“I’m leaving.” Alicia strode to the door, back rigid, heels tapping a smack-smack rhythm against the polished tile.
“Alicia.”
She paused at the door, angry, hurt, and mortified down to the tips of her very cool camel shearling Gucci knock-offs.
“I didn’t know about this. You know that, don’t you?”
She turned. “And if you had?”
Sandy raised her shoulders in a shrug. “I have to respect client’s confidentiality. That’s my job. But I’d have had a hard time with this one, girlfriend.”
The whole thing proved too much for Alicia to absorb. “I’ve got to go somewhere where I won’t think about this, or about Conor and how nicely he’s moved on with his big city lifestyle and his never-ending nights on the town.”
“If it’s any consolation, he won’t find that here.”
Alicia worked her jaw and shook her head in agreement. “He never did.”
Conor’s phone vibrated early that evening. He scanned the display, tried to hide his surprise, then excused himself from the strategically placed dinner table to move to the restaurant corridor, phone in hand. “Alicia? What’s up?”
Alicia never called him. Ever. If necessary, she left messages with Foster, or sent terse, tight e-mails with no signature. She didn’t text him, because texting was too close to talking. He couldn’t remember the last time she used his cell number. “Are you all right?”
“No. I am so far from all right that if I had you in this room I would refuse any internal attempt to restrain myself despite my proper upbringing and cause your demise with my bare hands while taking great joy in ridding myself of your lifeless body, Conor.”
Fury. Wrath. Passion. Angst. The combination brought back more than one memory and almost spawned a grin, but Conor had wised up somewhat over the years. He’d need to tread much firmer ground before goading her out of her temper. Still...
“As tempting as that sounds, I have to decline, at least temporarily. I’m at a benefit dinner. Can you murder me later? Give me time to finish this up and catch the late train?”
His attempt at levity was not graciously received. Once she waded through a list of names, some of which Conor felt certain she made up, she got down to business. “You bought our house, Conor. You walked in here, acting all nice and peaceful, Mr. Freakin’ Tranquility, then went right out and bought our house without a word to anyone.”
Ah, the crux of the matter. She’d found out about One-twelve Teaberry. To say his actions inspired her ire would be a tad short of understatement. Conor drew a deep breath. “I took a walk down the road and the house looked lonely. And somewhat ugly.”
His words halted her harangue. “It... what?”
Conor had decided that if they ever got to the point of talking like mature adults again, he’d be upfront and honest, as long as his honesty didn’t cause her any more grief. Now seemed as good a time as any to start. “The house. It looked lonely. I stopped over on Poole Street to see your new shop and took a walk down Teaberry. When I saw the ‘For Sale’ sign, it seemed too good to be true. Except for the ridiculous decorating, of course. By the way, I could use some help getting the place back to its former nice, normal, historic self. You up for the job?”
“Up for the job?” Her tone breathed fire and ice, an interesting combination, very “Lord of the Rings” special effects. “You want me to help you redecorate the house we shared all those years? The house where our children were conceived—”
“Two of them,” he interrupted. “I distinctly remember that Kim was—”
“Enough.” Alicia’s tone smacked down that particular trip into the past. “I don’t need a play by play of our sex life. Trust me, toward the end, there wasn’t much of note.”
“But in the beginning...” Conor drawled the words, part of him wishing he hadn’t made her angry, another part glad he’d stirred her enough to place the call, even if it was to ream him out. After all this time, he figured they had to start somewhere. “We had lots of good times there, Alicia. A good life for the most part, except that I was gone too much. Now I just want a place for the girls to come visit me in Princeton, a place Grayce can run to so she can hang out with Grandpa. That’s not so awful, is it?”
“Not that house.”
Conor disagreed. “Of course that house. Have you seen what those people did to the place? It’s a monstrosity.”
“No.” Her voice went curt and protective. “I make it a point to stay away from Teaberry Street.”
“Just as well or you’d be as angry as I was.”
