by Tami Hoag
That was her standard reply when she wanted to cover up a lapse in memory, but this time it was the truth. She hadn’t recognized Rachel earlier, when she’d seen her in the upstairs hall. Now she was ashamed of having called the police, but it was over and done with and there was nothing she could do about it. She closed her eyes and turned away.
“Mother, I know about your illness. I’ve come here to help.”
“I’ve been a little forgetful recently, that’s all. I don’t need help.”
“You don’t need help or you don’t need my help?” Rachel asked, her anger lapping over the edge of her control like a pot threatening to boil over. She reined it in with an effort, but the toll it took came through in her voice. “Can’t we put the past behind us and deal with this together?”
The past. Addie looked at her daughter long and hard. There were gaps in her past that grew larger by the day, but she remembered word for word the fight that had taken place before Rachel’s departure from Berkeley. “You abandoned me. You abandoned everything we’d worked so hard for.”
“You forced me out!” Rachel responded without thinking, lashed out. All the hurt, the pain, the bitterness was there just under the surface. The only difference between herself and her mother was the amount of control she exercised over those feelings.
Rachel took a shallow, shuddering breath and pushed herself up out of the chair. The bread was sitting on the counter, and she methodically undid the twist tie and reached into the bag.
“We’re going to see Dr. Moore today to talk.”
Addie made a face. “He’s a Nazi. I don’t want anything to do with him.”
Rachel’s hands shook as she placed two slices of bread in the toaster. The urge to explode made her tremble from her emotional core outward. “We’re going.”
“You can’t tell me what to do, missy,” Addie began. Her movements very deliberate, she rose from her chair and pushed it back. A flush stained the whiteness of her cheeks. Her daughter was trying to wrest her independence away from her. Well, she wouldn’t take it lying down! She wouldn’t take it at all! Simply because she was getting older and a little forgetful didn’t give Rachel the right to waltz in and take over. “Who do you think you are, coming back here after all these years and thinking you can just walk in? Terence put you up to this, didn’t he? That no-account, whining little weasel.”
“Terence is out of this, Mother,” Rachel said softly, her throat tight with a building flood of emotion.
A triumphant gleam flared in Addie’s eyes. “That’s the first sensible thing you’ve done in years. I warned you about him. I told you-”
Suddenly, the kitchen door was flung wide open, and Bryan danced in, singing “I’ve Got a Crush on You.” Seemingly oblivious to the tension in the room, he grabbed Addie and danced her around, hamming it up outrageously as he sang the song to her. Addie blushed like a bride and giggled. Almost instantly her anger was diffused.
“Hennessy, you big Irish rascal,” she said, batting a hand at him as he left her by her chair and danced away. “You don’t know the meaning of decorum.”
Bryan halted in the center of the room, cleared his throat, and began to orate: “Decorum: conformity to the requirements of good taste or social convention; propriety in behavior, dress, et cetera; seemliness.”
“Did you catch any of that, Rachel?” Addie wondered dryly.
Rachel slammed the butter knife down on the countertop. “Your toast is ready.”
“Hennessy makes my toast. I won’t eat yours. You’re probably trying to poison me.”
“The thought has crossed my mind,” Rachel muttered to herself, then was assailed with guilt, even though no one else in the room had heard her and she hadn’t meant it.
“Let me handle this,” Bryan whispered, bending down near her ear as he lifted the plate of toast from the counter.
“No,” Rachel said forcefully. She grabbed the plate back out of his hand, nearly sending the bread to the floor.
The fact that Bryan, an outsider, could deal better with Addie was like salt on an open wound. And it was yet another reason she couldn’t allow him to stay. She and Addie had to square things between them now, or at least establish their new roles. She was the one who was going to be taking care of her mother, not Bryan Hennessy. Lord knew, men like Bryan Hennessy opted out the minute the going got rough.
He was Terence in spades-a dreamer, a coaster, a man who ignored reality with an idiotic grin on his face. Abruptly, the comparisons overwhelmed her and coupled with her need to take care of Addie.
