Danger, Sweetheart (22 page)

Very early on. It wasn't that their mom would shout or get hysterical or that she forbade discussion of the subject or would refuse to answer. She would get very quietly, very visibly upset and he and Rake would feel terrible for raising the subject.

No other subject was off-limits: she would answer questions about sex, money, politics, racism, religion, or any combination thereof. But she had little to say on the subject of where she came from. Eventually Blake came to understand it was a defense mechanism, one that kept her sane but made her take refuge in pride. For years, pride and her sons were all she had. Blake suspected all three held equal value in her eyes. In this, they were alike.

Whoever they were and whatever they had done, his mother had raised the twins on her own. That was all Blake needed to know, and he stopped asking about her family before his eighth birthday. Rake made up his own mind and stopped asking six months later.

“If they hadn't died and left her the property headache, we wouldn't be out here—Mom and me, I mean; Rake isn't here because Rake is terrible—and I still have more questions than answers. How can I spend close to a month in my mother's hometown and still not know anything?” The habit of not pressing, it seemed, ran deep.

“Died?” Natalie had pulled back with an expression of surprise. “I'm not getting you. They didn't—”

“Blake!”

They looked up; Shannah had stepped out on the porch with a glass of iced tea and her Kindle. No matter how often Blake persisted in buying her hardcover books, she persisted in riding the tech river. He had nothing against technological advancement, but there was nothing like the feel of a solid book in your hand. Bytes were no substitute for pages.

He rose to his feet. “Mom.”

“Natalie Lane?”

“Are you asking her if that's who she is?” he asked dryly. For her part, Natalie seemed flustered.

“Uh … hi, Shannah. I thought—” She looked at Blake, helpless. “I thought we were having lunch with your—”

“Roger is tickling trout, if you're looking for him.” It wouldn't do to have Natalie give the game away. And he must have misunderstood Natalie's expression.
Natalie Lane doesn't
do
helpless; I must be misinterpreting. And it's too damned hot out here!
He guzzled more booze-ade and squashed an evil chuckle at the havoc about to be wreaked.

Shannah was smiling at them both, dressed in her weekday outfit of dark slacks and a cream-colored blouse so simply designed it was almost stark. She had a navy blue cashmere sweater draped over one arm and her reading glasses on the end of her nose. She seemed so delighted to see him the first niggle of guilt slipped into his brain.

“This is a surprise, my boy. I'm so—”

“Holy
shit
.” At the rare epithet from Natalie, both Tarbells glanced at her, startled, then at what she was speaking of: the black stretch limousine at the far end of the driveway, just pulling in.

His mother's eyes went round as she put two and two together. One could argue that anyone could have commandeered a limousine from the airport and ordered the driver to take them three hundred miles into the Dakota prairie. Except not
anyone
would.
Someone
would, though, and his mom would know who. Fascinated (and not a little terrified), Blake realized he could almost see her working it out.
Blake
+
Heartbreak
÷
his resentment
×
insatiable curiosity
=
Dammit, Blake!

When she shouted, he was surprised the porch windows didn't shatter on impact.

“Blake Tarbell!”

Blake almost dropped his glass, recovered, toasted his mom, then turned to Natalie. “You should be running.”

 

Twenty-five

This is the most amazing thing I've ever seen, and that counts the time Blake was hosing down Margaret of Anjou with one hand and reading her Shakespeare's
Henry VI, Part 3
, with the other.

Natalie knew it was wrong to feel such excitement, knew she shouldn't be a witness to this. She felt like a spectator at a tennis match where the players had guns instead of rackets and the prize was murder. But Blake was fascinating and his mom was fascinating and his
grandmother
!
Holy God!

“You activated the nuclear option,” Shannah was saying, arms folded across her chest. “Touché, my son.”

“You left me little choice, Mom. Hello, Nonna. Booze-ade?”

