Robards, Karen (25 page)

“Oh, Mom!” Jessica interrupted. “You think everything I do is dangerous! Everywhere I go, everything I eat, all my friends! You just want to keep me ten years old for the rest of my life! Well, you can’t! It’s my life, and I’ll live it the way I want!”

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“Young lady, with that attitude, you’ll never get out of this house again!” r_1

“What are you going to do., ground me forever? It ‘t do any good. I’ll just sneak out.”

won

“If you do

“What, Mom? What are you going to do? What can you do, huh? Nothing, that’s what!” Jessica was yelling at the end, thrusting her face toward Grace’s, her eyes flashing.

Grace got a whiff of beer from her daughter’s breath.

“You’ve been drinking!” She could not believe it. Not again.

“I had some beer! So what? It was a party, and there was a keg, and I had some, just like all the other kids! You know what else I did? I smoked a couple of cigarettes, and part of a joint-you hear that, Detective? part of a joint-and made out with a really cute guy! And I’ll do it again any time I want and you can’t stop me! So there!”

Grace lost it. For the first time in years she completely lost control of her temper.

“Want to bet?” she bit out. Then, before she even knew what she meant to do, she drew back her hand and slapped Jessica’s face.

The sharp sound of the slap and Jessica’s resultant gasp echoed through the room. Grace’s hand stung in the aftermath of the blow. Her face drained white at exactly the same rate that Jessica’s did.

Only Jessica’s left cheek was slowly pinkening as the blood rushed to fill in the imprint of Grace’s hand.

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For a moment mother and daughter simply stared at each other.

“I hate you,” Jessica choked out, her hand pressed to her abused cheek. “I want to go live with my dad!” Grace felt as if there were no bones left in her body.

She felt sick, literally sick to her stomach. But there could be no backing down now, no gathering her daughter into her arms and apologizing and crying with her as she promised her that everything would be just as Jessica wished. She had to remember what was at stake herefor Jessica’s sake.

“Go to your room,” she said steadily. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”

“The door’s locked, remember?” Although tears were running down her face now, and her hand was still pressed to her cheek, Jessica still managed to look, and sound, defiant. “I can’t get in.”

“I’ll get it open for you. Come on.” Marino, who’d been a silent presence in the background during this tender mother-daughter exchange, intervened in a quiet voice before Grace could reply, which was just as well. Grace was so upset she could barely talk. She must have done a million things wrong for them to come to this, she thought. And she was afraid, so terribly afraid, that the situation might be beyond repair.

What did a mother do, when her half-grown daughter wouldn’t listen? Chain her to the wall?

Marino left the kitchen, with Jessica still rubbing her cheek, stomping in his wake. Grace watched her go, aching for the sweet little girl who had once thought her mommy was the most wonderfiil being on earth.

Then she turned, leaned her upset stomach against

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the counter, gripped the tile edge with both hands, rested her forehead against an overhead cabinet, and closed her eyes.

She was still standing like that when Marino returned to the kitchen. Five minutes could have passed, or fifty. She heard him enter the room, knew by the sound of his footsteps on the hardwood floor that it was him, but still she could not bring herself to open her eyes or look around.

She felt tired, and sick, and utterly drained. And sad. So terribly, terribly sad. As if she had lost Jessica forever.

“You okay?” He came up behind her and put his hand on her arm. Grace felt his touch as just the slightest of pressures and realized that she was still wearing the bulky, brown-wool toggle coat that she had put on what seemed like hours earlier. She realized, too, that her sweatpants were wet from the knee down, her feet were soaked, and she was crying.

She never cried. She had learned long ago, in a very hard school, that crying was a waste of time. The only thing that ever came of it was a stuffed-up nose.

“Fine,” she said, only her voice sounded strange. “Grace …” His hand tightened on her arm. “I’m okay.” Her voice was sharp. He released her

arm and stepped back. Still she could not face him. Grace realized that she was hot and started to undo the wooden fastenings that closed the front of her coat. It gave her something to do, while she struggled to regain her composure. Shrugging out of the garment, she was surprised to find it being lifted from her shoulders and set aside. This small kindness made more tears

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well up. She closed her eyes tightly, willing the tears to stop, determined that he should not see.

