by Nora Roberts
“I feel so sorry for him. So sorry for all of us. I’m so tired.”
“I know. I know, honey. Lie down.” Fussy as a mother hen over a sick chick, she smoothed the covers over her friend. “Sleep.” She sat on the side of the bed, took Laura’s hand.
“I used to dream about the way things would be. So perfect. So lovely.”
“Shh,” Kate murmured even as Laura’s voice trailed off. “Dream about something else. Find a new dream.”
“Is she out?” Margo said from the doorway.
“Yeah.” Kate sniffled and wiped her cheek. And thought of the child inside her. Of the man she’d loved and married, who already cherished it, and her. “I hate Peter fucking Ridgeway.”
“Stand in line.” Margo stepped in to lay a hand on Kate’s shoulder. “When she walked back in, she looked so . . . broken. I could kill him for putting that look in her eyes.”
“Stand in line,” Kate echoed. “She’ll be all right. We’ll make sure of it.”
Laura’s mind was still fuzzy with fatigue when she returned home. She thought briefly about a long, steaming bath, cool, smooth sheets, and oblivion. But she needed her children, and needed them badly.
She found them, as she’d expected to, at the stables. Bongo greeted her first, racing forward with his tongue lolling out in a grin. He skidded to a halt at her feet, promptly sat his rump down, and lifted a paw.
“What’s this?” Charmed, she crouched down to shake. “Trick dog. Michael’s been playing with you. What else can you do, huh? Can you lie down?”
He flopped down into the prone position instantly, looking up for approval, and the expected biscuit.
“Can you roll over? Play dead?”
“We’re still working on that.” Michael strolled over and to Bongo’s relief offered him a biscuit. “You’ve always got to pay for the show,” he said to Laura.
“The girls must be thrilled.”
“They’re teaching him the rollover. He’s making progress.” But his eyes were on Laura’s, and the shadows under them. “You just getting back?”
“Um. I came down to see the girls and to get a look at the foal. How’s she doing?”
“She’s doing great, which is more than I can say for you.” The frustration and annoyance he’d pent up all day spewed out in rough words. “Are you crazy, going to work a full day on no sleep? You might have nodded off behind the wheel and killed yourself on Highway 1.”
“I had meetings.”
“That’s bullshit, Laura. Just bullshit. What’s going on around here? What’s this crap about you letting Ridgeway walk with your money and you holding down two jobs to pay the bills?”
“Be quiet.” She glanced anxiously over his shoulder, relieved that the girls weren’t in sight or earshot. “I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, but it’s none of their business or yours. I don’t want the girls hearing any of this.”
“It’s my business when you lose a night’s sleep helping me out, then come out here looking as though I could knock you over with a careless breath.” He yanked her to her feet. “I figured you were out playing all day at the shop, diddling at an office, and getting your hair done.”
“Well, you were wrong, weren’t you? And it isn’t your concern one way or the other. Now, where are the girls?”
He vibrated with impotence, with the rage of not being able to help or hinder. With a shrug, he turned on his heel. “In the paddock.”
“Alone?” Visions of calamities raced through her head even as she dashed toward the stables. When she saw them in the paddock, fear turned to shock.
Her daughters were happily riding in circles on a pair of patient quarter horses.
“I haven’t got them jumping through flaming hoops yet or doing flips,” Michael said dryly. The woman, he thought, was an open book. “That’s next week.”
“Aren’t they great?” Annoyance with him vanished as she gripped his arm and watched. “Ali’s trotting. She posts so well already.”
“I told you she was a natural. Kayla,” he called out, “heels down.”
Her little boots adjusted immediately and, like the pup, she looked over for approval. “Mama! Look, Mama, I can ride!”
“You sure can!” Thrilled, Laura moved to the fence, hooked one foot on the bottom rung. “You both look fabulous.”
Her head high, Ali trotted over and drew her mount to a polite stop. “This is Tess. She’s three. Mr. Fury says she’s a very good jumper, and that he’ll teach me.”
