Читать книгу The Couple Most Likely To - Lilian Darcy, Lilian Darcy - Страница 6

When Stacey reentered the day-care center, Max and Ella had already left with John.

Dumb of her, really.

She should have returned directly to her office instead of detouring this way in the hope of a final hug, or the chance to see John face-to-face. If she had seen him, she would only have repeated the kind of instructions that always made his hackles rise. Yes, of course he would encourage Ella on the potty, of course he would remember that Max was completely in love with pouring things at the moment, and he’d childproofed his house months ago, so she could give the subject a rest.

“You okay, Stacey?” Nancy Logan approached her. Although the two women didn’t see each other away from the hospital, they got on well together. Stacey considered Nancy a friend, and it showed in the other woman’s concerned question.

“I’m fine,” she answered. “I just hate to think of him driving on the interstate with the kids in this weather after dark.”

Nancy patted her arm and gave a wry smile. There was a wealth of understanding in her hazel eyes. “You’re like me. You worry too much. It’s because of working in hospitals. We never see all the kids who get home safe every night, we only see the ones who don’t.”

“Stop! Don’t even say it!”

“Yes, because I’ll scare myself, too.” Nancy shivered suddenly. “It’s crazy. Is it the dark winter days? I’ve been worried about Robbie lately, too…” She frowned and glanced over at her handsome husband, who was working in the day-care center office. She didn’t explain her reaction. Looked as if she regretted letting anything slip at all.

To change the subject, Stacey said quickly, “Tell me about Dr. Logan. He’s your husband’s cousin. We—we knew each other in high school but haven’t seen each other in almost seventeen years. I didn’t like to ask him too many questions about what he’s been doing since.”

“Mmm, I wish I had more to tell you, but it was only pretty recently that I found out he existed. He’s single, he’s traveled a lot. You’d know what a successful doctor he is because you’ve seen his résumé. My in-laws never—but never!—speak about that branch of the family, and Robbie and the other kids have learned not to, also. It gets my father-in-law too upset.”

“There’s obviously some major grievance from the past.”

“Which Jillian is determined to heal. She feels like a fraud as a social worker, I think, urging families to work together, when there’s such a rift dividing her own. She persuaded Jake to come back to Portland, and I get the impression that wasn’t easy. I think we all support her in theory, but it’s going to be an emotional business. Speaking of Jillian, here she is again.”

Just as had happened an hour ago, Jillian came briskly in Stacey’s direction. This time, she didn’t have Jake Logan with her.

“We have a child with behavior problems that she’s looking into,” Nancy explained quietly. “He’s a sweetheart but very hard to manage.” She said to Jillian as the social worker reached them, “You’re here for Aidan’s assessment?”

“Almost not late, this time!”

“I’ve been telling Stacey about what you’re trying to do to bring the Logan cousins back into the family fold. She knew Jake in high school—”

“Stacey, you didn’t mention that before,” Jillian cut in, her face showing added interest. “Were you good friends?”

“Um…”

Yes, the very best, until we got to the point where we couldn’t even be in the same room without anger and hurt overflowing in a huge mess. That’s not friendship. Only lovers work that way.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to pry,” Jillian said, apparently reading too much in her face. “It’s just that there’s a Logan family potluck dinner happening tomorrow night at his new place, and we both agreed we wanted to dilute the atmosphere by inviting some other people.”

“It’s a good idea,” Nancy agreed.

“Please come!” Jillian urged her.

“Because my last name’s not Logan?” Stacey smiled.

“Exactly!”

“Do come,” Nancy said. “You don’t have the twins this weekend. And you know Jake. It would be nice for him to see a familiar face since he’s newly back in town.”

“Give me the details,” Stacey said, and she saw from the reactions of both women that they really did want her to come. They were obviously nervous about the event, and she wondered just what had happened long ago to keep the two branches of the family so estranged from one another. “And what do you need me to bring?”

They agreed on a chicken casserole, and Jillian said again that it would be nice for Jake, nice for all of them, because the event should turn into a party, it shouldn’t be some dry, sparsely attended family confrontation.

Going back to her office at last, Stacey admitted to herself that her own thoughts about the potluck dinner were far more selfish. She never knew what to do with herself when the twins had gone to John’s.

Tonight she would relax with a glass of wine, get a spicy take-out meal that the twins wouldn’t have enjoyed, take a hot bath uninterrupted, read a book with soft music playing in the background. Tomorrow she’d run errands without the need for hauling two kids in and out of car seats. She’d do the house cleaning chores she never had time for during the week, then maybe she’d drop in to see a friend.