“Did you … get the door open?” she managed with only the slightest hesitation in her voice. Still she could not turn around or open her eyes. The thricedamned tears would not go away.

“Yeah,” he said. “Credit card. Easy as pie. Grace …”

His hands curled around both her arms above the elbow. Grace could feel the solid presence of him close behind her.

“Just leave me alone. Please,” she said when he started to turn her around. She opened her eyes, blinking rapidly, trying by sheer dint of will to dissipate the tears, when she realized he wasn’t going to do as she asked.

“Hey, it’s not that bad.” He turned her to face him despite her resistance, his hold gentle but unbreakable. Pride compelled her to look up at him, and she had to look up, she found. It was always 2 surprise to her to discover that he was so tall. The top of her head did not reach his nose. His shoulders were wide, blocking her view of much of the kitchen. His head was bent toward hers, and his face was close enough so that she could see every vein in the slightly bloodshot brown eyes and every tiny line surrounding them. His hair looked very black with the bright kitchen lights shining on it, while his skin looked very bronze. He was frowning down at her, his mouth tight with concern. His lower body was mere inches from hers, almost trapping her against the cabinets. She could feel the solid strength of his legs in

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front of her, while in back the hard edge of the counter pressed into her flesh just above the base of her spine.

“Yes, it is.” Abrim with tears or not, her eyes met his defiantly as she lifted her hands to brush the moisture away. “It is that bad. I just slapped my daughter for the first time in our lives. It’s worse than bad.”

“You lost Your temper. It happens.”

“Oh, God, I feel like such a … rotten mother.” To her annoyance, she gave a mighty sniff and felt a tear spill from her right eye. She hadn’t meant to say such a thing, to make such a confession to him of all people, when she knew he had disapproved of her mothering skills from the first. But she couldn’t seem to help it. She felt wretched, absolutely wretched, and he was there and being sympathetic when what she needed more than anything on earth right at that moment was a shoulder to cry on… .

“Oh, let me go, Marino,” she said, avoiding his gaze and trying, without putting much real force into the effort, to pull her arms away from his grip, “before I make a total, utter, and complete fool of myself.”

“You’re not 2 lousy mother, Grace.” His voice was soft, while the hands on her upper arms were firm as they refused to let her go. “Know what I’ve seen since I’ve met you two? I’ve seen 2 woman who loves her daughter and is doing her very best for her. And I’ve seen a daughter who loves her mother, but is grappling with a few issues of her own right now. For God’s sake, she’s a teenager. They do these things. It’s nothing to beat yourself up over.”

Grace looked up then, met his eyes, and despite her best efforts gave another sniff.

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“Who are you, Dr. Mom?” she asked, trying to lighten things up.

“Something like that.”

The expression on his face was her undoing. He looked as if he cared.

Tears welled into her eyes anew, and spilled down her face. She was not accustomed to having anybody look like that for her.

“Oh, God,” she said iniserably, giving up and letting her head drop forward so that her forehead rested against his chest. He had removed his jacket; her skin touched the soft flannel of his shirt. “I told you I was going to make a fool of myself “

“Go ahead,” he murmured, his body curving around hers. “I’ve got all night.”

Cba ter P

29

RACE GRIPPED the soft, much-washed cotton P

flannel-it smelled faintly of Downywith fla

9 both hands and hung on as if for dear life. His arms were wrapped around her, gentle and strong and protective, holding her close. It was such a luxury to lean against him, such a luxury to be comforted, to feel as if her troubles mattered to someone besides herself, that she could not bring herself to pull away.

