Apparently, the brand-new swings were so exciting that the children even forgot the chocolate cake, which was sitting on the table next to several other baked goods. The grown-ups, on the other hand, sat in the gorgeous garden, enjoying the sunshine and the food, welcoming Barbara’s companion, Simon, whom she apparently met at a wedding a week before, and managing to descend into awkward silence over and over again. It was Eleanore, of course, who valiantly dispelled it each time, by directing questions at their guest.
“Are you from Connecticut, Simon?”
“No, I’m from Massachusetts,” he said politely, with his impeccable manners. “I live in Boston. I’m a publisher.”
“A publisher?” Eleanore nodded, impressed. “That sounds very exciting.”
“Unfortunately, it’s not as exciting as I’d hoped it would be,” he joked, tilting his head to one side.
Amy hadn’t met Barbara’s husband James that many times, but she couldn’t help noticing that Simon looked very similar. She began to ponder the implications but forgot it completely when she met Barbara’s glare once again.
And to think, before today, Amy had actually thought the tension over her presence was slowly subsiding. After all, in the last four days, there hadn’t been a single angry word from Patrick—not since the accident with the coffee. In fact, he’d taken great pains to treat her with respect and good manners, even though she held no illusions about the fact that his anger was undoubtedly still roiling inside him. They still had several problems to work through, but at least he’d stopped verbally attacking her every time they were alone.
And Amy couldn’t express what a relief that was. His sister, however, seemed only to be awaiting the perfect moment to attack.
“How long are in Connecticut, Simon?” Eleanore asked.
“I’m not sure,” he replied thoughtfully. “I’m currently exploring the opportunity for a new branch here. I’m inspecting a number of potential locations in the area.”
Patrick, who was sitting next to Amy and had already wolfed down two slices of cake, leaned back and started a brief conversation on the publishing industry—until Barbara seized an opportunity to change the subject.
“Didn’t Stuart say he’d be here, too, Mom?”
Eleanore sighed and raised a hand. “He’s an adult. How would I know where he is? Yesterday he’d told me he’d be here today, but … ”
“He had to fly to Phoenix,” Patrick explained with a shrug. “I asked him to take some of my appointments for the time being, so I’d have more time for Audrey.”
“I think that’s fabulous,” Eleanore said happily.
Amy couldn’t suppress a feeling of thankfulness, either. It warmed her heart that Patrick had reorganized his busy schedule to spend quality time with Audrey. She knew he was a real workaholic who preferred holding the reins at all times. So she understood that this was more than a simple gesture.
“Well, Mom,” he said dryly, “some people in the company would disagree. Especially Peter. He’s acting like the building will fall down if I’m not there. But the truth is they get along very well without me.”
Barbara snorted scornfully. “Peter’s a career-driven jerk. He’d sell his own grandmother for a favorable deal.”
“Barbara!” Eleanore chastised, outraged. “Peter is a good friend of this family.”
“I agree,” Patrick chimed in, his voice mildly scolding. “And you forget he’s my oldest friend.”
“And you forget he’s acted on his own authority quite a few times. Stuart told me he—”
“I don’t think this is the time or place, Barbara,” Patrick cut her off sternly.
“I agree,” Eleanore said with a shake of her head.
Barbara shrugged. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Thank you, dear sister,” he replied sarcastically. “How nice to know you think you have to protect your big brother.”
Barbara’s gaze traveled to Amy, who’d been listening without comment. “I’m just concerned you might be taken advantage of, Patrick,” she said brightly. “Again.”
“I understood your intentions very well, Barbara,” he said hollowly.
Amy understood her perfectly, too. But she didn’t get a chance to respond to the thinly veiled accusation, because there was a loud wail.
“Mommy, Mommy! Ouchie!”
Amy jerked around to see Audrey running toward her, sobbing loudly. Before she could rise from her chair, Audrey threw herself into her arms. “Shh,” Amy soothed, brushing the damp hair from her daughter’s forehead, just registering that Patrick had jumped up beside her. “What happened, sweetie?”
