Summer Reads Box Set, Books 4-6 Read online

  "I don't know what his plans are."

  Silvia smiled. "He can be as stubborn as you."

  "We must talk about the celebration," Carmela added, ignoring Lisa's previous statement.

  "Maybe later. I have to get some—some milk," Lisa said. "Since you're both here, maybe you could watch the kids for awhile." She turned to her mother. "Can I borrow your car? Mine doesn't seem to be working."

  "Because you are not meant to leave," Carmela said quietly.

  "Because it has a dead battery," Lisa corrected. "I don't believe what you believe. Please, try to understand that."

  Carmela shrugged. "Because you don't believe does not make it false."

  Silvia pressed her car keys into Lisa's hand. "Take as long as you need. We'll watch the children for you." She turned to her aunt. "Come, Carmela. It's getting chilly out here."

  Lisa hurried to her mother's car and slipped into the driver's seat. It wasn't until she opened her hand to insert the key that she saw the piece of paper tucked into her palm—the address her mother had given her earlier, wrapped around yet another key.

  * * *

  Raymond drove through the busy streets of Westwood, a trendy shopping area near the UCLA campus and high-priced neighborhoods of Bel Air, Beverly Hills and Pacific Palisades. It was a gorgeous Sunday afternoon, with not a trace of fog or L.A. smog. Unfortunately, he wasn't in the mood to enjoy the weather.

  Beverly was trying to seduce Monty Friedman and his million dollar account right out from under him. He could not allow that to happen, which was why he was spending the afternoon looking for a parking spot instead of relaxing.

  One of his account executives had just called him from Duke's, a popular sports bar, to inform him that Beverly was having lunch with Monty, and they were planning to watch the basketball play-offs on the big-screen television.

  Raymond knew Monty was a sports nut. He just hadn't acted on it. Trust Beverly to find the man's passion and milk it for all it was worth, which might be a lot in this case. He could not lose Monty Friedman's account to Beverly, and it wasn't just because of the money. His pride and his reputation were also at stake. He'd already lost one smaller account to Beverly earlier in the year. He couldn't afford another to go her way, not if he didn't want to make his other clients nervous.

  The industry magazines would be announcing the competition for Nature Brand in Monday's issue. He'd already been interviewed by one reporter who had somehow dug up information on every account they had ever lost. The reporter had speculated that Raymond had lost his touch. He had tried to be patient and calm, to act unconcerned, but deep down he felt stressed and edgy, nervous about the ground that seemed to be slipping beneath his feet.

  He wished again that Elisabeth had not chosen this particular time to go away. He needed her at his side, and dammit if she shouldn't be there. Her loyalty should be to him, not some friend she hadn't seen since high school.

  He sighed as he finally located a parking spot and managed to pull in before anyone else could steal it from him. Then he picked up his cellular phone and punched in the number Elisabeth had given him.

  After two rings, a woman answered the phone. "Hola.''

  "Hello. This is Raymond Curtis. Is Elisabeth there?"

  "Hello, Raymond. This is Silvia. I'm sorry, but Elisabeth is out. Can I take a message?"

  "Actually, I was wondering what time to expect her back in town. I thought she might have left by now."

  "I'm afraid not. Maggie isn't home yet. I'll have Lisa call you."

  Although Silvia was outwardly pleasant, Raymond didn't sense he had a supporter in Elisabeth's mother. He didn't know why she'd taken such a dislike to him. Maybe the age gap, he decided, "Do you know when her friend will be back?" he asked, determined not to let Silvia off the phone without getting more information,

  "I don't think Maggie will be returning until tomorrow at the earliest."

  "Tomorrow?" His gut tightened, and he felt a surge of anger. "This is ridiculous. Elisabeth and I are working on a big account. I need her here."

  Silvia didn't say anything, and Raymond realized he was not helping his case. "And of course, the wedding's coming up in just a few weeks," he added, "I'm sure Elisabeth has told you all about it." Raymond hated the silence that followed his words. Something was wrong; he could feel it. "You will be coming to the wedding, won't you?"

