If anything, he frowned more.
Lilah had a very bad feeling about her court date.
“WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED to find you two boys here?” Noreen announced her entrance into the kitchen with a cheerful hello. “There’s also a mango cheesecake in the refrigerator that I made last night. I know it’s your favorite, Press.” She whisked her way to the center island where she deposited her BlackBerry and a hefty set of keys next to the ever-present fruit bowl.
“I won’t say no,” Press replied and eagerly hustled to the refrigerator. “I don’t care if you’re not hungry. You’ve got to taste this, Matt. It’s amazing.”
Noreen beamed. “Use the larger dessert plates—the Italian ones. I don’t want you to shortchange yourselves.” Then she pivoted neatly on her cross trainers and beheld Mimi. “There’s more than enough if you want some, too. I’m so delighted that you decided to stay with us for a few days, even with all this construction. Right now they’re working on the new guest bedroom, and the dust and noise is almost intolerable.” On cue, a power saw whirred into action and a staple gun beat out a steady tattoo.
Mimi growled deep within her throat. “I’m staying here because this is my house, too.”
“Of course.” Noreen bit her bottom lip. “If I may be candid…?”
Mimi nodded but still managed to frown.
“It’s just that I know you haven’t always felt entirely comfortable staying here, but I’m hoping that will change.” She whipped off her tight-fitting warm-up jacket, revealing a turquoise tank top with built-in bra, and started fanning herself. “I don’t know if it’s perimenopause or just the aftereffects of the workout, but I am sweating up a storm.” She rolled her r’s lightly.
Noreen’s version of sweating appeared to be a dewy glow, Mimi thought. No unattractive wet circles under the armpits for her. And what was particularly annoying, seeing as Noreen appeared to be coming from the gym—The gym! Who had time to go to the gym?—was that she looked as neat as a pin. The scrunchie anchoring her ponytail still gripped each hair precisely in place, setting off the diamond studs in her ears to perfection. Two carats, at least.
“You work out?” Mimi asked, not really caring but still retaining the vestiges of good manners that her mother had emphasized so much.
“Yeah. I take Zumba classes three times a week.”
Mimi didn’t have the faintest idea what she was talking about.
Noreen got up. “Let me just get some water.”
To Mimi’s irritation, she didn’t grab some plastic bottle of designer water from the fridge, but instead cupped her hands under the sink and drank right from the faucet.
“Don’t forget to put your dishes in the sink when you’re done.” Noreen looked over at Press and Matt. The two were gobbling down two humongous pieces of cheesecake.
“This is amazing, Mrs. Lodge,” Matt said between bites.
“It’s Press’s favorite. He fell in love with it when the family took a trip to Australia. I did an internet search and found a couple of recipes, which I combined to make this one. I think it came out nicely.” She eyed Press.
He swallowed and nodded. “As good as the one we had at the teahouse outside Kakadu,” he said, referring to the national park in the Northern Territory that was pure Crocodile Dundee country.
Mimi sniffed. This was the first she’d heard about any family trip to Australia. Not that her schedule—or her inclination—would have allowed her to join in.
Noreen seemed to sense her discomfort. “I’m sorry you couldn’t come with us. It was our honeymoon, and over Conrad’s objections, I insisted that it had to be a family affair. You unfortunately couldn’t make the wedding, and I assumed the honeymoon was out of the question, too. In retrospect, I’m sorry if I jumped to the wrong conclusion.”
Mimi remembered that she’d thrown away the engraved invitation on sight. “I was in Iraq at the time, as I recall. I didn’t have time for fun and games.”
Press looked up. “You don’t need to be so damn snotty about it.”
“Language, Press.” Noreen gave him a schoolteacher’s glare.
“Sorry. So darn snotty,” he corrected.
“And lose the attitude or you can kiss that cake goodbye,” Noreen chastised, wiping her wet hands on the sides of her black leggings.
