Oceans of Fire (18 page)

They all heard a knock a minute later. Abigail froze, hand to her throat, her heart suddenly beginning to pound.

“Relax, dear,” Carol said, “it’s only Inez and a few others from the Red Hat Club. They’ve come to get me, as I didn’t call right away.” She patted her niece’s shoulder and hurried to find her ornate red hat. “I’ve been leaving the gate open for my friends during the day.”

Several ladies poured into the room, dressed in either flowing skirts or pants, but all with bright purple shirts and red hats on their heads. They laughed as they greeted the girls. “Carol was late so we decided not to let her miss the meeting. We’re dragging her off with us and don’t expect her back early! It’s our girls’ day out and we intend to have fun.”

“I’m ready.” Carol rushed into the room waving her arm, her camera slung haphazardly around her neck. “Unless you girls need me…” She trailed off, looking at Abbey.

Abigail kissed her. “No, we’ll be fine. Just don’t get into too much trouble.”

That sent another round of laughter floating up from the women. “Like the time we had to bail you out of jail,” Inez said.

“Or the time you got stuck in that tree with Tommy Lofton and we had to call the fire rescue,” Donna added.

“Aunt Carol!” Hannah looked proud.

“I’m certain they’re making it all up!” Carol blew kisses at her nieces and followed the women out.

The Drake sisters listened to the laughter as it slowly faded into the distance. “We might have to bail them out,” Sarah warned. “I think Carol’s going to be a very bad influence on that group, and worse, that they want her to be.”

“Most of them went to school together. It’s so nice that they’ve remained such good friends,” Kate said.

Hannah slipped off the chair and stretched out on her stomach on the floor, patting the place beside her in invitation as she looked up at Abigail. “I don’t know all that much about things, Abbey, but I do know guilt can eat you alive. You can’t let it rule your life. Aunt Carol never has. She pretends to be a little on the wacky side, but she lives large and she’s happy.”

One by one the other Drakes lay on the floor as they did when they were children. Each stretched out a hand and placed it in the middle of their circle, one on top of the other in a gesture of solidarity. Abigail took her place beside Hannah and felt the warmth of her sisters’ hands over hers.

“I think I’m too old for the floor,” Sarah said. “We need mats.”

“I have noticed you aging, Sarah,” Joley agreed. “Especially since you became engaged. Too funny, if you ask me. Sarah, turning into a yeswoman.”

Sarah threw her wadded-up napkin at Joley. “I am
so
not a yeswoman. You can just take that back before I decide to thump you.”

Joley feigned a bored yawn. “It’s not going to happen because you’re just as anxious as I am to hear all about Aleksandr the Russian hottie with the sexy voice.”

Abigail blushed. “Okay,” she conceded. “He does have a sexy voice.
Totally
sexy.”

“And he sings, too,” Joley added. “He has a beautiful voice. He used to sing her to sleep with a lullaby.” She grinned wickedly. “Well,
after
, you know.”

Abigail’s blush deepened. “I didn’t tell you that!”

“You didn’t have to tell me that.”

Hannah raised her hands in the air and made intricate patterns in the air. “I could use some cookies fresh out of the oven. Anyone else?”

Abigail leaned over and nudged her shoulder with her chin. “You always eat cookies when we have a family conference. How do you stay so thin? I make two of you.”

“Jonas once said I’m a wire hanger the designers drape their clothes on,” Hannah confessed. There was a note of hurt in her voice. “He’s such a jerk sometimes. Then he was mad at me because toads followed him around croaking. He claimed it sounded like they were saying ‘liar, liar,’ which by the way, could happen to Aleksandr if you needed to let him know you aren’t going to take any of his nonsense.”

Abigail rubbed Hannah’s back gently. “Jonas deserves toads following him around, especially if he hung out with Sylvia. Who is he dating now?”

“Someone with a figure,” Hannah said. “Her bones won’t jab him every time he holds her.” She caught the plate of cookies as it started to float by.

A collective gasp went up. “He didn’t say that to you!”

“Oh, he said it all right. He saw the magazine with the designer dresses from Italy. You know the ones without much in the back and very little in the front? He has to make some snide comment every single time I go out on a job. There was one picture of me with an Italian male model in a particularly sexy pose and Jonas was extraordinarily nasty about it. He was lucky it was only toads serenading him all night.” Hannah passed the plate of chocolate chip cookies around to her sisters. “Did Aleksandr say mean things to you, Abbey?”

