by Susan Wiggs
“Finish getting dressed,” she told Charlie. “I’ll tell Mrs. Foster she can go home for the day.”
Playing the game was different without Lily and the girls watching. Sean noticed that the moment he hit his first drive, though he tried not to let their absence affect his performance. The fact was, they were everything to him—his audience, his purpose. Knowing they were watching, he was able to see each shot as clear and clean as the morning sky.
Without them, it was just a game. One he happened to be good at, but still just a way to spend the day and see how things turned out.
Cameron studied his lie in the fairway. It was a perfectly good lie, just inside the crook of a dog leg, giving him a decent shot at the green. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Sean said. “Why would you think something’s wrong?”
“Duh. I just watched you hit.”
“And I landed where I need to be.”
“Because you’re good and so is your luck, but you’d better start playing your game.”
Sean stared at him as they walked together toward the ball. “You sound just like your father.”
Cameron grinned a little and straightened his shoulders. “Yeah?” When they reached the ball, he dug in his pocket and took out the Indian head penny, Sean’s old good-luck charm. “I was thinking you might need this. Just in case.”
Sean nodded and accepted the token. Lord knew, Cameron wanted him to succeed, so he would try to forget his troubles with Lily. He felt terrible about the way they’d left things. Maybe he shouldn’t have lashed out at her. It was fear, not anger, that had driven him—fear of losing Ashley. If he wasn’t her blood relative, he had no claim on her at all.
That made Greg Duncan even harder to forget. They were cordial and professional, but their conversation the night before ratcheted up the tension between them.
After leaving Lily’s house, Sean had driven around for a long time, thinking about what she’d said. You can’t fix this with a lie or another deception. Fighting every instinct, he’d gone to Greg Duncan’s and the two of them had a long and difficult talk.
This morning, Sean had told Cameron about the deal he’d worked out with Duncan. That was what kept him going through the game today, Sean realized—the look on Cameron’s face when the weight of knowing about Ashley passed into someone else’s hands.
“All that’s left is to finish the tournament, then,” Cameron had said.
When Sean looked at Cameron now, he could see how much his nephew had matured over the summer. No longer a raging boy, he still carried a burden of grief that would always be a part of him, but now he bore it as a man.
“What?” Cameron asked.
“What do you mean, what?”
“You’re looking at me funny. What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” said Sean. Then he lowered his voice and told the truth. “I’m proud of you.”
Cameron’s reaction made Sean wonder why he hadn’t said so sooner. “Yeah, same here,” said his nephew.
Though Sean held the lead, Duncan had won the previous hole, giving him honors to hit first at number eighteen. It was a challenging, four-hundred-yard par four and the pressure was on Duncan, who needed an eagle—a nearly impossible two under par—to win.
Duncan’s drive flew three hundred twenty yards and landed dead center in the fairway.
For the first time during this tournament, Sean’s stomach knotted. This was a bad time for an attack of nerves. He squinted at the hole, measuring it, remembering all the ways he’d played it successfully in the past. He wished Lily and the girls were here. Hell, he wished Derek was here. Derek was the champion, not Sean. It was stupid to pretend he could fill his brother’s shoes.
He knew he was in trouble the minute the grooved iron face made contact with the ball. Within a heartbeat, he saw the shot go bad, a deadly snap hook that flew out of bounds and landed in the rough.
“An instant two-stroke penalty,” the commentator murmured in a stage whisper.
Duncan pressed his advantage, his next shot sending the ball just inches from the cup. The spectators buzzed and shifted in a wave, their emotions vacillating from one player to the other.
In the rough, Sean addressed the ball. Cameron didn’t say a word, but Sean could feel the tension emanating from him. Sean was seized by doubts. What in God’s name was he doing, and who the hell did he think he was? Derek Holloway?
He lowered the club to the coarse grass next to the ball. He saw the rough grass bend, and the ball moved—slightly, imperceptibly—and nudged the tip of the iron. It was a tiny touch, like a fleeting kiss. But a touch nonetheless.
