‘Is that you, Shea?’
‘Yes. It’s me,’ she said and climbed the remaining stairs to the door. But Alex was there before her.
‘And she’s brought a guest,’ he said into the opening.
‘Alex!’ Norah’s hand went to her throat in surprise. She shot a quick, startled look at Shea.
‘Hello, Norah,’ Alex replied with a faint touch of uncharacteristic reticence in his deep voice.
Then Norah’s eyes crinkled at the corners as she smiled. ‘Alex,’ she repeated softly, a catch in her voice, and she opened her arms welcomingly.
Alex stepped into them, lifted her off the ground and swung her around before setting her back on her feet. ‘I wondered if you’d recognise me after all this time. Or if you’d want to.’
‘As if I wouldn’t,’ she admonished him. ‘And I’ve known you too many years to forget your face now.’ Norah patted his cheek and looked into his eyes. ‘But, Alex. You’ve changed.’
‘That’s to be expected, isn’t it?’ Alex gave a soft laugh. ‘But I hope that frown doesn’t mean you think I’ve changed for the worse, does it?’
‘Of course not. Those looks of yours would still charm birds out of trees.’
Alex’s grin widened, the creases bracketing his mouth deepening, and Shea felt her own mouth tighten in disgust. Norah couldn’t have spoken truer words. Other girls had succumbed, she knew. But she had been the one who’d fallen the hardest.
‘I’m relieved to hear it,’ Alex joked, ‘because you never know when you’ll need a few birds to come out of the trees.’
Norah and Alex laughed easily and somehow they had gravitated into the hallway, moving naturally towards the kitchen instead of the living room where they would normally take a guest. But Alex was family, so they went into the kitchen. As though he’d never been away, Shea thought with a stab of irritation.
Norah subsided into her favourite chair and Alex looked at Shea, obviously waiting for her to be seated before he himself sat down.
‘I think I’ll make some coffee, shall I?’ she asked quickly, hovering just inside the doorway.
‘To tell you the truth I’ve been dying for a cup of true Finlay coffee,’ Alex said amiably. ‘Haven’t tasted one as good since I left.’
‘I’d just brewed a fresh pot.’ Norah made to get up again but Shea motioned for her to remain where she was.
‘No. You stay there and talk to Alex. I’ll get it.’ Shea crossed to the old-fashioned dresser, busying herself taking Norah’s fine china mugs from their decorative hooks.
But she couldn’t prevent her eyes from slipping across to Alex as he seated himself at the scrubbed wooden table. She experienced a stabbing pain at the completely natural way Alex had drawn up that particular chair. He’d done so for as long as Shea could remember.
Until he left. Her lips tightened. She couldn’t forget that. He had betrayed them. Betrayed her.
She tried not to listen as Norah inquired about Alex’s flight home, then about his father and stepmother. She couldn’t stay and listen to Alex’s easy tone when she wanted to lash out at him, fling over him some of the anger and pain that burned inside her.
Automatically she set their mugs of coffee on the table, adding the sugar bowl and the milk jug, along with a plate of Norah’s freshly made cookies. Alex used to love them, too...
‘Aren’t you going to sit down, Shea?’ His words broke in on her unsettling thoughts and she moved forward to disguise the start of surprise his voice had caused her.
‘Yes. Of course. But if you’ll both excuse me for a moment. I’ll just, um, the bathroom,’ she muttered disjointedly and made her escape. Once she’d reached the safety of the hallway her step faltered, and she gulped shallow, calming breaths.
‘I’m sorry I haven’t managed to get home sooner,’ Shea heard Alex say and her hand went to the wall to steady herself. ‘Once Dad moved to the States I lost all contact apart from an occasional note from Jamie.’
‘Jamie wrote to you? I never knew that.’ Shea heard Norah say and her own lips tightened. Well, she, Shea, hadn’t known, either, and she felt a numbed surprise that Jamie had deceived her.
‘About the funeral, Norah,’ Alex was continuing. ‘I got the message you left about the accident and I was about to fly home but,’ he paused, ‘something came up.’
Shea didn’t stay to hear any more. She made herself hurry towards the bathroom.
So something had come up to prevent him attending Jamie’s funeral, Jamie who had been more than a brother to him. Some business deal no doubt, she thought bitterly. How could she think it would have been any other way? Alex hadn’t changed. He had been interested only in himself eleven years ago and he was still the same. Alex-oriented. Something she would never be again.
She automatically splashed her face and towelled it dry. Her reflection, face devoid of makeup, gazed back at her from the mirror above the vanity basin, and her frown deepened.
She rubbed at the slight indentation between her eyes. She looked—Well, she looked every bit of her twenty-eight years, and then some. She was definitely no longer the fresh-faced teenager Alex had left behind. He couldn’t help but notice the difference in her.
Shea shifted agitatedly, hanging up the towel and grasping her hairbrush. Did it matter what Alex Finlay thought? she asked herself derisively.
Her fingers loosened the knot of fair hair at the back of her head and she raked the brush through the tangles. Then she rewound it into its confining bob and rubbed at her throbbing temples.
There was nothing now to keep her from rejoining her mother-in-law and their guest so she walked back along the hallway. However, she hesitated again before she reached the kitchen doorway as she heard Norah’s words.
‘And is Patti with you?’
‘No.’ Shea thought she heard Alex sigh. ‘Patti and I aren’t together anymore. We divorced. It just didn’t work out.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that, Alex,’ Norah said softly as Shea’s entire body seemed to stiffen at Alex’s bombshell.
A tiny flicker of hope caught Shea unawares and she berated herself derisively.
‘We should never have married, Patti and I,’ Alex was saying.
‘That’s easy to say with hindsight,’ Norah put in sympathetically.
‘I suppose so,’ Alex agreed tiredly.
Realising she had been holding her breath Shea made herself exhale as her chest tightened painfully.
‘Our marriage lasted barely a year. We were finally divorced a couple of years ago and Patti’s remarried. She seems happy enough now.’ The chair creaked as Alex moved. ‘That’s the way things go sometimes.’
‘I suppose sometimes they do,’ Norah commiserated. ‘But I think it’s sad when young marriages break up. There seems to be so much of it these days.’
Alex made a noncommittal remark as Norah continued to decry the modern phenomena and Shea tried to analyse her own feelings at Alex’s revelation.
So Alex’s and Patti’s marriage hadn’t lasted. Shea could recall quite vividly the devastation she’d experienced when Alex’s father had told her of his son’s engagement to Joe Rosten’s daughter. And the pain of having to pretend to everyone that