The Girl of Sand & Fog (22 page)

“Zoe drove. I’ve had my keys taken away for two
weeks. Thanks for telling my mom about me borrowing your car the other
morning.”

He rudely lets amusement show in his eyes.

“Borrowing? Interesting choice of words. And I
didn’t say a word to your mother. I said I wouldn’t and I didn’t.”

Another lie. My temper explodes. “Bullshit. I
don’t believe anything you say.”

“We are leaving. Now. I’m taking you home.”

He tries to guide me toward the exit and I stand
rooted in place. “I’m not leaving without talking to Zoe.”

“You can text her from the car,” he says coldly.

Shit. I can’t disappear and leave without her.
That’s like an unwritten girl rule. She’s my best friend and she’ll hate me
forever.

“Why do you have to always ruin everything?” I
say dramatically, hoping he’ll relent.

His face remains impassive. Somehow he forces me
out of the club without ever putting a hand on me, and we’re on the front
sidewalk before I know how we got there and Zoe is in the freaking club without
me.

He gives his ticket to the valet.

I whirl on him. “You don’t have any right to tell
me where I can go or what I can do.”

“That’s enough, Kaley. You’re embarrassing us
both.”

“Fuck, you are such an asshole. Don’t you get it?
You just embarrassed me in there.”

“The only one to create a scene tonight was you,
Kaley. And there is no way in hell I was going to leave you in a place like
that alone. Do you even have a clue what could happen to you, drunk, in a place
like that?”

“Place like what? Someplace you’d go? Zoe and I
like to hit clubs. Dance. Even Mom wouldn’t freak out about that. We don’t do
anything. You’re being ridiculous.”

“Then I’ll ask your mother when I get you home,
and if I’m wrong, I will apologize.”

I cross my arms and turn so I’m no longer facing
him. “Don’t bother. You’ve already ruined my night enough.”

His car rolls to a stop in front of us at the
curb. A Porsche this time.

Alan crosses to the valet to get his key and
waits outside the car until I climb in the passenger door. The attendant closes
the door behind me, and Alan puts the car in gear and pulls away from the club.

I take my phone and rapidly message Zoe the 411
on my sorry state of affairs. I stare at the screen, willing her to text back. I’m
going to worry until she does.

“I’ve always cared about you, Kaley. Don’t expect
me to stop now. I didn’t mean to embarrass you. It’s not what I intended. I was
concerned.”

I look up to find his gaze intently on me. How
does he have the nerve to say that to me after the confrontation in Ian’s
kitchen?

I turn to stare out the window. “I’m surprised
you’re still in LA. You haven’t been around for days. I thought you’d split California.”

He downshifts. He doesn’t look at me. “I’m here
for good. Moving back to Malibu.”

I check my phone. Crap, Zoe. Let me know you’re
OK.

“We’ll probably be running into each other out in
the clubs more often,” he teases.

I roll my eyes.

“What’s happening with you and my mother?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. I’ll let you know when
your mother tells me.”

I count to ten inside my head. Enough with the
glib, charming comments, Alan. It’s not going to make this any less dreadful or
awkward.

We drive the rest of the way to my house in
silence. He pulls into the driveway and parks.

I open my door.

He stops me with a hand. “Before we go, is there
anything you want to ask? Anything you want to say to me?”

Everything inside me starts to boil. Really, he
wants to talk now? I climb from the car, intending to run into the house, but
then I stop. No. No. No. He may be irrelevant to who I am, he’s proven that the
last eighteen years, but he isn’t to Khloe, and if he is not going to be in her
life he better stay the fuck away.

I lean into the car. “Yeah. I have some things to
say. Don’t do to my sister what you did to me. Don’t come around Khloe if you
don’t plan to be here. Stay the fuck out of her life if you’re only going to
walk once you get bored. Don’t fuck her up the way you fucked up me.”

I slam the door in his face and hurry up the
walk. Just inside the front door, Chrissie pounces on me.

“What’s going on? How did you end up with Alan?
Why were you yelling at him?”

My mouth drops. Is that really the most important
thing here, Chrissie? Why I am yelling at Alan?

