Home to Laura

chapter THREE



“WHAT?”

“I’m planning to collect on an old debt.”

“You’re—” Had he heard her right? She couldn’t possibly mean—? “You’re asking me to impregnate you?”

“If you want to be technical about it. I’d rather call it lovemaking.”

“You’re not even talking in vitro fertilization. You’re talking sex.”

“Yes.”

“You want to use my body.”

“You used mine to get your petty revenge on Gabe.”

Yes, he had. Gladly. Passionately.

“Today is the perfect day.”

Meaning she was ovulating.

The idea was ludicrous.

She was insane.

She was glorious.

Glorious, but out of her mind.

He would make love to her in a heartbeat, but give her a baby? No.

“I barely have time for my own daughter, let alone having another child.”

“I don’t want you involved. The baby would be mine.”

“No.”

“Why not? All I need is a little sperm.”

It angered him that she wanted to use him as though his penis were nothing more than a syringe. Talk about being made a sexual object.

Thirteen years ago, you used her for your own ends, didn’t you?

Yes, but I also wanted her.

And yet, you walked away.

I had bigger fish to fry.

You were heartless.

It was business.

So is this for her. A means to an end she obviously wants desperately.

He sympathized, he really did, but her demand left him cold. He leaned back against the counter and rammed his hands into his pockets, because they were having ideas of their own, of giving in to Laura. “Besides, I’m only here for one day.”

“My apartment’s upstairs.”

“Now?” he sputtered then choked on his own spit.

“Now.”

The look on her face—of hope and...hope—made him wish that he could give in, but no. He didn’t want another child. He refused to have a baby if he couldn’t be part of its life. He wouldn’t do that to a child again. Never again.

He barely had time for his daughter. Look what that was doing to Emily. He’d just made a commitment to her, wanted to get to know her better. A baby would take all of his attention away from her. No way was he having another kid.

“I can’t,” he said, sidestepping the issue. “My daughter is with me and I have to deal with a problem on the business site.”

“It only has to take fifteen minutes.”

To pay homage to a masterpiece? No. If he were going to love her, he would do it right. If he was going to sin, he was going to sin, and he sure as hell wouldn’t rush.

He shook his head.

She drew a shaky breath. “It was worth a shot.”

“I have to go.”

Something inside of her had turned off and she merely nodded. She seemed diminished and he hated that.

He felt responsibility, but didn’t know what else to say to her, or what to do, so he returned to the bakery at the front of the building, unsettled and shaken. That was saying a lot. Nothing much shook him.

Hadn’t he more than once been called a cold bastard?

The bakery was humming again with conversation, so Nick placed his order with Tilly, paid for it and waited at the table with Emily. Laura wasn’t going to kick him out of the café, not with Emily here. Laura wouldn’t hurt a young girl if her life depended on it.

“Dad?” Emily sounded uncertain. “What was that about? Why did you go in the back room?”

“Laura and I had a misunderstanding a long time ago. I tried to settle it.”

“Did you?”

“What?”

“Settle it?”

He shook his head. Not by a long shot.

Music still rang from the speakers overhead. He recognized Dr. John and Rickie Lee Jones. “Makin’ Whoopee.” It suited Laura, made her earthy laugh sound as if it held a world of secrets whispered on hot nights. Nick wanted to make whoopee with her. He just didn’t want to give her a baby.

* * *

I CAN’T BELIEVE I said something so idiotic.

Laura took a pitcher of iced tea out of the walk-in cooler, poured herself a glass and added ice. Needing to cool down, she trudged up the back stairs to her apartment, the ice in the glass clinking because her hands were shaking so badly.

Telling Nick Jordan he owed her a baby was so far removed from what she wanted in her life and how she wanted it. Upstairs, she lay on her bed and stared at the colored gauze draping the ceiling.

She’d hung it there to create a sexy harbor, a haven for sex play. She loved sex. Adored it. Loved both the noisy sloppiness and the exquisite pleasure. She used every sense to heighten her enjoyment—sight, scent, sound.

She found no haven here at the moment.

Her cheeks, her chest, still burned. She replayed every speck of her conversation with Nick.

You owe me a baby.

Temporary insanity.

What else would explain it?

Desperation?

Yeah, that, too.

She’d propositioned the worst man on the planet, the worst man for her. When he’d mentioned his daughter, something inside of her had snapped. Where was the fairness in life? He had ruined her chances with Gabe then had gone off and fathered a child of his own.

