Chapter Six
Looking in the rearview mirror, Ross checked his niece asleep in the backseat. Her mouth was slightly open and the pink faux fur edging Tilly’s hood stirred under her breath. Her dark lashes stood out against her tearstained cheeks, as pink as the quilted anorak she’d refused to take off for the car journey. Turning down the car heater he indicated a lane change to the motorway exit and nudged his front-seat passenger.
“Nearly there, Charlie,” he said in a low voice.
His brother opened his eyes, his normally ruddy complexion pale with grief. “I’m awake.” He glanced behind at his daughter, then at the off-ramp approaching through the misty morning rain. The buzz cut he’d adopted when his light brown hair started thinning highlighted his solid jaw and jutting brow, and made him appear older than his twenty-nine years. Today he looked forty.
“You get any sleep?” Ross asked.
“No. I’ve been thinking about what needs to be done. Drop Tilly off, go to Mum’s…” His voice wavered and he bought himself a recovery moment by pulling a pen and paper out of his day pack. “Phone people,” he added gruffly, making a note. “Meet with the funeral director, check in at work.” As the owner of a small construction company he generally had three builds on the go at any one time.
“Shit,” Charlie muttered under his breath. Glancing at his brother, Ross saw him frowning. “I rescheduled some critical jobs to make time for camp and the Master Builders’ conference next weekend.” Charlie was on the committee. “At least two will have to be squeezed in before the funeral. That doesn’t leave much time to organize the service Mum would have wanted.”
Bells and whistles, knowing Linda.
“I can help.” Officially Ross was on sick leave for another month. Unofficially he haunted the SAS’s headquarters, rehoning what skills he was able to.
Without comment, his CO had begun using him, usually as a guest commentator at instructor classes on his particular area of expertise—demolitions.
Sometimes, like yesterday, he sent Ross home to rest. “More haste, less speed,” he’d reminded him. But rest and Ross were incompatible.
“I couldn’t ask you,” Charlie asked. Ross had made it clear over recent months that family and friends came second to his rehab goals.
“You’re my brother.” No matter what I felt about your mother. “And you’re not doing this alone. What’s on your list?”
Charlie stared blankly at the notepad. The poor bastard was still in shock. “Ordering flowers, choosing hymns and sorting out catering for after the service.” He tried to smile. “Right up your alley.”
“I’m on it.” Mentally Ross scanned his female acquaintances but none jumped out as a culinary-skilled, flower-arranging churchgoer.
His brother’s former neighborhood—where they were now dropping Tilly with her mum—was lined with staked saplings that reflected the age of the subdivision. Aspirational living, according to the real estate brochures. All Ross saw were characterless brick bungalows and crippling mortgages, but hey, each to their own. After the separation, Charlie had moved into his mother’s so he could still afford the payments and in turn lessen the disruption for the kids. Ross hoped Meredith appreciated it.
He pulled into her driveway, and turned off the engine but Charlie made no move to wake Tilly.
“Give me a minute,” he rasped. “It comes in waves, you know?”
“Yeah.” Sometimes Ross sat out on his deck in the dark, cocooned by the surrounding bush and let pain off its leash. It didn’t always come back when he called. Seventeen months after the ambush, he found it hard to grasp that his SAS brothers, Lee and Steve, wouldn’t walk through the door, clap him on the shoulder and say, “It was a bad dream, Ice. We’re the Indestructibles, remember?”
Acceptance was a thousand little daily adjustments—a thousand little deaths. He squeezed his brother’s shoulder. “Listen, you want to stay with me a couple of nights, rather than at Linda’s?” His place was in Muriwai, a black-sand beach on the coast, a forty-five-minute drive west.
“It’s easier being in town but…” Charlie looked up hopefully. “You could stay with me?”
“Well…” Ross would have sworn he’d kept his expression neutral.
“No, stupid idea. Forget it.”
“Of course I’ll stay,” he said. “If you need me to.”
Charlie took a deep breath. “Let’s get drunk tonight.”
“I’ll add beer to the list after flowers and hymns.” Unfastening his seat belt, Ross got out of the car. “Take your time, I’ll handle the bags.”
Removing the luggage from the trunk, Ross opened the gate then kicked it closed as Salsa bounded over with a welcome yip. Seemed he and the dog were back on good terms.
