Her Mother's Shadow (24 page)

Lacey swallowed her first mouthful of cake. “It's delicious,” she said with sincerity. “You would make a good wife.”

He sat down next to her on the swing, laughing as though he found that very funny. “Glad you like it,” he said.

“So—” she stuck her fork in a slice of berry “—you were going to tell me about your book.”

“Ah, yes.” He took a bite of cake and chewed it slowly, his gaze focused in the direction of the sound. He swallowed, then rested his plate on his thighs. “Well, it's titled
Cases and Concepts of Federal Income Taxation
and it's geared toward the law student,” he said.

“Uh-huh.” She injected all the interest she could into the tone of her voice.

He told her about a couple of the more interesting—to him, at least—cases, and although she fought the boredom, her face apparently could not mask it.

“Your eyes
are
glazing over,” he said after he'd been talking for a few minutes. He leaned toward her for a better look. “Literally. I can see the candles reflected in a thick layer of glossy, dewy tears.”

“Sorry,” she said with an apologetic smile. “I tried, but it's hard for me to get a handle on.”

“And you don't need to.” He lowered his empty plate to the floor of the deck and slipped his arm around her shoulders. He smelled good, and this
was
the scent of expensive aftershave, no doubt about it. She turned her head to him and it was she who started the kiss. His lips were light on hers at first, and then she felt his tongue gently slip into her mouth. She wanted to pull away, but held her ground.
Feelings will follow behavior.
Wasn't that what it said in the book?
Fake it till you make it.
Her mind was working overtime as she tried to return the ardor of his kisses. If she behaved as
though she wanted this, she might truly start to want it. Or maybe it was a good sign that she didn't want to simply take this man to bed. Maybe that meant he was the right guy for her. But when Rick lifted his hand to touch her breast through her T-shirt, she caught his fingers in hers.

“Sorry,” he said.

“Don't be,” she said. “I'm being ridiculous.”

“No, you're not.”

“You must think I'm a huge prude,” she said.

He shook his head. “I'm in no rush,” he said. “Should we stop? Play cards? I found a checkerboard in one of the kitchen cupboards.”

He was so patient with her. So sweet. She suddenly realized that she felt genuine affection for him, and the feeling both surprised and comforted her. She leaned back to get a good look at him. “You're really amazing,” she said.

“So are you.”

“Okay,” she said, standing up from the porch swing. “So where are the cards?”

L
acey sat next to Rick on a bench at the far side of the house, the area away from the ocean, where Clay did his “box training.” Eight large wooden crates were spread out across the sand, varying distances between them. A young woman held a nearly white golden retriever on a leash, while Clay explained to Mackenzie what she was to do. Mackenzie held a glove in her hand, wadding it up over and over again as she listened intently to Clay's words. Lacey leaned forward, her straw hat shading her face, trying unsuccessfully to hear what her brother was saying. She was aware of Rick's hand resting lightly on her back. It felt like nothing to her, and that frustrated her. His hand might as well have been a dish towel lying against her back. She laid her own hand on his thigh, struggling to feel, if not a jolt of electricity at touching him, at least some small itch of desire, but there was nothing. How long was she supposed to wait for the feelings to follow her behavior? She felt safe and comfortable with Rick, and that was the most important thing, she told herself. She'd never—not once—expe
rienced that sense of security with a guy she'd dated. Rick was interested in more than her body. They were creating the sort of foundation they could build a relationship on. What other man would play cards with her until late at night, when he'd obviously had something a bit more carnal in mind?

Bobby had returned to Rick's house around eleven, after his movie-and-ice-cream date with Mackenzie. If he'd thought it strange to find Lacey and his housemate in the middle of a game of gin rummy, he'd said nothing about it. Lacey wondered if Bobby was watching her and Rick right now. The bench they were sitting on would be in clear view from the sunroom where he was working, and ever since taking her seat next to Rick, she'd been aware of his presence somewhere behind her.

