The Last Boyfriend

by Nora Roberts

  “Your mother? When?”

  “She was waiting for me, on the stairs, the night I got home from shopping with Clare and Hope. It really didn’t go well.”

  She came back, sat on the bed beside him, linked her fingers in her lap to keep them steady. “I didn’t even recognize her. I didn’t know who she was until she told me.”

  “It’s been a long time.”

  “I don’t know, maybe I’d blocked her face out of my head. Once I really looked, she hadn’t changed that much. She said she wanted to see me, she was sorry. I wasn’t having it. She cried a lot. It didn’t touch me.”

  “Why should it?”

  “She was pregnant when they got married. I knew that—I’d done the math. And I talked to my father about it a long time ago. They loved each other, he said, and from his side it must’ve been true. Maybe she thought she loved him. She pushed how young she was, just nineteen, but Dad was barely twenty-one. He was young, but he handled it.”

  In comfort, Owen rubbed a hand on her thigh. “Willy B’s a hell of a guy.”

  “Yeah, okay, yeah.” She swiped at a tear, hating it. “I was a fussy baby, she had too much to do, she wasn’t happy. Blah, blah, fucking blah. Then she drops the bombshell of how she’d had an abortion when I was around three.”

  Now Owen laid a hand over hers. “That’s a hard thing to hear.”

  “Yeah, I bet it was a lot harder for my father to hear—after the fact. She went, had an abortion, had her tubes tied, and never discussed those decisions with him. Never told him she was pregnant. Who does that?” she demanded, turning drenched eyes to him. “Who treats someone that way? She knew he wanted more kids, but she ended that possibility without telling him. It’s another, horrible kind of cheating.”

  He said nothing, but got up, found a box of tissues in the bathroom and brought them to her.

  “Thanks. Crying about it doesn’t help, but I can’t get a handle on it yet.”

  “Then maybe crying about it does help.”

  “According to her, what she’d done came out when they were fighting, and gee, he was upset and mad. What are the odds? She agreed to marriage counseling, but hey, she felt trapped and unhappy. So she had an affair. And another. She admitted to two, but there were more than two, Owen, before she left. Even I figured that out.”

  She looked at him now. “You knew. Pretty much everyone knew she was fooling around.”

  He considered a moment, looking into those devastated eyes. She didn’t want soothing evasions. “Yeah, pretty much.”

  “My mother, the town slut. It was easier, really, when she left.”

  This time he took her hand, brought it to his lips. “It’s never easy.”

  “Maybe not, but at least it wasn’t in my father’s face, in mine, anymore. She stayed with the guy she left us for. That’s what she said, and it felt true. Steve. That was his name. I got all the how unhappy she’d been, how she’d needed more. How she loved this Steve guy.”

  “She can justify what she did with that, to herself. You don’t have to accept it. You feel what you feel.”

  “I felt hard. I didn’t like feeling it, but I did. I got lots of sorrys, lots of how pretty I am, how proud she is of what I’ve done with my life. Like she had something to do with it. Then it came out this Steve died, a few months ago.”

  “So she’s alone,” Owen murmured.

  “Yeah, and broke. That came out, too, when she asked if she could borrow a few thousand.”

  He pushed up, walked to her window, stared out at the thickening snow. He couldn’t imagine, just couldn’t imagine a parent using a child for gain.

  But he could imagine just how deep a wound it would score, especially in someone like Avery. “What did you do?”

  “I said a lot of pretty harsh things. She cried more, Jesus, and begged. She wanted to stay here, with me. A couple weeks, she said, then just for the night. It made me sick, all of it, just sick. I gave her what I had in my wallet and kicked her out.”

  “You did what you had to do, and that’s more than a lot of people would have.” He turned back. “Why didn’t you tell me, Avery? Why did you push me away instead of letting me help?”

  “I didn’t tell anyone at first. I just couldn’t.”

  He walked back, stood in front of her. “I’m not anyone.”

