Nora Roberts: Best Laid Plans

Abra rose to move over and rest her cheek against his. "See that you do. I'll be back in a minute."

Barlow watched her take the same route as Jessie. "Guess if I were any prouder I'd bust my seams." He lifted his glass and took a long gulp. "Quite a pair, aren't they?"

"You could say that." He was feeling enormously proud himself.

"Ah, now that we've got a minute… Jessie tells me you and Abra are… close."

Cody lifted a brow. "Going to play papa, WW?"

Embarrassed, Barlow shifted in his chair. "Like I said, I never had a daughter before. Makes a man feel protective. I know Jessie would like to see that girl settled and happy. She thinks Abra's feelings might be serious. If yours aren't-"

"I love her." There. He'd said it out loud, and it felt wonderful. Cody savored it for a moment, finding it as rich and exciting as the wine. He hadn't expected it to feel good, hadn't expected the words to come so easily. As if experimenting, he said it again. "I love her. I want to marry her." The second part came as a surprise to him. It wasn't that he hadn't thought of the future, with her as a part of it. It wasn't that he hadn't thought of them spending their lives together. But marriage, the solidity of it, the absoluteness of it, came as a surprise. He found it a pleasant one.

"Well, well…" Doubly pleased, Barlow lifted his glass again. "Have you asked her?"

"No, I… When the time's right."

With a bray of laughter, Barlow slapped him on the back. "Nothing more foolish than a young man in love. Unless it's an old one. Let me tell you something, boy. You try to plan these things out-right time, right place, right mood-they never get done. Maybe you're not old enough to think about how precious time is, but take it from me, there's nothing worse than looking back and seeing how much you wasted. That girl…my daughter-" he puffed out his chest"-she's a prize. You'd better grab on before she slips away from you. Have another drink." He topped off Cody's glass. "Marriage proposals come easier if you're loose. Had to get damn near drunk to manage both of mine."

With an absent nod, Cody lifted his glass, and wondered.

Abra found Jessie in the ladies' lounge, sitting on an overstuffed white chair and sniffling into a hankie. Abra cast a helpless look around, then sat beside her.

"Did I say something wrong?"

Jessie shook her head and dabbed at her eyes. "No. You said everything right and made me so happy." She sobbed as she turned to throw her arms around Abra's neck. "I was so nervous about tonight, so afraid you'd sit there hating me."

"I've never hated you. I couldn't." Abra felt her own eyes filling. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I made things so hard on you before."

"No, you didn't. You never have. You've always been the one thing in my life I could count on. I've always asked too much of you. I have," she insisted when Abra shook her head. "I know I've let you down, over and over again, and I regret it. But I can't go back and change it." She drew back, and her smooth cheeks were streaked with tears. "To be honest, I don't know if I would if I had the chance. I've made mistakes, sweetheart, and you've had to pay for them." She dried Abra's cheeks with her damp handkerchief. "I never thought of you first, and you have the right to resent me for that."

Sometimes she had, and sometimes the resentment had edged toward despair. Tonight wasn't the night to think of it. Instead, she smiled. "Do you remember the time, I was about ten or eleven and that boy up the street-Bob Hardy-pushed me off my bike? I came home with my knees all bloody and my shirt torn."

"That little bully." Jessie's pretty mouth thinned. "I wanted to give him a good smack."

The idea of Jessie smacking anyone, even a grubby delinquent, made Abra's smile widen. "You cleaned me all up, kissed all the scrapes and promised me a new shirt. Then you marched right off to Mrs. Hardy."

"I certainly did. When I- How do you know? You were supposed to be in your room."

"I followed you." Delighted with the memory, Abra grinned. "I hid in the bushes outside the door and listened."

Jessie's color was a bit heightened when she meticulously replaced the hankie in her purse. "You heard what I said to her? Everything?"

"And I was amazed." With a laugh, Abra took her mother's hand. "I didn't know you had even heard those kind of words, much less that you could use them so… effectively.''

"She was a fat old witch." Jessie sniffed. "I wasn't going to let her get away with raising a mean, nasty hoy who pushed my little girl around."

"By the time you'd finished with her she was eating out of your hand. That night she brought that mean, nasty boy to the door by his ear and made him apologize. I felt very special."

"I love you just as much now. More, really." Gently she brushed Abra's hair from her temples. "I never k new quite how to deal with a child. It's so much easier for me to talk to a woman."

Because she was beginning to understand, Abra kissed her cheek. "Your mascara's running."

"Oh, no." Jessie took one look in the mirror and shuddered. "What a mess. Willie will take one look and run for cover."

"I doubt that, but you'd better fix it before we miss out on that champagne." Abra settled back comfortably to wait.

"That wasn't so bad." Cody stripped off his tie the moment they stepped into Abra's apartment.

"No, it wasn't." She kicked off her shoes. She felt good, really good. Perhaps her mother's marriage would go the way of her others. Perhaps it wouldn't. But they had crossed a bridge tonight. "In fact, it was nice. Champagne, caviar, more champagne. I could get used to it." When he wandered to the window to look out, she frowned at his back. "You seem a little distracted. Cody?"

"What?" He turned back to stare at her. She was wearing a white sundress sashed at the waist with a vivid green scarf. She never failed to knock him out when she was wearing something slim and feminine. Who was he kidding? She knocked him out when she was wearing dirty overalls.

A little confused by the way he was staring, Abra tried a smile. "I know I was pretty wrapped up in myself this evening, but I did notice how quiet you got. What's wrong?"

"Wrong? Nothing. I've…got some things on my mind, that's all."

"The project? Is there a problem?"

"It's not the project." Hands in his pockets, he crossed over to her. "And I don't know if it's a problem."

She felt her hands go cold. His eyes were very dark, very intense, very serious. He was going to end it, she thought, her heart trembling. He was going to end it now and go back east. Moistening her lips, she prepared herself. She'd promised herself that she would be strong when this moment came, that she wouldn't ruin what they'd had by clinging when it was over. Quite simply, she wanted to die.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

He glanced around the apartment. It was, as always, in chaos. There was no candlelight or mood music. He didn't have a rose or a diamond ring to give her. Then again, he was hardly the down-on-one-knee, hand-on-heart type. "Yeah. I think we should-"

The phone interrupted him, making him swear and Abra jolt. As if in a dream, she moved to answer. "Hello. I… Oh, yes. Yes, he's here." Her face blank, she offered Cody the receiver. "It's your mother."

A little skip of fear raced through him as he took the phone. "Mom? No, it's no problem. Is everything all right?"

Abra turned away. She heard snatches of his con-versation, but they floated in and out of her head. If he was going to break it off, she had to be strong and accept it. As Cody had only minutes before, she walked to the window and stared out.

No, it was wrong. The whole idea was wrong and had always been wrong. She loved him. Why the hell did she have to accept that it was going to end? And why was she automatically assuming that he was going to leave? It was hateful, she thought, closing her eyes. Hateful to be so insecure over the only thing, the only person, who really mattered.