by Nora Roberts
“Sleeping.”
“Dr. Carnegie, my tardy son, Harper.”
“Sorry. I hope I didn’t hold you up.”
“Not at all,” Mitch said as they shook hands. “Happy to meet you.”
“Why don’t we sit down? It looks like David’s outdone himself.”
An arrangement of summer flowers in a long, low bowl centered the table. Candles burned, slim white tapers in gleaming silver, on the sideboard. David had used her white-on-white china with pale yellow and green linens for casual elegance. A cool and artful lobster salad was already arranged on each plate. David sailed in with wine.
“Who can I interest in this very nice Pinot Grigio?”
The doctor, Roz noted, stuck with mineral water.
“You know,” Harper began as they enjoyed the main course of stuffed pork, “you look awfully familiar.” He narrowed his eyes on Mitch’s face. “I’ve been trying to figure it out. You didn’t teach at the U of M while I was there, did you?”
“I might have, but I don’t recall you being in any of my classes.”
“No. I don’t think that’s it anyway. Maybe I went to one of your lectures or something. Wait. Wait. I’ve got it. Josh Carnegie. Power forward for the Memphis Tigers.”
“My son.”
“Strong resemblance. Man, he’s a killer. I was at the game last spring, against South Carolina, when he scored thirty-eight points. He’s got moves.”
Mitch smiled, rubbed a thumb over the fading bruise on his jaw. “Tell me.”
Conversation turned to basketball, boisterously, and gave Logan the opportunity to lean toward Stella. “Your daddy says he’s looking forward to seeing you and the boys on Sunday. I’ll drive you in, as I’ve got an invitation to Sunday dinner, too.”
“Is that so?”
“He likes me.” He picked up her free hand, brushed his lips over his fingers. “We’re bonding over oleanders.”
She didn’t try to stop the smile. “You hit him where it counts.”
“You, the kids, his garden. Yeah, I’d say I got it covered. You write that list for me yet, Red?”
“Apparently you’re doing fine crossing things off without consulting me.”
His grin flashed. “Jolene thinks we should go traditional and have a June wedding.”
When Stella’s mouth dropped open, he turned away to talk to her kids about the latest issues of Marvel Comics.
Over dessert, a rustling, then a long, shrill cry sounded from the baby monitor standing on the buffet. Hayley popped up as if she were on springs. “That’s my cue. I’ll be back down after she’s fed and settled again.”
“Speaking of cues.” Stella rose as well. “Time for bed, guys. School night,” she added even before the protests could be voiced.
“Going to bed before it’s dark is a gyp,” Gavin complained.
“I know. Life is full of them. What comes next?”
Gavin heaved a sigh. “Thanks for dinner, it was really good, and now we have to go to bed because of stupid school.”
“Close enough,” Stella decided.
“ ’Night. I liked the finger potatoes ’specially,” Luke said to David.
“Want a hand?” Logan called out.
“No.” But she stopped at the doorway, turned back and just looked at him a moment. “But thanks.”
She herded them up, beginning the nightly ritual as thunder rumbled in. And Parker scooted under Luke’s bed to hide from it. Rain splatted, fat juicy drops, against the windows as she tucked them in.
“Parker’s a scaredy-cat.” Luke snuggled his head in the pillow. “Can he sleep up here tonight?”
“All right, just for tonight, so he isn’t afraid.” She lured him out from under the bed, and stroking him as he trembled, laid him in with Luke. “Is that better now?”
“Uh-huh. Mom?” He broke off, petting the dog, and exchanging a long look with his brother.
“What? What are you two cooking up?”
“You ask her,” Luke hissed.
“Nuh-uh. You.”
“You.”
“Ask me what? If you’ve spent all your allowances and work money on comics, I—”
“Are you going to marry Logan?” Gavin blurted out.
“Am I—where did you get an idea like that?”
“We heard Roz and Hayley talking about how he asked you to.” Luke yawned, blinked sleepily at her. “So are you?”
