Authors: Barbara Bretton

Someone Like You (31 page)

BOOK: Someone Like You

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“Lucky you,” Cat said, her voice rich with sarcasm.

“I didn’t plan it,” he said as if that made everything all right. “The days passed, and you don’t realize it, but you’re drifting farther and farther away from the things that used to be important.”

“Like your family,” Joely said.

“Yes,” he said. “Like your family. It’s easier to just let go of your old life and start over.”

Like I did when I left for school,
Joely thought. Like she was about to do again when she left Loch Craig.

“But you never really let Mimi go, did you?” Cat asked.

He shook his head. “No, I didn’t.” Sometimes three or four or even five years would go by where he thought he could cut the ties, and then he would see her face in his dreams or hear a voice that brought the sweet days back to him, and he would pick up the phone or send a postcard. Just enough to keep her hopes alive.

“Do you have any idea what you did to her?” Cat demanded as tears streamed down her cheeks. “She was fragile—you said so yourself! You never gave her the chance to move forward. You didn’t have the guts to come back and make a real life with her, so you helped her build a fantasy life that kept your options open and her life on hold.”

The room went completely silent. There was nothing left to say. Joely lowered her head, wishing William had stayed in Japan, that he hadn’t heard any of this.

“Daddy!” Annabelle’s voice rang out. “Joe-lee! I need water, please!”

“I’ll go,” William said.

“So will I.” Joely regretted ever opening the door to the past. It hurt more than she would have dreamed possible.

She wanted to hide herself away in the guest room with William and Annabelle, lock the door and bar the windows against the terrible things that could happen to families when they weren’t looking.

Annabelle was sitting up in bed. Her soft brown hair spilled across her tiny shoulders. She let out a squeal of delight when her father entered the room.

“You really
are
here, Daddy! I thought I was dreaming.”

“You’re not dreaming,” he said as he sat down on the edge of the bed. “I’ll always be here for you, Annabelle.”

And he would. Joely knew that the way she knew the sound of her own breathing. All the things a father should be, all the things a little girl needed from the first man in her life, she had right there in the father who loved her.

She slipped from the room unnoticed.

Cat was standing in the middle of the living room when she returned. Mark was nowhere in sight.

“Is he in the bathroom?” She angled her head in the direction of the back hallway.

“He’s gone,” Cat said, her face a shifting canvas of painful emotions.

“He can’t be gone,” Joely said. “He didn’t say good-bye to me.”

“Same old Mark. Some things never change.”

“Is he coming back?”

“Probably. He hasn’t scored his full fifteen minutes yet.”

“Maybe he’s changed.”

“Right,” Cat said, “and he’s come back to make it up to all of us.”

“You sound bitter.”

“And you sound awfully forgiving.”

“I always thought you’d give anything to see him again.”

“So did I,” Cat said. “Guess I was wrong.”

“He looked so old,” Joely said, her voice breaking.

“Twenty-seven years will do that to a man.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she said, unable to stem the flow of tears. “He never meant anything to me, and now I’m falling apart.”

Cat opened her arms to comfort her the way she had been doing as far back as Joely could remember. “Join the club.”

Chapter Twenty

LAQUITA PHONED FIRST thing in the morning. “There’s a man here claiming to be your father,” she said when Cat answered. “He called a press conference for ten o’clock in the parking lot. I know this sounds crazy, but I think he might be the real thing.”

Cat, who had been nursing her first ginger ale of the day, closed her eyes. “He is the real thing, Laquita. He showed up late last night with some weaselly PR guy.”

Laquita muttered something earthy and highly appropriate to the circumstances. “What do you want me to do?”

“Don’t let him anywhere near Mimi,” she said. “He’s looking for publicity, and I’ll be damned if he gets it in some tearstained reunion in her hospital room.”

“Gotcha,” Laquita said, “but we might run into some problems. Are they still married?”

“I don’t know,” Cat said, as her stomach did one of those familiar slides toward misery. “I guess so.” Then again, up until last night she thought her mother hadn’t heard from Mark since October 1978.

