“I know you do.” Tom was unrelenting. “Be very clear on one thing, Laura. You’re important to us, but Richard and Julie are family, and you’re an outsider. This family will survive this only if we mind our own business.”
Laura was grateful that he couldn’t see the burning in her cheeks. “Okay.”
“Good.” Tom obviously had no intention of letting up on her. “I like you, Laura. I always thought I would, from hearing about you all these years, and I’m happy to see you home—”
“Thank you—”
“But get in the way of my client,” said Tom relentlessly, “and – fair warning – I’ll mow you down. I may be your brother-in-law, but I am also Richard Ashmore’s lawyer, and my client comes first.”
She couldn’t wait to hang up.
~•~
Laura spent the rest of the week alone, exploring her new home, switching bedrooms after one night in an exceedingly uncomfortable horsehair bed. Lucy took her to lunch Thursday to show her off to a client who had agreed to underwrite the concert, and Diana called once just to chat. Neither of them mentioned Julie.
She loved being alone, but Meg’s absence left a hole in her heart.
The loneliness of not being part of Meg’s everyday life hit worst in the evenings. She had never felt so emotionally severed from her daughter. Even the nightly calls didn’t diminish her sense of isolation. Meg belonged to Laura St. Bride, and more and more Laura St. Bride was vanishing into the past, more and more Laura Abbott became the present.
Her sense of distance didn’t carry over the line. Meg chattered on as she always had, supremely confident that her mother wanted to know every detail of every day. She did, she did, and she didn’t even mind that the price to pay for sharing Meg’s day long distance lay in Mark’s attempts, even now, to help her run her life. He quizzed her mercilessly. What security did she have at Edwards Lake, what was she thinking, doing a benefit concert while she was supposed to be on vacation, had she seen that man yet?
She lied.
Edwards Lake was a showcase. Even the virtual tour on the web site had not shown the full beauty of the polished Chippendale staircase, the etched glass half-lights over the doors, the soft lushness of the bedroom she finally chose. She found Richard’s restoration notes in the house guidebook and saw his touch in every corner. Absent he might be, but his work surrounded her. When Mark asked the inevitable question, she considered telling him: I live in a house he restored, I sleep in a sensuous bedroom he calls his favorite, I cook in a replica of the kitchen at Ashmore Magna, where Peggy taught me to make cookies for him. And he lives only four miles from me. He haunts me, just as Cam always feared he did. But, no, I haven’t seen him since last week. Satisfied?
Friday, she buckled down to work. The drawing room held the grand piano she had requested, an exquisitely tuned Steinway, and she spent the morning losing herself in her classical heritage. The romance of Sleeping Beauty, the drama of the Polovetsian Dances, the mathematical beauty of Bach…. No flat neighbor complained; no Meg interrupted. Eventually, she slipped into contemporary favorites, adding her considerable projection to a makeshift medley to warm up her voice after ten days away from practice.
The exercise of playing jarred loose a tune from her subconscious, and she switched on her digital recorder and laptop. She played for hours, pausing occasionally to scribble down an idea in her music journal and just as often to throw the wadded page to the floor. Max, coming in to remind her about dinner, allowed her to distract him temporarily by running to catch the paper balls she threw across the room. The tune was trash, of course. She had learned over the years that she always produced a certain amount of drivel before her subconscious would allow her to get serious.
But at least she was writing again! She felt back on track, words and emotions flowing through her like a stream.
Max tolerated another hour of “Just a sec” and “I know, I know” and absent-minded pats on the head. Then, as the shadows in the room deepened and she showed no signs of moving towards the kitchen, he took drastic action and rubbed his cold, wet nose across the back of her legs.
That got results.
“Ugh!” Laura pushed him away, but he had her attention now, and he repeated his cold sweep across her skin. She forestalled a third go-round by picking him up and ruffling his mane. “Okay, okay, you’ve heard enough, haven’t you, baby? Ready for dinner?”
Max nipped at her shoulder.
