by Robyn Carr
“But Aunt Lou can’t be there, too?” she asked.
“Unfortunately your mother and Aunt Lou don’t exactly get along.”
“It’s better this way,” Lou said. “We’ll avoid any silly disagreements if I’m just not here. It’s okay—you can tell me all about it later.”
“Are you still mad at her?” Ryan wanted to know.
Lou took a breath. “I don’t want to be and I’m not going to act like I’m mad, but I was angry that she left and didn’t call to check on us. I’m working on being forgiving, but I might be too old and mean…. But until I get to the forgiving part, I intend to act like I’ve forgiven her. And hopefully she’ll act the same way toward me. Just not tonight, apparently. Now eat some pizza.” And with that, she took a big bite herself.
“I’m not hungry,” Eve said, leaving the table without permission.
“Eve,” Mac began.
Lou held up her hand. “Let it go. Understandably there’s tension. The pizza will keep.”
Mac had never, in his life, felt an hour and a half stretch interminably. At six he went to his room, showered and put on a fresh shirt. He even splashed a little aftershave on his cheeks. He yelled in the direction of the other bedrooms. “Fifteen minutes, kids.” No one answered. He hoped he wouldn’t have to pry them out of their rooms. He got himself a cup of coffee from the kitchen and went to the living room, where his three children were lined up on the couch. They were looking spit and polished even though they were all still wearing their jeans. And they were sitting very close together, Eve in the middle. “Has Lou left?” he asked.
They nodded in perfect sync and he couldn’t help but laugh at them. “It’s not an execution! It’s your mother, finally come to visit and see how you are. Try to make this a happy occasion. I’m sure she’s not planning to stay long so take this opportunity to ask her anything you’ve wondered about.”
“Why now?” Eve asked.
“Well, honey, she said she’s missed you and wants to make amends,” Mac said. “All you have to do is be polite. Once she’s gone, I’ll warm up that pizza.”
The doorbell rang and all three kids stiffened as if they had heard a gunshot. Mac put down his coffee on the side table. “I’m sure that’s just Sidney, our lawyer.” He opened the door to two beautiful, elegant, richly dressed women. Cee Jay’s attorney was a knockout. She was a blonde, a stark contrast to Cee Jay’s dark hair. But here they were, young and beautiful and sexy, looking as if they came from the same world, as if they belonged to the same tennis and golf club.
The lawyer put out her hand. “How do you do, Mr. McCain. I’m Antoinette LeClair. Please call me Ann.”
He frowned. She looked very familiar. “How do you do. You’re a little early.”
She laughed and looked at her watch. “My apologies. Mrs. McCain was, understandably, very anxious.”
“Do I know you?” he asked, frowning. “Do you practice around here?”
“I’ve been up here a time or two, but my office is in San Francisco.”
He leaned a little closer and spoke quietly. “It’s Deputy McCain. And it’s not ‘Mrs.’ Cecilia Jayne and I have been divorced a long time and the kids haven’t seen their mother in ten years. Don’t be presumptuous.” And he watched as Cee Jay bit her lip and turned teary eyes away. Sadly, he thought about how jaded he was. He just couldn’t give her the benefit of the doubt. He felt sure her emotions were an act.
“Come in,” he said, standing aside.
Ann let Cee Jay enter ahead of her. She stepped into the living room, covered her mouth as tears ran down her cheeks and said, “Oh, my beautiful babies! Oh, my God! Look at you!”
Mac winced visibly. This was going to be so confusing to them—their mother gone for so long and then returning with all that gush!
Cee Jay sat in the chair that Mac usually occupied, his cup of coffee sitting next to her on the side table. Once again, she looked rich…and powerful. She had a large diamond ring on her right hand, a diamond bracelet on her left wrist, diamond stud earrings as big as peas in her ears. And her clothes were chic, no other way to describe her. Elegant. Sitting on the edge of Mac’s old, worn recliner, the contrast couldn’t have been greater. With impressive skill she implored her children, “Tell me everything. I want to hear what you’re doing. I bet you’re so smart in school.”