“She’s beautiful, Ali. You look beautiful on her.”
“That’s why I want her. I can buy her with my own money. I can take it out of my savings.” Her eyes tilted down in challenge. “It’s my money.”
Had been, Laura thought wearily. Peter had taken it, along with the college fund. And she hadn’t nearly begun to replace the loss. “A horse is a very big responsibility, Ali. It’s not just the buying, it’s the keeping.”
“We have the stables.” She’d thought about this, dreamed about this for days. “I can feed her, and pay for the hay with my allowance. Please, Mama.”
Now a headache brewed nastily in the fog of fatigue. “Ali, I can’t think about this right now. Let’s wait and—”
“Then I’ll ask my father.” Ali jerked her chin up even as her lips trembled. “I’ll call him and ask him.”
“You can certainly call him, but he doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
“You had a horse when you were a girl. You had anything you wanted, but you always tell me to wait. You never understand when something’s important. You never understand.”
“Fine. All right. I’m not going to fight with you now.” Because she was going to break, could already feel the first fissures forming, Laura turned and walked away.
“Get off the horse, Ali.” When her stormy eyes came to his, Michael reached over for the bridle. “Dismount. Now.”
“I haven’t finished my lesson.”
“Yeah, you have. Now you’re going to get another one.” The minute she hit the ground, he wrapped the reins around the fence rail, then plucked the girl up and sat her beside them so his gaze was level with hers. “Do you think you have the right to talk to your mother that way?”
“She doesn’t listen—”
“No—you don’t listen, and you don’t see. But I listened, and you want to know what I heard?” He jerked her chin up when it drooped. “I heard a spoiled, ungrateful brat sassing her mother.”
Her teary eyes went wide with shock. “I’m not a brat.”
“You just gave a damned good imitation. You think you can snap your fingers and get whatever you want or have a tantrum if it doesn’t happen, or doesn’t happen quick enough to suit you?”
“It’s my money,” Ali said hotly. “She doesn’t have any right to—”
“Wrong. She’s got all the rights. Your mother just came home from working her butt off so that you can have a nice home and food on the table. So you can have your lessons and your fancy school.”
“I’ve always lived here. She doesn’t have to work. She just goes away every day.”
“Open your eyes.” Something, he admitted, he should have done himself. “You’re old enough and smart enough to see what she’s going through.”
Tears began to leak now. “She divorced him. She made him go away.”
“I guess she did that just to make you miserable.”
“You don’t understand. Nobody understands.”
“Bull. I understand just fine, which is why I’m not tanning your hide.”
“You can’t spank me.”
He leaned closer. “Wanna bet?”
The very idea was so shocking, so unbelievable, that she closed her mouth tight. “Good choice,” he said and nodded. “This horse isn’t for sale to you.”
“But, Mr. Fury—”
“And you’re not welcome in the stables until you’ve apologized to your mother. If I ever see you sass her again, you will get your hide tan
ned.” He lifted her off the fence and set her down.
On her feet again, Ali fisted her hands at her sides. “You can’t make me do anything. You’re just a tenant.”
“Who’s bigger?” Placidly, he stepped over the fence to tend the waiting horse. “And right now, Ms. Ridgeway, you’re standing on my property.”
“I hate you.” It came out on a choked sob, but was nonetheless passionate. “I hate everyone.”
She streaked away while Michael stroked the mare. “Yeah, I know how that feels too.”
“You yelled at her.”
Wincing, he looked over to see Kayla still astride, her eyes huge and fascinated. He’d forgotten he had an audience.
“Nobody ever yells at her. Mama has a couple of times, but she always says she’s sorry after.”
“I’m not sorry. She deserved it.”
“Would you really spank her?” Gray eyes glittered. “Would you spank me if I was bad?”
There was such a poignant wistfulness to the question that Michael gave up. He plucked her out of the saddle, held her hard. “I’d whale the tar out of you.” He gave her bottom a light pat. “You wouldn’t sit down for a week.”
