Carly's Gift (27 page)

She shook her head sadly. “You have so much anger. How does it come out when it isn't directed at me?”

Her eyes were filled with such pain, he couldn't look at her any longer. “You want a guarantee that I'll be the perfect parent, but I can't give it to you. What do I know about being a father? It's crazy. The whole time she was with me, I kept telling myself how great it was going to be when she was gone and I could finally get my life back in order. And then when I woke up one morning and she was actually getting ready to leave, I realized how much I was going to miss her when she was gone. I didn't know what to do.”

“You get by one day at a time,” she said softly.

“What's happening to me, Carly? I feel about Andrea the way I imagine a real father would feel about his daughter. I'm ready to call the police if she and Jeffery are ten minutes late coming home from a date. And I find myself taking pride in her accomplishments even when I've had nothing to do with them.”

“Is it possible you've become so attached to her because of me?” she said.

The way she asked the question told him they had finally gotten to the real reason she'd wanted to see him. “In the beginning. What other explanation would fit?”

“But not now?”

“I'm sure there's still some of you wrapped up in how I feel about Andrea, but mostly it's Andrea herself.” He hesitated. “That doesn't mean I don't see you in everything she does, and that there aren't times I let myself wallow in useless memories.”

Carly dropped her gaze and asked in an even, clear voice, “Is it possible you want her because you can't have me?”

“My God, is that what this is all about?” She knew him better than anyone ever had or would; it made him sick that the thought had even occurred to her. “Do you honestly believe I could be capable of something that perverted?”

“I don't know. That's why I'm asking.”

He got to his feet, walked toward the mill, stopped, and came back. “You can sit there and listen to me tell you that in every way but biological Andrea has become my daughter and still ask a question like that?” His anger threatened to choke him. “What kind of a warped bastard do you think I am?”

Before answering, she looked up and fixed him with a cool stare. “It's not as if it has never happened before.”

“Now I really don't understand you. If you've felt this way all along, how could you let her come with me in the first place?”

“You didn't love her then.” She shifted her gaze away from him. “And I never believed she would stay.”

He hunkered down in front of her, took her chin in his hand and forced her to look at him. “It isn't the daughter that keeps me awake nights,” he said, not caring how uncomfortable the truth would make her, “it's the mother. I've made love to you a hundred times in the past six months—Andrea was never there.”

“Do you want to make love to me now?” Carly asked without emotion.

David dropped his hand. Five minutes ago he would have made a bargain with the devil to hear those words from her. “Why the big turnaround, Carly? What happened to the life-long debt you owe Ethan?”

“Things change.”

“That's bullshit.” He stood and backed away from her. “You think if you make the big sacrifice and give yourself to me, I'll stay away from Andrea.” Her silence was all the confirmation he needed. “What in the hell happened to you that left you so fucked up you can't even trust me anymore?”

“I was raped. Remember?”

“But not by me,” he snapped. His shoulders sagged in defeat. “What can I do—what do you need, to reassure you it won't happen to Andrea?”

She didn't answer right away. Finally, with great effort, she said, “I don't know.”

He reached for her hand and pulled her to her feet. “You never were very good at dealing with the unknown. Why don't you come with us and stay for a couple of weeks? That way you can see for yourself what her life is like with me.”

“I can't.”

“Why not?”

“I have to take care of Shawn.”

“Then come as soon as he's out of his casts.”

“By then Andrea will be ready to return home.”

He started to correct her, to tell her that she knew as well as he did that Andrea was never coming back to Baxter to live, but then he saw the small spark of hope in her eyes and couldn't be the one to extinguish it. “If you change your mind . . .” He left it open-ended.

“We should be getting back. Knowing Andrea, she'll still be in the middle of packing.”

“Who was it, Carly? Who raped you?”

“Why do you want to know, David? So you can find him and beat him up?”

“I don't understand how you can be so brutalized by it one minute and flippant the next.”

She touched his arm in an affectionate, wistful gesture. “I've had sixteen years, you've only had six months.”

“Didn't you ever want to see him punished for what he did to you?”

“I had more important things to think about.” She shrugged. “I don't know, maybe keeping Andrea had something to do with how I feel now. I might hate the man who raped me and damn him for the way he changed my life, but with Andrea the result, how can I wish it had never happened?”

“If only you had come to me.”

“Don't do that, David.”

He picked up her jacket and handed it to her. “Remember, you've had sixteen years to think about that, too.”

“Say I had come to you and the scenario I'd imagined played out the way I figured it would. We might have ended up hating each other for the missed opportunities. Think about what you've accomplished, David, the millions of people you've reached with your books. And best of all, we're friends again.”

“I'd give it all up if—”

“You can't. And even if you were free, Shawn and Eric would still tie me to Ethan. Too many people have been hurt because of me—I won't include them.”

“Do you really think Ethan is going to put up with us being friends again?”

“He's willing to tolerate just about anything to have Andrea gone.”

“I wasn't sure you knew what he's been doing to try to manipulate her into staying away.”

