by Nora Roberts
"I can eat fifty pieces of pizza," Luke announced as the pie was divvied up. "And after, five gallons of popcorn."
"Then you'll puke!"
She started to remind Gavin that puke wasn't proper meal conversation, but Logan just plopped a slice
on his own plate. "Be smarter to puke after the pizza to make room for the popcorn."
The wisdom and hilarity of this sent the boys off into delighted gagging noises.
"Hey!" Luke's face went mutinous. "Gavin has more pepperoni on his piece. I have two and he has three!"
As Gavin snorted and set his face into the look, Logan nodded. "You know, you're right. Doesn't seem fair. Let's just fix that." He plucked a round of pepperoni off Gavin's piece and popped it into his own mouth. "Now you're even."
More hilarity ensued. The boys ate like stevedores, made an unholy mess, and were so overstimulated
by the time they got to the theater, she expected them to start a riot.
"You've got to remember to be quiet during the movie," she warned. "Other people are here to see it."
"I'll try," Logan said solemnly. "But sometimes I just can't help talking."
The boys giggled all the way to the concession counter.
She knew some men who put on a show for a woman's children—to get to the woman. And, she thought as they settled into seats with tubs of popcorn, she knew some who sincerely tried to charm the kids because they were an interesting novelty.
Still, he seemed to be easy with them, and you had to give a man in his thirties points for at least appearing to enjoy a movie with talking monkeys.
Halfway through, as she'd expected, Luke began to squirm in his seat. Two cups of pop, she calculated, one small bladder. He wouldn't want to go, wouldn't want to miss anything. So there'd be a short, whispered argument.
She leaned toward him, prepared for it. And Logan beat her to it. She didn't hear what he said in Luke's ear, but Luke giggled, and the two of them rose.
"Be right back," he murmured to Stella and walked out with his hand over Luke's.
Okay, that was it, she decided as her eyes misted. The man was taking her little boy to pee.
She was a goner.
* * *
Two very happy boys piled into the back of Logan's car. As soon as they were strapped in, they were bouncing and chattering about their favorite parts of the movie.
"Hey, guys." Logan slipped behind the wheel, then draped his arm over the seat to look in the back.
"You might want to brace yourselves, 'cause I'm gonna kiss your mama."
"How come?" Luke wanted to know.
"Because, as you might have observed yourselves, she's pretty, and she tastes good."
He leaned over, amusement in his eyes. When Stella would have offered him a cheek, he turned her
face with one hand and gave her a soft, quick kiss on the mouth.
"You're not pretty." Luke snorted through his nose. "How come she kissed you?"
"Son, that's because I'm one fine-looking hunk of man." He winked into the rearview mirror, noted that Gavin was watching him with quiet speculation, then started the engine.
* * *
Luke was nodding off when they got to the house, his head bobbing as he struggled to stay awake.
"Let me cart him up."
"I can get him." Stella leaned in to unbuckle his seat belt. "I'm used to it. And I don't know if you
should go upstairs again."
"She'll have to get used to me." He nudged Stella aside and hoisted Luke into his arms. "Come on,
pizza king, let's go for a ride."
"I'm not tired."
"'Course not."
Yawning, he laid his head on Logan's shoulder. "You smell different from Mom. And you got harder skin."
"How about that?"
Roz wandered into the foyer as they came in. "Well, it looks like everyone had a good time. Logan, why don't you come down for a drink once you settle those boys down. I'd like to talk to the both of you."
"Sure. We'll be right down."
"I can take them," Stella began, but he was already carrying Luke up the stairs.
"I'll just get us some wine. 'Night, cutie," Roz said to Gavin, and smiled at Stella's back as she followed Logan.
He was already untying Luke's Nikes. "Logan, I'll do that. You go on down with Roz."
He continued to remove the shoes, wondering if the nerves he heard in her voice had to do with the
ghost or with him. But it was the boy standing beside her, unusually silent, who had his attention.
"Go ahead and settle him in, then. Gavin and I want to have a little conversation. Don't we, kid?"
Gavin jerked a shoulder. "Maybe. I guess."
"He needs to get ready for bed."
"Won't take long. Why don't you step into my office?" he said to Gavin, and when he gestured toward the bathroom, he saw the boy's lip twitch.
"Logan," Stella began.
"Man talk. Excuse us." And he closed the door in her face.
Figuring it would be easier on them both if they were more eye-to-eye, Logan sat on the edge of the tub. He wasn't sure, but he had to figure the boy was about as nervous as he was himself.
"Did me kissing your mama bother you?"
"I don't know. Maybe. I saw this other guy kiss her once, when I was little. She went out to dinner with him or something, and we had a babysitter, and I woke up and saw him do it. But I didn't like him so much because he smiled all the time." He demonstrated, spreading his lips and showing his teeth.
"I don't like him either."
"Do you kiss all the girls because they're pretty?" Gavin blurted out.
"Well, now, I've kissed my share of girls. But your mama's special."
"How come?"
The boy wanted straight answers, Logan decided. So he'd do his best to give them. "Because she makes my heart feel funny, in a good kind of way, I guess. Girls make us feel funny in lots of ways, but when they make your heart feel funny, they're special."
