Nora Roberts - Unfinished Business - the classic story from the queen of romance that you won’t be able to put down

“He’s had a few…interesting offers. But they’ve eased off since he and your mother hooked up.”

Dumbfounded, Vanessa sat up straight. “Hooked up? My mother? Your father?”

“It’s the hottest romance in town.” He flicked her hair behind her shoulder. “So far.”

“My mother?” she repeated.

“She’s an attractive woman in her prime, Van. Why shouldn’t she enjoy herself?”

Pressing a hand against her stomach, she rose. “I’m going in.”

“What’s the problem?”

“No problem. I’m going in. I’m cold.”

He took her by the shoulders. It was another gesture that brought a flood of memories. “Why don’t you give her a break?” Brady asked. “God knows she’s been punished enough.”

“You don’t know anything about it.”

“More than you think.” He gave her a quick, impatient shake. “Let go, Van. These old resentments are going to eat you from the inside out.”

“It’s easy for you.” The bitterness poured out before she could control it. “It’s always been easy for you, with your nice happy family. You always knew they loved you, no matter what you did or didn’t do. No one ever sent you away.”

“She didn’t send you away, Van.”

“She let me go,” she said quietly. “What’s the difference?”

“Why don’t you ask her?”

With a shake of her head, she pulled away. “I stopped being her little girl twelve years ago. I stopped being a lot of things.” She turned and walked into the house.

Vanessa had slept only in snatches. There had been pain. But she was used to pain. She masked it by coating her stomach with liquid antacids, by downing the pills that had been prescribed for her occasional blinding headaches. But most of all, she masked it by using her will to ignore.

Twice she had nearly walked down the hall to her mother’s room. A third time she had gotten as far as her mother’s door, with her hand raised to knock, before she had retreated to her own room and her own thoughts.

She had no right to resent the fact that her mother had a relationship with another man. Yet she did. In all the years Vanessa had spent with her father, he had never turned to another woman. Or, if he had, he had been much too discreet for her to notice.

And what did it matter? she asked herself as she dressed the next morning. They had always lived their own lives, separate, despite the fact that they shared a house.

But it did matter. It mattered that her mother had been content all these years to live in this same house without contact with her only child. It mattered that she had been able to start a life, a new life, that had no place for her own daughter.

It was time, Vanessa told herself. It was time to ask why.

She caught the scent of coffee and fragrant bread as she reached the bottom landing. In the kitchen she saw her mother standing by the sink, rinsing a cup. Loretta was dressed in a pretty blue suit, pearls at her ears and around her throat. The radio was on low, and she was humming even as she turned and saw her daughter.

“Oh, you’re up.” Loretta smiled, hoping it didn’t look forced. “I wasn’t sure I’d see you this morning before I left.”

“Left?”

“I have to go to work. There’re some muffins, and the coffee’s still hot.”

“To work?” Vanessa repeated. “Where?”

“At the shop.” To busy her nervous hands, she poured Vanessa a cup of coffee. “The antique shop. I bought it about six years ago. The Hopkinses’ place, you might remember. I went to work for them when—some time ago. When they decided to retire, I bought them out.”

Vanessa shook her head to clear it of the grogginess. “You run an antique shop?”

“Just a small one.” She set the coffee on the table. The moment they were free, her hands began to tug at her pearl necklace. “I call it Loretta’s Attic. Silly, I suppose, but it does nicely. I closed it for a couple of days, but… I can keep it closed another day or so if you’d like.”

Vanessa studied her mother thoughtfully, trying to imagine her owning a business, worrying about inventory and book-keeping. Antiques? Had she ever mentioned an interest in them?

“No.” It seemed that talk would have to wait. “Go ahead.”

“If you like, you can run down later and take a look.” Loretta began to fiddle with a button on her jacket. “It’s small, but I have a lot of interesting pieces.”

“We’ll see.”

“Are you sure you’ll be all right here alone?”

“I’ve been all right alone for a long time.”

Loretta’s gaze dropped. Her hands fell to her sides. “Yes, of course you have. I’m usually home by six-thirty.”

“All right. I’ll see you this evening, then.” She walked to the sink to turn on the faucet. She wanted water, cold and clear.

“Van.”

“Yes?”

“I know I have years to make up for.” Loretta was standing in the doorway when Vanessa turned. “I hope you’ll give me a chance.”

“I want to.” She spread her hands. “I don’t know where either of us is supposed to start.”

“Neither do I.” Loretta’s smile was hesitant, but less strained. “Maybe that’s its own start. I love you. I’ll be happy if I can make you believe that.” She turned quickly and left.

“Oh, Mom,” Vanessa said to the empty house. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Mrs. Driscoll.” Brady patted the eighty-three-year-old matron on her knobby knee. “You’ve got the heart of a twenty-year-old gymnast.”

She cackled, as he’d known she would. “It’s not my heart I’m worried about, Brady. It’s my bones. They ache like the devil.”

“Maybe if you’d let one of your great-grandchildren weed that garden of yours.”

“I’ve been doing my own patch for sixty years—”

“And you’ll do it another sixty,” he finished for her, setting the blood pressure cuff aside. “Nobody in the county grows better tomatoes, but if you don’t ease up, your bones are going to ache.” He picked up her hands. Her fingers were wiry, not yet touched by arthritis. But it was in her shoulders, in her knees, and there was little he could do to stop its march.

He completed the exam, listening to her tell stories about her family. She’d been his second-grade teacher, and he’d thought then she was the oldest woman alive. After nearly twenty-five years, the gap had closed considerably. Though he knew she still considered him the little troublemaker who had knocked over the goldfish bowl just to see the fish flop on the floor.

“I saw you coming out of the post office a couple of days ago, Mrs. Driscoll.” He made a notation on her chart. “You weren’t using your cane.”

She snorted. “Canes are for old people.”

He lowered the chart, lifted a brow. “It’s my considered medical opinion, Mrs. Driscoll, that you are old.”

She cackled and batted a hand at him. “You always had a smart mouth, Brady Tucker.”

“Yeah, but now I’ve got a medical degree to go with it.” He took her hand to help her off the examining table. “And I want you to use that cane—even if it’s only to give John Hardesty a good rap when he flirts with you.”

“The old goat,” she muttered. “And I’d look like an old goat, too, hobbling around on a cane.”

“Isn’t vanity one of the seven deadly sins?”

“It’s not worth sinning if it isn’t deadly. Get out of here, boy, so I can dress.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He left her, shaking his head. He could hound her from here to the moon and she wouldn’t use that damn cane. She was one of the few patients he couldn’t bully or intimidate.

After two more hours of morning appointments, he spent his lunch hour driving to Washington County Hospital to check on two patients. An apple and a handful of peanut butter crackers got him through the afternoon. More than one of his patients mentioned the fact that Vanessa Sexton was back in town. This information was usually accompanied by smirks, winks and leers. He’d had his stomach gouged several times by teasing elbows.