I stare at my mom, shaking my head. “How about:
is
everything all right with you, Kaley?
Which it isn’t. Because Alan just
made me cut out on Zoe without telling her, humiliated me in front of about a
gazillion people—I’m pretty sure the video’s being uploaded on the Internet as
we speak—dragged me home like a little girl, and I’m pretty sure just cost me
my only friend. Do you really think I want to discuss Alan at this point, Mom?”

Chrissie’s face reddens. She stares at me,
confused pucker in her golden brows, and looks like she doesn’t know what to
say.

Nope, not waiting for her to figure it out.

I hurry down to my bedroom.

I check my phone.

Zoe: I’m fine. On my way home. R u OK?

Me: I
didn’t want to leave without you. I’m sorry. R u mad?

Zoe: No.
Totally stunned. Fucking unreal. Everyone was jabbering about it at the club. I
saw it all as it went down. I can’t believe the creeper snagged you on the
dance floor. What a jerk. It was sort of cool how Alan went all apeshit and
made him leave. Your instinct comment. Definitely get it now. Yep. Pretty
fucking unbelievable. But kind of sweet. I can’t see my dad doing that. Ian is
so clueless and non-confrontational. Wait. Light changed. Gotta drive. Text u
when I get home.

Alan and Mom’s voices grow louder in the front
entry—
crap, what is he telling her?
—and I shut my door.

I flop back on my bed and cover my face with my
forearms. My door opens and I sit up to find Chrissie’s blue eyes sparkly with
anger sharply on me.

“You’re grounded,” Chrissie announces, stunning
me with her attack out of nowhere. “Two weeks. Not just the car. Everything. I
suggest you put the time to good use to rethink a few things. I don’t care if
you think Alan embarrassed you. I don’t care if you’re angry about it. You have
no business being in West Hollywood at Velvet Jones and he did the right thing.
He hauled you out of there. He did what I’d do. So if you’re angry at him you
are angry at me. Get over it.”

Slam.

CHAPTER 21

Ding.

I roll over in bed, rubbing my eyes, and reach
for my phone. I swipe it open, noting the time—
it’s freaking 6 a.m., Zoe
—and
then see the message.

I sit up, wide awake.

Bobby: Go into your driveway.

Driveway?

My heart rapidly accelerates. I must have texted
Bobby a dozen times last night after the Velvet Jones incident, and he ignored
every text. Now he thinks he can send me a vague message like that, blow by
everything I probably typed too rapidly, shouldn’t have said to him, but hit
send on anyway and in honesty kind of regret.

But, damn, he was MIA for twelve hours.

What am I supposed to think?

He’s with Caroline on the slopes.

Getting pissed off seems a reasonable response to
me.

Why does he want me in the driveway?

Me:
Fine. Driveway. Then maybe you can tell me why you were a jerk last night and
didn’t answer a single text. You have some explaining to do, Bobby.

I toss off my blankets and shove my feet into my
Roxy slippers. Maybe something happened last night and Bobby couldn’t text me.
Maybe Bobby sent me an apology present. I probably should have gone and checked
before I sent that last text. Oh well, I can’t fix that now. I already hit
send.

Faint wails greet me when I enter the hallway. Frowning,
I go into the nursery and peek into the crib. Khloe is wide awake and crying.
Jeez, why hasn’t anyone gotten her? No one in the house ever lets Khloe cry.
That’s so unlike Mom. She hears everything where the baby is concerned, like a
dog picking up sounds unheard by normal humans, and I’m pretty sure Lourdes has
the baby monitor on and with her 24/7.

Seeing Khloe cry is so weird it bugs me. Pouting,
I stare down at my sister. So freaking cute. Not even really crying. Whimper
and wait. Whimper and wait. This baby is so spoiled. She knows she doesn’t have
to put up a fuss to have her way.

I check her diaper. Wet. And she’s probably
hungry.

“It’s OK, Khloe. You want to go find Mom?”

Her eyes widen and I smile. You get your way
always, baby girl, but at least you are easy to make happy. I pick her up,
cuddle her close, and the baby complaining sounds stop. I change her when I
don’t want to because I know Mom expects it and it’s there again, that prick of
guilt for stealing her spit for the kinship test.

I carry her to Chrissie’s room with my lips to
her forehead, and I knock once. No answer, but I go in anyway.

My eyes widen.

Bed still perfectly made.

Mom didn’t go to sleep.

