Family Skeletons (27 page)

When she flung the door open, she almost hit Ryan
with it. He backed up, looked at her and then beyond her at Jonathan’s back,
then again at her. His face fell. “Oh, Sunny. No.”

She passed him without a word.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Did you have to come on quite that
strong, Sunny?

She’d slept fitfully in her old bed in the back
bedroom, her nagging inner voice giving her no mercy during the long night. She
blinked into the dark room, wondering what time it was, ready to give up and
get up regardless of the time.

Sure, he should’ve talked to you, but
you’ve made mistakes, too. Will you give him a chance to make amends?

No.

Why not?

Because it’s over.

The blankets and top sheet were tangled, the pillow
lumpy. It was impossible to get comfortable. She wrestled her way onto her
side, wondering again if it really had to be over. Then she swallowed, throat
so tight that it felt sore, and slowly she nodded to herself.

 She had enough going on without having to deal with
a romance and its complications. She was now responsible for a teenager. Talk
about an instant, ready-made family. Life had become pretty heavy of late.
Which was an understatement and a half.

The ceiling didn’t appear as dark as it had the last
time she’d noted it, and light was slowly becoming discernible behind the
frilly Priscilla curtains. She threw the covers back, dressed, and then quietly
made her way downstairs, hoping she wouldn’t have company for a while.

Sunny, wait. Maybe it doesn’t have to be
over
.

Pressing her lips tightly together, she wondered
precisely where and when this diehard sentimental side of hers had been born.
But Jonathan had the same opportunity that she did right now to either patch it
up or end it. Give him some time, and he might be grateful for the clean break.
He was less volatile than she was, so he should see their incompatibility even
more clearly than she did.

As she drew water for the coffeepot, she turned the
kitchen tap on to a mere dribble, trying for as little noise as possible. Yes,
the relationship had been good, very good, while it lasted, but they both
needed to move on. The house was the only thing they had in common, and even it
had come between them. It was time to go home.

When she reached for a coffee cup, movement at the
hall doorway startled her. She jerked and bumped her hip against the corner
edge of the counter hard enough that it’d probably leave a bruise. Then calmly
she reached for a second cup.

“Criminy, Ryan. You scared the hell out of me.”

“What I’d like to do is scare some sense into you.”

“Don’t start. Please.” She filled both cups, crossed
the room and handed him one. He was barefoot and unshaven, hair uncombed, and
he wore slacks and a pullover. His expression was closed.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked. He accepted
the cup but didn’t sip from it.

“No.”

“Okay.
Will
you talk about it?”

“No.” She turned away. “Are you ready to go home?”

“No.”

She looked at the wall instead of at him. “I want to
get out of here, Ryan. Correct that, I have to get out of here.” She sounded
both pleading and belligerent and didn’t like either emotion.

“Then go,” he said flatly. “I’ll drive myself when
I’m ready.”

She turned back. “But you said—”

“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 trembling. 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?”