He drained his second cup of coffee, waiting for the caffeine to kick in. Sure, she meant what she said, but one thing he had learned about Shannon Mahoney was that, despite her sarcasm, she was very innocent in some ways. The truth was she hadn’t known him very long, and she couldn’t know him very well. Her words to him were sincerely meant but naïve. He wanted to believe them but knew better.
The waitress paused between customers to refill his cup. He picked it up and wondered what it would be like if things were different. If he was different.
And he wondered what Shannon was doing now.
He was still thinking about her when he left the coffee shop and returned to his motel room, and when he finally forced his thoughts away from her, they settled on another subject that was just as troubling. Namely, how his chances of getting Drew to listen to him had taken a nosedive since his brother had seen him kissing Shannon. He had blown any chance he might have had with Drew, and if Shannon wasn’t able to get through to him, then …
Michael felt a pang. Then he would have failed his parents one last time.
He reached into his wallet for his parents’ photograph and studied it as he sank back heavily onto the bed. The picture was well worn around the edges, and each time Michael pulled it out to look at it, he did so a little more carefully than the last time. They were a handsome couple, and the stately house behind them in the photograph was well suited to them in every way. There was pride in the way they carried themselves, a pride he had mistaken for haughtiness once. He had ridiculed it then with the disdain of a teenage boy convinced he had the world all figured out.
“Self-righteous little bastard, weren’t you?” Michael murmured to himself as he stared at the picture.
He hadn’t been back to the house since the day he left so many years ago. Pride kept him from returning at first, and then guilt after the funeral. Now that he was back in town, more than once he considered going by to see the old place, even if only from the road. Somehow it felt like he hadn’t earned that right yet.
There was a knock at his door, and he carefully tucked the picture back into his wallet, mindful of the worn edges.
“Just a minute,” he called out as he got up from the bed and ran a hand through his disheveled hair before answering the door.
Shannon stood in the hallway. Apparently after last night’s excitement she had abandoned the new clothes in favor of the comfortable familiarity of her old ones, because she was back in sensible slacks now. The hair that he had run through his fingers unbeknownst to her last night was pulled back in the confines of a ponytail. He was tempted to tug it free.
“Hi,” she said, and she gave him an uncertain smile. “Can I come in?”
“Of course.” He stepped aside to let her pass, acutely aware of her proximity as she moved past him. “So did you get raked over the coals?”
“A little. Not too badly,” she admitted, sitting down in the chair. “You’re a bad seed, of course, and I’m a wide-eyed twit who doesn’t know what’s good for her, but other than that things went great.”
“Ah.” Michael sat down at the foot of the bed across from her.
They sat in awkward silence for a long moment, and Michael wondered if she was thinking about last night. He certainly was.
“So, Drew and I talked about you at lunch today,” Shannon said finally.
“I’ll bet that was an interesting conversation.”
“Your brother is very angry with you.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Michael … ”
He thought he knew what was coming. “Yes?”
“What happened between you and your parents?”
“What did Drew tell you?”
“That you said some things before you left home.”
“Yes, I did.” Michael got up from the bed and stood beside the window, looking out.
“Maybe I shouldn’t ask,” she said quietly from behind him.
“I think you’ve got a right to,” Michael told her flatly without turning around. “Considering how I asked you to plead my case for me.”
She was silent, not pushing him, for which he was grateful. Would she be so patient with him afterward, he wondered, or would she walk away? He was resigned to being on Drew’s blacklist, but he would be sorry to see the same thing happen with Shannon.
“My parents,” Michael said finally, “started grooming me as a little kid to take on the Kingston family mantle and everything that went with it. You know, I think I knew my entire family tree before I knew my ABCs. Tradition meant everything to them. You know about my father’s political career, right?”
“Sure. People said he could have been the next state senator if … ” She trailed off.
“If he had lived, you mean?”
She reddened. “Sorry.”
“You’ve got nothing to apologize for, sweetheart. Yeah, my old man could have probably made it pretty far, and my parents expected the same from me. It was so important to them that I become the best of the best. They had my entire future mapped out for me — looking at colleges before I even started high school, planning a shining political career like my father’s. It scared the hell out of me.”
He returned to sit on the edge of the bed, but he avoided her eyes. “So what’s a kid to do in that situation? Either fall in line or rebel. I chose door number two, and, man, did I do it with style. I guess they hoped it was a phase I’d grow out of. I’d veer off the chosen path, and they’d do everything in their power to steer me back onto it. And the more they tried to rein me in, the harder I tried to break free.”
He could feel her eyes on him, but she said nothing.
“It started with just words, you know? Typical teenage rebellion. Refusals, defiance … I guess I thought they weren’t taking me seriously, though.” He ran a hand through his hair, self-conscious. “So I asked myself, what’s every politician’s weak spot? Reputation, right? Image. So I hit my dad where it hurt most, or at least that’s what I thought at the time. It’s hard to impress voters when you’ve got a juvenile delinquent for a son.”
