McKettrick's Heart

“Coffee?” Florence asked. “Tea?”

“Water would be good,” Molly said.

“Fizzy stuff or regular?”

“Regular, please.”

Florence brought her a glass of ice and a bottle. While Molly poured, Florence took up an obstinate pose over by the sink, leaning against the counter with her arms folded.

“What are you doing here?” Florence demanded, evidently having withheld the question as long as she could.

Molly, about to take a sip of water, set her glass down again. “I don’t know,” she answered truthfully. Psyche had contacted her by phone a week before and issued an urgent summons, with very little accompanying explanation.

“We have to talk about this in person,” she’d said.

“Seems to me you’ve done enough damage,” Florence told her, “without coming here. Especially now.”

Molly swallowed. She was thirty years old, and she ran one of the biggest literary agencies in L.A., dealt with egotistical, high-powered authors, editors and movie people practically every day. Now, sitting in Psyche Ryan’s kitchen, clad in the jeans, T-shirt and sneakers she’d been wearing for forty-eight hours straight, she felt diminished, as though she’d regressed to her college days, when she hadn’t had the proverbial two nickels to rub together.

“Don’t give her a hard time, Florence,” a gentle voice interceded softly from somewhere behind Molly’s chair. “I asked her to come, and Molly was kind enough to agree.”

Both Molly and Florence turned, Molly rising so quickly that she nearly knocked over her chair.

Psyche stood framed in a doorway, a painfully thin woman clad in a peach silk robe and matching slippers. Two aspects of her appearance leaped out at Molly—one, Psyche was beautiful and, two, she was obviously bald beneath the little crocheted cap she wore.

“Will you look in on Lucas, please?” Psyche said to Florence. “He was still asleep a few minutes ago, but he’s not used to the house yet, and I’d rather he didn’t wake up alone.”

Florence hesitated, gave a terse nod, glowered once at Molly and left the kitchen.

“Sit down,” Psyche told Molly, gliding gracefully toward her.

Molly, who was used to giving orders, not taking them, immediately complied.

Psyche drew back the chair next to Molly’s and sat down with a little sigh and a gingerly wince. “Thank you for coming,” she said, offering a hand. “I’m Psyche Ryan.”

Molly shook the hand, found it weightless as a wad of tracing paper. “Molly Shields,” she replied. Her gaze drifted to Psyche’s cap, back to the pair of enormous violet eyes beneath it.

Psyche smiled slightly. “Yes,” she said. “I have cancer.”

A chasm opened in the bottom of Molly’s heart. “I’m sorry,” she said. About so much more than the cancer. “Is it…?”

“Terminal,” Psyche confirmed with a nod.

Tears of sympathy stung behind Molly’s eyes, but she didn’t allow herself to shed them. She didn’t know Psyche well enough for that.

Inevitably her mind fastened on Lucas.

Dear God, if Psyche was dying, what would happen to him? Having lost her own mother when she was fifteen, Molly knew the emptiness and constant undercurrent of fruitless searching that could result.

Psyche seemed to be tracking Molly’s unspoken thoughts—at least, some of them. She smiled again, reached across the tabletop to squeeze Molly’s hand. “As you know,” she said, “my husband is dead. Neither of us have any family. Since you’re Lucas’s biological mother, I hope…”

Molly’s heart leaped over the logical next conclusion, but she reined it in, back over the jump, afraid to risk the shattering disappointment that would follow if she was wrong.

“I’ve hoped you’ll care for him after I’m gone,” Psyche said. “Be his mother, not just on some paper in some file—but for real.”

Molly opened her mouth, closed it again, too shaken to trust her voice.

Psyche drew back a little, huddling in her exquisite peach robe, studying Molly with a worried expression. “Maybe I presumed too much, sending for you the way I did,” she said, very softly. “If you’d wanted to raise Lucas, you wouldn’t have given him up.”

Desperation, sorrow and hope swelled within Molly, a tangle of emotions she’d probably never be able to separate. “Of course I want him,” she blurted, lest Psyche reconsider and withdraw the offer.

Psyche looked relieved—and exhausted. “There are a few strings attached,” she warned quietly.

Molly’s heart scrambled up into the back of her throat. She waited, still terrified of tipping the balance the wrong way.

“Lucas must be raised in or around Indian Rock,” Psyche said. “Preferably in this house. I grew up here, and I want my son to do the same.”

Molly blinked. She owned a thriving literary agency in L.A., along with a house in Pacific Palisades. She had friends, an aging father, a life. Could she give all that up to live in a small, remote town in northern Arizona?

“Lucas will inherit a considerable estate,” Psyche went on. She took in Molly’s clothes and the worn backpack on the floor next to her chair. “I have no idea what your financial situation is, but I’m prepared to provide generously for you, until Lucas is of age, of course. You could turn the house into a bed-and-breakfast, if you wanted.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Molly said. “For you to give me money, I mean.” It was strange how quickly a life-changing decision could be made, if the stakes were high enough. Several of her clients, if not all, would balk when she told them she’d be operating out of Indian Rock from now on. Some would want out of their contracts, but it didn’t matter. Her bank accounts bulged, despite her lifestyle, and as agent of record she would collect commissions in perpetuity on the many works she’d already sold.

“Good,” Psyche said. She sniffled, took a tissue from the pocket of her robe and dabbed at her eyes.

For a few moments the two women sat in silence.

“Why did you give Lucas up?” Psyche asked. “Didn’t you want him?”

Didn’t you want him? The words blew through the bleak, weathered canyons of Molly’s soul like a harsh and bitter wind. She could have kept Lucas—she had the resources and certainly the desire—but she supposed that, like taking the bus from L.A., surrendering her son had been a way of punishing herself. “I thought he’d be better off with two parents,” she finally replied. It wasn’t the whole answer, but at the moment it was all she had to offer.

“I would have divorced Thayer,” Psyche said, “if it hadn’t been for Lucas.”

“I didn’t know—” Molly began, but she strangled on the rest of the sentence, couldn’t get it out.

“That Thayer was married?” Psyche prompted, not unkindly.

Molly nodded.

“I believe you,” Psyche said, surprising her. “Were you in love with my husband, Molly Shields?”

“I thought I was,” Molly replied. She’d met Thayer at a party in L.A., and immediately been swept away by his good looks, his charm and that sharp, albeit devious, mind of his. The pregnancy had been an accident, but she’d been happy about it, overjoyed, in fact—until she’d told Thayer.

After all this time, the memory of that day was still so painful that Molly turned away from it, pushed it to a back corner of her brain.

“My lawyer has already drafted the papers,” Psyche said, trying to rise from her chair, finding she was too weak and sinking into it again. “You may want to have them reviewed by counsel of your own before they’re finalized.”

Molly merely nodded, still absorbing the implications of Psyche’s words. Instinctively she got to her feet, helped Psyche to stand.