His quiet question and steady look should not have made her feel as if she couldn’t breathe. Yet her chest and throat ached with the effort of pulling in air.
“Besides, it was more of a relief than a hurt. A lot of things made sense then. There’d been moments…not with Ambrose. He was strict, and the only time he was truly affectionate was when we brought home an achievement. But he was equal in his strictness and when he gave affection. And God knows he raised me to be a Corbett. It was her. The way she would watch me so closely. I’d tried to think it was because I was older, but it didn’t feel right. She was always talking about the opportunities I’d been given and how lucky I should consider myself. With Zach she talked about how he owed it to the family name. A small thing, but it stuck with me.
“But Ambrose never once treated me as anything other than his son. His heir. If anything he favored me over Zach. Of course, I was an easier kid to deal with.” Steve opened his hand and ran it over the surface of the table. “I respected him. I always respected him, but after I found out… I was lucky. I know that. Every child should have a father, and I was lucky.”
Every child should have a father.
That’s what he’d said Friday on the pier, too.
She hadn’t had a father, and Steve knew how that had affected her. Steve had had a father because Ambrose Corbett had voluntarily fulfilled that responsibility. A fact Steve had been learning at the same time Lily announced so publicly that she was carrying his unborn child. How could that not have affected his decisions?
As she had thought that day at the hospital, out of the mess and pain of his cheating on her with Lily had come one good—Nell had a father who loved her.
She looked at Steve, her movement bringing his gaze to her. “You loved him. Ambrose—you loved him.”
“He wasn’t an easy man to love.”
“You loved him.” He didn’t argue again—as good as an agreement from him. “It must have hurt you when you found out you weren’t his son.”
“I was in the important ways. That wasn’t what…” He spread the fingers of his right hand in a constrained gesture trapped between dismissal and frustration. Oh, yes, he had surely been raised a Corbett, refusing to acknowledge even the pain of this. But then he added, “All her lies. That’s what got me. All her lies, and—God! Her hypocrisy.”
He looked over his shoulder. Through her surprise at what he had said and how he’d said it, she became aware of sounds from the workshop, as if its occupants were heading this way.
“I think you should talk to her.”
He made a harsh sound that didn’t resemble a laugh. “You think I would hear anything resembling the truth from my mother?”
“No.” Max and Nell’s voices were louder. She had to say this fast. “But maybe it’s more important that you tell the truth than that you hear it.”
Nell’s profession of the moment apparently was prosecuting attorney. She was in the middle of cross-examining the poor guilty slob in the witness chair.
That would be him.
“You said she was your girlfriend,” Nell proclaimed, hands on hips.
“You’re supposed to be setting the table.”
“But you said she was your girlfriend.”
“She was my girlfriend. Now set our places.”
“But you had a wedding—” Only the first part of a wedding. “She had a dress and music and everybody was at the church. I heard all about it,” she said as she planted silverware atop the peninsula of counter that served as their table.
He kept tossing a salad that was already mixed enough. Damn. If Nell had heard that much about what happened, how long would it be before she heard the rest—that Lily had been pregnant and had broken up the wedding? And how much of it would she understand now…or resent later?
Annette had understood what he’d told her yesterday afternoon. He’d seen her connect his finding out about his birth with the timing of his marriage to Lily so Nell would have a father on her birth certificate.
What he doubted Annette had understood was how his memory of the things she had said and not said about her upbringing had played into his decisions. How many times had he wished he could somehow take that sadness out of her eyes? Past counting. Even as he’d tried in the ways he could to make up for the losses she had suffered from her father leaving and her mother dying, he had known he couldn’t entirely.
Then he was faced with the future of the baby Lily was carrying. There was a child he could give a father. There was a child whose eyes didn’t have to be filled with sorrows.
“Yes, Annette and I were at the church, and the wedding was started, but you know getting married is such an important step, and—”
“She was in the dress, but you didn’t get married to her. That’s weird.”
The microwave dinged to announce the packaged noodles were done.
Eventually Lily’s choices in life, as well as her death and his relationship with her, were bound to raise questions for Nell. He hoped eventually didn’t come until he’d come up with good answers.
Maybe it’s more important that you tell the truth than that you hear it.
Could Annette also have been talking about the truths he hadn’t yet told Nell? Or had Annette thought there were more truths he hadn’t yet told her?
“I suppose it is a little weird.” He put salad on the plates and took the chicken breasts he’d browned off the burner.
“Are you ever going to get married again? Or did divorce scar you? Caitlin says divorce scars women. Men run away with the flu and that scars the women. But since my mom left, and you stayed—”
“I’m not scarred, Nell.” Part of his mind tried to unravel men running away with the flu. The rest was divided between being dropped into a pint-size version of the Oprah show and pouring milk. “Divorce isn’t about all women feeling a certain way or all men feeling a certain way, no matter what Caitlin says.”
Who the hell was Caitlin? There was no Caitlin on Nell’s class roster. Surely she couldn’t be seven, to be telling Nell about scars from divorce and men running away with the flu—
Got it! Men running away with floozies. He definitely needed to track down this Caitlin.
