A Twist of Hate (25 page)

              He cared deeply for Courtney. He probably always would. He was saddened by the fact that he had never needed her, not as he needed this person whose mouth was so soft and warm against his own.

              Just as suddenly as the kiss began, it ended. A warm, steady hand came to rest on his bare chest and carefully pushed him away. “You were dreaming.” Her voice, satin against silk, came through the night. “You called me. I didn’t know if I should wake you or let the nightmare run its course.”

              “He doesn’t deserve you.”

              She moved a little farther away from him, replacing her warmth with emptiness.

              “Camden should have known that Michael would snap.”

              “We all should have known.”

              “How can you be so understanding? Michael tried to kill you. Camden let it happen, and I couldn’t stop it!”

              “Exactly who are you angry with?”

              “Michael! He’s the one who hurt you.”

              The music of her voice became sad. “You tried to help me, and he shot you for it. He hurt you too.”

              He had been so scared and worried about Siobhan, he had ignored worrying about himself. It was easier to devote himself completely to Siobhan’s well-being than to face the obvious—that he had been hurt as well. That he could have been killed. He slid down the bed and rested his head on Siobhan’s thigh, sobbing softly into her lap.

              “You’re the best friend Cam’s ever had.” She hugged him and smoothed his hair from his forehead. “He needs you. You can’t keep resenting him for what someone else did to us.”

              “I can resent him for running out on you.”

              “Camden doesn’t know any other way.”

              “I hate feeling like this.” He ground his eyes dry with the heel of his palm. “I feel so sorry for myself. I’m so scared that I’ll have to live my whole life without finding someone like you.”

              “That’s a goofy thing to say. I’m not all that great.”

              The bed shook with his melancholy laughter. “I thought Cam was on crack when he said he was going to marry you someday.”

              “He told me the same thing.”

              “Will you?”

              She pulled the comforter up to his shoulders. Her words as soothing as an embrace, she said, “Sleep, Brian. I’ll keep your nightmares away.”

***

              She stepped out of Brian’s room and quietly closed the door behind her. She leaned on the walking stick her doctors had advised her to use until she was stronger. She had used the cane only once, to get into the house from the car when she came home from the hospital. She had refused to let her father carry her. The look on his face as she limped to the front door convinced her to never use the cane in his presence again.

              She went to her room, grateful for the sturdy support of the cane that had belonged to Grandpa Curran. There was no place for her to hide it, however, when she met her father in the corridor.

              “Brian had a bad dream,” she explained. She hid the cane behind a fold of her robe. “He’s sleeping now.”

              Mr. Curran spotted the wooden tip of the cane she tried to conceal. His face bore the marks of sleep above the rolled collar of his thick blue robe. “I’ve been thinking.”

              The fine hairs at the back of Siobhan’s neck stood at attention. The tone of his voice meant nothing good.

              “You should get away for a few weeks. You could go to Dublin and stay with your aunt and uncle. They’d love to have you.”

              With the help of the cane, Siobhan straightened to her full five and a half feet, and she readied herself for battle. “Did Grandma put you up to this? She told you about our fight this morning.”

              “She was very upset.”

              “Daddy, you know how she is.”

              Yes, he knew how his mother was. She had called Rhiannon ‘that woman,’ up until Siobhan’s birth had earned her a small measure of acceptance.

              His mother had made a grand production of revealing the extent of Siobhan’s relationship with Camden. She had seemed crestfallen to learn that he already knew, and that Camden had been the one who told him.

              “I won’t let her run my life,” Siobhan said sternly, “and I certainly won’t let her buzz around my relationship with Camden, stinging at will like a big old hornet! If she can’t respect me and my choices, then I have no room for her in my life.”

              “That’s a hateful thing to say, baby.”

              “Did she happen to mention all the hateful things she said to me? If I’m hateful, I get it from her.”

              “You weren’t like this before you got involved with Camden.”

              “I didn’t have anything to fight for before I got involved with Camden.”

              “Is he worth fighting for?”

              “I don’t need this, Daddy,” she said sadly.

