Blueprints: A Novel (41 page)

As lovely an image as her words produced, as sweetly as she was tucked into him, as truly connected as they seemed, Caroline ached inside. The rift Claire had caused over
Gut It!
had been bad. Jamie had sworn she was simply a pawn in that, but she had withheld information. This time, she was no pawn. This time, she had actively done something she had known would hurt.

Speechless, Caroline wrapped a hand around her own neck in an effort to get a grip.

“My son means the world to me,” Chip told her—and though she wanted to shoo him away and say this was between her and Jamie, it wasn’t. He was a key player. “I would do nothing,
nothing
to harm him. If I’d had any doubt that this marriage wasn’t right, I’d have waited. And this isn’t about my getting a live-in sitter. I love spending time with Buddy. It’s what my dad always did with me and what I always dreamed of doing myself. I always knew I wanted a wife, but there was too much at stake for me to risk it all with the wrong woman. I never even brought a woman home before Jamie. I love that she has a career and that my work hours conform to the kids’ schedule, so that I can be at home with our kids when she can’t. I love that she considers Tad hers and that I have two kids now, and I want as many more as she does. Getting married may be sudden, but I knew from the first time we talked that she was the one. If we’d gotten together in high school, I might have saved myself a lot of grief.”

“No,” Jamie responded as if they were alone, “it wouldn’t have worked back then. We weren’t ready. We were both one-dimensional and self-focused.”

“And you think marrying on a whim isn’t self-focused?” Caroline asked, immediately regretting the words and their tone, but lacking control.

Jamie eyed her sadly. “(A) we didn’t marry on a whim. Sudden doesn’t necessarily mean on a whim. We considered it from every angle. And (B) I’m not afraid of marriage. You are, and I understand why. You’re afraid of it not working. But Chip is not Dad.”

Caroline gave a self-deprecating huff. “I didn’t think Dad was Dad when I first married him either. That’s my point. It’s hard to know a person deep down in the best of circumstances.” She didn’t finish. Jamie was suddenly focused behind her.

Even before Caroline turned, she knew what she would see. There was Dean. Trotting down the steps. Striding down the walk. “Hey,” he said to the gathering in general with a nonchalance totally at odds with the situation.

Jamie’s startled eyes flew to hers.

Caroline might have denied it if he had been wearing a shirt and boots, but coming from the house rather than the garage, in jeans, a coffee mug, and little else, was incriminating. But—
whoa
—cause for shame, given what
Jamie
had just done? Absolutely not! “I’m fifty-six,” she told her daughter, “and I’m
not
getting married.”

“So she says,” Dean injected as he shifted the mug to his left hand and offered his right to Chip. “Dean Brannick, and I sense something intense. What did I miss?”

“They got married,” Caroline cried. “Eloped.” She folded her arms, trying to cushion herself from the hurt.

Dean had the audacity to put a comforting hand on her back. She would have stepped away, if that hand hadn’t made her feel less alone.

“You’re
sleeping
with Dean?” Jamie asked. She looked surprised, but far from scandalized.

Caroline gave a dismissive wave. “It’s very new.”

“How new? Like, last night? Saturday night?”

“Honey,” Chip cautioned, seeming to sense her point at the same instant Caroline did, but Jamie didn’t listen, which probably was a strike against enthrallment.

“You didn’t tell me, Mom. You could have, but you didn’t.” Her eyes went wide, dawning. “Last
Thursday
. I was driving here to tell you I’d broken my engagement, and it was early enough so that there weren’t many cars on the road, only a few work trucks. And. A. Harley. He was heading out after spending the night, wasn’t he?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It sure does,” Dean argued. “Wednesday night was the beginning of the rest of my life.”

“
Dean,
” Caroline cried in exasperation.

“There you go, Mom,” Jamie declared. “You’ve been sleeping with Dean longer than I have with Chip, and you didn’t tell me.”

“‘Sleeping with’ is not the same as ‘married to.’”

