Authors: Barbara Bretton

Someone Like You (24 page)

BOOK: Someone Like You

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“Wow, Mimi!” she said with a nervous laugh. “You have a great grip.” She glanced over at Zach. “You wouldn’t believe how strong she is.”

“That’s a good sign,” Zach said. “Maybe you’re getting through to her.”

Mimi’s eyes were still focused in on Joely, who tried very hard not to dwell on the fact that she couldn’t remember ever being the focus on her mother’s attention for this long in her entire life.

And on the fact that she liked it.

Mimi’s gaze made her feel warm and protected, even though the feelings were probably an illusion. It felt good to be seen. Such a simple thing to ask from a relationship, but it meant so much.

“Tell her about Annabelle,” Zach prodded.

Mimi’s head turned suddenly in his direction, and Joely felt like the sun had slipped behind a cloud.

“Mark?” Mimi’s voice was raw with disuse. The single syllable cracked into two, but the name was unmistakable. “Mark?” Inflection rising, agitation growing more intense.

“Please lie back, Mimi,” Joely said. “Everything’s okay. I promise.”

“Mark!”

“Oh God,” Joely said as she realized what was happening. “She thinks you’re my father.”

Mimi’s face glowed with joy, and she reached out her hands to her husband.

Zach’s eyes met Joely’s, and she nodded. Was it so wrong to offer comfort? She motioned for Zach to step closer, and he clasped Mimi’s hands.

“Hey, Mimi,” he said softly. “Lie back. Everything’s okay.”

“Not Mark,” Mimi said. “No.” Her eyes closed, and she fell back into the sanctuary of sleep.

Joely’s throat tightened as she looked down at the sleeping woman, the stranger who was her mother. Through the haze of drugs, through the neural chaos caused by the stroke, Mimi clung to one singular image, one memory, that nothing could take from her.

“Who are you?” she whispered so low even Zach couldn’t hear her. “Why couldn’t you love us the way you loved him?”

She didn’t expect an answer. It helped just to say the words.

For the first time in her life, Joely looked at her mother and saw past the years and the mistakes and the disappointments. For the first time she didn’t see the sorrow or the loneliness or the wasted years. Not hers. Not Mimi’s.

She saw a young girl on the brink of womanhood and a guitar player with great hands and a wicked smile.

She saw the future that they believed would stretch straight into forever.

She saw love.

Maybe it wasn’t the kind of love she understood. Maybe it wasn’t the kind of love she had needed as a child or longed for as an adult. It was messy, incomplete, and it hurt sometimes more than it healed, but it was love just the same.

And she envied her.

Chapter Fifteen

“ARE YOU SURE you’ve never knitted before?” Cat asked Annabelle as she watched the child’s small fingers maneuver the yarn along the bamboo needles.

“Louis’s mother taught me to crochet a chain,” Annabelle said proudly.

“But you never knitted?”

She shook her head, eyes firmly trained on the rectangle taking shape. “Hunh-uh.”

Annabelle had rejected the knitting knobby within an hour for the real thing, and now her fingers were flying along.

“She’s a natural,” Denise said as she checked the gauge on her swatch of handspun Corriedale. “My sister was like that. She couldn’t tie her own shoelaces, but she could knit like a dream.”

“What’s that going to be, Annabelle?” Bev asked. “A scarf?”

“I already have a scarf,” Annabelle said. “I want a jumper.”

“You’re too young for a sweater,” Jeannie said. “You should start small.”

Why?
Cat wondered as she watched Annabelle’s needles dance.
Why shouldn’t she dream big?

“You know what,” Cat said. “I think a pink tank top with faerie fringe along the hem would be darling on you, Annabelle.”

“Faerie fringe?” Annabelle asked, not looking up from her needles.

“Something sparkly and light, like the way the shoreline looks when the sun’s going down.”

Annabelle frowned and put down her work. “I don’t know.”

“Why don’t we go for a walk tonight, and I’ll show you what I mean. That way you can make up your mind about the fringe.”

Annabelle considered the offer, then nodded. “Yes, please,” she said. “I’d like that very much.”

