by Nancy Bush
And she didn’t care how many times Lucy, Layla, and yes, sometimes even Lyle, waxed rhapsodic over remembrances of past times at the lodge. From the way they talked, they’d led this bucolic childhood there, traipsing through the surrounding woods discovering trillium and birds’ nests and deer and babbling brooks.... Layla was the worst, recounting special moments, like when they’d all sat on the low stone fence that flanked a path along the cliff’s edge and stared out toward a cloudy sky above the river, hundreds of feet below. Layla had a penchant for spinning out her memories in a way that sounded like they’d led idyllic lives from a century before. Layla really was an airhead. They could call her arty all they liked, Kate knew the truth.
So, yes, Kate wanted to sell the lodge, and she hoped Abbott was ready to have his children share in the profits from the sale. God knew they needed the money. If Stonehenge sold, Kate could not only quit her job, she and Lyle could maybe, possibly, look in to using Layla’s surrogate themselves. Right now, the cost of IVF was outside their budget. But time was tick-tick-ticking away, and so far, they were no closer to Lyle’s inheritance. Selling the lodge could be the difference.
Layla was damn lucky to have someone who had the means to pay for the procedures.
It wasn’t fair.
“Kate?” April demanded, waiting for Kate to roll over, as she always did.
But not this time. She needed to be at Abbott’s and Lyle’s sides tomorrow, reminding them to stay on task, no matter what April wanted. She needed to run with Lyle’s idea to sell the lodge to Jerome Wolfe.
“April, if I’d known you needed me, I would have asked to reschedule the meeting with my father-in-law. It’s just at this late date, I have to be there. This is one of those must-dos.”
April blinked at Kate’s refusal. Kate held her breath, waiting for her reaction.
After a beat, April said, exasperated, “I’ll have to cancel with the bank if you’re not there.”
“I could come back ... maybe later in the afternoon?”
“Thank you so very much, Kate. We’ll just have to reschedule when I get back.”
Before Kate could respond, she twisted on her heel, then tip-tapped angrily back down the hall to her office. Kate jumped when she heard April’s office door slam with more force than necessary.
I should quit. See how she likes that. Let her boss somebody else around. I should be at Crissman & Wolfe. I could do all their jobs.
She gripped her pen with all her strength, then hauled back and hurled it across the room. It bounced off the wall next to the door with a small smack. Immediately, she was afraid someone might have heard it. Listening hard, she then got up and hurried to pick up the pen. Back at her desk, she breathed a sigh of relief that no one seemed to have noticed.
A text dinged on her phone. She picked up the cell, which was lying atop her desk. Lyle, she saw:
Won’t be home for dinner.
Well, that was just great.
Where will you be? she texted back.
After a long pause, he wrote: Meeting business associates for a drink.
Where? she wanted to scream. Who? About what? But she sensed he was playing this very close to the vest, so she kept quiet herself. His actions alarmed her, but she couldn’t keep demanding answers. It was the quickest way to shut her husband down completely.
She looked at the clock. Too early to leave for lunch.
With an effort, she settled back into her job, but a little black cloud hovered over her head, darkening her thoughts.
* * *
Layla rang the bell at Naomi’s house and waited beneath a narrow overhang, trying hard to keep the rain from dripping onto her hair. She’d pulled her blondish tresses into a ponytail at her nape and had picked out her most conservative dress, dark blue with a thin silver belt. She’d wanted to appear competent and in control, so she’d channeled her inner Lucy. She had to assume Naomi would be talking to Neil—he might already know about this lunch—so she was bound and determined to present herself in the best possible light.
Naomi came to the door, her midsection ballooning out beneath a maroon sweater. “I’m a beach ball,” Naomi said. “I always am at this point.”
Layla couldn’t take her eyes off the evidence of the baby. He was going to be here in just a few months. She felt a wave of yearning so deep it made her eyes burn. This was her child ... hers . . . and Neil was trying to take him away from her.
“You look great,” Layla greeted her.
“Come on in. I tried to pick up the house, but bending over is a trick these days.”
“I don’t see anything out of place.”
They were walking along the edge of the living room down a short hallway lined with pictures of her two children at various stages of their life. The last photo was of Naomi, her husband, and Jeremy and their little girl at the beach. They were all in jeans and white shirts, looking at the camera with the sun setting in the background. The little girl was in front of her mother, smiling for the camera, and her brother was standing in front of his dad holding a fistful of wet sand.
Naomi said fondly, “As soon as that picture was snapped, Jeremy threw that sand at Keelie and laughed like a banshee. Got it all over her blouse. It’s funny now, but Keelie cried like it was the end of the world. Luckily, it was after the picture.”
Layla found she couldn’t speak. She wanted this. Wanted it so badly. She didn’t know if she could pull off acting like everything was okay between Neil and her.
She managed to make it through the small talk while Naomi put their Reubens together. Somehow, the surrogate didn’t notice her distraction, or maybe she just ignored it. In any case, Layla choked down as much of the sandwich as she could manage through a dry mouth and tight throat, while Naomi sighed with pleasure after finishing hers.
“My God, I can eat when I’m pregnant!” she laughed.
