Jeff blinked. The music went on, surrounding them with a warm flow of softly played jazz that swirled through the room like a summer wind. Around them, couples laughed and talked, and seconds ticked past as he waited for her to continue.
She bit her bottom lip, paused a moment as if to convince herself to go on, and then started speaking. “It’s only that I can see how difficult this must be for Samantha.” She smiled at his obvious confusion. “Oh honey, it’s hard for us too, of course. But we have each other, don’t we? And we have Emma. If you look at it from Samantha’s point of view . . . well, anyone would feel bad for her.”
Frowning now, he was more confused than ever. If anything, Sam had come out the winner in this. Despite his mother’s machinations nine years ago, Sam had her daughter back in her life. She was holding the ace in this little hand of poker and she knew that he’d have to share custody of their daughter if he wanted that divorce. So why was Cynthia wasting any sympathy at all on Sam?
“What do you mean?”
She scooted around on her chair, then leaned toward him. “Think about it,” she said, her voice a low hush of sound. “Samantha’s in a very hard spot right now. To find she’s still married to a man she didn’t want? And added to that, she’s being forced to spend time with a child she gave away.”
Jeff scowled as Cynthia’s words slapped at him. Forced? Hell, if anything he was being forced to share his daughter with a woman he’d thought betrayed him. “She’s not being forced.”
“Of course not, a bad choice of words,” Cynthia said quickly. Her eyes gleamed quietly in the candlelight and Jeff tried to remind himself that she was on his side.
“I’m sure she’s enjoying seeing Emma again, but Jeff, honey, remember, she gave Emma up.” Cynthia paused again and seemed reluctant to continue. But she managed. “Samantha didn’t want to raise Emma. She signed away all of her rights to her own child. So having the girl pop back into her life now must be an incredible intrusion.”
He shifted in his chair and suddenly wished they were far away from this crowded room where the music was now just a distraction. Too many people sitting around enjoying themselves. Too many thoughts careening through his brain. An intrusion? Emma?
No. As kind as Cynthia was trying to be, he was sure she was wrong. And still, a worm of doubt slithered through his mind, his heart. “No,” he said firmly, not really sure if he was trying to convince Cynthia or himself. “Sam wants Emma. Hell, she’s holding off signing the divorce papers until we can come to terms on custody.”
Cynthia smiled and shook her head sadly. “Jeff, you just don’t understand women at all.” She sighed, picked up her drink and took a small sip. “Don’t you see? If Samantha admits the truth—that she doesn’t want Emma—she’d look horrible—heartless—to her own family. She can’t do that, no matter how she really feels.”
He remained unconvinced and his expression undoubtedly said so.
“Honey.” Cynthia sighed, then lowered her voice even further, as though she really disliked saying anything at all about this. “She has to at least pretend to be glad about having Emma back in her life. But I can’t imagine that she is. Not for a moment.”
Shaking his head, even as Cynthia’s notions chipped away at him, Jeff told himself she was wrong. He’d seen Sam’s face when she’d gotten her first glimpse of Emma. He’d been on the receiving end of the Marconi temper he remembered so well. No way was Sam pretending anything.
“No,” he said, mind made up. “Sam was always honest. She wouldn’t—”
“Honest?” Kindly, Cynthia stretched out her hand again and took his. “Jeff honey, I know you want to think the best of people . . . but was she honest with you, nine years ago?”
“She tried to be,” he said, despite the old pain that reared up and took a bite from the corner of his heart. “I told you about how my mother lied about everything.”
“You did,” Cynthia said, rubbing her thumb over his knuckles. “But if we’re going to be honest, let’s face it all. Sam wrote you a letter that was hijacked by your mom. But if she’d really wanted you to know about the baby, would she have given up after one attempt?”
“No,” he admitted through gritted teeth, because Cynthia was sitting there patiently, waiting for him to respond.
“No.” She smiled again and gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. “So what makes you think she’s being entirely honest this time?”
