True Bliss (26 page)

"Sure. But he won't be." He kicked off his shoes and rolled up his shirtsleeves. "Off you go."

Still she hovered. Bobby had only met Sebastian once.

"Go."

Bliss climbed the first few stairs and stopped again.

Sebastian looked up at her, his face all but obscured by Shadow. "Go, Bliss, or I'll have to take you upstairs myself. If I do that, I may not have the willpower to come back down again. Not without doing what I want to do right now."

"Don't say that," she whispered. "Please."

"You're beautiful."

"You're beautiful," Bliss told him, and meant it. "Why couldn't things have been different?"

"They're going to be. I'll make sure they are."

When he spoke like that, with utter conviction, she could

almost believe him. "You should go home. I should stay with Bobby."

"Go to bed. I'll stay with him. Go on."

When she still hesitated, he pointed toward her room, "Go, my love. I'll be here thinking about you up there. And I'll think about all of you, all of you and all of me—"

"Good night," she told him and ran the rest of the way up the staircase.

When she leaned over the railing along the landing, he was standing with his back to her, his hands on his hips. His hair shone black, his shirt very white. Then he turned to the sofa bed and pulled the sheet higher over Bobby.

Bliss ached with longing.

She went into her room and left her door slightly open. Surely Bobby would yell when he woke up and found himself with a stranger, a stranger she couldn't seem to stop wanting.

She stepped out of her shoes and went into the bathroom. A peek in the mirror was enough to remind her that this had been a tough night.

"Hag," she muttered, and threw the crumpled streamer she still held onto the counter.

It sparkled faintly.

Bliss picked it up and smoothed it out. Several long strands of white silk—and one strand of silver thread.

Her hand went to her throat.

In the conservatory, when the man had grabbed her, he'd tightened her scarf, then pulled it away. Bliss looked into the mirror again, looked at her bare throat above the low-cut bodice. She'd completely forgotten the scarf. A small red graze showed on one side of her neck.

With fingers that trembled, she smoothed the strands of silk. Pulled from her scarf—she was sure they were from her scarf. And she was sure that they were a message—for her. He would do anything he needed to do. And he could get at her whenever he chose.

Who could get at her? And why?

Seventeen

"I'm not asleep."

Sebastian opened his eyes and looked into Bobby Crow's slender face. "You're not?"

The boy sat up and crawled closer. "Nope. I waited till Bliss stopped moving around to tell you. She's stopped moving around." He cocked his head. "Listen. She's stopped."

Sebastian already knew Bliss was in bed. He'd been thinking about that. "You ought to be asleep."

"You said I wouldn't be afraid to wake up and find you here."

"I said that, yes. Kids know when people like them. People who like them don't scare them."

"I don't get scared."

"You're past that phase, huh?"

"I look after my mom. I'm the man of the house."

"Your mom told you that?"

Bobby sat straighten He wore Batman pajamas that probably hadn't been new when he got them. They were well-washed, and threadbare over the knees. His thin wrists and ankles protruded from too-short sleeves and legs. "Mom says we gotta stick together 'cause there's just us, and Auntie Fab. And Nanny."

"People should always stick together."

"Uh-huh." Bobby sucked in the corners of his mouth. His blue eyes were solemn. "You called Auntie Bliss beautiful."

"She is."

"Uh-huh. She said you were beautiful, too."

Sebastian felt himself color. "She was joking."

"She just meant she likes you a lot."

"You think that's it?"

"Uh-huh."

The boy's body had a bundle-of-sticks quality—bony, vulnerable. Sebastian glanced at the hands that seemed constantly in motion. They had the scrubbed, but never-quite-free-of-dirt appearance peculiar to small boys. Bobby's tow-colored hair was mussed and stood up at the crown.

A kid's face shouldn't show strain. Bobby's features formed a gut-wrenching picture of anxiety. "Something bothering you?" Sebastian asked.

The boy shook his head.

Sebastian shrugged and tried to stretch out more comfortably in a recliner close to the empty fireplace. Sagging recliners seemed to be Bliss's specialty.

"I guess ycu don't like kids."

