All or Nothing (19 page)

You had to have a soul to cry…and hers had just disappeared.

Chapter Ten

“She doesn’t deserve it,” Kyle had groused when Lucas explained why he was out of bed. He’d been explaining a lot to Kyle the last six weeks. None of it was anything Kyle didn’t know, though. The secret things, the most painful things, Lucas kept to himself.

“Yes, she does.” It took an hour just to get dressed, which was why Kyle had such an easy time of arguing. But it didn’t stop Lucas. Nothing would stop him. He’d wheezed his way down the stairs of his building to the cab waiting below.

“She’s not going to be grateful,” Kyle had tried one last time, holding open the cab door, a look of resignation finally on his face.

Lucas had sat, coughed into his kerchief and nodded. “I know.” And he did know, even as he now stood in front of a familiar green door, dizzy and exhausted. But he still reached out and pressed the doorbell.

The door opened like a force, revealing an aged version of an old nightmare. Adam Riggs looked down his nose, his hawkish eyes suspicious at once. “What do
you
want?”

No danger of being forgotten
here
.
“Is your wife home?”

“She’s busy.” Adam had to raise his voice over Lucas’s coughing. His thin slash of a mouth curled in disgust. “What’s wrong with you? You look sick.”

“Pneumonia. What’s your excuse?” Lucas asked, too tired to be as polite as he’d planned.

“Listen to me, you snot-nosed little punk—”

“Who’s at the door?”

Adam stopped talking at the sound of his wife’s voice. He gave Lucas another angry once-over before pushing open the door and walking back into the house. “Ella’s brat.”

Despite himself, Lucas smiled at the description. Wider when Amanda came out of the hallway while he entered, already asking, “Lucas?”

He’d earned that title when he began defending Belinda. When they were small, it was in simple ways. Taking her hand and running with her into the trees behind his house. Later it was in small pranks, like pulling Adam’s tools out of reach when he was working on his rig. Then in supplying Belinda with things that would make her father furious, such as a way home from after-school events he didn’t want to pay for or deal with, art supplies, even borrowing his father’s tools so she could tinker with machines in his garage. Kyle had often played interference, as did his parents, but Adam always knew who to blame. Ella’s brat.

“My lord, what’s wrong with you?”

“Just a little sick.” A lot sick, according to the doctor Kyle dragged him to. His condo had one main feature worthy of complaint—everyone used the same stairs. Which was why everyone always managed to get sick together. Normally, Lucas could shrug off a cold or even a flu. But he hadn’t been interested in running. Or eating. Or even working, which was what had Kyle rushing him to a physician. A copay and twenty minutes later, the man told him what he already knew—he was sick. Sleep came and went, but when it refused to come, there was always a puzzle to be dealt with. Anything was better than thinking about Belinda. But no matter what he did, he couldn’t seem to stop.

He wasn’t angry, which surprised him.

He simply felt empty.

“You look like death.”

Or dead. Hard to say which was more apt. “I’m fine.”

“You should be in bed,” Amanda continued. Worry stained the shadows in her blue eyes. She’d aged well, all things considered. Belinda looked a lot like her, but for those eyes. They had the same pale, sleek hair. But where Belle was all hard edges and sinewy muscle, her mother was plump and short. She helped him to the couch, where he sat and coughed for several minutes while she bustled off to make tea for him.

Adam sat in his recliner, ignoring him for the TV. Some things would just never change. Lucas dozed for a few minutes while Amanda was gone, waking abruptly when someone kicked the side of the couch. He stared up through bleary eyes at the older man. He’d once been powerful, but too many years driving and drinking had added plenty of padding to his middle and his jowls.

“Don’t come in my house and sleep on my couch, you lazy—”

“Adam, leave that boy alone. Can’t you see he’s sick?” Amanda called from somewhere far away.

“Then he should go home.”

“Can’t go home.” Lucas rolled his head back and listened to the bones crack. “I need to talk to you about Belle.”

“Who?”

“Belinda.” God, his focus was really gone.

