The Carson Springs Trilogy: Stranger in Paradise, Taste of Honey, and Wish Come True (51 page)

Millie sat stiffly upright, a hand pressed to her chest as if to stanch a bleeding wound. “I knew it,” she said with a queer note of triumph. “Oh yes. She’s been waiting all these years. Waiting until she could get her claws into you.”

Claire couldn’t help smiling at the imagery. “You make it sound as if I’m about to be eaten.”

“You’ll see,” Millie went on in that same odd, high-pitched voice. “It won’t stop there. She’ll call and write and visit. And … and pretty soon she’ll want you all to herself.” Her eyes, the faded blue of airmail envelopes tied in bundles, glittered with unshed tears.

“Mom, that’s ridiculous.”

“You say that now. But just wait.”

“Mother has a point.” Lou didn’t look entirely convinced; she knew he was only sticking up for Millie.

“It’s just
coffee,
for heaven’s sake,” she cried in frustration.

“A woman who never bothered to give you the time of day,” Millie went on as if Claire hadn’t spoken. “A woman with no regard for anyone but herself. Was she thinking of
us
when she called? Of
you?
Of what this would do to
our
Christmas?”

Claire felt miserable. “I’m sure she didn’t see it that way.”

“We wanted more children.” Millie’s voice trembled. “But we were blessed with just you. Do you think I haven’t gotten down on my knees every day to thank God for sending you? And now this woman who tossed you aside like an unwanted kitten wants you
back?
”

“Mom, you’re making too big a deal of it. Really. I’m not going anywhere.” Claire tried to strike a lighthearted note, but she felt sick inside.

She cast a desperate look at her father. They locked eyes for an instant, and she saw that he understood, that he knew Millie was blowing the whole thing out of proportion. But he only sighed, and dropped his gaze.

“Food’s getting cold,” Millie said stiffly. The subject was closed.

They got through the rest of the meal somehow, but it was an act of pure will on Claire’s part. Even the apple pie was like choking down glue. When at last she rose from the table, it felt as if an ice age had passed. “Mom, why don’t you put your feet up? I’ll do the dishes,” she offered.

“Thank you, dear. I believe I will.” Millie, paler than usual, pushed herself to her feet with what seemed an effort.

Lou cleared the table while Claire washed up. Half an hour later the dishwasher was humming and the leftovers tucked away in the fridge. Leaving her father in front of the TV, where a football game was in progress, she tiptoed down the hall to check on her mother.

At her tap on the door, Millie called softly, “Come in.”

Claire found her stretched out on the bed, the crocheted afghan at the foot pulled up over her shoulders. In the light filtering in from the hallway, she looked small and frail. Claire thought of a line from
Julius Caesar: O pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth.
Hadn’t she stabbed her mother in the back the way Brutus had Caesar?

“I’m on my way out,” she said. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Millie’s eyes glimmered in the half-light. “I’m just a little tired is all.”

“You should’ve let me help with the cooking,” she said.

“You do too much as it is.”

Claire planted a kiss on her mother’s cheek, which felt smooth and dry as sanded wood. “Thanks again for dinner.” She hesitated before adding, “I’m sorry if I upset you.”

“
You
didn’t upset me.” Millie’s tone made it clear where she placed the blame. But hadn’t Claire secretly wanted to hurt her? Wasn’t she the real villain here?

Frustration rose in her. “Mom, this isn’t about you. Why can’t you see that?”

“Oh, I see all right. I see the handwriting on the wall.”

“Nothing will change. You’re still my parents.”

“Yes, your parents.” Millie’s voice was thick with tears. “The ones who fed and clothed you and looked after you when you were sick. The ones who sat up worrying themselves half to death when you stayed out late. What has this woman ever done for you? Tell me. What can she give you that we can’t?”

Claire gazed down into her mother’s face, at her mouth slack with anguish and the deep lines etched about her eyes. “It’s not about what she can give me— I want to know
why,
,” she said.

“You’ll get more than you bargained for.”

“Maybe. But it won’t change how I feel about you and Dad.” She reached for her mother’s hand, holding it lightly clasped. It felt cool to the touch, the bones underneath like something loosely wrapped in tissue paper. “Good night. Mom. Sleep tight.”

“Would you shut the door on your way out?” Millie sighed, turning her head toward the wall. Claire was stepping into the hall when she added in a barely audible voice, “The pie was good.”

