Oh, how Ross envied that dog. He could only hope for the same kind of reconciliation, the same closeness and gentle affection, when Angie welcomed him into her good graces again.
No fool, Celine hopped into Angie’s lap to curl up in the nest formed by her crossed legs. Elvis lolled sideways, his head resting on her thigh. Damn. The dogs had won her over in seconds, while he still stood on the outside of their cozy circle. Ross felt a feeble smile lighting Angie’s face behind her curtain of hair.
“I’m listening,” she murmured.
Twenty
ANGIE waited. The sea surged in and out, whispering its consolation, while the two dogs warmed her and the occasional shorebird called overhead. Had the temperature dropped? Or had Rita’s revelation chilled her? That parlor had felt so stifling, so airless, yet those red candles had flickered wildly without any air movement.
Maybe Rita’s a witch. She’s certainly something that rhymes with it.
“I’ll understand if you don’t want me to sit by you. Or touch you,” Ross said. “I’m so damned sorry you found out about Tyler this way.”
She sighed. There was no point in holding out on him, or in holding her feelings inside. “When Rita told me about your son and showed me his picture, it was like…like you’d stabbed me in the back, Ross.” Only a drama queen would say that, but the three-legged tarot creature with the three swords protruding through its heart still made her queasy. “Every damn card we drew played into the scenario. Repulsive images, sick pictures. And she interpreted them so all the fingers pointed at you.”
“Luckiest person I ever saw with cards and dice. If the meds weren’t messing her up, Rita’d be banned from Vegas.” He cleared his throat. “Lord knows she can beat my best efforts every time.”
Angie almost smiled. Ross sounded truly desperate, and while she’d never made a man suffer for the thrill of it—not consciously, anyway—it was good that he knew when to beg. Gregg had always believed he could do no wrong, so he’d never learned the fine art of kissing up.
“I’m listening,” she repeated. This was Ross’s story, after all.
“The past few days have flown us through some fast and furious changes, babe,” Ross said quietly. “That’s no excuse. But I simply hadn’t found the right time, the right way, to bring Tyler into the picture. I was so focused on you…on us.”
He drew an arc in the sand with his loafer toe, pausing a moment before he continued. “Everybody considered it a major news flash when Rita and I teamed up, just when Terri was leaving me. And we turned this town on its ear, big-time, when a baby came along. Major mistake, everybody declared—and they thought they knew our business better than we did. Nobody had much hope for an accidental kid with two Me Generation parents who didn’t get married. Yet…he’s graduating from the conservatory with honors next month. It isn’t all theory and classical stuff, either. The kid can play.”
The pride in Ross’s voice softened Angie. There was no secret where Tyler got his musical ability. But a child had apparently bound Ross and Rita together for the past twenty-some years, and would connect them forever. It was time to ask some tough questions, because a good-looking guy’s theories on numerology and destiny might not be her best navigational tools right now.
“So…who raised Tyler? You, or Rita?”
“My parents, who live in Portland.” He sat down, facing her. His blue eyes caught Angie’s gaze and refused to let go. “While today I know scads of grandparents raising their children’s kids, back then it only happened in emergency situations. My mother knew Rita was unstable, likely to forget feedings and potty-training details when she was in one of her funks. Dad urged me not to marry her, even though I insisted it was the right thing and the honorable way to behave. Having a child is nature’s way of telling you it’s time to grow up, you know?”
Angie smiled. He still had a lot to explain, but he again seemed the more reliable, sincere source of information of the two parents. “So you proposed?”
“Yeah. Didn’t want anybody saying I’d shirked my responsibility to Tyler, or that I’d done Rita dirty,” he replied, raking his hand through his wind-combed hair. “I’ve thanked God a gazillion times that she said no. Now that she’s spiraling downward through one midlife crisis after another, she wants to revisit that option. But marriage to her would never work. I know that now.”
Angie nodded, wishing she’d listened to her own father about that issue before she’d married Gregg. When she stroked Elvis’s silky coat, the border collie flashed her a toothy grin that made her chuckle in spite of the serious conversation.
