gave a slow, satisfied nod when she saw she was understood. “Now get your miserable hide out of my house. Young man –” she inclined her head to Holt “ – you'll be so kind as to show our guest to the door.”
“My pleasure.” Holt dragged him into the hall. The last thing Suzanna saw when she ran from the house was Yvette's fluttering hands.
“Where did she go?” Holt demanded when he found Colleen alone in the parlor.
“To lick her wounds, I suppose. Get me a brandy. Damn it, she'll keep a minute,” she muttered when he hesitated. Colleen eased herself into a chair and waited for her heart rate to settle. “I knew she'd had a difficult time, but I wasn't fully aware of the extent of it. I've had this Dumont looked into since the divorce.” She took the brandy and drank deeply. “Pitiful excuse for a man. I still wasn't aware he had abused her. I should have been, the first time I saw that look in her eyes. My mother had the same look.” She closed her own and leaned back. “Well, if he doesn't want to see his political ambitions go up in smoke, he'll leave her be.” Slowly she opened her eyes and gave Holt a steely look. “You did well for yourself – I admire a man who uses his fists. I only regret I didn't use my cane on him.”
“I think you did better. I just broke his nose, you scared the –”
“I certainly did.” She smiled and drank again. “Damn good feeling, too.” She noted that Holt was staring at the open terrace doors, his hands still fisted. Suzanna could do worse, she thought and swirled the remaining brandy. “My mother used to go to the cliffs. You might find Suzanna there. Tell her the children are having cookies and spoiling their dinner.”
She had gone to the cliffs. She didn't know why when she'd needed to run, that she had run there. Only for a moment, she promised herself. She would only need a moment alone.
She sat on a rock, covered her face and wept out the bitterness and shame.
He found her like that, alone and sobbing, the wind carrying off the sounds of her grief, the sea pounding restlessly below. He didn't know where to begin. His mother had always been a sturdy woman, and whatever tears she had shed, had been shed in private.
Worse, he could still see Suzanna pushed against the wall, Dumont's hand on her throat. She'd looked so fragile, and so brave.
He stepped closer, laid a hesitant hand on her hair. “Suzanna.”
She was up like a shot, choking back tears, wiping them from her damp face. ”I have to get back in. The children –”
“Are in the kitchen stuffing themselves with cookies. Sit down.” “No, I –”
“Please.” He sat, easing her down beside him. “I haven't been here in a long time. My grandfather used to bring me. He used to sit right here and look out to sea. Once he told me a story about a princess in the castle up on the ridge. He must have been talking about Bianca, but later, when I remembered it, I always thought of you.”
“Holt, I'm so sorry.”
“If you apologize, you're only going to make me mad.”
She swallowed another hot ball of tears. “I can't stand that you saw, that anyone saw.”
“What I saw was you standing up to a bully.” He turned her face to his. When he saw the fading red marks on her throat, he had to force back an oath. “He's never going to hurt you again.”
“It was his reputation. The children must have talked about Kevin.” “Are you going to tell me?”
She did, as clearly as she was able. “When Sloan told me,” she finished, “I knew it was important that the children understand they had a brother. What Bax doesn't realize is that I never thought about him, never cared. It was the children who mattered, all of them. The family.”
“No, he wouldn't understand that. Or you.” He brought her hand to his lips to kiss it gently. The stunned look on her face had him scowling out to sea. “I haven't been Mr. Sensitivity myself.”
“You've been wonderful.”
“If I had you wouldn't look like I hit you with a rock when I kiss your hand.”
“It just isn't your style.”
“No.” He shrugged and dug out a cigarette. “I guess it's not.” Then he changed his mind and slipped an arm around her shoulders instead. “Nice view.”
“It's wonderful. I've always come here, to this spot. Sometimes...” “Go ahead.”
“You'll just laugh at me, but sometimes it's as if I can almost see her. Bianca. I can feel her, and I know she's here, waiting.” She rested her head on his shoulder and shut her eyes. “Like right now. It's so warm and real. Up in the tower, her tower, it's bittersweet, more of a longing. But here, it's anticipation. Hope. I know you think I'm crazy.”
“No.” When she started to shift, he pulled her closer so that her head nestled back on his shoulder. “No, I can't. Not when I feel it, too.”
From the west tower, the man who called himself Marshall watched them through field glasses. He didn't worry about being disturbed. The family no longer came above the second floor in the west wing, and the crew had knocked off thirty minutes before. He'd hoped to take advantage of the time that Sloan O'Riley was away with his new bride on his honeymoon to move more freely around the house. The Calhouns were so accustomed to seeing men in tool belts that they rarely gave him a second glance.
And he was interested, very interested in Holt Bradford, finding it fascinating that he was being drawn into this generation of Calhouns. It pleased him that he could continue his work right under the nose of an excop. Such irony added to his vanity.
He would continue to keep tabs, he thought, while the cop completed his search. And he would be there to take what was his the moment the treasure was found. Whoever was in the way would simply be eliminated.
Suzanna spent all evening with her children, soothing ruffled feathers and trying to turn their unhappy experience into a silly misadventure. By the time she got them tucked into bed, Jenny was no longer clinging and Alex had rebounded like a rubber ball.
“We had to ride in the car for hours and hours.” He bounced on his sister's bed while Suzanna smoothed Jenny's sheets. “And they had dumb music on the radio the whole time. People were singing like this.” He opened his mouth wide and let out what he thought passed for an operatic aria. “And you couldn't understand a word.”
“Not like that, like this.” Jenny let out a screech that could have shattered crystal. “And we had to be quiet and appreciate.”
Suzanna held her temper and tweaked her daughter's nose. “Well, you appreciated that it was awful, didn't you?”
That made Jenny giggle and reach up for another kiss. “Yvette said we could play a word game, but he said it gave him a headache, so she went to sleep.”
“And that's what you should do, right now.”
“I liked the hotel,” Alex continued, hoping to postpone the inevitable. “We got to jump on the beds when nobody was looking.”
“You mean like you do in your room?”
He grinned. “They had little bars of soap in the bathroom, and they put candy on your pillow at night.”
Suzanna cocked her head. “You can forget that idea, toadface.”
After Jenny was settled with her nightlight and army of stuffed animals, Suzanna carried Alex to his room. He didn't let her pick him up and cuddle often anymore, but tonight, he seemed to need it as much as she did.
“You've been eating bricks again,” she murmured, and nuzzled his neck.
“I had five bricks for lunch.” He flew out of her arms and onto the bed. She wrestled with him until he was breathless. He flopped back, laughing, then leaped out of bed again.
“Alex –” “I forgot.”
“You've already stretched it tonight, kid. In the bed or I'll have you cooked over a slow fire.”
He pulled something out of the jeans he'd been wearing when he'd come home. “I saved it for you.”
Suzanna took the flattened, broken chocolate wrapped in gold paper. It was more than a little melted, certainly inedible and more precious than diamonds.
“Oh, Alex.”
