She was a gutsy kid, he’d give her that. She was willing to face her worst fear to keep from losing her father. In the meantime, though, her parents were going crazy with worry. He wasn’t proud of himself, but it had to be done. “Don’t move! I see a giant poisonous spider!”
She hurled herself at him, and the next thing he knew, she was plastered against his chest, trembling all over, her clothes damp, bare legs icy. He pulled her into his lap and held her close. “It’s gone. I don’t think it was a spider. I think it was a dust ball.”
Little girls didn’t smell like big girls, he noticed. She smelled sweaty, but it wasn’t unpleasant, and her hair smelled like bubble-gum shampoo. He rubbed her arms, trying to get some warmth into her. “I tricked you,” he felt bound to confess. “There wasn’t really a spider, but your mom and dad are upset, and they need to see that you’re all right.”
She started to struggle a little then, but he kept rubbing her arms to calm her. At the same time he tried to figure out how Isabel would handle this. Whatever she said would be just right—sensitive, insightful, perfect for the occasion.
Screw it.
“Your plan sucked, Steffie. You couldn’t stay hidden forever, right? Sooner or later you’d have to get something to eat, and then you’d be right back where you started from.”
“I was worried about that.”
She relaxed a little, and he smiled over her head. “What you need is a new plan. One without so many loopholes. And the place to start is by telling your mom and dad what got you so bent out of shape.”
“I might hurt their feelings.”
“So what? They hurt your feelings, didn’t they? A word to the wise, kid: If you go through life trying not to hurt anybody’s feelings, you’ll turn into a big wimp, and nobody likes a wimp.” He could almost see Isabel frowning at him, but what the hell? She wasn’t here, and he was doing his best. Still, he offered an amendment. “I’m not saying you should hurt people on purpose. I’m just saying you have to fight for what’s important to you, and if somebody’s feelings get hurt in the process, that’s their problem, not yours.” Not much better, but it was the truth.
“They might get mad.”
“I didn’t want to mention this earlier, but frankly, I think your mom and dad are going to be mad anyway. Not at first. At first they’ll be so happy to see you they’re going to slobber all over you. But after that wears off—now, I’m just taking a guess here—after that I think you’re going to have to do some fancy footwork.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means being smart about how you handle yourself so you don’t get in too much trouble.”
“Like what?”
“Like . . . when they finally stop the slobbering, they’re going to start getting upset with you for running away, and that’s when you’re in the danger zone. You’re going to need to lay on the guilt about how you heard them fighting, and—this is the important part—while you’re doing that, you should probably cry a little and look pitiful. Can you do that?”
“I’m not sure.”
He smiled to himself. “Let’s go over to the door, where the light’s a little better, and I’ll show you. Is that okay?”
“Okay.”
He picked her up and carried her to the door. The toes of her sandals banged into his shins. She clung to his neck, too big to be carried but feeling the need. When they reached the door, he crouched down again, ignoring the mud to sit with her on his lap. It had stopped raining, and there was enough light to make out a very dirty, tear-streaked face and solemn, expressive eyes gazing at him as if he were Santa Claus. If she only knew.
“Okay, the idea here is to keep from getting grounded for the rest of your life, right?”
She nodded solemnly.
“So once they calm down, they’re going to decide they have to punish you to make sure you never do anything like this again.” He whipped her a lethal-weapon look. “And just so we’re clear, if you ever do decide to pull this crap again, I won’t be half as easy to manipulate as your parents, so you’d better promise me right now that you’ll figure out a smarter way to solve your problems.”
Another solemn nod. “I promise.”
“Good.” He pushed a little spike of hair away from her face. “When your parents start talking to you about taking the consequences for your actions, that means they’re thinking about punishment, so you have to start telling them about why you ran away. And make sure you don’t forget to say how bad it made you feel when you heard them fighting because, face it, that’s your ace in the hole. Naturally, talking about it is going to make you sad again, which is good, because you’re going to use that emotion to look as pitiful as you can. Got it?”
