Indian-style on the bed, the phone cupped to her ear, Gwen touched the cameo pendant with soft fingers. “It was personal. More than personal. The look of the woman in the profile almost gave me the shivers... she almost seemed to look like me”
“I thought so, too. But I’ve told you before how sculpting works—any similarity like that is accidental. There’s a kind of truth in any piece of raw material. The artist’s job is to carve away what isn’t the truth, but she can’t build in a picture that isn’t there. I had no way to know ahead of time that the woman was going to end up looking like you.” Paige hesitated, then added deliberately, “But I wanted her to be beautiful. You’re beautiful, sis. And you seem to be the only one in the entire world who isn’t aware of it.”
“Talk about bias.” Gwen’s voice was purposefully light. Maybe her sister never saw what she did. It was the shadow woman in the cameo that put a lump in her throat, not the beautiful lady who was so exuberantly embracing life. Carefully she snapped the lid closed on the velvet box. “I’ll be beautiful the same day cats fly. You’ve just got blinders on because you’re my sister.”
“Hey, you’re talking to the brat who put shaving cream in your bra. Short-sheeted your bed. Froze all your underpants next to Mom’s jam in the freezer. Sisters don’t have to do or say nice things.”
Gwen chuckled. “Come to think of it, I’d forgotten what a brat you were. Abby was the nice sister.”
“And what’d Abby send you for your birthday?”
“A silk dress. Ivory. Kind of swirly and soft and sexy.” Maybe it was studying that cameo that made her suddenly feel restless and uneasy again, but she bounced off the bed and started pacing the room with the phone cradled against her ear. “Maybe in the year 2010, I’ll find a place to wear it.”
“Abby keeps trying to reform my taste in clothes, too. She should know by now it’s hopeless. And how come she got all the good taste in the family?”
“I dunno. You want to short-sheet her bed the next time we see her?”
They both chuckled and wasted a few minutes creating diabolical plans for Abby and recalling all the sick practical jokes they’d pulled on each other as kids. Then Paige filled in her own family news—she’d never felt healthier in her whole life, but her new husband Stefan was miserable, suffering morning sickness big-time. As Paige embellished the details, both sisters’ chuckles spilled into laughter...until Paige suddenly paused and turned serious. “Boy, I haven’t heard a good belly laugh from you in forever, kiddo. I’ve really worried how you were doing these past few months. And you haven’t said one word about the bastard.”
“I wish you wouldn’t call him that. He’s really not, Paige. Ron’s a good dad to the boys. And he didn’t suddenly turn into a creep just because the marriage failed.”
“I think we’ve had this exact same conversation before—you know I have a different opinion on that—but okay, okay. I’ll try to remember not to call him a manipulative, arrogant son of a seadog in your presence, sweets. But I wish you’d try to believe it. He’s well out of your life. You seeing anyone?”
“You have to be kidding. I’m not sure I’ve even caught sight of an adult man in six months, between being chained to the computer most of the day and den-mothering a passel of boys in my free time,” Owen said wryly. From nowhere, though, a mental picture of Spence suddenly embedded itself in her mind as if glued there.
“You’ve got to quit hiding in that house.”
“This is my youngest sister talking? The one who hid in the art studio for years and was never going to get married as long as she lived?”
“That was before I met Stefan. Now I know what I was missing. And you, too. Just listen to me-now that I know everything,” Paige teased, but again, her voice turned serious. “I know it’s got to be scary to get your feet wet in the dating pool again, but everyone isn’t like Ron, sis. You just have to steer clear of those high-powered, steamroller types.”
“I know, I know. Believe me.” Again, Spence’s face flashed in her brain. He was ten times more dynamite than Ron had ever been, a clear study of a man motivated by drive and ambition and overloaded with dynamic, virile male energy. Lord, how could she have kissed him like that? Being a concentrated dynamo was no crime, but for her, Spence might as well have a Danger sign tattooed on his forehead. Abruptly, though, that whole thought train disappeared from her mind. “Oops...Paige, I have to go. A pint-size interruption just showed up in the doorway.”
Paige chuckled just before hanging up. “Give my favorite hellion nephews a giant hug from Aunt Paige, okay?”
As it happened, only one of her hellions was standing in the door. Jacob. Tousled and barefoot and wearing his favorite cartoon pj’s. He was the spitting image of his dad with his white-blond hair and woman-killer blue eyes and beyond-adorable grin. “He’s back, Mom,” Jacob said.
Gwen heard the quaver in his voice, and there was sure no grin on his face now. Jacob could manage to get dirty in a bathtub; he had more energy than an entire football team, and there were times he could test her patience like nobody’s business. But not when he was scared. Never when he was scared.
Swiftly she reached out her arms. “Shoot. Don’t tell me that blasted monster showed up again?”
“Yup. The green one. With the big bulging eyes and the claws like scissors.”
“Darn. I thought we got rid of him permanently the last time.”
“Nope.” Another quaver, as he shot across the room and burrowed his face into her stomach. “I just came in to protect you. I wasn’t scared or anything, but you’re a girl and all. I figured I better sleep with you.”
“Well, when one of us is afraid, I think it’s a good idea to protect each other,” Gwen said gravely. “But let’s take care of this monster together first, okay?”
She took his hand and together they walked down the hall to his room. “Where’d he come from this time?”
“The bathroom. And then he slinked in. And then he hid by the desk.”
“Ah.” She switched on the big overhead light and then slowly took her time, studiously searching around the desk, bending down to look under the bed, then poking in the corners of the closet. “You see anything?” she asked her son.
“Nope.”
“Any other place you think he could be hiding?”
“Aw, Mom. You don’t have to keep doing this. I know it’s just a dream. It’s just such a real dream that I can’t always make it go away.”
“Honest, I understand. When I was six, I had pink and orange alligators under my bed. Just for the record, though...they all went away by the time I was seven. Never came back.”
“Boy, were you silly. Everybody knows that alligators don’t come in orange.”
She made him giggle, but he still wasn’t sure about leaving her alone—“unprotected”—so she curled up on the twin bed with him. It didn’t take long for him to fall asleep, never did. But he didn’t let her cuddle him too often, now that he was a big grown-up six-year-old, and it felt good, the warm body, the scent of her son, the
