Ex’s and Oh’s Page 15

  Needing to think about something else, he had a sudden mental picture of Vickie, a mood buster if there ever was one. “I tried to talk to Andy about college the other day. It went about as well as when I tried to talk about it with his mother.”

  Caroline looked over at him but didn’t close the book.

  “She’s on a new kick,” he said. “Now she wants him to go out for football.”

  “Is she hoping he’ll earn a scholarship?” Caroline asked, obviously not following.

  “That’s what she says. But that’s not the real reason.” Shane entered the living room. “Vic’s upset because Andy doesn’t hang out with his friends. She’s afraid that means there’s something deeply and profoundly wrong with him. She wants him to make new friends, and she thinks joining a team is the answer. Football practice is starting in a few weeks.”

  “Does Andy enjoy football?”

  A table lamp was on in the corner, as well as the floor lamp across the room. Neither quite dispensed with the shadows between them. “At first he rode my butt into the ground on our bikes, and I’m pretty sure he enjoyed doing it. But I don’t think he has the killer instinct for football. Which is what I told Vickie. She told me I never back her up, and then she hung up on me.”

  “Shane, I—”

  “I don’t usually bad-mouth Andy’s mother. I suppose she can’t help it that she’s a pain in the ass.”

  Caroline closed the book she’d been reading and placed it in the cardboard carton. When Shane reached his hand toward her, she froze. His touch was light, his fingertips barely grazing her skin just below her neck. He took the charm dangling from the end of its delicate chain between his thumb and forefinger.

  The next thing she knew, his mouth came down hard on hers. She felt herself being propelled backward until her back touched the wall. His legs straddled hers, pinning her there while his arms cushioned her, protecting her.

  His face was so close to hers she could see her own reflection in his eyes. She stiffened, and he said, “Am I hurting you?”

  He meant because of the baby.

  She shook her head.

  “Something tells me you’re going to give me the ‘don’t’ speech again.”

  She didn’t know whether to roll her eyes or swat him. “Tori is a friend of mine.”

  “Who?” He settled more intimately against her.

  “Tori. Your ex-wife?”

  At least she finally had his attention. “What does Vickie have to do with this?”

  “I know her as Tori. She was the first person to befriend me in Harbor Woods. Until recently, I didn’t know she was your ex-wife.”

  “Do you want my condolences?”

  Now she did swat him.

  “I noticed you said ex-wife,” he said. “Ex being the key word. I don’t see a problem.”

  Of course he didn’t.

  In an effort to move out of his embrace, she bumped the framed artwork behind her with so much force it swung like a pendulum on the nail. In a reflex action, Shane held the print in place with his left hand.

  Behind the print was a door, slightly ajar. Opening it, he said, “I believe we just discovered Karl’s secret hiding place.”

  She moved out of the way, and he lifted the print off its nail. An old wall safe with a broken lock was now in plain view. Inside was a leather diary and yellowed newspaper clippings. Removing the stack carefully, Caroline looked through them.

  She was featured in every one.

  “He knew,” she said, scanning them one at a time. “He must have known my mother was his child.” She looked at Shane. “Karl knew who I was.”

  She carried the tear sheets to the table, spreading them out evenly. Her entire life, beginning with her birth announcement and ending with a high-profile case she’d won last year had been clipped and saved in chronological order. The final press release must have come just before he’d suffered his stroke.

  The evidence was straightforward and conclusive. Karl had known she was his granddaughter. There was no other explanation. She doubted he’d recognized her these past months, when his memories had been interrupted due to his stroke, but the man who’d amassed these clippings had known.

  She looked at the wall safe again. Some people became eccentric with age. She’d once read of a small fortune the unsuspecting heirs of a miserly old woman had discovered when cleaning out her house following her death. She’d hidden money everywhere. They’d found seventy-five-thousand dollars in small bills, in her books, in her pillow cases, even in her shoes. Karl hadn’t amassed cash. His collection was more precious than money.

