by Liz Flaherty
Lucy was tempted to take her partner up on the vacation-time offer. The last six months had been eventful and busy, so there had been little time for homesickness, but she’d like to see Richmond again, to visit her parents’ graves and leave flowers for Isobel Dolan. She could meet Andy’s new wife and visit with the other wait-staff who had been at the restaurant long enough to be family.
“Take Boone with you.” Gert’s eyes twinkled at her over the top of her reading glasses. “He’s worked hard this summer. You could both do with a vacation. Spend a little time with Crockett. Maybe even drive over to the ocean for a couple of days.”
“But you and Sims—”
“Will be just fine without anyone babysitting, though as soon as Kelly knows you’re gone, she’ll probably move in for the duration.”
Lucy took a deep breath. “Gert, Boone and I—”
“Are adults.” Gert closed the account book and pinned Lucy with a direct blue gaze. “What you do in your free time is your business.”
“I’m afraid we’ll hurt each other,” Lucy admitted, “and put you in the position of siding with one or the other.”
“You probably will hurt each other. That’s what happens in relationships. But I’m going to love you both, just like I love Kelly when she’s being awful and Crockett when he’s being melancholy, and I’m not taking sides. Period.”
“Then I think I’ll ask him. He won’t go all macho on me and want to do the driving, will he?”
“Fly,” Gert advised. “He never bothers the pilot. At least, I don’t think he does. You might want to talk to him about that before you make reservations and then take a separate plane if necessary.”
“Oh.” Lucy’s stomach began to quiver. She’d never been on a plane. Not that she was afraid to fly. At least, not really. She and her father had just never taken vacations beyond the very occasional weekend at Virginia Beach—a habit she’d continued as an adult. When she was engaged, she and Scott planned to honeymoon in Gatlinburg, an easy-enough drive from Richmond. The trip to Atlantic City in her early twenties had been on the train.
Well, there was no time like the present to change that. “We could, couldn’t we? If Boone wants to go, that is?”
“Go where?” He spoke from the doorway, and she glanced up, startled. When had he come in? The last time she’d seen him, he’d been in the back yard with Kinsey and his laptop.
“Richmond,” Gert said, “and maybe the beach if Lucy can detach herself from the tearoom long enough. You should check on Crockett while you’re there. I worry about that boy.”
Boone rolled his eyes. “That boy’s pushing thirty-seven, Aunt Gert.”
“So are you.” His aunt whacked him with the account book. “Though you’re a few months behind him. You’re also close enough to keep an eye on right now. He’s not.”
Lucy held up the papers she’d received from the realtor. “I wonder if Kelly would go over these. I’m afraid she’ll get mad if I ask her to and even madder if I ask someone else.”
“That’s probably how it would go,” Boone agreed unhelpfully. “So when are we going to Richmond?”
“This weekend?” Lucy asked. “Come back Tuesday? We don’t have to go to the beach.”
“I’ll get the plane tickets,” he offered, “but I want to go to the beach. It’s been too long since I’ve seen an ocean.”
“Take the whole week,” Gert suggested. “We’re going to be busy for a while when you come back. Everyone whose kids go back to school is going to be having lunch here over the next few weeks.”
“Everyone?” Lucy raised an eyebrow. “Do I sense some wishful thinking going on?”
“No, you sense a newspaper ad. Twenty percent off the last week of August and the first week of September. The beauty shops, the nail salon, and that store that sells makeup and bath and body products are all doing the same thing. We’re going to split the cost of a full-page ad in the Trib. Micah offered it at a back-to-school special price.” Gert’s eyes shone and she was once again the woman Lucy had met when she’d first come to town, before Sims’s injury. Energy bundled in Birkenstocks. “I know I should have run this past you, but I feel as though you do the lion’s share in this partnership anyway.”
Lucy snorted. “I do the grunt work, which is exactly what I’m suited for. It takes a much sharper mind than this one to do the business parts.”
“So, are we going?” Boone’s gaze caught Lucy’s, and she stopped moving, unable to break the connection.
