Nobody's Fool (27 page)

“Okay.” Portia shredded her Kleenex and scattered them over the floor.

“Look at these.” Grace gently clasped Portia's arms and waggled them in front of her. “Look what I have here. Do you know what I have?”

“My arms?” Tears spiked Portia's lashes together and made her cheeks blotchy. She stared at Grace as if one of them had lost her mind and she wasn't sure which one it was.

“Yes, your arms.” Grace nodded and gave them another waggle. She was totally winging it. “Your two strong arms.” She wrapped Portia's arms over each other in her lap. “And that is how you're going to do this. With your two strong arms.”

Portia blinked her sodden lashes at her, frowned, and turned to study her arms. Then she shook her head, and her hair crowded over her face, clinging to her damp cheeks. “What if they aren't strong enough?”

Grace wiped the hair off her face tenderly. “What if they are?”

Portia drew a shuddering breath.

“And if there are times when they're not, then know there are times when everyone's arms are weak. And look what I have here.” Grace waved her own arms in front of Portia's face. “I have another set of arms to help.”

“Oh, come on, Grace.” Portia managed a small laugh. “I'm not a child anymore.”

“No, you're not, and you're in a very adult predicament.” This shit was so serious it hurt Grace's head to even think about it. “But these arms will still help you when yours fail, just like when you were a kid. And,” she pressed her forehead against her sister's, “I know for a fact Emma has a pair just like them. And when Holly gets over her mad, she isn't going to toss you to the wolves.”

“You're such a dope.” Portia sniffed.

You have no idea
. Grace held back a sigh. “I was thinking—” she kept it calm and controlled—“we might give Holly's arms a rest for a while.”

Portia sniffed. “So she can be with Josh?”

“There you go.” Grace kept it positive. This was for all of them. “You catch on fast.”

“Is Josh completely gone?” Portia asked eventually.

“I don't think so.” Grace unwrapped her arms from around her sister. “We might need to give Holly a good shove in his direction, though.”

“I don't get it,” Emma said.

“Which particular part don't you get?” Grace tried to keep it pleasant, but it came out sounding pissy. She was going to have to do better if she was going to take this challenge on.

“Why Josh left.”

“Why do you care?” Grace rolled her eyes. Emma had done everything but push the man out the door. She would be running for her life if she were Josh. “You had a shit fit about Holly and Josh.”

“That isn't what we're talking about.” Emma gave a regal wave. “And it does nothing to explain why Holly let him go.”

“Holly needs to figure that one out.” And she would, with a little help from a kick-ass sister.

Emma snorted. “Gee, thanks, Yoda.”

Grace shut her mouth and counted to ten. One day at a time. That was how they were going to do this.

Chapter Thirty-One

Holly must have dropped off to sleep because she woke to find it growing dark outside. She'd spent a good part of the day locked in this room, and ping-ponging between righteous indignation and guilt. Nobody had disturbed her, and she liked it that way.

Outside, the long, slow meander into night of a Willow Park twilight lit the sky. Warm air ruffled the drapes in bursts of enthusiasm.

Holly rolled to her feet. She couldn't hide in here forever.

Downstairs, her sisters were preparing supper. They looked up briefly when she came in.

Portia handed her a knife and Holly took over chopping.

They worked in complete silence, but it wasn't uncomfortable, just cautious.

“So,” Grace said from the oven, “we were talking.”

The smell of roast chicken filled the kitchen, but Holly wasn't hungry.

“Oh?” she feigned polite interest. It was the best she could do; she was wrung out. She'd dreamed of Josh. Only in her dreams, he was still with her, smiling at her and teasing her out of a mood.

“Yes.” Grace turned from the oven. “About the manning-up thing.”

Holly's throat jammed up and she kept her eyes on her chopping board. She'd been such a bitch, but she didn't totally regret it. It had been kind of liberating.

Grace pushed a glass of wine in front of her. “I thought I might move to Ontario.”

“Really?” Holly's hands shook as she reached for the glass. All of her sisters in one place made her want to run in the other direction.