And by late tomorrow afternoon she’d have gotten all of that need for freedom out of her system and she’d start missing Max and Ella the way astronauts missed gravity, or cave explorers missed light. Her love for them was so powerful and fundamental, it provided the anchor point for her whole universe.

She almost had vertigo when the twins went to John’s.

She’d felt an alarming and unexpected degree of vertigo seeing Jake this afternoon, also, but since they were inevitably going to run across each other around the hospital, they both might as well bite the bullet and get used to it now. She would definitely go to the potluck dinner at his place tomorrow night.

“I did as we agreed and invited a few extra people,” Jillian told Jake on Saturday evening, at just before six.

She’d arrived at his newly rented house a little early, as she’d promised to do, bearing not only the agreed-upon chocolate mud cakes for dessert, but wine, napkins, extra silverware…most of the party supplies, in fact. She had to send him out to her car to bring in two more bags.

“Great place,” she told him, when he returned.

He’d rented a modern log home on a generous acre of land on the hilly outskirts of the city. The property had peace and space and warmth, as well as the easy freeway access to the hospital that he would need when racing to a delivery in the middle of the night.

He’d rented furniture and hired a professional interior designer to add some finishing touches, and in forty-eight hours the place had gone from bare and echoey to fully furnished, before he’d moved his personal belongings in here on Wednesday. Despite the designer’s expert eye and attention to detail, Jake wasn’t totally happy with the result, however. Something was missing.

“You didn’t have to bring all this,” he said to Jillian.

“Well, I did have to, with all the extra people.” She shrugged and smiled, laughing at herself a little.

“So just how many non-Logans did you invite?”

She ticked them off on her fingers. “Brian and Carrie Summers. They adopted through Children’s Connection and it went so well for them that the birth mother, Lisa, is still a big part of their lives. She’s become a real friend, so she’ll be here, too. And Stacey, whom you know. She and her husband…ex-husband,” she corrected quickly, with a regretful expression, “conceived their twins through IVF treatment at the center. That’s not a confidence I’m betraying because she’s very open about it. And Eric and Jenny asked if they could bring…”

But Jake didn’t hear who Eric and Jenny were bringing.

Stacey and John had conceived through IVF.

For some reason, he reacted to this news with a powerful surge of complex emotion. His thoughts whirled. He and Stacey had had no trouble conceiving by accident seventeen years ago. But then Anna’s birth had been so horrible. Stacey had bled too much afterward. They’d both been so upset and bewildered. She hadn’t realized her postpartum flow was greater than normal, and of course he had no medical knowledge at that point. Neither of them realized soon enough that she had an infection and needed antibiotics.

“Want to help set out the glasses?” Jillian asked, and he nodded absently and set to work, needing only a fraction of his concentration for the mechanical task.

Stacey had had to listen to some typically insensitive opinions from her mother after the birth—that the loss of Anna was “for the best,” that in future “maybe you won’t be so thoughtless.” He’d been rocked by the sense of a burden lifted warring with his genuine grief. They were both a total mess at that point. Had Stacey been scarred physically as well as emotionally by Anna’s birth and death? Was this why she hadn’t been able to conceive naturally with her husband?

How long had they been trying before they’d resorted to IVF? Treatment for infertility could put an enormous strain on a couple’s marriage. The divorce made more sense to him, now.

He looked up from the current task he was working on—arranging platters of crackers, cheese and dips; he didn’t even remember Jillian asking him to do it—and there was Stacey herself, following Jillian into the kitchen with a big, glass-lidded casserole dish in her hands. He wanted to confront her with a hundred questions about her marriage, the fertility treatment, the divorce, and almost had to bite his tongue to keep them back.

He’d never felt such a powerful need to make sure that someone was all right. It stunned him that he could still feel so protective toward her, that he obviously at some level considered he still had, oh, visiting rights to her heart, the way Dr. Jake Logan, specialist in ob-gyn, had visiting rights to Portland General Hospital.

“Hi, Jake,” she said, her eyes huge and bright and…yeah…aware. Nervous. It must show in both of them.

She wore a short-sleeved cream top in some silky, lacy fabric that clung to every curve on her body. A full skirt in a light, patterned fabric swished around her legs and emphasized the swing of her hips when she moved. Her cheeks were pink from the cold outside air between her car and the house, and her honey-toned hair glistened with drops of rain like diamonds scattered over gold.

