The Carson Springs Trilogy: Stranger in Paradise, Taste of Honey, and Wish Come True (40 page)

Yet she couldn’t stop the goose bumps that scurried up her arms like tiny biting insects. Her heart banged against her ribs and she was more wide-awake than ever. Sam walked over to the door, jiggling the handle to make sure it was locked. She was heading into the living room to double check the front door as well when it occurred to her that all anyone would have to do to get in was smash a window.

The room went a little gray, and she thought,
I should call the police.

But what real cause was there for alarm? A dog barking? Dogs barked at everything. If she phoned the police every time Max barked, she’d be like the boy who’d cried wolf.

On legs gone suddenly rubbery, she walked down the hall to her bedroom. It was as spartan as her old one: a Shaker-style bed and dresser, the mica floor lamp from home, a pretty antique quilt from a trunk in the attic at Isla Verde. As she climbed onto the bed, shivering, she wanted nothing more than to wrap herself in the quilt and have all this turn out to be nothing more than a bad case of nerves. She looked down at the knife in her hand. Dull as all her others, no doubt. It would be no more protection than that silly dog.

She could hear Max barking in the next room, furiously and without letup. She reached for the phone on the nightstand. However foolish she’d feel when the police arrived, it was better than being scared out of her wits. She was punching in the numbers when the sound of breaking glass from down the hall went through her like a jolt from a downed power line.

She let out a strangled yelp, her heart slamming up into her throat. Someone
was
out there. Someone who was inside now.

She dove to the floor, the receiver to her ear.

But the line was dead.

A
LICE HAD KNOWN
this day would come. She’d braced herself against it the way she might have against some minor medical procedure. Ian was his son, after all. But when Wes had suggested they invite him for supper she’d been thrown for a loop nonetheless. Now that the dreaded evening was here, it was requiring every bit of her considerable willpower to keep her smile pinned in place. While a few miles away her sister was sitting down to her own supper, and at police headquarters downtown they were receiving notification of a sixteen-year-old runaway named Bethany Wells, Alice was passing her stepson a bowl of fingerling potatoes.

“Why don’t you finish these?” She cast a bright look at Ian. The months of charting a smooth course through Hurricane Marty had trained her well.

He reached for the bowl wearing an equally shatterproof smile. “Sure, if no one else wants them. Great meal, Alice.”

“I’m glad you liked it,” she said.

“I didn’t know Alice could cook until we were practically engaged.” Wes, at the other end of the table, beamed proudly. “She didn’t want to blow her cover as a hard-bitten career woman.”

“A presently unemployed career woman,” she amended with a dry laugh.

“How’s the job search going?” Ian helped himself to the potatoes, though she had the feeling he was only doing it to be polite.

“I’ve gone on six interviews so far.”

“Alice is being modest,” Wes said. “She’s gotten two offers already. Lifetime and Channel 2.”

“I’m holding out for the networks,” she explained. “I have an interview with CBS on Monday. They’re looking for a new executive producer for the
Shannon O’Brien Show.
We’ll see…” She shrugged as if her pulse weren’t racing at the thought.

She could see that Ian was interested…and maybe a little perplexed. He probably couldn’t imagine Wes firing her, and for good reason. In the end, it had been more of a mutual decision. Wes had been right about one thing—at CTN, where to many of her coworkers she’d never be anything other than the boss’s wife, her effectiveness would always be undercut. What surprised her was how invigorated she’d felt since she left. No more Marty Milnik. No more cold shoulders and catty backstabbing. The professional camaraderie with Wes hadn’t ended, either. They still bounced ideas off each other. In some ways it was
better
than before.

There was only one fly in the ointment: her mother. She’d tried hard not to blame Ian. The truth was she
liked
him. But the thought of him sleeping with Sam was like something she’d swallowed that wouldn’t go down. The perfectly set table, with its bank of flickering candles, looked
too
perfect all of a sudden: a stage set for a play.

“Well, here’s to success.” Ian raised his wineglass.

If he was feeling the chill, he was doing a good job of hiding it. In his chinos and open-necked shirt he looked relaxed and tanned from a recent trip to Provence, where an old friend on the board of an art school had twisted his arm into giving a master class. She pictured him tooling around the French countryside, giving not a thought to his pregnant ex-girlfriend back home.

