by Nora Roberts
“So, you’re back.”
“Yes, just now. I thought you’d be with the children’s group.”
“Janine took it.” Rage had her by the throat, whipping the words out before she could stop them. “Did you think to sneak in and out before I got home?”
Stunned, Olivia blinked, stood numbly as Noah shifted in front of her, much as he had to shield her from the cougar. “I asked Olivia if I could shower and change, since the lodge is booked. I’m Noah Brady, Mrs. MacBride.”
“I know who you are. This is Livvy’s home,” she said shortly. “If she’s told you that you can use it to clean up, that’s her right. But I have nothing to say to you. Move aside,” she ordered. “I have groceries to put away.”
She dragged at the wheel and, without another glance at either of them, drove around the back of the house.
“I broke my word to her,” Olivia murmured.
“No, you didn’t.”
She let out a shuddering breath that caught in her throat as he started after the truck. “What are you doing? Where are you going?”
“To help your grandmother carry in the groceries.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” She caught up, dragged at his arm. “Just go! Can’t you see how I hurt her?”
“Yeah, I can see it. And I can damn well see how she’s hurt you.” The steel was back in his voice as he took her wrist, pulled her hand away. “I’m not backing off. You’re both going to have to deal with that.”
He strode to the back of the house and, before Val could protest, plucked a bag out of her hand. Reaching into the bed of the truck, he hauled out another. “I’ll take these in.”
He carted them onto the back porch and let himself in through the kitchen door.
“I’m sorry.” Olivia rushed to Val. “Grandma, I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t have—I’ll make him go.”
“You’ve already made your choices.” Back stiff, Val reached in for another bag.
“I wasn’t thinking clearly. I’m sorry.” She could taste hysteria bubbling in her own throat. “I’m so sorry. I’ll make him go.”
“No, you won’t.” Struggling to hold his temper, Noah came back out. He walked to the truck, took the last two bags. “Any more than I’ll make you do anything. If you want to take it out on someone, Mrs. MacBride, take it out on me.”
“Noah, would you just go?”
“And leave you here feeling guilty and unhappy?” He gave her a long, quiet look that had Val’s eyes narrowing. “You know better. I’m sorry we disagree about the book,” he continued, turning back to Val. “I’m sorry that my being here upsets you. But the fact is, I’m going to write the book, and I’m going to be a part of Olivia’s life. I hope we can come to terms about both, because she loves you. She loves you enough, and is grateful enough for everything you’ve done for her and been to her, that if it comes down to a choice between your peace of mind and her own happiness, she’ll choose you.”
“That’s not fair,” Olivia began, and Val cut her off with a lifted hand.
The wound inside her might have broken open again, might have been raw and viciously painful. But her eyes were still clear, they were still sharp. She wanted to dislike his face, to find it cold and hard and ruthless. She wanted to see self-interest, perhaps coated with a thin sheen of polish.
Instead she saw the glint of anger that hadn’t faded since it had flashed into his eyes when she’d snapped at Olivia. And she saw the strength she’d once seen in his father’s face.
“That book will not be discussed in this house.”
Noah nodded. “Understood.”
“There’re perishables in those bags,” Val said as she turned away. “I have to get them put away.”
“Just give them to me,” Olivia began, then hissed in frustration when he simply walked past her and into the house behind her grandmother.
Left with no choice, Olivia dragged off her pack, dumped it on the porch and hurried in after them.
Already unloading bags, Val glanced toward the door as Olivia came in. She saw nerves, ripe and jittery, in her granddaughter’s eyes. It made her feel ashamed.
“You might as well take that pack off,” she said to Noah. “I imagine you’re sick of carrying it by now.”
“If I admitted that, Liv would smirk at me. She wants me to think she thinks I’m a shallow urbanite who can’t tell east from west.”
“You can’t,” Olivia murmured and had Noah grinning at her.
“I was just testing you.”