She paused and her breath caught on a half-hitch. “Angry?”
“That they let the place slip like that. Didn’t take care of it. That’s a great house.”
“An investment, you mean.”
“I mean a home. So many times I came down Nassau from the Dinky, and couldn’t wait to turn that corner, see the lights of the house or the girls playing kickball with the neighbor kids. It was everything a home should be.”
Alicia’s snort said she wasn’t exactly buying the concept. “If you felt that way, you might have considered visiting more often.”
Conor didn’t disagree. “Stupid then, smarter now. At this point in my life I want to be close to my family as often as possible. That doesn’t make me a bad guy.”
“You already were a bad guy, Conor. Your actions after we buried our son ascertained that.”
He blew out a breath at the direct hit. Funny, he thought he’d moved beyond the point where her arrows could blast dead on, but, no. Guess not. “You’re right. I was. I’ve improved.”
“Yeah, to the point where you’re making my life miserable yet again. Kindly show me the improvement in that.”
“No one’s trying to make your life miserable, Alicia.”
“You bought our house. Tell me how that’s supposed to make me feel?”
Hopeful? Peaceful? That’s how he’d felt about the whole thing, but they weren’t exactly playing on a level field. Obviously hope and peace weren’t feelings she attributed to his projected proximity. But, given time... “My offer still stands. I could use some help with this place and you know that I’m clueless about things like colors and fabric stuff and looks.”
“Hire a decorator.”
“Too impersonal.”
“Ask the girls.”
“Too busy.”
“Check with one of your girlfriends.”
“Fresh out.”
“Conor Bradstreet, I am not about to help you put this place back together just so I can work through an entire field of emotions I stowed away a long, long time ago. Leave me out of your equation, leave me out of your life, leave me alone.”
“If you change your mind...”
“Hell will grow icicles first.”
“Current climate conditions make that unlikely, so I’m going to hope you decide to do it for the girls’ sake.”
“Don’t drag them into this.”
He decided not to remind her that she’d suggested using the girls short seconds ago. After all these years, Conor was beginning to understand the moves of the game. Kind of. “I want them to feel at home whichever house they’re in. Yours or mine, there or in New York. This move will make their lives more comfortable.”
“Kim’s getting married, she’ll have her own home soon and appears quite comfortable to me. On top of that, Addie’s nearly independent.”
“Everybody needs a place to come home to, Leash. That’s what makes life worth living.”
“You can throw those words at me, when for months after Jon died I prayed you’d come home, then prayed you’d stay around a little longer when you did. Talk to me, maybe. Touch me. You were a stone, Conor. Still are.”
Harsh words. Harder to hear for their veracity. “I felt like a stone, Leash. Cold and hard. Good analogy. I couldn’t seem to fight my way out of it, even for you.”
“Or your girls?”
Conor shook his head, contemplating
the magnificent city view from the restaurant window. “I hated myself, I hated my life, I hated that I couldn’t save Jon no matter how much money I made, and I hated that you hated me.”
“Then you shouldn’t have made it so easy.”
Conor drew a breath, suddenly tired. “You’re right. I’ll work on that. Right now I have to get back to some really bad chicken concoction that doesn’t resemble any chicken dish I’ve ever had before or care to eat again. Do you still make Chicken Parmesan like you used to, covered with bread crumbs and pan fried in olive oil?”
She hesitated long seconds, then... “Y...yes.”
“See if they can serve that at the wedding reception, will you? It’s like the best thing in the world. Nothing else I’ve ever had is as good as that chicken.”
“We are not serving Chicken Parmesan at Kim’s wedding,” she retorted, his request pulling her off the hate-train frenzy for a moment. “Her dinner choices will be point by point delicious and upscale. I have a Garlock Estates menu right here on my desk and I’ll go over the options with Kim at her earliest convenience. Then we’ll go for a tasting.”
“A what?”
She sighed out loud. “A tasting. They prepare the dishes so you can see what each one is, taste it, and decide what you’d like to have served, course by course.”