She squeezed harder. “I love you, Mr. Fury.”
Hell, what had he done? “I love you too.” Which was, he realized with some amusement, the first time he’d said those words to a female in all of his life. “I was pretty hard on her,” he murmured, as the picture of Ali’s unhappy face swam into his mind. And guilt seeped into his heart.
“I know where she’ll go. She always goes there when she’s mad.”
He should leave bad enough alone, he told himself. He should stay out of it. He should . . . shit. “Let’s go see.”
Chapter Eleven
With anger and shame snapping at her heart, Ali raced over the lawn, through the arbor of wisteria. Nobody understood her, nobody cared. Those thoughts drummed a miserable beat in her head as she whipped down the stone path through banks of hibiscus and night-blooming jasmine.
She didn’t care either, she didn’t care about anything or anyone. Nothing could make her care. She burst through arching yews into a sun-dappled alcove with marble benches and a central fountain shaped like spearing calla lilies.
Her headlong rush halted with a skid of her boots on brick. And with shock.
It was her spot, where she came when she needed to be alone. To think, to plan, to sulk. She hadn’t known her mother came here too. The cliffs were her mother’s special place. Yet her mother was here, sitting on a marble bench. Weeping.
She’d never seen her mother cry, not like this. Not with her hands covering her face, her shoulders heaving. Not such violent, helpless, hopeless tears.
Staggered, she stared, watching the woman she had always believed invincible sobbing as though the well of grief would never run dry.
Because of me, Ali thought as her own breath hitched. Because of me.
“Mama.”
Laura’s head shot up. She sprang off the bench, fought for control. Lost. Breaking, she sank down again, too tired, too bruised, too shattered to fight.
“I don’t know what to do anymore. I just don’t know what to do. I can’t take anymore.”
Panic, shame, emotions she didn’t understand spurted so high so fast that Ali was across the bricks and wrapped around her mother before she’d thought to move. “I’m sorry, Mama. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Under the arch, Kayla gripped Michael’s hand. “Mama’s crying. Mama’s crying so hard.”
“I know.” It destroyed him to see it, to hear it, to know there was nothing he could do to stop it. “It’ll be all right, baby.” He lifted Kayla up, let her press her face into his shoulder. “They just need to get it out, that’s all. Let’s leave them alone.”
“I don’t want her to cry.” Kayla sniffled against him as he carried her away.
“Neither do I, but sometimes it helps.”
She leaned back, sure that he would hold her. “Do you ever cry sometimes?”
“I do stupid man things instead. Say bad words, break things.”
“Does it make you feel better?”
“Mostly.”
“Can we go break something now?”
He grinned at her. Lord, what a character. “Sure. Let’s go find something good to break. But I get to say all the bad words.”
In the alcove, Laura held her daughter close, rocked her. Comforting, as always, brought comfort. “It’s all right, Ali. It’s all right.”
“Don’t hate me.”
“I could never hate you. No matter what.” She tilted her daughter’s tear-streaked face up. Her baby, she thought, swamped with love and guilt and sorrow. Her firstborn. Her treasure. “I love you. Allison, I love you so much, and nothing could ever change that.”
“You stopped loving Daddy.”
Laura’s heart shuddered again. Why did it have to be so hard? “Yes, I did. But that’s different, Ali. I know it’s hard to understand, but it’s so very different.”
“I know why he went away.” Ali struggled to steady her jaw. She had made her mother cry, and nothing, she knew, nothing she had ever done could be worse. “It was my fault.”
“No.” With firm hands, Laura cupped Ali’s face. “No, it was not your fault.”
“It was. He didn’t like me. I tried to be good. I wanted to be. I wanted him to stay and to love us, but he didn’t want me, so he went away.”
Why hadn’t she seen this? Laura wondered. Why hadn’t the family counselor? Why hadn’t anyone seen it? “Ali, that’s not true. People get divorced. It’s sad and it’s sorry, but it happens. Your father and I got divorced because of him and because of me. You know I don’t lie to you, Ali.”
