Time Travel Romances Boxed Set (77 page)

Alasdair shook his head slowly, the move
making him look like a stubborn lion. “I drink whisky no longer. I
have pledged this to Morgaine.”

Blake sat back and considered his companion.
Justine would be pleased that things were getting so serious so
fast.

But Alasdair sure didn’t look like a happy
camper. He leaned forward now and tapped his finger slowly on the
table. “What do you know of this so-called man?”

Blake frowned in recollection. “Well, it’s
been ten years now. Um, he and Morgan were already together when I
came on the scene. Married and everything.” He rolled his eyes.
“Though no one was very pleased about that.”

“
No one?”

“
Well, Justine but
especially Auntie Gillian. Wow! Now there was one opinionated old
babe. She was something else.”

“
I know naught of any
Auntie Gillian.”

“
You’re not alone there.”
Blake grimaced. “No one knows much about her, and those who do
aren’t telling. They never talk about her, but she was the one who
raised them.”

“
I do not
understand.”

“
Justine and Morgan are
sisters. Sorry, I thought you could see the resemblance. Most
people do. At any rate, when they were little squirts, their
parents went away, maybe to a wedding. I forget, but they left the
girls with Auntie Gillian.”

Blake flagged down the waitress and ordered
a pint. Alasdair declined with a shake of his head. Once she was
gone, Blake resumed. “Well, there was a car accident – really
horrible – and the girls were orphaned. They must have been four
and two at the time, and real handfuls, as kids that age usually
are. Busy, not bad. And if Auntie Gillian wasn’t their closest
relative, she was certainly the one most determined to give them a
home.”

Blake waved gratitude as his beer came, and
after a long draught, he warmed to his story. Alasdair was
listening intently.

“
You see, she wasn’t really
their aunt – something like the aunt of a cousin of their mother.
Some distant relative, anyway. And possession is nine-tenths of the
law, right? She had the girls and she kept them, the rest of the
family be damned.” Blake snorted. “I sure wouldn’t have gone
head-to-head with Auntie Gillian over anything.”

A faint smile curved Alasdair’s lips. “She
was a woman of determination?”

Blake laughed. “More like one with an iron
will. She was incredible. She put everything into raising those
two.
Everything
. They went to dance lessons and piano
lessons and to the best schools. For an older person, Auntie
Gillian kept up one helluva pace. She was bound and determined that
they were going to have the best. Yet at the same time, neither of
them got away with anything.”

“
She sounds most
fierce.”

“
Yeah.” Blake grinned in
recollection. “I’ve gotta tell you, I was pretty worried when it
was time for me to meet her. I mean, I knew that if Auntie Gillian
put the kibosh on me seeing Justine, that would be the end of it.
And I really didn’t want that to happen.”

“
But you met with
approval?”

Blake still felt surprised by his certainty
of that. “Yeah! I remember that day like nothing else. We drove out
to this little town in Michigan – we were living in Chicago even
then. It was just as cute and apple pie as you can imagine. One of
those places where the feed store is the biggest building in town
and all the houses are these old wooden jobs from the turn of the
century. Big porches, people sitting out watching what everyone
else is doing. Norman Rockwell stuff.

“
Well, Auntie Gillian’s
place wasn’t one of the big showy ones, just a cozy little place
complete with a white picket fence. Of course, I was shaking in my
boots, I was so worried the woman would hate me on
sight.”

Blake took a sip of beer. “I can still see
her standing on the walkway, waiting for us to get out of the car.
Mauve polyester pantsuit, blue hair all tucked up and eyes that
just snapped. You could tell that she never missed a thing. She
stood staring at me, and I felt like she knew everything about me
before we were even introduced. I was surprised when we got up to
her that she was only as tall as Justine’s shoulder – about the
same height as Morgan – because her presence was so
formidable.”

Blake turned his glass in the wet circle it
had made on the table. “We went into her living room. It was filled
with this curvy old furniture with red upholstery and horsehair
stuffing that itched your legs. We had tea in these little bone
china cups, and she ranted about Matt.”