“Count me in,” Conor declared.
“Count you in for what?”
“The tasting. Sounds like fun.”
Her voice stiffened. “It’s not fun for you, it’s fun for Kim and me. And Brian, if he wants to be there.”
“Brian’s one of those involved kind of guys,” Conor replied. “He’ll want to be there. And since it is my checkbook—”
“Credit card, actually.”
“To avoid the squabble, let’s just call it a general holder of gross monetary units, hmm? For that alone I should at least get a bite of some frou-frou dish, don’t you think?”
“No. I don’t think that at all. Isn’t your chicken thing getting nasty while you talk?”
“Couldn’t get nastier. Trust me on that. When’s the tasting?”
She blew out a breath that Conor suspected might be flame-enhanced. Very dragonian. “A week from tomorrow.”
“Perfect. I’ve got that weekend slated to start work on the house, so I’ll be in town.” He didn’t mention that he’d have said the same thing about any date she suggested. Another perk of owning the company, and not a bad one, at that.
“Fine. I’ll tell Kim.”
“Thanks, Leash. And if you come up with any ideas for how I can fix the house, call me, okay? Good night.”
He hung up before she could offer a retort she’d most likely regret by morning and considered himself quite altruistic to save her from herself in such a manner.
Pocketing the phone, he returned to the dining room where his chicken had been removed. For that favor alone, he could bless Alicia’s timing. Inadvertently she’d done him a good turn. Foster had made stroganoff the previous day. Conor was sure he remembered leftovers. Foster’s stroganoff beat restaurant chicken, any day. Throw in a little crusty bread from the downstairs bakery, and Conor had a meal fit for a king waiting at home.
He spent the next ninety minutes being courted by some of the city’s finest schmoozers. He made note of some and dismissed the rest. Homeward Bound had become a successful non-profit entity in a city that thrived on non-profit entities. Everyone wanted some good quid pro quo on their resumes as they clawed their way to the top of Big Apple business or politics. Those were the rules of the local game. Charitable credits made people look magnanimous. Caring. Some of them actually were. Those were the ones he made notes on.
Conor had determined years ago that Homeward Bound wouldn’t move on its own agenda. The foundation’s schematic was laid by the men, women and children of the streets, first, last and foremost. With Kim at the helm of the mental health outreach via the mobile van clinics, Conor knew her heart and soul matched his. Success didn’t hinge on numbers, but on the opportunity to be a Good Samaritan on the streets of New York, and sometimes beneath the streets of New York, where people scuttled in dark subway and railway tunnels, living like moles in the shaded, moist underworld, trapped by mental frailties and/or addictive behaviors.
Brian had agreed to head up the overall financial picture of the eight-year-old charity, which meant a different direction for the younger man, but one he’d accepted easily.
With acquired real estate to offer decent, clean apartments to hundreds of the formerly homeless, Homeward Bound was making a dent in the street population while it made a name for itself among the destitute. His people could be trusted for medical, psychological, and physical care. They took facilities into the streets, seeking the alleys and overhangs, the park rotundas, highway overpasses. Wherever the poor sought shelter from the wind, Conor’s vans rolled into place, offering hope and understanding, not recrimination.
And in a few short weeks there would be two hundred and seventy more apartments ready for habitation in a series of buildings they’d nearly completed renovating in Queens.
Not all homeless people wanted to be off the streets. Odd as it seemed, some grew nervous at the idea of being ‘boxed’ in an apartment.
But many were just down on their luck, waiting for a hand up. His foundation offered that hand, person by person, step by step, earning their trust, and then their friendship, and all because an old man refused to let Conor Bradstreet take the bridge one Christmas Eve, eight years back.
Sarge, bless him, fulfilling his mission to serve those in need.
Conor eyed the gathered assemblage of New York money holed up in a lofty restaurant party room and smiled inside, amazed at the power of one man, a derelict who cared enough to climb a bridge on a cold, wet winter’s night under the guise of looking for a match and inspired a man’s salvation.
