the cherry dresser in her bedroom. “I didn’t know how else to entertain her. She seemed to enjoy the outing.”
“Yes, she was just telling me all about it. She had a lovely time. Um…she mentioned that you saw Dylan Smith at the ice-cream parlor.”
Deborah scowled. “Yes. We saw him. Why on earth has Nathan let her get so attached to that…to Dylan?”
“I believe it all began while Nathan and Caitlin were on their honeymoon, when Isabelle was staying with Gideon and Adrienne. Dylan helped Adrienne when she was injured in a car accident, and the friendship grew from there. Adrienne seems to have grown almost as fond of Dylan as Isabelle—in a purely platonic way, of course,” she added unnecessarily.
“I’m still surprised that Gideon doesn’t object to his wife being buddies with one of his oldest enemies.”
“Obviously, Adrienne is free to choose her own friends. And, actually, I think Gideon and Dylan are getting along a little better these days, which is a good thing, since they’ll probably be interacting on occasion because of Adrienne. I wouldn’t call Gideon and Dylan friends, exactly….”
“I would certainly hope not,” Deborah muttered, appalled by the very idea.
“…but Gideon has become mature enough to put the past behind him. Gideon has probably realized how silly it is to carry a grudge for so long just because he and Dylan had a few confrontations in their schooldays. And Nathan was simply being the overprotective big brother when he objected to you being so intensely involved with Dylan at such a young and vulnerable age. But that all happened so long ago. I don’t know why you can’t let it go, as well—unless, of course, you still have feelings for—”
“I don’t,” Deborah snapped to prevent her mother from even finishing that sentence. “As I have told you plenty of times, the only feeling I have for Dylan Smith is extreme dislike.”
“Well, I like him!” Deborah hadn’t seen Isabelle appear in the doorway behind Lenore, but the angry outburst certainly got her attention. Isabelle was glaring at her, her little fists on her hips. “Officer Smith is my friend, and you should be nice to him like Nate and Gideon are.”
“Isabelle.” Lenore spoke quite firmly, a tone Deborah remembered very well from her own childhood. “We don’t raise our voices like that. It isn’t polite.”
“And, besides,” Deborah added when Isabelle subsided into a pout, “I was perfectly civil to your friend at the ice-cream parlor.”
Almost nobly polite, in her own opinion. It hadn’t been easy to resist the impulse to snipe at him, but she hadn’t wanted to upset Isabelle. But she would be darned if she would answer to a four-year-old.
“Go wash your hands, Isabelle,” Lenore instructed. “We’ll be having dinner soon.”
“That child is in danger of becoming spoiled,” Deborah muttered when Isabelle shuffled away. “It seems that everyone in this family indulges her. Even Dylan.”
Princess Isabelle, indeed.
“We are going to have to be careful,” Lenore agreed. “She’s had a rough time in her short life, being orphaned so young and moved around so many times. I suppose we try to overcompensate for that. I’m sure she’s a bit unsettled today because Nathan and Caitlin have been called away, changing her routine again. Routines are important to four-year-olds, you know. And she really is very fond of Dylan.”
“Fine. That’s between her and Nathan, I suppose. But don’t expect me to start cozying up to him just because the rest of the family doesn’t want to hurt the kid’s feelings.”
Lenore took a step nearer to lay a hand against her daughter’s cheek in a gesture that was as familiar as the no-nonsense tone she had used with Isabelle earlier. “You’ve never told me the details of your breakup with Dylan, but I know how badly it hurt you. And then your father broke your heart when he left us for Kimberly. He broke mine, too, you know.”
Deborah swallowed a hard knot in her throat. “I don’t—”
“You don’t want to talk about it. I know. You never do. But I need to say one more thing. Better than anyone else in the family, I understand how hard it is for you to accept Isabelle into this household. Into our lives. I know what you see when you look at her. Don’t you think I sometimes see it, too? I only agreed to accept her into our family when I realized that refusing to do so would place an insurmountable wall between Nathan and myself, something I simply couldn’t allow. His kind heart wouldn’t allow him to abandon his orphaned little sister when she had no one else to turn to, even if it cost him the rest of his family.”
“Okay, Nathan’s a saint….”
“Hardly,” Lenore murmured with a smile. “But he’s my son, and I love him. So I accepted the child he will raise as his own. And, in doing so, I found my life immeasurably enriched. As hard as it may be for you—or for others—to understand, I’ve grown to love Isabelle very much. The joy and laughter and affection she brought with her replaced the anger and bitterness and hurt that I had lived with for so long. And it isn’t just me. Nathan and Caitlin adore her, and even Gideon has learned to express his feelings more easily. It’s impossible not to smile when Isabelle is around. We haven’t forgotten how she was conceived, but we’ve put it behind us. And, in doing so, I think we’ve learned to forgive Stuart—to different degrees, of course.”
Blind instinct had Deborah moving back, away from her mother’s tender touch. Away from the unexpressed request she simply couldn’t fulfill. She would certainly never be cruel to Isabelle—to any child, for that matter—but she couldn’t promise to accept the little girl the way the rest of the family had. Not if it meant forgiving what Deborah still considered to be unforgivable.
“I think I’d like to take a quick shower before dinner,” she said. “I still have sticky cola all over my leg from the movie theater.”
Lenore sighed, but didn’t push, since she knew it would serve no purpose except to make Deborah more defensive. “All right. Dinner will be ready in half an hour.”
Half an hour wasn’t very long to repair a major crack in an emotional wall, Deborah mused as her mother left the room. But she could do it.
She’d done so plenty of times before.
Chapter Three
Lenore called Deborah to the telephone later that evening. Before Deborah could ask, Lenore added, “It’s Lindsey Newman.”
Deborah lifted her eyebrows in surprise. She couldn’t imagine why a woman she hadn’t seen in years would be calling her at her mother’s house. “Did she say what she wants?”
“No, she just asked if you were available to speak to her. You can take it in the den, if you like. I’ll be in the kitchen, making a cake for tomorrow’s church potluck.”
Deborah had been sitting in the den since dinner with her face buried in a thick book, leaving Lenore to help Isabelle with her bath, then read her stories and tuck her into bed. They’d all been perfectly courteous during dinner, Isabelle having returned to her sunny mood. Everyone had been very careful not to mention Dylan’s name, but Deborah had been ready for time to herself by the end of the meal.
She picked up the phone to find
