Ghost Moon (19 page)

‘‘Exactly,’’ she said, and risked a glance at him. He was still looking at her, but she couldn’t read his expression in the darkness. Absurdly, she felt this sudden urge to be comforted by him. If, at that moment, she could do anything she wanted in the whole world, she thought, she would crawl into his lap and have him wrap his arms around her and . . .

‘‘I want you to stay here,’’ Seth said abruptly. ‘‘
We
want you to stay here. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.’’

CHAPTER 27

‘‘WHAT?’’ THIS TIME OLIVIA LOOKED DIRECTLY at him, wide-eyed with surprise.

‘‘I’m offering you a job at the Boatworks, and a home for you and Sara here at LaAngelle Plantation for as long as you care to stay.’’

Olivia was stunned. She had never considered such a possibility.

‘‘Well?’’ Seth prompted, when she didn’t say anything.

‘‘Are you serious?’’

‘‘Of course I’m serious.’’

Olivia wet her lips. A thousand tangled thoughts and emotions swirled through her head. To stay here, to live here—to step back into the life she had spurned so many years ago and bring Sara with her—she didn’t know if it was a very good idea, or a very bad one.

‘‘Oh, Seth, I don’t know what to say. Our home’s in Houston now, Sara’s and mine. Sara starts back to school in just a few days, and I have a job that I like, and—’’

‘‘Olivia,’’ Seth interrupted. ‘‘I know your job doesn’t pay very well. I know you live in a small apartment in a not very affluent section of Houston. I know life’s a struggle for you and Sara there. I can offer you a better job, one that pays more, has a future. For right now I need an office manager, somebody to keep track of appointments, stay on top of the books, answer the phone, do some typing or whatever else is needed. Ilsa Bartlett, who has the job now, is going on maternity leave in two months. She needs help now, and I’ll need a trained replacement for her then. I’d like to hire you for that position now, at a better salary than you’re getting in Houston—you can tell me what that is; I trust you.’’ There was a touch of humor in his voice as he said that. ‘‘And then, later, when Ilsa comes back and you know more about the business, I’ll move you into a sales position, which involves a good salary plus commission. I don’t know why I never thought of it before, but given our clientele a pretty woman could probably do very well.’’ He held up a hand when Olivia would have said something. ‘‘Hear me out. The hours would be adjusted so that you could be home when Sara’s home. You could drive her—and Chloe if you would—to school in the morning, come to work, and then leave in time to pick them up and be with them all afternoon. Yes, I’m including Chloe in that, at least until Mallory and I get married. Then we’ll see. You seem to like her, Chloe seems to like you, she behaves relatively well with you, and I think you—and Sara—could do her a lot of good. Plus Mother starts chemotherapy again next week, and she’s going to be fighting this thing for another five months. She needs you here. She wants you here. Big John’s in bad shape. He may or may not pull through. You want to be here if he’s not going to make it. Between him, and Mother, and work, I don’t have much time for Chloe right now. You were right about that.
I
need you here. I’d want you to live here, at the house, until things settle down a little. Actually, since Chloe and I are moving back into my house in town after Mallory and I get married, I’ll want you to stay here with Mother until she’s back on her feet. But then I’d see that you got a house, in town, a nice house of your own for you and Sara. All yours, all paid for.’’ He was watching her. ‘‘How does that sound?’’

‘‘Seth . . .’’ Olivia took a deep breath. ‘‘Oh, Seth, it sounds fine, but I have to think. I never thought about staying. I—where would Sara go to school? Where does Chloe go to school?’’

Seth smiled faintly. ‘‘Right here in town. LaAngelle Elementary. After seeing the results of Grandmother’s sending you to St. Theresa’s, I thought I might do better to keep Chloe closer to home.’’

Olivia was surprised by that. An Archer, in the local public school? It was unprecedented. Her feelings must have shown on her face, because Seth laughed. ‘‘Hey, I may learn slow, but I learn.’’

Olivia was still trying to sort things out in her mind. ‘‘Belinda hates me. She’ll have a fit.’’

‘‘Hate is a strong word,’’ Seth observed mildly, without denying it. ‘‘And I run the Boatworks. She doesn’t.’’

‘‘I know—but—gosh, Seth, you’re asking me to take a big step.’’

