Ghost Moon

Home > Other > Ghost Moon > Page 31
Ghost Moon Page 31

by Karen Robards


  For Chloe’s sake, and Sara’s sake, as well as Livvy’s and his own.

  Give them all time to get used to being a family together, before he said or did anything that would make it official.

  There was no rush, after all. He could take weeks, or months if need be. The one thing he and Livvy had was plenty of time.

  As long as Carl, and every other man, stayed out of the picture. Seth half smiled as he remembered how violent he had felt toward his younger cousin when Livvy had announced that he was taking her dancing on Friday. Over my dead body, was his first thought. His second? No, over Carl’s.

  He was going to take his time, but he was going to make sure that Livvy stayed exclusively his while he did it. Which shouldn’t be a problem, he thought. From now on, he was going to keep her busy day and night. Especially night . . .

  ‘‘Fatty, fatty, two by four, can’t get through the kitchen door!’’

  That childish taunt, repeated twice, broke through Seth’s reverie like a bucket of cold water. Startled, he looked out over the backyard to find that Chloe and her friends had scrambled up the old rope ladder that hung down from the tree house he’d built as a boy high up in the ancient live oak near the perennial garden. Apparently unable to make it up the ladder, Sara clung precariously halfway up, her body and the ladder bent into an L-shape. As he watched, she slowly and clumsily managed to climb back down to the ground.

  ‘‘Fatty, fatty, two by four . . .’’

  ‘‘Whoa!’’ he yelled, shooting up from the rocking chair like a rock from a catapult and striding to the porch rail. ‘‘Just one darn minute there! Sara, come here. The rest of you, Chloe, you and your friends, you come here, too.’’

  There was instant silence, and then they scrambled to comply. Sara, her face miserable, was the first to reach him. He waited for them on the bottom step, arms crossed over his chest, a frown on his face. The other girls, his guilty-looking daughter included, after climbing one after the other down the ladder in apprehensive silence, came toward him in a group. For a moment Seth wished vainly for Olivia, and even glanced around to see if, perhaps, she might be somewhere in view. But she was not. He was going to have to handle this as best he could himself.

  ‘‘It’s all right, Seth. Really. It doesn’t matter,’’ Sara muttered as she reached him, her face miserable. Looking at her, Seth felt a shaft of real anger shoot through him. Maybe it was true that kids were cruel, but they weren’t going to be cruel to Sara if he could help it. She was a sweet kid, with a kind heart, and he was fond of her for her own sake quite apart from the fact that she was Livvy’s girl.

  ‘‘It’s not all right,’’ he told her firmly, stepping down onto the concrete walkway that connected the back steps with the parking area. He put his hands on her shoulders, and turned her to face the other girls, who approached en masse, looking faintly scared. Shooting Chloe in particular a reproachful glance as the whole group stopped just a few feet away, he tried to do his best for Sara.

  ‘‘Okay, I heard you all calling Sara fat,’’ Seth began. He could almost feel Sara cringing beneath his hands, but he kept them on her shoulders and held her in place, facing her tormentors. The other girls—his own darling daughter, the other pretty little things who looked like butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths—looked up at him wide-eyed.

  ‘‘Ginny said it first,’’ said one. She had dark hair that tumbled around her shoulders and pale skin, and was not particularly skinny herself.

  Not knowing for sure which one Ginny was, Seth let that pass. Besides, it was irrelevant.

  ‘‘It doesn’t matter who said it first,’’ he said ruthlessly. ‘‘What matters is that it was said at all. The point is that you hurt Sara’s feelings. I want you to apologize, all of you, right now.’’

  A chorus of sweet little voices murmured various versions of ‘‘I’m sorry.’’ Seth’s mouth twisted. He didn’t know why, but his gut told him that just getting them to apologize wasn’t going to get the job done.

  ‘‘All right, I want all of you to line up,’’ he said. ‘‘Side by side, shoulder to shoulder. You, too, Sara.’’ He gave her shoulder an encouraging pat.

  When they were more or less lined up—he had to reposition a few of them—he walked back and forth in front of them, hands clasped behind his back like a drill sergeant. Except for small matters of size and shape and hair color, they all looked so alike in their brown dresses that trying to tell them apart seemed hopeless. Except, of course, that he knew Chloe and Sara. Chloe was already starting to frown at him, but the other girls, including Sara, were big-eyed as they watched him.

