sure it will pass. In fact, I’m feeling rather sleepy right now. If you don’t mind, dear, I think as soon as you leave, I’ll go upstairs and have a little nap.”

  Ellen regarded her intently, looked as if she wanted to ask something more, then sighed. “Go ahead, if you’re tired,” she said finally. “I can let myself out.”

  Elizabeth slowly climbed the stairs, leaving Ellen to stare after her, her brow furrowed.

  Upstairs, Elizabeth stretched out on top of the bedspread, stared up at the ceiling and waited for the sound of the front door closing. Instead she heard Ellen’s low murmurings, followed a short time later by the sound of a car arriving, not departing. It didn’t require razor-sharp intelligence to guess that Kate had joined Ellen downstairs.

  Obviously her daughters intended to gang up on her to get some answers. Given a choice Elizabeth would have pulled the covers over her head and hidden out until they both found pressing business elsewhere. Knowing that levelheaded Kate was stubborn enough to outwait her, she got up, applied a dash of blusher to her cheeks and went down to face the music.

  “Hello, darling,” she greeted Kate pleasantly, as if she’d expected to find her camped out on the living room sofa looking through old issues of a news magazine. “I thought you’d be on a tennis court on such a beautiful afternoon.”

  “That’s exactly where I will be, if you own up to what’s bugging you in the next ten minutes.”

  “Dear, there’s no reason to miss your game on my account. Are you playing with that nice young man from the law firm?”

  Kate rolled her eyes. “You’ll never give up, will you? No, Mother, I am playing doubles with a married couple and one of their friends who is visiting from Boston.”

  Elizabeth felt a dull ache in her chest. “Boston?”

  Ellen regarded her speculatively. “Mother, look at yourself. The mere mention of the city practically turns you green. What on earth happened between you and Brandon Halloran?”

  Elizabeth forced a smile. “Certainly nothing you need to worry yourselves about. Kate, tell me about this blind date.”

  “It is not a blind date. Their friend is a woman. I think she’s in the fashion business somehow.”

  Fashions? Textiles? Was it possible she knew Brandon? Elizabeth wondered, then dismissed the possibility with a sigh. “Well, I don’t suppose it matters whom you’re playing tennis with. You shouldn’t stand them up. Just run along, darling. You really needn’t worry about me. I’m feeling much better since my nap.”

  “What nap? You haven’t been upstairs more than a half hour. I’m not going anywhere without a few answers,” Kate said firmly. “Sit down, Mother. Stop fluttering around as if you can’t wait to get away from me. Ellen, you go make a pot of tea.”

  Ellen took the order more cheerfully than usual. “Has anybody mentioned how bossy you are?” she inquired as she exited.

  “That’s how I got to be a lawyer,” Kate called after her. “I absolutely love all that undivided attention I get in a courtroom. Hurry up with that tea. I want raspberry if there is any.”

  “You know I always keep raspberry for you,” Elizabeth said. “I’ll go fix it. Ellen will never find it.”

  “Ellen is the best scavenger I know,” Kate corrected. “Sit, Mother. You’re not sneaking off on me.”

  “I can’t imagine what you’re so worked up over.”

  “Then your imagination is getting senile, which I seriously doubt. What the devil happened on that trip to New Mexico? Ever since you got back I’ve had a hard time telling if you’re in mourning or terrified.”

  She’d never judged Kate as being that perceptive, Elizabeth thought dully. What a terrible time to discover she’d been mistaken. “Kate, you’re exaggerating,” she said with feigned cheer. “Naturally seeing Brandon again stirred up some old memories. Nothing more.”

  Kate rolled her eyes. “Nothing more? Mother, you are not the kind of woman who engages in some casual fling.”

  “Who said it was casual?”

  “Well, you just dismissed that entire trip as if it were of no more importance than a visit to the dentist.”

  “Which reminds me, dear. Have you made that appointment to have your teeth cleaned?”

  “Mother!”

  “Kate, when exactly did you get to be older than I am?”

  Her daughter started to interrupt, but Elizabeth held up her hand. She had to stop this now. She could maintain this cheery facade for just so long.

  “Let me finish,” she insisted. “I appreciate all the love and concern you and your sister are showing, but when I want your advice or your interference, I’ll ask for it.”

  Ellen came in just in time to hear her little speech and almost dropped the tray of hot tea. Kate was regarding Elizabeth indignantly.

  “If you don’t want our help—”

  “I don’t.”

  “But—”

  “There are no buts about it. Ellen, set the tray over here. I’ll pour the tea.” She might not be able to do much about some aspects of her life at the moment, but by golly, she was not going to relinquish control of the rest of it. She beamed at her two precious and meddlesome worrywarts. “You will stay for tea, won’t you?”

  Ellen and Kate exchanged a rueful look. Kate finally sighed. “Of course.”

  “I wouldn’t want you to be late for your tennis game, though,” Elizabeth said.

