For the Love of Family (14 page)

“After all these years?”

“I know it’s a long shot. You asked everyone we knew at the party back then. You drove us all nuts. But in the end she was pretty much a mystery, right? Maybe you gave up too easily. Now, you could be more serious. I mean…like hire a detective or something.”

“Yeah, but even if I did find her…then what?” Matt began to smile, thinking how well that would go over. She’d be screaming “stalker” before he could get the first sentence out.

“Just see where it goes. If you could talk to her now, in broad daylight, in street clothes and stone sober, maybe you’d finally see that it wasn’t anything but a Halloween fantasy.”

“And then I could move on, you mean.”

“Exactly.” Colby grinned, obviously tired of solemnity. “And then you could move on. And I could have a normal love life again. Or…wait!”

He stood with a jerk, agitating the sleepy water once again.

“Let’s go upstairs right now and dig that damn earring out of your box. That’s your problem, I guarantee you. It’s like one of those black-magic things that cast a spell on you as long as you own them.”

In spite of himself, Matt began to smile, too. “Colby, you’re insane.”

“No, no. This’ll work! We’ll take the boat out and toss the earring into the bay. We can have a full-blown ceremony, like when your goldfish died. We’ll wait till Red comes home, and he can play something sad on the guitar. I’ll recite that ‘better to have loved and lost’ bit from that sappy poem, and you’ll cry like a baby as the earring sinks into the deep. And we’ll take pictures of you, so that we can blackmail you later, and…”

But Matt was already out of the boathouse, chuckling, his depression fading away. He was tired now, but in a normal way. He just wanted a peaceful night’s sleep with no dreams.

Which, he realized later, was probably all Colby wanted to accomplish in the first place.

B
ELLE STOOD AT THE
back of the hotel meeting room, trying not to beam with pride while Angelina Malone delivered the press-conference speech. The woman was a natural. She must have memorized every word because, although Belle had provided a full script, Angelina never once looked down at her podium.

She should have been an actress. She had the power to make even the least inspired of Belle’s sentences sound spontaneous and poetic at the same time. Almost a dozen journalists, some print, some TV, had decided to cover this press conference, and every one of them looked half in love with the old lady.

Matt was here, too.

It was the first time Belle had seen him since the beach event. Halfway through the speech, he caught her eye, smiled and gave her a thumbs-up.

And though she tried to quell it, her heart broke out in sunshine.

After that, she couldn’t think of anything else. She watched him as he watched his grandmother, and the adoring pride on his face made her heart beat in tight, glitchy thumps.

Fifteen minutes ago, she’d been determined to forget about a guy who was quite comfortable kissing her senseless one day, then ignoring her for a week, wining and dining a Scandinavian princess instead.

Now…Belle was mush all over again, just from witnessing how much he loved his grandmother.

How could he do this to her? Who was this man?

He refused to fit into any of the pigeonholes she’d used for so long.

On one hand, he was a born alpha. Great looking, and well aware of it. Smart, and unwilling to suffer fools gladly. Arrogant, confident, accustomed to power and control.

On the other, he was as sensitive as any beta she’d ever known. He was humble, always ready to laugh at himself. At home selling pizza to sandy children, or kneading dough in a hot kitchen, with an apron around his waist and flour on his cheek.

But…what about his attitude toward women? That wasn’t any easier to classify. Did he objectify them? Exploit them? Maybe. He definitely trended toward centerfolds whose IQs wouldn’t get in the way. Was he a wolf, a heartbreaker, the bad boy your mother warned you about? Definitely. Broken hearts probably trailed out like a red carpet behind him.

But he loved his grandmother.

And now his presence, twenty feet across the room, had the power to make Belle’s nerves hum with awareness. She squeezed her copy of the speech until the edges grew warm and bent.

How perverse the human heart could be.

Why couldn’t she have loved David, who had clearly
adored her? All the things she’d wanted so desperately to feel for him, she’d been unable to summon up. The skittering heart, the flutter in the stomach, the way she could look at something, but see only his face instead…

The shuddering night dreams, the misty daydreams, the physical heat, the delight in his presence, the shadow that fell over her day when he was gone.

She felt those things now.

But, God help her, she felt them for Matt.

She was very much afraid she was falling in love with him. It didn’t matter that she didn’t fully understand him, couldn’t categorize him. It didn’t even matter that he clearly wasn’t in love with her.

Angelina was winding up. She’d reached the part about her late husband, Colm, and the dream he had cooked up in the kitchenette of their tiny apartment, nearly sixty-five years ago. Though she’d written the words herself, Belle felt her throat constrict, and warmth rush to her eyes.