Oh crap, I must have really worried and upset my
mom last night. This isn’t good. She must be on the patio. I don’t even need to
look to know what
this
is.

She stayed up all night, sitting in a chair the
way she does when she’s emotionally oozing, waiting for the dawn, the new day,
her internal reset ritual.

It’s going to be another great fucking day around
here.

Passing through the kitchen, I pause at the doors
out to the patio. I quickly scan the furniture. Don’t see Chrissie. Nope. But
she’s out there somewhere.

The morning air has a faint ocean mist as I step
out into the yard. I’m surprised Chrissie didn’t come in from the chill. I must
have really rocked her world. Another unwanted stab of guilt.

I snuggle the blanket tighter around Khloe as I
continue searching for my Mom. I’m pretty sure she’s not indoors; the sunrise
is just starting to spread across the sky. I take a few steps and then freeze,
completely overcome by what I’m seeing.

Oh God—it’s a picture I know well and etched in
my memory. A mirror image of perhaps the most famous photograph ever of my
complicated parents: them sitting together on the terrace of my dad’s New York
apartment, back in the day, when they were both young and first in love.

They are sitting on a double chaise just like in
that famous tabloid shot, curled into each other, my dad slouched against her
and my mom’s holding Alan with her cheek resting on his head. She may not be
eighteen anymore, but she is as stunning now as she was then.

Fragments of memories leap in my head, forgotten
moments of my own childhood revived, and the rock in my stomach grows painful.
They love in such a naked and exposed way, but in their quieter moments, like
this, it is leveling because it makes everything about what they’ve done to me
more agonizing and less comprehensible.

They love.

They always have.

The fucked-up status of my life shouldn’t be.

My sister frets in my arms.

Oh God. I don’t want to disturb them, but I have
to.

“Mom, Khloe is awake. Do you want her or should I
fix a bottle and give her to Lourdes?”

Chrissie snaps up, turns and smiles. “No, give
her to me.”

Crap.

I cross the grass to their chair and lean over to
place Khloe in my mom’s arms, carefully avoiding my dad’s stare.

“Sit down, Kaley. I want to talk to you,” she
says, adjusting my sister in her arms and pushing aside her nightgown to give
Khloe a breast.

Fuck, does she have to nurse in front of me and
then announce she wants to have a mother-daughter chat first thing in the
morning?

With Alan here.

Tit hanging out.

Awkward.

I sink down on a chair facing them.

My mom doesn’t look at me; she’s too busy focused
on Khloe.

“I know it’s been hard on you,” she says, never
lifting her gaze from my sister. “Moving. All the changes. I shouldn’t have
yelled last night. I probably should have listened instead…it’s not always easy
to know what to do when you’re concerned…what I mean to say is, I know it’s
been tough on you—”

I just wish I could disappear.

She’s rambling.

No point listening.

Hurry up, Chrissie. I want to get out of here.

And why the fuck does Alan have to be here for
this, alertly listening to her very not-clear parenting moment with me as if
this is going to go somewhere coherent before the next century?

“Just because I’m a mom doesn’t mean I have all
the answers and do everything right,” she says, pausing to look at me. “I
didn’t last night. I’m sorry. Maybe there was a little overreaction all around.
But it’s because we both want what’s best for you, Kaley. That’s a good thing,
right?”

Alan shifts his gaze to me.

I nod, in contradiction to my thoughts.
Alan,
if this makes sense to you, you’re an expert in Chrissie-speak. I’m her
daughter and even I don’t know what the fuck she’s trying to say.

Time to end this.

Ready to be out of here.

“It’s OK, Mom. I’m sorry, too. We’re good.”

Chrissie’s wide doe eyes lock on me. “We’ll
always be good. Remember that. I’m your mother and I’m always here for you. No
matter what happens, I love you, Kaley. I know there’s been a lot of change and
uncertainty, that things haven’t been clear for you. And if I could have made
it any other way I would have. But change is what we do to get to where we’re
going—”

Oh groovy, now she’s quoting Grandpa Jack.

Change is what we do to get to where we’re going.

Yep, that’s Grandpa Jack.

I stare at the ground, waiting for her to finish.

“And maybe I haven’t been as focused on what’s
going on with you as I should be—”

Really?

You think?

“What Chrissie is trying to say—”

Thank you, Alan, for cutting her off.