They were clearly uncomfortable; so stiff and shocked and intimidated. It was a long moment before Ryan said, “I play ball. Baseball.”
“Do you?” she said excitedly, swiping the tears from her cheeks. “Your daddy played ball in high school!”
“And football. With Pop Warner,” he added in a quiet voice.
There was a knock at the door and Mac let Sidney in. “Early,” Mac explained.
Sidney gave a nod and merely stood inside the door as a witness. But what he was seeing was Cee Jay’s passion for her children.
“I take dance class,” Dee Dee said, so softly she could barely be heard.
“Oh, I knew it! I used to dance! And what else do you do, my darling?”
“Piano,” she added. “Why can’t Aunt Lou be here? She’s the one who takes care of us. With Daddy.”
“I’m afraid I was a disappointment to your Aunt Lou,” Cee Jay said smoothly, looking down, looking ashamed. “We were close once, but not anymore.”
Close? Mac thought. When was that?
“Eve, tell me about yourself,” Cee Jay said.
“No,” Eve said. “Tell me about yourself. You look pretty good. Jewelry and everything. What kind of job do you have?”
“Oh. Um. Well, I’ve been living in Los Angeles so I’ve been doing some modeling, some work as an extra on movie sets, that sort of thing. Nothing very impressive.”
“It must pay very well,” Eve said. Mac thought, That’s my daughter—already investigating. “The only other thing I want to know is why.”
“Why?”
“Why you got up one morning and decided to leave us. Without telling us you were going. Without saying goodbye. Without ever calling or sending a card or visiting.”
Cee Jay looked shocked. “Eve, I’m sure your dad told you about—”
“I want you to tell me. Why didn’t you at least visit us?”
“Your father asked me not to,” she said.
Mac scowled. “That’s not true,” he said.
She turned and looked at him. “You served me with divorce papers that severed my custody and visitation.”
“They know that, Cee Jay. Five years after you left, I filed for divorce and custody, and you signed off. They know. They’ve always known that we hadn’t had a conversation for ten years.”
“So then?” Eve said. “Why?”
“I’m sure you’re very angry with me, Eve, but I came home to tell you about—”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Eve said. “I want to know why!”
“Eve,” Mac said in a warning tone.
Her voice was more compliant when she looked at him with pain in her eyes and said, “That’s all I want from this, Dad.”
“I understand. Please, be polite.”
She looked back at Cee Jay. “I politely request that you tell me why. I don’t want to talk about it, I just want to know.”
Cee Jay sat a bit straighter and her mouth was not set in a happy line. Her lovely arched brows furrowed unhappily. “I don’t expect you to understand, but I was very young. I had too many small children to care for without any help, without the love of a husband, without enough money to keep the house decent or enough food on the table. I broke, that’s all. I broke and ran, afraid I was losing my mind. I’m sorry. I know it was wrong, but I wasn’t strong. And now I’d like to reconnect and make up for all I missed.”
Eve stood up. “Thank you.” She walked toward her bedroom.
“Eve!” Cee Jay stood. “Won’t you give me another chance?”
With tears gathering in her eyes, Eve shook her head. Then she proceeded to her room.
“Can I be excused?” Ryan asked.
“Me, too,” Dee Dee added.
Mac nodded, knowing they were going to go hide or at least lay low. He was going to have so much to explain to them, damage to try to repair.
Cee Jay turned blazing blue eyes on him. “What have you done to them?” she snapped. “They hate me!”
“I have to admit, I’m surprised,” Mac said, running a big hand down over his jaw. “I knew Eve was angry, but I didn’t realize… Look, Cee Jay, Ryan and Dee Dee were very young when you disappeared, and they don’t remember the day you left. But Eve remembers every detail. I had to get her in counseling—she was a wreck. But you have to be realistic—it’s not as though they didn’t notice their mother wasn’t here or that you didn’t call or write or visit. I didn’t have to point that out to them.”
“You poisoned them against me!”
