Daughter of Light (29 page)

The vivid memory of Ava in the shadows returned as he spoke. If she really was there, this budding romance was already on a fatal trajectory. But the look on his face, the desperate hope that I would show at least as much enthusiasm as he was showing, warmed my fearful heart.

“Just call from the road,” I said. “I should let Mrs.
McGruder know. That’s a house filled with little courtesies to be observed.”

“Exactly.”

He kissed me quickly and hurried away.

To keep myself from thinking of anything dark and treacherous, I went at my work with a furious passion. I nearly worked through lunch and would have if it weren’t for Carol Charles, one of the women in accounting, stopping by to get my sandwich order. After lunch, I took a call from Kelly Burnett for Mr. Dolan. She knew I was his personal secretary, of course, and asked me how my evening had been. She said she looked forward to seeing me again. She suggested that Mr. Dolan might be planning something for the four of us, “maybe even six of us if Julia and Clifford can manage it.”

I couldn’t help but like the way I was being included, accepted, so quickly. But why? Was it because I was doing good work or that Liam was undergoing some sort of change for the better? No one really had yet pursued my family story. Everyone had accepted my rendition of it, and I had apparently left them with the sense that talking about it would be painful for me. How long would that work? When would the detailed questions be asked? How could I survive dishonesty long enough to be truly accepted?

I had the feeling that this broken family needed me almost as much as I needed them and that in their way of thinking, nothing could change their minds about me.
Just let it go,
I told myself.
Just let it run its course. You’ll know when to pull back, when to leave, but for now,
enjoy what you’ve always wanted to enjoy, a normal way of life.

Liam called at three. He wasn’t on the road back, but he was determined to be home early enough.

“I’ll hire a helicopter if I have to,” he joked. At least, I thought he joked.

“I’ll call Mrs. McGruder,” I said. “How is the job?”

“It’s going great. It helps when you give a damn,” he added, and laughed.

Yes,
I thought.
It does.

He called me from the highway later. He had already asked Michael Thomas to drive me home so I could get ready to go out. I saw the half-surprised, half-suspicious look on his face when he came to get me.

“Now, I’m not judging you,” he said, smiling, when we got into his truck, “but talk about your fast workers. It’s like a tornado ripped through this place, but not a destructive one,” he quickly added. “What have you done to Liam Dolan? The man looks and acts like he cares. I know Ken is walking straighter.”

“My father used to say you can be told a hundred times to pick up after yourself, but until you tell yourself to do it, you won’t change, not really. Maybe something sleeping inside him finally woke up.”

“Yeah, right. Maybe you woke it up,” he said.

I smiled like a conspirator, and he laughed.

“I hope my daughters have a little of what you have,” he said.

Whenever I received any compliment in Quincy, my first reaction was guilt, because I felt like a phony and a liar. I was deceiving them all. Could I tell Michael
that he would never want his daughters to have any of what I had? Of course not, but something inside me wouldn’t permit me to accept such strong compliments gracefully. The best I could do was smile and maybe say thank you, but I was afraid I was going to appear arrogant, conceited, or too indifferent.

“From what I see, I hope they have a lot of what you have, Michael.”

He brightened like Christmas lights. “If only I was eighteen again,” he sang, and we rode on, laughing.

When I entered the house, Mrs. Winston came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a small dish towel, to greet me before I started up the stairs.

“Now, your canceling your dinner can’t be to have another date with my great-nephew, can it?” she asked with a teasing smile.

“Very likely,” I said.

“Well, I trust you have good judgment. Oh,” she added after she had started to turn away, “the new gentleman has arrived and has taken Naomi Addison’s old room. He’s aware that he’s sharing the bathroom with you. I would have put him on the other side, but that bathroom has two already sharing it, and—”

“I’m fine with it, Amelia. Don’t worry.”

“If there’s even the slightest problem, don’t hesitate to tell me,” she said.

I smiled and headed up.

As soon as I turned to go down the hallway, the new tenant stepped out of his room.

