Liam folded his arms across his chest. “Forget it. No room at the inn.”
“You can’t just turn us away,” Mick protested. “We’re family. You owe us.”
Liam’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t owe you anything. You and Crocket ruined most of my life, but no more. From this day forward, my name is Liam Blackstone. And if you ever try to come near me or touch anything else I own, I’ll set the law on you.”
Mick sputtered in outrage. “We don’t have anything left! They canceled my book.”
“Am I’m supposed to feel sorry for you? Get off my ship.” Liam grabbed Mick’s satchel and threw it onto the pier below, where it landed with a splat, scattering Mick’s paltry belongings over the planking. He reached for Ruby’s sack next, but she clutched it to her chest and started heading toward the gangway.
Mick reluctantly followed, spewing obscenities that echoed across the harbor. Gwen recoiled at the vile tone, but it was a terrible peek into the crude world her brother came from. Liam’s knuckles were white as he clutched the railing, but his face was emotionless as he watched Mick and Ruby walk out of his life.
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
Liam took a while to respond as he stared into the darkened marina. “Yeah, it hurts. It shouldn’t, but it does.”
She understood. The crime Mick perpetrated against her entire family was going to be hard to forgive, but it would be hardest for Liam. He was probably right in making a clean break with the Malones. Like her, Liam was going to have to cut ties with the past before stepping into a new future.
41
Patrick spent the two weeks after the steel merger dealing with a flurry of cases from his regular clients. He fended off evictions, helped a man charged with illegal dumping, and defended a woman arrested for jaywalking while drunk. He visited men in jail to arrange for bail and filed lawsuits against insurance companies who refused to pay on their claims. None of it was glamorous or involved massive corporate mergers, but these cases meant the world to the people he served, and he burned the midnight oil chipping away at the backlog of paperwork.
His mother had returned to her job at the bakery. It was as if she’d never been sick. She still made him dinner each evening, pestered him to get married, and played pinochle with Mrs. O’Shea on the weekends.
One evening she brought home a special cake. The vanilla layer cake featured the shield and motto of Blackstone College.
“I’d like to thank Mrs. Kellerman,” Birdie said. “We can’t afford to pay her for the serum, but I want her to know I’m grateful, and a cake is the only thing I can offer.”
“It’s a nice gesture,” Patrick said, but guilt gnawed at him. A cake seemed embarrassingly paltry compared to what Gwen had done for them. He could never repay her for the serum, and then he’d made things worse by leading her to believe they might have a future together. They both got carried away building castles in the air, and it was his fault for letting it go too far.
“You’ll take it over to her, then?” Birdie didn’t look at him as she diced carrots for a stew.
He scrambled for an excuse. “Don’t you think it would look better coming from you?”
She shook her head. “I’m cooking dinner, Patrick. She knows who baked that cake, but I think you should take it over.”
He sighed. His mother was matchmaking and he didn’t like it, but he’d look like a coward if he wormed out of it. Besides, he probably needed to settle things with Gwen. The last time he’d seen her had been during the disastrous party on the yacht when he fished her cousin out of the water. He owed her the respect of a proper farewell, even though it wasn’t going to be easy on either of them. He loved her, but nothing could ever come of it.
He put the glass cover over the cake and set off for the streetcar stop. It took forty minutes to get to Blackstone College, all the while awkwardly holding a cake on his lap, but soon he was walking down the tree-shaded avenue to her house. The leaves were just beginning to turn, the sun was setting, and it looked as pretty as a postcard as he headed up the walk to her front door.
Gwen’s artistic flair could be seen everywhere. Chrysanthemums bloomed in the garden, and lovely ironwork scrolls framed the door. He swallowed hard and rapped the iron knocker, feeling a little foolish holding a cake in front of him.
After a moment, a beautiful blond woman answered the door. “Can I help you?” she asked.
He was taken aback. “I’m looking for Gwen Kellerman.”
“She doesn’t live here anymore,” the blond woman said, her voice cool.
He couldn’t believe it. He angled his head to look past the woman and down the hallway of Gwen’s house. The furniture was different, and a little girl with braces on her legs read a book in the front parlor.
“Are you Vivian?” he asked, and his stomach sank when she replied in the affirmative. Unbelievable! How many times had he nagged Gwen to get moving on that unenforceable will her scoundrel of a husband had scrawled? She obviously hadn’t, and now she’d lost her house because of it. “Where has she gone?”
Vivian crossed her arms. “Who are you? Are you from the college?”
He shook his head. “I’m her lawyer. Where has she gone?”
“She’s gone to live on some sort of boat. I have no idea where it is.”
The Black Rose. It had to be. It wasn’t right that Gwen should be ousted from her home because she couldn’t stand up to her faithless husband’s mistress. She deserved better than that.
