by Dorie Graham
“Didn’t she take a sculpting class once a long time ago?”
“You and Tess were just starting school. The two of you would get into it sometimes and we’d find this stuff all over the place.”
Erin smiled as the memory washed over her. Sometimes she forgot all the good times from her childhood. It was nice to be reminded. “I’d forgotten. She liked it, didn’t she—the sculpting?”
“Maggie likes anything having to do with art. She likes to paint better, but I figured this might be easier for her as she goes along.”
“What did she say when you gave it to her?”
“She said thank you, then shoved it in the cabinet. But I know she’ll bring it out one of these days. She’s still painting.” He gestured toward the covered canvas near the window. “Some days go better than others. When she has an off painting day, maybe she’ll turn to the clay. I want her to know she has options.”
The tenderness in his voice sent a ripple of warmth through Erin. If she ever found a man to love her the way Thomas loved Maggie, she’d count herself blessed.
“I’m so glad she has you, Thomas.”
“Yeah, me, too. Hell, I’m not going anywhere.”
Her stomach made another protest that had them both laughing. Thomas escorted her to the kitchen, where the rest of them had cleared away the cards and were indeed setting out a mouthwatering spread of pot roast, mashed potatoes, carrots and green beans.
“Have a seat.” Maggie placed a basket smelling of warm bread on the table in front of Erin.
“That smells too good to resist,” Erin said as she took one of the soft rolls.
Tess settled beside her and passed her the butter as the rest took their seats. “Filling up on those carbs, I see. Is my little sister still sporting a big appetite?”
Ignoring her, Erin nearly moaned in ecstasy as she bit into the buttered roll. “This is incredible. Aunt Sophie, did you make these?”
“That I did. I popped them out of the freezer, into the oven.”
Thomas passed Erin a platter of the sliced beef. “Here you go, hon, try some of this.”
The clink of dishes and the scrape of silverware filled the air as everyone heaped healthy portions on their plates. Sophie said a quiet blessing and then they all dug in.
“This is better than Thanksgiving,” Thomas said as he sliced the tender meat. “You ladies aren’t trying to fatten me up?”
“Heaven’s no, Thomas,” Sophie said. “We want you trim and agile enough to climb up on that roof to clean the gutters.”
“Is it that time again?” he asked.
Tess leaned forward. “Aunt Sophie, what would you and Maggie do without Thomas?”
“We would have to pack it in, right, Maggie?”
Maggie placed her hand over Thomas’s. “I, for one, never intend to find out. You’re never leaving me, isn’t that right, Thomas?”
“I don’t think anyone else will have me, Mags. I’m getting too old to find me a young miss. Guess you’re stuck with me,” he said.
Laughter sounded around the table and Erin relaxed. Maybe her family wasn’t so very different from other families all across America sitting down to share the evening meal.
“So, Erin, who is this new mystery man you’re seeing?” Tess asked.
Warmth filled Erin’s cheeks. “I’d rather not talk about it.”
Disappointment swirled in Tess’s blue eyes. “You mean you dumped him already.”
“Now wait a minute,” Sophie said. “You don’t know how the gift works with your sister. Maybe it was time for her young man to move on. Just because your men had a tendency to linger doesn’t mean Erin’s men will stick around the same way.”
“I understand that. And just because the gift works one way at one time, doesn’t mean that it will continue to work in that same way. Look how Nikki’s and mine changed for us.” Tess laughed. “She couldn’t keep a man until morning until she met Dylan, who’s planning on being there for good.”
“And then there’s you and Mason,” Maggie said.
“Right. It was the opposite for me. I had all my guys and they stayed around forever, until I met Mason and then, poof, they were gone.”
“But you still have Mason.” Maggie’s eyes glistened.
“Yes, I still have Mason.”
“How is he?” Erin asked, grateful the conversation had veered away from her and Jack and hoping Tess would drop the matter.
“He’s doing great. He’s at the free clinic today. Project Mentor has found some land and the board is reviewing the plans for the youth center. Looks like it’s all coming to fruition.”
“That’s wonderful, honey.” Maggie smiled. “The two of you must be very happy.”
“We are.”
“When’s he going to make an honest woman of you?” Thomas asked.
“This is Nikki’s time. I’m in no hurry. It’ll happen when it happens.”
“But you’ve talked about it?” Aunt Sophie prompted.
Pink tinged Tess’s cheeks. “Constantly. It’s becoming a regular topic of conversation.”
“So what’s the problem?” Sophie asked. “You know Nikki would be thrilled to make this a double wedding. Think of how you could split all the costs.”
“I don’t care about a big wedding as long as my family is all there. To me, we’re already living together. We’re both committed to this relationship. A piece of paper isn’t going to change that.”
“Maybe it will for Mason.” Sophie reached across the table for the basket of rolls. “Then there’s the possibility of having children. Have you talked about that?”
Erin set aside her fork. All this talk of weddings and children seemed to kill her appetite. Would she ever have any of that?
“Mason wants children,” Tess said. “He wants four, actually, but we’ve compromised at two. I would love to have a girl and a boy, but I’ll be happy to just have two healthy kids.”
