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“No, of course not. But my mother and John were. Or they would have been if John hadn’t died. What they had was deep and real and lasting.”
“You don’t know their relationship would’ve lasted.”
“I do. I know it. Here.” And she put her hand over her heart in a gesture that she supposed was corny to him, but it shut him up.
He grimaced, jaw tight, then shook his head and heaved a sigh. “You’re going to be a pain in the ass about this, aren’t you? You’re really serious.”
Neely nodded gravely. “I’m really serious.” She managed a faint smile, thinking how hard it was to be sensible when she really wanted to finish what they’d started.
At least Sebastian had stepped back far enough that they weren’t touching now. She pulled her knees together, sat up straighter on the countertop. “Why were you lying there in the dark?”
There was still barely enough lights from the moonlight and the lights on Queen Anne Hill for her to see his expression now that he’d moved away. He’d been staring out into the darkness, but now he looked back at her sharply. “What do you mean?”
“Just what I said. You don’t usually do that. You’re usually working.”
“I’ve been working. I worked all weekend, damn it. I got home looking forward to a little respite and damned if Vangie wasn’t here! No respite in that.”
“She thinks the sun rises and sets on you.”
He raked his fingers through his hair. “She’s wrong.”
“Obviously she knows she can depend on you.”
“For sensible things she can. Not for this.” And abruptly he turned and walked out of the kitchen.
Surprised, Neely jumped down off the counter and followed him. “You’re not going to do it?”
“Hell, no! If she wants the old man at her wedding, she can invite him.”
“I gather she tried.”
“Exactly. And he ignored her. Just the way he’ll ignore me.”
“She didn’t think so.”
“She thinks what she wants to think!” He was pacing around the living room now, cracking his knuckles.
And Neely, watching, could feel the agitation rolling off him in waves. “Is she the first to get married?” she asked him. “Of all of your brothers and sisters, I mean?”
“Yes. But what difference does that make?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know him.”
Sebastian snorted. “None of us knows him. He isn’t around enough.”
“I just thought, maybe he doesn’t know how to be a father. Maybe he feels awkward and—”
“He ought to feel awkward!”
“But maybe if you invited him—” she put the emphasis on you “—as opposed to Vangie, who is emotionally involved, you could tell him how much it means to her.”
“Like he’d listen,” Sebastian scoffed.
Neely shrugged. “You don’t know. He might. Even if he never did before, he might have changed. Max has changed,” she reminded him.
“Max is not my father!”
“No. But he wasn’t much good as mine, either, for a lot of years. Part of it was his fault. Part of it was my mother’s. But I’m not sorry I got in touch with him again as an adult. I’m not sorry I tried.”
Sebastian glowered at her across the darkened room. But it was true, what she’d said. She had been nervous when she’d applied to work for Max’s firm. She’d been worried about meeting him again, apprehensive about who exactly this man was who had fathered her.
Maybe if she hadn’t had such a wonderful stepfather in John she would have lacked the courage to try to become a part of Max’s life. Because of John, she knew what a good father was like. Because of John, she knew a father’s love.
She didn’t need those things from Max. It hadn’t mattered if he’d loved and accepted her or not because John already had.
That he did was her good fortune. And his, which she was sure he knew. But she didn’t know anything about Sebastian’s father.
Maybe it wasn’t fair to suggest that he try again. Still, people didn’t have to continue doing the same stupid things they’d always done.
“Maybe he’s changed,” Neely repeated quietly. “Only saying. Up to you.”
And Sebastian’s voice was flat when he replied, “Yes, it is.”
CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_86fc4002-d0b9-5538-9360-a35cef8ecbd0)
HE WASN’T going to do it.
And Neely Robson had no right to act as if he was betraying his sister and his family and the rest of the free world just because he wouldn’t.
His father wasn’t Max. Never would be. And there was no point in tackling Philip Savas on this topic. If he wanted to come, he would. If he didn’t…that was pretty much par for the course, in Seb’s estimation.
But he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
No, that wasn’t true.
What he couldn’t stop thinking about was Neely.
He’d been lying there on the sofa in the dark, thinking even darker thoughts about his miserable father and his needy sister and his whole wearisome demanding dysfunctional family, when he’d heard the door open and Neely and Harm had come in.
It was too late to get up and turn on a light and act like he was working, and the bleakness of his thoughts had made him uninclined to make an effort to sit up and act polite if she came into the room.
Besides, if she found him lying on the sofa in the dark she’d wonder what the hell was wrong with him. And he had no desire to discuss any of it.
So he’d stayed there, still and quiet, and hoped she would go straight upstairs.
Of course she hadn’t. And if she’d turned on a light, he’d have feigned waking from a nap. He was tired enough.
But instead she’d got down his grandfather’s violin and begun to play it. When he’d first heard her clambering up on the cabinet, he hadn’t known what on earth she was doing. And the first squeaks and tunings were so unexpected that they’d startled him, making him lift his head enough so he could peer over the back of the sofa.
She was busy adjusting the pegs, tuning the strings and didn’t see him at all. He opened his mouth to ask what she thought she was doing. But then she drew the bow across the strings and it became absolutely clear.
Stunned, bemused—and for the moment completely incapable of saying anything—he sank back onto the cushions.
And listened to her play.
It was a revelation. Of all the things he thought he knew about Neely Robson—even the things he’d been wrong about—he’d never once guessed she could play the violin. It hadn’t entered his mind.
But the moment she touched the bow to the strings, music filled the room. Sound echoed and reverberated. Light and bright and airy, rhythmic, almost mathematical sounds. Spritely dancing sounds that made him think of spring and splashing in puddles. And then slower, broader, more soulful tones that wrapped him in a warmth that carried him back to his grandparents’ home, that made him think of winter days in the house on Long Island wrapped in a blanket and sitting next to a fireplace, waiting for his grandfather to come home.
Nothing in his life had felt like that, nothing had reminded him of home—not since his grandparents had died.
She played sounds that made his throat ache, made his eyes fill, made his heart feel too large for his chest. She made him remember in a way he hadn’t remembered for years all his childhood hopes and dreams and a future full of promise.
And heaven help him, he wanted it again.
No. Not just it. Not just a home, damn it.
He wanted a home with her.
He wasn’t going to do it.
Neely had known it at once from the stubborn set of his jaw, the uncompromising tone, the fact that he had turned and walked out of the room right after he’d spoken.
She didn’t chase after him. Didn’t follow him up the stairs and into his bedroom.
Bearding Sebastian in his bedroom would not have been wise.
Going anywhere near a bed with Sebastian would have undermined all her best intentions. Her attraction to him was far too strong. She wanted him far too much.
Now she sat in her office and stared at her computer screen thinking through all the events of last night—of all the days since Sebastian had moved onto the houseboat—and she knew he was everything she wanted in a man. He was strong, caring, intelligent, honorable and sexy as hell.
But he didn’t believe in love.
Not just the love of a man and a woman, but even the love of a father for his children.
Though why he should, given his experience, she could not have said.
Outside her window the rain was sheeting down and she knew she should get to work. But even though Blake had been enthusiastic over her designs this morning and had given her the go-ahead. She still felt unaccountably depressed.
It had nothing to do with work.
It had everything to do with Sebastian.
She hurt for him. She ached for him. But she couldn’t change him.
So in the end she knew she had to leave him to his obduracy and his pain because she couldn’t fight the one or deny the other.
The only thing she could do—and probably should do, she admitted for the first time—was find another place to live.
Her cell phone rang before she could argue with herself about it.
Just as well, she thought, punching the answer button, because there were no arguments, just the emotional tangle she couldn’t get out of. And she really needed to get some work done.
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