by Nora Roberts
“She’s got a mouth on her, Bri.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“Shall we let her get by with it?”
He glanced at his friend. “Not a chance.”
She squealed when they lunged. She could have been quicker, if she’d wanted to, but put up a good wriggling fight as her father grabbed her legs and Johnno hooked his hands under her arms.
“Into the brink, I’d say.” Johnno tossed back his head so that his hat landed in the sand. Then keeping pace with Brian raced to the water. Emma held her breath, and took them under with her.
SHE’D NEVER BEEN happier in her life. It had all been perfect, completely, wonderfully perfect. Days in the sun, nights listening to Johnno and her father play. Cheating with Johnno at cards. Walks along the beach with her father. She had rolls of film to develop, pockets of memory to store.
So how could she sleep? Emma wondered. It was her last night on Martinique, her last night with her father. Her last night of freedom. Tomorrow she would be on a plane, headed back to school, where there were rules for everything. What time to get up, what time to sleep, what to wear, what to think.
With a sigh, she shook her head. It would be summer soon, she reminded herself. And she would go to London. She would see Stevie and P.M. then as well. She could watch while they recorded.
She’d get through the next few weeks somehow. She had to. It was so important to Da, she thought, that she get her education, that she be safe and well looked after. Well, the nuns did that, she decided. There was hardly a moment in the day when you weren’t looked after.
She could hear the water. Smell it. Going with instinct, she dragged on a pair of shorts. It was late. Even the guards would be asleep. She would go to the beach alone for her last night. Alone. She could sit and watch the water, and no one would watch her.
She hurried out, down the hall of the rented villa, down the stairs. Holding her breath, she slipped out of the tall glass doors and ran.
She gave herself only an hour. When she tiptoed back to the villa, she was soaking wet. It hadn’t been enough to watch the water after all. She came in quietly, with the idea to make a dash to her room. When she heard her father’s voice, she sunk into the shadows.
“Just keep it down, luv. Everyone’s asleep.”
There was a feminine giggle, then a whisper, thickly French. “I’m quiet as a mouse.”
Brian came into the room with a curvy little brunette wrapped around him. She was wearing a hot-pink sarong and carrying gold high heels. “I’m so glad you came in tonight, chéri.” She ran her hands up his sides, then hooking them tightly around his neck, brought his mouth to hers.
Embarrassed and confused, Emma shut her eyes. But she could hear the quick, wet moans.
“Mmm. You’re in a hurry.” The French woman laughed, working her way under Brian’s shirt. “I’ll give you your money’s worth, chéri, don’t you worry. But you promised me a party first.”
“Right.” And that would help, he thought. Her hair was dark and sleek, but her eyes were brown instead of green. After a couple of lines it wouldn’t matter. Nothing would. He went to a table and, unlocking a drawer, took out a small white vial. “Party time.”
The brunette clapped her hands. Hips swinging, she walked to the glass coffee table and knelt.
Appalled, Emma watched her father set up the cocaine. Straws, mirrors, the razor blade. His movements were competent, practiced. His head bent close to the brunette’s.
“Ah.” The French woman leaned back, eyes brilliant. She dipped a fingertip into the dust on the mirror then rubbed it over her gums. “Delicious.”
Brian hooked a finger in her sarong, drew her to him. He felt incredible. Young, powerful, invincible. He was hard and ready and full of needs. He bent her back, intending to take her quickly the first time. After all, he’d paid for all night.
“Da.”
His head whipped up. He focused, but it seemed like a dream. His daughter, with shadows at her back, her face pale, her eyes dark and wet, her hair streaming over her shoulders. “Emma?”
“Emma?” The French woman purred the name. “Who is this Emma?” Annoyed that Brian’s attention had shifted, she twisted around. There was speculation, then interest. “So, you like children, too. ça va. Come then, pretty one. Join the party.”
“Shut up, goddamn you. She’s my daughter.” He struggled up. “Emma … I thought you were in bed.”
“Yes.” Her voice was flat. “I know.”
“You shouldn’t be down here.” He stepped forward to take her arm. “You’re cold. And wet,” he said, fighting the sharp-edged buzz of the coke. “Where have you been?”
“I went down to the beach.” Avoiding his eyes she tried to turn toward the stairs.
“Alone? You went down to the beach alone? At night?”
“Yes.” She whirled back to him, gritting her teeth at the scent of the French woman’s perfume. “I went down to the beach alone. Now I’m going to bed.”
“You know better.” He took both her arms now, shaking her. “You know you’re not to go anywhere without the guards. For Christ’s sake you’ve been swimming. What if you’d had a cramp?”
“Then I’d have drowned.”
“Come, chéri, let the child go to bed.” The brunette prepared another line. “This is a party.”
