by Nora Roberts
“Yes. No. I fucking don’t know.” Could it be any worse? he wondered. Could he be more embarrassed, more itchy, more stupid?
“She put this damn idea in my head. I can’t work it back out again. What if she’s right?”
“What if she’s right?” There was a laugh burbling in her throat, but she managed to swallow it. “What if you’ve got some suppressed fantasy going about us? Get real, Seth.”
“Look, look.” Impassioned in a way that made her blink again, he took her by the shoulders. “It’s not going to kill you to kiss me.”
“Okay, okay. Go ahead.”
“Okay.” He blew out a breath, started to lower his head, then straightened again. “I can’t remember my moves. Give me a minute.”
He stepped back, turned away and tried to clear his head. “Let’s try this.” He turned back, laid his hands on her hips to draw her against him. Seconds passed. “You could put your arms around me or something.”
“Oh, sorry.” She reached up, threaded her fingers together behind his head. “How’s this?”
“Fine. That’s fine. Come up a little,” he suggested, so she rose on her toes. He bent his head. His mouth was a breath from hers when she snorted out a laugh.
“Oh Christ.”
“Sorry. Sorry.” The fit of giggles forced her to move back and hold her stomach. He stood, scowling, until she controlled herself. “I balked, that’s all. Here we go.” She started to put her arms around him again. “Shit, wait.” Conscientiously, she took the gum out of her mouth, folded it into the old wrapper in her pocket. “If we’re going to do this, let’s do it right. Right?”
“If you can control the pig snorts.”
“Free lesson, sport: When you’re about to tangle tongues with a woman, you don’t mention pork or swine.”
She put her arms around him again, took a good strong hold this time and moved in herself before either of them could think about it.
They stayed locked, the breeze off the water fluttering over them. There was a hum as a car drove by on the road behind them, and the sudden desperate barking of a dog as it chased along behind the fence until the car disappeared.
Their lips separated, their eyes met. The silence between them held for several long seconds.
Then they began to laugh.
Still holding each other, they rocked in a kind of whooping hilarity that would have put either one of them on the ground without the support. He lowered his forehead to hers on a relieved breath.
“So.” She gave his butt a friendly pinch. “You want me, don’t you?”
“Shut up, Aubrey.”
He gave her, his sister, a fierce hug before he eased back. “Thanks.”
“No problem. Anyway, you’re good at it.”
“You too.” He rubbed his knuckles over her cheek. “And we’re never going to do that again.”
“That’s a deal.”
He started to swing an arm around her shoulders, then stopped as an appalling thought struck. “You’re not going to tell anybody about this, right? Like your mom, or Will. Anybody.”
“Are you kidding?” Even the idea of it had her shuddering. “You either. Promise.” She spat into her palm, held it out.
Seth grimaced down at her hand. “I should never have taught you that one.” But resigned, and respectful of the pledge, he spat into his own, then solemnly shook hands.
* * *
HE was too restless to go home. And, he admitted, he needed a little more time before he faced his family with the kiss incident still fresh in his mind.
He had half a mind to go back to Dru’s and let her know just how off the mark, how insulting, how wrong she’d been.
But the other half of his mind, the smarter half, warned him he wasn’t in the mood to have a rational conversation with her yet.
She’d made him doubt himself, and it stung. He’d worked hard to reach and maintain his level of confidence, in himself, in his work, in his family. No woman was allowed to shake it.
So they’d just move back a step before things went any further. He’d paint her because he couldn’t do otherwise. But that would be all.
He didn’t need to be involved with a woman who was that complicated, that unpredictable and that damn opinionated.
It was time to slow down, to concentrate on work and family. To solve his own problems before he took on anyone else’s.
He parked at his studio, carted his equipment and the painting up the steps. He used his new cell phone to call home and let Anna know he wouldn’t be back for dinner.
He turned on music, then set up to work on the watercolor from memory.
