“No, I’ll be fine. You don’t need to call.”
Feeling even guiltier, Lizzy said goodbye. When she pushed the door of her apartment open, Vanilla’s big blue eyes widened, and the baby clapped again. Lizzy kissed her forehead and dark curls. “Gran’s missing you. That big ol’ rambling ranch house is mighty lonely without you and Dad and Mia…and me, I bet.”
Lizzy nuzzled Vanilla’s soft hair. Even after a long day at day care, Vanilla smelled baby sweet.
Cole’s daughter.
Don’t think about him or how changed he is.
Inside the gloom, Lizzy’s gaze fixed on the card sitting on the table. On the cover was a leather-clad girl with black wings, standing in a doorway with the words Dark Entry above it. Lizzy frowned.
How had that thing gotten back into her house, anyway?
At the office earlier, when Nell had challenged her research—and chewed her out in front of everyone when she’d been unable to defend it to Nell’s satisfaction—Lizzy had wanted nothing more than to run home and lie down or play with Vanilla. Suddenly Lizzy felt worse to be here at home.
Dark Entry? Maybe she was overreacting. This was simply an invitation to a Halloween party. Probably something Bryce wanted to go to and she didn’t, a thing to be discarded like before. But just looking at it gave her that nagging feeling that she was caught in some strange force field and trouble was brewing.
Swimming in a pool of red light, the picture of the girl in the bondage costume with the black wings seemed to glow like an evil spirit. For no reason she remembered that Bryce had bought her a black teddy, boots, handcuffs, and a whip—gifts she’d stuffed into plastic containers with the rest of the suggestive lingerie he’d given her and stored at the very top of her closet.
Lizzy clutched Vanilla tighter. Don’t think about any of it. You’re too tired. Nine hours in the television station.
Only to have Nell humiliate her and cancel her story. Lizzy needed to work tonight. But how? The baby was turning out to be more effort than Lizzy had imagined when she’d offered to give her mother a break.
And Walker? Why was her brother in town anyway, acting like he was ashamed every time she asked him what exactly his quarrel with Daddy was about? All week she wondered why her brother had chosen this week, of all the confusing weeks in her life, to finally visit her.
Work had been tough lately, and she and Bryce had been at their worst. Bryce, who never watched television, had sullenly slumped in his chair every night, watching sitcoms he normally despised, ignoring everybody.
She dropped her briefcase, the diaper bag and her purse onto the oak floor in the entryway. Lizzy drew a breath, but the air in the apartment felt dense and stifling.
Lizzy didn’t like the new little fears tearing at her any more than she liked thinking about her mom. Lizzy blamed herself for what had happened to her parents. If she hadn’t abandoned them in her quest for a perfect life here, if she’d taken an interest in all Daddy had tried to teach her, maybe they wouldn’t be on the verge of divorce.
She frowned. Her life here was perfect. Or rather it was going to be—so she told herself every morning when she lay awake beside Bryce, their bodies apart on their separate sides of the big bed. She would lie there, doing her affirmations, listening to the city sounds outside her window. After the Texas quiet, even noises like sirens and the clatter of garbage trucks were delightful to Lizzy because they reminded her she was really here—in New York.
She’d escaped. She had a glamorous exciting life and the perfect man to share it with.
Why couldn’t she forget about the invitation? Because she didn’t understand what it could be doing there—again—on top of a week’s worth of mail on her small doorside table.
The same identical invitation had come last week. It was for a Halloween party tomorrow night. She hadn’t known the person who’d sent it, so she’d torn it up without showing it to Bryce. And what was wrong with that?
Okay, so the thing had been addressed to Bryce, too. But she was the one who did her mail promptly while he left his for months. People had to call him, to demand money or ask him if he was coming to some event, before he would fly at his stack, agitated and accusatory that he had to deal with it. Someone had obviously called him about the invitation and re-sent the thing.
No way was she going to a party like that!
Lizzy felt a fresh stab of guilt as she considered Bryce. The party-giver must be a friend of his. Was Bryce now sulking as he had after she’d told him about the baby?
“Your family,” he’d said in a tone of complaint when she’d called from Texas to tell him she was bringing Vanilla back with her.
“Yes, my family,” she’d agreed. “There’s nothing I can do about them.”
“You were down there for two months after Mia died.”
“When you meet them you’ll understand.”
But would he? She’d been attracted to Bryce because he was so different than they were. He didn’t have to dominate everybody in a room. Average in both height and build, he was quiet, reserved and contained. He didn’t make demands on her all the time.
Except about the lingerie.
Lizzy drew more quick breaths as Vanilla began to clap excitedly. The invitation, like the lingerie stacked in containers in her closet, threatened Lizzy in some strange way.
She grabbed it, intending to wad it up, only to have Vanilla reach for it, too, squealing delightedly as she began to nibble on it and bat her long lashes up at her aunt. Tug-of-war was a favorite game of hers and Cole’s.
Cole… Lizzy’s heart thumped in her throat again as she remembered how changed he seemed when she’d last been home. Surprisingly, he and Daddy were actually working together without much of their former friction. Cole had even ridden along with her and her father when her dad had shown her the new state-of-the-art hunting camps and bragged about their corporate clients. Her dad had credited Cole with obtaining the leases.
“No, darling,” Lizzy admonished gently, prying the card from her tiny fingers. “Nasty. Garbage.” She chucked the wet invitation into the trash can even as she was swept with a guilty feeling for doing so.
Again, she told herself that she and Bryce were perfect together. Bryce was from the country. She was from the country, but they’d both craved more excitement, so they’d escaped to the city.
He was from Indiana, a dull farm where nothing ever happened. She was from a huge ranch in south Texas with a fabled history that was like a kingdom unto itself where too much happened. Like all kingdoms, its challenges ruled its owners more than the owners ran the kingdom.
People like her father and mother and Cole were obsessed with land, with its being more than land; obsessed with duties and loyalties to the land and to each other. Lizzy knew that somehow the land had ruined her parents’ lives and maybe her sister’s. She was terrified it would consume her, too.
She hoped New York was far enough away for her to be safe from its pull. She loved being able to lose herself in crowds. Here, she could be a nobody or a somebody. Here, nobody was jealous of her. She could be whatever she wanted to be. She wasn’t destined to be anything. Here, the name, Kemble, meant nothing.
Holding the baby, who was watching her face expectantly, Lizzy sagged still a moment longer against the wall in her entryway. Her weary gaze took in the cardboard books, stuffed rattles and bottles scattered about the floor of the living room and second bedroom, as well as her own closed bedroom door.
Vanilla smiled at Lizzy and clapped her hands together again to divert her.
“You’re glad to be home, aren’t