Her Mother's Shadow (29 page)

“N
ice location,” Bobby said, as he drove the VW bus into Alec and Olivia's driveway.

“It is,” Lacey agreed. Her father and stepmother's big yellow house was on the sound, half in the sun, half in the shade. From the driveway, she could see the corner of the broad deck that took up much of the backyard. “The house I grew up in was on the sound, too,” she said.

“I remember.” Bobby smiled at her. She didn't recall him ever coming to her house, but she supposed he had dropped her off there at one time or another after a party. She'd often been too wasted to remember how she'd gotten home.

“I still don't get why I couldn't stay home and do my e-mail,” Mackenzie grumped from the single back seat of the bus. Bobby had removed the other seat and the old mattress at some time to make room for his tools and scrimshaw.

Lacey turned to look at her. “It's a beautiful day and I thought it would be good for you to have a change of scenery,” she said. “You've been in the Outer Banks for five weeks and you haven't even seen Jockey's Ridge yet.”

“Imagine that,” Mackenzie said. “I haven't seen Jockey's Ridge and I'm still alive.” She'd grown snippier by the mile as Bobby drove them to Alec and Olivia's, where he would drop them off on his way to an AA meeting. Olivia and Lacey would take the kids to the dunes at Jockey's Ridge, and Bobby would pick Lacey and Mackenzie up later.

“And you like Jack and Maggie,” Lacey continued. “Remember what a good time you had bowling with them?”

“It was the highlight of my life,” Mackenzie said. She was regressing.
Take the kid out of Kiss River, and she turns back into a little bitch,
Lacey thought.
She's afraid,
she reminded herself. Mackenzie had become secure at Kiss River, tucked away in that safe haven filled with people who cared about her, dogs who loved her, a baby girl who adored her. Out in the world, she was scared again, and if Lacey had learned anything this past month, it was how fear could turn this child into a surly, sullen creature.

Lacey reached back to wrap her hand around Mackenzie's skinny forearm. “It'll be okay,” she said gently. “I think you'll have fun.”

Mackenzie was not about to be consoled. She drew her arm away and let out a sigh of exasperation.

Bobby gave Lacey a sympathetic wink. “So,” he said, opening the driver's side door, “I finally get to meet Olivia and your other siblings.”

She thought of telling Bobby that he had met Olivia a couple of times the summer he was seventeen, then thought better of it. She didn't want to remember those awkward meetings herself.

Bobby got out of the bus, and Lacey joined him on the driveway, but Mackenzie made no move to leave the rear seat.

Bobby pulled the door open for her. “You can make up
your mind to have a good time or not,” he said to the girl. “Your choice.”

Mackenzie rolled her eyes at him and stepped out of the VW, and she lagged behind them as they walked to the front door of the house.

Maggie was the one to open the door. She grabbed Mackenzie's arm, jumping up and down in her usual energetic, nine-year-old fashion. “Wait till you see the hang gliders!” she said. “And you can roll down the dunes so fast you don't even know what's happening to you.”

Mackenzie grunted an unintelligible reply.

Olivia and Jack walked into the living room, Olivia's hand on her son's shoulder, as though he might have needed some encouragement to come into the room. He looked every bit as miserable as Mackenzie did, and Lacey figured he was not thrilled at the idea of spending his Saturday afternoon with a couple of girls.

Olivia smiled and reached her hand toward Bobby. “I'm Olivia Simon,” she said, her green eyes warm and welcoming. “And this is Jack. And I guess you've met Maggie.”

Bobby shook Olivia's hand. “Bobby Asher,” he said, then looked down at Jack, an expression of sympathy on his face. “Not having a good day, huh, Jack?” he asked.

“It's all right,” Jack mumbled. He looked at his mother. “Can I go back upstairs now?” he asked.

“If you take Mackenzie and Maggie with you,” Olivia said.

“Mom.”
Jack used two syllables to say the word as he gave Olivia a pleading look from behind his glasses.

“Go on.” Olivia nudged him.

Stoop shouldered, Jack led the two girls toward the stairs, but Maggie quickly ran ahead of her brother. “Come on!” she said to Mackenzie. “We're playing Pandora's Box.”

Lacey laughed, watching them leave the room. “Well, at least one of them is happy about this get-together,” she said.