As with sailing, worries, annoyances, problems faded away when he painted. As a child, he’d escaped into drawing. Sometimes it had been as dramatic as survival, others as simple as warding off boredom. It had always been a pleasure for him, a quiet and personal one or a soaring celebration.
In his late teens he’d harbored tremendous guilt and doubt because he’d never suffered for his art, never felt the drama of emotional conflict over it.
When he’d confessed all that to Cam, his brother had stared at him. “What, are you stupid?” Cam had demanded.
It had been exactly the right response to snap Seth out of a self-involved funk.
There were times when a painting pulled away from him and he was left baffled and frustrated by the image in his mind that refused to be put on canvas.
But there were times when it flew for him, beyond any height he’d imagined he could achieve.
When the light dimmed through the windows and he was forced to hit the overheads, he stepped back from the canvas, stared at what he’d done. And realized this was one of the times it had flown.
There was a vibrancy to the colors—the green of the grass and leaves, the sunstruck amber of the water, the shock of red from the blanket and the milky white of her skin against it. The garden of flowers on her skirt was bold, a contrast to the delicate way the filmy material draped high on her thigh.
There was the curve of her shoulder, the angle of her arm, the square edge of the blanket. And the way the diffused fingers of light fell over the dreamy expression on her face.
He couldn’t explain how he’d done it. Any more than he’d been able to tell Dru what he thought about when painting. The technical aspects of the work were just that. Technicalities. Necessary, essential, but as unconsciously accomplished when he worked as breathing.
But how it was that a painting would sometimes draw out the heart of the artist, the core of the subject and allow it to breathe, he couldn’t say.
Nor did he question it. He simply picked up his brush and went back to work.
And later when, still fully dressed, he tumbled into bed, he dropped straight into sleep with the image of Drusilla sleeping beside him.
* * *
“WHAT are you calling it?” Stella asked him.
They were standing in front of the painting, studying it in the glare of his studio lights. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.”
“Beauty Sleeps,” Stella suggested. “That’s what I’d call it.”
She was wearing an oversized chambray shirt and baggy jeans with flat canvas shoes that looked as though they’d walked a lot of miles. And when she tucked her arm through Seth’s he could smell hints of lemon from her shampoo and soap.
“We’re proud of you, Seth. Not for the talent so much. That’s God-given. But for being true to it. Being true to what you have and what you are, that’s what makes the difference.”
She stepped back and looked around. “Wouldn’t hurt you to clean up this place some. Being an artist doesn’t mean you have to be a slob.”
“I’ll take care of it in the morning.”
She sent him a wry look. “Now where have I heard that one before? That one there.” Stell
a jerked her head toward the painting. “She’s neat as a pin. Maybe too neat—which sure as hell isn’t your problem. Worries about letting anything shift out of place. Untidiness confuses her, especially when it comes to her own emotions. You’ve got to figure they’re pretty messy where you’re concerned already.”
He lifted a shoulder in a way that made Stella smile. “I’m putting the brakes on there. She’s too much damn work.”
“Uh-huh.” She twinkled at him. “You keep telling yourself that, boy.”
He wanted to leave that area alone. He didn’t mind messy emotions, but his own were in such a state he couldn’t be sure he’d ever manage to tidy them up again.
“Cam said I should ask you about the zucchini bread.”
“He did, did he? Maybe he thinks I’ve forgotten. Well, you can tell him I may be dead, but I’ve still got my wits. I wasn’t much of a cook. Ray handled that end for the most part. But now and again I stuck my oar in. One day in the fall I got a yen for zucchini bread. We’d planted the stuff, and Christ knows we had more than we could eat in six years. Especially since Ethan wouldn’t touch a morsel. So I got out the cookbook and tried my hand at baking some zucchini bread. Four loaves, from scratch, and I set them on a rack to cool. I was damn proud of that bread, too.”