Gavin looked toward the closed door and back again. "My dad kissed her. I remember."
"It's good you do." He had an urge, one that surprised him, to stroke a hand over Gavin's hair. But he didn't think it was the right time, for either of them.
There was more than one ghost in this house, he knew.
"I expect he loved her a lot, and she loved him. She told me how she did."
"He can't come back. I thought maybe he would, even though she said he couldn't. I thought when
the lady started coming, he could come, too. But he hasn't."
Could there be anything harder for a child to face, he wondered, than losing a parent? Here he was,
a grown man, and he couldn't imagine the grief of losing one of his.
"Doesn't mean he isn't watching over you. I believe stuff like that. When people who love us have to go away, they still look out for us. Your dad's always going to look out for you."
"Then he'd see you kiss Mom, because he'd watch over her, too."
"I expect so." Logan nodded. "I like to think he doesn't mind, because he'd know I want her to be happy. Maybe when we get to know each other some better, you won't mind too much either."
"Do you make Mom's heart feel funny?"
"I sure hope so, because I'd hate to feel like this all by myself. I don't know if I'm saying this right. I never had to say it before, or think about it. But if we decide to be happy together, all of us, your dad's still your dad, Gavin. Always. I want you to understand I know that, and respect that. Man-to-man."
"Okay." He smiled slowly when Logan offered a hand. When he shook it, the smile became a grin. "Anyway, I like you better than the other guy."
"Good to know."
Luke was tucked in and sleeping when they came back in. Logan merely lifted his eyebrows at Stella's questioning look, then stepped back as she readied Gavin for bed.
Deliberately he took her hand as they stepped into the hall. "Ask him if you want to know," he said
before she could speak. "It's his business."
"I just don't want him upset"
"He seem upset to you when you tucked him in?"
"No." She sighed. "No."
At the top of the stairs, the cold blew through them. Protectively, Logan's arm came around her waist, pulling her firmly to his side. It passed by, with a little lash, like a flicked whip.
Seconds later, they heard the soft singing.
"She's angry with us," Stella whispered when he turned, prepared to stride back. "But not with them.
She won't hurt them. Let's leave her be. I've got a baby monitor downstairs, so I can hear them if they need me."
"How do you sleep up here?"
"Well, strangely enough. First it was because I didn't believe it. Now it's knowing that in some strange way, she loves them. The night they stayed at my parents' she came into my room and cried. It broke
my heart."
"Ghost talk?" Roz asked. "That's just what I had in mind." She offered them wine she'd already poured. Then pursed her lips when Stella switched on the monitor. "Strange to hear that again. It's been years since I have."
"I gotta admit," Logan said with his eyes on the monitor, "creeps me out some. More than some, to tell the truth."
"You get used to it. More or less. Where's Hayley?" she asked Roz.
"She was feeling tired—and a little blue, a little cross, I think. She's settled in upstairs with a book and a big tall glass of decaffeinated Coke. I've already talked to her about this, so..." She gestured to seats.
On the coffee table was a tray of green grapes, thin crackers, and a half round of Brie.
She sat herself, plucked a grape. "I've decided to do something a little more active about our permanent houseguest."
"An exorcism?" Logan asked, sending a sideways glance toward the monitor and the soft voice singing
out of it.
"Not quite that active. We want to find out about her history and her connection to this house. Seems
to me we're not making any real progress, mostly because we can't really figure out a direction."
"We haven't been able to spend a lot of time on it," Stella pointed out.
"Another reason for outside help. We're busy, and we're amateurs. So why not go to somebody who knows what to do and has the time to do it right?"
"Concert's over for the night." Logan gestured when the monitor went silent.
"Sometimes she comes back two or three times." Stella offered him a cracker. "Do you know
somebody, Roz? Someone you want to take this on?"
"I don't know yet. But I've made some inquiries, using the idea that I want to do a formal sort of genealogy search on my ancestry. There's a man in Memphis whose name's come up. Mitchell Carnegie. Dr. Mitchell Carnegie," she added. "He taught at the university in Charlotte, moved here a couple of
years ago. I believe he taught at the University of Memphis for a semester or two and may still give the occasional lecture. Primarily, he writes books. Biographies and so on. He's touted as an expert family historian."
"Sounds like he might be our man." Stella spread a little Brie on a cracker for herself. "Having someone who knows what he's doing should be better than us fumbling around."
"That would depend," Logan put in, "on how he feels about ghosts."
"I'm going to make an appointment to see him." Stella lifted her wineglass. "Then I guess we'll find out."
EIGHTEEN
Though he felt like he was taking his life in his hands, Harper followed instructions and tracked Hayley down at the checkout counter. She was perched on a stool, a garden of container pots and flats around her, ringing out the last customers. Her shirt—smock? tunic? he didn't know what the hell you called maternity-type clothes—was a bright, bold red.
Funny, it was the color that brought her to mind for him. Vivid, sexy red. Those spiky bangs made her eyes seem enormous, and there were big silver hoops in her ears that peeked and swung through her
hair when she moved.
