The Waterfall (18 page)

“And what are you going to do?”

“About what?”

“Kissing me. Because if you know I want to kiss you, and would at the drop of a pin, then you don't have the kind of ammo I have. I know you don't want me to kiss you. You don't know that about me.”

She stared at him. “You're not making any sense.”

“Sure I am. I want to kiss you again. Very much.” He touched her hair. “I have for a long, long time.”

“How long?”

And suddenly she seemed to know. He could feel it. “Years,” he said, and he touched her mouth, traced her lower lip with his thumb.

Her gaze held steady, but he could see her swallow. “I'm sorry.”

“I'm not.” He smiled. “Now go see about your daughter.”

“She's a good kid, Sebastian.”

“I know.”

He moved aside, and she crossed the kitchen with her mug of coffee. At the doorway, she turned back to him and smiled. “But I am going to lock her in her room for the next hundred years.”

While mother and daughter had it out, Sebastian took his coffee to the back steps. J.T. was still asleep; outside the air was warm and still, and the birds were twittering. He thought about Barbara Allen and Jack Swift, a rented house, a dead bat in Lucy's bed, a landslide that had nearly killed him, Darren Mowery, the August congressional recess and blackmail.

And kissing Lucy. He thought about that, too.

M
adison acted defiant and put-upon when Lucy confronted her in her room. “I'll be a junior in high school next year. I don't have to tell you everything.”

“That's true,” Lucy said, “and I don't need to know ‘everything.' But sneaking out of the house at five in the morning after I specifically asked you—”

“There was
no
reason to worry!” Madison slammed her pillow onto the floor. She was sitting up in bed, looking misunderstood and furious. “You don't make any sense. If you had a life, maybe you'd leave me alone.” She caught herself immediately and gasped. “Mom, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that.”

Lucy stayed calm, even though she could feel the sting of her daughter's words. “Madison, I have a life. I have my work, I have you and J.T., I have my friends, hobbies I enjoy. I like living here. I get away just often enough. But whether or not I have a ‘life,' in your eyes, isn't your concern. My happiness is my responsibility, not yours or J.T.'s.”

“I just—I just don't want you to give up everything for us. I don't want us to stand in your way…” She didn't finish.

“You aren't standing in my way of doing anything.”

Madison raised her chin. “Then why can't I spend a semester in Washington?”

Lucy smiled. The kid never missed an opening. “Your brother would miss you.”

“No, I wouldn't!”

Madison threw another pillow at her door, where her little brother was eavesdropping.
“J.T.!”

“J.T.,” Lucy said, shooting him a warning look. He laughed without remorse and ran down the hall. She turned back to Madison. “You have lots of time for Washington. Right now, I'd like you to think about what it means to be trustworthy. If I can't trust you here, at home, how can I trust you on your own in Washington or anywhere else?”

“I'd have Grandpa—”

“He's a busy senator, Madison. He won't have time to make sure you're not sneaking off. First, you have to know you can trust yourself to make good decisions. Then I have to know. Then we might be able to discuss Washington.”

“I'm sorry,” Madison said simply.

“Find something to do in the house.”

Her daughter nodded, if not contrite, at least re-thinking her conduct.

Lucy didn't leave. “Madison, I know I didn't convey this adequately the other night—” She breathed, went on, “But I don't want you and J.T. out alone, not because I'm an overprotective lunatic mother with no life, but because I'm afraid you might become targets of someone who's been harassing me.”

Madison paled. “What?”

“Right now, I seem to be the only target. And the incidents—I don't know what else to call them—seem to be tapering off. I hope they're over. I hope I've exaggerated their significance. But until I'm sure, I ask you
please
not to go off on your own.”

“What kind of incidents?”

Lucy told her. She left out none of the possibilities. “I don't know if they're all related—I don't know if any of them are related.”

“That's why Sebastian's here?”

That and something else, which he wouldn't explain. She expected it might have to do with Darren Mowery, an unnerving prospect. She nodded. “Yes.”

“J.T. doesn't know, does he?”

