Anything for Her

chapter TEN



“HOW IS IT YOU’VE lived in the Northwest for this many years and never skied?” Nolan asked.

They were at his place on Sunday afternoon, sitting on the back porch steps watching Sean shoot baskets. Every time he dribbled the ball, Cassie bounded at it, barking. He was laughing, pretending she was an opponent on the court, maneuvering past her to put the ball up.

“Lots of reasons. Neither of my parents skied.” She shrugged. “It’s ridiculously expensive. Besides, I don’t like to be cold.”

“Wimp.” He nudged her gently with his shoulder. Allie bumped back.

The forecast had called for rain, so Nolan hadn’t come up with any new activity to suggest, as he’d undoubtedly have done if he’d known the promised rain would hold off. He’d suggested she come and hang out instead. He’d also suggested she invite her mom for dinner.

What he was doing was being pushy. Not that it was unreasonable of him to wonder why she hadn’t yet introduced him to her mother. It was now November and they’d been dating seriously for almost two months. She didn’t know herself why she hadn’t.

So she’d gulped, and done it. Mom was to arrive between five-thirty and six. Allie liked her mother. She didn’t understand why she was dreading the combination of Mom and Nolan.

“Do people in Chicago ski?” she asked.

Nolan laughed. “Well, not nearby. I’ve only tried the sport a few times, I have to admit. But I thought it was fun.”

“Please tell me it’s not one of those things you think Sean and I have to experience at least once in our lives.”

He laid an arm around her shoulders. “Well, sure it is. Do you really want to live your whole life without skiing or snowboarding?”

“Falling facedown in the very cold snow? Over and over? Breaking my leg?”

Nolan made a rude sound. “Not a chance. I’ve never seen anybody with better balance than you have. You’ll be a natural.” He seemed to ponder. “Why didn’t you stick to dance?”

She overcame a momentary blank. “It wasn’t possible after one of our moves.”

He removed his arm and looked at her, something alarmingly intense in his eyes. Curiosity. She recognized it. Of course he’d heard how stiff she sounded. She was a horrible liar, the absolute worst person to have been put in a position where she had to tell so many of them.

“No dance school?”

“Not...at the level I was dancing.” That was true, at least.

“That’s a shame,” he said thoughtfully.

Sean let loose with a shot from the three-point line and crowed with delight when it sank through the net. “Yeah! Did you see that?”

Nolan gave him a thumbs-up and Allie applauded. Cassie barked and they all laughed.

“You were right that he needed a dog,” Allie said.

“Hmm.” He leaned a shoulder against a porch upright. “What did you say your dog’s name was?”

Oh, he’d slid that in casually, but the very fact that he’d asked made her mouth go dry. He suspected she’d been lying to him. He had to.

“Lady. She was a beagle.”

“Are beagles ladylike?”

“Probably not. Mom and I were talking about her just the other day. Lady liked to wander. She was a poor choice when we lived...” No, no, no, not in the city. “In town.”

“What did your dad do, that you guys had to move so often?”

Allie braved herself to meet his sharp blue eyes. “Why do you care so much about my childhood?”

“I want to know you.” He paused, lines on his forehead deepening, his expression somehow somber.

“Tell me I’m wrong, Allie. Tell me you don’t have scars deep inside.”

Breathless, she stared back, unable to say a word.

“Sometimes I think you don’t want to remember.”

She wrenched her gaze from his and watched Sean, without seeing his and Cassie’s antics. “Is that so unusual? You sound like you practice avoidance where your parents are concerned.”

“I can’t deny it. But I do go home for Christmas, and I told you about them.”

“Yes.” Dear God, how was she supposed to deflect him? “It was different for me,” she said finally. “Neither of your parents abandoned you.”

“My biological father did.”

“If he knew you existed.”

“That’s true.” He hadn’t once looked away from her face. “Why won’t you talk about it, Allie? What happened, that you never see or hear from your father? Did he hurt you? Abuse you?”

“No!” Shocked, she turned her head and met his eyes again. “Of course not! I loved him.”

“Then why?”