She sat on the side of Gavin’s bed. “I’ve been thinking about it. But I wouldn’t decide something that important without talking to both of you. It’s a lot to think about, for all of us, a lot to discuss.”
“He’s nice, and he plays with us, so it’s okay if you do.”
Stella let out a laugh at Luke’s rundown. All right, she thought, maybe not such a lot to discuss from certain points of view.
“Marriage is a very big deal. It’s a really big promise.”
“Would we go live in his house?” Luke wondered.
“Yes, I suppose we would if ...”
“We like it there. And I like when he holds me upside down. And he got the splinter out of my finger, and it hardly hurt at all. He even kissed it after, just like he’s supposed to.”
“Did he?” she murmured.
“He’d be our stepdad.” Gavin drew lazy circles with his finger on top of his sheet. “Like we have Nana Jo for a stepgrandmother. She loves us.”
“She certainly does.”
“So we decided it’d be okay to have a stepdad, if it’s Logan.”
“I can see you’ve given this a lot of thought,” Stella managed. “And I’m going to think about it, too. Maybe we’ll talk about it more tomorrow.” She kissed Gavin’s cheek.
“Logan said Dad’s always watching out for us.”
Tears burned the back of her eyes. “Yes. Oh, yes, he is, baby.”
She hugged him, hard, then turned to hug Luke. “Good night. I’ll be right downstairs.”
But she walked through to her room first to catch her breath, compose herself. Treasures, she thought. She had the most precious treasures. She pressed her fingers to her eyes and thought of Kevin. A treasure she’d lost.
Logan said Dad’s always watching out for us.
A man who would know that, would accept that and say those words to a young boy was another kind of treasure.
He’d changed the pattern on her. He’d planted a bold blue dahlia in the middle of her quiet garden. And she wasn’t digging it out.
“I’m going to marry him,” she heard herself say, and laughed at the thrill of it.
Through the next boom of thunder, she heard the singing. Instinctively, she stepped into the bath, to look into her sons’ room. She was there, ghostly in billowing white, her hair a tangle of dull gold. She stood between the beds, her voice calm and sweet, her eyes insane as she stared through the flash of lightning at Stella.
Fear trickled down Stella’s back. She stepped forward, and was shoved back by a blast of cold.
“No.” She raced forward again, and hit a solid wall. “No!” She battered at it. “You won’t keep me from my babies.” She flung herself against the frigid shield, screaming for her children who slept on, undisturbed.
“You bitch! Don’t you touch them.”
She ran out of the room, ignoring Hayley, who raced down toward her, ignoring the clatter of feet on the stairs. She knew only one thing. She had to get to her children, she had to get through the barrier and get to her boys.
At a full run she hit the open doorway, and was knocked back against the far wall.
“What the hell’s going on?” Logan grabbed her, pushing her aside as he rushed the room himself.
“She won’t let me in.” Desperate, Stella beat her fists against the cold until her hands were raw and numb. “She’s got my babies. Help me.”
Logan rammed his shoulder against the opening. “It’s like fucking steel.” Rammed it again as Harper and David hit it with him.
Behind them, Mitch sta
red into the room, at the figure in white, who glowed now with a wild light. “Name of God.”
“There has to be another way. The other door.” Roz grabbed Mitch’s arm and pulled him down the hall.
“This ever happen before?”
“No. Dear God. Hayley, keep the baby away.”
Frantic, her hands throbbing from pounding, Stella ran. Another way, she thought. Force wouldn’t work. She could beat against that invisible ice, rage and threaten, but it wouldn’t crack.
Oh, please, God, her babies.
Reason. She would try reason and begging and promises. She dashed out into the rain, yanked open the terrace doors. And though she knew better, hurled herself at the opening.
“You can’t have them!” she shouted over the storm. “They’re mine. Those are my children. My life.” She went down on her knees, ill with fear. She could see her boys sleeping still, and the hard, white light pulsing from the woman between them.
