blew out a breath. It was just Meredith playing the life-hangs-by-a-thread card.
“So, come out. You can see us and remind Nathan that Cactus Confections is his home. What more could anyone want than to run a candy factory?”
“Maybe something more meaningful?” Though Nathan was pretty much a nose-to-the-grindstone guy. Work was work.
“What’s more meaningful than candy?”
“Millions of dentists agree, I guess.”
“Your father has been happy here for thirty years. You could have been happy here, too, you know.”
“I’m happy here, Mom,” she said. Absently, she rubbed the callus on her thumb from making Pikachu balloon animals. Well, she would be happy as soon as she found another job.
“Well, hel-lo…”
The male voice made her look up. Raul, Nikki’s latest boyfriend, grinned down at her from the door of Nikki’s bedroom.
“Whoops!” Mariah yanked the puddle of clown suit over her bare breasts.
“Don’t do that on my account,” Raul drawled. He wore tattered jeans and a leather vest that revealed three of Nikki’s original tattoos. By the way his eyes took a slow trip along her body, she knew he’d be interested in her when Nikki was through with him.
Raul was sweet, for a biker. But Mariah wasn’t interested in him. She’d been taking a break from boyfriends, spending some alone time with the VCR and, lately, she’d felt like painting again. That seemed more fun than dealing with casual boyfriends. She could never quite be herself. She had to stay on guard for when they got serious. Keeping it easy in a relationship was hard work. Right now, the only thing she wanted to change was her job.
She gave Raul a neutral smile. He got the message, shrugged, then stepped over her on his way into the kitchen.
“Mariah? Hello?” Meredith said.
“I’m here, Mom.”
“You don’t want Nathan to make a mistake, do you? You want the best for him, don’t you?”
“Sure I do,” she said on a sigh. She owed him a lot. In a way he’d helped her make her own life. Her parents had lavished their concern, affection and appreciation on him, and that reduced the hassle they gave her and the amount of worrying they did about her. He was the son her father never had and the business partner he would have wanted Mariah to be.
Nathan was probably just having the identity crisis her mother had guessed at. Or maybe he didn’t think he could handle the factory on his own when her father retired. Maybe she could talk him through it, get him back on track. Maybe her mother was exaggerating.
“How about if I give him a call?” The thought of seeing him in person made her pulse race and her head pound. Maintaining the two-hundred-mile distance between them seemed the safest bet. She’d call and straighten this all out. Easy.
“PUNKIN!” Mariah’s dad said, meeting her at the door when she arrived two days later. He tugged her into a hug against his portly frame.
“Hi, Daddy.” After three failed attempts to call Nathan—she kept panicking and hanging up—Mariah had decided she’d have to talk to him in person. After eight years of silence, how could disembodied voices ever connect about something so important? Face-to-face would be the only way. She was much more convincing in person. Plus, if this was just a Meredith maneuver to get her out for a visit, she might as well get it over with, before her mother faked a heart attack or something.
So here she was home again, for better or worse. She felt the familiar mix of nostalgia, homesickness and being smothered with a pillow. She loved her parents, but she loved her own life more. And her freedom most of all.
After her mother had almost bulldozed her into that false marriage to Nathan, she’d promised herself she’d never depend on them—or anyone else—to make her choices. She’d make her own way, her own decisions. She was a butterfly, light on her feet. There was nothing wrong with that. Butterflies brought beauty into the world. They didn’t stay long, but they dazzled you while they were here, and left you breathless with memories when they flew on.
She so much liked thinking of herself as a butterfly, she’d asked Nikki to sketch one she’d had made into a tattoo on her left shoulder. Nikki’d gotten a tattoo, too. And that experience had made Nikki decide to become a tattoo artist. As soon as she got together some bucks, she’d have her own shop.
“You’re skin and bones,” her mother said, swooping down on her from the kitchen, smelling of rosemary, onion and fresh-baked dinner rolls. “What are you eating? Soda crackers and ketchup soup? Do you have enough money?”
“I’m fine, Mom,” she said, leaning down to kiss her mother’s powdery cheek. She caught her mother’s hand before she could slip a wad of bills into Mariah’s jeans pocket. “Really, I mean it.”
Before long, her father would do the same, she knew. It was a point of pride that Mariah hadn’t spent the money her parents were forever mailing her or slipping into her pockets or luggage or handbag when she visited. She’d opened a mutual funds account with the money and planned to use it as a retirement gift to them.
She gave up thumb-wrestling her mother. “Thanks,” she said on a sigh, and tucked the wad into her pocket. Her eyes scanned the room. “What’s all this?” She walked to the dining room table, which held a laptop computer, a globe and stacks of travel brochures. A half-dozen maps were tacked to the walls.
“The nerve center of our retirement campaign,” her mother said, joining her. “Your father’s finally got the travel bug and we’re just itching to get going. We’re thinking Barbados.” She handed Mariah a thick brochure about the place.
“But now and then I do this.” Meredith spun the globe, closed her eyes, then touched a spot. She studied where her finger had landed. “Tierra del Fuego. Hmm. That’s a new one. Then I go to the Internet and read about the country.”
“That’s great,” she said, then turned to her father. “I’m glad to see you’re finally going to give yourself a break.”
“What am I saving all this money for?” he said, though he didn’t seem quite as enthusiastic as her mother.
“Now, all we need is someone to entrust with the business,” Meredith said.
Her father looked at her lovingly. “You going to help out your old dad, Punkin?”
“M-me. Oh, no, not me, Daddy.” She took a step backward. “I’m just here to talk to Nathan. Didn’t Mom tell you?”
“Sure, sure,” he said, a shadow of disappointment crossing his face. “Nathan’s stubborn about this, though.”
She’d been afraid of that. She both dreaded her visit to Nathan and couldn’t wait to see him. The whole thing made her feel schizoid. As soon as she got settled she planned to head right over to his house. Drop in unannounced, get it over with.
“This all you brought?” her father asked, hefting her suitcase.
“I’m not staying long, Daddy,”
