by Peggy Jaeger
Pat’s laugh filled the car. “I don’t remember it that way, but I won’t argue the point.” He glanced over at her quickly. “Promise me when you feel up to it, you’ll tell me about what happened.”
Resigned, Moira nodded.
Pat dropped her off back home and left for the clinic for afternoon appointments. Moira took Serena’s car into town to shop for her new goddaughter’s present. In every store she met people who told her they were thrilled to see her back home and were wondering what her plans were. She told the same thing to everyone who asked: she was exploring some options and resting for now. Twice she was told about the high school music position, and Sally Marlow, an old school friend who waited on her at the drug store, told her she should be giving private piano lessons.
By the time Moira drove to the hospital, she was tired of people suggesting plans for her life. Even though she knew they were all well intentioned and came from places of good-heartedness, she didn’t want to hear anyone else tell her what she should be doing. She wanted and needed to figure it out on her own, without outside help.
“How’d you know we were still here?” Tiffany asked when Moira came into the hospital room.
She was nursing Alaina and Moira rubbed a knuckle over the baby’s small, perfect head. “God, Tiffany, you look amazing. I’d never know what you went through yesterday by looking at you. I can only hope I look this good after I have a baby.”
Tiffany smiled across the bed at her cousin. “Want to come home with me? I could use you for a morale booster. The boys were in before and Michael told me I need a shower, Thomas said I looked like I was up all night, and Liam’s lips were trembling when he whined, ‘are you ever gonna come home?’”
Moira laughed, and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Boys are ridiculous. You look wonderful, and I’ll bet the one person who counts, namely Cole, realizes it. And I knew you were still here because I ran into Dr. Rogers at the drugstore. You’re being discharged in a few hours.”
“Twenty-three hour admission is what they call it. Just a precaution. We’re both fine,” she nodded at her daughter.
“I brought my goddaughter a present,” Moira said, taking the wrapped box out of a shopping bag. “There’s plenty more to come after this.”
Tiffany burped Alaina and when the booming sound reverberated in the room, both women laughed. “That’s going to impress her brothers to no end,” Tiffany said, giving the baby to Moira to hold. Tiffany tore through the wrapping and opened the box.
“You’d think it was for you,” Moira told her cousin, kissing the baby’s head.
Tiffany pulled back the tissue paper from the box and held up the white romper. “Oh.” Her excited voice confirmed that the choice had been a perfect one to Moira. “Baby Dior. Oh, Mo, this is gorgeous. And it must have cost a fortune.”
“She’s the first and only girl in the next generation,” Moira said. “She deserves the best.”
“She’s going home in this and I may never take it off her until she outgrows it.”
Moira’s smile grew. “That’ll be pretty quick, Tiff. It’s only newborn to three months, and the way your kids grow, it may last just a week. Don’t worry. There’ll be plenty more after this. Between your mom, mine, Delilah, and even Quentin, who is thrilled to be a godfather by the way, she’ll be showered like the little princess she is.” She kissed the baby’s cheek and her heart completely turned over when Alaina gave a small, sleepy smile. “Oh, I know it’s supposed to be gas, but she smiled. She really smiled at me.”
Tiffany laughed at the excitement in her cousin’s voice.
“So,” she said, leaning back on the pillows, and peering at Moira with a knowing look. “You and Quentin.”
Moira’s attention flew from her goddaughter to her cousin. “What?”
“Don’t be coy, Cuz. I may have been a little distracted yesterday, but I’m not blind.”
Moira blushed and cuddled the baby closer. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Crossing her arms in front of her, Tiffany cocked her head to one side, her high ponytail swishing against the pillow. “Our mother’s aren’t the only ones in this family who are good observers.”
Moira sighed. “It’s that obvious?”
“To the females in our family, yes. The men,” she shrugged. “Clueless. But even through contractions, I could see the two of you eyeing one another. The heat in that room wasn’t just from me panting. How long?”
Moira handed the sleeping baby back to her mother and pulled a chair close to the bed. “Just a few days, really. Although to hear Quentin tell it, a lot longer.”
“You’ve known each other forever.”
“I know. Since birth, really. He’s my best friend, Tiff. Really. But since I’ve been back, well, it’s become more.”
“You’re in love with him,” she said, simply.
She nodded. “I am. I love him with all my heart, because he’s Quentin. But I am in love with him as a man, too.”
“I don’t need to ask,” Tiffany said, with a smile, “because I know he feels the same about you. All you have to do is look at the guy to see it.”
When Moira didn’t respond, Tiffany asked, “Why aren’t you as happy about this as you should be?”
“Because I’m afraid this will change what we mean to one another, what we have together. I don’t know how I’d be able to move on if this doesn’t work out. I don’t want to lose his friendship, Tiff. I couldn’t stand the loss.”
“Oh, Mo.” Tiffany reached out a hand to her. When Moira took it, she added, “You know, about a million years ago Cole said the same thing to me.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was afraid if he gave into his feelings and allowed the two of us to be lovers, it would change everything. I’m going to tell you now what I told him then. It’s only going to make it better.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because real love, lasting love, does change for the better. You two know everything there is to know about one another. You have a lifetime of memories that already include the other. It can only grow and improve. Believe me.”