“What?” he said on a laugh. “You didn’t ever think of calling, or ever sending a birthday or Christmas card? Did it never occur to you that not visiting once in ten years would do the job of making them angry with you? You think they needed input from me? Oh, Cee Jay, how delusional can you possibly be?”
“You bastard! You’re happy they reject me!”
He took a threatening step toward her. “I’m probably going to spend the better part of the night, maybe the next several days, trying to convince my daughter your abandonment was not her fault, that it was no one’s fault. I might be headed for more counseling, which is tough on a deputy’s salary.” Then he stopped, looked her over and said, “Modeling? Movie work?”
“I’m done talking to you,” she said, turning to leave.
Mac looked at her attorney, lifting his eyebrows in question. She gave a little shrug. “Right now Mrs. McCain’s sole job is trying to reunite with her family.”
Mac’s expression was deadpan. “It’s not Mrs.,” he said for the second time.
Cee Jay was out the door, down the walk and in her car quickly, her attorney following. Mac stepped outside, Sidney on his heels. Nothing was said while Cee Jay started her classy car and pulled away from the curb. He squinted toward the car, memorizing the license plate. There had been no exchange of business cards; Ann had never offered one.
Then he turned to Sidney. “That went well,” he said.
*
Lou McCain went into Cliffhanger’s, meaning to have a quiet drink at the bar while she waited for Mac to be finished with The Visit. Given it was a Wednesday at six, the place was kind of busy and, as luck would have it, there was only one seat available at the bar…right next to Ray Anne, real estate agent extraordinaire and Lou’s longtime nemesis. And while Lou was in a pair of jeans that she’d dressed up with a jacket, Ray Anne was decked in a royal-blue silky suit, short skirt and very high heels.
Lou and Ray Anne weren’t exactly enemies, nor were they actual rivals. Anymore, at least. But they grew up together and had issues that went way back to the old days in Coquille. Ray Anne liked men very much and it didn’t matter to her if they were spoken for or not. In fact, Ray Anne, a cute, sexy little blonde in her younger years, had helped herself to at least a couple of Lou’s boyfriends. Lou had a memory like an elephant; it took a lot to cause her to hold a grudge, but once she achieved it, it was even harder for her to let go.
Ray Anne had relocated to Thunder Point about fifteen years ago, but given that it was so close to Coquille, Lou still saw more of her than she had liked. Then when Lou moved to Thunder Point with Mac and the kids, it seemed as if every time she turned a corner, she ran smack-dab into Ray Anne. Ray Anne might not be the same cute little blonde she once was, but she acted as if she thought she was. Now she had big boobs to add to her charms. Lou had suspected, quite rightly, that a surgical intervention had been necessary to achieve that impressive bustline.
Every time Lou saw Ray Anne, she automatically looked down at herself. Yup, sixty years old and still she looked as if she were wearing a training bra.
Yet, there was that lone bar stool. And Lou wouldn’t take a table in a busy restaurant for just a drink. She took the stool next to Ray Anne.
“If I sit here, can we have one hour of no conversation?” Lou asked Ray Anne.
Ray Anne lifted her glass of wine. “That’s a long time,” she said, lifting one tawny eyebrow. “What’s the matter? Man trouble?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Lou said.
Right then, Cliff came over to Lou and smiled at her.
“Give me a brandy, Cliff. Make it a good one, please,” she said.
“You got it, Lou.”
“Wow. You didn’t lose that hunk of a boyfriend, did you?” Ray Anne asked, referring to Joe.
“Not yet,” Lou said. “But I can give you his phone number and address if you want to make a run at him.”
Ray Anne leaned an elbow on the bar and rested her head on her fist. “You know, the way you pick at me—it gets old. Aren’t you worried you’ll really hurt my feelings?”
“I guess the fact that you call me a lesbian and an old maid wouldn’t be considered picking,” Lou said.
“Yes, but I’m kidding,” Ray Anne said. “And you damn well know it.”
Cliff brought Lou’s brandy and disappeared quickly. Lou and Ray Anne had been prickly toward each other for as long as anyone in Thunder Point could remember. It had never gotten down to hair pulling, but they had such scrappy attitudes no one was ever quite sure it wouldn’t result in that one day.
