Нора Робертс - Black Rose

Once she knew the children were in bed for the night, she asked Harper, David, along with Stella and Hayley to join her in the front parlor.

“I’m sorry,” she began. “I know some of you might have plans for the night. I don’t think this will take long.”

“It’s all right,” Stella told her. “Something’s the matter. Just tell us what it is.”

“I’ve already taken steps to deal with it, but it’s likely all of you will be asked, at least, to answer some questions. In going through my bills this evening, I came upon a credit card bill—a card I don’t have, charges I didn’t make. However, it was applied for and taken out with considerable personal information. The credit card company will, of course, follow this through. But as I was obliged to list all those who live in this house, I wanted you to be aware. I’ve no doubt the card was taken out by Bryce. He’d know the information, and it’s just his style.”

“You don’t have to pay it,” Hayley said quickly. “This kind of thing happened in the bookstore once where I used to work. You don’t have to pay it.”

“No, I won’t pay it. It simply costs me time and energy, and upsets me—which would have been the motive. It also upsets the household, which he’d enjoy, I’m sure. I’m sorry for that.” She looked at Harper. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t say that again.” He spoke very softly. “I don’t want to hear you say you’re sorry again, Mama. What about the police?”

“They may very well be involved. But I’m going to tell you what my lawyer told me. While the credit card company will follow through, it’ll be very difficult to prove he’s the one who used the card. He didn’t use his name, and he didn’t charge so much at any given time or place to raise an eyebrow. No one’s going to remember he breezed into Dillard’s and bought some shirts or a pair of shoes. This is the sort of thing he knows how to do quite well.”

She had to get up, to move, so rose to add a log to the fire. “The best we can do is step back from it, as much as we can, and let it play out. Sooner or later, and I believe this, he’ll do one of three things. He’ll get bored with it, he’ll find someone else to harass, or he’ll go just a little too far and hang himself.”

“I vote for Door Number Three,” David put in.

“Your mouth, God’s ear,” Roz assured him, and made herself sit again. “I’ve written both Austin and Mason, because I want them, and all of you, to be on guard. He may very well choose to amuse himself by doing this same sort of thing to one or more of you.”

At the thought of it, the tension in her shoulders increased until her muscles felt like iron rods under her skin. “And Stella, you and I should be particularly vigilant regarding any charges to the business.”

“Don’t worry. He won’t get by us. Roz, I’m so sorry you have to deal with this. Anything I can do—anything any of us can do?”

“I’ll let you know, I promise. All right.” Roz got to her feet. “That’s all, then. I’m going to go on up, get to some work I’ve put off.”

“You haven’t had any dinner,” David reminded her. “Why don’t I bring you something?”

“Not now. I’ll get something later.”

David stayed on his feet, watching her walk out. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered when she was out of earshot. “Smarmy, sleazy, last-season Ferrogamo-wearing son of a bitch.”

“Why don’t you and I go pay him a visit?” Harper stayed in his chair. His voice was still soft, as it had been, but now it had an edge to it, a predatory edge.

“That’s a damn good idea.” Hayley sprang up, fists clenched at her sides. “Let’s all go pay him a call. Right now.”

“Stand down, Xena.” David patted her shoulder. “While there’s little more I can think of that would be more entertaining than breaking a few of his caps, it’s not the answer.”

“I hear four when you add two and two,” Harper said. “I say it’s the right answer.”

“David’s right,” Stella pointed out. “It would upset and embarrass Roz, more than she’s already upset and embarrassed.”

“Then we won’t tell her.” Hayley threw out her arms. “We can’t justsit here.”

“I’m not,” Harper said. “You are.”

“Just a damn minute—”

“Hold on.” Like a referee, David stepped between them. “Think, Harper, past your temper. We go take a few very deserved hits at Clerk, his bruises’ll heal soon enough. And he’ll have the satisfaction of knowing he got to her, that he upset her. That’s the last thing she wants, and you and I know that. The most important weapon she has against him is indifference. She won’t have that when she has to bail you out on assault charges.”

“I’ll tell you what else.” Stella continued to sit, her hands gripped tight in her lap. “The more we make of it, the more upset she’ll be. The best thing we can do for her is to take a page from her book. Treat it coolly, like business. And to remember, if it’s hard for us to do that, how much harder it is for her.”

“I hate it,” Hayley raged. “I hate that you’re right, and I wish you’d been rightafter we’d beat the hell out of him. It shows character, Harper, that you want to stand up for her. And it shows character, I guess, to know it’s not the way.”

MAYBE NOT,BUT Harper couldn’t quite erase the picture of Bryce in a bloody pulp at his feet. It probably didn’t hurt that he didn’t know exactly where to find the man. Oh, he could find out, a few calls would do the trick. But those calls might trickle back to the source before he got there.

And in the end, he knew David was right.

But he couldn’t just sit at home and stew. There was another matter he could deal with, and he didn’t give a damn whether or not his mother liked it.

He was still spoiling for a fight when he knocked on Mitch’s apartment door.

He half hoped he’d find Mitch with another woman. Then he could punch him in the mouth and defuse the sparking end of his temper.

But when Mitch answered, he appeared to be alone. Unless you counted the noise that Harper recognized as a televised basketball game.

“Hey. How’s it going? Come on in.”

“I want to talk to you.”

“Sure. Wait.” Mitch’s attention had already swung back to the huge television screen that dominated one wall. “Less than a minute to halftime. We’re down two. Damn it. Goddamn it, loose ball.”

Despite himself, Harper found himself standing there, caught up in the action, calling out when number eight recovered the ball and, pivoting with a kind of magical grace, sent it sailing through the air.

