“Congratulations,” Lucy said. Although she was trying her best to look inscrutable, hurt, anger, and vulnerability chased over her features in quicksilver progression.
Alice looked at her. “I wasn’t sure how to tell you.”
“I’ve already talked to Mom about it,” Lucy replied. “Have you set a date yet?”
“We’re looking at the end of summer.”
Sam decided that was enough conversation. Time to end it before any fireworks started. “Good luck,” he said briskly, urging Lucy with him. “We have to be going.”
“Have a nice lunch,” Lucy added in a monotone.
Sam kept Lucy’s hand in his as they left the restaurant. A weird, distant expression had appeared on her face. He felt somehow that if he let go of Lucy she might wander off somewhere in a daze, like an abandoned shopping cart rolling through a grocery store parking lot.
They crossed the street and headed in the direction of the art studio.
“Why did I say that?” Lucy asked abruptly.
“What?”
“‘Have a nice lunch.’ I didn’t mean it at all. I hope they have a terrible lunch. I hope they choke on it.”
“Believe me,” Sam said dryly, “no one thought you meant it.”
“Alice looked skinny. Not happy. What did you think of her?”
“I think you’re worth a hundred of her.” Sam switched places to walk on the curb side.
“Then why did Kevin—” She broke off with an impatient shake of her head.
It took Sam a moment to answer. Not because he had to think of a reason—he already knew why. But Lucy had the damnedest effect on him, provoking odd rushes of tenderness and liking and a nameless sort of something … he didn’t know what it was, but he didn’t like it.
“Kevin went for your sister because he feels superior to her,” he said.
“How do you know that?”
“Because he’s the type who needs a dependent woman. He has to be the one in control. He was attracted to you for obvious reasons, but it was never going to work out long-term.”
Lucy nodded, as if that had confirmed something she’d already thought. “But why rush into marriage? When I talked to Mom, she said that Alice had lost her job recently. So maybe Alice doesn’t know what else to do. But that doesn’t explain why Kevin’s going along with it.”
“Would you take him back?”
“Never.” A desolate note entered her voice. “But I thought he was happy with me, when he obviously wasn’t. Not great for the ego.”
Sam stopped at the street corner and turned her to face him. He would have loved nothing more than to take her back to the condo and show her a few of his ideas about how to restore her wounded ego. As he looked down into her small, sensitive face, it occurred to him that this was something new in his experience … an attraction that seemed to gather momentum from the weight of each second he spent with her.
But how much would he have hurt her, when it was over? With amused self-derision, Sam realized that his instinct to seduce her was equally matched by the desire to warn her away from him.
Smiling slightly, he lifted his hand to trace the delicate edge of her jawline. “You take life seriously, don’t you?”
A frown tugged between her brows. “How else am I supposed to take it?”
Sam grinned. Using both hands, he turned her face up and brushed a slow, soft kiss against her lips. Her skin was hot, the throb of her pulse a swift, strong tattoo against his fingers. The contact, limited though it was, aroused him more than it should have, faster than he could have anticipated. Lifting his head, he struggled to moderate his breathing, to will away the gathering ache of desire.
“If you’re ever interested in a meaningless physical relationship that’s heading absolutely nowhere,” he told her, “I hope you’ll let me know.”
They walked in silence until they reached Lucy’s art studio.
Lucy paused at the threshold. “I’m interested in the condo, Sam,” she said carefully. “But not if it’s going to lead to a difficult situation.”
“It won’t,” Sam said, having just come to the conclusion that as much as he wanted to have a fling with Lucy Marinn, there was no way it could end well. He offered her a friendly smile and a brief, platonic hug. “I’ll get the information from Mark, and call you.”
“Okay.” Drawing back, Lucy gave him an uncertain smile. “Thanks for lunch. And even more for getting me through the first encounter with Kevin and Alice.”
“I didn’t do anything,” he said. “You would have gotten through just fine on your own.”
“I know. But it was easier with you there.”
“Good,” he said, and smiled at her before leaving.
* * *
“It’s crooked,” Holly announced in the morning, entering the kitchen.
