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“If you’re harping back to Liane,” Stormy said, a soft but audible warning in her voice.
Nina wasn’t listening. “You just breeze through life, no matter what. You get everything tossed at your feet. What do you think Mom and Dad would’ve said if I had had a baby out of wedlock?”
Stormy leaned against the kitchen counter. A thought was coming to her, vague at first but crystal clear a moment later. “You were pregnant when you married Tully,” she said flatly. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? You feel cheated. Cheated of your independence. It all makes sense now.” Stormy watched Nina’s face grow pink.
“I haven’t been cheated. Tully did right by me. He’s always done right by me.”
“I wonder how often he reminds you of that?”
Nina stiffened, the question unanswered. Stormy felt an urge to put her arms around her baby sister, soothe her, tell her that she would make everything okay again. But she knew that was a far-fetched fantasy. Whatever inner turmoil Nina suffered, Nina would have to work it through.
But Stormy could see now that her homecoming, her presence in the household, was a daily catalyst, a wind that stirred and brought to blaze Nina’s long-smoldering embers of shame and, perhaps, jealousy. Still, short of grabbing Liane and leaving that moment, there was little she could do to stamp out Nina’s blaze.
She tried words. “I’m not so independent as you may suppose, Nina. I have needs that are going unmet right this minute. Besides, being totally independent is not all it’s cracked up to be. You, on the other hand, have two lovely children to my one; you have a husband to my none. You have a kind of sharing with Tully that I have yet to experience with a man. You’re a family. I envy that.”
Confusion skittered across Nina’s face. “You don’t.”
Stormy picked up the paper sack of cash. “I do. You think about it. I know you and Tully argue a lot, but if an outside force threatens, you join together, present a united front. I don’t have that luxury. Tully may not be…well…some things, but he loves you.”
“I wish somebody had told me love included washing mounds of dirty socks and underwear,” Nina said in a rare display of wry humor.
Stormy laughed. Then she sobered. “Maybe we did let you down, Nina. You were the baby in the family—the adorable baby. We all doted on you. Maybe we tried to shelter you too much.”
Nina’s expression filled with sadness. “I wish Daddy were here to dote on me now.”
Stormy sighed. “I do, too.”
When she laidher head on her pillow, Stormy’s brain felt crowded. Thoughts and images of Nina, Tully, her parents, Liane and Tyler collided with one another.
Tyler Mangus.
She had known from the moment she first laid eyes on him that he was going to make trouble. And he had. He had managed to penetrate her facade of nonchalance, and he threatened to reach her at depths she had not even known existed. Not to mention his sensual pull on her. She had been celibate so long her response to him was frightening. Just thinking of him made heat travel through her body.
In addition to which, much as she hated to admit it, she couldn’t help but notice how good he was with Liane. Nor could she deny that Liane was smitten with Tyler. Falling in love meant putting yourself at someone else’s mercy. And look what had happened to her the last time she’d fancied herself in love. She’d been deserted and left to raise a child on her own. How much and how far could she trust Tyler?
Could he be serious about the possibility of vindication at this late date? Or was he holding it out as a tantalizing inducement to capture her cooperation?
Through thick and thin, she had managed to keep concealed Liane’s presence in the car at the time of the robbery. The witness who had come forward to identify her had not noticed the girl asleep in the back seat.
Did she now dare allow Tyler to learn of that?
The thought of repercussions, while she was yet on parole, gave her the shivers. Her life belonged to the state of Florida. She could not marry without her parole officer’s approval. She had to report housing and job changes. She could not hang about in bars or give the impression of being tipsy. She was subject to random urine tests for drugs and alcohol. Even something as minor as a traffic violation could land her back in prison.
And then what would become of Liane? Nina could no longer be depended upon to care for her niece. Stormy shuddered at the thought of her daughter being shunted from one foster home to another while she served out her prison term. Or, worse, have Liane taken away from her if it were discovered that she, the ex-con mother, had brought her daughter along on her supposed heist.
But to have the slate wiped clean, to have her conviction overturned…
Vindication.
Stormy spent the night tossing and turning, trying to fathom a solution to her dilemma.
9
“Good grief!” exclaimed Noreen Byers as Stormy unbagged the items she’d brought for the group. “Cheesecake from the best bakery in town and fresh strawberries—which I happen to know are selling for top dollar at the moment. You must’ve had a wingding of a weekend.”
“If I tell you how well I did, you won’t think I’m boasting, will you? I’m still in kind of an adrenaline rush.”
“When you come to this group,” chimed Thelma, “one of your prerogatives is that you’re allowed to boast.”