“Three! That’s three.” Mitch punched Harper companionably in the arm. “And there’s the buzzer. Want a drink?”

“Could use a beer.”

“Don’t have any, sorry. Coke?”

“Fine, thanks.” He slipped his hands into his pockets as Mitch wandered off. Alone, he scanned the room, brow knitting over some coins dangling from red ribbons. “Hell of a TV,” he said when Mitch came back with a can.

“Next to my son, my pride and joy. Have a seat.”

“I’ll get right to it. Where’s this thing you’ve got going with my mother heading?”

Mitch sat, studied Harper as he lifted his own can. “I can’t tell you, as a lot of it depends on her, and where she wants it to head. Obviously, since I’m not blind, deaf, or dead, I find her very attractive. I admire what she’s done with her life, and enjoy her company.”

“If any of that attraction has to do with her money or her position, you’re going to want to step away, right now.”

With apparent calm, Mitch picked up the remote, hit the mute button, then set it down again. “That’s a very ugly thing to say.”

“She had a very ugly time not that long ago.”

“Which is why I’m not kicking you out of my home. Such as it is.” He reached down below the insult and got a tenuous hold on patience. “Your mother doesn’t need money or position to be attractive. She’s one of the most beautiful and fascinating women I’ve ever known. I feel something for her, and I believe she feels something for me. I’m hoping we’ll be able to explore those feelings.”

“Your first marriage cracked up.”

“It did. I cracked it.” He turned the Coke can in his hand. “There’s no beer in the fridge because I don’t drink anymore, and haven’t for fourteen years. I’m an alcoholic, and I destroyed my first marriage. All of which I’ve told your mother, in more detail than I’m willing to tell you. Because I thought she deserved to know before we took those initial steps into what I’m hoping is a relationship.”

“I apologize for embarrassing you.”

“You haven’t. Pissed me off some.”

“I’m not sorry about that. She’s my mother, and you weren’t there to see what she went through. What she’s still dealing with.”

“How do you mean, still?”

“She found out tonight he opened a credit card in her name—can’t prove it, not yet anyway, but it was him. Charged on it, so she’s got the hassle of closing it down, dealing with the legal end—and having to tell the rest of us about it.”

Mitch set the drink aside, pushed out of the chair to pace a circle around the room. And it was the temper pumping off him that calmed Harper.

“I thought about hunting him down, beating the crap out of him.”

“I’ll hold your coat, then you can hold mine.”

Another knot in Harper’s belly loosened. It was exactly the sentiment he could respect. “David talked me out of it. David and Stella, actually. Mama would hate it. It’s one of those things she’d find . . . unseemly—then there’d be the gossip that rolled out of it. So I came here to take a few punches at you instead. Work off some of the mad.”

“Mission accomplished?”

“Seems like it.”

“That’s something.” Mitch scooped both hands through his hair. “Is she okay? How’s she handling it?”

“Like she handles everything. Straightforward, takes the steps. She deals. But she’s churned up. More worried that he’ll take the same sort of shot at me, or my brothers. Embarrassed, too,” he added. “It’s the kind of thing that embarrasses her.”

Mitch’s expression went grim. “He’d know that, wouldn’t he? That’ll be the perk, even more than whatever he charged on the bogus account.”

“Yeah, you got that right. I want you to know, if you hurt her, any way, shape, or form, I’ll make you pay for it. Seems fair to tell you up-front.”

“Okay.” Mitch came back to the chair, sat. “Let me lay this out so we understand each other. I’m forty-eight. I make a good living. Nothing spectacular, but I do fine. I like my work, I’m good at my work, and lucky for me it pays the bills and gives me enough to be comfortable.”

As an afterthought, Mitch shoved the open bag of chips on the table in Harper’s direction. “My ex-wife and her husband are good people, and between us—without much help from me for the first six years, we raised a hell of a young man. I’m proud of that. I’ve had two serious relationships since my divorce, and a few that weren’t so serious. I care about your mother, I respect what she’s accomplished, and I have no intention of causing her any sort of harm or unhappiness. If I do, I have a feeling she’ll pay me back for it before you can get off the mark.”

He paused, took a drink. “Is there anything else you want to know?”

“Just one thing right now.” Harper picked up the bag, dug in. “Can I hang out and watch the rest of the game?”

WITH HER HANDSon her hips, Roz studied her newly arranged In the Garden potting soil preparation area. It had taken two full days, eking out time between other chores and working with the precise-minded Stella to set it up.

In Roz’s estimation it would have taken her half that time alone, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as practical a work space. There were tubs of soil she’d already mixed herself, the worktables, the bag storage, the scale, scoops, bag sealer, stools.

Everything was arranged in assembly-line efficiency.

The outlay had been relatively little, which had pleased Stella, who had a head for profit as well as precision. With the simple design of the bags, some clever marketing, and what she knew to be an excellent product, Roz felt confident they’d do very well. Very well indeed.

Her mood was very bright when she turned to greet Harper as he came through the door of the work shed.

“What do you think of our new enterprise?” She held out her arms. With a laugh, she picked up a five-pound bag she’d already filled and sealed and tossed it over to him.

“Good look,” he said, turning the bag over. “No frills. It says this is serious dirt. Looks like something you’d see in a high-end garden boutique.”

“Exactly, and we’ll keep the price down initially, to get it moving. I’m having the bags overfilled by a couple ounces to give me a safety zone. I thought we’d put Ruby on the job, for a start anyway. Maybe see if Steve wants to take some part-time work. It won’t be that labor intensive, or take that much time.”