Layla smiled and swallowed a last bite.
Naomi picked up their plates, waving off Layla’s attempts to help. Layla sat at the table and tried hard to keep her gaze from clinging to Naomi’s belly. Finally, she said, “I don’t know what Neil said about ... our relationship, but I do want you to know I would never give up my child. He’s mistaken about that.”
Naomi came back to the table and sat across from Layla, desultorily picking up a crumb with her thumb. “He said you had a legal agreement that the baby would be his.”
“Well . . . yes. That was how it was in the beginning. We were dating, and he wanted a son. . . . You know our history.”
“I thought you were going to be parents together.”
“Well, yes. We were. We are.”
“Layla, he said you sold him your eggs.”
“I did. I didn’t know what I was doing. I thought we were a couple and I wanted to give him what he wanted ... and I signed something, which I think he’s misunderstood. . . .”
“So, you want your child, but you and Neil aren’t . . . on the same page.”
“That’s right. That’s what’s happened. But I’m giving Neil his money back. It’s all been a big misunderstanding. I’ve always planned to be a part of my son’s life. And Neil’s,” Layla added for good measure. She wasn’t in love with him, but if they could make it work together, that would be ideal.
Naomi’s brow furrowed. Her dark hair was cut short and feathered around her face. Despite her shape, she had an elfin look about her. “Layla . . . you know Neil’s been paying for my services throughout this process, and he’s made all the financial arrangements for the hospital.”
“Yes.”
“I have a contract with him as well.”
“We’ll work this all out. I’ll pay you, or I’ll pay Neil,” Layla assured her.
“I just don’t want there to be some major fallout between you two just as this little guy greets the world.”
“No, no. No fallout. Neil and I are talking about everything. We met two days ago and talked about you and the baby.”
“Okay. Goo
d. Good to know . . .” She heaved a sigh of relief, then shot Layla a quick look. “So, you know about his girlfriend?”
Her heart contracted hard, then her pulse began to pound. “Oh . . . no . . . I guess not.”
Naomi’s look of concern returned. “I’ve met Courtney a couple of times. She seems nice and very interested in the baby.”
Layla couldn’t speak. Her insides were ice.
Naomi’s voice came from faraway. “I hope I didn’t say anything I shouldn’t have.”
“Oh, no. No . . . It’s all fine,” she said woodenly. “I will ... talk to Neil about everything; his girlfriend, too. Thank you so much for lunch. It was really good. I shouldn’t have put you out.”
Layla was babbling, but Naomi seemed to understand. “You didn’t put me out. It was good to see you.”
She sounded sincere. As Layla left Naomi’s house, she felt dizzy. She stood at the end of the drive in the relentless rain, waiting for Uber to collect her. By the time she was picked up she was soaked to the skin and she doubted even a bath could warm up the ice in her core.
Neil has a girlfriend . . . who’s very interested in the baby. That traitorous thought rumbled through her mind as she returned to her apartment and stripped off her wet clothes, hanging them over a heat register to dry, then soaked in a hot tub. But the chilling thought that Neil had betrayed her never left.
After the water had turned tepid, she climbed out of the tub and stepped into the same blue dress. She blow-dried her hair and stared at her own haunted eyes in the bathroom mirror.
At three o’clock she left for her afternoon appointment with Dallas Denton, attorney-at-law.
* * *
Lucy gazed blankly at her computer screen, determined to stay at work till the end of the day. Evie normally walked from her school to after-school care, which was just a block away, but Lucy was having a heck of a time not racing to pick her up. She wanted to be with her daughter. She wanted to be with her now. The two of them against the world. But she couldn’t leave work early three days in a row and expect to have any credibility when she met with her father and the rest of the family.
The rest of last night had been a silent war with John. She’d stayed up late, crawling into bed well after midnight, turning her back to him. The space between them felt like a wall of ice. Her making or his? She couldn’t tell. Probably both of theirs.
There was a knock at Lucy’s office door.
“Come in,” Lucy called, turning in her seat to meet the newcomer.
Miranda ducked her short bob of gray hair inside. She smiled at Lucy. “Wanted to see how you’re doing.”
“Fine. Not bad.” This was the first time Miranda had shown that she was even aware of the difficulties facing Lucy and Crissman & Wolfe. “How about you?”
Miranda’s smile dropped as she moved into the room, smoothing her gray pullover sweater, its shade nearly the same color as her hair. “Your father is making some hard decisions.”
“Yes, he is.”
“I hope he makes the right ones.”
“You and me both.”
Miranda didn’t approve of Lyle as her father’s right-hand man, and Lucy suspected she was thinking of how both her brother and father listened to each other’s counsel above all others’. Lucy had been tempted to confide her own feelings along the same lines but knew that would be a mistake. She couldn’t afford to get in an us-against-them mentality, even though her father listened to Miranda. No, she needed to bring her issues directly to her father and hope for the best.
“Let me know if I can be of any help.”
“Thank you. I will.”