And then her cell phone vibrated in her pocket.

She slipped it out discreetly and checked the number. It was her mother.

She clicked Ignore. In five minutes, Angelina would be finished. Belle could return the call then.

But in only two minutes her phone vibrated again. And again a minute later.

Finally, she felt the short buzz that meant a text message had come through.

In the applause that followed Angelina’s final words, Belle pulled out the phone and read it.

Adam had another stroke.

He may not make it.

Meet me at hospital?

All the blood in Belle’s body seemed to rush to her feet. How could this be? Everyone had been saying how much better Adam was. Belle had been so wrapped up in her own world, and so unsure how to progress beyond the roadblock of Joe’s obvious rebuff, that she hadn’t gone to see her new uncle at all.

But that didn’t mean she didn’t think about him, and care about him, and wish him health and happiness. In fact, she had been counting on having many years to work out all the complicated issues in the new family. She’d even dreamed that someday they’d have the kind of big happy mélange she envied in the Malone family.

Now…now it might be too late. Her uncle could die believing no one on her side of the family cared. Believing they were all like her dad.

Except for her mother. Her mother had been the only one to see that there was no time to waste.

Belle had to get there. She held her phone so tightly her damp palm heated the metal. She looked around the room for Matt.

She found him up by the dais, talking to Angelina and Brian Drayson, the business reporter from the
Chronicle
.

Without preamble, she touched his arm. “May I talk to you a minute?”

He smiled smoothly and excused himself without offering explanations. He took her to a quiet corner, his eyes quickly scanning her face and obviously seeing her emotions written there.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s my uncle. He’s had another stroke. I need to meet my mother at the hospital.” Belle tried to think of a shorthand way to explain the nuances of the family dynamic. “It’s a difficult situation. My father and my uncle are…estranged. My father thinks my mother is taking sides, and if he finds out she’s there…”

But why was she going into so much detail? Matt didn’t need to know. She’d seen his style of management. If an employee had a personal problem, Matt never asked questions. Time off was understood.

“Of course. Go ahead. Take as much time as you need. George can handle things here.”

She nodded. “Thank you.” She turned to go, but suddenly realized this hotel was fifteen miles out of town, away from the office, and she didn’t have her own transportation.

She turned back. “I rode with George. We thought it would be more efficient, but—”

Matt didn’t even bat an eye. “I’ll take you.”

“Oh, no. I can get a cab!” She was horrified. Why had she automatically brought this problem to him? Why hadn’t she just found George in the first place? “I’ll talk to George. You need to be here. Your grandmother, the reporters—”

“I’m just window dressing. George is far more useful here today than I am.” Matt took her arm and began walking. “Come on. I have a very small, very silly car that I’ve never quite matured enough to trade in on something more sensible. But it has one advantage. It’s fast. I can get you there in no time.”

I
T WAS INDEED A VERY
fast car, not the sedan she remembered from the night of the Halloween party. He must have borrowed that one, or else he had several.

In fifteen minutes, she was at the hospital door, and five minutes later, after having thanked Matt profusely, she was hugging her mother in an ICU waiting room.

Sue was there, too, wearing sneakers and sweats, as if she’d been at the gym when she got the news. She was on her cell phone, probably making arrangements for the babies, but waved as Belle entered.

Joe Fraser stood alone near the window, looking grim and white-faced.

Belle crossed the underfurnished, boring beige room, which was probably supposed to be calming, but instead felt depressing. Maybe too many anxious families had sat here, paced here, stared out this same streaky window at the parking lot below.

“Joe, I’m so sorry,” she said when she reached him. “How is your father? Have you heard anything?”

To her surprise, her mother followed her up to Joe and gently touched his forearm. He didn’t pull away. In fact, he even mustered a smile and laid his hand over hers.

“They’ve stabilized him, but they don’t sound reassuring,” he said. “Apparently the next twenty-four hours are crucial.”

“I’m sorry,” Belle said again. It was not very useful, but it was all she had.

He wiped his free hand over his face, as if he needed to get the blood moving again, but it didn’t improve his pallor. “Belle, this is a rotten time to talk about anything
personal. But I want you to know I’m sorry about the things I said at lunch the other day.”

Belle glanced toward her mother, wondering whether she was aware that Joe had once been so antagonistic about her visits. He certainly didn’t seem antagonistic now. He still had his hand over Emily’s, and it was clear the rapport between them hadn’t been forged in the past fifteen minutes.