“If you and I are best friends, it is. But you said nothing. Omigod,” she cried, clearly seeing even more, “we talked about sex. About whether it’s important. You acted like you had no idea. You said you weren’t the best one to ask, which was a total
crock
—”

“No, I
had
no idea
—
”

“It was the perfect opening, but you said nothing. Why is it okay for you to withhold vital information but not for me to do it?”

Caroline was upset enough to mimic her daughter. “(A) I’m your mother, and (B) I’m old enough not to have to report in.”

“
So am I,
” Jamie argued. “I’m older than you were when you married Dad. Did you ask your mother’s permission before you accepted Dad’s ring?”

“No—”

“And you were married within weeks.”

“I was pregnant. You’re not.” She had a sudden, awful thought.

“No,” Jamie confirmed, having one right answer, at least, “but Chip would have treated it like his if I was, which is only one of the reasons I love him. Look at his family. Look what he does for a living. He has the biggest heart in the world—but even if that weren’t so, you need to respect my choice, because I’m an adult and now a parent and this is
my life
. Marrying Chip is probably the very first thing I’ve ever,
ever
done without consulting you, but he and I knew that what we had was real, and we wanted to act on it. Yes, it was fast, and people will talk, but we don’t care.” Her brow furrowed, eyes suddenly reflective. “So … so maybe Dad’s death did have something to do with this. He died too early. Maybe the message is that if we put off the things we want, we may die before we get them.”

“That’s a recipe for disaster.”

“My marriage is not a disaster.”

You could always get it annulled,
Caroline thought and might have said if not for Dean.

“Caroline,” he warned, a single low word.

But Jamie seemed to have heard, too, because she was suddenly emotional. “Mom,
listen
to me. In other circumstances, we’d have wanted our families there. But this—here, right now,” she wagged a finger between them, “is exactly why we didn’t. Yesterday was beautiful. It was meaningful and intimate. Other than being with our families, I wouldn’t have changed a thing.” Her eyes grew moist. “Be happy for me, Mom.”

Caroline had always wanted that, and she did hear shreds of common sense in the arguments, but it was overshadowed by a sense of loss. “I wish I could be,” she whispered. “This is just so not what I expected from you.”

“Nor is this,” Jamie said with a look at Dean, “but it’s okay, Mom, because it’s clearly what you want, which is the lesson you always taught me. You know, if we’re talking about who’s the most honest, you or me, it’s kind of a draw.”

Still Caroline fought. At some level, she knew she shouldn’t, knew that she didn’t fully understand her own reaction, but Jamie’s actions hit at the heart and soul of the stability she had always tried to provide. “What about Brad? What about everyone at work? Marrying this fast after breaking up with him, you’ll be called a cheater. Do you care?”

“Yes, I care. I’ve always cared about MacAfee Homes, but this is my life, and it’s right, and they’ll just have to accept that. If they want to think the worst, I can weather it, because I’ll be with the man I love and our kids, and, by the way, that man will be covering for me at home while I work up designs for the Weymouth land, so you owe him for that, and as for Brad, he’s outta here. He texted me last night—
after
I got married—to say he’s accepting the position he wanted in Minneapolis. So who cheated? He was looking to change jobs and leave town while we were still engaged. I wasn’t looking for anything, and broke my engagement the minute I realized I
wanted
to look. I’ll talk with Brad this morning. But he’s giving his notice today, so Theo has to be told.”

Caroline held up both hands, palms out. “You’re on your own there.”

“I need to work on the plans.”

“Sorry.”

“You said you’d handle Theo.”

“That was before this. I’m not
touching
this.”

twenty-four

Normally, Caroline would cling to the sight of Jamie’s car until it rounded the curve, but not today. For one thing, it wasn’t Jamie’s car, for another, she was furious with Dean, and for a third, her cell was ringing in the front hall. Entering the house, she snatched it up. She knew who was calling even before she glanced at the screen. She had seen the
Globe
piece herself first thing and had actually thought it quite good, but the
Gut It!
EP would not.

Phone in hand, she strode barefoot deep into the parlor and looked at her mother’s Victorian lace as she clicked into the call. Even with the reassurance of the lace, she was feeling ornery enough to dispense with pleasantries. “Yes, Claire.”