“No. I don’t need you. We don’t need you,” she said, glaring up at him. “Take your stupid card tricks and your stupid roses and get out of here!”
Bryan backed away as if she’d slapped him. He really didn’t need this, he told himself, echoing Deputy Skreawupp’s line. He didn’t need the kind of trouble Rachel Lindquist was facing, and he sure as hell didn’t need to get kicked for his efforts to help.
Without a word he turned to leave the room, but the door from the kitchen to the hall wouldn’t budge. He put a shoulder up against it and heaved his weight into it, but it held fast. Drawing a slow breath into his lungs, he stood back and planted his hands at the waistband of his jeans. Behind him, he could hear life going on at the Lindquist family breakfast table. Rachel was trying to give Addie her toast, and Addie was refusing to touch it, her voice rising ominously with every word.
“I have to be the world’s biggest glutton for punishment,” Bryan mumbled to himself, shaking his head. He turned around, his sunniest smile firmly in place. “Did you say you’re going to town? I’ll ride along; I need to go to the library.”
“I didn’t invite you, Mr. Hennessy,” Rachel said. A perverse thrill raced through her at the thought that this man did not take no for an answer. He was like a human bulldozer. And that innocently pleasant face he presented the world was nothing more than a very distracting mask.
“No, you didn’t,” he said affably, taking his seat at the table. “What time do we leave?”
“Two,” she answered automatically, then halted her thinking process. Her eyes narrowed and her lush mouth thinned. She wasn’t going to be bullied. She wasn’t going to let Bryan Hennessy worm his way into her life. “Be sure to pack your toothbrush,” she said, rising and going to the stove to start a pot of coffee. “We’ll drop you off at the nearest hotel.”
“The truth is, it may already be too late, honey.” The memory of Dr. Moore’s gentle, fatherly voice played through Rachel’s mind as she sat behind the wheel of her decrepit Chevette.
“For all the research being done, we know very little about the disease. It progresses differently in different people, depending upon what areas of the brain are attacked. Some people lose the ability to read, while others can read but not comprehend what they’ve read. Some can understand a conversation in person but not over the phone. Some can remember everything that happened in their lives ten years ago, but they can’t remember what happened ten minutes ago.”
“She seems to remember everything that happened five years ago,” Rachel said ruefully.
Dr. Moore, who had the wisdom of decades in medicine and in dealing with people, had reached out to take her hand, knowing that small comfort might soften the blow. “But she may not be able to comprehend what happens today or tomorrow. I’m not saying it can’t happen, sweetheart. At this point in Addie’s illness, it’s anyone’s guess. I just want you to realize that you can’t pin your hopes on a reconciliation, because it might never come about.”
Rachel rested her forehead against the steering wheel and closed her eyes against a wave of despair. A reconciliation with Addie was the one thing she had wanted, needed, to pin her hopes on. What else was there? Certainly not a cure for Alzheimer’s; no one knew yet what caused the disease, let alone what would cure it.
“Are we going to sit here all day, or is there some other vile place you intend to force me to go to?” Addie asked imperiously.
“We need to stop at the drugstore,” Rachel said.
“I don’t want to go to the drugstore.” The drugstore was a confusing place, aisle upon aisle of items and millions of brands from which to choose. Addie never went there if she could help it. She gave Rachel a shrewd look. “I suppose you’re going to force me to go in there nevertheless.”
“You don’t have to go in. You can wait in the car if you like.”
Too distracted to notice her mother’s sigh of relief, Rachel started the engine and pulled out of the clinic parking lot and into the flow of tourist traffic. The fog that had blanketed the coastal village in the early morning had long since burned off. The day was bright with a blue sky. Anastasia’s quaint streets were clogged with people browsing and window-shopping and admiring the carefully restored Victorian architecture of the town. Through the open windows of the car came the sounds of the traffic, the calling of gulls, and the distant wash of the ocean against the shore.
