Teresa Hill (14 page)

The sun was sinking fast by the time dinner was over, and Samantha found herself leaning back in a very comfortable padded chair on the patio with Joe sitting beside her sipping a beer and chatting with Tom. Dani was curled up nearly asleep in Samantha’s arms. She’d come right to her, sleepy and a bit grumpy and rubbing her eyes, climbed into Samantha’s lap and lay there, her body all warm and boneless. Samantha closed her eyes, savoring the sensation of having a little girl in her arms again. She couldn’t quite believe how lucky she was, how her whole life had turned around so quickly and turned into something so beautiful.

She was going to have a daughter, a son and Joe, and someday babies, too. She couldn’t imagine ever wanting anything more.

“Tired?” Joe whispered, leaning close to brush a hand through his daughter’s hair.

“No. Just enjoying the moment.”

He gave her a dazzling smile, one that could have lit up the whole town.

“I’m so happy,” she whispered, as if afraid to break the magic spell that had brought her all this. It was going to take some time before she trusted it all, trusted it to last.

“Samantha,” Tom said, “Luke tells us you’re quite the magician.”

Luke, at the mention of his name, came closer to his grandfather and said, “She pulls quarters from little boys’ ears!”

“Even yours?” his grandfather asked.

“Yeah, and she let me keep it, too. And she has a bunch of fairy statues in her office and even more at her house.” He looked at Samantha. “Are they gonna come live with us, too?”

Joe rolled his eyes.

“I was planning to bring all my things,” Samantha said. They planned to live in her house eventually, but as Joe pointed out, there was no reason to live in a construction zone now or to rush the renovations. He had dozens of ideas about what he wanted, now that it was going to be their house, and all those special touches were going to take time. So once they were married she’d move in with the Morgans until the new house was ready.

“So they’ll like…belong to all of us, right?” Luke asked. “’Cause we’ll be a family, and families share.”

“If you’re going to share all your things with Samantha, I’m sure she’ll share with you,” Joe said, winking at her.

“All of ’em?” Luke asked.

“It’s only fair,” Joe pointed out.

“Even my rock collection?”

“Even that.”

“I dunno,” Luke said, looking highly skeptical.

Joe laughed. Samantha did, too. And soon they were all laughing. Dani stirred restlessly at the noise, and Samantha brushed her hair soothingly again.

She was thinking about itty-bitty arms curled around her, about how soft Dani’s skin was, how tiny her hands were. She slipped one finger inside the open curl of Dani’s fingers and felt the little girl’s fingers close around her own.

It really was amazing, how little they were, how sweet they could be.

From inside the house, she heard the doorbell ring.

“I wonder who in the world that could be,” Katherine said, excusing herself to answer it.

“We should go,” Joe said. “Luke, let’s gather up the toys you and your sister dragged out before we go.”

They went off into the yard, and Tom got up to go see what was keeping his wife. A few minutes later Samantha heard some sort of commotion—raised voices. One raised voice—a woman’s—and the hushed urgent tones of Katherine and Tom.

Dani stirred in her arms, and a moment later a woman burst onto the patio, a woman who looked oddly familiar. Samantha was sure she’d never seen her before, but for some reason thought she should know her.

Dani sat up, rubbing her eyes, and looked at the woman. “Who are you?”

“Who am I?” the woman said in an odd breathless way and took a step back, as if the words might have been enough to knock her to the floor.

Samantha stared at the woman again. “Are you all right?”

“No, I’m not,” the woman said. “Who are you?”

“She’s S’mantha, and she’s gonna marry us,” Dani announced, frowning and concentrating hard herself. She leaned closer to Samantha, seeming to recognize the oddly charged atmosphere of the moment and being a bit afraid of it.

Samantha was afraid, too. She closed her arms more tightly around Dani. From behind the woman, Samantha saw Tom and Katherine standing in the open doorway looking shocked and very troubled.

“Marry you?” the woman said.

“Yes,” Dani whispered.

“You mean, she’s going to marry your father?”

“She’s gonna marry all of us,” Dani insisted. “And she’s gonna be my new mommy.”

Oh, no.
Samantha tightened her arms around Dani, who stared at the woman, and asked, “Who are you?”

