A Self-Made Man (11 page)

But she didn't say it. She didn't feel like letting a tussle with Gwen spoil this lovely morning. And besides, Gwen was actually right. Lacy couldn't remember the last time she had moved the dial on the radio.

“I guess I just felt like something different today.” She went back to sorting the mail. “But I'll be leaving for work soon, so if you want to change it, go ahead.”

“No.” Yawning, Gwen shuffled into the room and picked out a small, curved slice of mandarin orange.
“It's okay. Whatever.” She made her way to the refrigerator. “I guess I'll get a glass of milk. Want one?”

Lacy looked at Gwen, surprised. Was it something in the air? This was the first time she could ever remember Gwen offering her anything. After years of unremitting resentment, why would Gwen pick this morning to suddenly turn mellow?

But maybe it
was
something in the air. And maybe, just maybe, it could be the first step toward a new…a new… Lacy was afraid to use the word “friendship.” She'd given up all hope of being friends with Gwen years ago. But she had awakened this morning feeling strangely different. It was as if, all around her—and inside her, too—things were changing.

She had been honest with Adam yesterday, honest about her anger. And it had actually felt rather good. Scary, but definitely empowering. Maybe she could risk being honest with Gwen today. Maybe she could admit that deep inside she had sometimes wished for…if not “friendship” perhaps at least “truce”?

“God, I love milk.” Gwen poured a huge tumbler full. “They turned the power off in my apartment four days ago, so I haven't had milk in a week.”

Lacy's foolish thoughts skidded to a halt. Of course. How had she been so dense? Thank goodness she hadn't said anything stupid…about friendship or truces or secret longings. Gwen hadn't come down just to be friendly. She'd come down to demand an advance on her allowance.

And this mild version of conversational soft soap was merely because she was afraid Lacy might say
no. The last time she'd needed an advance Lacy had warned her that it must not happen again—and Gwen knew Lacy had been serious. Gwen wasn't stupid. Wild and rebellious and chronically defiant, but not stupid.

“No, thanks. I already have my coffee,” Lacy said, pulling herself together, feeling the peculiar euphoria begin to dissipate. She sneaked a peek at her wristwatch. She hoped Gwen would get to the point quickly. She was due to give a VIP tour at the hospital in twenty-five minutes, and she knew that a prolonged argument about the check was almost inevitable.

Gwen set her glass of milk on the counter and scooted onto one of the bar stools on the other side of the pass-through. “So,” she said, overly casual. “I guess you can figure out why I've come home.”

Lacy put another flyer into the “toss” pile. She didn't look up. “I deduced that it wasn't just to spend time with your family.”

Gwen made a rude sound into her milk. “Family?” She took a swallow, wiped her lips with the back of her hand, and then chuckled mirthlessly. “Is that what you call us?
Family?
We're more like two miserable animals my father left behind, both locked up here in some kind of financial house arrest.”

“Locked up?” Lacy smiled. “That's overstating it a bit, isn't it? You can leave any time you like.”

“Ha!” Gwen sucked on her orange slice, dribbling a tiny trail of clear juice across her fingers. Malcolm had always hated Gwen's clumsiness—though once, years ago, Lacy had stood up for her, insisting that
her awkwardness had its own charm, like a puppy whose feet were just a little too big to control.

“Yeah, I can leave,” Gwen said, licking her fingers, as if she still were trying to annoy her father. “But leaving takes money. Which I haven't got. So I thought, since you hold the keys to the trust fund, you might want to help me out with that.”

A dozen questions ran through Lacy's mind. Like…where did all this month's money go? Why didn't Gwen just get a job to help support her lifestyle? Why didn't she lower her lifestyle to match her income?

But she'd asked all those questions before, over and over in the months and years since Malcolm had died. Gwen never offered answers. Instead she just grew angry, ranted about invasions of her privacy, and generally made life such hell that Lacy finally wrote out a check to restore peace to her life.

But enough was enough. Malcolm had written the will this way because he wanted Gwen's inheritance to last. And their investment counselor had warned that if Lacy kept writing checks against the principle, it would all be gone before Gwen turned thirty.

