Just Believe (10 page)

"Oh. Let me get you something. Some
aspirin?"

"No! No aspirin."

Annabelle jumped at his tone. He
sounded like she'd offered him strychnine.

"No aspirin," he repeated more quietly.
"Upsets my stomach, you see. Just a teaspoon of cinnamon in a cup
of hot tea, if it wouldn't be too much trouble."

His charming smile, so like his older
brother's, melted some of her unease about this whole
thing.

"No trouble at all." She left him
stretched quietly on the sofa and went up the stairs to the
kitchen. All the while she heated the water and spooned out the
cinnamon into the cup and waited, she wondered how to break the
news to her mother that Erin's missing lover was in the
basement.

"Annabelle?" her mother's sleepy voice
drifted into the kitchen through the midnight silence.

"Mom, you should be in bed."

"I thought I heard voices. Were you
talking to yourself?"

With a start, Annabelle realized her
mother had heard her and Lucas.

Pinning up a smile, she turned to
Susan. "With all this going on with Erin, I guess I just needed to
talk to someone, and I didn't want to wake you."

"What are you making there?" Mom peeked
around Annabelle's shoulder.

"Just some tea. Want some?"

"Thanks." Her mother stepped away and
leaned on the counter. "Is that cinnamon?" She sniffed the air.
"Ummm."

Annabelle sprinkled some cinnamon into
the second cup she took down from cabinet. Then she poured the hot
water into the cups. Handing one to her mother, she wondered how
she'd get back down into the basement.

"When did you start drinking tea?" Mom
asked, daintily raising the cup to her lips. "I thought you didn't
like it," she smiled, "unless it was iced and heavily
sweetened."

Annabelle sought an explanation. "I've
heard it's soothing. After tonight, I need some
soothing."

"Uh-huh. Me, too." Mom took her cup to
the small trestle table in the breakfast nook and sat down, gazing
out on the back lawn.

"Mom, why don't you go back to bed?
It's still so early. You need your sleep."

"Maybe I can finish my tea first?" she
replied, her lips curving. "You know, Annabelle, I can decide for
myself if I need to go to bed."

It was the first time Annabelle could
remember her mother declaring her independence. She
smiled.

"Of course you can. I'm just worried
about you."

Her mother's rueful smile faded. "Poor
Annabelle. So many people to look after." Like so many times
before, Annabelle watched her mother's attention wander, her eyes
lose their focus. Her hands ached to grab her mother's shoulders,
shake her, bring her back. But she was powerless, and could only
watch, as her mother slipped away again.

Mom sat silently, hands wrapped around
her cup, sipping gently.

"What do you think of what Erin said?"
The question came out of nowhere.

"Don't worry about her," Annabelle
said, trying to be supportive and strong. Deciding to try her
fictional account out on her mother, she added, "They just had a
tiff and Erin let herself get worked up about it. She probably did
look crazy to the cops when they got there."

She stared into the cup steeping on the
counter, as though she could find answers there. Suddenly, her neck
began to tingle as she felt a pair of eyes on her. Turning, her
gaze locked with her mother's.

"That's not kind, Annabelle." Her
mother's softly spoken chastisement sent a blade of shame into
Annabelle's heart.

"I didn't mean I thought so," Annabelle
said, by way of apology. She stood by the counter while her mother
drank her tea, very slowly.

"Mom," Annabelle began, "what do you
think? Do you think Lucas abandoned her?"

"I don't know. How can we ever know
what another person is capable of doing?" Mom drained her tea and
rose slowly from the table. "I guess, if Erin has faith in him, we
have to trust her feelings. We'll just have to believe she knows
him as well as she thinks she does."

Believe. Funny how many times today
that word had been spoken.

"Goodnight, dear. I'll see you in the
morning." Her mother stopped at the door and turned back with a
smile. "Thanks for the tea."

"Goodnight, Mom."

Annabelle stood in the kitchen,
listening to the soft footsteps of her mother as she went back to
bed. In the silence, the gentle click as the bedroom door shut
sounded loud enough to wake the dead and was plenty to snap
Annabelle out of her stupor.

Taking the cup of tea, she opened the
door to the basement stairs and carefully descended. A soft rattle
echoed through the rec room.

Lucas was sprawled across the sofa, his
long legs dangling off the edge, his left arm crooked over his
eyes. His mouth was slightly open and he snored.

"I suppose you don't want the tea?"
Annabelle asked in a whisper.

Lucas snored his answer.

He looked so young, so innocent, she
couldn't find it in her heart to wake him or hassle him about his
mysterious comments hinting at danger for Erin because of their
relationship.

She puffed a huff of
dismissal.

"It's the twenty-first century, for
heaven's sake. People don't get arrested or beat up because of who
they love," she whispered, as she set the tea on the table and
pulled a spread from the back of the sofa and laid it over Lucas,
tucking it in at his shoulders.

Explanations would have to wait until
morning.

* * * *

Mom took the morning shift with Erin.
After meeting her for lunch at the Carolina Inn, Annabelle arrived
at the hospital just after one, worn out from a lack of sleep and
freshly irritated by Lucas's unwillingness to explain. The last
thing Annabelle wanted to see when she arrived at Erin's hospital
room was his big brother with his perfect rear perched on the edge
of Erin's bed, and both of them apparently enjoying a wonderful
visit.

"What happened then?" Erin asked,
between giggles.

"Dad took Lucas into the yard and
filled a pipe and made him smoke the whole thing. Turned green as a
frog, he did, and puked his guts empty right there."

"Oh, no," Erin covered her mouth with
her hand. "Was he all right? Oh, how stupid. Of course he was." She
giggled again. "I suppose he never touched your father's pipe
again?"