Clay told the woman to walk around the side of the house so that her dog would be unable to see what was happening in the yard. Then he took the glove from Mackenzie and sent her out to one of the boxes. She skittered across the sand, a happiness in her gait that Lacey had not seen before—although Bobby's description of her enthusiastic response to horseback riding sounded as though it might have been similar. The boxes had doors hinged on one side, and Mackenzie pulled open the door and slipped inside. Once she was safely hidden away, Clay called the woman and her dog back.

“Is he going to sniff the glove and then find Mackenzie by following her scent?” Rick asked.

“Uh-huh.” Lacey had seen Clay's box training before, and apparently, the golden retriever had, too. The dog sniffed hungrily at the glove, his whole body quivering with excitement. When the woman unfastened the leash from his collar, he took off, running directly for the crate in which
Mackenzie was hiding. He sat down next to it, his tail beating the sand, and let out one bark. Mackenzie hopped out of the crate, laughing, letting the dog knock her to the ground. The woman jogged over to the box to give the dog a treat, although it was clear that Mackenzie's affection had been all the reward he'd needed.

The sequence was repeated several times, with Mackenzie hiding in a different box each time. Clay had her run around the area before hiding, so that the dog would not simply follow her scent to the correct crate. Mackenzie was perfect for this. Lacey had occasionally served as the “victim” for her brother's training, and she'd found it boring, but the girl seemed to have plenty of energy for the process and it was apparent she adored dogs. Maybe they should consider getting her one of her own.

“He's going to the wrong crate,” Rick said quietly. The dog sniffed around the box in which Mackenzie had hidden the last time.

“He still smells her there,” Lacey said.

The dog looked back at his owner uncertainly.

Clay whispered something to the woman. “Go find!” the woman called, and the dog continued his hunt, barking when he found the right crate, struggling to sit still as he waited for his playmate to come out of the box.

Rick tilted his head back and sniffed the air. “Speaking of scents,” he said, “what did you say Gina's fixing for dinner?”

The exotic scent of Gina's cooking had made its way out into the yard.

“
Aloo gobi
and
biryani,
” Lacey said. “She's a fabulous Indian cook.” She and Clay had never eaten Indian food before Gina's arrival, but she'd gotten them hooked on it.

“It smells incredible,” he said. His hand crept up her back
to her neck and he kneaded the muscles there, and she did her best to prevent them from tightening under his touch.

Over dinner Mackenzie was full of questions about training dogs for search-and-rescue work. There was an electric charge in the air that everyone except Mackenzie seemed to be aware of. She was talking. She was
engaged.
She was even eating
aloo gobi
without protest. Bobby caught Lacey's eyes across the table and raised his eyebrows at her, smiling, nodding his head in Mackenzie's direction. She smiled back, holding his gaze as long as she dared.

She shifted her eyes to Rick. Rani sat in her high chair between Gina and Rick and had somehow managed to stick some rice onto Rick's hair when Gina wasn't looking. Rani giggled, and Rick played along, asking her what she was giggling at, which only made her giggle harder.

“I have a dog coming tomorrow afternoon that's just starting her wilderness training,” Clay said to Mackenzie. “Would you be comfortable going into the woods to hide?”

“Sure,” she said, a forkful of
biryani
halfway to her mouth. “As long as it's not dark. Would I be standing behind a tree or what?”

“There are plenty of places to hide in the woods,” Clay said. “I dragged in huge boards and some chunks of concrete, and there are fallen trees to hide behind. But you might want to take a book or something with you. It can get pretty boring while you wait for the dog to find you.”

“I'll take my cell phone.”

“Well, that won't work,” Clay said.

“Oh, yeah. The dog would hear me.” Mackenzie slipped the
biryani
into her mouth and swallowed. “I can text message, though, right?” she asked.

“As long as the phone doesn't beep or make any sounds, that would be fine.”

“Sweet,” Mackenzie said, then she set down her fork. “Can I be excused, please?” She looked at Lacey, who suddenly felt like her keeper. “I want to check my e-mail. I can dry the dishes and sweep the floor after, all right?”

“Sure,” Lacey said.

Mackenzie got up from her seat and had nearly left the kitchen when she remembered her plate. Coming back to the table, she picked it up, along with her milk glass, and carried them both to the sink. “That was good, Gina,” she said as she headed for the stairs.