“I do hear from him. He writes sometimes. It’s just...things with him and my mom...” Hearing how weak that sounded, Allie winced. And braced herself. Nolan would never let her get by with it.

“And your brother?” Trust him to twist the inquisition in a way she hadn’t expected.

“He sided with Dad.” Her throat wanted to close. “I felt like I had to choose, okay?” Felt like? She had had to choose. Eenie, meenie, minie, mo, which parent do you cut out of your life? “It was the worst thing I’ve ever had to do.”

“God, Allie.” Suddenly he tugged her across the top step so that he could wrap both arms around her. “I’m sorry. So sorry. That stinks. What were they thinking?” The anger in his voice both warmed her and scared her.

“Don’t say anything to Mom,” she said desperately. “Please don’t, Nolan.”

He was silent for a long time. He’d laid his cheek on top of her head and was rubbing it back and forth. “No,” he said finally, gruffly. “Of course I won’t. I have no right to jump in. I know I don’t.”

“No.” Her sharp tone contradicted the way she was burrowing into his embrace. Or was it the other way around? “You don’t.”

Nolan didn’t say anything, and she had to suspect she’d hurt his feelings. Hers would have been hurt, if he’d said anything like that.

“Did you choose your mother because you needed her?” he asked, shocking her with his perceptiveness. “Or because she needed you?”

She wrenched herself away. Her stare must be wild. “Why won’t you let this go?”

Now his expression was implacable. “I told you. Because I want to know you. Don’t you want to know me?” he asked, his voice softening.

Yes. No. Her heart was hammering so hard she was almost dizzy. They stared at each other in a standoff she was terrified she wouldn’t win.

“Hey,” Sean said from the foot of the steps. “What’s going on?” His gaze moved from one of them to the other.

“We’re arguing,” Nolan said easily. “So what, did you finally concede to Cassie?”

Sean cackled. “Yeah, if only she could shoot.”

The dog stood beside him, tail going so hard her butt swung from side to side. She was panting, her tongue hanging out.

“You’ve got a hell of a shot,” Nolan told him. “Your coach pleased?”

“Yeah, he said he’d planned to put me at center, but he’s changed his mind and decided I’ll play forward. Except I’m not so good at defense yet.”

Nolan shrugged. “You’ll get it.” His smile grew into a grin. “It’ll help when you quit tripping over those big feet of yours.”

If she hadn’t been so tangled up inside, Allie would have giggled at the way Nolan’s foster son scowled at his feet, as if he hadn’t figured them out yet.

“I went up two sizes this year.”

“You’ve passed me by,” Nolan said.

Allie estimated Sean was wearing a twelve at least, and his feet looked even more monstrous in the kind of athletic shoes that would have made her feet look big. She could only imagine them if he left them untied the way boys did.

“Do you think they’ll stop now?” Sean sounded plaintive.

“Maybe. Probably not.”

“Dad wasn’t that huge.”

“What about your mom’s side of the family?”

There was a noticeable pause. “I think she was tall. Like, almost as tall as he was.”

“There you go, then,” Nolan said with an easy smile. “Heredity in action. Boys aren’t usually done growing yet at your age.”

He frowned at them. “What about girls?”

“Mostly girls are, I think,” Allie told him apologetically. “Not all. I had a friend who was teeny tiny because she didn’t reach puberty until she was almost sixteen. So she grew after that. But I was done by the time I was twelve.”

“Well.” He looked at her kindly. “You kind of got stuck.”

Allie stuck out her tongue at him, and he laughed.

“What were you guys arguing about?”

“None of your business,” Nolan said bluntly. He groaned. “I suppose I should start dinner.”

Please, Allie thought. Maybe he’d quit asking her questions. “Yes, you should. Since you insisted on making this a big deal by inviting my mother.”

Sean twirled the ball on a fingertip. “Is she, like, not that nice or something?”

“What?”

“Well...” The ball fell into his hands and he looked uneasy at her tone. “’Cause you didn’t want us to meet her.”

“Of course she’s nice! I didn’t not want you to meet her....” She floundered. “It was just...”

They both waited politely.

