It was after ten, and the house was quiet. Her duties for the day were done. Giving the kitchen one last scan, she thought of going into her quarters, brewing some tea in her own little kitchen. Perhaps putting her feet up and watching some foolishness on TV.
Something, anything to keep her mind off her worries.
Wind rattled the windows and made her shudder, made her grateful for the warmth and security of the house. Then the back door opened, letting in rain and wind and biting air. Letting in so much more. Ann felt her heart jolt and stutter in her breast.
"Hello, Mum." The bright, sassy smile was second nature, and nearly reached her eyes as Margo combed a hand through the hair that dripped like wet gold to her waist. "I saw the light—literally," she added with a nervous laugh. "And figuratively."
"You're letting in the wet." It wasn't the first thing that came to Ann's mind, but it was the only practical one. "Close the door, Margo, and hang up that wet jacket."
"I didn't quite beat the rain." Keeping her voice light, Margo shut the storm outside. "I'd forgotten how cold and wet March can be on the central coast." She set her flight bag aside, hung her jacket on the hook by the door, then rubbed her chilled hands together to keep them busy. "You look wonderful. You've changed your hair."
Ann didn't lift a hand to fuss with it in a gesture that might have been natural for another woman. She had no vanity and had often wondered where Margo had come by hers. Margo's father had been a humble man.
"Really, it suits you." Margo tried another smile. Her mother had always been an attractive woman. Her light hair had hardly darkened over the years, and there was little sign of gray in the short, neat wave of it. Her face was lined, true, but not deeply. And though her solemn, unsmiling mouth was unpainted, it was as full and lush as her daughter's.
"We weren't expecting you," Ann said and was sorry her voice was so stiff. But her heart was too full of joy and worry to allow for more.
"No. I thought of calling or sending a wire. Then I… I didn't." She took a long breath, wondering why neither of them could cross that short space of tile and touch the other. "You'd have heard."
"We heard things." Off-balance, Ann moved to the stove, put the kettle on to boil. "I'll make tea. You'll be chilled."
"I've seen some of the reports in the paper and on the news." Margo lifted a hand, but her mother's back was so rigid, she let it drop again without making contact. "They're not all true, Mum."
Ann reached for the everyday teapot, heated it with hot water. Inside she was shaking with hurt, with shock. With love. "Not all?"
It was only one more humiliation, Margo told herself. But this was her mother, after all. And she so desperately needed someone to stand by her. "I didn't know what Alain was doing, Mum. He'd managed my career for the past four years, and I never, never knew he was dealing drugs. He never used them, at least not around me. When we were arrested… when it all came out…" She stopped, sighed as her mother continued to measure out tea. "I've been cleared of all charges. It won't stop the press from speculating, but at least Alain had the decency to tell the authorities I was innocent."
Though even that had been humiliating. Proof of innocence had equaled proof of stupidity.
"You slept with a married man."
Margo opened her mouth, shut it again. No excuse, no explanation would matter, not to her mother. "Yes."
"A married man, with children."
"Guilty," Margo said bitterly. "I'll probably go to hell for it, and I'm paying in this life as well. He embezzled a great deal of my money, destroyed my career, made me an object of pity and ridicule in the tabloid press."
Sorrow stirred inside Ann, but she shut it off. Margo had made her choices. "So you've come back here to hide."
To heal, Margo thought, but hiding wasn't so very far from the truth. "I wanted a few days someplace where I wouldn't be hounded. If you'd rather I go, then—"
Before she could finish, the kitchen door swung open. "What a wild night. Annie, you should—' Laura stopped short. Her quiet gray eyes lighted on Margo's face. She didn't hesitate, didn't merely cross that short span of tile. She leaped across it. "Margo! Oh, Margo, you're home!"
And in that one moment, in that welcoming embrace, she was home.
"She doesn't mean to be so hard on you, Margo," Laura soothed. Calming troubled waters was instinctive to her. She had seen the hurt on the faces of mother and daughter that they seemed blind to. At Margo's shrug, Laura poured the tea that Ann had brewed and Laura had carried up to her own sitting room. "She's been so worried."
"Has she?" Smoking in shallow puffs, Margo brooded. Out the window, there was a garden, she remembered, arbors that dripped with wisteria. And beyond the flowers, the lawns, the neat stone walls, were the cliffs. She listened to Laura's voice, the calming balm of it, and remembered how they had peeked into this room as children, when it had been Mrs. Templeton's domain. How they had dreamed of being fine ladies.
Turning, she studied her friend. So quietly lovely, Margo thought. A face meant for drawing rooms, garden parties, and society balls. And that, apparently, had been Laura's destiny.
The curling spill of hair was the color of old gold, styled with studied care to swing at her fragile jaw. The eyes were so clear, so true, everything she felt mirrored in them. Now they were filled with concern, and there was a flush on her cheeks. From excitement, Margo mused, and worry. Emotion always brought either quick color to Laura's cheeks, or drained it.
"Come sit," Laura ordered. "Have some tea. Your hair's damp."
Absently Margo pushed it back so that it cleared her shoulders. "I was down at the cliffs."
Laura glanced toward the windows, where the rain whipped. "In this?"