by Nora Roberts
She shook her head. “I’m going to bake. Baking makes me happy.” She reached for the remote, turned on music at random. “So, go work out.”
“That’s the plan.” But he set down the bottle to take her face in his hands, study it. “Be happy,” he said. Kissed her, grabbed the bottle again, and left.
“I was,” she murmured. “Will be again.” Determined, she began arranging her supplies and ingredients as suited her.
Mal walked in while she cut shortening into her flour mixture for the pastry dough.
“I love seeing a woman who knows what she’s doing in the kitchen.”
“Glad to oblige.”
He went to the coffeepot, judged the remainder stale, tossed it. “I’m going to make a fresh pot.You want?”
“No, I’ve had enough.”
“So, what’s on the menu?”
“Pies.” She heard the edge in her voice, made the effort to dull it. “Lemon meringue and cherry.”
“I’ve got a weakness for a good piece of cherry pie.” Once he’d set the coffee to brew, he stepped over to her counter, scanned it. “You use actual lemons for the lemon meringue?”
“Well, they were out of mangoes.” She glanced at him as she added ice water. “What else?”
“You know that little box with a picture of a slice of pie.”
She unbent enough to laugh. “Not in my kitchen, friend. Juice and rind from actual lemons.”
“How about that?” He poured the coffee, then poked in a cupboard. “Hey, Pop-Tarts. Is it going to bother you if I watch?”
Stumped, she stopped what she was doing to stare at him. “You want to watch me make pies?”
“I like seeing how things work, but I can take off if I’m in your way.
“Just don’t touch anything.”
“Deal.” He took a seat on a stool on the other side of the counter.
“Do you cook at all?”
He ripped open the Pop-Tart package as he spoke. “When I first took off for L.A., it was learn to put food together or starve. I learned. I make a damn good red sauce. Maybe I’ll put that together tonight, especially if the rain keeps up.”
“Mac claims it’s clearing.”
Mal glanced out at the thin, steady rain. “Uh-huh.”
“That’s what I said.” She picked up the rolling pin—a good marble one she knew Del had bought with her in mind. It made her feel small about jumping down his throat.
A sigh escaped as she flour-dusted her board.
“It’s hard to be rich.”
She looked up, stared again. “What?”
“Harder to be poor,” he said in the same easy tone. “I’ve been both—relatively—and poor’s tougher. But rich has some baggage with it. I was doing okay in L.A. Steady work. I built up a rep, and I had a decent cushion when I got hurt doing that gag. That put the brakes on the work, but they ended up dumping a shitpile of money on me for my trouble.”
“How bad were you hurt?”
“Broke a few things I hadn’t broken before, and a few more I already had.” He shrugged it off as he bit into the Pop-Tart. “Point is, by my standards anyway, I was rolling in it. A lot of other people figured the same, and that they could do some rolling, too. Mice come out of the woodwork looking for a nice bite of the cheese, then they get nasty if you don’t share, or share enough to their way of thinking. Gave me a whole new perspective on who and what mattered, and who and what didn’t.”
“Yeah, I guess it would.”
“Del’s always had the rolling in it, so it’s some different for him.”
She stopped rolling. “You were listening?”
“I was walking by, heard what I figure was the last of it. I didn’t plug my ears and whistle a tune. But maybe you don’t want my take.”
“Why would I?”
Her frigid tone didn’t seem to chill him in the least. “Because I get it. I know what it is to need to prove you can handle yourself, make your own. I don’t come from where you do, but it’s not all that far off. My mother talks,” he added. “I let her. So I’ve got some of the backstory.”
She shrugged. “It’s not a secret.”
“Pisser though, being gossip fodder, especially when it’s ancient history, and not really about you since it’s about your parents.”
“I guess I should quid pro quo and tell you I know you lost your father, and your mother moved back here to work for your uncle. And that didn’t work so well for you.”