“Wow,” Lacey said to Clay when Mackenzie was out of earshot. “I guess you found the key to her heart.”

Clay shrugged. “She's a natural. She has good instincts with dogs, and the dogs pick that up.”

“It was obvious how much she loved working with that retriever,” Rick said.

“I was watching from the sunroom,” Bobby said. “She was having a blast out there.”

So he
had
been watching. Had he noticed Rick's hand on her back, and hers on his thigh? And so what if he had?

“You know—” Rick patted his lips with his napkin and shifted in his seat “—I've mentioned this to Lacey, but I'll tell you, too, Clay. If you or your father want any help preparing for the parole hearing, let me know. I'd be happy to take a look at your victim's impact statements for you.”

Lacey wanted to groan. She supposed Rick saw this topic as his one inroad with not only her, but her family, as well.

“Thanks,” Clay said, “but my dad and I have already turned ours in to the attorney we're working with. We're waiting for a few more statements from people in the community. But the main holdout is Slowpoke O'Neill, here.” He kicked Lacey lightly under the table. “Maybe you can influence her to speed it up.”

Lacey sighed, pushing her empty plate a few inches toward the center of the table. “I'm trying,” she said, annoyed with both Rick and her brother. “I'm just a bad writer.”

“I doubt the quality of the writing matters,” Gina said. She'd gotten to her feet and was wiping Rani's grimy little face with a washcloth.

“Yours counts the most, kiddo,” Clay added. “You know that.”

“Maybe with all the other statements you're getting, hers won't be necessary,” Rick said. Surprised, she looked across the table at him and thought she saw sympathy in his eyes. He may not be doing much to increase her physical desire for him, but he was certainly working his way into her heart.

“Wishful thinking, Rick,” Clay said. “Our attorney said we could forget all the rest of them if we had a good one from Lacey. Hers is critical.”

Rick looked directly at her. “Maybe you're having trouble writing it because you have ambivalent feelings about keeping a guy in prison when he's made amends,” he said.

“I'm not ambivalent,” she said, wanting to put an end to the conversation. “I'm just a pathetic writer. Maybe I'll work on it tonight.”

 

After Rick and Bobby left the house, Lacey went upstairs and knocked on Mackenzie's closed bedroom door.

“Come in,” the girl said. She was sitting at her computer, as usual, both hands on the keyboard.

Lacey leaned against the doorjamb. “I didn't know how to type until I was in high school,” she said.

“Mom taught me when I was little.” Mackenzie's fingers tapped quickly on the keys.

“You had a great time with Clay and the dog today, huh?”

“It was okay.” Mackenzie kept her eyes on the screen. She
wasn't going to give Lacey an inch. The enthusiasm she'd shown at the dinner table seemed to disintegrate now that Lacey was her only audience.

“Well, have a good night,” Lacey said, giving up. She backed out of the room, and then, because she could think of nothing else to say, added, “Don't stay up too late.”

She closed the door, imagining Mackenzie's fingers flying across the keyboard as she typed e-mail to her friends:
My jailer just told me not to stay up too late. She's such a loser.

In her room, she pulled a notepad from her desk and sat on her bed, her back propped up against the pillows.

I miss my mother very much,
she wrote. Was that the truth? She missed the Annie O'Neill she had once known, but not the Annie who had lived a secret, shameful life. She should focus on the mother she had known her to be. Before the revelation. She set her pen to the paper again.
She was the sort of mother that was a friend to all my friends. Everyone loved coming to my house. She baked and sang and was a very creative artist. She was good to everyone. Good to sailors and fishermen and tourists and—

What was wrong with her? Why couldn't she stay on track? Why couldn't she get this stupid thing written?

She got up and pulled out the photograph album from her bookshelf. She turned to the picture of her mother, a miniature of the one in her studio.

“How could you?” she asked in a whisper. “I thought you were so wonderful. I loved it when they called you Saint Anne. How could you do that to Dad? How could you do that to
us?
” She took the picture and tore it end to end, then side to side. Then she tore the pieces again. “I don't want to be like you, Mom,” she said. “I don't ever want to be like you.”