“Oh, a baby.” Maggie clasped her hands to her breast. “Wouldn’t it be just lovely to have a little one about again?” She turned to Tess. “Please say you’re planning this soon.”
Tess squeezed her hand. “Mom, we’re just starting to talk about all this. I’m not sure I’m ready to have a child. I’ve just gotten used to the Project Mentor teens. Truly the thought of having a little helpless baby in my care twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, scares the crap out of me.”
“But we’ll help. You can drop the baby here while you and Mason are at work. Right, Sophie?”
“Sure, drop the little monster off and we’ll take care of it.”
“There, that’s settled.” Maggie beamed. “So will it be a double wedding or do you prefer to have your own ceremony?”
“Whoa, slow down. I promise I will talk some more with Mason…and…I’ll let you know if and when there’s anything to know.”
“Another wedding.” Maggie said. “How marvelous. And Erin has her young man. All my girls are happy.”
Sophie shrugged in a matter-of-fact way. “Of course they’re happy. They each have the gift. Happiness and a life of love are all part of it.”
Erin bit her lip. She should say something. She should set them straight. Again the feelings of betrayal swept over her. Somehow accepting the gift seemed to diminish all the tormented memories of never having a real home, of being taunted by classmates and of never having her own family understand her. But these things had happened and the memory of them stung. Why couldn’t they go back to the days when she’d been oblivious to their family heritage?
They all thought she had the gift. She sat at the table with them and she was certainly related to them according to her birth certificate, but she had never felt like a real member of this family. She was different from them. She was a fraud. As far as being a true McClellan, she was faking it.
11
“JACK!” GRACE LANGSTON swept her arms around her son and held him close. “I was worried. I thought you might not make it.”
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“You knew I’d come.” Jack pulled back to look at his mother.
Wisps of hair had escaped the ponytail that held her honey-blond hair. Though worry lines marked her brow, her eyes were the same bright blue they’d always been and her figure just as trim. At fifty-one she was still a beautiful woman.
He brushed a sprinkle of flour from her cheek. “Bobby said you were cooking up a storm—that we’d need an army to eat it all.”
“Well, you know how it is when the mood strikes me.” She turned toward the counter and stove top crammed with dishes and pots of varying sizes, each issuing an aroma to tempt the appetite.
He lifted a lid and stirred the creamy pasta and vegetables. “Chicken alfredo.”
“And there’s beef stroganoff, in case you have a taste for that instead, and green-bean casserole, a Caesar salad, those little crescent rolls Stacey used to love and then there’s all the desserts.” She gestured to another counter that held a cake of some sort, a pie and a plate of brownies.
“Mom, this is a lot of food. Maybe more than usual. Is everything okay?”
She nodded, her lips pressed together. “Do you remember that sweet Alex Carver Stacey used to have over every now and then? She had the biggest crush on you for a while.”
“I remember Alex.”
“I ran into her in the grocery store the other day. She had a cart full of groceries, a huge diamond on her finger and the most beautiful baby girl riding in a carrier in the basket. She was such an angel, Jack. I wish you could have seen her.”
“Stacey would be—what?—twenty-three. Isn’t that young to have a child?”
“I was twenty-two when I had you.”
He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her to his side. “And it made you think of Stacey and what it might have been like had she lived.”
She nodded again, her lips pressed tightly together, her eyes misting. “It’s hard not to wonder. Would she have married? Had children? Been happy?”
He didn’t say anything. What could take away the pain of losing a child? He still mourned his sister.
Sometimes it was hard to believe she’d really been gone all these years, especially here in the house where they’d grown up together. The house where they’d lived when his father had died. This place had seen so much grief. Too much.
He kissed his mother’s hair. “Hey, I have an idea. Do you ever think about selling this place—moving somewhere new?”
She sighed and pulled away from him to stir one of the pots on the stove. “I’ve thought about it, yes. Your aunt Rose and I have talked about it from time to time and we even once went out with a real-estate agent and looked around.”
“Really? You didn’t find anything?”
“Oh, there was this cute little place in Pembrook Pines we both liked. We thought about it, but…”
“You didn’t want to leave.”
She glanced at him and tears glistened in her eyes. “I have so many memories here of all of us, of Stacey and your father. Yes, sometimes, like today, it’s hard. Sometimes it almost seems as though one of them might come walking through that door. I know they won’t, but here in this house, it’s like I still have a small part of them.”
She put the lid back on the pot and turned to him. “Does that make sense?”
“Sure it does.”
“Jack, I know how busy you’ve been lately, but I lost the number to that handyman. Besides, you know how I always fret about having a strange man here.”
“He’s a good man, Mom. I wouldn’t have recommended him otherwise.”
“Of course not. I’m sorry.”
Guilt filled him. “What needs fixing? I’ll look at it after dinner.”
A smile lit her face. “Thank you, dear. It’s the garage door. It’s been getting stuck.”
“I’ll take care of it, Mom.”
Was it so bad to help her? He’d pick up his plan to be less indispensable later. He couldn’t turn his back on her now. Not today.
