Family Skeletons Page 25

  “I know what I said. And I’m telling you now I’d prefer to drive myself. Take the clunker, and you’ll have to leave it on the street. Your car is in your parking slot, and the keys are on the dresser in your room.”

  She hesitated. “Just like that?”

  “Just like that.” His eyes reminded her of cold steel. “You want to run scared, then run.”

  She felt her eyes also growing hard as she returned his gaze. Then wordlessly she passed him and walked down the hall.

  * * *

  When she entered the empty San Francisco apartment two hours later, it seemed to Sunny that she’d stepped back in time. She looked around the familiar place, feeling too lonely for even the kitten to help.

  Cat had been a nervous passenger and had left an accident on the Reviler’s floorboard. Sunny didn’t think she’d ever get the smell out of her nostrils. Cat now looked warily about the room, seemingly no happier in the apartment than she’d been in the car. Her mistress hoped she wasn’t going to have any more accidents to contend with. She quickly set up a litter box, and Cat promptly showed her she knew how to use it.

  Sunny had skipped breakfast and was hungry. She found a solitary egg in the fridge, but dropped it when she reached for a frying pan and it broke on the floor. Cat immediately investigated and decided that she liked it.

  “Well, that takes care of you. But what about me?”

  She found American cheese slices and stale crackers and washed them all down with a cold soda. The apartment got more silent and empty with each passing moment. She cleaned up the eggshells, stripped her bed and remade it, and managed two trips to the laundry room without losing Cat out the door.

  Every time Jonathan came to mind, she pushed him right back out again. It was also difficult not thinking about Ryan. She hadn’t liked leaving on the note she had. He’d seemed to be washing his hands of her.

  Well, gee, that’s tough. I’m a grown woman, and I make my own decisions. He doesn’t have to agree with me. He doesn’t even have to understand.

  Do you understand, Sunny?

  She whirled and smacked the wall with her open hand.

  Cat was investigating bedspread corners that dangled near the floor. Panicked by the violent motion, she raced out of the room. Sunny nursed her sore hand, tears burning behind her eyelids. Then she heard Ryan at the door. He must’ve changed his mind and followed her after all.

  Relief at having company made her mood lift, but she didn’t want him to catch her with wet eyes. She rubbed her face with the palms of both hands, pulled in a deep breath and went to meet him, but then a knock sounded and she realized that had been the first sound as well. It wasn’t Ryan.

  She stood on tiptoe to check the peephole, and when she spied the familiar face on the other side of the door, slowly she fell back onto her heels.

  “Oh.” She stood there as if in a stupor.

  “Sunny?” No more knocking, just his voice.

  She swallowed. Her wits had deserted her.

  Now what do I do?

  Let him in, stupid. He knows you’re here. He would’ve seen the clunker on the street.

  When she opened the door, she realized that not all her poise had abandoned her after all. Only a big chunk of it.

  “Well,” she said. “Hi.” That casual note wasn’t fooling anyone, not even herself. She motioned for Jonathan to come in and then closed the door. “How does San Francisco compare with Bakersfield?”

  “Not well. I know my way around there.”

  Cat appeared and wrapped herself around his ankle. When Jonathan stooped to greet the animal, Sunny looked away. Tears burned.

  With his hand stroking the cat, he looked up at Sunny from his position on the floor. “We need to talk.”

  She nodded, which was the only response she was capable of.

  He stood and looked at the modern living room arrangement in stark black and gold, and the dining room area beyond it with its elegant table and tall-backed ebony chairs. His eyes met hers. “This is Ryan’s place. Not yours.”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “It looks like him, not you.”

  She looked around her. She’d never thought about it before, but the room and everything in it reflected Ryan, not her. Jonathan knew her well. The wits she’d collected were threatening to escape. Then she got a sudden thought and grinned. “I set up the cat box in my room.”

  He grinned back. “Good idea.”

  Cat sat on the floor between them, looking up and back and forth as if trying to figure out the new surroundings and the familiar people and how everything fit together.

  Let me know when you figure it out, Cat.

  “Can I get you some coffee?” she offered.

  “No, thanks. But I wouldn’t mind sharing a Sprite with you. I acquired a taste for it.”

  “Sure.” She motioned toward the plump black sofa with its butter yellow and gold striped throw pillows. “Sit down and I’ll get it.”

  But he followed her into the kitchen. She was uncomfortably aware of him standing behind her.

  “You left early,” he said, no accusation in his voice. “I heard your car, but you were gone by the time I got to the window.”

  “Uh-huh.” She got glasses and filled them with ice from the refrigerator’s door dispenser.

  “You were right,” he said. “I should’ve talked to you first about what I was thinking. We could’ve collected facts and figures together, and talked about it as we went. Then we’d be better able to decide if it’s a worthwhile idea or not.”

  Carefully she emptied a can into the two glasses so the fizz wouldn’t overflow. “What idea is this?”