At the same time, it occurred to Alice that she’d gotten her wish. Hadn’t she wanted—no,
campaigned
—for their breakup? But instead of feeling happy she had the awful sense of its being wrong somehow. Maybe that’s why she was so uptight now. She couldn’t decide whether she was angry at Ian for being with her mother in the first place or for
not
being with her now.

“Speaking of success, here’s to the Giants.” Wes lifted his own glass in honor of the plum commission Ian had just been awarded: a mural for the clubhouse at San Francisco’s brand-new stadium—a commission that would mean the difference between relative obscurity and minor fame.

“It’s quite an honor.” Alice forced a smile.

“Don’t think I’m not aware of it.” Ian’s humility seemed genuine.

She found herself wondering if maybe, just maybe, she’d misjudged him. Was he as cavalier as she’d painted him? Still, there was no excuse for the way he’d treated her mother. Alice didn’t have to hear the whole sordid tale. It was the oldest story in the world: younger man dumps older woman.

For her husband’s sake, though, she was going to have to find a way to get past it. Somehow. “Will you be spending much time in San Francisco?” she asked.

“Not if I can help it.” Alice caught a glint of something dark in his eyes.

She felt a sudden desire to goad him. “No more trips to Europe? A freewheeling bachelor like yourself?” She spoke lightly, but the hard look on Ian’s face told her she’d hit her mark.

“A baby needs a father.”

An uncomfortable silence fell. So far they’d avoided touching upon the subject. Their first evening as a family had been fashioned instead out of small, safe, biodegradable subjects. But it was a flimsy structure, a paper kite now impaled on a tree limb. How, she thought, could you
not
talk about something so huge?

Wes cleared his throat. “Well. That wasn’t so bad, was it? Only about three-point-eight on the Richter scale.” His joke didn’t elicit a laugh, but it wasn’t intended to. “More wine, anyone? I know I could use a refill.” He poured some into his glass before passing the bottle to Ian.

Ignoring it, Ian looked from Wes to Alice. “I’d like to make one thing clear, then we can move on,” he said evenly. “This is nobody’s business but Sam’s and mine. If it’d been that way from the beginning, things might have turned out differently.”

Alice felt her face flush at the obvious insinuation that
she
was somehow to blame. “If you’d given any thought at all to my mother,
none
of this would be happening.” Each carefully enunciated word was like an ice cube clinking into a chilled glass.

Ian eyed her curiously. “You really believe that, don’t you?” His tone was mild, though once again she caught that flicker of something dark and unreadable in his eyes.

Alice placed her napkin on the table, cream linen with pale beige piping—part of a set that was a wedding present from Wes’s Aunt Estelle—pressing it with the heel of her hand into a precise square. “What I
know
,” she said, “is that right now my pregnant mother is sitting home alone.”

She saw something twist in Ian’s face, though he hadn’t moved a muscle, something so deep and private Alice had the feeling of having intruded. In that moment, he resembled a fair-haired, clean-shaven version of his father. “I would think,” he said, “you’d be thrilled. Isn’t this what you wanted?”

Wes, observing all this from the head of the table, raised his voice at last. “Alice is right about one thing, son. Whether or not you meant it to be, this has been upsetting for the whole family.”

Ian eyed him coolly. “This isn’t a boardroom, Dad. Something you can
negotiate.
” The bitterness in his voice seemed to reach far back into something Alice had no part of. “I love Sam. I’d have married her if”—his gaze settled on Alice—“she’d felt it was an option.”

Alice sat back, stunned.
Had
she misjudged him? Right now, she was too angry to care. “I’m sure she had her reasons.”

“I can think of two offhand—you and Laura.”

Alice leaped to her feet. “I won’t sit here and let you insult me!
I’m
not the one who started all this. You—” She began to cough, literally choking on the affront.

Wes shot to his feet, looking alarmed. But Alice waved him down, managing to pull in a deep breath before sagging back into her chair. She took a gulp of water. When she looked up, Ian was on his way to the kitchen, plate in hand.

“Thanks for dinner,” he said. “I’m sure you won’t mind if I don’t stick around for dessert.”

“Ian, wait.” Wes got up from the table and walked over to him, placing a conciliatory hand on his arm. “Can’t we talk about this? Like civilized human beings?”

