Lover's Lane (23 page)

31

THIRTY MINUTES AFTER STEPPING OFF HIS GRANDFATHER’S sixty-foot Hatteras Sportfisher, Jake was sitting in his mother’s kitchen surrounded by the scent of home and childhood memories.

The air in the room was close and warm, as were the intense feelings that filled him whenever he walked in the back door.

This house had been home to him until he’d married Marla. Like many Long Beach natives, he’d gone to Cal State Long Beach right out of high school, worked part time, and commuted from home. It was a simple house, with three bedrooms and a den in the quiet, historically designated California Heights area with streets lined with magnolia and jacaranda trees.

This was what he’d wanted before he’d married Marla. A house on a quiet street, three kids. A dog. A car without payments. But he’d wanted his own firm, too. Wanted more than to work in a cubicle at A and P or be their errand boy. He wanted to build his own client list, set his own hours, turn down the more mundane cases, and take on the challenging ones.

But what he’d wanted hadn’t meshed with what Marla wanted. Once they were married, she’d started needing other men, and unfortunately, he hadn’t been willing to look the other way.

He watched his mother bend over the open oven with a red-and-white checkerboard oven mitt on each hand as she reached for a golden-brown loaf of banana bread.

In her mid-sixties, Sheila Olson was still trim, though she’d be the first to admit she had to work hard to stay that way. She played golf two days a week, walked a mile and a half every morning, and still found time to watch Julie’s terrible trio.

Her family was and always had been both her passion and her inspiration.

She had been widowed the first time at twenty-four, but even then she had the courage to stand up to Jackson Montgomery when Granddad, overflowing with grief of his own and embittered by sorrow, blamed and deluged her with “I-told-you-so” and “What-else-did-you-expect?”

She stood her ground when Jackson insisted that he knew what was better for young Jake than she. He even swore not to let her ruin his grandson’s life the way she had his son’s, but as stubborn as she was gentle and loving, Sheila had easily won using love, something Jackson never understood.

Sheila turned the loaf pan upside down over a wire rack and the bread came out clean. She flipped the loaf right side up and walked over to sit beside Jake at the oak breakfast nook Manny had painstakingly built her.

“This will be cool enough to cut in a few minutes. I think you should take it to Kat, fatten that girl up a bit.” She took a deep breath and finally asked, “How’d it go this morning? Did you have any trouble?”

“No trouble at all.”

The ocean was blessedly calm that morning, the slight offshore breeze glassed the waters between Long Beach and Catalina. A pod of dolphins had escorted him, a fitting tribute to his grandfather, who had loved cruising open water more than anything or anyone.

“I would have come with you, you know.” She watched him closely, perhaps worried that he might be taking his grandfather’s death harder than he let show.

“I know how seasick you get, Mom.”

She shrugged. “Still, I would have come.”

She would do anything for him. Anything at all. As a kid he’d taken her love for granted, assumed that was the way things were supposed to be. As an adult, he knew better. He knew how lucky he was to have her.

“I know, Mom. Thanks.”

Granddad had left specific instructions that Jake be the one to spread his ashes at sea between Long Beach and Catalina. Jake had taken the yacht out alone.

“Can you stay for lunch?” Sheila asked.

“Sorry. I’ve got to get back to the office. Kat picked up a client, a fraud case that needs a little more expertise than she has at running numbers at this point. What would take her a couple of days will only take me a few hours to untangle. I’ve got to go over the accounts they sent us, look for evidence of embezzlement.”

“Is everything else going all right? You’ve been away so much.”

“It runs just as smoothly without me. Kat’s great. Besides, I’ve needed some time off for a long time. All I want to do right now is convince Anna Saunders to meet with me. I’m going by to try to talk to her tonight, see if she won’t agree to settle this thing out of court, but I probably don’t stand a chance in hell. She thinks she had to keep this thing going because her husband, Charles, wanted it that way.”

“You could always make a scene outside her door.”

He laughed. “If I get arrested, I’ll call you.”

He’d told his mom why he’d gone to Twilight Cove and shared his excitement about renting the house. Last night over dinner, he’d described Carly and how the search for the mother of Rick’s child had led him to her. He’d talked about Christopher and of Anna Saunders’ determination to have her grandson.

Sheila could relate to Carly’s situation. “Don’t blame yourself for all this, Jake. From what you’ve said, Anna Saunders has had people searching for that child for years. Eventually she would have succeeded, don’t you think?”

He doubted it, but he didn’t bother to explain why.

“How does a woman my age think she’s going to cope with a six-year-old boy?”

