Ten Years Later...

by Marie Ferrarella

  You’re getting too carried away. That’s not what he’s saying and you know it. For one thing, his mother’s here. For another, he wouldn’t take a chance on traumatizing Carrie.

  Sebastian had always liked children and he could be counted on to be the first to take note if anything was being done to harm a child, even indirectly.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  He’d thought it was obvious, but explained anyway. “You can wear casual clothes if that makes you feel more comfortable. I think my mother wants you to feel right at home here.”

  “And I want her to feel as if she’s being well taken care of and watched over. I think the uniform, however subliminally, might just reinforce that feeling for her. Besides, it’s a nurse’s uniform, not a suit of armor to be worn during a summer heat wave,” she pointed out. “But, thanks,” she tagged on, in case he thought she was just being argumentative and difficult. “I do appreciate knowing I have leeway.”

  Picking up the lightest container, she handed it to Carrie, then took another, far heavier one herself. “If you could point out which bedroom is going to be ours, that would be great.”

  He picked up two suitcases, one in each hand, then led the way up the driveway to the front door. “Follow me,” he told her.

  “We will,” Carrie piped up with assurance, the voice of a seasoned adult trapped within the body of a small child.

  Sebastian pressed his lips together to keep the laugh that rose in his throat right where it was. Turning, he pushed the unlocked front door open with his back and then went to the staircase.

  “It’s the second room to the right,” he told his two-woman entourage.

  The first room to the right at the top of the stairs was his bedroom, Brianna remembered.

  Or at least it had been that one night when they’d discovered each other, and a whole new world had opened up for them.

  Or for her, at any rate.

  She did her best not to glance toward the room when she reached the landing, but a wave of nostalgia got the better of her. Her eyes darted toward it before she was able to rein herself in.

  “Almost there, Carrie,” she told her daughter.

  It proved unnecessary because the high-pitched voice responded, “I can see that.”

  Unlike Sebastian, Brianna made no effort to hold back a laugh. “Yes, I’m sure you can. Find a place for that box and we’ll go back down for more,” she told the little girl. She foresaw many trips up and down the stairs today—and possibly an aching back by day’s end.

  Still holding the box she’d brought up the stairs, Carrie slowly looked around the room, as if seeking just the right spot to house her beloved treasures.

  Brianna noticed the curious look on Sebastian’s face and guessed at what was going on in his head.

  “Location’s everything,” she explained to him. “Carrie is extremely organized for a four-year-old.”

  He knew CEOs who subscribed to more chaos than this child apparently did. “She’s very organized for any age,” he corrected.

  His observation earned him a wide smile from Carrie that she flashed his way.

  Finally making her decision, Carrie walked with determined steps to the area beside the window, then set her box down beneath it.

  “It’s nice over here. The sun makes it bright. They’ll be happy here,” she declared.

  Brianna glanced toward Sebastian, anticipating his reaction. His eyebrow was raised in a silent query. He was probably asking her the identity of the “they” Carrie was referring to.

  “Her stuffed animals,” she told him. “She likes to make sure they’re comfortable in their new surroundings. It reminds her to think of others before herself,” she added.

  Carrie was already by the bedroom door. “Can I go down and get some of the others, Mama?”

  “Not without me,” she reminded Carrie. “You know that.”

  “I don’t want them to get too hot in the car,” she explained, trying to give her mother a reason for her sudden break in protocol.

  “I think the extra minute or two won’t make a difference to them,” Brianna assured her daughter.

  But even so, she was already leading the way back downstairs. Carrie matched her, step for step, all but leaping to make up for the difference in stride.

  Watching the interaction with no small amount of awe, Sebastian brought up the rear.

  “Give me the heaviest one,” he told Brianna when they’d returned to her car again.

  “The heaviest one, huh?” Was he being gallant, or just macho? Either way, she needed the box out of the car. “That would be the big box in the rear,” she told him. “It’s packed with her books.”

  It had taken both her father and her to lift the container and put it into the car. Leaning in now, she pulled the edge of the box over to her a little at a time until she was finally able to get it to the edge of the vehicle.

  “And it’s pretty heavy. Since we’re going to be staying on the second floor, maybe we should just unpack the box and bring the books up an armload at a time,” she suggested.

  “Or I could just take it upstairs for you and save a lot of time,” he told her, hefting the large box out of the car.

  “It’s too heavy,” she insisted.

  Her words fell on deaf ears.

  She should have expected nothing less, she thought. Sebastian could be very stubborn when he wanted to be. Before babies, reality and responsibilities, she could afford the luxury of being reckless and throwing caution to the winds. But no more.

  “Careful,” she warned, moving out of his way. “Or I’ll wind up having to nurse you through the aftermath of a hernia operation.”

  “If that’s supposed to get me to put down the box, it’s not working,” he told her. “You’re going to have to come up with something better than that,” he said as he passed her and crossed the threshold leading into his house.

