Tell Me When It Hurts (9 page)

Connor looked up. “Well, I’m not silent a lot and I won’t ask you any questions. I’m just real sorry. That must have been horrible. You must have had the mean reds bad for a long time then.”

Archer glanced up, holding a forkful of pasta. “
Breakfast at Tiffany’s,
” she said, smiling just a little. “Yeah, you could say I had the mean reds real bad for quite a while. And how do you know the film so well that you remember that bit of trivia—Holly calling her black moods the ‘mean reds,’ I mean?”

“
Well, for about twenty years the only way I escaped my work was by going to the movies. It was the only way I could stop my mind from racing, at least for a few hours. I became a real movie buff. I saw my favorites over and over—can quote whole passages of dialogue from them. Weird, huh?”

“
Not really,” Archer replied. “I did the same thing after Annie died. I’d go just so I wasn’t alone with my head—spent hours at the movies. “Sometimes I’d go in at two o’clock and go from theater to theater until they closed. And the ones I liked, I saw again and again, too. I guess there was some comfort in knowing what’s going to happen next.”

For a few minutes, they ate in comfortable silence.

“
Do you know how to use that thing?” Connor asked, nodding toward the Winchester propped behind the kitchen back door.

Archer’s eyes followed his gaze. “Yeah, I do. I took some self-defense after Annie died, and learned to shoot a bit.” No need to add that she was such a crack shot that when the Group had gotten an appeal for help and the client asked for the best man available, Gavin chuckled and replied that the best man was a woman. Archer had flown to Hong Kong and returned four days later, mission accomplished.

Archer looked down and quickly changed the subject. “So, do you have any children?”

Connor hesitated. For years he’d answered yes or no to this question, depending on the circumstances. No outnumbered yes by a huge margin, since a yes required a hell of a lot more explanation. “Yes, a daughter—Lauren. She’s . . . uh, nine, I guess. I’ve never met her.”

Archer looked up. “Come again?”

Connor swallowed a bite of pasta and took a sip of Merlot. “Just that: I’ve never met her.”

“
Okay, you’ve got to explain that.”

“
Oh, God. The whole dreary soap opera, or can we just do the synopsis here?”

“
I’ve always liked soap operas, myself,” Archer said, settling back into her chair, wineglass in hand, eyes wide.

“
Hah! Guess I asked for that one.” He sighed. She was watching him expectantly. “Okay, well, I guess that’s fair. So, here it comes. I already told you I ran different companies over the years. At one of them, GenTech in Chicago, I met a really great woman—Sarah. We dated on and off for a few years, but to tell you the truth, I never wanted the picket fence thing with anyone. I went to Harvard Business School so I could run the world, or a little part of it. I didn’t want a wife and brood of kids tying me down.”

He looked up from his plate to see Archer looking quizzically at him. He waved a hand. “I know, I know. It sounds selfish, even to me, but frankly, I
was
selfish. I was young and ambitious, knew where I wanted to go, and didn’t want any detours to my plan. My parents never had more than necessities. We ate out at a good restaurant maybe once a year, if that. I wanted to have money and success and a penthouse on Fifth Avenue by the time I was thirty-five, not a house in the burbs with a Volvo wagon in the driveway.”

“
Hmm, I thought that’s what Harvard guys were
supposed
to do: marry a smart but conventional girl and raise the next generation of exceptionally brilliant overachievers to start the whole thing over again.”

Connor grimaced. “Some do, but it sure as hell felt to me like it would be a death sentence. At least, that’s how I felt then. But anyway, Sarah got pregnant, and she knew I wasn’t cut out to be Ozzie Nelson. She did want that house and the picket fence, and the husband coming through the door at six every night, saying, ‘Honey, I’m home.’ Even if I’d been of a mind to get married, it wouldn’t have been to someone like Sarah.”

Archer interrupted. “And just what, pray tell, was so unmarriageable about poor Sarah?”

