Bright Eyes (27 page)

“Valerie Lynn!” Naomi cried, chucking a half-peeled potato across the kitchen.

Valerie ducked and laughed. “Was that a potato that just sailed past my head? No wonder I’m a mess. My family is completely dysfunctional.”

Naomi’s mouth twitched. She quickly showed her daughters her back to hide her smile. “I’d have nailed you if I meant to hit you, you little twerp. Ask your father about my aim. He’ll tell you.”

Pete turned from the stove and gave his ex-wife’s backside a meandering appraisal. “She can definitely hit her target with deadly accuracy,” he said with a reminiscent smile.

Naomi giggled. “Right between the eyes, if I remember right.”

“Damn near coldcocked me.”

“Served you right. Came home drunk and feeling your oats. I told you to sleep it off in the barn, and you refused.”

Pete winked at his daughters. “Had her jealous up. Thought I’d been squeezing the fruit down at Chester’s Hideaway. When I walked in the door, she bonked me with a spud before I could say hello and what’s for supper.”

Natalie leaned back on her chair. “Were you guilty as charged, Pop?”

Pete grinned. “Hell no. But there wasn’t no convincing her of that.”

Naomi turned from the sink. In one hand, she held another partly peeled potato. “You want to test my aim again, Pete Westfield?”

“No, ma’am.”

Pete made a hasty retreat to the living room, once again exhibiting a miraculous recovery from his back pain. Natalie sent her sister a wondering look. Valerie grinned and puffed on her nails again. Naomi turned, caught her daughters smiling, and said, “Wipe those smirks off your faces.”

Valerie’s expression went dead serious except for the dimple in her cheek. “So, Mom, is that how we came to have a gander named Chester, because Pop was fond of squeezing the fruit down at Chester’s Hideaway?”

“Damn bird,” Naomi said under her breath. “He named him Chester just to get my goat. Knew very well I’d grind my teeth every time I came out here.”

Valerie waggled her eyebrows at Natalie. “Men,” she said with a theatrical sigh. “Can’t live with ’em, and can’t live without ’em.”

“You can’t live with them, that’s for darned sure,” Naomi replied. She rinsed the potato she’d just peeled and tossed it in the colander. “I’m much happier in my nice condo. Would you just look at this kitchen? Hasn’t changed one thing in the last ten years, and it was ugly as sin back then.” She grabbed another spud. “Valerie Lynn, get off your fanny and help me.”

“My nails are wet.”

“Run them under cold water. The chicken needs flouring.”

Valerie groaned and touched a nail to test it for dryness. Then she pushed up from the chair to advance on the chicken, which was already cut up and waiting on a board. “This is enough to make me become a vegetarian.” She touched a slippery thigh. “I like precut frozen. It doesn’t gross me out.”

“You’ll survive. Flour the damned chicken.”

Natalie smiled and rubbed her aching forehead. Naomi dried her hands and came to the table with the jug of burgundy. “You look like you need some happy juice, sweetie.”

Natalie sighed. “I don’t think it’ll help, Mom. My mind is circling. Nothing seems real. I honestly can’t believe this is happening to me.”

Valerie glanced over her shoulder. “I can believe it. Robert’s been messing up your life ever since you met him. This is his coup de grâce, delivered from beyond the grave. He couldn’t rest in peace knowing you might live happily ever after.”

Naomi took three goblets from the cupboard, all of which had been freshly scrubbed, and set them on the table. “Get the spuds and chicken on, Valerie Lynn. While supper’s cooking, the three of us will share a nip or two.”

Valerie came to the table, waited for her mother to pour a glass of wine, and then took it with her to the counter. “When all else fails, get drunk.”

Natalie accepted the wine her mother pushed toward her. “I just want all of this to go away.”

Naomi took a sip of wine. “Can’t blame you there. Drink enough of this, and it will.”

“That’s no solution,” Natalie said hopelessly. “I don’t think there is a solution. Monroe has his sights trained on me. Unless something happens to make him suspect someone else, I’m going to be toast.”

Naomi grabbed a notepad and pen from the telephone stand. “Let’s give him another suspect, then. Who, besides you, had a reason to want the son of a bitch dead?”

