Breakwater Bay (31 page)

Alden didn’t bother to answer; they both knew the reason for this early visit.

Jennifer got out of the car. She looked more pregnant than she had a few days before. He considered for a second that maybe she wasn’t feeling well and really wanted to get home. That ended before he could even finish the thought.

“So where is she?”

“Saying good-bye to Therese. She’ll be back in a minute.”

“Couldn’t she have done that yesterday?”

Alden ignored her, looking into the tinted windows for his son. Wasn’t he going to say hello? Finally the back door opened and Lucas got reluctantly out. Sauntered over.

“Hey, how was the computer museum?” Alden asked, sounding overly bright and not being able to tone it down.

“We didn’t go,” Lucas said quietly.

“Why?”

“Because we had to come pick up your delinquent daughter,” Jennifer said.

“Don’t fight,” Lucas said. “It doesn’t matter.”

The hell it didn’t. Now the bitch was punishing Lucas for her anger at Nora and him.

But the pleading look from Lucas stopped any invectives that roiled along his tongue, begging to be set free.

“Well, we can drive up and see it when you visit this summer.”

Lucas gave a quick shrug, shoved his hands in his pockets, looked at the ground.

Alden felt like he was standing in quicksand eating at his ankles, sucking him down. Sinking. Sinking.
Don’t fight it. Just let it take you.

“Here she comes,” Mark said so loudly that he could have been announcing a damn parade.

When Nora saw them all look her way, her step faltered but she kept coming. Determined. And Alden felt a swell of pride and love for his daughter. And also for the woman who had turned away and was returning home. She knew Nora was strong enough to handle what would come next.

And as much as Alden wanted to protect Nora from the hell she would face once she got in that car, he knew he couldn’t.

He couldn’t help her through her coming ordeal; he couldn’t help Meri with hers. And Lucas would hardly speak to him; his son didn’t want Alden’s help even if he could give it.

Maybe being torn between two warring parents was too much for him. And for Nora, too. She just put up a better front.

“Get in the car,” Jennifer snapped as soon as Nora reached them.

“I have to get my bags.” Without stopping, Nora went into the house and came back with suitcase and backpack.

Alden started to reach for them, but Mark beat him to it.

“You’re an ace,” Alden said to Nora. “I didn’t think you’d be able to get all those new clothes in one suitcase.”

“I didn’t have that much.” She gave him a hug, clinging like there was no tomorrow. He kissed her forehead. “Go on. I’ll see you in a few weeks.”

“Nora, you’re keeping us all waiting.”

Nora’s face twisted, but she breathed it away. She lifted her chin and, not looking at her mother, walked around the car to the backseat. Lucas slumped after her, not even mumbling a good-bye.

“Don’t expect them any time soon.” Jennifer stalked away.

Alden was too shocked to counter. But before he went after her to ask what the hell she meant, Mark stopped him. “Don’t pay attention to her; she’s just hormonal.”

“Mark, I was there before you. I know hormonal. That was just plain vindictive.”

“Well, thanks for having her.” Mark nodded and returned to the car.

Thanks for having her? She’s my daughter, you fucking twit.
He watched them drive away. He wasn’t surprised to see Nora looking out the back window. But he hadn’t expected to see Lucas, one palm to the glass. Trapped like Hansel and Gretel. An image he would not forget, and he’d be damned if that witch would do any more harm.

He stood in the yard irresolute. He wanted company and yet he didn’t. He had to do something, he just didn’t know what. He was losing his children and he couldn’t let that happen.

He finally turned and went back into the house. It was cold and uninviting. While Nora had been here, they’d opened the windows and she’d made him move upstairs, not to the master bedroom—he’d never sleep there again—but to one of the many guest rooms, none of which had seen a guest in decades.

Alden climbed the stairs; they creaked beneath his feet, or maybe it was him creaking. Down the hall to Nora’s room. She’d even made the bed after a fashion. They’d found an old comforter in one of the closets, Peter Rabbit à la Beatrix Potter. He smoothed it out, fluffed the pillow, and put it back on the bed.

