From Here to Paternity Page 8

  But he held on. “Great to meet you, Irma. Come on in.”

  Charlene elbowed him in the ribs and desperately shook her head. If Irma found out about Mia…“No. She can’t. She really—”

  “Of course she can.” Brand gave a tug and Irma was over the threshold. Charlene stared in furious disbelief as he led her aunt to the living room sofa. “Here,” he said. “Sit down.”

  “I…thank you.” Irma lowered herself to the cushions.

  “I’ll just get your suitcases,” he told her.

  “Please.” Irma nodded and shrugged out of her blue blazer, letting it fall to the sofa behind her. She stared at the playpen on the other side of the coffee table as if she feared she might be seeing things. She really didn’t look right.

  But whatever was wrong with Aunt Irma, Charlene’s priority was Mia. And Irma was a danger to Mia. Irma had to go.

  Charlene slid in front of Brand and shut the front door before he could go out there and get the suitcases. “I want to talk to you. Now.” She craned around him and told Irma, “Back in a flash.”

  “Oh,” said Irma, stirring from whatever weird trance had hold of her. “Certainly. No problem. Go right ahead.”

  Charlene grabbed Brand by the arm and hauled him into her bedroom. “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded in a hot whisper as soon as she had the door shut behind them.

  “Charlene,” he said, wearily. As if just saying her name was some kind of answer.

  “If she stays here, she’ll find out about Mia. And if she finds out about Mia—”

  “What?”

  She snorted. “You know what. She’ll call CPS.”

  “No she won’t.”

  “How do you know that? You don’t know her like I do. You don’t have a clue what she’s capable of.”

  He pointed toward the door. “That woman out there is in some kind of trouble. She’s also your aunt. You can’t turn her away.”

  “I can. And I will.”

  He took her by the shoulders. She tried to shrug him off. But he wouldn’t let go. “Listen. Think. She’s here in town. The game is up.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “If you send her away tonight, she’ll only head for the motel or for the Sierra Star. By morning someone will have told her that Sissy had a baby—a baby who’s staying with you.”

  “Oh, God. So…what? You think I should let her stay here and tell her…what?”

  “Here’s a wild idea for you. Tell her the truth.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “That poor woman out there is not going to be causing anyone any trouble.”

  “Oh, yes, she will. Just you wait. I don’t know what’s wrong with her tonight. But you don’t know her. You don’t know how she really is, how hard and heartless she can be.”

  “You’re right. I don’t. But I am a lawyer. I have…some clout with the Superior Court judge and with Social Services. I am promising you, Charlene. No one will take Mia away from you. I’m going to see to that. You have my word.”

  The crazy, impossible thing was she believed him. She actually believed him. She sagged against the bedroom door. “Oh, Brand. I’m so scared.”

  He gripped her shoulders tighter. “Don’t be. Just tell her the truth—the basic truth.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Tell her that Sissy’s left Mia with you for a while.”

  “But she knows I don’t know where Sissy is, that I was trying to reach her and didn’t know where to look.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “But—”

  “Just stick with the basic facts. You’re taking care of your baby niece while Sissy’s away. Don’t elaborate.”

  “What if—”

  “And don’t borrow trouble.”

  “I’m not. It’s only—”

  “Wait.”

  “What?”

  “Here’s what we’ll do. I’ll take your aunt to Ma’s.”

  “But a minute ago, you said—”

  “Listen. It’ll be fine. We’ll visit first, just for a few minutes.”

  “Visit?”

  “Yeah. Visit. Give her tea and a cookie—or a sandwich, whatever. Tell her about Mia. And then tell her you’re putting her up at the Sierra Star because you only have the one extra bedroom and the baby’s using it.”

  “Oh, Brand. I don’t know…”

  “I do. Now, come on. We can’t leave the poor woman waiting out there all night. Let’s go.”

  “I just don’t know if we should—”

  “Charlene. Let’s go.”

