Danger, Sweetheart Part 17

"Holy s.h.i.+t." At the rare epithet from Natalie, both Tarbells glanced at her, startled, then at what she was speaking of: the black stretch limousine at the far end of the driveway, just pulling in.

His mother's eyes went round as she put two and two together. One could argue that anyone could have commandeered a limousine from the airport and ordered the driver to take them three hundred miles into the Dakota prairie. Except not anyone would. Someone would, though, and his mom would know who. Fascinated (and not a little terrified), Blake realized he could almost see her working it out. Blake + Heartbreak his resentment insatiable curiosity = Dammit, Blake!

When she shouted, he was surprised the porch windows didn't shatter on impact.

"Blake Tarbell!"

Blake almost dropped his gla.s.s, recovered, toasted his mom, then turned to Natalie. "You should be running."

Twenty-five.

This is the most amazing thing I've ever seen, and that counts the time Blake was hosing down Margaret of Anjou with one hand and reading her Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 3, with the other.

Natalie knew it was wrong to feel such excitement, knew she shouldn't be a witness to this. She felt like a spectator at a tennis match where the players had guns instead of rackets and the prize was murder. But Blake was fascinating and his mom was fascinating and his grandmother! Holy G.o.d!

"You activated the nuclear option," Shannah was saying, arms folded across her chest. "Touche, my son."

"You left me little choice, Mom. h.e.l.lo, Nonna. Booze-ade?"

An older woman right out of central casting for Well-Off Caucasian Grandmother, Blake's grandma (the nuclear option?) had left the limo before the driver had even unbuckled his seat belt, and was now standing before them on the porch. Natalie saw at once that she and Blake had the same eyes, that wonderful riveting deep blue, and the same coloring, pale skin and dark blond hair. Hers was streaked with silver and pulled back in a neat chignon. She was wearing an old-fas.h.i.+oned tweed skirt, a cream-colored blouse with a bow, sensible black low heels, a black cardigan (in the country! it was seventy-four degrees!), a small string of pearls, and an honest-to-G.o.d faux fur snugged around her throat.

"I came as soon as you called." She accepted Blake's offer and took a gla.s.s. "Well, as soon as you called, plus several hours for travel. I woke up," she added with a wistful look at the horizon, "in Boston. But this is nice, too."

"Thank you, Nonna. This is my employer, Natalie Lane."

Shannah's brow wrinkled into a frown, but Blake's grandma interrupted before she could comment. "This is delightful! Fresh lemon juice ... um ... sugar syrup? And rosemary? And something else I can't quite put a name to..."

"Vodka," Natalie said helpfully. "Lots."

"Yes, thank you, dear." Natalie felt the near burn of the woman's examination and saw Blake shared more than her coloring. "My grandson spoke of you when he wasn't pleading for rescue."

"Nonna..."

"He said you work hard and resolutely refuse to take c.r.a.p from any source."

"Oh. That's, um, yeah." Smooth, Nat. "That was nice of him."

"Mrs. Tarbell, I'll thank you not to interfere in this matter between my sons and me."

"Oh, is Rake here, too?" she asked, the picture of innocence. "And for heaven's sakes, Shannah, I've been asking you to call me Ruth for decades."

This time it was Blake's turn to pipe up with a helpful comment. "Rake is in Venice. Against his will, apparently."

News to Natalie. But not to Shannah, she noticed, because the woman didn't blink. "We're not here to discuss Rake."

Because Rake is terrible, Natalie mouthed at Blake, who, to her delight, stifled a chuckle.

"Quite right. I'm here to have lunch with Blake and his friend Natalie. Oh, thank you." Trish Miller, who helped run the B and B with her sister and brother-in-law, had appeared with another place setting. She winked at Natalie and headed back to the kitchen. To her relief, the other diners had left and they had the long three-season porch to themselves.

Blake's Nonna adjusted her faux (the woman screams money might not be faux fur might be actual fur), seated herself, then turned and waved at the limo. The driver started the engine and began backing out of the driveway.

"Don't worry," she told Natalie, who wasn't worried at all. "He'll come back for me tomorrow. Oh yes. More of this please." Natalie obligingly filled the older woman's gla.s.s. "Tell me about your farm. Heartache?"

"Heartbreak. It's not really my farm, I'm just-" She had to be careful. Shannah knew Natalie didn't work there. "-just helping while we figure out ... while we try to-" What? She didn't know anymore. And Blake had never known, through no fault of his own. What was any of this for?

"Well, it's kind of you-"

"I'm not kind."