As he rang the doorbell he noticed Charlie had hunched forward in the car, shoulders shaking.
Throat tight, Ross turned to the door. Thirty seconds passed. He jabbed the buzzer again and peered through the sidelight. Finally he saw Meredith hurrying down the hall, tying her hair into a ponytail. She seemed flustered. Salsa growled.
Ross glanced down. “Quit that.”
Today, she was dressed in her customary jeans and T-shirt, no makeup. After overhearing her conversation yesterday, he no longer believed her harassed-mom act.
“Hey,” she said breathlessly, as she opened the door. “I wasn’t expecting you for another half hour.”
“Not interrupting anything, I hope.”
“Of course not.” Meredith glanced toward the spare bedroom.
Ross pushed past and went to the doorway, scanning the room. No doctor scrambling through the window.
“Don’t scare me like that,” he growled then registered the clothes sticking out of the suitcase, half-unzipped on the bed. “Going somewhere?”
“Sorting out summer clothes…” Without bothering to fasten it, she shoved the case under the bed.
“We’re barely into spring. And it seems an odd thing to be doing the day after Linda’s death.”
“I don’t have to explain anything to you. Where are the others?”
“Coming.” Why was she being so furtive? Surely she wasn’t planning a runner with the kids? He’d meant to frighten Meredith into behaving through his throwaway comment on custody, but hell, not this much. Ross told himself to quit being paranoid but every instinct prickled. “Where’s Harry?” he said sharply.
“In his highchair eating a—”
Crash!
They heard a faint “Uh-oh.”
They both sprinted toward the kitchen, nearly tripping over half a dozen oranges rolling the other way. Harry was leaning over his highchair next to the kitchen counter looking at the upended fruit bowl. He had banana smeared on his chin, a crust of bread in one chubby fist and a carving knife in the other. He greeted their arrival with a two-toothed grin, then the blade glinted as he pointed it at the bread in his hand.
Meredith gasped. “Give me the knife, Harry.”
The small chin jutted. “No!” As she stepped closer the baby twisted his body away which brought the knife tip even closer to his tiny thumb.
Meredith stopped.
“Look!” Picking up three of the fallen oranges, Ross started juggling them. “Bet you want one of these.” Still juggling, he moved closer. “Go ahead, take one.” Entranced, Harry leaned forward, reaching for them. The knife clattered to the floor and Meredith dived for it. Ross handed his nephew one of the oranges and he sank his teeth into the rind. His face contorted as a shudder went through his small frame.
With a reproachful look at his uncle, he threw it. “No!”
Salsa leaped, caught it in midair and ran.
Ross dropped to eye level with his nephew. “Don’t play with knives.”
The baby offered him his soggy crust.
“Apology accepted.” Ross glanced toward Meredith. She’d dumped the knife in the sink and stood with her back to him, shoulders slumped.
“Accidents happen,” he reassured her. “Even to good mothers.”
She gave a slightly hysterical laugh. “I wish I could say that made me feel better.” She turned suddenly. “So if you think I’m a good mother why—”
“Mum!” Tilly ran into the kitchen and wrapped her arms tightly around Meredith’s waist. “Nana Lin’s not really dead, is she?”
In her pink tracksuit with her feathery brown bangs clipped in two garish butterflies, the sturdy little girl appeared like any other seven-year-old. However Ross knew that five minutes in her company was enough to make people remember that on both sides of the family she had uncles in the SAS and grandmothers who could politely be described as strong-minded.
From birth she’d ruled the roost; lately Ross had noticed her dictatorship had become less than benevolent. Apart, her parents had become guilt-ridden putty in her Machiavellian hands. Since he’d started pointing this out to her father, Ross was no longer Tilly’s favorite uncle.
Cheek pressed against her mother’s waist, she glared at him now, her gray eyes—same color as his—two chips of steely determination over a cute button nose and rosebud mouth. “Uncle Ross is making it up.”
Meredith gathered her daughter close. “I’m afraid it’s true. Nana Lin really is dead.”
“But I don’t want her to be,” she wailed. Normally that was all it took.
“I know it’s hard.”
Tilly pulled away from her mother. “You smell funny.”
“I…have a new perfume.”
“And you look different, too,” Tilly accused.