He came to Natalie that night as if in a dream—slipping silently into the bed beside her, running his fingertips lightly over her body, then kissing her throat and upper chest until she moaned and surfaced from sleep. She tried to say his name, but he covered her mouth with his and laid claim to her with hard, masterful hands that seemed to know every secret of her body. She went from black oblivion to ecstasy before her head could clear, then drifted with him on sensation, quivering at his every touch.

“I love you,” he whispered as he plunged deep and filled her with his hardness. “I love you, Nattie girl.”

She clung to his broad shoulders, her mouth trembling beneath his, her body undulating to meet his thrusts, her mind exploding in a kaleidoscope of fragmented color as her body pitched in the throes of orgasm.

Afterward he held her against him and stroked her trembling body until she melted contentedly into his heat and once again became lost in the swirling black veils of sleep.
Zeke
. She took him with her into her dreams and felt safe even when Detective Monroe’s face leered at her from the shadows.

Toward dawn, Natalie was roused from sleep by a faint beeping sound. She lifted her lashes to see Zeke sitting up and pushing at a button on his wristwatch. She smiled and ran a hand down his bare back. He didn’t speak, and neither did she. He just kissed her deeply and then vanished into the predawn gloom as if he’d never been there.

Late the following afternoon, Natalie got a call from Grace Patterson. Immediately after ending the conversation, she went to find her son. Chad was nowhere to be found inside the house, so Natalie broadened her search, combing the yard first, then venturing farther afield to check the outbuildings.

The August heat lay over the farm like a blanket that sucked all the moisture from the air. Normally Natalie appreciated the low humidity in Central Oregon, but today even her throat felt parched when she took a deep breath, and her skin felt scratchy where her clothing touched. She missed having central air, she decided. Pop didn’t believe in air-conditioning. When the house grew hot and stuffy, his only solution was to open the windows and use a fan.

Natalie squinted against the slanting afternoon sun as she passed the chicken coop. “Chad?” she called.

“Out here, Mom.”

She circled the barn and spied her son behind the building, sitting forlornly on a dilapidated section of fence that had once served as a paddock. Dressed in jeans and sneakers, her usual at-home attire, Natalie swung up to sit beside him. Sensing his morose mood, she didn’t speak for a while. Grasshoppers whirred in the tall grass clumped around the fence posts. Hens clucked and fluttered in the lean-to behind them. Occasionally Daisy and Marigold added lowing to the mix.

“I used to sit out here when I wanted to be alone,” Natalie finally said. “I hope I’m not intruding.”

“No, not really. I just like it out here sometimes.”

Chad bent his ebony head and swung his feet. Natalie remembered all the hours she’d spent teaching him how to tie his shoes. Now his laces dangled like drool from a hound’s jowls, and the crotch of his shorts drooped between his knees. She didn’t understand the fashions nowadays, but then she doubted that her parents had appreciated her look as a youngster, either.

“I, um, need to talk to you, Chad,” Natalie began. “Your grandma Grace just called.”

“What did she want?”

Natalie stared off at the towering pines that bordered the back quarter of their land. As a girl, she’d often gone walking in those woods on hot summer days, craving the silence and deep shade that only the trees could offer.

“She’s very upset,” she replied honestly. “Your dad was her only child. Grandpa Herbert is gone now, too. I think she’s very lonely.”

“Maybe I should call her,” Chad said huskily.

“That would be nice.”

“I don’t like her very well.”

Natalie shared that sentiment, but she refrained from saying so. “She has her good moments.”

Chad gave her a sidelong glance. “When?”

Natalie laughed softly. “Okay, not often, but she’s your grandmother. I don’t want to say bad things about her.”

Chad nodded. “I shouldn’t either, I guess. It’s just—”

“Just what?” Natalie pressed gently.

“I don’t know. Take Gramps, for instance. All he does is gripe and carry on about one thing or another, but I love him anyway. Every once in a while when he stops grumping to take a breath, he’ll pat me on the arm or give me a hug, like he’s telling me not to take him seriously.”

Natalie smiled. She’d seen her grandfather hugging her kids. “He does gripe a lot,” she agreed. “That’s just his nature, I guess.”

“Grandma Grace never gives hugs like that. Only when she says hello and good-bye, and then she’s all stiff, like she’s afraid I’ll get her clothes dirty. And she never kisses me. She just makes smacking noises in the air.”

“She does have a formal way about her,” Natalie conceded.