Claire eased the door shut, pausing to rest her forehead against the jamb. A headache was starting in one temple and her eyes felt hot and achy.
What now?
But the house gave nothing back. As she made her way past the living room, there was only the muted sound of the TV. Outside, a strong wind was blowing in off the ocean. She could hear it whining in the eaves, sending leaves scuttling along the gutters her father hadn’t gotten around to cleaning—she’d have to look into hiring a yard boy.

“Bye, Dad,” she called. She could see only the back of the recliner where he sat, the bald dome of his head flickering with reflected light from the TV.

“Bye, honey.” He didn’t get up. “Drive safely.”

She retrieved her jacket from the oak hall stand, catching a glimpse of her face in its beveled mirror: her prominent cheekbones with their sprinkling of freckles, her gray-green eyes and Cupid’s bow mouth drawn into a straight line. Who did she resemble? Her mother or her father … or neither? Was it from some long-lost ancestor she’d gotten her curly brown hair and the dimple in her chin?

She stepped outside to find that the wind had scoured away the fog, leaving the sky empty except for the stars glittering like fistfuls of flung sand. Stopping to gaze across the hedge at the lighted windows next door, she thought of Byron. She’d never needed him more than she did now. But the Allendales would be lingering over their supper, she knew, engaged in an animated discussion about a hot-button topic such as stem cell research or global warming or gun control. Better to wait until tomorrow.

Her thoughts turned once more to Gerry. Claire imagined a stout, gray-haired matron at the head of a table surrounded by family—Claire’s half sister and brother, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins—and felt a warm trickle of anticipation. Was this a gift she’d been offered, like in a heartwarming Christmas tale … or the proverbial poisoned apple? She shivered at the thought, pulling her collar up around her ears as she headed down the steps.

“Of course you should call her.” Kitty stood at the kitchen counter of her rambling old house that doubled as a tearoom, elbow deep in dough, the air filled with the delicious scent of something baking in the oven. A pot of tea was steeping under a quilted cozy at Claire’s elbow.

“Give me one good reason.” It had been two weeks since Christmas, and she was still no closer to a decision.

Kitty turned to give her a mildly admonishing look. “You don’t need one. She’s your mother.”

“Who gave me up at birth.”

“Don’t you at least want to know why?”

More than you know,
Claire thought. “What about my parents?”

“What about them?’’

“It would kill them.”

Claire instantly regretted her choice of words. That was all Kitty needed, to be reminded of what had happened to her own parents. Three years ago, in what had to be Miramonte’s most sensational murder to date, Lydia Seagrave had fatally shot her longtime husband, Vernon, then shortly afterward killed herself. The scandal—a crime of passion, it was rumored (Kitty rarely spoke of it, though Claire had a feeling she knew more than she’d let on)—had had the effect of a bomb dropped on their quiet community.

But Kitty wasn’t thinking of her parents now. “Once they realize she isn’t a threat, they’ll come around.”

She made it sound so reasonable that for a moment Claire almost believed her. She leaned back in her chair, watching Kitty bustle about, the familiar rhythms as graceful as a ballet. Kitty’s cloud of gingery hair was pulled back with an elastic band, and stray wisps floated about her elfin face as she pounded at the dough with her fists, sending up pale puffs of flour into the shaft of sunlight slanting in through the window. In her baggy cotton tunic and trousers, her child-size Chinese slippers and socks, she might have been a benign genie from an
Arabian Nights’
tale.

“What makes you so sure?” Claire asked.

“Because I know a thing or two.” It wasn’t just that Kitty was older by a dozen years, she was also the wisest person Claire knew. “And because they want what’s best for you.”

“Sometimes it feels more like a ball and chain.”

Claire wouldn’t have admitted that to another living being, not even Byron. But practically from the first day she’d come to work here she’d been able to tell Kitty anything. Mainly because Kitty never judged or criticized, or offered advice unless asked.

“I used to feel that way about mine.” She paused, wearing an odd, faraway look, her floury hands coming to rest on the ball of dough. “But you know something? They did the best they could. I didn’t see that until I had Maddie. Now I only pray I won’t screw up too badly.”

