Family Skeletons (11 page)

Chapter Twelve

“Laurel Frances Corday,” Jonathan read aloud tonelessly.
“Surprise, surprise.”

He flipped the license onto the counter without
looking at Sunny then exited the store.

The clerk watched the automatic door closing behind
him. Her gaze darted to Sunny. “I’m sorry. Did I...?”

“No. It wasn’t your fault.” Sunny’s tone was as flat
as Jonathan’s had been.

The clerk, who now seemed wide-awake, appeared both
confused and interested. Finally groceries were bagged and in the cart and the
doors slid open for Sunny on her way out. She wondered if the truck would still
be in the lot. Jonathan might’ve been angry enough to take off. If so, she’d
find an ATM to get enough cash to pay cab fare out to Corday Cove. Then she’d
put herself and her suitcase into the Reviler and get herself back home to San
Francisco.

But the SUV was still there, Jonathan seated behind
the wheel. He motioned her to the back and the window rolled down. She loaded
the bags by herself and returned the cart to its storing area. Once she’d
climbed up onto the seat he started the engine, backed up and pulled out. He
gave her nothing but his profile.

“I’m sorry.” She made her voice as matter-of-fact as
possible. Excuses would get her nowhere, and she wasn’t a whiner anyway. “It’s
inexcusable that I didn’t properly identify myself before now. You have a right
to be angry.”

He pulled onto the freeway and the truck’s speed
increased.

“It was a lie by omission, yes. But I didn’t
actually tell you a lie.” She was splitting hairs, but this was the truth.
“Though Laurel is my legal name, no one ever uses it, not even my mother. If I
hadn’t changed my last name back after the divorce, you still wouldn’t know who
I am. What difference would it make?”

When she still got no response, she gave up. She
wished he’d turn some music on. Anything would be better than this loud
silence. If she knew what knobs controlled what, she might do it herself. But
he’d put an effective wall up, barring her from him, and most likely from
anything that belonged to him.

At the house he parked in back and then helped carry
bags of groceries inside. Cat seemed happy to see them. After locking the
truck, Jonathan disappeared down the hall. When Sunny heard his bedroom door
close, it carried a final sound.

She’d never gotten the silent treatment before. Not
from her mother, the two men she’d been married to, nor Ryan. She knew what
rage was—wow, did she ever—and she knew what strained feelings felt like, but
she’d never encountered total silence. She didn’t like it.

While putting groceries away she came across the
Brut. A strong desire to cry arose, yet she also wanted to grip the bottle by
the neck and bash it in the sink. She pushed it into the corner of the counter.

Cat’s cheery greeting was turning into complaining
mews. Sunny used the new red feeding bowl she’d just bought to introduce the
animal to her first can of cat food. She didn’t like the smell, and Cat didn’t
seem to appreciate it either. The animal backed away, still meowing, and tried
to wrap herself around her mistress’s ankle. Sunny relented, cut up leftover
spaghetti and gave that to her. Cat gobbled it down and Sunny laughed softly.
“Well, that’ll be easier on the budget.”

She went to the back porch, stared at the ocean
through the screen, then stepped outside. She hadn’t planned on watching the sun
set by herself, but it was too airless and unfriendly inside the house. Cat
followed her to the bluff’s edge.

Sunny stood at the top of the trail, not sure if she
wanted to descend or not, and watched the kitten scamper down. Then Cat stopped
midway and her ears perked. At the same instant, Sunny became uncomfortable.
Quickly she turned, making a circle as she surveyed the area. No movement near
the trees, on the bluff in either direction, at the house or on the beach.

The tide reached only halfway up the sand. The fact
she couldn’t see anyone didn’t mean a person couldn’t be down there, sheltered
by the overhanging cliff on either side. Even if someone was there, as unusual
as that would be, it didn’t necessarily mean menace. But her unease remained.

