A Mother's Heart (9 page)

“Oh, no, don’t bother. I’m at the Nassau Inn.”

“Oh.” Her face fell before she propped it up with a smile. “How long can you stay?”

“I go back Sunday.” Right now it seemed an eternity.

“A week at the Nassau Inn? At those prices? Nonsense. You stay here.”

“Thank you. That’s so sweet. But I…have a thing for…” She glanced around at the mess, wondering if things besides Wobbles crawled through the house at night. “Privacy.”

“Ah. Yes, okay.” Clara rubbed her head, looking so disappointed Maggie nearly agreed to stay. Except…no.

“But I’d love to have dinner here. And see you every day.”

“How nice. Thank you.” She smiled, a radiant beam that made her look years younger. Not that she was old; in her mid-forties, probably. “I’ll pour us a drink and…now what was I going to have for dinner? Maybe I have a bottle of champagne somewhere…”

Fifteen minutes later, the champagne turned out to be standing in the corner of a cupboard, covered with a thick layer of dust. Maggie was pretty sure champagne should be stored on its side to keep the cork moist. This trip was turning out to be…interesting. She had to continually remind herself to relax her jaw and shoulders. In spite of her efforts, both throbbed with tension. She wanted to be back home in her peaceful, ordered living space with all her emotions intact, and her birth mother a safe, distant fantasy.

“Well, this will be festive.” Clara blew on the bottle, then coughed harshly as most of the dust flew into her face. “Now where are my glasses?”

Oh God. “Um. I think you’re wearing them…”

“Oh!” She giggled until her face turned flatteringly pink. “No, no, my champagne glasses.”

Another ten minutes and the glasses were found in their original box under a pile of canvases in the dining room. Maggie’s stomach started growling; her legs were
getting shaky. The bag of peanuts on the airplane hadn’t done much to substitute for lunch, but she’d been too nervous to eat after landing.

The cork came out with a sad
thwip,
not even a small whoosh of air to reassure them of the presence of bubbles. “Oh dear. Well, I guess this is more like wine than champagne.”

Five minutes passed while Clara washed the glasses and put ice into each, heresy for such good champagne. Though without bubbles…

“Here’s to our reunion twenty-nine years after our first meeting. I hope it’s the first of many.” Clara toasted cheerfully, and clinked her glass with Maggie’s

“Here’s to…this meeting. Yes.” Maggie couldn’t think of anything else to say. Warm sentiment would sound shallow and false. She didn’t think she’d been this uncomfortable in a long time. Even at bad moments at work, she was in her element, in charge, sure of her role in every encounter. She might be related to Clara, but she didn’t belong here.

By eight-thirty, with the dining table still bare, Maggie’s stomach had turned as sour as the tired wine in her glass. Clara had decided she absolutely must make an elaborate meal to welcome her daughter, and since she was imbibing healthily from the bottle, the details of recipes kept getting confused. She’d provided stale crackers when Maggie finally broke down and asked for something to protect her insides from acid and alcohol, but Maggie didn’t want to betray her starvation by emptying the box, stale or not.

“And now, I need…” Clara suddenly threw up her hands. “I haven’t got any eggs.”

Okay. This was it. They were going to go out to dinner. Or Maggie was going to fake a heart attack and get the EMTs to take her to Burger King.

“I hate you to go to all this trouble, Clara. I’m sure we can still get a table at—”

“Never mind, I’ll call my neighbor. Where did I put my phone?”

Maggie counted to ten. Then twenty. Then thirty. At fifty-five, the phone was located under last week’s newspaper. By sixty, the number was actually dialed. Unfortunately, Maggie’s last hope for cancelling the meal due to lack of eggs was dashed when someone obviously picked up.

“Hello, dear, it’s Clara. Be a sweetheart and run four eggs over, would you? I’ll pay you back when I go to the store. And I have a surprise for you.” She winked at Maggie.

Oh no. An introduction to a neighbor. Small talk. Maybe offering him a drink. Further delay.

“See you in a sec.” Clara hung up the phone and giggled. “He’ll drop dead when he sees you.”