Sheila shook her head and paired up the salt and pepper shakers, funny wooden figures in mushroom-shaped chef’s hats that he’d given her for Mother’s Day when he was around Christopher’s age. Their painted faces had worn off a long time ago but she still insisted on using them.

She sighed. “People waste so much time butting heads while life slips through their fingers. When I think of all the good times your grandfather could have shared with us if he’d hadn’t drawn a line in the sand. He could have joined us for the holidays, seen you graduate from high school and college. He didn’t have to miss your wedding.”

Jake had forgotten Jackson had refused to attend his and Marla’s wedding simply because Sheila would be there. Time tended to smooth away the rough edges of life the way water rounded river rock.

He tried to imagine his grandfather sitting at the crowded dining-room table with the rest of them, but couldn’t quite see Jackson joining hands as Manny gave the blessing or suffering through Julie’s kids’ antics. They loved to show off mouthfuls of mashed potatoes.

Not in a million years would Jackson Montgomery have ever fit in here.

Unfortunately, it was all too easy to see Chris and Carly surrounded by the circle of his family.

“You know, it’s funny.” He ran his fingers over the glossy oak table as the image of Manny using his sander in the garage workshop flashed through his mind. “This morning, out on the water with no one around, nothing but the sound of the gulls and the dolphin and the smell of salt air, I held the urn with Granddad’s ashes, and a kind of peace came over me, the kind I never experienced when the two of us were together. It was as if every argument we’d ever had didn’t matter anymore.”

He recalled watching the ashes drift on the water as he sprinkled them over the rail. The spreading stain widened, the ashes disappeared from sight. In that moment, he wondered if it wasn’t his inner peace he experienced, but that maybe Granddad had found his own contentment.

“I think maybe Granddad’s finally happy,” he told her.

“I hope so.” Sheila reached across the table for Jake’s hand. “I really do. Now what are we going to do about you now that you’ve found this woman? You’ve never said all that much about it over the years, but I know how it’s bothered you that you couldn’t find her for Rick.”

“Me? I’m fine.”

“Fine isn’t good enough. You’re falling in love, Jake. I hear it in your voice and see it plain as day on your face when you talk about Carly Nolan. I haven’t seen you like this for a long time. How do you feel about her boy?”

“He’s a great kid.”

“I know you’ve always wanted a family of your own and how devastated you were when you and Marla split up. Honey, just don’t let old wounds keep you from having what you really want.” She let go of his hand but continued to hold his eyes with the intensity of her gaze.

“When I lost your dad, I thought that I’d never love anyone that way again. I didn’t trust God anymore. He’d not only taken Jack from me but left you fatherless. What kind of a God could be so cruel? Then Manny came into my life, bringing Julie with him. Suddenly I had a loving husband and a daughter I’d never have known had your father lived.” She leaned closer, her voice full of emotion. “We never know what’s in store for us, Jake. We just have to make it through the storms and wait for rainbows to appear.”

He thought of Carly back in Twilight, of the storm she was weathering. The rainbows in her life had been few and far between.

But this time, he’d be damned if he let her go through the storm alone. He was going to be right there beside her whether she wanted him or not.

Jake rang the security buzzer outside Anna Saunders’ condo with little hope of her actually letting him in, but somehow she’d agreed to give him a few moments of her time.

Standing in the gilt and marble foyer with his hands casually shoved into his pockets, he told her, “Thanks for seeing me.”

She kept her distance, obviously nervous, as she stood beside a glass and wrought iron table, her softening profile reflected in the mirror on the wall beside her. She was a handsome woman with eyes very much like Rick’s. The gray in her hair was dyed blonde. She wore it short and stylishly.

It was clear she had no intention of inviting him in to sit down as she had the last time. Her posture was wooden, as if she were afraid to show any emotion, which made him wonder if she wasn’t as certain of herself as she wanted him to believe.

“I’m leaving for Twilight Cove soon, and I came to invite you to ride up there with me, to meet Carly and Christopher face-to-face. See for yourself how happy and well-adjusted he is. Get to know them. That’s what you really want, isn’t it? To be part of their lives?”

A light flared in her eyes, then quickly faded. “I want to see my grandson, but . . . I don’t care to meet that woman. She tricked my son into proposing. She knew what he was worth and knew the only way she could have him was by getting herself pregnant.”

Jake refused to believe it. “I saw Rick the day he died. He couldn’t hide his excitement, although he did mention you weren’t happy with his choice. He wanted to be a father to Christopher. He couldn’t wait to marry Carly.”

