FIRST KISS

by Marylin Pappano

  Folding his arms over his chest, he leaned against the door. "Your father betrayed you, Holly, not me. I'm sorry you found out the way you did. I'm sorry you're upset and disappointed. But you're not going to take it out on me, and you're sure as hell not taking it out on your sister."

  "She's not my sister! She's his bast—"

  Tom freed one hand and extended it until his index finger almost touched her nose. "Don't call her that," he warned in a deadly quiet voice. "Don't ever call her that."

  Too late she realized that her insult applied to him as well as to Bree. It was one he'd heard frequently over the years. Every time he'd seen his mother's father, the old man had called him that, with all the scorn and hatred he'd been able to muster. It had hurt his mother, and shamed him, and he'd hated his grandfather for it.

  Holly took a step back and rubbed one hand over her face. "I'm sorry," she said stiffly, and he half believed she was. "But this has not been one of the better surprises in my life, and I need some time… All my life I loved my father, and I resented my mother. I blamed her for everything. It was her fault he traveled so much, her fault he was distant even when he was here, her fault that he was only a part-time father to me, and not a very good one at that. I made all the excuses in the world for him, and laid all the blame on her, and … I was wrong. He wasn't running away from Margery. He was running to Allison. And Bree. He chose them over us. He wanted to be with them. To hear Bree tell it, he was the best father a kid could have asked for." Her voice softened and grew bitter. "But not to me."

  "Bree says he loved you."

  "Yeah, he really showed it, didn't he? Every minute of his life was a damned lie. Every time he was here, every time he was gone … I thought I knew him, but he was a master deceiver. I didn't know that he was the most selfish person in my life. He forced my mother to live here in a place she hated while he went off and lived half his life elsewhere with his make-believe wife and his replacement daughter."

  Tom reached for her, but she backed away again. Relenting, he lowered his hand to his side. "Holly, whatever his reasons for doing that, it had nothing to do with you."

  "It had everything to do with me!" she cried. "I loved him! I trusted him! He's the only man in the world I've ever been able to say that about, the only man I thought I would always be able to say that about! And I was wrong. How could I love him when I didn't even know him? How could I trust him when his entire life was just one huge deception after another?" She angrily swiped away a tear. "God, I'm glad he's dead, because if he wasn't, I'd want to kill him myself! I hate him!"

  "Fine. Hate him. Hate Allison. Hate everycould in the whole damned world … but not Bree. And not me."

  She stared at him, and he read the sorrow in her eyes. The confusion. The hurt. The fear. Hell, he shared them with her. She was going to use this as a reason to back away from him. He knew it as surely as he knew that he couldn't let her, or he'd lose her forever.

  Then she blinked, and the emotions disappeared. It was an impressive feat. Even he, at his coldest, hadn't been able to turn it off that quickly, that completely. She looked cool and composed, as if they were discussing some topic of little or no importance. "I don't hate her," she conceded, "but I don't want her here, either. The family I was cursed with at birth has been enough of a headache for me. I'm not looking for any more trouble. Maybe someday I'll change my mind, but not now. Now I want her gone."

  He wanted to touch her, to take her in his arms and hold her and kiss her until she'd forgotten all about her parents and the pain they'd caused her, but in all the time he'd known her, she'd never seemed less approachable. He knew that if he put his arms around her, she would stand stiff and unrelenting. She would refuse to lean on him the way she needed to, the way he needed her to. She would keep herself distant, and he would feel rejected, and so he stayed back.

  "You always wanted a sister," he reminded her. "Until you turned twelve and your mother humiliated you in front of all your friends and you decided that you'd rather be an only child and the only target for her temper than subject some helpless, innocent kid to her anger."

  "I never said that!"

  "But it's true, isn't it? You wanted a sister, but one who wouldn't have to suffer with Margery the way you did. Well, that's what you've got."

  Tears filled her eyes. He'd never seen her cry and would have sworn a year ago—hell, even two months ago—that she was no more capable of crying than he was of loving. "But she wasn't here when I was growing up and needed her," she whispered. "Now I don't need her. I don't need anyone."