  “You can’t understand, Owen. You can sympathize, and I wasn’t looking for sympathy. I don’t think I could’ve handled sympathy. But you can’t understand because you’ve never felt unwanted, not once in your life. You always knew your parents loved you, would’ve done anything to protect you. You don’t know, you don’t know how much I envied you your family, even before she left. How much I needed all of you, and you were always there. My dad and the Montgomerys. You were like my true north.”

  “That hasn’t changed.”

  “No, it hasn’t. But I had to make something of me, for me. No matter how bad things are, and sometimes they were bad in our house, you want your mother to be there, to love you. And when she doesn’t, you feel . . . less.”

  Unable to think of another term, she lifted her hands, let them fall. “Just less. It didn’t matter what my dad said, what your parents said, and God knows they said and did everything right, I still felt she left because of me. That I was bad or unworthy or just not enough. The truth is, I wasn’t enough.”

  “That’s not on you, Avery.”

  “I know that. But sometimes you know one thing and feel another. Maybe what she did is part of the reason I worked so hard, pushed so hard, and have what I have. So, good for me.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, she plunged on. “Even with that, there’s this thing—the thing that asks why I’ve never been able to maintain a strong, long-term relationship, why I’ve never felt enough to stick, or why I jump too soon, then look for a way out. So I worry that’s what she gave me.”

  “It’s not.”

  “I pushed you away.” Steadier, she looked at him again. “You’re right about that. I hit a rough patch, so my default is push away instead of pull in.”

  “I’m right here.”

  “That’s you, Owen. That’s because you don’t give up. You just work the problem until you have an answer.”

  He sat. “What’s the answer, Avery?”

  “You’re supposed to have it.” But she leaned her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I hurt you, and I let you think you’d done something wrong when you hadn’t. I’ve already got issues, I guess, and seeing her just screwed me up. Not just with you—maybe mostly with you, but not just. I didn’t even tell my father. Then I was going to. I’d worked through it that far.”

  He laid a hand over hers. “What did you cook?”

  “God.” She blinked back tears. “So predictable. Soup. I took a big container of soup over to Dad’s, and she was there.”

  Shifting, he pressed his lips to the top of her head. “Harder yet.”

  “I don’t know. It just sort of flipped a switch. I was so mad, that she’d go there, make him feel any part of what she made me feel. He looked so sad when I burst in. So sad with her sitting there crying. I couldn’t stand it. Same tune, and the thing is, now that I’ve had some time, I don’t think she was lying. Or not altogether. I think she is sorry, and maybe she’s just sorry because she’s alone now and can look back. But that’s the thing. She’s sad, sorry, and alone, and she knows she can’t go back.

  “He gave her five thousand, and told her she could have it if she never contacted me again. He told her to send him her number when she settled, and if I ever wanted to contact her, he’d pass it to me.”

  “That’s Willy B,” Owen said quietly.

  “I couldn’t understand why he’d give her money, and after she’d gone he told me it was because she was grieving. That’s the goodness in him. And it was because it closed a door he and I needed to close. That’s him thinking of me, him loving me.”

  “He’s the best there is. But he’s not the only one who thin
ks of you.”

  “I know. I’m lucky, even blessed. I couldn’t tell you, or Hope or Clare or anyone who really, really matters. I just couldn’t admit my mother came back after all these years because she’s alone and broke. No matter how sorry she may be for what she did, she only came back because she needed something. Knowing that makes me feel less. I wanted to close everybody out until I felt me again.”

  He waited a moment. “I have some things to say.”

  “Okay.”

  “She’s less and always will be for turning her back on you, for walking away not just from her responsibilities but from the potential of you. She’ll never have a daughter who loves her absolutely, without reservation and with real joy. The way you love your dad. She’s less, Avery, not you.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Not finished. Is your dad less?”

  “God, no. He’s more than most people could be.”

  “She left him, too. She walked out on him, without a word. Chose another man over him. She didn’t even give him the respect of truth, of a clean break with a divorce, but it didn’t make him less of a man, of a father, of a friend. She came back because she needed something, and she took his money.”

  “It’s her, not him.”

  “That’s right. It’s her. Not him. Not you.”

  Something loosened inside her, something tight and hard and painful. “It helps to hear that.”