Lacy had promised herself that she'd say no this time. No matter what.

“So? How about it, warden? Are you going to turn that key for me? Write me a check and set me free? Set us
both
free?”

Lacy put the last bill in the proper stack, squaring the edges neatly. Then she turned to Gwen with as much implacable poise as she could muster. “No,” she said. “I'm not.”

“What?” Gwen's eyes narrowed. “That's crazy. You can't want me hanging around here!”

“It's your house, too,” Lacy responded tranquilly. “I'm delighted for you to stay as long as you want to.”

“Well, I
don't
want to.” Gwen shoved her milk across the counter so hard it banged into the crystal bowl of fruit, sending a clear silver ringing into the air. Milk splashed onto the pristine countertop. “As you damned well know.”

“Gwen.” Lacy stood, wiping the last hint of grape from her fingers with the linen napkin, then taking a kitchen rag to mop up the spilled liquid. From the parlor the Supremes were singing about baby love, but Lacy no longer enjoyed the sound. The sparkle had completely died out of her morning. “I have to get to work. We can talk about this more later, if you'd like, but I assure you it's pointless. I will not advance you any money this month.”

“Damn it, Lacy, you can't refuse to—”

Lacy took a deep breath. “It's only two weeks until your next check, Gwen. Maybe you should take that time to think things through. Make a budget, maybe. Make some plans. Maybe decide where you're going with your life.”

Gwen's scornful gaze raked Lacy from head to toe. “Where I'm
going?
I know where I'm going, Stepmother, dear. I'm going where the fun is. Wherever people have real lives and real relationships. Not this petrified, mummified robot thing
you and my father
called living.”

Lacy lifted her chin. “Fine. But if it takes cash to
get to this Eden of yours, you'll have to wait a couple of weeks. Till your check comes through.”

Making a small, thwarted sound of anger, Gwen stood, too. They faced each other across the pass-through.

“God, you're a piece of work. You're more like a machine than a human being, aren't you?” Gwen tossed her tangled mane defiantly, but her eyes were shining with frustrated tears. “Well, I may be broke, but at least I'm
alive.
And I'll be damned if I ever let myself end up a frigid witch like you.”

With one last muffled oath she stormed out, her bare feet slapping furiously against the wooden floor. As she passed the parlor, she pushed the power button to the stereo, silencing the music.

Her footsteps thumped up the stairs, a drumbeat of hostility, and finally faded. Then, nothing. Nothing but the kitchen clock, ticking away the minutes with a hollow, echoing sound.

A strangely lonely sound. Silent. Sterile.

Lacy clenched her jaw against a sudden pain. How absurd. She'd heard all of Gwen's insults—and worse—a thousand times. She'd even heard them again yesterday, from Adam Kendall.

They meant nothing. They had no power over her.

Blinking twice and squaring her shoulders, Lacy took her coffee cup to the sink, rinsed it and set it carefully in the dishwasher, as Malcolm had taught her to do.

A robot.
Yes.
Frigid.
Yes. And she didn't care.
She didn't care.

But to her horror, as she stood there, staring blindly out the kitchen window, Lacy realized that she did.

 

A
DAM HAD ALREADY
had two scotch and waters, but he was seriously considering having another.

He signaled the blond beauty who was serving the dozen or so golfers sitting around the Cartwright's lounge rehashing their day on the course. She nodded when he tapped his empty glass, then beamed at him as if he'd done something very clever.

Smart lady, Adam thought wryly. Smile therapy for wounded male egos. She probably raked in more tips in a month than most people did in a year.

“You know, bro, getting blotto isn't going to make you feel any better.” Travis leaned back in his chair and puffed out his chest in a disgustingly smug way. “I beat you, and you're just going to have to live with it.”

“Go ahead,” Adam said. “Enjoy your victory. You'll get few enough in your life if you keep slicing your nine iron like that.”

Travis snorted, tilted back and drained his fourth beer. “So
you
say. Scorecard says something else.”