“Meeting the family is kind of...” Nolan’s eyes narrowed, unnerving her. “It’s not something you do when you’re first dating someone, that’s all.”

“But he wanted you to meet me right away.” Sean evidently saw something on Nolan’s face and gulped. “Um, I guess you kind of had to, when we live together and stuff.”

She swiveled to look right at Nolan. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was hurting your feelings.”

His expression softened. “No. I was impatient, that’s all. I’m not usually,” he added ruefully.

Allie only nodded. Her hands, she discovered, were clasped together so tightly she wasn’t sure she could pry them apart.

I should have told Mom I’ve slipped a few times. So she doesn’t contradict me.

Too late. And, heaven help her, Nolan was sure to grill her mother.

“Do you want to shoot some baskets?” Sean asked Allie.

Heaving himself to his feet, Nolan glanced at her with amusement. “Do you think you can throw the ball up that high?”

“I could get the stepladder,” Sean chimed in.

“Is that a challenge?” Allie stood and dusted off her behind. “How hard can it be to put a stupid ball through a ring?”

They both laughed.

“And to think, I was going to offer to help with dinner.” She grinned at Sean. “You’re on.”

She strolled down the steps, snatched the ball from the fourteen-year-old’s hands and carried it to the free-throw line. Now, if only she hadn’t lost her knack.

Nolan, she was aware, had grabbed Cassie by the collar and pushed her into the house, then lingered on the porch himself, still amused. Sean sauntered toward her with a shit-eating grin on his face. Allie dribbled the ball a couple of times to get in the zone, letting it come back up to smack her hands. Then she lifted it, jumped and let the ball slip off her fingertips. It made a perfect arc, dropping through the net with a swish. No backboard.

Sean gaped.

Nolan let out a hearty laugh and went inside.

Allie retrieved the ball, dribbled away from the garage, turned and shot. Swish.

“You conned me.”

“No,” she said. “If I’d suggested putting some money on whether I could make a free throw, then I’d have been conning you.”

“You can’t have played basketball.”

“Because I’m a girl?” She shot right over his head. Swish.

His mouth dropped open again. He closed it with a snap. “Because you’re short,” he said indignantly.

Allie relented enough to smile at him. “No, I didn’t play varsity or anything, because I am too short. But we had to play in PE, and for some reason I always had a really good shot.” She shrugged. “I’m good at bat, too.”

His eyes grew calculating. “You wanna play horse?”

“What do I win if I beat you?”

“You don’t have a lawn I could mow.”

“I could teach you to cut out fabric. Saturdays are busy in the store. A little extra help would be great.”

The appalled expression on his face made her day.

“No way I’m going to be seen in a fabric store!”

“Well, then?”

“Five bucks.”

“Five bucks it is.”

She won the first game. Grimly determined, Sean shot from farther and farther out during the second game, eventually beyond her reach. “Horse!” he declared triumphantly.

“No fair,” she said. “Play-off, and you can’t use your height advantage that way.”

“Fine. You start.” He bounced the ball to her.

They were midgame when she heard a car in the driveway. Sean had been dribbling in preparation for a tricky side-court shot when he heard it, too, and stopped with the ball in his hands.

Her mother parked behind Allie’s Toyota and got out to survey them in mild surprise. “You’re playing basketball?”

“Yes, and kicking Sean’s butt.” She grinned at him. “Sean, this is my mother, Cheryl Wright. Mom, Sean Kearney.” Thank goodness she remembered his last name.

Her mother walked to them, her hand out. “It’s a pleasure, Sean. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Yeah, um, hi.” He looked down at his hand as if checking to be sure it was there, then shook. The screen door banged, and he turned in relief. “There’s Nolan.”

“I see,” Mom murmured.

Allie felt really strange watching these two people size each other up. Mom was her usual stylish self, her dark blond hair cut in a wavy cap, her makeup perfect but not overdone. She wore slacks, an open-weave, elbow-length sweater over a camisole and flat shoes—nothing that should have stood out, but it struck Allie suddenly how attractive her mother was.

