Another brisk knock on the door announced Max. “Sorry, boss,” she said, poking her head in the partially open door. “But the meeting—”
“You go,” Mama said, pulling away to walk over and pick up her purse. “Go to work. Win more prizes.” She wagged a finger at him. “And tell me about them.”
He grinned and she saw pride in his eyes. “I promise.”
Paul’s mother left in a rush of green flower-sprigged cotton. There was something else going on; he was damn sure of it. His mother never did anything without a reason. But he didn’t have time to worry about it now. The scent of rosewater seemed to follow him as he marched off to the meeting.
* * *
The heavy cream-colored stationery crinkled as Stevie’s fingers tightened on it. Her mother’s handwriting—large, flamboyant letters, scrawled in brilliant peacock blue ink—filled the page.
Stephanie
My husband the Barrister insisted on my making a will and sending you a copy. As I continue to enjoy excellent health, this is simply a legal precaution. Joanna
“Touchingly personal, as always.” Stephanie. Her mother was the only person to ever have called her by her actual name. Her father had christened her Stevie when she was still a baby. But Joanna insisted that “nicknames are common.” And maybe, Stevie thought, that’s why she liked them so much. Still, the nagging little twinge of pain she always associated with her mother zinged her heart, but it would pass. It always did.
Stevie sighed and unfolded the sheaf of legal papers. Her gaze sliding over the legalspeak, Stevie read it quickly, more out of curiosity than anything else. There were the usual bequests … usual for her mother, anyway. Ten thousand dollars left to the maid who’d been with her for twenty years—as opposed to the hundred-thousand-dollar gift to the medical facility that handled Joanna’s biannual eye lift.
Fifty thousand left to a tarot card institute and five thousand to her chauffeur.
Yep, Stevie thought. That was fairly typical. There were plenty more along the same lines, and Stevie couldn’t help wondering what the “barrister husband” had thought of his wife’s peculiarities.
Then the word trust caught her eye.
Stevie read that passage once.
She straightened up.
And read it again.
Her mouth went dry.
One more time.
Sister?
She had a sister?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“OH MY GOD.”
Stevie jumped to her feet and her chair toppled over, clattering loudly against the plank wood floor. She didn’t care. Hardly heard it. Her own heartbeat was pounding so loudly, it deafened her to everything else.
Her hands closed over the edges of the will, crumpling it in a tight two-fisted grip. The room spun wildly around her, like one of those strange special effects shots in a horror movie.
A sister.
“I have a sister.” Saying the words aloud felt … well, okay, weird. But wonderful. Amazing.
When the world stopped spinning, her gaze dropped to the will again. She focused on the few lines that interested her most:
A trust fund has been arranged for my mentally deficient daughter, Debbie Harris. This trust will remain in place for Debbie’s lifetime. On Debbie’s death, the trust fund will then be dissolved and any and all remaining monies are to be donated to Reach for the Stars, the organization which has provided Debbie’s home.
Mentally deficient?
Jesus, what an ugly word.
A well of empathy for a sister she’d never known existed rose up inside Stevie. And matching it came a fountain of anger for her mother. “For God’s sake, Joanna,” she muttered thickly, past the knot of emotion in her throat. “This is low even for you.”
But was it, really?
Stevie had plenty of less than pleasant memories from her childhood. Not that she’d ever been physically abused in any way. After all, you had to be noticed to be smacked around. But she’d learned early on that she was little more than an annoyance to her mother. And if Joanna, whose mothering skills ranked right up there with those of a praying mantis, ignored a so-called normal child, what kind of life would Debbie have lived? Images of a locked attic on the top floor of a Gothic manor rose up in Stevie’s brain, and it disgusted her to know that she probably wasn’t far off.
“But how could she not at least tell me about my own sister?” Yet even as she ground out the question, she already knew the answer.
Joanna had dumped her child in a home and then never given her another thought. A chill raced along Stevie’s spine. Jesus. She came from that woman. It was almost enough to make a person run out and get her tubes tied—just to end the line of rotten mothering.
