Birthright by Nora Roberts
Callie lifted her hands. “What do you want me to say? What do you want me to do?”
“I wish I knew. You, um, didn’t have to do this. Didn’t have to tell us. I want . . . I don’t know if it makes sense to you or not—but I need to say that I’m proud that you’re the kind of person who didn’t just turn away.”
She felt something loosen inside her. “Thank you.”
“Whatever else you decide to do, or not do, just don’t hurt her any more than you have to. I need some air.” He walked quickly to the door. “Doug,” he said without looking back. “Take care of your mother.”
Callie dropped back in her chair, and because her head felt impossibly heavy, let it fall back. “Do you have something profound to say?” she asked Doug.
He walked over, sat down, leaning forward with his hands dangling between his knees. His gaze was sharp on her face. “All my life, as long as I can remember, you’ve been the ghost in the house. Doesn’t matter which house, you were always there, just by not being there. Every holiday, every event, even ordinary days, the shadow of you darkened the edges. There were times, plenty of times, I hated you for that.”
“Pretty inconsiderate of me to get myself snatched that way.”
“If it weren’t for you, everything would’ve been normal. My parents would still be together.”
“Oh Christ.” She said it on a sigh.
“If it weren’t for you, everything I did growing up wouldn’t have had that shadow at the edges. I wouldn’t have seen the panic in my mother’s eyes every time I was five minutes late getting home. I wouldn’t have heard her crying at night, or wandering around the house like she was looking for something that wasn’t there.”
“I can’t fix that.”
“No, you can’t fix it. I get the impression you had a pretty good childhood. Easy, normal, a little upscale, but not so fancy you got twisted around by it.”
“And you didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t have easy or normal. If I do a quick, two-dollar analysis, it’s probably what’s kept me from making a life, up until now. Still, maybe, I don’t know, but just maybe that’s why I’m going to be able to handle this better than any of the rest of you. Easier for me, I think, to deal with flesh and blood than it was with the ghost.”
“Jessica’s still a ghost.”
“Yeah, I get that. You wanted to push her away when she hugged you, but you didn’t. You didn’t push my mother away. Why?”
“I don’t have any problem being a bitch, but I’m not a heartless bitch.”
“Hey, nobody calls my sister a bitch. Except me. I loved you.” The words were out before he realized they were there. “Hell, I was only three, so it was probably the way I’d have loved a new puppy. I hope we can try to be friends.”
She let out a shaky breath. Drawing another in, she studied him. His eyes were direct, she thought. And a deep brown. Mixed with the turmoil she saw in them was a kindness she hadn’t expected.
“It’s not as hard to deal with having a brother as it is . . .” She shot a glance toward the door.
“Don’t be too sure. I’ve got time to make up for. Such as, what’s with that Graystone character? You’re divorced, right, so why’s he hanging around?”
She blinked. “Are you kidding?”
“Yeah, but I might not be later.” He leaned a little closer. “Tell me about this son of a bitch Carlyle.”
Callie opened her mouth, then shut it again as the door opened. “Later,” she murmured and rose again as Lana brought Suzanne back in.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fall apart that way. Where’s Jay?” she asked, looking around.
“He went outside, for some air,” Doug told her.
“I see.” And her lips firmed and thinned.
“Give him a break, Mom. It’s a lot for him to take in, too.”
“This is a happy day.” She took Callie’s hand as she sat down. “We should all be together. I know you’re overwhelmed,” she said to Callie. “I know you’ll need some time, but there’s so much I want to talk to you about. So much I want to ask you. I don’t even know where to start.”
“Suzanne.” Callie looked down at their joined hands. “What happened to you, to all of you, was despicable. There’s nothing we can do to change any of it.”
“But we know now.” Her voice bubbled, a kind of joyful hysteria. “We know you’re safe and well. You’re here.”
“We don’t know. We don’t know how, we don’t know why. We don’t know who. We have to find out.”
“Of course we do. Of course. But what’s important is you’re here. We can go home. We can go home now and . . .”
“What?” Callie demanded. Panic snapped into her. No, she hadn’t pushed Suzanne away before. But she would now. She had to. “Pick up where we left off? I had a whole life between then and now, Suzanne. I can’t make up for all you lost. I can’t be your little girl, or even your grown daughter. I can’t give up what I am to be what you had. I wouldn’t know how.”