Petite, like Allie—the dancer’s body had definitely come from her mom. Why hadn’t she remarried? She’d have only been—Allie had to think—forty-five when they left Dad and Jason behind and moved to Washington. Did she feel so betrayed by Dad’s abandonment she wasn’t interested in trusting a man again?

Like mother, like daughter?

Allie swiveled her gaze to Nolan, who, in his usual jeans and athletic shoes and T-shirt, long-sleeved in deference to the changing weather, stood at the top of the steps, smiling at her mother. Allie realized again that he wasn’t handsome, exactly. Mom wouldn’t think so, anyway. At the moment Allie was very much reminded of his stone man statue. This was a strong man. His dark hair was ruffled, the sleeves of his shirt were pushed up to reveal muscular forearms, and the blue of his eyes seemed more vivid than ever.

“I’m glad you could come, Mrs. Wright.” He sounded warm, as if they were old friends. “Why don’t you come on in? Unless you want to watch the tiebreaker game.”

“Cheryl, please,” Mom said. “Tiebreaker, is it?”

Sean snorted. “I’m going easy on her.”

Allie tilted her head. “You wish.”

Laughing, Mom started up the steps. “I’d be glad to help you instead of refereeing, Nolan.”

Allie was aghast to see her mother disappear into the house with Nolan. Alone. What would they talk about?

“Maybe we should quit,” she said to Sean.

“Not a chance.” He shot the ball from where he was standing, and danced in place when it dropped through the hoop. “Match that!”

Her heart was pounding. She was such an idiot. If only she’d confessed to her mother about telling Sean they’d moved here from Oklahoma. That was her only really big screwup. The others were nothing, easily explained. We moved a lot. That’s all she had to say.

I can’t run after them. Sean wouldn’t understand. Nolan would wonder. I am such an idiot.

She was too rattled. Her shot bounced off the rim.

“R,” Sean declared, snatching the ball midbounce. “Try this one.” He stood with his back to the hoop, jumped and shot as he spun. “Yes!”

Allie missed that one, too, and mumbled a profanity under her breath.

“S. One more chance.”

She matched his next shot, although she’d already realized her quickest way to join Nolan and her mother was to lose. Still, she didn’t want to be obvious, and she did have her pride.

Sean dropped a shot in from near the free-throw line, making her suspicious he was going easy on her. Her answering shot banged off the backboard, rolled around the rim...and fell off.

“Crap,” she declared.

“You did good for a girl.”

She blew a raspberry at him. “I did good for someone who hasn’t touched a basketball in years.”

His smugness suffered a jolt. “Really?”

“Really.” Allie started for the house. “I thought I might have lost it, but I guess not. Maybe it’s like riding a bike.”

“Huh. Maybe.”

Cassie was waiting right inside the screen door, her delight obvious at their approach.

“She’s really bonded with you, hasn’t she?”

“Yeah, she likes Nolan, too, but she sticks with me when I’m home,” he said with satisfaction.

“Maybe she had a boy in her last home.” Allie opened the door and the dog flew out as if she’d been separated from Sean for days, weeks, eons.

Laughing, he crouched and ran his hands over her while she slopped kisses on his face.

“I’m really glad you chose her,” Allie said softly.

Sean looked up at her, his expression earnest. “I never told you I was sorry for that day.”

“It’s okay. I understood.”

“I don’t know why I was so mad.” He gave an awkward shrug as he rose to his feet. “Now if we were doing something like that, I’d like it if you came.”

Her face wanted to crumple and her vision momentarily blurred. She swallowed. “That’s nice. Thank you,” she said with reasonable composure.

The rumble of Nolan’s voice came from the depths of the house, followed by her mother’s laugh. What had Nolan said? When Allie reached the kitchen, she saw Mom putting together a salad while Nolan lifted a casserole dish out of the oven.

“Hey, you’re just in time,” he said. “Who won?”

Allie rolled her eyes. “Who do you think?”

“She’s good, though,” Sean said behind her. He grinned at her. “For a girl.”

She lunged toward him and he dodged. “Say that one more time and you’re dead meat,” she threatened.

