“Well then,” I said coldly, thinking back to February, to a few long seconds in a frozen forest in the snow when my heart had briefly given up the fight. “In that case you missed your chance, both of you.”
CHAPTER 21
Despite Sean’s evasive driving techniques—or perhaps because of them—there were no signs of anyone following us after we left the hospital. Eventually, we headed back towards the Back Bay area, stopping at a little Japanese noodle bar, little more than a storefront café, for an early meal.
My father and Sean kept up their quietly confrontational stance throughout, leaving me and my mother to play peacemaker. My mother was, understandably, still invigorated by her performance at the hospital. I had to keep trying to muffle her enthusiastic recall.
It was fortunate that we were the only customers in at that hour, and the blank-faced girl who took our order didn’t seem able to process more than the basics in English. Still, I didn’t like the idea of anyone being close enough to eavesdrop on our conversation.
Stopping my mother chattering on about every thought process she’d gone through, however, proved easier said than done. In the end I had to distract her with talk of distant family holidays and old school friends I’d long since lost touch with, but who, for some strange reason, still seemed to be in regular contact with my mother.
And even that turned out to be a bit of a double-edged sword as far as topics went. Every single damn one of them, it seemed, had married well and produced hordes of startlingly precocious and beautiful children for their grandparents to dote on.
Eventually, her excitement dimmed enough even for her to recognize the static silence that clung between Sean and my father. The pauses grew longer, then joined up into one long pause, unpunctuated by speech altogether. By that time I was thankful for the respite.
When we’d finished our last pot of green tea, my mother pushed her chair back and announced she needed the ladies’ room. When I rose to join her, she gave me a blank look, then nodded gravely as she realized why.
The waitress didn’t understand that question, either, but she caught the general gist and jerked her head towards a doorway near the rear of the restaurant. The little girls’ room turned out to have two cubicles with a tiny sink wedged to the side of them. There was barely room to turn on the tap and, when you’d managed that, you struggled to get both hands in the bowl at once.
To my surprise, perhaps, my mother didn’t seem perturbed by her surroundings. Neither did she seem desperate to use the facilities, but instead fussed around washing her hands and tidying her hair in the mirror on the wall next to the sink. I got the distinct impression she was stalling.
Eventually, she glanced up and met my eyes in the reflection.
“I do wish you wouldn’t keep sniping at each other, Charlotte,” she said, attempting to soften the slightly pained note with a hesitant smile. “Nothing good will come of provoking him.”
“Me?” I said, feeling an annoyed twitch run sharply across my shoulders. “I’m not provoking anyone.”
Her sigh brought me back. “You’re provoking each other.”
“I see. And are you planning on also having this conversation with him about not winding me up?”
She frowned. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” she said in a slightly affronted tone, bending to peer at the little strip of paper towel that was sticking out of the bottom of the dispenser on the wall. “I just think you should be careful not to push him too far, that’s all.” She tugged ineffectually at the towel, but it wouldn’t budge.
It was my turn to sigh. I took a step forwards and pumped the handle on the side of the dispenser, twice. It rolled out two sheets, which I tore off and dumped in her hands.
Can lie us out of trouble, but can’t dry her hands unaided. Full of surprises, my mother.
“I’m not the one who’s doing the pushing,” I said then, aware that I was scowling. “But if he shoves me, he can only expect me to shove back.”
“Two pigheaded people …” She shook her head. “He only does it because he cares. I didn’t realize just how much, but he does,” she said, with an almost wistful look on her face as she dropped the scrunched-up towels into the waste bin and took a last look at her appearance. “Strange.”
“I know he’s a cold-blooded bastard, but why is that so strange?” I said, cut to the bone. “Isn’t a man supposed to care about his daughter?”
She turned with an oddly puzzled look on her face, which cleared as she made the connection. “Oh my goodness,” she said, her voice chiding. “You think I mean Richard.”
My own face went totally blank. “Don’t you?”
“Oh no,” she said. She gave a breathless little laugh as she reached for the door. “I was talking about Sean … .”
When we got back to the table, I could tell from the stony expressions on both men’s faces that they hadn’t been chatting about the cricket scores while we’d been gone. As soon as he saw me, Sean got to his feet and, though his movements were as smooth and coordinated as they always were, there was a darkness simmering beneath the surface.
I thought of my mother’s warning, and something bright and cold slithered down my spine in response.
“The bill’s taken care of,” Sean said, scanning my face and clearly not liking what he saw there. “Let’s go.”
We didn’t talk at all on the way back to the hotel, when we left the Navigator in the adjacent parking garage and walked to the elevators, nor from the elevators to our two adjoining rooms, but the silence was deafening. I found myself almost wishing for trouble. Something—anything—to give me a reason to lash out, relieve the tension that was mushrooming inside my skull and prickling my fingertips.
We said an abrupt good night and saw my parents locked down for the night. And when Sean very quietly shut our own door behind us and flicked on the bedside light, the room suddenly seemed very small and very close. We must have accidentally altered the setting on the air con before we went out, too. There was no other explanation for why it seemed hot enough in there to have the sweat break out across my palms and send it crawling along my hairline.
“We should talk about the plan for tomorrow,” I said, desperately scrabbling for casual as I shrugged out of my jacket and slipped it onto a hanger. “For a start, what do we say to Collingwood about—”
Sean’s hands on my shoulders made me jerk in reflexive surprise, going for an instant block before I could countermand the action. He evaded without thinking, spun me round so my back hit the door frame to the bathroom, hard enough to jolt. He’d stripped off his own jacket, I noted dumbly, draped it carelessly across the bed. His face was so tightly controlled he was white with the pressure of it.
“Your father suddenly seemed to remember something of his obligations over dinner,” he said, and his voice was deceptively light. “While you and your mother were out of the way, he took the opportunity to give me the full parental speech.”
“The parental speech?” My heart rate picked up. Not in pace, just in ferocity, so I could feel each vibrating beat like a punch behind my rib cage. “I didn’t think we were gone that long.”
“He was concise—you might almost say pithy—and I got the gist.”
“So … what did he say?”
Sean feathered his grip, letting his hands fall away from my shoulders as though he couldn’t trust himself to leave them there any longer. Bereft of his touch, I shivered.
“He told me not to hurt you any more than he seems to think I have done already,” he said with the careful blankness I’d once heard him use to give an operational briefing on the aftermath of a massacre, disconnecting himself. “He knows I’m pushing you to finally sever ties with the nest and, perhaps, you’re not ready to take that step.”