“You can’t ask me to just walk away, to just close it off, Jessie—”
“That’s not who I am. We need to find out why. You never gave up,” she said as Suzanne’s eyes filled again. “That’s something we have in common. I don’t give up either. I’m going to find out why. You can help me.”
“I’d do anything for you.”
“Then I need you to take some time, to think back. To remember. Your doctor when you were pregnant with me. The people in his office, the people you had contact with during the delivery. The pediatrician and his office staff. Who knew you were going to the mall that day? Who might have known you or your habits well enough to be there at the right time. Make me a list,” Callie added. “I’m a demon with lists.”
“Yes, but what good will it do?”
“There’s got to be a connection somewhere between you and Carlyle. Someone who knew about you. You were a target. I’m sure of it. It all happened too quickly, too smoothly for it to have been random.”
“The police . . .”
“Yes, the police,” Callie said with a nod. “The FBI. Get me everything you can remember from the investigations. Everything you have. I’m good at digging. Good at putting what I uncover into a cohesive picture. I need to do this for myself, and for you. Help me.”
“I will. Of course I will. Whatever you want. But I need some time with you. Please.”
“We’ll figure something out. Why don’t I walk you down to your car?”
“Go ahead, Mom.” Doug walked to the door, opened it. “I’ll be right there.”
He closed the door behind them, leaned back on it as he looked at Lana. “Sort of takes ‘dysfunctional family’ to a whole new level. I want to thank you for helping my mother pull herself together.”
“She’s very strong. She was entitled to break down. I nearly did myself.” She let out a breath. “How are you doing?”
“I don’t know yet. I don’t like change.” He walked to her window, stared out at her pretty view of the park. “Life’s less complicated if people just leave things alone.”
“Take it from me, nothing stays the same. Good, bad or indifferent.”
“People won’t let it. Callie isn’t the type to leave anything alone, not for long. She shoots off energy, a kind of restlessness even when she’s standing still. What happened here is just . . . a domino effect. One domino pushed over, to bump into the rest. To change the whole pattern.”
“And the old pattern was more comfortable for you.”
“I understood the old pattern.” He shrugged. “But it’s been knocked to hell. I just sat here and had a conversation with . . . with my sister. The second one I’ve had in the last few days. Before that, the last time I saw her, she was bald and toothless. It’s all just a little surreal.”
“And they all need you to varying degrees.”
He frowned, turned back toward her. “I don’t think so.”
“It was very obvious to this object
“My job takes me away, and brings me back.”
“Takes you away, to a point,” she agreed. “You wouldn’t have to come back. Oh, a visit now and again, as family members do. But you also come back for them, for yourself. I like that about you. I like a lot of things about you. Why don’t you take a break from all this tonight. Come over. I’ll fix you a home-cooked meal.”
He didn’t know if he’d ever seen a prettier woman. At least not one so perfectly put together. Or one who managed to have a soothing way about her even as she pushed a man into a corner.
“I’m not planning to stay. You need to know that.”
“I was offering to grill some chicken, not clean out a closet so you could move in.”
“I want to sleep with you.”
Since he looked almost angry when he said it, Lana lifted her eyebrows. “Well, that’s not on tonight’s menu. It may very well be on it sometime in the near future. But I’m still not cleaning out a closet.”
“I tend to screw up relationships, which is why I stopped getting in them.”
“I’ll let you know when you’re screwing this one up.” She stepped toward him, brushed her lips lightly over his. “Grilled chicken, Doug. Sex, unfortunately, can’t be for dessert as I have Ty to consider. But I might be seduced into heating up the peach cobbler I have in the freezer. It’s Suzanne’s Kitchen,” she added with a smile. “And always a hit in our house.”
It was going to get complicated, he thought. It was bound to get complicated. The woman, the child, the buttons each of them pushed in him. But he wasn’t ready to walk away from it. Not yet.
“I’ve always had a thing for my mother’s peach cobbler. What time’s dinner?”
Jay was staring at the pot of geraniums on the porch when Callie brought Suzanne out. His gaze went to Suzanne’s face first, Callie noted. The way a man might look at a barometer to prepare for expected climatic conditions.
“I was just coming back up.”
“Were you?” Suzanne said coolly.
“I needed a moment to clear my head. Suzanne.” He reached out to touch her arm, but she moved back in a gesture as clear as a slap.
“We’ll talk later,” she said, in that same icy tone. “I’d think you’d have something to say to your daughter.”
