Tribute

by Nora Roberts

  work. I don’t want that kind of life. I’m happy here, Mario, if that matters to you. I’m happy with what I have, and I’m getting happy with who I am.”

  “Cilla, your mother needs you.”

  “And here it comes.” She turned away in disgust.

  “She has her heart set. And the backers will do so much more with this addition. She’s so—”

  “I can’t do it, Mario. And I won’t. I’m not just being a hard-ass. I can’t. It’s not in me. You should have talked to me before you came here, and brought him. And you should listen to me when I say no. I’m not Dilly. I don’t bullshit, I don’t play. And she’s already used up all her guilt points with me. I’m not doing this for her.”

  His face, his voice, held nothing but sadness now. “You’re very hard, Cilla.”

  “Okay.”

  “She’s your mother.”

  “That’s right. Which makes me, let’s see. Her daughter. Maybe, this time—this one time—she could think about what I need, about what I want.” She held up a hand. “Believe me, if you say anything else, you’ll only make it worse. Cut your losses here. You’re smart enough. Tell her I said knock them dead, break a leg. And I mean it. But that’s all I’ve got.”

  He shook his head as a man might over a sulking child. He walked away in his excellent shoes, and got into the big city car with Ken to drive away.

  Ford wandered over, stared off at the barn while Spock rubbed himself against Cilla’s legs. “That red’s going to look good.”

  “Yeah. You’re not going to ask what that was about?”

  “I got the gist. They want, you don’t. They pushed, you didn’t budge. They pissed you off, which is fine. But in the end it made you sad. And that’s not. So I don’t care about them or what they want. I say fuck ’em, and that red looks good going on that barn.”

  It made her smile. “You’re good to have around, Ford.” She leaned down, ruffled Spock. “Both of you. Back in L.A., I’d have paid several hundred dollars for this kind of therapy.”

  “We’ll bill you. Meanwhile, why don’t you show me what’s going on around here today?”

  “Let’s go bug the tile guy. It’s my favorite so far.” She took Ford’s hand and walked into the house.

  FOURTEEN

  When Cilla showed Dobby the design she wanted for the medallions, he scratched his chin. And she saw his lips twitching at the corners.

  “Shamrocks,” she said.

  “I’ve had me a few beers on Saint Patrick’s Day in my time. I know they’re shamrocks.”

  “I played around with other symbols. More formal, or more subtle, more elaborate. But I thought, screw that, I like shamrocks. They’re simple and they’re lucky. I think Janet would’ve gotten a kick out of them.”

  “I expect she would. She seemed to like the simple when she was around here.”

  “Can you do it?”

  “I expect I can.”

  “I’ll want three.” The idea made her giddy as a girl. “Three’s lucky, too. One for the dining room, one for the master bedroom, and one in here, in the living room. Three circles of shamrocks for each. I’m not looking for uniformity but more symmetry. I’ll leave it to you,” she said when he nodded.

  “It’s good working on this place. Takes me back.”

  They sat at a makeshift table, plywood over a pair of saw-horses. She’d brought him a glass of tea, and they drank together while Jack finished up the last of the plaster repairs.

  “You’d see her around, when she came out to stay here?”

  “Now and again. She always had a word. Give you that smile and a hello, how are you.”

  “Dobby, in that last couple of years, when she came out, was there any talk about her being . . . friendly with a local man?”

  “You mean being sweet on one?”

  Sweet on, Cilla thought. What a pretty way to put it. “Yes, that’s what I mean.”

  The lines and folds on his face deepened with thought. “Can’t say so. After she died, and all those reporters came around, some of them liked to say so. But they said all kinds of things, and most weren’t in the same neighborhood as the truth.”

  “Well, I have some information that makes me think she was sweet on someone. Very sweet. Can you think of anyone she spent time with in that last year, year and a half? She came out fairly often during that period.”

  “She did,” he agreed. “Talk was, after her boy died, the talk was she was going to sell the place. Didn’t want to come here no more. But she didn’t sell. Didn’t have the parties or the people, either. Never brought the girl out again—that’d be your mother—that I saw or heard about. The best I can recall, she came alone. If anybody had wind of her seeing a man from around here, their jaws would’ve been working.”

  “Weren’t so many people around to jaw back then,” Jack commented as he set his trowel. “I mean to say there weren’t so many houses around the farm here. Isn’t that right, Grandpa?”

  “That’d be true. Weren’t houses on the fields across the road back then. Started planting them back twenty-five years on to thirty years back, I guess it was, when the Buckners sold their farm off.”

  “So there weren’t any close neighbors.”

  “Buckners would’ve been closest, I expect. About a quarter mile down.”

