Authors: Tamara Larson
“I’ll need it,” Jessie muttered to herself, breaking into a jog and smiling despite herself. Even under the worst of circumstances, it was good to be in love. She hoped that is wasn’t too late to convince
Duncan
of that.
Chapter
28
Duncan
felt like the elevator trip up to his apartment was taking hours rather than minutes. It had been just his luck that several ancient dog-walkers had stepped onto the elevator with him. So he was crowded in, nodding politely as the elevator paused on five different floors to let them and their hairy companions off. Potential heart attack aside, he would have preferred to be running up the thirty flights of steps right then. The agonizing trip gave him time to think about his conversation with Jessie.
Was it just his imagination or had she sounded contrite on the phone? Kevin’s advice completely forgotten, he’d called Jessie in anger, too shocked to hear that Evelyn was in town to think straight. How could he have accused Jessie of calling his grandmother like that? He was such a jerk sometimes, no wonder she was always angry with him. In his heart, he knew she would never do anything so devious, but it had seemed to make perfect sense at the time. How else would his grandmother find out he was keeping Theresa’s location from her?
Jessie should have just hung up on him, but she hadn’t. She’d sounded like she missed him. Her excited voice when she’d realized who it was on the other end of the line had almost undone his plan to accuse her. He’d wanted to beg her for forgiveness, and promise her anything if she’d just try one last time, but he hadn’t. She’d rejected him twice, and he couldn’t face anymore.
Had she actually said she cared about him at the end of their phone conversation? Despite his totally nasty accusations, was it possible that she still had feelings for him? Suddenly, he wished he’d said yes when she’d offered to come over and help him through his confrontation with his grandmother. It would all be so much easier with her at his side. Everything would be easier with her at his side. If he could just get through the next half hour, he vowed to go to her, wherever she was, and tell her he couldn’t live without her anymore. Screw Kevin’s lame advice. Even if she laughed in his face, it would be better than never having taken the chance. He loved her; and only a fool would let his pride get in the way of that.
The doors of the elevator slid open and
Duncan
strode purposefully to his apartment. When he opened his front door he was surprised at the complete absence of sound. He’d expected to walk into a scene straight out of a television melodrama with lots of shouting and histrionics, but just the tinkle of ice in a single crystal tumbler on the coffee table interrupted the silence.
He scanned the apartment, but there wasn’t anyone in sight. Not Theresa, Hannibal, or his grandmother. His heart seized in his chest. Was he too late? Were they gone already? Easing into the apartment, he looked out on the balcony and was relieved to see a familiar, tall, gray-haired form, looking out at the city with her arms outstretched stiffly, braced on the railing.
He approached his grandmother slowly; noting the pale, grayish pink suit and the thick, gray, upswept hair with more white in it than he remembered. It had been ten years since the last time he’d seen this woman, but from behind, nothing much had changed. She still possessed the iron-straight posture, and bearing of a queen that he hadn’t forgotten from his childhood. She was as unapproachable as ever, but he forced himself to her side.
She turned when she heard the screen door open, and he was shocked at the changes there on her face. The years had not been kind to her. There were deep creases and wrinkles around her mouth and eyes, but the biggest change was in her eyes. He remembered how they used to spark and blaze with bright blue fire when she’d been angry with him, which was often. Now they were pale—washed out, and very red. Had she been crying? Impossible, his grandmother didn’t cry.
Trying to cover his shock, he spoke to her in the formal way she preferred. “Hello, Grandmother, you’re looking well. Where’s Theresa?” He asked, propping both elbows on the balcony a foot away from her. He did not attempt to embrace her despite the oddly vulnerable air about her. It would be grossly improper under the circumstances. She was here to take his sister away, after all.
“Oh, I do not,” she said impatiently, her hand fluttering up toward her face. “I look like an old lady. But you, you look very well. Like your grandfather. Just as handsome.” She studied him for a moment and then turned her gaze back to the view. With a rueful sniff she continued, “Just as stubborn as well, I might add.” She looked at him again speculatively. “Shame about that scar though. I told you hockey was for cretins.”
Fighting the impulse to cover his offensive eyebrow with his hand,
Duncan
turned around so his back was to the railing, and crossed his arms over his chest, suddenly glad that he was still wearing his tie from work. The somewhat formal attire seemed appropriate for this meeting. “You’re not actually going to stand here and chastise me for joining hockey against your wishes, like twenty years ago, are you?”
“No, I’m just stating a fact. That,” she gestured toward his face, “never would have happened if you’d continued playing the piano like I suggested.”
“No, but I might have slit my wrists from the boredom of daily piano lessons with Monsieur Pussy. He smelled like cabbage and fell asleep during my sessions.”
Duncan
couldn’t believe it when she actually reached out and smacked his arm softly with one gnarled, arthritic hand. He couldn’t remember his grandmother ever touching him so affectionately. Or touching him at all for that matter. Could she possibly have mellowed?
“His name was Monsieur Poussy, and he did not fall asleep. He was concentrating,” she said coolly.
“Right. While snoring,”
Duncan
said, his lips lifting in a half smile at the memory. Old Pussy had been in his eighties—a retired concert pianist that Evelyn had paid very well to instruct
Duncan
. The lessons hadn’t been as bad as Duncan made them out to be—he still played quite well actually—but spending his afternoons practicing scales and arpeggios had paled next to getting out on the ice with Kevin and their friends.
His grandmother had been angry when he’d refused to touch the piano at age ten, and even more irate when she discovered that his mother had registered him for hockey when she’d been out of rehab one Christmas. A hockey player in the family was not how grandmother had envisioned things at all.
