Maybe This Time (28 page)

“Good point,” North said. “Rose is a fine name.”

“Did you get Carter one?” Alice said, around a yawn.

“No, I got Carter something else.”

“What?”

“Colored pencils. In a case. Will he like that?”

Alice's eyes closed as her lips curved in a smile that could break a heart. “Yes, he will.” She snuggled deeper in her bed, looking normal now, no trace of her hysterics left except for the smudges of her tears, now mostly rubbed off on her pillow.

“Good night, Alice,” Andie whispered. “Good night, Rose.”

“Good night, Andie,” Alice murmured back. “Good night, Bad.”

“Good night, Alice,” North said, and then when Andie nudged him, he added, “Good night, Rose,” and watched Alice smile, half asleep.

“You did good, Bad,” Andie whispered.

That's a start,
North thought. “You coming downstairs?”

“I need to stay with her,” Andie said, looking back at the sleeping little girl. “She's not deep asleep yet. I don't want her to wake up and be alone so soon after everything else. And there are . . . things that show up sometimes. I don't want her alone.”

“Ghosts.”

She stuck her chin out. “Yes.”

He got up and went over and turned on the gas fireplace, checking to make sure it was safe before he turned back to her. “Your medium—”

“Isolde.”

“—Isolde said that ghosts don't like fire. She said if you kept the fire going, the ghost wouldn't come in the room.”

Andie shook her head. “Don't gaslight me. You don't believe in ghosts.”

“No, but you do, and your expert says that this fire will keep Alice safe.”

“And you think we're nuts.”

“No,” North said, surprised to find that he didn't. “I think something's going on here. I called Gabe and left a message for him to come down tomorrow. We're going to go over this place until we find out what's really happening.”

“There really are ghosts.”

“Then we'll find those, too. And when we've gotten rid of whatever the problem is, the kids will come back with us.”

“With us,” Andie said, doubt on her face.

“I'm not leaving without you,” he told her, surprising himself and her.

Andie blinked. “Wow. You're serious. You realize that could be weeks?”

“Yes,” North said, thinking,
Christ, I hope not
. “I'm going downstairs to see what fresh hell has broken loose, but I'll come back soon and check on you.”

Andie turned her face up to his and smiled, and he thought,
Oh, hell,
and fought the urge to bend down and kiss her.

He turned to go and then remembered. “Will wants to talk to you.”

“The hell with him,” Andie said. “I told him not to come down here, he pulls this crap with Alice, and now he wants to talk to me. I don't think so.”

“I'll let him know,” North said, and went downstairs feeling more cheerful than he'd thought possible since he'd heard Andie say, “There are ghosts.”

 

The party in the living room was in full swing when North walked in, although “full seethe” might have been the better term. Flo and Lydia had their heads together over in the corner, probably planning on killing Kelly O'Keefe and dumping her body in the moat. Lydia was generally sane but her sons were being threatened, and nothing North had learned about Flo in the year he'd been married to her daughter gave him any hope that she'd be a voice of reason.

Over on the couch, Southie was sitting between Isolde and an annoyed-looking middle-aged man with a jowly face. “Well, I think both ways of looking at this are good,” he said, and both the jowly guy and Isolde looked at him with contempt.

Meanwhile Kelly O'Keefe had her head bent close to Will, listening to every word he said. Her cameraman lurked behind her, looking equal parts angry and fed up.

It wasn't a question of if something was going to go wrong, it was a question of which one of the time bombs gathered there was going to detonate first.

“North!” Southie called, desperation under his voice, and North went over to the couch. “You have to meet Dennis, the ghost expert I told you about.”

“Right,” North said, and shook Dennis's hand. “So there are ghosts.”

“Of course there aren't ghosts,” Dennis said, evidently pushed beyond the limits of politeness. “There is no such thing as ghosts, at least not the kind that are supposed to be here.”

Isolde shrugged. “You can't see them because you don't believe.”

“That's convenient,” North said.

