The Key Trilogy

by Nora Roberts

  When she stepped back, he laid a hand on her arm. “Would you walk with me?”

  “Jordan—”

  “Just walk with me for a few minutes. You said what you had to say. I’m asking you to listen.”

  “All right.” She put her hands in her pockets to warm them, and to avoid contact with his.

  “I didn’t handle it well when my mother died.”

  “I don’t know that you’re supposed to handle things like that well. My mother’s buried over there.” She lifted a hand to gesture. “I don’t really remember her. I don’t remember losing her. But I miss her, and sometimes still I feel cheated. I have some of her things—a blouse my father saved that was her favorite, some of her jewelry, and photographs. I like having them. The fact that I don’t remember her, that I was too young to remember losing her, doesn’t mean I don’t understand what it was like for you. You wouldn’t let me help.”

  “You’re right. I wouldn’t let you help. I didn’t know how.” He took her arm briefly to steady her over the uneven ground, then let her go as they walked toward the trees.

  “I loved her so much, Dana. It’s not the sort of thing you think about every day when things are normal. I mean I didn’t wake up every morning thinking, boy, I sure love my mother. But we were a unit.”

  “I know.”

  “When my father left us . . . well, I don’t remember him very well either. But I remember that she was a rock. Not cold, not hard, just sturdy. She worked like a fucking dog, two jobs until we were out of the debt pit he’d put her in.”

  Even now, he could almost taste the bitterness of it. “She must’ve been so tired, but she always had time for me. Not just putting a meal on the table or handing me a clean shirt, but for me.”

  “I know. She was so interested in everything you did, without breathing down your neck over it. I used to pretend she was my mother.”

  He glanced down. “You did?”

  “Yeah. You didn’t think I was hanging around your house when I was a kid just to annoy you and Flynn and Brad, did you? I liked being around her. She smelled like a mother, and she laughed a lot. She’d look at you—sometimes she’d just look over at you, and there was such love in her face, such pride. I wanted a mother who would look at me that way.”

  It moved him to hear her say it, and the faint tang of bitterness washed away. “She never let me down. Not once. Not ever. She read everything I wrote, even when I was a kid. She saved a lot of it, and she would tell me that one day, when I was a famous writer, people would get a big kick out of reading my early stories. I don’t know if I would be a writer today if it wasn’t for her. Her steady, constant faith in me.”

  “She’d be thrilled with what you’ve done.”

  “She didn’t live to see me published, not with a book. She wanted me to go to college. I wanted it, too, but I figured on putting it off a year or two, earning more money first. She laid down the law—and she was damn good at that when it was important to her. So I went.”

  He was silent for a moment, and a cloud slipped over the sun, deadening the light. “I sent some money home, but not much. Wasn’t that much to spare. I didn’t come home as much as I should have. I got caught up. There was so much out there. Then I went to grad school. There were a lot of years I wasn’t there for her.”

  “You’re being too hard on yourself.”

  “Am I? She put me first, every time. I could’ve come back here sooner, earned a good living at the garage and taken some of the weight off her.”

  She put a hand on his shoulder so he would turn and face her. “That’s not what she wanted for you. You know it wasn’t. She was over the moon about what you were doing. When you had those stories published in magazines, she was thrilled.”

  “I could’ve written them here. I did write when I finally came home. I got my teeth into a book, wrote like a crazy man at night after work. When I wasn’t being crazy over you, that is. I was going to do it all, have it all. Money, fame, the works.”

  He spoke quickly now, as if the words had been dammed up too long. “I was going to move her out of that broken-down house, buy her someplace beautiful, up in the hills. She would never have to work again. She could garden or read, or whatever she wanted to do. I was going to take care of her. But I didn’t. I couldn’t.”

  “Oh, Jordan. You’re not to blame for that.”

  “It’s not a matter of blame. She got sick. I’d spent all that time away, now I was back, going to make it right. And she got sick. Just a little tired, she’d say. Just a little achy. Getting old. And she’d laugh. So she didn’t go to the doctor in time. Money was tight, time off work was tough to get, so she didn’t go until it was too late.”

