Her phone rang, shattering her serenity. Bubbles barked at the sound. Mildly annoyed by the intrusion, Tess leaned over to pick up her phone and glance at the screen. The annoyance increased tenfold. With a little huff, she answered the call. “Hello, Mother.”
“Happy New Year, darling!” Laura Dunham Harrison Evans Bainsley’s voice was full of overexaggerated affection.
“It’s January second,” Tess pointed out.
“Oh, don’t be such a stick-in-the-mud,” Laura said. “This is the first chance I’ve had to call you. I was in Saint-Tropez, on a yacht, on New Year’s Eve. It was fabulous. Wish you’d been there with me!”
“Sure you do,” Tess said. She rolled onto her side to gaze at the flames that burned in the fireplace. “Glad you had a nice time.”
“I did, I always do. So how are you? What did you do for New Year’s?”
“I’m at the house in Aspen.”
“Oh! That’s great. Spending a week there at the holidays is always nice.”
“Actually, I’m going to be staying here for a while. Couple of months, I think. I’m playing it by ear.” Tess had no desire to let her mother in on her plans . . . yet at the same time, a tiny bit of yearning snuck in, deep inside. She wished, as she planned to have a baby on her own, that she had a mother she could talk to, confide in, lean on for support.
But she and her brothers had never had that. Not since they were small kids. Tess had been ten years old when her father threw her mother out and banished her from seeing the children on a regular basis. Not that Laura tried very hard to fight him on that. She’d taken her hefty settlement and left to travel the world. She’d remarried and divorced two more times, left a trail of spurned lovers in her wake . . . and now, showed very little interest in her grown children or young grandchildren.
Charles and Dane still maintained basic contact, calling their mother on holidays and her birthday. Tess and Pierce had given up on her, the same way she’d given up on the four of them. The resentment and hurt Tess had swallowed because of her mother had made her sick in her teenage years . . . until she’d gotten to a point of no return. At nineteen, Tess had an emergency appendectomy; if she hadn’t gotten to the hospital when she did, she would have died, and as it was she stayed in the hospital for an extra few days to fight off an ensuing infection. Her mother never even called, much less came to see her. Realizing, at last, how little she meant to her mother . . . something in Tess broke away then, never to rebound. Only one person on the planet really mattered to Laura: Laura.
“Are you there?” Laura asked tersely. “Tess?”
“I’m here.” Tess had zoned out, lost in her thoughts. “Sorry, what’d you say? I switched ears and didn’t hear you,” she lied.
“I asked why you’re staying in Aspen for so long. Got a hot ski instructor hidden away there or something?”
“No.” Tess cringed. She’d never be a man-eater like her mother. The very thought made her vaguely sick. “Just wanted a change of scene for a while.”
“For that long?” Laura paused, her tone changing. “Why? Is everything okay?”
“Yes, everything’s fine.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” Tess asserted. Going to start playing the concerned mother now? It’s a little late for that. “So are you still in Saint-Tropez?”
“Yes, for the rest of this week. Then I’m going to Saint Bart’s for the rest of January.”
“Tough life you lead,” Tess quipped. “Well, enjoy.”
“Why don’t you come join me for a few days?” Laura asked. “Three whole weeks in paradise, plenty of room in the villa. We could have a mother-daughter getaway!”
A part of Tess’s heart leapt. Laura hadn’t invited her along on her travels in years. The little girl in her who’d always longed for her mother’s attention experienced a quick flash of happiness. But she hadn’t been a little girl in a long time, and her mother hadn’t been a regular part of her life for a long time either. Tess did what she’d done over and over since she was nineteen: shut her mother out. “Thanks for the offer,” Tess said, “but I’ve got some things lined up here. I’m staying put.”