The boat bobbed over a wake. Mari tripped and landed in Three Ring’s lap. Her guffaws clamored over the music. Disgusted, he turned his gaze to the shore sliding by.
Nope, she wouldn’t win Mom of the Year.
During the morning, it was Lil who had corralled Michael and sweet-talked him into a game of Go Fish! with herself and the girls. When they anchored to swim, it was Lil who had buckled the kids into life jackets and kept a tight leash on Michael. At lunchtime, it had been Lil again. After the kids yowled at the iced shrimp Tina set in front of them, Lil had rummaged through the galley and emerged to clapping hands with peanut butter and jelly.
If only Mari was more like her sister.
She fascinated him, this bookstore lady, with her perfect posture, her distant manner, her come-kiss-me lips that clamped together in a tight-assed line, at least while he was around. China Blue Eyes… Such a surprise… Face full of secrets, tell me no lies? Argh.
Face full of secrets was right. Earlier he’d sought Mari out under the pretext of wanting to know her better but really curious about Lil. They’d sat on the bow, forearms on the railing, legs dangling over the froth of water sliding under the boat. The liquor had made Mari obligingly loose-lipped.
“How’d her husband die?”
“Car accident. Poor Lil. Almost killed her, too. They’d been together since they were kids. Played dodge ball and kick-the-can in our backyard. Y’ever play it?”
He ignored the question. Except for Belinda, he’d never had playmates. They were too scared of his old man. “They marry young?”
“Right outta high school. Then they went to college, or rather, Robbie did. Oh, she took some classes, but she wasn’t all that interested. Mostly waited tables and taught piano, which is a damn shame.” Mari swung her head in maudlin sorrow.
“Lots of women put their husbands through school or the other-way-round.”
“But she’s so smart; she could’ve done anything she wanted. But all she wanted was wifedom and babies and a life in Cordelia, the dummy. So, he brought her back and bought her a house and painted it yellow, not a yucky yellow, a nice pale, pretty yellow and not because it needed it but just because it was Lil’s favorite color. The way she acted, you would have thought he’d bought her the moon. They were always all over each other. It was kinda sweet—when it didn’t ‘bout made you want to puke.”
Jon wondered what it would be like to love like that.
With the lightning recovery powers of the very drunk, Mari zipped from despair to perky. She drained her beer and flashed him a smile. “Oh, well. Tha’s life. I’m going below for another—want one?” She’d stumbled off, and he’d sighed. His idea was insane. At least the idea featuring Mari O’Malley.
Glancing at her now, he rolled the lollipop into his other cheek and checked his watch. He’d give them two more hours—if Mari didn’t pass out first—then he’d smother this party with the proverbial wet blanket and haul them all home.
Pitching the stick into an empty sack, he tipped the edge of his tea tumbler at Zeke and Sam. “I’m going below. Want more?”
Zeke shook his head, but Sam handed over his cup, and Jon loped down to the cabin. He’d ring Mari tomorrow after she’d sobered up and tell her the deal was off. He’d ask Lydia to find her some kind of gift to soften the blow.
He twisted the latch on the cabin door, stepped inside and halted.
Alone, Lil played the keyboards. Chopin. Her scent, the honeysuckle he remembered at the bookstore, floated through the cabin. Those beautiful hands wandered the keys, long fingers with nails unpainted, trimmed short and smoothed to follow the pink curves of her cuticles. The music washed over him.
She glanced up and stopped.
Moving into the cabin, he waved a hand. “Keep going.”
After a moment’s hesitation, she obeyed.
Tea forgotten, he crossed to a bench. Through the window, he caught sight of Michael’s bare feet planted on the fiberglass, one leg kicked skyward. Jon smiled, then turned his back and settled against the cushions, hooking an ankle over his knee.
Outside, Michael yelled, “Cowabunga!” Inside, Lil’s gaze stayed on her hands. A few curls wisped over a knit brow, and her lashes cast a shadow on flushed cheeks. He toyed with his ponytail and listened with a critical ear. He’d give her major points for technique, but while the chords resonated with melancholy, soothing and lovely, the whole effect was too uptight. She’d be better if she’d loosen up.