  “I’m still not done. Whether you’re happy or sad or mad or glad, you’re still you. If you figure I’m only around—or you decide you only want me around—when everything’s solid, you’re wrong, and you’re stupid. It’s not going to work that way for me. It’s never been surface with us, and whatever else has changed, that can’t. That’s bottom line.”

  Shame wound through the lessening misery. “I screwed up.”

  “Yeah, you did. I’ll cut you a break this time.”

  Relieved, she managed a smile. “I owe you a break for when you screw up.”

  “I’ll remind you when the time comes. Next, personally I don’t see the point in dragging in prior relationships, how and why they worked or didn’t. This is you and me. If you decide it’s not working, you better damn sure not look for an out. You tell me, to my face. I’m not some loser you need to shake off.”

  “I never thought—”

  “You tried shaking me off.”

  Excuses, rationalizations trembled on her tongue. Weak, she realized. Weak and wrong. “I don’t know if I tried because I thought I could or I knew I couldn’t. I just don’t know the answer to that. Either way, it was wrong because yeah, this is you and me.”

  She laid a hand on his cheek. “Solemn promises, here and now. I’ll tell you to your face when I’m done with you.”

  That got a smile. “Same goes.”

  When she shifted toward him, he put her on his lap. She curled in, held on. “I’m glad you acted like a bully and dragged me up here. I’ve missed talking to you, being with you.”

  “I had to be a bully because you were a moron.”

  “Calling me names isn’t cutting me a break.” She eased back. “And you’ve got Beckett out there making deliveries.”

  “He’s got three kids now. He can use the tips.”

  She laughed, reached for his hand, released it when he yelped. “Oh God.” She lifted it again, carefully. “I really nailed you.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “It’s your own fault for falling for the ‘oooh, you’re hurting me’ ploy.”

  “Won’t happen again.”

  “Let me clean it up.”

  “Later.” He pulled her back in, just sat while the world rode smooth again. “You wouldn’t have any of that soup left?”

  “I have smoked tomato bisque in the freezer. I can heat it up.”

  “Sounds good. Later.” He tipped her head back, found her mouth with his.

  “Definitely later.”

  Feeling sentimental, she roamed his face with kisses as she unbuttoned his shirt. He smelled of sawdust, even along the column of his throat.

  “I’ve missed this, too,” she murmured. “Missed touching you.”

  Only a few days, really, she thought, but the distance had spanned so wide, so deep, it felt like weeks. And here he was, smelling of sawdust, his chest warm and solid under the rough thermal shirt, and his hard-palmed hands confident and easy as he drew her sweater up and away.

  Her true north, she thought. Constant and steady.

  He ached for her. Not just physically, but in his heart for the hurt she’d endured. For the fact she’d felt obliged to endure it alone.

  She said he couldn’t understand, but she was wrong. He’d never believed you had to experience pain to understand it.

  He’d thought he knew her, every facet, but there he’d been wrong. The parts of her that questioned her worth, her courage, her heart, those were new to him, added complexities and vulnerabilities.

  To those hurts he offered a gentle touch, an easy glide, pleasing himself with the curves of her, the pulse beats, the sigh of breath warm against his skin.

  When she caught his face in her hands, when he saw her smile up at him before their lips met again, he thought: There. There was Avery. All of her.

  She stroked her hands down his back, over his hips, back again as if measuring the length of him. Wanting to give, just give and give, she shifted to wrap around him, heard him curse when her shoulder pressed against his sore hand.

  “Oops.” It choked a laugh out of her, and everything just fell away. All the guilt and grief, the apologies and worries.

  You and me, she thought again. It’s you and me. So she wrapped around him and nipped her teeth at his shoulder.

  “I’ve got a taste for you now.” She rolled him over, nipped again.

  “Want to play rough?”

  “You already did. Hauling me up here, throwing me down on the bed. Let’s see how you like it.” Mindful of his hand, she clamped his wrists, ranged over him.

  “I like it fine.”

  “Because now we’re naked.”

  “It’s a factor.”

  She lowered her head, stopped a breath from his lips, pulled back, lowered again. Pulled back.

  “You’re asking for trouble.”