The dresser had been cleared. No signs of his sixteen-year-old dervish. Except for the wrinkled bed, the room might have been unoccupied for ages.

He turned to go. The closet door was ajar, and he saw a swatch of color inside. Had she forgotten something? He opened the door.

They were hung up neatly in a row. Every one of the new things she’d bought in town with Meri.

Everything he’d bought her, she’d left behind. He reeled back. She thought he’d betrayed her by not making Jennifer let her stay, as if that were in his power. Now she was rejecting him.

He wanted to take them from the hangers and rip them to shreds, but he didn’t. That would be admitting his failure. So he gently closed the door and went to move his own things back downstairs where they belonged.

W
ell, it looks like they’re gone,” Gran said and returned from the kitchen window to sit down over a plate of cold toast.

Meri took the plate, slid the uneaten bread in the compost can, and put two more slices in the toaster. “Should I call and invite Alden to breakfast? He probably doesn’t feel like eating, but I’m sure he could use the company.”

“No. We’re going to eat our breakfast and let him stew in his indecision. Then you’re going to walk over there. And you’re going to . . . I believe the expression is . . . kick his butt.”

“Gran!” Meri laughed. “I can’t believe you just said that.”

“Well, pardon me, Miss Priss, but nothing else has worked. Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

The toast popped up. Meri buttered the pieces, handed them to Gran, then put two more pieces in for herself. “What do you think he’s indecisive about? Trying to keep Nora?”

Gran reached for the strawberry jam, put up last summer.

“Gran, I don’t think it’s so easy. He’d probably have to go back to court.”

Gran took a bite, chewed.

“Gran?”

Gran looked up, closed her eyes, opened them, and took another bite of toast.

After that they ate breakfast in silence. Finally Meri asked point-blank what she was supposed to do.

But all Gran would say was, “Think about it.”

Her grandmother wasn’t normally so vague. She was straightforward and said what she meant and felt. But evidently not today.

So Meri thought about it.

Through breakfast and on the walk toward Corrigan House, she thought about it, while preparing herself to be spurned, shrugged off, or ignored.

She wanted to be a good friend to Alden, not an obligation. She was beginning to realize their relationship had always been one sided—him giving and her receiving—even though it had been unconscious. But she didn’t want that. Had she taken him for granted so long that they would never be able to have an actual adult relationship?

And she didn’t know what Gran expected her to do. What did she mean by “kick his butt”? To punish him? Or to get him to move? And to move where? To get Nora to stay?

He was perfectly capable of doing that himself. And, besides, she’d never been able to make him do anything he didn’t want to do.

That thought stopped her right in the middle of the meadow. That wasn’t true, was it?

She’d spent her childhood, teenage years, even adulthood, wheedling, begging, demanding from him. She thought he would do anything she wanted . . . within reason, of course. But she hadn’t been so clever after all, had she?

He’d been putting up with her for all these years because of a promise he’d made as a boy.
Mom said you had all of him and she never could.

Had he jeopardized his marriage, his family, for that promise? Meri didn’t want to believe it. There were plenty of times she hadn’t needed him and didn’t even think about asking for advice. She went for long periods without thinking about him at all.

Yeah, and where did you run when your world tilted out of control?

Maybe that was what Gran meant. Kick him away, cut him loose, let him get back to his life. Maybe he’d get married again. Hopefully choose someone better than Jennifer.

That idea didn’t sit too well with her. Selfish. She’d always been selfish. She was thirty for crying out loud. She didn’t need to be protected anymore. Why didn’t he get that? Why hadn’t she?

The day was beautiful, the clouds high in the sky, a few ballooning closer to earth. Meri could just make out the little tips of green as the trees and shrubs burst to life. It was spring. She could feel the warmth of the sun as she crossed the meadow. A perfect day for a new beginning.

Well, another new beginning. She’d had plenty of them in the last few weeks. But as she thought about it, they weren’t all bad. A little earth rocking but nothing she couldn’t handle. She did feel a little guilty over her inept meeting with Everett Simmons. But he hadn’t helped either.

