Just Desserts (17 page)

His expression shifted. He looked downright uncomfortable.

“I'm sorry. A little sperm donor humor. He's your friend and my next paycheck. I stepped over the line.”

“You didn't step over the line. You expressed an opinion.”

“Unsolicited.”

“Most opinions are.”

“I guess the whole father thing is a hot-button issue for me.”

He nodded but he didn't say anything. She wasn't sure if that was a sign of disinterest or discretion.

“In case you're wondering, I did say sperm donor before. It's kind of like the elephant in the room, isn't it?”

“Your mother went the sperm donor route?”

“She's a scientist. She was forty. There was no man in her life. She wanted a guaranteed brilliant child so she found herself a high IQ sperm donor and proved the entire thesis wrong when she had me.”

“I think she did pretty well for herself.”

“I'm not a Rhodes scholar, Rafferty.”

“You're an artist.”

“A baker.”

“An artist. I saw your paintings on the walls. I saw the work you've done on the cakes. You're the real deal.”

“I'm happy,” she admitted, “but there's no getting around the fact that I'm not exactly the brain trust she was hoping for.”

Rhoda barked twice, circled the kitchen table, then barked again.

She stood up. “Rhoda needs some out time.”

He pushed back his chair but she motioned for him to stop.

“Stay,” she said. “Nobody but family should ever have to walk behind Rhoda.”

 

In the end it was always about the timing.

He had been a half step away from telling her everything when the ubiquitous Rhoda decided it was time to hit the street.

He wasn't sure if the dog had saved him from making a terrible mistake or screwed him out of his one chance to find out where this could go.

He checked his phone for messages. Two more from Tommy, both about Willow and the negotiations. One from a friend putting together a charity softball game scheduled for August in Sagaponack. Nothing that couldn't wait.

He gathered up the dirty dishes, scraped them, then loaded them into her dishwasher. He chucked the empty cartons into the trash while the three cats watched him from the doorway.

“How's it hangin', Murray?”

The humongous white cat, tail held high like the mast of a clipper ship, loped toward him. Was a high-flying cat tail a good thing? It beat the hell out of him.

Clearly he had a lot to learn.

For example, how long did it take to walk a dog? She had been gone twenty minutes at least. He was wondering if the length of the walk was in any way proportional to the size of the dog when the kitchen phone rang.

“Hello! Hello!” Mr. G called out from his living room perch. “Helloooooo!”

By the fourth ring he realized voice mail wasn't going to kick in. Hayley didn't believe in unanswered phones. Lizzie wasn't home. It was up to him or Mr. G.

Opposable thumbs ruled.

“Hello.”

Long silence.

“Hello?”

“Sorry.” A girl's voice. “I must've dialed wrong.”

“Lizzie?”

“Yes.” She was definitely her mother's daughter. The slightly wary tone was a dead giveaway. “Who's this?”

“Finn Rafferty. Your mom is out walking Rhoda.”

“The famous guy's lawyer? What are you doing there?”

Those Goldstein girls didn't mince words. “Your mom and I were talking on the phone about great Chinese food. I told her we had the best take-out place on the planet in Montauk and ten minutes later I was in the car on the way down here to prove it.”

“That's crazy!” Lizzie was laughing as she said it.

“Eight hours round trip,” he said. “I think crazy pretty much covers it.”

“You can tell me the truth. You were worried about the cakes and that's why you really drove down.”

“Sorry, Lizzie. It was all about Chinese food.”

“You're not even a little worried?”

“On a scale of one to ten, I'd rank it a zero.”

“I'll bet she showed you anyway.”

He started to laugh. “You're right,” he said, “and it was incredible.”

“I told you it would be.” He could hear her smile right through the phone.

You had to love the kid. Fourteen years old and filled with confidence and enthusiasm. He knew who was responsible.

Thundering hooves sounded on the staircase followed by a lighter, syncopated step.

“Hang on, Lizzie. Your mom just walked in.”

The cats scattered as Rhoda exploded into the room.

“Hey, guys! You don't have to knock me down.” Hayley pretended to stagger into the kitchen as Ted, Mary, and Murray tore past her. Her brows lifted when she noticed he was holding the phone.

“It's Lizzie,” he said.

Everything he needed to know about her was reflected in her eyes as she took the receiver from him. Love, fear, concern, joy. He knew that look. He had seen it many times in Tommy's eyes when he looked at his brood.