“Really.” Maggie clutched her glass of champagne, wondering if it would be rude to grab the eggs and crack them right into her mouth when this guy showed up, because she was the one more likely to drop dead. Forget low blood sugar. She was on her way to no blood sugar.

The doorbell rang while Clara was investigating a burning smell coming from the oven. “Oh dear, I—”

“I’ll get it.” Maggie put her glass down on a clear corner of the kitchen table and headed for the door, dodging the dog, trying not to roll her eyes. She’d imagined by this time she and her mother would be on the dessert course, pleasantly buzzed on excellent wine, finding they had tons in common, catching up eagerly on the last thirty years.

Not this.

She got to the door, pushing Wobbles away, yanked it open…

And nearly dropped dead, yes. But not from hunger.

Standing in her birth mother’s doorway, clutching two eggs in each hand was her first love, Grant Conroy.

G
RANT STARED
stupidly at the beautiful blonde who answered Clara’s door. Several seconds went by before he could wrap his brain around the fact that he was staring at Maggie Chesterton.

“Grant.”

“Hi.” His voice cracked like a teenager’s. The eggs clenched in his fingers were in danger of the same fate. Wobbles pressed blissfully against his legs and nearly knocked him over. A feather could have done it. “What…”

“
You’re
Clara’s neighbor?” She was obviously as stunned as he was.

“Yes. Who are you?”

Her face fell. “Maggie. Maggie—”

“No, no.” He shook his head, nudged Wobbles away. “I meant who are you in relation to Clara?”

“Oh. Well she’s my…” Her lungs seemed to run out of air.

She was so beautiful. Too thin and somewhat harder-looking, but—

“Grant? That you?”

“Yes.” He grabbed on to Clara’s familiar voice to ground himself. “I’ve got the goods.”

“You are a lifesaver once again.” Clara emerged from the kitchen in another crazy outfit, flour on her hands, a
smudge of something red on her cheek. “I’m making a jelly roll, and you can’t make those without eggs. Have you met my daughter?”

“Your—” He stared from Clara to Maggie, then tried to move his stare back to Clara but it was stuck on a pair of bright blue eyes with dark lashes that he hadn’t expected to be staring into ever again.

“She’s Clarissa.”

“
You?
Are
Clarissa?
” He handed the eggs to Clara. “Here. Take these.”

“Thank you. Let me pour you some champagne.” She turned, then abruptly turned back, fumbling one of the eggs, which Grant managed to catch about six inches from the floor. “Where are my manners? Maggie Chesterton, my long-lost daughter, this is Grant Conroy. Grant Conroy, my wonderful neighbor, this is Maggie Chesterton.”

“Grant and I knew each other in high school.” Maggie fidgeted awkwardly. She’d changed her hair. It was longer, carefully blown dry and styled. He preferred it going wherever it wanted, but God, she was beautiful. Even too thin and anxious-looking.

Some men held certain girlfriends or lovers in a special category: The One That Got Away. Maggie was his. No matter how many other women he fell for or desired, he couldn’t help comparing all of them to her.

“You knew each other?” Clara beamed. “Well, how amazing. My two favorite people.”

A sudden hissing and splattering from the kitchen sent her running. Grant and Maggie winced together, waiting for the sound of eggs smashing or boiling liquid sloshing or pots crashing to the floor.

Nothing.

“Well.” He turned to her, hands on his hips. Had she
gotten shorter? No, he’d grown—they were kids the last time they saw each other. “This is…a surprise.”

“I had no idea you were still in Princeton. I thought you’d be…” She made a vague gesture. “Anywhere else.”

He knew what she meant. “Princeton has changed, and so have I.”

“Yes. You’ve really…”

“Grown up?” He hoped she was nervous because she was struggling with emotion and attraction as he was, and not because she’d turned into a stress junkie like her parents. He didn’t like the tightness around her mouth and eyes, or the way her fingers tapped against her leg.

“I wasn’t going to say that.”

“But maybe you were thinking it.”

She twisted her lips, the way she did when she was caught in a tough place. “Maybe.”

“You’d be justified. I’m not that kid anymore.”