“I’m the old mommy,” the woman said so softly Samantha doubted Dani even heard her.

Dani wasn’t looking at either one of them. She was looking at her father, and the next minute she was running to him. “Daddy! Daddy!”

Joe caught his daughter and lifted her in his arms, then stood there, shock and dismay on his face.

Luke stood beside him, frozen there for an instant, and then he ran to the woman. “Mommy!”

She enveloped him in a giant hug and lifted him off the ground, too. She and Joe faced each other, each of them with a child wrapped securely in their arms, and Samantha felt sick, literally sick.

Where did she fit in this picture?

She was afraid she didn’t.

She would have run right then. It was her first instinct—to run. She looked around the backyard, thinking that just a few moments ago, everything had been as perfect as it could be. She was going to marry Joe and be a mother to his lonely children. Now she worried that it would all be snatched away from her.

It wasn’t the most rational thought, but there it was. What if she was going to lose everything again?

Joe was beside her. He’d come to her and put his arm around her, facing his ex-wife with her by his side and watching, grim-faced, as Luke chattered on and on, oblivious to the tension among the adults.

It was like watching an accident on the highway, Samantha decided. She didn’t want to see it, but she couldn’t quite look away. What in the world was going to happen?

“I should go,” she said to Joe.

“No,” he insisted.

“You all have a lot to talk about.” She didn’t even want to think about what they’d all say.

“No,” he told her. “Don’t go.”

“I have to—”

“Samantha!”

She made a hasty apology to Katherine.

“You’re goin’?” Dani asked, looking confused and worried, still hanging on to her father.

“Yes.” Samantha leaned over and gave her a quick kiss. “I have to go.”

“Bye, S’mantha,” Dani said.

She left Luke alone. He was too caught up in his mother to notice anything else, and she didn’t have anything to say to Elena. And as Samantha was leaving, she heard Dani ask tentatively, “That’s her? That’s my mommy?”

Oh, yes.

That was her.

“She came back?” Dani asked.

“Yes.” Joe was still reeling.

Dani frowned and concentrated harder on the woman talking to Luke, who was practically dancing around her in excitement. Dani hung back, looking unsure of what to do, and Joe felt his heart breaking a little bit more, felt his anger rising and had nowhere to go with it right now. He had his kids to think about.

“Where’s she been?” Dani asked. “Did she get lost?”

“I don’t know, Dani.”

Luke calmed down a bit, and Elena finally came over to Joe and Dani.

“Sweetheart?” she asked, a tentative smile on her face, the words oddly breathless. “Don’t you recognize me?”

Dani shook her head, then buried her face against Joe’s neck.

Elena put her arm on Dani’s back and stroked it, pulled her hair back from her face so she could look at her again.

“How can that be?” Elena asked. “How can you not know me?”

Joe stood there, seething, wanting to tell her it had something to do with abandoning them all for a year and a half. Then he wanted to tell her to take her hands off
his
daughter. But he couldn’t do that. Not in front of the kids.

“You know, it’s getting late,” Katherine said, stepping in and saving them. “I know Dani’s sleepy, and I’m sure Luke will be soon. Why don’t I take them home, Joe, and put them to bed for you?”

“Thank you,” he said. “I’d appreciate it.”

“I’m not tired,” Luke said. “I don’t want to go to bed. I want to see my mommy. She just got here.”

“Yes, I just got here—”

Joe cut her off with a killing glance. Keeping his gaze pointedly on her, Joe told his son, “Your mother and I have some things to talk about, Luke. You can see her tomorrow.”

And then whispering, for her ears only, he added, “Assuming she’ll still be here then.”

“I’ll be here,” Elena said, as if insulted.

God, she didn’t have a clue. Even now, after all this time, it seemed she had no clue what she’d done to them.

“I don’t want to go,” Luke said, running to her and clinging to her.

“Tell him,” Joe mouthed to her.

There was no way he was going to be the bad guy here. Let her see what she’d done to them. Let her understand a bit about their fears. Maybe if she did, she wouldn’t be so careless with their feelings anymore.