“Dinner’s ready. Let’s sit down, and we can talk about this later.”
She sat, still talking. “You didn’t marry Annette, so you can’t get divorced.”
“True.” He sat back, eyeing her. “I thought you liked Annette.”
“She’s okay. But if you didn’t marry Fran—”
“We’ve been over that. Fran and I aren’t in love. We’re not going to get—”
“—will you ever get—”
“—married.”
“—married?”
The repeated word reverberated in the kitchen like the echo of a gong.
The gong of his understanding. No doubt someone indulging in Tobias’s favorite dish—idle speculation with a side of gossip—had shared with Nell.
“Listen, Nell, if I ever get married again I’ll talk to you about it beforehand.”
“You won’t get married unless I say okay?” The kid should be a trade negotiator. The other countries wouldn’t stand a chance.
“That’s not what I said.”
Her lower lip came out, along with her chin. “I have to take some wife of yours no matter what?”
“That’s not what I said, either. For right now, there’s no possibility of my getting married anywhere on the horizon. Now eat your salad.”
After a perfunctory knock, Annette pushed at Miss Trudi’s back door Tuesday afternoon.
She’d spent yesterday paying bills, sending out invoices and doing the accounts with Max. They had started on a bid, with her typing while trying to keep him from using his wrist when he impatiently grabbed pricing files. After a break overnight, they’d resumed this morning. His frustration at the restrictions on him was palpable, and contagious. It had been a long time since she’d done a job she had no clue about, and he
r frustration level was mounting, too.
Frustration…and confusion.
They had been her constant companions yesterday. It was disconcerting to discover that not seeing Steve for the first time after seven straight days wasn’t the respite it should have been. It simply left more time to think.
Why had Steve told her… No. She wasn’t going to let questions without answers pound in her head all day.
Max’s longtime employee, Lenny, picked him up to check on the Henderson site. Ignoring Max’s scowl, she made Lenny promise not to let her brother lift, climb, do any work or otherwise use his wrist, and to return him within two hours. Heaving a sigh as the pickup backed out of the drive, Annette finished the bid in a fraction of the time required under Max’s supervision, wrote a list of questions to go over with him, wrote checks and took three phone messages.
As she’d gone to the mailbox, Steve pushed into her thoughts again.
An express delivery from Suz had arrived with teas from their favorite specialty grocery, and she grabbed it like a lifeline. Miss Trudi would enjoy a sampling of these teas. And she could use a break before Max returned.
Annette tried the door again. Definitely locked, not stuck. Miss Trudi never locked her door except at night. It was barely past three. Could she be sick? What if something had happened to her?
“Miss Trudi? Are you here? It’s Annette!” she called, her voice and her concern rising with each word.
A scrabbling of locks on the other side of the old door brought a whoosh of air from her lungs. The door opened a crack, and her relief fled. Tearstains tracked over pale cheeks and disappeared into folds created by decades of smiles.
“Miss Trudi, what’s wrong? What’s happened?”
“Oh, my dear!”
Those shaky syllables were the last coherent words Annette made out as the older woman broke into a torrent of sobs. Only after she wrapped Miss Trudi in a green quilt and plied her with hot tea with sugar did she understand more.
“They want to send me away! Lock me up!”
The middle-aged woman behind the desk in the outer office spotted Annette first. Steve, giving instructions to the woman, had his back to her.
“And after the meeting, I’ll give you the rough-out of next week’s schedule. But right now I’ve got to get those figures to—”
The woman nodded toward Annette, and he looked over his shoulder. The corners of his mouth started to lift.
She would not let his charm detour her. “We have to talk.”
Her abruptness stopped his smile, but his tone was warm as he said, “Nell and I could pick up Chinese and bring it to Max’s for dinner. Maybe a movie, if—”
“No.” An edge of panic sharpened the word. The image of Max, Nell, Steve and her, cozy and laughing in Max’s living room… No. “This is business.”
He studied her long enough that resentment leaped up, so bright and hot that any reasonable man would have backed away. He stayed where he was.
“Since it’s business, I’m sure Bonnie can give you an appointment.”
“We have to talk now.”
“I have a full schedule this afternoon, so—”
“Too full to talk about throwing an old lady out on the street—not only a resident of this town you’re so proud of managing, but a former teacher, a friend of your daughter’s and a Corbett! After everything you said—”
“Annette, we can talk about this later.” His reasonableness hadn’t changed in seven years, and neither had the words.
Flame singed her throat raw.
“That’s your answer to everything, isn’t it, Corbett? To an old lady or your daughter’s questions or an inconvenient request for the truth when your wedding’s interrupted by another woman pregnant with your child.”
He went still, retreating into his damned Corbett creed. Don’t show emotions—hell, don’t have emotions. And she’d broken those rules all to bits. Just like before. Tough. She wasn’t a Corbett and she wasn’t going to live by their stupid rules. She had something to say and she was going to—
“Bonnie, call the judge and tell him I’ll get the figures first thing tomorrow. And tell the department heads I might be late for the meeting. Thank you.”