“Hi.” His voice didn’t come out right. His body felt angular and awkward, and forbidden parts of it throbbed.

“In the oven?” Jillian asked her, talking about the casserole.

“Yes,” Stacey said, “because I made it this morning and it’s chilled from the fridge. Don’t make the temperature too hot, though.”

“Jake?” Jillian gestured at the sleek stainless steel front of the wall oven, with its row of control knobs.

“Do I know how to switch it on? No clue.” He stepped toward it just as Stacey put her casserole down on the countertop and did the same.

They stood side by side, studying the situation. He knew he’d swayed too close to her, but he couldn’t help it. It felt right, standing close, where he could smell her sweetness and glance down at her pretty profile. He noticed she didn’t move away. Her skirt brushed his legs.

Chemistry, again.

Memories.

Needs.

“Hmm,” she murmured. “Five separate controls, and none of them have words on.”

“This one?” He reached toward it.

“Maybe.” She seemed skeptical, and tilted her head. At thirty-five, the fluted line of her neck was still smooth. “But which setting? Do we want plain rectangle, or rectangle with horizontal line near the top, or rectangle with—”

“You’re right,” he agreed. “What happened to words? And what idiot designs these symbols?”

“I’m going out on a limb, here. I’m going with rectangle with horizontal line near the bottom and Mercedes-Benz symbol in the middle.”

“I think the Mercedes-Benz symbol must mean the fan, although I’m sure the car company is appreciative of the publicity.”

Stacey laughed, then turned the control to the setting they’d agreed on.

Nothing happened.

She shrugged at him and smiled. Not the million-watt smile, but the crooked one with the dimple in one cheek. Her sarcastic smile. He remembered it very well. Only Stacey Handley produced dimples along with her sarcasm. “Any new theories, Sherlock?” she asked.

Right now, he didn’t want theories. He didn’t care if it took their combined brainpower another hour to work out how to switch the oven on, as long as it meant they could keep standing close—flirting, remembering the good times instead of the bad—and he could watch her mouth as she spoke.

More people had arrived. What was it about parties that made everyone crowd into the kitchen, when he had that whole professionally decorated great room through the doorway, where they were supposed to congregate? He heard greetings, including the voices of his brothers Ryan and Scott, but didn’t turn around.

“This one must be the timer setting,” he said to Stacey, as if the oven controls also governed the whole solar system.

“And this is the temperature control. It does actually have numbers, if not words.”

They both reached for the remaining knob at the same time, and Jake’s hand landed on top of hers. They turned and looked into each other’s eyes. “I—I’m not prepared for this,” she said, breathy and gabbling. “I know I’m responsible for it just as much as you are. But I’m not prepared.” Still…she left her hand where it was, beneath his. He let the ball of his thumb make slow circles over her knuckles.

“Let’s assume it blows up Russia and go with the rectangles instead,” he said softly.

“I—I didn’t mean the control.”

“I know, and you’re losing yours a little, aren’t you?”

For an answer, she just closed her eyes.

“So am I,” he muttered, intending that she should hear, and she did. She pressed her lips together into two tight lines and he wanted to kiss them and soften them and make them part, using his own mouth.

Hell, what was he doing?

He couldn’t afford this. Neither of them could. They shared a past but there was no way they could share a future, which meant that following up on his instinctive, powerful, astonishingly familiar attraction just wasn’t on. There’d be nowhere for it to go. The attitudes that had separated them hadn’t changed. There were feelings they’d never talked about or dealt with.

“Turn it,” she said. He couldn’t even work out what she meant, for a moment. “I think the first setting has to be for the broiler plate, and the second is for the oven.”

“Right. Yes.”

“If we put the temperature at about 320…” She did so, and at last the oven responded. They heard a fan start up, and when Stacey picked up the casserole and Jake opened the oven door, they could already feel warmth spilling onto their faces.

“Bingo!” he said.

“Great things happen when two powerful minds work together, Lo—Jake.”

She’d almost called him Logan, the way she had yesterday in her office, but she’d read the same danger into those old teasing habits as he had, so she’d quickly changed course.

Changing course wasn’t enough. She was frowning now, as if playing out memories of the far darker times they’d shared. They needed to get this out in the open—the ongoing attraction, the sense of familiarity, and all the important things they’d never said.

“Let’s get a drink and go somewhere where we can talk,” he said.

But the timing was impossible. Jillian raised her voice right at that moment. “Everybody?” The kitchen and adjoining sunroom had filled with people and the noise level of numerous conversations had climbed. If the music he’d put on earlier was still playing, he couldn’t hear it anymore, and people hadn’t heard Jillian, either.