Seth took a sip of his drink. He looked away from her, out at the night. ‘‘Is there a boyfriend? Somebody you don’t want to leave?’’

Olivia shook her head, a rueful smile just touching her lips. ‘‘Believe it or not, there hasn’t been anybody important since Newall. Like you said, I may learn slow, but I learn.’’

Seth took another sip of his drink, rested it back on the flat arm of his chair, and looked at her again. ‘‘So what’s the problem?’’

‘‘Well . . .’’ Olivia hesitated. There were so many objections they almost tangled her tongue as she tried to give voice to them. ‘‘I have an apartment. With a lease. I have a job. They depend on me. I have friends. Sara has friends. She’s all settled in her school. I have furniture. My car is at the bus station in Houston, for goodness’ sake. I can’t just stay here.’’

‘‘Sure you can. If you want to.’’

He looked at her. She looked at him.

‘‘Well?’’ he said.

‘‘I have to talk to Sara,’’ she said slowly. ‘‘I can’t make a decision like this without talking to Sara.’’

‘‘So talk to Sara.’’ Their eyes met again. ‘‘Livvy,’’ he said. ‘‘We need you. You need us. Stay.’’

She wanted to, she realized suddenly. Oh, she wanted to. To come home again—wasn’t that what she had dreamed about since the grim truth about her marriage had started to sink in? And to bring Sara back with her, under the conditions Seth had described—it sounded almost too good to be true.

There had to be a catch somewhere.

She wouldn’t have to leave Seth. At that thought, a warm glow began pulsing in the region of her heart. Try though she might, no stern thoughts she could summon up would make it go away.

‘‘Our bus leaves tomorrow morning at six A.M. The tickets are in my purse. Can—can I call you from Houston and let you know what we decide?’’

‘‘You’re not going to ride in a goddamned Greyhound bus all the way back to Houston. What did it take you, something like twelve hours to get here?’’ Seth stood up abruptly, walked to the rail, set his glass down on it, and turned to face her. He sounded almost angry. ‘‘If you want to go back tomorrow, I’ll take you. Or, if you’d rather, you can take one of the cars and drive yourself. But forget the bus.’’

Olivia looked at him for a moment without saying anything. Then she said mildly, ‘‘The bus isn’t really all that bad, Seth.’’

‘‘To hell with the bus. This is not about the bus.’’ He moved toward her, stopped short, and stood frowning down at her. His hands balled into fists at his sides.

Olivia looked up at him, met his gaze, and quite suddenly ceased to breathe. He was close. So close that if she stood up, she would be in his arms.

How she wanted to stand up!

‘‘Forget the bus,’’ he said again, his tone almost rough. ‘‘Sleep in, talk to Sara, and let me know. If you still want to go to Houston tomorrow, I’ll take you. Okay?’’

Clinging to the arms of the chair as though, if she just held on tight enough, she could prevent herself from doing what she suddenly wanted to do more than anything else in her life, Olivia nodded. ‘‘Okay.’’

For a moment their gazes remained locked together. Then Seth pivoted, walked to the rail, leaned both hands against it, and stared out at the night. Olivia looked at the hard, long line of his back and hips and legs, and felt her mouth go dry. But she stayed in her chair.

Her bond with him spanned a lifetime. He was the big cousin she had always looked up to, bossy and maddening as he could be. She could not spoil their relationship by introducing a sexual element to it. She would not. He was too important to her. Besides, he was going to marry Mallory.

‘‘We’ll talk tomorrow,’’ Seth said over his shoulder. ‘‘Go to bed, Olivia.’’

If she wasn’t going to make a fool of herself and a mess of her relationship with Seth, she had better take some of the best advice she had ever heard in her life.

Olivia let go of the arms of her chair and stood up.

‘‘Good night,’’ she said softly to his back. He murmured something in reply, but he didn’t look at her, continuing to stare out into the night.

It was an effort to pull her eyes away from him, but Olivia did it. Then she very purposefully walked away, along the gallery to her room, and through the French window to safety. She locked it tight, then stood with her back against it for a very long time.

