If I Can't Have You (If You Come Back To Me #3) (19 page)

“She was your mother, Eric,” Colleen said softly. “She didn’t apply for the aid because you were being a sulky teenager. She did it because she would have done whatever was necessary to get you the care you needed.”

“You think so?” he asked levelly.

She touched his shoulder. “I know so. I’m a single mother, just like your mother was. I’d do the same for Brendan and Jenny in a second if I had no other choice,” she whispered feelingly.

His gaze flickered over her face before he brushed his finger over her jaw. “Maybe you’re right. Anyway, it ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me. My orthopedic surgeon’s name was Mac Harkman. Harkman loved what he did, and he managed to pass his enthusiasm on to me. When he found out I was a natural in math and science, he sort of took me under his wing. He joined league with my mom in encouraging me to go to medical school. Changed my life, I guess you could say.”

Colleen smiled. “And we’re all luckier for it, Brendan and I included,” she murmured before she kissed him. He groaned and came down over her, pressing her back into the mattress.

The snow continued to fall outside the window, thick and silent, but they were too absorbed in one another for the next half hour to notice.

They finally got up, showered and made a breakfast of whole-wheat toast, scrambled eggs and fruit. After Colleen had called Brendan and Jenny, hearing their enthusiastic report of the good time they were having in Chicago, they began working on
Lucy
. By the time they called it quits at around nightfall,
Lucy
looked glossy and smart with her second coat of varnish.

Eric looked out a window in the kitchen. “The snow is getting thick on the ground. I’ll get out the snowblower in the morning. It’s a good thing we took your car back to your house, though. It might have gotten stuck. I’ll be able to take you home in the SUV tomorrow.”

Her eyes went wide when he abruptly turned around, an odd, intense expression on his handsome face, and stalked over to her. She’d been in the process of getting some tea bags out of the cupboard, but she dropped the box when she noticed his determination. She yelped in amazement when he lifted her and set her on the counter before him.

“What are you doing?” She laughed when he pressed his mouth to her neck and started kissing her hungrily, his hands busily unbuttoning her shirt.

“I just realized I don’t want to take you home. How would you feel about me kidnapping you indefinitely?” he growled softly before he slipped his hand between the folds of her shirt and over her left breast.

Her heart hitched beneath his palm, but then he seized her mouth and she forgot everything but his scent, his texture, his heat. How could a man who had once claimed to be the champion of rational thought have the capability to erase it so completely from her brain?

Eric drifted off to sleep, but Colleen wasn’t tired. She was feeling pensive and a little heartsore. Eric’s lovemaking had been wild, delicious and intense. Did he recognize that their time together was drawing to a close? All the what-ifs she’d been shoving into the periphery of her brain while she luxuriated in her time with Eric started to crowd to the forefront once again.

She got up, dressed in a pair of yoga pants and a sweatshirt, and wandered downstairs. She checked her cell phone for messages and saw Mari had called. Worried something was wrong with the kids, she called her back. Mari hadn’t been calling about the kids, however. Instead, she wanted to get all the details about what was happening between her and Eric. Since Colleen was feeling especially vulnerable on that particular topic, she managed to make light of Mari’s inquiries and cut the conversation short.

After she’d hung up with Mari, she noticed her sister, Deidre, had called. She immediately returned the call.

“Deidre? Is everything all right?”

It turned out that everything was not all right. Death hovered close in Lincoln DuBois’s Lake Tahoe mansion tonight. It broke Colleen’s heart to hear her usually fearless, indomitable sister sounding so fragile and lost.

“The kids are with Marc and Mari this weekend,” Colleen said after they’d talked awhile, her mind spinning into crisis mode. “As soon as we get off the phone, I’ll call and get a plane ticket to Reno.”

“No, that’s okay. Linc… Well, he’s not gone yet,” Deidre murmured in her characteristic low, smoky voice.