She thought of the dream. She thought of what she and her boys had talked about shortly before the singing. “It’s not your business what I do.” She struggled to keep her voice firm. “Those are my children, and I’ll do what’s best for them. You’re not their mother.”
The light seemed to waver, and when the figure turned, there was as much sorrow as madness in her eyes. “They’re not yours. They need me. They need their mother. Flesh and blood.”
She held up her hands, scraped and bruised from the beating. “You want me to bleed for them? I will. I am.” On her knees, she pressed her palms to the cold while the rain sluiced over her.
“They belong to me, and there’s nothing I won’t do to keep them safe, to keep them happy. I’m sorry for what happened to you. Whatever it was, whoever you lost, I’m sorry. But you can’t have what’s mine. You can’t take my children from me. You can’t take me from my children.”
Stella pushed her hand out, and it slid through as if slipping through ice water. Without hesitation, she shoved into the room.
She could see beyond her, Logan still fighting to get through, Stella pressed against the other doorway. She couldn’t hear them, but she could see the anguish on Logan’s face, and that his hands were bleeding.
“He loves them. He might not have known until tonight, but he loves them. He’ll protect them. He’ll be a father to them, one they deserve. This is my choice, our choice. Don’t ever try to keep me from my children again.”
There were tears now as the figure flowed across the room toward the terrace doors. Stella laid a trembling hand on Gavin’s head, on Luke’s. Safe, she thought as her knees began to shake. Safe and warm.
“I’ll help you,” she stated firmly, meeting the grieving eyes again. “We all will. If you want our help, give us something. Your name, at least. Tell me your name.”
The Bride began to fade, but she lifted a hand to the glass of the door. There, written in rain that dripped like tears, was a single word.
Amelia
When Logan burst through the door behind her, Stella spun toward him, laid a hand quickly on his lips. “Ssh. You’ll wake them.”
Then she buried her face against his chest and wept.
epilogue
“AMELIA.” STELLA SHIVERED, DESPITE THE DRY clothes and the brandy Roz had insisted on. “Her name. I saw it written on the glass of the door just before she vanished. She wasn’t going to hurt them. She was furious with me, was protecting them from me. She’s not altogether sane.”
“You’re all right?” Logan stayed crouched in front of her. “You’re sure?”
She nodded, but she drank more brandy. “It’s going to take a little while to come down from it, but yes, I’m okay.”
“I’ve never been so scared.” Hayley looked toward the stairs. “Are you sure all the kids are safe?”
“She would never hurt them.” Stella laid a reassuring hand on Hayley’s. “Something broke her heart, and her mind, I think. But children are her only joy.”
“You’ll excuse me if I find this absolutely fascinating, and completely crazy.” Mitch paced back and forth across the floor. “If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes—” He shook his head. “I’m going to need all the data you can put together, once I’m able to get started on this.”
He stopped pacing, stared at Roz. “I can’t rationalize it. I saw it, but I can’t rationalize it. An ... I’ll call it an entity, for lack of better. An entity was in that room. The room was sealed off.” Absently he rubbed his shoulder where he’d rammed against the solid air. “And she was inside it.”
“It was more of a show than we expected to give you on your first visit,” Roz said, and poured him another cup of coffee.
“You’re very cool about it,” he replied.
“Of all of us here, I’ve lived with her the longest.”
“How?” Mitch asked.
“Because this is my house.” She looked tired, and pale, but there was a battle light in her eyes. “Her being here doesn’t change that. This is my house.” She took a little breath and a sip of brandy herself. “Though I’ll admit that what happened tonight shook me, shook all of us. I’ve never seen anything like what happened upstairs.”
“I have to finish the project I’m working on, then I’m going to want to know everything you have seen.” Mitch’s eyes scanned the room. “All of you.”
“All right, we’ll see about arranging that.”
“Stella ought to lie down,” Logan said.
