"Only just," Laura said. "Your little psychologist's trick of leaving her on her own has produced surrealistically disastrous results."
Kay shrugged as she opened the front door, hustling Janey out ahead of her. "Now you know why I don't believe in psychology anymore."
Laura grabbed Kay's arm as she was leaving and rasped, "You invited him in for coffee?"
"I was sure you'd want to thank him for chopping all that wood for you," Kay responded with a guileless smile as she closed the door behind her.
Laura stared at the door, thinking, I really am gonna kill her. It's not just a joke anymore.
Steeling herself, she turned and made her way back to the studio.
And Dean.
* * *
Chapter 8
«^»
Dean heard her come up slowly behind him as he stood contemplating the roughed-out painting of Janey, while sipping coffee from a heavy, obviously handmade mug. He wondered if Laura had made it; he recalled her taking one or two pottery classes at Rutgers.
She cleared her throat. "Uh, thanks for chopping that wood, but I'd rather you didn't do any more. I'll finish it up myself. I don't mind."
"Sure you do," he said without turning around. "You told me so."
"I really didn't mean—"
"This is wonderful," he said, nodding toward the painting.
That seemed to catch her off guard, because it took her a moment to respond. "It's … unfinished. I just started it. It won't look like that when it's—"
"I know." Smiling, he glanced at her over his shoulder, to find her standing in the open doorway with her arms tightly crossed, her expression pensive. She looked ridiculously pretty in her paint-spattered apron, the same one she'd had in college. She'd caught her hair up haphazardly in one of those claw things, but rebellious tendrils had sprung free to curl around her face and tumble down her nape. Her face, with its exquisitely translucent skin, struck him as unusually pale at present, or maybe it was just an effect of the lighting – those merciless overhead fluorescents augmented by the sunlight streaming through the south-facing wall of windows.
Realizing he was staring at her, he returned his attention to the painting. "That pose is terrific. You've captured her little-kid awkwardness, and that makes it more … I don't know, more real than one of those idealized kids in their Sunday best with their hands folded in their lap. It's really Janey, you know? Not some generic kid from central casting." Turning to face her, he said, "You've still got it, Lorelei."
Color rose in her cheeks, which he found absurdly gratifying. "Thanks," she murmured, looking away.
"Since when have you been into painting people?" he asked, eyeing about a dozen canvases stacked against one wall, a handful of which were portraits, mostly of Janey. Laura used to just paint the ocean, with the occasional landscape or still life thrown in for variety.
"It, uh, it started when Janey was born," she said tentatively, without budging from her rigid stance in the doorway. "The first time I sketched her, it was in the hospital a couple of hours after I delivered her." She looked toward a picture hanging on the wall above her worktable.
He smiled when he got close enough to see that the drawing, although double-matted and beautifully framed under glass, had been executed in ballpoint pen on a creased white institutional paper napkin. With fluid, economical strokes of the pen, Laura had perfectly captured the image of the newborn Janey fast asleep, her thumb snugged firmly into her mouth, her hair sprouting out of her head in a way that made her look uncannily like Sid Vicious.
Dean said, "I'm surprised you had the wherewithal, so soon after giving birth, to draw this. I, uh … I take it the delivery went okay, and all that."
She rubbed her arms. "Yeah, basically. It was a pretty long labor, thirty-eight hours."
Dean winced reflexively. "Ah, Laura…" He took a step toward her.
She shrank back, just fractionally, but it was enough to stop him in his tracks.
He rubbed the back of his neck. "It must have been…" Been what? Hard? Lonely? Terrifying? "I'm sorry, honey, I'm…"
Her gaze flicked toward him and then away at the involuntary endearment.
"Did you have anyone…" Why was this so hard? he wondered. Because he felt ashamed. Because he should have been there for her and wasn't. "Your grandmother was already gone, right? Was anyone there with you?"
She nodded. "Kay. I'd only known her about a month and a half, but we'd become tight in a really short time. She was great, helped me with my breathing and all that. She was there for the whole thing. They even let her cut the cord." With a little chuckle, Laura added, "I think they thought we were, like, life partners, you know?"
He smiled, too, at the notion of his little Lorelei, the straightest of the straight arrows, being taken for a lesbian with a turkey baster pregnancy. He could see it with the eccentric Kay, but Laura?
"I still paint mostly seascapes," Laura said, "even in the winter. They're my livelihood, after all, and what I most love to paint. But I've really gotten into painting Janey. Not to sell, of course, just for myself."
"That's great Sure beats an album full of snapshots."
"Oh, I've got plenty of those, too. Janey, she's…" Laura shrugged a little self-consciously. "She's sort of taken over my life – in a good way. Having her has changed everything."
A cumbersome silence descended between them. Dean took a sip of coffee, and then another, looking around curiously at this makeshift painting studio that had changed so little in six years, and which looked and felt and smelled so much like his Lorelei.
My Lorelei… Since when had she been his?
Who was he kidding? Since always. Since forever.
He noticed a shabby old club chair in the corner; that was new. "Mind if I sit?"
She looked toward the chair, hesitated.