“I put a color rinse through my hair and had it layered.” Meredith actually seemed scared of her seven-year-old’s disapproval. Ross shook his head.
“Well, I don’t like it.” The little girl burst into sobs. “I want things to stay the same.”
His irritation melted. She’d been through a lot lately; no wonder she was acting out.
“Oh, Tilly,” Meredith took her daughter in her arms and rocked her. Seeing Tilly upset, Harry began to whimper. “It’s okay, darling,” Meredith called, then bent her head to Tilly’s. “Can we be brave while Harry’s in the same room? He’s upset seeing his big sister crying.”
Tilly sobbed harder.
Ross released his distressed nephew from his high-chair. “Let’s go find Salsa and that orange, hey?” Leaving Meredith to soothe Tilly, he and Harry followed flecks of rind down the hall. Glancing outside, he saw Charlie had stopped in the garden to take a call on his cell.
They found the dog next to the suitcase under the bed in the spare room, chewing on a strappy leopard print sandal with a lacy black G-string tangled around one paw. His sister-in-law was definitely leading a double life.
“Bad dog,” said Ross approvingly and Salsa wagged his stubby tail. Then he looked beyond Ross and growled.
“What are you doing in here?” Meredith said behind him, then caught sight of the half-chewed shoe and gasped. “Why didn’t you stop him?”
“He already had it.” Ross hauled Salsa out by his collar and made him drop the shoe. She was genuinely upset. “Were they expensive?”
Viv stared at the saliva-soaked fang-needled leather on her Christian Louboutin flats—then remembered she was Meredith. “Where would I get the money for expensive?” Ross gave the dog back her shoe.
She couldn’t decide who to kill first. Concentrate, she told herself. There’d been a hairy moment when Tilly had told her she smelled funny but she’d handled it. Like she’d handled their early arrival, scrambling to hide her suitcase, change into Merry’s clothes and strip off her makeup between doorbell rings. Two down, three to—
Viv jumped as she heard Charlie’s footfall in the hall. Trying to relax, she turned to greet him. In the past two years since she’d seen him, her brother-in-law had added some weight to his gorilla frame. But today he was a knuckle-dragging Kong with red-rimmed eyes and a little boy lost expression that had her moving forward to hug him before she could think about whether it was a smart idea.
“Charlie, I’m so sorry.” She never could ignore someone’s hurt.
For a moment he stood frozen in her embrace, then his arms came around her in a vice. “I know,” he said. “I know you are. I’m glad you were with her…for everything you did.” He let her go, struggling for composure.
“Da!” Drawn by his father’s voice, Harry toddled into the hall and threw himself at Charlie’s shins.
“Hey, little dude.” He picked up his son. “I missed you.” His voice cracked. Hastily Charlie handed Viv the baby and turned away. Viv was choking up herself. Glancing helplessly at Ross, she saw his face was completely expressionless. How did he do that?
“Go find Salsa,” he said to Harry.
“Dog?” Harry wiggled down from Viv’s arms and she pulled herself together.
Back still to them, Charlie knuckled his eyes dry. “Where’s Tilly?”
“In the garage breaking the news to the guinea pigs,” said Viv. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of her niece yet. Without an audience she’d recovered remarkably quickly.
“I don’t want her seeing me upset.”
“You go,” she encouraged, gently pushing him toward the front door. Her brother-in-law may have bought the switch but it would be stupid to spend more time with him than she absolutely had to. “Call me later when you know what’s going on. And don’t feel you have to see the kids over the next few days.”
Charlie stiffened. “I’ll always find time for my children, Meredith. They’re the most important thing in the world to me.”
“Of course.” In her hurry to rectify her mistake Viv overcompensated, by adding, “And obviously, if there’s anything I can do, just tell me.”
“Seriously?” His gaze softened. “I mean I gave Ross some stuff…you could help him with that. Mum liked things done right and you’re such a terrific organizer.” Viv exchanged horrified glances with Ross.
“I can handle it,” he said tightly.
“Not the feminine touches,” said Charlie. He gave Viv a pleading look. “Mere, I know it’s a big ask, given our situation. And you and Mum didn’t get on. But I need to do this right. I’d be in your debt. I really would.”
Oh, hell.
Behind Charlie, Ross frowned and shook his head no. “Happy to help,” she said.