And then there was Peter. He’d been gone less than three days. But he hadn’t called except to wake her up. He’d been partying and he sounded like it and he hadn’t thought about what time it would be in Rhode Island . . . that annoyed her more than anything else.

She hadn’t really had time to miss him, between shopping and Gran’s “spell” and Nora’s leaving—and Alden’s digging in the garden in the middle of the night.

Now it was Alden she was worried about, and that was a new experience. Worried and not knowing exactly why. Or what to do about it.

She knocked at the door, not expecting him to answer it. He’d either be in his studio working, or brooding in that beat-up chair, or sitting out on the rocks. She waited a respectable length of time, then let herself in.

“Alden?”

Getting no answer she checked out the living room, which in the morning sun was actually a rather inviting room. Or could be. As it was now, it could use a serious dose of fêng shui; even a mild restoration would help. Hell, a coat of paint would help. She went through the dining room to the sunroom. Empty.

Took a peek at the drafting table. Nothing there. Glanced at the wastepaper basket as she headed outside, It had been emptied. She went outside.

He was sitting on an outcropping of boulders nestled against a profusion of beach roses. From the top you could see past the breakwater into the ocean proper. His forearms were resting on his bent knees. His hair whipped about his face in the breeze.

He had to have heard her coming; it wasn’t easy to sneak up on someone with the rocks crunching beneath your feet. Not that she was sneaking. It would be easier if he did turn, acknowledge her. Then at least she’d know whether he was glad to see her, or if she was an intrusion.

Well, tough. She climbed up the boulders until she was standing just below him. “Move over.”

He shifted to the side a few inches. She sat down and nudged him to give herself more room. He moved enough for her to sit next to him. But he just kept looking out to the sea.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” he returned though she could barely hear him.

Now what? She didn’t have much practice taking the initiative with him. Last night in the garden had been disastrous.

“Did Nora get off okay?”

He nodded.

She couldn’t even read his expression with his hair blowing across his profile. She grabbed a handful and pulled it back so that he had to turn his head.

“What?”

“Are you okay?”

“Of course.”

Oh brother. What did she say next?
I’m a grown-up now and you can talk to me like you would everyone else
? Seemed like a stupid thing to have to say.

He looked away. And she joined him looking out to sea.

“Gran said I was supposed to come kick your butt.”

Now he looked at her. Finally. “She did not.”

“Yes, she did. And quite frankly when you go all Heathcliff on me, I feel like it.”

He was startled into a laugh. “Heathcliff? Hardly. Where the hell did you get something like that?”

“Carlyn. She thinks you’re—” She stalled for a word. She couldn’t say hot, or hunky; it just wasn’t the kind of vocabulary you used with Alden. “She said you really had that Heathcliff thing going for you.”

“Roaming the moors screaming Cathy, Cathy?”

“No. The TDH brooding thing.”

“I won’t even ask what TDH is.”

“It’s all good. I told her you had it all over Heathcliff, because you did things like take out the garbage.”

That got her a raised eyebrow and one of his most acidly sardonic looks.

“That’s not what I meant. Just that you’re useful. No. You’re, oh hell. You’re real. And you care more about others than yourself.”

“Don’t go all cornball on me.”

“Well, you do.” She put her arm over his shoulders. It was kind of shocking, because she never did stuff like that. He was always the one giving comfort. But it was time she started. She felt ridiculously foolish, but she refused to be cowed and her arm remained there.

He didn’t even react. His bones and muscles were as unyielding as the stony beach.

“Hey.” She gave him a little shake.

He turned to fully look at her, which pulled her arm from his shoulders; she let it fall.

“Meri.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“What? Don’t close me off. You’ve never done that before.”

“I’m selling Corrigan House.”

For an eon, the world went dark and silent—then came slowly back into focus. “You can’t mean it.”

“I do. It’s brought nothing but misery. I’m sick of it.”

“No. You can’t.”

“I can. And I will. I’ll set up someone to look out for Therese.”

“But where are you going?”

“Manhattan. Somewhere. I don’t know.”

“But what about Nora and Lucas? It’s their home.”

“Not anymore. And keeping it will just cause them more harm.”