“Honey, you sound…funny. Are you all right? Do you have a cold or something? If you do, you need to start taking care of it. I saw on the news that it’s very cold and snowing in Winchester.”
“Or something,” Olivia responded. “Is Dad there?”
“He was until about ten minutes ago. He’s down on the pier watching some fisherman haul in a huge marlin. Can I have him return your call, or would you like me to go get him? I don’t think he’ll be too long. Let’s face it, how long can you stare at a dead fish?”
Olivia knew she was supposed to laugh at Lea’s little joke. She didn’t. She wondered if she would ever laugh again about anything. “No, that’s okay. Tell him to call me when he gets in. It’s important, Lea.”
“Is there anything I can do, honey?”
“No. But thanks for asking.” Olivia clicked the OFF button and replaced the phone in its stand instead of letting it slide down between the cushions. She walked back to the fire, carrying an armful of pillows. She was so cold she ached. The dogs curled up next to her, and she fed them the crunchy cereal, one morsel at a time.
Just you and me, kid.
Chapter 3
Three hours later, the dogs sound asleep on the pillows, Olivia’s phone finally rang. She looked at it through narrowed green eyes that were little more than slits. The rage she’d felt earlier was still with her. Getting up carefully so as not to wake the sleeping dogs, she barked a greeting into the phone.
“Ollie, Ollie, how are you? I’m sorry I missed your call. Daimon brought in this glorious marlin, and we all had to stand around and watch him gloat. Then we had to go to Finnegan’s to make a toast. What’s up, honey? Lea said you sounded funny and wasn’t sure if you were sick or something was wrong.”
There’s something wrong all right. “A lawyer came to see me this afternoon.”
“Good Lord, don’t tell me someone is suing you! When are people going to understand the camera doesn’t lie? They look the way they look. Call up our attorney, offer to redo the photos, then touch them up. That should work. You aren’t upset over this, are you, Ollie? You know it goes with the territory. It happened so many times to me, I lost count.”
How cheerful and upbeat his voice sounds, Olivia thought, when my own is so chilly and hateful. Just you and me, kid. “It wasn’t about a disgruntled client, Dad. It was about my deceased mother—your deceased wife. The woman whose picture is not on the mantel. It seems she rose from the dead and died all over again two weeks ago. Well, Daaadd, what do you have to say about that?”
The silence on the other end of the phone was so total, Olivia had to prompt her father for a response. “Well?”
“I’ll get the first plane out in the morning. I should be there by midafternoon. This is not something to discuss over the phone.”
“Why the hell not, Daaadd?” Olivia wailed. “How could you? More to the point, how dare you not tell me? How dare you let me think that woman in the picture was my mother? How dare you, Dad?” With shaking hands, Olivia pitched the phone across the room. She watched as the small cover that held the batteries bounced off, and the batteries rolled across the tongue-and-groove floor. She cried harder but made no move to fix the phone. Instead, she went back to the fire and curled up with the dogs, where she cried herself to sleep.
Olivia woke with a stiff neck. She struggled to her feet, all the while massaging her neck. She hoped a hot shower would work out the kink. The dogs raced to the back door, then did a double take when they saw the night’s snowfall piled up against the sliding door. Game little rascals that they were, they did their best to plow through snow that was taller than them. They peed quickly and raced back to the house. Olivia handed out treats, made coffee, and trudged off to the shower, where she stood under the pelting spray until the water ran cold. After dressing quickly in a fleece-lined blue sweat suit, heavy socks, and sneakers, she pulled back her hair in a ponytail and tied it with a red ribbon. The last thing she did before leaving the bathroom was to apply some face toner in the hope it would reduce the redness and puffiness around her eyes. Like she really cared how she looked.
What she needed next was coffee. Lots and lots of coffee. As she sipped her second cup, she stared out the kitchen window, knowing that by eight o’clock, all her customers scheduled for the day would call to cancel. Considering her frame of mind, she thought it was a good thing. The only way she would be able to catch up was to work weekends. That wasn’t so bad, because she rarely did anything on the weekends except maybe go to dinner or the movies with Clarence.
In order not to dwell on her immediate problem, Olivia tried to shift mental gears and think about her personal life. With the exception of Dee Dee Pepper, all her old friends were married with families. Most of them had moved out of state, and she’d lost touch with them. Christmas was always an eye-opener, when the cards came in with newsletters, new-baby pictures, and family updates. She hated reading the details. Someday she was going to meet a guy who was going to sweep her off her feet. A guy who would like animals and respect what she did for a living. A man with whom she would want to start a family. She shrugged when she realized her biological clock was ticking. “If it’s meant to be, it will be,” she muttered to herself.
The phone rang in the kitchen. Olivia looked at the clock. Five minutes to eight. It was Cecil’s handler, Jeff Bannerman, pleading for her to keep Cecil another day, what with the snow-clogged roads. Olivia agreed, reminding Jeff that her services were fifty dollars an hour. As on the previous day, he readily agreed and said he would bring a check for the full amount when he came to pick up Cecil.
The phone rang three more times, her three morning clients canceling and rescheduling. Outside, the skies were gray, and it looked like more snow. Her father was going to be in for a shock when he stepped off the plane. He was also going to have to take a taxi. There was no way she was going to the airport with road conditions what they were.
Olivia refilled her coffee cup and carried it to the table, positioning it on one of the cheerful place mats she’d made last winter. She loved this kitchen, with the white cabinets and colorful greenery on the counters. She loved the whole house and was delightedly stunned when her father had deeded it to her when he and Lea went off to the islands. The hanging plants were thick and lush, thanks to a weekly dose of plant food and a good water spritzing every other day. Her collection of saltshakers and pepper grinders graced the tops of the cabinets. Her father had built a special shelf on top of the cabinets when she said she was going to start collecting something. He’d always acquiesced in everything she wanted and got right on it, making it happen. He’d been a wonderful father. Until now. Now she thought of him as a liar. He’d betrayed her in the worst possible way. How could she ever forgive something like this?
Was there a reason for his deception? Surely he had a reason. She wished she knew more about motherhood. All she knew was what she read in magazines and stories and what she’d observed as a child with her friends’ mothers. The bottom line in those magazines and stories was about mothers loving their children more than life itself. Why did her mother give her away? Maybe she hadn’t wanted to be pregnant. Maybe she hadn’t been mother material. Or maybe Olivia had been an ugly baby. Maybe something had been wrong with her when she was born that offended her mother. But then she snorted at such thoughts.
Was she blaming the wrong person? It was possible, she supposed, that her father only did what her mother wanted. Since she didn’t know anything about her mother—not even what she’d looked like—she couldn’t really say. What she was sure of was that her father loved her with all his heart. She was certain in her own mind that he still loved her and that there had to be reasons why he’d done what he did. And now he was on his way to her to try to make all this right.
Olivia felt like crying, but she bit down on her lower lip. Crying was for wimps. At least that’s what her father said. She leaned over and turned the radio on just to have some sound. Music filled the kitchen and