Nobody's Angel (23 page)

It was not in Elliot’s nature to walk away. Not when he’d decided he knew best. And she, more than anyone, should have known that. Lucy watched as Elliot made a lifelong slave of Lynne over a bunch of roses and some heavy-handed flattery.

Old-lady flowers, Lucy sniffed, as Lynne lovingly transferred them to a vase. Then she felt bad. Nobody, not even her, ever bought Lynne flowers.

Elliot was a master at the small, meaningful touches. He and Lynne had met before in Seattle a couple of times and Elliot worked the connection, slathering on the charm like axle grease. He was good at it too.

Even Carl seemed grudgingly impressed.

Lucy had to admit, Elliot presented well. He was tall and fit. His clothes were immaculate and elegant in away that silently yelled expensive, but would never deign to be flashy. His heather-colored sweater was definitely cashmere, Lucy decided, as she watched him pick crumbs from the sleeve. His manners were impeccable and he had the ability to talk to anyone about anything and at any time.

Case in point. He sat in the kitchen with Lynne, eating her mother’s date squares, eulogizing about the taste and trying to cajole Lynne’s secret out of her.
Crisco,
Lucy wanted to yell.

He’d arrived at the house shortly after dinner. There was no opportunity to talk to him though. Not with Lynne and him making up for lost time and chatting away like hens in a coop.

While she hovered around the background feeling, and, in all likelihood, looking like a sulky adolescent.

Lynne was already making noises about him not spending money on a hotel. Lucy would have told her not to bother. Elliot never went anywhere unless he was assured of at least an 800-thread count in his sheets.

She studied him while he nattered on to Lynne about the shocking state of the roads.

He was a good-looking man. His features aquiline and clean cut. His gray eyes were direct and confident and he carried himself with the effortless grace of one who understood his own worth. He was quite the catch. Apparently, the blood running through his veins was a touch blue as well. Not that Elliot would do anything so crass as mention such a fact, but a mutual acquaintance had felt no such reticence.

Despite that, Elliot was no trust-fund baby. He’d made his money in his twenties and early thirties, cashing in on the dot-com bubble before selling out at just the right time. While she tore up the neighborhood of Willow Park, Elliot had been busy buying and selling a fortune.

Since then he’d pretty much been doing what he wanted. Contemplating his navel, following Eckhart Tolle around for a while, and rescuing blond waifs with an unfortunate propensity for alcohol.

“What are you doing here, Elliot?” Lucy couldn’t stand another swapped recipe.

“Lucy,” Lynne chastised her, frowning at her over Elliot’s shoulder. Her mother had barely said a word to her since their little heart-to-heart in the laundry. Elliot’s arrival had given Lynne all the distraction she needed.

Elliot turned to her and she was caught in the tug of his attention. He had this way of looking at her that made her feel like she was locked in a tractor beam and being steadily towed along into the mother ship.

“It’s all right, Lynne. She has the right to ask after our last conversation. And I did just turn up on your doorstep, uninvited and unannounced.”

“I don’t like a guest not to feel welcome in my home,” Lynne said, twinkling at him.

“I doubt that’s possible, Lynne.”

Oh, please.
Lucy wanted to throw up.

Elliot could sell sand in a desert when he turned it on. It was probably how he’d managed to make such a lot of money in such a short amount of time. It made Lucy want to gag.

The laughter in his gray eyes as he looked back at her told her he knew exactly what she was thinking and it amused the hell out of him.

“Perhaps we can go somewhere and talk?” he suggested reasonably.

“I don’t think there is anything more to say, Elliot.”

“Lucy,” Lynne twittered anxiously. “The man has flown all this way to see you. The least you can do is hear him out.”

“Boy, are my arms tired.” He gave her a soft smile that invited her to share the old joke.

Lucy softened a touch.

He was a good man. He was just not the man for her and the sooner they both realized that, the better. So, she would tell him again and again until he understood it.

“Come on then,” she invited graciously. “We can talk upstairs. You can bring those with you, if you like.” She indicated the date squares.

“Oh, I couldn’t,” he demurred unconvincingly. Who was Elliot kidding? He had one massive sweet tooth.

“Please.” Lynne pushed the plate in his direction. “They will only go to waste if someone doesn’t eat them.”