It was over, then. The rules were clear. He had to call a penalty on himself.
No one saw. Not even Cameron had noticed. If Sean said nothing, if he hit out of the rough and got back in the game, no one would be the wiser.
His hand began its determined assent to signal the marshals.
“Uncle Sean,” whispered Cameron, “please.”
Sean realized then that the boy had seen the ball move, too. That was always the case in golf, as in life, it seemed. No error went undetected. If this was Derek’s call, he’d keep it to himself, because Derek always did what he had to do in order to win. But that was Derek’s game, Sean reflected. Not his. He looked his nephew straight in the eye and raised his hand. Cameron looked as though he wanted to cry, but at the same time, a grudging admiration shone on his face.
The spectators erupted when he called the penalty on himself. Even Duncan looked stunned. Sean felt weirdly calm now. He stood to lose the tournament by one stroke.
Then he saw something in the gallery—a flash of white with giant colored polka dots. He stood stock-still and then laughed aloud. “Better late than never, girls,” he said, even though he knew they couldn’t hear him. Their jackets and hats stood out in the crowd. “Better late than never.”
Cameron was grinning, too. “I knew they’d come.”
“Sure you did,” said Sean. “Now, step aside. I need to get this onto the green.”
To his credit, Cameron didn’t look dubious in the least. Sean felt a new surge of energy. Just knowing Lily had come, even after their bitter words the previous night, filled him with confidence. He stepped up to the ball again.
It was a miracle shot, one of those that would be replayed and talked about for years to come. His stroke launched the ball up out of the rough, over the water hazard and onto the high lip of the green before rolling down the slope…and into the cup.
Excitement roared through the crowd. Sean and Cameron headed to the green, veering toward the ropes to pass by Lily and the girls.
Lily kept her eyes on Sean. “You could still win,” she said. “He hasn’t hit in yet.”
He looked at Cameron and then at his girls, felt their love lifting him up, and he wondered if life offered anything better than this. Somehow, he doubted it. “Doesn’t matter,” he told her, speaking over the noise of the crowd. “I’ve already won.”
Over the summer, Lily had learned to like the taste of champagne nearly as much as she’d liked toasting the end of a tournament with Sean Maguire. She had learned that in golf, victories were few and fleeting, and there was no shame in finishing second. Today, though, she murmured “No, thank you” to the waiters in the clubhouse as she wove her way through the crowd, looking for him. At the post-tournament rush of press questions, he’d hurried through his responses to incredulous sports reporters, who simply could not understand why he’d given away a major tournament to a complete unknown.
“I didn’t give him a thing,” Sean assured everyone crowding around him. “He fought hard and got exactly what he deserves. Now, if you’ll excuse me, ladies and gentlemen…”
Lily watched him abandon her. She had swallowed her pride to come here, but maybe that wasn’t enough for him. With an effort, she kept a gracious smile on her face and greeted people in the reception room. There were her parents and Violet, un
certainly circling the caterer’s table.
Her mother touched her shoulder. It wasn’t quite a hug, but close. After the things she’d said last night, Lily understood her better. She glanced over her shoulder, but Sean had left the room. “Come and say hi to Crystal’s kids,” she added. Cameron had both his sisters with him, one holding each hand. Sometimes their adoration embarrassed their brother, but today he looked perfectly content. Lily could see the reason—Becky Pilchuk, who had undoubtedly watched his every move in the tournament. She looked wonderful, fit and blond from a summer of working outside. There was a sweetness in the way she and Cameron treated each other, though Lily recognized Becky’s caution. It made her want to yell at the girl: Don’t hold back. You’re only cheating yourself. Quit worrying about what might happen and go for it.
She spotted Greg Duncan talking on a cell phone in the parking lot and hurried to his side. “Excuse me,” she murmured, edging through the foyer of the clubhouse. She didn’t know what she was going to say to him. He’d had an affair with her best friend, had unknowingly fathered a child with Crystal and still managed to date a variety of women—including Lily. “Greg,” she called out.
