Chesapeake Blue (Chesapeake Bay Saga 4) - Page 52

  "Now you can yell at him," Ethan muttered.

  "You paid her? You've been paying her?" Shock vibrated as Cam stared at Seth. "What the hell's the matter with you? We'd've booted her greedy ass to Nebraska if you'd said one goddamn word about it. We took all the legal steps to keep her away from you. Why the hell did you let her bleed you?"

  "I'd've done anything to keep her from touching any one of you. It was just money. For Christ's sake, what do I care about that as long as she went away again?"

  "But she didn't stay away," Anna said quietly. Quietly because her own temper was simmering under the surface. If it boiled over, it would make Cam's seem like a little boy's tantrum. "Did she?"

  "No, but—"

  "You should've trusted us. You had to know we'd be there for you."

  "Oh God, Anna, I knew that."

  "This isn't the way to show it," Cam snapped.

  "I gave her money." Seth held out his hands. "Just money. It was all I knew how to do, to protect you. I needed to do something, anything I could to pay you back."

  "Pay us back? For what?"

  "You saved me." Emotions swelled in Seth's voice and the almost desperate flood of them silenced the room. "You gave me everything I've ever had that was decent, that was clean, that was fucking normal. You changed your lives for me, and you did it when I was nothing to you. You made me family. Goddamn it. Goddamn it, Cam, you made me."

  It took a moment before he could speak, but when he did Cam's voice was rough, and it was final. "I don't want to hear that kind of crap from you. I don't want to hear about fucking checks and fucking balances."

  "That's not what he meant." Struggling with tears, Grace spoke softly. "Sit down now. Sit down now, Cam, and don't slap at him that way. He's right."

  "What the hell does that mean?" But Cam dropped back in his chair. "Just what the hell does that mean?"

  "He never lets me say it," Seth managed. "None of them ever let me—"

  "Hush now," Grace said. "They did save you, and they started it when you were nothing more than a promise to their father, because they loved him. Then they did it for you, because they loved you. All of us loved you. If you weren't grateful for what they did, for what they've never stopped doing, there'd be something wrong with you."

  "I wanted to—"

  "Wait." Grace only had to lift a finger to stop him. "Love doesn't require payment. Cam's right about that. There are no checks and balances here."

  "I needed to give something back. But that wasn't all. She said things about Aubrey." He stared at Grace as the color ran out of her face.

  Aubrey, who'd been silently weeping, found her voice. "What? She used me?"

  "Just things like wasn't she pretty, and wouldn't it be a shame if anything happened to her. Or her little sister, or her cousins. Christ, I was terrified. I was fucking fourteen. I was scared to death if I said anything to anybody she'd find a way to hurt Aubrey, or one of the kids."

  "Of course you were," Anna said. "She counted on that."

  "And when she said I owed her for all the trouble I'd caused her, how she needed a few hundred for traveling money, I figured it was the best way to get rid of her. Jesus, Grace was pregnant with Deke, and Kevin and Bram were just babies. I just wanted her gone and away from them."

  "She knew that." Sybill let out a sigh, rose to go to the coffeepot. "She knew how much your family mattered to you, so that's what she used. She was always good at finding just the right button to push. She pushed mine often enough when I was a lot older than fourteen." She laid a hand on his shoulder, squeezed as she topped off mugs. "Ray was a grown man, but he paid her."

  "She'd go away, months at a time," Seth continued. "Even years. But she came back. I had money. My share from the boatyard, what you gave me from Ray, then from some paintings. She hit me twice when I was in college, then came back for a third. I'd figured out she wasn't going anywhere, not for long. I knew it was stupid to keep paying her. I had the chance to go to Europe to study, to work. I took it. Wasn't any point in her coming around here if I was gone."

  "Seth." Anna waited until he looked at her. "Did you go to Europe to get away from her? To get her away from us?"

  The look he sent her was so fierce, so full of love it made Dru's throat hurt. "I wanted to go. I needed to find out what I could do with my work, on my own. That was just another door you opened up for me. But in the back of my mind… Well, it weighed in, that's all."

  "Okay." Ethan turned his mug in slow circles. "You did what you thought you had to do then. What about now?"

  "About four months ago, she showed up on my doorstep in Rome. She had some guy with her she was stringing along. She'd heard about me—read stuff—and figured the pot was a whole lot richer now. She said she'd go to the press, to the galleries, and give them the whole story. Her story," he amended. "The way she'd twisted it around. Dragging Ray's name through the dirt again. I paid her off, and I came home. I wanted to come home. But it turns out I brought her back with me."

