MILLION DOLLAR BABY Read online

  "I don't get to do anything," Janey muttered, folding her arms and thrusting her lower jaw out to drive home the magnitude of her displeasure; if it weren't for the big-eyed dinosaurs on her feet, she might almost have pulled it off.

  "You got to mix up the dough." The door of the fifty-year-old oven screaked as Laura pulled it open, releasing a whoosh of cinnamon scented heat; the cookies looked perfect. "And you got to taste-test the first batch. I'll let you test this one, too, once they're cool enough to eat."

  Kay, holding a letter and a green envelope, appeared in the kitchen doorway as Laura withdrew the sheet of fragrant cookies. "Laura, check this out! Some guy named Dean Kettering is giving you a mil—"

  Laura dropped the pan with a harsh clang onto the slate floor. Some cookies slid off; most broke.

  Janey gasped.

  Laura stared at Kay for a long, incredulous moment. "Did you say Dean Kettering?"

  "Uh … yeah."

  Laura held out her hand. "Give that to…" With a little grow, she yanked off her oven mitts and tossed them at the big, scarred pine table that took up most of her homey little kitchen; they missed the table and landed on the floor. "Give that to me."

  Kay handed over the letter and envelope with a wary expression, them retrieved the oven mitts and picked up the pan of cookies. "Janey, honey, why don't you gather up those broken cookies in that bowl so we can throw them outside for the birds?"

  "Who's Dean Kettering?" asked Janey as she squatted down to collect the cookie bits, her trouble with r's making his last name sound like "Kettlewing."

  Kay cast Laura a significant look as she set the cookie sheet on the stovetop, one eyebrow raised in a silent echo of Janey's question.

  "He's…" Oh, God. Laura took a deep breath and made herself smile at her daughter. "He's an old friend of … your father's. And mine."

  Janey's luminous blue eyes grew wide. Kay knew why. The child, having been born long after the terrorist attack in February 1995 that killed Will Sweeney, had rarely heard the phrase "your father." Laura, who was fanatical about one thing in life – honesty – made it a habit to avoid saying those words. To say them now, in this particular situation, made her cringe inside.

  "Laura, are you okay?" Kay, who never missed a nuance, tucked a wayward strand of hair behind Laura's ear, then wiped at her cheek, which she'd evidently smeared with flour.

  "You okay, Mommy?" asked Janey as she set her bowlful of cookie shards on the table. She looked as concerned – and as eerily astute – as her "aunt" Kay.

  "I'm fine," Laura mumbled as she read the one-sentence letter from George Walsh, Esquire, informing her simply that Dean Kettering had instructed him to forward the enclosed cashier's check for one million dollars, endorsed to her. She studied the green envelope, a bittersweet ache squeezing her chest as she read her name and address written in Dean's distinctive, jagged scrawl.

  The envelope had already been ripped open. She reached inside and slid out a check – it was a cashier's check made out to Dean Kettering, she saw – in the amount of…

  Holy moly, it really was a million dollars. Shoving the envelope in the back pocket of her jeans and flipping the check over, she found that Dean had, indeed, endorsed it to her.

  Kay let out a long, impressed whistle when she saw the check. "Is it for real?"

  "Looks that way."

  "Who is this guy?"

  "He's an old friend," Laura said woodenly.

  "A fwend of my daddy's," Janey elaborated as she shuffled toward them.

  "Must be a pretty rich fwend of your daddy's," Kay murmured, peering at the check with an incredulous expression.

  "But he's not," Laura said. "Or he wasn't. Maybe he is now."

  "Let me see!" Janey snatched the check out of Laura's hand and held it up to her face.

  "When's the last time you saw this guy?" Kay asked.

  "Almost six years ago," Laura answered. "April second, 1995. He came here to…" She darted a glance toward her daughter, who was mimicking Kay by examining the check with feigned fascination; or maybe she was fascinated. Janey found the damnedest things interesting. "He came to bring Will's things back to me – his belongings, our correspondence to each other…"

  "Oh … oh, right," Kay said. Laura and Kay hadn't known each other when Will was killed. It was the following winter, shortly before Janey was born, that Kay had moved in next door and turned the old Sullivan place into the Blue Mist Bed and Breakfast.