It all seemed comforting, Rachel thought. So normal and sane. She could easily grow to love Anastasia. Unfortunately, she would never have the chance. She had a job waiting for her in San Francisco when the fall school term began. A call to a former vocal instructor who was now an administrator at the Phylliss Academy of Voice had landed her a position. As soon as she had sorted out Addie’s affairs, and they had sold Drake House, they would be moving south to the city. Anastasia would be a place to visit on weekends if they were lucky.
By some small miracle of fate there was a parking spot opening up in front of Berg’s Drugstore just as Rachel piloted her car across the intersection at Fourth and Kilmer. She pulled into it and cut the engine.
“I’ll only be a minute,” she said as she grabbed up her purse and slipped out of the car.
Addie smiled serenely, her eye on the keys dangling from the Chevette’s ignition.
“So, Addie has a daughter,” Alaina Montgomery-Harrison mused, seizing instantly upon the one significant thing Bryan had said since she’d walked outside her office with him to enjoy the sun. She leaned back against the sun-warmed side of the building that housed her law practice, her smart red Mark Eisen suit a startling contrast against the white stucco. Her cool blue eyes studied her friend intently. “What does she look like?”
Bryan shrugged uncomfortably. He stuck his nose into one of the library books he’d borrowed on the history of the area and mumbled, “Like a woman.”
Alaina gave him a look. “Oh, that narrows it right down. So she falls somewhere between Christie Brinkley and Roseanne Barr?”
“Hmmm…” Glancing up with bright eyes and a brighter smile, Bryan attempted to derail her from her line of questioning. “How’s my beautiful goddaughter?”
“She’s perfect, of course,” Alaina said, idly checking her neatly manicured nails. “What a lame attempt to throw me off the scent, Bryan, really. Why so secretive?”
“I’m not being secretive,” he protested. “There’s simply not that much to tell. She’s Addie’s daughter. She’s young, she’s pretty, they don’t get along.” She cried on my shoulder, and I haven’t wanted to kiss a woman so badly in ages, he added silently, turning the pages of his book without seeing them.
“That’s putting it in a nutshell. You should get a job with Reader’s Digest. Think of the money they could save on paper if they had you to condense books for them,” Alaina said. She reached out and gently closed the book Bryan was using as a prop to evade her questions. Her gaze searched his face with undisguised concern. “Where do you fit in at Drake House?”
Bryan held his expression carefully blank. “I’m there to find a ghost.”
“And?”
“Sometimes I really despise your keen insight,” he complained. Alaina was characteristically unmoved by the remark. He heaved a sigh. “All right. It’s a tough situation. If I can in some small way help Rachel and Addie-”
At that instant a car horn blared and a rusted orange Chevette squealed around the corner. People on the sidewalk leapt back, shrieking as a wheel jumped over the curb and a trash can went sailing. Bryan’s eyes rounded in horror as he caught sight of the driver.
“Addie!” he shouted, dropping his books and taking off after the car.
The Chevette veered across the street, eliciting a chorus of horn-honking from cars in the oncoming lane, and jumped the curb into Kilmer Park. People and pigeons scattered. Addie stuck her head out the window of the car, waving and shouting for people to get out of her way.
Bryan caught up with her as she cranked the steering wheel and began driving in circles around the statue that immortalized the late William Kilmer, an obscure botanist who had grown up in Anastasia and gone on to relative anonymity. He jogged alongside the car until he managed to get the passenger door open, then he executed a neat gymnastic movement and swung himself into the moving vehicle. All he had to do then was reach over and switch the ignition off. The Chevette rolled to a halt.
Bryan heaved a huge sigh of relief. The park was full of tourists now gathering around to satisfy their morbid curiosity. Addie might have ended the earthly outing for any one of them and sent them on to a more permanent sort of trip.
“There’s something wrong with the brakes,” Addie grumbled, scowling, completely unwilling to admit she had forgotten how to work them.