“—we’re getting married on Sunday and we hope
that’s something agreeable to you.”

My eyes go wide.

Did I hear Alan correctly?

My parents are getting married?

What the hell happened out here last night?

Shit, they’re both smiling and staring at me
expectantly for some kind of reaction.

“What do you think?” Chrissie says in a bubbly, cute-cute
way.

“I think…it’s agreeable.”

Alan laughs and Mom beats back a smile.

I stand up. “Can I leave now?”

Mom nods. “We wanted to tell you first, but don’t
say anything to Krystal and the boys.”

“I won’t, Mom.”

I hurry into the house and close the door behind
me. I lean against the glass. It feels like my head is about to explode. I
don’t have the first clue how things got from where they were yesterday to what
just went down on the patio.

My cell vibrates in my pocket, and I pull it out,
swipe it open, and grimace. The driveway. I forgot.

After shaking my body to rid myself of the last
few minutes—
Chrissie and Alan are freaking getting married
—I hurry
toward the front door.

I step out outside, and halt mid-step.

My breath catches in my throat.

Oh God.

“Bobby.”

I run and fling myself into his arms. In a flash,
I’m surrounded by him, flattened against the car, and he’s kissing me across my
face, my cheeks, and my lips. I don’t know why he’s back early, but I am so
glad that he is. All I can feel inside me is him, blocking out every
nightmarish minute since he left for Tahoe five days ago, and I can’t get close
enough to him. It would be so nice to forget everything in my life but him.

Bobby breaks off.

We’re both breathing heavily.

“God, I missed you,” he says, leaning his
forehead against mine.

I feel dizzy and euphoric.

“What are you doing back early? I thought you
were staying on the slopes until the end of next week.”

His arms are quivering. “Tahoe was no fun without
you, Kaley. It was nothing without you.”

My eyes widen and I study his face. As sweet as
that is, nope, not buying it Bobby Rowan. Suspicion nips at my gut.

“Zoe told you everything, didn’t she?”

Those green eyes meet mine directly. “Yep, she
did. Yesterday afternoon, everything you should have told me yourself, and I
drove all night to get back here.”

My face burns red.

Damn it, Zoe. So not cool.

I exhale.

“What did Zoe tell you?”

He shakes his head. “She told me enough.” He runs
a hand through his hair, then leans in and gives me a featherlight kiss. “That
you needed me here and I’m here. And that should you tell
you
a few
things, Kaley.”

I curl into his chest and his arms tighten around
me. Crap, the tears give way and I don’t want to cry in front of him, but it’s
been an emotional week, I still haven’t gotten my head around Chrissie’s
bombshell of the morning, and the relief that Bobby is back is too overwhelming
to contain.

He strokes my arms gently, painting light kisses
across my curls. “Shush, Kaley. Whatever it is, it’s going to be all right.
Let’s go somewhere we can be alone. Can you sneak away for a while?”

I nod, not caring that I’m grounded, but then
Chrissie will probably not remember, her attention definitely totally claimed
by Alan at present.

With his thumbs, Bobby brushes the tears from my
cheeks. “Baby, why are you crying? Those don’t look like happy tears and I
thought surprising you today would make you happy.”

“It does make me happy.”

His brow crinkles quizzically. “Then what’s going
on?”

I lift my gaze. “My mom is marrying Alan on
Sunday.”

Bobby’s eyes goes wide with surprise and
comprehension. “Are you OK?”

I shrug. “Why shouldn’t I be? It only took them
eighteen years, but I’ll be like one of the few people I know whose parents are
freaking married. Pretty groovy, huh?”

He pulls me back against him. “It will be all
right. We’ve got each other. Don’t wall me out because I want to be here for
you. And it doesn’t matter what happens in your parents’ lives. It doesn’t
matter if they get married. What matters is us. We’re our future, Kaley. You
and me. I love you.”

* * *

One
week later

“I
now pronounce you man and wife,” Grandpa Jack says.

Bobby’s arm tightens around my shoulders as his
lips touch my hair. I stare at my mom, the breathtaking smile on her face, and
the way her eyes light up when she looks at Alan.

“Are you going to kiss the bride?” Grandpa Jack
asks, louder and amused.

“This better be legal,” Alan teases.