  Laura wrapped her arms around herself. "After Will died, I came here to be alone for a while and get my head together. Grandma was still alive, and this was her summer place, but the season hadn't started yet, so no one was around – no tourists, no family. I'd been here for a couple of months when Dean showed up one day, out of the blue. There was no phone service here then, so he couldn't call ahead."

  "You knew him?"

  Laura nodded. "We'd been friends in college. Good friends. He's was Will's roommate – his best buddy. The three of us were inseparable." A kaleidoscope of memories assailed her – she and Will and Dean playing touch football with some of the other ROTC guys and their girlfriends in the cold November mud … driving out here on weekends to sail the little cat Grandma Jane had given her, she and Dean showing a reluctant Will the ropes … trading jokes and mock insults with Dean over pitchers of beer while Will howled with laughter…

  Then there were all the times she'd glance toward Dean, only to find him looking at her, his radiant eyes shadowed with something dark and unguarded, something they both felt but knew they must never acknowledge…

  There was Dean's terrible remoteness the day she'd married Will and he'd served as best man, the way he wouldn't meet her eyes or speak to her … until the ceremony was over and he'd kissed her cheek, whispering, "I'm trying to be happy for you," the closest he'd ever come to saying it out loud…

  And then there was the afternoon, not quite two years later, when Dean had shown up here in his sunglasses and his air force uniform, Will's personal effects in a cardboard box under his arm.

  "And you haven't seen him since then?" Kay asked.

  Laura looked away and shook her head.

  "Why not? I mean, if you were such good fr—"

  "Janey, give me that." Laura snatched the check out of her daughter's hand. "I can't keep this. I have to give it back."

  "Well…" Kay contemplated the check with an ambivalent expression. "You might want to do some investigating. Sometimes you should look a gift horse in the mouth. Find out what this guy is up to. I mean, who'd give a million bucks out of the blue to someone they haven't seen in six years? What does he want for it? You might have to give it back, but if it turns out he's on the level—"

  "No. I can't take it under any conditions. I couldn't live with myself. It just … it wouldn't be right."

  "I don't know about that," Kay said. "I mean, I can't see where you'd be doing anything wrong by taking the money. It's just that you have no idea what this guy's agenda is. You don't want to get yourself obligated to some wacko from your past just 'cause he's decided to dump some bread on you. But if there really are no strings…"

  "Forget it," Laura said resolutely.

  "You're giving back the million dollars, Mommy?" Janey asked plaintively.

  Laura groaned inwardly. "Yes, sweetie, I think so."

  "But if you had a million dollars," Janey said, "you could buy Mr. Hale's boat, the one you showed me. You said if you could ever afford it, you'd buy it and then we could go sailing. You said."

  "Sweetie…" Laura shook her head in exasperation. "You wouldn't understand it. It's a grown-up thing."

  "I understand grown-up things," Kay said. "Try me."

  "Kay, no. It's personal. Don't ask me to explain it."

  "Look." Kay took the check out of Laura's hand. "You don't need to make this decision right now. Think about it. Call the guy up. Find out why he's—"

  Laura grabbed the check back. "I don't need to think about it, and I have no intentio
n of reestablishing contact with Dean Kettering. I don't want the money, and that's that."

  Kay's all too perceptive gaze zeroed in on her. "Am I hearing this from the same woman who just yesterday was whining about how she was going to end up with carpal tunnel from clipping coupons? How long has it been since you've sold a painting, Laura? Weeks? Months?"

  Laura rolled her eyes. "How long has it been since you've had a guest in your B and B? It's March, Kay. Both of us rely on seasonal income, and that's why we both store our nuts in the summer, like good little squirrels. Come Memorial Day, the tourists will flock back to Port Liv and you and I will be grousing about how we don't have enough time to spend all the money we're making."

  "No, we'll be socking it away for the winter. Don't try and BS me, Laura. You've never been any good at it."

  "What's BS?" Janey interjected.

  Laura and Kay stared at the child. She looked back and forth between them, patiently waiting for an answer.

  "It's short for bullshit," Laura told her.