This was what it was like, she realized, when you really fell in love with someone. It took over a part of your heart you didn’t even know you had.
And now that she knew she had it, she wasn’t sure what to do with it. “Yes,” she said, “I’d like to go.”
“Good.” His smile wrapped itself around her. He gestured at the papers she still held. “It’s poker night and we’re meeting for beer and brats first. Do you want me to drop those off at Kelly’s office on the way? She’ll still be there.”
She tucked them into a manila folder and passed it to him. “Thanks.”
He kissed her, a leisurely meeting of lips and just the very edges of tongue that did strange things to her pulse rate, right there in front of Aunt Gert and the nosy kitten sitting in the flower pot on the kitchen window. “Later.”
She nodded.
When he’d gone, she went to let Kinsey into the sun porch, picking the cat up to exchange solemn stares before delivering a head-scratch. “What do you think about the situation?” she asked.
Kinsey bumped her fuzzy black head against Lucy’s chin.
“You’re absolutely right.” She stroked the cat and put her down. “Definitely some new clothes.”
*
Boone smiled at the receptionist at the law firm. “Is Ms. Brennan busy or is she sleeping again?”
“I heard that!” came from the wide hallway between the two rows of offices. Kelly appeared, her arms full of file folders. “I’ll see him, Bridget,” she told the woman at the front desk, “but don’t worry about coffee. He’ll probably spill it on the carpet. Come on back, Boone.” When he joined her, she handed him the folders. “Here. Make yourself useful.”
Her office was large and bright, and he glanced around appreciatively, his gaze coming to rest on the framed cartoon panel across from her desk. “Ah.” He walked over to it, reading the introduction of Daphne into the “Elmer and Myrtle” strip as though he hadn’t written the words. He turned to his sister. “Did you know right away Daphne was you?”
She rolled her eyes at him. “Duh. A lawyer wearing a beauty pageant sash and a prom gown into the courtroom? Giving the judge a ration of shit right off the bat? What was my first clue?” She took the folders and set them on her desk.
“As I remember it, you did have a fondness for formalwear.” He grinned at her, wishing it could always be like this when they talked. He didn’t really know why or when they’d started creating sparks of contention with nearly every conversation, but he’d like to end it. To go back to being the protective older brother she liked.
“I still do,” she admitted, “but I never entered any beauty pageants and I never wore taffeta to court. It wrinkles too easily and has to be dry-cleaned every time you wear it.”
He nodded toward the panel. “Did it bother you?”
“At first it did, but then it became an asset being thought of more as a wardrobe and a hairstyle than as a litigator. Going up against an opposing attorney who doesn’t take me seriously can be a good thing.”
“I’m proud of you.” Then he wished he’d kept his mouth shut when tears flooded her eyes.
“Thank you,” she said quietly, and went behind the desk, staring fixedly at its messy slate top. When she looked up, her eyes were clear again. “You’ve never told me that before. I wanted that so much, you know. When I graduated from Notre Dame, then law school. When I passed the bar. And, Lord, when I made partner damn near right out of the gate…it was… I just wante
d so much for you to be proud of me. I wanted to be as important to you as—oh, not Maggie, but Crockett, anyway.”
“Kelly.” Boone stood still, stunned by her words. “Of course I’m proud of you. I’ve always been—”
Her laugh sounded more splintery than mirthful. “Well, if you have, I haven’t known it. I knew Uncle Mike and Aunt Gert were, but you were always more in tune with Crockett—then with Maggie—than with me, I always felt like Kelly the afterthought who couldn’t be anything but pretty and dumb. That’s why Daphne was hard to take at first. I knew you took care of me, sort of, but you hadn’t had any choice after we lost Mom and Dad.”
“You’re my little sister,” he protested. “Taking care of you and pissing you off are parts of the brother job description I took very seriously and still do. And you’ve never been an afterthought.”
