He carried his garment bag upstairs, chose the guest room where he hadn’t once made love to Fiona, stripped off his clothes and crawled into bed. Sleep came easily, but it wasn’t restful. Too many memories, too many dreams.
When he gave up and got up, it was nearly eight o’clock, the sky was dark, and his stomach was rumbling. He dressed in jeans and a sweater, grabbed his coat and headed for the car. He got so far as unlocking the door before some impulse he didn’t understand and couldn’t resist drew him away, across the yard next door and up the steps. It was incredibly stupid, he told himself as he crossed the six feet to the door. She’d made it clear at the church this afternoon that she wanted nothing further to do with him. He had nothing to say to her. Her husband certainly wouldn’t appreciate him stopping by.
But none of that stopped him from ringing the doorbell or waiting impatiently in the thin glow of the porch light.
Through the curtained side lights that flanked the door, he saw a shadow approach the door. The long moment’s hesitation that followed told him it was Fiona, debating whether to answer the door or leave him standing there like the idiot he was. If asked to guess, he would have put his money on the latter, but he would have been wrong.
She opened the door only halfway and blocked it with her socked foot. Hugging her arms to her chest, she fixed a slightly hostile, mostly blank look on him and waited for him to speak.
“Hi.” Brilliant opening. Worthy of a door slammed in his face. “I was wondering…” About a lot of things, but the growl deep in his stomach gave him a topic to discuss with her. “Where can I get a decent burger around here?”
She looked suspicious of his question, but answered as if it were legitimate. “We have the usual fast food places. The diner downtown might still be open. Randolph’s definitely is, though I don’t know if they have hamburgers on the menu. The Squaw Creek Lodge restaurant, but it’s a bit of a drive.”
“Which one’s your favorite?”
“We like McDonald’s Happy Meals,” she replied with a hint of sarcasm, then grudgingly went on. “The Saloon. It’s a bar downtown that serves greasy burgers with fried onions and a side of heartburn. They’re the best around.”
“Any chance I could persuade you to keep me company while I eat?”
Her eyes darkened, and her mouth thinned into a prissy straight line. “No. None.”
Of course not. What man would want to stay home and baby-sit while his wife went out to the local watering hole with her ex-lover? “I…I just thought maybe we could talk.”
“What could we possibly have to talk about?”
He shrugged awkwardly. “Golda.”
For a moment, she stood motionless. Then she pushed the door up, not quite closing it. Justin wasn’t sure whether she’d changed her mind or was dismissing him, until she returned, wearing shoes and carrying a thick blanket. She slipped outside, closed the door, wrapped the blanket around her, then sat down on the top step.
He stayed where he was a moment. It was twenty degrees, and neither of them was dressed to spend any amount of time outside. Her warm house was a few steps away, and Golda’s was thirty feet away. There was no reason for them to freeze outside.
Except that she obviously didn’t want him inside her house, and he wasn’t even sure he wanted to be alone with her.
He sat at the opposite end of the same step and rubbed his hands together before sliding them into his coat pockets. As the silence between them extended, he reminded himself that he was supposed to talk about Golda, but he couldn’t think of anything he wanted to say—not now, not with Fiona still obviously hostile.
Gazing at the house across the street, brightly lit in the night, he finally asked, “How have you been?”
Fiona slowly turned her head to look at him. He felt it. “You’re a little late asking, aren’t you?” The voice he remembered in his dreams as sweet, warm, tender, was as cold as the frigid air that surrounded them. “You said you wanted to talk about Golda. Do it or leave.”
Now it was her turn to stare across the street while he looked at her. The past six years had left him looking six years older and ten years wearier, but they’d simply left Fiona more beautiful. She’d always been pretty, with her red hair, hazel eyes, freckled nose, fair skin and exceedingly kissable mouth, but now she was lovelier, softer, more desirable, in a womanly sort of way. Was it motherhood that had brought about the change?
Or the man she’d married?
He couldn’t ask. He had no right. She had the dubious honor of being part of the single most important relationship in his entire life. He’d seduced her, and been seduced by her. He’d wanted to marry her, to spend the next fifty years at her side. He’d even imagined himself in love with her—him, a Reed, when everyone knew that Reeds were capable of many emotions, but love was not one of them.
And he had no right to ask her anything. What was wrong with this picture?
Golda, his conscience reminded him when Fiona shifted impatiently on the step. Turning so the railing was at his back, he went straight to the heart of what troubled him most about his aunt. “Did she ever forgive me?”
Chapter 2
Underneath the heavy comforter, Fiona was trembling, but it had nothing to do with the cold. Ask me if I’ll ever forgive you, she wanted to demand. Not in this lifetime. But she wasn’t Golda. She’d loved him in an entirely different way, and while he’d betrayed her, he’d merely neglected Golda. He’d broken Fiona’s heart and cheated his daughter of a father, but he’d deprived Golda of nothing more than a few visits.
Not that he cared if Fiona and Katy ever forgave him. He hadn’t even asked about her, hadn’t shown any interest at all in her existence. For all practical purposes, for him, she didn’t exist.
Someday, if there was any justice in life, he would come to regret the way he’d treated Katy. Someday it would be her turn to walk away from him, to abandon him and make him feel unwanted and unloved.
Fiona hoped she was around to see it.
“What is it you’d wanted her to forgive you for?” she asked. For failing to come and see the woman who’d put her life on hold from time to time to make his a little easier? For putting his own needs ahead of an old woman who loved him dearly and would forgive him anything?
Or for refusing to acknowledge his daughter? Not many people outside her family knew he was Katy’s father, but Golda had known from the instant she’d heard about Fiona’s pregnancy. She’d welcomed her grandniece, and Fiona, too, with all the love and acceptance Justin had refused to offer. She’d made them feel as if they’d mattered.
To him they never had. He’d had his fun—livened up a dull vacation with a steamy affair—and he’d never given a damn how much pain he’d caused. But Golda had.
“I—I didn’t see her as often as I should have. I didn’t write, didn’t call…”
“Oh, gee, so it’s a habit,” she said sarcastically. “And here I thought I’d been singled out for shabby treatment. But you weren’t being cruel. You were just being you.”
It was difficult to tell with so little light, but she thought he might have winced. “Fiona—”
Holding onto the comforter, she stood up and gazed down at him. “She kept pictures of you all over the house. She told everybody how proud she was of her nephew, the ATF agent. She said you were the only Reed besides her that had ever amounted to anything.” She drew a deep breath and unwillingly softened her voice. “She loved the cards you sent, and the flowers on her birthday, and the roses on Mother’s Day. She loved the phone calls, and the postcards, and the little gifts, and every minute of every visit. She loved you.”