“I-I … f-fell … f-from the”—she hiccuped—“swing!”
“Where did you hurt yourself?” Amy calmly pulled Audrey into her lap.
Still crying, the five-year-old pointed at her knee and squeaked, “My knee! Ouchie!”
“We should take her to the hospital,” Patrick whispered frantically, actually wringing his hands.
Amy inspected the scratch, which wasn’t even deep enough to bleed. “Honey,” she said soothingly to Audrey, “it’ll be fine again in no time. Come on. There’s no need to cry.”
“But it hurts!” Audrey looked at her mom through a veil of tears.
“Amy, maybe we need to go to the ER,” Patrick repeated.
Amy gave him a calm smile. His face was white as a sheet. Unlike her, he seemed about to freak out completely. “She’s just had a fright, Patrick. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“Are you sure?”
Amy nodded confidently. “She cries the loudest when it’s just a fright,” she confided with a wink. “It’s when she goes silent that it’s serious.”
“Darling,” Eleanore cooed at Audrey, joining the comfort squad, “you were so brave in the hospital, remember? You’re not going to cry over such a tiny scratch now, are you?”
Audrey’s small mouth and round chin were trembling pitifully. Amy stroked her hair and leaned down to kiss her knee. “You just got a fright when you fell, sweetie. No need to cry.”
“Mommy,” she whimpered, snuggling closer to her mother’s chest.
Amy switched tack. “Look,” she chided gently, “you gave your daddy a fright, too, with your crying.”
Reluctantly, Audrey raised her eyes to look at her father, who was still very pale. “But it hurts,” she whined insistently. “I need a Band-Aid.”
“Okay.” Amy sighed, rolling her eyes above her daughter’s head. She caught Patrick’s gaze—he looked as if he could use a drink. “Can you hold her while I go get a Band-Aid?”
He took Audrey from her without objection and sat with her in his lap while Amy marched into the house. At least the harmless swing incident had given her a break from sitting there suffering under Barbara’s scalding looks.
In the kitchen, Amy took her time picking out a Band-Aid. She was standing by the sink when her sister-in-law walked in. “Barbara,” Amy said in surprise. She grabbed the whole box of Band-Aids and turned to leave. “I was just about to head out again.”
Her sister-in-law crossed her arms across her chest. “What I need to tell you won’t take long.”
Amy’s shoulders sagged. “Listen, Barbara, I know exactly what you need to tell me, but you can save your breath. Patrick and I are solving our problems alone.”
“He’s my brother,” Barbara said, determined. “And after you sent him through hell, I think I have every right to let you know what I think of you.”
Amy flinched and took an involuntary step backward.
“I’m still at a loss for words when I think of how mistaken I was about you all those years ago,” Barbara continued bitterly. “When I met you, I thought you were a decent person. But then you left Patrick without a word, not even to mention you were fleeing with his child.”
Amy stiffened at the accusation and lifted her chin, even as she trembled inside. “When I left, I didn’t have an inkling that I might be pregnant.”
&n
bsp; “That doesn’t make it any better.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Amy agreed unhappily. “But you treating me like a leper doesn’t make it better either.”
Barbara shook her head dismissively. “You really have no idea what you did to him, do you?”
A painful lump began forming in her throat. “Please—”
“How could you do that to someone?”
“You really don’t understand?” Amy whispered hoarsely. “It was better that way.”
“Better? Better for whom, Amy? Better for you, maybe.”
She shook her head sternly. “Do you really think I didn’t see how badly I fit into his world?” she asked defensively. “You think I didn’t notice how much Patrick regretted marrying me? It was better for everyone that I left.”
“Bullshit,” Barbara spat. “Patrick tried so hard to find you. He hired a goddamn private eye. He didn’t leave the house for months, just drinking all the time. Your disappearance turned him into a different person!”