“Not that it’s an excuse, but I’ve been…fighting on a lot of fronts lately. Adam and I—And my daughter—” He broke off. “Lots of things. Anyhow, trying to unkink the knots of this family mess…it was just one extra problem I didn’t feel prepared to take on.”

“You’ve done well,” Emily said warmly. “You have been a rock for your father these past weeks, in spite of everything. You can rest easy on that score.”

He squeezed Belle’s mother’s hand, and gave Belle another strained smile. “Luckily, Emily didn’t let me push her away. She kept coming. And to tell the truth, it’s been great knowing that, when I had to deal with some other drama, she could be here, looking after Adam for me.”

Belle caught Sue’s eye. Her cousin was still on the phone, but she must have been listening with one ear. She raised her brows, as if to say she was equally surprised.

How much time had her mother actually spent here, helping Adam recover, helping Joe struggle through? A lot, judging from Joe’s emotional one-eighty.

No wonder her father was suspicious.

And no wonder Belle hadn’t ever been able to find her mother alone, willing to have that long-overdue talk.

She was glad that her mom’s generosity had found a grateful home. Glad that she’d been able to help Joe. And yet…it was unsettling to think that Emily had essentially been living a cloak-and-dagger existence for several weeks now. Belle wondered how often she herself had been used as an excuse, to keep her dad from finding out.

Was the overarching secret that Robert, Sarah and Jo had created so long ago, and all its complicated fallout, not morality lesson enough? Hadn’t her mother seen how destructive secrets and lies could be?

Even as she formed the thought, Belle realized how hypocritical it was. With her secret investigation into Todd Kirkland, not to mention her continued pretense that she’d never met Matt Malone before, wasn’t she guilty of similar sins?

Sue joined them, finally off the phone. “Where was Adam when it happened?”

“I don’t know.” Joe shook his head. “I’ve only been here about ten minutes myself. I was out of town on a job when the hospital called. And, well…it just didn’t seem like one of the most important questions to ask.”

“No, of course not.” Emily seemed determined to keep Joe from feeling inadequate on any score. “It doesn’t matter. He’ll tell you himself, when he recovers.”

“What about Daniel?” Sue looked worried, as if she didn’t want Joe to have to cope with this alone.

Belle had met Daniel only once, briefly, the first time Adam had a stroke. Daniel was the only one of Joe Fraser’s children who had been untouched by the Carson scandal—or the Carson blood. But, as Joe’s uncle, he had apparently been a rock in Joe’s life.

“Yes,” Emily said, as if she knew all about the nuances of relationships in the Fraser circle. “What about Daniel? Can he come?”

“He’s on his way,” Joe said, and his expression lightened a bit. “He was even farther away than I was…he’s been researching a new development in El Granada. Took me a while to reach him, but he’s coming. Half an hour maybe? Maybe less.”

Just then, the door to the waiting room opened, and all three of them jumped, proving how tightly their nerves were wound. Belle had been expecting either a doctor—
please, let it be good news
—or maybe even Daniel, who might have sped the whole way here.

But it was her father.

Sam Carson looked uncharacteristically disheveled. He wore his usual crisp khakis and expensive polo shirt, but his blond hair tumbled onto his forehead, and the knees of his slacks were grass-stained.

His movements were less precise than usual, too. He entered the waiting room with the half-focused gaze of someone who has just emerged from total darkness. He looked around the room blankly, as if he didn’t recognize anyone in it.

And then, of course, it sank in.

“Emily?”

The word carried a world of disbelief…and dawning anger.

Belle took a step closer to her mother. Just in case.

But her mom didn’t even flinch. She met her husband’s gaze with surprising equanimity, as if she had
known this moment would come, sooner or later, and had prepared herself for it.

“Sam.” She neither welcomed him nor rejected him. She merely acknowledged him. “What are you doing here?”

“What am
I
doing here? That’s hardly the question, is it? What the hell are
you
doing here?”

Joe stepped forward. “Emily is here because I asked her to come. Who invited you?”

“Watch your tone, son.” Sam smoothed his hair out of his eyes and squared his shoulders. “I don’t need your permission to be anywhere.”

Belle recognized that low, snake-cold tone. It meant that Sam was precariously close to the edge. Close to losing his temper completely, an event that happened rarely and always left scorched earth behind.

“Dad, this isn’t a time for bickering. Adam has had another stroke, and he—”

Her father’s eyes cut briefly to her. “I know that. He was at my country club when it happened. Who do you think called the ambulance that brought him here?”

“Wait a minute.” Joe’s eyes narrowed. “He was with
you
?”