  “All right. Fine. We’ll do it your way.” She yanked open the door and marched back out to the living room to find Irma waiting right where they’d left her, perched on the sofa, staring vacantly at the playpen, her hands folded tightly in her lap.

  Charlene approached her as Brand brought the suitcases in and left them ready by the door. “Aunt Irma.”

  Irma shook her head as if to clear it. “Hmm? Yes?”

  “Are you hungry? Would you like some coffee or…?”

  “Tea. Hot tea. That would be so nice.”

  “I’ll just get the water going.”

  Irma stood, leaving her blazer in a pile on the couch and trailed along after her into the kitchen. Charlene gestured at the table, and her aunt took a seat there. Brand came and leaned in the arch to the living room.

  Charlene put the water on the stove. Then she turned to her aunt. “Aunt Irma. Are you…all right?”

  “Oh, yes. I’m just fine. And I’ve been wanting to…apologize, for being so harsh with you. On the phone the other day. And…other times.” She stared into the middle distance and put her hand to her throat again. “Yes. I have been. Harsh. With you. With your sister, above all. I have. And I know it.”

  Color me stunned, Charlene thought. More than stunned. Staggered. Astounded. Amazed.

  Aunt Irma had just admitted that she had been harsh.

  Brand was watching. And looking far too smug. Charlene rolled her eyes at him and opened the cupboard to get down the tea. She spooned Constant Comment into a tea ball and hooked the ball inside the blue-and-white pot that had once been her mother’s.

  Irma said, with surprising delicacy, “I notice there’s a playpen in the living room. And I see a stroller….” She pointed to where the collapsed stroller leaned against the wall by the door to Mia’s room.

  Charlene gritted her teeth and came out with it. “That’s right. Mia, Sissy’s new baby, is staying with me for a while.”

  Irma blinked several times in rapid succession. Her hand seemed permanently attached to its position, flat against her chest. “Sissy…had a baby?”

  Charlene kept it light. And bright. “Yes, she did. Mia Scarlett’s her name. Born March 15.”

  “Oh. Oh, my…I…” At last Irma lowered her hand and folded it with the other on the tabletop. “Is the baby here now?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I…see her?”

  Brand spoke up then. “Tomorrow. Right now she’s sound asleep.”

  “Oh,” said Irma. “Asleep. Of course.”

  “In fact,” he said. “It’s a little crowded here at Charlene’s lately.”

  “That’s right,” Charlene put in, more eagerly than was probably appropriate. “Only two bedrooms. Mine…and the baby’s got the other.”

  Irma’s hand inched upward yet again and settled on her throat. “Oh. I see.”

  “So we’ve got a plan,” Brand said.

  “You do?” Did Irma sound hopeful? Charlene thought so. Hopeful. And kind of lost, too….

  Hopeful and lost. Two words she never would have thought of in connection with her self-righteous aunt.

  “You’re coming over to my mother’s place,” Brand said. “She’s got a cozy B&B right here in town. You’ll have a comfortable room all to yourself and you’re in walking distance of Charlene’s for as long you’re staying here.”

  Charlene sent him a warni
ng glare. It was one thing to put Aunt Irma up for the night—and another altogether to make the invitation open-ended. Brand pretended not to notice she was looking daggers at him.

  She said, “I’ll be over in the morning to join you for breakfast.” Tomorrow was Saturday. Rita took the opening shift for her, now she had Mia to look after on weekends.

  “You’ll be over with my grandniece?” There it was again. That hopeful sadness. So strange.

  So…unsettling.

  “Yes. Of course. I’ll bring Mia.”

  “Oh, good,” said Irma. She turned a wistful smile on Brand. “Thank you. Your mother’s bed and breakfast sounds like just the thing.”

  So Charlene served the tea, along with a plate of the peanut butter cookies she’d baked the day before. Brand made small talk. Irma didn’t say much, except that she was “rather tired,” and was certain she’d be “more lively” in the morning.

  More lively. What did that mean? Questions, demands and plenty of trouble?

  By five of nine, Brand was herding Irma out the door.