  "Of course, I love my daughter."

  Now why did that sound like an accusation? "So do I."

  "Good. You shouldn't marry someone unless you love them."

  "That's true." He cleared his throat. "Uh, by the way, Elisabeth showed me the bracelet you sent her to wear on her wedding day—something old, she said, something you'd always treasured."

  Silvia laughed, but it sounded more sad than happy. "Is that what she told you?"

  "It's not true?"

  "The bracelet never belonged to me, Raymond. It's Lisa's."

  His stomach turned over. Why would Elisabeth have a bracelet with a pair of baby shoes on it? But he couldn't ask Silvia. He couldn't let on that he seemed to know less and less about Elisabeth each second that passed. She'd only been gone two days, but it felt like longer.

  "I have to go." He would save his questions for Elisabeth. "Please have Elisabeth call me as soon as she can."

  "I'll tell her."

  Raymond closed his phone, disturbed by their conversation. He told himself it was silly to worry about a bracelet. It was nothing. Lisa hadn't been eager to wear it. In fact, she'd looked at it like she hated it. Silvia was just trying to make trouble. And he didn't have time to worry about her right now. He had another troublemaker to deal with—Beverly.

  Chapter Twelve

  Lisa stared at the address on the sign. She checked the number. It was the same as the one on the slip of paper her mother had given her. On the other side of the chain-link fence was a series of low buildings, each with a number. The sign over one building read STORAGE.

  Storage? Lisa suddenly had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Did she really want to know what was behind Number 134? Part of her wanted to run, another part of her wanted to know what was behind that door. When a car pulled up behind her and honked impatiently, she had no choice but to pull inside. She drove down the rows until she found her number. Then she stopped the car and sat there for a long moment.

  She'd told Nick to get rid of their things. She'd seen nothing at his house. Was it here? Was it all here? The furniture, the memories? Oh God! What if the crib was inside? Had he kept the crib? The stuffed animals?

  Her heart began to race. Her palms turned sweaty against the steering wheel. She tried to breathe, to think rationally. Nick wouldn't have kept all those things. Not for all these years. She had to see. She knew she couldn't leave without opening up the door and looking inside.

  It took her a few moments of awkward fumbling to get out of the car and insert the key into the padlock. Finally, the door swung open. At first everything was dark. She could only make out shapes and shadows that looked like monsters—big, scary monsters from her past that wanted to suck her into the darkness and slam the door behind her.

  Frantically, Lisa searched for a switch on the wall. Upon finding it, she flooded the room with welcome light. Actually, the light wasn't much, just a dim bulb hanging from a wire, but it was better than the darkness, and with the sunlight coming in from the street, she could see the furniture more clearly.

  It took her only a moment to realize it was all there, the crib, the changing table, the high chair, the stroller, the pink and white lacy curtains that she'd painstakingly sewed, feeling she wouldn't be the perfect new mother if she didn't personally make the nest in which her baby would sleep.

  Lisa picked up one of the matching pillows, running the lace through her trembling fingers. The white had faded to yellow, and the pillow was covered in dust. It was no good to anyone anymore, she thought with a deep sense of sadness. She traced the heart with her finger. She could almost
feel the needle pricking her skin as she stitched the seam in a clumsy, awkward fashion.

  Nick had laughed at her. He'd found her bent over the sewing machine at one o'clock in the morning, tired, cranky and nine months pregnant. She'd spent an hour trying to thread the ancient machine only to have the thread snap midway down the material.

  When Nick had come into the room and smiled with amusement, she'd picked up the box of threads and thrown it at his head. That had made him laugh even more. A reluctant smile crossed her lips as she thought about that night, the way he'd teased her out of her bad mood with affection and love.

  Tears pressed behind her eyes as the memories washed over her. She blinked them back, then set the pillow down in the crib. She walked over to the corner, where she found the jewelry box Nick had made for her their first Christmas together. She opened the lid and smiled at the photo that was taped inside. She couldn't have been more than nineteen when she and Nick had cozied up in the photo booth on the San Diego Pier and paid five dollars to have a silly photograph taken.