“When I go see her, I wish she’d be more normal. I can’t relax when I’m with her. Even when she offers me a treat, I’m nervous about making a mess on her tablecloth. One time I laid out paper towels around my bowl of ice cream so I wouldn’t have to worry about it, and she got all bent out of shape, turning it into this big thing about practicing my manners so they’d be second nature.”

“I’m sorry she’s that way. You don’t have to call her if you’d rather not.”

Chad sighed. “I’ll call her. It’s not like I hate her or anything. Maybe it’ll make her feel better.”

Natalie’s heart filled with pride. “That would be very kind of you. She needs to feel loved right now.”

He straightened his legs to stare at his shoes. “She called once, right after we heard about Dad. It was while you were gone to the police station. All she wanted to talk about was me inheriting the Patterson money someday.”

“I suppose you will inherit now that your father’s gone.”

“But she’s, like, totally stuck on it,” Chad replied. “She cried a little about Dad, but mainly she wanted to talk about the responsibility that had fallen to me and how I should take more pride in the Patterson name now.” He began swinging his feet, his movements agitated. “It’s like—I don’t know. This will sound really mean, but she acts like she owns me now or something.”

Natalie couldn’t count the times that she’d seen Grace and Herbert use the Patterson wealth as leverage against Robert to make him toe the mark. She hated to see her son go through that, but she could do nothing to stop it. Chad was a Patterson, and he was next in line to inherit. She couldn’t prevent Grace from making Robert’s son her heir.

“A large amount of money is a wonderful blessing,” Natalie said carefully. “It enables those who have it to please themselves in ways other people can’t. You can own a beautiful home and wear fine clothes and drive fancy cars. You can help the disadvantaged by giving generously to charities. In some instances, money can even buy you prestige and power. But there’s also a downside.”

“What’s that?” Chad asked.

“Money can become a god to some people, and it’s more important than anything else.” Natalie looked over at her son. “I can’t tell you how to feel about one day inheriting the Patterson money—or how to deal with your grandma when you feel that she’s trying to control you. But I can tell you that people are seldom happy if they let money become the most important thing in their lives.”

“It’s not that important to me,” the boy replied. “I never want to be like that.”

“Then don’t be. Own the money, but never let it own you. Does that make sense?”

Chad nodded. “And don’t let Grandma Grace own me because she has control of the money I’ll inherit someday?”

Natalie felt the tension ease from her shoulders. “Exactly. When she brings up your inheritance, one way you might handle it is to say you don’t want to think about losing her someday. That will make her feel nice, and it will let her know in a very kind way that her money isn’t that important to you.”

Chad smiled faintly and nodded. “That’d work, and it’s how I feel, too. I don’t want to think about her dying someday.”

“Just tell her that, then.”

Chad released a long breath. “What did she call about today?”

“Your father’s funeral service was supposed to be tomorrow.”

“And now it’s not?”

“The coroner’s office won’t release his remains just yet.”

“How come?”

“In cases like this, it isn’t uncommon.” Because Robert’s body was a piece of evidence. She couldn’t bring herself to say that to her son, not about his father. “Red tape, lots of paperwork. It’s no big deal. Sometime next week, maybe a bit later, they’ll release your dad’s remains, and we’ll be able to say our farewells properly.”

Chad swallowed, his larynx bobbing. “I’m not in any hurry. Are you?”

Natalie would have given a lot to close this chapter of her life. “No. It’ll be a very sad occasion.”

Chad gave her a searching look. “Will it? For you, I mean. I know you didn’t love him anymore—that in a way, you even hated him.”

She moved her hands on the weathered rail. “I didn’t hate your father, sweetheart. I hated the things he did. Can you understand the difference?”

Chad nodded. “Why was he like that, Mom? My blood is partly from him, and I’m not like that. Rosie’s not like that, either. What happened to make Dad so weird?”

In that moment, Natalie was finally able to turn loose of her bitterness toward Robert. “Maybe his mom was always stiff when she hugged him,” she said softly. “Maybe she never kissed him and only made smacking noises by his ear. Maybe he never got to make a mess on the tablecloth when he ate ice cream.” She took a deep breath and slowly let it out, feeling cleansed. “Maybe, for your dad, it was always about clothes and manners and shining at school, and never about being loved just because. All of us need to be loved just because, Chad. If we’re not, we grow up feeling second-rate.”