Blue Clouds (47 page)

“Pin the mail bomb on him, too, and I guess I can assume he's the only murderer around,” Seth replied lethargically. He'd like to see Darius fry because of Chad, but his mind had left the past and moved on to contemplate his increasingly bleak future.

“Done that. Tied it to the thugs who tried to beat you up at the bar. Apparently Darius has still another vice—drugs. When the money started running out, he had to deal to cover his debt. We tracked his supplier to the bar. The supplier has some pretty tough connections. He recognized you the night you were there and figured he'd be a wealthy man if he knocked you off for Golding. When that didn't work, he suggested the mail bomb.”

Seth raised his eyebrows and silently waited for Dirk to continue. Drugs. Natalie should have known, but she was too self- absorbed to pay attention.

Dirk gave him a cautious look but continued. “Apparently your mother isn't too circumspect about your security precautions. She complained about them to Natalie, who probably told Darius. Natalie admits she has some old boxes of your books in the house with your publisher's labels on them. It wouldn't take much to use a computer to duplicate them. I don't think she's involved any more than that, if that's any help.”

Seth grimaced and took a deep sip of his iced tea. Maybe he ought to help himself to one of Doug's beers. “So much for security. I suppose now I'll have to hire you to plug all the holes around here.”

Dirk shrugged and took a long haul on his bottle before replying. “The bastard got around my men in the hospital with that stolen ID and doctor getup. No one can guarantee perfect security. You'd do better to cut down on your list of enemies.”

Right. He'd wave his magic wand and turn a whole community into happy little elves. That was the kind of thing Pippa did.

Pippa.

The agony where his heart should be had nothing to do with his damaged rib.

***

Seth stood in front of the open windows in his room where he and Pippa had stood that evening so many weeks ago, the evening that had shattered so many of his self-delusions. He'd thought himself a controlled and unemotional man like his father. Pippa had caused him to lose all control and revel in the passion of the moment. He'd thought happiness some ephemeral quality that people merely talked about. Pippa had taught him to laugh at the smallest things. He'd quit allowing people into his life because they brought only pain. Pippa had brought joy.

How could he go on knowing all those things were out there—joy and happiness and passion—and never know them again? He needed Pippa to open his eyes and keep them open, or he would gradually slink back into the former shell of himself. But she'd refused him.

His old cynical self would say that she'd never really cared, that she'd merely used him as a safety net while her old boyfriend roamed the streets, but the self Pippa had unearthed knew better. Unfortunately, Pippa hadn't uncovered enough of it. He couldn't figure out what he'd done wrong, what he needed to do next. He hadn't learned his lessons well enough.

Pippa cared. Pippa had said she loved him. But she wouldn't marry him. Why?

The quiet sound of rubber wheels rolling across the carpet interrupted Seth's reverie. He'd had all the thick rugs and padding ripped off the floors up here so Chad would have easier going for his chair.

Seth turned and attempted a smile for his son's worried gaze. “Come to get trounced at checkers?”

Chad didn't smile back. “Pippa isn't coming back, is she?”

So, the boy had put two and two together, probably with Nana's help. He ought to retire the old woman. She was a pestilent nuisance. But an efficient one.

“She was here last Sunday, wasn't she?” Seth replied evasively.

“I mean
really
coming back.”

From beneath a tumble of black curls, Chad shot him an impatient look that Seth figured mirrored one of his own. The boy was too damned much like him. He needed a softening influence Natalie couldn't supply.

Sighing and running his hand through his hair, Seth settled into a chair beside the fireplace. There was no point in lying to the boy. Chad was too smart to accept lies.

“I asked her to marry me, and she said no. I don't know what else to do. It's me she's mad at, not you,” he hastened to add at Chad's crestfallen expression.

Chad wrinkled up his brow in childish thought. “Maybe if you gave her something she really wanted? Kinda like letting me go to school with Mikey, but something Pippa wants?”

Seth bit back a sad smile. “We'll talk about school later, after we see how the gym works out.”

Chad clenched his chair arms in frustration. “I don't care about the school. That was just an example.” He threw out the word as if it were one all six-year-olds used. “Couldn't we give Pippa something she really wants so she'll come back and live with us?”

“I don't think money will buy Pippa,” Seth said gently. “If the gym and the new company won't do it, nothing will.”

With the energy of youth, Chad refused to give up. “She likes blue clouds and circuses and clowns and Ferris wheels,” he insisted. “She told me so.”

“Blue clouds?” The other suggestions spun wheels in Seth's head, but he asked the obvious in distraction.

“Blue clouds, like after thunderstorms. She says they have them in Kentucky. The sky lights up all blue and pink and yellow, better than a rainbow. She says it's God's promise of a better day. I'd like to see them someday,” he added wistfully.

“Well, I'm not certain I can arrange blue clouds,” Seth answered haltingly, his mind racing over new scenarios. “But maybe we can arrange clowns and Ferris wheels. Do you think that might help?”

Chad sat up and grinned. “Yeah, that should do it. Pippa loves circuses. She'll love us if we can give her one.”

Out of the mouths of children.

She'll love us if we can give her one. Pippa already loved them. Seth believed that with whatever confidence he still retained. Pippa wasn't a Tracey, throwing herself into his arms for what he could offer. Pippa had come into his arms and given herself because she loved him. Love. Foolish word, one he didn't know much about. But Seth wagered Pippa knew a lot about it. And craved it as much as he craved her.

He would have to give Pippa what she wanted. A circus brimming with clowns and Ferris wheels was a cinch compared to what Pippa really wanted. Even blue clouds might be easier.

Sitting curled in her papa-san chair, tears streaming down her cheeks, Pippa stroked the loose pages of the manuscript Lillian had sent her. She couldn't believe Seth had written such a touching story. Not Seth, the inhuman monster.