"-to put up with my grandson." A light, almost brittle laugh. "I can't imagine how much work he is."

"He's not work. He does work." Wow. Here thirty seconds and Shannah's freaked and Blake looks like someone clipped him with a brick. Nuclear option indeed.

"No need to exaggerate, dear. My grandson knows a little bit about almost everything. Not enough to be satisfying. Just enough to drive you to distraction. 'Keep this up and you'll give me an aneurysm.' 'Actually, at your age a heart attack is more likely, Nonna.' 'Shut up, darling.' 'Very well, Nonna.'"

Natalie giggled. "Sorry, Blake, but she's got you dead to life."

"Now, about your farm, I'm sure he thinks it's work, going on and on about the endless minutiae of, say, how farming goes back to the ancient Greeks-"

"Neolothic era, actually," Blake said quietly.

"-while the people around him are the ones getting their hands dirty."

"You don't know what you're talking about, Ms. Tarbell. He gets his hands dirty." Natalie reached for his wrists-they'd shuffled seats to accommodate the nuclear option, so Natalie was now sitting beside Blake. "Look! He works harder than anyone. He's putting farmhands to shame." Well, Gary. Which wasn't much of a trick, actually. "See?"

"It has been decades, actual decades, since someone told me I didn't know what I was talking about." She leaned forward, inspecting Blake's palms, and looked back up at her with one of the sweetest smiles Natalie had ever seen. "And in this, you're right. I didn't know. Thank you."

A test, Natalie realized when the older woman instantly dropped the sn.o.bbish affectation and patted Blake's hands. She was testing me. What a bat.

"Your poor hands, darling, you have to take better care." Then, to Natalie: "Isn't he marvelous?" Blake's loving grandma was looking at him like-well, like a loving grandma. "My son's looks," she added fervently, almost like a prayer, "and Shannah's brains. An outstanding combination."

Natalie agreed, and couldn't help notice the look of surprise on Shannah's face. Compliments from Miz Tarbell aren't something she's used to, maybe. But without knowing how she knew, Natalie at once sensed it was more than that. Shannah's family history would have made it impossible to open up to a stranger. She would have never, could have never, let anyone in, especially Blake's grandmother. She would have known by then of the Banaan family curse.

Blake cleared his throat. "The reason I called you, Nonna-"

"You want your money back. Well. My son's money, G.o.d rest his silly soul." The smile dropped off as if plucked, and the woman's blue eyes went dark with sorrow. "A fool, but my fool, and my fault. The money-my money-it ruined him."

Blake sighed. "Apples and oranges, Nonna. I am nothing like my father. There's no need to punish me for the things he's done. Money hasn't ruined my life. It didn't ruin his."

"Wrong, and wrong, and it's not punishment, dear."

"No? Have you asked my mother?"

"Atonement isn't punishment."

Shannah looked ready to bolt, and Natalie didn't blame her.

"I am almost thirty years old," Blake said through gritted teeth. "It is inappropriate for you to sit in judgment of me and levy fines on what you perceive as my bad behavior. Your arbitrary actions have forced me to go over your head."

"You squealed on me," was Shannah's flat reply.

"Well, yes. And now you must reap the whirl-"

"I'm not giving you any money, Blake," his grandma put in.

"What?"

"I didn't give your mother control of the trust to second-guess her. She did a fine job of raising my son's children; I won't cast doubt on her judgment now, for all you're grown men."

"What?"

"My son chose your mother, Blake. I have to respect his choice. He wouldn't want me to undermine her the minute things aren't going your way."

"Chose?" Blake shoved his chair back, doubtless to leave, then checked himself and stayed put. To rant, apparently, because he followed up with, "Can we please stop romanticizing their one-night stand? They barely knew each other! They married when Rake and I were born because you would have cut him off otherwise. It was a shotgun wedding and you were holding the eight gauge."

"Twelve gauge," Natalie mumbled. G.o.d, he was so cute when he tried to sound like a local yokel. And his voice, already deliciously deep, seemed to drop into the bas.e.m.e.nt as he gave way to fury.

"They never lived together! They barely spoke in the years before he died. It's time to face the truth of his marriage, Nonna: Your son lost interest in my mother about eight seconds after he filled the condom ouch!"

He clutched his face and glared. Natalie, raised by hunters, hadn't even seen Miz Tarbell's arm move. I could learn from this woman. Natalie traded glances with Shannah. Never in life did I think anyone could intimidate Shannah Banana. This is fascinating agony. Don't panic, don't panic.