“He’s a fucker. Always was.” He picked up his coffee, gestured with the mug. “How do you do that? The crust deal? Get it almost perfectly round?”
“Practice.”
“Yeah, most everything takes it.” He watched in silence as she folded it, placed it in the first pie plate, unfolded. “Applause. So anyway, my take—”
“If I’m going to get your take, you can be useful and pit the cherries.”
“How?”
She handed him a hairpin, took another. “Like this.” She demonstrated, plunging the pin into the base of the cherry. The pit popped out the top.
His eyes, very green, lit with interest. “That’s freaking ingenious. Let me try that.”
He did so with considerable more skill than she’d expected, so she pushed two bowls toward him.
“Pits in here, fruit in here.”
“Got it.” He got to work. “Del doesn’t think about money like most of us do. He’s nobody’s fool, that’s for damn sure. He’s generous by nature—nurture, too, if what I hear about his parents is even half true.”
“They were amazing people. Incredible people.”
“That’s the word on the street.” Mal’s hands worked quickly, deftly—impressing her—with pin and pit. “He’s compassionate and fair. Not a pushover, but believes in using money not just for his comfort and pleasure, but to build, to make a mark, to change lives. He’s a hell of a guy.”
“He really is.”
“Plus he’s not an asshole, which counts a lot. Hey. You’re not going to water up or anything, are you?” Mal asked cautiously.
“No. I don’t water up easily.”
“Good. So what I’m saying is he buys this place—or he and Legs buy it.”
“Are you really going to call Parker ‘Legs’?”
“She’s sure got them. An investment, sure. And a getaway for them. But he—they—open it up. Seems to me they could’ve said, ‘Okay, vacation time. See you in a couple weeks.’ But that’s not what they did.”
“No, they didn’t.” Her opinion of him rose several notches. He understood, and he appreciated.
“So we’ve got this houseful of people. I felt a little weird about tagging along, but that’s on me. For Del, it’s, ‘We’ve got this place, let’s use it.’ No weight, no strings.”
“You’re right. Damn it.”
Those sharp green eyes met hers again, with an understanding that nearly made her “water up.”
“But he doesn’t get we bring our own weight, our own strings. He doesn’t feel them or see them. If he did—”
“He’d be irritated or insulted,” she finished.
“Yeah. But sometimes a girl needs to buy her own lemons, so he’s got to deal with the irritation and insult.”
She finished the other piecrust, placed it in the second pan. “I should be able to explain it to him. I guess that’s on me.”
“I guess it is.”
“Just when I was starting to like you,” she said, but smiled.
When Emma wandered in, Laurel was demonstrating the proper way to create meringue.
“Tournament in the game room, in about an hour.”
“Poker?” Mal asked, brightening up.
“It’s being discussed. Jack and Del are putting together some sort of game decathlon, and poker is an element. They’re arguing point system. Ooh, pie.”
“I have to finish this, then I’m going to start some bread while Mal makes red sauce.”
“You cook?”
; “I’d rather play poker.”
“Oh, well, I could—”
“Uh-uh.” Laurel pointed a finger at Mal. “We have an arrangement.”
“Fine. But the tournament doesn’t start until I’m done here. And I don’t do dishes.”
“Reasonable,” Laurel allowed. “We need ninety minutes,” she told Emma. “If the rest of the entrants want to eat tonight, they’ll wait for us.”
Laurel brought a timer with her, set for the end of the bread’s second rising. Her pies cooled on their racks, and Mal’s sauce simmered low on the range.
It seemed a damn good deal for a rainy day.
When she stepped into the game room, she realized Del and Jack had made their version of pie out of lemons.
They’d set up stations, even had them numbered. The poker table, the Xbox, the mat for Dance Dance Revolution, the dreaded foosball.
She sucked at foosball.
Any number of people had been in and out of the kitchen in the last hour, grabbing snacks, drinks. The bar held bowls of chips, salsa, cheese, fruit, crackers.