An older woman right out of central casting for Well-Off Caucasian Grandmother
,
Blake's grandma

(the nuclear option?)

had left the limo before the driver had even unbuckled his seat belt, and was now standing before them on the porch. Natalie saw at once that she and Blake had the same eyes, that wonderful riveting deep blue, and the same coloring, pale skin and dark blond hair. Hers was streaked with silver and pulled back in a neat chignon. She was wearing an old-fashioned tweed skirt, a cream-colored blouse with a bow, sensible black low heels, a black cardigan (in the country! it was seventy-four degrees!), a small string of pearls, and an honest-to-God faux fur snugged around her throat.

“I came as soon as you called.” She accepted Blake's offer and took a glass. “Well, as soon as you called, plus several hours for travel. I woke up,” she added with a wistful look at the horizon, “in Boston. But this is nice, too.”

“Thank you, Nonna. This is my employer, Natalie Lane.”

Shannah's brow wrinkled into a frown, but Blake's grandma interrupted before she could comment. “This is delightful! Fresh lemon juice … um … sugar syrup? And rosemary? And something else I can't quite put a name to…”

“Vodka,” Natalie said helpfully. “Lots.”

“Yes, thank you, dear.” Natalie felt the near burn of the woman's examination and saw Blake shared more than her coloring. “My grandson spoke of you when he wasn't pleading for rescue.”

“Nonna…”

“He said you work hard and resolutely refuse to take crap from any source.”

“Oh. That's, um, yeah.”
Smooth, Nat.
“That was nice of him.”

“Mrs. Tarbell, I'll thank you not to interfere in this matter between my sons and me.”

“Oh, is Rake here, too?” she asked, the picture of innocence. “And for heaven's sakes, Shannah, I've been asking you to call me Ruth for decades.”

This time it was Blake's turn to pipe up with a helpful comment. “Rake is in Venice. Against his will, apparently.”

News to Natalie. But not to Shannah, she noticed, because the woman didn't blink. “We're not here to discuss Rake.”

Because Rake is terrible,
Natalie mouthed at Blake, who, to her delight, stifled a chuckle.

“Quite right. I'm here to have lunch with Blake and his friend Natalie. Oh, thank you.” Trish Miller, who helped run the B and B with her sister and brother-in-law, had appeared with another place setting. She winked at Natalie and headed back to the kitchen. To her relief, the other diners had left and they had the long three-season porch to themselves.

Blake's Nonna adjusted her faux

(the woman screams money might not be faux fur might be
actual
fur),

seated herself, then turned and waved at the limo. The driver started the engine and began backing out of the driveway.

“Don't worry,” she told Natalie, who wasn't worried at all. “He'll come back for me tomorrow. Oh yes. More of this please.” Natalie obligingly filled the older woman's glass. “Tell me about your farm. Heartache?”

“Heart
break
. It's not really my farm, I'm just—” She had to be careful. Shannah knew Natalie didn't work there. “—just helping while we figure out … while we try to—”
What?
She didn't know anymore. And Blake had never known, through no fault of his own. What was any of this
for
?

“Well, it's kind of you—”

“I'm not kind.”

“—to put up with my grandson.” A light, almost brittle laugh. “I can't imagine how much work he is.”

“He's not work. He
does
work.”
Wow. Here thirty seconds and Shannah's freaked and Blake looks like someone clipped him with a brick. Nuclear option indeed.

“No need to exaggerate, dear. My grandson knows a little bit about almost everything. Not enough to be satisfying. Just enough to drive you to distraction. ‘Keep this up and you'll give me an aneurysm.' ‘Actually, at your age a heart attack is more likely, Nonna.' ‘Shut up, darling.' ‘Very well, Nonna.'”

Natalie giggled. “Sorry, Blake, but she's got you dead to life.”

“Now, about your farm, I'm sure
he
thinks it's work, going on and on about the endless minutiae of, say, how farming goes back to the ancient Greeks—”

“Neolothic era, actually,” Blake said quietly.

“—while the people around him are the ones getting their hands dirty.”

