The One Safe Place (6 page)

“I couldn't stay,” he said abruptly. “I couldn't send Pauline away. It would have been too rude.”

He heard a sort of apology in his voice, which was, of course, absolutely ridiculous. Why should he feel guilty for leaving? He hadn't had any choice. Besides, he didn't owe either of these people anything but common courtesy and a safe place to sleep.

“Of course you couldn't,” she said. “It's fine. Spencer is fine. Please don't worry.”

“Faith, I mean it. I would help him if I could, but I can't.”

“It's all right. You don't have any oblig—”

“I don't even know what he needs. I'm a vet, not
a psychiatrist. I simply don't have the first clue what to do.”

She paused, turned and smiled just a little, the tired shadows shifting across her face in a way that was both hauntingly sad and beautiful.

“That's okay,” she said. “The psychiatrists don't know what to do, either.”

He stood there a long time after she left.

Damn, damn,
damn.

Maybe it was because she had cried in his arms. Maybe it was because of the way the kid held on to that dog, like a life raft. Whatever the reason, for the first time in a long time, Reed wanted something.

He wanted to hear Spencer talk. He wanted to see Faith smile, really smile, all the way to her eyes, all the way to her heart. He wanted them to be free to go home again, to live a normal life without fear.

And he most definitely wanted that bastard Doug Lambert to pay for what he'd done to this little family.

He threw the papers into the trash and closed the lid quietly.

Damn
it.

If he hadn't been ready for Pauline, he sure as hell wasn't ready for this.

“T
IME OUT
!”
Faith collapsed, breathless, and let the football roll to her side on the grass. “You win. I give up. Time out!”

Spencer barreled over and threw himself across her legs, tackling her just for the fun of it, even though she was already down. Tigger scampered into the heap of body parts and tugged excitedly at the cuff of her jeans.

She wriggled her legs, huffing and pretending to be trapped, but Spencer held on tightly. When she subsided, he lifted his head and grinned at her.

For a moment she held her breath. Suddenly, as if her sister had appeared before her, she was looking at Grace's smile. An irresistible smile, everyone said so. Slightly higher at the left corner, dimpling deep in the cheek.

Grace.
An agony of love washed through her like rain.

Oh, Grace…he's going to be so handsome.

It had been weeks since Spencer had really smiled—Faith hadn't realized that new front tooth was already halfway in. Somehow she stopped herself from reaching over and wrapping him in her arms. At
this moment, he was all boy, all mindless energy and wriggling mischief, and she wanted it to stay that way.

“Maybe you'd better take Tigger in and let him have some water,” she said. The puppy was lying across her legs, panting happily. He didn't need to know the rules of the game to enjoy it. He just needed Spencer. His bright black eyes were fixed on the little boy adoringly.

Spencer looked at his watch, and his mouth made a small
o.
Faith glanced at hers, too. “Hey, it's time for
Mac's Treehouse,
isn't it?” That was Spencer's favorite TV show, the only one that would drag him indoors these days. “Better hurry.”

Spencer climbed to his feet, but he hesitated, looking down at her. His hair was a mess. Blades of grass tattooed one cheek, a smudge of mud the other. He was the cutest thing she'd ever seen, and she had to fight another urge to smother him in kisses.

“It's okay,” she said. She got up and brushed leaves from her knees and backside. “You and Tigger go on in. I want to pick something pretty for the table, and I'll be there soon.”

He went. He made sure Tigger was at his heels, and he paused at the door before opening it, but he didn't look back even once. Faith put that on her list of small victories. Someday, when the list was long enough, Spencer would be well again.

Had she, through sheer dumb luck, stumbled onto the right therapy? For the past three days, she and
Spencer and Tigger had spent several hours outdoors. Each day Spencer had seemed a little more relaxed.

At the beginning, she hadn't thought of it as therapy at all. She'd thought of it as keeping the three of them out of Reed Fairmont's hair.

It helped that the autumn weather was bright and breezy. The air tasted as crisp and sweet as a freshly picked apple. Lying on your back in a pile of cinnamon-gold leaves, you could watch fat, low-hanging clouds race flocks of noisy geese across the sky.

On TV, the weatherman noted that the Glen was unseasonably warm, which might delay the full turning of the leaves, apparently a problem for the tourists who had booked the hotel rooms and crowded the cafes.

But for Faith and Spencer, lifelong city dwellers, it was perfect. Every inch of this wooded estate was packed with treasures—bright red cardinals busy at the bird feeders, mysterious knotholes winking from tree trunks, blue patches of chicory blooming furiously at the edge of the road and, once, a woodchuck staring out at them, his mouth full of grass.

