Perfect Timing (32 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

C
ARRIE
LEFT
,
SAYING
SHE
WANTED
TO
OFFER
HER
CONDOLENCES TO PATRICK
. The gesture stunned Isabel, her mother never having referred to Patrick as anything but “that man.”
Patrick.
So sidetracked by Carrie’s bombshell, Isabel had all but abandoned him. She needed to get back inside. But her body had other ideas, lingering near Aidan who finally withdrew from his contemplative gaze. His arms dragged through the air meeting with the rich fabric of his suit. “Do you think the son of a bitch would have shot me?”

She almost laughed. It was such an Aidan response. Take the flames of disaster and reduce them to a firecracker. Despite everything, she missed that. “Seriously, Aidan, what makes you think bullets don’t bounce off you?”

He did laugh, moving toward her. But the air quieted as their gaze wove as tight as the winding Charles. “Isabel—”

She stepped back, dodging him and an unexpected wallop of emotion. “Aidan, I have to—” But she couldn’t remember where the thought was going, where she was going.
People are waiting . . . Patrick is waiting.
Blindsided, her mind followed her body, letting in the touch hunger he’d so completely satisfied on their wedding night. She wanted to wade further in, but rightfully so, gravity anchored wistful memories. Nate was also waiting. She’d have a fine time coming clean about Aidan Royce in the middle of this. “I have to go,” she said, turning toward the restaurant.

“Don’t.” There was invitation in his voice, his hand on her arm.

Her eyes closed, unable to stop the thought.
Pull me closer.

He didn’t.

She opened them, seeing the snake nearly lunge with the tremendous bob that wove through his throat. He let go, his hand almost repelling. “Isabel, there’s something we need to talk about.” But his tone had changed, more wary than warm. “It’s, um . . . it’s complicated. I don’t know that here is the right place.” Aidan looked anxiously toward the bistro. While his outward appearance hadn’t changed, there was maturity he lacked last time they were alone together.

For Isabel, old feelings unearthed. The ones she abandoned long ago. It was all the things she wanted to say that night in Vegas but couldn’t. The words seemed absurdly fresh in her head. She felt like a fraud finding them there, a fist pressing to her mouth, keeping them at bay. It was just the raw emotions of the day. Weren’t funerals a time to reminisce? The place to put a shiny coat of happy on the past, making you forget bad outcomes. Aidan’s phone rang. She tucked a piece of hair back, grappling for calm, steadying her balance. “Aren’t you going to get that?” she said, her glance cutting to the river.

He looked at the caller ID. “It’s just Anne, just my—”

“Fiancée.”

“I was going to say
attorney
.”

Even so, indifference met with surer ground. Aidan and Isabel, they were a Wikipedia footnote, paragraph ten, page two. They were barely worth a mention in the highly touted life of Aidan Royce. Isabel shrugged at his surprised look. “Like my mother said, you’re hardly a mystery. Even for someone who isn’t following you on Twitter. Your fiancée,” she said, reiterating his life, the one where she didn’t belong. “I’m surprised she’s not here. When we met, she seemed so very adamant about her commitment.”

“Wait. You met Anne? Anne Fielding?” he said, the bridge of his annoyingly perfect nose crinkling.

“No, Anne Hathaway,” she replied, retreating to the mocking banter of their youth. “But I understand your confusion. I suppose there’s every chance you dated her too.” He didn’t respond in kind, as if he’d forgotten how. It stung more than the idea of an Anne Anybody.

“When was she here?”

“Who? Anne Hathaway?”

“Anne Fielding,” he said, irritation coloring his voice.

“She showed up in Providence about a week, maybe ten days ago.”

“What did she want?”

“Nothing that was a terrific shock. She came to inform us that your wildly busy calendar prevented you from helping out. You know, before your mother got to you. Of course, there was your grand donation to Grassroots Kids. My thank-you note is in the mail.”

“My donation.”

“Yes, your six-figure, tax-deductible,
‘I don’t want to look like a complete ass’
contribution. Not to sound ungrateful, Aidan, but I got the distinct impression I was being bought off.”

