by Nora Roberts
“Okay.” He took a steadying breath, pressed his fingers to his tired eyes. “This morning she told me that Gloria had called her. Yesterday. Maybe I overreacted, but damn it, she should have told us.”
“What did she want?” Seth’s lips had gone white. Instinctively, Cam stepped over and laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t let her spook you, kid. You’re beyond that now. What’s the deal?” he demanded of Phillip.
“I didn’t get details. I was too busy blasting Sybill for not telling me sooner. The gist of it was money.” Phillip shifted his gaze to Seth, spoke directly to him. “She told Gloria to kiss ass. No money, no nothing, no how. She told her she’d been to the lawyer and was making sure you stayed just where you are.”
“Your aunt’s no pushover,” Cam said easily, giving Seth’s shoulder a quick squeeze. “She’s got spine.”
“Yeah.” Seth straightened his own. “She’s okay.”
“Your brother over there,” Cam continued, nodding toward Phillip. “He’s an asshole, but the rest of us have sense enough to know that Sybill didn’t bring up the phone call yesterday because it was a party. She didn’t want anybody to get upset. A guy doesn’t turn eleven every day.”
“So I screwed up.” Muttering to himself, Phillip grabbed a plank and prepared to beat out his frustrations with nail and wood. “I’ll fix it.”
* * *
SYBILL NEEDED TO do some fixing of her own. It had taken her most of the day to work up both the courage and the plan. She pulled into the Quinn driveway just after four, and was relieved not to see Phillip’s Jeep.
He’d be at the boatyard for another hour at least, she calculated. Seth would be with him. As it was Saturday night, they would most likely stop on the way home, pick up some takeout.
It was their pattern, and she knew her behavioral patterns, even if she didn’t seem to be able to fully connect with the people who were doing the behaving.
Ten paces back, she thought, and was hurt all over again.
Annoyed, she ordered herself out of the car. She would do what she had come to do. It should take no more than fifteen minutes to apologize to Anna, for the apology to be accepted, at least outwardly. She would explain about the call from Gloria, in detail, so that it could be documented. Then she would leave.
She would be back at her hotel, buried in her work, long before Phillip arrived on the scene.
She knocked briskly on the door.
“It’s open,” came the response. “I’d rather kill myself than get up.”
Warily, Sybill reached for the knob, hesitated, then opened the door. All she could do was stare.
The Quinn living room was usually cluttered, always appeared lived-in, but just now it appeared to have been lived in by a rampaging platoon of insane elves.
Paper plates, plastic cups, several of them dumped or spilled, littered the floor and the tables. Small plastic men were strewn everywhere as if a war had been waged, and the casualties were horrendous. Obviously fatal accidents had taken place with model cars and trucks. Shreds of wrapping paper were sprinkled over all like confetti on a particularly wild New Year’s Eve.
Sprawled in a chair, surveying the damage, was Anna. Her hair was in her face, and her face was pale.
“Oh, great,” she muttered, turning narrowed eyes to Sybill. “Now she shows up.”
“I—I’m sorry?”
“Easy for you to say. I’ve just spent two and a half hours battling ten eleven-year-old boys. No—not boys,” she corrected between her teeth. “Animals, beasts. Spawns of Satan. I just sent Grace home with orders to lie down. I’m afraid this experience might affect the baby. He could be born a mutant.”
The children’s party, Sybill remembered, her dazzled eyes scanning the room. She’d forgotten. “It’s over?”
“It will never be over. I will wake up at night for the rest of my life, screaming, until they cart me off to a padded room. I have ice cream in my hair. There’s some sort of . . . mass on the kitchen table. I’m afraid to go in there. I think it moved. Three boys managed to fall in the water and had to be dragged out and dried off. They’ll probably catch pneumonia and we’ll be sued. One of those creatures who disguised himself as a young boy ate approximately sixty-five pieces of cake, then got into my car—I don’t know how he got by me, they’re like lightning—and proceeded to throw up.”