Amy flinched again. She wished a hole would open at her feet and swallow her, but the thought of it made her dizzy. “That … I-I didn’t know that.” Her voice came out in a whisper.
“How could you?” Barbara shook her head. “How could you know you made him descend into a private hell? You were gone.”
Amy was stunned into silence. She could have taken Patrick’s anger … but this? She swallowed, struggling not to burst into tears. She’d been so utterly convinced that her disappearance had come as a relief to him, even if he wouldn’t admit it. But hearing how he’d really felt was too much.
Her sister-in-law snorted disdainfully and shook her head. “For at least a month after you left, he kept insisting you really loved him. It took him a month to stop believing that.”
Amy raised her eyes, blinded by her own tears. “Believe it or not, Barbara … I did. I loved him.” She took a shaky breath.
“Yet you didn’t tell him about Audrey,” Barbara snapped. The way she stood there, a vision in her lily-white summer dress, was incongruous to the bitter accusations she hurled at her sister-in-law.
“I know.” Amy swallowed. “I regret that. I regret it very much.”
“Well, regret or no, you will not be given the chance to wrap him around your finger again,” Barbara spat. “Patrick will not fall for you again just because you’re simulating a nice little family all of a sudden.”
Amy shrank back. “That is not why I came here.” She shook her head. “This is only for Audrey—”
“Oh, sure!” Barbara scoffed. “I have eyes, dear, and I see the way you look at him.”
Amy gasped, incredulous. “Barbara, whatever it is you think you saw—”
“What are you doing in here, Barbara?”
Both women spun around. Patrick stood in the doorway, frowning, arms crossed over his chest.
Amy blushed violently at the thought that he might have overheard their altercation. But at the same time, she couldn’t help remembering Barbara’s words. The thought that her disappearance had caused him so much pain felt like yet another kick in the gut. She’d never wanted to hurt him. She’d left him because she didn’t want to hurt him.
“I was just having a chat with Amy,” Barbara replied innocently.
“A chat,” Patrick repeated, throwing Amy a skeptical glance.
Frightened that her face and glassy eyes would betray her feelings, Amy turned her back to him.
“Well, don’t want to make Simon wait,” Barbara said airily and left the room.
Once her steps had faded, Patrick cleared his throat. “Is everything okay?”
Amy nodded.
Before he could leave, she turned around and croaked, “Patrick?” He looked at her. She’d been dumbfounded and bewildered by Barbara’s revelation, but she needed to find the words to speak to Patrick about it. Finally, she stammered, “I-I didn’t know …”
“Didn’t know what?” he asked.
“I didn’t know how much my leaving hurt you.”
His expression didn’t change. He studied her impassively. He took a step toward her but quickly retreated again. “You were gone so suddenly,” he said, his voice raw, vibrating with tension. “And I racked my brain trying to figure out where you might have gone.”
“I didn’t know. I didn’t expect you to feel that way.”
“I couldn’t understand it.” He balled his hands into fists and lowered his gaze. “Why did you just leave like that? You were my wife and … and we were happy, weren’t we?”
Amy listened to his words, his broken voice, and saw the tension holding his entire body in its grip. Her tears flowed as she gave a helpless shrug, unable to answer.
“Amy, how did you think I would feel when you left me?”
She blinked and met his anguished gaze. “Relieved,” she whispered. “I thought you would be relieved.”
Chapter 10
She hadn’t expected to find Patrick in the kitchen. When she saw him at the stove, calmly swiveling something in a frying pan, she froze mid-step.
But she was caught out. He raised his head: “Hey. You come looking for a midnight snack as well?”
It was a few minutes after eleven, and he was wearing nothing but boxers and a T-shirt, while she was clad in shorts and a sweatshirt. Amy wanted to disappear back into her room. After their distressingly candid conversation in the kitchen a few days ago, they’d been tiptoeing around each other, treating one another with ridiculous caution.
