The Bravo Family Way

by Christine Rimmer

Deanna, on the inside, chuckled and took Cleo’s arm. “Watch out. We can’t have you run down, now can we?”

  They moved a little farther onto the shoulder, but Deanna kept hold of Cleo’s arm. It was nice, Cleo thought. Companionable. Strolling under the trees, a friendly arm hooked in hers.

  Deanna said, “She laughs now, Ashlyn does.”

  “She’s a joy.”

  “You’re good for her.”

  Cleo glanced Deanna’s way. They shared a look of perfect understanding before Cleo once again turned her gaze to the oak-shaded road ahead.

  Deanna said, “The first time I heard her call you Mommy, well, I admit, that did hurt a little.”

  “It’s natural that it would. But I promise, she’ll never forget Belinda. I’ll see to it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And she’ll be coming here regularly. You can show her the pictures in the hallway and talk of Belinda with her. Tell her your memories, make them her memories, too.”

  “Yes.” Deanna’s voice was soft as the spring breeze. “Yes, I’ll do that.”

  “These days,” Cleo said, “it’s become an ordinary thing. Kids have mothers and stepmothers, both. They don’t mind at all having two moms—or two dads, for that matter. They don’t see it as any kind of contradiction. It’s just…the way it is.”

  “Yes,” said Deanna. “Yes, I see that.” They strolled on in silence for a while. Then Deanna spoke again. “I was thirty-eight when I had Belinda. She was our only, as maybe you know. Our only and a late-in-life child. Jim was in real estate and making a success of it. He wasn’t home much in those days. And I was…well, I wasn’t a very good mother, I’m afraid. I spoiled Belinda rotten, gave her whatever she wanted. I felt a little overwhelmed with a first baby at that point in my life. But oh, did I love her. I hadn’t realized how much I longed for a child until she came along. She was my miracle baby. I wanted above all for her to be happy and somehow I could just never manage to tell her no.”

  Cleo, well-versed in the ways of children, winced. “Disaster…”

  Deanna’s chuckle had a rueful sound. “That’s the word. She grew up believing what I had taught her. That all she had to do was make a big enough fuss and eventually she’d get things her way.” Deanna shook her head. “So unfortunate. I do think that Fletcher’s a fine man. But he’s very busy with his work, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “And Belinda always demanded a lot of attention. I suppose, looking back, that the two of them were pretty much destined not to make it. By the end of their marriage, she was here at home half the time, out late every night….”

  Cleo put her hand over Deanna’s, where it lay in the crook of her arm. “I’m sorry—not that that helps any. It’s a great tragedy, to lose your child.”

  “It was…such a shock. So completely out of the blue. The truth is, my daughter was no better at being a mother than she’d been at being a wife. But she had a job she liked at a little boutique in town. She’d seemed…happier in those final months. More settled, less frantic somehow. And then, on a sunny Sunday afternoon, she went to take a nap….” Deanna was silent, collecting herself.

  Cleo said softly, “I heard it was a stroke.”

  “Yes…”

  Cleo squeezed the other woman’s hand. “I understand that you took care of Ashlyn while Belinda was alive.”

  “I did.”

  “And you did a wonderful job with her. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Oh, I do hope so. It helps to believe that we’ve learned from the mistakes of the past.”

  The next morning at nine Cleo hugged Ashlyn goodbye.

  “You come pick me up, Mommy,” Ashlyn instructed.

  “I’ll be here. I promise.”

  “Come back anytime,” Deanna told her, warmth and welcome in her eyes.

  Jim nodded and echoed, “Anytime.”

  Cleo thanked them for their hospitality and boarded the jet for home, where Fletcher had a limo waiting to drive her to Impresario.

  The apartment was empty. Mrs. Dolby had taken her Sunday off and Fletcher was working. He’d left her a note, propped up on the kitchen table: Home by eight. F.

  She put her things away and then went down to her office at KinderWay and dealt with a stack of paperwork. At four, feeling slightly queasy and a little bit jetlagged, she went back up to the penthouse and stretched out on the bed.