“Legally he might have the right to see her.”

“I’ll be there as fast as I can,” she said, then made the ten-yard dash to the bathroom.

“Who was on the phone?” Joely asked when Cat returned to the kitchen. Her sister was scrambling eggs at the stove while the coffeepot did its thing.

“Laquita.” She gave Joely a quick rundown.

“What are we going to do?” Joely asked. “He doesn’t deserve to see her.” She turned the eggs onto a big serving platter. “Especially not if he’s going to use it for publicity.”

“We’re not waiting for William and Annabelle?” Cat asked as she sat down at the table.

“They went out,” Joely said, her face a mask of controlled emotion. “They’ll probably grab breakfast in town.”

“Good thing William’s here,” Cat said carefully. “Karen had to take the kids up to Bar Harbor today to see the grandparents.”

“Speaking of grandparents, Annabelle’s grandparents are coming to Loch Craig next week to fetch her for their annual holiday motor trip. William’s taking her back home tonight.”

“Tonight? He just got here.”

“That’s why he came, Cat. Neither one of us would have been comfortable letting Annabelle fly back alone.”

“Honey, I understand if you need to go back with them.”

Joely shook her head. “I don’t think I’ll be going back except to pack my things.”

“You and William have talked about this.”

“We don’t need to. It’s painfully clear to both of us.”

“Talk is good, you know.”

“Why start now?” Joely said with a false laugh. “We’ve done fine without it.”

Cat leaned forward and reached for her sister’s hand. “You know I never pry—” She stopped as Joely’s face registered amazement. “Okay, so I almost never pry, but I think you’re making a mistake. I saw the way he looked at you, honey. I see the way you look at him. There’s something there worth saving. I know it. Don’t let him go without a fight.”

“Too late,” Joely said as she helped herself to some eggs.

They were so much alike, the two of them. Despite the ten-year difference in their ages, they shared much of the same baggage when it came to men and family. It had taken her thirty-eight years to feel she had not just the right but the wisdom to open her heart to the future. Joely had everything she needed right there in front of her, but the timing was wrong, and she couldn’t see it.

There were no shortcuts to happiness. She couldn’t draw a road map for her sister and point her in the right direction. It didn’t work that way, no matter how much she wished it did. All she could do was be there for her, support her choices—

Or blaze the trail.

She pushed back her chair and stood up. “I’ll be right back,” she said.

“The eggs were too much, weren’t they?” Joely said. “I should have made dry toast for you.”

She hurried past the bathroom and ducked into her bedroom. Her cell phone rested on the nightstand. She turned it on, then typed the message that just might change her life:

HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO MEET MY PARENTS?

She hit Send.

Now all she could do was wait to find out how her story ended.

ANNABELLE LOVED THE beach. She turned somersaults in the sand and danced along the edge of the surf, singing with the sheer joy of life.

Her happiness was in sharp contrast to the deep, yawning sadness William had been feeling ever since he arrived in Idle Point a lifetime ago. He had been angry when he got there, determined to confront Joely about the job in Surrey, force her to sit down and talk, really talk, about their future and where it was leading, but the sheer drama of what was happening to her family overshadowed all else.

Maybe it was a good thing. Maybe he and Annabelle had been a stopping-off point, a place to rest while she waited for her life to unfold. He hadn’t a clue. God knew he hadn’t been looking for the powerful connection he had found with Joely, but it had come calling just the same, and he had been helpless to turn away.

Maybe it was the same with her. Maybe given another time, another place, they would have been able to make it work, make the kind of connection that could weather the storms and the years, but he would never know. There was something ironic and terribly sad about meeting the right person at the wrong time in your life and knowing you’d never be given another chance.

He had still been raw from losing Natasha when Joely came into his life. The attraction had been undeniable but his heart was still mending. Joely had never demanded more than he could give. She had been enormously understanding and compassionate and he had thanked God every night for bringing her into his life and Annabelle’s.