"You can get back to the painting," he said, lowering himself into the big, squishy chair and resting an ankle on the opposite knee. "I don't want to interfere with your work. I wouldn't mind watching you for a few minutes, though, while I finish this." He took a sip of coffee, his gaze trained on her.
She studied the floor for a moment, her forehead creased, then unfolded her arms and turned toward her worktable. "Suit yourself."
Drawing in a deep, lingering breath, he said, "I love the way it smells in here."
Her expression softened slightly as she set about fiddling with tubes and jars. "Me, too."
He drank his coffee in silence, but slowly, to make this visit last. Laura dipped a brush in the pink she'd mixed up, turned toward the painting and applied the color in light, cautious strokes to Janey's cheeks.
When she finally spoke, it was to ask him how long he'd been living aboard the Lorelei.
"Four years," he answered. "Ever since I got out of the air force."
"You used to say they were going to end up courtmartialing you for being such a nonconformist," she said. From where Dean sat, his view of her was in profile, so he could see that she was smiling, sort of. "I take it that never came to pass."
"Nah, turns out they didn't much mind me pushing the envelope as long as I didn't punch right out of it. In fact, I was just about to make captain when I opted out."
"So, why'd you opt out?" Standing back from the canvas, Laura inspected her work.
He shrugged, took another sip of coffee. "It was never a perfect fit for me – you know that. And then, after what happened to Will…"
She continued to stare at the painting, but Dean could tell from the distant look in her eyes that she wasn't seeing it.
"After that," Dean said, "I started counting the days. All I wanted was to get out and not have to deal with anybody or anything but me."
Her jaw set, Laura exchanged her flat brush for one shaped like a fan. She went to work again, gradually blending the pink into the flesh tone with the dry brush until Janey's cheeks were so perfectly suffused with color that they looked as if they'd be hot to the touch.
"You'
ve become quite the hermit," she observed as she painted. "Kay and I had a heck of a time finding you. No address, no phone, no e-mail account…"
"I keep a post office box in Portsmouth, but all I ever get is the occasional junk mail. And I don't like to own stuff that's just going to complicate my life, like phones and computers."
"You don't even have a car, do you? You said you'd rented one to drive down here. How do you get around on dry land?"
"Believe it or not, I've still got that old Sportster."
"You're kidding." She grinned in evident disbelief.
"Nothing's changed very much with me, I guess."
Her grin faded. Turning back to the table, she started fussing with things again, but in a preoccupied way, as if she were just trying to avoid him.
Setting his mug on the table, Dean rose from the chair and pulled the crinkled green envelope out of his back pocket.
She groaned when he held it out to her. "Dean, I thought you'd given up on trying to make me take that money. That's what you said yesterday."
"This is the last time, I promise. Just one last chance."
She held her hands up. "Dean…"
Capturing one of her wrists, he shoved the envelope into her hand. "Take it, Laura. Make this easy. I want you to have it. Not just for you, but for Janey."
She tried in vain to pull away from him. "Please don't bring Janey into this."
"Will would have wanted her to have—"
"Or Will." With a furious yank, she wrested her arm free. "Especially not Will."
Dean clenched his jaw.
"Here." She extended the envelope to Dean. "I don't want it."
He rested his hands on his hips. "Neither do I."
"Fine." She dropped it into a trash can filled with grimy rags. "That settles it. Now, if you don't mind, I have work to do."
Seizing her by the upper arms, he compelled her to meet his gaze. "Why won't you take the money, Laura?"
"Why are you so determined to give it to me?"
He closed his eyes and heard it again, the roaring explosion in the middle of the night, followed by the screams of his comrades. He felt the shock of finding Will, lying in his own blood, his chest torn open by a terrorist's bomb, and the grief that had consumed him as he'd cradled his friend in his arms, waiting for the inevitable. It hadn't taken long, a minute or two… Opening his eyes, he said, "Will made me promise something before … he died."
She just stared at him.
Dean drew his hands gently down her arms, and up again. "He asked me to take care of you."
Her forehead creased. "Take care of…"
"You know, make sure you had a roof over your head, that you were provided for…"
She nodded, but he knew what she was thinking: that he hadn't exactly done a bang-up job of taking care of her. In fact, after walking out on her six years ago, he'd pretty much completely ignored her. That he'd done it because he knew she'd be better off without a screwup like him in her life did little to assuage his guilt for having abandoned her that way – especially after having taken advantage of her in her time of grief, thereby betraying both her and Will in a single act of supreme selfishness.
But to voice any of that would be to reopen old wounds that were best left alone. He couldn't undo what he'd done that night. But he could try to make up for it, even if it was too little too late.
"The money…" He stroked her arms lightly, grateful just to be able to touch her. "It's my way of saying I'm sorry for leaving you alone all those years after promising Will I'd look after you. I figured I owed it to you – to you and Janey – to try and make up for those years."
"You don't owe me anything," Laura said, looking him squarely in the eye for the first time that morning. She spoke quietly and deliberately, as if she were choosing her words with care. "I know you … you must find this hard to believe, but you've already given me more than you can imagine."
"Laura, that's nuts." Gentling his voice, he trailed the back of his hand down her cheek, which felt as soft as Janey's. "What have I ever given you but grief?"
