Broken Angels (21 page)

With renewed urgency, she swung the door open before the anxious beagle woke the whole household.

There was something extremely precious about being the first one to awaken. To be able to sip her coffee silently while the haze of slumber still hovered over the house. To have the luxury of admiring the sun’s gentle climb over the horizon while it softly chased away the darkness with an invisible paintbrush and made everything it touched glow.

When Rebecca stepped onto the porch, she expected to hear nothing but the hungry cries of the ospreys, the clamor of the surf, so it was a jolt to her system when the trill of children’s laughter pierced the bright morning. For a second she wondered if the kids had crawled out of bed without her noticing. Then she realized the children in question—a boy and a girl roughly the same ages as Noah and Kristen—were strangers. They hovered on the edge of the water, trying to outrun the waves.

“Jason! Amy!” a woman called from the neighboring porch. “I told you it’s too early to go swimming. The water’s freezing.”

Rebecca inclined her head toward the house next door. The friendly looking blonde met her gaze and smiled. There was something familiar about her, but she couldn’t quite place her.

“Good morning,” the neighbor greeted, her pale green eyes twinkling.

“Good morning.” Rebecca returned her smile.

“I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here.” The woman secured a short curl behind her ear. “Are you renting the Rylers’ place?”

“Not exactly. I’m Rebecca James, the kids’ aunt. Well, guardian actually.”

Understanding made the neighbor’s mouth pucker in a silent
oh
. Rebecca realized she must know about the tragedy that had befallen Liam and Lindsay. Then it came to her, where she’d seen her before. “You were at the funeral.”

She nodded. “Liam and Patrick—my husband—were practically brothers. They studied at Harvard together. I’m Tess, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you.”

Another musical laugh rose from the beach. “Jason! Amy!” their mother yelled again. “Stay out of Daddy’s boat.” The children ignored her, hopping into the small craft that was attached to a buoy near the shore. Bolt, too skittish to follow them, began to bark up a storm.

Tess groaned. “I swear all I am is background noise to them. They have absolutely no trouble tuning me out.”

Rebecca bit back a grin. She wondered how long it would take before she became background noise.

“Are the kids with you?” Tess asked.

“Yes, they’re inside sleeping.”

“Wonderful. Jason and Amy will be pleased to hear that. They always have a great time together. When Pat suggested we spend a couple of weeks at the Cape, I wasn’t exactly sold on the idea. My husband loves to go fishing,” she explained. “With the old dinghy, he wouldn’t go too far. Since he bought the speedboat, he can be gone all day.” The neighbor didn’t attempt to hide her frustration.

“To be honest, I’m not much of a nature enthusiast myself,” she confessed. “I’m a city girl through and through. But now that you guys are here, I’m glad we came.”

Rebecca, too, was happy the kids would have some company. Perhaps this was exactly the distraction they needed. Jason and Amy seemed every bit as spirited as Noah and Kristen. They ran circles around the puppy, trying to catch him. Bolt wagged his tail and barked each time he gave them the slip.

“They’re going to drive your dog crazy,” Tess stated with a shake of her head.

“Don’t worry about it. He’s used to it. Will is always trying to ride him.”

The woman laughed wholeheartedly. “That explains why he’s a master at evasion.”

“He’s named after some super dog. Or, I should say, a dog that thinks he’s a super dog.”

“Not
Bolt
?”

“You’ve heard of him?”

Tess rolled her eyes. “My kids watch nothing else. They think it’s the greatest thing since
SpongeBob
.”

A loud splash cut the conversation short. Amy emerged from beneath the waves, giggling, her clothing drenched. Tess sprinted across the beach to gather her daughter. Rebecca couldn’t help but wonder if that level of speed came naturally as soon as a woman gave birth or if it was an acquired skill. If the latter were true, she’d be able to outrun Zach in no time.

“See you later,” Tess called as she hauled both her kids into the house to change and feed them.

Rebecca tossed a wave her way, then leaned over the porch railing. The morning was cool, but sunny enough to promise some heat in the afternoon. Cotton clouds wafted softly overhead, across a sky so blue it looked like a painting. Sparkling waves lapped across the pebbled sand, bubbling at the tips. Nature painted a beautiful canvas, perfect and peaceful.