  Bracing the contents in his arms as best he could, he made his way up the stairs, moving a tad more slowly than he would have liked. He didn’t want the cardboard suddenly to give way and an avalanche of books to come pouring out.

  “I forgot how stubborn you could be,” she said in a rare display of exasperation.

  “Funny, I was going to say the same thing about you,” Sebastian answered.

  “Mama says it’s not nice to be stubborn,” Carrie told him, putting her small body in his direction.

  “Except at certain times,” Brianna felt she had to qualify.

  “Is this one of those times?” Carrie asked, turning her face up to her mother.

  “I’m afraid it certainly looks that way,” she told the little girl, surrendering.

  The laugh she heard coming from Sebastian zipped up and down her spine before fading away. Reminding her again that perhaps accepting this assignment was not the wisest thing she’d ever done.

  Chapter Eleven

  Sebastian had no intention of actually eavesdropping. It just happened.

  And it wasn’t because he’d actually heard something that involved him, because he hadn’t.

  At least, not in the traditional sense.

  What he wound up witnessing strongly involved him in an emotional sense, causing him to wonder—not for the first time—what if...?

  All he’d initially intended was to pass by the living room. He’d been on his way to the kitchen to get himself something to eat. Brianna and her daughter had been in the house for a little more than a week now—long enough, apparently, for Carrie and Marilyn the cat to discover one another; the cat had seemingly “adopted” the four-year-old and followed her everywhere. And while there had been no awkward moments for any of them, he still found himself walking on eggshells, subconsciously wary of dislodging the careful balance of things.

>   Doing his very best not to stir up old memories, old feelings.

  As if he could actually prevent them from finding him....

  But Brianna didn’t need to know that. Didn’t need to know that there was this ache in his chest with her name on it, and every day it got a little bigger, grew a little more unwieldy and challenging.

  Feeling this way, he had all the intention in the world to just keep walking by the living room, where he knew that his mother, Brianna and Carrie—with the cat in attendance—currently were. But then his attention was hijacked by the scenario he saw out of the corner of his eye.

  A scenario involving his mother, Brianna and her daughter. Three separate generations rabidly involved in what looked like, from where he was standing, some sort of board game. Even the cat appeared to be part of it. Marilyn was kibitzing.

  It was an old board game, from what he could actually see. He hadn’t thought that anyone, especially children, played board games anymore. In today’s sophisticated, high-tech electronic world, a simple board game seemed almost archaic.

  Certainly outdated.

  Yet there they were, his mother propped up on the sofa with a mountain of pillows at her back, Brianna and Carrie gathered on the other side of the coffee table, deeply engrossed in something that looked suspiciously reminiscent of his old Monopoly game. The actual game board looked weathered enough to be his—he had no idea that his mother had kept it all these years.

  He wouldn’t even have looked into the room if it hadn’t been for the laughter. That was what had first caught his attention. Not just Carrie’s and Brianna’s, but his mother’s laughter as well.

  It wasn’t until after the sound had sunk in that he recognized it and subsequently realized that he hadn’t heard that sound in a very long time.

  He’d missed it.

  Missed, too, not worrying about his mother, because ever since he’d taken that phone call, he’d been nothing but worried about his mother.

  At least he’d lucked out by getting Brianna to come stay with her.

  Brianna and her daughter, he amended.

  He wasn’t certain who was better for his mother. Brianna had a gentle, soothing way about her, but Carrie—Carrie was a whole different story. As Carrie and the cat had done, his mother and the little girl had hit it off instantly. Now his mother seemed to light up each time that Carrie came into the room.

  It made him wonder—and just possibly harbor a sliver of yearning—what it would have been like if he’d married Brianna and started a family with her, giving his mother the grandchild she’d always longed for.

  When she’d first mentioned that desire to him years ago, it had just seemed like the standard, humdrum request of every mother with adult children, and he’d just shrugged it off as such.

  But now he could see just how strong that desire had to have actually been—and most likely still was—as he witnessed, time and again during this past week, how jubilant his mother became whenever she saw Carrie bounding toward her.

  As if she was in the company of her own grandchild.

  Sorry, Mom. I guess some things just weren’t meant to be.

  “Hey, what are you doing hovering over there?” Brianna called to him, breaking into his thoughts.

  She’d been watching him beneath hooded eyes for a few minutes now and had given him what she felt was a decent amount of time to sneak away unnoticed if that was what he wanted. But Sebastian had remained where he was, a strange, almost wistful expression on his face.

  Maybe he actually wanted to be called over, coaxed a little to join them. She certainly had no problem with that, with pretending that he had to have his arm twisted before he gave in. Having him join them might be great medicine for his mother, who, in her opinion, would really enjoy a nice domestic scene, complete with a family pet, all of them gathered around the coffee table.

  So Brianna beckoned him over. “Come join us.”

  Time to go, Sebastian thought. “No, I’m actually on my way to—”

  Although he pointed vaguely in the direction of the front door, which was definitely not the way he’d appeared to be heading, he came up empty. He hadn’t counted on being put on the spot and thus had no excuse prepared to use for cover.