  Unable to hold out against it, she took his hand in hers. “It was terrible. What both of you went through was terrible.”

  “I didn’t pay attention, Dana. I was wrapped up in my own life, in what I wanted, what I needed. I didn’t see that she was sick until she . . . Jesus, she sat me down and told me what they’d found inside her.”

  “It’s stupid to blame yourself for that. Stupid, Jordan, and she’d tell you exactly that.”

  “She probably would, and I’ve come around to that since. But during it, after . . . It happened so fast. I know it took months, but it seemed so fast. The doctors, the hospital, the surgery, the chemo. Christ, she was so sick through that. I didn’t know how to take care of her—”

  “Wait. Just wait. You did take care of her. You stayed with her, you read to her. God, Jordan, you fed her when she couldn’t feed herself. You were her rock then, Jordan. I saw it.”

  “Dana, I was terrified, and I was angry, and I couldn’t tell her. I locked it in because I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “You were barely in your twenties, and your world was crashing down around you.”

  Even as she said it, she knew she hadn’t understood that at the time, not completely.

  “She was fading away in front of me, and I couldn’t stop it. When we knew she was dying, when there wasn’t much time—she was in such pain—she told me she was sorry she had to go, that she had to leave me. She said there wasn’t a single day of my life she hadn’t been proud of me, and grateful for me.

  “I fell apart. I just lost it. Then she was gone. I don’t know if I said good-bye, or told her I loved her. I don’t even know what I said or did.”

  He turned back, walking once more toward the stones that bloomed out of the patchy grass. “She’d made all the arrangements already, so all I had to do was follow through. One foot in front of the other. The memorial service—the dress she wanted to wear, the music she wanted played. She had some insurance. She’d scraped money together for that every month. Christ knows how. There was enough to pay off most of the debts that had built up and give me some breathing room.”

  “You were her child. She wanted to provide for you.”

  “She did, in every possible way. I couldn’t stay here, Dana. Not then. I couldn’t live in that house and grieve for her every time I took a breath. I couldn’t stay in this town, where I would see people I knew everywhere I went.

  “You’d think it would be a comfort, the familiar. But for me it was constant pain. One minute I’d feel like I was suffocating, the next like I was going to explode. I had to get away from it. I had to bury some of that pain the way I’d buried her.”

  “You wouldn’t talk to me about it.”

  “I couldn’t. If I’d had the words, I’d have choked on them. I’m not saying it was right. It wasn’t. But it’s the truth. I had to make something of myself, and I couldn’t do it here. Or I believed I couldn’t, so what’s the difference?”

  “You had to go,” she murmured, “or you wouldn’t be who you are.” How could it have taken her so long to see that?

  “I hated what I was here, and I was afraid of what I would become if I stayed. I saw myself working in the garage day after day, year after year, and throwing away everything she’d worked for, everything
she’d wanted for me because I couldn’t do any better. I was angry and in pain, so wrapped up in both I didn’t give a damn about anything else.”

  He came back to the edge of his mother’s grave, stared down at the flowers. “I didn’t know you loved me. I don’t know what I’d have done differently if I had, but I didn’t know. You always seemed so strong, so sure of yourself, so easy with the way things were, that I didn’t see inside that.”

  He reached out to brush the hair back from her cheek, then dropped his hand again. “Maybe I didn’t want to. With all that happened to her, I didn’t have any room to love anyone. But I hurt you, and I meant to. Because it was easier on me if you walked away. I’m ashamed of that, and I’m sorry for it. You deserved better.”

  “I don’t know what to say to you. It helps, hearing all this. I know it wasn’t easy to tell me.”

  “Don’t cry, Dana. It rips me.”

  “It’s a little tough to get through otherwise.” But she swiped her fingers under her eyes. “We were young, Jordan, and we both made mistakes. We can’t change what happened, but we can put it in place and try to be friends again.”