The frightened note in Bobby's voice grabbed Sebastian's full attention. "What makes you say something like that?"

This time Bobby shrugged, brought his pointed shoulders all the way up to his ears. "Vic doesn't."

"I'm not Vic."

"My dad doesn't."

Sebastian swallowed. This was strange territory. "I'm sure your dad likes you."

Bobby frowned and shook his head.

If there were magic words, Sebastian didn't know them.

"My dad came here once. I was just a little kid then."

This was more than Sebastian had bargained for tonight. Or any night. "Sometimes it's hard for adults to say the right things to kids."

"Does your dad like you?"

"I don't have a dad."

"Oh."

They fell into a silence no more comfortable than the conversation had been.

"My dad doesn't like me," Bobby said with finality.

"You don't know that."

"He said so. He told me he didn't like boys with blue eyes and blond hair."

For the first time in his memory, Sebastian felt the sting of tears. "Sometimes grown-ups make jokes children don't understand."

"My mom picked me up for him to hold, but he wouldn't. He put his hands behind his back like this." Bobby gave a demonstration.

If the ground had slipped beneath him, Sebastian couldn't have felt more unsure of himself. "Maybe your dad's got a bad back." Stupid, stupid comment.

"Maybe," Bobby said. "He never came again."

Sebastian sat upright. "That's tough."

"He gave me five dollars."

"Wow"

"And some candy."

"Hmm."

Bobby strained his eyes upward and said, "My hair's brown now, isn't it?"

"Uh-huh."

"My dad said he'd be back through someday, but he hasn't come yet."

Sebastian felt a rare urge to kill. "Your dad's the unlucky one."

Bobby crossed his legs and watched Sebastian intently.

"He's missed out on being around a great kid. But your mom loves you, and your aunt and grandma. So does Bliss."

"Yeah."

Yeah, but a boy needed a man around. Sebastian looked at his fingernails. As long as the man wasn't like the one who'd made him spend his own childhood planning escape. "I was adopted," he said, and wondered why.

"Your dad went away, too?"

"I don't know what happened to my real father and mother. When I was adopted they had what was called closed adoptions. You didn't know all the details. I could go and try to find out now."

"You gonna do that?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Some people need to. That's great. They should do it. Other people don't. Maybe it's because they've decided ... Oh, hell—I mean, I don't know why, but it doesn't figure in my life anymore." He was talking the philosophy of his life to a five-year-old in the middle of the night. "Go to sleep, Bobby."

The phone rang. He saw a cordless on the mantelpiece and jumped to grab it, hoping to stop Bliss from waking up. It rang a second time before he could press the talk button.

Bliss's sleepy voice said, "Hello."

He should hang up.

"I know it's late," a man said. "I had to call. I can't stop thinking about you."

Sebastian drew his lips back from his teeth and held his breath.

"Lennox?" Bliss said. "Is that you?"

"Who else? It was great of you to come to my show. Meant a lot to me."

"It wasn't anything. It is late."

"I can't sleep."

Bliss didn't answer.

"What happened was a mistake," Lennox said. " 'I shouldn't have pushed the way I did."

"It's history," Bliss said. "Forget it, Lennox. Move on."

"When you came to the show I thought—"

"I shouldn't have come. I just wanted to support you."

Bobby's upturned face was as still as a carving. The kid was too old for his years, too clued in to doing what would please adults.

"You shouldn't get involved with that Plato guy, Bliss."

Sebastian stood straighter, listened more intently.

"He's bad news. I've been doing some research on him, he—"

"Good night, Lennox."

"Bliss! Don't hang up. I want to see you."

"No."

"Please. I'd like to talk about moving back to the Point. I did some of my best work there. And we were great together."

"Memory has a way of turning into imagination."

"Stay away from Plato."

Bliss fell silent. While Sebastian held his own breath, he heard hers. Then he heard her hang up the phone, and, after several seconds, the click of Rood cutting his end of the connection.

Sebastian set down the phone.

"Are you mad about somethin'?"

He glanced at Bobby. If possible, the child's face had grown even more tight, his eyes more huge.