“What's up…Yes, I found the keys…The food was great…” She glanced over at Finn and winked. “It just might be the best…She's your friend…You know she didn't mean that…Yes, I know…Lizzie!” She made a quarter turn toward the window. “Of course I'll come get you…Stay put…One egg roll, a little soup, and some shrimp in garlic sauce…I'll be there soon.”

She hung up the phone then turned back to him. He had never seen a lovelier face or a more expressive one.

“Lizzie had a fight with her best friend and now she wants to come home. I have to go get her.” Was that regret mixed in with the other emotions?

He hoped so.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “She's fourteen. They're very dramatic at that age. Everything's a soap opera.”

He said all the right things. It was late. He had a long drive ahead of him. She shouldn't keep Lizzie waiting. He didn't mean any of them. He wanted to stay. He wanted her to stay. He wanted reality to stay away a little longer.

They made their way downstairs, through the bakery, past the workroom with the prototypes of the drum set and the gold records and a shitload of guilt, and out the back door. Her aging Buick was tucked in the driveway, a few feet away.

“Where are you parked?” she asked.

“In front of the dry cleaners.” He aimed a smile at her in the darkness. “I figured Lou might want to keep an eye on me.”

“Lou and everyone else in town,” she said with a rueful but affectionate laugh. “By the way, I didn't forget that I owe you twenty.”

“You don't owe me anything.”

“I had a great time today, Finn.” She paused. “Even if you do smell like a spring garden.”

“You were right before when you said this wasn't a date.”

Her voice went softer. “What gave it away?”

“The fact that I'd like to do it all over again.”

He heard the hopeful uncertainty in her voice. “No changes?”

“No changes.”

“I'd change one thing.”

“Okay,” he said, thinking of their lack of a condom. “I'd change that too.”

She ducked her head. “Not that.” A long pause. “I'd change Lizzie's timing.”

Her mouth was soft beneath his in the welcoming darkness. The sweet night air dancing in the charged space between them. Rhoda barked from somewhere inside the house. Bits of conversation floated toward them from the street. A radio, set to the Phillies station, alternately blared then drifted away.

The charged space between them vanished as they melted into each other. She was slender, gently curved in ways that surprised and delighted him. He knew her body now, knew it intimately. He knew how she tasted, how she smelled, how she sounded when she came.

But that wariness, that reserve, was still there.

It killed him to know that she was right to be wary. Nothing was exactly as it seemed to be. Nothing but the moment.

“Finn, I—”

“Shh.”

He cupped her face with his hands, kissed her hard and fast, then stepped away.

“Go,” he said. “Lizzie's waiting.”

She nodded, her blue-green eyes searching him for something he couldn't give.

“You know that other shoe I keep waiting for?” she asked.

He nodded.

“I think it just dropped.”

“The soup at Szechuan Dan's is better than this.” Lizzie pushed her bowl away from her and reached for the carton of kung pao.

Hayley plucked a noodle from the half-empty bowl and dipped it in some mustard. “I thought the soup was amazing.”

Lizzie fussed with her chopsticks for a moment then abandoned them for a fork. “This isn't bad,” she said, spearing a piece of chicken.

“Come on, Lizzie. Give credit where it's due.”

Lizzie favored her with a grin. “Okay, so it's great.”

“Told you so.” It wasn't often the mother of a teenage girl got to say that with impunity.

She divided the egg roll into two and popped a half on her daughter's plate. “So tell me what went wrong over at Tracy's house. I thought you two were best buds.”

Lizzie embarked on a long story about science lab and some project she had been working on with Amanda. Hayley tried very hard to keep her attention on her daughter but she kept replaying her day with Finn.

“Mom! You're not listening.”

“Sorry. Just repeat the last part and I'll catch up.”

“I don't want to talk about that anymore.” She brightened. “Grandma Jane called me on my cell while I was at Tracy's. She'll be in London tomorrow. She said she'll stay a day or two then fly the rest of the way home before the end of the week.”

“How did she sound?”

“Tired,” Lizzie said.

“She's jet-lagged.”

“From what? She hasn't even left Mumbai yet.”

Good point. Was it possible age was finally making inroads on her superhuman mother? The thought of Jane showing signs of human frailty sent a shiver up her spine and the worrying apparatus into motion.