He took the plate from Lynne with a killer smile and followed Lucy upstairs.

 

 

“You’re angry with me,” he said, as Lucy closed her bedroom door behind them.

Lucy took a deep breath. “I am not mad at you, Elliot. I don’t really have any reason to be mad at you, but I’m not sure what you’re doing here.”

“Good God.” He looked around him with avid fascination. “Is this some sort of macabre shrine to a still-living person?”

“It certainly feels that way,” Lucy returned without thinking.

His gray eyes immediately went from transfixed to concerned and fastened on her face. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she assured him quickly before she found herself being psychologically dissected. “Really, I’m doing fine. The room is a bit too much.” She crossed her arms over her chest, knowing he would read the body language as defensive and not really giving a shit. “Why are you here, Elliot?”

He thrust his hands deep into his pant pockets and walked over to the desk. He peered forward to get a better look at the photos. “I thought, actually, I hoped, you might have changed your mind.”

Lucy closed her eyes and dropped her head. Some tiny piece of her had actually held out the faint hope she wouldn’t have to do this.
Wrong.

She opened her eyes again and Elliot was watching her. “Have you?”

“No,” she whispered softly. God help her, she really didn’t want to hurt him. “I haven’t.”

“I was afraid of that.” He looked perfectly relaxed, but a telltale muscle twitched in the side of his jaw.

“Then why did you come?” Lucy gentled her tone. Elliot wasn’t the enemy.

“I love you,” he said with a shrug. “It’s a habit I can’t seem to break.”

The sting of tears burned behind her eyes. Life would be so much simpler if she felt the same. But she didn’t and no amount of wishing it could make it so. “And I love you,” she said. “Just not the way you want.”

Elliot dropped his chin onto his chest and kept his eyes locked on the floor. His chest rose and fell as he drew in a long breath. “Because of him?” he asked.

“No, Elliot. Because of me.”

 

 

Richard stopped in the act of flipping the light switch in his bedroom. He was about to have a shower to ease away some of the tension of a long day when he caught sight of the window in the opposite house.

Richard couldn’t wrench his eyes away.

It wasn’t really spying if you happened to look up and see something by accident. And if that thing captured your interest, it was only natural you would stop and take a closer look.

Lucy was clearly silhouetted in the window. And so was her Fancy Man with the flashy car.

There was nothing much to see, but pathetic bastard that he was, he stood and watched anyway.

They were talking. They were talking intensely. At least, Lucy talked intensely, waving her arms around and flapping her hands as she went.

Fancy Man stood and, for the most part, listened.

Richard had to offer the man a brief moment of brotherly empathy. She was talking. Talking, talking, talking. Couldn’t she draw him a picture and be done with it?

Fancy Man got into the spirit of things and put in his two cents worth. He got ardent, his hand movements abrupt, as if he was trying to make his point carry more weight.

Lucy shook her head.

Richard stepped closer to the window. Was Lucy crying?

Something perilously close to rage shot through him. He reserved the right to make Lucy Flint cry. Richard stopped in midstride and midthought. What the hell did he mean by that?

Fancy Man was trying to calm Lucy down. Stepping toward her and touching her arm in a way that got more rage bubbling through Richard’s system.

He didn’t like the man’s hands on Lucy. The fact the man had put them there before did not help matters. This was a man Lucy had been intimate with, maybe still could be intimate with, and the thought spiked his temper even further.

One of those out-of-body experiences he’d heard about hit him square in the jaw. He jumped back nine years in time. The fury was the same and so was the insane poison of jealousy flooding through his veins.

Another man had Lucy Flint.

Richard wanted to vomit and he forced his attention back to the present. The man with Lucy now was not Jason, but the cauldron within him still kept bubbling.

So, he stood there in his darkened bedroom and watched them. He couldn’t hear a word they were saying, but they were still talking.

They both looked sad and frustrated.

Fancy Man shoved his hands in his pockets and his shoulders slumped. The poor bastard looked defeated.

Lucy swiped a hand over her cheeks. She was definitely crying.

Richard ached with the need to hold her and comfort her. But stronger than that was the impotent savagery that held him back. He could go over there right now and take her in his arms, except the blackness welling within him held him prisoner.

Fancy Man stepped forward and put his arms around Lucy.

She held herself stiff and resistant.