He wore a victor’s smile when he put the phone away, but his expression changed when he saw her. “Hey, Lily.”
“Congratulations on your win.” Now what? she wondered.
“Thanks,” he said. “Listen, Lily, I—”
“Mr. Duncan,” someone called, rushing over with a microphone. “Tell us how you feel about your win. What’s next for you?” A number of others flocked around him.
Lily stepped back, knowing better than to try to compete with aggressive reporters. Yet a hundred questions burned inside her, questions that were nothing like those from the sports reporters. Did you and Crystal love each other? Did you make her happy?
When he replied, Greg seemed to be addressing her. “Looks like I’m leaving Comfort,” he said.
Lily caught her breath. Leaving?
“…Corliss agreed to represent me, and I’ll be competing in Q School through the fall and winter. If everything goes all right, you’ll see me ranked in the PGA next year.”
She fell back and let him bask in the attention. Leaving. More questions crowded into her mind. How can you be leaving now? What about the child you made? Does that matter at all to you? Now she knew for certain that Greg Duncan had to be told the truth.
When she turned to head back to the clubhouse, she nearly ran right into Cameron. “Where are the girls?” she asked him, not even attempting to hide her worry.
“With Becky,” he said. “They’re fine.”
“And your uncle?”
Cameron gestured behind him. In the distance, workers were breaking down the bleachers and ropes, loading them into trucks. A lone figure, silhouetted against the sunset, stood at the edge of the last fairway.
As she stood there, torn by indecision, Cameron said, “Coach Duncan knows. My uncle told him last night.”
She caught her breath, struggled to find her voice. Disbelief and then elation stole the words from her for a moment. So he had done it after all. Despite what they’d said last night—or perhaps because of it—Sean had told Greg the truth, and Greg had still elected to leave. She didn’t know why Sean’s wisdom about human nature always seemed to surprise her, but it did.
She took Cameron’s hand, needing to touch him when she finally spoke. “Are you all right?”
With a curiously adult dignity, he gently removed his hand from hers. “So long as Ashley’s with us, we’ll all be fine.”
When had this boy grown so tall? Lily wondered, looking up at him. “Your mother was the best friend I ever had and I loved her with all my heart,” she said. “But I’m not going to make excuses for her. She made mistakes, just like everybody else. And this one was a doozy.”
“Lily, no one says ‘doozy’ anymore.”
She tried to smile. “What I’m trying to say is that being angry with your mother—and your father, for that matter—is a bad idea.”
“I loved them, okay?” he said in a low voice. “That’ll never change.”
Lily’s eyes blurred. “There was so much good in them, in your mother and father. So much love. They adored you from the first breath you took. You’re the best part of both of them, Cam, you know that?”
He shuffled his feet. “Yeah. Whatever.”
“All right. I won’t embarrass you anymore.” She looked at the ridge above the fairway. “I have to go,” she said.
He smiled a little. “I know. We’ll watch the girls.”
Burnished by the colors of the sunset, Sean looked like a figure out of a dream, and for a moment, Lily was afraid to say anything, for fear that she’d wake up and he’d disappear, unremembered. Then he turned to her and she felt silly. Nothing in her life had ever been as real as this moment.
“You’ve been busy,” she said.
He hooked his thumbs into his back pockets. “Yep.”
“You might have told me.” She tried to sound reproachful but couldn’t keep the happiness from her voice.
“I intended to, but there was this small detail about a tournament…”
“Sean.”
He opened his arms and she pressed herself against him, safe and sheltered, her heart so full she couldn’t speak.
“It’s going to be okay, Lily. There’s nothing Duncan wants from this.”
Because he already has what he wants, she thought. A hot sports agent, a dream career. “You gave it to him,” she said, drawing back to study Sean’s face. “You made sure he won today.”