“I didn't at first, but then Andrea said a couple of things that were in marked contrast to Ethan's version of conversations between the two of them. It wasn't too hard to put the pieces together after that.” She put her arm through David's and started back toward the car. “I was furious when I found out, but it didn't last. I should have known what was going on from the beginning. Ethan sees himself in a desperate fight to hold on to the only thing he's ever wanted.”

“And all's fair—”

“Can you be my friend?” she asked.

He matched his stride to hers so that they moved together in an easy rhythm. Only knowing that she was aware of what she was asking gave him the freedom to say, “If you're asking me to give up hope, the answer is no.”

“And if it's really far more simple than that?”

“Then, yes, I can be your friend.”

They were almost to the car when Carly abruptly stopped. She tossed a challenging look up at him. “Race you to the car,” she said, taking off before he could respond.

He sprinted after her. For several wonderful seconds, they really were just friends again—glorious, uncomplicated best friends.

They were in the car and halfway to Carly's house when David remembered something he'd wanted to talk to her about. “After everything that's been said this afternoon, I'm a little reluctant to bring this up, but I need to know how you feel about birth control.”

“In what context?” Carly asked.

David smiled at the stunned look on her face. “Andrea and Jeffery are getting a lot closer than I like. She's going to be sixteen in a couple of months. If you recall, that's how old you were when we—”

“You don't have to remind me,” she said. “I'll talk to her as soon as we get back to the house.”

“I don't understand how you can be so calm about this.”

“I would have preferred having the discussion during her wedding shower, but it's nice not to have to do it long distance.” She looked at him and smiled knowingly. “What did you have in mind to do about it, lock her up at night?”

“Actually, I was looking into a chastity belt of some sort. The museums at home are filled with them. Barring that, I'm open to advice.”

“The only thing I can tell you is to try to remember what you were like at Andrea's age and do whatever would have worked on you.”

“Was that meant to reassure me or scare the hell out of me?”

Carly laughed. It was a wonderful, joyous sound. “A little bit of both.”

David tried to keep himself from imprinting in his mind the way she looked and sounded at that moment. But even as he was doing so, he knew that it was useless.

A million other memories were at the ready.

There was no escaping her.

There never would be.

Twenty-four

Carly poured herself
a cup of coffee and followed Barbara into the family room. “I was so mad at Ethan I got up and walked out before he was finished with his little speech,” she said.

“You still haven't told me what he said before you left,” Barbara said, sitting in her favorite overstuffed chair and propping her feet up on a stool.

“It isn't worth repeating, just a bunch of garbage about why we can't possibly go to England again this year.”

“I must admit, there does seem to be a pattern of sorts where this trip is concerned.” She brought her cup to her mouth, blew the steam away, and took a sip. “This will be the second summer he's managed to skinny out of going. I figured it out. We've only seen Andrea ten weeks in two and a half years.”

“I promised Andrea this wouldn't happen again. What am I going to tell her?”

“How about the truth? I doubt it will come as much of a surprise.”

“I can't do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because it would hurt her too much.”

“I'm beginning to wonder if your willingness to put up with Ethan's manipulations are for Andrea's benefit or your own.”

“Where in God's name did that come from?” Carly snapped.

“You've convinced yourself it's Andrea you're protecting, but in reality, it's Ethan. You've let him get away with absolutely reprehensible behavior for the past two years. No,” she said, warming to the subject, “it's more than ‘let,' you've actually facilitated his conduct.”

Carly put her cup on the table, held her hands up in a gesture of surrender, and started toward the door. “I don't need any more grief today.”

“So what are you going to tell Andrea?” Barbara asked, stopping Carly as effectively as if she'd clamped a hand around her arm.

Carly stood with her fists on her hips and stared at the wall. “I don't know,” she said, expelling a weary sigh.

“She's going to be crushed. All she ever talks about when I call her is what the five of you are going to do this summer. She's packed two months of activity into the seven days Ethan promised.”

Carly turned to look at her mother. “Is all of this leading up to something or are you just adding another layer of guilt?”

“I don't deserve that.”

Carly ran her hand across her forehead. “You're right. I'm sorry.”

“I haven't told you anything you don't already know.”

“I need answers, Mom, not confirmation of my problems.” She retrieved her coffee and sat down on the couch.

“You know as well as I do they'll be throwing snowballs in hell before Ethan steps on a plane that's heading east. What's his excuse this time?”

“There's another crisis at the plant—you can stop me when this begins to sound familiar—and it would be ‘fiscally irresponsible' for us to spend money on ourselves when it could mean the livelihood of all those employees.”

“Use your private stash.”

“I don't have one.”

Barbara shook her head in disgust. “I told you when you got married that every woman needs to have money tucked away for emergencies.”

“Nice in theory, but a little hard to pull off when you're married to a man who collects receipts the way people collect baseball cards.”

“How can you stand to have your every move monitored? You should have put your foot down a long time ago.”

“Until now I just didn't give a damn. Next question?”

“You can borrow the money from me,” Barbara said, a mischievous smile forming.

“Do you have any idea how much it costs to send three people to England for seven days in the middle of summer?”

“I don't care,” Barbara said. “It would be nice to see some real return on all those cursed coupons I've clipped over the years. I haven't made a fortune at it, but you can have everything I've got.”