  "You never brought her anywhere," Phillip corrected. "Get that through your thick head."

  "Okay, she came back. Only this time the money didn't send her off again. She's been staying around, somewhere. She came into Dru's shop."

  "Did she threaten you?" Temper fired into Cam's face again. "Did she try to hurt you?"

  "No." Dru shook her head. "She knows Seth and I are involved. So she's added me to the mix, using me as another weapon to hurt him. I don't know her, but from everything I've heard, everything I'm hearing, she wants that as much as she wants money. To hurt him. To hurt all of you. I don't agree with what Seth did, but I understand why he did it."

  Her gaze traveled around the table, from face to face. "I shouldn't be sitting here at this table while you talk about this. This is family business, and as personal as it gets. But no one questioned my being here."

  "You're Seth's," Phillip said simply.

  "You can't know how special you are. All of you. This… unit. Whether Seth's trying to protect that unit was right or wrong, smart or stupid doesn't much matter at this point. The point is he loved you all too much to do otherwise—and she knew it. Now it has to stop."

  "There's a woman with brains

," Cam said. "Did you pay her tonight, kid?"

  "No, she set new terms. She'll go to the press, tell her story. Blah blah." He shrugged, and realized a great deal of the weight on his shoulders had already lifted. "But she's got a new spin, pulling Dru into it. Senator's granddaughter in sex scandal. It's bull, but if she does it, it's going to pull everybody in. Reporters hounding her at the flower shop, hounding all of you, turning her family upside down. All of us, too."

  "Screw her," Aubrey said, very clearly.

  "Another girl with brains." Cam winked at Aubrey. "How much she want this time?"

  "A million."

  Cam choked on the coffee he'd just sipped. "A million—a million fucking dollars?"

  "She won't get a penny." Face grim, Anna patted Cam on the back. "Not a penny this time, or ever again. Is that right, Seth?"

  "I knew when I sat with her in that dive she had me meet her in, that I had to cut it off. She'll have to do whatever she's going to do."

  "We won't be sitting on our hands," Phillip promised. "When are you supposed to meet her again?"

  "Tomorrow night, with a ten-thousand-dollar down payment."

  "Where?"

  "This redneck bar in Saint Michael's."

  "Phil's thinking." Cam grinned a wide, wide grin. "I love when that happens."

  "Yeah, I'm thinking."

  "Why don't I start some breakfast." Grace got to her feet. "And you can tell us all what you're thinking."

  DRU LISTENED to the ideas, the arguments and, incredibly from her point of view, the laughter and casual insults as a plan took shape.

  Bacon sizzled, eggs were scrambled and coffee was brewed. She wondered if the lack of sleep had made her dull-witted, or if it was just impossible for an outsider to keep up with the dynamics.

  When she started to get up, to help set the table, Anna laid a hand on her shoulder, rubbed. "Just sit, honey. You look exhausted."

  "I'm all right. It's just I don't think I really understand. I suppose Gloria hasn't committed an actual crime, but it just seems as if you should talk to the police or a lawyer instead of trying to deal with it all yourselves."

  Conversation snapped off. For a few seconds there was no sound but the gurgle of the coffeepot and the snap of frying meat.

  "Well now," Ethan said in his thoughtful way, "that would be one option. Except you have to figure the cops would just tell Seth how he was a moron to give her money in the first place. Seems we've already covered that part here."

  "She blackmailed him."

  "In a manner of speaking," Ethan agreed. "They're not going to arrest her for it, are they?"

  "No, but—"

  "And I guess a lawyer might write a whole bunch of papers and letters and what-all about it. Maybe we could sue her or something. You can sue anybody for any damn thing, it seems to me. Maybe it goes to court. Then it gets ugly and it drags out."

  "It isn't enough to stop the extortion," Dru insisted. "She should pay for what she's done. You work in the system," she said to Anna.

  "I do. And I believe in it. I also know its flaws. As much as I want this woman to pay for every moment of pain and worry and unhappiness she's brought Seth, I know she won't. We can only deal with now."

  "We deal with our own." Cam spoke in a tone of flat finality. "Family stands up. That's all there is."

  Dru leaned toward him. "And you're thinking I won't stand up."

  Cam leaned right back. "Dru, you're as pretty as they come, but you're not