  She ran her finger over their faces, tracing his long hair, his goofy smile, his beautiful eyes. Life had been so simple then, so full of promises and hope for the future. They'd actually believed they could have it all—love, passion, great careers, a family, a home—everything.

  Only it had ended in this, furniture and memories crammed into a square cement box. She glanced around the room one more time, her gaze catching on the musical mobile with Donald and Mickey and all the gang. She picked it up and let the wires dangle in the shadowy sunlight.

  The pain came sharply and swiftly. Suddenly all the furniture seemed to come to life. The mobile danced in the breeze. The pink lamp in the corner sparkled, refreshed by the burst of sunlight. Lisa could almost see the cradle rocking.

  And out of the silence came the sound of a baby, a sweet, sweet baby, suckling at her breast, cooing at the music from her father's guitar. Lisa could see Robin smiling, her eyes so big and blue and filled with wonder. She could feel the baby's hand twisting around her finger, feel the warmth of her child's breath against her cheek.

  Then the shadows came back. The sighs of joy turned into crying, angry, relentless crying. The baby would not be comforted. Something was wrong. She didn't like her own mother. She just kept crying and crying and crying until Lisa thought she would go crazy.

  "Stop it," Lisa yelled into the darkness. "Stop crying. Please. I love you," she whispered, her heart breaking. "Don't you understand that I love you, that I would do anything for you if only I could make you happy?"'

  There was nothing but silence, an infinity of silence.

  The empty cradle said it all.

  * * *

  Nick ran a cloth along the side of the crib he had just finished making, polishing his signature carving with the special oil he used to protect the wood. He felt better in the back room of his store, working with the wood. Everything was simple here, uncomplicated by emotions, by Lisa. He sat back on his heels and stared at the crib.

  He couldn't believe how much had changed in two short days. The woman he'd spent the last eight years hating had walked back into his life and changed everything, not that she'd wanted to.

  Lisa hadn't meant to distract him, to make him shift his focus from his growing business to her. She'd tried everything she could to get him to leave her, to make him remember all the bad times instead of all the good.

  It would have been easy to do that if the old Lisa hadn't unexpectedly shown up. The woman he'd seen five years ago had been dressed in a business suit so cold and sharp that she looked more like a bed of nails than a soft, loving woman. That brief glimpse had reinforced his opinion that the Lisa he'd loved, the woman he'd married and lived with and hoped to die with, had already died, or at least disappeared.

  But she was back. Watching her with Maggie's kids, with that scruffy mutt of a dog, with her crazy mother and today with him, at the beach, he'd been taken back in time. He could still see her at the beach, pulling the hair out of her eyes, looking down in horror at the seaweed winding around her ankles.

  Nick smiled at the thought. She had been so angry with him, but so alive, the woman he remembered, the woman he'd loved. He'd wanted to kiss her earlier, to strip the wet clothes off her body and make love to her right there on the sand, in front of God and his witnesses.

  "Nick, goddammit, where are you?" Lisa shouted.

  Nick's jaw dropped as he glanced at the partly open door that separated the storeroom from the showroom. Lisa was here? He'd never told her where he worked, for good reason. Lisa had no idea what he did for a living, and as he glanced down at the robin, he knew she wasn't going to like it. Maybe that's why she was angry. Because she was definitely angry.

  He listened as his store clerk tried to reason with her.

  "Excuse me, ma'am, is there a problem?" the clerk asked.

  "There sure as hell is. Where is he?"

  "Uh, uh," the clerk stumbled. "Can I tell him who you are?"

  Nick smiled as his trustworthy employee tried to protect him from what she thought was an irate customer.

  "Oh, he knows who I am all right," Lisa said. "Is he in the back?"

  "You can't go in there--"

  Lisa flung open the door to the back room and stalked inside. Her hair fell wildly about her shoulders, and she looked mad as hell, even more angry than she'd been after he'd tossed her in the water.

  "How dare you!" she yelled at him.

  "Mr. Maddux. Do you want me to call the police?" his clerk asked, hovering anxiously in the background.