              “That’s just too bad.” He finally gave in to annoyance and frustration. “I told Camden that I’d step in the minute I thought you were being hurt. I won’t have you hanging on to someone who isn’t there for you. The bullet that damaged your body has damaged Camden’s soul. You can’t fix him. I like Camden, I do. But I love you and I won’t have you suffering over him.”

              “You’re upset with Camden because he can’t bear to see me like this. How can you expect him to do something
you
can’t do? You hug me and kiss me and ask me how I’m feeling, but you don’t look at me. Why can’t you look at me, Daddy?”

              His eyes had wandered over everything in the corridor: the tall potted trees at the top of the eastern leg of the dual staircase, the thick carpeting covering the floor, the crystal chandelier hanging from the cathedral ceiling of the two-story foyer, the polished railing to the right and the clean white lines of the wide bedroom doors to the left.

              Not once had he looked directly at his daughter.

              “Look at me, Daddy.”

              Almost against his will, his gaze went to her face. Her bruises had faded to dull yellows and purplish-blacks. Her right eye had been expertly repaired and the swelling was completely gone. The only sign that the eye had ever been injured was the bland olive bruise beneath it and a tiny suture scar mostly hidden in her eyebrow.

              The palette of bruises on her neck was fading. Her right hand was still in the cast, as it would be for five more weeks, and she was using the cane. All in all, she didn’t look so bad. Other than the fine lines around her eyes that betrayed a lack of restful sleep, she looked good.

              “Your mother would be so disappointed in me.” He pulled her, cane and all, into a careful embrace.

              “Mama would love you just as much as I do. I want you to forgive Camden.”

              “It would be easier if you distanced yourself from all of this for a while.”

  She withdrew enough to face him. “It wouldn’t be easier for me. I won’t leave. I want to finish out the school year at Prescott. I have friends, and contrary to what anyone else thinks, I have someone who cared enough about me to put himself between me and a loaded gun. Cam will come back to me. I know he will.”

Chapter Fourteen

“Every parent involved lost a child, in one way or another. We were so very lucky to be able to reclaim them.”

—Maureen Beauvais, Newsline

              Camden opened his eyes to a room flooded with the bright light of morning, and he saw her. She stood left of center at the foot of his bed. She wore a plain one-pocket T-shirt beneath a long, shapeless grey dress with a pale yellow floral print and skinny straps. Her hair hung loose and was parted on the right. She seemed so much smaller than he remembered. Her hands, the set of her shoulders, her posture—nothing about her was as he remembered.

              “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

              He closed his eyes, thinking—maybe even hoping—that this apparition who spoke with the voice of Maureen Beauvais Dougherty would vanish as quickly and quietly as it had appeared. He sat up and opened his eyes again. She was still there, only she had moved closer.

              Uninvited, she sat near his feet. She worried her hands together as she spoke to him. She kept her eyes averted. “I’m not good at this sort of thing.”

              “What sort of thing?” He would have been surprised that he found something to say to her if all of his surprise hadn’t already been wrought from him.

              “Facing things,” she said. “Like my mistakes.”

              “Is that why you’re here? To face me? Your mistake?”

              “You’re angry.”

              He threw off the comforter and swung his feet to the floor. He tried not to yell. “You left ten years ago and I haven’t seen you in five. The past two weeks have been a nightmare, and when Dad asked you to come, you said no. I’m not angry at you. I’ve expected nothing from you, and that’s exactly what you’ve given me. I’ve been fine without you. When you leave again, I’ll still be fine. I’ve never asked you for anything and I think we should keep it that way.” He started toward the bathroom without sparing a glance at her. “I don’t need you.”

              He slammed the door, shutting her out just as easily as she had shut him out. The cold tiles beneath his feet helped calm his temper as he stood at the sink, staring at his reflection in the mirror above the basin.

              He turned the cold water on full force and splashed handfuls of it on his face. He ran his wet hands through his sleep-tousled hair. Rivulets of the icy water trickled along his forearms and streaked down his bare chest to wet the waistband of his pajamas as he gripped the edge of the cold porcelain.

              What right did she have to come into his life now, to make an even bigger mess of it?