  “I don’t want to sell.”

  She put the empty can on the speckled granite counter and stared at it. “So I gathered. Then what do you want to do?”

  “I want to gut the whole place, from top to bottom. I want to expand the kitchen, add a dining room, modernize the windows, and we need a new heating system. I want to enlarge the bathrooms, both of them. Top floor and bottom floor each must have a shower. And I want a master bedroom with a private bath—a third bathroom—on either the first or second floor, wherever you want it. I want to retain the back porch much as it is but utilize more of the yard. We need landscaping, professional gardening help. The location and size of the house are made to order. We could turn it into a lucrative bed and breakfast inn.” He paused. “Think about it, Sunny. It’s perfect.”

  “Bed and breakfast?” she echoed. Her gaze remained on the counter and her voice sounded small.

  “That’s where you come in. I don’t know how to cook breakfast.”

  “Bed...and breakfast? An inn? A business venture?”

  “And a home. Presently there’s no mortgage against the place so we could borrow what we need to get started. I want to do what I can with it as well. I’d enjoy working on a major refurbishing job like this. And I can also hang out my shingle in Chester or Castleton. Maybe Mavis wouldn’t mind some competition from you, just until we get started, and then we’ll figure out our work schedule and where we’re needed the most. And I’m not forgetting about Matthew. He’ll be an equal partner. There’s enough money in the place to get him through school, and he can share in both the physical labor and the accomplishment. We can play that by ear. See what works for him, for all three of us. Think about it, Sunny. There’s no end to the possibilities.”

  She hadn’t moved. He put his hands on her shoulders but didn’t attempt to turn her around. His hands felt tentative, hesitant, telling her he wasn’t sure of her.

  “But I can’t do it without you,” he said, voice so soft it was like a caress. “I don’t want to do it without you. If you want to sell, we’ll sell. But I remember a comment you made, in the beginning when you were talking about Ryan, that if you ever found a better friend you’d have to marry him. In our short time up there, we became friends as well as lovers.”

  He paused. “Didn’t we?”

  Sunny was trembli
ng. His hands were still on her shoulders and she wondered if he felt the emotion shuddering through her.

  “This is a major decision,” he went on. “And we’ve been through an emotional wringer the last few days. It’s not surprising we clashed last night. But there’s more to it than that. You’ve been hurt in the past, very much, and I think you’re scared. That was why you came on so strong last night. If we hadn’t run into conflict over the house, it would’ve been over something else.”

  That sounds like Ryan talking.

  “And that’s not Ryan talking,” he said.

  She spun around. He blinked, took a half step back. “What?” he asked, in both surprise and alarm. “What is it?”

  “Nothing.” When she started to turn back for their drinks, he stopped her. He cupped her shoulders to hold her in place.

  “Never mind that,” he said. “I want to know if I’ve got a chance. If we’ve got a chance. Do we, Sunny?”

  Sunny was feeling more tremulous with each second that passed, with every word he said, and now he’d put the ball squarely in her court...and she didn’t know what to do with it. She lowered her gaze to the linoleum and its glossy black and white squares. She felt a like contrast inside. Heaviness weighed in her gut, yet her heart felt buoyed, and the contradiction only confused her further. She was scared and hopeful at the same time. More than anything, she wanted to trust Jonathan. But to do that, she also had to trust herself. And she didn’t know if she could do that. Even if she should do it.

  “We’ve got a lot going for us,” he coaxed. “Everyone is rooting for us. Roberta likes me, so does Ryan, even Cat, and Matthew has no problem with me either. But your vote counts the most, Sunny. What about you? Do you like me?”

  She squeezed her eyes closed. Never before had anyone asked her that simple question. Throughout her life both the romantic and emotional meaning of the word love had been elusive, and now he was asking her if she liked him?

  Sunny finally knew what each word meant. And, more important, what each emotion felt like. And she was beginning to think that it might be possible to be free. Free to learn how to live and how to love. Free to have faith in herself. And free to have faith in a significant other person.

  But she was scared. Oh, she was scared. So scared and choked that she feared her throat wouldn’t work if—when—she tried to speak. But she was going to do it. She had to do it. At long last, she sensed fissures breaking through the armored shell of that damnable emotional prison she’d lived in for such a long time.

  She swallowed hard...and took the leap.

  “Like you?” she echoed. As she’d feared, her voice sounded weak and small, but she felt firm, firmer inside than ever before. Yet she kept her eyes trained on his shirt buttons instead of lifting her gaze to his. This was a big step, and she could only take one step at a time.

  “Yes, I like you, Jonathan,” she whispered. Another deep breath, and another hard swallow. “And I love you. Heart, body and soul.”

  She was conscious of the tension draining out of him. Gently he put his knuckles beneath her chin and tilted her head up until she met his eyes.

  “Good,” he said.

  # # #

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