Her gaze softened as it fell on three-year-old Maddie, the child she never thought she’d have, bent over a sheet of butcher paper at the table across from Claire, a crayon in each chubby fist. After years of trying, it must have seemed a miracle when she became pregnant. That she’d gotten Sean out of the bargain as well proved that good people occasionally
did
get what they deserved.

Claire looked past Kitty into the front room with its collection of mismatched tables and chairs. In less than an hour the bell over the door would be tinkling, the tea kettles whistling, and New Year’s resolutions a thing of the past. The first time she’d walked through the door in answer to Kitty’s ad, she’d felt right at home. Kitty was the main reason, of course. Over the past five years they’d become closer than most sisters.

“I owe them,” Claire said.

Kitty eyed her thoughtfully. “Maybe, but not the way you think.”

“What if I’m opening a Pandora’s box?”

“Too late. The lid’s already off.” Kitty pushed at the dough with the heels of her hands, flattening it into an oblong. “If you don’t take a peek inside, you’ll never know what you’re missing.”

“What about her kids?”

“Once they get to know you, they’ll see you for the wonderful person you are.” She turned to give Claire a warm if distracted smile, wiping absently with her wrist at a smudge of flour on her chin. “Would you hand me that?” She pointed at a Pyrex bowl heaped with a mixture of chopped nuts, brown sugar, and cinnamon.

Watching her sprinkle it over the dough, Claire found herself confiding, “You know something? Sometimes I wish I still worked here. Life was a lot easier then.”

Kitty laughed. “That’s because you weren’t the boss. Here it is only half past eight—” she cast a rueful glance at the clock on the wall—“and it feels like I’ve been on my feet all day.”

“I’d trade with you in a heartbeat,” Claire said, meaning it. “I’m so sick of my job I could scream.”

“What about another branch of law? It’s not too late to switch.”

“How can I think about changing careers with this thing hanging over me?”

“Mommy, look!” Maddie crowed. “I drawed a bunny rabbit.”

Kitty wandered over to have a look. “Is that a carrot in his mouth?”

Maddie giggled, the image of her mother with her elfin face and cloud of strawberry curls. Only her determined little chin and lower lip that thrust out when she was mad were Sean’s. “Not a carrot. A
banana.
”

“I didn’t know bunnies ate bananas.”

Maddie nodded vigorously. “Yeah, they do.”

“Well, in that case, we’ll leave one for the Easter bunny this year.” She kissed the top of her daughter’s head and went to check on the pie. The scent of pumpkin and spices filled the kitchen as she eased open the oven door. From outside came the buzz of a chain saw: Sean trimming the elm tree out back.

Kitty rolled the dough into a fat sausage. “You don’t need my advice,” she told Claire. “Your mind was made up when you walked in. You only wanted me to second the motion.” Her voice was as matter-of-fact as Maddie’s insisting that bunnies ate bananas.

“I wish I were certain,” Claire said.

She watched Kitty pinch the ends of the dough and then slice it into cinnamon-swirled wedges. She’d scarcely finished arranging them in a pan when the timer pinged. In a seamless motion she took the pie from the oven, and slid in the tray of buns.

“Want me to put those out front?” Claire asked, indicating the baked goods cooling on the counter. Though she no longer got paid for it, she often pitched in when she was around. And it looked as if Kitty could use a hand. Willa was late as usual and the young woman who’d taken Claire’s place was on vacation until next week.

“Would you?” Kitty shot her a grateful look.

In the sunny front room, Claire lined the wicker baskets in the display case with clean sheets of parchment before arranging the baked goods in neat little piles: muffins of every kind—blueberry, cranberry-orange, pumpkin, apple streusel, peach—cookies fat as doorknobs, golden turnovers edged in crispy brown lace. There were currant scones, slices of orange pound cake drizzled with syrup, and a recipe of hers that Kitty had adapted: lemon-coconut bars made from the Meyer lemons that grew out back.

Stepping back to admire the effect, she thought once more how wonderful it would be if she
could
spend every day like this, steeped in tantalizing fragrances, surrounded by the familiar faces of regulars who’d come to seem more like family. Like old Josie Hendricks, the retired schoolteacher who was one of the first to arrive each morning. And Gladys Honeick, proprietress of Glad Tide-ins, the beachwear shop two doors down, who last year had tied the knot—where else but here?—with another longtime customer, crusty newspaper owner Mac MacArthur.