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He’d felt a burst of exasperation and frustration, followed by an increased determination that this time they were going to talk.
The last time they’d seen each other the atmosphere had been full of emotion. It had filled the air like thick smoke from a fire, choking everything. Maybe, if she’d been different, more willing to talk, they could have stumbled their way through it, but Fliss, as always, had refused to reveal her feelings, and although he had more than enough feelings for both of them, he’d not known how to reach her. The brief intimacy that had connected them had vanished.
He refused to believe that connection had been purely physical, but it had been the physical that had devoured their attention.
If he could have wound time backward he would have done it all differently, but the past was gone and there was only the present.
They’d had no contact for ten years, so this was always going to be an awkward meeting for both of them, but it was a meeting that was long overdue, and if she wasn’t going to come to him, then he was left with only one option.
He’d go to her.
He’d tried leaving it alone. He’d tried pushing it into his past. Neither had worked, and he’d come to the conclusion that tackling it head-on was the only way forward.
He wanted the conversation they should have had a decade before. He wanted answers to the questions that had lain dormant in his head. Most of all, he wanted closure.
Maybe then he could move on.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_7f8cc76e-3b19-5dee-b34d-9a9446c910b6)
HARRIET’S PHONE RANG just after 5:30 a.m., and Fliss was already halfway through the door. She’d been woken early by one of their dog walkers who’d picked up stomach flu after a night out and couldn’t crawl out of her bed let alone walk an energetic dog. Thoughts of Barney the bulldog waiting patiently in his owner’s apartment in Tribeca for someone who wasn’t going to turn up drove Fliss from the comfort of her bed a full hour before she would normally have forced herself upright.
At least it was walking a dog.
She liked the simplicity of dealing with animals. Animals never tried to force you to talk about things you didn’t want to talk about.
“Harry? Someone is calling you.” She yelled her sister’s name and then cursed as she heard the shower running.
Knowing there was no way her sister was going to hear the phone through the sound of running water, she eyed the device, torn between the need to leave and do battle with the subway, and the almost irresistible lure of possible new business.
They’d call back.
But Harriet might not answer it because she hated talking to strangers on the phone. And then they’d lose business.
Damn. She closed the front door, checked the number and frowned as she answered.
“Grams?”
“Harriet? Oh, I’m so glad I’ve reached you, honey.”
“I’m—” Felicity was about to say that she wasn’t Harriet, but her grandmother was still speaking.
“I don’t want to worry you, but I had a fall.”
“A fall? How? Where? How bad?”
“I tripped in the garden. So silly of me. I was trying to do something about the fact it’s so overgrown. And the gate is so rusty it will hardly open. You remember how it always made a noise?”
“Yes.” Fliss stared through the window of her apartment. She’d poured oil on the gate to try to stop its creaking when she’d sneaked out in the night to meet Seth. “Are you hurt? Where are you now?”
“I’m in the hospital. Would you believe I’m in the same room they put me in when I had my gallbladder removed ten years ago?”
“What?” She shouldn’t be thinking about Seth. “Grams, that’s awful!”
“It’s perfect. This room has a beautiful view of the garden. I’m very pleased to be here, and they’re taking very good care of me.”
“I meant awful that you’re in the hospital, not awful about having a nice room.”
“Well, it’s not so awful while I’m here. The awful part will be when they send me home. And they won’t do that until I assure them I have someone there to keep an eye on me for a while. I think it’s a fuss about nothing, but I’m a little bruised and apparently I was unconscious for a while.” There was a pause. “I was wondering—I hate to ask since I know the two of you are so busy with your business, but is there any chance you could come just for a few weeks? Just until I’m back on my feet? I’m too far from town to be able to manage easily, and if I can’t drive I’m going to struggle. Would Fliss be able to manage without you? It would mean leaving New York, but you always used to love the summers here.”
It would mean leaving New York.
They were the best words she’d heard in a while.
Fliss tightened her grip on the phone. “Leave New York?” Her mind raced ahead. “You want me to spend the summer with you?”
“A few weeks should be enough. I’ll need help with the shopping and cooking, and simple things around the house. Just until I’m back on my feet and mobile. And then there’s Charlie, of course. I don’t know how I’m going to walk him, and he does need exercise.”
Fliss winced. Charlie was her grandmother’s beagle. He was stubborn and single-minded. He also bayed a lot, which meant Fliss invariably resorted to headache tablets whenever she visited.
Biting back her natural response, she reminded herself that she was pretending to be Harriet.
“How is darling Charlie?” She almost choked on the words. How did her sister manage it? How was she so unfailingly kind and generous?
“Too energetic for me to handle for a while, and you’re so lovely with him. I shouldn’t have got another dog at my age, but he brings me so much joy. Sadly I can’t cope with him if I’m resting.”
“Of course you can’t.” Fliss glanced up as Harriet emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a towel. “I’ll come.”
“You will? Oh, you’re such a good girl. You always were.”
No, she wasn’t. She’d never been a good girl. That was the problem. And even now she was doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. But she was doing it, so that was what counted, wasn’t it? Did it really matter if she had her own reasons for wanting to escape the city?
“When are you able to come home, Grams?”
“The day after tomorrow if you’re able to pick me up from the hospital. You’ll need to rent a car—”
“No problem. I’ll handle that.” She felt a rush of relief. The cloud that had dampened her mood for the past few weeks lifted. Here was the perfect solution to her problem, right under her nose. She didn’t have to fly to Hawaii. She didn’t even have to leave the state of New York. “Take care, Grams. I’ll give your love to Fliss.” She ended the call, and Harriet raised her eyebrows.
“Why are you giving love to yourself?”
“She thought I was you.”
“And saying, ‘I’m Fliss, not Harry,’ didn’t enter your head?”