The woman lacked love handles and any sign of cellulite, as far as Mimi could tell. She didn’t even have those turkey-waddle upper arms that Mimi was starting to detect in herself. That was all pretty awe inspiring, not to mention the fact that she was the first person she had ever heard reprimand her half brother, or “Prince Press,” as she sometimes thought of him.
Noreen faced Mimi again. “Your absence was noticed, but, between you and me, there were more than enough toasts to go around. Besides, you know the old Irish saying?”
“Which one is that?”
“That the Irish don’t want anyone to wish them well. They want everyone to wish their enemies ill instead.” She laughed. “Besides, what you were doing is so much more important. I can’t imagine the courage it takes to be a combat reporter.”
Mimi blinked. Maybe it was time she actually got to know Noreen?
“Actually, speaking of courage, I think it would be a fabulous idea to get together with your friend Lilah again. I want to hear so much more about what she does and discuss some ideas I have.”
So much for her brush with glory, Mimi thought. Still, she was grown-up enough not to pout. “You can join the line. Matt here is first. But, you know, if you need to talk about Africa, th—”
The noise of multiple staple guns grew suddenly louder, preventing any reasonable conversation.
Noreen leaned toward her. She put her hand to her ear in frustration.
“What I was trying to say,” Mimi shouted, “is there’s always me.”
By the time she’d hurled out the last word, the construction noise had stopped.
Followed almost immediately by the sound of footsteps drawing to a halt behind her.
“Strange. When have I heard those self-centered words before?” a critical male voice inquired.
Mimi’s jaw dropped open. She turned slowly, and raised her chin defiantly. “Fancy meeting you here,” she said without the slightest hint of joy.
“Are you implying I shouldn’t be here?” said the distinguished-looking man. With a full head of slicked-back salt-and-pepper hair and a pinstripe suit to match, he balanced his leather briefcase on one of the stools by the island. “When last I checked, the property tax bill was made out to me,” he replied, compressing his nostrils against his aquiline nose.
Press grabbed Matt’s empty plate and rose. “Time we headed out. Tony will be waiting for us.”
Mimi narrowed her eyes. “Coward,” she grumbled softly as the two scampered out the door. Then she looked at the man she’d spent the better part of twenty years trying to avoid—those twenty following the first ten of absolute childhood adoration.
She studied him, refusing to give an inch. Did he look older than she remembered him? A little thickening around the waist? His eyes more deep-set and not quite so clear? A few broken capillaries in the skin on his cheeks?
She wanted him to be weak. Vengeful as she was, she might have even hoped to see signs of some debilitating condition. And she yearned to be able to say, “Oh, how the mighty have fallen.” But except for the expected signs of middle age, he looked as fit and imposing as always. Which was unfair, totally unfair.
She stood, shoulders back. “Just because you pay the bills, doesn’t mean you’ve ever lived here, Father,” Mimi said and stormed out of the kitchen.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE BALL BOUNCED THROUGH the legs of the shortstop and trickled out to left field where the player picked up
the ball and threw it clean over the head of the first baseman. The laughing batter, a woman from Lilah’s class at Grantham whom she remembered as a total stoner but who had earlier informed her that she was now a thoracic surgeon in Cincinnati, scampered to second base. There was much clapping and cheering from the stands and sidelines.
A beer was thrust into Lilah’s hand. “The winning strategy appears to be to hit the ball on the ground,” her father, Walt, quipped. He squished next to Lilah on the bottom row of the bleachers and took a sip from his own plastic cup.
The tradition of the current year’s graduating class playing the tenth reunion class was long-standing at Grantham. Many crocodile tears and much cheap beer were annually spilled over the outcome, and the manager of the winning team claimed the right to wear the trophy—a goofy lion’s tail made of unknown fibers.
“What? None for me?” asked the woman to her father’s right.
“Why, Daphne, you never drink beer,” Walt said with a surprised tone.