“Do I have to cry?”
“It wouldn’t hurt. Let me see how you’re going to do it. Give me a real pitiful look.”
She gazed up at him, all big sad eyes, just about the most pitiful thing he’d ever seen, except he realized she hadn’t started yet, and he nearly laughed as she screwed up her face, pinched her lips, and took a huge, dramatic snuffle.
“You’re overplaying your hand, kiddo.”
“What d’you mean?”
“Make it more real. Just think about something sad, like being locked in your room for the rest of your life with all your toys taken away, and let it come out on your face.”
“Or about having my daddy go away forever?”
“That should do it.”
She mulled it over for a minute, and before long she’d worked up some pretty good misery, complete with a lip quiver.
“Excellent.” He needed to put a quick end to the acting lesson before she got carried away. “Now give me a quick summary of the script so far.”
She dabbed at her nose with the back of a skinny arm. “If they start to get mad, I have to tell them about hearing them fighting and how I feel about Daddy leaving, even if it hurts their feelings. And I can cry when I tell them. I just think about something really sad, like my daddy going away, and look pitiful.”
“You got it. Gimme five.”
They smacked hands, she grinned, and it was like watching the sun come out.
As he led her by the hand through the wet grass up the hill, he remembered his earlier promise and grimaced. “You don’t still need to talk to Dr. Isabel, do you?” The last thing he wanted was for Reverend Feelgood to undermine all his hard work with what would surely be talk of honest repentance. Soon the lip quiver would be yesterday’s news.
“I think I’m okay now. But”—she gripped his hand a little tighter—“would you . . . Could you stay with me when I talk to them?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“I think it is. If you stayed with me, you could, you know, look pitiful, too.”
“Everybody wants to direct.”
“What?”
“Trust me when I tell you that I’d only screw up your big scene. But I promise to check in on you. And if they decide to lock you up in a dungeon or anything, I’ll smuggle you some candy bars.”
“They wouldn’t do that.”
Her look of mild reproof reminded him of Isabel, and he smiled. “Exactly. So what are you scared of?”
Briggs had just arrived back at the house to check in, so they were all gathered in front when Ren came up the path from the farmhouse with her. The minute they saw her, both parents started to run. Then they were on their knees in the gravel, half smothering the poor kid.
“Steffie! Oh, my God, Steffie!”
They kissed her, checked her over to make sure she wasn’t hurt, and then Tracy jumped up and tried to slobber Ren with kisses. Briggs actually reached out to hug him, something Ren managed to avoid by bending over to tie his shoelace. Isabel, in the meantime, stood there looking proud, which annoyed the hell out of him. What had she expected him to do? Kill the kid?
That’s when it occurred to him that at some point during his time with Steffie, he’d mercifully stopped thinking about
Kaspar Street.
Isabel’s attitude didn’t keep him from aching to sink into her again, even though it had only been a few hours since he’d done just that. And even though he wasn’t crazy about those terms she’d laid out in the car this morning. Not that he wanted too many emotional entanglements—God knew he didn’t—but did she have to be so cold-blooded about it? Then there was the matter of Kaspar Street. She hadn’t liked the fact that he was in the business of killing young women. What would she do when she found out about the kids?
He finally managed to get her away by reminding her that he was soaked to the skin, cold as hell, and hungry. That kicked in her female instincts, just as he’d hoped, and within an hour he had her in bed.
“Are you mad?” Steffie whispered.
Harry had a lump in his throat the size of Rhode Island. Since he couldn’t talk, he brushed the hair back from her forehead and shook his head. She lay curled in bed with her oldest teddy cuddled to her cheek. She was clean from her bath and wearing her favorite blue cotton nighty. He remembered her as a toddler, waddling toward him, arms out. She looked so small under the covers and so very precious.
“We’re not mad,” Tracy said quietly from the other side of the bed. “But we’re still upset.”