Blake laughed. “It was so anticlimactic. I
was ready to be interrogated to the nth degree, but she didn’t ask
me anything. Once she got done with her list of Matt’s crimes, we
actually had a very pleasant dinner.”

Alasdair’s smile widened. “She must have
approved of you.”

“
Yeah, well, Justine gave
me a big kiss in the car and told me that I’d seriously won the
compare-and-contrast game.” When Alasdair looked blank, Blake
continued. “I don’t know that I would have done so well in Auntie
Gillian’s estimation if Matt hadn’t jumped in first and shown her
how bad things could be.”

“
What manner of man was
he?”

Blake frowned. “You know, it wasn’t anything
you could put your finger on. He was a good-looking guy, a smooth
talker. He worked out and played sports and stuff. Seemed like an
okay guy, actually. At the beginning, I thought Auntie Gillian was
just being overprotective of Morgan and Justine was just chiming
in. You know, ‘there’s nobody good enough for our girl’ kind of
thing.”

“
But later?”

“
Well, gradually I started
to see it. You know, Morgan was completely head over heels. She
thought the sun rose and set in this jerk, and she would have done
anything for him. And over time, I started to get the feeling that
it wasn’t all mutual. Just a comment here or there, nothing you
could really pinpoint, but the impressions added up.”

“
He did not love
her.”

Blake shook his head. “I don’t think Matt
loved anyone besides himself.” He drank heavily of his beer,
remembering hundreds of little details.

“
Yet he married
Morgaine.”

“
I think he liked that she
was in love with him. His own little fan club.” Blake grimaced.
“She was young, and she had been really sheltered from his kind. He
was flashy. Lots of women go for that – at least until they know
better.”

Alasdair’s approval of that was clear. “And
what happened to this Auntie Gillian?”

“
Well, Justine and I got
married about six months after the Interview That Could Have Ended
It All. A couple of months after that, we got a call from the
hospital in the town nearest Auntie Gillian’s.” Blake swallowed.
“She’d had a stroke and was barely hanging on. Morgan turned up
begging a ride, and the three of us drove down together within half
an hour of getting the call.”

“
And this Matthew?”
Alasdair’s tone was thick with disapproval.

Blake shrugged. “There was some excuse. I
don’t remember what it was, just that I knew it was a lie. Morgan
looked like she’d been crying. Justine gave me one of Those Looks
and I just shut up and drove. You know how it is.”

Alasdair nodded grimly. “Aye, that I
do.”

“
So, we got there and it
was too late to visit, but Auntie Gillian told the nurse in the ICU
that she was holding on for her girls and they had damn well better
let them in because she couldn’t make it to morning. And they did.
Like I said, you didn’t mess with her. I guess she was in pretty
rough shape because they were surprised she had lasted as long as
she had. Every blue hair was in place, though. That was Auntie
Gillian.”

Blake shook his head in admiration. “You
know, she might have been in charge of the place instead of dying
there. Justine and Morgan sat one on each side and took her hands.
I kind of lingered in the background, you know, watching that
little red light on the heart monitor go
beep-beep-beep
.

“
She told them that now
that her chicks were married, for better or for worse – Morgan got
a look for that one – it was time for her to go. She said good-bye
to them both, reminded them to mind their manners, then gave them
each a kiss. Then she laid back, closed her eyes, and the little
red light didn’t beep anymore.”

Blake could see the sparse hospital room in
his mind’s eye and felt again the sudden absence of Auntie
Gillian’s commanding presence. The room had abruptly seemed emptier
and colder, and he had known that her formidable spirit had slipped
out of her body before he even looked at the monitor.

“
It was like a movie,” he
confessed quietly, still awed by the memory. “Perfectly planned,
brilliantly executed. She even died on her own terms. Amazing
woman. It turned out she was a good fifteen years older than any of
us had imagined.”

“
She sounds a woman of rare
good sense,” Alasdair said gruffly.