  The phone rang twenty minutes later. Charlene, in bed with a novel open on her lap, snatched it up fast in hopes the sound wouldn’t wake the baby.

  It was Brand. “I have to ask. Are you sure that woman I took to my mother’s is really your evil Aunt Irma?”

  She laughed. Her heart was doing that happy-dance thing. She so had to watch herself. “I know. I can hardly believe it’s her, either. I’ve been lying here in bed, trying to read and not succeeding, wondering what can be wrong with her.”

  “I’m sure she’ll explain. Eventually.”

  “As long as she doesn’t try to take Mia…”

  “What did I tell you about that?”

  “I know, I know. She’s not taking Mia. You’re going to see to it.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And I have to admit, the Irma who knocked on my door tonight doesn’t seem like any kind of threat at all. You think maybe it’s cancer or some terminal disease? She’s dying and suddenly she’s realizing what an awful person she’s always been?”

  “Can’t say…”

  “Oh, God. I hope not. You would not believe how many times I’ve wished that woman dead. And if she really is dying—”

  “Charlene.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t borrow trouble. And remember. Whatever she’s going through, it is not your fault.”

  “Do me a favor,” she said. “Another one. Please.”

  “Anything.”

  “Call Tanner. Tell him that my aunt’s here in town. But I don’t want him to talk to her. I just…I can’t take that chance now. I don’t want her stirred up. Tell him I really don’t think she knows anything, anyway. And I want him to keep away from her, to just follow the other leads he’s got.”

  “You are way too damn paranoid about this.”

  “Please.”

  “Hell. Okay. I’ll call him.”

  “Thanks. For that. For…everything. For being here.”

  He was quiet for a moment. She held the phone in cradling hands and smiled at the far wall and felt ridiculously happy, just knowing he was on the other end of the line.

  Finally he said, “I bet if anybody told you a week ago that you’d be on the phone with me tonight, thanking me for being here, you’d have told them they were out of their mind.”

  So true! She clutched the phone harder. “I shouldn’t have kissed you. I know it.”

  His chuckle was low and way too sexy. “Yeah. You should have.”

  A warm, happy shiver went through her, a sensation as delicious as it was dangerous. Her breath snagged in her throat. She gulped. “This is all happening…really fast, don’t you think?”

  “No.”

  “But Brand—”

  “No,” he insisted. “It’s damn well not happening too fast. As far as I’m concerned, it can’t happen fast enough.”

  What was he telling her? His words made her dizzy. It wasn’t wise to feel this way. She’d felt this way once before—with him—and gotten nothing but endless heartache as a result.

  She had to…get a grip on herself. “But seriously—no. I mean, really. I don’t know why I said that, about things happening too fast. Because, honestly, there is nothing happening. Not between us. It was only a kiss, that’s all.” He was quiet again. Too quiet. She couldn’t even hear him breathing. “Brand? Are you still there?”

  “I’m here.”

  “I just, well, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t,” he said, his voice flat, revealing nothing.

  Should she clarify? Tell him right out loud that she was never going to fall in love with him—not again, that she just couldn’t take that kind of chance a second time. The first time, after all, had been so much more than she could bear….

  But he hadn’t said he was in love with her, now, had he? And she refused to go jumping to conclusions about this.

  She decided to play it positive. “I am…so grateful, though. I want you to know that. You’ve been terrific the past few days. And the way you handled Aunt Irma, well, I couldn’t have done that. I don’t know how I would have gotten along without you tonight.”

  Another silence, then “Grateful’s something. Grateful’s a start. Good night, Charlene.”

  “Brand, wait…”

  But he was gone. The dial tone droned in her ear.

  Chapter Ten

  The next morning at the B&B, Irma remained every bit as sweet and distracted as she’d been the night before. She held Mia, cradling her so tenderly, rocking her gently back and forth, and then beamed at Charlene. “She looks just like her mother, now, doesn’t she?”

