Sea Glass Winter

by JoAnn Ross

  “I suppose he could have. He chose not to.”

  Which seemed to be the story of the men in her life. After Matt’s father had refused to acknowledge his unborn child, friends at school had told her she should get a DNA test and sue for child support. But to Claire’s mind, right or wrong, if she had forced him to pay, someday that money could come with strings. Which she hadn’t wanted to risk.

  “Why did Gram have to get a new career? She already had a job designing sets for movies and TV shows. She even had an Oscar nomination and an Emmy.” Not that Claire’s mother ever talked about those days, but both the L.A. Times and Variety had included them in her obituary.

  “She never really discussed it.” Which was absolutely true. Once Claire’s father had packed up and left the house, it was as if he had died. “I suppose she wanted an entirely new start.” And, given that her producer-husband had left her for his much younger assistant, Claire had always suspected the entertainment business had lost its gleam. “That way she could work at home, too. Which turned out to be a good thing for us, since she was there to take care of you while I went to school.”

  And perhaps, Claire considered, her mother stepping in so completely had kept her from entirely moving on with her own life. Was it possible that she’d become so comfortable with the way things were, with the three of them making up their own family unit, that she’d never been all that interested in changing the status quo?

  That thought had her remembering back to when Matt was seven years old and she’d dated a television screenwriter who’d written a few episodes of Friends. He’d been smart, talented, and funny and had even seemed to genuinely like her son. But her mother’s disapproval of the way he cut his hair, his clothes, the fact that he spent so much free time surfing, even his Canadian nationality, eventually did in the short-lived romance.

  For the first time in a very long while, Claire was forced to wonder if, just perhaps, her mother, who’d always seemed so strong and independent, hadn’t wanted to be left alone.

  “You’ve always been the most important thing in my life, Matty,” she said, slipping back into his childhood nickname. “And you’ve no idea how proud I am at how you’re turning around what was a very small slip into a new life here. Especially when I know how much you must miss your old school.”

  He shrugged. “It’s not so bad. The Dolphins may be the Bad News Bears of high school basketball, but Coach Slater is the best coach I’ve ever had.”

  “Really?” She could tell that he cared more about his players than others Matt had played for. But because he ran a closed practice, she hadn’t had any idea about his actual skills.

  “Yeah. He sees stuff no one else does. It’s like he has superpower vision. And he always knows where everyone’s going to go. Before you even go there.”

  “Maybe that’s from his military days,” she considered. “I’d guess defusing bombs requires a lot of attention to detail. And intuition.”

  “I guess so. Do you like him?”

  And didn’t that question come out of the blue? “Of course I do. He’s a very nice man and he’s been very good to both of us.”

  “No. I mean, do you really like him? Like that guy you went out with when I was in second grade.”

  Okay. That was a major surprise. Here she’d just been thinking about her failed relationship with the writer, who was now happily married, living in the San Fernando Valley with three kids.

  “You remember Nash?” That had been his name. Which her mother had ridiculed, too. “What was his mother thinking,” she’d asked derisively. “Why not just name your child Chevrolet? Or Chrysler?”

  “Sure. He was nice. He took us to Lakers and Kings games. And taught me how to ice-skate. For a while I thought it’d be cool to be a hockey player.”

  She’d forgotten the winter of his hockey love. After she and Nash had stopped seeing each other, he’d never put on those skates again. She’d finally given them away to Goodwill when they’d moved.

  “So,” he pressed, “do you think you could like the coach in that way? Like a boyfriend?”

  “I’m not sure people have boyfriends at thirty-three.”

  “Lila Greene’s mother had a boyfriend. And she’s older than you. And married.”

  “She did?” Claire waved away the question. How inappropriate was it to be gossiping about a former neighbor’s sex life with your teenage son? “Never mind. I don’t want to know. And as for Coach Slater, although he’s a very nice man, I’m way too busy right now with the upcoming show and the renovations we have to do on this house to even think about getting involved.”

