She was not going to look at him.
A meow sounded from beside the couch; a black cat stalked over and sniffed the newcomer’s shiny black boots. Stoner crouched to pet her. “Hey there, sweet little Emma.”
Melanie gasped and jerked to Edgar as if someone had slapped her. “You named your cat Emma?”
“Uh…” Edgar tried again to speak, then shook his head, looking as if someone had caught him across the windpipe.
From the corner of her eye, Melanie saw black gloves pick the cat up and stroke the length of its body.
Don’t look. Don’t look. Those hands…
“What’s wrong with Edgar naming his cat Emma, Mel-a-nie?” His deep voice lilted seductively through the syllables of her name.
Melanie examined the hem of her shorts minutely. “Well. His. Um. Girlfriend is also named…”
Oh, no.
She turned back to Edgar. Emma had lots of black hair. Emma had simple needs. Emma wasn’t much of a reader. Emma didn’t cook but Emma liked to eat. Emma’s taste was similar to Melanie’s, which meant that necklace—
“His girlfriend?” Stoner swaggered toward Melanie, deposited the cat in her lap and made sure his thighs touched her knees, that his fingers brushed across her bare legs during the transfer. Tingles of electricity shimmied up her…everything. “Dude, Edgar, I didn’t know you were seeing someone. All right.”
He leaned over to high-five his brother. Melanie’s heart broke. Edgar looked as if he wanted a wrecking ball to come through the wall so he could climb on and be swung away. “Oh, Edgar.”
She stopped herself. She couldn’t humiliate him in front of his unbelievably sexy brother.
“Sorry, I got confused.” She laughed dorkily. “There’s another guy at the office with a girlfriend named Emma. I mixed them up. Cat, girlfriend…I do that stuff all the time.” Edgar mouthed thanks. His eyes pleaded for forgiveness.
She’d forgive him. Though she might have to shriek at him in the best Hawthorne tradition first. Why on earth had he felt the need to pretend with her? Of all people. As if him being single would have made any diff—
Oh, no. If there was no Emma—as Alana suspected, and maybe Melanie did, too, deep down—that meant Edgar was totally available. That meant Melanie didn’t have to date someone like Edgar.
She could date Edgar.
A powerful surge of panic drew her up off the couch. “I should go.”
“Hey, pizza’s here, beer’s here.” Stoner’s hands landed on his hips. She was not going to examine what was between them. “And you’re here, Mel-a-nie. I can’t think of a better party.”
“Oh. Thanks.” Melanie headed for the door, eyes on the floor. “But I really—”
“Hey.” Stoner stepped into her path with such graceful speed that she nearly bumped into him. “Don’t go.”
She mumbled an excuse, kept her head down. If she looked at him she was lost.
“Stay?” His voice was a sexy bad-boy’s manipulative plea that made her want to wrap her legs around all that black and get shot to the moon.
She’d never be healthy, she’d never get it right, she’d never find the kind of love she dreamed about. Not as long as there were men in the world like Stoner who turned her upside down with a single glance.
“Okay. I’ll stay.” She gave in, looked up into his hot, melting, blue, blue eyes.
And fell deeply and forever in love.
Again.
15
ALANA SPRAYED Windex on the outside of the storm window in her bedroom, balanced on the ledge, leaning out with the scrubber stuck on an extension pole, squeegee inside within easy reach. A fly buzzed past into her bedroom. The scrubber whooshed across months of dust and dirt cemented into place by raindrops and snowflakes. She changed tools and reached with the squeegee, missing spots, smudging others. Finally she jammed a paper towel on the end of the extension pole and tried to manipulate it into the corners, sweating and puffing in the heat and humidity.
Yup. Windows. She’d gone over the edge.