“Juvenile delinquent?” Shannon repeated, confused. “I remember you cut a few classes, but — ”
“Oh, I did a lot more than that.” Michael smiled humorlessly. “You just never heard about it because Dad found a way to smooth things over every time and keep it out of the papers. A joyride in a ‘borrowed’ car, some vandalism — and each time I saw the hope in my parents’ eyes die a little more.”
“You weren’t the first kid in the world to get in that kind of trouble.”
“Doesn’t excuse it, though, does it? The thing is, I never really considered things from their point of view back then. All I saw was a couple of snobs who seemed to be all about superficial things like money, success … image. And I told them so the day I left home. I think my father was too sick of shouting matches to say anything back.” Michael stared unseeingly at the wall. “And my mother cried. The last time I ever saw her alive, she was crying.”
He stopped then because his voice had started to shake. That final image of his mother was burned into his brain, and he saw it most nights when he closed his eyes.
Shannon’s voice was soft. “You couldn’t have known that was the last time you’d see them.”
“No, of course not.” He laughed bitterly. “Because when you’re a kid, you’re too self-absorbed and stupid to think about things like that. Fact is, my parents died believing I despised them and everything that mattered to them.”
“Did you?”
“I thought I did. But I turned out to be a hypocrite.”
“What do you mean?”
“I resented them for not respecting what was important to me, but in the end, I guess that’s what I did to them, isn’t it? My parents were not bad people. Maybe they were a
little shallow, maybe not. Maybe they had good reasons for valuing tradition and for expecting great things from their kids. It’s too late to ask them about it now, though. And if they had big dreams for me … well, I guess there are a lot worse things parents can do, aren’t there?”
She nodded, a grim look on her face.
“So if Drew’s angry at me, he’s got reason to be. I left quite a mess in his lap when I split. Two shell-shocked parents and the full weight of the Kingston expectations on his shoulders. I wish to God I could take back so many of the things I said and did back then, Shannon, and not just with my parents. But I can’t. And the damnable shame of it is that some of this started sinking in before they died. I was just too stubborn to pick up the phone and apologize. You always think there will be plenty of time for that, you know? I wasted so much time. Best I can do now is to try and protect what’s left of my parents’ legacy.” His voice shook despite his best efforts, and he forced a half-smile onto his face. “Can you understand that?”
“Yes.”
Michael closed his eyes with a sigh and held his head in his hands.
• • •
Go to him, a little voice urged inside Shannon’s head. Put your arms around him, hold his hand, but just do something. Heaven knew she wanted to, but something held her back. It might have been shyness, but she thought it had more to do with the confusion she had been feeling since her lunch with Drew. She was supposed to want to put her arms around Drew, not his brother, but somehow things had changed when she wasn’t looking.
What if she went to him and did something stupid? The memory of his mouth on hers last night, even if it was only “pretend,” was very vivid at the moment. Emotions were running high now, and emotions could make you do crazy things.
But he looked as if he was expecting her to get up and walk out. Did he really think he was so irredeemable? “Michael … ”
He said nothing and didn’t look up.
Caution be damned. She couldn’t just sit here and watch him heap condemnation on himself like this. Shannon stood up and moved slowly over to the bed to sit beside him. She put a tentative hand on his shoulder, and he stiffened beneath her touch. “Everybody has things in their past they wish they could do over again. You’re not a monster because you’ve made mistakes. You’re human.”
“But my mistakes have hurt other people very badly.”
“Maybe so. But does that make them unforgivable?”
He didn’t answer her, but she knew he was thinking yes.
“What if it was Drew?” she persisted. “If it were him instead of you, would you hate him?”
“No, but — ”
“Then you can’t hate yourself either. It’s not … it’s just not fair.”
Now he looked at her, and there was a hint of incredulity in his eyes. “It’s not fair? This is your argument?”
“Yes,” she insisted. “It’s a double standard.”
The corners of his mouth turned ever so slightly upward, and the sudden warmth in his eyes made her catch her breath. “Shannon, you — ” He trailed off, and the burgeoning smile faded.
“I what?”
He shook his head. “Forget it. Don’t worry about me. I’m here to try to honor my parents’ wishes, not earn forgiveness.”
“I think maybe you’re here to do both.”
“How?” Michael asked softly, and there was such pain in his voice, she wanted to put her arms around him. “They’re gone. It’s too late for forgiveness.”
“You need to forgive yourself.”
“I can’t.”
Unable to help herself any longer, Shannon reached over to take his hand in hers. “If your parents were half the people you say they were, they wouldn’t want you to spend the rest of your life punishing yourself, Michael. Don’t you think?”
Instead of answering, he closed his fingers around hers and held them tightly. Somehow she didn’t think there were any words she could say to convince him she was right. He would have to find a way to work that out for himself.