Elena looked insulted and surprised and then at a total loss. Luke was clinging to her and crying. Dani was staring at her furtively when she decided to lift her head from Joe’s shoulder.

“I…” Elena looked as though she might bolt for a moment, as though she couldn’t believe someone wasn’t going to bail her out, as they had her entire life.

“Tell him,” Joe growled.

“Luke, it is late, and I do have to talk to your father. But I’ll see you tomorrow. First thing. I promise.”

Joe managed not to scoff at that. Her promises weren’t any good here, and Luke’s look told her so. Clearly, his little boy didn’t believe in too many people’s promises anymore.

Katherine helped pull Luke away. Elena gave him a quick kiss, then had to disentangle herself from Luke’s arms once again. He cried some more and looked at her as if he might never see her again. Elena gave Dani a kiss on her cheek and Joe handed her over to his father-in-law.

They took the kids inside, and he and Elena faced each other across the patio. She wouldn’t look at him, and he let himself stare at her, every bit of anger he’d held on to over the year and a half simmering through him now.

She picked up her purse from the table by her side and fumbled around for a cigarette. Her hands shook as she lit it, he noted with a small measure of satisfaction.

He wanted to grab her by the arms and shake her—hard—and scream at her, wanted to do that so badly it scared him. He’d never hurt a woman in his life, but he almost wanted to now.

“You hate me,” she said finally in that little girl voice he remembered so well, the one she’d used so successfully to get around any kind of anger directed at her for years. The one that made the words mean something more like,
How could anyone hate me? You don’t really mean that, do you?

He’d been such a fool.

“I try very hard not to even think of you,” Joe said. “I don’t want to waste my time hating you. I have better things to do. But yes, when I slip up and let you into my head, that’s what I think. That I hate what you’ve done to my kids, and I can’t believe I was ever so foolish to imagine you were capable of loving anyone but yourself.”

“I loved you,” she said.

Joe laughed at that. “You don’t know the meaning of the word.”

“I did, Joe.” She came to him and put a hand on his arm. He shook it off and dared her to touch him again. “I’m so sorry.”

“I take it that means it’s over between you and your new friend. That he wasn’t really the love of your life, either.”

“No,” she admitted, “he wasn’t. He wasn’t what I thought at all.”

“So he dumped you? Or you dumped him? And now you thought you’d just sail back into town and we’d pick up where we left off?”

“I wanted to see the kids,” she claimed.

“Well, you’ve seen them. Now what?”

“I…I don’t know.”

“Hadn’t thought any farther than that, Elena?” It was typical of her. He’d bet she was broke and thinking to come back and let her parents take care of her for a while, until she found someone else to do it or found somewhere else to go.

“I do know that what I did was wrong. So wrong,” she began.

“Save it for somebody who cares, Elena. I don’t.”

“Joe, don’t be like this—”

“Like what? Somebody who sees you for what you are?”

“I made a mistake—”

“You ran out on me and our kids. You’re supposed to be the grown-up, Elena. The one they count on. The one who takes care of them.”

“I did. I did it for five and a half years, and I just couldn’t do it anymore.”

“Oh, that’s right. It was too hard. You were too unhappy. You just had to get away. Save yourself. Well, fine. It doesn’t look like it quite worked out the way you expected, did it?”

“No,” she whispered, “it didn’t.”

“Well, that’s too bad. But don’t think you can just come back here and say you’re sorry and make everything all better.”

“No, but…I’m still their mother.”

“Are you? Dani doesn’t even know who you are.”

“I… How can that be?”

“Think about it—you’ve been gone a third of her life.”

Elena nodded and looked at the floor. Joe still wanted to strangle her.

“But I am still their mother,” she said.

“And how long do you plan on playing that role this time? Until it isn’t fun anymore? Until you need to go find yourself again? Until the next rich man comes along and is willing to take you away from all this?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she insisted.

“Tell it to someone who doesn’t know you the way I do, Elena.”

“They
are
mine.”

“They’re mine,” he growled.

She swallowed and backed up a step. “You mean, you’re going to try to keep me away from them?”

“I mean that I’m warning you—you don’t want to cross me again. Not with these kids. If you want to see them, see them. If you want to be a part of their lives, go ahead.”