“And while I wanted to raise my boy—and did for about five years,” Ross continued, “my folks thought Tyler would do better in school without his parents constantly battling over bedtimes, and which house he’d spend the night in. It’s a miracle Tyler turned out so normal, and that he still speaks to us. We had some pretty awful blowouts when he was little.”
“So you saw him on weekends and during the summers?” Angie ventured. “Did he ask why you and his mother weren’t married?”
Ross brushed sand from his slacks, considering his reply. He looked so damned hot, yet so sophisticated, in his chinos and a polo shirt. He was being so open about a difficult situation, Angie longed to just forgive him and move forward with the dreams they’d discussed. But that’s how she’d gotten into trouble with guys before: being too willing to forgive and forget. It was time to remove her rose-colored glasses. Her Ross-colored ones, too.
“I was taking my real-estate exams, so I stayed at my parents’ place. Got myself established with an agency in Portland so I could pay Tyler’s expenses and be a father for him.” He shook his head, thinking back. “Tried to hang it up with Rita more than once, but she’d manipulate me back. We were afraid she’d pick him up at school and take off, knowing I would search to the ends of the earth to recover my son. It’s easier, now that he’s older.”
Angie winced. She knew about manipulation, had taken Gregg back more times than she could count, and until this final break with him, she hadn’t known how to handle it, either. “It’s like an addiction. You see how the other person—your whole relationship—is poison, but it’s all you know,” she murmured. “You figure you’ll never find anyone else to spend your life with. Or you believe you’ve made your bed so you have to lie in it forever.”
“Yup.” He placed his hand on her sandal. “Rita’s still prone to those highs and lows, so I get concerned that she’ll carry through on her threats to overdose again. She swallowed a bottle of pills once, depressed because I’d left her to make a more stable home for Tyler in Portland. Bad scene. I understand why you’d consider me a bad risk, babe. When you confronted me at the house, I knew Rita had done a real number on you.”
Angie cleared her throat, struggling to remain objective despite the way his voice stirred her. “She said you were up to your eyeballs in debt. None of my business, but…”
“Ask me anything.” He tightened his grasp on her foot. “It’s your right to know, Angie. I never want you to think I’m holding out on you, especially not after this run-in with Rita.” Ross gazed at her until she focused solely on him, on an earnest, loving face she wanted to see in her dreams.
“Only thing I owe money on is my home, Angie—and the business loan I just took out to buy those bungalows, ” he said quietly. “The car’s paid off. My bills are current. I have one credit card, and I…If you want to see bank statements or call my financial adviser—”
“No! It’s just that…” How could she say this diplomatically? “Rita threw some tough stuff at me in her so-called parlor.”
Ross sighed in disgust.
“I had nothing to fight back with. No idea what to believe. I just hated feeling so defenseless against her underhanded tactics.”
“Which is why she used them. Rita reads people as intuitively as she reads her cards. Knows exactly what buttons to push.” He sighed. “I would be in hock if I’d hitched up with he
r. She goes through a lot of money she doesn’t have—retail therapy, they call it—when she’s buying her way out of depression. I’m sorry you had to endure her shenanigans, Ange. What else do you want to know? Ask me anything.”
Can we kiss and make up now? she almost blurted.
“So…do you really love me, Ross? Like you said?” There it was. She’d asked him straight out.
Ross took her hands in his larger, warmer ones. His crystal blue eyes glimmered when he grinned. “Yes, Angie, I do love you. It was love at first sight, just like when I spotted Elvis and then Celine at the shelter—except I am not calling you a dog. Jeez, I’m really messing this up.”
At the sound of their names, the two dogs sat up as though they knew exactly what Ross was saying. Now they were looking at her, expecting a response. Angie laughed, and then realized Ross might interpret that the wrong way. What man liked to be ridiculed when he was professing his deepest feelings?