  “He not only knew you were his granddaughter,” Shane said, quietly scanning the array spread out before him. “He was proud of you, too.”

  She thought about the way people were always trying to rush situations. Karl and Henry had had infinite patience. Neither had felt the need to tell her outright, and yet in their own good time, they’d sent her on a treasure hunt. It began with that first letter Henry had stored in an old tin in the attic in Lake Forest. It was as if he’d known it would lead her to Harbor Woods and all the rest. Caroline doubted the men had been in contact, and yet they couldn’t have devised a better strategy if they’d written their plan on the water tower in green paint.

  The clues had brought her a treasure trove that was her family history. Anna had died young, but first she’d left behind a legacy. That legacy had been Caroline’s mother, Elsa, the seed planted by Karl, to be raised by Henry. Elsa had died young, also, but first she’d had a daughter, too. And so it went, Caroline’s delicate lifeline and family tree. Now she was going to have a child. She’d never been more certain she was in the place she was meant to be, doing what she was meant to do.

  She gestured to the table. “All of this happened because a boy and a girl happened to fall in love. A horrible war happened to separate them. And when she discovered she was pregnant, she married her child’s best friend. It doesn’t feel like happenstance. It feels like the unfolding of a master plan. And here I am.”

  “Here you are.”

  He was looking at her mouth, and it brought her full circle. But where exactly did this leave them?

  She gathered up the articles and press releases as gently as she’d spread them out. Placing the diary on top, she heard Shane closing the windows in the next room. She waited for him at the door. He locked it behind them, then took her elbow as if to insure she didn’t stumble down the cement steps. He wasn’t a man who wasted words. She could tell by his expression that they hadn’t finished their discussion about Tori.

  By the time they drove from Prospect Street to the Oval Lake Channel, she was ready to try to make him understand.

  “Shane, what you and I have—”

  “What you and I have has nothing to do with Vickie. You said it yourself a little while ago.”

  She should have known he wouldn’t let her finish.

  “It doesn’t feel like happenstance.” He quoted her, word for word. “It feels like the unfolding of a master plan.”

  “I was referring to Henry and Anna and Karl.”

  “It reaches all the way to us, Caroline, and you know it. I’m not surprised Vickie befriended you. She’s like that. I fell for her hard myself. We were married for eleven years. She ended it because she just plain didn’t love me, and never had.”

  “I think it goes deeper than that, Shane. I think there’s something in herself she doesn’t love.”

  They were standing at her door, her key in her hand.

  “You’re the first woman I’ve wanted to be with since Vickie.”

  The declaration stunned her, but only for a moment. “In four years?” she asked.

  “I wasn’t kidding about monkdom.”

  Heaven help her, but she smiled.

  “I don’t take sex lightly, Caroline. If you invite me in, it’s because it means something.”

  What he meant was that if she invited him in, it would be because he meant something. To
her. And vice versa.

  Despite her legal background and her courtroom training, her communication skills deserted her. She had the presence of mind to unlock the door, though. Evidently, it was all the invitation he needed.

  He didn’t kiss her until they reached her bedroom, and then only for a moment. She dispensed with the buttons on his shirt as quickly as he dispensed with hers. He took over from there—his shoes and jeans went next. He barely waited for her to shimmy out of her slacks and kick off her sandals before lowering her to the bed.

  Caroline could count on one hand the men she’d been with. In her experience, the first time was always slightly awkward. Her experience hadn’t prepared her for Shane, whose pleasure was pure, his enjoyment a crescendo of the senses, of touch and sound and instinct. Their lovemaking was unrehearsed, uninhibited, undeniably unrestrained. At the heart of it all, he was careful, mindful of her condition.

  Afterward, he rested his cheek on her belly. It was an act of reverence, of tenderness, and it touched her even more than the sex had.

  The baby rolled beneath his cheek. Shane lifted his head. “He just kicked me.”