Allie’s mother chuckled. “She’s always been athletic.”

“Did she tell you about going waterskiing?” Nolan asked. He’d carried the casserole dish to the dining room and was returning. “She got on her feet the first try. Sean did, too. They were both sure they were going to take a header.”

“I did,” Sean reminded them. “Out in the middle of the lake.”

Allie and he went to wash their hands and came back to find the food already on the table and Nolan and her mother waiting for them.

The casserole was something with chicken, broccoli and a curry sauce, accompanied by salad and a flaxseed bread Allie recognized as coming from the bakery a block down from her store.

After murmurs of pleasure over the food, conversation stayed general, Mom rather deftly avoiding any discussion of their family history. Nolan talked about Chicago and Mom said she’d never been there. He did say, “Allie mentioned you lived in Florida at one time.”

Her glance at Allie was razor-sharp. “Oh, briefly. We moved a lot. Allie’s father got restless. There’s hardly anyplace we haven’t lived.” She laughed. “Except Chicago. What brought you out to the Northwest?”

“We came out here on a family vacation once, when I was eleven or twelve. We had a cabin on Orcas Island. I guess that sold me on Washington. When I was ready to strike out on my own, this was the first place that came to mind.”

He didn’t say, This is as far away as I could get from my parents without moving to Alaska or Hawaii, but of course Allie hadn’t expected him to.

Mom asked Sean a few questions, to which he mumbled replies. He blushed when he told her about joining the basketball team and that he kind of liked biology and thought he might be some kind of scientist, although he also liked computers.

Sean went to get the dessert, which Allie gathered was also from the bakery. That was the moment when Nolan struck.

“I don’t think Allie mentioned where the two of you were before moving out here,” he said, pushing from the table. “Coffee?” He began gathering their dirty dinner plates.

“Thanks, I’d love a cup.” Mom smiled. “Montana. Missoula was our last stop. More urban than you’d think.”

Dumbstruck, Allie stole a glance toward the kitchen. Sean was still out of sight and—please God—earshot.

Nolan returned her smile. “I’ve never been there. I guess we’re even.” His gaze switched to Allie. “Coffee for you, too?”

“Please,” she said. “Why don’t I help clear the table?”

“Nah, let’s finish eating first. I figured I’d grab a few dirty dishes since I’m going that way.”

Dessert was a lemon-filled cake. Allie didn’t taste a bite. Her anxiety had assumed hideous proportions. The fact that the conversation didn’t again touch on events before she and her mother had moved to Washington State didn’t allow her to relax an iota. She was totally consumed by her efforts to remember everything she’d ever told Nolan and which ones she wasn’t supposed to have said.

And Sean. God. What if he’d heard her mom? Allie could picture his puzzled gaze turning to her. “I thought you said...”

It was enough to make her shudder.

“You okay?” Nolan asked.

“Me? Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?” Belatedly she realized how defensive she sounded. Her lying skills were deteriorating, not improving. Wouldn’t you think practice would make perfect?

His eyes were speculative. “Thought you might be chilly.”

“No.” She struggled for a smile. “I’m fine. This is an old house. Maybe a ghost strolled by.”

He flashed a grin. “Interestingly enough, the previous homeowner did die here. Heart attack, I understand. His body wasn’t found for a couple of days, when the newspapers had started piling up in the box out on the road. Apparently he didn’t get enough mail to alert the postal worker, but the Times delivery guy decided to drive up to the house and make sure the old guy was okay.”

Sean was staring at Nolan. “He died here? Like...where?”

“I didn’t ask.” Nolan chuckled. “You should see the look on your face.”

“That’s horrible!”

“No, that’s the cycle of life.” Nolan’s tone was remarkably gentle, reminding Allie that Sean’s father and grandmother had died, the grandmother not that long ago. “The broker said the guy was ninety-three. Good, long life. I’m sure his choice would have been to die at home. He won’t be haunting us. If any part of him is hanging around, he’s probably glad to see the place come to life again.” Nolan gave a crooked grin. “He’s probably wondering why the hell I haven’t gotten somebody out to mow the pasture before the blackberries take over once and for all.”

