Whiskey Beach(36)
“After your dinner,” Alice whispered back. “We’re fine.” She made a shooing gesture. “Go relax.”
“Be good,” Tricia warned her daughter, then took her brother’s hand. At nearly six feet, with a toughly toned body and a determined will, she easily pulled him out of the kitchen, then away from the parlor toward the library. “I want a minute with you.”
“I figured. I’m fine. Everything’s fine, so—”
“Just stop.”
Unlike their more soft-spoken, diplomatic mother, Tricia took her personality clues from her straight-ahead, flinty and opinionated paternal grandfather.
Which could be why she now served as COO of Landon Whiskey.
“We’re all being very careful to talk about anything but what happened, what’s happening and how you’re dealing with it. And that’s fine, but now it’s you and me. Face-to-face, no e-mail, which you can carefully compose and edit. What’s going on with you, Eli?”
“I’m writing pretty steadily. I’m taking walks on the beach. I’m eating regular meals because Gran’s housekeeper keeps making them.”
“Abra? She’s gorgeous, isn’t she?”
“No. She’s interesting.”
Amused, Tricia sat on the arm of a wide leather chair. “Among other things. I’m glad to hear all that, Eli, because it sounds like just what you should be doing right now. But if it’s all going so well, why are you back in Boston?”
“I can’t come in, see my family? What am I, banished?”
And even then the way her finger shot up, pointed, reminded him of their grandfather.
“Don’t evade. You didn’t have any plans to come back until Easter, but here you are. Spill it.”
“It’s no big deal. I wanted to talk, face-to-face, with Neal.” He glanced toward the doorway. “Look, I don’t want to upset Mom and Dad, there’s no point. And I can see they look less stressed. The Piedmonts are making noises about a wrongful-death suit.”
“That’s bullshit, just bullshit. It’s straight-out harassment at this point, Eli. You should . . . talk to Neal,” she ended, and blew out a breath. “As you did. What does he think?”
“He thinks it’s noise, at least for now. I told him to hire a new investigator, to find a woman this time.”
“You’re coming back,” Tricia stated, and her eyes filled.
“Don’t. Jesus, Tricia.”
“It’s not just that—you—or not altogether. It’s hormones. I’m pregnant. I cried this morning singing ‘Wheels on the Bus’ with Sellie.”
“Oh. Wow.” He felt a grin start up from his feet, straight up through his heart. “That’s good, right?”
“It’s great. Max and I are thrilled. We’re not telling anybody yet, though I think Mom suspects. I’m only about seven weeks. What the hell.” She sniffed back the tears. “I’ll clear it with Max. We’ll tell everybody at dinner. Why not make it a celebration?”
“And keep the topic off me.”
“Yes, don’t say I never did anything for you.” She rose, wrapped her arms around him. “I’ll shift everyone’s focus if you promise no more careful e-mails, not to me. You tell me when you’re having a bad day. And if you are, and you want company, I can work it so Sellie and I come up for a couple days. Max if he can manage it. You don’t have to be alone.”
She would, he thought. Tricia would shuffle, realign, reschedule—she was an expert at it—and she’d do it for him.
“I’m doing okay alone, no offense. I’m figuring things out I let go of for too long.”
“The offer stands. And we won’t wait for one if you’re still there this summer. We’ll just come. I’ll float like the whale I’ll be by then and let everybody wait on me.”
“Typical.”
“Say that when you haul around an extra twenty pounds and obsess about stretch marks. Go ahead back. I’m just going to peek in and make sure Selina hasn’t sweet-talked Alice into those pre-dinner cookies.”
At nine o’clock that evening, Abra finished her at-home yoga class, grabbed a bottle of water as her students rolled up mats.
“Sorry I was a little late,” Heather said—again. “Things just got away from me today.”
“It’s no problem.”
“I hate missing the warm-up breathing. It always helps me.” Heather let out a sigh, pushed air down with her hands and made Abra smile.
Nothing brought Heather down. She imagined the woman talked in her sleep, just as she did through a sixty-minute massage.