Adam chuckled. He and Travis had been having this argument off and on for years now—sometimes with Travis as the winner, then Adam, then Travis again.

Back in the early days, in the islands, they had played on a weedy public course whenever they could steal a free day, swatting the balls clumsily just to let off steam, and plotting how to invest their hazard pay. When their investments had begun to catch fire, they
had graduated to smoother strokes at the country club every Saturday morning.

Adam could still remember the day, about three years ago, when they had realized that the money had begun to make itself, and that, if they wanted, the two of them could golf every single day of the week. It had been a heady moment—they had both laughed out loud at the sheer improbability of the miracle.

It had also been the moment when Adam knew that he would, after all, return to Pringle Island someday.

“I gotta tell you the truth, though, Adam. I kind of thought maybe your head wasn't in it today, you know?” Travis leaned forward, earnest and tipsy at the same time. “Seemed to me you might be thinking about…other stuff.”

“Stuff like what?”

“Stuff like Lacy Morgan.”

The waitress chose that moment to bring Adam's drink. She set it down with a lot of unnecessary fussing over the napkin and the swizzle stick. Grateful for the interruption, Adam returned her warm, attentive smile with a little extra enthusiasm.

“Well?” Travis looked impatient. “Aren't you ever going to tell me what happened? I've waited all day, but you haven't said one word about it. Damn it, are the rumors true?”

“I doubt it,” Adam said. “Rumors rarely are. But I'm at something of a disadvantage here, since I have no earthly idea what you're talking about.”

Travis grinned. “The hell you don't. And you can knock off that snarky prep-school sarcasm. It won't wash with me. You didn't get your money from
Daddy and Mummy. You got it by climbing into dirty tanks of oily crud with a blow torch and doing work everyone else was too scared to do.”

“Or too smart to do.” Adam shook his head. “God, we were dumb, weren't we?”

“I was dumb.” Travis wiggled his finger emphatically in Adam's face. “
You
were motivated. You had this burning need to make money so you could go home in glory and live happily ever after with the woman you loved.”

“Like I said.” Adam raised his drink. “
We
were dumb.”

Travis met the toast with one heartfelt clink of beer bottle and glass, then subsided into what seemed like a melancholy reverie, no doubt reliving some of their closer calls at the refinery. And there had been quite a few. The explosion that left the scar under Adam's eye, for instance, had nearly severed the muscles in Travis's left leg.

But it was time to change the subject, before the beer had Travis so morose he became hopelessly boring.

“So,” Adam said, shoving the peanuts toward his friend. “Have you had time to research the real estate situation around here yet? Or have you spent all your time on the links, trying to correct that nasty slice?”

As always, Travis shook off his blue mood easily. Adam had chosen his topic well. Travis was a real estate wiz—he'd been doubling his money every couple of years by buying and selling old houses and plots of land. Helping Adam choose an investment home on Pringle Island had been the official cause for
Travis's visit—though they both knew he'd go anywhere for a good game of golf.

“Yeah, I've been looking into it, but I can't recommend actually buying anything. These island people think awfully damn highly of their homes. You'd think the dirt in their gardens was gold dust. Besides, most of the properties have been in the family since the ice age, you know? Even a fixer-upper out here costs two times what it ought to.”

“Only
two
times?” Adam lifted one eyebrow in a perfect imitation of Biff, his old high school nemesis—a boy who definitely had inherited his money from Mummy. “Surely there's enough in just one of my Dot Com accounts to cover that, old chap.”

Travis groaned. “I hate it when you do that. But yes, of course you can
afford
to buy one. I'm just saying it's not a good investment. The houses around here are overinflated, just like the egos.”

Adam rubbed his chin against the back of his hand. “Still…”

“Besides, I was thinking you'd probably changed your mind. Because of what happened at the lighthouse, that is.” Travis frowned. “Hey, you never answered me about that, did you? Did it happen or not?”

Adam sighed. “I was afraid you would remember about that eventually. All right. Tell me what you heard, and I'll tell you if it's true.”