  “The show’s going to be over soon. Maybe you can think about it then.”

  “Matt—”

  “Just think about it, okay? And not just because it’d be cool to have him around more, but because he likes you.”

  “Because I’m your mother.”

  “Jeez.” He rolled his expressive eyes toward the ceiling, which was dotted with brown roof-leak splotches. “Believe me, Mom, me being your kid has nothing to do with it. He likes you. A lot.”

  “I think you’re misconstruing things.”

  “Guys know this stuff,” he insisted.

  This was so not a conversation she’d ever planned to have. “Speaking hypothetically,” she said, treading carefully through this conversational minefield, “if you’re right—”

  He nodded emphatically. “I am.”

  “Would that bother you?”

  “Hell—I mean, heck—no. You know what you said about Gram wanting to start a whole new life?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, maybe this is your chance. I’m not always going to be here,” he reminded her unnecessarily. “I’ll be going off to college in less than three years. You don’t want me feeling guilty about leaving you alone, do you?”

  She couldn’t help laughing at that. “Of course not.” Since they were actually getting along so well, she reached up and ruffled his hair, the way she used to. “How did you get so smart?”

  “I guess it’s in my genes, since I’ve got a smart mom,” he said. Which may have been the first compliment she’d heard from him since he’d turned twelve. “There’s something else I need to tell you. About that pot.”

  “Oh, honey.” She shook her head. “It’s okay. I totally understand. Anyone can make a mistake, and—”

  “It wasn’t mine.”

  “What?” And wasn’t tonight just turning out to be one surprise after another? “But it was found in your locker.”

  “Yeah. I know. But it wasn’t mine. I guess, since I’m not going to BHHS anymore and we’re not living in the neighborhood, I might as well tell you the truth. It was Lila’s.”

  “Lila Greene’s?” Daughter of the adulterous next-door neighbor?

  “Yeah. She kept some of her stuff in my locker because it was closer to the cafeteria and more convenient for lunch.”

  “Did you know about it?”

  “I knew she smoked sometimes,” he said. “And before you ask, I never did because I didn’t want to screw up my lung capacity on the court. I didn’t realize she brought the stuff to school.”

  “And yet you never said a word.” Even when it looked, for a short time, as if he might be expelled.

  His shoulders lifted in that shrug she’d grown to hate. But instead of a lack of interest, this spoke of helplessness. “She told me that her father had warned her if she was busted again, he’d send her to boarding school.” He held up both oversized hands, palms up. “What was I supposed to do?”

  Telling herself that it was all water under the bridge, Claire didn’t respond with the obvious. He should have told his mother the truth.

  “It was a difficult situation,” she allowed. “But let’s agree that if anything like this ever comes up again, we’ll talk about it. And figure out a workable solution.”

  “Okay. I guess that’s what I should’ve done back then, huh?”

  This time she fol
lowed her heart and wrapped her arms around him. “Bygones,” she said. “This is a new start for both of us.” Because she was afraid she was going to cry, she backed away and glanced up at the myrtle-wood mantel clock, another thing that had come with the house. “Now, you’d better start getting ready for bed so I don’t have to turn you in to Coach Slater for breaking curfew.”

  As he laughed, sounding much like his old self, and left the room, Claire had to admit that Dillon Slater might represent more trouble than she was prepared to deal with, but he was also responsible for giving her son back to her.

  39

  After a great deal of consideration, Phoebe had come to a decision.

  Since she’d discovered that cooking soothed her nerves and cleared her head, she’d been in the kitchen fixing Ethan a crab bisque when the answer suddenly came to her. It seemed so right, she was amazed that she hadn’t seen it right away.

  He was sitting across the apartment’s combination kitchen / living room, feet up on the coffee table, reading the latest issue of Acres magazine. The radio was tuned to KBAY, the town’s country station. Pulling the saucepan off the stove (she could always reheat it later), she crossed to stand in front of him.