Chapter Nine
The mirror refused to cooperate the following Saturday, despite Alicia’s intensive efforts. No matter what she rubbed on, wiped off, and re-applied, the face staring back at her remained same-old, same-old when what she wanted was devil-may-care transformation, a sassy good looker, the kind of woman to bring Conor to his knees right before she shrugged him off, cool and crisp.
But fate left her wretchedly normal. Why was that? Would morphing into a leggy, cellulite-free underwear model or a Julia Roberts look-alike spoil some vast eternal plan? She thought not.
Average, it seemed, was the best she could do, except for her hair, still thick, its chestnut color enhanced with pricey monthly help from the local spa girls. Despite the onslaught of magic creams and potions and the inordinate amount of time she’d spent that morning, she looked absolutely normal on a day where she longed to rank above average. Kim’s shout interrupted her negative self-appraisal.
“Mom, you almost ready?”
“Be right there.” Alicia took one last look in the mirror, spun on her heel, and wished it didn’t matter how she looked, but since Conor would be there, appearances mattered. Big time.
Kim smiled up at her as she descended the final steps. “Isn’t this exciting?”
Alicia refused to go straight to exciting, not with Conor around. Nerve wracking? Yes. Adrenalin-pumping? Most assuredly. Somewhat brain numbing? Absolutely. But since this was Kim’s wedding, an event she’d waited decades for, Alicia smiled and nodded. “Very. Are Brian and Grayce ready?”
“Warming the car. It’s wicked cold today.”
“I know.” Alicia shifted her gaze. The picture window framed a thick, winding slope of old trees edged by an ancient stone fence. The small grove led to the road, highlighted by a dusting of snow. “Almost spring, though.”
“And your grand opening.” Kim gave her a quick hug. “A lot happening.”
Alicia slipped into her coat, pondered a hat, realized it would muss her hair and shelved the idea of warmth in favor of what beauty she could garner. Good hair she had. Might as well make the most of it.
Kim eyed her, puzzled. “No hat?”
“We’re just going to the car.”
“Or scarf?”
“No.”
“The wind chill is below zero,” Kim reminded her as she wrapped a great looking, double layer, super long scarf around her head and neck, enough to keep her nice and snug. “You’ll freeze. You always bundle up.”
“You’re starting to sound like a mother.” Alicia grabbed her purse, stuffed her lipstick inside just in case she chewed hers off on the drive over, and headed for the door. “I’ll be sure to warn Grayce.”
“Do you think she’ll be okay while we talk with the wedding planner?” Kim angled a slight frown to Alicia as they headed out the door. “She’s a great kid, but this could take a while.”
“Three adults, one six-year-old. What could go wrong?”
“Four adults,” Kim reminded her. “Dad’s coming, remember?”
Like she could forget? Please. “I don’t generally count him in the adult category.”
“Mom.”
“Sorry.” Alicia paused, sucked in a breath of frigid air that made her nose sting, eyes run, and her throat ache. She hustled to the car as a gust of wind swooped along the eastern edge of the house, swirling tiny ice pellets into her face, notching the pain factor up by a factor of ten, minimum. “I’ll behave.”
“Good.”
Conor’s Mercedes sat parked near a side entrance to the main lodge house of Garlock Estates. Esteemed for grace and quiet luxury, the spread of the exclusive facility exuded old money and timeless elegance, from the flawless cedar and mottled brick siding to the cobblestone paved, pillared entrances. The golf club stretched to their far right, while the banquet and conference facilities banked left, nestled in the shelter of sprawling old trees and recurring gardens, dotted with holly and yew, points of green amidst the dull tones of late winter.
The door swung open, and Conor stood like a welcoming committee of one, looking as good, no, make that better than he had six weeks before.
The injustice of that reality chipped Alicia’s resolve to behave, or was it the way her heart jammed against her ribs that made her want to lash out irrationally?
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