“Oh, dear.” Sybill knew it wasn’t a laughing matter. It shocked her to realize that her stomach muscles were quivering. “I’m so sorry. Can I help you, ah, clean up?”
“I’m not touching any of it. Those men—the one who claims to be my husband and his idiot brothers—they’re going to do it. They’re going to scrub and clean and wipe and shovel. They’re going to do it all. They knew,” she said in a vicious whisper. “They knew what a boy’s birthday party would mean. How was I to know? But they did, and they hid themselves away down at that boatyard, using that lame excuse about contract deadlines. They left me and Grace alone with this, this unspeakable duty.” She shut her eyes. “Oh, the horror.”
Anna was silent for a moment, her eyes still closed. “Go ahead. You can laugh. I’m too weak to get up and belt you.”
“You worked so hard to do this for Seth.”
“He had the time of his life.” Anna’s lips curved as she opened her eyes. “And since I’m going to make Cam and his brothers clean it up, I’m feeling pretty good about it, all in all. How are you?”
“I’m fine. I came to apologize for last night.”
“Apologize for what?”
The question threw her off rhythm. She was already running behind schedule, she thought, distracted by the chaos and Anna’s rambling monologue. Sybill cleared her throat and began again. “For last night. It was rude of me to leave without thanking you for—”
“Sybill, I’m too tired to listen to nonsense. You weren’t rude, you have nothing to apologize for, and you’ll annoy me if you keep this up. You were upset, and you had a perfect right to be.”
And that blew Sybill’s carefully prepared speech all to hell. “I honestly don’t understand why people in this family won’t listen to, much less accept, a sincere apology for regrettable behavior.”
“Boy, if that’s the tone you use when you lecture,” Anna observed with admiration, “your audience must sit at attention. But to answer your question, I suppose we don’t because we so often indulge in what could be termed regrettable behavior ourselves. I’d ask you to sit down, but those are really lovely slacks and I have no idea what nasty surprises there are on any of the cushions.”
“I don’t intend to stay.”
“You couldn’t see your face,” Anna said more gently. “When he looked up at you, when he told you what he remembered. But I could see it, Sybill. I could see it was a great deal more than duty or responsibility or a valiant attempt to do what was right that brought you here. It must have crushed you when she took him away all those years ago.”
“I can’t do this again.” The burn of tears scalded the back of her eyes. “I just can’t do this again.”
“You don’t have to,” Anna murmured. “I just want you to know I understand. In my work I see so many damaged people. Battered women, abused children, men who are at the end of their ropes, the elderly we so blithely displace. I care, Sybill. I care about every one of them who come to me for help.”
She sighed a little and spread her fingers. “But in order to help them, I have to hold part of myself back, be objective, realistic, practical. If I threw all my emotions into every one of my cases, I couldn’t do my job. I’d burn out, burn up. I understand the need for a little distance.”
“Yes.” The painful tension drained out of Sybill’s shoulders. “Of course you do.”
“It was different with Seth,” Anna went on. “Right from the first minute, everything about him pulled at me. I couldn’t stop
it. I tried, but I couldn’t. I’ve thought about that, and I believe, sincerely, that my feelings for him were there, just there, even before I met him. We were meant to be a part of each other’s lives. He was meant to be part of this family, and this family was meant to be mine.”
Risking the consequences, Sybill eased down on the arm of the sofa. “I wanted to tell you . . . you’re so good with him. You and Grace. You’re so good for him. The relationship he has with his brothers is wonderful, and it’s vital. That strong male influence is important for a boy. But the female, what you and Grace give him, is just as vital.”
“You have something to give him, too. He’s outside,” Anna told her. “Drooling over his boat.”
“I don’t want to upset him. I really have to go.”
“Running away last night was understandable and acceptable.” Anna’s gaze was direct, level and challenging. “Running now isn’t.”