“I get it.” She put him down and followed him through the long hall that connected the kitchen annex to the main house. The first step to updating Edwards Lake lay in connecting the heart of the modern family home to its living area, per the architect; the second had obviously lain in the recreation of the kitchen where he and she had spent some of their happiest hours.
She dished out tuna and eggs for Max, cheered on by loud purrs and tail rubs against her ankles. She managed to get chicken seasoned and under the broiler for her own supper before he lifted his attention from his bowl. Then, when he raised his face after a minute, he showed none of his usual interest in her food. His nose twitched reflexively – no use letting those smells go to waste – he froze suspiciously; his ears flattened. Probably some bird noises that she couldn’t hear, she figured, and she paid only scant attention. He looked around, then jumped up on the table by the large picture window and brushed aside the curtains.
“Get down, Max.” She couldn’t risk claw marks on the old trestle table.
His tail waved in response.
“Down!” She put down the paring knife and approached the window.
Then she heard it too, very faintly in the distance, the sound of horses’ hooves beating against the earth, coming through the back fields. She forgot dinner, she forgot the tune still working itself through her mind, she forgot Diana and Julie, she forgot that she never wanted to see him again. The back fields, and Ashmore Park bordered Edwards Lake…. She fumbled at the latch on the door.
The fence to the stable yard lay a hundred yards beyond the pool, but she had a clear view as he jumped the fence on an enormous gray hunter. She stood still as he cantered to a post and dismounted gracefully. He had ridden all his life, with a landed Virginian’s inbred love of horseflesh; he had seated her on her first horse and patiently transformed her into a credible rider.
You’re here, you came back.
She brushed her hands on her capris and felt every nerve ending against the cool cotton. Her heart had picked up speed; she was acutely aware of the flush spreading through her body. You’re here, you’re here – and for all that she despised him, for all that she would never forgive him, the sight of him woke her from the protective slumber of eleven years.
He had seen her now and lifted a hand in greeting. She scooped up Max before he made a break for it, and strolled over to the stable yard while Richard filled a water bucket. Max had never seen a horse before and betrayed his cowardly self by clinging to her with all claws.
“Hi,” she said into the quiet, and cuddled Max for armor.
“Hi yourself,” he threw over his shoulder. His hands were busy running a quick brush over the hunter. A stretch of silence followed his clipped greeting, only a minute or so, a long unfriendly space to drown in.
She offered, “You still keep horses.”
“A few.” His tone gentled. He reached up into the hunter’s mane. “Not as many as when Dad was alive. I don’t have the time for a full stable anymore. I’ll get a mount here for you this weekend.”
“That’s okay.” Laura relaxed. “I don’t ride.”
That arrested Richard’s attention. “What do you mean, you don’t ride? Don’t they have horses in Texas? Or the UK?”
“I don’t ride.” She hadn’t mounted a horse since the time she had fallen off in front of Cam and Emma, and they had doubled up in laughter. “Keep the horse over there. I don’t want the responsibility.”
He might have said more; in fact, he looked as if a whole raft of questions w
aited on his tongue, but Max rescued her. Securely nestled in her arms, her cat surveyed the tall stranger and the monstrous beast beyond, judged his chances of coming out alive, and hissed.
Twice.
“Good Lord.” Richard looked down at Max in amusement and extended a finger to be sniffed. “This one never misses a meal, does he? Where’d he come from?”
“He’s mine. I flew him in from home.” She caught his eye. “Don’t say it. I’m not supposed to have a pet here, but I missed him. I couldn’t have him in London because of the quarantine laws, so this is the first time in a year he’s lived with me. He’s good company when I’m working.”
“Is he now?” He slid a finger under Max’s chin and rubbed, and her treacherous animal sighed in ecstasy. She tried not to react to the heat of his hand so close to her breast. “How’ve you been this week, Laurie? Sorry I haven’t been in touch. I’ve been in Charleston.”
“I’ve been settling in. Relaxing. Working some.” His hand, as he smoothed back the fur on Max’s head, accidentally brushed against her breast, and she moved away hastily. “How’s Julie? I heard she’s down with a cold.”
