Blueprints: A Novel (42 page)

“Dean.”
She wanted to strangle him. “You changed the whole dynamic of the discussion. I was making headway, and you gave her what she needed to turn my single best argument against me.”

“The friendship one?” He went back to lacing his boots. “Oh, come on. It’s not like she waited a year to tell you. They went off for the day yesterday, and she came here first thing today.”

“She could have come over last night. She should have come yesterday morning,
before
she went off for the day.”

“And given you a chance to say no?” He snorted. “She wouldn’t have listened, Caro. All you’d have done would have been to rain on her parade, and please,
please
”—he speared her a quelling look as he reached for the second boot—“don’t go on about her rushing into marriage. Yes, she rushed, but it wasn’t just her, it was him, and it was their thinking about two little boys who they thought would be best off with two parents. They’re adults, Caro. You might have acted differently had you been in her place, but this isn’t your life, sweetheart, it’s theirs. Besides, do you think time guarantees success? You took your time with Roy, Jamie took her time with Brad, I took my time with my ex, and God knows none of those relationships worked, so maybe time isn’t the answer. Maybe it’s about gut instinct and basic animal attraction.”

Sex. “Why did I know it would come to that,” Caroline muttered.

Both boots on, he stood, seeming too large and too right. “You didn’t. You’re just spoiling for a fight. You want to argue with Jamie, only she isn’t here.”

“Well, do you blame me for being upset?”

He held up a crooked-pinkie hand. “No, I do not. Being upset is normal. She’s your daughter, you love her, and she did something that shocks you. But stop for a minute, Caro. Think about how she looked and how she acted.”

“I don’t know him.”

“You don’t have to. She does. And Williston does. He’s a known entity here.”

“Not all good.”

“Pretty damn close, of late. So I repeat. Think about how she looked and acted just now. Think about the life she’s making for herself. Is it all bad?”

He sounded so rational that Caroline couldn’t ignore what he said. Jamie had an instant family—not just Tad now, but Chip and his son. Even without the Weymouth project, her life would be ten times busier. And richer? Maybe. She had always wanted a slew of kids, hadn’t made any secret of that. If Chip’s words were to be believed, he wanted the same and would carry his weight.

So, had she looked happy? Not when she faced Caroline. When she looked at Chip, though, or held Tad or said Buddy’s name, she was happy. And she hadn’t blown her hair stick straight, unintentional if she had run out of time. Or symbolic? It had looked prettier. Softer. Natural.

Dean’s eyes were knowing. “Not bad at all,” he confirmed, “but it is a life she’s making for herself. If any one thing has you upset, it’s that. She took her life in her own hands and acted without consulting you. So for you it’s about control.”

“It is not,” Caroline argued. She
refused
to think she was a controlling person. “It’s about closeness and trust. And—and
respect.
If she respected me, she would have told me what she was doing.”

“It’s about control,” he insisted as he approached. “Why do you need it, Caro? You have your life, and she has hers. She’s twenty-nine. Why can’t you let go?”

Feeling personally attacked, not only by Dean but belatedly by Annie, who had said much the same thing Saturday at the nail shop, she raised her chin. “Maybe because I’m a difficult person who wants to rule people’s lives. So now you see the real me. Now you can just”—she gestured toward the door—“just walk out of here and never look back and be all the better for it.”

That quickly, he was inches away. “Oh-oh-oh no, you don’t get rid of me that quick. I’m not leaving, Caro. You’re making a mountain out of a molehill, but I’m not running away, because I am not the problem. So what if Jamie knows we’re sleeping together? You’ve always wanted her happy. Don’t you think she wants the same for you?”

Caroline opened her mouth to answer, but thought twice.

“Are you happy with me?” he asked, suddenly vulnerable.

She supposed.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he decided, his hazel eyes warming in relief, voice dropping, “because I
do
like sleeping with you, and it isn’t just basic animal attraction. I like touching you in the middle of the night—just touching—and if you didn’t like it, you’d move away, but you don’t. There are times when I’m awake watching you, and in your sleep you scootch closer, like you want to make sure I’m there. Know how that makes me feel? Like a million bucks! So I don’t care if the world knows we’re together, and that starts with your daughter. She’s not going to think less of you for it, unless you’re with me for some other reason that I can’t figure out, when deep down inside you’re really miserable.”