“I just wanted to get something to drink,” she said, going to the double-door fridge to grab a bottled water.
“Come sit with me,” he said, turning off the stove. “I know you can’t resist hash browns with bacon and onions.”
She felt a warm flutter in her chest. He remembered how she’d raved about hash browns one night after they’d returned from one of those dreadful parties where they served copious amounts of alcohol but only tiny hors d’oeuvres. With more than a little wistfulness, she remembered standing here in this kitchen with him late that night, making hash browns. She’d lectured him on the importance of cutting the potatoes into small cubes instead of shredding them, and he’d stood behind her with his arms around her waist and his mouth buried in her neck. His undivided attention had been a balm for her battered ego, because someone at that particular party had let her know in barely veiled terms that their hasty marriage had led to a lot of gossip. And that it was causing Patrick’s business associates to doubt his judgment.
But Amy didn’t want to remember that part—or how insecure it had made her feel—so she suppressed the memories and approached the kitchen island where Patrick had set down the frying pan and was holding out a fork for her.
Before she knew what she was doing, she was sitting on a bar stool, eating straight from the pan with Patrick. If anyone had told her a few weeks ago that she would be sitting here in the middle of the night, peacefully sharing hash browns with her estranged husband in little more than their underwear, she’d have laughed. Hysterically.
But now … She covertly raised her eyes to study his black hair and handsome face.
As if he’d sensed her eyes on him, he looked up and met her gaze. He pointed at the pan. “You like it?”
Amy nodded weakly, hoping she wasn’t blushing. To distract him, and herself, she asked innocently, “Weren’t you satisfied with dinner?”
He shrugged and took another bite. “Sure, but I’m afraid I need to work a few hours tonight. Wanted to fortify myself for that.”
She clucked her tongue. “And here I am, stealing your sustenance.”
“Yeah, you should be ashamed,” he teased. Then he let out a sigh. “I’m afraid I also need to go into the office tomorrow. But I’ll try to get back here as quickly as possible.”
She swallowed the tasty bite she’d just put in her mouth. “Patrick, you really shouldn’t neglect your work. You’ve taken great care of Audrey these last few weeks. You’ve spent so much time with her I’ve already
been wondering how you were able to leave the company for so long.”
He made a face. “Audrey’s more important than work.”
“I know,” she said gently, unable to express what it meant to her that he’d put their child before his corporate duties. “But Audrey’s doing a lot better. There’s no need to neglect your work for her sake.”
“Well, it’s only a meeting tomorrow,” he said. “If I hurry, I’ll be back in time for lunch.”
“Please don’t hurry.” She took a deep breath. “Audrey will understand if you have to work. She’s used to that from me, after all.” She was a little scared he’d get angry all over again at the mention of her former job, so she looked up and met his gaze reluctantly. But all she saw was a twitch at the corner of his mouth.
“Do you have any special plans with Audrey tomorrow?” he speculated cheerfully. “Something you don’t want me to know about? I get the impression you want me gone.”
Amy smiled. “No, I just don’t want you to lose track of your company. I know how hard you normally work. I’m worried the weeks you spent with us in Chicago cost the company a lot already.”
“It’s not like I’m the only person who works there,” he reassured her. “There’s nothing wrong with delegating a bit so the boss can spend time with his daughter.”
She nodded with a sigh. “Okay. Just don’t feel obligated—”
“Amy, it’s alright,” he said with a smirk, sticking his fork into another crispy potato cube. “You really don’t need to worry about my job.”
Silent, she picked at a potato. If she hadn’t been so disconcerted by the fact that the conversation was going calmly, sensibly, she could have allowed herself to be happy that they were sitting in the same room without fighting. For Audrey’s sake, Amy wanted to have a relationship with Patrick, one that wasn’t governed by tension, anger, and disdain. This impromptu midnight snack was turning out to be a promising start.
Just one kiss (The Ashcrofts Book 1) Page 23