“Yes, I’ve got her at home in bed. She was very disappointed not to see you.” He withdrew his hand. “I don’t know if the agents told you, I generally come over once a week to check things out. If you want to make other arrangements, just let them know.”
She resisted his formality; she resisted even more the notion that she deserved it. “I don’t want to get in the way. Go right ahead with anything you need to do.”
“It shouldn’t take long.”
Then he would be on his way. Once, he would have stayed – but once they had been friends, no blood, no betrayal, no secret love affair between them. She remembered her chicken broiling away and flipped mentally through her culinary repertoire for an enticement to make him stay. Purely, she thought, because Edwards Lake was so isolated. She wanted company.
“Come on up when you’re finished.” She saw a faint surprise on his face, a mute echo of her accusation the week before.
“Some other time—”
“I’ll fix you some iced tea.” He was tempted, she could tell, and she baited the trap. “I bought mixings for cookies.”
He laughed. “I surrender, Laurie! Knock off the bribery. I surrender.”
~•~
She walked him to the pool and then left him to his task. He watched her lure her fluffy feline up the path to the kitchen annex, and his eyes lingered on her for academic reasons. Even a brother-in-law was permitted to admire long legs and a pretty backside shown to advantage by perky capris; he might be forgiven for resting his eyes on the gentle bounce of her blouse as she turned at the door and waved; he certainly had no business wondering how the skin at her throat would taste—
He yanked his unruly thoughts back into line and hoped to God that the rest of him would follow.
The walkaround of the grounds took longer than it should have, considering their immaculate condition. He dragged it out as long as he thought he could; the sky had darkened by the time he locked up the small pool cabana. The lights were shining through the annex windows, and the teal of her blouse let him follow her movements. He really should beg off – Julie needed him, he had work to do, his house demanded his attention. All true. The real reason, of course, was that he was a prudent man, and he knew that it was the worst folly, in his present loneliness, to spend time with a lovely woman who wore her attraction to him on her sleeve.
Such folly, in fact, that he wasn’t going to yield to temptation. He was going home to his daughter and a week’s worth of mail from his office, and the next time he saw Laura Abbott, he intended to be in the middle of a large crowd. A crowd so large, he hoped, that he would not easily remember the brush of her breast beneath his hand.
He knocked briefly on the back door and let himself into the kitchen. She had her back to him, talking into a headset, telling someone in no uncertain terms to buckle down to her homework and not bring home any more D’s. He tried to be quiet as he crossed the room, but she heard him, and she turned to give him a smile and wave a mixing spoon towards the trestle table.
He was not prepared for the feelings that flooded him at that moment: the sharp awareness that the girl to whom she spoke (in a “Mom” voice) was his own flesh and blood; the sense that he had recreated his mother’s kitchen so that someday Laura Abbott could stand here; the thought that, had Diana ever once appeared thus, laughing, admonishing, happy to be a mother to his daughter, he might have forgiven her anything.
His daughter. Tom had warned him that an original birth certificate was difficult to come by after an adoption, but the St. Bride divorce petition and Cameron St. Bride’s will, both on file in Collin County, Texas, and open to all and sundry, had supplied all the information he needed. He had stared down at the date of Meg’s birth, which seemed bewilderingly early but was still – barely – within the range of possibility. Too many pieces had fallen into place to dismiss his suspicions out of hand: Francie’s pallor the day he broke off with her; Laura’s marriage four months after Meg’s birth; her long, unbroken silence. It explained everything except how Francie had legally given Meg away without his consent. Tom thought that she had probably claimed the father as unknown.
Francie had signed away his rights.
Damn her anyway. If she’d played straight…. But Francie never played straight, and he’d known that all along. She’d given him the benefit of her considerable sexual enthusiasm because she wanted to show her sister up, and he’d enjoyed what she offered because he could no longer endure the emotional wasteland of his marriage. He could scarcely complain, all these years after the fact, if Francie had refused to be stuck with the consequences.