  Their gazes met. “I’ll bet it’s been a while since you’ve felt that, huh?” she asked.

  He nodded. “You’re worried about what Vickie will say about this, aren’t you? Don’t be. I’ll tell her.”

  Her fingers splayed through his hair. “I should be the one to tell her, Shane.”

  There was no turning back now.

  A week later, Caroline was opening the first carton of Karl’s books. Shane placed the last box on the floor in her new suite of offices, pausing to say, “Have you seen Tori, yet?”

  She shook her head. “An entire week, and I haven’t had a moment alone with her. Every time I call her she’s either going to a closing or getting ready to show a house.”

  She picked up a certificate in a black frame. Looking at the four walls, she carried it to a waiting nail. She’d just received notification that she’d successfully waived into the Michigan State Bar Association. She would be ready to see clients soon. “What’s a law practice without books?” Shane had asked when he’d shown up with Karl’s collection.

  “What a gift, Shane. Thank you.”

  She was the gift.

  He and Vickie had just had a hell of a row at the marina. After she left, he’d thrown every wrench he owned. He wouldn’t have let it get to him if it were just a matter of her pushing his buttons. This was about Andy. He and Vickie never saw eye-to-eye when it came to their son. Shane had needed to go for a spin on the lake or better yet, take a dive off the cliffs. He’d had to settle for a drive in his Shelby. He’d headed for the open road. Somehow he’d ended up at Caroline’s office downtown.

  She wore a simple summer dress and shoes he hadn’t seen before. The woman must own a hundred different pairs of shoes. He used to tell himself he’d never get tangled up with a high-maintenance woman again. It wasn’t high or low maintenance that made him keep coming back to Caroline. He’d spent five minutes in her presence this evening, and already he could feel the tension draining out of him. It was the same whenever he saw her. Every time her eyes rested on him, he felt the pull, the draw, the age-old lure of a man to a woman. He wanted her. It was that simple.

  He hadn’t had this much sex since—he couldn’t remember if he’d ever had this much sex. He might have chalked it up to making up for lost time, except he didn’t want just sex. He wanted Caroline. While he was at it, he wanted to ease the worry lines in her forehead.

  “What are you doing tonight?” he asked.

  “I have a parenting class. Afterward, I’m going to talk to Tori if I have to tie her to a chair. Now go on,” she said. But she smiled. “Get out of here. I’d just as soon she didn’t see us together until after I’ve talked to her.”

  “We’re not doing anything wrong, Caroline.”

  Caroline told herself the same thing fifty times a day. Legally, it was the truth. Morally, and ethically, too. But it wasn’t really about Caroline and Shane. Most people believed Tori was hard as nails. She wasn’t. There was a place inside her that wasn’t hard at all.

  “All right,” he said, finally getting the message. “Go ahead and tell her. I’ll stop over later.”

  “You’d better let me call you. This could take a while.” Caroline had been rehearsing her speech for days. And she still wasn’t sure what she would say. Whatever she said, she would do it as soon as her birthing class was over.

  CHAPTER 15

  Tori’s mind had been miles away all evening. Caroline wasn’t the only one who’d noticed. Several of the expectant mothers and a few of the fathers had asked if she was all right.

  “What’s going on?” Caroline whispered during break.

  “It’s Andy.”

  “Do you need to leave?”

  Tori shook her head.

  Tonight’s class dealt with delivery by cesarean section and other high-risk birth situations. Those scenarios scared Caroline. This was her one chance at motherhood. Unlike some of the other mothers who complained about swollen ankles and stretch marks and just wanted the whole process to be over with, Caroline was enjoying being pregnant. She ate right, exercised and rested. Last night she and Shane had spent an hour lying on her bed, watching her belly shift as her baby stretched and rolled and kicked from within.

  Caroline had seen the midwife again this morning. Alice Cavanaugh had drawn more blood, as a precautionary measure, she’d assured Caroline. “Everything’s going according to schedule,” the other woman had said.