And Autumn House had so many acres of open land. You could play leapfrog for hours and never reach the low log fence that ran along the outer boundary.

Reed must have noticed their makeshift games, because this morning, when Faith got up, she found that he'd left a football on the kitchen table.

She'd have to think of a way to thank him. Running
and tackling and tossing that little ball had kept Spencer busy all day, too busy to dwell on his losses.

She collected a basket and a large pair of cutting shears from the potting shed and began looking for flowers. It wasn't easy. This late in the season, even a garden as lush as this was fairly well spent.

She had almost decided to settle for a nice pine branch with a couple of interesting cones when she remembered the chicory out by the front road. It would look beautiful with the yellow napkins and the ivory stoneware plates.

Her basket wasn't quite full when the commotion started. Someone slammed the clinic door, and suddenly she heard a female voice raised in clear distress.

“Mom, please. Try. There has to be a way!”

It was Justine. Faith realized that, kneeling at the edge of the meadow, she might be obscured from sight. She didn't know whether to stand up or—

“I am trying,” an older woman, presumably Justine's mother, said in an exhausted voice. “But you know your father. You know how he is if anyone defies him.”

Justine made a pitiful noise, sounding for just a moment like her own infant crying. “This isn't about Daddy, Mom. This is about Gavin. He's my son, what was I supposed to do, throw him away? Would Daddy have thrown one of us away if we'd been inconvenient or embarrassing?”

Her mother's small hesitation was enough. Even Faith, who had no idea what was really going on,
realized that Justine's mother couldn't swear to her husband's unconditional love for his children.

Justine's voice turned bitter.

“Oh, right, I forgot, that's exactly what he
has
done, isn't it? I embarrassed him, so he threw me away.”

“Maybe if you'd just tell him who the father is—”

Faith had to let them know they had an audience. She arranged her face in a convincing expression of surprise and stood.

“Oh!” She smiled, as if she had just now realized anyone was there. “Hello.”

Even if she hadn't heard the women quarrelling, she would have recognized trouble. Justine had a sleeping Gavin draped over her shoulder, and her beautiful face was red and blotchy. These weren't crocodile tears—she was in true distress. Even when she saw Faith she couldn't stop crying.

Justine's mother was petite and elegant, and she probably had once been as stunning as her daughter. But, though Faith guessed her to be only in her early forties, her beauty was so faded she was like a walking ghost. Her watery blue eyes were deep-set and shadowed. A worry line neatly bisected her pale brow like a knife cut.

“Hello,” the woman said, trying to smile. “How are you?” Her voice was toneless and automatic, like a tape teaching English phrases. “I'm Mrs. Alton Millner. It's nice to—”

A raucous honking interrupted her robot speech.
All three of them looked over to the road, where a long, sleek convertible full of people had just crested the hill and rolled into sight.

Faith quelled her instinctive anxiety. It wasn't anything to be afraid of. It wasn't Doug. Doug Lambert owned a hearselike black Mercedes, not a bright blue vintage Cadillac convertible. And even if he had found her—which he hadn't, which he couldn't, how could he?—he would come for her quietly, in the dead of night. He wouldn't arrive with horns blowing and laughing people spilling out all over.

“Oh, terrific,” Justine muttered. The noise had awakened the baby, and she bounced him gently to reassure him all was well. “What do those old geezers want, anyway?”

“Justine,” her mother said. “Stand up straight. Wipe your face.”

Justine pointedly refused to do either. But Faith watched, amazed, as the older woman shrugged inside her designer suit, squared her shoulders and surreptitiously fluffed her silky blond pageboy. Mrs. Alton Millner clearly did not want to meet these people, whoever they were, without her game face on.

As the Cadillac purred to a halt in front of Autumn House, Faith finally was able to see the occupants of the car. Two very large, very handsome white-haired men dominated the front seat, and in the back two beautifully dressed ladies in their sixties perched on the trunk of the car, their feet on the seat, as if they were princesses in a homecoming parade.

Oddest of all, between the lovely ladies sat another handsome old man, his face ruddy beneath longish hair the color of a slightly tarnished silver teapot. He was sound asleep, and probably would have keeled over if the ladies' legs hadn't held him up.

The man at the wheel, who, Faith noticed, really was shockingly handsome for a man who must be nearly eighty, spoke first.

“Why, if it isn't the mayor's gorgeous wife! Dee Dee Millner, climb on board, my lady! We're auditioning beautiful women who would like to ride with us in the Halloween—”

“Now, Granville,” the smaller of the two women in the back interrupted irritably, adjusting her bright, flowery skirt. “You can see there's no more room. Boxer's already drooling all over our legs.”

