Live to Tell (Live to Tell #1)(28)

Maybe, unlike his own father, he’s just not the paternal type. Maybe he’s more like his mother.

All he knows for sure is that he couldn’t help but favor the older kids—albeit unfairly—because their lives were more interesting. Faced with the choice of spending his precious weekend afternoons changing diapers or on the soccer field sidelines, he’d chosen the latter.

Of course Lauren, who was home with the baby 24–7, tended to complain about that.

“You’re the one who used to pray for rainouts,” he reminded her. “Now you want to go to the games?”

“Lucy and Ryan want me there.”

“They want me there, too.”

“But I have to get out of the house,” she said. “You’re out all the time.”

“Working,” he pointed out, and off they went on one of those maddening, can’t-win arguments.

Now Sadie, who hasn’t even been to kindergarten yet, is seeing a shrink. He could tell by the way Lauren discussed the situation that she probably blames that on him, too. Maybe it is his fault. But not entirely.

He supposes, looking back, that they could have just brought Sadie along to the autumn soccer and lacrosse matches, to the basketball court in winter, to Little League and girls’ softball games in spring.

But Sadie caught enough colds as it was, and the weather was often raw, and Lauren was overprotective, in Nick’s opinion.

Plus, it was such a hassle to lug the necessary gear—diaper bag, stroller, port-a-playpen—across the fields…

Excuses, excuses.

The truth is, Sadie arrived just when Nick was hitting his stride—as a corporate executive, as a husband, as a father, as a homeowner. Having a baby in the house again cramped his style and threw off the family rhythm. Not long after they found themselves with another mouth to feed, the economy began to tank. It was all Nick could do to hang on to his job as the axe fell all around him. Then his father got sick, was declared terminal, died.

How, he wondered back in those grim days, had his life become such a shambles?

“It was like falling off the carousel horse just as the brass ring was within my grasp,” is how he described it to Beth, not long after they met.

“Maybe not.”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe I’m the brass ring,” she said with a sly grin.

She was. Having Beth in his world revitalized him in ways he’d never dreamed possible. But even she can’t erase the baggage, the endless distractions, the responsibilities that will follow him for years to come.

There’s only one way to escape.

Well, two, if you count death.

The alternative, while infinitely more appealing, is hardly a viable choice.

Is it?

No, he tells himself firmly. You can’t run off with your mistress. You’re going back to the real world, and that’s that.

Nick takes one last, wistful look at the seascape before heading inside.



“Morning, Daddy.”

Startled by his daughter’s voice, Garvey looks up to see Caroline standing in the doorway of his den—not just awake at this early hour, but fully dressed in khaki shorts and a pale green polo.

He aims the TiVo remote at the television and presses the pause button, freezing the preternaturally cheerful morning news anchor in a gums-baring smile.

“Good morning, sunshine. Is the building on fire?”

Most teenagers, Garvey knows, would respond with a clueless “huh?” or just a blank stare.

Not Caroline Quinn.

“Pardon me?”

“I just can’t imagine that you’d be out of bed before seven on a Saturday morning for anything less than a full-scale emergency evacuation.”

His beautiful daughter rewards him with a chuckle and tosses her long black hair. “Actually, we’re evacuating to the Hamptons—did you forget?”

He frowns. “Where’s your mother?”

“Right here.” Marin appears behind Caroline, wearing a crisp white linen dress and a straw hat. Snow White and Rose Red, Garvey finds himself thinking, as he often does when his wife and daughter stand together. Marin a fair, blue-eyed blonde looking ten years younger than she is, and Caroline a striking brunette who appears—well, if not a full decade older than her years, then at least twenty-one.

Caroline’s rapid maturation scares him.

A lot of things about Caroline scare him.

Back in July when he fired Sharon, the summer nanny, he had fully intended to replace her. Caroline had convinced him that she and Annie would be fine for the remainder of the summer.

“I’m sixteen, Daddy,” Caroline had said. “I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself and Annie for a few weeks. Right, Annie?”

“She’s more capable than the Bubblehead,” was Annie’s assessment.

True.

But Garvey worries. If anything were to happen…

And now his wife is taking the girls out to the beach?

Much too dangerous.

Rip currents, sharks, Caroline in a skimpy bikini…

And I can’t be there to keep an eye on her.

“What’s this about the Hamptons?” he asks Marin.

“I told you yesterday—Heather Cottington invited us out for the weekend, and the girls and I are going.”