“And are you?” Val asked. If she’d been blind, she would have seen the bond in the look that passed between them. “A shallow urbanite.”
“No, ma’am, I’m not. The fact is I’ve fallen in love, not just with Liv—though that came as a jolt to both of us—but with Washington. At least your part of it. I’ve already picked some spots where we could build our house, but Liv says we’d run into trouble because it’s a national park.”
“He’s just babbling,” Olivia managed when she had untangled her tongue. “There isn’t—”
“Spending a few days at the lodge or camping isn’t like living here,” Val interrupted.
“I don’t guess it is.” Noah leaned back comfortably against the counter. “But I’m a pretty flexible guy about some things. And this is where she’s happy. This is home for her. As soon as I saw this place, I thought she’d like to get married right here in the yard, between the flowers and the forest. That would suit her, wouldn’t it?”
“Oh, stop it!” Olivia burst out. “There isn’t—”
“I wasn’t talking to you,” Noah said mildly, then offered Val an easy smile. “She’s crazy about me, but she’s having a little trouble, you know, settling into it.”
Val nearly smiled. It broke her heart, then filled it again to see the amused exasperation on her little girl’s face. “You’re a clever young man, aren’t you?”
“I like to think so.”
She sighed a little as she neatly folded the last brown bag. “You might as well go get the rest of your things. You can stay in the guest room.”
“Thanks. I’ll just leave the pack here.” He turned, caught Olivia by the chin while she was still trying to catch up and kissed her, warmly, deeply. “I won’t be long.”
“I—” The screen door slapped smartly behind him, and Olivia threw up her hands. “You didn’t have to do that. He’ll be fine at the campground. You’ll just be uncomfortable if he stays here.”
Val walked over to tuck the bags away in the broom closet. “Are you in love with him?”
“I—it’s just . . .” She trailed off helplessly as Val turned back to look at her.
“Are you in love with him, Livvy?”
She could only nod as tears swam into her eyes.
“And if I said I don’t want him around here, I don’t want you to have anything to do with him? That you owe me the loyalty to respect my feelings on this?”
“But—”
“I’ll never have peace if you let that man into your life.”
She went white, white and rigid with the lance of pain. This was the woman who had given her everything, who had opened her arms, her heart, her home. She had to grip the edge of the counter to steady herself. “I’ll go . . . I’ll go tell him he has to leave.”
“Oh. Oh, Livvy.” Val dropped into a chair, covering her face as she burst into tears.
“Don’t! Don’t cry. I’ll send him away. He won’t come back.” Already on her knees, Olivia wrapped her arms around Val’s waist. “I won’t see him again.”
“He was right.” Eyes drenched, Val framed Olivia’s pale face. “I wanted to throw it back in his face, but he was right. You’d turn away from him, from your own heart if you thought it was what I needed. I wanted him to be the selfish one, but I’m the one who’s been selfish.”
“No. Never.”
“I’ve hoarded you, Livvy.” With an unsteady hand, Val brushed at Olivia’s hair. “As much for your sake as mine in t
he beginning, but . . . As time passed, just for me. I lost my Julie, and I promised myself nothing would ever happen to you.”
“You took care of me.”
“Yes, I took care of you.” Tears streaming still, Val pressed a kiss to Olivia’s forehead. “I loved you, and, Livvy, I needed you. I needed you so desperately. So I never let you go, not really.”
“Don’t cry, Gran.” It ripped her to shreds to see the tears.
“I have to face it. We both do. I never let either of us face it, Livvy. Every time your grandfather would try to talk to me about it, to make me see, I closed off. Even just a few days ago, I wouldn’t listen to him. I knew he was right, but I wouldn’t listen. Now it’s taken an outsider to make me face it.”
“Everything I have, everything I am, I owe to you.”
“It’s not a debt.” Anger with herself made Val’s voice sharp. “I’m ashamed to know I let you think it was or should be. I’m ashamed that I pulled back from you when you chose to cooperate with this book. I could see it was something you needed, but I pulled back, deliberately, and made you suffer for it. I put a wedge between us, and I was too proud, too afraid to pull it out again.”
