Someone Like You (25 page)

“Come on, Joely! If you take the job, you’ll have to move. That’s a pretty big deal.”

“I’ll worry about it if and when it happens.”

“Great philosophy if you’re talking about the weather, but not when your future’s at stake.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

The phone rang again, and they both stared at it like it had a will of its own.

“Let it ring,” Joely said.

Two rings. Three.

“I can’t,” Cat said. “It might be important.”

It wasn’t. And the next two calls weren’t important either. When it rang a fourth time, Joely feigned a yawn.

“If Diane Sawyer calls, let me know, and I’ll pick up the extension.”

Cat managed a laugh as she picked up the receiver. “Slow down. I’m having trouble following you. Okay, okay . . . a man is trying to find my house . . . yes, there are a score of reporters outside . . . did you say he’s English . . . yes, okay . . . that’s fine . . . give him the directions.” She turned to Joely. “You’d better sit down,” she said. “William’s here.”

“I think my brain just stopped functioning.” She focused in on her sister. “Would you say that again?”

“He’s on his way.”

“From Japan you mean. He’s still in Japan.”

“No, he was in Japan, but he’s in Idle Point now. In fact, he’ll be pulling into the driveway any minute.”

Joely hadn’t been joking when she said her brain had stopped functioning. Oh, it still managed to keep her vital organs running, but thought, logical or otherwise, had stopped dead.

“I wish you looked a little happier about this,” Cat said as she ran down the hallway to change her sweater and run a brush through her hair. “The man flew halfway around the world to see you.”

“He’s not supposed to be here,” Joely said as she yanked off her green sweater and grabbed a red one from the dresser drawer. “I didn’t ask him to come here.”

She pulled the sweater on over her head and struggled to get her arms through the sleeves.

“Damn damn damn!” She was close to tears as she pulled and tugged.

“What’s this?” Cat sounded amused. “You’re coming apart at the seams faster than this sweater.”

“Annabelle’s not even here. This is a disaster.”

“She didn’t run off to join the circus, honey. She’s on a play date at Karen’s house.”

She tugged the sweater into place, then reached for the brush on top of her closed suitcase.

“Do you see what it looks like out there? Reporters, photographers, those stupid vans with the dishes on them. What’s he going to think?”

“I guess he’ll figure it has something to do with Mimi.”

“He doesn’t know the first thing about Mimi, Cat. I haven’t told him anything.”

“Join the club. Michael found out from Mary Hart.”

“I was on the other side of the ocean,” Joely said, hating the defensive tone of her voice. “I’d been gone so long that it no longer seemed relevant.”

The fact that she was speaking about her own family was lost on neither of them.

Cat was quiet for a moment. “Well, that’s not hard to understand in your case. By the time you came along, she wasn’t performing very much. That life was never really part of yours.”

“You’re not listening,” Joely said, throwing the brush down onto the bed. “I mean I didn’t tell him anything. He knows I have a mother. He knows you keep an eye on her. But he thinks it’s because she’s frail and old and cultured, not because she’s—” She stopped, totally at a loss for words, politically correct or otherwise.

“Troubled?” Cat offered. “Difficult? Mercurial? Crazy?”

“You’re getting warmer.”

The doorbell chimed, and they locked eyes.

“Do you want to get it?” Cat asked.

Joely shook her head. “It’s your house.”

“He’s your . . . whatever.”

“Point taken,” she said. “I’ll get the door.”

She could hear the commotion as she hurried down the hallway. Shouted questions. Car engines. William’s cultured tones rising above the throng in protest.

She opened the door a crack and yanked him inside.

“What in bloody hell is going on?” he demanded as she locked the door behind him.

As an opening statement, it didn’t bode well.

“Glad to see you, too, William.”

He colored slightly. “Where’s Annabelle?”

“She’s at a friend’s house. We thought it was a good idea.”