  "You're wrong. You need me."

  She shook her head numbly. "No. I don't need anyone, and I never will. Needing someone, trusting, believing… It takes too much out of a person. People always let you down, and the disappointment … I can't bear the disappointment." Shaking her head again, she went into her bedroom and closed the door.

  Tom stood there in the hallway, debating what to do. He could try to talk to her and get nowhere. He could try to hold her and probably get nowhere with that. Or he could take some aspirin, go to bed, and hope things would be better in the morning.

  Right, he scoffed silently as he let himself out, then took the rear stairs to the second floor. She'd just received the biggest shock of her life, had found out that she'd been betrayed by the one man she'd thought absolutely could not betray her, and she was on the verge of deciding that she would never trust anyone again, never love anyone again.

  He was afraid it would be one hell of a long time before things seemed even remotely better.

  * * *

  Chapter 15

  « ^ »

  Some days it just didn't pay to wake up.

  Margery rolled onto her side and squinted at the alarm clock, but she couldn't force the blurs into separate numbers. Judging from the light streaming in the windows, it was at least mid-morning, and she was hungry, achy, and hung over. But she couldn't remember drinking the day before. That smart-assed waitress of Holly's had brought her ice water instead of scotch and water, and when she'd tried to deal with her, Bree had—

  Oh, God. Bree. Allison. Holly.

  She was hung over, all right, from an overdose of emotional distress and a shot of something from Holly's doctor friend, who had mentioned something about one alcoholic to another, and rehab. Everything after that was fuzzy.

  So now Holly knew the truth about Lewis.

  And Margery would have given anything to spare her. Damn Lewis, damn Allison, and, especially, damn Bree for coming to the inn in the first place. She'd lived her entire life without ever meeting Holly. Why couldn't she have lived the rest of it the same way?

  A soft sound from behind her penetrated the thick fog that filled her brain. She glanced over her shoulder, then slowly turned onto her other side.

  Holly was sitting in the chair there, looking as beautiful as ever. She wore a green wool dress with a simple rounded neck, long sleeves, and a matching belt cinched around her slender waist. Her hair was perfectly styled, her makeup perfectly applied. There was a distant look in her eyes, and a grim set to her mouth, but other than that, she didn't look like the same stunned woman who'd very quietly, very desperately, left the library the afternoon before.

  Margery wanted to say something totally innocent, harmless, maybe amusing—something that Holly couldn't possibly take offense at, that couldn't possibly make her think of anything hurtful or disappointing. But when she opened her mouth, the words that slipped out were all wrong: "She reminds me of you."

  It took a moment for Holly to return from her thoughts, to hear and understand what she'd said. She shifted her gaze to Margery and icily asked, "Who reminds you of me?"

  Nervously Margery moistened her lips. "Bree. I told you she reminded me of someone, remember? But I couldn't figure out who. It was you. Her eyes, the shape of her mouth, the stubbornness of her jaw… You both inherited those things from your father."

  Holly stared at her unflinchingly for so long that Marge
ry wished she were still asleep, incapable of causing her daughter any further pain or heartache. After a time, though, Holly asked, "Did you know about her?"

  Margery shook her head. "I knew … I knew he was having an affair. Multiple ones, I thought, with different women. I never dreamed it was just one, and never in my worst nightmares did I think it could be Allison, or that he would have a child with her."

  "I'll never forgive him for this."

  "No one would ask you to."

  "I'm furious with him."

  "You're entitled."

  "I'm certainly not going to be her sister."

  That remark jerked Margery out of her agreeable mood. "Excuse me? Do you think you have a choice in that, little girl? She is your sister, like it or not. You can't just wave your magic wand and make her disappear."

  "I can make her leave my inn. I can make her disappear from my life."

  "And what would that accomplish? You would be punishing her for things her parents did, and punishing yourself, too. She's waited a long time to meet her big sister."