“I didn’t mean to poke fun at you,” she rasped. “But with your dogs following every word—”
“It’s okay if you don’t say you love me yet, Ange. I don’t want you to parrot that phrase because you think I expect to hear it.” His thumbs caressed her knuckles, yet he made no move to seal these confidences with a kiss. “Maybe I’m being stupid. It’s been less than a week since we met, and God knows I’ve been too impulsive with women before.” His eyes sparkled. “It’s the only way I know how to love, Angie. All or nothing. And this time it’s just…right. What more can I say?”
When his dimples appeared at either side of his close-cropped beard, there was no getting around it: Ross Costello was irresistible. Angie leaned forward, returning his grip, tasting the kiss she wanted, yet testing him and finding out how sharp his perceptions were. Was he really as know-all and feel-all as it seemed?
He smiled slyly. “Yeah, I know what you’re after, girl. And I’m just the guy to give it to you.” His gaze was so tender she could hardly withstand it. “But maybe I’d like to prove, just this once, that I have some control over my impulses, you know? Maybe I’d like to prove I can change and become so much more than a man who has to grab and handle and seduce every woman I meet. So I can show you I’m trustworthy.”
Angie exhaled wistfully. “Thank you. But I’ll take a rain check on that kiss.”
“Damn straight.” Ross gripped her hands and focused intently on her then. “When I applied for the bungalow loan, I asked the bank attorney to start proceedings to get your money back from Gregg. Now that we’re talking about trust, I hope you don’t feel I overstepped or went behind your back, babe.”
Her heart fluttered like a hummingbird’s wings, and for a moment she was too startled—too amazed—to reply. “I thought I’d kissed that money good-bye,” she confessed hoarsely. “Anybody stupid enough not to change her PIN—”
“He stole from you, Angie. That’s just wrong,” Ross insisted. “I hope you’ll see this as another way I’m making things right, after so much has gone haywire in your life.”
Angie’s breath escaped her. “I never expected you to—”
“Good. It’s my mission now to fill your world with happiness—and to catch up on kisses later.” He helped her stand. “I’ll walk you back to the lodge. Much as I hate to leave you, I’ve got a couple showings.”
“It’s how you make your living, after all.” She brushed sand from her jeans and then flicked some grains from Ross’s backside. “I…Thank you, Ross. I didn’t know how to go about getting my money…thought Gregg would retaliate. But I need to get out of that mind-set, don’t I?” She flashed him the brightest smile she could manage, considering he’d nearly brought her to tears again—happy tears this time. “I need to check in with Lenore, anyway. To think about what you and I have discussed and lick the wounds from when she left me to fend for myself at Rita’s.”
“Lenore’s good medicine,” Ross said. “A lot of us owe her more than we can repay.”
They strolled the beach hand in hand, and for the first time in years Angie knew the meaning of contentment. It felt so comfortable, so normal, to walk this way while the dogs sashayed around them in playful circles with the Fris-bee. The haze had given way to spring sunshine that revealed the homes of Harmony Falls in a dazzling display, facing the ocean. On the third tier she found Windswept, the corner house that had become so much more than a favorite childhood memory. She closed her eyes, grinning in sheer delight.
“Now there’s a smile I hope to see more often,” Ross murmured. “Like every time I’m ready to kiss you or make love to you. Happiness looks good on you, Angie.”
She opened her eyes. Drank in his desire, because it made her feel like such a fine, feisty woman. “I’m sorry I got so nasty awhile ago, Ross. It was rude to interrupt your call with a client.”
He shook his head. “You had a good reason. And we solved the problem without raised voices or accusations, and here we are. Right where we’re meant to be.”
Without raised voices. This was a definite improvement over the pattern she’d known with Gregg. It was more of that destiny talk Ross was so persuasive with. She nodded, anyway. She was okay with that magical mystical stuff now, even though Rita was surely by no means finished wreaking havoc. “Will I get to meet Tyler sometime soon? He sounds like a fantastic kid.”
“There you go, reading my thoughts again,” Ross teased. “I was just planning to text him, to see when he’s free to come in. It’s finals week, so he’s got a lot on his mind.”
