by Susan Wiggs
“Legally, probably not, unless he sues for visitation.”
A chill skittered down Michelle’s spine. “He wouldn’t dare.”
“Who knows? But he’ll want to see the pictures.”
“You know what makes you such a bitch?”
“What?”
“It’s that you’re right.”
She grinned. “I know. So when are you going to show him?”
“I guess I could today, when I drop Cody off to work at his ranch. Sam’s on split shift.” It was amazing how quickly Michelle had memorized his schedule. He’d explained how he split the clinic duties with his partner, how his on-call situation worked. He’d only told her once, yet she had absorbed it like a sponge. Funny.
“You don’t have any more… appointments and stuff with your father?”
“It all starts Saturday.” She took a shaky breath, silently blessing Sam for intervening with Dr. Temple.
Natalie held Michelle’s cheeks between her hands. “Do you know how special this is?”
Michelle swallowed a sudden painful lump in her throat. “I can’t seem to look at it as anything more than a fairly complicated surgical procedure.”
“It’s so much more than that.” She stood up, tossing a glance outside at her car. “I’ve been naughty.”
Michelle picked up the heavy leather albums. “True.”
“I mean, not just the photos. For once in your life, you’ve got time to get back into painting.”
Not you, too. Michelle got the feeling Natalie had colluded with Sam about this. Or maybe her secret wish was absurdly obvious. “Give me a break,” she said flatly.
“As if.” Outside, Natalie lifted the front hood of the Volkswagen, revealing the trunk. In addition to her luggage, there were shopping bags from Madrona Bay Art Supply in Seattle.
Michelle’s heart lurched. Madrona Bay was a Mecca for fine artists all over the West. The store was one of the first things she had discovered when, newly pregnant, she’d moved to Seattle. She used to save every last scraped-together dime to buy art supplies. It was a magical place, filled with all the things she needed to give life to the images burning inside her.
She hadn’t been there in years, though.
“You bitch,” she whispered, her eyes glazing over with yearning and frustration. “I don’t need any of this.”
“Oh, honey.” Natalie grabbed her flowered bag and hefted it over her shoulder. “You do. You absolutely do. What else are you going to do while Gavin recovers?”
“I—” Well, really, thought Michelle. Natalie had a point. The studio was still there, untouched, as Sam had showed her the other night. “I guess I could mess around in my spare time.”
“Good girl. So let’s get a move on. We’ve got to bring poor Camille in out of the cold.”
Camille was her cello, a 1968 Juzak concert instrument from Hungary. She never went anywhere without it. She kept it in a hard shell case plastered with stickers from all the places she’d visited—places like Sri Lanka and Lake Lucerne and Montreal and Rio de Janeiro.
They walked across to the bungalows, and Michelle stowed the photo albums in the Rover. She wondered if she would dare to show them to Sam. Natalie was right, Michelle conceded reluctantly. He needed and deserved to see what Cody’s first sixteen years had been like.
They toted the paints, brushes, and Belgian linen canvases into the studio. Then Michelle helped Natalie carry her stuff into the guesthouse. It was already warm and cozy inside, and Natalie sighed with satisfaction. “Let me freshen up a little, and we’ll go together.”
“Go where, Nat?”
“To Sam McPhee’s. Didn’t you say Cody’s working there? He needs a ride, right?”
“Yes, but—”
“Do you think I could stay away?” Natalie rummaged in her bag and found a brush, which she used to draw upward through her spiked hair. “I’m dying here, Michelle. You’re my best friend, and you’ve got a scarlet past I know nothing about. Do you have any idea how crazy that makes me?”
In spite of herself, Michelle grinned. “I sort of like this.”
“Bitch,” Natalie said, and gave her a hug.
Chapter 25
Sam walked out onto the front porch with Edward Bliss as the Range Rover pulled into the yard. Sam felt a now-familiar lurch in his chest when Cody got out of the car.
My son. I have a son.
Yet other than stitching his wound, Sam had never touched him.