“Ren told me if you locked me in a dungeon, he’d sneak me some candy bars.”
“What a wild and crazy guy.” Tracy smoothed the sheet. Her makeup had vanished hours ago, and she had dark circles under her eyes, but she was still the most beautiful woman Harry had ever seen.
“I’m sorry I scared you so much.”
Tracy looked stern. “So you’ve said. But you’re still spending tomorrow morning by yourself in this bedroom.”
Tracy was made of stronger stuff than Harry was, because he wanted to forget all about discipline. But then Steffie hadn’t run away on account of her. It was him. He felt defeated and disoriented. But he also felt resentful. How had he managed to become the bad guy?
“All morning?” Steffie looked so little and miserable he could barely keep himself from overriding Tracy and promising to take her for ice cream instead.
“All morning,” Tracy said firmly.
Steffie thought it over, and then her lip started to quiver. “I know I shouldn’t have run away just because I got so sad when I heard you and Daddy fighting.”
Harry’s stomach twisted, and Tracy’s forehead crumpled. “Until ten-thirty,” she said quickly.
Steffie’s lip stopped quivering, and she sighed one of those grown-up sighs that usually made him laugh. “I guess it could be a lot worse.”
Tracy tugged on a lock of her daughter’s hair. “You bet it could. The only reason we’re not locking you in that dungeon Ren mentioned is because of your allergies.”
“Plus the spiders.”
“Yeah, that, too.” Tracy’s voice got thready, and Harry knew they were thinking the same thing. Having her parents together was so important to Steffie that she’d been willing to face her worst fear. His daughter had more courage than he did.
Tracy leaned down to kiss her, clutching the headboard to support her weight. She stayed there for a long time, eyes closed, her cheek pressed to Steffie’s. “I love you so much, punkin. Promise you won’t ever do anything like this again.”
“I promise.”
Harry finally managed to find his voice. “And promise that the next time you get upset about something, you’ll tell us what’s bothering you.”
“Even if it hurts your feelings, right?”
“Even then.”
She tucked her bear under her chin. “Are you . . . still going away tomorrow?”
He didn’t know what to say, so he simply shook his head.
Tracy went to check on Connor and Brittany, who were sharing a room, at least until they woke up and crawled in with their father. Jeremy was still downstairs playing a computer game. Harry and Tracy hadn’t been alone since their disastrous argument that afternoon, and he didn’t want to be alone with her now, not while he felt so raw, but parents couldn’t always do what they wanted.
She shut the door and stepped back into the hallway. Then she pressed the small of her back against the wall, something she did late in her pregnancies to ease the strain. With her other pregnancies he’d massaged her there, but not with this one.
The weight of his guilt grew heavier.
She cupped her hand over her belly. The brazen, overly confident rich girl who’d led him on such a merry chase a dozen years ago had disappeared, and an achingly beautiful woman with haunted eyes had taken her place. “What are we going to do?” she whispered.
What are you going to do? he wanted to say. She was the one who’d left. She was the one who was never satisfied. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I don’t know.”
“We can’t talk anymore.”
“We can talk.”
“No, we just start hurling insults.”
Not the way he remembered it. She was the one with the sharp tongue and atomic temper. All he tried to do was dodge. “No insults from me.” He slipped his glasses back on.
“Of course not.”
She said it without any bite, but the knot inside him tightened. “I think what happened this afternoon pushed us past the insult stage, don’t you?”
Despite his good intentions, he sounded accusatory, and he braced himself for her retaliation, but she simply shut her eyes and rested her head against the wall. “Yes, I think so, too.”
He wanted to wrap her in his arms and beg her to let this go, but she’d made up her mind about him, and nothing he’d said so far had been able to change it. If he couldn’t make her understand, they had no chance at all. “Today proved what I’ve been saying all along. We have to buckle down. I think we both know that now. It’s time for us to buckle down and do what we have to.”