Grace put the chicken on the counter and took off her oven mitts. “Greg and I are splitting up. There's no reason for me to stay in Boston.”

“What about your job?”

“I can get another one.” Grace picked up her wine and took a sip. “It's not like I loved it in the first place.”

“Yes, you did.” Only a small part of Holly was engaged in the conversation. There was nothing but a big black hole where her feelings should be.

“No, I didn't.” Grace pulled a face. “It was part of a lifestyle I thought I wanted. Anyway, I have enough saved up, even after Greg and I are . . . over. I can wait to find something else.”

“Oh.” Holly had sliced an entire cucumber, and they didn't need that much for a salad. She reached for a tomato. “What will you do in Ontario?”

“The first thing is to get Crystal Clear turning a profit.” Grace snorted.

“We do fine,” Emma said.

“You do not.” Grace jammed her hands on her hips. “You piss around and play at being a shopkeeper. Well, you can be sure that's going to change.”

“Nobody asked you to interfere.” Emma tossed the lettuce she was washing into the sink.

“They didn't need to,” Grace said. “We discussed this, remember?”

“Yes, but I didn't think it would mean—”

Grace glared at her.

“Fine, but don't think you're going to start jackboot-ing all over me.” Emma tore the lettuce into shreds.

“Grace won't bully you.” Holly didn't know why she bothered. Why didn't she let them have at each other? In future, she would. She stared at the tomato and belatedly started to quarter it.

“Portia can stay with me until the baby is born,” Grace said. “And then she's going back on her meds.”

“And she'll stay on them,” Emma said. “Once the baby comes, we know she's going to have the baby blues, but even once we get through that, she needs to stay on her meds. For the baby.”

“Emma and Grace said they'd help me. I'm having an episode right now, but I'll come through this,” Portia said. “One day at a time.”

“That's great, Portia.” What the hell was wrong with her? Portia was voluntarily offering to go back on her medication and stay that way. She was showing signs of being able to take care of her own baby. Holly should be dancing for joy, not sullenly chopping vegetables.

“Portia and the baby can live with me,” Emma said from the other side of the table. “Grace and I will never be able to share a house, but Portia and I will be fine.”

Grace and Emma in a house together meant blood on the walls.

“And I'll be living nearby,” Grace said.

“Carrots.” It popped into Holly's head and out her mouth.

All three sisters gaped at her.

“We need carrots.” She bent her head to her chopping. Her eyes grew foggy and she couldn't see the board clearly. She'd lose a finger at this rate and she blinked to clear her vision. Something plopped onto the chopping board beside her knife. Where was the water coming from? Another drop hit the chopping board. What the hell was that? She touched the wet spot with the tip of her finger.

The board and knife blurred before her eyes. She tried to blink, but it made it worse. Other droplets joined the first two.

Portia took the knife out of her hand and laid it on the chopping board.

“There, there, Holly.” She put an arm around Holly's shoulders.

It was her. She was crying, which was impossible because Holly Partridge never cried. That's what she'd told Josh; she never cried. The tears increased their flow down her cheeks. She tried to remember the last time she'd cried and came up blank.

Then the anguish hit her in a roaring, gusting storm of hurt that flooded through her. It swept her up in its path and tossed her along in its current.

Grace joined Portia and Emma stood on her other side.

Holly surrendered. The tears came from a place she'd long since forgotten about. She'd stored them for years, crying on the inside and forcing them back. The dam broke and there was no stopping the flood.

She cried for the lost years and the little girl who grew up too fast. She cried for the days of misery and fear and uncertainty. She cried for the youth gone and the opportunities wasted. Holly cried for the missed chances and the wasted guilt. She cried for the beautiful man who'd said he loved her. Holly cried and then she cried some more.

Clustered around her, Holly's sisters clung to her and kept her afloat as Holly cried her river. They were her life preserver.

When it was done, she was still breathing, wrung out and depleted but standing, and her sisters were standing with her. The one person she wanted wasn't there, however, and it was now her move.

