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Besides, Grandma wasn’t in that house at the base of the famous Twin Peaks, wasn’t welcoming her guests.
Joe shrugged.
“How long’s it been since you’d seen him?” During their four years in high school she could only remember a brief visit from Joe’s fisherman father, who’d come down from Alaska for one of the holidays. The checks he was supposed to have sent to his mother, who was raising Joe, were only a little more frequent than his visits.
“A few years.”
“So he knows Kaitlin?” Joe’s ten-year-old daughter.
“They’ve met a time or two.”
“Was he here just to see you?”
“So he says.” The dry tone revealed more than the coldness in Joe’s eyes. “He’s been in town a couple of months.”
“Did he stay with you?”
“No.”
“Why do you think he came?”
“Money?”
“Yours?”
“I’m not aware of anyone else he knows who’d let him sponge off of them.”
“How much did he ask for?”
“None.”
“You gave it to him before he asked so he’d get out of town, right?” It was what this new, emotionally closed Joe Fraser would do. Joe Fraser, commercial real estate broker, loner.
“I’m not giving the man one red cent.”
“And he left without it?”
“No.”
Frowning, Sue tried to decipher that one. Did that mean Adam had found a way to get the money without asking? That someone else had given it to him, after all?
Or that he hadn’t left?
Her mom and dad parked their rental sedan across the street. Jenny stumbled as she got out of the car, and Luke hurried around to help her, steadying her with an arm firmly around her back. His gaze met Sue’s. He whispered something to his wife and they both smiled over. Waved.
Sue waved back and Joe turned to see who was there. She had to go in. They knew she was out here. They’d come looking for her. She swallowed.
“Is your dad still in town?” she asked Joe, instead. Their conversations were generally short-lived, over the phone and strictly about business. Specifically, the books she kept for him.
Joe replied with a brief nod.
“Has he said how long he’s staying?”
“For good. Are you going in there or not?”
A fresh wave of panic washed through her. “You’re coming, aren’t you? Just to meet my folks?”
He hesitated and Sue was afraid he was going to refuse. Then he opened the car door.
“WHO WAS THE HOTTIE?” Belle asked. “Someone new you forgot to tell me about?”
Joe had met Sue’s parents, a polite, uneventful moment considering all of the effort she’d taken in high school to keep them away from each other. And then, making sure they could take Sue home before heading back to their hotel in the city, he’d excused himself.
Sue gave her cousin as much of a grin as she could muster and shook her head. “That was just Joe.”
About sixty people were milling around Grandma’s huge living room, spilling over into the formal dining room and out onto the deck. Her mom and dad were there somewhere. Uncle Sam and Aunt Emily, too.
A lot of the rest Sue didn’t know.
“Joe Fraser?” Belle asked, as they watched people from their vantage point at the foot of the white-banis-tered curving staircase that led to the three bedrooms upstairs: Grandma’s room and, at one point, Jenny’s and Sam’s.
“Yeah.”
“Ah…” Belle sipped the wine she’d poured from a bottle out of Grandpa’s rack on the wall opposite the fireplace. “The Joe,” she added. “I didn’t realize you guys were friends again.”
“We aren’t. We’re friendly, but that’s about it. Joe hasn’t confided in me in years.” She sipped from the glass Belle had poured for her. “If not for the fact that he needed a bookkeeper when I needed a job that would allow me to stay at home with the babies, we probably wouldn’t be in touch at all.”
They’d made their peace. She’d just never again been welcome in the inner circles of Joe’s heart.
“It’s a shame,” Belle said. “He’s gorgeous. Available. And you guys were such good friends.”
“Joe’s changed a lot. And besides, I’ve never been in love with him. Not in that way.”
Belle nodded, and Sue knew she understood. Belle had recently gone against her overbearing father’s wishes and broken up with the man her dad had wanted her to marry. Try as she might, she hadn’t been able to fall in love with the young lawyer.
The sound of a glass shattering on Grandma’s hardwood floor made Sue wince. She moved toward the sound, intending to clean up whatever had spilled before it had a chance to soak in, but saw Aunt Emily had got to the mess in the dining room first.
“I’ve already done some checking and found that on average, it’s taking homes a year or more to sell…”
Sue froze, just around the corner from the voice. Her uncle Sam’s.
“So you’re planning to sell?” She didn’t recognize the other voice. It was male.
“Of course. What would I want with this old thing?”
“Nadine and I wondered if perhaps you and Emily would move into it. The place is beautiful. And the views exquisite.”
They were talking about Grandma’s home.
“God, no! I wouldn’t live in a seventy-year-old house. I want copper pipes and insulation that works.”
This is your mother’s home, you jerk. His childhood home. Not that sentimentality had ever mattered one whit to Uncle Sam.
“So it is going to you, then?” The other man continued to butt in to family matters that were none of his business.
“Of course.” Uncle Sam’s voice boomed with confidence. “We meet with the attorney this week, and I’m sure I’mexecutor of the estate. I am Robert and Sarah’s only biological child. Their only heir.”
“Oh!” The other man’s surprise was evident. “I didn’t realize…I mean, Jenny’s always…”
“Been adopted,” Sam said drily. “I am the only true Carson and I know my father well enough to be sure that while he’ll have taken care of Jenny, the bulk of the estate will come to me…”
“Oh, God, Sue, don’t listen to him.”