“What's Pandora's Box?” Bobby asked.

“Computer game.” Olivia shook her head. “It's gorgeous out today, and all they want to do is hole up in the study and play games.”

“Mackenzie's glued to the computer, too.” Lacey liked the sense of commiseration with her stepmother. “When she's not on her cell phone, anyway.”

Olivia looked at Bobby. “I hear you've done a good job with your daughter,” she said.

“He has,” Lacey said. “He—” she looked at him and couldn't stop herself from touching his arm “—I don't know. He just seemed to know from the start what she needed.”

“Thanks,” he said to her, looking uncomfortable with the accolades. He glanced at his watch. “Well, I have a meeting to get to.” He took a step toward the door. “What time should I pick you up?”

“We should be back by four,” Olivia said.

“All right.” Bobby opened the door and walked outside. “I'll see you then.”

For all Mackenzie's sulkiness and all Jack's disdain at spending the afternoon with girls, the three children ran up the dunes with a wild abandon Lacey remembered very well. She used to love playing on the dunes as a kid. She'd especially loved it when her father would bring them up here, illegally, in the middle of the night. It was one of those events that had happened only a few times, but felt in her memory like a tradition.

She and Olivia panted behind the children as they climbed, not even trying to talk until they'd reached the top of the tallest dune. Lacey was disappointed that all her excercise could still leave her this breathless. By the time
they'd sat down on the peak, the kids were already rolling down the steep, sandy slope, spinning on their sides, hair flying and sand sticking to their sun-screened bodies.

“How's she doing?” Olivia rested her arms on her knees and nodded in the direction of the children. Sunglasses covered her green eyes and she wore a baseball cap, the brim putting half her face in shadow. Lacey wished she had thought to bring her own hat.

“Well—” Lacey smiled “—let's just say I have a much better understanding of what it was like for you to deal with me when I was a kid.” She could see the deepening lines in Olivia's face and knew she was responsible for putting at least some of them there.

“You were struggling,” Olivia said.

“And so's she,” Lacey said, pulling a tube of sunblock from the pocket of her shorts. “But she's doing a lot better. She's grumpy today, but that's because she wanted to stay home and e-mail her Phoenix friends.”

“Clay said she's been helping him with his dog training.”

Lacey smoothed the cream on her face. “He's been great with her,” she said. “And she loves it. It's really opened her up.”

“It sounds like Bobby's been a help, too.”

“Oh, my God, Olivia,” Lacey said. “He's been fabulous with her. Can you imagine a guy just stepping up to the plate like that? Taking responsibility for a kid he never even knew about?”

“It's rare,” Olivia admitted. The children were climbing up the dunes again, laughing, throwing sand. “So, are you in love with him?” she asked. “Or do you just want to sleep with him?”

Lacey stared at her, wide-eyed.
“What?”

Olivia laughed. “Sorry. That didn't come out well, did it?”
She brushed sand from her bare calves. “It's just that I saw the way you looked at him, like you couldn't get enough of him. And when you talked about him just now, it was obvious how much you respect him.”

Lacey let out a long sigh. “I
am
very attracted to him,” she admitted, capping the sunblock and returning it to her pocket. She could still feel the weight of Bobby's arm around her shoulders from the day before, when he'd walked her from her car to the house. She couldn't help but wonder if the blond woman would also be at the meeting he was attending this afternoon. Or maybe there was no meeting at all. Maybe he was simply getting together with the woman and didn't want to admit that to Lacey. “I'm attracted to him just like I've been attracted to every other bad boy that ever crossed my path. And I'm doing my very best to resist those feelings. I've been spending more time with Rick Tenley.”

“You think Bobby's a bad boy?” Olivia asked.

Lacey shut her eyes behind her sunglasses, unsure of how much to reveal. “Do you remember when I was fourteen and thought I was pregnant and didn't have a clue who the father might be?”

Olivia nodded. “Very well,” she said.

“He was one of the candidates.”

“Oh.” Olivia wrinkled her nose. “Ew.”

“Right.” She would not tell Olivia about the times she'd met Bobby that summer, one of them in the E.R. when Lacey, Bobby and Jessica had brought in a friend who had overdosed. She didn't want to poison Olivia against him completely.