  Janey giggled and slapped her hand over her mouth, clearly astounded; Laura never swore in front of her. "Mommy said a bad word!"

  Kay groaned. "Laura, you know, this unremitting honesty of yours gets to be a bit much sometimes. Do you always have to tell everybody the truth? Even a little kid?"

  "I'm not little anymore!" Janey protested. "I'm five!"

  "Yes." Squatting down, Laura wrapped her arms around Janey and squeezed her tight. "Especially if it's my kid. I love this little monkey too much to—" she winked at Janey "—BS her."

  Janey shrieked with laughter. Pulling away from her mother, she ran into the living room, scratching under her arms and screeching like a chimp jazzed on double espressos. Laura heard her jumping around on their old, rump-sprung couch.

  Kay adopted that smart-ass look that always made Laura want to slap her. "Do you love her enough to take the million dollars for her?"

  Laura stood up with a little groan. "That's not fair, Kay. You don't know the whole story."

  "Then tell me the whole story. Since when have I been a bad listener?"

  Laura closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead with the hand holding the check. It smelled like money.

  She could buy a dishwasher finally, and replace the roof so they'd be assured of getting through next winter without a major disaster. She could have a furnace put in so they didn't have to rely on that inadequate little woodstove. She could buy a new couch. Hell, with a million bucks, she could redecorate the whole place, get rid of Grandma's shabby old hand-me-downs…

  Except she kind of liked all this ponderous old furniture. It was a comforting, ongoing reminder of her grandmother, who had brought her up since the age of two, when her parents had perished in a nine-car pileup during an ice storm. Grandma Jane had been her only family, her salvation, her entire world – a world Laura was loath to discard any part of, including Grandma's big, squishy chairs and lumpy behemoth of a couch. But maybe she could get them reupholstered so she could quit using bedsheets as slipcovers.

  She could rid herself of that rust bucket she'd been driving around since college, and buy a real car.

  She could fix the front porch, which was threatening to cave in if someone breathed on it hard.

  She could start a college account for Janey.

  And yes, she could buy that sleek little five-year-old Precision 18 that Raleigh Hale was asking $8,700 for. She could teach Janey to sail. Janey loved the water.

  She could treat Janey – and herself – to some of life's luxuries for a change, not just scrape by with the necessities. And she could buy them both a little much-needed security in the bargain.

  If she were willing, that was, to take Dean Kettering's million dollars. Why was he giving it to her? What, after all these years of no contact at all between them, was he trying to prove? He'd had six years to mull over what happened. Maybe he was finally feeling guilty.

  That must be it. He was feeling guilty – about that night, or the intervening years of silence, or both. God knew where he'd gotten that money, but he intended to use it to ease his conscience.

  If it had begun and ended there, Laura might have been tempted to take the money. Hell, she was tempted to take it, sorely tempted. But there were too many reasons to turn it down, not the least of which was that she had a conscience, too. How could she rationalize taking a million dollars from Dean Kettering after the secret she'd been keeping from him for six years?

  Laura folded the check and slid it into her jeans pocket next to the envelope. Crossing the kitchen, she grabbed her parka off its hook by the back door. "Keep an eye on Janey for me, okay?"

  "Going somewhere?"

  "Just down to the beach for a walk." Laura zipped the parka up over her apron.

  "In this weather?"

  She kicked off her slippers and crouched down to work her ragwool-socked feet into her duck boots. "It's nice and sunny."

  "But cold."

  Laura glanced up as she hitched the laces of her right boot tight in their eyelets. "It's March, Kay. Can't hibernate inside forever just 'cause it's still a little nippy." She retrieved her knit hat out of her pocket and pulled it on. "I just … I … I need a little air. I just need to…" A frustrated sigh escaped her.

  "Sure, kiddo. Take your time. Think this thing through. Don't make any decisions you're going to regret later."

  Regret, Laura mused as she opened the back door, was something she'd learned to live with a long time ago. Kay couldn't tell her anything about regret.

  Her boots crunched on the snow-glazed lawn as she carefully made her way toward the wooden staircase that led to the boulder-studded beach. A frigid breeze gusted off the water, fluttering her jacket and cutting right through her jeans. She strolled back and forth in the damp sand at the edge of the water, dodging incoming waves as she thought about the check in her pocket and the reason she couldn't keep it.