But he could wonder. Wonder only, too. He might be unnatural, but he felt nothing more than a reasonable curiosity about Meg St. Bride. He had helped put her on this earth, but he had no ties to her, no bonds born of long years of raising her and disciplining her and loving her. He did not know this accidental child. She might be the fruit of his body, but she was not the child of his heart.
She was not Julie.
Still, he wondered. And here – right here – stood the only mother Meg had ever known.
He decided to stay after all.
Laura bid her daughter goodbye, but she did not hang up, and her voice changed. He poked around the foodstuffs she had assembled on the island, helping himself to a handful of chocolate chips and pretending not to see the stern look she gave him. Her conversation consisted mostly of “All right” and “I’ll be there” and “You said that already,” finishing up with an indignant “I’ll do it myself!”
“Trouble?” he asked lightly, when she disconnected.
She laid down the spoon and checked the oven. Something wonderful floated out into the room, and he resisted the urge to peek. “Another minute or so.” She closed the oven door. “No, no trouble, not really. Meg’s schooling got messed up from living in London. She got a D on an algebra test in summer school, and Mark’s upset, although it really is none of his business.”
Julie never brought home anything less than a B. “Didn’t she study?”
Laura laughed. “You sound just like Mark. Of course she didn’t study, that’s the point.” She started dumping cookie ingredients into a large mixing bowl. “Meg claims that she’s genetically programmed not to understand anything with numbers except her allowance.”
So much for heredity; he had minored in math with honors. He was in her way, so he took the bag of chocolate chips and leaned against the counter across from the island, where he had the best view of her. “Another genius like her mother.”
She rapped his knuckles lightly as his hand snaked into the bag. “Out! And I wasn’t so dumb. I studied.”
He watched the overhead light dance off her hair, and for a moment he forgot Meg, forgot his entire purpose for accepting her invitation. Dear heaven, how lovely she looked. She had been sweet as a young
girl, alluring and mysterious as Cat Courtney; he saw her now as she must appear in her other life, casual, relaxed, domestic. Why had Cameron St. Bride ever thought to let this woman go? Why hadn’t he fought harder to keep her?
“Of course,” Laura added, and dragged him back to reality, where a mere brother-in-law was not entitled to dwell on what it must be like to come home to a woman like this, “you helped. I never would have passed trig without you. I was sunk before that.”
“So was Francie,” he said. “Didn’t you take a test for her, Laura Rose?”
She paused in the act of removing a dish from the oven. “Good Lord, I’d forgotten all about that! I can’t believe you remember.”
He was sorry he had. A fragment of memory coalesced into Francie, hair framed against a pillow, laughing – Oh, no one will miss me! Laurie’s taking a math test for me. My alibi’s good for the afternoon. He hoped to God that Meg didn’t owe her existence to Francie’s inattention in trig class.
She busied herself setting the casserole on a cooling rack, and she looked no more ready than he was to discuss Francie. He cast around for another topic, any topic, to remove that tension from her eyes. “What’s this about being there? Homesick already?”
“For Meg,” Laura admitted. “I have to fly down there for a couple of days. Mark wants to hire a tutor for her, and that’s really my responsibility. Plus—”
“Plus you miss her.”
“Every minute.” She took out flatware and dishes. “Silly, isn’t it? Here I am, the first time in th – years and years that I’ve had the luxury of not being a mother first and foremost, and I can’t stand it.” She stopped in the midst of setting the table, troubled. “Cam used to say that I’d made her too dependent on me, but I’m just as dependent on her.”
Not politically correct to think ill of the dead, but he was beginning to dislike Cameron St. Bride heartily. “It’s easy to get dependent,” he said easily, and came over to help her. “Julie went to music camp last summer, and for an hour or two I actually enjoyed myself. For the first time in my life, I had no one to answer to. After two days, I was ready to drive up to the mountains and bring her back.”
All Who Are Lost (Ashmore's Folly Book 1) Page 21