  “What I said?” she began. “About not being able to marry you until this problem with the Fletchers is settled?”

  “You don’t have to worry.” He put the magazine down, took her into his arms, and began stroking her back in a way that may have been meant to soothe but had her thinking of dragging him into the bedroom and tackling him on that pretty white bed he’d put together for her. “I understand.”

  “That’s the thing.” She pulled away enough to look up at him. “I was wrong. Their custody suit came so out of the blue, I wasn’t thinking straight.”

  “Who would have been? I sure as hell never saw that coming.”

  “I should have. His mother is a master manipulator. But here’s the thing… . I was so focused on not allowing her to push me into a marriage that’s everything I’ve always dreamed of, I didn’t realize that once again I was letting Peter pull the strings.

  “I swore when I left Colorado in the middle of the night to come here that would never, ever happen again.”

  His hands cupped her shoulders, his fingers digging a bit too deeply. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Hope and love and myriad emotions too complex to catalog were in his eyes and on his face.

  His dear, dear face.

  “I’m saying I want to marry you, Ethan. As soon as possible.”

  He lifted his eyes to the ceiling, which he’d painted a pretty pale sky blue for her. “Thank you, God.”

  Then, as Rascal Flatts’ “I Won’t Let Go” began playing on the radio, he began dancing her around the room, singing along with the lyrics that he’d fight her fight and stand by her and never let her go.

  And unlike all those times when Peter Fletcher had caused her to weep, Phoebe’s tears were born not from pain and fear, but from love. And much, much joy.

  40

  Sax and Kara’s house was, like Claire’s, set on a cliff overlooking the sea. That was the only similarity.

  She knew movie stars in Beverly Hills who didn’t own homes as large as this sprawling white, red-roofed house. But she knew none whose homes were as comfortable and welcoming.

  “You have a stunning place,” she told the couple, who greeted her and treated the pumpkin pie she’d brought from Take the Cake with the same pleasure they might have shown if she’d given them a deed to their own diamond mine.

  No, she thought, as Matt immediately disappeared with Johnny Tiernan-St. James and she followed Kara—and the amazing aromas—into the kitchen, where J.T., Lucien, and Leon Douchett had pans simmering and pots boiling, with the six-burner range in full use. These people had no use for diamonds. Because they had a more valuable commodity. A family.

  And another guest.

  Which was not surprising, given what Kara had said about inviting others in town who didn’t have family to celebrate the holiday with them. What she’d failed to mention was that one of those people just happened to be Dillon Slater.

  Appearing not the least bit surprised to see her, he lifted two bottles of wine—one red, one white.

  “You’re just in time,” he greeted her, another clue that he’d been expecting her. “Sax made me bartender before he and Cole went outside to deep-fry the turkey. So what can I get for you?”

  Claire had two choices. She could be peeved at having been set up this way or she could relax and enjoy the day. And the company.

  “The chardonnay would be lovely,” she said. “Thanks.”

  “My pleasure.” For a fleeting moment, as he bestowed a slow, unreasonably sexy smile on her, it was as if they were the only two people in the kitchen.

  The cheerful conversation, the bubbling pots, the oil sizzling in heavy cast-iron pans, all faded away as he poured the wine and handed her the stemmed glass.

  She took a sip of the chilled wine, hoping it would cool the heat the intimate look he was giving her sent flashing through her veins. It didn’t.

  “This is wonderful.” Damn. Instead of sounding light and casual, a guest complimenting her host, her voice had come off as breathless.

  “It’s from a friend’s winery,” Sax’s mother said. “Sax serves it in Bon Temps.” Maureen Douchett, who had to be in her late fifties or early sixties, was stunning, harkening back to the golden days of Hollywood glamour with her glossy black hair, emerald green eyes, and red lips, which smiled a warm welcome. “He doesn’t make a lot. But what he does make is very special.”

  Claire couldn’t disagree.