Connor sat back, and his smile bordered on sardonic. “Ah, well, here it is, since you asked. I’ve always been attracted to difficult, complex women who have lots of their own things going on and not much time or patience for me. You see, it creates great angst and makes my ultimate failure preordained, so I never have to deal with a real relationship. It works for me.”

Archer was watching him, head tilted, an amused look in her eyes. “Go on. I’m still waiting to hear how you screwed this up so badly that you’ve never met your own daughter.”

“
Yeah, that’s coming. Well, we agreed I would help Sarah financially, and I did. When I moved to New York, she stayed in Chicago. Next thing I knew, I got a little card and photo in the mail of Lauren—that’s my daughter. Born in Chicago on October 1, 1992. I still have that picture.” Connor pulled out his wallet and dug out a tattered photo of a baby in pink, peeking out of a frilly bonnet. He handed it to Archer.

“
She’s adorable,” said Archer, reaching for her glasses again. “Do you write to her or anything? Any more recent photos?”

“
You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Connor said with a shake of his head. “About a year after Lauren was born, Sarah got married and wanted her new husband to adopt Lauren. There was a lot of legal stuff, and I didn’t like the idea. Sarah was gentle about the whole thing but pretty firm. She felt the adoption would be the best thing for Lauren.

“
I couldn’t deny her that. Even I knew I was just being selfish on that one. I didn’t want to be a father to Lauren, but I wanted to keep this guy, this Donald Giordano, from taking on the job. So finally, I agreed as long as I could still contact Lauren.

“
So I send a monthly check, something at Christmas, and little gifts when I travel. And that’s it. I have a daughter named Lauren Giordano, who doesn’t know me from the postman. And no, I don’t have any more recent pictures, because apparently
Donald
prefers it that way.” He finished with a rueful smile after slapping out the name.

Archer shook her head, put down her wineglass, and leaned forward. “Well, McCall, I’ll tell you a little secret: you’ve got to get to know that girl. She needs you, and you’ll regret it forever if you don’t. Even if you’re not in her life day-to-day, she wonders. Don’t kid yourself that this Donald is enough for her. He may be a terrific guy and a great father, but she wonders, and she needs to know why you left her. Till then, it’ll torture her.”

Connor looked at her, now his turn to be amused. “Please, don’t hold back. Stop sugarcoating it and just say what you really think.”

“
Yeah, I know. I’m opinionated. Sorry. But seriously, you have to do this.” She looked intense and beautiful, her green eyes steady, that luxuriant auburn hair framing her face.

He hesitated. “I’m afraid.”

“
Afraid of what?”

“
That it’s too late,” Connor said. Then, noticing her still-questioning look, he added, “You know how you forget someone’s name, and then, for whatever reason, you don’t ask right away? And then so much time goes by that it’s weird to ask. And then, even later, it’s just an embarrassment and you
can’t
ask, because they’ll know that all the times you’ve met, you never knew who they were. Well, magnify that feeling, and the magnitude of your little faux pas, oh . . . say, about a billionfold. Well, I feel like each year that’s gone by has made it harder to try to introduce myself. And by now, it might mess her up for me to enter her life. You know, that’s a possibility, too.”

“
Well, you could ask Sarah. She sounds grounded and fair.”

“
She is. I don’t know. Sometimes I’m just dying to know about Lauren, you know—how she’s doing, what she looks like, what she likes to do. But I suspect she’s done okay without me so far.”

“
And what about you? How have you done so far without her?”

CHAPTER 9

The next evening, Connor showed up at the cabin at dinnertime with a chicken, a box of rice, and a bundle of crisp asparagus in a yellow plastic grocery bag. He knocked on the door. No answer. He knocked again with more vigor.

“
Is it you again?”

“
Yup. Please try to control your eagerness.”

He heard movement inside the cabin, and in a few seconds, Archer opened the door. She was still leaning on the cane, with Hadley peeking out behind her. She looked surprised but not displeased. She was wearing a long faded denim skirt with a cream-colored Irish cable-knit sweater. Her hair was pulled back with a tortoiseshell barrette, and she was barefoot, her pale ankle still wrapped neatly in white gauze. She cocked her head and stared at him. “Lost, are we? Look, Wyoming’s out thataway.” She pointed in the direction of the setting sun. “You can make it by sundown if you hurry, cowboy.” She smiled, though, and unlatched the screen door.