Sam looked up from pouring a bowl of cereal. “What’s crooked?”
The child turned around to show him the back of her head. She had asked Sam to arrange her hair in two ponytails, a painstaking process that began with drawing a perfectly straight part down the back. The ponytails could not be too low, too high, too loose, or too tight. Usually Mark was recruited to do Holly’s hair, since he had the knack for doing it the way she liked. But Mark had spent the night at Maggie’s house, and was uncharacteristically late getting back that morning.
Sam examined the part at the back of Holly’s head. “It’s as straight as a cat’s tail.”
She gave him a mildly exasperated glance. “Cats’ tails aren’t straight.”
“They are when you pull them,” he said, and gently tugged one of her ponytails. He set the bowl of cereal on the table. “You’re going to be late for school if I have to redo it.”
Holly heaved a sigh. “I guess I’ll have to go around like this all day.” She tilted her head at a compensating angle.
Sam laughed, nearly choking on a swallow of coffee. “If you hurry through breakfast, we might have time to fix it.”
“Fix what?” came Mark’s voice as he entered the kitchen. He went to Holly and knelt by her chair. “Good morning, sweetheart.”
Her arms went around his neck. “Good morning, Uncle Mark.” She kissed him and pressed a grin against his shoulder. “Will you fix my hair?”
Mark gave her a sympathetic glance. “Did Sam do it crooked again? I’ll take care of it. But first eat your cereal while it’s still crunchy.”
“How’s it going?” Sam asked, while Mark emptied the coffeepot and strainer basket. “Everything okay?”
Mark nodded, looking weary and perturbed. “Great dinner with Maggie last night—everything’s fine—we’re just trying to figure out some tricky scheduling.” He paused, his dark brows drawing together. “We’re trying to set the wedding date. Maybe move it up a little. I’ll tell you more later.”
“Why the rush?” Sam asked. “It’s not like there’s a time limit on your engagement.”
Mark filled the tank of the coffee machine. He slid Sam a guarded glance. “There is, actually.”
“I don’t get it. Why…” Then it hit him. Sam’s eyes widened. “We’re talking about a nine-month time limit?” he asked gingerly.
A slight nod.
“Is Maggie going to have a baby?” Holly asked around a mouthful of cereal.
Mark turned away and swore quietly, while Sam gave Holly an incredulous glance. “How did you know what I was asking?”
“I watch the Discovery Channel.”
“Thanks, Sam,” Mark growled.
Sam grinned and gave him a back-slapping bear hug. “Congratulations.”
Holly leaped from her chair and bounced up and down. “Can I help take care of the baby? Can I help name it? Can I have a day off of school when it’s born? When’s the baby coming?”
“Yes, yes, yes, and we don’t know yet,” Mark said. “Sweetheart, is there any way we can keep this private for a little while? We’re not at the point where Maggie wants to start telling people yet.”
“Sure,” Holly said brightly. “I can keep a secret.”
Mark and Sam exchanged a rueful glance, knowing that everyone at the elementary school would know by day’s end.
After Mark had dropped Holly at school, he came back to find Sam staining the newly installed wainscoting in the living room. The smell of the stain, a dark walnut color, packed a hefty punch even though Sam had opened the windows to provide good ventilation.
“Don’t come in unless you want a buzz,” Sam said.
“In that case, I’m definitely helping you.”
Sam smiled quizzically as Mark entered the room. “The news was a shock, huh? You two weren’t planning on this?”
“No.” Sighing, Mark sat beside him and picked up a paintbrush.
“This wainscoting’s a son of a bitch to stain,” Sam said. “You have to get it into all the grooves. So how did you react when Maggie told you?”
“One hundred and ten percent positive, of course. I told her it was the best news ever, and I loved her, and everything’s going to be great.”
“So what’s the problem?” Sam asked.
“I’m scared shitless.”
Sam laughed quietly. “That’s normal, I guess.”
“My biggest worry is Holly. I don’t want her to feel shoved aside. I wanted some time to focus on her, for me and Maggie to do things with just her.”