“What in bloody hell is going on?” he repeated. “The street’s crowded with news vans. Everyone’s asking about your mother.”

“It’s a small town,” she said, trying to break the tension. “They have nothing better to do.”

He looked exhausted, strung out, exactly the way anyone would look after spending almost twenty-four hours in transit, and all of the tender feelings she had ever had for him came flooding back at once.

Not that it mattered. The look in his eyes told her everything she didn’t want to know. She was relieved when Cat joined them.

“Annabelle has your eyes,” Cat said. “It’s great to finally meet you, William.”

She extended her hand in greeting. William’s innate good breeding took over, and he put his anger with Joely aside.

“And you,” he said, kissing Cat on both cheeks.

“Joely, why don’t you put William’s things in the guest room while I make him something to eat. We can figure out the sleeping arrangements later.”

Trixie opened one eye when they entered the room, studied William for a moment, then resumed the position.

“Annabelle’s in love with her,” Joely said as William put his bags on the floor near the window. “She might try to smuggle her home with her.”

He nodded but said nothing, as if words were more than he could manage.

“At least now I know why you weren’t registered at the hotel.” She feigned drawing her hand across her brow in relief. “I was getting worried.”

He was clearly immune to her attempts at humor.

“When were you going to tell me?”

“That seems to be the question of the week around here. It didn’t seem terribly important up until now.”

“What were you planning to do, Joely, leave us a note and the extra house key?”

“I’m not following you. We spoke on the phone before I left, and you know I took Annabelle with me.”

“I’m talking about the position in Surrey.”

She had never been very good at pretending, and this was not the right time to start. “They haven’t made an offer yet. I figured I would deal with it when and if it happened.”

“Congratulations,” he said, his voice unnaturally steely. “You got the job.”

The floor started to go out from beneath her, and she abruptly sat down on the foot of the bed. “How do you know?”

“I checked for messages at our home number. You should be chuffed.”

She felt anything but.

“It’s an offer,” she said carefully. “I haven’t said yes to it.”

“You’d be working in Surrey?”

“William, it’s only an offer,” she repeated. “Don’t read anything into it.”

But he wasn’t a fool. The look of betrayal in William’s eyes cut right through to the bone.

“Your sister’s waiting for us,” he said, then turned and left her sitting on the edge of the bed watching her world fall apart around her.

“I’VE GOT TO go,” Cat said to Karen as she heard footsteps approaching down the hallway. “Somebody’s coming.”

“Should I bring Annabelle back there?”

“Hold tight,” she said. “I’ll call you back as soon as I can.”

She put the phone down and was sliding a turkey club onto a platter when William Bishop entered the kitchen.

“Did Joely show you the guest room?” she asked brightly.

“She did, thank you.”

His manners were even more impeccable than his clothes. She was a half step away from being awestruck. Good tailoring always did that to her.

“Annabelle’s a wonderful child,” she said. “I’ve become very fond of her in just a few days.”

The cautious, slightly aloof look in his eyes vanished at the mention of his daughter, a fact that endeared him to Cat instantly.

“Joely said she’s spending the afternoon with friends.”

“Karen’s my friend and my business partner,” Cat said, picking up on his unease. “She has three kids, all home-schooled, and a lot of pets. Annabelle has taken over the care and feeding of a baby cria.”

“She raises alpacas?”

Cat’s eyes widened. “I’m impressed,” she said. “Most people have no idea what a cria is.”

“Crosswords,” he said with a self-deprecating smile.

It wasn’t hard to see what had drawn Joely to him almost five years ago. Not only was he easy on the eyes, he seemed genuinely nice once you penetrated that wall of English reserve.

“Anyway, we figured Annabelle would be better off at Karen’s than ducking photographers.”

“It was intense out there,” he said. “I had to threaten one journalist with bodily harm if he didn’t get off the bonnet of my car.”

Bless her love of BBC television shows. “Bonnet” didn’t throw her in the least.