“I don’t know what to say, or what to do.”
“So you walk away.” Deliberately, Suzanne turned, pressed her lips to Callie’s cheek. “Welcome home. I love you. I’m going to wait in the car for Doug.”
“I’ll never make it up to her,” he said softly. “Or you.”
“You don’t have anything to make up to me.”
He turned to her then, though he kept a foot between them, kept his hands at his sides. “You’re beautiful. It’s the only thing I can think of to say to you. You’re beautiful. You look like your mother.”
He started down the steps just as Doug came out the door.
“You’re going to be in the middle of that.” Callie nodded toward the car as Jay strode toward it.
“I’ve been in the middle of that all my life. Look, I wasn’t going to ask anything, but will you go by sometime and see my grandfather? The bookstore on Main.”
She massaged her temples. “Yeah. Okay.”
“Thanks. See you around.”
“Doug.” She walked down a step as he reached the sidewalk. “Maybe we can have a beer sometime. We can give that being friends a try, and you can fill me in on Cullen family dynamics. I don’t know where to step around them.”
He gave a short laugh. “Join the club. Family dynamics? We’d better get a keg.”
She watched him get in the car, and got a reflection of those dynamics from the positions the family took. Doug at the wheel, Suzanne riding shotgun and Jay in the back.
Where would they have put her? she wondered. She started toward her own car, then spotted Jake leaning on the hood.
It put a hitch in her stride, and though she recovered quickly she was sure he’d noticed. He rarely missed anything. Deliberately, she took out her sunglasses, put them on as she walked up to him.
“What are you doing here?”
“Happened to be in the neighborhood.”
She rocked back on her heels. “Where’s your ride?”
“Back at the dig. Sonya dropped me off. Great pins on that girl. They go all the way up to her clavicle.” He offered a broad grin.
“Her legs, and the rest of her, are twenty.”
“Twenty-one. And Dig’s already staked his claim, so my hopes there are dashed.”
Callie took out her keys, jingled them. “Does your being here, in the neighborhood, mean you’re not mad at me anymore?”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Maybe I used you, but you didn’t exactly put up a fight.”
He took her arm before she could stalk by him. “We used each other. And maybe I’m just a little pissed it was so easy for both of us. Want to fight about it?”
“I haven’t got a good fight in me just now.”
“Figured.” He moved his hands to her shoulders, rubbed. “Rough in there?”
“Could’ve been worse. I don’t know how, but I’m sure it could’ve been. What the hell are you doing here, Jake? Riding to the rescue?”
“No.” He plucked the keys away from her. “Driving.”
“It’s my car.”
“And I’ve been meaning to ask you. When are you going to take it in and have this crap dealt with?”
She frowned at the spray paint. “I’m getting kind of used to it. It makes a statement. What are you doing?”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Dunbrook, I’m opening the car door for you.”
“Is my arm broken?”
“It could be arranged.” He decided to wipe the amusement off her face a different way, and turned it to shock as he scooped her off her feet and dumped her in the car.
“What’s got you lathered up?”
“The same thing that always lathers me up.” He lectured himself as he walked around the car, yanked open the driver’s door, got in.
“Fuck it,” he decided, and dragged her across the seat, pinned her arms and plundered her mouth.
She bucked, wiggled and tried to find some level ground as her system spun in mad circles. “Stop it.”
“No.”
She was strong, but he’d always been stronger. It was just one of the things about him that both infuriated and attracted her. His temper was another. It could spike out of nowhere and simmer in some hidden pot until it exploded all over the unwary.
Like now, she thought as his mouth ravished hers.
You could never be sure about Jacob. You could never be quite safe. And that fascinated her.
She fought to get her breath back as his mouth tore down to her throat.
“A minute ago you’re mad because we used each other last night. Now you’re ready to do it again, in broad daylight on a public street.”
“You’re inside me, Callie.” He took her lips again, took the kiss long and hot and deep. Then shoved her away. “Like a goddamn tumor.”
“Get me a scalpel. I’ll see what I can do about it.”
He tapped his fingers on the wheel as he turned his head and studied her, coolly now, through his shaded lenses. “Took your mind off things for a couple minutes, didn’t it?”
“A right jab would’ve done the same.”
“Since I don’t hit women, even you, that was the best I could do. Anyway, I didn’t come here to fool around in the car or trade insults, as entertaining as both are.”
“You started it.”