“I have to know why it happened.”
“And I’ve never let you. I’ve never let any of us.” Val drew Olivia closer, rested her cheek on the soft cap of hair. “I still don’t know if I can face it all. But I do know I want you to be happy. Not just safe. Being safe isn’t enough to live on.”
Steadier, Val eased back, rubbed the tears away. “It’s best if your young man stays here.”
“I don’t want him to upset you.”
Val took what she hoped was the next step and managed a smile. “I’d rather he stay here where I can keep an eye on him and see if he’s good enough for you. If I decide he’s not, I’ll see that your grandfather whips him into shape.”
Olivia turned her cheek into Val’s hand. “He claims he can charm you in less than an hour.”
“Well, we’ll just see about that.” Rising, Val plucked out a tissue, blew her nose. “It takes more than a pretty face to charm me. I’ll make up my own mind in my own time.” Her head felt a little hollow from the emotional ride. “I suppose I’d better go up and see that the guest room’s in order.”
“I’ll do it. I’ll just take my pack up.” She hefted it. “I should run over to the Center, check on things. It won’t take me long.”
“Take your time. It’ll give me a chance to interrogate your young man. You never brought one home with you before for me to make squirm.”
“He’s slippery.”
“I’m quick.”
“Gran, I love you so much.”
“Yes, I know you do. Go on. I need to make myself presentable. We’ll talk more, Livvy,” she murmured after Olivia started up the stairs. “It’s long past time we talked.”
Her step was light as she crossed the upstairs hall to her room. She was in love, and it didn’t hurt a bit. The gaps that had widened between her and her grandmother over the past months were closing.
The future was a wide, wonderful space overflowing with possibilities. Wanting to hurry, she flung open the door of her room. And the joy that had just begun to fill her soul fell away.
There, on the pillow of her bed, bathed in a quiet stream of sunlight, lay a single white rose.
thirty
She couldn’t breathe. Her head rang, wild, frantic bells that vibrated down from her skull, pealed down her spine, beat along her numbed legs until she simply collapsed forward on her hands and knees and began to suck for air like a woman drowning.
There was a terrible urge to crawl away.
Into the closet, into the dark.
She fought it and the ice-pick jabs of panic in her chest. She pressed her hand to her shirt, then stared down it, surprised it wasn’t covered with blood.
The monster was here.
In the house. He’d been in the house. With the thought of that chuckling hideously in her ear, she lunged to her feet, stumbled over the pack she’d dropped. Momentum carried her forward so that she fell on the bed, her fingers inches away from the stem of that perfect white rose.
She snatched her hand away as if the flower were a snake, filled with venom and ready to strike.
She reared back, her eyes wide and round, the scream tearing at her throat for release.
In the house, she thought again. He’d come into the house. And her grandmother was down in the kitchen, alone. Her hand might have shook, but she reached for the knife at her belt, unsheathed it so that blade hissed against leather. And she moved quietly toward the door.
She wasn’t a helpless child now, and she would protect what she loved.
He wouldn’t still be inside. She tried to reason with herself, to follow logic, but she could still taste the fear.
She slipped out into the hall, keeping her back against the wall. Her ears were cocked for any sound, and the hilt of the knife was hot in her hand.
She moved quietly from room to room, carefully as she would when tracking a deer. She searched each one for a sign, for a scent, a change in the air. Her knees trembled as she crossed to the attic door.
Would he hide there where the memories were locked away? Would he know somehow that everything precious of her mother was neatly stored up those narrow stairs?
She imagined herself going up, climbing those steps, hearing the faint creak of her weight against the old wood. Then seeing him, standing there with the chest lid flung open, and her mother’s scent struggling to life in the musty air.
The bloody scissors in his hand, and the deranged eyes of the monster looking out from her father’s face.