He pivoted and pushed open a door. With his extended arm acting like an underlining of his name on the door, he held the position as he said, “Annette.”
It was too even to be a challenge, too cool to be an invitation.
Straight-backed, she passed him, nearly brushing in the limited space of the doorway, and for that instant it seemed as if the rules of the natural world had been suspended. Because instead of coolness, she felt heat radiating off him like an old stove that gave no sign of the fire blazing inside. And instead of adding to her fire of righteous anger, his heat sent a chill of uncertainty through her.
“What is it that couldn’t wait?” he said as soon as he closed the door. His office was utilitarian, but the view took in downtown and across the lake.
“Don’t be condescending,” she snapped, uncertainty wiped out.
“I’m not being condescending, I’m trying to find out what’s important enough to cause you to raise a past you’ve repeatedly said you want to forget.”
“It’s a shame if I offended your sensibilities, but Miss Trudi’s life is more important.”
“My sensibilities are not so easily offended. And I presume if you meant that literally you would have called nine one one instead of coming to me.”
She narrowed her eyes. “The quality of her life, not her mortality.”
“Glad to have that cleared up and—”
“How can you joke about this, Steve?”
“Believe me, I’m not joking.”
She barely heard. “No, wait, what am I thinking? A man who can talk so convincingly about his concern for a woman on Sunday, then plot to drag her from her home and lock her up in a nursing home on Tuesday is certainly capable of joking about it.”
He sat on the front edge of the desk, crossing his arms over his chest, the gesture emphasizing its breadth. The corners of his mouth lifted, but the expression was nowhere near pleasant enough to be called a smile.
“If I didn’t already know that in your mind the rule is guilty until proven innocent, I might be offended. But I am still confused. Would you care to explain that off-the-wall accusation?”
“Did you think Miss Trudi would let you do this without telling anyone? Did you think that she has no friends who would come to her aid? Well, let me tell you, you’re wrong. You’re going to have the fight of your life on your hands, so—”
“What I think is that you’re full of bull—”
“Don’t you dare say that.” Through her anger she felt a tickle of recognition—he was angry, too. Impassive face, even voice and all, Steve Corbett was angry.
“You come to my office, taking cheap shots and throwing accusations around like that, and believe me, I dare. I accept that you don’t trust me, and while I’ve always viewed your passionate nature as one of your strengths, Annette—in fact, I’ve missed it—you’ve just shown me why some people consider it a flaw.”
At the moment her passionate nature wanted to strangle him.
She’d dealt with tougher cookies than him in running Every Detail. None of them had knocked her off her stride. None of them had gotten the better of her. None of them had made her wonder if that hair would feel as soft as it used to if she reached over and pushed it off his face. None of them had made her palms itch to caress from his neck across the ridge of his shoulders.
She shook her head, trying to track how she had slid from wanting to put her hands around his neck and squeeze to wanting to stroke. This was not good.
“I am not throwing accusations around. I am repeating what Miss Trudi told me.”
“She told you that I intend to put her into a nursing home? She said that? Steve is going to put me in a nursing home?”
“I don’t know that she said those exact words,” she adm
itted, trying to pin down her memory of Miss Trudi’s jumbled utterances. “But her meaning was quite clear—she does not want to go to a nursing home.”
“You think I don’t know that? I’m not the one who’s been away seven years.”
She took that arrow without retreating, but felt its sting.
“I’ll repeat what I said Sunday. I don’t want her to go to a nursing home, either,” he continued. “Or a retirement home. But you’ll find that a group of people styling themselves as concerned citizens went to see Miss Trudi this morning. If the reports I received are accurate, they expressed the opinion that she would be better off in a retirement home if not a nursing home—their words, their opinion, not mine. I wasn’t at the meeting. After I heard about it, I went there to try to get her to see that the situation can’t go on—not the first time I’ve tried that.”
“And clearly succeeded in only confusing and scaring her more,” she said. “You’ve got to do something about this.”
“What would you have me do?”
“Tell the truth. All of the truth. Because it’s as bad to tell lies by not saying anything.”
Something flickered in his eyes, like a flash of intense blue. Was it a reaction to what they’d talked about Sunday in Max’s kitchen? He had told her a truth then. A major truth. Or had he interpreted her words as a jab at his not telling her that truth or others seven-and-a-half years ago?
An even better question was, how had she meant it?
“Be open,” she said, pushing aside other thoughts. “Give Miss Trudi the facts. Don’t dole out little shreds. Dump the whole bag, so she knows you’re not hiding things.”
“Are you sure the listener I would dump this bag onto wants to deal with all those facts, or does she want to be protected, the way she always has been?”
He held her gaze—he was not talking only about Miss Trudi.
“Sometimes,” he continued, “people who say they want—even demand—facts don’t truly want them. They want someone else to take care of them. They want someone else to fight their battles.”
If you’re not happy I’ll tell Mother to back off. But you have to tell me.
Wedding of the Century Page 12