  Facing away from the water, she shielded her eyes against the dazzling morning sun and peered up at the fairy-tale two-story stone cottage overlooking the Sound, which six years ago had belonged to Grandma Jane, and in which Laura had taken refuge after that nightmarish week in early February 1995.

  First had come the news about Will, leaving her reeling with grief. Sweet, kind, dependable Will Sweeney, with his copper-penny hair and hearty laugh … Will Sweeney, with whom she'd expected to make babies and to grow old, was gone in a roaring explosion halfway around the world.

  He'd been in the service. Even though they hadn't been at war, she'd always known there were risks. Given her lifelong fear of flying, it had especially freaked her out that he'd chosen the air force; it wasn't terrorist truck bombs she'd fretted about, but the possibility that one of those fighter jets would crash, taking him with it. Will used to assure her it was safe, and she'd wanted to believe him, wanted to be as confident as he that it could never happen. Not to Will, who'd never let her down, never let anyone down, who'd always been there for everyone, solid and reliable.

  Yet he was gone, just like that. She'd never see him again.

  Then, the day after the memorial service, her just-begun pregnancy had ended in a miscarriage that may or may not have been brought on by the stress of Will's death. She'd told him she was expecting just days before, in a letter he'd never even had the chance to read. If he'd known, as he lay dying, that they were going to have a baby, would it have been any comfort to him?

  First she'd lost Will. Then she'd lost the baby. Within the space of a week, everything important to Laura had been torn away from her. It hadn't taken her long to grow weary of the ceaseless condolences, the pitying looks – although only Grandma Jane had known about the miscarriage; no one else had even known she was pregnant. She'd needed sanctuary, and Grandma had, as always, come through, with the offer of her summer cottage, blessedly empty.

  Laura had gratefully holed up here, where there was no phone, no television, not even any neighbors, the old Sullivan place – the only house visib
le from the cottage – having stood empty for two years. She'd occupied her days painting the violent splendor of Long Island Sound and her nights reading her way through Grandma's vast collection of tattered paperbacks.

  As the weeks passed, her wounded soul had gradually begun to knit, a sense of grudging acceptance settling in to replace the trauma of losing Will and the baby. The joy of sketching and painting had sustained her, giving her something to focus on besides the pain, something to think about and plan and carry out.

  Some days she'd even felt a fleeting sense of peace, an awareness that she was strong and whole and that she would survive this, she would move on and build a life for herself out of the ashes of this tragedy. She might even fall in love again someday, get married and grow large with some other man's child. Other women might crave dazzling careers and high-powered lives; Laura Sweeney's most heartfelt aspiration had always been to settle down and raise a family. It was her destiny, her fondest desire.

  The quiet and solitude of Grandma's cottage had been just what she'd needed – yet, at the same time, she'd never felt more alone, more empty, more needful of human companionship. Lying in her lonely bed night after night, she had begun to feel as if it had been years since she'd been touched.

  Laura didn't often think back to that time; she'd moved beyond the sorrow and saw no point in dwelling on it. Now, reliving those dreamlike weeks, she wondered whether it was the bitter wind or her memories making her eyes sting with tears.

  The cottage and the stairway leading up to it wavered through a watery haze. At the top of the stairs, she saw the spectral form of a man, tall and severe in his blue air force uniform, his eyes concealed behind the blackest of sunglasses, a cardboard box tied with string tucked beneath his arm.

  She blinked and the image was gone in a hot spill of tears. He was gone.

  Dean Kettering. That's how she'd first seen him that April afternoon six years ago when he'd come to bring Will's things to her. She'd been about a hundred yards down the beach, sketching details of surf exploding against rocks for the monumental painting she'd embarked on. But as the golden afternoon light had begun to dim, she'd grown chilly in her jeans and sweatshirt, and had decided to pack it in. As she headed back to the stairs, juggling her toolbox full of drawing supplies, her easel and her big sketch pad, she'd looked up and seen him, just standing there on the top step, gazing down at her.