“No.” Lucy smiled a little. “He's still young enough that he'll do as I ask without five million questions and arguments.”

Madison didn't smile. “This is spooky.”

Wrung out, Lucy headed downstairs, refilled her mug with stale coffee and joined Sebastian on the back steps. She sat close to him, but not touching. She sipped her coffee. After a long silence between them, she said, “I'm not Colin's wife anymore. One of the hardest things I did after he died was to take off my wedding ring.”

She jumped up before Sebastian could respond and ran into the kitchen. J.T. had wandered down from his room. They made pancakes and sausage, heated up pure Vermont maple syrup and filled the kitchen with homey smells. Madison was allowed down for breakfast, but declined.

This
is my life, Lucy thought. It wasn't with a burnout like Sebastian Redwing, a man who'd had to renounce violence, not because he was a pacifist, a gentle man by nature, but because he wasn't. He had killed people. People had tried to kill him. Maybe as recently as two days ago, someone had tried to kill him.

She sat back, stared at her hands. She wore no rings now. She and Colin had been young and broke, and they hadn't spent much on their wedding rings. But that was okay, they'd had such faith in their future together.

Daisy Wheaton had worn her wedding ring until the day she died. Rob had told Lucy, not that he'd needed to. She'd known, somehow.

I am not Colin's wife anymore.

Her chest was suddenly tight, aching, and she could feel tears welling, because it was real this time, not symbolic. She'd kissed Sebastian. She
wanted
Sebastian. Never mind that he wasn't right for her, he'd somehow managed to set her physically on edge, fill her mind with thoughts of making love to him. It was madness.

But maybe, she thought, necessary.

She didn't want to be known as the Widow Swift. As good as Daisy's life might have been, it wasn't
her
life.

She poured herself a fresh cup of coffee and took it out to the barn with her. Sebastian wasn't on the back steps. She didn't know where he was. Just as well, she thought, and settled in to work.

 

Barbara went for a run on the main road, past Lucy's house. She'd left her car at the end of the dirt road because she didn't want to walk back up the steep hill. It was Sunday, but no one was around. Still, she could feel Sebastian Redwing's eyes on her as she ran. She wasn't paranoid. He was
there.
He would wonder who she was. Perhaps Madison had already told him. Barbara didn't know why she was baiting him. Why not stay up on the hill? Why go for a run?

But she knew why, and she kept up her pace, hoping the impulse would subside. She ached with the need to act. She couldn't think, could hardly breathe. She wanted the relief that came, even momentarily, with action.

No.

Pain shot up her shins from pounding too hard. She eased up. She was a strong runner, a fit, disciplined woman.

Did Sebastian Redwing suspect her of toppling him into Joshua Falls? The landslide had worked out even better than she'd anticipated. She remembered her mix of horror and fascination as she'd watched him plunge headfirst over the rock ledge. Oh, God! What if she'd killed a man?

It would have been Lucy's fault.
Lucy's fault, Lucy's fault.
She was the one who'd brought Sebastian Redwing to Vermont.

Barbara turned around at an old one-room schoolhouse, now boarded up, and headed back. Her stomach hurt. She was afraid of throwing up. It was tension, she knew. And hatred. She'd never known such pure hatred, didn't understand it. Lucy had never done anything to her.

But, of course, she had—just not directly. If Barbara followed the winding path to where Jack went wrong, where he'd moved away from openly declaring his love for her to this stubborn denial, it landed at Lucy's feet. She hadn't seen that Colin had a heart condition. She'd stolen Jack's grandchildren away. She'd made him give up Barbara, the one woman who loved him totally, unconditionally.
Lucy's fault.
It was that simple.

Barbara abruptly stopped to pick flowers on the side of the road, grabbing them by the handful, pulling them up by their roots. Black-eyed Susans and daisies, a few purple, spiky things she didn't know the name of. She ran with them, their dirt-laden roots slapping against her shorts and sweaty thighs.

When she reached her car, she grabbed a pad and pencil.

No. She had to do this right.

She dumped the flowers onto her front seat and, panting and sweating, climbed in behind the wheel. She should take time to cool down and stretch, but she didn't.