  “Are you sure I can’t help?” she asked, feeling guilty watching all the work going on in the bustling, steamy kitchen. “I can’t cook, but I could help peel potatoes or set the table—”

  “The kids set the table,” Kara said.

  “And the men do all the cooking.” Maureen smiled her satisfaction at that idea over the rim of her own wineglass.

  “Well, most of the men,” Dillon said. “J.T. and I, who apparently are not to be trusted, have been relegated to peeling potatoes and shrimp.”

  “When I was growing up, I was convinced the reason Cajuns had kids was so they’d have someone to peel their shrimp,” J.T. said from behind a counter piled high with shells. “Since I was the youngest, I usually got stuck with the job.”

  “It’s because you’re so good at it, darling,” the most famous woman in the room said with a smile immediately recognizable to movie fans all over the world. Claire, who was used to going to the occasional party with celebrities, was surprised to be having Thanksgiving dinner with Mary Joyce, a major A-list movie star.

  “You’re just trying to butter me up,” he complained without heat.

  “The men also do all the cleanup,” said Kelli, who was married to Cole, the eldest Douchett brother.

  “Which makes this about the most perfect day on the calendar,” Mary said. “And yet another reason to love America. The average Irishman would probably have trouble finding so much as a pot in a kitchen in his own home.”

  “OMG,” Matt, who’d come in with Johnny to get some popcorn shrimp and Cajun devil peanuts, blurted out. “You’re Mary Joyce.”

  “I am indeed,” the actress said, the lilt of Ireland in her friendly tone. “And you must be Matt. The basketball player everyone’s talking about.”

  “Um… yeah… I guess so.” His cheeks flushed. “I mean, yeah, I play basketball for the Dolphins.”

  “My husband and I are looking forward to watching your first game in a few days.”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “You’re coming to our game?”

  “We wouldn’t miss it,” J.T. said. “Believe it or not, Mary spent all that time in L.A. and never once got to a Lakers game. So she’s never even seen basketball.”

  “We’re not the Lakers,” Johnny said. “But Coach Dillon is teaching us their triangle offense.”
/>   “Well, as I said, I’m looking forward to cheering you all on. My older brother played football during his school days back in Ireland. There was, for a short time, talk about him possibly becoming a professional, but he wanted to be a war photographer instead.”

  “My dad was a war photographer, too,” Johnny said. “Now he just takes pictures of people.”

  “My brother got out of the business as well,” Mary said. “He’s now a farmer in Ireland.”

  “I really like your movies,” Matt blurted out. “I’ve seen all of them bunches of times.”

  “Well, isn’t that lovely.” The smile she bestowed on the teenager had him turning red up to the tips of his ears. Partly, Claire suspected, because the actress was nearly naked in her Selkie films.

  “My Maureen could’ve been a movie star,” Lucien Douchett, Sax’s father, informed Claire as he deftly whisked a roux with one hand while stirring a pot of shrimp and crab gumbo with the other. “But she turned down a big Hollywood producer to marry me and stay in Shelter Bay.”

  “It was a very small offer,” Maureen said as she went over to the stove and kissed him on his weathered cheek. The look they exchanged was so intimate, Claire almost felt as if she were intruding on a personal moment.

  Having grown up a single mother who was the product of a divorce herself, she honestly had never believed that type of love existed. Sax’s parents and grandparents, Adèle and Leon Douchett, were living, breathing proof that it did.

  “You’re a lucky woman,” she told Kara as they watched Angel following Trey Douchett around like a lovesick puppy. The tiny ballerina had informed Claire that when she grew up she was going to marry this boy she’d “loved forever.”

  Listening to the absolute determination in the little girl’s tone, although it was highly unlikely, Claire almost believed her.

  “I tell myself that on a daily basis,” Kara said.

  “Me, too,” Charity said as Angel demonstrated an arabesque, which had her wobbling a bit on one leg, to the ever-patient Trey. “When I moved here I was a runaway bride. Now I have a fabulous, talented husband and two children whom I couldn’t love any more if I’d given birth to them.”