Fancy Man said something close to her ear and Lucy collapsed against him.

Fancy Man lowered his cheek to the top of her head. He looked like a man who’d lost the thing most precious to him.

If he’d lost Lucy, then Richard knew how he felt.

The mind-numbing, clawing pain that had almost consumed him alive was there in the room with him. He knew how the other man felt, because he’d been that man. He had given everything he had to Lucy. He and the nameless man across the way, they had that in common.

Desperately, they had both tried to hold on to her. They thought they could make her love them. Stupid, starry-eyed dreamers, they believed if they loved her enough she would stay. They were comrades in arms, him and Fancy Man, battered, bruised, and confused, but still none the wiser.

Richard loosened the button on his shirt. It tightened and dug into his throat and he tugged at it roughly. The button popped and skittered across the floor and still he couldn’t drag enough air into his lungs. It was happening again and all around him the earth gave a sickening lurch.

In the room, Fancy Man had his eyes pressed closed as if he were trying to stem tears.

Richard knew that face. He’d worn that face for a long time. His chest constricted again and breathing became harder. He recognized the signs of a panic attack.

He had to get out.

Donna said nothing about finding her oldest son on her doorstep without a coat. Shivering and almost blue from the cold and wearing an expression as if he’d peered into the maw of hell.

Quietly Donna let him in. She poured him a stiff measure of whiskey and gave it to him, before digging in the linen closet for a couple of the boys’ old things she had yet to part with. She put on the kettle and watched him as she went about making tea.

She had mothered three boys and she knew her men. Richard would talk when he was ready. Like she didn’t know the problem already. Her oldest son had just hit the wall he’d been racing toward for most of his adult life.

“Ma?”

“Yes?”

“Why do you have to make all these changes in your life?”

Donna put her tea bag into the cup before answering. “Because I am still a young woman, Richard. I need to do those things I have always wanted to do, before it is too late. I loved your father, I’ve told you this before, but I spent a lot of my time making sure he was happy and letting my needs slide.”

“I don’t like it,” he stated in such a pig-headed, definitive, Richard fashion, she had to snort with laughter. He’d done that since he was old enough to shake his little towhead and assert his will.

“I know you don’t,
mon fils,
but it’s not the changes I am making that are bothering you. You don’t like change. Change frightens you.”

“That’s not true,” he protested, and helped himself to another gentleman’s measure. He did not drink, this boy of hers, and he was fit as well. He would be three sheets to the wind if he kept this up.

Donna had never seen Richard drunk. Once, when he was thirteen and he’d had one or two beers too many, but Des had dealt with that. Josh, she’d put to bed a time or two, Thomas a couple more than that, but Richard, never.

He hated to lose control and being drunk would do that to him. It might be an interesting experience. He worked his way through the second drink. The kettle whistled and she poured hot water over her tea bag.

He looked up at her suddenly and frowned. “It’s true,” he stated.

Donna stirred her tea and waited.

“You know, if you weren’t my mother, I would be applauding what you’re doing,” he said, and gave a mirthless little laugh. “In fact, the other day a woman came to see me. She’s going through a divorce and I’m giving her some help with depression. I told her to find something that makes her happy and do it. Something that makes only her happy.”

“It was good advice.” She smiled at him and blew on her tea.

“But I hate it when you do it.” He waved his hand at her. “I love your new hair and I hate it. I think your new clothes look great, but I want you to put the old ones on.” He went for the whiskey bottle again.

A sandwich might help soak a bit of that up and she got to work, cutting thick slices of bread. Donna added cheese and sliced pickles to his bread. She opened a bag of potato chips and tipped half of them onto the plate next to the sandwich. The rest she kept for herself.

“Ashley came to see me today.” He took a bite of the sandwich.

It wasn’t exactly a surprise to Donna. She’d heard the story of Lucy leaving Richard’s house from at least three different people.

“She wants me to sign the divorce papers,” he mumbled.

“So sign them,” Donna said, and shrugged. “You both deserve to be happy and hanging on to a dead marriage is not going to do that.”

He took a bite, chewed, and swallowed.

Donna imagined his mind doing the same thing. Methodical, careful, and considered, that was her oldest son.

“I know that I am not”—he waved his hand a bit sloppily—“all in love and starry eyed about Ashley, but I married her, Ma, and that has to count for something.”

