in the driveway. Mari’s car had been notably absent when he’d returned this afternoon from their annual visit to Harbor Town Cemetery.
I didn’t come back to Harbor Town for you, he vividly recalled her saying last night. He leaned against the porch railing and crossed his arms below his ribs. What had she come back for, then?
He inhaled deeply of the fresh air. It always seemed to take several days into his summer vacation to get the city soot out of his lungs. The sky had turned a pale blue, tinged with lavender, but above the beach at the end of Sycamore Avenue, crimson, pink and gold splashed across the horizon. It would be sunset soon—Harbor Town’s most famous tourist attraction. How many of those sunsets had he watched with Mari in his arms?
He jerked his mind into the present.
“When did you say you were headed back to Chicago?” Brigit Kavanaugh asked. She’d placed her sneakered foot on the pavement, stopping the porch swing’s movement.
Marc knew she’d noticed him staring at Mari’s house. Not that it was odd for him to look at the Itani vacation home on his rare visits to Harbor Town. His eyes had been trained long ago to stray toward that house. Even his ex-wife, Sandra, used to take note of it, usually with a flippant, sarcastic remark, on the few occasions she’d accompanied him to Harbor Town.
“I was thinking about staying on a couple days past Brendan’s party,” Marc said, referring to his nephew’s tenth birthday celebration.
“Really? Do you think work can spare you that long?”
He shrugged. “The county can undoubtedly do without me.”
“Marc,” Brigit scoffed with a smile. “You’re a state’s attorney, for goodness’ sake. You have over a thousand employees working under you.”
“Most of whom are gone for the holiday. I’ve never taken off more than day here and there since entering office. I have the vacation time. I might as well use some of it. It’s not like I haven’t been working from here, anyway.”
All of the Kavanaugh children had taken jobs that would somehow prove they were hard-working, sacrificing, worthy members of society, Marc mused. His sister Deidre was an Army nurse on her fourth tour of duty. Liam was a twice-decorated detective on the organized crime squad of the Chicago Police Department, and Colleen was a psychiatric social worker who worked with high-risk teenagers with emotional and substance abuse problems.
Survivors’ guilt.
Their father’s final actions had left its mark on all of them.
His mother usually wanted her sons to stay on as long as possible for these annual Independence Day visits. She seemed to want Marc long gone at the present time, though. He tried to ignore the flare of irritation he felt at that fact. Brigit loved him. She remembered how much he’d been hurt by Mari’s refusal to see him after the crash. Maybe she just didn’t want to see him get hurt again.
The porch swing resumed the rhythmic squeaking noise that blended so hypnotically with the sounds of the locusts and the Lake Michigan waves breaking on the nearby beach.
“You’d do best by staying away from her,” Brigit said, finally saying the words he knew she’d been thinking since the parades yesterday.
“Maybe you’re right. But that doesn’t seem to be stifling the urge to do the exact opposite.”
Brigit exhaled at his quiet admission. “After all they did to us—”
“Mari never did anything to us. As for what Ryan and his aunt did, it’s not that different than what most people would have done in the same situation.”
“She ignored you! She took that money—blood money! After all this time, you’ve forgotten the effect it had on me—on us.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” he said, stung. “Maybe it’s never occurred to you that Mari and I might have memories, too, Ma, memories outside of Dad and the crash and the deaths—and the grudge.”
Her face pale and tense, she brought the swing to a halt and stared at him. He hated seeing her pain, but damn it, what he’d said was true. He exhaled heavily, trying to rid himself of his anger. He wasn’t mad at his mother, necessarily, but at this whole situation.
He almost heard Brigit building her arguments in her mind. Marc had become a lawyer like his father, but it was his mother who’d taught him the skills for making an airtight case.
“You want Mari because she’s the only thing you’ve wanted and couldn’t have.”
Marc started. “That’s a hell of a thing to say. Do you really believe that?”
“I do,” Brigit said quietly. “You’re my oldest son, Marc. I carried you in my body, and I watched you grow from an infant to a man. Do you really think I’ve never noticed that once you set your mind on something, you make it happen, no matter what kind of storm you cause in the process?”
Marc scowled. He couldn’t believe he was hearing this from his own mother’s mouth. “You make me sound like a spoiled brat. I’ve worked like hell to get anything I’ve ever had. And I’ve failed at plenty of things. What about Sandra?” he demanded.
“I said anything you ever wanted. If you’d wanted Sandra more, the two of you would still be married.”
Marc gave his mother a hard stare, warning her not to tread on that private territory. He’d heard her out after he and Sandra had decided to split, but that decision was his and his ex-wife’s business, not Brigit’s. His mother changed gears, just like that.
“Mari never married, I hear,” Brigit said levelly.
“No,” Marc conceded, not sure where his mother was going with her comment.
“Her brother is the only family since her aunt died a few years ago. I don’t think Ryan would take too kindly to having Mari get involved with you again.”
“You really care about what Ryan Itani thinks?”
“No. But if you care about Mari, you should. Would you really consider alienating her from her only relative?”
Marc rolled his eyes and stood. “You’re assuming Mari would even be interested. I haven’t seen any indication of that so far,” he muttered bitterly. His mother’s comment hit home, even if he tried not to let her see it. He knew he should leave Mari alone. He knew he shouldn’t stir up the frothing cauldron of their shared history.
Problem was, he already had. He’d touched Mari again. He’d held her naked against him while her shudders of pleasure and release had vibrated into his body and mixed with his own.
It was too late, Marc realized with a grim sense of amazement. Something had happened in those ecstatic moments that couldn’t now be ignored.
He noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. He swung around like a hound catching the scent and he saw Mari walking toward her car, her long brown hair bobbing in a ponytail. As she was opening the car door, she paused and looked furtively down the street. Their gazes locked for a few electric seconds before she ducked into the car.
The screen door squeaked open. Combing his longish blonde hair with