“He’s doing a little better in the wardrobe department.” Edward sipped from a mug of coffee. “Starting to dress for the weather and the job, eh?”
Cody still appeared a little ragged, though he had abandoned the studied slouchiness of his city garb in favor of old jeans, work boots, a fleece-lined denim jacket. A warm hat covered the new haircut and the bandage.
“Who’s that in the car with Michelle?” Edward asked.
Sam squinted, but the glare of the sun off the windshield blinded him. “Not sure. Gavin again?”
The passenger door of the car opened and out stepped the strangest woman Sam had ever seen. She resembled a butterfly, wearing a long multicolored shawl, crazy purple boots, and a Sherpa mountain guide’s alpaca hat. With her skirt and shawl flowing, she skimmed over the snow toward the house, gabbing with Cody the whole time. Michelle went around to the back of the car, lifting the rear cargo door.
“Ai caramba,” Edward said under his breath. “Who’s the babe?”
“… so unbelievably cool of your mom,” she was saying to Cody as they reached the porch. Barely pausing for breath, she tilted her head back, revealing earrings in unexpected places, and said, “Okay, Cody, shall we play What’s My Line? Which one’s your dad?”
She took off her hat to reveal spiked hair with purple and green streaks. She had slightly uptilted eyes and the face of a pixie—impish, animated, and sly. Tinkerbell on acid.
Red-cheeked but clearly enjoying himself, Cody said, “Sam and Edward, this is—”
“Wait, wait!” The imp held up a hand, impractically covered in fingerless black lace gloves. “Don’t tell me. Let me guess.” She grew very serious, looking from Cody to Sam to Edward to Cody. “No contest,” she said. “It’s the tall one. So introduce us, numb-nuts.” She elbowed Cody in the side.
“This is my mom’s friend.”
“Not your friend?” Tinkerbell looked wounded.
“Yeah, mine too.” Cody stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Natalie Plum.”
“Actually, I’m his fairy godmother.” She stepped up onto the porch. “He didn’t tell you about me?”
“I better get to work,” Cody said, hurrying toward the barn.
Sam was gratified by his haste to check on the mare and foal. He wanted to believe the kid could get interested in the horses. Maybe that way they’d find some common ground.
Natalie stepped up onto the porch and shook hands with Edward, then Sam. “You’ll have to excuse me,” she said. “I’ve had about nine gallons of coffee. You might find me a tad talkative. Hope you don’t mind.”
“We don’t mind a bit,” Sam said.
Edward put the full force of his charm into a comical bow. “Welcome to Montana.”
Natalie’s face lit up. “Thank you.”
Michelle arrived, lugging an armload of large, thick books.
“Here.” Sam jumped down from the porch. “Let me help you with those.”
“Michelle, you bitch,” Natalie burst out, turning on her friend. “You didn’t tell me he was George Clooney!”
Sam took the top two books from Michelle. “I’m not George Clooney.”
Natalie Plum raked him with a frankly assessing glance. “Close enough.”
“But I’m friendlier,” Edward cut in. “And I have better work hours.”
“Perfect,” she said with a dazzling smile. “Then you can show me around the place. Cody wouldn’t shut up about the new baby.”
Edward took her hand and led her toward the barn. “My
pleasure.”
As they walked off, Sam heard her say, “… every last thing, do you hear? I want to know absolutely everything.”
Michelle watched them go. The morning light was soft on her face, nose and cheeks tinged by the cold. She held two of the books against her like a shield. “And does Edward know everything?” she asked.
“If he doesn’t, he’ll make it up.”
“I’m serious, Sam.”
“Okay, he figured out about Cody even before I did. The second he saw him. But he didn’t say anything until I told him. Edward doesn’t lie, and he doesn’t hurt people. Ever.” He indicated the books. “So what’s all this? Photo albums?”
“Uh-huh. You got a minute?”
“I’m guessing this will take more than a minute. But as a matter of fact, I’ve got all morning.” He glanced down at the pager clipped to his belt. “So long as the beeper stays quiet. Come on in.”
