The Lives Between Us (30 page)

“Gossip and advice.”

Faith paused in the kitchen doorway. “Good, I love both. Want a pop?”

“Sure. And do you have any chips and cheese? I missed lunch.”

“Go look.”

Carrying both glasses and drinks into the family room, Faith plopped down onto the couch and tucked one ankle under her. Skye put her snack on the oak coffee table, poured her drink, and sat next to her sister.

“So, what interesting gossip do you have?” Faith’s expression lightened. “I know. You’re moving in with Mark.”

Skye nearly spewed her mouthful of pop all over her sister. “What?” she gasped.

“Moving in with Mark.” Faith took a handful of potato chips.

“God,
no
. What made you say that?”

Skye hadn’t even spent an entire night with Mark. Sure, they’d had sex, but sleeping together and waking up in the morning beside him—bad breath, tangled hair and all, brought a relationship to a whole other level—an intimate level she’d never found a man worth reaching for.

“Well, you’ve been seeing each other for months. And there’s something about him.” She paused, thinking. “He’s more patient and persistent than the rest.”

The rest? “Like there’ve been so many.”

“Bill, Gary, Riley, Travis—” Faith began ticking past boyfriends off on her fingers.

Skye raised her hand and waved it. “Okay. All right. So I’ve dated a bit.”

“You liiike him,” Faith teased.

“So? I like him. That’s it.”

“Why wouldn’t you move in with him? He’s a great guy. He’s smart and he challenges you.”

“He is a great guy, but...” She frowned. “Why are you pushing this? Aren’t you supposed to be the conservative sister who says, ‘slow down; you’re spending too much time with him’ and ‘don’t get pregnant,’ and stuff like that?”

“I said all that years ago. You’re not a teenager anymore. You’re pushing thirty.” Faith’s smile melted and she patted Skye’s arm. “Skye, it’s okay to care about him.”

Skye smirked. “Thanks for the permission.”

“That’s not what I mean. I worry about you.”

“I’m fine.” Skye stifled the urge to squirm. Didn’t Faith have enough troubles of her own to worry about? The twins were coming home soon and she and Peter were saddled with a mountain of debt. She bit off a chunk of cheese.

“It was bad enough before, but don’t run this guy off, too. Mark’s perfect for you.”

Skye scowled. “I don’t run guys off.”

“Skye, you either date guys who are totally wrong for you—that way you don’t have to risk being hurt, or you run the guy off when he gets too close.” She took Skye’s hand. “Don’t be afraid. Give Mark a chance.”

Skye bit back an instant denial. This talk was altogether too personal. She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Can you keep a secret?”

“Of course.” Faith bent closer. Her eyes widened, and her lips parted in a big smile.

“Swear.”

“I swear.”

“Senator Hastings’ wife was involved in a skiing accident and is now paralyzed.”

Faith’s eyes widened so that her blue irises looked stark against the whites. She pulled back. “You’re kidding? How come I haven’t heard it on the news?”

“They’re keeping it quiet. I visited her yesterday.”

“You got in to see them?”

“Only because I was with Mark.”

Faith raised skeptical eyebrows. “The Mark you just like, and aren’t moving in with?”

Skye kept her features neutral, refusing to rise to the bait. “We visited them after kangarooing the twins.”

“Kangarooing with Mark? The Mark—”

“Get over it,” Skye snapped.

Faith laughed. “So, how is she?”

“Not great. I felt so bad for her. She’s on a ventilator, and they put her in this funky traction where they screwed a metal headband to her head to stretch her neck out.” Skye shuddered. “And she just had surgery to put pins in or fuse bones together, or something like that.”

“Poor thing.”

“I know. Noelle is
so
sweet, and it’d be so much easier if she wasn’t. Why can’t she be a selfish, mean, manipulate bitch?” Skye reached for more chips. “I have all this inside information to write a really juicy article, yet... I can’t. I just can’t.”

“Well, this is a switch. I thought you hated the senator. I’d think you’d be reveling in his misfortune.”

“You’d think.” Skye nodded and chewed. “But Edward and Noelle were really nice to me at Christmas. And Edward opened up to me about stuff—rather, he opened up in front of me about stuff.”

Stuff that you agreed not to write about.

“What stuff?”

“Personal, off-the-record kind of stuff that could make my career,” she said glumly. Not to mention what she knew of his childhood.