Miranda left a few moments later, and Lucy turned back to her computer. She went back to puzzling out a series of transactions that had been made in the general account about a month earlier, while she was on vacation with John and Evie—not that it had been much of a vacation, when John had been on the phone to her father and others at Crissman & Wolfe the whole time—that appeared to show a sixty-thousand-dollar deficit. Mistakes were made whenever she was gone, and when they came to light she always ended up spending an inordinate amount of time fixing them. It was just a fact, a part of her job, one she was pretty good at. Lucy didn’t think she was irreplaceable, but she knew she was a hard line between keeping the accounts correct and letting them start to slip into fuzziness. When she’d started at the company, she’d spent a long time straightening out a kind of slush account where financial inequities that couldn’t be traced were dumped. Before her, these problems were attended to by the company’s outside accountants, who charged an arm and a leg for their forensic accounting, but from what Lucy could tell, they never really seemed to get to the bottom of the pile. The truth was, Abbott was sloppy. So was Lyle, and, well, so was John. They moved fast and didn’t do all the paperwork they should. Both Lucy and Miranda were their cleanup girls. Lucy wondered, not for the first time, what would happen if she were to lose her job. Nothing good.
She was following up on several transactions that had led to the deficit when her cell phone buzzed. It lay on her desk beside her keyboard, and she looked down at the screen to see Kate was calling. Lucy made a face. She’d texted her sister-in-law the night before to ask about the inappropriate video they were watching, but Kate hadn’t responded until now.
She pressed the button to connect and answered, “Hi, Kate.”
“Hi, Lucy. I got your text. I thought you and I should talk personally, though.”
“Sure.”
“Did John tell you what the girls were watching?”
“He just said it was an inappropriate video. What was it?”
“I think it’s called Jackass.”
“That show where they do stupid stunts?”
Lucy started to smile, and Kate must have heard it in her voice because her answer was a curt, “Yes.”
“Oh, okay. I’m . . . sorry?” She was so relieved it wasn’t something worse that she couldn’t work up any real concern. “I’ll talk to Evie about it. Where’d they find that?”
“You don’t really seem to be taking this seriously,” Kate said stiffly.
“I know. I’m trying. I thought ... I don’t know what I thought.” Actually, that was a lie. What she’d thought was that the girls had watched something violent or full of graphic sexual content or both.
“I don’t know if I can trust the two of them together unless I’m directly in the room with them,” said Kate.
“Okay. You’re right. And thank you for having Evie over. It meant a lot to her.”
“Oh.” She sounded somewhat nonplused by Lucy’s about-face. “You’re welcome.”
Lucy said good-bye a few moments later, still smiling. She’d dreaded talking to Kate and then it had turned out to be mostly a big fat nothing. Her mood remained lifted until it was time to head home, but as she grabbed her coat and turned off the office lights, her expression grew grim. John had gotten up early and left while she was getting ready, but she was going to have to face him soon.
Their marriage was broken, and she didn’t know if she could fix it, or if she even wanted to.
Chapter Eight
The small meeting room at Crissman & Wolfe was on the third floor, mixed in with the business offices behind customer service. Kate stepped into the room early, nearly a half hour before anyone was due to arrive. Abbott had initially said the family would meet at his office, but there wasn’t enough seating there for all six of them, so Kate had opted for the small conference room and Abbott had agreed. Miranda had asked her what she was doing in that snotty way of hers, and Kate had informed the woman that the Crissman family was having a private meeting, and would she be so kind as to make sure they were undisturbed?
Miranda had gazed at her with those dead eyes, which were a complete lie because the woman cataloged everything, then whispered in Abbott’s ear, the biggest tattletale in the store, especially about the transgressions of his family and their spouses. In a way, it had been easier when
Junior was alive. He hadn’t had the reverence for Miranda that Abbott did, and he tended to curb the woman’s overreaching. But after his wife Judith’s death, Junior had started fading away, which was irony itself because the man was a profligate spender and womanizer. No wonder Abbott couldn’t sustain a marriage. His father had been a terrible role model. Sure, Judith had stuck with him over the years, but they’d really led separate lives. Funny how much her death had affected Junior ... and how much his death had affected both Abbott and Lyle. Too close a brush with the grim reaper, maybe. The only positive out of all of it was, Junior wasn’t around to spend more Crissman money.
Kate placed her notebook in her spot, and then another for Lyle, whom she seated next to Abbott. That left a spot for Lucy or John on his other side, and she had a moment of indecision. Really, that’s where she should sit. She was more his right-hand man than even Lyle was, though she would never say as much. But she could see that the other Crissmans would use that as one more sign she was trying to seize control. It was galling how they all watched for her to make a mistake.
Layla would undoubtedly sit next to Lucy, unless John edged her out. If that happened she would sit several seats away from all of them. Layla was the outsider, in many ways, and if she couldn’t have Lucy’s support, she made a point of it, for some reason. Kate just couldn’t fathom the woman. It was shocking what a good job she did in staging homes. Kate had been through several model homes recently, just to see what Layla was doing, and had been impressed despite herself. She had double-checked to be sure there wasn’t a mistake, but the information clearly listed Layla Crissman as the stager, and some of the artwork on display—and for sale; shameless self-promotion—was hers as well.