Adam shook his head,
harrumphed
and went back to his chair. “She dead?”

“Adam!” Amanda brought out a tea service on a tray and set it on the table. “Ignore him, honey. Here, this should help. There’s some lemon. We don’t keep brandy anymore.” She pushed a mug into Lucas’s hands.

“Something’s got him out here when he shouldn’t be, don’t it? Girl’s either dead or dying, right?”

“She’s going to be at a function tonight. A commission.” This damn coughing was making him crazy. “You should be there,” he finally managed. Rather than try to explain, he brought out the announcement he’d grabbed as a memoir from the gala at the park. Now he handed it to Amanda, who sat next to him. “Her design might be chosen for Balboa Park.”

Her eyes widened, and she stared at the glossy pamphlet while he made himself sip the tea. “She’s doing this with those toys she makes?”

Lucas shook his head. Didn’t they know anything? “Her fountains.”

“Like the one she made in the backyard?”

Probably not, but he nodded anyway.

“She getting any money?” Adam asked, at last showing some interest.

“Not yet. But it’ll jumpstart her career.”

His interest disappeared.

Lucas didn’t care. He wasn’t there for Adam. “Would you like to come?” he asked Amanda.

He knew her answer the moment she looked away from him to the lump of idiot in the recliner. Adam met her gaze and shook his head. Amanda’s frown was sad, but it wasn’t rebellious. Not a spark of fight. Had it been beaten out of her or did she just not care enough? Lucas couldn’t decide which would be worse.

“I’m sorry, honey, but I don’t think I can tonight.”

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of event.” He’d gone there to try. His conscience wouldn’t let him go if he didn’t push at least once. “She’ll be seen as one of the city’s best artists after this. One of the best in the state. It would be important to her if you came.”

“If it was so damn important to her,” Adam drawled, sounding a lot like the Devil in Lucas’s tired mind, “why didn’t she come here and invite her mother herself?”

Lucas looked Adam up and down with open distaste. “I think we all know why Belinda refuses to come here.”

Amanda’s pale cheeks reddened and she looked away.

“She don’t need you fighting her battles, boy,” Adam replied with a grunt.

“No, but I will.” Lucas met the older man’s gaze and held it until Adam’s finally faltered. He turned back to Amanda, but he knew the answer already.

“I’m happy for her, Lucas, I really am—”

“You should be
proud
of her.” His pounding head made it hard to think clearly. “She’s worked hard to overcome all this. To make her dreams come true. She shouldn’t have to feel as if all her work means nothing to you.”

Adam, apparently, had enough. He stood, trying to intimidate. Lucas ignored him, keeping his gaze on Amanda. “Please. Come with me to see her.”

For a brief second, Amanda wavered. She looked to the door, back to her husband and finally down to her own hands. “Things have changed a lot around here, Lucas. They really have.”

Lucas shook his head. “I wish that were true, Mrs. Riggs.” He waved off Adam’s move to help him to his feet, getting up all on his own. “Thanks for the tea.”

Creaking his way to the door, he looked back briefly to see Amanda rubbing her fingers over the glossy announcement, her head bowed. No, some things probably never did change. But Belinda had found her way out of here and that alone was enough change for him. Someday, hopefully not too long from now, she’d realize what an accomplishment that was.

He could only hope to be there when she did.

It was a month and a half before Belinda came out of her haze. She woke up every day, ignoring the wetness on her cheeks, to take a shower, feed the dog and go back to work on her novelty items. Work, if lacking in creativity or passion, did pass the hours. Then the days. Eventually the weeks, but it didn’t fill the hollow space that only seemed to grow in her.

Lucas didn’t call. She didn’t expect him to. For the first time in years, the three blocks to his apartment seemed too far to travel, too painfully close to bear. Not that she ever saw him. Either he holed up as tightly as she had or he made it a point to steer as clear as humanly possible from anywhere she might be.

She didn’t blame him.