“All I care about is Christopher’s future happiness.”

“Whether you win or lose, you’ll ruin his life if you put him through this.”

“I don’t see how giving him all of the opportunities and the education he deserves will ruin his life. Do you? Someday he’ll inherit everything the Saunders family has built for over a hundred years. Do you think she can prepare him for that?”

“Do you think you can?”

She appeared uncertain.

Jake went on. “You can give him all that without taking him away from Carly. There are some things that money just can’t buy, Anna, and believe me, love is one of them. I know that much from experience.”

“Christopher is still very young. There is an infinite number of things he probably wants that his mother can’t dream of ever giving him,” she argued.

“My grandfather died last week. You know how he died? Alone. There was no memorial, no tribute from family, no one to shed a tear when I spread his ashes over the water, and I did it, not as a tribute to him, but out of obligation. I did it because my mother wanted me to grant his final request. Even though he’d treated her like shit for years, she expected me to do what she thought was right. Is that how you want to end up? An obligation? As the woman Christopher thinks of as someone who took him away from his mother?”

He glanced around the penthouse, made a point to let her watch him take it all in. “All the money you have, all these things, are cold comfort when you’re all alone, aren’t they?”

He was getting to her, though he hated that she was close to tears, but he was determined to do whatever it took to save Carly and Christopher the agony of a guardianship hearing.

“Come with me to Twilight Cove, Anna. I’ll pick you up on Saturday. If you don’t want to drive up with me, you can get a commuter flight. Go meet them.”

Her hand gripped the edge of the table beside her until her knuckles whitened. She closed her eyes as if she didn’t want to see her reflection in the mirror and whispered one of her husband’s favorite phrases, “When hell freezes over.”

32

TUESDAY AFTERNOON, CARLY DROVE INTO SAN LUIS OBISPO to meet with Tom Edwards in his law office downtown.

In his early forties, Edwards specialized in family law. She found the stocky, balding professional easy to talk to, although the worry of having to come up with money for his fee was never out of her mind.

Wearing a dark suit with a stark white, heavily starched shirt and yellow silk tie, he ushered her into his upscale office, offered her a seat, a low, black leather and chrome chair, and then sat down behind his desk. Formal photographs of a dark-haired woman and two children adorned the bookshelves behind him.

She handed him the papers she had been served and, careful not to leave anything out, related her story. She liked that he leaned back in his chair and gave her his complete attention.

When she finished, he straightened. “From everything you’ve told me, Ms. Nolan, I don’t believe we have much to worry about. As long as D.P.S.S., the Department of Public Social Services, interviews don’t turn up anything that would go against you, and the psych evaluations turn out fine, your son will be staying right where he belongs.”

She mentally went back over the argument she’d had with Jake, and all the questions he’d put to her.

“What if they claim I lied to Rick? That he didn’t know who I was? I did explain everything after he proposed and he . . . he still wanted to marry me anyway.”

“That was the day of his accident?”

“No. I told him the day he proposed. Then he drove back to Long Beach to tell his parents about Christopher and our engagement. He died on the way back to us.”

Edwards looked down at his notes. “Do you know if he told his parents about your having assumed the name Caroline Graham?”

“I . . . I have to assume that he didn’t, or they would have found me as soon as I applied for a Social Security card or a driver’s license. Even Jake Montgomery was searching for me under Caroline’s name. So were the investigators the Saunders initially hired. So, no, I don’t believe Rick told them.”

The memory of the accident was still raw as the day it happened, and she realized it always would be, no matter how much time passed.

She shifted in the chair, straightened her skirt, pressed her feet together. “I wasn’t exactly the kind of woman they would have wanted Rick to marry. In fact, that’s why he went home to break the news to them alone.”

Throughout the interview, Edwards’ expression showed no emotion, which gave her confidence. A good poker face was probably an asset in a lawyer.

“So, we’ve no way to prove that you ever told Rick Saunders the truth, only your word. Weighed against positive statements we’ll have regarding your ability to care for Christopher, the impact of your having assumed another name shouldn’t be that great. You were still a minor then.”

“But it
could
matter?”

“Of course. Anything can happen in a courtroom.”

She knew that without him having to put it into words.

He glanced down at the papers she’d given him.

“I’ll call Mrs. Saunders’ lawyer to let him know I’m representing you.”

Her stomach churned. She hadn’t been able to eat anything at breakfast, and now she felt lightheaded. She had arranged for Tracy to pick up Christopher after school, and still had to go by the Potter’s to get him.

Edwards rested his forearms on the desk and smiled. “Would you like my secretary to bring you some coffee?”