“You’ve been so unavailable lately. I was afraid to ask.”
His stomach tightened. “You do need to learn to take care of these things yourself. I can’t always be here for you.”
“I know. I shouldn’t depend on you so much. It’s a bad habit.”
He kissed her cheek. “No worries, Mom. I’m here now. No reason why I can’t help out.”
“Thank God I have you, Jack.” She washed her hands, then wiped them on a dish towel. “Everything’s ready. Why don’t you go get your aunt and your brother? They were in the den watching whatever game’s on today.”
As Jack took out the trash later that evening, he stared up at the night sky and cursed silently to himself. The tightening in his chest had returned and had gotten worse throughout the night.
He stifled the impulse to call Erin, though he longed just to hold her again. He needed to give her at least the night to calm down and think. Surely she didn’t believe she actually made men sick.
She had the magic.
He felt it every time he was with her. If for some reason the sickness accompanied her magic, then so be it. He’d ralph a thousand times to be with her once. She was worth it.
He turned to go into the house. It was late. He needed to get home and get some rest. The day had been stressful, first with Erin, then his mother and this house with all its memories. He needed to go home and catch some shut-eye, give his body a chance to mend.
In the morning he’d talk to Erin. He hadn’t had trouble with his heart the entire time he’d been with her. She definitely had the magic. Every cell of his being felt the truth in that. Maybe if she came back, she could truly heal him. Then he wouldn’t have to tell his mother, who’d already lost first a husband, then a daughter, that her son might be next.
“HI.” ERIN SCOOTED OVER on the porch swing as Tess settled beside her.
Crickets chirped in the night air and a car rolled by along the quiet street. Tess spread one of Aunt Sophie’s big shawls around both of them to stave off the slight chill. “Thought you had left.”
“I would have said goodbye.”
“That’s good to know, considering that none of us knew you were moving until after the fact. Then you moved way up there past Boca. If we were sensitive types, we might think you were getting as far away from the rest of us as you could.”
“Good thing you’re not the sensitive type then.”
They sat in silence for a moment. Erin pushed against the floorboard to set the swing rocking. “I was going to leave, but it was so nice out here.”
“I have always loved Aunt Sophie’s house. There were times when we were growing up when I wanted us to live here.”
“Me, too. But we practically did anyway.”
“Not quite,” Tess said. “We always had to leave eventually. You probably don’t remember, but Nikki used to pitch the biggest fits.”
“She always wanted a home like this.”
“Well, now she has it.”
“And so do you.” A feeling of wretchedness stole over Erin. She gazed off up the street. “So you and Mason will probably tie the knot, too.”
“I think so.”
“Why haven’t you said yes?”
“I don’t know exactly. I’m sure I will. We have a life plan to stick together through thick and thin. I feel like we’re already married.”
“So you’ll say yes when you’re ready to have children?”
“I think so, though Mom never felt marriage was a necessity along those lines. I think we turned out okay, thanks to Thomas and Aunt Sophie, but there’s no way Mason is going to have children with me if I don’t marry him first.”
“I like Mason. I’m truly happy for you.”
Tess’s smile was full of affection. “Thanks.” She nudged Erin. “So how about you? Is this guy Mr. Right or Mr. Right Now?”
“You’re going to keep asking until I tell you about him, aren’t you?”
“I just want my baby sister to be happy. Is that so b
ad?”
“I don’t think I can be happy in the sense you and Nikki are,” Erin said.
“That’s not true. We’ve both proven that the gift doesn’t keep us from settling down with just one man. It’s happened with Nikki and me. There’s no reason it can’t happen with you. It’s just a matter of finding the right partner to channel your particular energy.”
“The right conduit.”
“Exactly, which brings me to another closely related subject. I think I know how we can help Mom,” Tess said.
“How?”
“Thomas. He’s the right conduit.”
“Thomas? What are you saying?” Erin asked.
“I’m saying that I believe Thomas can heal Maggie’s sight.”
“Thomas? He’s a healer?”
“No, he’s the right conduit, like you said. This is just a theory, but I think it will work. Nikki and I have been talking about it and she thinks the same thing.” Tess gave the swing another push.
“You two are always cooking something up. I’m not sure I want to be a part of this.”
“Not even if it will fix her optic nerves or whatever is failing in there? Have you noticed how sometimes she gets that unfocused look? I think it’s getting worse.”
“She stumbled on the stairs when I brought her home the other day. It really upset her. She said she’s taking classes for the visually impaired.”
“That tears me up. Don’t you want to do something?” Tess asked.
“Of course I do, but I don’t see how you think Thomas is the answer.”
“There’s always been a thing between them. I’ve never really understood it,” Tess said. “She goes off with all these other men. They have never slept together, but he’s always there for her.”
“I know. I want a Thomas. Do you think he’s been with other women since he’s met Maggie, though? I hate to think he hasn’t.”
“I remember once they were arguing and Aunt Sophie said it was because Mom didn’t approve of someone he was seeing, so I think he has, but he’s kept it quiet. I don’t think he’s seeing anyone now. I put out some feelers earlier.”