Sean’s expression changed. “Hey, we could get a horse.”

Now Nolan outright laughed. “Not this week. No boat, no horse.”

“It’d make a great Christmas present.”

“You ever shoveled manure?”

“No.”

“You ever ridden?”

“A couple of times.”

“Hmm.” Nolan sat back and quirked an eyebrow at Allie. “What about you?”

“Never.”

“And you lived in Montana? Tut tut.” His smile transformed his bony, not-quite-handsome face. “Horseback riding sounds like something we’d all enjoy.”

Allie buried her face in her hands. The rest of them laughed.

Mom, her offer to help clean up thwarted, left after some more leisurely conversation. Allie had never in her life been gladder to say goodbye to anyone.

“We’ll do this again,” Nolan said to her just before she got in her car.

Over my dead body was Allie’s first thought, followed by the realization there was no way to avoid it if she was to keep seeing Nolan.

“I’m dragging,” she said, smiling weakly. “Somehow, every time I get together with the two of you I end up going home with new muscle groups aching. I think I’d better take off, too.”

Sean smirked. “You can have a rematch.”

“Darn right I’m going to have a rematch.” She managed an evil grin. “You’re not bad...for a kid.”

Their byplay got her safely in the car. When Nolan braced a hand on the open door and asked in a low voice if she had time for him tomorrow, all she could do was nod. “Of course I do. You cooked tonight. I’ll make lunch.”

He circled the door, bent down and kissed her lightly. “Tomorrow,” he murmured while nuzzling her ear.

Panic beat hard at her while she drove away.

* * *

NOLAN SHOVED HIS hands in his jeans pockets and watched the taillights of Allie’s car flare as she braked at the end of the driveway before turning out onto the road. Something had been really off tonight. She’d been quieter than usual. He’d had to scrape food off both her dinner plate and her dessert plate. In fact, unless he was imagining things, she was losing weight. She’d gotten so slight, he imagined her floating away like a puff of dandelion.

He frowned. She wasn’t that bad off, or she wouldn’t have been able to play a rousing three games of horse with Sean. But his instinct told him something was eating at her.

“That was weird,” Sean said.

Nolan started. He hadn’t realized Sean still stood there in the pool of porch light. “What’s weird?” he asked, turning.

“What her mother said.” His foster son was still staring into the dark where Allie’s car had disappeared. “You know. About Montana.”

Nolan’s attention snapped into focus. “Why is that weird?”

Sean finally looked at him. “Well, because Allie said they lived in Oklahoma before they came here. She said that’s where she went to high school before Lynnwood.”

What the hell? “They moved a lot. You’re sure she said she was in high school there?”

“Positive.” Sean sounded indignant. “I said wasn’t it dusty, and she laughed at me and said there were cities like anywhere else, that it wasn’t like Oklahoma! I didn’t know what she was talking about, so she told me about the musical. I looked it up online. They did it in Seattle at the Fifth Avenue Theatre not that long ago.”

“Yeah, I remember the reviews.” Nolan shook his head in disbelief. “Why the hell...?”

“I don’t know.” The teenager was quiet for a moment. “She wouldn’t lie to me, would she?”

“I can’t imagine why she would.” But somebody was lying, that was for damned sure. And if he had to guess... Allie had been tense from the moment her mother got there. Her smiles looked forced.

But why, why would she lie about something like that? Why prop it up with the talk about the musical? Why tell Sean at all where she’d gone to high school?

He felt sick and tried to tell himself there was an explanation. His gut told him she wasn’t going to want to offer one, though, and that if she did, it would probably be a lie, too. Anyone else that evasive about their background, he’d think they were hiding something ugly. A crime.

God. He felt as if he’d taken a blow to his chest. What if she and her mother had had to move suddenly Allie’s senior year of high school not because of the parents’ divorce, but because Allie desperately needed a fresh start? What if the father had cut her off for a good reason?

What, Nolan asked himself, if I’ve had it ass backward all along?

Could his luck possibly be so bad, he’d fallen in love with a woman as deceptive as his own mother?