“You know I’m not,” Caroline grumbled.

He brushed her cheek with a gentle fist. “So what’s really bothering you? It isn’t just that Jamie got married without asking permission. You’re not that small a person.”

His gentleness did it, stripped away her fight. She was horrified when her eyes filled with tears, but she couldn’t will them away. “I feel like I’ve lost her.”

“Because of her tie to Chip or your behavior just now?”

Wrapping her arms around herself, she confessed a soft “Both. You said it. She made her own life. I’m not part of it.”

“Of course you are.”

“She doesn’t need me. Certainly not like she used to. So where does that leave me? If I’m not a mother, who am I?”
Who am I?
How many times she had wondered that in the last few weeks. After years of stasis, so much had changed.

He grasped her elbows. “You’re her mother, her friend, her confidante. You’ll always be those things.”

“Her confidante? Like she confided in me this weekend?”

“Oh, Caro,” he breathed and, drawing her in, wrapped his arms around her, “you’re confusing confidante with consultant. She didn’t consult with you beforehand, but she confided in you as soon after as she could.”

With his chin on the top of her head, her face fit his neck just under the stubble that was his salt-and-pepper not-quite-scruff, not-quite-beard. His skin was warm and his pulse strong, and though he didn’t speak, she felt a dense emotional support. Having always been her own best backup, she had never leaned on anyone quite this way.

Daring to let down her guard, she said a self-conscious “So maybe it is about control. But it’s hard, Dean, hard letting go.”

“Is that why you won’t wear my ring? Afraid of sharing something with someone? Of losing a little of that autonomy?”

She considered that, trying to figure out if it was true and, if so, where it came from. “I’ve just been the one in charge for so long. My parents were Poughkeepsie-centric, so I was on my own once I left, and Roy—well, Roy opted out soon after Jamie was born. When he was around, he ruled, but the rest of the time I was on my own. Jamie was mine. But I swear I didn’t push her. The whole tennis thing came from her. I was just her manager.”

“And cheerleader.”

“Of course. What kind of mother would I be if I wasn’t? But I tried to give her space, honestly I did, especially when she was at RISD, and still I was the one she came home to. So now she’s going home to a
husband,
and the powers that be say I’m too old to host
Gut It!
”

“The powers that be don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground,” Dean said with such fervor that she had to believe it. “You’re not too old. Jamie’s too young to do what you do with the show, but she’s better suited than we are to chase little kids around 24/7. Would you want to be in her shoes, starting out raising a family?”

Caroline thought about tired muscles and wrist tendonitis. She thought about quiet time with her computer each morning, minimal cleanup after breakfast, pedicures with Annie, and quality time with her cats. She thought about what she was doing this very instant, arms around Dean, deep breathing, quiet comfort, no interruptions.

Would she want to be starting out raising a family? “No
way.
”

He chuckled. “Me neither. I kind of like being near the top of the MacAfee Homes food chain. You’re higher’n me, and you’ll go even higher if Theo has his way.”

“Oh, Dean, I’m not sure…”

“If you want to run the company? You keep saying that, but it isn’t so much filling Roy’s shoes as paving your own way. What you did with the
Globe
was great. Jamie couldn’t have done that—no offense, sweetheart, but she doesn’t have the experience or the gravitas. She will someday, but not yet. And what you’re doing with the Weymouth acreage? Look how you’ve approached that.”

“It’s only one meeting.” Later that morning with Herschel Oakes in his Boston office, and she was not looking forward to it. She was actually surprised he had agreed to meet—surprised he had even returned her call on a Sunday afternoon. If he thought she wanted to try them again as a couple, he had another think coming. She was perfectly happy where she was.

Dean’s throat moved, sound vibrating past his Adam’s apple. “I’m talking about the way you’ve taken the lead.”

She sighed. “There’s no one else to do it.”

“I’m talking about you, Caro. You know what you’re doing.”

“I’m flying by the seat of my pants.”