  The queasy feeling quickly passed, but she wondered if she’d just had her first taste of morning sickness. She put her hand on her flat belly. So amazing, to think that she carried a tiny new life within her. She’d need to schedule an initial visit with an obstetrician—but who?

  Celia would know. Cleo would call her tomorrow, find out who she was using.

  A baby…

  Now that would mean some changes in terms of her schedule at KinderWay. When the baby came, she’d have to cut back, at least for a while. It shouldn’t be too terribly difficult. Megan, her associate director, was working out wonderfully. Megan would have no trouble filling in for Cleo wherever she was needed.

  The phone by the bed rang. She reached over and picked it up. “’Lo.”

  “I’m guessing you got home safe.” Fletcher.

  Guilt jabbed at her. Here she lay, thinking of the baby and the steps she needed to take, the changes that would have to be made—and she had yet to let her husband in on the news that she was pregnant.

  Then, as quickly she felt the stab of guilt, she ordered it away.

  Why should she feel guilty? She hadn’t told anyone. When the time came that she wanted to talk about it, he’d be the first to know.

  Her conscience whispered, Celia will know tomorrow, when you ask her for a referral to her obstetrician….

  So fine, she’d wait a while on that.

  “Cleo? You there?”

  “Sorry. Yes. I’m here.”

  “Did the Nortons treat you right?”

  “They did. I really liked them.”

  “Great. Was Ashlyn good for the trip?”

  “As always.”

  “You sound tired.”

  “A little. I was just lying here thinking I might take a nap.”

  “Go for it. And I’ll see you at eight. Be naked.”

  She laughed. He said goodbye. She put down the phone and curled up on her side. Her eyes drifted shut….

  And she jolted wide-awake as the phone rang again. She grabbed it as it shrilled out for the second time.

  “Hullo?”

  “Well, hi.” A woman’s voice, rough and low and sexy. “I’m over at High Sierra, checkin’ on Aaron—which, I don’t mind telling you, he just hates for me to do—and I find myself wondering how you been gettin’ along.”

  “Uh…Caitlin?”

  “That’s right. Meet me at Casa d’Oro, twenty minutes.” Casa d’Oro was a High Sierra restaurant—mid-priced, with Mexican and California cuisine. “We’ll have us a pair of those margaritas grandes. I’ll tell you about the current love of my life who is twenty-six and very frisky, and you can tell me how my sons’ brother’s been treating you.”

  The last thing Cleo wanted—or needed—was a margarita right then. And discussing Fletcher with Caitlin?

  Bad idea.

  Or was it? Caitlin might be a tad brash and rough around the edges, but the things she’d said on Cleo’s wedding day still gave her pause every time she thought of them.

  “Darlin’, the silence is deafening. Don’t tell me you’re not dying for a giant margarita?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Why? You pregnant or something?”

  Cleo stifled a gasp. How could the woman have known?

  The answer came: Caitlin didn’t know. She’d only been teasing.

  And Cleo had taken too damn long to figure that out.

  Caitlin got the picture. Crystal clear. “You are. You’re pregnant.”

  “I never said that.”

  Caitlin crowed. “No, you didn’t. But that doesn�
��t mean you’re not.”

  Cleo pushed herself to a sitting position and raked her hair back out of her eyes. “Listen. Caitlin…”

  “Darlin’, settle down now. I been pregnant a time or two. I understand how it is. Sometimes a woman wants to keep it to herself for a while.” Cleo swallowed a low noise of agreement. Just because Caitlin guessed the truth didn’t mean Cleo had to confirm it. Caitlin went on, “I know I come across as someone with a very big mouth. You’d think I couldn’t keep a secret to save my immortal soul. But I’m gonna surprise you. Nobody will hear the news from these lips of mine—and what d’you say we treat ourselves to a little change of subject about now?”

  “Great idea.”

  “I still want to see you. If you don’t want to come across the skyway, how ’bout I come on up to your place?”

  “Uh…now?”

  “Honey, your lack of enthusiasm is not reassuring. You’re gonna hurt my feelings if you don’t watch out.”