“Your nonexistent career?”

“Yeah, that one. But it feels scummy to write about this.” Skye broke a large potato chip in half and stared at it. “I’d be betraying their trust and profiting from secrets—that are really of no benefit to anybody else except to entertain the public.” She threw the chips down on a napkin and looked at Faith. “But then again, it’s my job to inform the public.

“And with Edward’s moral spouting and holier-than-thou-attitudes, he built himself a big ol’ glass house and then pitched boulders at the rest of the world. But somehow I can’t bring myself to throw that first stone.” Skye sagged into the soft couch and looked at her sister. “I’m such a failure.”

Faith put an arm around her. “You can’t throw that first stone because you have a good heart and despite your anger at him, you have a strong compassionate streak. I’m proud of you.”

Skye scowled at her. “I do not.”

“It wasn’t an insult, Skye.” Faith chuckled.

“I don’t have room to be compassionate. I’m a reporter. It’s my job to write about news. And this is big news.”

“But it’s not your job to throw the first stone. Leave them alone.”

“It’s a part of his job, too. Edward Hastings picked a public career; publicity goes along with it.”

“Still, people deserve their privacy—even celebrities.” Faith frowned at her. “I’m surprised at you. You used to feel sorry for celebrities hounded by the paparazzi. Is it really so different now that you’re the paparazzi?”

“I am
not
paparazzi. Paparazzi are photographers.” Paparazzi were bottom-feeders. However, Faith was right. She used to be a fervent supporter of celebrities’ privacy. Back then she could afford to be. Now Skye’s career—her future, warred with Edward’s privacy, and she hated to lose.

* * *

Skylar hurried into her bedroom, stripped, threw her jeans and T-shirt onto her queen-sized bed. With a quick twist of her wrist, she turned the shower to warm while she considered the clothes in her closet. She had to hurry; Mark would be here in half an hour to take her to dinner.

They’d both been crazy busy this week and hadn’t had a chance to be together at all. Since the babies went home, she and Mark didn’t even have their kangarooing dates, so Skye was really looking forward to a fun, relaxing evening.

She picked her chenille turtleneck dress, considered it with a critical eye, and then put it back. Then Skye pulled out black leather pants and her favorite turquoise sweater; better. Or should she wear the red sweater? She always got lots of compliments when she wore red. No, Skye felt more like soft turquoise tonight. Or did she? She slapped her hands to her bare thighs in exasperation.

She stepped into the shower and lathered her hair with floral-scented shampoo. Though she and Mark hadn’t seen each other much this week, they’d talked every night. Faith was right; Mark was different than the rest. Things were going remarkably well—they’d even gotten past their first big fight. That was a first for her.

The better Skye got to know Mark, the more she liked him. Ordinarily, she shied away from cocky, attractive guys—couldn’t trust them. But Mark proved he understood loyalty and commitment—to both her and his friends. Live together? She snorted. Not likely. But maybe she was ready for a little something more.

Skye jumped out of the shower and grabbed a towel. Deciding on comfort clothes, she dressed in her favorite jeans and a cute, little cobalt baby-doll top and high heels. She brushed her teeth and quickly wiped her mouth with berry lipstick, lightly brushed a little bronze on her eyelids, and swept some kohl black eyeliner over her eyelashes. She smiled and reached for her favorite Ralph Lauren perfume.

Skye blew dry her hair and dressed. When the doorbell rang, she grabbed her purse and checked her appearance once more in bedroom mirror. The doorbell rang again. Skye rushed into the bathroom. She picked up her toothbrush and stared at it a few seconds before dropping it into her purse.

Skye hurried to the door and tossed her purse onto the stairs. Mark stood on the porch, taking her breath away. His hair was still a little damp, and his smooth cheeks spoke of a recent shave. He wore a striped dress shirt tucked in his navy pants emphasizing his trim waist. Skye inhaled deeply. He smelled yummy and masculine.

A slow smile of appreciation lifted her cheeks. “Hey. Want to come in and have a drink?”

Mark checked his watch. “Sure, we have time.”

Skye entered the kitchen. “We have reservations?” She leaned into the fridge. “Corona, Stroh’s, or Pinot?”

“Stroh’s is fine. Yeah, Jumps at seven.”

Skye poured herself a small glass of wine and handed Mark a can. Rounding the counter, she looked at herself in the antique hall mirror. “Am I dressed okay?”