  And that was interesting, Cilla decided. How hard could it be to have a secret affair when there were no nosy neighbors peeking out the window? The media would have been an extra challenge, but reporters hadn’t been camped on the shoulder of the road seven days a week when Janet had traveled to the farm.

  According to what she’d read or been told, Janet had been an expert at keeping certain areas of her private life private. After her death, facts, fallacies, rumors, secrets and innuen dos abounded.

  And still, Cilla mused, the identity of Janet’s last lover remained blank. Just how badly, she wondered, did she want to fill in that blank in her grandmother’s life?

  Badly enough, she admitted. The answer to that single question could finally give clarity to the bigger question.

  Why did Janet Hardy die at thirty-nine?

  CILLA FOUND BRINGING Steve home both thrilling and terrifying. He was alive, and considered well enough to leave the hospital. Two weeks before, she’d sat beside his bed, trying to will him out of a coma. Now she stood with him as he studied the farmhouse. He leaned on a cane, a ball cap on his head, dark glasses over his eyes, and his clothes bagging a bit from the weight he’d lost in the hospital.

  She wanted to bundle him inside, into bed. And feed him soup.

  The terror came from wondering if she was competent enough to tend to him.

  “Stop staring at me, Cill.”

  “You should probably get inside, out of the sun.”

  “I’ve been inside, out of the sun. Feels good out here. I like the barn. Barns should always be red. Where the hell is everybody? Middle of the day, no trucks, no noise.”

  “I told all the subs to take me off today’s schedule. I thought you’d need a little peace and quiet.”

  “Jesus, Cilla, when did I ever want peace and quiet? You’re the one.”

  “Fine, I wanted peace and quiet. We’re going in. You look shaky.”

  “Goes with the territory these days. I’ve got it,” he snapped at her when she started to take his free arm. He managed the stairs, crossed the veranda.

  The scowl smoothed away when he stepped inside the house, took his first look around.

  “The plastering looks good. Getting rid of that door over there, widening the opening, that works for you. Better flow.”

  “I’m thinking of using that area as a kind of morning room. It gets nice light. Then later on, if I’m still inclined, I could add on a sunroom, put in a hot tub, a couple of machines, some nice plants. Down the road.”

  “Be sweet.”

  And because she heard the strain in his voice, she nearly fussed about taking him up to bed. Instead she tried a different tack. Th
e first step would be to get him upstairs.

  “We’ve done a lot on the second floor. The master suite’s really coming along. You’ve got to see it.”

  These steps were longer. She all but felt his weaker left side begin to tremble on the journey up. “We should’ve taken Ford up on his offer. You’d be more comfortable at his place.”

  “I can walk up a damn flight of steps. Got a headache, that’s all. Goes with the territory now, too.”

  “If you want to lie down . . . I’ve got your pills right here.”

  “I don’t want to lie down. Yet.” He pushed her offered hand aside. Again, some of the strain eased on his face when he studied the new bedroom space. “You always had an eye. Good lines, good light. Nice closet, doll.”

  “A girl’s best friend. I built the organizer yesterday.” She opened the door, gave a Vanna White flourish.

  “Cedar paneling. Good work.”

  “I learned from the best.”

  He turned away to limp toward the bath, but she’d seen the look in his eyes. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Sexy, classy,” he said of the bathroom. “Deco deal. Glass block for the shower wall? When did you decide on that?”

  “Last-minute change. I liked the effect, and the way it looks with the black-and-white tiles.” She gave up, just leaned her forehead on his shoulder. “Please tell me what’s wrong.”

  “What if I can’t do this anymore? If I can’t handle the tools? It takes me longer to think, and these headaches about drop me.”

  She wanted to hold him, hug him, nuzzle him into comfort. And instead flicked at him with mild annoyance. “Steve, it’s your first day out of the hospital. What did you think, you’d walk out swinging a hammer?”

  “Something like that.”

  “You’re on your feet. You’re talking to me. The doctor said it’s going to take time. Just as he said you’ve already made an amazing recovery, and there’s every reason to believe you’ll get it all back.”

  “Could take months. Even years. And I can’t remember.” A trace of fear eked through frustration. “Goddamn it, I can’t remember anything that happened that night after I left here. Can’t remember going to the bar, or hanging out, trailing Shanna home like she says I did. It’s blank. I can remember getting on the bike. I can remember thinking I might just score with Shanna of the big brown eyes and amazing rack. Next thing I remember is you yelling at me, and your face leaning down over mine. Everything between is gone. Just gone.”

  She shrugged, as if it was no big deal. “If you’re going to forget something, that would be the night.”