  “Oh, I can handle you.”

  She leaned in again, then slid down to glide her tongue over his chest.

  Okay, he thought as his blood surged, she could handle him.

  She owned his body, every inch, teasing, inciting, seducing, exciting. Quick and rough one moment, slow and tender the next, leaving him off balance, off rhythm, and totally possessed.

  “Owen, Owen, Owen.” She whispered it again and again as she rose over him, drunk with power and lust.

  She took him in, deep, deep, clamped her hands on his shoulders as triumph and surrender catapulted through her system. He took her breasts, pressed his hand against her galloping heart.

  She lowered again, and this time let her lips take his in a long, trembling kiss.

  And she rose again, let her head fall back, let everything that was the two of them fill her.

  Then she rode them both empty.

  * * *

  LATER, SHE DOCTORED his hand, kissed the little wound. In her blue-checked robe she heated soup in the kitchen while he poured them each a glass of wine.

  On impulse she lit candles for the table. Not quite a midnight supper, she thought with a glance at the time. But pretty close.

  “It’s snowing hard now. You should stay.”

  “Yeah, I should.”

  Content, she ladled soup into thick white bowls while the snow fell on the rest of the world.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  FOR AS LONG as he could remember, Owen liked to figure things out, find the answers, wiggle out details. His innate propensity for schedules, agendas, bottom lines, and solutions made him a natural as coordinator of Montgomery Family Contractors. He’d never imagined, not seriously, doing anything else, and
couldn’t imagine anything else giving him the same level of satisfaction or pride.

  Working with his brothers suited him. They could and did disagree, piss each other off, bitch and complain. But they always came around. He understood their rhythms as well as he understood his own. He knew the weak spots in each, which could be handy if he was pissed off and wanted to needle.

  Solving problems in a way that presented the facts, offered possible compromises and the occasional ultimatum was his thing.

  He approached the situation with Elizabeth as a problem.

  They had a ghost at the inn. Weird fact, yes, but fact. To date she’d proved mostly amenable, somewhat temperamental, and she’d put them all in her debt by warning Beckett when that asshole Sam Freemont assaulted Clare.

  She’d only asked one thing. For Billy.

  The problem was, who the hell was Billy? When the hell was Billy? What connection did he have to the woman they’d dubbed Elizabeth?

  The ring indicated a relationship, possibly an engagement. But that, in Owen’s world, wasn’t fact.

  Their resident ghost wasn’t saying either way.

  It seemed to Owen the best place to start would be to identify Elizabeth, and to pin down when she’d died.

  Where, though it wasn’t verified fact but logical supposition, was the inn.

  “Makes the most sense, right?” He’d set up his laptop in The Dining Room on the theory Elizabeth might give him more direction if he worked the problem on location.

  “That’s how it strikes me,” Hope agreed, and set coffee at his elbow. “Why else would she be here?”

  “I’ve been poking around paranormal activity sites. You pick up all kinds of wild stuff, and a lot of it has to be crap—but what I’ve pulled out is most people who haven’t, you know, passed over, tend to stick around where they died, or go back to a place that was important or significant to them. If she died here, she could’ve been a guest, could’ve worked here, could’ve been related or connected to the owners.”

  “Death records would be a starting point, but where to start?”

  “That’s part of it, yeah?”

  “Well, the way you described what she wore, it makes me think after the start of the Civil War, and before 1870. Not the wide, wide hoopskirt, but still a wide skirt.”

  “Yeah. Kind of . . .” He held his arms out. “It was a pretty quick look.”

  “If she’d let me get a look at her, I’d have a better idea.” And why wouldn’t she? Hope wondered. After all they were—as Avery said—inn-mates. “How about the sleeves?”

  “The sleeves?”

  “Of the dress, Owen. Long, short, snug, poofy?”

  “Oh. Um . . . long. Kind of big, I think.”

  “Gloves? Did she wear gloves?”

  “I don’t know that I . . . you know, I think so, but without fingers on them. Kind of lacy, or like my grandmother’s crocheting. And now that I think about it, one of those wrap things.”

  “A shawl—and you said a snood.”