“How did you find me now?”
She waved her hand. “I’m not sure. Something about an intern at the network or something. I was on a plane within an hour. I’ve been so nervous about meeting you, wondering what you would think of me. I hear that you are a teacher.”
Colleen nodded.
“I never had an education. I was working. There were tutors and such on set, but there was never really time. I didn’t learn anything. I am always a little ashamed of that. I don’t even have a high school diploma, and here you are a teacher. You must have all kinds of degrees.”
“A BA, an MAT, and various certifications.”
“I don’t even know what you are talking about. That’s how ignorant I am. You will have to explain it all to me, but we do need to talk about these network bookings. I know you’re doing the morning show soon, but there’s still plenty of time. I hope you’ll use my stylist and my hairdresser. They’re both so good. And we don’t want to show up in colors that clash.”
“Clash? We aren’t appearing together. That has been set.”
“Of course we are going to be together. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Isn’t that what everyone wants? To see us together? That’s really important, and if you ask, the network will schedule it. They will have to.”
Colleen pushed her scraggly hair off her face. “This has been very difficult for me.”
“I know, I know. But my people can all make it so much easier for you. You won’t have to worry about a thing.” Autumn’s eyes were warm and overpowering. “You will be thrilled with what we can do with your hair.”
Colleen was not going to apologize for her hair. Yes, it was straggling and shapeless, but she was going to get it cut in New York next week. And why was Autumn talking about her hair? Where was the loss and the emptiness that Autumn had said she had felt? Where, amid all this charisma and energy and warmth, was that?
“I think it would be better for me to do this alone,” Colleen said quietly.
“Oh, but why? You’re my daughter. We should do things together.”
Ben was standing in the corner of the kitchen, not saying anything.
“Is this why you are here?” Colleen asked. “To get on the show?”
“No, no, no, no.” Autumn’s beautifully trained voice trilled through the syllables, making each one different. “I’m here to see you, my darling, you.”
“It does seem that you care more about the publicity.”
“Does the publicity make you uncomfortable?” Autumn didn’t seem to have heard what Colleen had really said. “It’s nothing to worry about. You’ll get used to it. After a while you won’t even notice the cameras, and talking to reporters, you simply think of them as friends. That’s all there is to it. Most of them are lovely people. And that’s all the more reason we should do it together so I can help you if you run into trouble.”
Anyone who could think of reporters as friends must not know much about friendship. “I am going to follow the advice I am getting.”
“Gideon’s family hired those people, didn’t they? I should have realized that I would start having to compete with him even though he is dead.” She swiveled, looking back at Ben. “Please, Gary, you’re her friend. Tell her that she and I need to appear together. That it really will be the best thing for everyone.”
“No, ma’am, I don’t tell her what to do,” he said.
“Oh, but you must,” Autumn pleaded. “You must.” When Ben shook his head, she turned back to Colleen. “You have to understand how much I have sacrificed to find you. I don’t care about all those numbers and sales, but they say that the brand might never recover, that we might have to close it all down. And I did it for you.”
Colleen was not going to let anyone make her feel guilty. “I believe that the most dignified route will be for me to appear alone.”
“Dignified? What are you talking about? You’re trying to punish me. I was told about that, some children are so angry about being relinquished that they try to punish their mothers.”
“I am not angry, and I’m not a child.”
“But if you go on alone, what are you going to say? How are you going to explain why I’m not there? People are going to wonder. You’re going to be asked.”
“I will tell them the truth. I don’t need a mother. I had a wonderful mother. She died, but thanks to my father marrying again, I have a wonderful stepmother.”
“Is that what you are going to say? That you have no room for me in your life? You shouldn’t say that. You will come across as so cold.”
“I know that I am not cold. It doesn’t matter what other people watching me on TV think. And I’m not saying that there is no room for you. I hope someday that I will have children, and my children will need a grandmother.”
“A grandmother? Who, me? A grandmother?” Autumn was genuinely stunned.
“I’m almost twenty-eight. I could have had four children by now.”
“You aren’t going to go on the network and call me a grandmother, are you?”
“No, because you aren’t, but if someone asks what I hope for in terms of our relationship, it will be that.”
“You can’t do that. You simply can’t do that.”
As quickly as Colleen had realized that she wanted this house, she realized something else. She would not tell her children that Autumn was their grandmother.
For all that had been wrong with her as a human being, Grannor had been, at least until her will, predictable as a grandparent. She didn’t make many plans or promises, but if she did, she followed through completely. She wasn’t sunny one day and critical the next. She was critical all the time, but at least the grandkids had known what to expect, and children needed that.
A grandchild of Autumn’s would have to walk on eggshells. She would promise an all-access pass to the secret places in Disneyland and then cancel at the last minute, leaving a child wondering if it were their fault. She would fawn over grandchildren when they were adorable toddlers dressed in perfect clothes. But when they started to choose their own clothes, wearing a fluffy pink ballerina skirt with a red Wonder Woman T-shirt, the rejection would be instant.