CHAPTER 28

IN THE END, IT WAS A FAMILY PARTY, WHICH was probably a good thing, Seth reflected. It was around nine thirty on Saturday morning, and they had been in the air for over an hour. He was at the controls of a company-leased, twin-engine Beechcraft—aircraft were expensive to operate, but necessary for a business like the Boatworks, where there were wealthy clients to impress and court all over the country—his mind almost solely occupied with trying not to imagine what it would be like to take Olivia to bed. She sat beside him in the copilot’s seat, wearing a pair of snug white shorts that hugged her butt and left the tanned length of her legs bare, and a tomato-red T-shirt that clung with loving attention to the curves of her breasts. Her hair, which he had always thought of as being the color of dark chocolate, was pulled back into a ponytail at the nape of her neck. Nothing provocative there—except that it left the tawny curve of her neck and the smooth line of her jaw more exposed to his view. She was laughing, her lips parted to reveal even white teeth, her beautiful eyes alight with merriment.

He wanted her so much that he ached with it, so much that if the intensity of his wanting didn’t wane by the time they landed in Houston he was going to embarrass himself by not being able to stand up, and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. Nothing he planned to do about it.

He was getting married in a little more than two months. To Mallory, who should by rights be starring instead of Olivia in the X-rated pictures that he could not seem to banish from his mind.

Olivia was family, and now his employee as well. His policy toward her was going to continue to be, as it had always been, strictly hands-off.

Even if it killed him, which right at the moment he could easily imagine it might do.

Fortunately, strapped into the seats directly behind him and Olivia were the two best chaperons he could have wished for: Chloe and Sara, both yakking away nonstop to each other and Olivia.

Olivia had insisted on bringing Sara, saying the little girl needed a chance to gather up her personal belongings and say good-bye to her old home. Then she had suggested bringing Chloe as well, and somehow the whole thing had turned into a family outing, which Seth had not, at the outset, intended. But for all his initial misgivings, it was working out surprisingly well. The girls seemed to get along with each other and with Olivia, and Chloe, excited about being included, was on her best behavior.

Sara had never flown before. Seth was both amused and touched by her wide-eyed awe over everything, from the instrument gauges to the view out the window. Smug with previous experience, Chloe explained everything to Sara, not with one hundred percent accuracy, perhaps, but so earnestly that Seth had to smile.

Listening to Chloe’s chatter about Beanie Babies and Pokémon and a show called
Sailor Moon,
Seth reflected that he knew very little about his daughter’s inner life. He loved her, made sure she had everything she needed, and tried to provide her with some sort of discipline and structure, but he realized to his shame that he had never really had a conversation with her. Oh, he asked her about school sometimes, and about which friend she wanted to take on which outing and that type of thing, but other than that, if they talked, it was usually him telling her to do something or scolding her. Since Jennifer had sent Chloe back to him, he had basically left the raising of her to his mother. After all, he defended himself from the stab of guilt that suddenly assailed him, what did he know about bringing up a little girl?

The girls were chattering away again about some musical group he had never heard of, but Olivia seemed to know just what they were talking about.

Mallory would have been as at sea as he was.

Of course, Livvy had an eight-year-old daughter of her own, and Mallory did not. The comparison between the two women in such an area was unfair, and he knew it.

But he couldn’t get it out of his mind.

A wall of heat radiating down from the sky and up from the pavement greeted them when they descended from the plane at the airport in Houston. Texas heat differed from Louisiana heat in that it was dry and baking, while Lousiana heat was moist and suffocating. All things considered, he’d take Louisiana heat any day, Seth reflected. With every step he took, he felt as if he were walking on the top of a stove, and Chloe’s pale-skinned face was flushed pink within minutes. His own khaki pants and white polo shirt felt like the warmest of dark wool suits.

They took a taxi from the airport to the Greyhound bus terminal to pick up Olivia’s car. The terminal itself was a low, flat building beneath a blue sign adorned with a greyhound dog. A line of big silver-and-blue buses were parked next to it, about a third of them emitting copious amounts of pollution to add to the haze that lay over the city. The rest of the parking lot was about half filled with cars of various descriptions. Olivia headed straight toward the worst of the bunch, a ten-year-old dinged and pitted faded blue Cougar. When he saw it, Seth was aghast. The thing was a junker, with more than 123,000 miles on the odometer and bald tires, worth maybe a thousand dollars at best. The idea that Olivia and Sara had been driving around a big city like Houston in a vehicle that was a breakdown waiting to happen appalled him. If the car had given up the ghost in the wrong place, the result could have been disastrous. Something of his revulsion must have shown on his face, because Olivia grinned at him as he looked her car over.