Sue jumped as Belle spoke just behind her. Her cousin put a hand on her arm, resting her chin on Sue’s shoulder. “He’s an ass. It means nothing…”
“He’s right,” Sue said. “He is the only Carson by blood.”
“So?”
“I never realized he resented my mother so much.”
“He resents the world because he’s not God,” Belle said, mimicking her father’s tone.
Turning, Sue met her cousin’s caring gaze. “Did you ever resent me, growing up?” she asked. “I was two years older, and so close to Grandma. And your dad’s right, you had blood ties. I didn’t.”
“As if it mattered,” Belle said, flipping Sue’s ponytail affectionately, “to anyone but him. And I was as close to Grandpa as you were to Grandma.” They walked toward the kitchen—and relative peace. “The only thing I resented about you, my dear, was that you had parents who really loved each other. And you.”
Sue could have placated Belle with meaningless words, but they both knew the truth. Emily Carson loved Belle with all her heart. At one point, she’d probably loved Sam that way, too.
But somewhere along the way Sam Carson, the heir apparent and new head of the family, had become one very difficult man to love.
Chapter Two
THIRTY-ONE-YEAR-OLD Assistant Superintendent of Schools Rick Kraynick was slowly getting used to eating alone. Living alone.
Thinking alone.
What he didn’t usually do was drink alone. Or drink, period. He’d seen firsthand what substance abuse could do to a person. And while there were days, too many of them if he was honest with himself, when he didn’t much care about his health and well-being, he wasn’t going to be a burden to society.
So he should have felt right at home at the Castro Country Club Friday night. On 18th Street, the club wasn’t far from Twin Peaks, one of Rick’s favorite jogging spots in his younger days. And a favorite picnic place for him and Hannah…
Look out there, Daddy. You can see the whole world from here!
Nodding to the folks—mostly men of varying ages—hanging out on the faux marble steps leading into the old white Victorian mansion whose first floor housed the Castro Country Club, Rick tried not to let
his mind wander. To think beyond the moment. The current goal.
He’d spent the afternoon trying to find the woman who’d given birth to him. She wasn’t at the address he had for her. No one had been home in the place where she supposedly rented rooms. Her phone service had been shut off—again.
He had no idea where she was working. If she still was. Just because Nancy Kraynick had had a job last week didn’t mean she’d still be employed today.
The older woman who’d been hanging clothes out at the house next door had eventually suggested he check “the club” for his mother. After some prompting, and a five-dollar bill, she’d remembered the name of the place.
Turned out Castro House was a coffeehouse that held substance abuse recovery meetings. And offered former addicts a place to hang out and talk, to bond with others fighting the same battles.
What she hadn’t told him was that it was largely a gay men’s establishment. Which might be fine for his female mother. Rick, on the other hand, was pretty certain, by the glances he was receiving, that he was raising false hopes. His instincts telling him to get the hell out, he approached the espresso counter and ordered a mocha he didn’t want.
Luck would have it that this Friday, because he’d taken the day off and was on a mission, he was sporting a pair of worn, close-fitting jeans. With a long-sleeved cotton baseball shirt that had seen too many washings.
He’d been going for comfort. And no flash.
In this place, tight-fitting clothes—no matter how old, were flash.
Paying for his coffee, pretending not to see the smile the volunteer barista bestowed upon him, Rick turned, taking in as much of the room as he could without making eye contact.
As far as he could tell, his mother wasn’t here.
But then, it’d been years since he’d seen her. Would he even recognize her?
“Have a seat…” A man about Rick’s age pulled out the second chair at a table for two.
“Uh, thanks, but…I’m looking for someone,” he said, sipping too quickly. He burned his tongue.
“Who?” the casually dressed man asked. “I might know him. We’re all pretty friendly around here.”
“Nancy Kraynick. You know her?” Not that she was probably going by that name now. After all, it was only her legal designation, which didn’t seem to compel her to actually introduce herself that way. Growing up, he’d heard her called many different things. Some not so nice labels.
“Yeah,” the guy said, surprising Rick. “She’s been a regular around here, on and off, for the past couple of years.” Rick had to wonder, was Lothario telling the truth or just looking for an opening?
“Have you seen her today?” Rick asked.
“No. But then I just got here. You a friend of hers?”
He couldn’t bring himself to claim even that close an association. “No.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “You aren’t some john, are you? Because I have to tell you, she’s through with that. Has been for some time. So if you’re looking to get something from her, you’d best try looking someplace else.”
Protectiveness? From a man…toward Rick’s mother?
This guy must not know her well. He hadn’t had time to see that her lies were only skin-deep.
His mother always had been able to spin the most believable yarns. Especially believable to a young man who’d adored her and needed badly to believe she would straighten herself out and make a home for him. With her.
Problem was, Nancy Kraynick’s yarns had always become tangled in the knots of drug abuse, and in alcohol stupors that went on for months.
“No, I’m not a john,” he said now, biting back his disgust at the woman his mother was—a woman who’d had johns to ask about.
The pretty man frowned. “She’s not in trouble, is she?”