With the high counter blocking the target area, you could hardly tell she was pregnant. Except her eyes looked tired, he thought. And her face was a little puffy—maybe weight gain, maybe lack of sleep. Either way, he didn't figure it was the sort of thing he should mention. The fact was, everything and anything that came out of his mouth these days, at least when he was around her, was the wrong thing.
He didn't expect their next encounter to go well either.
But he'd promised to throw himself on the sword for the cause.
He waited until she'd finished with the customers and, girding his loins, he approached the counter.
"Hey."
She looked at him, and he couldn't say her expression was particularly welcoming. "Hey. What're you doing out of your cave?"
"Finished up for the day. Actually my mother just called. She asked if I'd drive you on home when
I finished."
"Well, I'm not finished," she said testily. "There are at least two more customers wandering around,
and Saturday's my night to close out."
It wasn't the tone she'd used to chat up the customers, he noted. He was beginning to think it was the tone she reserved just for him. "Yeah, but she said she needed you at home for something as soon as
you could, and to have Bill and Larry finish up and close out."
"What does she want? Why didn't she call me?"
"I don't know. I'm just the messenger." And he knew what often happened to the messenger. "I told Larry, and he's helping the last couple of stragglers. So he's on it."
She started to lever herself off the stool, and though his hands itched to help her, he imagined she'd chomp them off at the wrists. "I can walk."
"Come on. Jesus." He jammed his hands in his pockets and gave her scowl for scowl. "Why do you
want to put me on the spot like that? If I let you walk, my mama's going to come down on me like five tons of bricks. And after she's done flattening me, she'll ream you. Let's just go."
"Fine." The truth was, she didn't know why she was feeling so mean and spiteful, and tired and achy.
She was terrified something was wrong with her or with the baby, despite all the doctor's assurances to the contrary.
The baby would be born sick or deformed, because she'd... She didn't know what, but it would be her fault.
She snatched her purse and did her best to sail by Harper and out the door.
"I've got another half hour on the clock," she complained and wrenched open the door of his car.
"I don't know what she could want that couldn't wait a half hour."
"I don't know either."
"She hasn't seen that genealogy guy yet."
He got in, started the car. "Nope. She'll get to it when she gets to it."
"You don't seem all that interested, anyway. How come you don't come around when we have our meetings about the Harper Bride?"
"I guess I will, when I can think of something to say about it."
She smelled vivid, too, especially closed up in the car with him like this. Vivid and sexy, and it made
him edgy. The best that could be said about the situation was the drive was short.
Amazed he wasn't sweating bullets, he swung in and zipped in front of the house.
"You drive a snooty little car like this that fast, you're just begging for a ticket."
"It's not a snooty little car. It's a well-built and reliable sports car. And I wasn't driving that fast. What
the hell is it about me that makes you crawl up my ass?"
"I wasn't crawling up your ass; I was making an observation. At least you didn't go for red." She opened the door, managed to get her legs out. "Most guys go for the red, the flashy. The black's probably why you don't have speeding tickets spilling out of your glove compartment."
"I haven't had a speeding ticket in two years."
She snorted.
"Okay, eighteen months, but—"
"Woul
d you stop arguing for five damn seconds and come over here and help me out of this damn car?
I can't get up."
Like a runner off the starting line, he sprinted around the car. He wasn't sure how to manage it,
especially when she was sitting there, red in the face and flashing in the eyes. He started to take her
hands and tug, but he thought he might... jar something.
So he leaned down, hooked his hands under her armpits, and lifted.
Her belly bumped him, and now sweat did slide down his back.
He felt what was in there move—a couple of hard bumps.
It was ... extraordinary.
Then she was brushing him aside. 'Thanks."
Mortifying, she thought. She just hadn't been able to shift her center of gravity, or dig down enough to
get out of a stupid car. Of course, if he hadn't insisted she get in that boy toy in the first place, she wouldn't have been mortified.
She wanted to eat a pint of vanilla fudge ice cream and sit in a cool bath. For the rest of her natural life.
She shoved open the front door, stomped inside.
The shouts of Surprise! had her heart jumping into her throat, and she nearly lost control of her increasingly tricky bladder.
In the parlor pink and blue crepe paper curled in artful swags from the ceiling, and fat white balloons danced in the corners. Boxes wrapped in pretty paper and streaming with bows formed a colorful mountain on a high table. The room was full of women. Stella and Roz, all the girls who worked at the nursery, even some of the regular customers.
"Don't look stricken, girl." Roz strolled over to wrap an arm around Hayley's shoulders. "You don't
think we'd let you have that baby without throwing you a shower, do you?"
"A baby shower." She could feel the smile blooming on her face, even as tears welled up in her eyes.
"You confe on and sit down. You're allowed one glass of David's magical champagne punch before
you go to the straight stuff."
"This is ..." She saw the chair set in the center of the room, festooned with voile and balloons, like a
party throne. "I don't know what to say."
"Then I'm sitting beside you. I'm Jolene, darling, Stella's stepmama." She patted Hayley's hand, then
her belly. "And I never run out of things to say."