  Caroline paid close attention to this evening’s lecture. Tori didn’t pay attention at all. Caroline wondered if she suspected, then told herself that was absurd. If Tori had suspected, she would have been sarcastic, perhaps even snide, but she wouldn’t have been quiet.

  They had tentative plans to go to the movies with Nell, Elaine and their girls after class. Caroline doubted that would happen once Tori had been told. “What time does the movie start?” she asked.

  “Eight-fifteen.”

  That left them half an hour to talk. “Let’s go someplace to talk. Are you familiar with the park at the mouth of Oval Lake channel?”

  “Are you kidding? Houses around it are prime real estate.”

  Caroline wondered if it would be better to blurt it out right here. But Tori was already leaving the building, heading for her car.

  Riding along, Caroline looked at Tori’s profile. Normally, Victoria Young was the one offering advice or making pointed comments designed to draw a smirk or a smile. She was doing neither tonight.

  Since discovering those newspaper clipping two weeks ago, a change had come over Caroline. Certainly part of it had to do with the knowledge that Karl had known he’d had a daughter, and eventually a granddaughter. He’d known love, honest work, friendship and contentment in his life. For the first time in her life, Caroline knew the feeling. In less than three months, her baby would arrive. It was hard to believe how much her life had changed since her child’s conception.

  She took a seat in an Adirondack chair beneath an old hickory tree. After Tori sat, too, Caroline looked up into the canopy. “Before I moved here, I wouldn’t have known this was a hickory tree. One day I struck up a conversation with an old man who always throws his dog a stick. He told me his father planted this very tree when he was a young boy. You’ll recognize the old man if he comes by, because he always wears black socks with his Nikes.”

  Tori stared straight ahead. “No one ever really knows what it’s like to walk in someone else’s shoes.”

  Caroline didn’t know where that had come from, but it was the perfect opening. “I want to talk to you about that.”

  “I blew it,” Tori said as if she hadn’t heard.

  “You. What?”

  “Did I ever tell you I only gained nineteen pounds during my pregnancy?” Tori asked.

  “I think you did, but Tori, I—”

  “I wore my regular jeans home
from the hospital. Not that my body will ever be the same. I was in labor for thirty-two hours. The epidural didn’t work. I thought I was going to die.”

  Treading lightly, Caroline said, “Was it worth it, Tori?”

  Tori got a look in her eyes Caroline had never seen. “It was the best thing I’ve ever done. There’s no one on earth as strong as a woman giving birth. You know what you have to do and you do it.” Her voice changed slightly, deepening as if she might cry. “I’d give anything to be that strong, that sure where Andy’s concerned again.”

  Caroline was getting a really bad feeling. “What’s happened? What’s wrong?”

  “When Andy was small, Shane and I used to take him over to the lighthouse. There’s this huge outcropping of rocks there. Andy and his best friend used to pretend it was a giant turned to stone by its enemies. They made magic potions out of crushed shells and weeds and lake water. Shane would get us close in the boat, and the boys would fling the concoction at the rocks. By then, they believed it contained the secret ingredient that would awaken the sleeping beast. Now Andy looks at me as if I’m the monster.”

  Caroline still didn’t understand whatever was at the root of the problems between Tori and Andy.

  “He used to love me. He used to adore me. Even after the divorce, we got along so well. This afternoon he told me he hates me.”

  Caroline closed her eyes for a moment. “People say things in anger they don’t mean.”

  “He meant it. He’s hated me for a while. Two years to be exact.”

  “I can’t imagine anyone hating you.” She doubted Tori heard.

  “Shane believes time heals. How does time heal blame?”

  “Blame?” Caroline asked.

  Tori stared straight ahead. “It was windy that day. I shouldn’t have let the boys go sailing. They’d taken boating safety courses, and they’d sailed dozens of times. That day I had a bad feeling. I shouldn’t have let them go.”

  Part of Caroline didn’t want to ask. “What happened that day?”