“I think . . .” She gave a huge sniff. Her nose was blocked and her eyes puffy. “I think it doesn't matter what you do.”

“Nice.” Grace snorted.

It drew a sodden laugh from Holly.

“What I mean is, I think I've been hiding as much as the rest of you, and it's time to stop.” She blew her nose on a Kleenex Emma handed her.

“Really? You don't say?” Grace rubbed her back.

“And?” Portia's eyes were hard to meet in their quiet intensity.

“And I think I have a man to go to get.”

Emma sniffed. “We're back to that man again, aren't we?”

“You're not back to any man,” Grace said over Holly's head. “You need to meet one first.”

Through her tears, Holly began to laugh.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Holly used a key she'd found at the house and let herself into the still apartment. Through the windows the glitter of the city lights reflected off Lake Michigan. She crept through the dark like a thief. She'd die if Donna woke up and caught her sneaking around.

She guessed Donna would be in the same room Holly had used when she stayed there. Holly pressed her face through the crack in the door. The faint scent of Donna's perfume lingered in the air.

Nope, not going in there.

She opened Josh's door slowly. She still had no words, only the compelling need to be near him.

He slept spread-eagled across the bed like someone had flung him there. Moonlight gilded his skin and he was breathtakingly beautiful. This man loved her, and Holly still couldn't quite believe it to be true, but she was done quibbling.

She stripped out of her clothes and slid cautiously onto one side of the bed. For once she was glad she was compact, as she found a small space for her body under his outflung arm and above one of his legs. Slowly, she eased a pillow under her head and then, as slowly, got the sheet up to her waist. The smell of Josh surrounded her like a blessing, and Holly lay perfectly still for a moment and absorbed it.

He groaned softly in his sleep and moved.

Holly held her breath.

He rolled onto his side. Suddenly, he flung one arm over her waist and hauled her tight against him, her bottom cradled by his hips. His breathing was deep and even, as if he were still sleeping.

Holly stayed as still as she could.

His breath tickled the back of her neck and his body bracketed her from neck to toes. The warmth of him crept through her muscles inch by inch until she relaxed and melted against him. From this position, the world seemed much less harsh and daunting.

“What took you so long?” His rough murmur startled her.

“Just stubborn, I guess.”

“Hmph!” His breathing returned to the deep rhythms of sleep.

Holly's eyes drifted shut as she relaxed and gave herself over to the safety and comfort of his embrace.

I love you.
Holly tried the words in her own head and they fit. She whispered them softly into the night. “I love you.”

“That's convenient,” he huffed against her neck, “because I love you, too. Now go to sleep; got a race in the morning. Got to be faster than Richard.”

 

 

Holly entered the kitchen cautiously.

Donna nodded a pleasant enough greeting, but Holly's every instinct warned her to tread warily around the older woman. She slid up to the counter and out of the way.

“Coffee?” Donna's eyes were lighter than Josh's, less indigo and more arctic.

Of course the deep freeze could have absolutely nothing to do with her physiognomy and much more with recent events. “Yes, please.”

She moved forward to fetch a cup from the cupboard behind the coffeemaker.

Donna moved at the same time, and they narrowly avoided a collision in front of the dispassionate glare of the stainless-steel Saeco.

Holly backed off first. “Sorry.”

Donna nodded and grabbed a cup. She expertly twisted dials and knobs until the aromatic bite of fresh-brewed beans hit the air. The machine gurgled and burped happily into her cup.

“Cream? Milk?”

“Cream, please.”

“Sugar?”

“No, thank you.”

Donna doctored the cup with the efficiency of long practice and slid it across the granite toward her.

“Thank you.” Holly pulled it closer.

The silence shrieked around them, and Holly took a careful swallow of her coffee. She almost burned her throat trying not to fill the silence with something like a slurp or a loud swallow.

“How is it?”

“Great.” Did she have to sound so bloody enthusiastic? A little over the top for a morning cup of coffee, but it would have been perfect if they'd been discussing, say, a cease-fire in the Middle East. Holly had a whole new appreciation for the tired old journalistic workhorse
: the situation is poised on a knife's edge.
There they were, two women, both of them loving the same man—
poised on a knife's edge
. It sounded rather depressingly apt.