“Don’t be ridiculous! I always drink beer at baseball games,” she retorted, adjusting her hand-knit cardigan sweater. A single horn-shaped button held the moss-green top together in the front.
“But you never go to baseball games,” Walt countered.
“A technicality,” she said with the authority of a first-grade teacher, which is precisely what she’d been before becoming principal of the elementary school on Orcas Island. She stared at her husband, batting her lashes with hauteur, and waited. As a complete and welcome surprise to Lilah, her mother had finagled the time to join her father on the trip.
He laughed. “Okay, no need to spell it out. I’ll go get you a beer. Meanwhile, guard this one with your life,” he said to Lilah. “I don’t trust her.” He winked and pointed to his wife.
“I could use a beer, too, so why don’t you let me?” Justin offered, springing up from the raised seating behind Lilah.
She could feel his knees brush up against her shirt as he rose. She looked down at the sneaker that he placed next to her as he sprang down gracefully onto the grass. She opened her mouth, and realizing she was about to sigh, she snapped it shut and sucked in the sides of her cheeks.
“Why don’t you both go on the mission?” Daphne suggested. “Consider it part of your male hunter-gatherer role,” she said with a laugh.
Justin smiled imploringly at Lilah’s mother. “Would you like some chips or pretzels, too?” Then he zeroed in on Lilah. “Anything else?” The corner of his mouth twitched.
Lilah shook her head. She didn’t really want to voice out loud what she wanted.
Daphne patted her rounded stomach. “That’s okay. I’m saving myself for the pig roast.” The two men took off and Daphne slid closer to her only child. “Walt knows it’s all a ploy so that I can sit next to you, but he also knows better than to complain.”
“He’s always had a way with strangers,” Lilah observed, admiring Justin as he easily chatted to the gathering of soon-to-be graduates and the alums. Almost reluctantly she shifted her gaze to her father, his gray hair curling over the collar of his barn jacket, his face deeply lined and tanned from hours on the water. He was busy regaling her surgeon classmate with some story.
Daphne chuckled. “It’s true. The man is a natural-born charmer. Is it any wonder he took up the charter boat business?”
Lilah did a double take until she realized that her mother had mistakenly thought her comment referred to her father. “I can’t imagine him doing anything else,” she responded.
It was true. Lilah’s father had been an engineer for Boeing, devising the complicated computer models for designing airplanes. Then one Friday evening when Lilah was eight, he walked in the house after flying his Cessna from Seattle to the island and announced, “That’s it! I’ve had it. No more corporate life for me.”
Daphne, who’d been fixing dinner in the kitchen of their cottage overlooking the water, had looked up from the sink and said, “I’ve always said that life’s too short to keep doing something you don’t love. But tell me. What do you plan to do instead? Read mystery stories all day?” She hadn’t shown the least bit of worry in her face or her voice as she continued to peel potatoes.
Lilah had many memories of her mother peeling potatoes.
Her husband had crossed the room and put his arm around her shoulder, a gesture that didn’t require him to raise his arm that high. Her mother barely reached five feet two, while her dad was a strapping six feet. He dropped a kiss on the top of her head and together they looked out the window over the sink. “We’re lucky to live here, aren’t we?” It was late spring and the sun was beginning to set. Light dappled the water with iridescent splotches. Beyond the blanket of fir trees that covered the rocky soil down to the shoreline, Mount Baker stood supreme in the distance. There was a moment or two when no one talked and her mother had moved to put the pot up to boil.
And that had been the start of her father’s business taking tourists on whale-watching tours. From one boat he’d expanded to four, hiring biology grad students and naturalists to work for him in the summer months when the demand was high. But even as the business grew, Walt found occasion to go out on a boat twice a week. Like her mother said, he was a people person—who right now was making all-new friends as he filled the large plastic cups.
Daphne reached for the beer, took a sip and made a face. “Now I know why I never come to baseball games. Here.” She passed the cup back, glanced over her shoulder to check on Walt again, and then hunched close to her daughter. “Quick, while your father is out of earshot, are you sure you’re all right? When Justin picked us up at the airport, saying that you’d been waylaid when your car was rear-ended, I have to tell you I was more than a little concerned.” Her eyes roamed Lilah for signs of injury.