She sniffed and tried to tilt the sleeping old man upright with one finger. “I think he's just pretending to be asleep.”

“Madeline Alexander, you're such a prissy little number.” The other woman, who had flaming dyed-red hair, green eyes and the statuesque body of an Amazon queen, gave the little white-haired woman a scornful look. “Boxer is passed out cold. If he's bothering you, just kick him.” She patted her hair. “But she's right about the room. There isn't any.”

“Nonsense, Bridget.” Granville grinned and winked at the other white-haired man. “There's always room for one more beautiful woman, isn't there, Ward?”

His friend nodded. “Or three. I see three more gorgeous ladies here. You're all welcome to audition, if you'd like.”

Justine made an incredulous sound that stopped just short of being truly rude. But it didn't seem to faze either of the old men, who merely exchanged another devilish grin.

The driver, the one called Granville, eyed Faith curiously. “Hello! I'm not sure we've met,” he began, but then his face broke out in a fresh smile. “Oh, of course! You're the gorgeous new housekeeper everyone's buzzing about. Ward, this must be Faith Constable, remember Theo was telling us?”

“Of course!” With a sudden spring, Ward levered himself out of the car without opening the door, a youthful trick he undoubtedly knew would impress the women. He plopped on the ground in front of Faith, who couldn't help smiling.

“Ward Winters,” he said, holding out his hand. “The guy behind the wheel is my friend Granville Frome, but he's just a pale imitation. I'm the real thing.”

“Don't listen to that jealous old fool, Faith.” Granville Frome shook his head, the autumn sunlight sparking off silver threads. “I taught him everything he knows, which God knows isn't saying much.”

“It's nice to meet you both,” Faith said with a small laugh. She shook Ward's hand, her own disappearing into his. He was huge, well over six feet,
with hair as richly white as his Irish wool sweater. His weathered face was full of life.

Heavens. Were there any men of any age living in Firefly Glen who weren't sinfully handsome and charismatic?

“Well, this is fun, but I've got work to do.” Justine's voice was flat, and Faith wondered whether her unhappiness left her unable to enjoy anything, even these roguish charmers. Faith herself was enchanted.

“Ouch,” Ward murmured as Justine strode away, Gavin watching them round-eyed as he bounced against her shoulder. “Seriously sour. Guess that's what happens when you pluck the fruit from the tree too early.”

“That's enough, Ward,” Mrs. Millner put in coldly. “I don't think it would particularly please Alton to hear you talking about his daughter like that.”

Ward laughed. “Hell, Dee Dee. You know better than I do that nothing has
particularly pleased
Alton in thirty years.”

Mrs. Millner seemed to puff up, her chest thrusting out indignantly, her blue eyes popping and flashing. Faith was shocked to see that much energy in the woman. Apparently all the emotion she had left resided in her ego.

“Don't you dare talk about Alton, either, or I'll—”

The impressive redhead made a disgusted sound between her teeth. “For God's sake, Dee Dee, don't bust a vein. Believe me, nobody has the slightest interest in talking about your idiot husband.”

“You'd better watch your tongue, Bridget O'Malley.”

Mrs. Millner marched over to the Cadillac, and Faith decided that this might be a good time to retreat. A catfight could erupt any minute. Judging by size alone, Amazon Queen Bridget O'Malley might seem to have the advantage, but Faith suspected that Ice Queen Dee Dee Millner might know a few tricks herself.

She looked over at Ward, who was watching the women with eager anticipation. Apparently he expected a similar outcome.

“I'd better get back to work myself,” Faith said with a smile. “It was lovely to meet everyone, though.”

He grinned, showing strong white teeth. “You'll miss the good part.”

“Still.” She tilted her head toward the house. “I think I'd better get inside.”

“Ah, well, maybe so. You're new here—no need to let you see all our warts in your very first week.”

He gave her an adorably sly wink and held out his hand again.

“I have a feeling our friend Reed wouldn't like it if we ran you off.”

 

O
N AN IMPULSE
, Faith stopped at the clinic on her way back to the house. She could hear a baby's furious bawling even through the closed door. She didn't take time to think. She just went on in.

Justine was pacing the waiting room, bouncing Gavin on her shoulder, begging him to stop crying. But she was still crying herself, shiny tracks of tears crisscrossing her cheeks. The baby obviously had picked up on the tension and was screaming himself red.

“May I try?” Faith held out her hands. She didn't know much about babies, really, but she'd always been good with Spencer, and besides, what this child needed most was a pair of calm hands to hold him, a breast to rest on that wasn't heaving with misery.