“They tried to break into Mimi’s house early this morning. We had to ask for police protection.”

“Why are they doing this?” He sounded skeptical which, considering the situation, he probably had every right to be.

“A television show did a piece on Mimi’s accident last night. They included the name of the state, the town, and even described the hospital. It’s been insane out there all day.”

He stared at her as if she was speaking in tongues. “Why would a television show run a piece on your mother?”

“Our parents were famous a long time ago, William. They were folksingers and activists in the sixties and seventies. They left a fairly impressive musical legacy behind.”

“I didn’t know any of this,” he said, and she wondered if Michael had looked half as shell-shocked when he first found out.

“I can remember some of it, but the whole thing, including their marriage, was just about over by the time Joely was born. I don’t think any of it has ever seemed real to her.”

“Why the interest now?”

“I’m not really sure,” she said. “I suppose someone passed along a tip that Mimi was in the hospital, and it grew from there.” She told him about the crowd of hungry photographers Joely had fended off near the nurse’s station. “A friend of mine says it’s going to get worse before it gets better, but I think he’s wrong. This is one of those small stories you run on a slow news day. I think it will die a natural death in a day or two.”

“Have you issued a statement of any kind?” William asked as she gestured for him to sit down at the kitchen table.

She slid a turkey club toward him. “We closed the blinds. That’s about as far as we’ve gone.”

“Issuing a statement makes you seem accessible to the media but allows you to remain in control. We use the technique frequently, especially when a negative financial report surfaces on one of our holdings.”

“You spin it,” Cat said. “That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”

“I prefer to call it a preemptive maneuver.”

“Maybe I’ll type something up and post it on the door.”

“You need a spokesperson,” he said. “A family member or close friend who’ll go out there and read the statement for the camera. Give them their film and a good sound bite, and you might get some sleep tonight.”

“I like the note on the door idea better.”

“That’s not going to be enough. You’ll still have the same problem.”

“It’s an annoyance, but I can live with it,” she said. “It’s Mimi I’m worrying about. She’s alone in that hospital room, and she can’t defend herself.”

“That’s understandable. Anyone would feel that way.”

“Is it?” She had to laugh. “It won’t be once you learn more about this family.”

“Write up a statement,” he said as he picked up half of his sandwich. “I’ll read it to the press when you’re ready.”

“You would do that for us?”

“I do it all the time for less important people.”

She leaned down and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you, William. I mean it. Thank you so much.”

“Consider it inadequate payment for a brilliant sandwich.”

She glanced down at the table. “Let me pour you something to drink.”

“Water would be fine.”

“Still or sparkling?”

“Tap is fine.”

She quickly filled one of her best glasses with tap water and dropped in an ice cube from the freezer tray. “Salud.”

He lifted his glass. “To happier days.”

She couldn’t help but wonder exactly what he meant by that.

 

JOELY STAYED IN the guest room for as long as she could without risking the appearance of a search party in the doorway. She felt utterly drained of emotion, and the thought of waltzing into the kitchen and making pleasant conversation with Cat and William was almost unimaginable.

So the job in Surrey was hers. She waited for the sense of accomplishment to catch up with her, the sense of pride in her own achievements, but she still felt hollow inside. If she had had any hope at all that she and William would be able to work things out, she never would have encouraged the higher-ups at Clendenning to consider her for the new research group. Surrey had been her fallback position, the neutral corner where she could retreat when her time at Loch Craig came to an end.

Which it was. She had seen that clearly in William’s eyes. The thought of what their split would do to Annabelle almost brought her to her knees. They had to find the right way to do this, a way that would protect the child’s tender heart and, please God, keep her in Joely’s life.

The sound of laughter from the kitchen caught her by surprise as she ran a brush through her tangled hair. From the look on his face a few minutes ago, she wouldn’t have thought William would be laughing again for a long, long time, but apparently he found the older Doyle sister agreeable company.