“Well,” Olivia sighed, “that was a long time ago, though. You've changed. He probably has, too.”

“Olivia!” Lacey had to laugh. “Why are you pushing me? You know how hard I've tried to clean up my act this past year.”

“I know, I know.” Olivia waved her hand through the air. “And you've done a good job of it, Lace. But…it's something about the way you looked at him.”

“You saw us together for less than a minute.”

“I didn't know you were all that taken with Rick,” Olivia said.

“He's been incredibly supportive of me. And he makes no demands on me in return.”

“But what do you feel for him?”

Lacey picked up a handful of the fine sand and let it slip slowly through her fingers. “Not as much as I wish I did,” she admitted.

“You know, it
is
possible to feel physically drawn to a person who is right for you, too,” Olivia said. “You seem to think that, just because you had a bit of a rowdy past, you have to settle for stable and boring rather than exciting and attractive.”

She couldn't believe she was hearing this advice from Olivia.

“I guess—” Olivia looked pensive “—it's just that he's Mackenzie's father and you are now her…her guardian, and it would be nice if…” She shrugged. “You know.”

“I never knew you were such a romantic.” Lacey laughed. “Do you know that the advice you're giving me is the exact opposite of the advice Gina gave me? She said I should go for the stable guy and that I'd eventually learn to love him.”

Olivia laughed. “Ignore me,” she said. “And ignore Gina. Trust your own heart, Lacey. You know what's right for you.”

“No,” she said, letting the sand sift through her fingers again. “Actually I have no idea.”

L
acey could not remember a night so hot since moving into the keeper's house, and in spite of the sunblock she'd worn while sitting on the dunes with Olivia, her skin felt tender and sore and she could not get comfortable in bed. She heard a door creak open in the hallway and tried to pinpoint the direction the sound had come from. Mackenzie's room?

She got out of bed and opened her own door. In the light from the small lamp they kept burning in the hallway, she could see Mackenzie heading for the stairs.

“Are you all right?” Lacey asked her.

“I can't sleep,” Mackenzie said. “It's too hot.” She had on plaid boxer-style shorts and a cropped tank top, tight across her barely-there breasts. Her hair was tousled, probably from tossing and turning in bed, and some of it was plastered to her forehead with perspiration. She looked like a skinny little kid who didn't quite know what to do with herself.

“I have an idea,” Lacey said, whispering. She didn't want to wake up the others if they had managed to fall asleep. “Let's put on our bathing suits and go for a swim.”

“In the dark?” Mackenzie looked dubious. “You're kidding.”

“Ssh.” Lacey pressed a finger to her lips. “No, I'm not kidding. Wouldn't it feel great?”

“Maybe.” Mackenzie still did not look convinced. “But I don't want to go in deep.” Other than playing with Rani where the waves washed onto the shore, Mackenzie had not gone into the ocean once since arriving in Kiss River.

“Well, we'll just go in up to our knees, then,” Lacey said. “Come on. It'll feel so good.”

Mackenzie nodded. “All right.”

“Let's get into our bathing suits,” Lacey said.

“Okay,” Mackenzie said, turning toward her room. “I'll be back in a minute.”

Lacey returned to her own room, pulled on her green one-piece bathing suit, took two beach towels from her closet, and met Mackenzie in the hallway. They tiptoed down the stairs, but once they'd reached the first story, it became clear that they were not the only members of the house awake in the middle of the night: the light was on in the sunroom.

“It looks like Bobby's still working,” Lacey said. She knew he'd spent the afternoon photographing the finished belt buckle before mailing it to the woman who had commissioned the piece.

“Let's ask him to go with us,” Mackenzie said.

They walked into the sunroom, where Bobby was working on a drawing for his next piece of scrimshaw. He looked up from the table.

“Looks like you guys can't sleep, either,” he said.

“We're going swimming,” Mackenzie announced. “Want to come?”

“That sounds like a damn good idea.” Bobby leaned back in his chair. He rubbed his eyes as he turned out the halo
gen lamp on the worktable. “I'll change and join you out there.”