Coffee was the last thing she needed on an empty stomach. She shook her head and gathered up her purse to leave.

“No, thank you. What I’d really like is for you to tell me that I have nothing to worry about and that this is an open-and-shut case. I need to know that Anna Saunders will never, ever be able to take Christopher from me.”

He came around the desk to help her stand.

“I’d do that if I could, Ms. Nolan. But unfortunately, as I said before, anything can happen.”

By the time she picked up Chris from the Potters’ and got home, Carly was mentally drained but physically wired.

Chris sat at the table to do his homework and went into his room to play. Carly walked into her studio. The turmoil of the past few days had sapped all the enjoyment from her painting. It was usually a welcome outlet for all her pent-up heartache and desire.

As she stood in the cool addition with its partial view of the hills, she was plagued with doubt. Had she done the right thing in telling Christopher about Anna Saunders? He’d been full of questions ever since, bugging her with requests to call or write to Anna and invite her to visit.

She’d never lied to him and never would, yet she longed to protect him from what was happening. She couldn’t bear to have him as confused and terrified as she. Most hours of the day she walked around feeling as if her very life hung in the balance of the outcome—for Christopher was her life.

With a sigh, she stood back and studied the painting she’d begun for Jake earlier in the month—Twilight Cove at sunset. Still in its early stages, the ghostly characters that were her trademark had yet to materialize.

The painting had completely stalled, perhaps because whenever she picked up a brush to work on it, she thought of Jake.

I miss Jake.

Chris had waged a one-man campaign, asking about Jake more than he asked about Anna Saunders. She missed him, too, and had given up being so stupid as not to admit to herself how much she ached for him.

In the short time they’d been together, she’d come to believe it was going to be possible to let someone else inside her circle of two. She’d glimpsed what it would be like to be loved,
if
indeed he did love her at all. How could she believe him now, no matter how badly her heart wanted her to?

“If you need anything, Carly, if you need anything at all,
call me.”

She’d been tempted to call more than once, until she remembered that he couldn’t give her what she really needed.

She wanted things back the way they were the night they made love. She wanted her innocence back. She wished she had never found out about him and why he’d really come to Twilight.

How quickly he’d become part of their lives. How easily he’d slipped into her heart, into her thoughts. He’d brought her back to life.

She wanted so badly to believe that he meant what he’d said, to believe that he truly did care about her and Chris, but by not admitting his connection to the Saunders, he’d betrayed her.

A small voice inside wouldn’t let her forget that she’d lived a lie, too, convinced that was the only way to survive.

Closing her eyes, she shut out the painting and wrapped her arms protectively around herself before she scrutinized the canvas again. She studied the deserted bluff, the fountain with its slow, sparkling cascade of water, the younger version of the fig tree off to one side of the grassy area that was now the park.

She experienced the stillness of the wind at sunset, the hour when the water was often calm and glassy and mirrored the sunset sky.

Gradually, as she stared into the shadows and highlights of the oils, she almost felt the warmth of the sun on her face and caught the scent and tang of the salt spray hitting the rocks in the cove.

She listened to her heart as it whispered that this was not meant to be Jake’s painting after all. Her palms began to itch as inspiration flooded her and she knew exactly what she wanted to do. She picked up a tube of black paint, opened it and then a few more tubes.

Quickly she began to squeeze colors onto her palette. Choosing a brush, she warned herself to slow down, but she didn’t want to waste the few hours she had left before she was due at the diner.

There was just enough time to try to channel the creative energy pulsing through her.

On Saturday Jake stopped in San Luis Obispo with one final errand to run before he drove into Twilight. Once he’d gotten off the highway, he’d dialed Carly again, but got no answer and found himself automatically dialing Alexander and Perry. It wasn’t his first try, but this time the receptionist put him through to Sam Godes.

“Godes.”

“It’s Jake Montgomery.”

There was a telling silence on the other end of the line.

“Thanks for nothing,” Jake said.

“Hey, look, I’m just doing my job here.”

“How’d you do it?”

“What’da ya mean?”

“Who was on me?”

“A female agent. She’s new but she’s good. African American.”

Sam went on but Jake only half listened. He knew exactly who’d been following him. Hell, he’d held the door for her, the well-dressed woman with Nordstrom packages and a baby carrier. Probably hadn’t even had a real baby in it. She’d even passed him a time or two on the open highway. He’d seen her, hadn’t thought a thing of it when he turned off at Avila and she kept going, but she must have quickly doubled back, followed him to the park. It would have been easy to take photos of him and Chris and Carly with a telephoto lense.