Then the house came alive. Will’s cry tumbled out the open window, overriding the screech of gulls and ospreys.

“Shut up,” Noah and Kristen screamed simultaneously.

From the living room, Zach cursed.

Rebecca swallowed a mouthful of salty air and reluctantly crawled back into the house. It was time to start practicing her sprint.

Zach wasn’t sure he was happy to have company. It was nice to see the kids having fun, but he wasn’t feeling particularly sociable lately. Still, the neighbors kept his mind off Becca, so in a way it was a good thing. As long as Patrick Jenkins—Liam’s old college buddy and assistant district attorney, kept chatting up a storm—Zach wouldn’t be as inclined to notice the way Becca’s smile made her whole face glow. He wouldn’t dwell on the appealing way her swimsuit clung to her soft curves, especially when it was wet. He wouldn’t pay much heed to the smattering of freckles across her nose, which only grew more pronounced as her tan deepened.

Not with Patrick here beside him, droning on about his latest case as he flipped burgers on the grill. “The defendant insisted his girlfriend was his alibi, but one of my sources told me she was seen at some club with another guy that night. Blew the defense’s case right out of the water,” he stated proudly.

Zach plastered on a grin and nodded in approval because he figured that was what Patrick expected of him. It seemed to have the desired effect. Smiling like a frog that had just nabbed a juicy fly, the ADA performed another one of his fancy wrist flips and dropped a patty onto a bun, which he handed to Zach.

“Only fair that you should have first dibs,” he said.

“Since you have to endure Pat’s stories,” his wife finished, placing a large salad bowl on the teak garden table.

“Hey, people would pay good money to hear my stories. I should write a book.”

Tess released a chest-heaving sigh. “Here we go again.”

At Zach’s legs, Bolt sat drooling, his brown eyes two large saucers riveted on the meat patty. When Pat wasn’t looking, Zach tossed the dog a bite. Bolt licked his chops, then whimpered, begging for more.

“Time for lunch, kids,” Tess called.

A symphony of protests echoed from the beach, where all five children splashed under Becca’s supervision.

It took some effort, but eventually they succeeded in rounding everyone up and getting some food into them. Zach wondered who polished off the majority of the burgers, the kids or the dog.

One minute, Kristen’s plate was full. The next, there was nothing on it but crumbs. “Look,” she said, “I finished my booger.”

Everyone exploded with laughter. All except for Will, who was too busy shoving chunks of bread up his nose.

“It’s
burger
,” Noah snorted.

Kristen’s brows bunched into a frown. “That’s what I said.”

“No, it’s not. You said booger.”

“I said burger.”

“Booger.”

“Burger.”

“All right, kids,” Becca interjected before things got out of hand. “Why don’t you go play on the swings while we finish up?”

With a teeth-jarring victory cry, the four of them scattered, nearly tipping over their chairs as they made a beeline for the Jenkinses’ swing set. It didn’t take long for Noah and Kristen to start arguing again, this time over who would go first. The others rushed to join in. Zach muffled an oath.

Tess moaned. “Where do they get their energy?”

“From my burgers,” Pat gloated.

“What they ate of them,” she clarified. “I don’t think anyone enjoyed your burgers more than
superdog
over there.” She angled her head toward Bolt, who lay sprawled at Becca’s feet, too full even to wag his tail.

Pat feigned indignation. “That beagle knows a good thing when he smells it.”

A soft smile hung around the edges of Becca’s mouth as she listened to the exchange. She was a vision, all tanned skin and wild hair streaked with gold. Zach’s gut gave a swift kick. He could sit here for hours and just watch her.

She sensed his stare and turned his way. His heart dropped into his stomach as a slow languid heat reached through him. He’d forgotten how wonderful it was to be held captive by Becca’s cinnamon-flecked eyes.

“So how have you two been handling things?” Pat’s question jarred him back to reality. For a second he’d almost forgotten the neighbors were there.

“It’s been a challenge,” Becca answered. “The kids still haven’t come to terms with what happened to their parents. Noah especially. It breaks my heart to see them suffering like this.”

The peace was shattered like glass on stone. Heaviness settled over them.

“They’ll be all right,” Zach added. “They’re tough, all three of them.”