"Never," Gaelen winked at her broadly,
"unless I kept watch for him."

Erin's good spirits raised Annabelle's
own. Yet the presence of Gaelen Riley quickened a strange tension
that tightened her joints and twisted her stomach into twitchy
knots. Under other circumstances, she might have thought the
feeling pleasant.

"Dr. Riley," she said, breaking up
story time. "You're here early."

He squinted at her. "No need for
formality, Miss Tinker. The 'doctor' is purely an academic title.
'Gaelen' will do fine."

"Gaelen came by hoping to run into
Lucas," Erin offered, "but unfortunately, Lucas seems to have
abandoned me again. We don't have any idea where he is, do
we?"

Since Lucas was gone by the time she
got up this morning, Annabelle could answer honestly. "None at
all."

"What a pity. I'm sure you'll relay my
message when you do see him. But I am glad of seeing you again."
Gaelen smiled.

"Are you?" Annabelle said, just as the
door opened behind her with a scrape.

"Well, well. Hello, Gaelen." Dr. Duncan
raised the metal cover from a hospital chart and started reading.
When she spoke it was to Gaelen. "I hadn't thought to see you here
again."

With a devilish grin, Gaelen replied,
"Linette, my little songbird, how could I stay away from a gentle
creature like yourself?"

Annabelle felt her forehead wrinkle.
The wordplay was that of people who knew each other well. Extremely
well. The diminutive Dr. Duncan hardly seemed like Gaelen's type,
though Annabelle quickly realized she didn't know what his type
was. Nor did she care.

"You'll have to leave now, Gaelen. Miss
Tinker." Dr. Duncan, in her coolly efficient way, laid the chart on
the foot of Erin's bed and took them by an elbow each, herding them
toward the door. "Examination time, you know."

Erin's startled expression made
Annabelle open her mouth to object, but she was out the door before
she could voice a word.

"Pushy little pixie," Gaelen whispered
under his breath.

"Excuse me?"

"The doctor. Linette. She's a pushy,
opinionated-"

"She's the doctor, Dr. Riley. She's got
the right to be authoritative if she feels she has to be."
Surprised as she was to be defending the overbearing little doctor,
Annabelle felt an unfamiliar impulse to lock horns with him. "You
don't have a problem with that, do you?"

"What? With a pushy--"

"You already said she was
pushy."

"And so she is. And loud-mouthed and
irritable and..."

She could see him editing his
comments.

"Go ahead. Say it." Annabelle let her
temper rise, masking the other things swimming in her feelings
tank.

"Say what?"

"Say the word. Don't look at me like
that. You know perfectly well what word. The one men always use
about a woman they can't run over." She dared him
silently.

"Bitch."

"I knew it," she crowed. "You're
intimidated by that tiny, pretty woman just because she won't let
you charm her to get your way."

"You told me to say it. And do you deny
some women are bitches?"

"Dr. Duncan--"

"Dr. Duncan's picture is beside the
entry for the word in the Oxford English Dictionary."

Annabelle couldn't keep the smile from
her lips.

"So, those lips can smile. I was
beginning to wonder."

"Leave my lips--"

"Can't even consider it. Such lips have
inspired verse, songs, mur-r-r-r-der."

The last word was spoken with an
exaggerated accent, comical, yet sexy, all at the same
time.

"My lips are none of your concern, Dr.
Riley." She wanted to clear her throat, her voice sounded so
scratchy.

"A situation I would like very much to
change."

Annabelle stared at him. What did that
mean? Was he really coming on to her?

As if to give her no doubt such was
indeed his intention, he stepped closer. Annabelle stepped back and
found herself backed to the wall. Standing in front of her, so
close her breasts brushed against his broad chest, he raised one
long arm and rested it over her shoulder. His eyes bore deep into
hers as though he would ferret out every secret she had.

She broke his gaze and concentrated on
a clock on the opposite wall.

"I'm not interested, Dr. Riley." She
ducked under his arm and starting toward the elevator.

"Not interested?"

Annabelle couldn't resist turning to
see the expression accompanying his words. Gaelen stood as though
frozen, his brow deeply furrowed.

"Not interested?" he repeated, his tone
incredulous.

She barely suppressed the giggle
threatening to ruin her serious façade.

"You think all you have to do is grin
and wink and tell charming stories and any woman will fall for you?
Hah!" Annabelle turned to continue to the elevator.

"Miss Tinker, wait."

Gaelen's footsteps echoed behind her,
making her stomp louder to drown them out. When he started to run
to catch up, she felt a wave of apprehension.

"Wait, now." He got in front of her and
blocked her way, stopping her. "I think we got off on the wrong
foot, Miss Tinker. I'd like very much to try to make it up to you.
If you're not busy, would you go to dinner with me tonight?" He
grinned, blue eyes twinkling. "Let me try to prove I'm not a
monster."

"Why are you asking me out?"

"Why?" He appeared confused. "Because I
want to."

"I really don't know you at
all."

"Well, then, let's fix that," he
said.

Why did she blush? It wasn't like he
was serious.

"Come, now," he chided. "It's a very
simple question. Will you come with me? Just a simple dinner at The
Tea Room?"

The Tea Room was Chapel Hill's priciest
eatery, the one place everyone in town had to go at least once in
their lives. Even though she'd been born and raised in Chapel Hill,
Annabelle had only passed by The Tea Room when shopping on Franklin
Street, promising herself she'd have a grand dinner there someday.
Now, here was Gaelen Riley tossing the suggestion like he was
offering her a quick burger.

And she really wanted to say yes. She'd
have wanted to say yes even if the invitation had been for the
burger.