He might not have been responsible for all of the guilt in their one-night affair—she understood her own culpability, her own weakness in giving in to him all those years ago, and accepted it—but she hadn’t planned that night. He had.

She could have resisted Nick for the rest of her life, but that one night, he’d put real effort into getting her into his bed. And it had worked.

Damn her passionate nature and her unruly attraction to Nick. What was it about the man?

She would never in a million years have had Gabe find them together. She couldn’t let go of her anger at Nick for that.

Her throat ached with the urge to scream. He shouldn’t be a parent. She should.

She lay on her bed with the weight of shame and chagrin and envy hurting her chest and with tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. She’d never been a weak person. She’d always depended on herself.

At this moment, she needed someone. She couldn’t be alone right now.

She couldn’t stay here harming herself with jealousy and bitterness and anger. She had to get out, to find support.

She’d always been independent, but it was time to ask for help. She needed someone to hold her.

Against habit, natural inclination and history, she needed her mom.

* * *

OLIVIA CAMERON STEPPED out of the office in the gallery she owned called Palette. The door chime had sounded. She hoped it was a customer. It had been a slow day.

When she saw who had entered, she halted.

Aiden McQuorrie.

He didn’t realize she was there, so she just watched him. Dear God, he was beautiful.

He prowled the gallery studying the current artwork on display. She’d always thought prowled an odd verb to use for a man, fanciful and too romantic, but if ever it fit a man, that man was Aiden.

Sculpting stone had broadened Aiden’s shoulders, had built powerful biceps and had kept his midriff so trim and hard it was concave.

His hard handsome profile was softened by too-long hair. When he worked, he often forgot about things mortals did as a matter of course, like eating and getting haircuts. Aiden was an artist. When he was sculpting, time meant nothing to him.

Olivia wished she were an artist so she could paint him, but she wasn’t. Her deepest regret was that she couldn’t paint, or sketch or sculpt, or fashion art of any kind. Instead, she funneled her passion into enjoying the art others produced, like Aiden’s stunning stone sculptures and divine crazed metal abstractions, and into promoting artists.

She loved his artist’s eye and his lack of inhibition.

He prowled closer and the hard planes of his face reminded her of a laird in ancient times in Scotland surveying his holdings and his clan. She could picture him in a kilt. His legs would be strong to match the rest of his body.

Aiden McQuorrie was gorgeous and passionate, and she loved every particle of his temperamental genius. She loved him.

And there wasn’t a damn thing Olivia Cameron could do about it. In two days, she would turn fifty-eight. According to Aiden’s press release, he was forty-three.

“Aiden, what can I do for you?” Her voice sounded extra sultry today. She didn’t know why. People had remarked on it often, on how at odds it was with her cultured manner. It wasn’t something she put on. It was just the way her voice came out of her throat.

“Come to my place,” he said without preamble.

What? Her imagination stirred. Why did he want her there?

“I have work to show you.”

Oh. Work. Of course, you foolish old woman. Why else would he want you there? She called herself an old woman, but didn’t feel like one. She didn’t even feel middle-aged, had yet to figure out when middle age ended and old age began. One thing was certain—she was foolish to think of Aiden as anything but a client.

“Of course,” she said. “I’d be happy to come over. Monica is covering for me tomorrow. Would that work for you?” Since she had hired Monica Accord, Olivia had been able to take Sundays off for the first time in years.

“Aye.”

The slightest trace of a Scottish burr softened his speech every so often, a reminder that he hadn’t been born in Colorado. It made her want to swoon, foolish, middle-aged, not-quite-old woman that she was.

“What time should I come over?”

“Noon.”

He wasn’t much for words.

He left the gallery and Olivia ran to the window to watch as that body, a piece of artwork in itself, strode down Main Street.

For Pete’s sake, he was fifteen years younger than her. She had no right to drool over a forty-three-year-old man, even if he was as gorgeous as Michelangelo’s David, albeit more rough-hewn.

So what if he was handsome? She’d known good-looking men, including her late husband. She wasn’t that shallow. Oh, but there was that talent, that artistic genius that had her drooling over his work. And that intensity. When he gazed at a woman, he really looked, deeply, as though searching her soul for all of her secrets.

She’d only ever known one man—her husband. He’d died ten years ago. She didn’t have the experience to deal with a man like Aiden McQuorrie.

The bell above her door chimed.

“Mom?”

She stepped away from the window, but not until after Aiden had entered the food market down the street and she could no longer see him.

“Mom? Are you okay? What are you looking at?”