  ‘‘Okay, you’re the tallest.’’ Abruptly he pointed at a little girl with a glossy brown ponytail.

  ‘‘That’s Ginny,’’ one of the others piped up.

  Seth nodded solemnly. ‘‘Ginny’s the tallest—but you’’—he pointed at another girl—‘‘are taller than she is’’—he pointed to a third—‘‘and you’’—he pointed to a fourth—‘‘are the shortest. Okay, let’s line up according to height.’’

  Looking surprised, the girls all shifted positions until they were lined up from tallest to shortest.

  ‘‘Okay, sing out,’’ Seth directed. ‘‘I want to hear your names. In order.’’ He pointed.

  ‘‘Ginny,’’ said the first one.

  ‘‘Shannon,’’ said the next.

  ‘‘Mary Frances.’’

  ‘‘Chloe.’’

  ‘‘Katie.’’

  ‘‘Sara.’’

  ‘‘Tiffany.’’

  ‘‘Very good.’’ Seth surveyed them again. ‘‘Now everybody stick out her right foot.’’ The girls, giggling a little now, complied. Seth looked at the extended feet with a frown. ‘‘Okay, let’s line up by foot size. Biggest first, all the way down to the smallest.’’ The girls complied, with much measuring of feet to see who stood where. ‘‘Okay, sing out.’’ He pointed.

  ‘‘Ginny!’’

  ‘‘Mary Frances!’’

  ‘‘Shannon!’’

  ‘‘Katie!’’

  ‘‘Sara!’’

  ‘‘Chloe!’’

  ‘‘Tiffany!’’

  ‘‘Good job,’’ Seth approved. ‘‘Now let’s try—hair color. From lightest to darkest.’’

  This time the girls were really giggling as they lined up.

  Seth pointed.

  ‘‘Chloe!’’

  ‘‘Tiffany!’’

  ‘‘Ginny!’’

  ‘‘Katie!’’

  ‘‘Shannon!’’

  ‘‘Mary Frances!’’

  ‘‘Sara!’’

  ‘‘You’re doing great,’’ Seth said, encouraged. ‘‘Let’s try one more thing. Let’s line up by—noses. Who’s got the biggest nose?’’

  The girls were giggling hysterically as they pressed their faces together to measure nose size. When at last they were in order, Seth pointed at the first.

  ‘‘Ginny!’’

  ‘‘Mary Frances!’’

  ‘‘Tiffany!’’

  ‘‘Katie!’’

  ‘‘Shannon!’’

  ‘‘Sara!’’

  ‘‘Chloe!’’

  ‘‘Okay,’’ Seth said, knowing he had to sum up his little exercise so that they would get the message. ‘‘I hope you ladies noticed that every time you lined up, the order changed. Some of you are tall, some of you aren’t so tall. Some of you have big feet.’’ This produced a chorus of encouraging giggles. ‘‘Some of you have big noses.’’ More giggles. ‘‘The point is, you’re all different. Each one of you is like a snowflake. You’re unique and beautiful in your own way. So it’s silly to tease somebody for being taller than somebody else, or having a bigger foot than somebody else, or being fatter than somebody else, and I don’t want to ever hear of it happening again. Every one of us has special things about us. That’s what makes us snowflakes and not’’—here his inspiration failed—‘‘mashed potatoes.’’

  ‘‘Daddy,
that’s dumb.’’ Chloe groaned, while the other girls, Sara included, giggled.

  Seth shrugged apologetically. ‘‘I know, but I mean it anyway. No more teasing. Now go back and play.’’

  They scampered off. Sara hung back a little.

  ‘‘Thanks, Seth,’’ she said, smiling shyly at him. Then, to Seth’s surprise, she gave him a quick, fierce hug. Before Seth could react, she was running off to join the other girls.

  With that hug, Sara cemented her place in his heart. Like Chloe and Livvy, Sara now belonged to him, too.