“Aleksandr has never made any personal comment to me to make me feel less than beautiful. Just the opposite.” Abigail bit down on the warm chocolate and let it melt in her mouth while she thought about Aleksandr Volstov. “He made me feel beautiful every moment I was with him. He always acted like he couldn’t see another woman.” She smiled around the mouthful of cookie. “He did tell me I had a bad temper once, though.”

“Well, you do,” Joley said. When Abigail glared at her she shrugged. “You do. You know you do. Not as bad as mine, but you have one.”

“Men are just so bossy,” Abigail said. “It’s annoying sometimes.”

“Sometimes?” Joley’s eyebrow shot up. “It’s annoying all the time. I don’t know how any of you put up with it. Seriously, Kate, Sarah, you both should think long and hard before you commit to this marriage thing. Men just like to take over.” She caught up three cookies and placed the plate in the center of the seven sisters. “Aleksandr is absolutely the bossy type.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Abigail admitted. “He definitely doesn’t lack for confidence.”

“What does he lack?” Sarah asked, her voice gentle.

Abigail took a deep breath and let it out. “Maybe I’m the one lacking, I don’t honestly know, or maybe I expected a knight in shining armor. I told him about everything. Us. All of our gifts, the bad, the good, and everything that came with having talent. I told him how difficult it can be and how exhilarating. And I told him how you all had wonderful gifts that seemed so useful and yet mine only did damage. I think he was skeptical at first, but he has a tremendous sense of intuition. So he would throw out little tests, at least that’s how I thought of them, and eventually he asked me to sit in on the interrogation of some of his prisoners. For the first time in my life, I felt like my talent made a difference, actually had a purpose. I knew I was helping him and doing something worthwhile.”

There was eagerness in her voice her sisters couldn’t fail to notice, but Abigail couldn’t hide it. For the first time in her life she had felt part of something and worthy of being a Drake. “It wasn’t just the fact that I was working with him, and that he was proud of me, but it meant that I measured up to the rest of you and all the Drake sisters who had gone before us.”

“Abigail,” Libby said, reaching out to wrap her fingers around her sister’s arm, “how could you think that way?”

Immediately, at Libby’s touch, Abigail’s pain eased. She sent Libby a faint smile. “That’s why. You’re so extraordinary, all of you, the things you can do for people. All of these years being in Sea Haven, has anyone ever asked me for help? They avoid me. Most don’t engage me in conversation. I have a few friends outside this family, but not very many. The townspeople are so proud of the rest of you and you’re always being asked to help. I know it isn’t easy for you and I’m not trying to belittle the fact that it takes so much out of you, but to
never
be asked made me feel so far from the rest of you.” Abigail looked around at her sisters. “Do any of you understand?”

Hannah nodded. “I’m always the bad girl. It’s probably from having to stay to myself so much. I spend a lot of time thinking about things I shouldn’t. I can’t help it and I wonder sometimes how everyone else can be so good.” She took a chocolate chip cookie out of Joley’s hand and took a bite. “Well, except for Joley, but she never gets lectures because everyone expects it out of her.”

“Damn straight,” Joley said. “I earned my reputation and it keeps growing even when I don’t do anything.”

“Stop trying to look pathetic, Joley,” Sarah admonished. “You can’t pull it off.”

“Sheesh. I get no respect in this house. It isn’t easy to get the kind of publicity I do. My all-time fave was the time someone sent Mom and Dad the tabloid with the headlines ‘Caught in the Act’ and ‘Confessions of a Sex Addict.’ Mom called me and said she and Daddy were leaving the country. She neglected to tell me they’d been planning their trip for years, so I was mortified.”

The sisters erupted into gales of laughter. “Well, you shouldn’t have confessed to your addiction,” Abigail pointed out.

“I wish,” Joley said. “Who the hell am I supposed to have sex with? I’m on the road all the time and I flirt like crazy but I think they’re all afraid of my reputation.”

“Ooo!” Hannah said. “What you need, Joley, is for us to do the red panty ceremony for you. Do you have a pair upstairs? Everyone we’ve done it for says it works.”