“Nothing.” She forced images of Aiden from her mind and turned to her daughter. When she saw misery and pain on Laura’s face, her gaze sharpened. “Something’s happened. What?”

Laura shrugged and studied one of the paintings. Olivia took her arm and spun her around.

“Laura, tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nick Jordan’s back in town.”

“Oh, honey, come here.” She embraced her daughter, fully understanding what this meant to Laura. Coming on the heels of losing her baby, it must be devastating.

Why on earth was Olivia so worried about a simple business meeting with a man when her daughter was suffering so?

“Come.” She led her into the back office and plugged in the electric kettle. “We knew he would come to town once they started building the resort.”

“I know, but the timing couldn’t have been worse.” Laura fell into a chair, her lack of grace a sign of how upset she was. “Vin called while I was on lunch. It’s over. He’s not coming back.”

Olivia turned from dropping a tea bag into a pot. “Didn’t you suspect he might not?”

Laura worried a chip in one of her nails, concentrating so hard Olivia wondered whether she were trying not to cry. “I tried to stay positive.”

Olivia sat across from her and took her hand. “It’s hard to accept the truth.”

“I feel like he was my last chance.”

“You don’t need a man to have a baby. Not these days.”

“I do, Mom. I want a family.”

Olivia didn’t have to ask why. She and Laura had been down this road before. She wanted what they’d had before her sister died.

“Mom, do you ever think about Amber?”

As though Olivia had spoken the thought aloud, Laura mentioned her. Anger flashed through Olivia. “Why?” They never talked about her. Never spoke her name out loud.

“I do,” Laura said quietly. “All the time.”

“Why?” Why open this wound I’ve spent twenty-one years cauterizing? Twenty-one long years.

“Because I miss her so much. Don’t you?”

All the time. “I live for the present.”

“Do you?”

Those two words spoken so quietly, as though her daughter could look inside her heart and know her better than she knew herself, shattered her.

She exploded. “Yes! Why would you do this?”

Laura’s jaw dropped. She stared at Olivia as though her mother had two heads. “Do what?”

“Bring up the worst period of my life?”

“I need to talk about Amber.”

“Stop it.” Olivia slammed her hand onto the table. “I have a good life. I run a solid business. I’ve come to terms with the past. Why are you people coming around stirring things up?”

“You people? Mom, it’s only me. What’s going on?” Laura stretched a hand toward her but Olivia stood up from the table, dodging it.

You’re dredging up all of that sorrow, that crippling guilt, reminding me of what Amber’s death cost me and your father, of how he took his solace in another woman’s arms—a woman twelve years younger than me. Of how I lost twice. Never in the ten years after that were we close again. Then he died. Now you’re trying desperately to turn me into a grandmother while there’s a man fifteen years younger than me, fifteen years, with whom I’ve fallen in love and can’t possibly have.

How could she say any of this to Laura?

“Mom?”

“I can’t talk about it. I—I have a headache today.”

“I didn’t know. Can I get anything for you?”

Olivia sat down at the table again and rubbed her temples. “I need some time alone.”

“Maybe you should close the shop early today.”

Olivia smiled weakly. “Maybe I will.”

Laura touched her shoulder as she passed to leave. Olivia grasped her fingers. “I love you.”

“I know, Mom. I love you, too.”

Laura left and Olivia knew in her bone marrow that she’d disappointed her daughter.

* * *

NICK FOUND THE entire demolition team standing around. He and Emily had driven straight out to the old homestead after lunch.

The workers were supposed to be taking down trees this weekend, specific trees worked out with the architect, disturbing nature as little as possible and incorporating it into the design of the building.

“Rene,” he called, and his foreman turned from the man he was talking to and walked over.

“Nick, good to see you here.” They shook hands. “Nothing’s changed since last night. The Native Americans are still here.”

Nick eyed the row of men and women blocking his big machinery from entering the work site. He tapped his fist on the hood of the car. Emily waited quietly beside him.

“They don’t quarrel that your family already owns the land,” Rene said. “Like I said on the phone, this is spiritual. You gotta respect the dead.”

Nick approached the group.

“Can we talk?” he asked.

“Sure,” the tallest man answered, maybe eighteen years old with high cheekbones and straight dark hair that hung past his shoulders.

“My family never mentioned burial grounds here,” Nick said.

“They weren’t formal burials. This was part of a migratory route. Our ancestors were buried where they fell, either from injury or old age.”

“So you don’t know exactly where they are?”

“Nope. Just on the land somewhere.”