“No, she's right,” Dennis said morosely. “Disbelief suppresses sensitivity.”

“So you think there are ghosts,” North said.

“No,” Dennis said. “But if there were, I couldn't see them because I don't believe in them.”

“I could use a drink,” North said to Southie, and Southie reached over the back of the couch and picked up a decanter.

“You have to taste this brandy,” he said, reaching for a glass, too.

“It's good?”

“No, it's odd.” Southie splashed some liquor into the glass and handed it to him. “I think it's local. There's good stuff, too, I went out in the storm and stocked the bar, but that demented housekeeper decanted everything”—he jerked his head to an assortment of glass decanters on the table behind the couch—“so we're guessing what's what. But I'm positive this is the house brandy. It has quite a kick.”

“Local brandy,” North said, taking the glass, and then caught sight of his mother leaving the room. “Now where is she going?” he said, and put the glass down to follow her, only to be met at the door by Flo.

“I need to talk to you,” she said, and he thought,
This night will never end,
and followed her into the hall.

 

Andie leaned against Alice's bed after North had gone, trying to be practical and failing miserably. She'd pretty much wanted him back the minute he'd come through the door, and then he'd turfed everybody out of the nursery for her, and brought Alice a rabbit, and told her he wasn't leaving until they went home with him, and if she hadn't been so tired, she'd have jumped him in the nursery except that was out of the question. Although, when she thought about it, jumping him for one night might be a good idea. Well, no it wasn't, but it
felt
like a great idea, to have his arms around her again, to let him make her crazy and forget everything for a while. What could it hurt? He was sleeping in her old bedroom next to the nursery, Isolde said that ghosts didn't like fire, she'd be right there if Alice needed her.

And God knew she needed him.

Bad idea,
she thought,
bad, bad idea.

But ten minutes of hot memories later, when the nursery door opened again, Andie looked up smiling, thinking,
Maybe,
and got Lydia instead.

“You're an idiot,” Lydia said, and sat down in the rocking chair.

Wonderful,
Andie thought, her hot thoughts evaporating. “Is that just a general observation, or do you have a direction you're going with it?”

“You left my son.”

“Ten years ago,” Andie said, incredulous. “We're over it. And you were thrilled. You probably did a dance when I left.” She looked at Lydia doubtfully. “The minuet or something.”

“He was happy with you,” Lydia said, looking at her accusingly. “That year with you, he laughed.”

“Well, I'm a funny gal,” Andie said, wishing she would leave.

“You're correct, you were not what I wanted for him.” Lydia lifted her chin. “I was wrong. And I'm sorry.”

Andie blinked. “For what? You didn't wreck my marriage. I mean, I knew you didn't like me, but you didn't tell North to divorce me. Did you?”

“Of course not. That would have been completely inappropriate.”

“Of course you wouldn't.” Lydia was a bitch, but she played fair.

“He wouldn't have listened anyway,” Lydia said.

Andie tried again, on the theory that if she forgave Lydia for her nonexistent sins, she'd leave, and Andie could go back to having hot thoughts about the man she wasn't going back to. “Look, North and I had problems we couldn't resolve. You have nothing to apologize for.”

“I should have helped you. I should have brought you into our world, showed you how—”

“Lydia, I didn't want your world. I just wanted to love North. Then Uncle Merrill died, and all North cared about was the firm, and I couldn't stand it, and I left. I could stay with North and make us both miserable, or I could leave so he could find a woman who was crazy about his career. I was the wrong wife for him.”

“That's what I thought,” Lydia said. “But I was wrong. I should have been a better mother-in-law. I was delinquent in my responsibility to you.”

“Lydia, I appreciate what you're saying, but you can stop. It's over, it's been over for ten years.”

Lydia clamped her lips together in exasperation. “You know, Andromeda, for such an emotional woman, you are not very sensitive. It's clearly not over. My son left a major litigation to come to southern Ohio for you.”