“Shut the fuck up,” he shouted at her. She only shrugged and snorted. “Don’t you ever do this again,” he demanded, turning back to Emma. “Do you understand?”
“Oh yes. I understand.” She jerked away from him, eyes dark and dry. “I wish to God I didn’t, but I understand.”
“We’ll talk about this later.”
“About my walk on the beach, or about this?” She gestured toward the woman still kneeling at the table.
“This is none of your business.”
“No.” Her lips curved, but her voice was flat and dull. “No, you’re quite right about that. I’ll just go to bed then and leave you with your whore and your drugs.”
He slapped her. His arm swung up before he knew it would. His hand whipped across her face before he could stop it. He saw the mark of it on her cheek, the red flag of violence he so detested. Stunned, he looked down at his own hand … and saw his father’s.
“Emma—”
She stepped back in a quick, jerky motion, shaking her head. Rarely had he ever raised his voice to her, and now, the first time she questioned him, the first time she criticized, he struck her. Turning, she bolted up the stairs.
Johnno let her pass. He stood, halfway down, shirtless, cotton sweatpants low on his hips. His hair was disheveled, his eyes tired. “Let me talk to her,” he said before Brian could rush by. He took a strong grip on his friend’s arm. “She won’t hear you now, Bri. Let me hold her hand for a while.”
He nodded. His palm stung where it had connected with her face. His baby’s face. “Johnno—I’ll make it up to her.”
“Sure.” Johnno squeezed his shoulder, then gestured. “You’d best tidy up your mess down here.”
Her eyes were dry. Emma sat, heedless of her wet clothes, on the edge of her bed. But she didn’t cry. The world, the beautiful world she had built around her father had crumbled. She was lost again.
She bolted up when the door opened, then sank back to the bed when she saw Johnno. “I’m all right,” she told him. “I don’t need anyone to kiss it and make it better.”
“Okay.” He came in nonetheless, and sat beside her. “Want to yell at me awhile?”
“No.”
“That’s a relief. Why don’t you get out of those wet things?” He put his hands over his eyes, then spread his fingers and grinned. “No peeking.”
Because it was something to do, she rose and went to her closet for a robe. “You knew, didn’t you?”
“That your father liked women? Yes. I guess I first suspected it when we were twelve.”
“I’m not joking, Johnno.”
So, she wouldn’t give him
an easy way out. “Okay. Listen, Emmy luv, a man’s entitled to sex. It just isn’t something he likes to flaunt in front of his daughter.”
“He paid her. She was a whore.”
“What do you want me to say?” When she stopped in front of him, wearing a white terry-cloth robe, he took her hands. She looked pitifully young now, her hair wet and sleek around her head and shoulders, her eyes dark and disillusioned. “Should I tell you the nuns are right, and it’s a sin? They probably are. But this is real life, Emma, and people sin in real life. Brian was lonely.”
“Then it’s all right to have sex with a stranger if you’re lonely.”
“This is why God saw to it that I wouldn’t be a father,” Johnno murmured. He tried again, the best way he knew. With the truth. “Sex is easy, and it’s empty, no matter how exciting it is at the moment. Making love with someone is a whole different experience. You’ll find that out for yourself. When feelings are involved, I guess you could practically say it’s holy.”
“I don’t understand. I don’t think I want to. He went out, found that woman and paid for her. He had cocaine. I saw it. I know Stevie … but I never believed Da. I never believed it.”
“There are all kinds of loneliness, Emma.”
“Do you do it, too?” She set her jaw.
“I have.” He hated admitting a weakness to her. Strange, but until that moment when he had to confess his own flaws, he hadn’t realized how much he loved her. “I probably haven’t missed much. The sixties, Emma. You had to be there.” He laughed a little, and drew her down beside him. “I stopped because I didn’t like it. I didn’t like giving up my control for a quick buzz. That doesn’t make me a hero. It’s easier for me. I don’t have the pressure Brian does. He takes everything to heart, I take everything as it comes. The group’s what’s important to me, you see. With Bri, it’s the world. It always has been.”
She could still see him, her father, with his head bent over the line of white powder. “That doesn’t make it right.”
“No.” He leaned his head on hers. “I guess not.”
The tears came now, hot and fast. “I didn’t want to see him like that. I didn’t want to know. I still love him.”
“I know. He loves you, too. We all do.”
“If I hadn’t gone out, if I hadn’t wanted to be alone, none of this would have happened.”
“You wouldn’t have seen it, but it would still have been there.” He kissed her hair. “Now you just have to accept that he’s not perfect.”
“It’s not going to be the same, is it, Johnno?” On a sigh, she leaned against him. “It’s not going to be quite the same ever again.”