“Yes, you do.”
Stunned, Laura jerked back. “Ali?”
“You don’t lie, exactly, but you make excuses, and that’s the same.” She bit her lip, terrified that her mother would cry again. But she had to say it. “You always made excuses for him. You’d say he wanted to come to the recital, but he had an important meeting. He wanted to go with us to the movies, or the zoo, or anyplace, but he had work. But it wasn’t true. He didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to go with me.”
Oh, dear God, how could protecting your child cause so much damage? “It wasn’t because of you. Not because of you, Ali, or because of Kayla. I promise you that’s not true.”
“He doesn’t love me.”
How could she answer? What was right? Praying that whatever words she chose would be best, she stroked Ali’s tumbled hair. “It might be hard for you to understand this, but some people aren’t cut out to be parents. Maybe they’d like to be, or they want to be, but they just can’t. Your father never meant to hurt you or Kayla.”
Ali shook her head slowly. “He doesn’t love me.” She said it quietly. “Or Kayla. Or you.”
“If he doesn’t love you in the way you wish he did, it isn’t your fault. It’s nothing you did. Nothing you are or aren’t. It’s not his fault either, because—”
“You’re making excuses again.”
Laura drew back, shut her eyes. “All right, Allison. No excuses.”
“Are you sorry you had me?”
Laura’s eyes flashed open. “What? Sorry? Oh, Allison.” This part, at least, was easy as breathing. “Do you know, when I was a girl, hardly older than you, I used to dream that I would fall in love one day, and get married. I’d have a home, and beautiful children to fill it. I’d watch them grow.”
Her lips curved now as she stroked the hair away from her daughter’s damp cheeks. “Not all of that dream worked out the way I thought it would, but the best part did. The best part of the dream, and the best part of my life, is you, and it’s Kayla. Nothing in the world could be truer than that.”
Ali knuckled a tear from her cheek. “I didn’t mean those things I said.”
“I know.”
“I said them because I knew you would never go away. No matter what, you’d never g
o away.”
“That’s right.” Smiling, Laura flicked a finger down Ali’s cheek. “You’re stuck with me.”
“I felt bad, and I wanted it to be your fault.” She had to swallow before she could speak again. “Did he go to bed with another woman?”
Just when you thought it was safe, Laura thought with a jolt. “Where did you hear a thing like that?”
“At school.” The flush rose up into Ali’s cheeks, but she kept her eyes steady. “Some of the older girls talked about it.”
“That’s nothing you—or the older girls—should be talking about.”
Ali’s mouth firmed. “He did.” She nodded and, leaving a small, lovely part of her childhood on the bench, rose. “That was wrong. He hurt you, and you made him go away.”
“There were a lot of reasons I asked for a divorce, Ali.” Tread carefully, Laura warned herself, even as her heart was breaking to see that too-adult look in her baby’s eyes. “None of them is appropriate for you or your friends to discuss.”
“I’m talking to you, Mama,” Ali said so simply that Laura had no response. “It wasn’t my fault,” she continued. “It wasn’t your fault, either. It was his fault.”
“No, it wasn’t your fault. But two people make a marriage, Ali. And two people break it.”
No, Ali thought, studying her mother. Not always. “Did you go to bed with another man?”
“No, of course not—” Laura stopped herself, appalled that she was discussing her sex life with a ten-year-old. “Allison, that question is completely inappropriate.”
“Cheating is inappropriate, too.”
Weary again, Laura rubbed her brow. “You’re too young to judge, Ali.”
“Does that mean it’s all right to cheat sometimes?”
Trapped. Trapped by the unbending logic and admirable values of a ten-year-old girl. “All right—no, it’s not.”
“He took our money, too, didn’t he?”
“Oh, good God.” Laura rose. “Gossip isn’t attractive, and it’s irrelevant.”
She understood now, Ali thought, understood the titters from other girls, the murmured conversations of adults. And all the pitying glances. “That’s why you had to go to work.”