“Not for me,” Andie said automatically, and Lydia closed her eyes, impatience plain on her face. “Well, it wasn't for me. You and Southie are here, there's a journalist on the loose, and we have two
children—” She broke off. “He has two children he's responsible for.”

“It's not over for him and it's not over for you, either, I can hear it in your voice when you talk about him.” She was quiet for a moment. “I never doubted you loved him, you know. Anybody could see that you did.”

“Of course I did,” Andie said. “I
married
him.”

“After knowing him less than a day,” Lydia snapped. “The two of you were insane.”

“Well, we got over it.”

“That's what I'm trying to tell you,” Lydia said, glaring at her. “You didn't, neither one of you. You have another chance here.”

“I'm engaged,” Andie lied, hoping that would get her out of the room.

“Oh, please,” Lydia said.

“Why doesn't anybody take that seriously?”

“Because everybody has eyes. Listen to me.” Lydia leaned forward in the rocking chair, staring into Andie's face, deadly serious. “You hurt my son terribly. He's never gotten over it. I'd want you dead for that except that you've never gotten over it, either. And now you've both changed, you're older, you could make it work this time. But if you're going back to him, you have to
stay
.”

“I'm not going back,” Andie said, trying not to be caught by the thought of doing it again, better this time. “And I did not hurt North. I don't think he noticed I left.”

“You're an
idiot,
” Lydia said, and then took a deep breath. “Look, you're very protective of that little girl.” She nodded toward the sleeping Alice. “But girls are strong. We're built to withstand anything. Boys are the vulnerable ones. Alice will make it, she's got Archer steel in her spine. But Carter's bleeding inside, just the way North was bleeding when you left, and you can't see it. You don't
look.
”

Andie took a breath to say that Carter was fine, and Lydia cut her off.

“I raised two boys. They feel everything and have no way to express it. They die inside, and if you're a mother, you die, too.”

“Lydia—”

“If you find out what's wrong with Carter and fix it, if you bring these children to Columbus, you'll have the full force of the Archer family behind you.”

“Okay,” Andie said, taken aback.

“But you break my son's heart again, I'll rip out your liver and fry it for breakfast.” Lydia stood up, looking down at Andie. “Don't blow it this time, Andromeda,” she said, and swept from the room.

“Hey, I didn't blow it the last time,” Andie said, but she was gone, and Andie was left alone in the firelight, Alice asleep behind her, Carter down in his room in terrible trouble if Lydia was right, and North downstairs as desirable as ever except that his mother was going to tear her liver out if she went for a one-night stand.

“Jesus,” Andie said, and went back to thinking about the ghosts.

It was simpler.

 

“It's about my daughter,” Flo said when North was alone with her in the Great Hall.

“She's doing a wonderful job with the children,” North said politely.

Flo narrowed her eyes, so tense that every gray curl on her head bounced. “I know what you're up to, you bastard. You're trying to get her back. Or at least into bed.”

Flo was crazy, North remembered, but she wasn't stupid.

“Don't even try it,” Flo said. “I ran the cards. You're the Emperor.”

“No I'm not,” North said, confused. “I'm the King of Coins.”

Flo stopped, evidently equally confused. “What?”

“Andie brought me to your house and told you we'd gotten married and you ran the cards,” North said, remembering it like it was
yesterday. It'd been his first clue that life with Andie was going to be seriously different.

“Oh. Yes, I did. Well, that was ten years ago.”

“You told me it was forever, and that Andie I were doomed because she was the Moon. Or something.”

“The Star,” Flo said. “And I was right, wasn't I? It didn't last.”

“You weren't right if I'm an Emperor now,” North said. “Maybe you'd better run the cards again. Come back in the sitting room and I'll get you a drink—”

“Well, if you're not the Emperor, who is?” Flo said.

North started to say something soothing, and then thought,
Why am I patronizing this woman?
“Flo, I don't believe in the tarot.”

“I know you don't,” she said, frowning as she thought.