She sounded the last note, dropped her hands and pinned that unbelievable blue gaze on him. For a moment their eyes linked in appreciation of the old master. He felt a stirring at the back of his mind, gentle and soothing, curling like tender shoots out of the ashes of his damaged boyhood. Impatiently, he yanked them out before they took root. This woman was far too… good… to survive what he’d do to her. If she’d even let him close enough to do it.
With a yank, he dropped the ponytail and cast for thoughts in his shaken brain. “Lil. Is that short for something? Lilith, maybe? Lila?”
“It’s short for Lilac.”
Childhood images of dappled spring mornings full of promise and the delicate aroma of dainty lavender flowers wafted through his head like the perfume she wore. But, in those days, spring never stuck around for long, and those promises were dashed against reality. He linked his hands behind his head and leaned back, his eyes still bound with hers. “Pretty. It suits you, but I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone named Lilac.”
“It could have been worse. It might have been Spiderwort.” A hint of that gut-clenching smile appeared, and her eyes shone as clear as a cloudless day. A guy could bask in those eyes forever.
“Spiderwort?”
Then she did smile, that heart-breaking, heart-stopping, slow smile, and the tendrils started wending their way up again. “It’s a custom of sorts. All the women in the family are named after flowers—except Kathleen, my oldest sister’s daughter. That sister is Alcea—that’s the formal name for the hollyhock flower. You’ve met Daisy. My mother is Zinnia—and I have another niece named Rose. She’s Daisy’s sister.”
“And Mari?”
“Short for Marigold.”
He reached for a bowl of M&Ms on the coffee table and tried to distract himself from the feelings she stirred in him. The name thing was a little too cute but it still touched a chord of regret in him for what never was. “Nice tradition. I have no idea where my own first name comes from. The last name I got from a phone book on my way to Nashville.” Two reasons: Jonathan Brumley would have looked stupid on the marquee at the Grand Ole Opry, and he didn’t want to share the same name as his old man.
As for his own two kids, no tradition or family ties there. Belinda had slapped the names on their birth certificates before he’d ever seen them. Munching, he considered Lil again. “Alcea, Lilac and Marigold.”
The smile fled, like the sun had scampered behind a cloud. “And speaking of Marigold, we need to talk. I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but…”
He didn’t hear her. He’d zoned out on her eyes, marveling at how they changed from the transparent shimmer of a crystalline lake to the coldness of its depths, all in seconds.
“My family and I have discussed this. In fact, we’ve discussed little else since yesterday. And we’re asking you”—white spots appeared on the knuckles of her clasped hands—“Begging you—to call off this arrangement. Mari is too immature to know what she’s doing. Restraint isn’t a word in her vocabulary. You’ve seen how she’s handled one day of this craziness. What do you think a couple years of it would do to her? For God’s sake, we read all about your exploits. My oldest sister looked you up on the Internet. Is that what you do for sport?”
Still hooked on those eyes, he repeated, “For sport?”
“Marry young women, feed them drugs and watch while they ruin themselves? Or is it just the teenaged ones you prefer?”
That hit a nerve. His reverie snapped. He sat up, leaned forwa
rd, reached for the candy, then changed his mind and cracked his knuckles. “You shouldn’t believe everything you read.”
“You’ve seen how Mari’s acted today. She can’t handle your lifestyle.” She made lifestyle sound like a dirty word.
He felt his face grow hard and hot. He started to tell her he’d come to the same conclusion but stopped as her eyes shot wide open. She bolted for the stairway, nearly knocking over the keyboard. He gaped as she hurtled through the door and left it hanging.
Stung and bewildered, he stood up. Through the door, he heard yelling topside. The throb of the engines and the music went dead. He turned and peered out. The lake, placid, calm… then a flash of legs, Lil’s legs, past the window. He heard a splash.
“There! He went down right there!” Captain Sam roared.
Jon leaped up the stairs, his heart crowding his throat. Bursting from the cabin, he rushed port where everyone stood along the railing staring at the water. Only Three-Ring’s grip on Mari’s arm kept her body upright. From the bow of the boat came the babble of girls’ voices, high with excitement, and Tina’s shrill “Hush!”