If this was love, she’d rather go back to shallow infatuation. Melanie might have figured out everything about herself and about Alana, but it hadn’t helped her any, either. Emma was apparently a cat, which meant Edgar, her best friend, had been lying to her for two years; Edgar’s brother was so sexy Melanie had wanted to drop her pants right there in Edgar’s apartment; and after all her theorizing, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell Edgar what was on her mind even when she had the chance. To say she was discouraged was an understatement. She’d even been on time for work again today because she hadn’t been able to sleep.
So, for sake of argument—which argument Alana had been having in her head for the past two days, which was what made window-washing start to look pretty good—what if Melanie was right, and Alana was operating out of fear of commitment? What if she were moving to Florida because she was scared of her feelings for Sawyer, scared of the vulnerability, scared of the potential for pain, of losing herself inside a man the way Melanie constantly did, the way their mother had, over and over?
What then? She couldn’t fix it by wanting to. And she wasn’t willing to stay in town for years of therapy while she tried.
On the other side of that same coin, what if she really was leaving because subconsciously she knew staying even for someone as wonderful as Sawyer wasn’t what she truly wanted? Maybe she knew she’d worry about her grandparents 24/7 and hate herself for sacrificing them to her desire for hot sex.
No, of course, Sawyer wasn’t just about hot sex, though, um, yes, mmm. Even plain vanilla sex had been beyond anything she’d ever experienced.
Because he was a skilled lover? Because she was wildly in lust? Because this was really forever-love?
Where the hell was the manual that came with emotions? Page four: if you experience this-and-such and that-and-so-on then definitely yes, do this-’n-that. Oh, that would be so nice.
In the meantime, she had raging confusion, nightly sleeping pills—except that one night at the lake house in Sawyer’s arms when she’d slept like a baby—and…windows.
The phone rang; she bumped her head coming back inside, then scraped her hip climbing back onto the floor, and nearly tripped racing for Betty Boop. “Hello?”
“’Lana, ’s Mel.”
“Melanie?” She put her finger in her free ear and bent for ward in that stupid way people did, as if being closer to the ground would help them hear better. Was her sister drunk? “You okay?”
“M’m’s her’.” She sounded as if she were talking through her teeth.
“What? I can’t understand you.”
“I s’d M’m’s her’.”
“What?”
“Hang on.” Rustling sounds. Murmured words. Walking sounds. What the—
“Alana?” Her voice was clear now, but echoing.
“Melanie, what is going on?”
“I couldn’t talk before—she was with Edgar—I said the boss was calling so I could—she just showed up—I can’t believe—she looks totally—”
“Wait, whoa, calm down. I can barely understand you. Start over. Who showed up, a real Emma?”
“No, not Emma. Mom.”
Air entered Alana’s mouth in a weak gasp. She sank onto Melanie’s bed and jumped up again when something sharp poked her. “Mom? Our mom? Is there? With you? Now?”
“She just showed up at work out of the blue, bang, like that.”
“Oh my God.” She turned, groped on Melanie’s bed, flung a hanger off onto the floor and sank down again…then jumped up and started pacing. “Why didn’t she come here to the house?”
“She doesn’t know—she didn’t know you were there. I told her. She’s going to come see you next.”
“Oh my God.” She closed her eyes. More emotional confusion. On the one hand, Tricia was her mother. There had been happy times together, and in her own odd way, Alana was sure she loved her daughters.
But. There was another ha
nd, and on it was years of neglect that bordered on abuse.
Forget windows. Alana was going to flip out the rest of the way and start scrubbing baseboard corners with an old toothbrush.
“She says she’s turned over a new leaf, Alana.”
“That sounds familiar.”
“Ha, ha. She wants to spend time with us. To get to know us again.”
“That does not sound familiar. How much time?”
“I…wasn’t real clear on that.”
“Oh my God.”
“She does look different, anyway. She’s wearing a normal nice sundress, no cleavage, no bared legs, but it’s not a flower-child hippie caftan, either. It looks like it could have come from Talbots.”
“Oh my God.” She paced harder, tapping her fist against her lower lip. “Where is she planning on staying?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Oh my—”
“Alana? You’d make me feel a whole lot better if you’d say something helpful instead of ‘Oh my God.’”