“I was about to say that, but then my genius plan came into my head instead.”
“Suddenly I’m nervous.”
“You know I mentioned going to Hawaii? Turns out I don’t need to. I’m going to spend the summer in the Hamptons.”
“Summer in the Hamptons?”
Fliss grinned. “Yeah, you remember the place. Beaches, villages, sand and surf, ice cream dripping on your fingers, traffic and tourists—”
“I know all about the Hamptons. I also know you usually avoid it.”
“I avoid it because I’m afraid I might bump into Seth, but Seth is in Manhattan. If I go to the Hamptons I can walk instead of skulking. And Grams needs me.”
“I thought it was me she needed.”
“We’re interchangeable.”
“Why does she need you? Has something happened?”
“She had a fall. She’s in the hospital but they’re letting her go home as long as someone is there for her.”
“Oh no! Poor Grams.” Harriet looked horrified. “Why didn’t you tell her it was you on the phone?”
“Because then she would have asked to speak to you. She wanted you, not me. She probably doesn’t think I’ll be a good nurse.” She wondered, just for a moment, what it would be like to be the one everyone wanted around. “And she’s probably right.”
Harriet sighed. “Fliss—”
“What? We both know I’m not the nurturing type, but I swear if you agree to let me go and stay here instead, I’ll take really good care of her. I’ll do anything. I’ll bathe her. I’ll be sympathetic. I’ll walk Charlie.”
“You don’t even like Charlie.”
“I take exception to his selective deafness, that’s all. I hate the way he has to smell absolutely everything we pass. He almost pulled my arm out of its socket last time I walked him.”
“He’s a beagle. Beagles are hunting dogs.”
“He shouldn’t be hunting when I’m walking him.”
“He’s the perfect dog for Grams. She can’t walk as fast these days, but that just gives Charlie more sniffing time. I think beagles are incredible. They’re basically a nose on four legs.”
“You think all dogs are incredible. And Charlie is not so incredible when he’s baying. But I’ll handle it. I’ll handle everything. I’ll even hug him if that’s what it takes. And I’ll tell you everything that is happening and I’ll do anything you ask. I’ll even make your chocolate chip cookies.”
“No!” Harriet looked alarmed. “Don’t do that. You’ll set the house on fire.”
“All right, no chocolate chip cookies.” Fliss flopped down onto the chair. The sheer relief at the prospect of a reprieve made her realize how stressed she’d been. “Please, Harry. I really need to get out of Manhattan. It’s driving me crazy. I can’t relax, I’m not sleeping, and when I don’t sleep I’m in a continually rotten mood—”
“I’d noticed. Fine, go.” Harriet rubbed the ends of her hair with the towel. “But you’ll have to tell Grams the truth. You can’t pretend to be me. That crosses a line.”
Fliss didn’t comment.
She’d crossed so many lines in her life she no longer knew which side of the line she stood on.
“I can’t tell her before I go. She might tell me she doesn’t want me.” There was an ache in the pit of her stomach. The truth was everyone wanted Harriet. Harriet was kind and generous. She was warm-natured and even-tempered. Harriet had never gone skinny-dipping. She’d never lied to a man and had wild sex on a beach. “I’ll tell her the moment I arrive and pick her up from the hospital.”
“Are you sure this is going to help? Sooner or later you’re going to have to come back and meet Seth. You’re postponing the inevitable, that’s all.”
“Postponing the inevitable looks good from where I’m standing. Never do today what you can put off until next week.”
Harriet folded the towel neatly. “All right. But the moment you pick Grams up from the hospital, you explain everything.”
“Absolutely.”
“You tell her what’s happened and you tell her you’re Fliss.”
“I will. That’s what I’m going to do.”
“No skinny-dipping.”
“Hey—” Fliss spread her hands “—I’m a reformed character.”
“No stealing tomatoes.”
“They were good tomatoes. And the family were away for the summer, or so I thought at the time.” Fliss grinned and then caught Harriet’s eye and stopped grinning. “But just to be safe I’ll buy tomatoes on one of the roadside stands, I promise. No taking produce that doesn’t belong to me, even if it is perfectly ripe and no one is picking it and I know it’s going to go to waste. No way would I do that.”
Harriet gave her a long look. “And what am I supposed to say if I bump into Seth?”
“You’re sure you couldn’t pretend to be me?”
“No.”
“Because you’re so honest.”
“Well, there’s that, but also I’m a terrible actor. And what if he kissed me thinking I was you?”
You’d be the luckiest woman on the planet.
Her stomach gave a lurch. “That wouldn’t happen. You’re not going to bump into him, but if you do then you smile and say hello. I suppose.” She shrugged. “If I knew what to say, I’d be saying it myself. I don’t think you’re going to run into him.”
“It’s because you’re afraid of running into him that you’re leaving.” Harriet gave her a pointed look. “And I use that vet practice all the time.”
“Then maybe you will run into him. But you’ll be fine. So will you hold the fort while I go to the Hamptons? I promise I’ll still do all the paperwork, handle the accounts and make any phone call that makes you feel nauseous.”
“All right.” Harriet walked toward the bedroom and paused in the doorway. “But don’t burn the house down.”
“No cooking. I promise.”
She’d promise anything. Anything. She couldn’t live here with Seth working just a few blocks away, knowing that she could bump into him at any moment.
She needed to get out of town.
* * *
“MOM WANTS TO know if you’ll be joining us in Vermont for the Fourth.” Vanessa’s voice held a trace of irritation.
Seth knew his younger sister well enough to know it was best ignored. She was an organizer, and no one else ever did things to her satisfaction. If she’d been an animal she would have been a sheepdog, rounding everyone up the way she wanted them. “I can’t get away. I’m working.”