  “We’re grown up now, and we’ve got today to deal with. You want to be friends, I’ll be your friend.”

  “Okay.” She managed a wobbly smile and held out a hand.

  “There’s just one more thing you need to know.” He clasped her fingers firmly in his. “I’m in love with you.”

  “Oh.” Her already unsteady heart stumbled. “God.”

  “I never got over you. Whatever I felt for you back then, it was like the root. Time went on, I’d keep trying to kill that root, but it wouldn’t die. I’d breeze back into town to see Flynn, catch a glimpse of you, or you’d take a shot at me, and what was growing on that root would nudge a little further up from the ground.”

  “Damn it, Jordan. Damn it.”

  Whatever it cost him, he had to get it out. “This last time, when I knocked on Flynn’s door and you opened it, it was like that vine shot up another ten feet and wrapped around my throat. I’m in love with you, Dana. I can’t kill it off, and I wouldn’t if I could. So, I’m spilling my heart at your feet this time. It’s yours, whatever you do with it.”

  “What do you think I’m going to do, you jackass?” She leaped into his arms.

  Relief, joy, pleasure rushed through him like a flood as he buried his face in her hair. “That’s what I was hoping you’d say.”

  THE first thing Dana heard when she walked back into Indulgence was arguing. Just one of the essential elements, in her opinion, that made a house a home. She cocked an ear toward her section of the building, and held up a hand for quiet when Jordan stepped in behind her.

  “I’m not going to hurt myself. I’m perfectly capable of running an electric sander. You just don’t want anyone else to play with it.”

  “In the first place, it’s not a toy.” There was such chilly exasperation in Brad’s voice that Dana had to muffle a snort. “In the second, once I’ve finished this area—which I would already have done if you didn’t keep nagging—”

  “I don’t nag.” There were equal parts venom and insult in Zoe’s response.

  Dana gave Jordan’s arm a tug. “You go referee the Irritable Twins,” she whispered. “I need to talk to Malory.”

  “Why can’t I talk to Malory?”

  “A real man wouldn’t be afraid to—”

  “Oh, stop that.” He hunched his shoulders, jammed his hands in his pockets, and strode off in the direction of the spat.

  Dana buffed her nails on her jacket. “Works every time.” Then she huffed out a breath, squared her own shoulders, and headed in the opposite direction to swallow her serving of crow.

  The walls in what would be Malory’s main showroom were finished. And looked, Dana decided, just swell. She could hear the music from the radio jingling out from the room beyond, and Malory’s singing along with Bonnie Raitt.

  She was also, Dana noted as she stepped in, grooving. As Malory swiped the roller up and down, her hips bumped to the jumpy Delta beat.

  “You got that up so loud just to keep up your rhythm, or to block out the sexual tension from across the hall?”

  Malory turned, set down her roller to give her arms a rest. “A little of both. How’re you doing?”

  “How do I look?”

  “Better.” Malory took a closer study. “In fact, you look pretty damn good.”

  “I feel pretty damn good. First, I’m sorry. I was feeling miserable and I took it out on you. You were only trying to help.”

  “Friends do that. Take their moods out on each other, and try to help. Both of you looked so unhappy, Dana.”

  “Well, we were. We had reason to be. Whatever Kane’s motives, he showed me the truth. I couldn’t just bury what happened before, all that hurt. It had to be dealt with, taken out, looked at. Understood, at least.”

  “You’re right.”

  “No, you were right.” She peeled off her jacket, tossed it on the window ledge. “I wasn’t dealing with it, not by starting things up with Jordan again, or cutting them off. I just had it buried in a very shallow grave. We both did.”

  “You needed time together first, to get to know each other again.”

  “You’re right. You’re batting a thousand today.”

  “Though I’ve never understood exactly what that means, let me see if I can keep it up. You went to see Jordan, you talked some of this out, and you reached the understanding, at last, that you’re in love with each other.”