“You have good instincts. You make decisions. You act.”

Letting the argument go, Caroline was quiet for a time, listening to the dove in the maple, to the patter of kitty paws overhead and Champ nosing at the front screen, wanting in. Superimposed on it was the steady beat of Dean Brannick’s heart, not a bad moment at all, when removed from the rest of her life.

She tipped her head back so that she could see his eyes. “I made a mess of things with Jamie again, didn’t I.”

Wisely, he didn’t respond.

“Only it’s worse this time,” she added, “because it isn’t just Jamie, it’s Charlie Kobik, who is now her husband, and the two little boys who will be calling her Mommy before long.” She took a deep, resigned breath. “One bad thing about age? Hard to accept change.”

“One good thing about age?” Dean, her hero, pointed out. “Realizing you need to do it.”

*   *   *

“Well,
that
went well,” Chip remarked.

“It was a
disaster,
” Jamie cried, only then shifting her eyes from the windshield and catching the grim look on his face. The fact that he agreed with her was small consolation for how upset she was.

“Consider it a dress rehearsal,” he warned. Indeed, now that the hour was more reasonable, they were heading home to Skype with Donald and Helene Kobik before Chip dropped off the boys and headed for school. “My parents won’t be much better, and there are two of them.”

*   *   *

Chip’s parents actually were better precisely because there were two of them. Don calmed Helene when she got caught up in many of the same arguments Caroline had. Jamie couldn’t help but think, slightly hysterically, that the two moms would get along just fine if they could get past the suspicion that their son or daughter had been bewitched by the other’s daughter or son.

Presenting a united front beside Chip during the video call, Jamie tried to look as unbewitching as possible. She tried to look as
together
as possible, when her insides were a tangle of nerves. She tried to reassure Helene as Chip had done with Caroline, and while there was no Dean to compound the argument, the call ended only marginally better.

“Should we have waited?” Jamie asked the instant the live feed ended.

Still bent over his laptop, Chip looked back at her. “Do you think so?”

“I asked you first.”

He straightened. “My answer is no. What’s yours?”

“No,” she said, relieved that they agreed here, too, especially considering the big deal her mother had made over needing time to know a person. She hated that Caroline had planted even the tiniest seed of doubt. “I like your parents, Chip.”

“You do not,” he muttered and pushed a hand through his hair. “Hell, you’d think I was twelve.”

“You’re the baby of the family. Your parents worry.”

“They had cause once,” he said, seeming momentarily lost in that old regret. His eyes held sincerity when they focused on Jamie again. “They really are good people. They’ll love you once they get to know you.”

“So will my mom once she gets to know you, but I’m sorry about earlier, Chip. She came across as a bitch.”

He arched a brow at her leg, to which Tad was clinging. Whispering, “Ooops. Gotta work on that,” she knelt to give her baby a hug. His warm little body was reassuring. Funny, given how recently he had become hers, but he was now a constant in her life. She was still trying to decipher his reactions and moods, but even his little tantrums were easier to deal with than, say, Caroline’s right now.

Putting her chin on the top of Tad’s head, she looked up at Chip. “She isn’t usually so rigid. If she was talking about anyone else, she would have been more forgiving. I’m her daughter, so the rules are different. I get that. Still, given our ages, you’d think she’d be less uptight.”

“Same with my mom. At what point do they ease up?” he asked rhetorically, then called into the other room, “Buddy, use the potty before we leave!” Back at Jamie, he said, “At least the men kept the moms sane.”

Jamie frowned. “The men.”

“My dad and Dean.” He paused. “What?”

“(A) that remark borders on stereotypical, and (B) Dean didn’t quite keep my mother sane.” When Tad squirmed for freedom, she kissed his head and let him run off. More pensive, she said, “Dean and Mom—why didn’t I see that coming?”

“Maybe because they’ve known each other so long. Do we like him?”

“Yes, we like him, but why in the world she needed to keep it a secret is anyone’s guess.” She considered, then added a meek “It is a little weird, though.”

“Imagining your mother with Dean?”

She stood, sighed. “Imagining my mother with
anyone.
”