              As much as he wanted to go back out there and tell her to leave—and if
she
wouldn’t,
he
would—he wanted to ask her to stay. He wanted to talk to her and understand why she’d felt she had to leave him.

              He wanted a reason to forgive her.

              Even as he opened the bathroom door he didn’t know which course he would follow.

              His mother had her own agenda. “Get dressed.” She handed him a neatly folded stack of clothing. She had exchanged the self-conscious, nervous demeanor, and dulcet tone for a maternal I-mean-business voice he hadn’t heard since the days when he stood no higher than her elbow. “We have some things to discuss, and we’ll get to them. There’s something you have to do first.”

              His eyes hardened.

              “You have to go to her.”

              Bullseye. Only his anger and resentment stopped his knees from weakening. “Why?” he managed. “Because
you
say so?”

              “What would she have done, if you were the one who had been shot?”

             
She would have stayed with me
.

              “You look like your father, but on the inside, you’re just like me, Camden.”

              He shrugged away from her. “How would you know? You have no idea who I am.”

              “I know you’re hurting. That’s all I need to know right now. I know how to make the pain go away. I just came from where you are now, son. I’ve just done what you have to find the strength and courage to do.”

              “It took you ten years.”

              “Sweetheart, you don’t have that kind of time.” She reached for his hand, and this time, she didn’t let Camden pull away. “You’ve always been so hard on yourself. You’ve always punished yourself more than anyone else ever could, for things that were never your fault. When your father told me what happened, I blamed myself for everything. If I had been a good mother, you never would have spent so much time with Michael. He was an unpleasant baby, a mean toddler, and a rotten little boy. He used to steal quarters from your piggy bank, do you remember that? I’m sorry you had to turn to his family for what you should have been getting from me.”

              “Damn it, Mom, please don’t do this!”

              “Camden,” she said firmly. “I wasn’t here when you needed me. I should have been on the first plane to St. Louis instead of sitting in my apartment thinking, ‘Oh, he’s better off without me.’  Are you? Can you honestly tell me that you want me to leave?”

              He shook his head.

              “I never stopped loving you. I was so wrong to stay away. I wish I could tell you how much I wanted to come home. My reasons for staying away seem so stupid now that I’m back.”

              “You’re back?” he asked a little too hopefully.

              “I tried to stay away when Patrick called. He told me everything about you and your girlfriend.”

              “Siobhan.” Her name melted on his tongue.

              “Patrick says she’s very special.”

              He nodded.

                “I don’t want you to make the same mistake I did.”

              “What you did was deliberate.”

              “I left because I had a problem. I got better, but in here,” she tapped her chest, “I thought I didn’t deserve you or your father. I thought you’d both be better off without me.”

              “You were wrong.”

              “I was wrong,” she agreed. “You’re wrong, too. You might think you’re only punishing yourself, but you’re hurting Siobhan too.”

              “How would you know? You weren’t here. You don’t know a damn about anything!”

              “I know better than anyone how it feels to leave someone you love.”

              “Why didn’t you come back?”

              “I thought too much time had passed. One year turned to two, two became four and four turned into ten. The longer I was gone, the harder it was for me to come back. Your father is handsome, kind, successful. I thought he would have moved on.”

              “The divorce was your idea, not his. He didn’t move on. Neither did I. We waited for you. Every night I went to bed thinking tomorrow she’ll come back, but you never did.”

              “I’m here now.” Her voice was as soft and rich as it had been when he was a boy, when she’d sung him lullabies and read him stories and tickled him until he laughed himself into a giddy stupor. “I won’t leave you again. There’s no way to prove it other than to show you. Please give me that chance.”

              He remained silent.

              “We can talk later. You have to go to Siobhan.”

              “I can’t,” he said woefully.

              “Yes, you can.”

              “No.”

              “Do you want her to think of you the same way you think of me? Do you want her to feel for you, what you’re feeling for me right now? I don’t want you to ever know the pain of having someone you care for hate you.”

              “I don’t hate you, Mom.” He didn’t know that he wanted to hug her until after he had done it. And then he didn’t want to let her go. “I never hated you.”

              Her eyes brimmed with tears as she touched his hair and his face before cupping it. “Let’s go see Siobhan.”