Moira had grown up hearing the story of how Tiffany fell in love with Cole when she was six and he was fourteen. The child had sworn one day they would marry, with the adults in the family all thinking it was just a cute, little girl crush. They’d all underestimated Tiffany, though, and when she’d grown to maturity, she proved how right she’d always been in stating Cole was her destiny and she his.
Was Quentin her destiny? She couldn’t imagine him not being a part of her life, now, in the past, even in the future. Didn’t want to imagine it. There were times Moira could admit now, when she’d been lonely and missing home while touring, his face was the first one she’d conjure. A shared childhood memory would play itself out in her mind and she’d feel less alone, less out of her element. Looking back, she realized now how much a part of her life he was, in every way. She knew the meaning of every mannerism he had, could predict what he’d say, or how he’d behave during most situations. She’d always teased he was predictable as rain, while he’d always referred to her as a softie. A lifetime of sharing and memories made up those descriptions, and they were filled with love.
But were they meant to be together? To grow old together? To be friends and lovers, until the end?
Moira’s thoughts flew while she watched her tiny goddaughter sleep.
“I want to believe it,” she said, “I really do. I guess I’m just scared something will happen, it won’t work out the way I want it to, and then our relationship won’t be the same anymore.”
“Of course it won’t be the same,” Tiffany said. “Nothing stays the same, not even love. It grows and matures. Look at Cole and me. Four kids and fifteen years later and we’re still the same people inside, but our love has grown with each day and new experience.”
Moira sighed. “I know you’re right, Tiff.”
When Cole arrived a few min
utes later, she said her goodbyes, with Tiffany whispering, “Don’t ever be afraid to tell him how you feel.”
Chapter Fifteen
Back at home, Serena called out from her studio window as Moira alighted from the car. “Come up here for a minute, Baby. I need to talk to you about something.”
Moira took her purchases from the car trunk and dropped them off at her bedroom doorway on the way up to the third floor.
Seamus had designed the painting studio for Serena prior to their marriage and the skylights he’d installed with the open design were a perfect room for Serena to paint in. The twins and their brothers after them had each been assigned cribs in the room while nursing, so Serena could have easy access to her children and her work. The room was now as it had always been. Easels, some half painted, some blank, sat in rows across the outer perimeter walls of the room; a large wooden and paint-splotched table sat to one side, covered with open and closed pots of every color Moira’s imagination could conjure, and some she couldn’t put a name to. The room smelled faintly of turpentine, a scent Moira always associated with her mother, like a favored perfume, whenever she came in contact with it. It was almost comforting when she thought about it, like a well-remembered memory from childhood that cropped up every now and again.
Serena had been painting. From the doorway, Moira couldn’t make out what it was going to be.
“Something new?” She crossed to her mother and kissed her cheek.
“Inspiration comes from everywhere,” Serena said. “I had a dream last night and today I’m trying to put it to canvas.”
“What’s it supposed to be?”
“A surprise,” Serena said, one eyebrow lifting.
“And that’s my answer,” Moira took a seat on the queen sized bed Seamus had insisted on putting in the room when the twins where born. “So. What’s up?”
Serena put the brushes she’d been cleaning into a jar on the table and came to her daughter. When she sat down on the bed across from her, she took one of Moira’s hands in her own. “You look a lot better than when you came home to us,” she said. Her gaze trailed across Moira’s face and down her torso.
With a nod, Moira smiled. “I feel better, Mom. It’s so good to be here. To be away from…everything.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I took a phone call for you today from Aldus Magnusson.”
“Oh.” The hair on the back of Moira’s neck stood up straight and her stomach did a little worry dance.
“He asked how you were doing, and I told him. He wanted me to tell you he found out the truth about what happened. Someone from the company came forward after you’d left. He said Maestro Olmhoff has been fired. Mr. Magnusson wants to see you to apologize in person for all the, quote, horrible lies he was told about you, and believed, unquote.”
“Oh.” Moira’s breath caught in her throat.
Serena reached across the bed and took her daughter’s other hand in her own. “You’re hands are like ice,” she said, her brow furrowing. “Baby, you need to tell me what happened. Now. No more skirting the issue.”
Moira nodded as a fat tear slipped down her cheek. For the next several minutes, she gave her mother an exact accounting of everything that had occurred once Sergei Olmhoff joined the company. Unlike Quentin though, Serena never interrupted her daughter’s tale once during the telling.
“Moira Claire Cleary, it’s not like you to let someone treat you like that, and without even fighting for yourself.”
Moira swiped the back of her hand across her dripping nose and said, “Q said the exact same thing.”
Serena’s eyes widened. “Quentin knows? You told him?”
Nodding, Moira said, “Dr. Rogers, too. She suspected it was something more than just an intestinal bug. She gives you a run for your money with her investigative skills,” she added wryly.
“How did you come to tell Quentin?”
Moira felt the blush run up her face. “He said something that upset me and it triggered…something. It all came out in a rush. Believe me, I wasn’t going to tell him or Pat, the whole story. I know how the both of them are. I was afraid they’d fly straight to China so they could beat Sergei to a pulp.”