It wasn’t at all hard to see why Joely loved the child the way she did. Annabelle charmed without meaning to. She was a serious little girl with a vivid imagination who contemplated the world around her with an adult’s intensity and a child’s perspective.

Watching Annabelle wield the small wooden needles, her heart felt full to bursting with love. No wonder Joely had stayed away so long. Her life really was in Scotland. She had made a home for herself there and a family. She had no idea what the future held for Joely and William, but she knew that Annabelle was Joely’s child in every way a child could belong to a woman who hadn’t carried her beneath her heart.

Her hand hovered over her own belly as she thought about the woman who had given birth to Annabelle. Natasha’s hopes and dreams for her child were probably the same as Cat’s. How had she felt when she learned she was dying, that she would be ripped from the fabric of her baby’s life, that her child would be left without a mother to love and guide her?

You don’t have to worry,
she thought, wishing Natasha could somehow hear her.
Annabelle is loved
.

She had never been more proud of her sister in her life.

“Aunt Cat, I dropped a stitch.”

She bent down to take a look. “This isn’t bad at all,” she said and plucked a crochet hook from the pewter mug at the end of the worktable. “Now watch what I do . . . you’re working garter stitch, so we put the hook here . . . grab that thread . . . oops, let me try again . . . okay, got it . . . and now we loop it and loop it again, then seat it on the righthand needle good as new.”

Annabelle reached for the needles, but Cat shook her head. Instead she removed the salvaged stitch from the needle and dropped it two rows.

Annabelle’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “Oh!”

“I bet you can do it,” Cat encouraged. “Hold the crochet hook like this . . . very good . . . now look carefully at the stitches, and you’ll see which way the threads run . . . we’re going to grab a loop . . . no, the other way . . . Annabelle, you did it!”

“I did it!” Annabelle echoed. “Now I can make a faerie blanket to keep the rain off the baby’s garden back home.”

“I thought you wanted to make a jumper.”

“I do,” Annabelle said. “And a faerie blanket and a pair of bright red socks for Daddy and a scarf for Joely and—”

“Uh-oh,” Jeannie called out. “Sounds like you captured another one for our side, Cat.”

“Once we get ’em, they stay got,” Cat said with a laugh.

Annabelle thrived in the friendly commotion of Cat’s studio. She settled in among the chatter, the whirr of the spinning wheels, the rhythmic click of metal needles, and seemed to feel right at home. She was interested in everything and everyone, a little sponge soaking up every drop of information for future reference.

Maybe one day Annabelle would teach Cat’s child to use the knitting knobby and then—

She caught herself. Annabelle wasn’t her niece, either by blood or by law. She was a lovely and agreeable little girl, but she was only visiting. Cat needed to remember that before she found herself projecting the lot of them into a future that was uncertain at best.

“Cat!” Jeannie called out from across the room. “Your tote bag’s ringing!”

Cat dashed across the room to grab her cell phone.

“I was about to hang up and try the studio phone,” Joely said.

“Is everything okay with Mimi?”

“She’s fine,” Joely said, “but you’d better lock the doors and pull the blinds. The paparazzi are in town.”

“Paparazzi in Idle Point?” The thought made her laugh out loud. “Very funny.”

She wasn’t laughing after Joely told her what was going on at the hospital.

“They’re at Town Hall looking for marriage and divorce records. They’re knocking on doors. Hospital security has them barred from going past the ground-floor lobby, but they already found a photographer hiding in the bathroom in Mimi’s room.”

“Those sons of bitches!”

“My thoughts exactly. I wanted to give you a heads-up before they show up on your doorstep.”

She walked over to the front window. “Too late,” she said. “There’s a van parked in front of the house with a satellite dish the size of a Toyota on the roof.”

“I can’t believe it,” Joely said. “Nobody’s given a damn about The Doyles in over twenty-five years, and now they’re acting like Mimi’s a rock star.”

“Two more cars just pulled up,” Cat said, “and I think there’s a guy sitting in the oak tree across the street.”

“Hold on,” Joely said.

Cat could hear Zach’s voice in the background.

