LITMIR.BIZ

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supportive. Ten years younger than her brother, she was the kind of person who could walk into a room and fill it with light. During the early days after the accident, Ivy was as vital to their mother as pure oxygen.

      “Mom doesn’t need my company,” Mason pointed out. “I set her up in the best house we could find, hired a full staff, had the place retrofitted for her and the chair. I don’t know what the hell else I can do.”

      “Sometimes you don’t have to do anything,” said Ivy. “Sometimes just being there is all she needs.”

      “Not from me.” He checked the calendar on his phone. “So she’s already had the surgery to fix her collarbone. How long will she have to stay in the hospital?”

      “Probably not long,” Adam said. “We’ll know more when we meet with the doctors.” He sat forward in his chair, resting his forearms on his knees. “Listen, I was going to tell you this over dinner tonight. You’re going to be in charge of Mom for the next few months—maybe longer.”

      Mason dismissed the notion with a wave of his hand. “I can’t even stay a few hours. I’m supposed to go to LA with Regina the day after tomorrow,” he said. “She set up a meeting with a major new client.”

      He didn’t deem it prudent to mention at this time that he and Regina—his colleague as well as his girlfriend—had built a few days of surfing in Malibu into their work schedule.

      “You’re going to have to cancel it,” Adam said simply. “You need to stay with Mom.”

      “What the hell do you mean, stay with her?”

      “Live at the lake house. Make the place your base of operations.”

      Mason recoiled. “What’s this about?”

      “I have to go away for a while,” Adam said. “Special training. For work.”

      Mason immediately turned to Ivy.

      She put up both hands, palms out. “My fellowship in Paris, remember? The one I’ve been working toward for the past five years? It starts next month.”

      “Postpone it.”

      “Right. I’ll just tell the director of the Institut de Paume to keep a slot open for me.” Ivy raised her sunglasses and fixed him with an intense glare. “You’re up, bro.”

      “Okay, fine, but I’m not moving up to the Catskills. I’ll have my assistant find another live-in aide.”

      “Damn it,” Adam said. “Mom needs family. She needs you.”

      Mason had provided a lengthy roster of hired help, material things and creature comforts for their mother. He had spared no expense—elevators, adaptive devices—nothing was too good for Alice Bellamy.

      Thanks to Mason, she wanted for nothing.

      Except the one thing no one could give her, and all of Mason’s millions could never provide.

      Some troubles could not be solved by throwing money at them.

      Yet he couldn’t imagine anything worse than being trapped in a small town with his bitter, wounded mother with whom—unlike his brother and sister—he’d had a rocky relationship since he was a teenager.

      And now he was expected to move in with her.

      Oh, hell, no, he thought.

      “What kind of special training?” he asked Adam.

      “I’m getting certified in arson investigation. I’ll be up in Albany for twelve to sixteen weeks.”

      “Seriously?”

      “He’s having girl trouble,” Ivy said. “It’s the geographic cure.”

      “Shut up, brat. I am not having girl trouble.”

      “Okay, let’s call it lack of girl trouble.”

      “What? Come on.” To Mason’s surprise, Adam’s face turned red. “It’s complicated. And speaking of complicated, exactly how many frogs have you kissed this year alone?”

      Ivy often bemoaned the state of her love life, and Mason had no idea why. She was gorgeous, a total sweetheart, a little bit nutty, and everyone loved her. Just not the right guy, he supposed.

      “You shut up,” she retorted, and Mason heard loud echoes of their childhood years seeping into the exchange.

      “Both of you shut up,” he said. “Let’s focus on what to do about Mom.”

      “Ivy’s going to Paris to get laid—”

      “Hey.” She punched him in the arm.

      “And I can’t change the dates of the training course to suit your travel schedule. You’re up, Mason.”

      “But—”

      “But nothing. It’s your turn to step up.”

      Mason scowled at his brother and sister. It was hard to believe the three of them shared the same DNA, they were all so different. “Not a chance in hell. There’s nothing my being there can help. No damn way I’m moving to Willow Lake.”

       3

      “I’d kill the fatted calf for you, but I’m a bit indisposed at the moment,” Alice Bellamy said when Mason arrived at the estate on Willow Lake.

      “That’s okay. I’m a vegetarian anyway.” Mason wondered if his mother realized that he had not eaten meat since the age of twelve.

      Crossing the elegant room to where she sat near a window, he bent down and brushed his lips against her cheek. Soap and lotion, a freshly laundered blouse, the smells he had always associated with her. Except in the past, she’d been able to offer the briefest of hugs, to reach out with her hand and smooth the hair back from his brow, a gesture that had persisted since his childhood.

      Concealing a wrenching sense of sorrow, he took a seat across from her. He studied her face, startled at how little she had changed—from the neck up. Shiny blond hair, lovely skin, cornflower blue eyes. He’d always been proud to have such a youthful, good-looking mom. “You broke your collarbone,” he said.

      “So I’m told.”

      “I thought you’d be in a cast or a sling or something.”

      She pursed her lips. “It’s not as if I need to keep my arm immobilized.”

      “Uh, yeah.” Since the accident, he didn’t know how to deal with his mother. Who was he kidding? He’d never known how to deal with her. “Are you in... Does it hurt?”

      “Darling boy, I can’t feel anything below my chest. Not pain or pleasure. Nothing.”

      He let several seconds tick past while he tried to think of a reply that didn’t sound phony or patronizing or flat-out ignorant. “I’m glad you’re all right. You gave us a scare.”

      More silence echoed through the room, an open lounge with a massive river-rock fireplace, fine furnishings and floor-to-ceiling shelves crammed with books. Everything was spaced and arranged to accommodate his mother’s chair. There was a corner study with a big post office writing desk and another corner with a powerful brass telescope set on a tripod. The baby grand piano, which had occupied every house the family had ever lived in, was now a resting place for a collection of photos.

      The ever-present view of Willow Lake was framed by French doors, which could be operated by a switch. “So anyway,” he said, “we’ll get you fixed up with a new helper right away. My assistant is working with a couple of agencies already.” He checked his watch. “I’ve got plenty to keep us busy for the day. The lawyer is coming in half an hour. Are you up for that?”

      “Lawyer?”

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