“Everyone?” she repeated, speaking louder this time. She sounded nervous, as if she didn’t want to do this but would do it anyhow, on principle. “Can I have your attention for a minute? Don’t worry, it won’t take long.” The room quieted.

“You’re right, Jillian,” said her brother Eric. “We should talk about why most of us are here.”

“Jake?” She turned to him. “Do you want to recap? Tell everyone what happened when we met up in Seattle?”

“I think you should do that,” he told her. “You were the one who approached me, and I know that took some guts, under the circumstances.”

He heard a tiny sound from Stacey, still standing beside him. She didn’t move, but she looked interested and curious—as well she might. He felt awkward about the fact that everyone—his brothers, his cousins, their partners, spouses, dates and friends—would see the two of them standing like a couple at such a significant moment.

Jillian nodded. “All right,” she agreed quietly, then raised her voice again. “Many of you know this part. I saw Jake’s name on a conference program in Seattle a few months ago, and realized from his looks and his age and his biography in the conference program that he had to be one of those Logans. You know the ones, Robbie, Eric, Bridget? The ones we never speak about? The ones we never see? The ones who might as well not exist?”

They nodded. The family knew. Some people didn’t.

“I listened to Jake give his presentation on infertility and emotional well-being, and at first I thought I’d just sneak out afterward and not say anything—the way we’ve not said anything to or about Lawrence Logan and his family almost our whole lives. But then I thought, ‘What’s wrong with this picture?’ Here I was, a social worker, listening to a doctor talk about family dysfunction and family healing. And the doctor was my own cousin. And I hadn’t met or spoken to him ever, because my father couldn’t forgive his father for things that had happened twenty and thirty years ago.”

“Thirty years?” murmured his brother Scott’s date, as if dinosaurs had still roamed the earth.

“So when the session was over, I went up to him,” Jillian continued. “My legs were shaking. I had no idea what kind of a reception I’d get.”

“But you came up to me anyhow, Jillian.” Jake picked up the story. “For those of you who don’t know this—”

He threw a brief glance at Stacey, but there would be others, he knew. His brother Ryan’s girlfriend, Brian and Carrie Summers, their friend Lisa. There were several more unfamiliar faces, also. His stepsister Suzie was here and had brought a date, as had Scott. His cousin Eric’s wife, Jenny, had brought her brother Jordan, a high-power corporate attorney.

“Thirty-one years ago, our cousin Robbie was kidnapped.” He saw Nancy squeeze her husband’s hand and frown at his words. “It was a devastating event for my uncle and aunt, as you can imagine. My parents wanted to help, but Uncle Terrence couldn’t accept that kind of support from them. As brothers, their life choices and priorities had always been at odds, and I know my uncle was racked with a belief that if he’d been a better father, Robbie would never have disappeared.”

There was a murmur from the listeners.

“My father was hurt by the repeated rebuffs,” Jake continued, “and when he went on, a decade later, to write his two bestselling books on family values he was careless in the case studies he chose. One of them was strongly based on his brother, Terrence, and if there had been any chance of reconciliation before the books were published, there certainly wasn’t once they achieved their stellar success. Hardest to Forgive stayed at the top of the New York Times Nonfiction Bestseller List for forty-three weeks.”

Beside him, Stacey made another sound. She’d read it. Millions of people had. It had surpassed even the sales of his dad’s first book, The Most Important Thing.

“There were some crucial sections in the second book which Dad intended as an attempt to reach out to his brother, but unfortunately the timing was bad.”

“With both books the timing was bad,” Jillian said. “A false lead had come up regarding Robbie’s whereabouts. I know my parents received several fresh blows over the years. Although we all shared their anguish, we were just kids. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like.”

At the back of the room, Robbie nodded, while his wife, Nancy, squeezed his arm. Jake had only been four years old at the time, but the suffering on both sides of the Logan family had been fierce for years afterward. He still had some distant memories of phone calls and police cars and angry confrontations—of his parents trying to help his aunt and uncle, his mother bringing casseroles, his father wanting to hand out fliers, and all their efforts being rebuffed.

“In his anguish over Robbie,” he continued, “Uncle Terrence took everything Dad had written in the opposite way to what he’d intended—as a further indictment of my uncle’s choices, his marriage, and the way he was raising his kids. I can understand my father’s message. The thousands of letters he’s received over the years from around the world attest to its value. I’m proud of him and what he achieved, but my uncle and his family did suffer because of that book.”

