Persuaded (23 page)

Hanna
mentally huffed. The next time the little devil wanted to play the Wii she
would just have to remind him what a vicious turncoat he’d been.

“Well,
because we won’t be able to go for ice cream down at the marina if we bury her
all the way,” Derick said conversationally.

“Let’s
bury half, then,” CJ reasoned.

Derick
nodded, his brow furrowing. “Which half, though?” he asked.

“Let’s
do the top half!” CJ cried, and Derick finally broke down laughing at the panic
he must have seen on Hanna’s face.

Walter,
having caught the tone of the situation without understanding the details,
said, “‘Nana?”

“Let’s
bury the bottom half, boys,” Derick laughed, sweeping Hanna’s legs out from
under her and setting her down on the forgotten fortress.

Hanna
protested, but to no avail. Derick held her feet in place while the boys dumped
enough wet sand on her legs to stop a flood. He watched her from under his
lashes—clearly, this was entirely too much fun for him. When Hanna finally
sighed and went limp with resignation, Derick chuckled.

“Good
work boys!” he called to his minions. “Isn’t this fun, Hanna?” he teased,
propping himself up on an elbow near her head and looking down at her. “Don’t
worry, we won’t run off to get ice cream and leave you here baking in the sun.”

“You’re
barbaric,” Hanna told him, refusing to be taken in by his eyes.

Derick
just grinned down at her, then donned his sunglasses, laced his hands behind
his head, and stretched out on the sand in a decidedly this-is-the-life
posture.

TWENTY-NINE

CONES
and CONFRONTATIONS

There was no
longer anything of tenderness due to him . . . he stood as opposed to Captain
Wentworth, in all his own unwelcome obtrusiveness.

—Jane Austen,
Persuasion

Getting
ice cream at the marina had initially been for the kids, but it ended up being
vastly entertaining for Derick as well. It wasn’t CJ practically inhaling his
cone followed by his wailing about brain freeze that had Derick so diverted. It
definitely wasn’t the melted ice cream beard that Walter had going. It was the
way Hanna blushed every time her eyes met Derick’s, the delighted shock on her
face when they accidentally brushed fingers or bumped knees under the table.
Just once, he did it on purpose.

Derick’s
fun was unfortunately cut short when Eli came through the door of the marina
store. He saw Hanna first, smiling and lifting a hand, then dropping it when he
saw Derick. His eyes glinted with something for just an instant, something
dark, before he rearranged his features into a shocked sadness for Hanna’s
benefit. To Derick’s dismay, Eli’s nose looked completely normal. Not broken, then.
Oh, well.

Hanna
spoke in a low voice to Derick. “I’ll be right back.”

Derick
nodded, keeping his eyes on her as she approached Eli.

☼

“Looks
like you’re feeling better,” Eli observed in a pouty tone that immediately put
Hanna on the defensive. “I was just about to call and see if you wanted to meet
for lunch, but it looks like you’re already spoken for.”

The
words didn’t have the effect he intended; instead of shame, she experienced a
thrill. Trying unsuccessfully to ignore it, Hanna focused on what she should
say. It was then she realized Eli had luggage with him.

“Are
you leaving?”

“I
heard from that publisher in New York. I’m signing with them later today.” He
paused, seemingly uncomfortable. “Hanna, I want you to go with me.”

Shaking
her head, she said, “Eli, we’ve already been—”

“No,
we haven’t! We haven’t been there. Because the week we spent apart was one of
the longest of my life. I’m not the same person I was when I asked you before,
because—well, because—I love you.”

Hanna
really hoped her eyes weren’t bulging. Everything about his speech felt
artificial to her—manic, even—like he was in a hurry or dying tomorrow or
something
.

“There’s
no way you can be in love with me, Eli. We barely know each other.”

“But
what if I leave tomorrow and we always regret not finding out if it could work?
I’d rather take a chance than never know. Wouldn’t you?”

“Eli,”
she began, putting a hand on his arm in a decidedly unromantic gesture, “you’re
gorgeous and charming and talented, and someone’s Mr. Right.” Eyeing him sadly,
she said, “Just not mine. I’m not about to run off with you for the sake of an
experiment. I’m sorry.”

He
looked pathetic standing there with his eyes downcast, unable to face her, but when
he did, his eyes weren’t teary or soft. They were hard as ice, drained of all
warmth, like black holes. They darted away, focused on something over her
shoulder, then came back to hers.

“This
is about
him
, isn’t it?” Eli said, his tone an uncanny reflection of
CJ’s when Walter had ruined the sandcastle earlier. “You still have feelings
for him, don’t you?”

“I
don’t know what you’re talking about.” She did.

“He’s
going to hurt you again,” Eli said with venom. When he leaned toward her, she
resisted the urge to shrink back. “He’s going to hurt you again, and when he
does, you’ll remember this little conversation. And you’ll be sorry.” There was
almost a sensual tone in his voice as he whispered the last words in her ear.

She
had been so focused on Eli’s bizarre bipolarity that she hadn’t noticed Derick
coming up behind her until he spoke.

“Unless
you don’t value your face, you should probably go.”

Eli
eyed Derick with unveiled loathing, then turned away. As Eli walked out of the
store, Hanna couldn’t help thinking that there was something distinctly
reptilian in the way he moved. How had she never noticed it before?

☼

With a
hand resting lightly on her back, Derick guided Hanna to the table. He didn’t
care for the tremble in her body beneath his fingers. At the table, Hanna
seized the napkins and began mopping up the mess that was Walter’s face. She
tossed a few at CJ and told him to do the same.

Derick
gathered the soaked napkins and threw them away. “You okay?”

Hanna
nodded, but didn’t look up. “We should probably get back.”