They were strolling up the hill toward the lodge, fingers loosely entwined. The certainty surged between them that much more awaited them, and that it would be glorious when finally savored.
Angie laughed. “Talk about somebody reading thoughts: Lenore’s on her patio. Watching for us.”
“Takes a lot to surprise her. And since I don’t have time to stop and talk the way I’d like to…” Ross slipped an arm around Angie’s waist and kissed her. He plied her mouth so softly, with such sweet, unspoken promises, Angie could only stand there and receive his gifts.
He broke off, resting his forehead against hers. “Angie. Thank you,” he whispered.
“You’re welcome.” She immersed herself in his size and strength and warmth. “You’re worth it, Ross. Every bit of what I endured this morning.”
Ross kissed her fiercely, quickly. Then he strode on up the hill, waving at Lenore but saying nothing. Angie’s breath caught. She’d left him breathless. Speechless. Not bad for a woman who’d wondered about her own worth and doubted her power. Maybe there was something to this Law of Attraction thing, after all.
Twenty-One
“WHAT’S cooking? It smells so good I could snarf it all myself!” Angie stood beside Lenore’s wicker chair, looking toward the kitchen where Elena stirred something in a big skillet.
“She tops her hot chicken tenders with shredded cheese, and then with simmered onions and red pepper strips. Adds more cheese. It’s to die for.” Her mentor assessed her with a thoughtful gaze. “But then, after the kiss I witnessed, it’s a wonder you even notice food, dear.”
Angie’s mouth quirked. “When I don’t notice food, just shoot me, okay? I’ve gone through so much since breakfast, I can’t recall what I ate.”
“Rita has that effect on most of us. And so does Ross, in a different way.”
Angie let her feelings steep. Stood in the shade of ancient lodgepole pines that grew in a crescent around the back of the inn. Inhaled the aroma of Elena’s meal. Absorbed the peacefulness of this porch and the woman who seemed pleased to share it with her. Lenore patiently awaited her observations about a morning gone awry, yet Angie’s inner voice had a different idea.
Close your eyes, Angie, it murmured. Release the anger and betrayal Rita whipped up by picturing yourself on the beach at sunrise…with Ross. Content. Kissing. Put all those difficult emotions in a boat and let the falls wash them down the hill to the sea.
It was a new way to deal with angst. Lenore had probab
ly planted these images in her mind, but what did that matter? Her body relaxed and a smile floated over her face as she let the gurgle of the falls soothe her, as she pictured that row-boat carrying away her morning’s difficulties. The way that Six of Swords card showed the couple in the boat sailing toward calmer waters. Amazing, what a change of mental attitude could accomplish.
“Most folks would be better off if they lived unplugged for a few hours each day,” Lenore remarked quietly, noticing her actions. “We as a society have become so attached to our gadgets. So convinced we can’t get by without constant connection, we’ve forgotten how to unwind and simply be. What are you being today, Angela? Who on earth are you?”
Angie detected no criticism in her mentor’s tone, yet the question left her feeling as though she hadn’t applied herself as conscientiously as she should. Of all people, Lenore St. Claire knew who Angie was. More than Angie knew herself!
The woman beside her poured tea and offered up a steaming mug. “Let me rephrase that. Who are you on this earth? Are you so busy acquiring stuff and doing things that you’ve lost sight of why you’re here?”
Angie recognized the trap. “After that fiasco with Rita this morning, I’m not sure about anything anymore,” she hedged.
“You and Ross seem sure about each other.”
“Yeah, there’s a miracle.” She had to smile. “I guess, all things considered, I am being a thorn in Ms. McQueen’s side. An agent of change on my own behalf.”
“And in Ross’s life. Which means you’re being the blessing you were created to be.” Lenore smiled and sipped her tea. “You’re shedding light on some dark corners, dear. That brings the ghoulies out of hiding.”
Angie sipped her tea, thinking back to the disturbing images on Rita’s tarot. “So you’ve seen that Deviant Moon deck? Does Rita really believe in those cards? Or was she trying to keep me as off balance as those suffering souls in its pictures?”
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