  CHAPTER 46

  GOING OUT FOR PIZZA WAS FUN. THE FOUR of them sat in a booth in Guido’s, which had just opened in a storefront on West Main that had once housed a shoe repair shop. The surroundings were Spartan—faux wood paneling, linoleum floors, a counter scavenged from a defunct bar. But the pizza—actually made by Emily Marsden, the fortyish wife of a Boatworks employee, who owned and operated the restaurant and had chosen the name simply because she liked it and it sounded Italian—was great.

  Apparently half the town agreed. The place was packed with diners by seven, and people were coming in and out constantly to pick up carry-out pizza. Everyone knew Seth, of course, and most everyone knew Olivia. Greetings were exchanged right and left, and speculative looks were cast their way as they ate. She and Seth and their daughters going out for pizza should not have provoked any comment—it was a perfectly innocent activity. But in LaAngelle, whenever members of the opposite sex who weren’t father and daughter, mother and son, or brother and sister were seen eating out together, there was always a buzz. Given Seth’s stature in the community, there was going to be a lot of buzz. Once it was learned that he was no longer engaged to marry Mallory, the buzz would turn into a roar.

  But that was something that could be held off until another day, Olivia thought with relief, as she and Seth exchanged a few smiling words with Sharon Bishop, the nosy high school principal, and her husband on the way out. For now, Seth’s broken engagement was not generally known, and she and Seth were protected from the worst of the talk by their stepcousin status.

  Of course, that selfsame stepcousin status would simply be one more thing for the gossips to talk about once their new relationship became generally known.

  Olivia wasn’t exactly looking forward to that. But when she considered the alternative—Seth’s being involved with anyone except herself—she decided, on balance, that she could live with it.

  Martha was at the Big House when they got home. She was in the kitchen gossiping with Keith, who’d flown into Baton Rouge with David not long before, and driven on out to LaAngelle Plantation while David stopped off at the hospital to visit Big John. Martha and Keith had gotten to be good friends over the course of the last few weeks. Like army buddies, they joked with ghoulish humor, they’d shared a lot of KP duties.

  As usual, Olivia supervised homework at the kitchen table. Both girls had the same assignments, but most of the time they worked at different paces. Sara, the diligent, plunged right in and kept plugging away until she was finished. Chloe, bright but rebellious, tended to put off whatever she could until the last moment, and then complete only what she had to under the threat, delivered by Seth, of major sanctions. Fortunately, there wasn’t much tonight, and homework was completed without any undue difficulties.

  Still, by the time the girls had finished, picked out what they were going to wear the next day, had baths and fallen asleep, it was after ten.

  Routines were good in that they lent an aura of normalcy to day-to-day living, even when the household could never, in the wake of Callie’s death, be the same as it was, Olivia reflected as she slid into the bathtub herself. The thought of her aunt brought a cloud of sadness with it. As she soaped herself, Olivia said a heartfelt prayer for the repose of Callie’s soul, and then surprised herself by yawning hugely. She was tired. She had listened to Sara’s prayers, read aloud a chapter from Little House in the Big Woods, tucked her daughter in, and kissed her good night, while Martha and Seth, between them, performed essentially the same ritual for Chloe. Now that Sara had Smokey to sleep with her, she was usually content to fall asleep on her own. Leaving Sara to do so when she had always lain down with her daughter until she fell asleep was a transition point in their relationship, underlining to Olivia that Sara was growing up. She supposed that was why walking out of that bedroom and leaving Sara alone in it at night had lately caused her a pang of discomfort. Certainly there was no other explanation for her recent urge to crawl into bed with Sara and stay there until the sun broke the eastern sky in the morning.

  Call her overprotective, but lately Olivia even had been getting up once or twice to check on Sara during the night. The vampire lightning bug king had not made an appearance in Sara’s dreams since Callie’s death, but still . . .

  Every time she thought about those dreams, Olivia grew uneasy. Was it just coincidence that she had once had similar nightmares herself?

  Maybe it was simply that both she and her daughter were prone to bad dreams, she mused. After all, she had been plagued by nightmares about her mother ever since returning to live at LaAngelle. Maybe there was something in the atmosphere here that both she and Sara were sensitive to, Olivia thought almost hopefully. Certainly the notion made more sense than anything else she could come up with.

  But tonight, she was not going to think about nightmares, either hers or Sara’s. Tonight she was going to think about Seth.

