All That Lies Broken (Ashmore's Folly Book 2) (6 page)

He recommended that she buy checkbook software so that she could download her bank statements to her laptop and told her to call him back if she needed more help. He probably thought she was an idiot, Laura thought ruefully as she hung up. How could she have turned thirty-one without balancing her checkbook? How could she not have known how easy it was to pay her bills on the Internet? How could she have ever put herself in the position where Mark – and Cam before him – had so much control over her life?

Well, now, at least, she was acting like a full-fledged adult. She wanted to tell Richard – except he was hardly going to be dazzled that she was only now learning to do what he’d been doing for over twenty years.

It took less than an hour to step towards independence. It took another hour of agonizing and rewriting to compose the email to Mark and the St. Bride Family Administration, informing them that she was taking over responsibility for her accounts.

As soon as she clicked
Send
, she picked up her purse and headed out the door before Mark had a chance to read it and call her back.

~•~

The high of acting like a mature, independent woman came crashing down shortly before noon.

Laura had just stored her groceries in the trunk when her cell rang. She glanced at the caller ID – if it was Mark, she wasn’t sure she wanted to talk to him for a few hours. They could wait to discuss the checks he’d issued to Dominic. But the call was coming from Meg’s cell phone.

“Meg?”

“Hey, Mom.” Laura heard noise in the background, talking, laughter, even some lockers banging. She glanced at her watch; Meg must still be at the summer math class. “I wanted to call you earlier, but I didn’t want to wake you up.”

“It’s okay. We’re an hour ahead here.” She heard a strange note in Meg’s voice. “Is something wrong?”

“Well, no – I mean – hold on a sec, Mom.” She heard the noise decrease. “Hey, I have to talk fast. So, uh, how’s stuff? Are you okay?”

Laura’s alarm was rising. “I’m fine. Something’s wrong, Meg, I can tell. What is it?”

“Oh, nothing.” Every parent’s frustration, the meaningless
nothing
that every teenager tossed out to deflect questioning. “So – did you have a fun weekend? Where did you go?”

“I spent some time in the Blue Ridge.” A good cover story, and it had all the advantage of being the truth. “We’ll go there sometime. It’s gorgeous. Look, Meg, I can hear it in your voice. What’s wrong?”

“Well.” She heard Meg turn away to mumble something. “Well – okay, Mom, it’s like this. Do you – well, do you, like, have a boyfriend?”

“
What?
” Horror flooded through her veins. How could anyone know? Could Mark possibly know what had happened over the weekend? “Who says I have a boyfriend?”

“You know, Mom, it’s okay if you do. I know you’re lonely. I know you miss Dad.”

“Meg.” She marshaled her thoughts and said firmly, “I don’t know where this is coming from. Did someone say something to you?”

“Uh – well—” Meg hemmed and hawed, and Laura drew a breath for patience. “Last night – okay, well, this weekend, you know – okay, I think Emma is upset about stuff, you know?”

“Did Emma say something to you?”

“Uh – well, not
me
exactly.”

Laura made her voice calm. “Did she say something to someone else?”

“Well – uh, Mark.”

Lord, give me patience.
“What did she say?”

“I don’t know if I should tell you, Mom. I don’t want you to get upset.”

“Meg!” Thirteen years of motherhood came to the fore. Laura said forcefully into the phone, “Listen to me, young lady. Whatever you heard, tell me
right now
.”

“Okay.” Meg’s voice sounded small. “I was going down to the kitchen to get a Coke, because the game room was out of Cokes, you know? So I went by Mark’s study, and they were fighting. Real loud.”

She’d lecture Meg about eavesdropping later. “What about?”

“You.”

She fell silent. Laura prompted, “What about me?”

“I don’t know, Mom, I don’t want to hurt your feelings—”

“What did she say?”

Meg said all in a rush, “Well, she said you weren’t a good mother, leaving me like this. She said you were just being selfish like always, and now you’re abandoning me the way you used to abandon Dad, going off to do what you want and not thinking about anyone else. I wanted to tell her she was wrong, Mom, you and I talked about this, you hadn’t seen your family for so long and you didn’t know how it was going to go, so I should stay here because people might not want you there—”

“No.” She collapsed against her car door and stared out unseeing at the parking lot of the grocery store. “Is that all?”

“Well, then – Mark stuck up for you. He said you gave this a lot of thought, and it wasn’t your fault anyway you used to go away to work, you and Dad agreed you should keep Cat Courtney away from home. Then he said he knew why you went to Virginia, you had to get this thing out of your system, there was this man you knew when you were growing up, and you’d always been in love with him—”

Laura held her breath.

“—Then he said he knows about it and he doesn’t care, he said you might get together with this guy, and that’s okay, he wants you to get him out of your system, because he’s going to marry you. Then he told Emma he wants to get engaged on your birthday and get married at Christmas, and then we can all go to London for your last concert, and then you can come home and settle down and we can all be a family.”

Laura’s mind went blank with fury.

“Mom? Did you hear me?”

She made herself breathe in and out. “I’m here. Is that all he said?”

“Uh – no.”

Oh, dear God, what else?
“So then what?”

“Well – uh – so then Emma said, boy did she sound mad, so that was his plan to get his hands on your money, so then he’d have more than her, and that wasn’t fair, and was he planning to – I don’t know, mingle the money or something—”

“Commingle?”

“Yes, that’s it.” Meg sounded relieved. “She said – well, she said you were dumb as rocks, so you’d do what he said and you’d never know any better. Then – Mom, do you really want to hear this?”

She said grimly, “Every last word.”