In the living room, he added a couple of golden larch logs to the fire crackling in the woodstove and cleared a spot on the coffee table. “Can I get you something to drink?”
She didn’t answer. He glanced at her to find her staring at the painting over the mantel.
“My God,” she said. “I had no idea what happened to this.”
The picture had occupied a place of honor over the mantel ever since he had settled in Crystal City. It was the only gift Michelle had ever given him. The painting had a life of its own; it glowed with the sheer wonder expressed in every brushstroke, echoing the underlying tenderness of a very young, very talented artist.
“I’m glad you kept it,” she said, her voice soft, husky. “It’s a good picture.”
“I’ve always thought so. Everyone who sees it says so.”
She shivered, though it wasn’t cold. “I thought I had so many more pictures in me.”
“I still can’t believe you don’t paint anymore.”
“Painting took more out of me than I had to give. Life comes first, then art.”
“I bet your pal Natalie doesn’t agree.”
“Natalie’s different.”
“I noticed.”
Her manner became brisk, almost businesslike as she seated herself, as if her show of vulnerability had embarrassed her.
“You should still be painting, Michelle.”
Her chin came up. “What, in all my spare time?”
“You make time for what’s important.”
The anger that flashed in her eyes was new to him. The Michelle he’d known years ago had a temper, sure. But her anger had never been cold like this. Or strangely directed at herself.
“What’s with the books?” he asked, changing the subject.
“Natalie brought these from home.”
Sam lowered himself next to her. His heart thumped; until now he wouldn’t have thought a moment like this was important, critical. “Pictures of Cody growing up?”
“Yes. You interested?”
Here it was, then. The past, staring him in the face. Here in these four fat books lived the history that had left him out. The years he had lost with his son.
“Hell, yeah, I’m interested.”
She picked up the top one. “I haven’t had time to go through these and edit them, so what you see is what you get.”
“What would you want to edit?”
“You’ll see when we get there.” She took off her shoes and tucked her feet up under her on the sofa. Sam, who had seduced a decent number of women on this very sofa, found the gesture almost unbearably sexy. He forced himself to focus on the photo album.
She flipped open the front cover. “My first apartment in Seattle. Natalie and I shared a place on Capitol Hill when I first moved there.” Unremarkable, a snapshot of a sunny room with sliding glass doors and overstuffed furniture. Neat, nicer-than-average student housing.
“I studied painting while I was pregnant,” she said. “I tried to keep it up after the baby was born, but life just got too hectic.”
His gaze dropped down the page to a picture of Michelle. It wasn’t a very good shot, but it moved him. She stood at the rail of a ferry boat painted white and green. Blue water and forested islands and a distant mountain range in the background. She wore her hair in a silky blond ponytail, and she had on a denim jumper.
A breeze plastered the blue dress against her round, ripe abdomen. She was the picture of a healthy young woman in the last trimester of pregnancy. Sam stared, fascinated by the knowledge that only months before the shot was taken, he had held her in his arms. He had planted that baby in her.
He lightly rubbed his thumb over the girl in the photo. “I hate it that I missed this.”
“Right.” She seemed to be working to keep her voice in control. “I was fat and cranky all the time. I think this is the only picture of me pregnant.”
“Who took it? Natalie?”
“Yes.” She turned the page. “Ah. Here we go.”
The next photo showed a black-haired imp with thickly mascaraed eyes peering over a surgical mask.
“Natalie again?” Sam asked.
“She was my birth coach.”
He set his teeth. Then, when he could trust himself, he said, “Should’ve been me.”
Michelle shook her head. With the motion, a light drift of her fragrance hit him, and his body heated with the need to touch her.
“Sam,” she said, “you were eighteen. You weren’t ready to go through childbirth—”
“You were only eighteen, too. Were you ready?”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“I wasn’t allowed a choice. I would’ve stuck with you, Michelle. You know damned well I would have.”