Nick pinched his lower lip, thinking. Contrary to what most people thought, he wasn’t completely insensitive. This was a serious issue. He would be smart to take it seriously.

“There should be a solution to this, a win-win that would benefit everyone.” He stepped away for a minute and then came back as a solution started to form. “Who wants to act as the representative of this group? You?”

The boy nodded, took Nick’s outstretched hand and shook it. “I’m Salem Pearce.”

“Nick Jordan. Do you have access to elders who might know stories of this land?”

“I can locate them.”

“Good. I’ll find out whether there’s a professor or some kind of expert in Native American history at the university in Colorado Springs or somewhere in the state. See whether there are records anywhere.”

“Good luck with that,” Salem said. “Ours is an oral history.”

Nick slipped a business card out of his jacket pocket and wrote his cell number on the back. “Let’s aim to meet ASAP, ideally on Monday, to sort this out. I’ll get an authority here by then. Think you can pull your elders together by then?”

“Yep.” The young man took a convenience-store receipt from his pocket and wrote his number on the back. “Call me if you have trouble locating an expert. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Good. You and your friends can go home. I’ll send the crews home, too. Nothing will happen here before we talk.”

As he turned away, Nick heard someone ask Salem if they could trust him.

Over his shoulder, Nick said, “You have my word. We won’t touch the land until we settle this issue.”

A thought occurred to Nick. “Won’t you be in school on Monday?”

Salem shook his head. “I graduated from high school last year.”

“How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

“You graduated last year?”

“Finished a year early,” he said with quiet pride.

“Why aren’t you in college?”

A faint blush tarnished the flawless dark skin. “No money.”

“What about my offer of a college education to anyone who wants to work in my resort?”

“I don’t want to cook or book rooms in hotels.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to document my people’s history before it’s lost forever. To educate everyone about my culture.”

“Good luck finding a job in that area.” Nick wasn’t being cruel, just honest. Unless he could afford years of university to become a prof, the kid wasn’t going to find the kind of work he wanted. “See you on Monday.”

Nick paced away toward the car. After all he’d gone through to make this resort a reality, now he had to deal with this?

Rene followed him. “I’m beginning to think this deal is doomed.”

Nick turned on his foreman. “I don’t want to hear that kind of talk. This ski resort is getting built. Period.”

“How? We can’t tear up their ancestors.”

“I’ll figure out something.” He returned to the car and Emily while the Native Americans and construction workers dispersed to different vehicles and left the site.

Emily watched him expectantly. She would want to go inside that house.

Time to face it, and all of its issues, down.

* * *

LAURA STEPPED OUT of the Palette and stopped short, lost. She’d gone to her mother for support, but there hadn’t been any. It brought up an old sensation, a familiar one, of times when she’d gone to her in the past only to come away dissatisfied, and feeling so alone, the worst time, of course, after Amber’s death.

She needed her now, though, desperately, but something was going on with Mom these days that Laura just couldn’t sort out.

Never in her life had Laura felt so...without an anchor. Without a purpose, especially not on a Saturday night when she was usually up for a good time.

She and Vin used to go out for dinner, sometimes just with each other, sometimes with friends, and would have a blast. Then they would return to Laura’s apartment, to her sexy haven, and make love for hours.

Saturday night was usually Laura’s night.

The bakery was closed on Sundays, so she didn’t have to bake tonight for tomorrow’s customers.

She didn’t know what to do with herself when she had so much on her mind, including that asinine demand she’d made of Nick.

You owe me.

That wasn’t how she wanted a baby, but his presence had rattled her. As did her unreasonable attraction to him. What was it about Nick Jordan that brought out the worst, and the best, in her?

She started down Main, drawn by the small white chapel on a small hill past the end of Accord proper. She needed to visit Amber, as she had done so often since she’d lost her baby.

As soon as she opened the gate in the white picket fence and stepped into the cemetery on the outskirts of town, a measure of peace settled over her. Row upon row of white headstones stood out on green spring grass.

White oxeye daisies and yellow-green northern paintbrush dotted the grass. When the grass became long enough to need cutting, the flowers would be mowed down, too. She was glad she was here this early in the season to catch them in bloom.

The small white wooden chapel had been built sometime in the 1800s and was framed by the mountain in the distance on Jordan land. This early in spring, there was still snow on top of Luther.

In the children’s section, she sat on the well-manicured grass in front of Amber’s small grave and plucked weeds curled up against the headstone.

Amber Cameron. 1985–1991. Taken Too Soon. Rest In Peace, Sweet Angel.