She smiled enigmatically. "Trust me, Dean. I haven't been shortchanged in our relationship."
Relationship. Dean had never thought of what he had with Laura as being a "relationship."
"You've been more than shortchanged," he said bitterly. "You've been victimized – by me. I've treated you…" He released her to claw his hands through his hair, cautioning himself not to get into it, not to tear open those old, mostly healed wounds. "Laura, I know money can't buy happiness, but it can buy solutions to lots of the little problems that plague a person's life, like leaky roofs and deteriorating porches. God, Laura, it would make everything so much simpler if you would just take this check."
"Not for me." Reaching into the trash can, she retrieved the green envelope – now oil stained – and held it toward him. "It would only complicate things for me, only make me … regretful about things I shouldn't regret."
"Laura, please…"
"Take it. Please. It's yours. Use it to buy solutions to the problems that plague your own life."
Dean mulled that over for a moment, smiling to himself when it dawned on him that the biggest problem in his life right now was how to finally live up to his pledge to Will to look after Laura. He could use this money to fulfill that pledge, even if she wouldn't take it outright.
"All right." He accepted the envelope from her, folded it in half and stuck it back in his pocket. "You win. I'll put this in the bank today."
Those astute golden eyes of hers narrowed on him. "I win? Just like that?"
"Just like that," he said with a smile.
* * *
Chapter 9
«^»
Laura drifted awake to an incessant bang-bang-banging that she at first blearily assumed was coming from inside her own skull. She pulled the quilt over her head, which muffled the noise – a steady hammering from overhead that seemed to fill up her bedroom – but did nothing to dampen the scalding headache that still plagued her after… Poking her head out from under the covers, she checked the alarm clock on the nightstand, which said it was 9:47 a.m. That meant over twelve hours had passed since she'd taken to her bed with a pounding head and crippling fatigue.
It had been a rough week – that's why she felt so lousy. Or at least that was what she'd told herself last night. Dean's unexpected arrival last Sunday had thrown the emotional equivalent of a Molotov cocktail into her orderly little world. She'd spent the past six days trying to avoid him – a mostly futile effort, given the way Kay kept contriving to bring them together.
And not just Kay, but Janey, albeit with no ulterior motive other than to spend as much time as possible in the company of "Mr. Kettle-wing." Dean had asked her to call him by his first name, but Laura had vetoed that familiarity, which of course had made her feel like the Bitch Queen of Port Livingston – just one more irritation atop a heap of others.
Bang bang bang. Bang bang bang. Bang bang…
With a growl of exasperation, Laura threw back the covers and sat up, igniting an electric bolt of pain in her head, underscored by a firestorm of stabs and twinges throughout her body. What had been mere fatigue last night was morphing into something altogether more ominous.
Don't think about it. Laura got out of bed and, shivering violently in her flannel nightgown, wrapped herself in her comfy old chenille robe. She shouldn't be cold; it had been increasingly pleasant all week, during which the remaining snow had melted, and today it was supposed to get into the low sixties. You're fine. Just tired.
Not to mention emotionally ravaged from Dean's sudden reappearance in her life.
Bang bang bang…
It was coming from overhead, she realized. Someone was banging on the roof of her house.
What now? She padded downstairs, keeping a firm grip on the banister because her legs felt about as sturdy as overcooked linguine. Shoving her feet into the duck boots she kept by the back door, she went outside, where s
he found Dean's dark green Jeep parked in the driveway, a stack of asphalt roofing shingles on the ground next to it. Her tall stepladder was propped against the house.
Yanking her robe more tightly around herself, she strode farther out into the yard, turned and squinted up at the roof, raising a hand to shield her eyes against the hazy morning sunlight. Her shivering worsened when she saw Dean crouching up there like an oddly graceful gargoyle, hammering a tile in place. He wore a baseball cap today over hair that had been pulled back into a ponytail.
"Dean, what are you—" Her words scraped her throat, inciting a fit of hacking coughs.
Dean clambered to the edge of the roof. "Laura? Oh, God, I woke you up. I'm sorry – I didn't think you were home. Your car's not here."
"I left it at the shop last night," she said hoarsely. "Kay drove me home."
"You should have had me look at it. You know I can fix just about anything."
"Not this. I need a whole new transmission."
"You need a whole new car. That old junker's gonna implode one of these days."
"Very astute, but all I can afford right now is the transmission." Barely. "Dean, what are you doing up there? Are you repairing my roof?"
"No."
She frowned at the hammer in his hand, wondering if her mystery malady was making her hallucinate.
"I'm replacing it," he said with a smile.
Laura closed her itchy eyes and rubbed them.
"It's all your fault for making me stop smoking," he explained. "I've got to do something to keep from going stir-crazy. Oh, and I'm going to be taking care of that porch of yours, too, but before I buy the supplies, I thought I'd see if you wanted me to maybe screen it in for you."
"I want you to maybe leave it the heck alone! And the roof!"
"If you're worried about me doing it right, don't. I did this kind of stuff in college, remember?"
"It's not that, it's … it's…" Laura let loose with a sneeze that jolted her.
MILLION DOLLAR BABY Page 10