“Here we are.” Clara reemerged from the kitchen holding a glass of pale liquid on ice, suspiciously bubble-free. “Champagne to celebrate. Grant, you must stay to dinner.”

“Dinner?” He took the glass. “It’s after nine.”

“No. It is?” She looked horrified. “Maggie, you must be famished.”

“Oh. Well.” Maggie shrugged. “I could eat, yes.”

Grant chuckled under his breath. Maggie was probably ready to pass out. At her weight, she’d need food every couple of hours just to keep going.

He took a sip of the diluted, still wine, remembering the first time he saw her, his first day at Princeton Day School, a trial for any “new kid” but worse at a small private school in a small college town he didn’t belong to. He’d compensated for his fear by striding up the front walkway looking as angry and tough as he knew how.

Maggie had been outside talking to Kristy Payne
who’d taken one look at him, whispered something to Maggie and burst into giggles. Maggie had caught his eye, tipped her head quickly toward Kristy and rolled her eyes, including
him
in a joke on her friend. He’d experienced the immediate thrill of attraction, and, given her preppy porcelain perfection, of challenge.

“Come in, come in. I’ve cleared the table in the dining room. We can begin with soup. Grant, it’s so late you’re probably ready to eat again. I’ll give you half portions.”

“Thanks, Clara.” He gestured Maggie ahead of him, and couldn’t resist touching the small of her back as she passed through the door. Her jeans fit low on her hips and her pink top allowed a glimpse of the firm, smooth skin he’d known intimately.

He wanted to touch her a whole lot more. He always had. Back in high school, every embrace had felt stolen as well as given. Every kiss had been a crazy mixture of right and impossible. A golden girl like her didn’t belong with a guy like him. He was a scholarship kid from “Joisey” and she was from Princeton, and everything about the lives they led pointed to the big fat difference.

Two months before graduation, she’d been accepted into Vassar. He’d been about to start a job pumping gas, and with less than no interest in or money for college, he was facing a possible brilliant future of becoming a drugged-out garage mechanic. What hope did he have of holding on to her? She’d be surrounded by guys she fit in with, guys who’d had her same upbringing and opportunities, who could give her the same life she’d always had. What could he give her?

He’d been frustrated, angry, horrible to his mother, worse to his friends. He wasn’t going to wait around and get his heart broken. He’d taken her to Marquand Park, and during what she thought was going to be a romantic
stroll, he’d dumped her, brutally, saying his feelings had changed. If anything they’d gotten stronger.

Now she was miraculously sitting across from him peering at her oddly colored soup, fingers restless on the table, glancing at Clara and back at her soup, wondering either if food in this house was safe to eat, or whether she could begin yet.

“Please, dig in before it gets cold. I’ll get the jelly roll out of the oven,” Clara said.

He smiled at the speed with which Maggie grabbed her spoon and brought the soup to her lips. Then looked at him, slightly startled.

He’d had this soup before. Asparagus and leek, boiled viciously until the vegetables were a sickly olive green, scorched and begging for mercy.

“Well.” He shrugged and started in on his bowl. “She’s an incredible artist…”

Maggie covered her mouth to smother laughter, which made him absurdly happy. She still got his humor.

“How’s the soup?” Clara called from the kitchen.

“Just the right temperature.” Maggie determinedly spooned more into her mouth. “And…perfectly salted.”

“You’re a dear. I just whipped it up. Asparagus with leek and a little sour cream. I’ve made it for Grant before.”

“I remember.” He grinned at Maggie who was gracious—and hungry—enough to be emptying the bowl. Or did she always attack food as if it would be taken away too soon?

“When did you get here?” He passed her the bread basket containing rolls from the Princeton Shopping Center’s excellent bakery.

“About three hours ago.” She grabbed a roll and told him the story of the adoption registry between eager bites.
He listened but had to make himself concentrate in order to hear. His mind wanted to wander down memory lane and his eyes wanted to wander all over Maggie. So many years later, she could still disrupt him like no one else. He felt as on edge as she acted, nerves stretched and alive.