Blake frowned as he recalled where he had
been going with this story, and his tone turned grim. “Yeah. And
Auntie Gillian was right about Matt, that’s for sure. Now, I don’t
know exactly what happened and I know better than to ask” – Blake
punctuated this with a significant glance at his companion – “but I
know what I saw and I bet it’s not what Morgan told you.”

Alasdair leaned closer, his eyes gleaming.
“Tell me.”

If this guy wasn’t nuts about Morgan, Blake
would eat his Day-Timer.

And given that, Alasdair deserved to know
everything Blake knew. Justine would think otherwise, but she
wasn’t here to know about it. Blake looked from side to side, then
leaned across the table himself, dropping his voice even though he
knew neither sister could hear him.

“
About a year after that,
Justine couldn’t get ahold of Morgan and she was starting to worry.
She was always edgy about Matt, said he was too smooth. So we went
over there and knocked forever before Matt opened the door. He was
half-stinko, but that wasn’t much of a surprise. He gave us some
cock-and-bull story about Morgan having a big assignment due for
school, but I could tell he was surprised she hadn’t called Justine
either.”

Blake sighed. “All the way home Justine was
talking about calling the cops. She was sure the bastard had hurt
her baby sister. She said she had a bad feeling and was really
wound up about his drinking. I think she thought she should be
doubly protective of Morgan because Auntie Gillian was gone.”

“’
Tis not an ignoble
impulse.”

“
No.” Blake smiled wryly.
“But when we got home, the phone was ringing and it was Morgan. She
was at a hotel, said she’d been there a week and a half, that she’d
left Matt and wasn’t going back. Well, Justine flat out said she
couldn’t stay at the hotel, that she had to come and live with us.
Morgan argued, but we all knew she’d lose that one.

“
So, we went and picked her
up, and man, she was upset. She was pale and had lost some weight,
one sad little lady. Never said anything more about the whole
thing, though. I know Justine asked, but for the first time ever,
Morgan completely stonewalled her. Justine couldn’t figure out why
she’d waited so long to call, but Morgan wasn’t
talking.”

“
You have an
idea.”

“
I sure do.” Blake gritted
his teeth and looked Alasdair in the eye. “I think Morgan was
waiting for a bruise to fade.”

What Blake saw simmering in the other man’s
eyes confirmed every suspicion about Matt’s behavior that he had
ever had. He’d been right! And that made Blake feel damn good about
what he had done for Morgan.

“
Finally, she said that she
wanted a divorce. Justine didn’t even have a chance to give me a
look – I wanted to make sure everything went Morgan’s way. So, I
called this buddy of mine from college, who just happens to be the
meanest goddamn divorce lawyer you’ve ever seen.” Blake
straightened and mimicked his friend’s formal manner. “Peter Ellis
Thompson III.”

Blake rolled his glass between his hands and
let himself smile slowly in recollection. He’d been right there on
Pete’s shoulder throughout the whole thing, prodding him to go for
blood. “You know, money may just be a way of keeping score, but
it’s a damned good one. Pete carved that boy a new asshole so big
you could drive a Mack truck through it.”

Alasdair looked slightly alarmed by this
revelation, but Blake wasn’t ashamed of the toll that he’d ensured
would be extracted from the other man’s hide. He pointed a finger
at his companion. “The important thing was that Morgan had herself
a nice little nest egg, which was well worth Pete’s bill. She never
knew how much that was, because I paid Pete before he could even
think about sending a bill to her.

“
So, Morgan got herself a
cute studio loft not far from our place and started over again. She
and Justine had a little nesting frenzy decorating that place. And
when Morgan wanted to start her own business, she had the money to
fall back on while she built up her contacts. She’s done really
well for herself.”

Alasdair cleared his throat. “And once this
Matthew was buggered and penniless, what became of him?”

Blake knew he didn’t imagine the
undercurrent of anger in the other man’s tone. Alasdair was
protective of Morgan, and Blake silently conceded that this was the
man for his sister-in-law.

Justine had been right.