The Wishing Tide (14 page)

Lane

L
ane stared out the kitchen window at the rain-swept beach, her paring knife forgotten over the tomato on the cutting board. Two days and still there’d been no sign of Mary. Two mornings without seeing her figure huddled on the dunes, two days of waiting for her to return for her bag full of pills.

More than once, she’d been tempted to drive over to Hope House, to check on her, or at least drop off her medication, but something told her Mary would be less than thrilled to see her. Perhaps it was the look on her face when she’d shrieked at Lane to keep away. But she couldn’t sit by and do nothing. The whole thing had been her fault. She had prodded and pried, pushing for the truth until Mary had finally come undone. The least she could do was make sure she’d gotten home safely. Tomorrow—if she didn’t appear tomorrow, she would ride over to Hope House and at least drop off her meds.

Michael would try to talk her out of it, of course, ticking off all the reasons it was a bad idea, but then she already knew them all. Still, he’d been pretty decent about the whole thing. After stumbling into him in the kitchen with tears streaming down her face, she’d had no choice but to come clean about Mary’s unraveling.

His reaction had surprised her. Before she knew what was
happening, he had pulled her into his arms, holding her tight while she blubbered out the whole horrible ordeal. She’d left out the details—the dead boy and the attempted suicide—they weren’t hers to share, even if she had managed to understand Mary’s agitated gibberish, which she hadn’t. By the time she’d stopped crying she had painted a pretty clear picture of just how thoroughly Mary had unraveled. Exactly as he’d predicted she would. And yet he hadn’t said I told you so, at least not in so many words. Nor had he tried to talk her out of worrying or feeling guilty. Instead, he had held his tongue and listened with an empathy she hadn’t expected.

Lane didn’t turn when she heard the scrape of his shoes as he entered the kitchen. He moved to the stove, giving the pot of spaghetti sauce a quick but unnecessary stir.

“She’s not likely to be out there in this, Lane,” he said, eyeing her as she stood staring out the window at the blowing gray drizzle.

“I know. I know. I just keep hoping. I’ve decided to ride over to Hope House tomorrow if she doesn’t show up in the morning.”

“Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

She forced a thin smile. “I knew you wouldn’t think so, but I have to go. I at least need to get her medications back to her.”

“Then just do that. Drop off the meds and then walk away from the rest of this. It’s eating you up and it’s not your problem. Or your fault.”

Lane set down her knife and slowly wiped her hands. “I pushed her, Michael. I knew she was in trouble, and I just kept pushing. So yes, it is a little bit my fault.”

Michael said nothing as he busied himself with a corkscrew and bottle of merlot. She was grateful to him for that, and for the glass of wine he eventually pressed into her hand. It was the third night they’d cooked together. She knew he was trying to keep her thoughts off Mary, to keep her from stewing in her own guilt, and she appreciated the effort.

“Look, I know you’re just trying to look out for me, but I have to do this. I couldn’t live with myself if something’s happened to her.”

He nodded somberly. “Well, if I can’t change your mind, can we at least change the subject?”

“What should we talk about?”

Michael lifted the lid off the spaghetti pot and peered down into the rolling water. “Well, for starters, we could talk about why this pasta’s taking so long. I’m starving.”

Lane took a sip of merlot and went back to preparing her salad. “It’s been kind of nice having someone to cook with these last couple days. You’re actually not too bad in the kitchen.”

Michael snatched a slice of cucumber from the cutting board. “This isn’t going to be another crack about me growing up with a cook, is it?”

“No, it’s a serious compliment. Bruce didn’t know which end of a spatula was which.”

Michael shrugged. “I’m a bachelor, and I need to eat. As far as Becca was concerned, the well-stocked kitchen required just two ingredients—wine and yogurt. Beyond that, it was up to me.”

Lane raised her eyebrows questioningly over her wineglass. “Becca?”

“A woman I dated for a while. A yoga instructor. She’s in L.A. now, I think, which is probably a good place for her.”

“You don’t like California?”

Before Michael could respond the front door buzzer sounded, three quick, impatient bursts. Michael set down his glass and headed for the parlor. “I’ll get the door. You drain the pasta. I don’t care if it’s still crunchy. I’ll eat it anyway.”