She nodded at the cartoon panel on the wall. “Perception, you know—maybe mine was off. I don’t know. But when I was in love with Crockett, I felt like his relationship with you was more important to you both than his with me was. When he fell in love with Maggie, then when you fell in love with her too, it was the loneliest I’d felt since the accident.”
Oh, good God, why didn’t I know? How could I not know? “Kelly,” he said again, moving forward, toward her. “I didn’t realize how you felt. I’m so sorry if—”
He stopped halfway to the desk when she shook her head quickly, sharply. “No. I’m mature enough to know it was me, and God knows, I loved Maggie too. No matter how I tried to put how I felt into words, it sounded as though I blamed her, and I didn’t. Ever. When she died… God, I’d have gone in her place if it had kept you from being hurt that much. I would have, Boone, I swear. But then I couldn’t help you. Even though you and he barely spoke, it was Crockett who was able to bring you comfort. That one day you came back from sitting by the river and he was there with you? It was as though you’d been delivered.”
She tried to laugh, but it caught in her throat. “And I was glad. I was. But I was jealous too. I wanted to be the one who was there for you, not Crockett. I feel as though you never want to spend time with me.”
“That’s not true.” He hesitated. “Well, maybe sometimes it is. Because you act as though you’re the only one with work to do or a schedule to keep. I want to be there for you, but you never have the time. Isn’t that true, too?”
She lifted her chin. “I don’t want to be just a responsibility, Boone. To anybody.”
“You’re not just a responsibility, but you’re my little sister,” he repeated. “I’m always going to feel like watching after you is my job. But if you’re bitchy every time I see you, if you’re pissy with Aunt Gert because she doesn’t let you boss her around, if you’re constantly rude to a woman I care a lot about, then you’re right—I don’t want to spend a lot of time with you.” He caught and held her gaze. “That doesn’t change anything. I’m still proud of you for what you’ve accomplished.”
“Well.” She cleared her throat and reached to straighten the stack of files threatening to slide off the desktop. “What brings you down here? You haven’t visited my office since… Well, ever, I guess. Even when you and Maggie made out your will, we did it at Aunt Gert’s, not the office.”
He handed her the folder containing Lucy’s papers from Virginia. “Lucy asked if you’d take a look at these when you have a spare minute. They’re about the sale of her property in Virginia. You can bill her if you want to.”
“Oh.” She scanned the letter on top. “She’ll probably be glad to get this behind her.”
“I don’t know about that. I don’t think she does, either. She feels about it a lot the way we feel about Louisville. It’s not home anymore, but yet it is.”
Kelly waved him toward a client chair. “Did you ever read the news stories about the fire in their restaurant?” She sounded professional—cool without being cold.
He stiffened. Let it go, Kelly. Let it go. “No.”
“I did. Long before she told anyone what had happened, when Aunt Gert was still telling me to mind my own business. I know you don’t want to hear this, but it was ugly, Boone.”
“She told Gert. That was all that really mattered.”
Lucy’s file slipped from Kelly’s hand. She pushed it aside. “She did? When?”
“Before they decided to open the tearoom. She didn’t want there to be any unpleasant surprises.”
“Why didn’t Aunt Gert tell us? She knew we were concerned.” Kelly pasted on a smile when the receptionist arrived with coffee. “Thanks, Bridget. Did you bring my brother a bib?”
“I figured you’d loan him one of yours,” the woman said cheerfully, setting the tray on the credenza under the window. “I’m off now if you don’t need me for anything else. Don’t forget to go home at some point.” She smiled at Boone. “I enjoy your cartoons. Especially Daphne. She reminds me of someone—I just can’t think who.” Her gaze slid sideways toward Kelly.
“Thank you.” He accepted the cup Bridget offered and waited until she’d left the room, grinning back over her shoulder at her boss. “Aunt Gert doesn’t want us breathing down her neck, second-guessing her decisions. You know that.”
“I know.” Kelly sipped from her cup, scanning Lucy’s papers with sharp eyes. “These seem to be in order, though I’ll read them more thoroughly. Did she have any specific questions?”