Her story unfolded and he managed to pay enough attention to realize she’d formed her first impression of her birth mother in mismatched pajamas in a disaster of a house. Jane Chesterton, Maggie’s adoptive mother was one of those women who could throw on a T-shirt and shorts and still look totally put-together, who could open the refrigerator, pull out three ingredients and make something a chef would envy. One of those women half the guys who went to Maggie’s house developed a hopeless teenage crush on.

Grant only had eyes for Maggie, which meant to the Chestertons, he was worse than bad news. Jane and Michael must have celebrated for weeks when he broke their daughter’s heart and was therefore finally out of her upper class life. Funny how the bitterness lingered.

“So you’ve only just met your…Clara.” He couldn’t quite say mother. Clara didn’t seem capable of producing her own child. Which, she’d told him, was why she’d given “Clarissa” up. He tried to picture a Maggie raised by Clara and came up empty. Her Chesterton side was so much a part of her.

“Yes. Just now.” She looked down into her soup, stirring it around a few aimless times. “So…what do you do now, Grant?”

He felt a pang of sadness on Clara’s behalf at the abrupt change of subject, even while he savored the familiar way Maggie said his name, slightly broadening the vowel, which he’d mocked as an aristocratic affectation but secretly liked.

“Grant is director of multimedia design at Princeton.” Clara reentered the room bearing an enormous platter on which rested a sadly shriveled chicken and a few wrinkled carrots. “He is superb at what he does. The university types are beside themselves. They’re so lucky to have him.”

Grant grinned, used to Clara’s somewhat out-of-control exaggeration, at the same time having to hold back pride at what he’d accomplished, and nutty hope that Maggie was impressed. The same impulse that had him causing trouble in high school—to stand out from the crowd, since he couldn’t with grades or athletic prowess or breeding. “It’s a new job. I moved up and am still getting used to it.”

“You were always brilliant with paper and pen,” Maggie said.

He ignored the flash of pleasure which other people’s compliments didn’t give him to the same degree. “Nice getting paid instead of getting into trouble.”

“I can imagine.” Her eyes danced and he knew she was thinking of his infamous caricatures of faculty and classmates that he managed to post all over the school without being caught, except for one notable time in the principal’s office that nearly got him suspended. Happily, Principal McClellan had a sense of humor.

“How’s that soup, Maggie dear?”

“It’s great. Thank you.” She smiled at her mother, but Grant could see her reserve. The Maggie he knew would have looked past Clara’s cover to make her judgment—she’d seen something in
him,
after all—but this new, older Maggie…who knew what she thought of Clara’s flakiness and disorganization?

“How long can you stay, Maggie?” He desperately hoped long enough that she could get to know her birth mother better. What you saw wasn’t even close to what
you got with Clara. And yeah, maybe she’d have a few hours left over to spend with him, too. Or a lot of hours.

“A week.” Clara patted Maggie’s hand, eyes misting over. “Can you believe I found my daughter? Or that she found me?”

“No.” His gaze met Maggie’s; he experienced a jolt of the familiar electricity. He used to get turned on sitting across the classroom if she happened to look up. “It’s amazing.”

Her eyes softened, just a flicker. What had changed her? She’d always been high-energy, but not as if the slightest change in the breeze would make her jump out of her skin. He wanted to get her alone and find out how her life had been, whether she was doing what she wanted, whether she was involved with anyone, whether the guy made her happy.

He became aware of Clara watching them speculatively. By now she’d have figured out that he and Maggie had been something more than just “classmates.” Intensive matchmaking efforts would result, which sounded fine to him. There was a woman at work he’d been vaguely interested in, but after this short evening Ann already seemed to belong to another galaxy. Maggie did that to him. Some things never changed.

The sad bottle of champagne was quickly drained to give moisture back to mouths sucked dry by the chicken, then a pitcher of water passed and refilled. The jelly roll was sawed through and dutifully consumed, washed down with cups of sawdust-tasting chamomile tea. Grant offered to help with the dishes, but Clara shooed him and Maggie out of the kitchen, insisting that Maggie had to see the remarkable transformation he’d effected on his house, which would mean nothing to her since she hadn’t seen it before.

But given the volcano of feelings she’d started in him again, he had absolutely zero objections to getting Maggie Chesterton alone.