  “You wouldn’t be trying to rush us out of here, would you Mother?” Ellen inquired.

  Elizabeth adopted her most innocent expression. “Never, darling. You know how I love to have you drop by.”

  For once, though, she would be very, very glad to see them go.

  * * *

  Brandon couldn’t get the image of Ellen Hayden out of his mind. He was enchanted with the thought of having a daughter. He wanted to know what she thought, how she spent her days, what the man she’d married was like, whether she was happy.

  And with every day that went by, he was more and more inclined to push his way into her life and damn the consequences.

  Lizzy’s departure from New Mexico by dawn’s early light had infuriated him. He’d raced to the airport, intent on following her, but at the last second he’d reconsidered. There was no purpose in going to California until he’d taken the time to think this situation through rationally. He’d caught a flight to Boston instead.

  He’d been back in Boston for nearly two weeks before anyone in the family found out about his return. He’d sent Mrs. Farnsworth on an extended holiday before leaving for California, so he’d had the house to himself all that time. Unable to bear the thought of seeing a soul, he’d been a virtual hermit from the moment he’d arrived.

  This morning, though, he was drinking some of the lousiest coffee he’d ever tasted, when he heard a key turn in the front door. He peeked between the drawn drapes and saw Dana’s car in the driveway. Walking toward the foyer, he saw her step inside. He waited until she’d turned around and spotted him before saying anything.


  “You sneaking in here to steal the silver?” he inquired dryly.

  She scowled at him, but he had to admit she didn’t seem all that surprised to see him.

  “Actually, I’m on a mission,” she confessed readily.

  “Oh?”

  “Word has it around the office that you’ve vanished without a trace.”

  “If I’m missing, why are you here?”

  “It seems to me that a man who’s hurting might sneak home to lick his wounds.”

  He shot her a dark look. “Who says I’m hurting?”

  “Your son the mathematician, who apparently adds two and two better than the rest of us.”

  “What the devil does that mean?”

  “It means that Kevin has been trying to track you down for the past two weeks. When he couldn’t find you in New Mexico or in California, he guessed what had happened.”

  “So why isn’t he here? I would have thought he’d want to gloat.”

  “Actually, quite the contrary. He had the distinct impression you might not want to talk to him about this. So I was elected. Unfortunately I have no idea what this is. Care to clue me in?” she asked. “And do you mind if we sit down? It’s getting harder and harder to stay on my feet. This great-grandbaby of yours weighs a ton.”

  “You ought to stop feeding it all those salty pickles and fattening brownies,” he said as he led the way back into the dining room. “Lord knows what kind of eating disorders that poor child will have.” He pulled out a chair for her. “You want some coffee? It’s pretty terrible. I made it.”

  “Based on that recommendation, I think I’ll pass. Could you dredge up any milk?”

  “Absolutely,” he said, glad of the chance to escape for a minute and decide just how much he was willing to reveal to Dana. The girl was compassionate, but he had no business burdening her with his problems, especially not a doozy like this one.

  By the time he’d poured the milk and returned to the dining room, Dana had pulled the drapes aside and opened the French doors to let a breeze in.

  “I hope you don’t mind. It was pretty dreary in here,” she said. “No wonder you’re depressed. You’re not getting any oxygen.”

  “My state doesn’t have a thing to do with the lack of air circulating in this house.”

  “Then what is the problem? You look like hell, by the way. I never knew you even owned a pair of blue jeans, much less a shirt quite that color. What 187 happened? Did you wash the whites and colors together?”

  He scowled at her. “Thanks. It’s so nice to have someone drop by to cheer me up.”

  “I can’t cheer you up until you give me something to work with. What went wrong between you and Elizabeth?”

  “Now you’re going straight for the jugular.”

  “Did you want me to waltz around it instead?”

  “Maybe just a quiet fox-trot around the edges would have done.”

  “Hey, I’m easy. We could discuss the weather, but we’ll get back to this eventually, anyway.”

  Brandon sighed heavily and shoved his hand through his hair. “I suppose you’re going to push and nag until I spill it, aren’t you?”

  She nodded cheerfully. “That’s the plan.”

  “How much do you know?”

  “Not a thing, except that you’re upset and, if anything, Kevin’s in a worse state.”

  “He didn’t tell you why?”

  “Only that he hired that detective and got a report that shook him up. He was convinced you’d be devastated by it.”

  “He’s got that right.”

  Dana’s expression immediately turned sympathetic and the teasing note vanished from her voice. “Did Elizabeth tell you whatever it is herself, or did you find out some other way?”

  “No. She told me. She hadn’t meant to, but I was pressing her to get married and telling her what a wonderful woman she was and suddenly it all came pouring out, like a dam had burst. I guess I’m the only one outside of her parents who knows the whole story. They’re not alive to tell.”

  “The whole story is?” Dana prodded.