Sometime over the last hour or so, they’d fashioned a scoreboard, listed the names.
“This looks pretty serious.”
“Competition’s not for sissies,” Del told her. “Parker tried to ban cigars from the poker rounds. She’s been overruled. I hear Mal’s handling dinner.”
“Yeah. We’ve got that end of things under control. We’ll require a couple of time-outs to check on things.”
“Fair enough.”
Yes, he was, she thought, fair enough. Generous by nature, as Mal had said. He’d gone to considerable trouble here—for his own benefit, sure. The man loved to play. But also to make sure everyone had a good time.
She crooked her finger to gesture him over to a more private spot as Mac argued with Jack over the choices of video games.
“I’m not going to apologize for the content, but for the delivery.”
“All right.”
“I don’t want either of us to feel, ever, your wallet has to be open.”
Frustration flickered over his face. “I don’t. You don’t. It’s not—” “That’s what counts then.” She rose to her toes to touch her lips to his. “Let’s forget about it. You’re going to have enough to deal with when I kick your ass in this tournament.”
“Not a chance. The trophy for the First Annual Brown Beach Tourney is as good as mine.”
“There’s a trophy?”
“Of course there’s a trophy. Jack and Parker made it.”
She followed the direction of his finger. On top of the mantle stood what might have been a piece of driftwood or salvage with shells placed strategically to emulate a primitive bikini. Dried kelp covered the ‘head.’ They’d drawn on a face with a fierce and toothy grin.
She burst out laughing, and went over for a closer look.
Better, Del thought. She’d brushed off whatever pinched at her. But brushing it off didn’t mean it wasn’t lurking in the corners waiting to pinch again.
He’d had time to think about it, and believed he had an idea what some of it, at least, was about—and where it might’ve come from.
He also believed he knew how to find out.
He glanced over to where Emma manned the bar.
He just needed to bide his time, and use the right approach.
“Let the games begin,” Jack called out, and held up a hat. “Everyone picks a number for the first round.”
SHE REALLY DID SUCK AT FOOSBALL. SO GREAT WAS HER FAILURE even Carter beat her. Now that, she thought, was humiliating.
Still, she’d killed at pinball with a run of luck and skill that had put her slightly ahead of both Jack and Del in that field of play. Much to their chagrin.
And that was satisfying.
She felt she’d hold her own at poker. But currently Mal and Parker were ripping it at competitive DDR. She’d have to ace her run to have even a fighting chance for the trophy.
She sipped wine as Parker and Mal hit double A’s at the end of their second of three rounds.
Shit, she was probably doomed.
It was probably unfair to think having Mal there balanced things out—but it did. Parker was perfectly capable of getting her own man if she wanted one, but it just added a nice touch.
Plus, they looked really good together.
Really good.
And maybe she should switch back to water if she was heading toward even around the borders of matchmaking.
She shrugged, took another sip, then prepared for her round with the Xbox.
She entered the final round tied with Mac for fifth after scorching Jack at DDR.
“Damn the Wii,” he muttered. “It killed my standings.”
“You’re in fourth.” Emma poked his belly. “I’m dead last. Something’s wrong with that pinball machine. And my Xbox controller was faulty.” She plucked the cigar out of his hand. “For luck,” she decided and took a puff. “Ugh, can’t be worth it.”
Forty minutes into Texas Hold ‘Em, Laurel went all in on a pretty heart flush. The pot would put her on top, and potentially eliminate Emma, Mac, and possibly Carter.
As the bet rounded the table, she felt a buzz as her opponents folded one by one. Until Carter.
He considered, weighed—endlessly, she thought. Then called.
“Ace high heart flush.” She spread her cards.
“Very nice,” Del told her.
“Oh.” Carter adjusted his glasses, looked sorrowful. “Full house. Queens over sevens. Sorry.”
“Woo!”
At Mac’s cheer, Laurel scowled.
“Sorry, I have to cheer. We’re getting married.”