Lilah shook her head and focused on Mimi stepping into the batter’s box. That didn’t prevent her from watching Justin out of the corner of her eye. He bent down as a woman stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek. Lilah felt a sudden pang of jealousy. She turned quickly to her mother. “I’m fine. Really,” she said, to reassure herself as much as in response to Daphne’s question. “It was just a minor accident, more paperwork than anything. And the car rental agency was very understanding.” Without even thinking about it, Lilah rubbed the back of her neck.
“Are you sure you don’t have whiplash? Sometimes these things can come on you after the fact. Maybe that’s the reason you declined to play in the game, which looks like such fun, dear.”
The pitcher threw a slow arching ball, and Mimi went after it, shifting her weight forward with true athletic grace. There was a loud crack as the metal bat made contact.
Their team manager led the cheers. He was a member of the State Department’s policy committee for Latin America who was sporting a T-shirt that read Diplomats Never Kiss and Tell. At the same time, he looked down at his lineup card. “Hey, Justin, where are you?” he shouted as he continued to clap away. The man had clearly mastered multitasking.
Lilah tried not to obviously stare as Justin hustled over to him. She was becoming obsessive—which was positively ridiculous. So instead, she followed the flight of the ball that Mimi had walloped but good. She held up her hands, ready to clap. “Mom, I’m not going to say it again. I’m fine. The only reason I’m not playing is because we had too many people and with my lack of hand-eye coordination, I thought for the good of the team I’d simply serve as a substitute. Remember Dad’s attempts to teach me fly-fishing?”
Her mother patted her on the leg. “It’s hard to forget.”
The right fielder took off—the lion’s tail attached to his cap—and made a final dive with his outstretched glove. Time stopped for what seemed an eternity. All heads turned, mouths opened. Mimi glanced over her shoulder as she rounded third.
“Well, it looks like only one of our brav
e warriors is returning,” Daphne announced.
But Lilah’s focus was on the game. The outfielder slid on the grass. The ball tipped the edge of his oversize mitt, hung precariously in, then out. He squeezed the glove together.
And it slipped in.
His young teammates jumped from the benches and ran out to congratulate him, sloshing beer as they raised him from the grass and doused him ceremoniously.
The opposing team members shook their heads and decried the cruelty of fate.
Deflated, Lilah turned back to her mother. “What did you say?”
“I said that—”
“Justin apologized, but he’s up to bat soon,” her father interrupted as he trotted over to join them. “Maybe he will avenge the honor of you and your classmates?”
“We can only hope,” she replied with a smile. Honor was the last thing on Lilah’s mind where Justin was concerned. And frankly, she could do without her classmates at the moment.
A dejected Mimi headed toward the bench. “Hi, Mrs. Evans. What a surprise. I’m glad you could make it. I didn’t think you could get away.” Mimi bent over to give her a kiss on the cheek. She rocked back on her heels. “And, Mr. Evans, you look great. That hit you got in the first inning is the only thing keeping us in the game.” She gave him a hug.
He juggled the plastic cups. “Yes, your manager was kind enough to let me be in the starting lineup. If I didn’t have a bad shoulder, I’d have stayed in the game. I can’t tell you how irritating it is.” He held out a beer to his wife. “As you requested.”
“Why don’t you give it to Mimi? I think she needs it more than I do.”
“Thanks. Just what the doctor ordered.” Mimi took a large gulp.
Lilah couldn’t help thinking how cute her parents were and how lucky she was. “And, Mom, what Mimi said about you making this surprise visit? I thought you were up to your eyeballs in end-of-the-year commitments and graduation stuff for your school right now. And I just wanted to say again how much it means to me that you came.”
On Common Ground (Harlequin Super Romance) Page 11