Unwanted, a ribbon of uncertainty wound through him, snaking its way through his body like a cold wind sluicing off a mountainside. The music suddenly sounded shrill and the candlelight dancing in the darkness made his vision swim uneasily. Chilled through, he wondered if Cynthia was right. And then wondered again how he could even consider it.
Remembering Sam with Emma, the joy on their faces, he couldn’t convince himself that Cynthia was right about this.
But he’d been wrong before.
Hadn’t he?
By the time Jeff dropped her off at her apartment—without even bothering to come in for a nightcap—Cynthia was so frustrated, she wasn’t sure what to do. Jeff was pulling away. From her.
She felt it.
Every day, things changed just a little more. His attention was scattered and his past was too tangled up in his present while she was trying to build a future.
There had to be something she could do about it.
Samantha Marconi was causing too much trouble for them.
And Cynthia Fairwood wasn’t going to sit still for it much longer.
She stepped out of her heels, and felt the cool press of the hardwood floors beneath her bare feet. A chill rippled through her as she walked across the living room toward the French doors leading to the balcony. Calm, controlled, she reminded herself to be patient.
She opened the doors and let the icy wind off the bay slap at her. There was a solution to this mess, she knew. All she needed to do was find the right button to push.
Sam had her daughter all to herself for a while.
She slid a CD into the stereo, turned up the volume, and smiled as Bonnie Raitt growled through the speakers. She moved with a sliding, dancing step and hugged joy close.
It felt good. Good to be back in her own place and to have Emma with her for three whole days. Outside, the last lingering light of day clung to the edges of twilight with a tight fist. The first stars were just beginning to peek out even as the dying sun sent streaks of crimson and gold slashing across the sky.
Inside though, lamplight held the coming night at bay. Her gaze swept the cavernous living room, admiring the pale wash of golden light reflecting on the newly sanded and varnished floor. A few scatter rugs were sprinkled around the room and the twin sofas she had facing each other looked a little lonely, with only a battered coffee table and two lamps to keep them company—but it was home.
Only a mile from the house where she’d grown up, it might as well have been on a separate planet. Which was a good thing. As much as Sam loved her sisters and father, she needed her own place. She’d bought the sprawling old bungalow a few months ago, determined to bring it back from the sad state of neglect it had slumped into. And she was well on her way.
Now that she had dead termites and a shining, redone floor, she could get into the other things she was itching to do. Like expand and update the kitchen, paint every room, get a new roof, gut the bathroom, build a garage—just minor cosmetic changes, she thought, smiling to herself.
Tonight though, the house looked damn near perfect. She felt a small whiplash of pleasure to see Emma’s things scattered over the living room floor.
Most mothers—she hugged the word to her tightly—would be complaining, she guessed. Wanting the child to come in and pick up the piles of clothes and toys and a plate filled with cookie crumbs sitting alongside an empty milk glass. But Sam was loving it.
And she knew she had Jeff to thank for it.
Not just for this time alone with their daughter—but for raising Emma well enough that
she was able and willing to accept her long-missing mom popping up out of nowhere.
Wasn’t that a pain in the ass?
Her smile slipped a little as she wrapped her arms around her middle and held on. She didn’t want to be indebted to Jeff. Didn’t want to be faced with her past every time she looked into his dark blue eyes. Didn’t want to remember what they’d had and what they’d lost.
But there was no way around any of it, was there? Not if she wanted Emma in her life. And there was nothing she wanted more. Even dealing with Jeff and the pain was worth it.
“Mommy?”
Sam’s heart skittered and she smiled as she left the living room and walked barefoot into the kitchen, following her daughter’s voice.
The little girl was kneeling on a chair pulled up to the old oak table. Bright light from the overhead fixture spilled down on her, illuminating the worn linoleum, ancient appliances, and the smiling child. There was flour in her hair, across her nose, and enough of it dusted down the front of her pale pink T-shirt to bake a loaf of bread.
Sam thought she’d never seen anything more beautiful. “How’s it going?”
Emma grinned, and pressed a cookie cutter firmly onto the rolled-out dough. “I’m almost done. Can we cook ’em now?”