‘‘Now you see why we took the bus,’’ she said in a near whisper so the children wouldn’t hear.

‘‘You sure wouldn’t have made it in this thing,’’ he agreed grimly, just as Chloe piped up, making no effort to keep her voice down.

‘‘This is your
car
?’’ she asked Sara with obvious horror.

Trust my tactful daughter, Seth thought, shooting a glance at Olivia’s face. She, in turn, looked swiftly at Sara. Good mother that she was, her concern was all for her child, and it showed in her expression.

‘‘Yeah.’’ Sara’s voice was low, and her whole demeanor was suddenly so downcast that Seth realized the child was embarrassed. She looked so much like Olivia had as a little girl that from the beginning it had been easy for him to like her, although from what he could tell her personality was far different from her mother’s. Sara struck him as shy, quiet, and vulnerable, and he didn’t want her to feel bad about something as unimportant as a banged-up old car.

‘‘I used to have a car just like this when I was a college student,’’ he lied cheerfully, walking around the hood of the car. ‘‘The great thing about it was that I never had to worry if somebody dented it, or if it would get stolen at night while I slept. If you live in a city like this, you have to worry about those kinds of things, you know.’’

‘‘You mean if we brought the Jaguar here, somebody would steal it?’’ Chloe asked, round-eyed.

‘‘They might,’’ Seth answered, grasping the driver’s door handle and feeling a spurt of surprise when it didn’t immediately fall off in his hand. Sara looked much more cheerful suddenly, and Olivia smiled at him, a slow and charming smile that thanked him without words for saving face for her daughter.

For the sake of that smile, Seth would have told ten times as many lies.

‘‘I’ll drive,’’ Olivia said, moving to stand beside him as he opened the door. She slipped past him, sliding into the driver’s seat before he could protest. ‘‘
I
know where we’re going. You don’t.’’

He let her drive. Having taught her to drive himself, he had no very great opinion of her skill behind the wheel, but, after a stop to pick up some boxes, she managed to get them safely to their destination. Her apartment was in a working-class section of town, and when he saw the building—it was seven stories high, brick, with tenement-style windows, on a block with five other identical buildings—he was reminded of the car. The apartment building was a junker, too.

The apartment itself was better. A quick glance told him that it was small, although all he could see from the door was the tiny, galley-style kitchen, a part of the hall, and the living room–dining room combination, which the door opened directly into. The carpet was faded tan, and obviously cheap. The walls were basic white. But what he could see of it was immaculately clean, and it looked like a home, with comfortable if inexpensive furniture and dozens of thriving green plants.

Sara’s face lit up as she walked inside. As plainly as if she had spoken, Seth could read the word
home
on her face, and he wondered suddenly if Olivia had had to talk her into the move to LaAngelle Plantation. Olivia must have seen the same thing, because she leaned over to whisper something in her ear. Sara looked up at Olivia, and nodded solemnly.

‘‘Olivia! Is that you?’’ A woman burst through the apartment door, which Seth, the last person to enter, had not yet closed. The first thing he noticed was her red hair, obviously dyed, which was done up in some sort of kooky knot on top of her head that left the ends sticking up like feathers. Her gauzy purple pants and top caught his eye next. Only then, when she had brushed by him as though he wasn’t there, did he realize that she was tall, attractive, and from the looks of her maybe just a little older than Olivia.

‘‘Sue!’’ Olivia turned, smiling, and the two women hugged. ‘‘Thanks for watering the plants. They look great.’’

‘‘Hi, Sue,’’ Sara said, already on the way out of the living room with Chloe following close behind her. Both of them were dragging large, empty boxes.

‘‘Hi yourself, pipsqueak,’’ Sue called after Sara, as the children disappeared down the hall. Then she focused again on Olivia.

‘‘Tell me you were just kidding on the phone last night!’’ she demanded, stepping back from Olivia but keeping her hands on her shoulders while she looked with tragicomic intensity into her face. ‘‘You’re not serious about moving to some little backwater in Louisiana, are you?’’