There was nothing from Darren at the rented house. No messages on her cell phone voice-mail. Nothing from Jack. Nothing from anyone.

She blinked back tears and carefully cut the roots off the flowers. Some were a little beaten up. She didn't care. She found a piece of string in a kitchen drawer and tied it around the flowers. Downstairs in a closet, she found an old typewriter. She typed a short note. She would have to get rid of the typewriter; it probably could be easily traced. But she didn't touch the paper directly, didn't leave a handwriting sample for Mr. Security Man.

“He should have died in the falls,” she said. “He really should have.”

Wrapping her hand in a dishtowel, she tucked the typed note into the flowers.

She smiled. “How romantic.”

 

After the sugar and adrenaline of her morning had worn off, Lucy called her father-in-law. She used her portable phone while she deadheaded hollyhocks and daylilies in front of the barn.

“Jack? Hi, it's Lucy. Why didn't you tell me you'd sent Barbara up here to rent you a house? I could have helped! We could at least have had Barbara to dinner.” She kept her tone cheerful, half teasing. “I hope you weren't afraid we wouldn't want you.”

“No—no, that's not it at all.” He sounded tense and awkward, his sonorous voice unable to mask his feelings. “I wasn't sure I could find anything at this late date, and I didn't want to get Madison's and J.T.'s hopes up. And you know how I love surprises.”

“Well, Barbara's found you a great house just up the hill from us.”

“She told me. That's wonderful. It's okay with you?”

Lucy tossed a handful of wilted blossoms into the dirt and rubbed her forehead. She could feel a headache coming on. Awakened by Sebastian in her room, thrown into fits by his kiss, her daughter acting up, too many pancakes—all had her going. “I've told you before, Jack, you're always welcome here. The kids will be thrilled to have you around.”

“Barbara's rented the house for a month. I'll have to go home a few times—”

“Jack, she could have rented the house for a year. You're family.”

“Lucy…” He seemed to choke up, but rallied. “Thank you. I'm sorry I went off the deep end on you the other day.”

“Jack, we've known each other too long and have gone through too much together to worry about that sort of thing. Look, you sound tired. Is everything all right?”

“Yes, fine. It's just bloody hot here. Lucy—there's something else I should tell you. Sidney Greenburg will be spending some time in Vermont with me.”

“That's great. Sidney's wonderful.” Lucy understood immediately what he, in his almost prudish way, was trying to tell her. “Jack, I'm so pleased for you.”

“And you? Is everything all right with you?”

Not by a long shot, she thought. “Nothing a few quiet days won't cure. Is Barbara heading back to Washington? I can still have her to dinner—”

“I urged her to take a few extra days to relax. You know Barbara. This place would fall apart without her.”

Lucy smiled. “Do you mean your office or all of Washington?”

He laughed, sounding more like himself.

When she hung up, Sebastian materialized behind her. “How's the good senator?”

“Eavesdropping isn't polite. I had a talk with J.T. about that very subject this morning.”

“No one's ever suggested I was polite.”

She swallowed and pinched off a pale yellow daylily blossom. His mood, she sensed, was not good. He was serious, the teasing sexiness and the depth of emotion of earlier replaced by a kind of dark calm.

“He was tense,” she said. “This time of year is always hard in Washington. Everyone wants to get home, it's hot, and the back-channel pressures and deals come fast and furious. Jack's a plodder. He likes to think through issues, not jump on some half-baked compromise.”

“I'd like to talk to him.”

“Jack? Why?”

He shrugged, but nothing about him was nonchalant. “For the same reasons the local police would want to talk to him if you'd gone to them instead of me. He's a United States senator. If someone's bothering you, maybe it's to get to him.”

Lucy tossed more dead blossoms into the back of the flower bed. It needed weeding, too, and a shot of organic fertilizer. “That doesn't make any sense.”

“Maybe not.”

“You're thinking if he's rented a house here for August, it could mean something's up.”

“I'm not thinking anything. I just want to talk to him.”

She plunked the phone in his hand. “Go ahead. I'll listen in.”