He shook his head, muttering, “I knew that’s exactly what you’d think!”

A group of Eric’s colleagues approached and Isabel grasped at the safe exit. Calm and forward motion remained her best ally. “Look,” she said over her shoulder, “whatever your issue, it’s not my priority. Not today. It would be better if you left.”

“Isabel, if you’d just listen. I swear, you are still the most stubborn woman—”

“She asked you to leave.” Through the swell of well-meaning guests Nate emerged. “Aidan Royce, correct?”

“Yeah,” he snapped, “you a fan?”

“No, not really.” While Isabel busied herself with condolences, an ear remained tuned in to Nate and Aidan’s conversation. She assumed Nate’s understated reaction was no more than celebrity recognition. Even so, he lacked shock value, as if perhaps Aidan Royce’s presence was expected. “I’m Nate Potter. I was Eric’s doctor. I’m . . .”

“I know who you are,” Aidan said.

“Glad to hear it. I see rumor is right. Aidan Royce has crashed a funeral. But Isabel made it clear that you’re an unwelcome guest. Do the right thing and respect her wishes.”

“Isabel,” Aidan said. “Please, this is important.”

“More important than her father’s funeral? I doubt that.” Nate took a step in Aidan’s direction. “Or does your image meet expectation, your egocentric mind unable to see any alternative to getting your own way? Stay and prove me right.”

Keeping her focus on the group, Isabel couldn’t help but feel Aidan’s on her. “You’re right about that much, Doc. I am hell-bent on getting what I want. But, as usual, the timing is all wrong.” As he backed away, she glanced over, catching the icy look he pasted on Nate. “I’m very sorry about your father, Isabel. I’m sorry I never got the chance to meet him.” He left, Isabel damming off the tiny holes in her heart that defied indifference.

She was glad he was gone. Glad he was no longer there to disrupt the modicum of comfort that this gathering offered. The small group departed, leaving Nate and Isabel on the deck. “Are you all right?” His fingertips rose toward her face, but he didn’t make contact. “I’m not a violent man, but it would have given me great pleasure to have tossed him out on his solid-gold ass.”

Her gaze panned to the exit. There was the roar of an engine, the over-the-limit speed of a sleek sports car whizzing past. “Platinum,” she said, finding comfort in the rhythm of youthful banter, more so than any mourner’s words. “I think when you’re in Aidan’s league it’s platinum.”

“Whatever. He shouldn’t have come here. He shouldn’t have upset you, today of all days.” His gentle face was troubled, though his expression had turned dubious. “Isabel, I have to tell you something.” Her attention turned to Nate, where it belonged. “You should know. I’m aware of your history with him . . . with Aidan.”

“You are? But how? I never . . .”

“Before you and I . . . Well, your father confided in me. This,” he said, motioning between Isabel and the empty air that led to the street, “bothered him greatly. Talking about it alleviated stress, which wasn’t good for him.”

“I can understand that. Other than sports,” she said, “it was the one thing he and Patrick disagreed about. He would not have been an empathetic ear, not about Aidan.”

“That’s putting it mildly. Patrick would do anything to keep him from hurting you.” With his hands in his pockets, Nate shrugged. “But your father felt differently, more like it was unfinished business.”

And Isabel sighed, wondering which side she might have shared, had she shared anything at all. “My father was idealistic about love. He had to be; it cost him so much.” Isabel poked at the deck with the toe of her shoe. “As for Aidan . . .” She looked into his expectant brown eyes. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about him.”

“Because there’s nothing to tell or because there was so much left unsaid? When I first heard the story, it wasn’t really my business. Now,” he said, his fingertips laying claim, brushing her cheek, “before you and I go any further, I think I have a right to know.”

Isabel looked toward a dimming Boylston Street. It was filled with nothing but pedestrian traffic. “It looks like everyone is leaving. Could we go somewhere, get a cup of coffee?” He nodded, Isabel pulling her sweater tight, deflecting a late-summer breeze that had turned bitter. While Nate retrieved the car, Isabel told Patrick she was leaving. She found him at the bar. Finding Carrie seated beside him, she shuffled to a halt. Each was drinking a black and tan, her father’s old standby, the Red Sox game lighting the background. It was the only part that made sense. “Mom? What are you doing?”