One corner of Seth’s mouth turned down wryly as he closed the door. Although he supposed, from the perspective of Houston, a little backwater in Louisiana was exactly what LaAngelle was.

‘‘It’s where I’m from,’’ Olivia said excusingly, as her friend released her. ‘‘Sara and I are moving back to my old home.’’

‘‘
Today?
Don’t you know moving takes weeks—
months
? These things have to be planned!’’

‘‘Sue, I explained the whole thing over the phone. We’re just picking up clothes and a few personal items today. Movers are coming next week to get everything else.’’

‘‘But you’re
leaving
today! What am I going to do for a best friend?’’ Sue almost wailed. ‘‘I’ll miss you!’’

‘‘I’ll miss you, too,’’ Olivia said promptly. ‘‘But we can talk on the phone. And you can come visit.’’

Seth felt a stirring of alarm at the idea—this woman didn’t look like anyone ever seen before in LaAngelle. Before he could take the thought any further, Olivia was introducing him.

‘‘Oh, my, I didn’t realize you had a new boyfriend,’’ Sue said, eyeing Seth up and down. ‘‘So
that’s
why . . . But what’s Mark going to say?’’

‘‘Seth’s my cousin,’’ Olivia said firmly, although she knew as well as he did that he technically was not. ‘‘And Mark and I have dated exactly twice. We’re really just friends. He doesn’t have anything to say about this at all.’’

Mark—he’d known there had to be a man, Seth thought. With Olivia, there had always been men.

‘‘If you say so, girlfriend. But I don’t imagine he would agree with that. Does he know about this?’’

‘‘I called him when I called you, and Anna, and Marybeth, and Dr. Green. . . .’’

‘‘What did Dr. Green say about your quitting your job?’’ Sue was instantly diverted.

‘‘He was very nice about it. He said he understood that I needed to get Sara settled before school started. He wished me well.’’

‘‘Mom, can we take my Beanie Babies with us today?’’ Sara emerged from the back part of the apartment to ask.

Olivia glanced at Seth. ‘‘Is there room? She has quite a few.’’

‘‘Sure.’’ Seth spoke to Sara. ‘‘Bring anything you like. Except the furniture. I don’t think there’s room for your bed on the plane.’’

Sara giggled. ‘‘Okay,’’ she said, and left the room again.

‘‘Plane?’’ Sue was mouthing at Olivia as Seth looked back at them. ‘‘
His
plane?’’

Olivia nodded.

‘‘Oh, my. And he’s sexy, too.’’

‘‘He’s getting married in two months.’’

‘‘To
you
?’’

‘‘No, nincompoop. He’s my
cousin,
remember?’’

Olivia was looking at him by this time, and from her expression she realized that he was perfectly well aware of what they were saying. Her cheeks pinkened. Seth watched with interest. He had rarely seen Olivia blush. She didn’t have the complexion, or the temperament, for it.

‘‘What do you want me to do?’’ he asked, pushing away from the door. Sue was eyeing him with a calculating gleam in her eyes that he had seen dozens of times before. He’d just as soon take himself out of her orbit.

Olivia put him to work clearing out kitchen cabinets, while she and her friend carried most of the plants down the hall to Sue’s apartment. Olivia was giving them to her, all except for a cactus garden that belonged to Sarah and a huge fern of which she was particularly fond. Seth guessed that, like the Beanie Babies, it was destined to go back on the plane with them.

Seth finished emptying the cabinets, and headed down the hall toward Sara’s bedroom. Just before he reached the open door, he got a glimpse of the little girls, who were sitting on the floor, apparently putting the contents of Sara’s small white chest into a box. He stopped just outside the room as he overheard part of their conversation.

‘‘Who’s that?’’ Chloe asked, holding a small, gold-framed picture that Sara had just removed from a drawer.

‘‘My dad.’’ Sara reached out and took the picture, handling it carefully.

‘‘I thought you didn’t have a dad.’’

‘‘Yeah, I do. It’s just—he and my mom are divorced, and I don’t see him much anymore. He lives in Oklahoma now, and he’s got a new wife.’’ There was a wealth of sadness in her voice.