The night was still and breathless when Lacey and Mackenzie stepped onto the porch. “Ssh,” Lacey said as they started walking toward the beach. “Let's not wake up Wolf.” When Lacey had walked past the dog's kennel that morning, Wolf had literally jumped onto the chain-link fencing, hanging there for a minute, all four paws somehow clutching the wire mesh. She'd stopped, frozen in her tracks, afraid he was going to actually climb over the fence to get at her. The thought of him barking and snarling at her in the darkness, when she couldn't see well enough to know that he was safe inside the enclosure, was not reassuring.

Passing the lighthouse, she could see that the ocean was as calm as the sound tonight, as if the heat had sapped its energy as well as theirs, and the quarter-moon was reflected intact in the water. There was no rush of waves to the shore, but instead, the sea gently lapped against the sand. If Mackenzie was ever to get up the courage to go into the ocean, tonight should be the night.

“Look at this, Mackenzie,” she said, dropping their towels to the sand. “Have you ever seen it more beautiful?”

“It is pretty cool-looking,” Mackenzie admitted as she headed for the shallow water. She marched around in a circle, kicking up sprays of seawater with her feet. “Oh, this feels so good!” she said.

Lacey walked past her until she was in the water up to her thighs. She turned around to look at Mackenzie. “Let's go in deeper,” she said. “It's so calm.”

Mackenzie sat down on the wet sand, letting the water lap at her legs. “I'm all right here,” she said. “And
you've
got your back to the ocean. You're not supposed to do that.”

“That's true,” Lacey said. “But there are practically no waves tonight, so I don't think it's a problem.”

She spotted Bobby walking toward the beach, shirtless, dressed in baggy shorts and carrying a towel. He looked good, and she was so pleased to have him joining them that it scared her.

“How did you like the dunes today?” she asked Mackenzie, struggling to return her attention to the girl. Mackenzie's mood had improved considerably after the visit to Jockey's Ridge.

“Awesome,” Mackenzie admitted.

“How's the water?” Bobby called. He was sloshing through the ankle-deep pool of salt water surrounding the lighthouse. Mackenzie remained seated, but she twisted her spine to be able to look at him.

“Awesome!” she repeated.

“I've had baths in water colder than this.” Bobby had reached the shore where Mackenzie was sitting. He tapped the top of her head. “Come on, Mack,” he said, walking past her. “Let's really get wet.”

He was headed toward Lacey, grinning his cockeyed grin.
Oh, God.
She had seen him in at least five different T-shirts, but she had never seen him bare chested before—at least, not since she was fourteen. He was slender, but his pectoral muscles were well-defined, and the line of hair running from his navel to where it disappeared beneath his shorts set up a longing in her. She wanted to run her finger down that trail of hair. She wanted to slip her hand beneath the waistband of his shorts. She'd fought those feelings this past year. Fought them hard every time she saw a man who might have the ability to elicit them. Now they were bubbling up inside of her like steam.
He's your test,
she reminded herself, but even as that thought entered her mind, she knew this was one test she was going to fail.

“Well, I don't know about the two of you, but I'm going to cool off,” he said, then he dove into the water behind Lacey. Surfacing, he turned to look back at the two of them. “It's beautiful out here,” he said. “Come on, you guys.”

Lacey looked at Mackenzie. “You willing?” she asked.

Mackenzie shook her head, getting to her feet. “I'm, like, totally cooled off now,” she said. “I'm going back to bed.”

“Are you sure?” Lacey asked, and Mackenzie nodded. Lacey turned to wave to Bobby, who was now treading the deeper water a distance behind her. “I'm going to walk Mackenzie up to the house,” she called.

“You come back, all right?” Bobby asked, and even in the faint moonlight, she could see the crooked grin.

She walked Mackenzie toward the house. Wolf heard them, and let out a few barks that she hoped would not awaken Clay or Gina or Rani. At the back door they used their towels to wipe sand from their feet.

“You don't have to come in with me,” Mackenzie said.

“I need to use the bathroom before I go back out,” Lacey said, but it was a lie. Her heart was pounding hard against her rib cage as she walked up the stairs next to Mackenzie. At the door to her room, she put her arm around the girl and kissed her temple. “Good night, honey,” she whispered. “Hope you can sleep now.”

In her room, Lacey shut the door behind her and leaned against it, eyes closed.
What are you doing?
she asked herself.
What the hell are you doing?