“Nevermind. It doesn’t matter now. But I’m sure you could get that scar fixed if you wanted. They do marvelous things with lasers now.”
He touched the scar absently. “I’m not getting it fixed, grandmother. I like it. It holds some great memories for me. Every single time I look in the mirror I remember how it used to feel to get out there and play. Why would I erase that? It’s part of who I am. Kind of a reminder of the only part of my childhood I actually enjoyed.”
Evelyn rolled her eyes, but avoided the subject of his childhood. “All right. It was just a suggestion. You’re so touchy. Always have been. Now, shall we quit wasting time and get to why I’m here?”
“Yes, let’s,” he said shortly. “Theresa isn’t going with you unless she wants to. You didn’t answer my question before. Where is she?”
“So blunt. I’m surprised at you Duncan. You were always more subtle than that. It’s what would have made you such an excellent executive. That ability to be charming under even the most trying of circumstances.”
“Was that actually a compliment? I don’t believe it.”
Duncan
said, opening his eyes wide to show his shock. “But you’re wrong. I would have made a terrible executive. I hate meetings and having people suck up to me. I’m where I should be, here, doing the job I love. We’d both be a lot happier if you’d just accept that that piano-playing corporate drone is someone else.”
“You’re happy? Is that why you practically kidnapped Theresa? Because your life is so fulfilled?” She asked mockingly.
“I did not kidnap her.”
Duncan
snapped. “She told me she would just run away again if I tried to send her back to you.” He’d meant to cushion that slightly, but this woman still had the power to push his buttons, so he spoke without thinking how his words might hurt her.
Evelyn closed her pale eyes for a moment, but quickly retrieved her haughty composure. “And you allowed yourself to be manipulated by that child?” Evelyn asked with a harsh bark of laughter and a disbelieving shake of her head. “Honestly, I can’t imagine how you’ve managed to survive this long. First, that Kerry-hussy, and now your own sister. Don’t you know that it is never prudent to give into blackmailers? Believe me, I know.”
“So, I should have just thrown her in a burlap sack and shipped her back on the first freighter to
Toronto
?”
Duncan
asked angrily.
“No, you should have phoned me and I would have taken care of things from there. I believe that was our arrangements, wasn’t it? The girl is my responsibility, after all, not yours.”
“And what would you have done? Quietly sat back and let her stay with me? Doubtful,” he said sarcastically.
“
Duncan
, despite what both you and your sister seem to think, I am not an unreasonable woman.” She ignored
Duncan
’s snort, and continued, “I wanted you to find her because I was sick with worry over the girl. Not because I have some evil scheme to control anyone.”
“What about Theresa’s boyfriend? She said you paid him to break up with her.”
“I found that charming young man in the pool house with one of the downstairs maids,” Evelyn said with an indignant sniff. “My intention was to get rid of him before she could discern that he was unfaithful. A disappointment like that at her age would have devastated her.”
“Why didn’t you just tell her what you saw?”
“Because she wouldn’t have believed me,” Evelyn paused and looked at him meaningfully. “But more importantly because it would have hurt her terribly. I just couldn’t let that happen. She actually thought she loved that boy.” She shook her head and stared out at the water, lost in thought and memory.
Duncan
suddenly felt very guilty. After all these years of remembering his grandmother as a domineering harridan, was it possible he’d been wrong about her? Looking at her now, with the cracks in her façade so obvious, he wondered if she might just be a controlling, abrasive, but well-intentioned matriarch used to getting her way, rather than genuinely evil. “What about what Theresa said on the phone? That you were going to have me arrested for kidnapping?”
She had the grace to look uncomfortable. “Well, I had to say that. She wouldn’t let me in otherwise.”
Duncan
chuckled derisively. “Ah, blackmail. I see you have nothing against practising it, despite being so firmly dead-set against submitting to it.”
“Desperate times, call for desperate measures, my dear.” She said with a cool smile.
Duncan
shook his head. “I can’t believe you. You’re still a force to be reckoned with, you know that?”
“Yes I do,” she said with a twinkle in her faded blue eyes. Turning toward him, she asked, “So, what happens now?”
“First, tell me where she is?”
“Out walking that ill-mannered beast of yours. They’ll be back soon.”
“You let her leave? How do you know she’d not just going to take off?”
“With your dog? I hardly think so. Besides, we’ve come to an agreement, her and I.”
Duncan
eyes her suspiciously. “What kind of ‘agreement?’”
“Well, it all really depends on you and what you want out of all this.”
“Listen, I don’t want anything except what’s best for my sister.” Evelyn gave him a knowing look and he shrugged his shoulders. “Okay, I would like to get to know her,”
Duncan
admitted. “But if she stays with me at least she’s registered for the Fall semester at
UBC. It’s a great school, and she seems keen to go. If you make her go back—if you can, that is—I think she’ll just do whatever she can to rebel against you and I think she’ll end up hurting herself in the process. I’m sorry, but I honestly can’t see how going back with you is in her best interest.”
Evelyn pursed her lips for a moment and then said softly, “You may be right.”
Duncan
was tempted to crow a bit about over her admission, but held his tongue and waited for her to continue. More forcefully, Evelyn said, “But are you sure you’re equipped to deal with a seventeen-year-old-girl? Especially one as free-spirited and independent as your sister. She’s a handfull, I can tell you.”
Duncan
shrugged and said sincerely. “I don’t know, but I’d like to try at least.”
Evelyn nodded and continued. “And you haven’t exactly been an excellent representative for family devotion these past ten years…”
“I know that,”
Duncan
interrupted. “But after that whole mess with Kerry, it seemed the best thing for me to just keep my distance. You made it very clear that you didn’t want her around. What was I supposed to do exactly?”