Cat was still poised halfway up and halfway down.
She’d be more alarmed by a stray dog than a person, and dogs occasionally
roamed the beach. That was probably all it was. Sunny patted her leg to capture
the pet’s attention. Paranoid or not, she didn’t want to draw notice to herself
by calling the animal. After Cat bounded up the incline, they returned to the
house. Sunny felt foolish doing it, but she kept checking behind her as she
walked. Though it was probably just anxiety built out of her unsettled mood this
evening, she couldn’t quite rid herself of a sense of fear.

* * *

Cat woke Sunny the next morning by nuzzling her
cheek. Sunny was back in her old bedroom. After her return last night, Jonathan
had gone out for his own long walk and hadn’t invited her. He hadn’t spoken to
her since they’d been inside the supermarket.

“Umm,” Sunny said, and moved into the nuzzling
instead of away from it. She opened her eyes, but it wasn’t Cat. It was
Jonathan’s hand. The first time he was up before her. Even more surprising, she
hadn’t heard him.

“Good morning.” His tone was quiet, face sober, mood
reflective.

“Good morning.” For the life of her, she couldn’t
think of anything else to say.

“I was angry last night.”

“I...noticed.”

“I thought you’d been dishonest with me, deliberately
led me on, even into an intimate relationship. But I didn’t have the foggiest
idea why. I didn’t see where you had anything to gain. Nothing made sense. I
also felt like a fool, and that is rough on anyone’s ego.”

His fingers were warm and soft next to her cheek.
She felt mesmerized by his eyes, voice, the touch of his hand.

“But when I looked at it from your point of view,”
he went on. “It made sense.”

“How’s...that?”

“On that first day, I’d made some unkind remarks
about Laurel.” He paused, the corners of his mouth turning up, and then he
chuckled. “You’ve even got me doing it. I’m talking to her, yet I’m still
talking about her.”

Their gazes became level when he knelt next to the
bed. She smelled his aftershave and realized that sounds of his shaving hadn’t
even awakened her. Apparently she’d grown accustomed to him and no longer heard
him. She touched his smooth cheek, drawing him in with all her senses except
taste. She turned her face into his hand and lightly closed her teeth on his
palm.

“Hey,” he whispered, eyes softening and growing
vibrant at the same time. “Are you going to let me finish explaining? Or what?”

“Please.” Her voice was as soft as his. “I think
you’d just made some unkind remarks about Laurel.”

“Yes,” he said formally. “At which time you handled
yourself and the situation without confrontation. And then it would have been
difficult, and may not have seemed necessary, to reintroduce yourself and go
back and start all over again. Once we’d made love—which I’d planned, not you—it
must have become next to impossible for you to say, hey, guess what?” He
paused. “How am I doing? Am I right so far?”

“Uh, yeah. Keep going. Please.”

“There really isn’t anything else to cover.” He gave
her an exaggerated frown. “Is there?”

“No. No, I’m not harboring any more secrets.”

He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it,
continuing to hold her gaze.

“Jonathan?”

“Hmm?”

“How can you do that? How is it possible for you to
explain me better than I can explain myself?”

He just smiled. “Sunny?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you think both of us can fit in that dinky bed?”

She scooted over to make room. “Come on in, and
we’ll see.”

* * *

“I’ll be adding mushrooms and tomatoes.” Sunny
paused, fork poised over a piece of frying chicken as she concentrated on
ingredients. “And onion, green pepper and garlic. I think that’s it, but since
you like my spaghetti sauce, all of that should be okay.”

“That’s fine,” Jonathan assured her, looking up from
where he knelt on the floor while he entertained Cat with a piece of string.

“But the rice is cooked and served separately.”

“That’s good.”

“And I splurged on asparagus. My favorite.”

“Sunny, that’s fine.”

“And...”

“Sunny, are you nervous?”