Lou took a sip of her brandy. “I declare a one-hour truce. This was the only bar stool empty.”
Ray Anne looked at her watch. “One hour it is. What’s got you drinking the hard stuff?”
“This is considered hard? This is a Christmas drink!”
“You’re wigged out about something. You haven’t even criticized my attire.”
Lou gave her a long look. “How high are those heels?” she asked. “Seriously, no criticism intended, but how the hell do you walk in those things?”
“It’s an acquired skill. Practice. Those wedgies of yours would probably give me leg cramps. Why are you out having Christmas drinks alone?”
“Well,” Lou said tiredly. “You’ll hear about it, anyway. Mac’s ex is in town, wanting t0 see the kids. She’s over there right now and it was agreed that I not be present since I might lose it and just kill her.”
“Cee Jay,” Ray Anne said in a breath. She had a rather stricken look on her face, her lacquered lips formed an O and she raised a hand to hover over her mouth.
“Yes, the one and only.” Lou took another sip of her brandy. “God help us all.”
“Oh, holy Jesus, that was her!”
“What are you talking about?” Lou asked.
Ray Anne turned her full attention on Lou, swiveling on her stool to face her. “She contacted me. She said she was looking at property in the area and asked about Thunder Point. She introduced herself as Cecelia Raines. She said the house had to be large and she wanted a view. I showed her the Morrison property that’s in foreclosure, but she had a lot of questions about the town, the people, the deputy! I didn’t put it together until ten seconds ago.”
Lou turned toward her. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. I never met her until a few days ago and I thought she looked familiar. Now that I think about it, Eve looks just like her. Oh, my God, she’s stalking. What does she want?”
Lou shook her head. “She says she wants to see her kids. But why now? She hasn’t been in touch since the day she left and now she comes to town to see Mac? This is very strange. Now, after hearing what you’ve just told me, I think it’s a little scary.”
“She didn’t give me any information about herself—she was a walk-in,” Ray Anne said. “Happens all the time—there aren’t very many agents in a dried-up old town like ours, so I wasn’t suspicious of her when she arrived at the office. Besides, a lot of people have wanted to see the Morrison place, not that anyone actually wants to buy it. But she was sure turned out—loo
ked like a million bucks. She looked as if she had money, that’s why I took her out there. God, I hope I didn’t do any harm to Mac and the kids. Or you, for that matter.”
“Me?” Lou asked.
“You! I hate you,” Ray Anne said. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t love you!”
Lou laughed at her. “You steal my boyfriends.”
“I haven’t done that in years,” Ray Anne said. She lifted her hand to Cliff for another glass of wine. “Your boyfriends are too old for me.”
“You’re such a slut,” Lou said, but she laughed.
“Oh, I’m not. I’m just flexible.” Then she smiled. “And open-minded.”
Lou’s phone chimed and she picked up to read a text. It said, The coast is clear.
“That was Mac. She must be gone already. Oh, that doesn’t seem like a good sign.”
“Listen, if there’s anything I can do to help, please let me know. Tell Mac I talked to her and I’d be glad to tell him anything he wants to know about our meeting.”
“That’s nice of you, Ray Anne,” Lou said while she fished a ten-dollar bill out of her wallet. “I’ll tell him.”
Ray Anne covered Lou’s hand that held the bill. “Let me,” she said. “I probably owe you a drink.” She shook her head and tsked. “I just can’t imagine a woman leaving her children and not having any contact with them for ten years,” she said. “I never wanted anything so much as to have a family. If I’d had a family, I would’ve been so happy.”
Lou was stunned. Ray Anne had never acted like a woman who wanted a family. She behaved like a woman who wanted a man, and another man, and another and another…. “Is that so?” she asked.
“Of course. I was married three times.”
“I know, but…”
“They didn’t work out,” Ray Anne said a little wistfully. “But it wasn’t all my fault.”
“Hmm. Well, I’ll tell Mac you’ve seen Cee Jay, talked to her. Listen, I’d better run—I have no idea what I’m walking in to.”