“I would have paid their passage and joined them.”
“Mom.” Moira threw herself into her mother’s arms. As Serena stroked her daughter’s back, Moira confessed, “This is why I didn’t want to tell any of you. I know how protective you all get. I’m still the little Cleary girl from Carvan. My brothers need to protect me from bad guys and my parents call me ‘Baby.’ But I’m a grown woman. I can handle when things happen to me.”
“This is how you handled it?” Serena asked, pulling her daughter away from her, her brow furrowed into a thin line of annoyance. “By letting it make you so sick you couldn’t eat and then running away without defending yourself? Without fighting?”
“Ouch.”
“I’ve never known you to run scared before, Moira. It’s not how we raised you and it’s certainly not the way you’ve ever acted.”
“I know.” Moira sighed heavily. “But I just couldn’t stand being surrounded by the tension anymore. I started questioning myself, and I’ve never done that. Every decision, every thought I made sent me into a spiral of self-doubt. I couldn’t continue living with the fear. I thought leaving, just leaving and removing myself from the situation, might be the best way of dealing with everything.”
“Obviously not,” Serena said with a shake of her head. “No one has the right to make you feel less than you are, Moira. Consider if this had happened to Pat. Or Denny, or even Steps. How would you react, knowing they let someone have such negative power over them?”
“I’d be pissed for them and want to do whatever I could to make them feel better.”
“Exactly. Why couldn’t you afford yourself the same emotion?”
Because she had no answer, Moira just shrugged and swiped at her cheeks.
Serena’s gaze pierced her daughter. “What did Quentin say to upset you?”
With a dramatic roll of her eyes, Moira said, “When will I learn you never give up?” She swiped her hand across her nose again.
“Because I don’t. Answer me.”
“Mom, please, I can’t talk about this with you. It’s embarrassing.” The heat she felt on her face danced down her neck and torso under her mother’s steady perusal.
“Why?”
“Because. It just is.”
A slow, knowing smile blossomed across Serena’s face. “It’s something personal between the two of you, right?”
Moira nodded, unable to meet her mother’s eye.
“Something sexual?”
“Jesus, Mom.” Moira jumped up, crossed her arms in front of her chest, and all but ran to the other side of the room.
Serena didn’t give in. “Are the two of you sleeping together?”
“Not yet,” Moira said, before she could stop herself. Immediately her hand flew to her mouth and she turned to see her mother’s face. The smile there was gleeful, her eyes crinkling at the corners.
“Well, it’s about time.” She rose from the bed and walked over to her daughter.
Moira stared at her, dumbfounded.
Serena laughed and took her back into her arms. “Baby, you have to know Dee and I have been watching the two of you all your lives, looking for some sign you’d wind up together. I know you had a huge crush on him when you were teenagers, and Lord knows the man has been in love with you since you were both in diapers.”
“Quentin isn’t in love with me, Mom.” Moira pulled out of her mother’s arms.
“No?” One sculptured eyebrow crawled slowly up her unlined forehead.
“No,” she answered, seeing the gesture. “He’s attracted to me, sure, just like I am to him. And he loves me, I know. But as a friend, like he’s always been. He’s not in love with me. He can’t be.”
Serena cocked her head just as her daughter was doing. “Why not?”
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“Because, he can’t be, that’s all.”
Smiling again, Serena gave her a daughter a swift kiss on the cheek and said, “Believe what you want, then.” She picked up a paintbrush and added, “I need to get some work done. Will you be home for dinner?”
Confused and tired from the entire conversation, Moira said, “No. I have plans.”
“With Pat?”
When she didn’t answer, Serena glanced up from the easel and stared at her daughter. Turning back to the painting, she said, “Have a good time with Q, then.”
****
Driving to Quentin’s farmhouse, Moira replayed the talk with her mother for the thousandth time. It was mortifying Serena could so easily read her mind. She’d known immediately something had occurred between her and Quentin, and it had been of a romantic nature.
She puts the CIA to shame.
It had been hard enough confessing to her mother the incident with Olmhoff, because Moira had known her mother would immediately revert to her mama bear persona and want to fly off to defend her baby’s honor. She wouldn’t be surprised even now for Serena to try and find out where Sergei was and do him some serious bodily harm in defense of her daughter. The image of her mother doing just that made her smile. Sergei Olmhoff was no match for Serena Cleary, despite being eight inches taller and about one hundred and fifty pounds heavier.
What really had Moira confused though, was what her mother stated so matter-of-factly about Quentin’s feelings. Moira wasn’t stupid or naïve. She knew Quentin was as sexually attracted to her as she was to him, just as she knew tonight they might finally act on the attraction. But to have her mother think the man was in love with her was stupefying. He barely knew her.
Okay, well that was a stupid statement.
The guy knows you better than most people in your own family. You grew up with him; saw him everyday of your life for the first eighteen years, and through most of college. You shared some pretty intimate things with him and he was, after all, the first boy to kiss you. You crushed on him super big time in high school, and now he is a ridiculously hot and desirable man.