“You must be very good at your job,” Sybill said after a moment.
“I’m damn good at it. Go talk to him. If I manage to get out of this chair in this lifetime, I’ll put some fresh coffee on.”
It wasn’t easy. But then Sybill supposed it wasn’t meant to be. Crossing that lawn toward the boy who sat in the pretty little boat, so obviously dreaming of fast sails.
Foolish saw her first and, alerted, raced toward her, barking. She braced herself and put a hand out, hoping to ward him off. Foolish skimmed his head under it, turning the defensive gesture into a stroke.
His fur was so soft and warm, his eyes so adoring, his face so fittingly silly that she relaxed into a smile. “You really are foolish, aren’t you?”
He sat, batting at her with his paw until she took it and shook. Satisfied, he raced back toward the boat, where Seth watched and waited.
“Hi.” He stayed where he was, pulling on the line and making the small triangle of sail sway.
“Hello. Have you taken it out yet?”
“Nah. Anna wouldn’t let me and any of the guys go out in her today.” He jerked a shoulder. “Like we’d drown or something.”
“But you had a good time at your party.”
“It was cool. Anna’s a little pissed—” He stopped and looked toward the house. She really hated it when he swore. “She’s pretty steamed about Jake barfing in her car, so I figured I’d hang out here until she levels.”
“That’s probably very sensible.”
Then silence fell, heavy, as they both looked out over the water and wondered what to say.
Sybill braced herself. “Seth, I didn’t say good-bye to you last night. I shouldn’t have left the way I did.”
“It’s okay.” He shrugged again.
“I didn’t think you remembered me. Or any of the time you stayed with me in New York.”
“I thought I’d made it up.” It was too hard to sit in the boat and look so far up. He climbed out, then sat on the dock to dangle his legs. “Sometimes I’d dream about some of it. Like the stuffed dog and stuff.”
“Yours,” she murmured.
“Yeah, that’s pretty lame. She didn’t talk about you or anything, so I thought I’d just made it up.”
“Sometimes . . .” She took the risk and sat beside him. “Sometimes it was almost like that for me, too. I still have the dog.”
“You kept it?”
“It was all I had left of you. You mattered to me. I know it may not seem like that now, but you did. I didn’t want you to.”
“Because I was hers?”
“Partly.” She had to be honest, had to give him that, at least. “She was never kind, Seth. Something was twisted in her. It seemed that she could never be happy unless the people closest to her weren’t. I didn’t want her back in my life. I’d planned to give her a day or two, then arrange to have the two of you moved to a shelter. That way I would fulfill my family obligation and protect my own lifestyle.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I made excuses at first. Just one more night. Then I admitted that I was letting her stay because I wanted to keep you there. If I found her a job, helped her get an apartment, worked with her to put her life back together, I could keep you close. I’d never had—you were the . . .”
She ordered herself to take one cleansing breath and just say it. “You loved me. You were the first person who ever did. I didn’t want to lose that. And when I did, I pulled myself back, right back to where I’d been before you came. I was thinking much more of myself than of you. I’d like to make up for that, a little, by thinking of you now.”
He looked away from her, down at the feet he was kicking back and forth over the water. “Phil said how she called and you told her to kiss ass.”
“Not precisely in those words.”
“But that’s what you meant, right?”
“I guess it was.” She nearly smiled. “Yes.”
“You guys got the same mother, right, but, like, different fathers?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Do you know who my father was?”
“I never met him, no.”
“No, I mean do you know who he was? She was always making up different guys and names and shit. And stuff,” he corrected. “I just wondered, that’s all.”
“I only know his name was Jeremy DeLauter. They weren’t married long, and—”
“Married?” His gaze flew back to hers. “She never got married. She was just BS-ing you.”
“No, I saw the marriage license. She had it with her when she came to New York. She thought I could help her track him down and sue him for child support.”