“What’s he saying?” she asked.

“He called Karen, and she said Annabelle’s welcome to spend the afternoon with her and the kids.”

“That might not be a bad idea. Do you want me to drive her over?”

“Zach will swing by and get her when he drops me off.”

She pressed the disconnect button and tossed the phone back into her tote bag.

“Ladies,” she said, “you might want to think about working from home for the next few days. It looks like we’re going to be under siege around here for awhile.”

Bev let out a shriek. “Some guy’s looking through the front window at us.”

“There’s one at the back window, too,” Taylor said, “and he has a camera.”

“Close the shades,” Cat said. “They’ll move on.”

“If I’d known we were going to have our pictures taken, I would’ve used a little mascara,” Nicki said.

“I’m sorry about this,” Cat said. “There’s no reason the rest of you should have to deal with it.”

“You don’t think we’d leave you alone, do you?” Bev sounded highly affronted.

“I’m fine. Joely and Zach are on their way. They’ll be here in a few minutes.”

“Then we’ll stay until they get here,” Jeannie said, and this time Cat didn’t argue.

“I’M GOING TO let you off with a warning this time,” the policeman said, “but don’t do it again. We drive on the right over here.”

“I’ll remember that,” William said as he put his passport and driver’s license back into his jacket pocket. “Thank you, Officer.”

He waited for the officer to step back from the car and allow him to drive away, but he continued to regard William with more interest than the infraction would seem to warrant.

“What brings you to Idle Point anyway?”

“Pardon me?”

“You here on vacation?”

“I have family here.”

“Who?”

“Catherine Doyle.”

What in bloody hell had he said wrong? He had barely uttered Cat’s name when the policeman swung open the car door and ordered William out. He had watched enough American TV shows about cops to know this wasn’t a good sign.

“What’s your business with Cat?”

“May I ask why you want to know?” he countered.

“I’ll let that one slide because you’re not from here,” the police officer said. “Are you one of those reporters?”

“I’m a financial analyst with Global Banking.”

“You sure you’re not looking to make some extra change off poor Mimi?”

“My daughter is here with Mimi Doyle’s younger daughter Joely. They’re staying with Cat.”

“How am I supposed to know you didn’t get that information off the Web?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I don’t follow.” He had heard Joely’s stories about the horrors of life in a small town, but this surpassed even her most grisly tales.

“We take care of our own here,” the officer said. “Bad enough we’ve got those paparazzi disrupting everything at the hospital. But when you start harassing private individuals, we’re not going to take too kindly toward you.”

“Call Catherine,” he said. “She’ll tell you who I am.”

The policeman studied his face for a full moment. “I’ll do that.”

JOELY PEERED AT the swarm of reporters through a crack in the kitchen blinds. “I say we hook up a garden hose and mow ’em all down.”

“Not a bad idea,” Cat said as she hung up the phone. “And then let’s rip out the phone wires.”

“Another reporter?” Joely asked.

“Three in a row. I don’t even want to know how many messages are on the business phone.”

“Unplug the phone,” Joely said. “Karen has your cell number, right?”

“The hospital doesn’t.”

“So call Laquita and give it to her. She’ll put it on Mimi’s record.”

“I’m so glad I have a brilliant sister. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Hey, my fancy degrees have to be good for something, don’t they?” She aimed for light and self-deprecating but fell short of the mark. “Sorry. I was trying to be funny.”

“What’s going on with your work anyway?” Cat asked, the telephone forgotten for the moment. “When is Clendenning going to secure funding for your department?”

“Soon,” she said. “I’m in line for a head slot with a new research group they’re forming.”

“How terrific!” Cat beamed with pride. “The same area as before?”

She nodded. “Spinal regeneration supplemented by fourth-generation prosthetic devices. It’s an exciting field.”

“So why don’t you look happy about it?”

“For one thing I don’t have the position yet.”

“But you’ll probably get it, won’t you?”

“It’s in Surrey.”

“Surrey as in Surrey, England?”

She nodded.

“What does William say about it?”

“He doesn’t know.”

“You haven’t told him?”