But she was wasting too much time thinking about Joanna. This wasn’t about her. Not now, anyway. There’d be time later for phone calls and recriminations. Right now, Stevie had to figure out where her sister was.
She had a sister. Family.
Harris. Her last name was Harris. That made her the daughter of Joanna’s—quickly Stevie mentally ticked off her mother’s husbands in chronological order. First on the list was Stevie’s own dad. But he’d been followed by Miguel Santos, then Rory Hudson and Michael Harris and someone Franco and now the unfortunate barrister Henry Whiting-Smythe.
Okay, Michael Harris. Stevie had vague recollections of a short man with a kind smile. But she’d only been ten years old then and had spent most of her mother’s marriage to Michael in a boarding school in Sussex, so she didn’t recall much else.
It didn’t matter so much, though. Because now she knew that Michael Harris had given her the best gift ever. He’d given her family.
And in the space of a few mind-numbing seconds she indulged in all sorts of fantasies. She and Debbie, living together. She and Debbie going to lunch, shopping, laughing. Spending Christmases together. Thanksgiving. All of those family-centered holidays would now seem new and more important than ever.
She’d have someone to spend them with.
She’d have someone to love.
Stevie sucked in a huge gulp of air in a futile attempt to calm down the swarms of butterflies dancing around in her stomach. She had to find her. Had to find Debbie. She should call London. Talk to Joanna.
Glancing at the clock on the wall above the television, she noted the time and did a quick calculation to British time. Four A.M. over there. Not a good time to catch Joanna at her best. Stevie grimaced tightly. Besides, she had a few things she wanted to say to dear old Mom and wanted Joanna perfectly awake and coherent when she said them.
So what could she do?
Her skin felt too tight. Nerves hummed and she actually felt electricity buzzing in the still air.
This was big.
Too important to keep to herself. Heart pounding, blood racing, excitement jangled in her nervous system. She had to tell somebody. Racing to the phone, she jumped over Scruffy as she poked her little head out from under the coffee table.
“Sorry, Scruff, gotta call—” Phone receiver in her hand, Stevie stopped and stared down at it as if waiting for it to speak to her.
Call who?
Her instincts shouted, Carla! But Carla was on her honeymoon. Fingers sliding across the numbered buttons, Stevie’s mind moved at lightning speed. Yes, ordinarily, she would call Carla. But tonight, there was really only one person she wanted to talk to. One person she needed to talk to about this.
Chewing at her bottom lip, Stevie punched in the right numbers, slapped the receiver to her ear, and listened as the phone on the other end of the line rang.
On the fourth ring, Paul answered, and he sounded winded. “Hello?”
His voice was husky and breathless and Stevie instantly imagined him wrapped around some brilliant scientist or astronaut. Her brain painted an exceptionally clear picture of a tall redhead leaning into Paul and biting his ear and running her fingers up and down his naked back and—
“Yo! Stevie!” Paul pr
actically shouted into the phone, and Stevie pulled the receiver from her ear in self-defense.
“You don’t have to shout.”
“Well, you weren’t answering me, so I figured you were dead or something.”
“And shouting would bring me back?”
“It was worth a shot.”
Stevie smiled. If there was a redhead there, he was ignoring her, which was okay by Stevie.
“Okay, you’re zoning out again.” Now he sounded patient, interested.
“Sorry. My brain’s busy.” Understatement of the century.
His tone changed instantly. “Everything all right?”
“No, not all right,” she said, glancing down at the will she still held tight in her right fist. “Everything is … different.”
“What is it?” His voice dropped another notch, hitting that low rumble of sound she associated with darkness and wrinkled sheets and slow hands and fast breathing.
She didn’t want to say this over the phone. She wanted to see his face. Watch his reaction. “Can I come over?” she asked.
“Now?”
“Yeah. Is it a problem?” Please say no.