Sebastian smiled. "Of course I'm not mad." Puzzled. Suspicious. But not mad. He'd have to send Nose on a new fact-finding mission. "You'd better get some shut-eye." Before setting out to find Bliss tonight, he'd spent more time studying the photo with what appeared to be a human form looking toward Bliss in her bedroom. It could have been Rood. Or Jim Moore. Or a trick of the light and shadows . . .

"You got any kids?" Bobby asked, resuming his spot in one upper corner of the sofabed.

"No." Sebastian stood over the boy and pulled the covers up again.

"You gonna have some?"

Only a kid would ask a question like that so baldly. Sebastian smiled. "Maybe."

"This is a big bed," Bobby said, squinting up at him. "You can have the bit over there if you like."

Sebastian blew out a long breath. "Nice offer." Forming any

kind of a bond with a needy child when that bond would be short-lived, was wrong.

Bobby pulled one of the two pillows from beneath his head and pushed it to the far side of the bed. Without another word, he curled up again and squeezed his eyes shut.

With a glance toward Bliss's room, Sebastian lowered himself to the sofa and stretched out. He stacked his hands under his head and listened to the faint sound of the child breathing, breathing as if he was trying not to make any noise at all.

Lennox Rood hadn't entered his mind since the night of the incident in Bellevue Square. But the guy had warned Bliss to stay away from Sebastian.

And Jim Moore was moving in again—just when there'd been some vague hope the man might finally have let go.

Jim Moore knew about Bliss.

"You asleep?"

Sebastian turned his head toward Bobby. "No. But you should be."

"You got a dad when you were adopted."

After trying to see beyond the comment, and failing, Sebastian said, "Yes, I did."

"You were lucky."

No point in burdening a five-year-old with trouble he didn't already have. "I guess I was. The people who adopted me are both dead. They weren't young when they took me."

"Hmm."

Bobby fell silent. After several minutes he said, "You any good at telling stories?"

Sebastian's mind went blank.

The boy rolled over. "I didn't mean I wanted you to tell a story," he said, pressing his eyes tightly shut. "I just wondered is all."

Sebastian studied the young face with its promise of strong features to come. He stretched out his arm and ruffled hair turned the texture of straw by the sun. Bobby wriggled closer.

"Long ago and far away, at the very top of the world, there

was a family . . ." Sebastian paused. "It's the middle of summer and I'm telling a Christmas story."

"I like Christmas stories best of all."

"Good. It's the only one I can remember right now. At the North Pole there was a family of master chocolate makers who worked for Santa Claus ..."

Sebastian awoke with a cramp in his shoulder.

He blinked at faint bands of early-morning light through warped Venetian blinds. A scent of dust, overlaid with soap, emanated from the child bundled against his side, with his head resting beneath Sebastian's chin.

Very carefully, a little awkwardly, he patted the boy's arm. Making a child happy didn't have to be so hard. Why did some people make it impossible—and so painful for the kid? Not that Bobby's mom wasn't doing her best. Sebastian could tell how hard she tried and how much she loved her boy—and how much he loved her.

He heard another sound and turned his head. Bliss sat halfway down the stairs, looking at him through the balusters. Her hands were crossed on her knees, with her chin on top.

He mouthed, "hi," and she mouthed, "hi," back and wiggled her fingers at him. The sadness in her eyes turned his heart.

Bliss got up and came slowly to stand at the side of the bed. She offered him her hand and he took it, and squeezed. She bent and kissed his palm, released him, and went in the direction of the kitchen.

Sebastian eased away from Bobby, who scarcely stirred before nestling deeper into the covers.

Swathed in a worn, blue poplin wrapper, Bliss stood in the open doorway from the kitchen to the patio and vegetable garden. The earliest rays of the sun touched her hair, lighting a fiery nimbus around the auburn. Carefully shutting himself in with her, Sebastian approached on silent feet to stand only inches behind Bliss.

When he rested a hand on her shoulder, she didn't move.

Birds sang outside.

A light wind brought scents of lavender, and rose, and mint and sweet basil into the kitchen.

He touched Bliss's hair, and smiled when it clung to his skin, and sprayed upward as he lifted his fingers again. Sun shone through the drifting strands, picked out sparkling lights.