She all but willed it to be so as her fingers trembled against the knob. She would raise her knife and drive it into him, as he’d once driven the blades into her mother. And she would end it.
But her hand lay limply on the knob, and her brow pressed against the wood of the door. For the first time in two decades, she wanted desperately to weep and couldn’t.
At the sound of a car rounding the lane, she slid the bolt home under the knob and ran on jellied legs to a window.
The first fresh spurt of fear when she didn’t recognize the car shimmered into relief when she saw Noah climb out. Her hands curled on the sill as she scanned the trees, the lengthening shadows.
Was he out there? Was he watching?
She spun around, desperate to run downstairs now, to let the terror spill out so someone else could take it away.
And thought of her grandmother.
No, no, she couldn’t frighten her that way. She would handle it herself. Cautious, she slid the knife back in its sheath, but left the safety unsnapped.
She leaned against the wall again, taking slow, even breaths. When she heard Noah’s step on the stairs, she moved back into the hall.
“She’s starting to warm up to me. Asked if I liked grilled pork chops.”
“Let me give you a hand with that.” How steady her voice was, she thought. How cool. She reached out to take his laptop case and left him with his bag and gear. “The guest room’s in here. It has its own bath.”
“Thanks.” He followed her inside, glancing around as he dropped his bags on the bed. “This is a hell of a lot more appealing than a pup tent on a campsite. And guess who’s here?”
“Here?”
His eyes narrowed on her face at the thready ring to her voice. “What’s the matter, Liv?”
She shook her head, lowered to the edge of the bed. She needed a minute, just another minute. “Who’s here?”
“My parents.” He took a good look at her now and, sitting beside her, took her hand. It was clammy and cold.
“Frank? Frank’s here?” Her hand turned over in his, gripped like a vise.
“At the lodge,” Noah said slowly. “They’d booked a room a while back. I want you to tell me what’s wrong.”
“I will. Frank’s here.” She let her head drop weakly on Noah’s shoulder. “I aske
d him to come. When I was in L.A. I went to his house and asked him if he could. And he did.”
“You matter to him. You always did.”
“I know. It’s like a circle, and it keeps going. All of us around and around. We can’t stop, just can’t stop going around until it’s all finished. He’s been in the house, Noah.”
“Who?”
She straightened up, and though her cheeks were still pale, her eyes were level. “My father. He’s been in the house.”
“How do you know?”
“There’s a rose on my bed. A white rose. He wants me to know he’s come back.”
The only change was a hardness that came into his eyes and a coldness that glinted into the green. “Stay here.”
“I’ve looked.” She tightened her grip on his hand. “I’ve already looked through the house. Except for the attic. I couldn’t go into the attic because . . .”
“Damn right you couldn’t go into the attic.” The idea of it made his stomach churn. “You stay in here or go downstairs with your grandmother.”
“No, you don’t understand. I couldn’t go up because I wanted him to be there. I wanted it because I wanted to go up and kill him. Kill my father. God help me, I could see it, the way I’d ram the knife into him. The way his blood would run over my hands. I wanted it. I wanted it. What does that make me?”
“Human.” He snapped it out, the word as effective as a slap. She jerked back, shuddered once.
“No. It would have made me what he is.”
“Did you go up, Olivia?”
“No. I locked the door from the outside.”
“Lock this one from the inside, and wait for me.”
“Don’t go.”
“He’s not here.” He got to his feet. “But you’ll feel better if we make sure. Lock the door,” he ordered. “And wait.”
Despising herself, she did just that. Hid, as she had hidden before. When he came back, she opened the door and looked at him with empty eyes.
“There’s no one there. I didn’t see any indication there had been. We need to tell your grandparents.”
“It’ll frighten my grandmother.”
“She has to know. See if you can track down your grandfather. Call the lodge. I’ll call my parents.” He skimmed his knuckles over her cheek. “You’ll feel better if you have your cop.”