Keeper of the Light

watch if I agreed to call her.”

“Why do you want a watch all of a sudden? You’ve never wanted one before.”

“You wear one. What’s the big deal?”

He didn’t want to fight with her. In a few minutes they would walk into the house and feel Clay’s absence. They only had each other now.

He pulled into their driveway and turned off the ignition. He lifted her wrist so he could study the watch. “It suits you,” he said.

She pulled her hand away and made a face at him. “What is that supposed to mean?” She reached into the back seat for her duffel bag and got out of the Bronco, walking ahead of him toward the front steps.

“Lace.”

She swung around to glare at him.

“I like the watch on you. That’s all I meant.” He looked at her across the hood of the Bronco. “It’s just you and me, now, Lacey,” he said. “Let’s not start out on a sour note.”

“You started it. I was perfectly happy just listening to the radio. You’re the one who wanted to talk.” She stalked up the steps and into the house.

He called Olivia at nine, from the den, too annoyed with her to wait until ten-thirty. He didn’t want to feel all that close to her tonight.

“I’m upset about the watch,” he said.

“It wasn’t expensive.”

“It’s not the money.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “It’s not even the watch, actually. It’s this bit about her calling you at midnight. I’m capable of taking care of her, Olivia.”

Olivia didn’t answer right away. “She needs some…guidelines, Alec,” she said finally. “She needs to know you care enough about her to want to know what she’s doing.”

He shook his head. “I know the way this house has always been run strikes you as weird, but I’m not about to change it. If I started changing the rules on her now, she’d take off. She needs the familiar—the same structure she had when Annie was alive.”

“What structure? The two of you allowed her to do anything she wanted. She’s a child, Alec. She needs a parent.”

“So you’re taking it on yourself to be one for her, is that it? You spent one night with her, Olivia. That doesn’t make you her mother.”

Olivia was quiet and Alec closed his eyes, regretting his words. He was, he knew, a little jealous of her sudden, easy relationship with his daughter.

“I’m getting off,” Olivia said.

“Olivia, I…”

“Let’s just drop it, all right? Good-bye.”

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Lacey called her at midnight, four nights in a row, twice from home, twice from someplace else. Olivia woke up when the phone rang, groggy and a little nauseated, but she wasn’t about to tell Lacey not to call.

“My father says I don’t have to call you,” Lacey said on the first night. She was at a friend’s house, and Olivia could hear laughter and loud music in the background.

“Well, he’s right,” Olivia said. “You don’t have to, but I’d like it if you did so I don’t worry about you.”

“Okay,” Lacey said, easily. “I will.”

Alec had called her a couple of times since the night they’d argued about the watch. He’d apologized for blowing up, and she’d allowed the subject to die. Still, it had soured the air between them, just a little, just enough to keep her from feeling too close to him again. And that, she thought, was fine.

On the fifth night after Lacey started calling her, Olivia woke up automatically at midnight, reaching for the phone before she realized it hadn’t rung. Maybe Lacey had stayed home. Probably she had fallen asleep, safe and sound in her own bed. Olivia watched the neon-green numbers change on her night table clock. Finally, at twelve- thirty, the phone rang. She picked it up to hear Lacey sobbing on the other end, speaking unintelligibly. Olivia sat up in bed to give the girl her full attention.

“I think you’ve had too much to drink, Lacey.”

Lacey cried for a moment into the phone. There was a ripple of laughter in the background. “I’m scared,” she said finally.

“Of what?”

There was another pause while Lacey struggled for control. “I haven’t gotten my period.”

“Oh. How late are you?”

“I’m not sure. I lost track.”

“Where are you, Lacey? I’m coming to pick you up.”

Lacey didn’t resist. She gave Olivia a muddled set of directions to a house near Kiss River and said she would wait for her out front.

The road was nearly deserted, and Olivia was relieved when she finally spotted the beacon ahead of her in the darkness. She drove on slowly, knowing the horses were out here somewhere. She found the intersection Lacey had told her about and turned onto a road of packed sand, praying her car would not get stuck. She could just imagine