“You look great.” Mark took his drink and sat on the couch, patting the seat next to him. “So, tell me about your weekend.”

“It was fine and frustrating. Work at the bar was fine.” Skye took a sip of her wine, enjoying the tart, yet sweet flavor. “But I’m hiding from my editor. Since Noelle’s accident, Karen’s desperate to get anything new on the Hastings. She overheard me and Jenny talking about Edward’s interview, so now that she knows I’m working on it, and she wants it ASAP. You?”

“I...” Mark sighed and toyed with the tab on his beer can. “Ya know, some days, I love my job.” He lifted one shoulder in a casual shrug. “Other days it sucks.”

“Because?”

“We want to use one of the established embryonic lines. And want them to work.”

“ESCs? I thought your company only used stem cells from placentas and umbilical cord blood in your research?”

“Yeah we do—did.” Mark sighed. “Against my better judgment, I promised Eileen I’d get her a line of the embryonic stem cells. Her lead researcher has a kid with diabetes, and he insists embryonic stem cells are far superior to placental for this application. He’s gotta have them. Greg’s brilliant—a bona-fide wizard at manipulating stem cell differentiation. He’ll go to another lab if I don’t help him.”

“Why do they have to be an established embryonic stem cells? Why don’t you just make a line?”

“Because I don’t want the headache of hunting down and getting permission to use frozen embryos, but mostly ’cause we need government money to fund the research. There’s not a lot of money in storing cord blood.”

“And how will your other benefactors feel about your using
embryonic
stem cells?”

“We’re not exactly going to advertise our expansion. They wouldn’t be thrilled with it. Which is why I’m trying to avoid the controversy by getting established lines from U of M or MSU.

“With government helping fund the research, our other investors really shouldn’t have anything to complain about. Their money’s going to the research they approve of—working with the placental stem cells.”

“Sounds a little risky. You could really piss off some benefactors and lose company funding. This guy must be a freaking genius for you to take such a chance.”

“His research will only consume twenty percent of his time, and he’ll continue to oversee his regular work, so it should be all right.”

Could Mark really be that naïve? With his kid’s wellbeing at stake, the guy’d likely spend eighty percent of his time on the diabetes research and twenty percent on his assigned work. “Then what’s the problem?”

Mark flipped the tassel on a throw pillow back and forth. “The problem is I initially got a government line, and it took forever and a foot of paperwork to get the damn line—and it’s been nothing but headaches since.

“The first batch the NIH sent was unusable—a bad batch of Fetal Calf Serum. The second time they sent it with their own Fetal Calf Serum, but now the damn cells have gone aneuploid.”

Skye winced. “English, please.”

“The cells lost DNA because of too many divisions. You overwork the cells, and they lose DNA and introduce too many random genetic mistakes to make the line usable. I was going to go back and tell them we now need a line from less than twenty splits—if they still have any.

“Eileen convinced me to get the cells from U of M. But I hate starting all over when I’ve already invested this much in the NIH—probably should have kept it in state from the beginning.” He shook his head, then took a large gulp of beer.

“Why didn’t you?”

“Didn’t want it to get out. It’s a small community, and I want to keep this as quiet as possible.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me, too. I never thought it’d be this hard.” Mark took another sip of his beer. “Used to be scientists were more than willing to share information and resources, but now everybody’s become fearful and cutthroat. It’s a damn mess.”

Mark swatted the pillow. “The company made us sign some bullshit material transfers agreement that spells out exactly what research is allowed to be done on the ‘borrowed material,’ and they would have had the right to stop our research at any time, and they would have retained the rights to whatever we made. It’s ludicrous. Took our attorneys six months to negotiate a semi-fair deal, and now that we finally have the line, Greg tells me it’s worthless. Again.”

“That stinks.”

“It does. But—” He raised his index finger. “I met this guy last summer at a genetic conference, and we were talking about stem cells. He asked if we could start a stem cell line and store it in case a person needed it later on.” Mark put his beer on the table.

“Thinking he was joking, I said of course we could do it, but it’d cost twenty thousand dollars. I just threw out some number off the top of my head. Well, I got a call from him last week asking how soon we could do the bone aspiration. Apparently his brother and father both died from leukemia, and he wants to start his own stem cell line and freeze it, just in case.”