Lane laughed as he disappeared. She paid no attention to the faint murmur of voices coming from the parlor as she spilled the pot of spaghetti into the colander. A few minutes later she heard Michael clear his throat as he returned to the kitchen.

“Laney . . . honey . . . look who’s here.”

Lane grunted a bare acknowledgment, negotiating the colander of pasta with a face full of steamy bangs as she threw a glance over her shoulder. For a moment she was too stunned to make sense of what she was seeing, but gradually she wrapped her head around the sight of a petite brunette with her arm looped through Michael’s.

“Mother . . . what on earth are you doing here?”

It was a ridiculous question, or at least a rhetorical one. She knew full well what her mother was up to. She had come to meet Michael, the man who was spending the winter with her daughter—the man with whom she was purportedly having copious amounts of sex.

Cynthia stepped forward to brush an airy kiss on her daughter’s cheek. “Well, what does it look like, Laney? I came to spend some time with my little girl, and to see how they stuff a turkey down South.”

Turkey?

Mystified, Lane blinked at her mother. Then, finally, it dawned. It was the middle of November; Thanksgiving was next week. She’d grown so used to the inn being empty at this time of year that she barely marked the passing of the holidays anymore. There didn’t seem much point when it was just her. Only, as far as her mother knew, it wasn’t just her anymore. As far as her mother knew, she’d be spending Thanksgiving with her new boyfriend.

A prickle of panic tingled along the back of her neck at the thought of having to confess the truth, that the handsome Michael Forrester was a paying guest and nothing more, their supposed romance a mere fiction born of frustration and one too many beers. It had seemed harmless enough at the time, ill-considered, certainly, but necessary. How was she supposed to know her mother would hop a plane and show up unannounced?

Cynthia was looking her over with critical eyes, and a bit of a pout. “Aren’t you happy to see me, darling? You don’t look very happy.”

Lane managed a shaky smile. “Of course I’m happy, Mother. I’m just . . . surprised. Come to think of it, how did you even get here?”

Cynthia began to unbutton her trench coat, scattering raindrops onto the kitchen floor. “Well, I flew, of course. It took three planes to get me here. I finally ended up in Manteo, I think it’s called. And then I had to rent a car. I thought I’d never get here. In fact, I was sure the man at the rental place had given me the wrong directions. He didn’t tell me I’d be driving to the end of the earth. But then, it’s worth it to spend time with my daughter and her young man.”

Her . . .
young man
?
Lane swallowed a groan. Apparently her mother had been watching reruns of
Father Knows Best
again. Her cheeks were hot as she glanced at Michael, who, rather than showing signs of annoyance, seemed to be enjoying himself—and her predicament—immensely. He had a right, she supposed, since she’d seen fit to make him a part of the drama.

Time to face the music, then, along with her mother’s—what? Lane couldn’t even come up with a name for what she was about to face. Still, they said it was best to rip the bandage off quickly. They’d just see about that.

“Mother, there’s something I need to—”

Before she could get the rest out, Michael extricated himself from Cynthia’s arm and came to Lane’s side, slipping an arm smoothly about her waist. “Never mind about the dinner, sweetheart. I’ll take care of that. Cynthia, I hope you’re hungry. Your daughter’s an amazing cook.” He turned to Lane then, with an adoring smile, and stunned her by dropping a kiss on her cheek. “Now, why don’t you pour your mom a glass of wine while I set another place and finish up the pasta?”

Sweetheart?

Lane stood blinking at the two of them. Had he really just agreed to play along with the ridiculous charade for her mother’s sake? It was absurd, unthinkable. And yet, to her everlasting shame, she couldn’t deny feeling enormously relieved.

Not that her mother was off the hook—not by a long shot. She would deny it, of course, but Lane knew her too well to believe this was anything but a good old-fashioned ambush. When Val had failed to turn up any new information, she’d decided it was time for a little recon mission of her own, carried out under the guise of a holiday visit.

“Mother, where is Robert?” Lane asked as she took her mother’s dripping coat and hung it on a peg near the back door. “Please don’t tell me you left your husband alone on Thanksgiving to come see me?”