  "I'm not interested in being anyone's big sister. It's too late for that."

  "It's too late to share a bedroom and confide all your secrets to each other, or to play dolls or dress-up or giggle about first dates. But you can still have a very special relationship, Holly, different from anything you've ever known. You can give her advice, and she can make you lighten up a bit. You can make her feel welcome in her father's home. You can—"

  "It's my home now, and she's not welcome." Holly's temper flared. "How can you take her side? She and her mother helped destroy our lives!"

  Margery sat up, discovered she was wearing her favorite black silk nightgown, and wondered who had helped her put it on. One or more of Holly's unfortunate employees, she assumed. It would not happen again. The days of being undressed and put to bed by strangers were over. "Holly, I'm sixty-two years old, and I have been miserable most of my life. I'm too old and too tired to worry about whose fault that was. Some of it was Lewis's. Some was Allison's. Most of it, undoubtedly, was mine. But laying blame doesn't change anything. It doesn't make me any happier. It doesn't give me a better relationship with you or anyone else, for that matter.

  "I'm not taking anyone's side. I'm just telling you that being angry and holding grudges and laying blame doesn't do anything but leave you a sad, unhappy, and bitter person. I know that from my own experience. I don't have a real friend in the world, and my daughter—my only family—is happiest when I'm five hundred miles away. But at least you're one up on me in the family department. You've got a sister, and she wants very much to be a part of your life. You can blame her for what your father did and send her away, or you can find out what it's like to have family who loves you and wants to be there for you."

  Holly stared at her mutinously. "At least you acknowledge that it's my choice. And my choice is to send her away. If you have a problem with that, well, you're perfectly welcome to leave with her." Moving with tightly controlled grace, she stood up and walked to the door. "Since you obviously survived the night and require no further medication, I've got work to do."

  "There is one thing I need, Holly." Margery spoke quickly to stop her from walking out, to get the words out before her courage slipped away. "A favor, if you will."

  Holly turned back, a wary look firmly in place. "What kind of favor?"

  "Last night your friend, the doctor, mentioned a—a treatment facility for people with … problems. Will you…" Briefly she acknowledged how much easier this conversation would be with a glass of wine or a cold beer to help the words along. Her mouth actually watered at the thought, until she closed her eyes and cleared the image, the taste, the comfort, from her mind. "Will you call him and ask the name of this—this hospital? I … would like to go there as soon as possible."

  Holly stared at her—simply stared. Not once in her life had Margery made any real effort to stop drinking. She was sure her daughter had believed the day would never come, but it was time. There was so much she was sorry for, so much she needed to make right, but she couldn't do that until she'd dealt with the fact that she was an alcoholic, and a mean one, at that.

  After a long time, Holly swallowed hard, then nodded. "I'll call him as soon as he gets home from church."

  Margery nodded, too. "Thank you. I'll be packed and ready to go."

  * * *

  Chapter 16

  « ^ »

  Monday was one of those warm, mild days that came too seldom in February, reminding them all that, though winter seemed endless, spring was coming. Holly sat at her desk in the office she shared with Emilie, but she wasn't the least bit interested in the invoices stacked in front of her. Her chair was swiveled around to face the windows, and her gaze was lost somewhere out there in the fields and woods.

  She needed a vacation. It had been a long winter, and the past few weeks in particular had been difficult. She needed to be someplace warm and tropical, someplace far from Bethlehem and her problems.

  One of her problems, at least, was gone. J.D. had made a few phone calls Sunday afternoon, had picked up Margery soon after and escorted her to the rehab hospital himself. He'd called Holly later that night, close to midnight, when he'd gotten back, and told her that Margery's admission had gone off without a hitch. She'd changed her mind a dozen times on the way there, but she hadn't acted on it. He'd sounded guardedly optimistic, and that was the way Holly felt.