If Colleen only had herself to consider, she would go on forever wanting to believe in an Autumn who wasn’t really there. She would risk the soul-deep disappointment for herself, but only for herself.
Not for a child. Her sometimes unthinking optimism would stop there. Never for a child.
She was ready for Autumn to leave. “B—Gary, would you please get our guest her coat?”
Autumn was still staring at Colleen speechless when Ben returned. He held the coat open, but Autumn didn’t seem to see him.
“It’s raining, ma’am,” he said. “You need your coat.”
“You aren’t really asking me to leave, are you?” she implored Colleen. “I’m your mother.”
“I do think it would be better if you left now.”
Ben draped the coat over Autumn’s shoulders and took her arm. “You need to come with me, ma’am.”
A minute later Colleen heard the door open and close just as the teakettle begin to whistle.
Autumn hadn’t been here long enough for water to boil. This was the supposedly legendary meeting, the one that fans everywhere would be aching to witness. It hadn’t lasted long enough for water to boil.
Ben’s footsteps grew louder as he approached the kitchen. “Grandmother…that was a zinger.”
“She would be on probation. I don’t trust her.” Colleen turned off the burner under the teakettle. “You can say ‘I told you so’ because you didn’t trust her from the beginning.”
“I’m not going to say that, not after what I just saw.”
That didn’t make any sense. “What are you talking about?”
“You. The way you handled that. Your dad, my dad, my brother,
me…we’ve all been thinking that you couldn’t handle this on your own—”
“I have needed help.”
“Maybe we are good at the planning and the logistics, all that, but when it comes to relationships, you’re better than anybody. If we had followed your instincts and gotten you and Autumn in a room together right away, this all would have played out very differently. We should have done it your way.”
“But then she would have never revealed Gideon’s name. She dribbled information a bit at a time to keep people interested in the search. It worked out as it should have. As much conflict as you and I had with each other, we make a good team, Ben.”
She put out her hand, but she didn’t cross it across her body as she would in a handshake. He took it, slipping his fingers under her palm, and started to raise her hand as if he was going to kiss it.
The doorbell rang again.
“Do you think that’s her?” Colleen curved her fingers around his so that he couldn’t let go.
Ben shook his head, still not letting go of her hand. “She couldn’t have actually come alone.”
“She probably never does anything alone.” How warm his fingers were, how strong.
The doorbell rang again. And again. “They aren’t going to leave,” she said.
“No,” he said. They let their hands drop. When they got to the door, he glanced through one of the sidelight again. “It’s someone from her entourage.”
Without him telling her to, Colleen retreated into the dark dining room. Ben opened the door to a man who was middle-aged and slightly overweight, an aging pretty boy. He had a large, shiny shopping bag in his hand. Colleen recognized the logo. It was from Autumn’s handbag collection. “I had to come talk to you,” he said, his voice a little shaky. “Autumn is so upset. You can’t do this to her.”
“Why not?” Ben asked.
The man was even more startled. “Because…” He didn’t know how to answer that. “She’s Autumn, Autumn Chase. People love her.”
“I know they do.” Colleen stepped forward. “And that’s good. Everyone needs to be loved, but I’m not part of that.”
The man looked at her. “You’re Ariel? Here, she wanted you to have this.” He held out the bag. When Colleen didn’t take it, he tried to give it to Ben, who had his arms folded. The man then set it on the floor. “Why didn’t you come forward?” he asked Colleen. “Do you have any idea how much you hurt her by hiding? Why would you want to hurt her like that? She’s your mother. You owe her. She could have had an abortion.”
Colleen lifted her hands, shrugging.
“And she said something about you calling her a grandmother. Don’t you understand that you can’t do that? You simply can’t.”
“She can’t declare herself to be my mother and then say that when I have children, she’s not a grandmother. It doesn’t work that way.”
“But that’s not right,” he insisted.
Colleen couldn’t see the logic of that. “I don’t think there’s any reason to invite you in,” she said even though the man had already taken a few steps in when he was trying to give one of them the bag.
“But I can’t leave. Autumn told me that I had to stay until you agreed to talk to her.”
For a moment Colleen felt a little sorry for him. But he was not her problem.
At least he wouldn’t be once she got him to leave. “This is a Southern home,” she said. “We have guns. In fact, Gary, you’re armed, aren’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Ben had the sense to take a menacing step forward, but then moved his hand toward his hip as if he were a gunslinger in an old Western.
Except it was obvious even to a person as distressed as this man that Ben hadn’t gotten up this morning and buckled on a leather holster and a Colt .45.
The man looked confused. Colleen took advantage of the moment to announce, “The door is heavy. You best take a step back.”
Instinctively the man did so. Ben reached around Colleen to slam the door shut with such force that the floorboards vibrated.
She turned her head to look at him. “Your hip, Gary? Reaching for your hip didn’t fool anyone.”