“We're going to have to shovel out the guest room,” Hayley said. “And make sure the bathroom is up to her standards.” The woman had made do on tramp steamers and garbage scows in her search to discover all there was to know about the world's oceans. She had availed herself of strange sanitary apparatus that would make a Navy SEAL go weak at the knees. But once Jane was on dry land, all bets were off.

“No bathroom is up to Grandma's standards,” Lizzie said, laughing. “She told me only an operating room is clean enough.”

“Well, she's going to have to lower her standards while she's living Chez Us.” Hayley laid out the schedule for the next few days. “I'm going to need a lot of help from you this week, Lizzie. Everything's happening at once and we're going to have to pull together to get it all done.”

“Aunt Fee wants to know why Grandma isn't staying with her. She's insulted.”

“I was wondering the same thing,” Hayley admitted. “The last time she stayed with us you hadn't even started school yet.”

“She's not a big fan of cats.”

“Or dogs.”

“Or parrots.”

“Or my cooking.” Hayley rolled her eyes.

“Or my music.”

“Your grandmother's a moocher,” Hayley said. “She sends all her money to that save-the-whales foundation of hers and mooches off indigent relatives instead.”

Lizzie was laughing so hard she couldn't talk and Hayley wasn't far behind. When your mother was a combination of Einstein and Mother Teresa, sometimes the only thing a dropout daughter could do was laugh, and if she made her own daughter laugh too, so much the better.

Jane could be imperious, demanding, and difficult to live with on a daily basis. She craved logic, quiet, and harmony, three things found only in Lizzie's room and then in random combinations.

Despite her proclaimed lack of regard for material pleasures, Jane preferred Egyptian cotton sheets, organic vegetables, and French milled soaps. Hayley's sheets were Kmart blue-light specials. Her vegetables came straight from ShopRite and her soap was Dial or Irish Spring, depending which brand was on sale.

Aunt Fiona was a bit of a snob too when it came to domestic pleasures. She also lived alone and had a beautifully decorated guest room at the ready. Why Jane hadn't opted to stay with her sister was a mystery to everyone.

Then again, that wasn't the only mystery she had bumped into lately.

“I told you Finn Rafferty liked you.”

“Of course he likes me,” Hayley said. “I'm a likable person.”

“You know what I mean. He
likes
likes you.”

“Don't go reading anything into Chinese food, Lizzie.” She tucked away the memory of his lovemaking to savor later in private. “At first I thought he came down here to back out of the deal.”

“No way.”

“I had the feeling all afternoon that there was something he wanted to tell me but every time I thought he was about to spill it, he changed the subject.”

“So why didn't he?”

“I don't know. At first he didn't want to go downstairs and see how things were going on the job but I pushed—better to catch problems now than later—and he spent a long time inspecting the prelim drawings.”

“They're way cool,” Lizzie said around a mouthful of food. “You're an artist, Mom. You could hang those drawings in a gallery.”

Hayley had no false modesty about her artistic ability. Her talent was what had propelled her through school, not her academic achievements. “I don't think he was really seeing any of it. It was like he was looking past them and thinking of a way to let me down gently.”

“Well, he didn't.”

“No,” Hayley said as the memory of her rumpled bed blossomed before her eyes. “He certainly didn't.”

Like spontaneous combustion, the heat had flared between them, burning away everything but the feel of his mouth against hers, the rough, sweet touch of his hands on her body.

But as much as she would love to believe he had driven four hours for the pleasure of her company, she was a realist and she knew there had been something else going on. The chemistry between them was just a bonus, one that neither of them had expected.

She had spent the last few years maintaining a sharp focus and she couldn't afford to lose it now when it was finally starting to pay off.

No more Chinese food deliveries. No more naked men in hot-pink towels. No flirty e-mails, IMs, or phone calls. And definitely no long, deep kisses that made a woman forget her name.

For the next couple of days she was going to be all about the work, but once that after-party was over…

East Hampton—the Next Morning

It was only nine o'clock and already the day was out of control.

Finn had fielded a skirmish between Tommy and his sons, renegotiated the insurance contract with the airport, and participated in a major slugfest with the musician's union rep in Atlantic City. At least it wasn't a regular tour date, which involved a minimum of fifteen tour buses to haul the set, the musicians, and the roadies. The contracts surrounding that endeavor were enough to make a lawyer long for the days of the handshake deal.

Tommy's manager usually handled the special dressing-room requests part of the package but that nasty job had fallen to Finn this time around. There was something humbling about requesting twenty bottles of Poland Spring, two bowls of Cheez-Its, and a fridge stocked with Grey Goose and Yoo-hoo for a grown man.