It took a while before he realized that her undemanding ways weren’t born of understanding but of a deep need to keep her own heart locked away.

Only Annabelle had known how to turn the key. He had been too caught up in his own drama to even try.

And now it was too late.

“Hungry?” he asked Annabelle as she took his hand for the walk back to Catherine’s cottage. “I hear they make brilliant pancakes in America.”

“Could we really?” Annabelle’s entire face shone with delight. How little it took to make his daughter happy. It killed him to know what was about to happen and how much it would hurt her.

He waited until they were seated in the tiny restaurant near the newspaper office. He delayed until the pancakes, studded with blueberries the size of marbles, were brought to the table. He postponed saying anything at all until Annabelle had her fill of rich amber maple syrup with a touch of pancake underneath it.

“We’re going home tonight,” he said as casually as he could manage. “Grandmother and Grandfather Sinclair are on their way to Loch Craig to take you on holiday with them.”

“I don’t want to go,” Annabelle said. “I want to stay here.”

“We can’t stay here, Annabelle. This isn’t our home.”

“I wish it was. I like it here.”

“So do I, but sooner or later we have to go back to Loch Craig.”

“I don’t care.”

“Your grandparents love you. They look forward to this trip all year. You don’t want to disappoint them, do you?”

Her little face brightened. “Why don’t they come here instead?” she asked. “They can drive in America!”

“That might be a bigger trip than they were planning, Annabelle. They’re expecting to find you in Loch Craig, and that’s where we’ll be.”

Annabelle was distraught. Her entire body registered such black despair that he almost laughed. Sometimes he felt that this wildly emotional, melodramatic daughter of his was a changeling, and the serious, stolid daughter he was meant to have had been spirited away.

How many nights had he and Joely spent discussing Annabelle in excruciatingly minute detail, lovingly examining every facet of her personality, dreaming about the shining future she would one day claim.

Why had that been enough for them? They should have been dreaming about their own future together, the brothers and sisters who would be there for Annabelle when they were long gone, brothers and sisters who would look up to her for love and counsel.

He’d had those dreams, but he had never found the right time, the right way, to put them on the table.

Too late now,
he thought as he drained his cup of coffee and gestured for a refill.
Too bloody late.

“I GOT YOUR message,” Zach said when Cat and Joely joined him at Mimi’s house. “It’s a joke, right?”

“Mark’s here,” Cat said as she unlocked the front door. “He showed up last night.”

Zach looked like somebody had told him there really was a Santa Claus. He was filled with questions—who could blame him?—but neither Cat nor Joely had the time or patience to answer them.

“I think he’s looking to get back in the spotlight,” Cat said.

“Maybe he just wants to see Mimi,” Zach countered, then looked toward Joely for support.

“Maybe both,” she said. “Who knows?”

“I don’t care why he’s here,” Cat said, “but I do want to know if anything he’s told us is true.” She brought Zach up to date on the chronology of Mark’s little vacation from family life.

“Holy shit,” Zach said. “What the hell was he thinking?”

“He was thinking about himself,” Cat said. “That’s the one thing I’m sure of.”

She explained about the strongbox and Mark’s absolute certainty that it was hidden somewhere in the house.

“It’s not going to change anything,” she said, “but I have to know if he’s lying to us.”

“Does it really matter?” Joely asked.

“It matters to me,” Cat said. She needed to know that just once in the twenty-seven years since he walked out that door, her father had wondered if she was happy.

Zach, bless his heart, volunteered to do a target-specific search of the place.

“I’m flying up to Portland tomorrow morning,” he said, “I’m yours until then.”

“My cell’s on,” Cat said as she kissed his cheek. “Call me if you find anything.”

“He won’t find anything,” Joely said as they climbed into Cat’s Jeep. “Mark made all of that up to salve his guilty conscience.”

“It looks that way,” Cat admitted, “but it doesn’t hurt to check it out.”

BOOK: Someone Like You

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