“
Most amusing”

Archer opened the door and motioned him in, and he set the yellow bag on the counter. After pulling out the contents, he took off his jacket and tossed it on the arm of the sofa.

He took over the kitchen. Chopping, braising, stirring, tasting, seasoning, he checked the recipe, then deviated from it, all while listening to Frank Sinatra croon away about the lady being a tramp. Sometimes he sang along off-key for a few bars.

For a few minutes Archer sat on her chair near the fire, reading
National Geographic.
Then she moved to a chair in the kitchen, where she could watch and talk while he worked.

“
Don’t add salt to the rice,” Archer called from her seat. “Oh, and cook the asparagus standing up in the extra coffeepot, over there near the sink—it stays crisper.

Connor shot her a sidelong glance. “Are you always so, uh, instructive?” he asked as he added herbs to the rice.

“
Pretty much.”

“
I see.” He paused and tested the rice. “It’s okay, though. I’m pretty good at taking direction from women—I’ve had a lot of practice.”

“
Really? Do you want to elaborate on that, McCall?”

“
No, not at the moment,” he said over his shoulder. “I need to keep my last shred of mystery to hold your interest a few days longer after last night’s seriously excessive true confession. Hope I didn’t bore you too badly.”

“
No, I found it interesting, actually,” she said, then paused. “I . . . I had a nice time.”

Connor nodded and said, “Yeah, me, too.”

A few minutes later, the meal was served. They ate silently for a few moments; then Archer looked up, remembering a stray thought. “So, did you ever get that penthouse on Fifth Avenue?” She got up and limped to the sink to get a glass of water.

“
Hey, I would have gotten that for you.”

“
Don’t worry. I’m from a long line of ‘don’t baby it’ Yankees, at least on my father’s side.” She limped back with the glass. “So . . . ?”

“
You don’t forget a whole lot, do you? That was from last night’s tragic discourse.”

“
Nope, I never forget anything—mind like a steel trap. I’m one of those complex, difficult women you find so irresistible.”

He chuckled. “So you
do
understand the principle of a joke.”

“
Of course I do. I’m just selective,” Archer said. “So, did you?”

Connor sighed. “I was hoping you’d forget about my saga. How come you’re going to know my whole story after three dinners, and I know nothing about you?”

Archer shrugged. “There’s not that much to know about me. And don’t change the subject. Did you ever get your penthouse?”

“
Yes. It’s where I lived when it all caved in, so to speak. I sold it to get the Wyoming ranch.”

Archer waved her hand for him to continue.

Connor paused, recalling the year of his professional downfall. At forty-three years old and at the height of his career, he had thought he was happy. Yet, when he sat alone that Christmas Eve in his designer-decorated Fifth Avenue co-op, he’d wondered. People were hurrying for trains home or celebrating with family and friends down below in Manhattan’s restaurants. Yet there he was, looking out over Central Park without even a Christmas tree. He’d always thought he’d have to be dead not to put up a Christmas tree, but . . . well, who had time for Christmas?

“
Hello?” said Archer.

He came up from the pit of memory. “Oh, right. Okay, my illustrious career, such as it was, came to a crashing halt in 1994. I was working for North American Financial, the largest real estate management firm on the East Coast. The real estate market took a really bad dive in 1988, and then in ’94 the other shoe dropped. Everyone from middle management up was let go, including yours truly. As part of the top management, I carried the stench of North American’s failure. Companies that had once begged me to work for them were now cold, to put it mildly.”

“
That hurts.”

“
It did and it didn’t. I hadn’t been really happy for years. This just forced me to do something about it. I missed the big income and the perks, but I had enough money. When you come from modest beginnings, you learn to save—or at least I did. I didn’t have enough to stay in a New York penthouse indefinitely, but I had enough so my next meal wasn’t a worry. I just had to decide what my next step was.”