“It worked for me,” Abigail reported. “Aleksandr loved the red panties and I was very, very lucky the night I wore them.”

“No way!” Joley held up her fingers in a cross. “I’m not going to saddle myself with a man as arrogant and bossy as Aleksandr. I’m going for the type I can dominate totally. He’ll adore me and do every single thing my little heart desires. If the red panty ceremony nets you a hot bossy man, I am so not there!” She looked curiously at Hannah. “What about you? Have you tried it?”

Hannah shuddered openly. “Sleeping with someone generally requires a date of some kind and dating generally requires talking to someone and as I have never been able to actually talk with a man I like without looking like an idiot, I’ve passed on the sacred ceremony, thank you very much.”

“You talk to Jonas,” Sarah pointed out.

“Is he actually a man? I think he’s an android.” Hannah managed a sniff of disdain. “I doubt seriously if he counts and no one—
no one
—in their right mind would ever go out with him.”

They all looked at Elle. She held up both hands. “As no form of birth control is going to work for me, I figure it’s in my best interest to stay as far away from that particular ceremony as possible.” She grinned at Abigail. “Although I did participate in Abbey’s ritual just before she left on vacation. I chanted, lit candles, and had a lot of fun and then hid in the nearest closet just in case there was a backlash. I’m so pleased to hear it worked.”

“It definitely worked,” Abigail confirmed. “He took one look at me the day I wore them and he was so hot I didn’t think we’d make it to his room. He had me up against the wall and…” She trailed off, fanning herself. “Suffice it to say, the ritual works.”

“Thanks a lot, Abbey,” Elle said, “that’s just not right. I’m eating the last cookie and I deserve it.”

They all watched solemnly as Elle ate the last chocolate chip cookie.

“So he made you feel beautiful, he’s great in bed, and he’s smart and funny and sings to you,” Sarah ventured. “He even had you believing in yourself and sharing your gift. So tell us more about what went wrong, Abbey.”

“He was working very hard on a case. He had several, but this one investigation was ongoing and he’d been working on it nearly two years. It was awful. At first he didn’t want to talk about it because it involved a series of brutal child murders. He was certain he was getting close to finding the murderer. It’s very different there than here and he was frustrated at times with the level of cooperation and the threats from his superiors. I know the deaths haunted him and he felt responsible because the killer eluded him for so long.”

“How terrible.” Joley sat up, frowning. She put one hand on Libby. Hannah did the same. They were all empathic, but Libby would feel the most, especially with her sister, and Abigail was in pain. “For everyone. The parents, the children, Aleksandr, and you as well. It must have been so awful for you to experience what he and the parents were feeling. Was he aware how empathic you are?”

“How could he be? How can anyone be? Look at how Irene Madison keeps insisting Libby heal her son, Drew, of cancer. She has no idea how dangerous even trying would be. It’s the same with everyone. And when we try to explain it, they don’t want to hear because whatever they’re asking is that important to them. Aleksandr reached a point where he wanted me involved because all that mattered was saving children and I agreed.”

Abigail sat up and leaned her head back against the sofa. She looked at her hands. “How many times do you think we start things with the best of intentions and end up hurting other people?”

“Abbey,” Kate said, “all of us have done things we’re not proud of. Everyone makes mistakes. We all make choices based on the information we have at the time. It’s all well and good to look back after the fact and see what we should have done, but we rarely know what path is best when we take that first step.”

“When I went to the station to meet Aleksandr, I was told he’d brought in a suspect and that he was in an interrogation room waiting for me to help question the man. All I knew was that Aleksandr had told me he was close to breaking the case. I assumed the suspect in custody was the man he was certain was the killer. When I went in several officers were in the room and everyone was yelling at the suspect. They stood over him and pounded the table and accused him over and over.”

“I’m so sorry, Abbey,” Sarah whispered. “That wouldn’t be easy for any of us.“

Abigail shook her head. “Don’t feel sorry for me. I wanted to be there. I wanted to help him solve the murders. I wanted to be important to him.” She rubbed her forehead with the heel of her hand. “I was so stupid. I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t go in there thinking of the suspect or even with a clear mind. I went in thinking about myself. My own glory. Of helping Aleksandr and making him happy.” She hit the back of her head three times against the sofa cushions in an agony of recrimination. “Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.”