I stopped as he lifted his head slowly and looked at me. He wore a dark green long-sleeved shirt with jeans
and a pair of white running shoes. Although he had long licorice-black hair, he kept it smoothly brushed and with trim bangs. When he looked at me, his silvery-gray eyes brightened the way someone’s eyes would when they had run into someone they had known years ago. There was nothing immediately familiar about him, and if he was truly who he was supposed to be, there was no way we could have ever met. He had a light, almost pale complexion and was not ugly but not terribly good-looking, either. His nose looked too thin, his lips a little too thick, and his oval face emphasized his round, weak chin. He was stout, with a soft-looking belly, and about Jim’s height.

“Hi,” he said, moving forward with his hand extended. “I’m Collin Nickels. And yes, I get kidded a lot. You know, like can I put more than two cents in, or are there five in my family. Stupid stuff like that. You’re Lorelei. I was told we’re to share the bathroom. You’ll have no problem with me,” he continued, as if once he started to talk, there was no way to stop him. He seemed not to need a breath. “I’m up so early in the morning, almost always before the sun rises. Most of the time, you won’t even know I’m here. I keep my stuff in my room, too, so there’ll be no clutter, and don’t worry about any noise. I’m up late reading and working on my laptop and out most of the day doing my research. I’m working on a doctoral thesis. My parents call me the constant student because I’ve been in school since age five and never had a real job.”

I realized he was still holding my hand.

“Pleased to meet you,” I said, taking my hand back.

Was he babbling out of nervousness? I thought he
was amusing, but I was afraid to let down my guard. Paranoia was the sister who would never leave my side. Would I ever meet a stranger or be introduced to anyone without going into some defensive mode, always anticipating trouble? This young man seemed to come from some casting director looking to fill the part of a college male nerd in a B-movie. If he was a Renegade or even someone in my father’s clan, I would have to give up any hope of being prepared for trouble. I’d never recognize him.

“Yes. If you ever have any free time, I’d like to tell you about it. I like to tell anyone about it. I’m sort of proud of what I’m doing, even though my parents are waiting for me to tell them I have some sort of job out of all this money they’re spending on me. Parents. Are your parents proud of you?”

Obviously, no one had told him much about me, and I wasn’t in the mood to go into my fictional background.

“If they are, they haven’t said so yet,” I replied.

“Well, that surprises me. Don’t give up hope,” he said. “See you at dinner?”

“No, I’m going out.”

“Oh, you have a date. That doesn’t surprise me,” he said. He smiled and continued down the hallway. I watched him walk away to see if he would turn to look back at me, but he didn’t.

Harmless,
I told myself. I hoped I wouldn’t regret it.

Liam was back from Boston by seven, and we went to another one of his favorite restaurants. This time, when friends of his approached, I had the sense that he didn’t want us to spend any time with them, and it
wasn’t only his burning desire not to share his time with me with anyone. I picked up the vibes and asked him about it.

“You were pretty curt with those guys,” I said.

“Somehow, I can’t lie to you, Lorelei,” he said. “I don’t want to have anything to do with those guys anymore. They were part of my history that I’m not proud of.”

I understood. It got so that if he saw any of these old rotten buddies, as he liked to call them, he would turn us around and go someplace else. We didn’t go out every night of the week. Sometimes the work he had really did keep him away. One project kept him out of town for three days, but he was always on the phone with me as much as he could be.

“I bet you think I’m like some teenager with a terrible crush,” he said.

“No,” I told him. How could I tell him that I really wouldn’t know? I had never been a real teenager. I’d had no teenage boyfriends calling me on the phone. “I hope it’s more than a crush.”

“Do you? I was hoping you would. Dad wants to take us all out to dinner this weekend, Julia and Clifford included. I told him I’d let him know. I don’t want you to feel like I’m pushing you into anything.”

“I really like your father and your sister, Liam. No worries.”

“No worries? What are you, Australian now? You forgot to say ‘mate.’ ”

I paused. That really was a funny thing to say. Daddy used to come up with expressions from everywhere because of how much he had traveled. Whether I liked it or not,
I was a Patio in more ways than anyone could imagine. Daddy’s influences on me were impossible to cast away.