He had been on his way to the kitchen for caffeine reinforcements when Amber, Tommy's eldest by his first wife, waylaid him five feet from the coffee machine.

Like her father, Amber had married young but so far her marriage seemed to be rock solid.

“She's horrible!” She griped to Finn as he poured himself a cup of coffee. “Somebody's got to talk some sense into Dad before it's too late. The thought of that walking boob job as my stepmother makes me want to secede from the family.”

“Willow is high-strung,” Finn said, marveling at his own mastery of understatement. Maybe it had something to do with not getting any sleep. “You remember what the first trimester was like. Add a wedding to that and you get—”

“A first-class bitch. Don't go making excuses for her, Finn. All she does is talk about that ridiculous prenup she's so worried about. If she loved Dad, she wouldn't be working it so hard, would she? I mean, everyone on the planet knows he's a pushover when it comes to his family. It's not like he wouldn't be fair.”

He caught sight of Jilly, Anton, and three of the backup dancers walking up from the beach.

“We went over this before.” He led her into Tommy's office at the back of the house and out of the line of fire. “The prenup is in your father's best interests.” He let that sink in for maybe the fiftieth time. “We need to protect his assets, Amber, and sometimes the process can take a while.”

“I don't see why.” She flopped down onto the huge leather couch by the window and for a second Finn was reminded of the little girl who had followed him around the mansion like a shadow when he first moved in years ago. “It's not like this is his first time.”

He sat on the edge of Tommy's glass-and-bleached-oak desk. “Every situation is different. Willow's pregnant with Tom's child. That complicates everything.” It was all about his kids, he explained to Amber. Tommy wanted to make sure their share of his assets would remain protected.

Amber rolled her huge blue-green eyes. “Isn't it about time somebody spoke to him about family planning? I love my sibs but this is getting ridiculous!”

She smiled when she said it and Finn smiled back at her. “You know what I'm not saying, right?”

“Yes, and I'm going out of the baby business as soon as number three is born,” she said, cradling her barely visible bump. “I mean, is he going to be seeding the crops when he's in his eighties?”

All of Tommy's kids shared his quick temper and even quicker willingness to forgive and forget. It was one of the things he liked best about the Stiles family.

“Why are you looking at me that way? It's the new haircut, isn't it? I told Jilly I wanted something different but—”

He shook his head. “Sorry. I was just thinking how much like Tommy you are.”

And how much like Hayley. After spending a day with her yesterday, he saw more similarities now than before. A way of speaking, of moving, those beautiful blue-green eyes that all of his children shared.

“I'm worried,” she said, leaning back into the squashy sofa. “The way Willow's dragging her feet…I just know she's up to something.”

“She's not up to anything. Blame it on her lawyer and me. We're ironing a few things out, that's all. Give it another week or two and everything will be clear.” Probably too clear once they found out about Hayley and Lizzie, but they would deal with that problem when they got to it.

“I don't know why you just don't hand her a settlement and be done with it. Is there anyone who actually believes this marriage has a chance in hell of lasting longer than it takes for the baby to be christened?”

“Your father believes.”

Amber sighed loudly. “The man's sixty—”

“Fifty-nine.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fifty-nine and counting. Shouldn't he have learned something about old men and the young women who pretend to love them by now?”

“Somebody else made that same observation to me recently and I'll tell you what I told her: he's an optimist. He keeps on believing no matter what.”

“‘…What I told her?'” Amber's eyebrows were practically on the ceiling. “You're seeing someone! Since when?”

“I'm not seeing anyone.” He hesitated. He hated these gray areas of half-truth. Especially with someone who was like family to him. “I saw her once. Yesterday. I don't know where it's going.”

“So that's why you weren't answering your phone yesterday!”

“I answered the phone. Ask your father. He called often enough.”

“I phoned around six thirty and it went straight to voice mail.”

“You didn't leave a message.”

“Who is she?”

“Nobody you know.”

“Is she from around here?”

“Nope.”

“Oh.” She looked disappointed. “I was hoping you were interested in Susan Endicott from the bank.”

“Who the hell is that?”

“The short redhead in mortgages.”

He couldn't put a face to the name or the description. “Why would you think I was interested in her?”

“I don't know.” Amber shrugged. “She's good-looking, funny, and she asked about you.” She aimed a look in his direction. “I guess I was hoping.”