“You bet.” Memories of baking cookies with her own mom galloped through her brain and Sam smiled, wishing her mother could know that Emma was home now. Where she belonged.
“And then we get to frost ’em, too?”
“Of course,” Sam told her, walking up close enough to smooth one hand down the back of her daughter’s head. So soft. “What good are cookies if they don’t have lots of frosting?”
“This is fun.” Emma threw her head back and shot another full-wattage grin at her mother, and Sam’s heart did a somersault in her chest.
“Yeah, it is.” God, how could she ever have thought she could live without her child in her life? How had she managed to get through the last eight years without being able to look at her—touch her?
“Is Aunt Mike gonna come over and have some cookies?”
“We can call her if you want to.”
“ ’Kay.” Emma peeled the cookie shaped like a star up off the flour-covered bread board. Laying it carefully on the cookie sheet beside the others, she said, “An’ Aunt Jo, too.”
“Sure.” Sam picked up the cookie sheet and walked to the oven she’d already preheated. Pulling open the door, she faced the wave of heat that spilled out and slid the cookie sheet onto the top rack. Closing it up again, she set the timer, then turned around to help get the next batch ready.
“Can Papa come, too?”
Sam laughed. The kid was a Marconi right down to the bone. Why have one person over when you can have a dozen? It’s the Italian way.
“I think Papa’s busy tonight,” Sam said, remembering her father had said something to her about a late meeting with . . . She frowned thoughtfully. He hadn’t actually said who the meeting was with. Funny, she’d been so preoccupied with Emma that it hadn’t occurred to her at the time, but now that she thought about it, she wondered what the secrecy was about.
“Okay, can Daddy come?”
Sam winced. “Your daddy’s in San Francisco, remember?”
“Yeah,” Emma said, nodding so sharply, she sent a cloud of flour flying into the air. “But he could maybe come back and have cookies with us and see my new room and my Barbie blanket—”
Sam laughed as her daughter kept right on rolling.
“And maybe he could stay here too with you and me.”
Whoops. That’s what she got for not paying attention. “Uh, honey, I don’t think your daddy would want to stay here.”
“How come?” Small face, trusting eyes, solemn smile.
“Well.” Think, Sam. Think. “He’s staying at the hotel, remember?”
“Yes, but this is nicer.”
“Thanks, but—”
“And maybe Cynthia could stay here, too, because she’s marrying my daddy and he says she’s going to be my new mommy, but if I already have you how come I have to have another one?”
Ouch.
Thinking about the perfect, elegant blonde being Emma’s new anything was hard to take. Okay, fine, she was small enough to admit that Cynthia Fairwood was just a little intimidating. Admitting that, even to herself, made Sam stiffen her spine and scowl.
Be a grown-up, she thought firmly. Do the right thing. “Well, I guess you’ll be lucky then, won’t you? You’ll have two mommies.”
“Isabel says one mommy is a real mommy and the other mommy is a step.”
Isabel again. One of these days, she was going to want to meet Isabel Feinstein. And buy her a lovely one-way ticket on a cruise ship to China.
“Yeah, technically, Cynthia will be your stepmother.”
“I don’t think she wants to be.”
“What?” Instantly, Sam went on alert.
Emma sighed and patted a small twist of dough into a ball. “Cynthia says we’re gonna be friends, not steps.”
“Oh . . .” What was she supposed to say to that? Maybe Cynthia was trying to be a friend, not a mother. Which sounded good to Sam. But what if Cynthia wasn’t looking to be a friend, she just wasn’t interested in Emma? What then?
Emma stopped her thoughts cold, though, in the next instant. Turning, she wrapped one arm around Sam’s waist and leaned in for a hug that squeezed her mother’s heart and filled her soul. “You’re a weasel-dog.”
“What?” A short, sharp laugh shot from her throat as Sam looked down at her daughter.
Emma gave her a wide, gap-toothed grin and said it again. “You’re a weasel-dog, Mommy.”