He’d been watching for Godes. Not another investigator.

Shit.

“Hey, for what it’s worth, Jake, I didn’t think it would work, but your radar must have been scrambled.”

A lot had been scrambled lately, Jake thought. With his mind on Carly, he’d made it easy for Godes and the woman to double-team him.

“If she’s looking for another job, have her call me,” Jake told him.

“What about me?”

Jake hung up. He hoped he hadn’t pushed Anna so hard yesterday that she’d be more vengeful than ever, but there was no telling. He’d given up on trying to guess what people were going to do a long time ago. So few ever did the right thing. Most people he’d run across, like Godes, looked out for number one.

“Watch it, Montgomery,” he told himself as he got out of the car, “or you’ll end up as hard-hearted as Kat.”

Two hours later, Carly put down the palette and cleaned her brushes, occasionally glancing over at the painting, certain now that it was right, perhaps not exactly the way she had wanted it to be, but the figures in her paintings were always inspired, as if they were in control. The final product would never be right until she listened to them.

It was time to think about getting Christopher fed and over to Etta’s, but as she started into the kitchen to make him a bowl of noodle soup and a toasted-cheese sandwich, the phone rang.

With the days getting longer and more tourists coming to town, the crowd at the diner was picking up. She expected it to be Selma asking her to hurry and come in early.

“Carly? It’s Jake.”

She recognized his voice the moment he’d said her name and the world stopped turning. Her heart jumped into her throat.

“Jake—”

“I’m in town and I’m coming over.”

“I have to work tonight.”

“I won’t stay long.”

“I really don’t think—”

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

Before she could protest, he hung up. She wrapped her hand around the receiver, stared at the burners on the stove while her heart raced.

Slowly she put down the phone, then opened the cupboard, took down a can of chicken-noodle soup, and tried to carry on as if her life hadn’t just spun completely out of control again.

Calm determination settled over Jake long before he’d pulled up in front of Carly’s mobile home. He sat there listening to the end of an old R and B classic as four mellow singers crooned, “Come on, girl. Reach out. Reach out for me.”

He gripped the steering wheel, cut the motor and pulled the key. Then he looked over his shoulder into the backseat where a homely, black-and-gray spotted dog lay with her muzzle on her paws. Her expressive brows shifted when she looked up at him with one brown and one blue eye.

The volunteer at the animal shelter wasn’t certain, but the vet later agreed that she had to be part Australian shepherd. The mixed-breed mutt was about three years old, calm and housebroken, which was why Jake chose her, despite unknown origins. Maybe her eyes didn’t match, and she was a bit on the scrawny side, but there was only one more day before she was going to be put down, and the dog seemed so desperate for love that he couldn’t leave her behind.

“This might just turn out to be the second stupidest thing I’ve ever done.” He’d been talking to the dog since he’d picked her up in San Luis Obispo earlier that afternoon.

The front door of the house opened before he was out of the car, and he was arrested by the sight of Carly in her jeans and midriff-skimming T-shirt. With her long hair and slim figure, she might have been mistaken for an eighteen-year-old, but he knew too well that she was all woman.

He ached to take her in his arms, but could see by the determined set of her lips and the way she was clinging to the edge of the screen, that was impossible.

“Stay here,” he told the dog before he opened the door and stepped out of the car with his insides twisted into a knot.

Carly came down the steps to meet him. Obviously she didn’t want him to set foot on the porch, but he didn’t let that deter him, not with his heart at stake.

“Joe called me,” he told her.

“Joe? Called
you
?”

Jake nodded. He couldn’t take his eyes off of hers and wished he hadn’t been the one to put the disillusionment in them.

“He said that you told him Christopher has been down in the dumps.”

“Chris is confused. Frightened. His grandmother is fighting me for guardianship, Jake. Chris realizes something’s going on.”

“What have you told him?”

“I’ve never lied to him and I won’t start now. I explained that Anna Saunders was his grandmother, but I didn’t tell him about how she’s trying to . . . take him away.”

“There’s always hope that she’ll change her mind.” Maybe slim to none, he wouldn’t even bet on it, but Carly needed to believe.

“It’s a little late, Jake. The petition hearing date is set.” She shifted impatiently. “This isn’t getting us anywhere.”

He reached for her hand, sensed her hesitation when she tried to pull away. He wouldn’t let go.

“Walk with me to the car.”

“Please—”

“Come on. I’ve got something to show you.” He’d already started for the SUV, thankful when she went along. He opened the back door. The dog sat up and began to sniff the air.