The plan had been for Ian to spend the night. It was a long drive, and the coast highway could be treacherous at night—especially with the wine he’d drunk at dinner. But Ian looked as if he’d rather take his chances on the road than stay another minute under their roof.

“If you ask me, we’ve all been a little
too
civilized.” He looked at Alice, huddled in her chair, more miserable now than angry. “You have a problem with me, Alice? You should’ve aired it a long time ago.”

Wes’s hand fell heavily to his side. “You’re right, son. But don’t blame it on Alice. I should’ve said something.” He shook his head. “I guess I kept thinking it would all blow over.”

“The way it blew over when I was a kid?” Something ugly flared in Ian’s eyes. Just as quickly, he averted his gaze. “Sorry. That was hitting below the belt.”

All at once Wes looked every minute of his fifty-four years. “No, it’s okay,” he said. “You’re right. I let things go on with your mother way too long.”

“It wasn’t just Mom. Last time I looked in the dictionary, ‘parents’ was plural.” Ian’s gaze cut over to Alice. “You think a father is just the guy who comes home at five and mows the lawn on Sunday? Then you don’t know anything.”

The anguish in his face was more eloquent than any words. It had never occurred to Alice that he might actually
want
this baby. She recalled Sam’s revelations about her own father, the man against whom every other man in Alice’s life had been measured—and usually fallen short. Until Wes. But even
he
had his limitations. Look at the grudge his son still held after all these years. Maybe her father hadn’t been as perfect as she’d thought, either.

“Sit down, Ian.” A weary note crept into her voice. “It’s a long drive, and you’re upset.”

He shook his head. “I’ll help wash up, then I’m off.”

“
I’ll
do the dishes.” Wes was already rolling up his sleeves.

“We’ll all pitch in,” Alice said, pushing herself to her feet.

In the kitchen, while Wes was clearing the table, she turned to Ian. “I’m sorry if I seemed a little harsh.”

He shrugged. “You’re married to my dad, not me. You don’t have to worry about my feelings.”

“It’s not that simple. We’re family now.”

“Yeah? Well, I sure hope it’s an improvement on my last one.” He set his plate down on the counter. “Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but aren’t we a little old for the
Brady Bunch
routine?”

The corners of Alice’s mouth turned up in a little smile. “I’ve only seen it in reruns.” Suddenly she was seeing the role she’d played in all this. If her mother and Ian truly
did
belong together, she’d done them a terrible disservice. She put out her hand. “Truce?”

He shook it, solemnly if somewhat stiffly, saying,

“I’ll wash, you dry.” Walking over to the sink, he tossed her a dish towel.

Alice was struck by the simplicity of it. No defining-moment speech, no spotlight on center stage, just this: two people washing up after supper. A family—of sorts. Maybe they’d work it out; maybe they wouldn’t. But the least they could do was try.

When the dishwasher was stacked and the pots and pans washed and dried, Wes and Ian sat down at the kitchen table while she made coffee. She’d picked up a cake at Ingersoll’s, but no one seemed much interested in dessert. She would freeze it for next time.

Next time.
A pictured formed in her mind: the four of them gathered about this table—Ian and Sam, she and Wes—sipping coffee in their stocking feet and nibbling on cake. Just as quickly the picture faded. Her mother and Ian would be together only on state occasions.
Didn’t I make sure of that?

She poured the coffee. “By the way, Ian, I also make a mean breakfast.” She spoke casually. “Eggs, bacon, the works.”

Ian stood up, his coffee untouched. He wasn’t smiling, but he didn’t look angry, either. “If the offer’s still open I’ll crash here and cut out early in the morning. You’re right about it being a long drive.”

Wes was noticeably relieved. “You can borrow a pair of my pajamas if you like,” he called as Ian was heading for the doorway.

Ian turned, looking faintly amused. “Dad, I haven’t worn pajamas since I was twelve.”

“Just wait till you’re my age.” Wes flashed him a wry look. “Your son will be telling you the same thing.”

They heard the door to the guest room click shut down the hall. Wes lowered his cup into its saucer, looking long and tenderly at Alice. He took her hand and brought it to his mouth, kissing her knuckles before unfurling her fingers, one by one, to plant a soft kiss on her palm.