“Yes. Sorry. I’m just…” she whirled around, clasping her head with her free hand “…trying to take this in.”
“I know! I was sitting at my cubicle. I looked up and there she was. I nearly had a heart attack. Hang on. Be out in a second.”
“Out?”
“I’m in the bathroom. I wanted to warn you where she couldn’t hear me.”
“Thank you. I guess.”
“Oh, I think she’s talked to Gran and Grandad recently, too. Something she said made me think she had.”
“What did—”
“I really have to go. Talk to you later.”
“Mel, thanks for the—” the phone clicked off “—warning.”
One more time: Oh my God.
She hung Betty Boop’s receiver next to her beautiful plastic cartoon self, and wandered in a daze back to her half-cleaned windows. Three minutes later, she’d gone no farther than staring at the one she’d been in the middle of squeegeeing when Melanie called.
What was she going to do? About anything? Melanie, Gran and Grandad, Sawyer and now Mom. Alana felt responsible for all of their happiness and she didn’t know what to do to guarantee any of it. She was terrified Melanie was going to go for this Stoner person over poor lovesick Edgar. She was terrified Gran and Grandad would go downhill if she weren’t there to take care of them, no matter how often Mel and Sawyer said they didn’t need her. She was terrified Sawyer’s heart would break if she left town. And what did Mom want? Reconciliation? Disappearing years ago and now waltzing back in and expecting to take up where she left off? Was Alana supposed to bury all her resentment to make Mom happy, too?
Alana groaned and dropped her head into her hands. Back to where she started from. What did Alana want?
She wanted to talk to Sawyer.
He picked up after the first ring. Hearing his voice made her shaky with relief and teary and happy at the same time.
Love was just plain screwed up.
“Hey, there.” He sounded so glad to hear from her that her shakiness began to steady into warmth. “What’s going on?”
“Where do I start?”
“Uh-oh, that bad? Hang on, I’m in my car, let me pull over.”
“You on your way home? It can wait.”
“No, I’m on my way downtown to meet with the foundation board of directors.”
“Doh.” She whacked herself in the forehead. “I’m sorry, I knew that. You don’t need me bothering you. Seriously, I’m fine, I don’t—”
“You don’t think you’re more important to me than some board of directors?”
“Oh.” She closed her eyes, surprised she could continue to stand upright since she’d just turned into goo. “Well…okay. My mom is in town. She’s decided to reinsert herself into our lives.”
“Whoa.” He whistled. “That’s intense. I take it you’re not in the mood to let her in?”
“I’m…no. I guess I’m really not.” Her voice trembled; she felt a retroactive burst of anger. “But even though she rejected us, I feel like I can’t reject her. She’s my mom.”
“So on top of Melanie going nuts over another idiot, and me making your life miserable—”
“Ha.” She fell back onto her bed, managing a smile even though not a single one of her problems had been solved. “You don’t make me miserable.”
“Well, that’s progress.”
She giggled. She’d never thought of herself as a giggler, but Sawyer had turned her into one. Could she really stand moving to that hot buggy state and that small soulless condo and living life for her grandparents?
Could she really stand to stay here and ignore their eventual decline?
“All you owe her, Alana, is to listen. You’re an adult. It’s up to you whether you want her back in your life or not. I’d be willing to bet she knows that, and knows she’s been a pretty piss-poor mother. It’s brave of her to show up and try to make it right. Maybe if you thought about it that way…”
She breathed in until her shoulders nearly touched her ears. He was right. He was very right. And very wise. And she was crazy about him. “Yes. I’ll try that. It might help, thank you.”
“And if she turns out to be looking for money or some other handout you don’t want to give her, let me know and I’ll send some boys to work her over.”
Alana burst out laughing. “Nothing like a good pounding to help people see your point of view?”
“That’s what I’ve always said. Though it hasn’t worked on you yet.”