***

              Siobhan was making raspberry waffles while Mr. Curran fed Valencia oranges into a juicer. Mrs. Livingston hovered over Siobhan, learning the recipe for the waffles as Siobhan worked. Mr. Livingston sat in the breakfast nook, reading the Sunday
St. Louis News-Chronicle
over a steaming mug of freshly brewed coffee.

              When the doorbell chimed, Brian left the pot of orange marmalade he’d been stirring to answer the door. “Mrs. Dougherty?” he said, too stunned to work out a friendlier welcome.

              “Brian Livingston?” Mrs. Dougherty scanned him from head to foot, lingering for only an extra second on his bandaged shoulder. “You’ve gotten so tall and handsome.” She gave him a careful hug, mindful of his injury.

              “Thanks.” Brian opened the door wider for Camden and Mr. Dougherty. “Everyone’s in the kitchen. Siobhan’s cooking breakfast. She’s not supposed to be on her feet but she insisted. She’ll be glad to see you.”

              Mr. and Mrs. Dougherty went into the kitchen while Camden and Brian hung back in the dining room. Brian heard his mother’s exclamation of surprise as she greeted the long lost Mrs. Dougherty.

              “Your mom sounds more surprised to see her than I was.” Camden passed his hand along the sleek back of one of the stylized chrome chairs circling the oblong glass of the dining table. This room was one of his favorites, with its sparse, sensually elegant furnishings and the lush smoky-grey carpeting.

              “Your mom came back after all,” Brian said. “Is this good or bad?”

              A dry chuckle escaped Camden. “I haven’t decided. She came in late last night.”

              “And the three of you decided to pop over here bright and early on a Sunday morning?”

              “I suppose you’d prefer it if I just left and never saw you or Siobhan again.”

              Brian turned toward the large windows. A field of blinding yellow daffodils swayed in a mild breeze. “I might have thought that, up until yesterday.”

              “Courtney was right.” A hard lump formed in the pit of Camden’s stomach. “You do want Siobhan.”

              Brian met Camden’s eyes squarely. “I want what she wants. That seems to be you.”

              Camden seemed to ripple with relief.

              “Don’t you ever hurt her again.”

              “Don’t you know that I would have stopped him if I’d known what he planned to do?”

              “I’m not talking about Michael.
You
hurt her. I know you, Cam. I said some things that drove you away, and that crap Michael’s been spewing on the radio and television probably didn’t help. I was wrong. I’m sorry. You’ve always been my best friend. I don’t want that friendship to die because of Michael Littlefield.” He held a hand out to him.

              Camden took it, and Brian drew him in for a hug.

              “I recorded yesterday’s Kentucky game.” Brian started for the kitchen. “Maybe you can come over after school tomorrow and watch it at my place.”

              “I’ll bring your homework assignments with me,” Camden offered.

              “Gee, thanks,” Brian grinned as they entered the kitchen.

***

              Conversation ceased. Unfinished sentences hung in the air like overripe fruit. All eyes turned not to Camden, but to Siobhan. She turned from the grill wielding a broad slotted spatula in one hand and gripping the head of her cane in the other.

              An open window allowed the fresh morning air to churn the sweet and tart aromas of the waffles and marmalade with the more mystical scent of Siobhan’s orange spice tea.

              She wore an old sweatshirt with the cuffs, collar, and waistband torn off, and a pair of baggy white cotton shorts. Her hair was twisted loosely into a knot high at the back of her head. Stray tendrils framing her face floated on the deliciously scented breeze.

              She stared at Camden.

              He wore a black polo, rumpled khakis, a braided leather belt, and a worn pair of L.L. Bean camp moccasins. His hair had been finger-combed. He hadn’t shaved in days, and tawny stubble shadowed his face.

              Siobhan’s placid exterior belied her inner turmoil. Anger, melancholy, joy, relief, suspicion, pleasure—each took a subtle turn shaping her features. Through them all, her face was more beautiful than Camden remembered.

              “Hello, Siobhan.”

              She closed her eyes. There was no end to what she wanted to say to him, but her tongue stuck to the floor of her mouth.

              “I should have called before we came over, but—”