  When he remained silent and indecisive, she picked up his hand and held it. “You know how much I owe you. If it weren’t for you, Jason and I might not be together. I owe you, Brandon. More than that, I love you every bit as much as if you were my own grandfather. If I can help you in any way, I want to.”

  He felt the sting of tears in his eyes and turned away. He didn’t want her seeing how emotional he was these days, how much it pleased him that she considered him family. Then he thought of all those other grandchildren he’d never even met and his heart began to ache all over again.

  As much as he wanted someone to confide in, though, as much as he knew Dana wanted to help, he realized that he couldn’t share this with her. He might be angry with Lizzy at the moment, he might even be tossing around the notion of going to California to claim his daughter, but until he’d resolved once and for all the best course of action, he couldn’t involve other people. He was grateful that discretion had kept Kevin from doing otherwise, as well. One day soon he and his son would have to have a long talk. He could only pray Kevin would forgive him for the delay.

  There was no doubt in his mind that the report Kevin had gotten contained the truth—or a goodly portion of it, quite enough to raise a ruckus. A good detective, one smart enough to have traced Lizzy in the first place, would surely have been able to discover the rest, even if it had been no more than the information that she’d had a child out of wedlock. Brandon might be the only one, other than Lizzy herself, who’d been able to fill in the remaining details.

  He hoped Kevin hadn’t guessed anymore than that. If he had, he was likely to be every bit as tormented by the discovery he had a half sister as Brandon was to learn he had a daughter.

  None of this was going to be resolved by him staying shut up in this house, though. The only way to deal with this was the same way he would deal with a business crisis, straight on.

  And that meant going to California.

  “Dana, why don’t you get on the phone and call the travel agent, while I pack my bags?”

  Her expression brightened. “You’re going to California?”

  “On the first available flight.”

  “Will you and Elizabeth try to work things out?”

  “I’m not sure that’s possible, child. But I do know that sitting around here struggling with things on my own hasn’t accomplished a blessed thing.”

  Dana drove him to the airport and insisted on going inside to see him off. When his flight was called, she hugged him as tightly as she could, given the swollen state of her tummy.

  “Do whatever it takes to be happy,” she murmured. “Promise me that.”

  “I promise.”

  “Even if it means eating a little crow?”

  Just the thought of trying to put all this behind him and mending fences with Lizzy seemed impossible at the moment, but Brandon looked at Dana’s hopeful expression and knew he couldn’t tell her that.

  “We’ll see,” he said. It was the best he could do.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Despite what he’d implied to Dana, Brandon had absolutely no idea where he planned to go when he arrived in Los Angeles. He had an entire flight to think about it.

  He decided finally—sometime between the awful meal and the even worse movie—that he had no choice but to see Lizzy first. There were things to be resolved between the two of them before he could begin to consider what to do about Ellen.

  He realized something else on that long flight. This situation he and Lizzy found themselves in was just one more test. He’d faced an abundance of them throughout his life, and more than once he’d come up wanting.

  Most had been relatively insignificant, until the one with Kevin had come along many years ago. When his son had refused to join Halloran Industries, when he’d chosen Lacey despite Brandon’s objections, Brandon hadn’t taken it well. He’d held himself aloof, unable to forgive
what he saw as rejection, impatient with himself for his inability to sway his son’s decisions.

  It had taken him a long time to see that patience and forgiveness were more important than pride, that a relationship with his son at any cost was worth more than the satisfaction of seeing Kevin working at a job of his father’s choosing or marrying a bride who was his father’s choice.

  Now, half a lifetime later, he was faced with another dilemma involving forgiveness. If he’d learned nothing else over these past lonely weeks locked away in his house, it was that he missed Lizzy desperately. Until the end in Taos, he’d experienced a rare contentment in his life again, and there was no question that she was responsible. More than passion, more than memories, she’d given him back his zest for living. The old magic had mellowed into vintage fulfillment.

  And she had given him a daughter. She might have made mistakes in the delay in telling him the truth, but she’d made them out of love for her daughter, not out of any intent to hurt him.

  He had a choice now. He could forgive her and struggle to grab whatever years of joy they might share. Or he could allow foolish pride and misguided anger to force him into a life of loneliness and regrets. Pride and anger wouldn’t keep his bed warm at night. They surely wouldn’t provide much companionship.

  Brandon thought of the sadness in Lizzy’s eyes the last time he’d seen her and regretted, more than he could say, his responsibility for it being there. Forgiveness might not come easily, but it was the only choice he had. He could only pray that she was as ready to forgive him for his hasty condemnation of her.

  Almost as soon as the decision was made, he felt his heart lighten. The dull ache in his chest eased as if his choice had received some sort of divine benediction.

  At the airport he considered calling, then worried that the warning would only make Lizzy panic. Instead he rented a car and drove on the crowded highway as if he were in an Indy 500 time trial.

  Parked at last along the curb in front of her house, he drew in a deep breath, praying for the courage it would take to make all of this come out right. He saw the curtains separate, then fall back into place and envisioned her reaction to seeing him outside.