After she’d pushed him out of her apartment—her life—she didn’t have the energy to blame anyone. To
feel
anything. She was just a blank space people called Belinda. Corrine called several times, each time more worried than the last, never reassured by Belinda’s unimpressive claims to be fine.

She roused herself–at Kyle’s insistence— to attend the far smaller hotel ballroom party to announce the winner of the New Cultural Designer of the 21st Century fountain design. Apparently, Kyle had finally talked his Jessica into speaking to him, so she came along. Jessica had a somewhat nervous look about her, as if she weren’t completely convinced Kyle wasn’t planning to spring an invitation to a threesome on her. Belinda didn’t comment on her misapprehension.

Kyle, unfortunately, had no trouble expressing his suspicions.

“You look like shit.” He sat next to Belinda in his nicest suit, Jessica in the opposite seat,
tsking
at him. Behind them, on a screen that descended above the podium and stage, played the design schematics of each finalist’s design, introduced by none other than Yvonne MacInerney, interrupted every now and then by the sound of someone coughing in the back of the room.

“Screw you.” Without any malice, the words didn’t mean much. She watched the rotating designs, considering the cost and manpower required to build each one. It was going to be close.

“Kyle, you’re not helping,” Jessica admonished politely. She tipped her head to the other four people at their banquet table, all of them listening to Yvonne yammer on about each designer’s history and approach to the project. Belinda blandly noticed how comfortable Yvonne appeared on stage, her newly long and coppery hair pulled into some kind of complicated updo. Her comfort wouldn’t last long.

Belinda scooted back her chair, stretching her legs out between her and Kyle. She hadn’t dressed up for the event. She’d basically put down her blowtorch and got into her car to meet them at Kyle’s place. She was wearing her work boots, her overalls, a paint splattered black shirt and the bandana she used to cover her hair. Thankfully, it was growing out. She didn’t bother to get it dyed back to black. It wasn’t worth dealing with.

“Our final designer tonight is local city artist, Belinda Riggs.” Yvonne choked for a second, plastering a smile on her face while her eyes darted around nervously so she could avoid the teleprompter. The crowd waited, including the cougher, for her to continue, but Yvonne continued to fight the pained expression trying to form on her face.

Kyle caught the flub, but rather than think anything less of Yvonne, he turned back to Belinda. “What did you do?”

She ignored him, her eyes on the woman on stage, resplendent in gold lamé, right up to the highlights that made her poofy hair resemble that of an electrocuted Jane Fonda.

“Belinda…was born and raised here in San Diego County to…Adam and Amanda Riggs, who will be…
celebrating
their thirty-fifth anniversary by the time this fountain is completed. She’s worked her ahh…she’s worked for many years to reach this point in her career, making pieces of sh—
sheet
metal art for commercial art shops all over the county. Her work represents a life dedicated to the self…lessness and the pursuit of…true…art.”

“She’s fast on her feet,” Belinda mumbled more to herself than anyone else as Yvonne took a visible sigh and the crowd applauded politely. The speedy editing almost sounded like a tribute instead of the diatribe she’d written about the crappiness of her life. Kyle’s sharp gaze was joined by his tight grip on her wrist and a brief, firm shake of her hand. Nothing of his urgency registered. Not even the old fears triggered.

“Are you
trying
to cost yourself this commission?” he snapped in a low, angry voice.

“Kyle, no.” Jessica laid a hand on his shoulder and glanced around at the other people there who no doubt had caught on to them.

He didn’t seem to care. “Answer me!”

But Belinda didn’t have to. She just looked at him, letting him see the shell that was left of her.

He dropped her hand and swore disgustedly. “What are you two doing to each other?”

“Nothing.” She and Lucas could do nothing to each other. Not anymore.

He looked like he wanted to say more, but before he could get started—not that she would have listened—Yvonne was opening the envelope with the winner’s name on it.

“Oh, this is so exciting!” she cooed, tearing past the red sticker seal with a flourish. “And the New Designer of the 21st Century is…” She frowned, paused as if rereading to make sure she was understanding her note correctly. “Belinda Riggs.”