“Not exactly, so I was like, what’s the big deal.” She set her glass down so she could gesture freely with both hands. “Then he said something deliberately crude, and it upset me. Because it wasn’t like that. It was just a kiss—well, two,” she corrected. “But it wasn’t like we stripped down naked and had monkey sex on the kitchen floor.”
“Difficult when Lily was there,” Roz commented.
“Yeah, but even so, I’m not like that, even though I got pregnant with Lily the way I did. And it might seem like I’m a big ho, but—”
“It doesn’t seem,” Stella cut in. “Not for a minute. We all know what it is to need someone. Whether for the moment, or for more. Personally, I don’t care to hear you talking about a friend of mine that way, or to intimate that I would.”
Roz smiled, stirred herself to lean forward and tap her glass to Stella’s. “Nice.”
“Thanks.”
“I forgot where I was,” Hayley said after a moment.
“You were arguing with Harper,” Stella said helpfully. “You big ho.”
It made her laugh, settled her down. “Right. We were arguing, then it happened, the way I said. I sort of faded back, and there were these things coming out of my mouth I didn’t put there. About how men are all liars and cheats, and just want to fuck you, and treat you like a whore. It was ugly, and it wasn’t true. Especially not about Harper.”
“The first thing you have to remember is it wasn’t you saying it,” Stella reminded her. “And the second is, it fits with what we know of her, and the pattern of her behavior. Men are the enemy, and sex is a trigger.”
“During the argument, before Amelia’s participation, Harper said something to make you feel cheap.”
Hayley picked up her glass again, looked at Roz. “He didn’t mean it the way I took it.”
“Don’t make excuses for my boy.” Roz angled her head. “If he was perfect, he wouldn’t be mine. The point is, you felt that way, and she moved in.”
“Roz, I want you to know, I’m not going to pursue this thing with Harper. This personal thing.”
“Is that so?” Roz raised her eyebrows. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Nothing.” Blinking, Hayley looked to Stella for support and got a smile and a shrug. “Nothing’s wrong with him.”
“So you’re attracted to him, nothing’s wrong with you, but you’ve dumped him before things really got started. Why is that?”
“Well, because he’s . . .”
“Mine?” Roz finished. “Then what’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing!” At her wit’s end, Hayley spread a hand over her face. “I can’t even believe how embarrassing this is.”
“I expect you and Harper to work this out, and to leave me entirely out of the equation. I will make one observation, as his mother. If he knew you were showing him the door in order to protect him from possible future harm, he’d turn right back around and kick that door in. And I’d applaud the action.”
“You won’t tell him.”
“It’s not my place to tell him. It’s yours.” She pushed to her feet. “Now I’m going downstairs, and I’ll discuss this with Mitch over our dinner. Meanwhile, I think you have another hour coming—for sulking time. After that, I expect you to straighten up.”
Stella gestured with her glass as Roz walked out, then took a slow, satisfying sip. “She’s just frigging terrific, isn’t she?”
“You weren’t a lot of help,” Hayley complained.
“Actually, I was. I agreed with everything she said there at the end, but I didn’t mention it. Seems to me, keeping my mouth shut was helpful. Hey, you’re doing really well with this sulking hour,” she added. “And you’re only a couple minutes into it.”
“Maybe you should shut up again.”
“I love you, Hayley.”
“Oh, shit.”
“And I’m worried about you. We all are. So we’re going to figure this out. Go team and all that. In the meantime you’ve got to decide what’s best for you in regards to Harper. You can’t let Amelia drive the train.”
“It’s tough when she’s already highjacked it and put on the engineer’s hat. She was inside me, Stella. Somehow.”
Stella got up, moved to the couch to sit beside Hayley, to drape her arm over her friend’s shoulders.
“I am seriously freaked,” Hayley whispered.
“Me, too.”
SHE FELT LIKE she was tiptoeing on eggshells. Only the eggshells were sharp as razor blades. She questioned everything she did or thought or said.
It all seemed like her, she decided as she undressed for bed. She’d tasted the pasta salad, the garden-fresh tomatoes at dinner. It was her head that had throbbed with a tension headache, and her hands that had tucked Lily into the crib.
But just how long could she go on being so hyper-aware of every single action, every breath she took without going a little loopy herself?
There were things she could do, and she was going to start doing them the next day. The first order of business was to weigh down her credit card with the purchase of a laptop. The Internet was probably full of information on possession.
That’s what they’d call what had happened to her. Possession.
What she knew about it came out of books, novels mostly. To think she’d enjoyed having her spine tingled with those kind of stories once. Maybe she could take some of the things she’d read and apply it to her situation. Though the one that came first to her mind was Stephen King’s Christine. She was a woman not a classic car, and come to think of it, the solution of smashing the car to bits didn’t seem very practical. Besides, it hadn’t really worked anyway.
There was The Exorcist, but she wasn’t Catholic—and that dealt with demons. Still, she’d be willing to try a priest if things got any worse. In fact, the minute her head spun a three-sixty, she was heading for the nearest church.
She was probably overreacting, she decided, and slipped on a tank and cotton shorts. Just because it happened once didn’t mean it would happen again. Especially now that she was aware. She could stop it from happening, probably. Willpower, strength of self.
She needed to do more yoga. Who knew that yoga wasn’t the cure for possession?
No, what she was going to do was get some air. The thunderstorm she’d wanted was just starting to lash. The wind was up, and shimmers of lightning were buzzing light against the windows. She’d throw open the terrace doors, let the wind pour in. Then she’d read something light, a nice romantic comedy, and turn her head off for sleep.
She walked to the doors, gave them a big, dramatic yank.
And screamed.
“Jesus! Jesus!” Harper grabbed her before she could let out the next peal. “I’m not an ax murderer. Chill.”
“Chill? Chill? You’re skulking around, scare my hair white, and I’m supposed to chill?”
“I wasn’t skulking. I was just about to knock when you opened the doors. I think you may have cracked my eardrum.”
“I hope I did. What are you doing out there? It’s just about to storm.”
“A couple of things. The first was I saw your light and wanted to see if you were okay.”
“Well, I was before you gave me a damn heart attack.”
“Good.” His gaze drifted down, up again. “Nice outfit.”
“Oh stop.” Annoyed, she folded her arms over her chest. “It’s no less than I might wear running around the yard with the kids.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed you running around the yard. The second is I was thinking about what happened this afternoon.”
“Harper, I haven’t been able to think about anything else for hours.” Weary of it, she pushed a hand through her hair, then pressed it to her temple. “I just don’t think I can think about it any more tonight.”
“You don’t have to, you just have to answer a question.” When he started to step inside, she gave him a good, solid shove back.
“I didn’t ask you in. And I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be in here when I’m not really dressed.”