From the helm, Sam twirled a life preserver in a loop, then zinged it over the lake. It arced in the still, humid air and plopped in the water, fifteen yards from the boat, where it bobbed, undisturbed. Without missing a beat, Sam grabbed a float and leaped after it.
Jumping on one bare foot, ripping a loafer from the other, Zeke grasped Jon’s shoulder to steady himself. His face was white under his tan. “Michael.” He uttered the one word, grabbed a ski belt and dove over the side.
Mind numb, Jon stared after Zeke. Except where Zeke and Sam churned water, the lake lay still and silent, a flat silver disc in the high sun. He shivered. Michael!
Near the life preserver, a head broke the water. Not the gleaming brown head he’d hoped to see, a blonde one. Lil. She gulped in air, then dove again with a flash of white rear and a powerful kick. The sight broke his paralysis.
Tearing off his sandals, he grabbed another preserver and launched himself over the railing. Adrenaline roared in his ears. Each heartbeat held a thousand nightmares. He pumped past Zeke. Lil broke the surface again. This time, this time, thank God, two heads appeared.
Michael’s head lolled and he could see Lil struggle to keep his face up, then go under herself. With a powerful sweep, he thrust his life preserver toward her. She snagged an arm over, keeping Michael afloat, and sucked in air. He reached them at the same time Sam did, and they heaved Michael’s body over Sam’s float. His thin limbs drifted like a starfish’s.
Without pausing, Sam turned him on his side, releasing a trickle of water from Michael’s mouth, then flipped him back and began mouth-to-mouth. Zeke swam to Lil’s side where he shoved half his ski belt under her free arm, then clung to the other half.
Jon continued to tread water, steadying himself with one hand on the life preserver, the other smoothing the hair back from Michael’s forehead. His eyes caressed his son’s face, seeing as if for the first time, the generous black lashes that spiked from his closed eyes, the blue veins under his translucent cheeks. They poufed in and out as Sam breathed life into his lungs.
As Sam caught his breath, Jon studied Michael’s mouth, the mobile mouth that stretched in a yell or an uproarious laugh, that now, as if in sleep, fell into the pouty lines of childhood. Sam pinched Michael’s upturned nose and renewed his efforts. Michael’s thin chest rose and fell, each rib a stair step to the sweet cleft of his navel. He marveled at the perfection of his son. His son.
Michael had to live.
He gripped the tube tight, closed his eyes and willed Michael to breathe. Willed life back into his son.
He opened his eyes and met Lil’s gaze. Her face was pale, her lower lip trembled, and he lost himself in the depths of her eyes, naked eyes, washed violet with emotion. Eyes that held heartrending pain and fathomless understanding, eyes that shared his anguish, his hope, his torment, his love for his son.
He blinked, and when he looked again, her eyes were again pale blue—and shuttered. And he wondered if he’d only imagined that communion of souls.
A sudden splutter, and Michael coughed. Sam tipped him on his side. Michael threw up in the lake and moaned. His eyelids fluttered. “Daddy?”
Joy mushroomed in Jon’s chest and burst out in a sob. He flung an arm over Michael’s shoulders and held tight, not bothering to hide his tears. Zeke let out a whoop and sent a thumb’s up toward the houseboat. The group along the railing erupted in cheers, sweeter music to his ears than any roaring crowd he’d ever heard.
CHAPTER NINE
THE DAY FOLLOWING Michael’s near drowning, Lil worked in the early morning quiet of her mother’s garden along the cabin’s graveled drive, a circle path hollowed out through the dense woods. Birds chirped around Pop’s feeders, and honeybees droned over black eyed susans. Relentlessly, she clipped dead leaves and pulled up bindweed, moving toward the road until the oaks completely hid the cabin. Except for Mother and Pop, the rest of the household slept. Her parents had gone into the nearby village for groceries. Tomorrow, Mother had planned a family picnic. Lil grimaced.
Shoving the clippers into the gardening belt at her waist, she straightened and swiped her forearm across her face. She wore only her swimsuit, terry cloth shorts and canvas gloves, and already the curls at the back of her neck were damp. But she felt chilled whenever she thought of yesterday.