“I didn’t know a thing. You were gone so fast, I didn’t even have a chance to tell you I was pregnant.” She pointed to a poorly focused photograph. “And there he is, hot off the press.”
There was nothing unique about the picture. As a physician, Sam had seen his share of moments-after-birth shots, and this one wasn’t particularly well done. But because it was Michelle, holding his son, his mouth dried. He couldn’t speak; he couldn’t even swallow.
Cody’s wet red face lay against her chest, clad in a dotted hospital gown. The baby’s tiny foot flailed, and Michelle wore a look of complete, exhausted relief.
“You had the glow,” he remarked.
“The glow?”
“The new-mom glow. Some people deny its existence, but it’s a very real thing.” Gently he outlined the shape of her face and the baby’s.
“Very scientific, Dr. McPhee,” she said, though a soft edge diluted her sarcasm.
And then, step by step, page by page, she took him through the lost years. It was like opening a door and stepping into a world whose existence he hadn’t even suspected. A parallel universe, hidden from him for seventeen years.
He saw Cody as a round-faced baby, doted on by Natalie. A toddler in overalls and a Seattle Mariners cap waved at him from a wrenching distance of years.
“See that blue thing in his hand?” Michelle rubbed her finger over the photo. “He never went anywhere without that thing. It’s one of your old work shirts.”
Sam felt a powerful jolt of emotion at the sight of his shirt, clutched in that chubby little hand. “Yeah?”
“When I left here, it was one of the few things I brought with me. Your—” She broke off and bit her lip.
“Your what? What were you going to say?”
“Your smell. It had your smell on it.”
He put his arm around her. This was why things never worked out with him and women. He couldn’t handle their softness, their fragility, the way his heart twisted in a knot when sentiment struck. “Aw, Michelle, damn it—”
For a moment she leaned into his shoulder. Then she seemed to get a grip and turned her attention back to the album. A first-day-of-kindergarten shot revealed a kid who was becoming his own person as he stood by a redwood fence with a Power Rangers lunch kit and a Looney Tunes backpack. Sam viewed school portra
its, Little League team photos, excursions to the zoo, the aquarium, ski trips, summers at remote beaches.
What struck him about Cody was the kid’s smile. It was the kind of smile that made the sun look dim—it covered his whole face and lit his eyes. Joy radiated from every photo of him.
Cody didn’t seem to smile much anymore.
Natalie Plum appeared in a lot of the pictures. Every so often, there would be a picture of Cody with a guy.
“So who’s this?” Sam indicated a man in a Hawaiian shirt, roller-blading with a six-year-old Cody.
“Someone I used to date. I haven’t seen him in years.”
Sam hoped she didn’t hear him let out his breath. He found a couple more interlopers—Cody’s third-grade teacher: “He was the gentlest man. Cody really loved him.”
“And you? Did you love him?”
“He wanted a full-time wife. I had no idea how to be that, so we stopped seeing each other.”
“And this other guy?”
“Someone else I used to see. We met at a commercial-art convention.”
“Did he want a full-time wife, too?”
She gave a humorless chuckle. “As it turned out, he preferred several part-time lovers. What a jerk.”
“So did you date a lot?”
“Did you?” she shot back. “You’re digging for dirt, Sam. And trust me.” She drummed her fingers on the photo album. “You won’t find it here.”
Sam spotted a good shot of Cody at about twelve, frozen in the midst of executing a perfect soccer kick. His face was intent, his gaze focused like a laser on the ball.
“He scored a goal with that kick,” Michelle said.
Sam would have traded anything—anything—to have seen that kick in person. “Looks like he was a good little athlete.”
“He was, but he lost interest in team sports.”
“Do you know why?”
“Because he turned sixteen?”
“Plenty of sixteen-year-olds go out for sports.”
She drew a quick breath. “I told myself I wouldn’t get defensive. I’m working really hard not to.”
“Sorry.” He touched the photo. It was a five-by-seven, covered with the gluey cellophane of the album page. “This is a good shot.”
She hesitated. “Brad took it.”