“I don’t know. Do you want her to call you?”
“No. I’m going over to have dinner with her and Aunt Gert. I’ll ask her then.” She shuffled the letters into a neat pile, taking longer than necessary to straighten five or six sheets of paper, then pushed them back inside the folder. “Don’t you ever worry about these fires, Boone? Don’t you wonder? There was another trash fire yesterday in the Dumpster behind the library. Abby, the librarian, just happened to see the smoke when she came back from an appointment. I know Lucy’d been there because I saw her when I dropped off a sack of books for the book auction.”
He didn’t answer until she lifted her gaze to meet his. “What I wonder,” he said quietly, “is what made you decide you weren’t going to like her. She hasn’t done anything to anyone, yet you made up your mind the first day she came to Taft—before you knew anything about the fire or her father—that she was bad news. You had no idea Gert was going to ask her to be a business partner or I was going to…like her, yet you took it upon yourself to judge her and find her lacking.”
Kelly’s face lost color under its perfectly applied layer of the Lancôme he was pretty sure she owned stock in. “Her license plate—” she picked up the pen he and Maggie had given her when she graduated from law school and bounced the end of it on the blotter, “—showed she was from Richmond. Before she ever mentioned Crockett’s name—she called him Noah or Father Crockett, I don’t remember which—I knew they were connected. There she was with that hideous old car and no money to speak of, dressed like a 1960s flower child. For all we knew, she was someone Crockett found on the street, but Aunt Gert greeted her like a long lost and dearly loved relative.”
“Kind of like she and Uncle Mike greeted us.”
Irritation flashed across Kelly’s features and the pen thumped again. Harder. “You’re comparing apples to oranges. We were children. We were relatives. By marriage, I know, but they never made any differentiation between us and Crockett.”
“Relatives who moved in and turned their lives upside down.”
“We made them happy.” She stopped. The expression in her eyes was heartbreaking in its anguish. “Didn’t we? They gave us everything. Didn’t we at least give them that?” Thump, thump, thump.
“Of course, we did.” Boone kept his voice patient, reaching across the desk to take the pen out of her hand and lay it down. “Lucy does too. Aunt Gert is crazy about the tearoom, and Lucy works herself to a nub to make sure it goes okay. I don’t really think she does that just for herself, do you?”
“That’s my whole point. She’s a stranger to all of us. H
ow should I know why she does it?”
“You know everything else,” he pointed out, “and you still haven’t given a reasonable explanation for not liking her. It’s like you’re jealous of her.”
Kelly got up, going to the credenza for the coffee carafe. She came back and refilled their cups. Her hand shook a little—the rhinestones on her nails twinkling with the tremor. “Maybe I am.” She sat down again, cradling her cup as though she were cold. “Unless I miss my guess, you’re falling in love with her. Aunt Gert thinks she’s in line for sainthood. Crockett—” She stopped abruptly.
Crockett. Ah. There’s the rub.
“They’re friends, Kell.” Although once upon a recent time he’d wondered. “And he’s a priest.” It was a cruel reminder, but he knew as well as anybody what it did to a person to want what couldn’t be had. Maggie’s face and the sound of her voice flitted across his consciousness with the thought.
It made him smile.
“I know.” Kelly picked up the pen.
“Lucy and I are going to Virginia this weekend. We’ll be seeing him.” Crockett had been excited when they’d called to see if he’d be available for the weekend. He offered up a friend’s beach house for their use.
“Give him my best.”
Kelly’s voice was so prim it made Boone want to laugh, but he didn’t. Sadness lurked in the depths of her brown eyes and removed the humor from the situation. “Okay.” He sighed and got up. “I’m going to be late for beer and brats.” He leaned across the desk to kiss his sister’s cheek, taking the thumping pen out of her hand again. “See you later.”
*
“This seems all right.” Kelly came into the kitchen and handed a file folder to Lucy. “If you have objections to them naming the restaurant Dolan’s, we can see what we can do, but it doesn’t appear they’re trying to take something that’s rightfully yours.”