She turned, brushing a tear. “Making peace with the past, I think.” Patrick nodded as if to say any exchange had been amicable. Carrie’s gaze surveyed the thinning room. “Is he . . .”

“He’s gone,” she said quickly. “Nate’s getting the car. Patrick, I’ll see you at home.” He leaned over, hugging her tight. As he did, Isabel saw her mother breathe deep, living with what was.

“Let me walk you to the door.” She rose from the bar stool, her hand brushing lightly over Patrick’s arm. “I’m glad we spoke. It’s taken a very long time to understand that Eric did love me.”

“Of course he did,” Patrick said, nodding.

“But he belonged with you.”

While Isabel didn’t think Carrie and Patrick would ever share another conversation, they’d shared a moment of respect, and perhaps that was enough. Thinking how it would have pleased Eric, her mother was mid-thought by the time she caught up.

“What I did that night, back in Catswallow, I understand that it was an extreme choice. But it was the only one I could make.”

“I could see where you felt cornered, even vengeful,” Isabel said, knowing she’d entertained the same word. “But it’s hard to believe . . . Well, that my own mother—”

“Shot him?”

“Frankly, yes. I never realized you could be so . . . deliberate.”

“Back then I lived with so much anger. Rick was the physical target. I definitely wanted him to pay. But it was also longstanding rage; other things that made me pull that trigger. Things,” she said, glancing between Patrick and the empty bar stool next to him. “Things I do regret now.”

“What sort of things?” Isabel said, her gaze following Carrie’s.

“Nothing specific,” she said quickly. “Just perspective that only time could deliver. Maybe I just wish I’d been less . . . Well, more empathetic about your father and Patrick. You and Eric could have had so much more time together.”

“Yes, but so many things would have had to play out differently for that to happen. For one, if we’d never moved so far away, to somewhere like Cats—” A few paces from the door, Isabel stopped, grasping her mother’s hand. Carrie turned, Isabel seeing how she stood on a path of deliberate and vengeful. It was a path that a thirteen-year-old girl might never have questioned.

“You know, honey, I’d best call a cab. Trey and Strobe can only handle Rick and your brother for so long.”

“Mom?” Isabel said, plugging fresh facts into an old story. “Tell me we left New Jersey because of your job. Tell me it was only because of what you said, ‘A great opportunity . . . A new start.’ It was coincidence, right? That we ended up in ultraconservative Catswallow. Tell me,” she said, her voice quaking, “it wasn’t on purpose, a way to get back at Dad.”

She tucked her own hair, the same way Isabel did when she was feeling nervous and unsure. Carrie’s watery gaze wove erratically around the room. While visually she avoided her daughter, she was unable to elude the prodding ghost of Eric Lang. “Isabel, you were so young . . . impressionable,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “Eric was my whole life. And I’d lost him—for good. It wasn’t as if he left me for another woman; there was no hope of ever putting our family back together.”

Isabel let go of her mother’s arm. “It was intentional. It was never about your job or a fresh start. It wasn’t even out of devastation. Taking me away was nothing more than revenge—even if we had to live in a trailer to do it! Say it! Admit it! You owe me . . . you owe Dad that much!”

“Yes,” she said, arms wrapping tight around herself. “I admit there were motives that I regret now. People make all kinds of mistakes, Isabel. Some are made out of love, the kind that amount to an unexpected embarrassing moment,” she said, her chin cocking at Patrick. “Others, well, they can be more calculated.”

“Is that your excuse?”

“It took a long time for me to accept reality. Maybe it even took Rick’s shooting, but eventually I realized what I’d done. Taking you away from Eric was wrong. Why do you think I was so okay with things when you ran from Aidan to your father?”

“I don’t know,” she said, a swell of anger rushing her. “Because underneath your blanket of security you knew it was absurd to force your daughter to live with the man who nearly raped her!”