“I’m a good mimic. What can I say? Soon my vowels will sound like yours.”

“Good. I’ll see you in the morning,” he said. “I’ll be back later tonight.”

“Be careful, Liam.”

“Sure.” He paused. “Any special reason why?”

What would I tell him? That there was the possibility that some elderly man would suddenly appear in front of him, causing him to veer too quickly and crash, or that I thought my sister Ava was there and might pursue him and have him destroyed?

“No reason except that I care,” I said.

I had the feeling that if he could have crawled through the phone line to kiss me, he would have after I said that.

That night, I went to sleep happier and more optimistic than any other night. This was really working. I could become someone’s wife and someone’s mother. I could live a normal life. Couldn’t I? Days were passing into weeks without any more serious threats or looming dark shadows.

I saw little of Mr. Nickels. He was, as he said, practically nonexistent. When I did have dinner at the Winston House, he was always late and confused, but most of his discussions were with Jim, who, as Mrs. Winston had predicted, enjoyed the topics and the whole education scene. Jim had finally given up on me. He was polite but kept his distance more and more. Liam and I were becoming too much of an item.

Not once during any of our dates, however, did we get
so close to the point of making love that I couldn’t pull back. I kept control like some preadolescent who was terrified of what would happen. Truthfully, I was afraid of the sex, but for far different reasons. What changes had occurred in me? How different would it be from when I had made love with Buddy? Would my body tighten and harden even more? Would Liam notice what was unusual, and would that create some new tension? More important, would that frighten him away from me? Would I have to leave Quincy almost immediately afterward? Was this part of what Ava had warned me about?

One night, after we’d had dinner and had driven to one of his favorite spots where we could look out over the ocean, he said a surprising thing. All the while, I was afraid that he was getting impatient and annoyed with me, with my teenager-like resistance and reluctance.

“I like the fact that you’re different from most girls I’ve been with, Lorelei. In fact, every girl I’ve been with,” he added. “Those idiot friends of mine I’ve been avoiding have this rating system for girls they take out. They use stars to disguise it.”

“Oh? What is it?”

“It’s how many dates they have to go out on before they can score. More girls than you might imagine are one-star girls. The unwritten law is that if they reach five stars with a girl, they bail.

“Maybe I’m becoming old-fashioned or something. Maybe my great-auntie Amelia and her way of refusing to look at the world today and not see the world she would rather be in is rubbing off on me after all. My father used to make me spend a lot of time with her. I
didn’t want my friends to know, because I knew they would tease me, but at least she was family. I like Mrs. Wakefield, don’t misunderstand me—and I know that once she really gets to know you, she’ll warm up to you, and you’ll like her more, too—but I always liked being with Great-auntie Amelia more.”

“She’d like to hear that.”

“Yeah, well, I’m afraid she’ll run me through the entire eighteenth century or something if I do tell her.”

I laughed. There were more ships coming and going that night than usual, I thought. I had been toying with taking a cruise as the way to leave if and when I had to. Out there, I could feel safer, I thought. Daddy had told me about cruises he had been on, the times he crossed on the
Queen Mary,
taking one of my sisters, but they did nothing unusual until after they had docked and walked in some European city.

“You’re quiet,” Liam said. “I hope you don’t mind what I just said about you.”

“Oh, no. Of course not.”

“Good, but I think you still need something to put a glow into that beautiful face, not that it doesn’t glow all the time.”

“Now, what do you have in mind, Liam Dolan?” I asked, turning to him.

He already had it out and in his open right palm. I looked at the small velvet box and felt an overwhelming chill at first, and then, as if some invisible large hand was around me, I felt the chill driven off and replaced with a warm excitement.

“Liam?”

“Go on. Open it,” he urged.

I plucked it timidly from his palm and opened it to see a very large diamond engagement ring.

“I thought it should be a good size, because my great-auntie Amelia once told me the larger the diamond, the shorter the period of the engagement. And I agree.”