The Jenkinses didn’t look convinced.

“I can’t believe the bastard who shot them got away.” Pat’s jaw clenched. “If I had him in my courtroom, I’d make sure he got thirty to life. Too bad the State of Massachusetts doesn’t believe in the death penalty.”

“That wouldn’t bring Liam and Lindsay back,” his wife uttered.

“Maybe, but it would make me feel a hell of a lot better. Liam was the closest thing to a brother I had.” A shadow passed behind his eyes. “I kept meaning to call him,” he confessed. “Ask him to go out for a couple of beers or something. But I just didn’t get around to it. Never thought I’d run out of time. We think we got all the days in the world, you know?”

Zach caught the pained look on Becca’s face and knew she understood, better than anyone.

“What’s done is done,” Zach pitched in. “Lindsay and Liam were aware of how people felt about them. They valued their friends and family and knew how much their friends and family valued them. Not everyone is as lucky.”

“Their luck ran out in the end, though, didn’t it?” Pat slumped in his chair, looking suddenly drained. “Now those kids are stuck paying the price.”

After lunch Rebecca offered to help Tess with the dishes. It only seemed appropriate, seeing as she and her husband had gone through the trouble of feeding them. Pat and Zach took over babysitting duty, and the women retreated inside the house. Pat and Tess’s summer home was similar to Zach’s, with the exception of a more flamboyant décor—from the pastel palette they obviously favored to the floral-print overstuffed couches and chairs. Colorful throws added even more color, as did the Oriental rug in the living room.

Figurines of all shapes and sizes lined the bookcase facing the stone hearth.

“They’re Pat’s,” Tess explained, noticing where Rebecca’s gaze had fallen. “He’s had them since he was a kid.”

“They’re pretty,” she said, although she couldn’t understand why a boy—or a grown man for that matter—would collect porcelain figures.

“They were his mother’s,” Tess said in response to Rebecca’s unvoiced query. “She gave them to him right before she took off. Pat was twelve at the time. It’s all he’d got left of her.”

Suddenly, she understood. She knew exactly how it felt to be a child left behind. She understood the isolation, the desperation to fit in, the yearning to hold on to anything that made you feel connected to something greater than yourself. For her, that had been Zach and his family and the children she wasn’t able to have. For Pat, it was these figurines.

“How long have you owned this place?” she asked Tess as they proceeded to the kitchen.

“Only two years. Liam let us know as soon as it was put on the market. Pat wasted no time picking it up.”

“You said Liam and Pat met at Harvard?”

“Yes, they were roommates.”

“It’s funny that our paths never crossed before now. Lindsay and I grew up together. I was married to Zach for eight years.”

“Pat took a job in New York right after he graduated. We only moved back to Boston three years ago.”

That explained it. During the last year of her marriage, Rebecca had lived in a bubble. She’d shied away from all family events or public gatherings, too lost in her disappointment and grief to find joy in anything. Happiness had become painful to watch.

“The first thing Pat did when he got here was reconnect with Liam,” Tess continued. “They never lost touch.”

She wished she could claim the same with Lindsay. Losing touch with her best friend was one of her greatest regrets.

They both unloaded the plates they held, and Tess hurried to fill the sink with suds. “Did I tell you Amy has taken a fancy to helping me with the dishes?”

Rebecca shook her head, dropped a handful of dirty utensils into the sink.

“The other day she left the faucet on. There were bubbles everywhere, counters, floor, even inside the toaster. I nearly blew a fuse. The kids thought it was Christmas in July, rolling around in the suds like it was a pile of snow.”

A whisper of a smile yanked at Rebecca’s lips. There was a time when she would have found some excuse to escape. Anything so as not to have to listen to Tess drone on about her kids with that note of possessiveness in her voice, that soft sigh of affection that somehow scraped away at the annoyance. She was pleased when the need to run didn’t assail her, thrilled that she found it in her to be amused.

For the first time in a long while, she thought,
I’m going to be all right
. What shocked her was that she actually believed it.

Between the two of them, they finished washing and drying the dishes in no time at all.

Rebecca busied herself putting the utensils away while Tess focused on the leftovers. She heard a clunk, turned to find Tess cursing while dabbing at her pink T-shirt with a napkin.