  Cleo couldn’t help grinning. Really, Caitlin Bravo was one of a kind. “Sure. Come on over. I’m in the—”

  “Say no more, sweetheart. I know where you live. I know where everybody lives.”

  Fifteen minutes later Caitlin was sitting on the sofa in the family room, wearing a red satin shirt, tight black jeans and tooled cowboy boots, enjoying a double whisky on the rocks.

  She knocked back a big gulp, swallowed and grinned. “Now that really hits the spot, I gotta tell you.” She arched a black eyebrow. “You really ought to have one of these—’less you’re pregnant, of course….”

  Cleo looked right at her—and didn’t say a word.

  “Awright, awright.” Caitlin sipped some more and then launched into a long story about her boyfriend, Lars. In the past decade or so, she confessed, she’d developed a definite preference for younger men. “And Scandinavians. Oh, my yes! Give me a sweet young guy from Norway or Sweden every damn time—so how’s married life treating you?”

  “Just great.”

  Caitlin ran her finger around the rim of her glass. “Smile when you say that.”

  “Caitlin, I swear, you are the nosiest person in all of Nevada.”

  The other woman laughed her deep, sexy laugh. “Guilty as charged. And I am picking up some extremely negative vibrations here.”

  Cleo looked away—and then back.

  Caitlin urged more softly, “Come on. I meant what I said on the phone a while ago. I will keep whatever you tell me to myself.” Still Cleo said nothing. Though she did want to. Badly. Caitlin sat forward, bracing her elbows on her knees and dangling her drink from her strong hands with their long bloodred fingernails. “Look. I’m a contented woman now. We had a rough road, my boys and me. But in the end they married good girls from the old hometown and they’re happy, all three of ’em. Fletcher, though? Well, I love him like my own. How could I help it? He’s so much like my boys. I knew the first time I met him that he wasn’t happy. One look in his face and I could see that. Then he married you. I like you. I knew, like I said on your wedding day, that you’re the one to get through to him.” Caitlin shifted, sitting back and crossing her legs. “I’ll tell you straight. Before I called you today, I went to see Celia.”

  Cleo stiffened. “What did she tell you?”

  Caitlin was shaking that hard black head. “She told me nothing. She wouldn’t go spillin’ something you told her in confidence. Celia’s not that kind. She was vague, that’s all. Too vague. And she said you were fine. I’m fifty-eight years old. I know that ‘fine,’ as a general rule, means anything but.” She leaned forward again. “He’s shutting you out, isn’t he?”

  “No, he—”

  “Uh-uh. Don’t do that. Don’t go lyin’ to me.”

  Cleo glanced away. But when she looked back, Caitlin was still sitting there. Waiting. “Yeah,” she confessed at last, accepting the fact that Caitlin knew already anyway. “I don’t know how to get through to him. And I don’t even really know…what it is that isn’t right. I believe that he’s true to me. He says he loves me. I believe that, too. He works too much, but I knew that he would when I married him. He does the best he can, I think.”

  “No, he doesn’t. He’s a brilliant man. He’s got the brains and the heart to do better.”

  “Caitlin, how can you know that for sure?”

  “I got a real sense for these things. And I know how it goes. It’s the Bravo family way. A Bravo man can be difficult, especially if he’s Blake Bravo’s son. All of Blake’s sons have his wild, troublesome blood running in their veins and they need a whole bunch of help from just the right woman in order to make themselves good, happy lives. The main thing is that you have to keep tryin’, that you never give up. That you work at it, keep plugging away at him until he finally lets you in.”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been thinking that what I really need to do is to learn to accept him for who he is.”

  Caitlin sniffed in utter disdain. “Stop. Wrong. Big mistake. You don’t want to do that, you really don’t.”

  “Oh, come on. Listen to what you just said. It’s a mistake to let the poor man alone, to back the heck off, let him have his privacy and be grateful for what I’ve got?”

  Caitlin’s dark eyes glittered. “To settle. That’s what you’re saying in a roundabout way. And yeah, I think settling for a marriage that’s not what you want your marriage to be is a major mistake, one you’ll only keep regrettin’, building bitterness on bitterness. In the end you’ll be pushing him away, keeping your own secrets from him, shutting him out just like he does to you.”