  Finishing her bath, she reapplied her makeup, brushed out her hair until it shone, applied a strategic dab or two of perfume, and dressed again, in a fresh pair of jeans and a white rayon camp shirt, which she tucked in at the waist. Then she went downstairs again.

  Seth had said he would be waiting for her in the den. Olivia smiled with anticipation.

  He was indeed waiting for her in the den, Olivia saw as she stepped through the pocket doors. He was sitting on the yellow chintz couch, long legs stretched out before him, hands locked behind his head as he talked to David, who was sitting in the comfortably shabby leather armchair to his right. On the other side of the couch Keith sat in the matching leather armchair, talking to Martha, who had pulled up a rocking chair. They all faced the TV, which was on, but no one seemed to be watching it.

  Taking in this group with a glance, Olivia had to smile. So much for being private with Seth.

  He must have thought the same thing, because when she walked into the room he looked up, met her eyes, and gave her a rueful smile.

  ‘‘Oh, Olivia, Carl called for you. Something about Friday. I left the message on the blackboard in the kitchen,’’ Martha said.

  Seth’s smile soured and died, and his eyes narrowed.

  ‘‘Thanks, Martha.’’ Conversely, Seth’s reaction widened Olivia’s smile. She was, of course, going to tell Carl that she couldn’t go out with him on Friday. But she liked the idea that Seth didn’t like Carl’s call, nonetheless. It made up, a little, for what she had suffered over Mallory.

  Olivia looked around the room and hesitated, not sure whether or where to sit down. All the chairs were taken, and she wasn’t really comfortable about the idea of sitting on the couch beside Seth. Their involvement wasn’t ready for public consumption yet. It was still too new.

  Seth solved her dilemma by standing up.

  ‘‘If you think he ought to be transferred to another hospital, I have no objection,’’ Seth said to David. ‘‘Charlie doesn’t seem to think it’s a good idea, though.’’

  ‘‘He’s not showing any improvement where he is,’’ David said.

  ‘‘We can talk about it some more tomorrow.’’ Seth shifted his attention to Olivia, and smiled. ‘‘Feel like getting some fresh air?’’

  Olivia nodded, too conscious of suddenly being the cynosure of all eyes to speak. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Keith look significantly at David, and David nod discreetly in turn. Martha’s eyes widened.

  ‘‘Good night, all,’’ Seth said over his shoulder, and
followed Olivia out of the room to an answering chorus of good-nights.

  Once outside on the veranda with the front door shut behind them, Olivia stopped and took a huge gulp of warm, honeysuckle-scented night air. Seth, standing beside her, grinned down at her.

  ‘‘Think they’re talking about us?’’

  ‘‘Oh, yeah.’’

  ‘‘It’s going to get worse before it gets better.’’

  ‘‘I know.’’

  ‘‘Can you take the heat?’’

  Olivia shrugged fatalistically. ‘‘Considering the alternative, I guess I can.’’

  ‘‘And the alternative is . . .?’’

  ‘‘Giving you back to Mallory.’’ She shook her head, and slanted a smiling look up at him. ‘‘Nope. Not an option.’’

  Seth turned her around to face him, his hands on her arms just above her elbows. His eyes met hers, a trifle narrowed even as a faint smile flickered around the corners of his mouth.

  ‘‘By the way, when you talk to Carl, you had better explain exactly why you won’t be going out with him, because if he continues to come sniffing around the front office every day like he has been I’m liable to break his nose.’’

  Olivia grinned. ‘‘You wouldn’t.’’

  ‘‘I might. He’s been in my damned office three times a day for the past month, and I’m getting tired of seeing his ugly face. Before you came to work for us, if I saw him twice a week it was a lot. When you were turning him down, the situation was just barely tolerable. Once you said yes to him, the potential for violence rose considerably.’’

  ‘‘Jealous,’’ Olivia said reprovingly, and shook her head at him. Her arms slid up around his neck.

  ‘‘Damn right.’’ He looked down at her, his hands at her waist, and his gaze slid from her eyes to her mouth. But he didn’t kiss her, as she had expected, and he seemed suddenly restless. ‘‘Want to go for a walk?’’

  Olivia shook her head. ‘‘Not really.’’

  ‘‘We could sit out here for a while and talk.’’

 

‹ Prev