“You can’t go through this alone, Deidre,” she said, looking nervously out Eric’s front window, her thoughts coming rapidly. Would the snow prevent her from catching a flight out of Detroit? Maybe the conditions at Chicago’s airports would be better.

“I’m not alone. Linc’s doctor and two hospice nurses are here…along with Nick Malone.”

“You mean Lincoln’s Chief Executive Officer? I thought he’d gone to the San Francisco offices and left you in peace,” Colleen said, concerned. She’d gotten the distinct impression from Deidre that her biological father’s right-hand man was more than just a business acquaintance: he was like an adopted son. Malone was highly suspicious of Deidre’s sudden appearance and Linc’s official proclamation that she was his daughter. Colleen had always looked up to and admired her older sister. A fortune hunter was the last thing Deidre was, but apparently Nick Malone didn’t believe that. Colleen had to wonder if he wasn’t so irritated by Deidre’s sudden appearance because he was worried she’d steal some portion of the pie he’d been counting on as his own from Lincoln DuBois’s inheritance.

“He did leave for a while, but he’s back,” Deidre said, her flat tone becoming a little more animated. “He’s one of the coldest, most paranoid people I’ve ever met, but I can’t fault him for being here. Linc isn’t doing well, and Malone is concerned. I may not like him, but there’s no doubt that Lincoln cares about him.” She sighed. “You should have seen how he lit up when Nick came into the room.”

It pained Colleen to consider everything her sister had gone through in the past few months. “Deidre, I refuse to leave you there without any family to support you, especially if Nick Malone is giving you a hard time.”

“I can handle Malone,” she stated, her mellifluous voice going grim. Suddenly, Colleen had a clear vision of her sister in her mind’s eye, the determination stiffening her delicate features, the steely expression that entered her large, grayish blue eyes just before she tried a risky new ski jump or new dive. Deidre was a daredevil, a championship diver, trick-skier and a decorated army nurse, but Colleen couldn’t help but feel that her fearlessness could only get her so far during this difficult trial. “Just promise you’ll come to Tahoe if…when…Linc—”

“I will,” Colleen said firmly when Deidre wavered. “The second you call. And after everything is settled, I really want you to consider coming back to Harbor Town with me.”

“I can’t even go that far in my mind, right now. I’m already feeling overwhelmed with the fact that I’m losing Linc when I just found him. He’s the second father Mom stole from me,” Deidre whispered.

Her heart squeezed in her chest when she heard a muffled sob through the receiver.

Colleen wanted to weep, too. She loved Deidre. She loved her mother, even though she knew Brigit had made a terrible mistake in lying about Deidre’s paternity. She wanted to knit things back together between mother and daughter, and knowing that it was beyond her control hurt. It hurt a lot.

It was all such a mess.

She stayed on the phone a while longer, trying her best to bring Deidre comfort. When she did eventually hang up, she sat curled up in the corner of Eric’s couch, feeling lost. She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, feeling miserable. The next thing she knew, Eric was coming down next to her and his arms were surrounding her.

She lost control at his touch. For some reason, his compassionate, strong embrace made the dam break. She sobbed with emotion. She’d held so much inside of her since that night last summer when she’d heard her mother’s confession about her affair with Lincoln DuBois and her subsequent pregnancy with his child—Deidre. It bewildered her, this upsurge of emotion. Sadness, worry, hurt and anger swelled and spilled to the surface. Eric didn’t say anything but just held her and made soothing noises. When her storm began to recede, however, Colleen knew she had to offer some kind of explanation. He stood to get her a box of tissues.

“I’m sorry. Here I go again. You really must think I’m a basket case,” she mumbled, wiping off her cheeks with the tissue he offered her.

“I don’t think that at all.” He sat down next to her again on the couch and put his arms around her. He’d pulled on a clean T-shirt and jeans before he came downstairs. The clean cotton smelled good when she pressed her cheek against it. He stroked her back. “Who were you talking to? Are the kids okay?”