They sat in silence beside each other for a long time. “You know,” Shannon said finally, “I’m really mad at you.”
“What?” Michael asked, clearly startled by the turn in their conversation. “You’re mad at me?”
“Yes.” She couldn’t quite look him in the eyes as she continued. “When you came to town, I didn’t want to like you. You’ve gone and ruined all that.”
He started to laugh, and it was a relief for her to hear something besides sadness in his voice. Pulling his hand free from hers, he put his arm around her shoulders instead and drew her close to his side. She went willingly. “I apologize for making you like me,” he said against her temple.
“That’s all right.”
He swept a runaway lock of her hair back behind her ear with his free hand, then cupped her chin in order to tilt her head up and press his lips to her forehead. She closed her eyes against the sudden fire that swept through her and found herself half hoping his mouth would find its way to hers again like it had last night. “Thank you,” he whispered, resting his chin on top of her head.
“For what?’ she whispered back.
“Just … thank you.”
Her heart did a strange sort of flip inside her chest, and she knew she was in trouble.
Chapter Nine
It was getting increasingly harder to watch Shannon leave, especially knowing she was pining after another man. Michael stood alone in his room after she was gone, looking out his window at the bleak view of trashcans and graffiti but not really seeing any of it. His conversation with Shannon left him feeling drained, but there was a certain relief that went with it, and he wondered if this was what it felt like to emerge from a confessional. It wasn’t that he had finally forgiven himself, it was more that she knew the worst of everything now — his past with his parents, his cavalier history with women — and yet, miracle of miracles, she liked him anyway.
Another knock on his door startled him out of his thoughts. Shannon again? His spirits rose at the thought, and he moved quickly to answer the door.
“Long time no — ” He froze as he met Drew’s eyes. His younger brother stood on his doorstep, glowering coldly at him.
“Unless you’d like a scene out here in the hallway, I suggest you let me come in,” Drew said tersely, his jaw clenched.
Old animosities died hard, and Michael had to bite back a bitter and sarcastic response. Wordlessly, he stepped aside to let his brother in, although he suspected Drew cared a lot more about not creating a scene than he did. “How did you find me?” he asked, closing the door after Drew stalked past him.
“Started calling hotels in the phone book.”
“Now that’s dedication. It must have taken a long time to work your way down to the p’s.”
“Not really.” Drew turned around to face him. “I skipped over the nicer places because I knew I’d find you in a hellhole like this one.”
“Oh, it’s not so bad,” said Michael, eyeing the faded wallpaper and decrepit furniture. “You’re just not used to slumming it, little brother.”
“No, I suppose you’d be the one to know more about that kind of thing, wouldn’t you?”
“Touché.”
“What are you doing here, Michael?”
“Renting a room.”
Anger flickered over Drew’s face. “Don’t play games. You know exactly what I mean. What are you really doing back in town?”
“Oh, so now you’re interested in talking about that?” Michael returned, feeling some of his own anger spark now. “After you have me banned from your building? Interesting change of heart. What brought it about?”
“Well, I couldn’t help but notice you trying to seduce my secretary.”
“Sarcasm, huh? Stooping t
o my level, I see. And it’s personal assistant, by the way, not secretary.”
“What do you want with Shannon?” Drew asked bluntly.
Her lips, her laughter … everything, Michael thought. But he only raised his eyebrows. “Why? What exactly is she to you, Drew?”
“This has nothing to do with me. I know you, Michael. You see a skirt and you can’t resist chasing it. Well, Shannon is not one of your floozies you can have a good time with and then just throw away. She’s a nice girl, and I don’t want to see her get hurt.”
“Yes, she is a nice girl.”
“Then if you had half a conscience, you’d leave her alone. Tell me, Michael, are you just using her for kicks, or are you trying to get to me somehow?”
The words would have stung more if there hadn’t been some truth to them. Not about using Shannon, but about Michael’s blasé attitude toward relationships in the past and about the fact the two of them had made a bargain with each other involving Drew. But the implication that there couldn’t possibly be anything else between them hit a nerve. “Shannon is not a diversion, and she’s not a puppet,” Michael said stiffly. “If you won’t give me any credit, at least give her some, would you?”
“Oh, you’re going to defend her to me? That’s rich. I give Shannon plenty of credit, but I’m not sure she has enough experience with men to recognize when one of them is bad for her. The thing is, she’s been bending my ear about you lately, and about Kingston Manor. And then lo and behold, it turns out you’ve been — I don’t know if dating is the right word for it — but you’ve been hanging around her. Anyway, I’m sure you’ve been giving her some kind of sob story about how rough life has been for you. Then you sent her in to talk to me, didn’t you?”
“Gee, Drew, why would I do that when you’ve been so agreeable about talking to me directly?”
“So you admit it! You did try to manipulate her,” Drew said, his voice rising as he took a step closer to Michael.
“I asked her to listen, and she did, which is more than I can say for you.”
The Bargain Page 11