“We all did,” Eric Logan said. “Word got around. I’ve seen copies of both books with the fictional names Uncle Lawrence gave us footnoted by hand with our real names. Our friends’ parents passed the book around the way people used to with dirty magazines in high school.”

Bridget picked up the story, while Jillian stayed significantly silent, Jake noted. He had the impression she’d reached her personal comfort threshold and was ready to leave the emotional revelations to others. “Kids would ask us if he beat us,” Bridget said, “and what was wrong with our mom, and why didn’t they just get a divorce, and was my dad the worst father in the world, if it said so in a book that millions of people had read.”

Eric put his arm around his sister. “People willfully took the book’s message in the wrong way, when it referred to our family. A lot of people were very happy for us to prove single-handed that money can’t buy happiness. I heard whisperings that Robbie hadn’t been kidnapped at all, that he was buried in our basement and our parents had put him there.”

Nancy clicked her tongue in distress and she and Robbie held each other more tightly.

“I was the youngest, which spared me the worst treatment,” Bridget said, “but as I grew older I could understand why Dad was angry.”

“And yet we’ve all lost out, over the years,” Jillian came in. Her tone edged toward clinical. “I think people always do, when there’s that level of family conflict. I want to heal the rift—in this generation, and hopefully even between our parents. Over coffee at the conference, I convinced Jake to come back to Portland. This potluck supper is our first attempt at reconciliation.”

“I’m glad it’s happening,” said Scott. “I’m glad to be a part of it. Jillian and Jake, thanks.” He put his hands together and began to applaud, and soon everyone had joined in.

“Your parents aren’t here,” Stacey said beside Jake, when the applause died. The story had drawn her in. He could see the troubled emotion in her face. Because she’d never felt close to her own parents or her sister? Jake wondered. He knew they’d moved to San Diego some years ago.

Jillian pulled a wry face in answer to Stacey’s question. “No. Well. First things first. We’ll have to work up to it.”

“Were they asked?”

“My father and stepmother are in New York for a few days,” Jake said, “Visiting my brother L. J.”

“And our parents didn’t want to know,” Jillian put in. “Especially Dad.”

“I think it’s his problem, Jillian. Time heals, but he won’t let it do so in this case.” Bridget hugged her older sister. “I agree with Scott. I’m so glad you’ve done this.”

The formality began to fragment and the noise level rose again. Stacey remained at Jake’s side. “I had no idea about the rift in your family,” she said, when no one else was close enough to hear. “You never told me.”

“It didn’t seem important to me back then.”

“But it does now? It must, or you wouldn’t have come back to Portland.” She stayed silent for a moment as she thought, then her face changed suddenly. “No. That’s right. Yesterday you told Nancy if family tensions run too high, it’s very easy for you to leave. Portland might be your hometown, but it’s a way station for you, just like any other place, just as you always wanted.”

He couldn’t mistake the anger in her voice, or the shift in her attitude. She didn’t think highly of the way he ran his life, and she took it personally.

“Stacey—”

Stacey gave a mechanical smile and didn’t let herself meet Jake’s eye. “Excuse me, Jake, I’m going to grab some food now and say hi to Nancy.”

“Hey, look, don’t you think we need to—?”

No. She didn’t think they needed to do anything.

She knew she needed to find some space. She was furious with herself.

And, yes, as Jake had picked up, she was angry with him, too. He hadn’t changed…and she should have understood this at once. She should never have flirted with him over the oven controls, letting the old attraction show so openly.

She found it disturbing enough that the attraction still existed. To act on it in any way would be asking for trouble. He stood close, a little threatening in the way he confronted her. What did he want? Honesty? To dig up the past?

“Let me breathe, Jake. It’s a mistake, thinking we have anything left for each other after all this time. Anything except anger and regret.”

He gave a tight nod. “You’re probably right. I just wanted to talk.”

“Well, I don’t.” She turned away from him and looked for Nancy across the room.

She’d been captured by all the wrong memories, yesterday and this evening. The good memories. Memories of how she and Jake had once connected to each other with humor, and through the sizzle of teasing laced with awareness. Nothing’s funnier than a joke between two people who want each other, no matter how lame the actual lines. She and Jake used to laugh all the time, while their blood sang with wanting.

So help her, her blood still sang with wanting, but she had to forget about that and focus on all the ways he’d hurt her, and all the signals that he hadn’t changed. She spent the next hour talking to other people, helping to serve the hot food.

Anything to avoid getting too close to Jake.