“Ha. You’re hardly a pounder.” She rolled over onto her stomach, stroked the pillow as if he were there with her.
“Not even a quarter pounder?”
She laughed helplessly. Even his stupid jokes were funny to her. She had it bad. “Thank you, Sawyer. I really do feel better.”
“I’m glad.” He was glad, she could hear it in his voice—his pain for her, his caring, his empathy. Did she mention she was crazy about him?
“Good luck with your complete rubber stamp of a job interview today.”
“I don’t even think there’s another candidate. My dad…” He snorted. “Well, I’m going to do a really good job. I’m not sure it’s the job he thinks I’m going to do, but…”
“Can you get the foundation board on your side for the change of course?”
“I have a pretty good chance. I did research and most of them support the arts community in Milwaukee in some way or the other, either privately or through their companies. I’ll go slowly at first. Get them behind this one project while continuing on our same path for now.”
“Then hit them when they least expect it?”
“You got it.”
She smiled dreamily. “Very schmaht.”
“And of course I’ll mention that I have a brilliant woman in mind who is trying to disentangle herself from pesky prior commitments to help me in a temporary capacity…”
Alana closed her eyes while her smile died a thousand deaths. So easy. It would be so easy to say yes, go ahead. But she wasn’t yet sure.
“Why don’t you call your grandparents, Alana. Level with them. Tell them about me, tell them about the job, tell them about your concerns for them. See what they say.”
She gave the pillow a whack of frustration. “I know what they’ll say. They’ll tell me to stay here even if they need me, even if my not coming would disappoint them terribly.”
“You might be…surprised.”
She shook her head. That wasn’t the way to go. If only there were someone else who could talk to them, someone they could be completely honest with. Like…Like…
The doorbell rang. She kept her voice calm, wished Sawyer luck with the interview, then got off the phone and glanced in the mirror, smoothed her hair, tucked in her shirt, then made a face and pulled it out again, re-messed her hair, went downstairs. Like…her mother.
At the front door, even though the doorbell rang again, she hesitated. Bless Melanie for warning h
er, but it might have been kinder to let Alana suffer through the shock than this agony of dread.
One…two…three. She reached for the doorknob at the same time she caught sight of the picture on the foyer wall. Melanie, Gran, Grandad…and Mom. Smiling. Embracing. Her family.
On that same beach, she now had pictures of Sawyer and herself. If only all six of them plus whatever disaster Melanie hooked up with could manage to live life peacefully and constructively close to each other. As a family.
She braced herself and opened the door to the mother she hadn’t seen in four years. Her first impression was that Mom looked the same. Older, but then so was Alana. Her second impression was, as Melanie had said, that her mother looked totally different. Older not only in years, but in peace and maturity, too. Tasteful makeup, and her hair was no longer a dragging mop, but cut short and attractively in a style that flattered her small features. Her dress was green and pale yellow with small patches of light blue, and it suited her reddish-blond hair and greenish eyes. It suited her person, too—youthful without being ridiculously young, like the stomach-baring jeans she’d worn on the last trip when she was pushing fifty.
Melanie’s eyes, Melanie’s hair, Melanie’s mouth, Alana’s feminine body.
“Hi.”
“Sweetheart. Alana.” Her mother’s eyes filled with tears, but she obviously knew better than to offer a hug. “Melanie told you I was coming. Warned you, I suppose.”
“Yes.” She stood a second longer, then couldn’t stand being so rude and stepped back, gesturing her mother into the house.
Of course the first thing her mother noticed was the picture. She peered at it closely for a while—still too vain for glasses—and tapped on the frame. “Happy times.”
“Mmm.” She wasn’t going to commit one way or the other. That had been a happy time, yes, but mostly because there was so much empty-of-Mom time surrounding it.
“The house looks good. Clean. You must have done that.” She turned suddenly. Alana had forgotten the way she darted and swooped, like a hummingbird. Or a wasp. “Who’s in my old room?”
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