“Okay,” Sam said, still chuckling. Judging by the happy gleam in her daughter’s eyes, she was willing to bet she wasn’t being insulted. But damned if she wasn’t intrigued. “Where’d you hear that?”
Emma blew out a breath that ruffled her bangs and sent puffs of flour into the air. “Aunt Mike says that’s what a Marconi says when they think somebody’s really great.”
“Is that right?” Sam fought the smile tickling the back of her throat and told herself it was time to have a chat with Mike. “And why’d she tell you that?”
“ ’Cause I heard her call my daddy a weasel-dog and she said it means she really likes him.”
“Oh . . .” The light dawns, Sam thought. Mike had gotten caught and had faked her way out of it. Nice job, nitwit. “Well, it can mean that,” Sam said softly, already planning on staking her sister out on the first anthill she could find. “But sometimes other people don’t understand what we mean, so we only call people in the family a weasel-dog, okay?”
Emma shrugged and went back to rolling her ball of dough. “Okay.”
Hey, she’d made it through her first mother-daughter crisis. And earned a gold star, she thought. She hoped. Mike, though, was a different story.
Slapping her dough onto the table, Emma flattened it with her small hand as Sam gathered up the rest of the dough and picked up her rolling pin.
“Are you gonna go away again?”
Sam’s heart stopped. The question came so softly, so tentatively, she’d almost missed it. But she heard the worry in her daughter’s voice and felt the ache in her own heart in response.
Dropping to one knee beside Emma, she cupped the child’s face between her hands. “No, baby,” she promised, willing her daughter to read her eyes and believe her. Even though she had no right to expect it. “I swear. I’m never going away again.”
“Really?” Her one front tooth worried her bottom lip, tugging at it nervously.
Sam stared into those wide pale blue eyes so much like her own and felt a geyser of love pump through her body, swamping her with so many emotions it was hard to draw a breath. But she managed. This was too important not to.
“Really, honey. I’ll always be your mom. I’ll always be here. Always.”
Emma studied her for a long minute while Sam’s heart thudded painfully i
n her chest. All she could do was hope that her daughter would give her a chance. The chance to prove that things would be different for all of them now. Seconds ticked past, marked by the hum of the oven timer and the swish of wind-driven branches against the windows.
Then at last the little girl leaned out of her chair, falling into her mother’s arms and tucking her head into the crook of Sam’s neck. “I’m glad, Mommy.”
“Oh, me too, baby.” Sam’s hands swept up and down her daughter’s back in long, soothing strokes and she wasn’t sure which of them needed those strokes more. “Me, too.”
Chapter Eleven
“Hey,” Mike argued the next day, “I call ’em like I see ’em.”
Sam shot a glance over her shoulder, just to make sure Emma was far enough away that she wouldn’t hear her aunt Mike’s death rattle. Satisfied, she turned back and glared at her little sister. “For chrissake, Mike. Can’t you control yourself around Emma at least?”
Mike squirmed a little, but held her ground. Her blond hair, pulled through the back of her baseball cap, hung in a thick braid down the middle of her back. Her Marconi Construction T-shirt was stained with grease, water, and God knew what else. A streak of grime strayed across the bridge of her nose, and as Sam watched, her sister’s pale blue eyes narrowed.
“The son of a bitch, he’s lucky that’s all I call him.”
“That’s great,” Sam argued, throwing her hands up high and letting them slap down against her thighs. “Much better. Emma’s his daughter, too, you know. And if he gets pissy, he could make my seeing her a hell of a lot harder.”
“He wouldn’t.” Not yet anyway, Mike told herself.
“He might if Emma starts talking about Aunt Mike calling him a weasel-dog.”
Mike winced. “Fine. I’m sorry. I’ll only call him that when Emma’s not around.”
“I appreciate the restraint.”
“You should.” Mike stood amid the rubble of the kitchen and wanted nothing more than to kick something. But what? If she kicked one of the rotted-out pipes, it would just spew a river of disgusting crap all over the place and she’d have to clean it up.
And Then Came You Page 14