She turned the flame down under the browning chicken
and then looked over at him. “Well, now that you mention it. Yeah, I guess I
am.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

After covering the skillet with its lid she crossed
to the refrigerator. “Yes, I do too know. I’ll be sleeping in my own bed this
weekend.”

“Oh.” That gave him pause. “Well, of course you’re going
to sleep where you want to. But I’d rather you put tomatoes in the scrambled
eggs again instead.”

She turned to smile at him, but she knew it was a
weak one. “I...just feel uncomfortable. Okay?”

“Why?”

“I don’t know why.” She withdrew a bag of mushrooms,
rummaged for garlic. “Jonathan, I don’t always make sense even to myself.
There’s no reason to expect me to start making sense now.” A yellow onion and a
green pepper joined the array.

“I understand that,” Jonathan said, looking
thoughtful. “And that’s scary. Is your sense of logic contagious?”

Apparently growing tired of waiting for her
playmate, Cat leaped for the string. Jonathan lost it and the animal rolled
under the table with it. She looked like a living, furry ball. Laughing, Sunny
put the vegetables aside, then knelt next to Jonathan and reached out to the
kitten. It forgot the string and attacked her hand with teeth and all four feet
but not aggressively enough to leave scratches.

A red rubber ball lay under the table that the cat
must have left there during a previous play session. Sunny rolled it down the
hall and Cat passed it up in her eagerness to catch it.

Still kneeling, the two people on the kitchen floor
looked at each other. Then they shared a gentle, chaste kiss.

“Do you realize how much time you’re talking about?”
Jonathan asked.

“We’re both adults. We can handle it.”

“That’s tonight, tomorrow night, and Monday night.
On Tuesday, you might as well make sandwiches and we’ll take them upstairs with
us. I don’t think we’ll be getting out of bed all day.”

“You’re very funny, Jonathan.”

“That’s not exactly the adjective I’d use, but we
can talk about it again on Tuesday.”

Their guests brought a banana cream pie and a bottle
of Chardonnay with them. Marcus had a stocky build, dark hair and eyes, was
more reserved than Ryan, and he had a quiet sense of humor. Sunny had liked him
at their first meeting and their friendship had grown. She sensed a strain
among the three men at first, but it was the simple awkward moment between
strangers who were still strangers. When they went to visit the relatively new
SUV in the backyard with its sizable dent in its front fender, Sunny knew they
were okay with each other.

The men had taken their wine with them and Sunny
followed them with her glass. Dinner was taking care of itself and needed no
help from her for at least five minutes. She leaned against the house wall and
sipped chilled Chardonnay. She caught Ryan’s gaze on her and she gave him a
questioning look. But he gave her no clue to his thoughts; instead he directed
his attention back to Jonathan.

“The salt air up here could be murder on that paint
job,” he said.

“I wash it every day, hoping to keep the effect as
minimal as possible.”

I can vouch for that. He also cleans the
bathroom every day.

Marcus was testing the seating comfort in the
rearmost seats. Cat was staring at the closed passenger’s door as if waiting
for someone to open it for her, but the animal wasn’t allowed inside the
vehicle.

“No, Cat,” Sunny said and gently nudged the pet
aside. She joined Marcus and they clinked glasses.

“If we spill any of this in here,” he said. “He
might kill us.”

“Might,” Sunny agreed.

“Seats eight. Nice, really nice. But only kids could
sit for very long back here.”

Despite the limited space, she managed to cross her
legs, then when she looked at him she realized he wouldn’t even be able to
change position until she got out of there. “Hmm. Body builders who practice
their art have difficulty fitting into small spaces.”

“And little girls who barely tip the scales at three
whole digits can fit anywhere.”

“Do me a favor?”

“Sure.”

“Dinner’s ready. Since you’re bigger than I am, will
you hogtie those two and get them to the table?”

Everybody but Jonathan put their chicken atop their
rice. He also was careful to keep his asparagus in its own place, and he
ignored the Hollandaise. Nothing touched anything else on Jonathan’s plate.