  He smiled a little. “Fricking ray of sunshine, aren’t you? I’m going to crash awhile, take some drugs and crash.”

  “Good idea.”

  He let her take his weight to lead him to the guest room. Then stopped at the doorway. The walls were painted a soft and restful blue, as was the beadboard wainscoting. The original walnut trim, stripped and restored by her own hands, framed the windows. The floor gleamed, deep, rich and glossy. The iron headboard and footboard in dignified pewter suited the simple white and blue quilt, the star-patterned rug with its blue border. White daisies sprang up out of a cobalt vase on a table in front of the window.

  “What the hell’s this?”

  “Surprise. I think it’s marginally more appealing than a hospital room.”

  “It’s a great room.” Even as he jabbed a finger at her, pleasure shone on his face. “What are you thinking, getting the floors refinished in one room?”

  “I’m thinking it’s nice to see one room finished—or nearly. Need some art for the walls, and I have to finish the rest of the trim, but otherwise. And check it out.” She opened an old wardrobe, revealed a flat-screen TV. “Got cable.” She grinned at him. “Digital, at Ford’s insistence. The bath’s finished, too. And looks great if I say so myself.”

  Steve sat on the side of the bed. “Going at rehab this way screws up the schedule.”

  “I’m not in a hurry.” She poured a glass from the pitcher she’d placed on the nightstand, then got out the pill bottle. “Bottoms up, then we’ll get you undressed and into bed.”

  The faintest twinkle winked in his eyes. “Time was you’d’ve gotten in with me, doll.”

  “Time was.” She crouched down to take off his shoes.

  “I want those subs back here tomorrow.”

  “Who made you job manager?” Rising, she gestured so he lifted his arms. But she smiled as she drew off his shirt. “They’ll be back. They wanted to have a welcome-back party. Beer and subs. I scotched that. I guess I shouldn’t have.”

  “I don’t think I’m ready to party.” He lay back so she could take off his jeans. “The day I can have a woman strip me down and not want to return the favor’s not a day for partying.”

  “I give you a week.” Now, no longer able to resist, she stroked his cheek. “I heard how you hit on all the nurses.”

  “It’s expected. I skipped Mike.” He gave her a wan smile. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

  She turned down the bed, eased him into it, slipped off his shades, took the cap off his shaved head. The smooth dome marred by the line of stitches hurt her in every cell of her body. “I’m going to be downstairs doing some paperwork. You need anything, just call. If you want the TV, there’s the remote. If you want anything, Steve, I’m right here.”

  “Just a few z’s for right now.”

  “Okay.” She kissed his forehead, then slipped out.

  Alone, he stared up at the ceiling. And, sighing, closed his eyes.

  Cilla took her laptop outside to work. Though she snuck up to check on Steve twice in the first hour, she made headway with bills and cost projections. When she heard the crunch of feet on gravel, she glanced up to see Ford and Spock.

  “Hi, neighbor,” he called out. “I figured if you were out here, the returning hero’s doing all right.”

  “Sleeping.” She looked at her watch. “God, how did it get to be five o’clock?”

  “The earth orbits around the sun as it turns on its axis, thereby—”

  “Smart-ass.”

  “Present. And speaking of.” He shook the bag in his hand. “I’ve got something for Steve. Some DVDs, since you’ve got the set up in his room.”

  Cilla cocked her head. “DVDs? Porn?”

  Ford’s eyebrows drew together. “Porn’s such a hard word. Just hear how it comes out of the mouth. That short, hard syllable. Spider-Man, the three-movie box set. It seemed appropriate. And a couple of others that involve naked women and motorcycles, which I’d call adult entertainment. Spock picked those out.”

  She slid her glance down to the dog, who cocked his head and looked innocent. “I’m sure Steve will appreciate them.”

  “Spock believes Sleazy Rider was very underrated.”

  “I’ll take his word.” She heard the footsteps first, sprang to her feet. She pulled open the screen door as Steve reached for it from the inside. “You’re up. Why didn’t you call me? You shouldn’t take the steps by yourself.”

  “I’m fine. I’m good. Ford.”

  “Good to see you out.”

  “Good to be. Hey, Spock. Hey, boy.” He sat on one of the white plastic chairs, stroking the dog, who laid his front legs on Steve’s knee.

  “You look better,” Cilla decided.

  “Magic pills and sleep. I nap like a three-year-old these days, but it does the job.”

  “You’re probably hungry. Why don’t I fix you some food? Something to drink? Get you—”

  “Cill.” He started to tell her not to bother, changed his mind. “Yeah, I could use a sandwich or something. Not hospital food or smuggled-in goods. Maybe you could throw something together for all of us.”

  “Sure. Give me a few minutes.”