“Will you be okay with Mari for a few minutes while I go speak to my mom?” Liam asked Natalie, his voice low. Eric had turned to talk to Allison Trainer, the manager of the Family Center. Liam thought Natalie’s brother might be avoiding him, but he couldn’t fault Eric for wanting to maintain peace.
“Of course,” Natalie assured.
He had a moment’s trepidation at leaving her in a crowd. It was quashed when he saw how comfortable she seemed, chatting with Mari as they walked toward the promontory of the Silver Dune and the memorial fountain Marc had donated to the Family Center last year.
Liam headed toward the Center and his mother, the increasingly familiar combination of dread and determination rising in him.
Natalie left Eric and Mari at the silent auction and went in search of Liam. He’d seemed thoughtful…intense, ever since that phone call from his father’s old administrative assistant. When he’d said a while ago he was going to speak to his mother, she couldn’t help but feel some trepidation. She didn’t want to run into Brigit Kavanaugh necessarily, but she was concerned enough to go in search of him.
She ran into Marc Kavanaugh carrying his daughter at the entrance to the Family Center. Liam and his elder brother looked a lot alike, but she found Marc more intimidating for some reason.
He stared at her in surprise.
“Natalie? It’s so great to see you,” Marc said, leaning down to give her a kiss of greeting. Rylee must have thought she was undergoing a person-to-person transfer, because she put her chubby arms around Natalie’s neck, and the next thing she knew, the adorable little girl was in her arms.
“Whoops…sorry. I’m a little worried about her, she’s so shy,” Marc said amusedly as his daughter proceeded to stroke Natalie’s hair and stare at her with huge brown eyes framed by thick, dark lashes.
“Pitty,” Rylee said with sober earnestness.
“Thank you,” Natalie responded instantly before she grinned, utterly charmed. “Oh, she’s adorable.”
Rylee grabbed a fistful of the “pitty” hair and tugged. Marc was there to unclench the little fist immediately.
“I better take her back before you think she’s about as adorable as Attila the Hun.”
“I’m fine,” Natalie assured, laughing. But when Rylee went for another handful of hair, Marc swooped the little girl back into his arms.
“Are you looking for Liam?” Marc asked.
Something about the way he asked the question made Natalie think Liam had spoken to his brother about her.
“I was, yes,” she said.
Rylee waved an arm toward the crowd and said something that sounded like “Enny.”
“He’s inside,” Marc said a little distractedly as his daughter continued to wave her arm.
“Enny,” Rylie repeated more energetically.
“Okay, okay. We’ll go find your cousin Jenny. Sorry,” he told Natalie. “I’m nothing more than her highness’s chariot. I move at her command. It’s good to see you here, Natalie.”
“Thanks. I’ll see you later. ’Bye Rylee.”
Rylee watched her with big eyes over her father’s broad shoulder as they walked away. Natalie smiled and entered the air-conditioned interior of the Family Center. She couldn’t help but think that Marc didn’t seem half as imposing or intimidating when he held his daughter in his arms.
Natalie had been inside the Family Center several times to do some bookkeeping and other paperwork. She usually came during regular business hours, so she wasn’t used to the silence that reigned at the moment. Now that she’d entered the premises, she started to realize how intrusive it might seem for her to interrupt Liam and his mother. She paused in the hallway, feeling uncertain. She started when Liam spoke, his voice much closer than she’d expected.
“You knew him, didn’t you? You knew Lincoln DuBois.”
Her heart seemingly leaped into her throat when a closed office door just three feet away from her jostled in the catch, as if someone had just leaned on it…or placed a hand on it, preventing it from opening?
“Don’t walk away,” she heard Liam’s quiet voice warn.
“Who do you think you are, asking me these questions?” Brigit Kavanaugh spoke for the first time, her voice cold with fury.
“I’m your son. I’m Derry’s son, too. And
I have every right to ask about Lincoln DuBois after seeing Dad’s reaction to him on that videotape. DuBois grew up in South Lake Tahoe. So did you, Mom. You went to the same private high school for two years before grandpa got transferred to Chicago. He’s a famous man—a billionaire I don’t know how many times over. You’d think you would have mentioned at least once that you went to school together. Are you still going to deny knowing him?”