“Come. I’ll make coffee.”
“God, no, don’t do that,” she laughed, loving the rush of expectation rushing through her at the thought of seeing Paul. At the thought of how her life was about to change. At … everything. Probably she shouldn’t be going to Paul’s. Not with how things were between them right now. But she’d worry about consequences later. Right now, she needed her friend. “Get the pot ready. I’ll make the coffee.”
“Deal.”
* * *
The sound of her tires on the drive pulled Paul to the front porch. Damn it, he shouldn’t be so happy to see her. Shouldn’t have gotten such a charge out of hearing her voice on the phone or knowing that she wanted to come to him. But he couldn’t seem to stop himself. Just thinking about her gave him the kind of rush he used to get after solving some intricate calculation. At meetings, he caught himself drifting into thoughts of Stevie when he should be taking notes. He wasn’t getting much sleep anymore, either, since every time he closed his eyes, he saw her. Hell, they couldn’t be together for more than five minutes without groping each other like a couple of teenagers in the backseat of Dad’s minivan.
Stevie’d slipped deeper and deeper into his life. She was more than his friend. She was his lover. His … what, exactly?
Hell, he didn’t know.
Paul Candellano, boy genius, didn’t have a damn clue what was happening to him.
And at the moment, he didn’t give a rat’s ass. All that was important was that Stevie was here. Now.
He stepped out onto the porch, feeling the cold, damp wood planks pressing against the soles of his bare feet. A chill ocean-scented wind slapped his face and stung his lungs as he dragged in a deep breath and waited while she climbed out of her car.
In the moonlight, her blond hair shone like silver and her fair skin damn near glowed like porcelain, lit from within. Wearing worn, faded blue jeans and a bright red sweatshirt with the Leaf and Bean logo across the front, she looked impossibly young and fresh and … Christ, face it. Breathtaking.
Shoving his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, Paul kept his gaze locked on Stevie as she walked across the yard, carrying a small paper sack. The wind tossed her hair across her eyes and she reached up to pluck it free, shaking her head, swinging her hair into the wind, and laughing like a loon.
He grinned in response. “What’s so funny?”
“Not funny!” she called back, and ran the last few steps separating them. She took the stairs two at a time and threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck. “It’s amazing, Paul. Absolutely amazing.”
Yanking his hands free of his pockets, Paul slid his arms around her waist and squeezed, loving the feel of her body pressed along his. When she pulled her head back to smile up at him, he stared down at her. In the pale glow of the porch light, her blue eyes sparkled.
“You won’t believe it.”
“So tell me.”
“I have a family.”
She said the word like it was holy. And to her, Paul knew it was. All she’d ever wanted, for as long as he could remember, was to belong … somewhere. Someone like him, who’d grown up surrounded by loud brothers and a sister—fighting for any small square of privacy you could carve out for yourself—could sometimes forget just how precious family was. It was sometimes easy to take for granted something that others would give anything for. Stevie’s whole body trembled with excitement—he felt it rippling through her. And he hoped to hell that whatever had happened to make her so damn happy wasn’t going to eventually blow up in her face.
“What do you mean, family?”
She kissed him. Quickly, fiercely, hungrily, and every cell in his body woke up and shouted, Hot damn!
“I’ve got a sister,” she said, effectively ending his little sexual side trip. “Her name’s Debbie and she lives in Monterey.”
Paul just stared at her. Happiness radiated from her like heat from white-hot coals. The desire raging inside him settled into a low simmer that warmed him without the fire.
“How?” he asked. “Who? What?”
Stevie grinned and kissed him again. “All excellent questions. Let’s make some coffee.”
“Right.” He let her go and she rushed past him into the house. Paul followed after, listening to the sound of the heels of her sandals clicking against the wood floor as she walked straight into the kitchen. She knew her way around his place as well as she did her own. Over the years, they’d spent a lot of time together here. Of course, most of the time, she’d been complaining about Nick, but Paul hadn’t cared. He’d liked spending time with her even though a part of him had wanted her to look at him as something more than a friend. Though now that she had, there was a whole new world of problems.