She paused a moment, tipped her head up as if looking at the memory. “About a half hour later, I walked back into the kitchen. Instead of four loaves, there were just three. My first thought was, well, those boys have been in here and helped themselves. Felt pretty smug about that one. Until I looked out the kitchen window. What do you think I saw?”
“I’ve got no clue.” But he was sure he was going to enjoy it.
“I’ll tell you what I saw,” she said with a jut of her chin. “My boys, and my loving husband, out there in the yard using the zucchini bread I’d made from scratch as a goddamn football. Whooping and hollering and tossing that thing around like it was the Super Bowl. I was out that door like a shot, gonna skin the lot of them. About that time, Phil heaved that loaf high and hard, and Ethan loped over to receive. And Cam—he always was quick as a snake—he streaked over the grass, leaped up to intercept. Misjudged, though. The loaf caught him right about here.”
She tapped just over her eyebrow. “Knocked him flat on his ass, too. Damn thing was hard as a brick.”
She laughed, rocking back and forth on her heels as if her humor had weight. “Ethan snapped up the bread, stepped right over Cam as he sat there with his eyes rolling back in his head, and made the touchdown. By the time I got out to Cam to check him out and give them a piece of my mind, he’d shaken it off and the four of them were howling like loons. They called it the Bread Bowl. Last time I ever baked bread, I’ll tell you that. I miss those days. I sure do miss them.”
“I wish I’d had time with you. I wish I’d had time with you and Ray.”
She moved to him, brushed at the stray tendrils of hair that had fallen over his forehead. The gesture was so tender it made his heart ache.
“Is it okay if I call you Grandma?”
“Of course it is. Sweet boy,” Stella murmured. “She couldn’t cut that sweet heart out of you, no matter how hard she tried. She couldn’t understand it either, that’s why hurting you’s always been so easy for her.”
They weren’t talking about Dru now, he thought. But about Gloria. “I don’t want to think about her. She can’t hurt me anymore.”
“Can’t she? Trouble’s coming. Trouble always does. You be strong, you be smart, and you be true. You hear me? You’re not alone, Seth. You’ll never be alone.”
“Don’t go.”
“You’re not alone,” she repeated.
But when he woke with the early sunlight just sliding through his windows, it seemed he was.
Worse, he saw the folded note under the door. He forced himself to get up, to walk over and pick it up.
Lucy’s Diner, next to the By-Way Hotel on Route 13.
Eleven o’clock tonight.
Make sure it’s in cash.
Trouble’s coming. Seth thought he heard the echo of a voice. Trouble always does.
TEN
AUBREY STEWED ABOUT it, picked it apart and put it together again. And the more she fumed and fiddled, the madder she got. Temper made it very clear in her mind that Drusilla Whitcomb Banks needed a come-to-Jesus talk, and Aubrey Quinn was just the one to give it to her.
Since she and Seth had made a pact, she couldn’t vent to her mother, her father. She couldn’t go by Sybill’s and ask for some sort of psychological evaluation of the thing. And she couldn’t go to Anna just to spew out her annoyance and resentment.
So it built, layer by layer, until she’d worked up quite a head of steam by the time she left the boatyard at five o’clock.
She practiced what she intended to say as she drove into town. The cool, the controlled, the keen-edged slice of words that would cut Little Miss Perfect down to size.
No one got away with making Seth unhappy.
Mess with one Quinn, she thought as she scooted her pickup into a space at the curb, mess with them all.
In her work boots, dirty T-shirt and well-sprung jeans, she marched into Bud and Bloom.
Yeah, she was perfect, all right, Aubrey thought, and bit down on her ire while Dru wrapped a bunch of daisies for Carla Wiggins. Just perfect in her pink silk blouse and wood-nymph hair. The slacks were stone gray and fluid. Probably silk, too, Aubrey thought, annoyed with herself for admiring the classy, casual look.
Dru’s gaze shifted up and over as the door opened. What might have been polite warmth chilled into caution when Aubrey glared at her.