Colleen realized he’d noticed her cell phone sitting on the couch cushion next to her. “I was talking to my sister, Deidre,” she whispered.

“Is she okay?” he asked, concerned.

“She’s fine. It’s…Lincoln DuBois. He’s dying.”

“The family friend? The one she’s visiting in Lake Tahoe? Natalie told me something about it. Isn’t he
the
DuBois of DuBois Enterprises?”

Colleen swallowed thickly. She’d shared so much with him in the past few days. Somehow, lying to him given their new closeness felt wrong. Very wrong. She lifted her head and met his stare.

“Yes. Lincoln DuBois isn’t just an old friend of my mother’s,” she whispered. “He’s Deidre’s biological father. That’s what Liam and Natalie discovered last summer, when they investigated the reason Derry was so upset on the night of the crash. My father had encountered some medical information about Deidre that made him suspect she couldn’t be his biological daughter. He confronted my mother about it on the afternoon of the accident, and my mother had admitted the truth about her affair with DuBois and her suspicion that Deidre was his child. That’s why my father got so drunk that night…the night he killed your mother and injured Natalie.”

Eric’s stroking hand stilled on her back. His expression looked flat…incredulous. The sound of the furnace turning on interrupted the thick silence.

“Deidre is out there in Tahoe with none of us there. She just told me DuBois is near death. She’s losing another father, just when she got to know him, and she’s so angry at my mom…and there’s
nothing
I can do.” She broke at the last, a fresh convulsion of grief tearing through her. Eric tightened his hold on her while she wept.

“I thought about telling you before,” Colleen said, lifting her head off his chest and straining to compose herself.

“Why didn’t you?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Embarrassment?” More tears spilled down her cheeks, and she wiped them away impatiently. “I used to think my parents were the perfect couple, but in the background, in secret, all this drama was taking place, and it’s so…
tawdry,
” she spit out. “It’s bad enough that the crash happened…that you lost your mother, and Mari lost her parents, and Natalie went through all that pain. But the reason behind it is so shameful.”

Her gaze flickered over him. He looked sober as a judge. He inhaled slowly, and she found herself on pins and needles, wondering what he would say. He placed his hands on her jaw, tilting her face so she was forced to meet his stare.

“I understand why you didn’t want to tell me at first.”

“You do?”

“You must be torn up by this. Of course you’re not going to be shouting it out to every stranger who walks by. I imagine it’ll take a while for you and your family to sort all this out. But believe this,” he said firmly. “You have nothing,
nothing
to be ashamed of. You had as much control over your parents’ actions as I do.”

“I know,” she said honestly. “But that’s how it is with family. You share the burden of the guilt. It’s hard to just let it go. It’s not that easy, especially when I see how their mistakes have affected people in the here and now…people like you, and Natalie and Deidre. How can an act of infidelity have such far-reaching consequences?”

He leaned down and kissed her lips tenderly. “You aren’t the responsible one. You can’t control other people’s fates, Colleen. I understand that the truth can be sad, and that it can hurt, but it’s not in your power to change it.” She looked into his eyes and saw his compassion, but also just a hint of a challenge. “Remember how I said a while back that you and I are a lot alike?”

She nodded.

“I know it’s hard for you relinquish control in a situation like this, to admit that you can’t be the one to make everything better. That’s why you’re so good at your job, because you don’t give up on your patients. You keep fighting. Just like I do for mine. But sometimes, you have to be able to admit that you can’t control things. People we care about are going to get hurt, and they’re going to make mistakes. Sometimes people die, too,” he whispered hoarsely. “And you have to be able to let go, to admit you can’t play God and control their destiny.”

She sobbed quietly. He was one hundred percent right. She was the nurturer of the family, the one who always smoothed things over and strove for harmony. At work, she hated admitting defeat with her patients and rarely did. Eric was right about something else. He really did understand her because they were similar in that way; they’d fought similar internal battles with accepting when things were beyond their control.

He made a hushing sound and kissed the tears from her cheeks.