She could not let herself think too much for too long. Opening her eyes, she walked over to her closet and pulled down a small overnight case from the top shelf. Inside the case, she found what she was looking for: a box of condoms. Her fingers shook as she pulled one from the box. It was too dark to see the expiration date, and it had been a year since
she'd touched this box, but right now, she didn't give a damn if it had expired or not. She wrapped the condom in her towel and left her bedroom.

On the beach, she dropped the towel on the sand, and walked into the water. Bobby was floating on his back, but he stood up in waist-deep water as she neared him. She was walking so quickly that she left a wake behind her, and as if he knew what she had in mind, he took a step toward her, opening his arms, reaching for her, pulling her against him.

“God.”
He breathed into her hair, and she felt his hand against the back of her head. “You look so sexy in that bathing suit.”

Drawing her head away from him, she let herself look directly into his eyes for what seemed like the first time since his arrival, letting herself feel the temptation she'd been running from for the past few weeks. He ran his fingertip over her lower lip, and she turned her head slightly to let his finger slip into her mouth. It tasted like salt, and all she could think about was having him touch her body with that salty finger, having him run it over her nipples and slip it deep inside her. He drew his finger from between her lips and tilted his head to kiss her. The kiss reached someplace deep in her belly, and it flowered there into something huge and hungry, making her groan. She hung on to him to keep from being swept away by the gentle current as they kissed again, and she felt her body shaking as if she was cold.

He rubbed his hands up and down her arms. “Goose bumps,” he said. “Are you chilly?”

She shook her head. “I'm anything but chilly,” she said. They gazed at each other, and she saw the desire in his eyes. She lowered her hand from his shoulder, running the back of her fingers down his body, from his breastbone to the place where that line of hair disappeared beneath his shorts, and
she heard him suck in his breath. Moving his hands to her hips, he pulled her gently against him so that she could feel his erection.

Letting go of him, she smiled as she lowered the straps of her bathing suit. He watched as she lowered herself into the water up to her shoulders, and as she slipped out of the suit, she felt the cool water against the heat of her body. She released her grasp on the suit, letting the sea carry it away, not caring if she lost it, and stood up again. Bobby let out his breath, reaching up with one hand to touch her breast. Shutting her eyes, she felt him circle the areola with the tip of his finger, over and over again, teasing her, before he leaned over to draw her nipple into his mouth.

She slipped her fingers under the waistband of his bathing suit. “Give me more,” she said. She used the buoyancy of the water to wrap her legs around him, pressing her body hard against his erection.

“
Jesus,
Lacey.” He cupped his hands beneath her thighs, helping to hold her up, and she felt his fingers inching toward that place she was longing for him to touch. Not here, though. Not right now.

“I have a condom on the beach,” she said, and she leaned her head back to watch his expression turn from lustful to amused.

“You conniving little
hussy,
” he said, grinning.

The word hurt; she couldn't help it. Maybe because it felt too close to the truth. “Don't call me that, okay?” she asked him. She knew he was only teasing her, but that word had been used to describe her more times than she cared to remember.

He must have heard the pain in her voice, because a worried crease appeared between his eyebrows.

“I'm sorry,” he said. He let go of her thighs, and she lowered her feet to the sand.

“It's all right.” She smiled at him and took his hand. “Let's go.”

They had made love on the beach twelve years earlier, but it might as well have been a lifetime ago. Lacey lay in his arms afterward, in the darkness, her legs twisted around his, her head on his chest and her heart heavy with shame. She was crying, very quietly, so that Bobby wouldn't know. Crying for the confused fourteen-year-old she'd once been. Had that night with him been the start of everything? The beginning of her downfall? That little girl had had no idea what she was doing or why she was doing it. All she knew was that she needed to be held. And Bobby had barely held her at all back then, just used her and left her. And even though he was holding her now, it wasn't enough to erase the pain she felt inside. She was still that little girl, she thought. She might be a better sexual partner than she had been back then, but she still had no idea what she was doing or why.

“Are you all right?” he asked her.

She did not want to have to explain what was moving her to tears, so she made her voice strong as she answered him. “I'm fine,” she said.

A moment passed before he spoke again. “No, you're not,” he said, rubbing her back.

She shut her eyes. All she wanted was to be inside the keeper's house, upstairs in her bed, asleep. She wanted to walk away from him, like she had from all the others, and yet she knew it would not be so easy this time.