At least that was something.
Carla, bouncy and glowing, turned. “Hi, Aubrey. That was some game yesterday. Everybody’s talking about your home run. Bases loaded,” she said to Dru. “Aub knocked those Rockfish out of the water.”
“Really?” Dru had heard the same, a half dozen times, already that day. “Congratulations.”
“I swing to score.”
“I about had a heart attack when that ball flew.” Carla patted her tidy little breasts to demonstrate. “Jed’s still flying. He got walked,” she said to Dru, “to load the bases before Aubrey came to bat. Anyway, I’m cooking dinner for his parents tonight—talk about the wedding plans some more—and there I was running around straightening the place up—I took a half day off work—and it hit me I didn’t have any flowers for a centerpiece. It’s going to be spaghetti and meatballs. That’s Jed’s favorite. Just fun and cheerful, you know. So Dru said daisies would be nice in that red vase I’ve got. What do you think?”
Aubrey looked at the flowers, moved her shoulder. “They’re pretty. Friendly, I guess. Kind of simple and sweet.”
“That’s it. That’s just exactly right.” Carla fussed with her fine blond hair. “I don’t know why I get so nervous. I’ve known Jed’s folks all my life. It’s just different now that we’re getting married in December. I told Dru my colors are going to be midnight blue and silver. I didn’t want to go with the red and green, you know, but wanted to keep it Christmassy and festive. Do you really think those colors will work?” Carla chewed on her lip as she looked back at Dru. “For the flowers and all.”
“Beautifully.” The warmth came back into Dru’s face. “Festive, as you say, and romantic, too. I’m going to put some ideas together, then you and your mother and I will go over everything. Don’t worry about a thing.”
“Oh, I can’t help it. I’ll drive everyone crazy before December. I’ve got to run.” She scooped up the flowers. “They’ll be coming along in an hour.”
“Have a nice evening,” Dru said.
“Thanks. See you later, Aubrey.”
“Yeah. Hi to Jed.”
The door closed behind Carla, and as the bells on it stopped ringing, the cheer that had filled the shop faded.
“You can stop screwing with Seth’s brain and putting me in the role of the other woman.”
“Actually, I was worried that was my role, and I didn’t care for it.”
All the cool, controlled, keen-edged words Aubrey had practiced flew out of her head. “What the hell’s wrong with you? Do you think Seth would be poking at you if he were interested in someone else?”
“ ‘Poking at’?”
Aubrey hunched her shoulders. “Family phrase,” she muttered. “What do you take him for? He’d never move on you if he was moving on someone else. He’s not like that, and if you don’t already know it, you’re just stupid.”
“Calling me stupid is going to end this conversation before it gets started.”
“So is punching you in the nose.”
Dru lifted her chin—Aubrey gave her points for it, and for the derisive tone. “Is that how you solve your disagreements?”
“Sometimes. It’s quick.” Aubrey showed her teeth. “And I owe it to you for the ‘buxom blonde in black’ remark.”
Dru winced, but she kept her voice even. “A stupid comment doesn’t make me stupid. But it was uncalled for and ill advised. I apologize for it. I suppose you’ve never had something pop out of your mouth that you’ve instantly regretted.”
“All the time,” Aubrey said, cheerful now. “Apology accepted. But that doesn’t cover the bases regarding Seth. You messed with his head and you made him unhappy. That’s worth a hell of a lot more than a punch in the nose, from where I stand.”
“It wasn’t my intention to do either.” And she felt a flare of guilt. She’d had no trouble making him mad, but she’d never meant to make him unhappy. Still, she’d done what she thought right for everyone.
“I won’t be a game piece to a man, even if he doesn’t realize that’s what he’s making me. I’ve seen the two of you together. I saw the way you looked at me yesterday when I came into the boatyard. I’m standing here right now with you jumping down my throat because of what you are to each other.”