“And what’s that?”
She seemed genuinely perplexed. How could she be so obtuse? He tried to hide his agitation. “We can start behaving like adults.”
“You always behave like an adult. I’m the one who seems to have trouble.”
It was true—exactly what he’d been trying to tell her—but the expression of defeat on her face tore him apart. Why couldn’t she just adapt to things so they could move forward? He searched for the right words, but too many feelings lay in his way. Tracy believed in digging through those feelings whenever the whim struck, but not Harry. He’d never seen the benefit, only the downside.
She closed her eyes for a moment. Spoke softly. “Tell me something I can do to make you happy.”
“Be realistic! Marriages change. We’ve changed. We get older, and life catches up with us. It can’t always be like it was in the beginning, so don’t expect that. Be satisfied with what we have.”
“Is that what it comes down to? Just settling?”
All the emotional jumble inside him had come together in his stomach. “We have to be realistic. Marriage can’t be moonlight and roses forever. I wouldn’t call that settling.”
“I would.” Her hair flew. She thrust herself away from the wall. “I’d call it settling, and I’m not doing it. I’m not phoning in this marriage. I’m going to fight for it, even if I’m the only one with the guts to do that.”
She’d raised her voice, but they couldn’t have another argument, not with Steffie so close. “We can’t talk here.” He took her arm, pulled her away, steered her down the hall. “You don’t make sense. You’ve never once—never once in our entire marriage—made sense to me.”
“That’s because you have a computer for a brain,” she railed at him as they rounded the corner into the next wing. “I’m not afraid to fight. And I’ll do it until we’re both bleeding if I have to.”
“You’re just trying to create another one of your dramas.” He was appalled at how angry he sounded, but he couldn’t seem to calm down. He shoved open the nearest door, hauled her inside, and hit the switch. Big room, big furniture. The master bedroom.
“Our
children aren’t going to be raised by parents who have a ghost marriage!” she cried.
“Stop it!” It was anger he felt—that’s what he told himself. Anger, not desperation, because anger was something he could control. “If you don’t stop it . . .” A monster sucked at his bones. “You can’t do this.” He drew in air. “You have to stop it. You have to stop it before you ruin everything.”
“How can I ruin—”
An explosion went off in his head. “By saying things we can’t ever take back!”
“Like what? That you’ve stopped loving me?” Angry tears filled her eyes. “Like the fact that I’m fat, and the novelty of screwing a pregnant woman wore off three kids ago. Like the fact that I can’t ever balance the checkbook, and I misplace your car keys, and you wake up every morning wishing you’d married somebody neat and tidy like Isabel. Is that what I’m not supposed to say?”
Leave it to Tracy to go off on some ludicrous tangent. He wanted to shake her. “We can never work this out if you won’t be logical.”
“I can’t be any more logical than this.”
He heard the same desperation in her voice that he felt inside, but why should she feel desperate when she was saying such stupid things?
She never remembered to carry tissues, and she wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Today you asked me what you could do to make me happy, and I lashed out instead of saying what I wanted to. Do you know what I wanted to say?”
He knew, and he didn’t want to hear. He didn’t want her to tell him how boring he was, and that he was losing his hair, and that he wasn’t even close to being the man she deserved. He didn’t want her to tell him that he’d served his purpose by giving her children and now she wished she’d chosen differently, someone more like her.
Tears made silver streaks on her cheeks. “Just love me, Harry. That’s what I wanted to say. Love me like you used to. Like I was special instead of a cross you have to bear. Like the differences between us are good things instead of something awful. I want it to be the way it used to be when you looked at me as though you couldn’t believe I was yours. Like I was the most wonderful creature in the world. I know I don’t look the way I did then. I know I have stretch marks everywhere, and I know how much you used to love my breasts, and now they’re halfway to my knees, and I hate this, and I hate that you don’t love me like you used to, and I hate the fact that you’re making me beg!”