  “To what?” Brianna challenged. “To go outside and peer in through the window to watch us play your old Monopoly game?”

  He waved her off. “No. Really, you just continue doing what you’re doing and I’ll—”

  He didn’t get a chance to finish the half-formed excuse because Carrie had already gotten up, quickly crossed the room to get to his side and now had both her small hands wrapped around one of his. She looked as if she had every intention of literally dragging him into the living room and to the coffee table.

  “Come,” Carrie urged in a voice that sounded more like an order than just a soft plea. “Play Monopoly with us.” She flashed a bright smile up at him. “I’m winning.”

  “Of course you are.” He laughed. “I never had any doubts.” Still, he tried to hold his ground against the little girl.

  It wasn’t going to happen, he realized almost immediately.

  “But I promise I’ll let you win if you come play the game with us,” Carrie offered.

  “Really, Sebastian, how can you possibly turn an offer like that down?” his mother asked him.

  “Carrie hasn’t learned how to take no for an answer yet,” Brianna warned him, “so she’s not about to politely back away or give up easily.” She thought of what Sebastian had said to her when she’d first arrived. “And you haven’t witnessed stubborn until you’ve had her wage a campaign against you,” she told him, then added, “I’m afraid you’re doomed, Sebastian.”

  Carrie, still holding on to his hand with both of hers and doing it as if she intended to hold on for dear life no matter how long it took, raised her brilliant blue eyes up to his and said what her mother referred to as the magic word. “Please?”

  Sebastian knew he was probably just reading things into it, but the little girl made it sound as if her heart would break if he turned her down. And since he honestly had nothing planned and no particular place to go, he gave in.

  “Sure, why not?” he said, allowing himself to be urged into the room.

  He wasn’t prepared for Carrie’s enthusiastic cheer greeting his statement, nor was he prepared to see her gleefully leap up and down as if she was a pint-size cheerleader whose team had just scored a winning touchdown.

  Neither was he prepared to have her tug on his arm and make him get down to her level.

  When he did, she brushed her small lips against his cheek, her touch lighter than a butterfly landing on an orchid petal.

  “Thank you,” she said in a small, delicate voice that made her momentarily sound a great deal younger than she normally did.

  Sebastian really wasn’t ready to have his heart utterly melt, just a moment before he served it up to the little girl on a silver platter.

  Rising, he found he had to clear his throat. “Don’t mention it,” he murmured.

  He pulled up a chair, taking the fourth side of the game board.

  “I don’t think I remember how to play,” he admitted as he looked down at the board. A quick flash of a memory went by far too quickly for him to grab on to it and attempt to recall anything more.

  A wave of nostalgia greeted him. It seemed to Sebastian as if the last time he’d sat just like this, contemplating this very game board, had been several decades ago.

  “It’ll come back to you,” Brianna assured him. Her eyes met his for a brief moment and she added, “It’s just like riding a bicycle. Or anything else you learned how to do on a regular basis.”

  Like love you?

  The thought, coming in like a low-flying attack plane, startled him.

  Why w
ould it have even crossed his mind? As time had distanced him from his senior year, he had begun to doubt that what he’d felt for her then had been love. At least, not the forever kind. Maybe just the puppy-love variety.

  That was what he’d told himself.

  Seeing her at the reunion that night had stirred up a lot of old feelings, reminding him of how it used to be. Of how he’d used to feel just being around her. But even so, he hadn’t wanted to actually put a name to it, preferring that the emotion remain nameless until it had the good sense to fade away.

  Obviously his subconscious had other ideas about it, because the nostalgia kept on coming back in insistent waves.

  “You’re probably right.” He picked up one of the remaining pieces on the board. “Okay, let’s get to it.” He pushed his sleeves up his forearms. “Prepare to be dazzled, ladies.” His game piece in his hand, he spared Carrie a glance. “And you don’t have to ‘let’ me win. I can do it on my own, thanks.”

  Carrie’s smile just stopped short of being smug. But the look on her face said she knew better but was so happy to see him play with them that she wasn’t going to say anything, other than an enthusiastic “Okay!”

  “Let the games begin,” he declared, aware that all the markers had gone back to Go for a fresh game.

  * * *

  “I think,” Sebastian said to Brianna a great many hours later, “you’re raising a pint-size con artist. I can see her in Vegas in another seventeen years, being banned from all the casinos for card counting.”

  Brianna laughed as she cleaned up what had been an after-dinner round of cards. For such a small number of people, they certainly racked up an awful lot of dirty dishes and cups, she couldn’t help thinking, bringing over another pile and putting them in the sink.

  “I plan to make sure she only uses her powers for good,” she told Sebastian. And then she paused for a moment, looking at Carrie. The powerhouse had finally just dozed off, refusing to miss a moment of what she assumed was an adult conversation: many words, few actual thoughts. “But she really does have a fantastic mind, doesn’t she?”