“No, I’m fine, really.” She glanced toward the monitor, listened to the quiet hum. “I feel like what happened tonight changed something. In her, in me. The dreams, the blue dahlia.”
“Blue dahlia?” Mitch interrupted, but Stella shook her head.
“I’ll explain when I feel a little steadier. But I don’t think I’ll be having them anymore. I think she’ll let it alone, let it grow there because I got through to her. And I believe, absolutely, it was because I got through mother to mother.”
“My children grew up in this house. She never tried to block me from them.”
“You hadn’t decided to get married when your sons were still children,” Stella announced, and watched Logan’s eyes narrow.
“Haven’t you missed some steps?” he asked.
She managed a weary smile. “Not any important ones, apparently. As for the Bride, maybe her husband left her, or she was pregnant by a lover who deserted her, or ... I don’t know. I can’t think very clearly.”
“None of us can, and whether or not you think you’re fine, you’re still pale.” Roz got to her feet. “I’m going to take you upstairs and put you to bed.”
She shook her head when Logan started to protest. “You’re all welcome to stay as long as you like. Harper?”
“Right.” Understanding his cue, and his duty, he got to his feet. “Can I get anyone another drink?”
Because she was still unsteady, Stella let Roz take her upstairs. “I guess I am tired, but you don’t have to come up.”
“After a trauma like that, you deserve a little pampering. I imagine Logan would like the job, but tonight I think a woman’s the better option. Go on, get undressed now,” Roz told her as she turned down the bed.
As the shock eased and made room for fatigue, Stella did what she was told, then slipped through the bathroom to take a last look at her children for the night. “I was so afraid. So afraid I wouldn’t get to my boys.”
“You were stronger than she was. You’ve always been stronger.”
“Nothing’s ever ripped at me like that. Not even ...” Stella moved back to her room, slipped into bed. “The night Kevin died, there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t get to him, bring him back, stop what had already happened, no matter how much I wanted to.”
“And tonight you could do something, and did. Women, women like us at any rate, we do what has to be done. I want you to rest now. I’ll check on you and the boys myself before I go to bed. Do you want me to leave the light on?”
“No, I’ll be fine.
Thanks.”
“We’re right downstairs.”
In the quiet dark, Stella sighed. She lay still, listening, waiting. But she heard nothing but the sound of her own breathing.
For tonight—at least for tonight—it was over.
When she closed her eyes, she drifted to sleep.
Dreamlessly.
SHE EXPECTED LOGAN TO COME BY THE NURSERY THE next day. But he didn’t. She was certain he would come by the house before dinner. But he didn’t.
Nor did he call.
She decided that after the night before he’d needed a break. From her, from the house, from any sort of drama. How could she blame him?
He’d pounded his hands, his big, hard hands, bloody from trying to get to her boys, then to her. She knew all she needed to know about him now, about the man she’d grown to love and respect.
Knew enough to trust him with everything that was hers. Loved him enough to wait until he came to her.
And when her children were in bed, and the moon began to rise, his truck rumbled up the drive to Harper House.
This time she didn’t hesitate, but dashed to the door to meet him.
“I’m glad you’re here.” She threw her arms around him first, held tight when his wrapped around her. “So glad. We really need to talk.”
“Come on out first. I got something in the truck for you.”
“Can’t it wait?” She eased back. “If we could just sit down and get some things aired out. I’m not sure I made any sense last night.”
“You made plenty of sense.” To settle it, he gripped her hand, pulled her outside. “Seeing as after you scared ten years off my life, you said you were going to marry me. Didn’t have the opportunity to follow through on that then, the way things were. I’ve got something to give you before you start talking me to death.”
“Maybe you don’t want to hear that I love you.”
“I can take time for that.” Grabbing her, he lifted her off her feet and circled them both to the truck. “You going to organize my life, Red?”
“I’m going to try. Are you going to disorganize mine?”
“No question about it.” He lowered her until her lips met his.
“Hell of a storm last night—in every possible sense,” she said as she rested her cheek against his. “It’s over now.”