“I think Holly needs just the opposite,” Sam said. “I mean, hell, Mark, she’s had the two of us—and sometimes Alex—focused entirely on her for a year. The poor kid could probably use a break. With a baby coming into the picture, Holly will have some company. She’ll love it.”
A doubtful glance. “You think so?”
“How could she not? A mom, a dad, and a baby brother or sister—a perfect family.”
Mark worked the stain into the wainscoting. A couple of minutes passed before he could bring himself to admit what was really bothering him. “I hope to God I can be good enough for them, Sam.”
Sam understood. When you came from a family as dysfunctional as theirs, you had no idea how to do things. There was no template, no trove of memories to call on when you needed to know how to handle something. You wanted a guarantee that you wouldn’t somehow end up like one or the other of your parents. But there were no guarantees. There was only the hope that if you did everything the opposite of how you were raised, maybe things would turn out okay.
“You’re already good enough,” Sam said.
“I’m not ready to be a father. I’m worried as hell that I’m going to drop the ball.”
“Don’t worry about dropping the ball. It’s dropping the baby that causes problems.”
Mark scowled. “I’m trying to tell you that I think I’m more screwed up than I seem.”
“I’ve never doubted that,” Sam said, and grinned at his expression. Sobering, he continued, “You, Alex, and I are all screwed up by virtue of being Nolans. But you’re the one most likely to turn out okay. I can picture you being a pretty decent father. Which is a miracle, and a hell of a lot more than I could say about Alex or me.”
“I had it better than you and Alex,” Mark said after a moment. “Mom and Dad weren’t as bad early on in their marriage. It was only after Alex was born that they became raging alcoholics. So I had the benefit of … well, it wasn’t exactly family life … but it was as close as the Nolans ever got. You had no one.”
“I had the Harbisons,” Sam pointed out.
Mark paused in the middle of dipping a paintbrush. “I’d forgotten about them.”
“I’d be as bad off as Alex,” Sam said, “maybe even worse, if it weren’t for them. Fred had no kids of his own, but he knew a lot more about being a dad than ours. Which leads back to what I was saying … you’re going to do fine.”
“How do you know?”
“Remember when we first got Holly and she was bouncing off the walls at ten P.M., and the pediatrician had to explain to us what ‘overtired’ meant?”
“Yeah. What does that have to do with it?”
“Only that we knew nothing about raising kids, not even the most basic stuff. But in spite of that, Holly’s doing great. You’ve been more than good enough. So you’ll just have to keep figuring it out as you go along, which as far as I can tell is what most parents do. And if you’re going to err on the side of anything, err on the side of love. Because that’s the point of all of this, isn’t it? You’re getting another person in your life to love.”
“Jesus, you get sentimental when you’re high on paint fumes.” But Mark’s face had relaxed, and he smiled. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“So considering all this advice you’re giving me … are you going to change your mind at some point?”
“About getting married? Hell, no. I like women too much to do that to one of them. I’m not cut out for it any more than Alex is.”
“Hey … have you seen Alex recently?”
“A few nights ago,” Sam said. “Just for a minute.”
“How’s he doing?”
“He’s overtired.”
A grim smile touched Mark’s face. “Lately every time I see Alex, he’s at least halfway tanked.”
“I think that’s the only way he can face life.” Sam paused. “He’s hard up for cash now. Darcy cleaned him out.”
“It’s what the idiot deserves, for marrying her in the first place.”
“True.”
They stained wood in silence for a couple of minutes. “What can we do?” Mark eventually asked.
“Wait until he hits bottom.”
“What if Alex doesn’t survive hitting bottom? Neither of our parents did.”
Unable to tolerate the fumes anymore, Sam replaced the top on the can of stain and went to the open window. He took a few deep, cleansing breaths of fresh air. “I guess we could try some kind of intervention,” he said doubtfully.
“If it gives us the chance to kick his ass around for a few minutes, let’s do it.”
Sam cast a brief smile over his shoulder and looked out at the vineyard, the green canopy reaching skyward. “Wouldn’t work with Al,” he heard himself say. The air was filled with the scent of growing vines, of sun-braised house shingles and plump blackberries, and the salty, fecund smell of False Bay.