Chapter Eighteen
New York, 1982
WHAT DO YOU think he’s going to say?” Marianne hauled her suitcase out of the cab while Emma paid off the driver.
“I imagine he’ll say hello.”
“Come on, Emma.”
Emma pushed back her hair as the late evening wind tugged at it. “He’ll ask what the hell we’re doing here, and I’ll tell him.”
“Then he’ll call your father and we’ll be dragged off to the gallows.”
“They don’t hang in this sute anymore.” Emma picked up her own suitcase, then drew a deep breath. New York City. It was good to be back. This time, she intended to stay.
“Gas chamber, firing squad, it’s all the same. Your father’s going to kill us both.”
Emma paused with her hand on the knob of the lobby door. “Want to back out?”
“Not on your life.” Marianne grinned, then scooped a hand through her cap of red hair. “Let’s do it.”
Emma strolled in, pausing on her way across the lobby to smile at the security guard. “Hello, Carl.”
“Miss—why, Miss McAvoy.” He set down his late-evening pastrami sandwich and beamed at her. “It’s been over a year now, hasn’t it? You’re all grown-up.”
“A college woman.” She laughed. “This is my friend Miss Carter.”
“Nice meeting you, Miss Carter.” Carl brushed crumbs from the sleeve of his uniform. “Does Mr. Donovan know you’re coming?”
“Of course.” She lied sweetly, with a smile. “Didn’t he tell you? Well, that’s Johnno. We’ll only be staying for a couple of days.” She moved to the elevators as she spoke. It would be best if he didn’t buzz upstairs and let the cat out of the bag. “I’m going to school here now.”
“I thought you were going to some fancy university in London.”
“I transferred.” She winked at him. “You know my heart’s in New York.”
As the doors closed in front of them, Marianne rolled her eyes. “Very smooth, McAvoy, very smooth.”
“Most of it was true.” She laughed, then let out a nervous breath. “I’ve been eighteen for two months. It’s time I tried my independence.”
“I’ve been eighteen for seven months and my father still pitched a fit when I transferred to NYCC. Well, it’s done. Tomorrow we’re going to start looking for an apartment. Then we’re going to live just the way we always planned it.”
“Yeah. Well, over the first hurdle.” They stepped out of the elevator and walked down the wide, quiet hall to Johnno’s condo. “Let me do the talking,” Emma warned. At Marianne’s bland look, she sighed. “I mean it. The last time you did the talking we ended up polishing pews for three Saturdays running.”
“I’m an artist, not a lawyer,” she muttered, then put on her best smile when the door opened.
“Johnno!” Emma launched herself into his arms. “Surprise,” she said, then kissed him.
“Hold up.” He was only half dressed, and groggy with after-dinner wine and sleep. With his hands on her shoulders, he held Emma back. She’d grown tall. In the last eighteen months she’d sprung up like a willow, slim, graceful, with hints of elegance. Her pale blond hair was scooped back with combs, so that it fell full and straight to brush her shoulders. She wore snug faded jeans with a skinny ribbed shirt tucked into them. Wide gold hoops swung at her ears. “For Christ’s sake, you look like an off-duty model.” He shifted his gaze to Marianne. “And here’s my favorite redhead. What have you done to your hair?” He rubbed a hand over Marianne’s short spiked do.
“It’s what’s happening now,” she told him, then leaned her cheek in for a kiss. “Did we get you up?”
“Yes. I suppose I should let you in before I ask what the hell you’re doing here.” He glanced down. “With suitcases.”
“Oh, Johnno, it’s so good to be here. The minute I got in the cab at the airport, I felt at home.” She dropped her suitcase, then took a quick spin around the room. She plopped onto the couch, rubbed a hand over the oyster-colored cushions, then popped up again. “How are you?”
“Uh-uh.” He knew her well enough to recognize the restless energy as nerves. “I’ll ask the questions. Drink?”
“Yes, please.”
He walked over to a circular glass bar and rooted out two soft drinks. “Is there a school holiday I don’t know about?”
“Liberation Day. Marianne and I have both transferred to NYCC.”
“Have you now?” He poured Diet Pepsi into two glasses. “Strange Brian didn’t mention it.”
“He doesn’t know.” Emma took the two glasses and passed one to Marianne along with a warning look. “Before you say anything, I’d like you to listen.”
In response, he gave her ear a quick tug. “How did you slip by Sweeney and the other one?”
“A brown wig, horn-rimmed glasses, and a limp.”
“Very clever.” Johnno took her glass and sipped, not certain he was comfortable in the role of avuncular confidant. “Do you have any idea how worried Brian’s going to be?”
There was a flash of regret in her eyes, then it hardened into determination. “I intend to call him, and explain everything. My mind’s made up, Johnno. Nothing you or he or anyone says can change it.”