Donna stood in front of the fridge and surveyed the contents. “Are you hungry?”

“No.” Enough was enough, and Holly took a bracing sip of coffee. Cowering here under the displeasure of the woman who might or might not be playing a significant role in the rest of her life wasn't going to fly—unless of course Josh could be made to see the expediency of shallow graves.

“No, thank you.” She eased back on the throttle. All indications were Josh adored his mother.

“You don't like me very much.” Holly lobbed her first grenade and braced for the explosions.

“I don't know you well enough to say,” Donna counterattacked with a swift and lethal passive-aggressive strike. She turned to look at Holly, her face stony. “But you're right,” she said suddenly. “Given the way my son is suffering at the moment, I don't like you very much.”

Who was the idiot who said honesty was the best policy? Holly took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “Fair enough.”

“I'm a mother.” Donna turned back to the fridge. “Someone hurts my child and I get feral. I know you understand.”

And she did. Holly nodded. Not all mothers gave birth to their charges. Some fostered someone else's offspring.

“The thing is . . .” Holly wasn't entirely sure why she was bothering to explain this, but she wanted the other woman to understand. “I'm not very good with this sort of thing.”

Donna raised an eyebrow in question.

“The relationship thing.” Oh, hell, she sounded like an idiot. “I get frightened, and it doesn't always bring out the best in me.”

“Relationships are scary.” Donna pulled out a carton of eggs. “We put ourselves on the line for them and we are all frightened of being hurt.”

“True.” Josh had said much the same thing. “But some of us aren't as brave as others.”

“Some of us have a good reason for being cautious.” A flicker of something that was nearly a smile touched one corner of Donna's mouth. “But that's not an excuse, merely an explanation.”

“Right you are.” Talk about a tough room. “I'll try to do better.”

“Try hard.” Donna glared at her.

“Will do.” Josh's mother could scare the pants off anyone.

Donna took the eggs out and laid them on the counter. She dug through drawers until she found a pan. “I was going to meet Josh at the finish line later today.” She cracked the eggs into a bowl.

His triathlon. Holly hadn't given it a thought when she'd crawled into his bed last night.
Selfish. Selfish
. Clearly, Donna was right. She had some serious ground to cover before she got any good at this relationship thing. “I should have waited until it was over.”

Amazingly, Donna didn't react, which proved she was either warming up to her or Donna had decided she couldn't get much lower and had zero expectations. Not a cheery thought.

“Would you like to come with me?”

“Yes, I would.” It was so unexpected, Holly's mouth dropped open and she blinked at Donna stupidly for a long moment. “I would like that very much.”

“And Joshua would love it.” Donna heaved a huge sigh that seemed to come from the depths of her being.

So. They weren't exactly soul sisters, and Donna wasn't delighted about the situation, but it was something. And, there were way too many eggs in the bowl for one person. Things were looking up already.

 

 

Josh could honestly say the best part of completing an Ironman was when you stopped moving. The swim went well, the cycle was exhausting, and the marathon was nothing short of mind over very, very sore matter.

He sat in the competitor's tent and looked at the other exhausted bodies around him.

Richard came in with Lucy tripping along beside him, looking like an advertisement for fertility.

Even in a tent full of exhausted, aching men, heads jerked and turned. Some could only move their eyeballs, but they moved.

Cocaine, Richard had once called his wife, cocaine for straight men.

“How you doing?” Richard clapped a firm hand on his shoulder.

Josh grinned weakly. “I don't think they work anymore.” He twitched a finger in the direction of his legs. Nothing else could or would move.

Richard smiled and squeezed his shoulder. “Did you get your time?”

“Nope.” Josh shook his head. He didn't even have it in him to give a shit. “All I registered was ‘finished.'”

“Well, then, allow me to be the first to tell you that you did it in ten hours and sixteen minutes.”

Josh threw himself back in his chair and sucked at an energy drink. “Great.”