  Charlene smiled right back at her and replied, “That’s right, she does,” wondering what in the world this nice lady had done with her evil aunt Irma.

  “I hope she’s all right—Sissy, I mean…” Irma spoke cautiously.

  “She’s just fine,” Charlene replied, and prayed that it might be true. Then she waited for her aunt to say something cruel.

  Far from it. “Well, I’m so glad to hear that—you did reach her then, after you called the other day?”

  Charlene lied baldly. Without remorse. “Yes, I did.”

  “Good.”

  Chastity appeared, as if on cue, and saved Charlene the trouble of having to come up with more lies about where Sissy might be and how she was getting along. Brand’s mom served them frittatas and her famous Sierra Star muffins, and Charlene waited for Irma to ask about Sissy again. Or to start making demands, or at least to come up with a few unkind remarks.

  She didn’t. Irma remained the sweet stranger she’d been since last night. She said she’d decided to stay in town “for a while,” that she needed “a break” and Chastity’s “lovely little B&B” was just the thing for her right now.

  “I’ll visit with you and my grandniece. I’ll…take it easy for a while.” Irma stared out the window that faced Chastity’s side yard, where the clematis twined the fence and the rhododendrons were just beginning to leaf out. “I’ll take long walks, enjoy the rushing river and the quaint mountain scenery. This truly is a beautiful little town….”

  Charlene had to restrain herself from gaping at her aunt in sheer disbelief.

  After all, Irma had always hated the Flat. She’d blamed Charlene’s mother for taking her precious only brother away “from civilization,” off to “the sticks,” where there were “deadly snakes and killer bears” and “nothing the least bit interesting ever happened.”

  “Aunt Irma,” Charlene asked gingerly. “Are you…sure you’re all right?”

  Irma’s smile quivered a little at the corners, but she tipped her chin high and drew her shoulders back proudly. “Oh, yes. I’m just fine.” She looked down again at the baby in her arms. “And, oh, what an angel. A sweet, darling angel….”

  Eventually Irma handed the baby back to Charlene, who had brought the bouncy seat. She put Mia in
the seat, and the baby bounced contentedly as the grown-ups ate their breakfast—an excellent meal which Charlene found difficult to fully enjoy. If only she could stop flinching in anticipation of some grim demand or cruel dig each time her aunt spoke.

  There were no digs. No demands. Not even any questions, really.

  It was all just…very weird.

  She wished Brand were there, though she knew she had no right to be wishing any such thing. She kept waiting for him to show up, swiveling her head toward the door every time she heard an unfamiliar sound, certain that it would be him.

  But it never was.

  Between flinching every time Irma glanced her way and constantly being on the lookout for Brand, Charlene was pretty much a nervous wreck by the time breakfast was over.

  “How about a nice, long stroll in the mountain air?” Irma suggested as Charlene was getting ready to go.

  “Oh, I really can’t. I have to get over to the diner for a while, see how things are going there….”

  “Well then, let me watch Mia for you until you’re through at work.”

  “No. Thanks. I can manage, no problem….” Irma might seem like a whole new woman, but no way was Charlene trusting her alone with Mia. She still might call CPS—or head for San Diego and take the baby with her.

  Irma leaned close and spoke softly, so none of the guests at the other tables would hear. “I know what you think of me. And I can’t say I blame you. I only hope, over time, you’ll come to see me differently.”

  Charlene had no idea what to say to that.

  And Irma didn’t seem to want her to say anything. She only put on that sad smile again and urged, “Go on, now. You and Mia see what’s happening over at the diner. Thanks for stopping by and visiting.”

  “Come over to the house for dinner,” Charlene heard herself offering before she could talk herself out of it. “Six o’clock?”

  “I would love it. I’ll be there.”

  Charlene used the fax machine in her office at the diner to send Tanner a copy of Sissy’s note and of the phone bill for the month after Sissy’s stay in town, with each of the numbers she couldn’t account for clearly marked. Once it was sent, she put the original back in her purse. She would try the numbers again herself, as soon as she got the chance.