“I’m wearing jeans and a tee. Where would I be hiding a gun? And do we have guns?”
“I have no idea. Maybe in the basement somewhere. But you had a good time with the ‘ma’am’ thing, didn’t you?” Then she noticed the shopping bag. She crossed the hall to pick it up.
“Oh, crap,” Ben said. “I wish I had thought to throw that after him.”
“Let’s look at it first. My sister-in-law says there’s a blue purse that she wants.”
Colleen sat the bag on the round center hall table. There were two purses inside, one was an all-purpose black, the other an all-purpose summery taupe. They were from the highest end of Autumn’s collection. The only brand identification was a little pewter-toned maple leaf dangling from one of the zipper pulls. Autumn’s lower-priced purses had her name and logo splashed all over them.
She would have liked to have hated these purses, but they were absolutely, totally, and completely perfect. Made of a microfiber so that they were light, carefully constructed with pleats and gussets, they didn’t look anywhere near as big as they actually were, but you could carry a small laptop or even a pair of heels in them.
She lined them up on the hall table, admiring them. She wondered how much Autumn had had to do with the design.
“You’re keeping them?” Ben sounded surprised.
“No. I’m going to send them to Patty and Liz. It’s the least they deserve. They’ve been so good at keeping their mouths shut, and it’s been hard for them.”
Ben cleared this throat. “Are we done talking about handbags?”
Colleen gave the black bag one last little pat. “I suppose.”
“Then can we go back to talking about how amazing you were, so clear and firm, so definite.”
“I’m pretty pleased with myself,” she admitted. “I felt like my grandmother. Grannor, I mean. Not the mean, nasty part, but the strong, lay-it-on-the-line, be-in-control lady. Grannor herself would have called it ‘being a Ridge.’ It felt good.”
“Your behavior and this house did put a crimp in any rescuer fantasies that Autumn might have had.”
The hall chandelier kindled all the copper highlights in his hair. Autumn was right about one thing. He really was a very good-looking man. But that wasn’t why she loved him. “Fortunately in all this Grandmother Ridge-ness, I’ve held on to enough of Grammy O’Connell to believe in love.”
“Your family is a loving one.”
“For God’s sake, I am not talking about that. I’m talking about you and me.” She laid her palm against his cheek. His skin was warm. His eyes were jade, soft and lustrous. “There are good things you can believe in, Ben, especially me. You can believe in me.”
She lifted her chin. She was going to kiss him. She didn’t need him to go first. She was going to do more than kiss him. She was going to propose. Nice girls might wait to be asked, but Colleen wasn’t all that nice anymore.
Suddenly he stepped back, leaving her hand dangling. He was pulling his phone out of his pocket.
“What are you doing?” she demanded. “I’m being all gushy and romantic, and you’re making a phone call?”
“I’m making a flight reservation. I’m going to Chicago tomorrow.”
“Chicago?” She was bewildered. “Why?”
“Because I’m a good Southern boy, and we ask the father first.”
It took her a moment to figure out what he was talking about. “You aren’t serious, are you?”
“Of course I am. Ryan did it. Tommy too, even though Megan’s dad is a worthless drunk. I’ll need to take your grandmother’s car to the airport.”
“You’ll do no such thing. In fact, don’t you dare confirm that reservati
on.” She tried to grab the phone, but he turned and quite easily held it out of her reach. Tilting back his head, he raised his other arm to try and complete the reservation overhead.
His ribs made a tempting target. Colleen started poking at him. “At least call him. Don’t fly halfway across the country.” She continued to poke. “And what will you do if he says no?”
“Would you cut that out?” He swatted at her hand. “I’ll be sorry if he refuses permission because I know you would hate going against his wishes.”
“But you know I’d do it anyway, don’t you?”
“Can’t you at least humor me and pretend that we men still have some patriarchal authority?”
“No.” She moved in front of him so she could poke at his ribs with both hands.
“I’m serious, Colleen. That’s annoying.”
He wasn’t paying attention to how he was holding his phone. She stood on her toes, stretched up, and grabbed it. She brought up the keypad and dialed her father’s number. “Dad, it’s me. Ben Healy wants to talk to you about proposing to me. Here he is.”
She smiled sweetly and, after pressing the speaker button, handed his phone back to him.
Ben glared at her. “Dr. Ridge?”
“Ben?”
“Yes, sir.”
This was getting off to a great start.
“Ah…” Her father didn’t seem to know what to say any more than Ben did. “I appreciate how willing you have been to stay at the lake. We were all worried about Colleen being alone there.”
Clearly the two of them needed someone else to get this party started. “Will one of you get to the point?” she prodded.
Ben still looked like he needed someone to hand him a script. After a moment, her father spoke. “Genevieve told me that this might happen. Colleen’s right there, isn’t she?”
“Obviously,” Colleen said.
“So this isn’t exactly the man-to-man conversation you had envisioned.”
Autumn's Child Page 26