  Cleo flat-out gaped. It was already happening. She was already doing exactly what Caitlin had just described, withholding the news of the baby from him, playing his game right back at him, keeping a secret of her own. “But…I can’t change him. He has to do that. And he’s made it pretty clear that he doesn’t plan to change.”

  “Darlin’, that’s only because you haven’t made it necessary for him to change.”

  “And how exactly am I supposed to make it necessary?” As Cleo asked that question, she realized how truly desperate she’d become.

  Only pure desperation could bring her to ask Caitlin Bravo’s advice on this subject. Really, how much could Caitlin know about making a marriage work? Her only husband had been a notorious polygamist, kidnapper, murderer and all-around bad seed, a man who had disappeared from her life before her third son was even born.

  Caitlin asked, “Where’s the little one?”

  “Ashlyn? She’s at her grandparents’ in New Jersey for a couple of weeks.”

  “Perfect.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Caitlin leaned even closer and lowered her voice to a confidential whisper. “You need a break. You need to get the hell out of here.”

  “You mean…leave him?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t call it leaving him. Not permanently anyway.”

  “But I don’t see how my leaving him—temporarily or otherwise—will solve anything.”

  Caitlin knocked back the rest of her drink and plunked the empty glass on the coffee table between them. “It’s like the old song says, honey. How can he miss you if you won’t go away?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  At eight-oh-two that night, Fletcher stood in the kitchen reading the note Cleo had left on the table next to the phone.

  I’m safe. Don’t worry about me. I need a little time to myself, that’s all. Love, Cleo.

  He yanked out a chair and dropped into it.

  Then he read the damn note again. And again.

  After ten times through, it still didn’t make one iota of sense to him. If he hadn’t recognized her handwriting, he’d have sworn that Cleo couldn’t have written it.

  She was safe—where? And for how long? And why the hell had she taken off in the first place? He’d talked to her not four hours ago and there had been zero mention of her taking off for some time to herself.

  Uh-uh. This wasn’t like her. Not in the least. Cleo was a mat
ure and responsible woman. She didn’t write notes like this. She didn’t do crap like this. No. Something had to be wrong.

  Then he got it. He understood.

  His wife had been kidnapped. That had to be it. She’d never run off without telling him, not unless she had no choice.

  God. Cleo. Kidnapped.

  The thought sent his pulse into overdrive and made a coppery taste on his tongue. He couldn’t sit still. Shooting to his feet, he grabbed the phone to call the police. Before he had a chance to punch up 911, the thing rang in his hand.

  Hope spearing through him like a bolt of white-hot lightning, he punched the talk button and put it to his ear. “Cleo?”

  “Hello, Fletcher.”

  Not Cleo. Some other woman. Was this the ransom call then? He growled into the phone, “Who’s this?”

  “It’s Caitlin.”

  His adrenaline-juiced brain struggled to comprehend. “Caitlin. Bravo?”

  “That’s right.”

  Not the kidnapper after all. “Listen, Caitlin, I can’t talk now.” He yanked the phone from his ear to disconnect the call.

  Just as he was about to push the off button, he heard her say, “Fletcher, you still there? I got a message for you from Cleo.”

  He put the phone to his ear again and demanded, “You what?”

  “Cleo asked me to call you, to tell you that she really is safe like the note on the table says. She’s where she wants to be and she’ll be home. In her own good time. So don’t worry, okay?”

  He dropped into the chair again. “I don’t get it. What in hell is going on?”

  “Well now, Fletcher, there’s a question for you. What in hell is going on that your wife who loves you would pick up and leave town out of nowhere like this?”

  “Damn it, Caitlin. I want to talk to Cleo. Now.”

  “’Bye, Fletcher.”

  “Wait! Damn you, don’t you—” About then he heard the dial tone. She’d hung up on him.

  Was this really happening?

  He checked the display to call her back. Out of Area, it said. Wouldn’t you know it? The bitch.

  But wait. If Cleo hadn’t been kidnapped after all, he should be able to reach her on her cell….