“So talk to me,” he said, and she sniffed and gulped and held on tighter and complied. She talked about Jessica, about what a sweet little girl Jessica had been and how Jessica hated her diabetes and how she suspected that Jessica was rebelling against her by not inJecting her insulin on time or eating properly or taking care of herself in general. She talked about her guilt about being a working mother and her particular guilt about working so much when Jessica was young. She talked about her divorce and the effect it had had on Jessica. She talked about her terror that Jessica was getting into trouble with drugs and her fear that Jessica

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had been targeted for revenge by a drug ring. All the while he held her, and listened, and made sympathetic noises. When at last Grace ran out of words, she just rested in his arms, her head against his chest, feeling strangely at peace.

“Do you realize,” he said at last, the bristles on his chin scratching along her cheekbone as he bent to speak in her ear, “that you have been talking to me forty-five minutes straight about Jessica? What I want to know is, what about Grace?”

Grace looked up at him then, lifting her head away from his chest and tilting her chin so that she could see his expression. She still held on to the fi7ont of his shirt, but less desperately now. His face was very close, his eyes warm and touched with humor as they met her gaze, his mouth twisting up at the corners into a wry half-smile.

“What do you mean, what about me?” she asked, frowning.

“Your whole life revolves around her, doesn’t it?” “To all intents and purposes, she is my life.” “Maybe she shouldn’t be. Maybe that’s the problem.

Maybe you need to live for yourself just a little for a change.”

Grace felt herself getting angry—what did he know about her and her daughter?-but the anger died almost at birth. After all, what he was saying was no more than what she had been telling herself for some time: she needed to let go ofJessica, at least to a certain degree. But what she knew with her head was not all that easy to convey to her heart.

“It’s been so long, I wouldn’t even know where to

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start.” This confession was offered up with a flickering smile as she released her grip on his shirt at last, splaying her cramped fingers flat against his body, enjoying the juxtaposition of the softness of the flannel over the hard resilience of the muscles beneath. Her hands rose and fell with the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest, and she liked that, too. In fact, she liked everything about him, from the way he smelled—she had never before realized what an aphrodisiac the scent of Downy could be, when mixed with the underlying aroma of manto the physical facts that he was taller than she was, broader than she was, harder than she was, and stronger than she was, to the concern and genuine human caring he showed her. Taken all together, it was a dangerous combination, and she knew it. What she really needed to do, if she was smart, was move out of his arms and recover her equilibrium on her own. But she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it, not yet. She felt warm and comfortable and cared for, the latter for the first time in years.

“You could start with me.”

Meeting his gaze, she frowned, not comprehending. “Start with you? How?”

He smiled down at her, his expression rueful. He really was very handsome, she decided, whether one liked the type or not, with his brown eyes twinkling and his mouth twisted up into that self-deprecating smile. “Has it even occurred to you that I find you very attractive?”

Grace’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. Her fingers curled into the front of his shirt again. “No-o.”

“You don’t think I’m on twenty-four-hour-a-day

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call for everybody in the city, do you?” The question, and the smile that accompanied it, were wry.

“I … hadn’t thought about it.”

“Then I suggest you think about it, Your Honor.” With exquisite sensitivity, his hands slid up her back. Grace tracked their movement even through the thickness of her sweatshirt. Her fingers tightened on the folds of flannel she held, and fascinated, she watched his eyes as his head bent toward her. His lids drooped and the golden-brown depths darkened until they were mere rings around the blackness of his pupils. Grace felt her lips part with anticipation as she realized that he was going to kiss her.

God, she wanted him to kiss her!

Her hands slid up to rest on his broad shoulders, and she rose on tiptoe to meet his mouth. When their lips first touched, the contact was gentle, almost clumsy, but the sheer heat of it made Grace gasp. She pressed her body against his with sudden, fierce need, and she slid her arms around his neck.

His mouth lifted from hers for an instant and their

gazes met.

“I’ve been wanting to do that since I first laid eyes on you,” he whispered, kissing her again, his lips hard and sure as they closed over her mouth. His tongue slid between her lips, and Grace felt fire shoot clear down to her toes.