  “Sign her up. He loves me.” When Dana’s eyes filled, Malory whipped the kerchief off her head and rushed over to offer it. “Thanks. He said things to me he didn’t say before. Couldn’t say, or wouldn’t. I don’t guess it matters. He wasn’t ready, and if I’m going to be honest about it, we weren’t ready. I loved him, but that wasn’t enough to let me see what he was going through, what he needed. What I needed, for that matter. It was blinding, so all I could see was ‘I want Jordan.’ Period. I never thought about what we’d do together, or be together, what either of us needed to do separately to make it strong. It was all just right that minute.”

  “You were young, and in love.” Malory took the kerchief back and dried her own eyes.

  “Yeah, I was. I loved him with everything I had. But I have more now. And it’s so amazing, really, to be able to take one step back and look at the man he is, the man he’s made of himself and realize he’s more. To know it was worth the wait.”

  “Dana.”

  Her damp eyes went wide on Malory’s face, then she blinked rapidly before turning to where Jordan stood in the doorway. “This is girl stuff here.”

  “Dana.” He said her name again, then crossed to her. She saw the emotion swirling in his eyes, blazing in the blue before his arms banded around her. He hitched her up to her toes as his mouth swooped down to hers.

  “Oh.” Undone, Malory buried her face in the kerchief.

  “Okay, I’d just like to say—” Zoe stormed halfway into the room before she skidded to a halt. Staring at the couple wrapped in each other, she pressed a hand to her heart. “Oh.” She reached back to dig the bandanna out of her pocket, but Brad stepped up beside her, pushed his into her hand.

  “Thanks.” She sniffled into it. “But I did have my own.”

  “Shut up, Zoe.”

  Because the moment was too precious to spoil, she did.

  Jordan eased back. “There’s something I have to do.”

  Her eyebrow winged up, and her smile was quick and wicked. “Right here? In front of all our friends?”

  “Cool,” was Brad’s response, which earned him Zoe’s elbow in his belly.

  “This isn’t the time for gutter thoughts.”

  “It’s always the time.”

  “Ignore them,” Jordan murmured and pressed his lips to Dana’s forehead.

  “I am.”

  “There’s something I have to do,” he said again. “So I have to renege on givin
g you a hand around here today.”

  “But—”

  “It’s important,” he interrupted. “I’ll explain it tonight.”

  “We all need to get together tonight and go over what you wrote. I’m running out of time.”

  “Why don’t we meet at Flynn’s? It’s the most central.” He glanced over. “Is that okay with you, Malory?”

  “Sure. The kitchen’s not finished yet, so we won’t get food like we did at Brad’s. Actually, even with the kitchen finished we wouldn’t get food like we had at Brad’s.”

  “Pizza and beer works for me,” Dana said.

  “That’s my girl.” Jordan kissed her again. “I’ll see you there.”

  “You’ve got something up your sleeve.” Dana narrowed her eyes. “I can see it. If you’re thinking about messing with Kane—”

  “He’s got nothing to do with this. I’ve got to go, or I’m not going to get it all done. Brad, you’re coming with me.”

  “I haven’t finished here.”

  “You go. Take him,” Zoe said, pointing at Brad. “Leave the sander. All will be well here.”

  “You’re not hauling that thing upstairs by yourself.”

  “It’s not that heavy, and I’m not that weak.”

  “You’re not carrying it up those stairs.”

  “Jesus, Vane, cart the thing up and be done with it.” Grinning, Jordan slung his arm around Dana’s shoulder. “Don’t you know how to handle a woman?”

  “Kiss my ass.” Brad turned on his heel and strode away.

  “I can do it myself,” Zoe began.

  “Zoe.” Basking in the glow of love rediscovered, Dana shook her head. “Stop being a jerk.”

  “I can’t help it.” Zoe lifted her hands, let them fall. “He brings out the jerk in me.” She heard him cursing under his breath as he carried the sander toward the steps, and folded her arms over her chest. “I’m not going to say anything. I’m not going to do anything.”