The Bad Daughter(48)

Robin shook her head. “We should go back.” She turned and hurried down the road, Blake on her heels.

The man and his Harley were nowhere in sight when they reached her sister’s driveway.

They stood for several seconds in silence, Robin aware that Landon was staring down at them from his bedroom window.

“Do you want me to leave?” Blake asked.

“I want you to do whatever you feel is right.”

“Damn it, Robin. I’m asking what you want.”

Robin stared into Blake’s face, catching her father’s reflection in the shadow falling across his eyes. It took all her resolve to push that image aside, although she felt it lingering just outside her line of vision. “I want you to stay.”





CHAPTER EIGHTEEN


They left for the hospital before ten the next morning.

“Somebody looks happy,” Melanie commented, climbing into the backseat of Blake’s car. “I take it you two slept well.”

“We did,” Robin said from the front seat, smiling as she snapped her seat belt into place.

“The bed big enough for the two of you?”

“We managed,” Blake said.

“Hopefully you managed quietly. Teenage boys are quite impressionable, as I’m sure you remember.”

“I think we were pretty quiet,” Blake said easily. “Don’t you, Robin?”

Robin smiled. The fact was they’d gone right to sleep. They were both completely spent—Blake from his long drive, Robin from the events of the day, and both of them from tiptoeing around the eggshells that Melanie had been constantly scattering at their feet. They’d managed a few tender kisses and tentative caresses before being overwhelmed by a combination of fatigue and the relentless rocking from the next room. Robin had lain beside him, wrapped in the comforting cocoon of his embrace, feeling the steady beat of his heart against her back.

“I’m not your father,” he’d told her. “You have to stop projecting his face onto mine. You have to trust me.”

He was right, of course.

But it would be hard. To do it, she’d have to let go of the only thing that connected her to her father, to loosen her viselike grip on the past. Could she do it?

Did she want to?

However destructive, there was something inherently comforting about familiar patterns. As a therapist, she knew that efforts to change, to break free of ingrained habits, were usually accompanied by counter-instincts to “change back,” to take refuge in the way things had always been.

The past is always with us.

Did it have to be?

She woke to the touch of Blake’s lips grazing the top of her shoulder as his hands reached around to cup her breasts. Was she dreaming? Seconds later, he was lifting her nightgown and pushing gently into her, his face buried in the nape of her neck. They rocked together, their bodies unconsciously mimicking the rocking coming from the next room. If this is a dream, Robin thought, it’s the best dream I’ve had in a long while.

Except there was no question now that they were awake. Instead of Blake’s warm breath on the nape of her neck, she felt the heat of Melanie’s impatient sighs from the backseat.

“Everything all right back there?” Blake asked, checking his rearview mirror.

“Hunky-dory,” Melanie replied.

“I take it that Landon won’t be joining us.”

“Landon’s not very keen on hospitals.”

“Don’t know many people who are,” Blake said, backing down the driveway. “You’ll tell me where to go?” he asked as they reached the road.

“With pleasure,” Melanie said.

Robin released a sigh of her own. “Can we please give the sarcasm a rest for a few hours?”

Melanie laughed. “Oh, lighten up.” She sat forward in her seat, stretching toward Blake. “Tell me, Blake. Is my sister always this humorless?”

“Are you always this angry?” he asked in return.

“You think I’m angry?”

“Aren’t you?”

“Maybe,” Melanie surprised Robin by answering. “Wouldn’t you be, if your sister suspected your son was a murderer?”

“What?” Robin said. “I never said that.”

“Not in so many words. But you’d rather think Landon is a killer than your precious Alec.”

“If I really thought Landon is a killer,” Robin protested, sidestepping the real issue, “wouldn’t I be afraid to sleep under the same roof?”

“Not necessarily,” Melanie said, as calmly as if she were discussing the weather. “I mean, even if he did shoot everybody else, he’d have no reason for killing you. Other than that you’re a bit of a wet blanket,” she added. “See what I mean, Blake? Not even a chuckle.”

Blake squeezed Robin’s hand, the gesture telling her not to snap at Melanie’s bait.

“Any idea how long you’ll be staying in Red Bluff, Blake?” Melanie asked.

“Guess it will depend on what happens.”

“You mean on how long it takes my father to die,” Melanie replied. “Your office doesn’t mind?” she continued, not waiting for Blake’s response.

“I have my computer, my phone,” he said. “I can pretty much work from anywhere.”