But the vulnerable Seth, the wary, unprotected creature hiding behind the hard shell of the monster, that Seth could have written this story.

She was amazed at how he'd transformed an entire book with a few simple changes. He'd cracked open the carapace, exposed the tender insides of his protagonists, and let them emerge as whole new creatures. Utterly amazing. The man had talent. Amazing talent.

Of all kinds. Sinking deeper into the cushion, Pippa contemplated that sorry thought. His talent for lovemaking would bar her from ever enjoying another man. She'd thought him incapable of loving. But he wasn't. The book proved that. He simply wasn't capable of expressing love. No one had ever taught him how.

And she'd blown it, utterly. Blown the chance to teach him how to express love. Blown the chance to know his love-making every night. Blown the right to tease him and watch him grin every day.

The manuscript had arrived with a note from Lillian. Pippa suspected Seth's mother of matchmaking again. Well, this time she'd hit the right chords. It had just happened too late.

The phone rang and Pippa pried herself out of the chair to answer it. It rang far too seldom for her tastes. L.A. was a huge town, full of people with other lives and interests beyond hers. Maybe she'd been too hasty in selling the house in Kentucky. At least there, people knew her and she had friends. She didn't know how she'd make friends in the immensity of the city.

“Pippa!” Chad's excited voice in the receiver had her smiling. “We're gonna have a carnival! It's Dad's birthday, and the carnival is coming here!”

Pippa's brow furrowed in disbelief, but she didn't let Chad hear her doubt. “That's marvelous, Chad. Are you and Mikey going?”

“Yeah, and Dad and grandmother. And Doug said he'd take Mrs. Deal. She's Holly's mother.”

Pippa hadn't the vaguest idea who Holly or her mother were, but she was happy Doug had a friend at last. “That should make a wonderful birthday party,” she agreed enthusiastically. “Is it there in Garden Grove?”

“Yeah! That's the best part. Everybody can go. Will you come, Pippa? Please, please, will you come? It's a party. Everybody has to come.”

She suspected the fine hand of Seth or Lillian behind this plea, but she was feeling too lost and unhappy not to accept the Wyatt family conniving this time. She wanted to go to a carnival, to see the Ferris wheel, play silly games, and hear the merry-go-round. All right, so she wanted to see Seth again, too. But she wouldn't make any more of it than that.

At least, she'd try not to. She had to remember the emotional vacuum Seth lived in. She'd seen no evidence of the walls crumbling.

“Tell me when and where,” she agreed. Chad's delighted reply assured her she was doing the right thing, whatever the consequence.

***

The rainbow-colored lights of the Ferris wheel illuminated the darkening clouds on the horizon. It seemed only fitting that a rare California summer thunderstorm should form on Seth's birthday. Pippa glanced worriedly at the billowing black clouds, then proceeded to ignore them in favor of the festive flags flying at the entrance to the field Seth owned—the one next to the foundation of the new plant.

She could see people roaming the construction site as freely as they did the fair, pointing out new features, following a map of the blueprints. What genius had persuaded Seth to introduce his new company to its neighbors in such a manner?

Whoever it was, she gave them a mental pat on the back as she climbed out of her little Mazda with her arms full. Maybe she should leave the package behind until she found some help.

But she was in too much of a hurry to see Chad. And Seth. Okay, so she wanted to see Seth. So, shoot her.

A cheerful calliope greeted all arrivals as Pippa hurried across the grassy parking lot, carrying her surprise. She saw no ticket booths. Of course, if this was a party, they wouldn't charge admission for the night. She'd never heard of anyone hiring an entire carnival for a party, but Seth was capable of it. She wondered who he'd invited.

The entire town, she decided a minute later as she waved at Meg and family and noticed other familiar faces in the crowd. She didn't hurry to Meg's side as she once might have done. She wanted to find Seth first.

She could scarcely miss him. Hands full of multicolored helium balloons, Seth loped toward her. The tight brackets around his mouth and the nervous desperation in his eyes faded as he approached her. Her heart twisted at the sudden flash of white teeth and the warm smolder of gray eyes. She hadn't known how much she missed him until even her bones ached at the sight of him.

He stopped shy of hugging her, and Pippa gulped a little. She felt like a sixth grader with her first boyfriend. Tentatively, she handed him the immense, gaily wrapped package in her arms. “This isn't really from me, but from a bunch of people.”

The tension in his stiff posture eased further, and he grinned like a little boy. “A birthday present? May I open it now?”

He acted as if no one had ever given him a present before. Amused, Pippa nodded. “That's what presents are for.”

He handed her the bouquet of balloons so he could tear into the wrappings. She'd had a packager find a box that would contain her gift, and Seth had to tear through that, too, before he could find the contents. Nearly four feet high, and slender, the box made an awkward container. Seth had to set it on the ground to rip off the top.

As he caught a glimpse of the contents, he threw Pippa an uncertain look. Then apparently deciding it was a joke, he grinned again and ripped the thin box down the sides. A cheap, plastic, nearly four-foot statue of a baseball player emerged.

By this time, Chad had wheeled up and a small crowd had gathered. A short man wearing a baseball cap in the back of the crowd shouted, “We kinda forgot to give it to you before!”

Seth glanced around, found Oscar, and scowled slightly, but he lifted the statue to read the inscription. “ ‘Most Valuable Player'?”

Someone else yelled, “The team lost the final game without you. There wasn't much argument over who deserved the trophy.”

“Most valuable player,” Seth murmured again in amazement. A slow grin gradually worked its way across his face. He looked up and winked happily at Pippa. “Well, it looks like I've finally got something to sit on that mantel in my room. Thank you all. I don't have to make a speech, do I?”