“So,” she was saying, and he made himself pay attention, “Joanna’s new husband, the lawyer, remember? He had her make out her will and then told her to send me a copy.”
“And…” He stopped at the doorway to the kitchen and leaned one shoulder against the doorjamb. Crossing one bare foot over the other, he folded his arms across his chest and studied her. She moved quickly, as Stevie always did, as though she had this perpetual motion machine locked inside her body, constantly propelling her along. His gaze dropped to the curve of her behind as she moved confidently around the room. She pulled the bag of ground coffee from the refrigerator and set up the coffeepot. Once she’d hit the POWER button, she turned around, braced her hands on the counter’s edge, and smiled again.
“And…” she said, that smile fading a bit as shadows crept into her eyes. “Forgetting about all of Joanna’s bizarre bequests, there was a mention in there about a trust set up for her—and I quote—‘mentally deficient daughter, Debbie.’”
“Whoa.”
“Yeah.” Disgust flashed across her features. She wrapped her arms around her middle and held on as if trying to keep a tight grip on the emotions obviously charging through her.
The coffeepot hissed and sizzled, and steam lifted from the top, like the lonely mist that drifted in off the ocean. Neither of them said anything for a long minute or two.
Paul waited for her to go on. He couldn’t imagine what she was feeling, thinking, but he watched as her expression shifted with heartbreaking speed. Her world had been turned upside down. And now she had to figure out what it would do to her life. How much she wanted it to do to her life.
“What do you think it means?” she asked, her voice so low, the hissing coffeepot almost completely engulfed it. “Mentally deficient.” She pushed away from the counter and paced up and down the length of the kitchen, talking more to herself than to him. “I mean, of course I know what it means, but does it mean a mild disability or does it mean—”
“I don’t know, Stevie. It could mean anything.”
She looked at him and her eyes were wid
e and vulnerable and so full of confusion and misery, Paul’s heart ached. He straightened up and walked toward her. Dropping both hands on her shoulders, he said, “You’ll find out. We’ll find out.”
Sucking in a sharp breath, Stevie slipped out from under Paul’s hands, as if she didn’t trust herself to stay, and stepped back. “I have to know if she’s okay, Paul. I have to know. I mean, Joanna just brushed Debbie out of her life. What if she’s living in a terrible place?” Her hands shoved through her hair. “What if they’re mean to her? What if she’s wondering where her mom is? What if—”
He walked a wide circle around her, wanting to get closer, but unwilling to trust himself at the moment. Besides, she hadn’t come here to be held. She came here to talk. To have him listen to the fears rushing through her.
“Joanna wouldn’t put your sister—”
Stevie stopped him with a cold, hard look.
“Okay, fine,” he conceded. “Maybe Joanna wouldn’t care much where her child was. But what about Debbie’s father? What was he like?”
Stevie paced again, keeping her distance from him even as she talked. She was just too … vulnerable right now. It would be too easy to lean on him—that’s all she really wanted to do at the moment. She wanted him to put his arms around her and tell her it would be all right. “He was … nice. I don’t remember much about him, really. I was only ten and they weren’t married long.” A harsh, strained laugh shot from her throat. “No surprise there.” She scooped her hair back from her face and squeezed her skull as if trying to hold her brain in place. “I just can’t believe this, Paul. I can’t believe Joanna never told me. I never knew that Debbie was out there. What if she needed me? What if all her life, she’s been wondering why she’s so alone? What if—”
“Stevie, stop.” He came closer and dropped his hands onto her shoulders again, and this time she didn’t move away. This time she stood still and let the warmth of him slide down deep inside, to where cold, dark shadows curled in the bottom of her heart.
“I have to see her.”
“Sure you do.”
“She has to come and live with me.”
Knowing You Page 14