“You beat my time by forty minutes.” Richard gave him a broad, happy grin.

“Whoopee.” Josh worked on the straw as if his life depended on it. Sweet electrolytes burst over his tongue and down his sandpapered throat. “Did you bring any drugs?”

There had to be advantages to having a doctor for a brother.

“Sorry, bud.” Richard shook his head. “But I'm not on duty here. Besides which, it's frowned upon when we doctors whip out needles and start jabbing people indiscriminately.”

“Even family?”

“Even family.”

“I'm not too proud to beg.”

Richard laughed and crouched down beside his chair. “Well done, Josh. Fantastic effort.” And he meant it.

Josh smiled back, warmed by his brother's praise.

Richard grinned. “You looked powerful right to the end.”

“Powerful?” He'd settle for anything better than pathetic.

“All sexy, sweaty stud,” Lucy said.

His fellow competitors stirred into life.

Lucy gave him her beautiful smile. “There's a surprise waiting for you outside.”

Josh didn't want any surprises, wonderful or otherwise. He wanted to go home and crawl into bed and have Holly crawl in beside him until the hurting stopped. Just like she had last night. He'd been sleeping, all the time feeling like a part of him was missing, and then there she was. Slipping in next to him with her own unique brand of
everything's going to be all right; just let me finish extracting this tooth.

The tiredness went way deeper than his muscles. “Let's go home.”

“You don't want to stay for the event afterward?”

“Hell no.” Josh rocked his weight forward and stopped. “You're going to have to help me up.” He glared balefully at his brother, daring Richard to make some smart-ass comment.

Richard hauled him to his feet.

Josh had never fully appreciated the mechanics involved in taking a step, the collection of muscles that would need to contract into action. Now that every one of those muscles ached, he understood very clearly what was involved in moving one step forward.

Richard chuckled softly and took his elbow in a light clasp. “You might want to man up here a little,” he said, softly enough for only Josh to hear. “Your lady is outside.”

“Holly's here?” Josh had the ridiculous urge to cry.

“Yup.” Richard nodded calmly. “She came with Ma earlier this morning. They've been here most of the day.”

Josh closed his eyes to bring back the sweet feel of Holly in his arms. Her even sweeter words of love and, as suddenly, adrenaline pumped through his muscles and he walked. Well, more of a hobble, but at least he was mobile.

And there she was, and it was better than a shot of anti-inflammatory straight into the thigh.

She stood beside his mother, shorter even than Donna, dressed like a bag lady with her wild, wild hair making a break for freedom any place it could. Her T-shirt was at least three sizes too big and probably a Walmart reject, her cargo shorts were straight from the Sears boys' department—and she was perfect.

Holly Partridge, the most beautiful girl in the world, saw him coming and sent him a smile so sweet and full of apprehension that he melted. One look and he was putty in her managing little hands.

“Hey, pretty boy.” She beamed up at him. “You were amazing.”

He beamed back at her. She was right, he was. Abso-fucking-lutely amazing, a magnificent pagan god, a colossus among men, and, most of all, the man who got to take Holly Partridge home.

He tugged her closer to his side. “Are you impressed?”

She didn't seem to mind he was sweaty and filthy. She snuggled up beside him and tipped her pretty face up to him. Her mane tangled over his hands and tickled the skin of his forearms and he threaded his fingers through it—just because he could.

“You did great.” She tapped his chest possessively. “It was rather gladiatorial and primal.”

He grinned like an idiot. “That's good, right?”

“Sure.” She grinned back. “If you're looking for the mate who will pass on the strongest DNA.”

“So.” Josh's eyes gleamed down at her. “Am I your chosen sperm donor?”

“Gross.” Lucy poked him in the back. “As lines go, Josh . . . ergh.” She made a few retching noises.

“Yes.” Donna reached over from his free side and kissed him on the cheek. “You might want to remember your mother is present.” She patted his cheek gently.
“Formidable, mon fils.”

“Where's the rest of your tribe?” Josh asked as they hobbled toward the car.