“You,” he said, slowly lowering his mouth to hers, “have quite an imagination.”
It was, she realized, as much of an admission as she’d ever get from him. A moment later it didn’t matter, because his kiss sealed a promise he had made to her long ago.
The evening breeze held the subtle chill of autumn and she pressed even closer, hearing the steady thud of his heartbeat. Tell him, Lily, she urged herself, and it sounded like Crystal’s voice. Tell him now.
She was afraid, but for once she was going to ignore it. She stepped back, keeping hold of his hands. The potential for giddy joy was, she discovered, even greater than fear. Loving Sean had changed the way she looked at the world. Some days she felt like Dorothy in Oz, seeing things in color for the first time, and she was finally ready to tell him. “This isn’t the life I’d planned for myself,” she said. “I’m always a planner. Sometimes I plan right down to the last moment, and being with you, with this family, well, all my careful planning goes out the window.”
“I’ve never planned anything at all, and look. We both wound up in the same place. It’s because we’re supposed to, Lily. Believe it.”
“We might be a disaster together.”
“We probably are. So what? I love you, Lily. I love who I am when I’m with you, and I love that we’re both crazy about the kids.” He bent and gave her another lingering kiss. “In fact, we should make more.”
She gasped. “You’re getting ahead of me.”
“You don’t want more kids?”
Oh, my God, she thought. Oh, my God. “I love you so much, Sean.” The moment she spoke those words, she realized she’d answered his question for both of them. The fear was gone. In its place, like a fire kindled under her heart, was a constant sense of yearning and anticipation for everything life offered. She knew that that might be hurt or happiness, but the difference was that now, she welcomed it all. She wasn’t afraid to go where the heart might lead her.
“It’s about damn time you said so.”
“I didn’t know how to tell you,” she said. “It didn’t seem…safe.”
At that he laughed quietly and touched her cheek. “Ah, Lily. It never is, but don’t ever let that stop you.”
chapter 51
Something was up, Lily was sure of it. The invitation, hand-drawn by Charlie and hand-delivered by Cameron, gave only a hint: “Please have dinner with us at
La Dolce Vita, Friday at 8:00. Dress: Semi-formal.” Charlie had spelled everything correctly and illustrated the message with a picture of the four of them lined up by height. On the far side of the page was a portrait of Lily, a flattering one at that; Charlie had made her look a bit like Malibu Barbie wearing glasses.
Charlie’s cursive writing was clear and bold, a contrast to the shaky, searching way she’d written in third grade. Her fourth-grade teacher reported that Charlie was working at grade level in most subjects. Occasionally, the little girl would seem to go away for a while, lost in sadness, but she always came back. Grief would forever be a part of Charlie’s life, a facet of who she was, but she was no longer so haunted by pain that she couldn’t grow and thrive. Her natural exuberance had returned over the summer, and Lily felt privileged to have been a witness to the process.
Cameron rejoined the golf team and had already won the first tournament of the year. On the weekends, he caddied for his uncle, and Lily adored seeing them together, united in purpose, Sean treating Cameron as an equal and as the expert he was. Despite the fact that Sean had traded a major title for Ashley’s security, he was rising through the ranks. He would never be the champion his brother had been, Lily knew. The difference was, now he no longer wanted Derek’s career. He wanted his own.
Lily tucked the invitation into the frame of her vanity mirror and checked her hair and makeup—again. She felt a sense of gravitas about this evening. It was not just dinner. La Dolce Vita was a luxurious riverfront restaurant with a famous chef from Sorrento. With its formal gardens and air of luxury, it was the sort of place people went to celebrate their milestones—birthdays and anniversaries, bar mitzvahs and…engagements? After the tournament, after the things they’d said to one another, it was the next step. It had to be. Yet they’d gone their separate ways that night because Lily refused to stay over with him, not wanting to confuse the children. Then school started in a whirlwind of activity, and there never seemed to be enough time to explore what had begun between them that night.