Shivering in a towel, she’d watched along with the others as Jon had tenderly laid Michael on a bunk in one of the bedrooms. After sitting with Michael until he fell asleep, he’d turned to Sam to make arrangements to get them all back to shore.
Three-Ring, sobered as he hadn’t been all day, had clapped an arm around Jon’s slumped shoulders and murmured to him in a low voice, comforting him.
Now, as then, Lil felt a flash of anger. She bent, yanked up a dandelion and flung it toward the woods. The man didn’t need comfort, he needed a new brain.
At the time, she’d turned away without speaking her mind only to encounter Zeke’s level gaze. From the way his eyes had penetrated hers, she knew he’d guessed her thoughts. She’d started to follow Daisy and Melanie to the upper deck but had stopped when he’d touched her arm.
Of all the adults on board this ship of fools, Zeke had seemed the most sane. He’d watched the day’s antics with those alert but tolerant black eyes, and she’d appreciated his easy camaraderie with the children. More than once, he’d offered a distraction to keep the three entertained—and away from the drunks on the sun deck. It hadn’t escaped her notice that he and Jon (and Sam) were the only ones not knocking back drinks like popcorn. In fact, until Michael went overboard, she’d softened considerably toward Jon Van Castle. He hadn’t exhibited any of the wild tendencies she’d read about, and she’d decided most of it was gossip. His children obviously adored him, which said something. As the day had passed, her hopes that Jonathan Van Castle would see reason had risen.
Glancing at Michael, Zeke had kept his voice low. “That was quite a piece of heroism back there. You saved Michael’s life.” He paused. “Don’t be too hard on him. He does care. A lot.”
She tried to keep her voice as reasonable as Zeke’s. “He’s all concern for his children now. Now when it’s almost too late. If I hadn’t seen Michael fall off…” She shivered. Stupid man. Stupid, stupid man. “A simple life jacket could have saved us all a lot of grief. He should have insisted the children wear them. He should have—”
She stopped, remembering the devastation on Jon’s face as they’d treaded water while Sam breathed life into Michael. For an instant, his agony had been tangible, a black and bruised tornadic emotion, which had whorled between them and sucked her into a maelstrom of her own past anguish.
Shoulders slumping, she faced facts. She should have insisted on life jackets when he hadn’t. She blamed him because it hurt less than blaming herself. Blaming him was easier than facing the eruption of emotions Michael’s near dro
wning had caused.
“He should have,” Zeke agreed. “ But he doesn’t make mistakes because he doesn’t love them. He makes mistakes because he’s not used to being a father.”
She couldn’t resist. “And whose fault is that?”
Zeke leaned against the jamb and regarded her a moment. She dropped her gaze, knowing she’d sounded shrewish.
“His, partly. His ex-wife’s, mostly. Ask him and he’d say it was all his fault, although I personally don’t think a man should be blamed for growing up without an example to follow. His old man was a total loss in the fatherhood department.”
Strangely, she’d wanted to ask Zeke more about Jon Van Castle, but at that point, Michael had made a mewling sound. “Something to think about anyway,” Zeke had said, his voice mild as he’d turned toward Michael.
Nearing the exit to the road, Lil yanked up another weed. At the opposite end of the drive, she heard wheels crunch on gravel and the slam of a door. Her parents were home. Half-hidden in the brush, she didn’t turn around to wave a greeting. She wasn’t pleased with them, either. While she was sorry about Michael, she’d been happy the near-disaster had called a halt to the day’s “fun,” even though (maybe especially because) she hadn’t yet talked to Jon about Mari. But now they’d roped her into trying again tomorrow when Mari would trot out Jon at the family picnic. The affair was her mother’s idea, a ploy to give Lil another opportunity. A still-tipsy Mari had embraced the idea wholeheartedly, and had arranged things last night with Jon’s business manager who’d been none too sober himself.
Lil snorted, pulled out her clippers and slashed at a patch of dead iris leaves. The man had someone to do everything for him. She wondered if he hired an assistant to wipe his—
Someone tapped her hip. She bolted straight up, dropping the clippers, and her head bashed into something hard. She heard a gasp of pain and whipped around to see Jon Van Castle tearing up, a hand over his nose.
SING ME HOME (Love Finds A Home - Book One) Page 9