“You don't know what you're talking about, Ms. Tarbell. He gets his hands dirty.” Natalie reached for his wrists—they'd shuffled seats to accommodate the nuclear option, so Natalie was now sitting beside Blake. “Look! He works harder than anyone. He's putting farmhands to shame.”
Well, Gary.
Which wasn't much of a trick, actually. “See?”

“It has been decades, actual decades, since someone told me I didn't know what I was talking about.” She leaned forward, inspecting Blake's palms, and looked back up at her with one of the sweetest smiles Natalie had ever seen. “And in this, you're right. I didn't know. Thank you.”

A test,
Natalie realized when the older woman instantly dropped the snobbish affectation and patted Blake's hands
. She was testing me. What a bat.

“Your poor hands, darling, you have to take better care.” Then, to Natalie: “Isn't he marvelous?” Blake's loving grandma was looking at him like—well, like a loving grandma. “My son's looks,” she added fervently, almost like a prayer, “and Shannah's brains. An outstanding combination.”

Natalie agreed, and couldn't help notice the look of surprise on Shannah's face.
Compliments from Miz Tarbell aren't something she's used to, maybe.
But without knowing how she knew, Natalie at once sensed it was more than that. Shannah's family history would have made it impossible to open up to a stranger. She would have never, could have never, let anyone in, especially Blake's grandmother. She would have known by then of the Banaan family curse.

Blake cleared his throat. “The reason I called you, Nonna—”

“You want your money back. Well. My son's money, God rest his silly soul.” The smile dropped off as if plucked, and the woman's blue eyes went dark with sorrow. “A fool, but my fool, and my fault. The money—my money—it ruined him.”

Blake sighed. “Apples and oranges, Nonna. I am nothing like my father. There's no need to punish me for the things he's done. Money hasn't ruined my life. It didn't ruin his.”

“Wrong, and wrong, and it's not punishment, dear.”

“No? Have you asked my mother?”

“Atonement isn't punishment.”

Shannah looked ready to bolt, and Natalie didn't blame her.

“I am almost thirty years old,” Blake said through gritted teeth. “It is inappropriate for you to sit in judgment of me and levy fines on what you perceive as my bad behavior. Your arbitrary actions have forced me to go over your head.”

“You squealed on me,” was Shannah's flat reply.

“Well, yes. And now you must reap the whirl—”

“I'm not giving you any money, Blake,” his grandma put in.

“What?”

“I didn't give your mother control of the trust to second-guess her. She did a fine job of raising my son's children; I won't cast doubt on her judgment now, for all you're grown men.”

“What?”

“My son chose your mother, Blake. I have to respect his choice. He wouldn't want me to undermine her the minute things aren't going your way.”

“Chose?” Blake shoved his chair back, doubtless to leave, then checked himself and stayed put. To rant, apparently, because he followed up with, “Can we please stop romanticizing their one-night stand? They barely knew each other! They married when Rake and I were born because you would have cut him off otherwise. It was a shotgun wedding and you were holding the eight gauge.”

“Twelve gauge,” Natalie mumbled. God, he was so cute when he tried to sound like a local yokel. And his voice, already deliciously deep, seemed to drop into the basement as he gave way to fury.

“They never lived together! They barely spoke in the years before he died. It's time to face the truth of his marriage, Nonna: Your son lost interest in my mother about eight seconds after he filled the condom
ouch
!”

He clutched his face and glared. Natalie, raised by hunters, hadn't even seen Miz Tarbell's arm move.
I could learn from this woman.
Natalie traded glances with Shannah.
Never in life did I think anyone could intimidate Shannah Banana. This is fascinating agony. Don't panic, don't panic.

“Do not lie.” Blake's sweet li'l old lady grandma was sitting tall and straight, her back not touching the chair and sunlight flashing on her pearls. “You know the idiot didn't use a condom.”

“Actually, I didn't. Rake put it down to ‘birth control fail' and I agreed.”

“I should g—”

Blake's hand shot out and grabbed Natalie's wrist as she started to rise. “Her version has gotten ever more saccharine over the years, Natalie. Would you like to know how it truly was?”