“It does, Richard.” Donna brought her tea and the rest of the chips to the table and sat opposite him. “It means a lot, but it has to mean a lot to both of you. Marriage is tough, Richard. It’s not for the faint-hearted and it’s not what you think it’s going to be when you get married, all swept up in the romance and hopeful. It takes two people to really, really want to make it work.”

“And Ashley?”

“She doesn’t want it enough. And Richard?” Here Donna had to go gently and she crunched a chip before she stepped on hallowed ground. “I think she is right.”

He drew in a sharp breath, but the whiskey must have softened him because he didn’t cut up rough at her.

“I think you both deserve more than that warmed-up friendship you called a marriage.”

“Ma,” he said, looking thunderous.

“You hardly spent any time together, Richard. You had different interests from the start.” Donna didn’t want to even speculate what their sex life had been like, but she had never seen Richard look at Ashley with one tenth of the heat he gave Lucy. Which brought Donna around to the real reason Richard was tying one on in her kitchen. “You going to talk about her?”

He tipped another measure, this one a bit smaller, into his glass. “Nope.” He shook his head mulishly. “I can’t talk about her. You would think I would have been done talking about her years ago.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I am done with Lucy.”

“You are?”

He frowned and shook his head vigorously. “I saw her with that man from Seattle tonight.”

At last, the truth started to leak out and Donna waited. “He loves her, Ma. He really, really loves her and it’s killing him that she doesn’t love him back.”

“You spoke to him?”

Richard shook his head. “I saw them, through the window. It was all over his face.”

“Ah.” Donna pushed the chips away, her appetite gone. “What does Lucy say?”

“She says she doesn’t love him. She broke up with him because she can’t love him the way he wants her to.” He laced his fingers together around the glass, but didn’t drink.

“It is not the same situation as you and Lucy.”

“I know that,” he said, and snapped back the whiskey. “I know that, but it still scares me.”

“And why is that,
mon fils?
”

He frowned down at his hands. “Because he was me. I saw myself on his face.”

“You saw yourself nine years ago, Richard.” Donna gently cupped his fingers between her palms. “You are not that man and Lucy is not that girl.”

He made a soft noise in the back of his throat. “Ma?”

“Yes, Richard.” It amused her how quickly the alcohol hit him.

“I don’t think I’m done with Lucy.”

“Neither do I.” Donna took a deep breath. “Neither does Josh. He could see how you looked at her that night she came to dinner.”

Richard made a rude noise and refilled his glass. “I wanted to punch Josh when he came on to her.”

“He wasn’t coming on to her.” Donna gave a weary sigh and moved the whiskey out of his reach. “Josh is a flirt. He flirts with all women. It’s his thing.”

“What is with that?” Richard demanded with a scowl.

“It’s his way of hiding how sweet and sensitive he really is. He had the misfortune to be born with the soul of a stargazer behind the face of a player. People never see how quickly he can be hurt or how much he wants to be loved. All they see is what is on the outside.”

Richard reared back in his seat and looked at her, as if he were seeing her for the first time. “Whew! That’s a bit deep, Ma.”

Donna hid her smile behind her teacup.

“What about Thomas?”

“Thomas?” Donna smiled. “Thomas is my adventurer. There is always going to be another mountain for Thomas. He grew up in the shadow of first Des and then you and Josh. Between the three of you, there is nothing that you don’t excel at. Thomas is the youngest and he is always scrambling to keep up. He always will.”

“Hmph.” He gave her that look again. The one that said he was not sure she wasn’t an alien plant after they’d abducted his real mother. “And me?”

Donna laughed out loud. “You fear the thing that you desire the most. You hate that you want it so badly. You are scared you will get it and terrified you won’t.”

“Ah, come on,” he protested with a frown. “That’s a bit vague.”

“You want clear?”

“Yes.”

“You sure?”

He paused for a telling moment. “No.”

“Tell me when you are. Or better yet”—Donna poured the next shot for him—“figure it out for yourself. Before it’s too late.”

“Ma!” They both jumped as the back door thudded open. “Have you seen, Rich . . . there you are.” Josh blew into the room, not looking like his normal, laid-back self. “I’ve been looking for you. There is something you should see.”