With
the marina and the confrontation behind them, Hanna seemed to relax a little as
they walked home. Derick burned with curiosity to know what had transpired
between her and Eli, but didn’t want to upset her further by bringing it up. He
chose his words carefully.

“So,
it looked like Eli was leaving town,” he began. “Did he say where he was
going?”

“To
meet up with a publisher. I don’t know where—New York, I guess.”

Hanna reddened
just a bit at this, and Derick guessed there was more to the story. Recalling
the way Eli had stepped forward, his posture imploring, Derick said, “He asked
you to go with him, didn’t he?”

Full-scale
blush now. “It’s not the first time,” Hanna mumbled.

“And .
. . what did you say?”

“Oh, I
said I needed an hour to pack.” She rolled her eyes. “No, obviously.”

Derick
found that he was delighted with her sarcasm. He tugged on the braid hanging
down her back. “Obviously.”

A tiny
smile. “I told him I didn’t know him well enough to run off with him.”

“What
did he say?”

“I
think his exact words were, ‘You’ll be sorry.’“

Derick
had to shove his hands in his pockets, so Hanna wouldn’t see his fists. How
dare Eli threaten her? And right under Derick’s nose too. One thing was
certain—the guy wasn’t lacking in guts. Intelligence, maybe, but not nerve.

Shaking
his head, Derick said, “I was trying to give you some privacy, but I guess I
should’ve stepped in sooner. I’m sorry.”

“You
have nothing to apologize for,” Hanna contradicted. “I’m just not a huge fan of
confrontation.”

“No,
you never were,” he said, looking down at her. “But I think you did okay back
there. You held your own pretty well.”

Hanna exhaled
her relief and brushed off the compliment. “It’s done now.”

They
walked in silence for a moment as they neared the houses.

“Just
out of curiosity,” Derick said, “if I asked, would you run off with me?”

Hanna
shoved him halfheartedly but gave no response. Not that he needed one. The
crimson taking over her face was answer enough.

THIRTY

VACATION
from VACATION

Husbands and
wives generally understand when opposition will be vain.

—Jane Austen,
Persuasion

Upon
returning home to Uppercross, Hanna’s good mood was abruptly doused by the
atmosphere. The tension was so taught, it felt like a tendon that could snap at
any minute. Charles and Mary were engaged in heated conversation upstairs. Ella
sat on the couch reading the latest issue of
Cosmo
while Callie sat on
the floor painting her toenails.

“Banana,
can I watch TV?” CJ asked, and she nodded. Maybe it would distract the boys
from whatever was happening with their parents.

“What’s
going on?” Hanna asked, but she thought she could guess well enough.

Ella
rolled her eyes. “Oh, you know . . . no one appreciates Mary, no one pays
attention to Mary, no one cares if Mary lives or dies . . .”

Hanna
frowned. Maybe she would have more luck de-escalating the situation than
Charles, who was no doubt at the end of his rope with his wife. But one look at
the boys and she could see that the TV wasn’t distracting them enough. CJ’s
eyes kept darting upstairs toward his parents’ voices.

“Hey,
you two—who’s up for a game of checkers?” Hanna said to the boys.

They
agreed, setting up the checkerboard in front of the TV so they could watch and
play at the same time.

Twenty
minutes later, CJ jumped Hanna’s red checker with his black one, a triumphant
grin shaping his face. “Got you, Walt!”

Walter
began crying, and Hanna placated him by jumping three of CJ’s checkers. Walter
almost smiled, until the heated argument filtered down the stairs again—the
disagreement seemed to be going in spurts. Walter was way past his afternoon
naptime, but Hanna couldn’t very well lay him in his crib upstairs with all the
noise.

“Ella,
do you mind if I put Walter down in your room for a while?”

She
shrugged. When Hanna returned, she was delightedly surprised to find Derick sitting
across the checkerboard from CJ. A sidelong glance at Ella revealed her
irritation at Derick’s presence.

“Me
and Captain Wentworth are playing now,” CJ informed his aunt.

“If
that’s okay,” Derick added with smiling eyes.

Hanna didn’t
get a chance to reassure him that she’d had her fill of checkers for the day,
because a door opened upstairs, and the voices that had been an unintelligible
buzz a moment ago increased in volume, enough that the words could be made out.

“. . .
I need to get away, Charles, I can’t stand being cooped up in this house with
the kids anymore!”

“Mary,
the kids aren’t in the house with you, they’re usually outside with Hanna.
Maybe you should go with them sometime. You shouldn’t spend our whole summer
inside.”

“You
know how sensitive my skin is to the sun!” came the rejoinder. “My mother died
of skin cancer. Is that what you want?”

Oh,
brother
. Not the skin cancer card again. Aside from that, how
exactly did Mary need to get away when she was already on vacation?

“I
can’t take this asylum anymore,” Ella declared, bolting up off the sofa and
dropping
Cosmo
with an unceremonious thwap. “I’m out.”

Callie
jumped up as well. “Let’s go see if Benny will take us fishing like he
promised,” she suggested.

Ella
nodded, donned her sunglasses, and they were gone.

The
voices died down, and Hanna could only assume that Mary had dissolved into her
trademark tears. Charles thundered down the stairs, expelling a sigh and
running a hand through his hair in exasperation. When he looked up and saw
Derick, he reddened.

“Derick,
hey . . . sorry about that,” he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.

“Mary
having a bad day?” Derick inquired.

Hanna’s
lips twitched at his overkill polite tone.

“More
like a bad year.”

“Let
me talk to her,” Hanna offered, standing.

 “Good
idea. You’re the only one she listens to when she gets like this, anyway.”

A
parting look at Derick revealed an expression of empathy and
good luck with
that.

Upstairs,
Hanna found Mary standing rigidly at the window, looking out with her arms
folded. She didn’t turn when Hanna entered.