“Okay. Well, Mark got really mad at that, and he said you weren’t dumb exactly, just off in outer space, and you need someone to take care of you so people won’t take advantage of you, and she should look for a house to buy because he wants you to move back in with him, and she said no, and
he
said you told him you wouldn’t live there until she moves out because—”

Laura closed her eyes. “Because two women can’t live under the same roof?”

“Yes!” said Meg triumphantly. “Exactly! And she went
ballistic!
She was screaming and crying and saying you had seduced him like you did Dad – it’s okay, Mom, don’t start freaking out about my virgin ears – and then I heard her getting close to the door, so I ran into the kitchen till I heard her go upstairs.”

“Oh, my God.” She had to think about this. She’d known that Emma disliked her. Emma’s reserve about her had hardened the moment Kate St. Bride’s will was read. But she could hardly blame Emma for her reaction. Mark—! She couldn’t imagine what he had been thinking. What had possessed him to make such an announcement, throw gasoline on the barely contained fire of Emma’s jealousy?

How could he have so drastically misinterpreted her reaction to his advances in Central Park?

And what did he mean, she was in outer space?

“Meg.” She had to allay her daughter’s concerns. “I’m not marrying Mark. We’re not getting engaged, I
promise
you. And we are not going to live there, sweetie. When I get back from tour, I’m going to buy a new house for us. Meanwhile – I’ll call him and straighten this out, okay?”

“Oh, you can’t, Mom. He went to Japan this morning.”

Blast! She didn’t want to call him on the plane; he might have the other executives with him, and the conversation she intended to have with him demanded privacy. All she could do was send him a strongly worded email. She hoped savagely that he’d be good and jet-lagged when he read it.

“I’ll talk to him when he’s available,” Laura said. “Meanwhile – thanks for telling me, Meg. Don’t worry about this, okay? I’ll take care of it.”

Meg said, “Mark is
all wrong
for you. So you’re really going to buy a new house?”

“Yes.”

“But what if Mark won’t let you spend the money from the trust fund—”

“Meg,” she caught her voice rising, “you need to understand this. I don’t need the trust fund. It was generous of your father to leave it to me, but
I do not need it
. I’ve made enough money as Cat Courtney to take care of you and me and your children and grandchildren for our entire lives. I can afford to buy us any house we want—”

A sudden thought struck her. She tucked it away to ponder later.

“Don’t worry about that,” she said firmly. Meg was worrying about her again, trying to be the adult. “It’s my job to support us. Are you going to be okay there with Emma?”

“Oh, yeah, she’s fine with me.” Emma was fond of her niece, no matter what she thought of Meg’s mother. Laura hoped that she could trust Emma to keep her jealousy in check around Meg. “Should I tell her I heard her last night and it’s okay and you aren’t going to marry Mark?”

“
No
. Absolutely not. Do
not
tell her you heard her. She’d be horrified.”

“Okay,” said Meg, more subdued. “So should I say anything about the piano?”

Laura had started to relax, but now she straightened. “The piano? What piano?”

“Your piano, Mom.”

“The piano in the music room?”

“Yeah,” said Meg. “I forgot to tell you. We had breakfast this morning before Mark left and Emma took me to school, and she told him she wants to donate the piano to her church. He said it’s okay with him since he’s going to buy you a new one anyway and to get a receipt for the estate.”

“
What!
” It was Laura’s turn to go ballistic. “That is
my
piano! Your father gave it to me!”

“Oh.” Meg’s voice grew tiny. “So I guess it’s a good thing I remembered to tell you, right?”

~•~

“May I remind you, Laura,” said Emma icily ten minutes later, “that this is no longer your house. The furniture does not belong to you.”

Laura returned ice for ice. “And may I remind
you
, Emma, that Cam specifically left personal items to me. That piano is a personal item. It was a gift from my
husband
.”

“It is not a personal item. It is a very inconvenient piece of furniture.”

“It is not a piece of furniture. It is a delicate stringed musical instrument.”

“It’s huge!” Emma’s voice rose. “And it’s taking up room right now in
my
house, and I want it out of here.”

“Don’t touch that piano, Emma.”

“Laura,” and Emma’s voice was suddenly steel wrapped in cashmere, “I understand from my brother that congratulations are in order. I don’t know what you have that my brothers seem to lose their common sense about you, but you have my heartiest good wishes.”
For a swift trip to perdition
, her tone implied. “In the meantime, I want that piano out of here. I’ve called my church to come get it Friday. They are in dire need of a concert grand, and this is a very fine one, isn’t it? I recall that it was the first luxury my brother bought after the IPO, but I am certain that he bought it for the house, not for you—”

“He gave it to me for my college graduation,” Laura said through clenched teeth. “Two months after the IPO. There’s a presentation plaque on the piano with my name and the date.”

“Your education being another gift from Cam, as I recall,” continued Emma in that same soft deadly voice. “Along with the demo tape that launched you on your way. You did quite well out of that marriage, didn’t you? Why my brothers fall for all that sweetness and light – it just proves that men think with the wrong head when it comes to a pretty girl with a good act.” Her voice sharpened. “Well, lacking the handicap of a penis,
I
see you for what you are. A grasping, conniving, deceitful,
infertile
little bitch who as good as killed my brother—”

“I did not!”

“We all know why he didn’t take that elevator!” Emma screamed at her. “He wouldn’t have been there if he hadn’t run over to London for your birthday! Mark told me all about it, how that meeting was supposed to be on Monday afternoon and Cam rescheduled it to stay there with you because
you
took it into your head to run out on your contract! Cam died because of
you
, you and your family! And now you’ve managed to get your hooks into Mark—”