Cynthia quirked one perfectly groomed eyebrow at her daughter, letting the silence stretch just a little long. “It’s sweet of you to worry about Robert,” she said finally, in the breezy voice she usually reserved for parties. “But I promise you, he’ll barely know I’m gone. He’s working on some big corruption case that goes to trial in a couple of weeks. It doesn’t seem to be going very well, but then, it never does when there are big shots involved. And in Chicago there are always big shots involved. So there you are. I’m all yours.”

Lane caught Michael’s warning glance and rearranged her grimace into a smile. “Let me get you a glass of wine, Mother. Then I need to help Michael with dinner.”

After settling her mother at the kitchen table—now set for three—Lane poured her a glass of merlot, then topped off her own with a heavy hand. To her dismay, Michael had already tossed the pasta and was nearly finished slicing the bread. She’d hoped for a few moments to collect herself before they sat down to eat, to reconcile herself to her mother’s sudden and inexplicable presence, and examine the wisdom of maintaining the illusion that she and Michael were lovers.

On one hand, it would be a disaster to continue the charade only to give themselves away with some clumsy slipup, which, given the fact that they’d known each other all of three weeks, wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibility. On the other hand, it would
only be for a few days. They could pull anything off for a few days. Her mother would fly back to Chicago, happy and none the wiser.

Glancing around the kitchen, Lane tried to see it as her mother must have seen it upon entering: the table set for two, a pair of wineglasses side by side on the counter, the two of them cooking together. It was all very cozy, and apparently convincing, if her mother’s pleased expression meant anything. Maybe—just maybe—this could work.

Cynthia beamed as Michael held out a chair for her, then did the same for her daughter. Lane shot him a look that was part gratitude, part confusion. She had no idea why he was doing this, but she certainly planned to find out at the first opportunity. After a deep pull from her wineglass, she began serving up the salad.

“Well, now,” Cynthia said, plucking a slice of bread from the basket Michael held out. “Isn’t this nice, us being all together like this? Though I hope I didn’t interrupt anything . . . private.”

Lane cringed at the carefully placed pause. “No, Mother. We were just making dinner. Your timing was perfect, although if you had called I could have met you in Manteo and saved you all that driving.”

“Oh, but, Laney, that would have spoiled the surprise. I do wish you could have seen the look on your face when you turned around and saw me standing in your kitchen. I swear, it was like you were looking at a ghost.”

“How long are you planning to stay?” Lane asked coolly, ignoring the sharp nudge of Michael’s knee beneath the table.

“My return ticket is for the twenty-ninth. That’s the Monday after Thanksgiving. I tried for Saturday, and then Sunday, but everything was booked because of the holiday.”

Lane did the math in her head.
Sweet Jesus, six days.
Before she could reach for the newly opened wine bottle, Michael grabbed it and topped off Cynthia’s glass, then placed it discreetly but pointedly out of reach. She shot him daggers, then fixed her attention on her plate.

“So, Laney tells me you’re a writer, Michael,” Cynthia said with a broad, beaming smile.

“Actually, I’m a professor who just happens to be writing a book.”

“A professor! Well, how very interesting. Where do you teach, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Or even if you do,” Lane muttered into her wineglass.

Michael checked her with a sidelong glance before returning Cynthia’s smile. “I teach English lit at Middlebury College. That’s in Vermont.”

“Vermont?” she repeated with another of her pouts. “But that’s so far away. Tell me, how in the world did you two ever get together?”

Lane set down her fork with a clatter. She couldn’t do this. “Actually, Mother, we—”

Michael’s fingers shot out to capture hers in a quick but viselike squeeze. “Actually, we met right here at the inn, Cynthia.”

Lane stared at him, astonished as he began heaping pasta on her mother’s plate with his free hand. “Your daughter took me in out of the rain one night, like a stray dog, and agreed to put me up. The rest, as they say, is history. Isn’t it, sweetie?”

Lane stared at her plate, feeling vaguely queasy. Alternative history, maybe. But what the hell, they were in it up to their ears now.
There was nothing
to do but keep paddling. Feeling the weight of her mother’s expectant gaze, she turned to Michael with what she hoped would pass for a lovesick smile. “Yes, we just . . . hit it right off.”

Cynthia was smiling from ear to ear. “Laney, honey, I’m so happy for you. And so glad to know you won’t be rattling around this place by yourself anymore.”