"Do not lie." Blake's sweet li'l old lady grandma was sitting tall and straight, her back not touching the chair and sunlight flas.h.i.+ng on her pearls. "You know the idiot didn't use a condom."

"Actually, I didn't. Rake put it down to 'birth control fail' and I agreed."

"I should g-"

Blake's hand shot out and grabbed Natalie's wrist as she started to rise. "Her version has gotten ever more saccharine over the years, Natalie. Would you like to know how it truly was?"

She sat. Couldn't help herself. These people were insane, and fascinating, and insane.

Twenty-six.

"Dead?" Rake stared at the older woman who had been waiting, along with their mother, in the kitchen when he and Blake got home from school thirty seconds ago. The kettle had boiled; there were two cups of tea on the card table along with the plastic sugar bowl and spoons.

"Our father's dead?"

"I'm afraid so, boy." Their mother was gripping the back of the folding kitchen chair and he could see how white her knuckles were. "This is your grandmother, Ruth Tarbell. Ruth, this is-"

"My son's seed!"

Rake actually flinched back. "Oh, man. Please don't call us that." He would have said more, because even at thirteen Rake was terrible, but Ruth Tarbell had crossed the faded kitchen tile and hauled both boys into a hug that smelled like lemon and felt like tweed. "Thank G.o.d, oh thank G.o.d. Look at you, so handsome. I haven't seen you since you were babies when I made your idiot father-when I was at the wedding."

"Thank you," Blake managed. "It's nice to meet you."

"Oh, man," Rake muttered. "I'm missing b-ball practice for this."

After a decade, their lemon-scented tweed-clad grandmother released them from the prison of her embrace. "You're surprised," she observed.

"People aren't usually this happy to meet us," Blake admitted. "Rake is terrible."

"Blow it out your b.u.t.t sideways, Blake. Um, Mom, are you...?" Rake trailed off, went to their mother, and slipped an arm around her waist. And not to show off how tall he was getting, for a change. "Um, I know you guys were technically married, but it's okay to be sad. And it's okay to not be sad. Right, Blake? That's okay?" He looked over at his brother with a hopeful expression.

"Of course." The exchange, Blake noted, had not been lost on their grandmother. And that's our family dynamic in a nutsh.e.l.l: Mom is nominally in charge; Rake is the rebel but checks with me on issues of acceptable behavior; I'm somehow the arbiter of when to mourn. Or not mourn.

"See, Mom? Blake's all 'it's cool.' So if you're sad-"

"I am fine, Rake." She patted the hand he had around her waist. "Thank you. Mrs. Tarbell-"

"Ruth, darling."

"-was telling me about your father's will. It seems- It seems he left us some money."

"Oh. That's good, right, Mom?" Blake balanced her checkbook and knew any amount of money would be an improvement. No one worked harder than his mother, who had flatly forbidden him to get a job; his job, she explained, was to study and get good grades; she would worry about the rest of it. He would, of course, get a job anyway. Never mind waiting until he was sixteen, either. There were advantages to being the genetic double of a criminal mind with poor impulse control. Rake would know who could forge him a new birth certificate.

In the meantime, perhaps their dissolute father had left as much as four or five thousand dollars. School had only just started and already he and Rake needed money for athletic fees, school supplies, book covers, and terrible ma.s.s-produced lunches. Their jeans were getting too short again, too, and the ones they were wearing were less than four months old.

"Look, you don't expect us to cry or anything, right? I mean, we get how you'd be upset, but we're kind of not." Rake hadn't budged from their mother's side, and his grandmother's expression was inscrutable. "Because he never visited. We didn't know him. I mean, we're sorry for you, Mrs. Tar-"

"Please don't call me that. Ruth, if you like. Nonna, if you want to know my preference."

"Italian for 'Grandmother,'" Blake spoke up.

Ruth Tarbell turned the full force of her gorgeous smile on him for the first time. "Clever, clever boy."

"Oh, gross," Rake groaned.

"G.o.d, you're both his very image." It seemed for a moment that tears would threaten, but she willed them back. Her smile never slipped. "I'm told you have your mother's brains. Thank the Lord."

"Yep, praise Jesus and all that, so what'd he leave us?"

"Rake." Their mother said it quietly enough, but Rake snapped his mouth closed so fast Blake heard teeth click. He indulged the rare impulse to side with his brother.

"It's a fair question, Mom. Nonna wouldn't have come all this way for no good reason."

"Everything," was the simple reply. "He left you everything."