Laura ran her hand across the grass covering the short grave.

“Mom called.” Laura turned at the sound of her brother’s voice. “Said you were probably here.”

Noah was two years older than her and a throwback to the sixties. On this unseasonably warm April day, he wore thick gray socks with Birkenstock sandals, jeans and an ivory Aran knit pullover with a hole in one sleeve. He owned the Army Surplus, he was a survivalist and an organic farmer and never, ever apologized for who he was.

“I thought I should come make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m okay. Just a little blue.”

“From losing the baby?”

She nodded. Noah, bless his heart, was the only one who wasn’t urging her to forget about it, to go for drinks with well-meaning friends who sympathized and said things like, Don’t worry. You’ll get pregnant again.

But with whom?

Five months had passed and Noah thought she had the right to still grieve, bless him.

“Vin broke up with me today. For good.”

“Aw, Laura, I’m sorry.”

“Me, too.”

Noah crouched beside her. “Why did you come here?”

“I miss the baby, but I miss Amber, too. Isn’t that strange when it’s been over twenty years?”

“Give yourself a break, sis. Mom was trying to start her gallery and you took to Amber like a mother, like you were born to nurture. Sometimes, I think Amber’s death hit you harder than it did Mom.”

“I’m not so sure. I think Mom just knew better than me how to drive her grief underground.”

“She morphed it into energy for that store.”

“I remember,” Laura murmured. She’d been only fourteen. Her little sister died and her mother became emotionally unavailable. Dad took his grief to another woman. Noah had understood Laura’s anguish, but he’d been an active sixteen-year-old with a lot of friends and out of the house every day, leaving her with no one to whom she could turn.

Amber had drowned in a swimming pool and Laura’s family had disintegrated. Laura had been trying to put a family together for herself ever since.

She didn’t need a degree in psychology to understand fully what drove her. She wanted a whole family.

“Laura, I need to warn you,” Noah said. “Nick Jordan’s in town. I saw him on Main this morning.”

“Thanks. I appreciate the warning, but he came into the bakery. We had a talk.”

“I wouldn’t mind having a talk with him.” Noah’s voice hardened and his hands curled into fists, curious given he was a lover, not a fighter.

“I did something crazy, Noah.”

“What?”

“I told Nick Jordan he owed me a baby.”

“Laura?” Noah asked quietly, with a mixture of dread and warning in his tone. “What did you mean by that?”

“I propositioned him. Told him we needed to have sex.” She laughed, but there was no humor in it.

“Sis...”

“It’s okay. He didn’t take me up on it.” She pulled a few tufts of too-long grass from around Amber’s headstone. “I was feeling desperate. Vin called off our engagement, so there’ll be no more babies with him.”

He touched her hair. “You have rotten luck with men.”

“I sure know how to pick them, don’t I?”

A frown furrowed Noah’s brow. “I’m worried about you.”

“There’s no need. It was temporary insanity. I won’t do anything rash.”

“You sure?”

“Positive. I know what I want, Noah, and what I don’t want.”

He stood. “I have to get back.”

“Did you close the store to come over here?”

Noah shrugged.

“Meaning yes.” She fingered the grass she’d pulled up. “Are you busy later? Want to have supper together?”

He looked disappointed. “Wish I could, sis. Tommy and I are leaving for Pike’s Peak. We’re rock climbing tomorrow.”

She nodded. “Thanks for checking on me.”

He touched her arm. “I’m having trouble not worrying about you.”

“I’m fine.”

“Really?”

“Really. You know I’m capable. I’m independent. I’m a survivor.”

“Yeah,” he said. “You have been all of those things in the past, but you’re living through a hell of a lot right now. You know that stress list? The ten worst things that can happen? You’ve lost a baby and your fiancé. It’s serious stuff, sis.”

She forced a smile. “I’m good, Noah. Really. Go.”

He kissed the top of her head. “Don’t forget Mom’s birthday on Monday.”

“Thanks for the reminder.” She had forgotten. Ever since the miscarriage, she’d been forgetting a lot of things. Her life seemed to be unraveling like a ball of fraying yarn.

“I’ll make a reservation for dinner at the steak house for seven. Sound good to you?”

“Sounds good, Noah. Thanks.”

She said her goodbyes and stood to walk to Dad’s grave. Her relationship with him had grown complicated, complex, after Amber’s death. They’d never quite made it back to the loving relationship they’d had before then, and Laura cursed herself every day for not having made peace with her father before he died.