“What possessed you to do that interview?”

She imagined that the Victorian lace had just stiffened, like her spine. “I got a call from the reporter and thought the publicity would be good.”

The screen door slapped a second time. Dean. Turning her back on him, she went deeper into the parlor until she came up against the hand-hewn walnut of the dining table.

“You couldn’t have called me?” Claire asked.

“Why would I do that? The reporter wanted to talk about Roy’s death and MacAfee Homes.”

“And
Gut It!
”

“Oh, Claire. That wasn’t the purpose of the interview.”

“Of course, it was.
Gut It!
put MacAfee Homes on the map.”

The show had certainly given the company good exposure, but a little perspective was in order.
Gut It!
wasn’t the be-all and end-all of life. Hosting it had boosted Caroline’s self-esteem, certainly in her post-Roy years. But she could live without it. She saw that now—actually
felt
it, perhaps for the first time since the threat of losing it had arisen. Moreover, MacAfee Homes had been in existence long before
Gut It!
and would definitely outlive it.

Feeling remarkably calm, Caroline said, “The
Globe
covers local businesses. That was the context of the interview. This was about business, not entertainment.”

“Jamie should have done it.”

“Actually, I called Jamie. I felt that since Roy was her father, she might want to comment on his death. She was busy”—and didn’t
that
suddenly take on new meaning—“so she opted out, and since I’m more into MacAfee Homes management right now than she is”—which actually felt quite good to say—“it made sense for me to do it. The reporter was on a tight schedule.”

“‘Tight schedule’” Claire scoffed, in rare form for so early in the day, “means either ‘I screwed up and forgot about this assignment,’ or ‘I need to do this interview now to be free later for a more important one.’ Reporters can be handled, Caroline. We have professionals who know how to do it, which is another reason why you should have called me. That interview was a golden opportunity, and now it’s lost. A
Globe
piece would have been the perfect vehicle to start shifting the show’s leadership—”

While she ranted on, Caroline held the phone away from her ear and stared at Dean, who, incredibly, was finishing getting dressed in the clothes he had deliberately chosen to leave on the newel post on his way down the stairs earlier.

“—and you didn’t even mention Jamie’s name,” Claire concluded.

“Oh, I mentioned it. I mentioned it plenty. The reporter chose not to print it.”

“You made it sound like
Gut It!
was all about you.”

“No, Claire. I am simply the MacAfee Homes spokesperson, which is clearly what’s pissing you off.”

“You didn’t
mention
the station, but the station is crucial here.”

“Not for this interview,” Caroline insisted with renewed defiance, “and, in fact, maybe not at all. If not your station, another station”—which Dean had suggested and subsequently vetoed, though his judgment was
lousy
—“but you know something, Claire? I have more important things to deal with right now. I’ll have to talk with you another time.” She pressed
END,
tossed the phone onto the table, and swung her irritation on Dean.

He was beaming at her. “Well,
that
was impressive,” he crowed. “Good for you!”

“Flattery won’t work,” she declared, further annoyed by the tingle she felt seeing him there with his belt hanging loose. A week before, she would have been mortified if his jeans had been unsnapped, but she knew now what was under his clothes—or
someone
did, though she still wasn’t sure who that woman was, especially when he irked
this
woman so. “And there you were, barely dressed, trotting down the front walk bold as brass. Why did you do that? It was
my
place to tell Jamie about us, at
my
time, in
my
way.”

He tucked a black tee into his jeans. “Given how you were dragging your heels, I’d have been dead before you got to it.” He zipped his fly.

“Dean. It’s been
five days.
”

He grinned, unrepentant as he sank down on the ottoman to put on his boots. “Counting, are you?”

“Did you have any inkling what Jamie was telling me?”

The grin faded. He paused and braced an elbow on his knee. “Actually, I did. Since you don’t have AC, your windows were wide open. I heard what was happening and heard it heading nowhere good, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt if I came down.”

“Looking like you just rolled out of my bed.”

“Which I had.”