Rachel ran up beside the car, her face as pale as milk. Bryan climbed out, rounded the hood, and took her by the arm. He dangled the keys from his forefinger, then closed his fist gently over them as he guided Rachel a short distance away.
“Addie isn’t allowed to drive,” he said softly, managing a half smile at the look on her face.
Rachel was too petrified to speak. She merely stared up at him, horrified at what had happened and what might have happened.
“It’s all right,” Bryan said, easily reading her feelings. “No one was hurt.”
Without thinking, he leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to her lips. Golden sparks of electricity burst through him, stunning him.
“I’ll drive us home,” he said breathlessly, not quite certain how he had managed to speak at all. His heart was pounding like a jackhammer.
Dazed, Rachel lifted a hand to her lips. He’d kissed her. He’d kissed her and immediately the icy terror that had filled her had melted away. She knew she was supposed to tell him he wasn’t coming home with them, but she couldn’t begin to form the words in her head. For one of the few times in her life she was rendered completely speechless. It was amazing.
“We’ll go home. You can have a nice brandy and lie down for a while,” Bryan went on as he led her back to the car. “Dinner is at seven.” He opened the door to the backseat and helped her in, then leaned down into the open window. “By the way, we dress for dinner at Drake House.”
“Dress?” Rachel questioned dumbly.
“Hmmm. Black tie or the closest you can come.”
“You’re serious?” she said, trying to read his expression, “You’re not joking?”
Bryan smiled. “Quite and no. At any rate,” he said, his eyes crinkling attractively at the corners, “I’m hardly ever more serious than when I’m joking.”
He straightened then and took the ticket Deputy Skreawupp handed him without saying a word. His look warned the deputy to follow suit. Opening the driver’s door, he slid into the Chevette beside Addie, saying, “Scoot over, beautiful, and let a man handle this machine.”
Addie giggled and punched his arm. “You big Irish rascal, you.”
He piloted the car slowly out of the park, leaning out the window, waving and smiling to the crowd as if he were driving in a parade. Addie joined in his enthusiasm and leaned out her window, throwing out old Life Savers she had found in her handbag.
And in the backseat, Rachel sat staring blankly into space, marveling over the power of a simple little kiss.
FIVE
Rachel checked her watch and frowned. Ten of seven. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep. On returning to Drake House from Anasta
sia she had taken Bryan’s advice and modified it slightly, trading his suggestion of a brandy for a hot bath. She had shut herself in the upstairs bathroom and soaked in the deep old claw-footed tub until the tension of the day had all washed out of her. It had taken a concerted effort on her part to push it from her mind, and the effort had left her feeling drained. When she returned to her room at last, wrapped in an old terry-cloth robe, she had curled up on the creaky old bed, intending to rest for Just a few minutes.
Two hours later she had awakened abruptly from a deep sleep with the distinct feeling that she was being watched. She had sat up, clutching her robe to her chest, and stared all around the bedroom she had moved into that morning. It was located in the turret on the south side of the house. The walls curved; there were no dark corners to hide in. The room had been quiet and empty, but someone had been there. It wasn’t just the lingering tension that had told her. Laid out across the foot of the bed had been a dress. A dress she had never seen before.
Rachel ran her hand down the front of it now in a gesture of uncertainty. It seemed strange to be wearing it when she didn’t know where it had come from or whom it belonged to, yet she hadn’t quite been able to resist the urge to put it on. If Bryan had been telling the truth about dressing for dinner, then she didn’t own anything suitable to wear-nothing that came close to this dress anyway. Most of her skirts and dresses were comfortable cotton fabrics in styles that leaned toward a Gypsy or prairie look. She had never had the occasion or the money to buy an evening gown during her life on the road with Terence.
The whole idea of dressing for dinner seemed absurd. It was a custom from a bygone age and a class of people she had only read about or seen on television. No doubt it was one of the little eccentricities Addie had developed since her illness. In light of all that had happened since she had arrived, Rachel thought it best to go along with the odd dictate. If it would make her mother happy, if it might somehow help Addie to open up to her, then it would be worth the effort.