He considered a moment, absorbing the possibility. “Maybe. It doesn’t matter. I figured she just took the name from some guy she lived with sometime. If he got hooked up with her, he must’ve been a loser.”
“I could arrange for a search. I’m sure we could locate him. It would take some time.”
“I don’t want that.” There wasn’t any panic in his voice, just disinterest. “I was just wondering if you knew him, that’s all. I got a family now.” He lifted his arm as Foolish nosed into his armpit, and wrapped it around the dog’s neck.
“Yes, you do.” Aching a little, she started to rise. She hesitated, her eye drawn toward a flash of white. She saw the heron soar, gliding over the water just at the edge of the trees. Then it was gone, around the bend, leaving barely a ripple on the air.
A lovely thing, she thought. A lovely spot. A harbor for troubled souls, for young boys who only needed a chance to become men. Perhaps she couldn’t thank Ray and Stella Quinn for what they’d done here, but she could show her gratitude by stepping aside now and letting their sons finish the job with Seth.
“Well, I should go.”
“The art stuff you gave me, it’s really great.”
“I’m glad you like it. You have talent.”
“I fooled around some with the charcoal last night.”
She hesitated again. “Oh?”
“I’m not getting it right.” He twisted his head to look up at her. “It’s a lot different than a pencil. Maybe you could show me how to do it.”
She stared hard over the water because she knew he wasn’t asking. He was offering. Now, it seemed, she was being given a chance, and a choice. “Yes, I could show you.”
“Now?”
“Yes.” She concentrated on keeping her voice even. “I could show you now.”
“Cool.”
NINETEEN
SO, HE’D BEEN a little hard on her, Phillip told himself. Maybe he felt that she should have told him immediately that Gloria had contacted her. Party or no party, she could have taken him aside and filled him in. But he shouldn’t have jumped all over her and then walked out.
Still, in his own defense, he’d felt raw and annoyed and unsettled. He’d spent the first part of the night worried about
her, and the second part worried about himself. Was he supposed to be happy that she’d wormed her way through his defenses? Was he supposed to jump for joy that in a matter of weeks she’d managed to drill a hole in the highly polished shield he’d maintained so expertly for over thirty years?
He didn’t think so.
But he was willing to admit that he hadn’t behaved well. He was even willing to offer a peace token in the form of vintage champagne and long-stemmed roses.
He’d packed the basket himself. Two bottles of Dom, well chilled, two crystal flutes—he wasn’t about to insult that brilliant French monk with hotel glasses—the beluga he’d craftily hidden, for just such an occasion, inside an empty carton of plain low-fat yogurt, knowing that no one in his family would touch it.
He’d made the toast points himself and had selected both the blush-pink roses and the vase with care.
He thought she might be a tad resistant to the visit. It never hurt to pave the way with champagne and flowers. And since he intended to do a little worming himself, they couldn’t hurt. He was going to loosen her up, he decided, talk to her, and more, get her talking. He wasn’t leaving until he had a much clearer view on just who Sybill Griffin was.
He rapped cheerfully on her door. That was going to be his approach—casual cheer. He shot a quick, charming smile at the peephole when he heard footsteps, saw the vague, telltale shadow.
And he stood as those footsteps receded.
Okay. Maybe more than a tad resistant, he concluded, and knocked again. “Come on, Sybill. I know you’re there. I want to talk to you.”
Silence, he discovered, didn’t have to be empty. It could be crowded with ice.
Okay, fine, he thought, scowling at the door. She wanted to do it the hard way.
He set the basket beside the door, then marched back down the hall to the fire stairs and started down. For what he had in mind it was wiser not to be seen leaving the lobby.
“Ticked her off good, didn’t you?” Ray commented as he jogged down the steps beside his son.
“Christ almighty.” Phillip glared into his father’s face. “Next time why don’t you just shoot me in the head? It’d be less embarrassing than to die of a heart attack at my age.”