  But her other problems remained in residence. Bree was making every effort to stay in the background, unnoticed by anyone, while Tom was determined to stay in the foreground. All day Sunday, it had seemed Holly couldn't take two steps without finding him there. Thank God he'd gone to work this morning. Maybe, while he was gone, she could pack her bags and flee. By the time he got home from the office, she could be lying on a Caribbean beach someplace obscure and isolated where even he wouldn't be able to find her.

  Could she stay there until he gave up on her? Until he decided she was more trouble than she was worth? Until he moved back to Buffalo, where he belonged, and took up with some long-legged beauty who wouldn't love him enough to be hurt when the inevitable let-down came?

  Not that Holly loved him. She was fond of him—maybe even extraordinarily so. But love? No way. Loving someone was the quickest way to a broken heart, and her heart had been broken enough over the last weekend alone to last a lifetime.

  Emilie came into the office, taking a seat at her desk as the phone rang. With a curious look at Holly, she answered, then said, "Let me put you on hold, Tom, and I'll get her."

  Shaking her head, Holly waited until Emilie pressed the Hold button to say, "I don't want to talk to him."

  "Holly—" With a sigh, Emilie returned to the call. "Tom, she won't come to the phone right now … I know … I'll give her the message." When she hung up, she said, "I love you dearly, Holly, but I'm not going to lie for you."

  "How convenient," Holly said snidely. "Too bad you weren't so concerned with truth and integrity when you first came here and told everyone that Mrs. Pearce's house and your sisters' kids were yours. Everything you did then was a lie. But now you're too honorable to make one simple excuse for someone else."

  Her blue gaze cool and tinged with hurt, Emilie rose once again from the chair. "Tom wants you to meet him at Harry's for lunch. He'll be there in half an hour."

  After she'd walked out, Holly pressed her hands to her face. She couldn't believe she'd spoken to Emilie like that. She knew the reasons for Emilie's deception when she'd first come to Bethlehem, knew she'd been desperate to save her nieces and nephew from the same foster-care system that had made life so difficult for her and her sister. Holly understood and admired her devotion to the kids.

  Hell, she didn't even really care that she'd refused to lie to Tom. Even if she'd made a simple excuse, he was no fool. He would have suspected that Holly was avoiding him.

  What would he think in half an hour, when he waited alone at Harry's? Would he be angry
that she'd stood him up, or would he simply accept it?

  But she didn't have to wonder what he would think, because three minutes before the appointed time, she walked in the diner door. He was sitting in a booth, with two menus and a cup of coffee in front of him, and he looked … worried.

  The look eased a bit when he saw her. He didn't stand to greet her, didn't try to kiss her. She was grateful for small favors, since she knew everyone in the place. Once she sat down, though, he did reach across to take her hand. "I wasn't sure you would come."

  "I didn't intend to," she admitted. "I just thought…" That she should. That she wanted to see him even more than she didn't want to.

  He waited until Maeve poured her coffee and took their orders to speak again. "You look tired."

  Her only response was a shrug. She hadn't slept well in two days. Her dreams had been numerous, disjointed, and unsettling, with one common theme—everyone in them, everyone she'd ever cared about, had chosen someone or something over her. With her father, it had been Allison and Bree; with her mother, alcoholic oblivion. The dream—Tom had put up with all he could endure before choosing the solitary peace of his old life over the emotional turmoil of life with her.

  "How busy will the next few weeks be at the inn?"

  "About average."

  "Anything your staff couldn't handle?"

  A kernel of dread began growing in the pit of her stomach. "Why?"

  "I thought this might be a good time for you to go away for a week or so. With me."

  She gazed steadily at him. Less than an hour ago she'd been wishing she were on a tropical beach somewhere, with no responsibilities, no guilt, no anger, no bitterness, and, most important, no pressure. No Bree lurking in the shadows with that anxious, wistful, sorrowful look in her eyes. No memories of Margery walking out of the inn with J.D. at her side, her head held high, her smile confident, and sheer terror making her quake. No Tom hanging around, pressuring her—whether he said a word or remained totally silent—to act like a mature, intelligent adult in this whole mess. Less than an hour ago it had sounded like heaven.