  "It's okay. I can handle her," he replied, slowly rising to his feet.

  "Handle me?" she retorted, her blue eyes blazing. "Don't even think of handling me. I am so angry with you, I could hit you."

  In fact, she did hit him, punching him in the arm, not once, but twice, then again, harder and harder, until Nick had to grab her hands and hold her away from him.

  "What is wrong with you?" he demanded, as she tried desperately to free her hands. "Hey, that hurts."

  "You deserve pain, lots and lots of pain."

  "Okay, okay," he said, trying to placate her. "You want to tell me why?"

  "You kept everything. How could you do that to me? How could you let me walk in there without knowing what to expect?"

  Nick let go of her hands, suddenly realizing what her anger was all about. The storage unit. Damn.

  "It was all there. Everything. Her crib. Her bassinet. The mobile." Lisa's voice broke as an unwelcome sob slipped past her defenses. She blinked back angry tears. "I hate you, Nick. I hate you." She brought her fist up to hit him again, but this time he grabbed her arms, and, before she could react, he kissed her.

  He could have slapped her, but kissing her seemed a better choice, especially when all that anger and tension turned into passion, when she stopped trying to shove him away and instead wound her arms around his neck, when her mouth began to move beneath his, when her breasts pressed against his chest, when he smelled everything about her that was her—Lisa, his lover, his wife, his friend.

  He buried his tongue in her mouth, wanting a piece of her, needing to get past her defenses, to find her, the real her, the woman who'd disappeared so many years ago.

  "Lisa," he murmured against her mouth when they finally came up for air.

  "Nick." She lifted her head and stared back at him with tearful, searching eyes. "Why? Why did you keep her things?"

  "I thought you might want them some day."

  "You should have told me. That day, at the house, when her room was empty, you never said..."

  "I couldn't stand to look at them either. I couldn't have stayed in the house with the room set up for Robin, waiting for her, for you. But I couldn't throw her things away. It didn't seem right."

  "She's gone. She's really gone." Lisa took a deep breath, "I've known that for a long time, but when I saw that empty crib, I really felt it here, in my heart." She put her hand to her chest. "And I missed h
er," she said, swallowing back another sob as her eyes began to water yet again. "I didn't want to miss her. I didn't want to hear the sound of her little voice cooing, laughing, crying. When I touched her diaper bag in the storage shed, I felt like I was touching her. Remember, how her diaper used to feel beneath her sleeper, all crinkly and soft." She sniffed. "I don't want to do this. Why am I doing this?"

  Nick's gut clenched at the wistful longing in her voice, the hunger that he felt reflected in her voice. "I miss her, too, Lisa. You know what I remember, the way Robin used to squeal when we put her in that little bathtub. She loved the water. She didn't care if it got in her eyes or anything. Did you see her rubber ducky in the shed? I couldn't bring myself to get rid of it. She loved it so much."

  "Oh, Nick. Why can't you just learn to throw things away?"

  "Anything can be salvaged, if you try hard enough." He paused, knowing his remark had hit home by the way Lisa looked down at her shoes. "How did you find out about the storage unit?"

  "My mother. She gave me the key and the address."

  "Then how come you didn't go and hit her?"

  Lisa reluctantly smiled. "I don't know. Habit, I guess. You kept some of my things, too, the jewelry box you gave me, the rocker, the birdbath. You should have at least sent me a bill for the storage unit."

  "If I'd done that, you would have destroyed everything."

  "I could do that now."

  "Do you want to?"

  "I don't know." She took a step back, and he pushed his hands into his pockets. For the first time since storming into the room, she looked around. He saw her eyes widen again in surprise, and her hand began to tremble as she reached out to touch the crib he'd just finished. "This—this is what you make?" she asked, her blue eyes reflecting more shock.

  "Yes. I make handcrafted baby furniture, cribs, cradles, rockers, dressers."

  Her eyes darkened with horror just as he had expected. "Oh, my God. I thought you were normal, that I was the crazy one. But you—you're sick. You're obsessed with her. You're--"