“Maybe you could check the sauce,” Mal said.
“Yeah, I can do that.” She pushed away from the table. “It was the stupid foosball.”
She took her time, stirred the sauce, then wandered over to step onto the deck.
Mac’s prediction had finally come true. It had cleared up. Maybe it had waited all day to do it, but the skies bloomed blue again. There’d be a moon out later, and the stars. Lovely night for a walk on the beach.
She went up to see Emma at the bar pouring a Diet Coke.
“You out?”
“I’m out.”
“Yay. I won’t come in last.”
“I could hate you for that, but I’m magnanimous. Jack’s down to his last chips. Our love did not soar us on wings of skill and luck this day. But, hell, it was fun. Oops, there goes my man. I guess I should commiserate.”
It took another thirty minutes for the eliminations, and a few more for the tallying.
In the end, Del turned from the board to reach for the trophy. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a tie. Parker Brown and Malcolm Kavanaugh each end with one hundred and thirty-four points.”
Mal grinned at Parker. “Looks like we share the spoils, Legs.”
“We could have a tiebreaker, but I’m too damn tired.” She held out her hand for a shake. “We share.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
DEL FOUND HIS OPPORTUNITY TO TALK TO EMMA ALONE FOR A good stretch the next day when he suggested the two of them drive to the local nursery to see what sort of plantings she’d like to put in.
She jumped on the idea so quickly and enthusiastically, he felt just a little guilty. He’d make up for it, he decided, by letting her pick whatever she wanted, even if it meant hiring a local landscaping crew to maintain it.
She cut that sop to his conscience the minute she hopped in the car with him.
“Low maintenance is key,” she began. “I’d love to do whole rivers of color and texture, but you don’t live here. No point in having all that, then needing to hire people to deal with it when you’re only here off and on through the year.”
“Right.” Anything she wanted, he told himself again. Anything.
“Next key is sticking to plants and grasses indicative of the beach, and going for a natural look. It’s going to be fun!”
“You bet.”
“It will.” She laughed and poked him. “I’m going to enjoy this a lot, plus it goes in as my own little payback for the vacation. It’s such a beautiful place, Del. We’re all so happy to be here.”
“Payback? Come on, Emma.”
“It feels good to do something to show appreciation.You’re not taking that away from me, so don’t even think about it. Boy, it’s a gorgeous day. I can’t wait to get started on this.”
“It’s nice to get away, relax. It’s good for everybody.”
“No argument from me.”
“Dump the stress. We’ve all got it. Not just work, but outside sources bring it, too. Laurel going head-to-head with Linda added plenty for her.”
“Oh, she told you about that. I wasn’t sure she would.” Emma sat back as anger shifted over her face.
“It’s lucky she caught Linda before she strolled right in Mac and Carter’s place, but I don’t like knowing she had to take Linda on alone.”
“She handled it, sent Linda off with a bug in her ear. But, I know what you mean. She didn’t have any backup when Linda went after her. She was so upset.That woman knows exactly where to slip the knife.”
“Nothing Linda says means a damn.”
“No, but words hurt, and she knows which ones to use. She’s . . . She’s a predator, that’s what she is, and she goes for the weak spots. She really piled it on with Laurel. First her father, then you. Stab, stab, claw.”
“Fathers, or parents, are weak spots with a lot of people. What Laurel’s made of herself, in a lot of ways despite them, is something to be proud of.”
“I completely agree, but it’s easier for you and me because we didn’t have to deal with despite. We always had love and support. And knowing your father was weak enough—and just had the extremely bad taste—to have an affair with Linda’s a tough one to swallow. And while Laurel’s choking that down, Linda bitch slaps her with how everyone’s talking and laughing at her about you, about her delusions that you’d ever be serious about someone like her, and insults her with all that ‘everyone knows she’s after the Brown money and status anyway because look where and what she comes from.”’
She paused a moment, just to seethe, and Del let the silence ride as he turned it all over in his mind.