Maybe This Time Read online

  She tried to shake the top pane but it was tight, stuck, not rattling at all, so she dropped her hand to the lower pane and then froze, looking down at the ground two stories below.

  North stood there, his hair white in the moonlight, staring up at her.

  Andie caught her breath, blindsided by the fact of him, looking at her with the same intensity of their first night, the night they’d made love until dawn, starving for each other, and he was down there now, she couldn’t believe it, he was down there now. He’d asked her if she wanted him to come, and she had, but she’d said no, but maybe he’d known, maybe he’d come for her, the way he’d crossed the bar all those years ago to meet her, maybe—

  A cloud scudded across the moon and everything went dark, and when the moonlight lit the lawn again, he was gone.

  This is still a dream, she thought. She was losing her mind. She was almost engaged to another man. She didn’t even want North. It was because she’d taken this job, with these two kids who didn’t want her. She should get out of there, she should run—

  Tell him to come to you.

  She closed her eyes and thought about rolling in his arms again, the weight of him bearing her down, the push of his hips and the surge of him sliding hard into her—

  Call him!

  Andie jerked back from the window and looked around. Somebody had said that, somebody must have said that, but there was no one in the room but her. This is a dream.

  Yes, it’s a dream, you’re dreaming of him. Call him. He’s the one. Bring him here.

  Andie shook her head to clear it, dizzier than ever now. And cold, so cold that she climbed back into bed shivering. She pulled the comforter up over her, and thought, No more dreams, and then sank down into the pillows and eventually into a fretful sleep, ignoring the voice that whispered, Who do you love?, and then dreamed of making love with North.

  North had been sitting at his desk, working late to figure out a way to keep the next day’s jury from noticing his client was a total waste of space and air, when his mother opened his office door without knocking and walked in, elegant and annoyed, and said, “We need to talk.”

  Oh, hell, not now. North stood up. “Hello, Mother. How was Paris?”

  “Loud.” Lydia sat down, every platinum wave in place, the pearls around her throat in regimented rows.

  North sat down. “The little people talking in the streets again?”

  Lydia ignored that. “I assume Sullivan has been in.” She sat with her back straight and her arms along the arms of the chair, symmetrical and unbending.

  “Yes,” North said and waited to cut to the chase so he could get rid of her.

  “And?” Lydia said and waited.

  “He’s looking well.”

  “He always looks well. He’s my son. What did he say?”

  “He said you were in good health.”

  Lydia smiled, her lips curving in the tight little half circle that had sent opposing lawyers scurrying to offer settlements for forty years. “This is amusing, North, but I don’t have the time. What did Sullivan tell you?”

  North leaned back. “That’s privileged. I’m his lawyer.”

  “North—”

  “What do you want, Mother?”

  Lydia drew in air through her nose, her patrician nostrils flaring like a Derby winner’s. “He’s found another woman.”

  North nodded. “He does that.”

  “Or should I say, she’s found him.”

  North nodded. “They do that.”

  Lydia’s brows snapped together. “You are not being helpful.”

  “I don’t want to be helpful.”

  “He’s your brother—”

  “Which is why I don’t want to be helpful.” North straightened. “Mother, he’s thirty-four. And although you may not have noticed, he has a cheerful cunning that has kept him single and solvent through adulthood.”

  “Only because we were watching him,” Lydia snapped.

  “I never watched him.”

  “Well, you should have.”

  North smiled back at her, the same tight smile she’d given him, the one Andie had called “the crocodile smile.” Has the same sincerity as crocodile tears, she’d told him once in the middle of an argument. Just less emotion.

  He twitched his lips to get rid of it now. “Southie’s fine, he always has been. Leave him be.”

  “Southie?” Lydia said, suddenly alert.

  “Sullivan.”

  “You haven’t called him Southie in years.” Lydia narrowed her eyes. “What’s going on?”

  North sighed. “Mother, go away.”

  “He’s seeing that woman from Channel Twelve. The one obsessed with children in jeopardy who browbeats the people she interviews.”

  “Imagine that,” North said, meeting her eyes.

  “I do not browbeat people.”

  “Mother, you’ve made a career out of browbeating people.”

  “Witnesses,” Lydia said. “Lawyers. Not people.”

  “Thank God you have standards.”

  Lydia glared at him. “Are you telling me that that woman is like me?”

  North pictured Kelly O’Keefe in the last interview he’d seen her do, the one where the woman she was haranguing cried so hard she threw up on camera. “No.”

  Lydia sat very still for a few moments and then said, “I have heard it said that men either marry their mothers or their mothers’ opposites.”

  “Well, they’ll say anything.” North smiled at her, a real smile this time. “Mother, you are not like Kelly O’Keefe. Sullivan is not interested in her because he thinks she’s you. Neither of us is Oedipal.”

  “Oh, please,” Lydia said. “Andromeda was exactly like me.”

  North lost his smile. “I beg your pardon.”

  Lydia frowned at him again. “Aside from her teeth and those damn peasant skirts, she was practically my twin.” She thought for a moment. “Except for the baking. I don’t bake. I haven’t had decent banana bread since she left.”

  “No,” North said, showing what he thought was remarkable restraint. “I never looked at Andie and saw you.”

  “Not consciously, but a weak, silly woman would have bored you to tears.” She nodded once at him. “You picked a ballbuster, just like me.”

  “Excuse me,” North said. “I’d like to continue this conversation but I find myself in need of a therapist.”

  “Kelly O’Keefe is a stupid woman. She thinks bullying people will make her look tough. Instead, she just looks like a sociopath.” Lydia stared angrily into space. “I think she is a sociopath. They’re often very successful, you know.”

  “I know. I’ve defended several. Well, this has been—”

  “I’m going to call the McKennas, have them look into her. She’s hiding something. And of course, she’s using him.”

  North was tempted to argue the “of course, she’s using him,” but of course, she was. And of course, Southie was using her, too. It seemed fair. “No, you will not put a private detective on Kelly O’Keefe.”

  “Then I’ll have to meet her.” Lydia narrowed her eyes at him. “You should meet her, too. Your judgment is very good.”

  “I don’t even like watching her on television. Was there anything else?”

  “Yes,” Lydia said, exasperated. “I want you to stop Sullivan from seeing that woman. I don’t want teeth like that on my grandchildren.”

  “I doubt very much that Kelly O’Keefe will give birth.”

  “Which is another problem,” Lydia said. “Sullivan is my only hope for grandchildren. I don’t want all my genes in Kelly O’Keefe’s egg basket, especially if she’s not going to use them.”

  North raised his eyebrows. “Leaving aside Kelly’s . . . basket, Sullivan is your only hope?”

  “Well, you’re not going to give me any. You’ll never stop working long enough to procreate.”

  North opened his mouth to disagree and Lydia ran right over him.

  “