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  “I feel like . . . I feel . . .” Whatever words Claudia wanted to say washed off her tongue as she swallowed, stretched her neck under the sun. “I had no idea.” She trembled. “I had no idea. . . .”

  Rémi felt the minute tremors that signaled the start of orgasm. Claudia’s. Her own body trembled in response. The heat climbed higher in her belly. Her cheeks flushed.

  “I want you to come for me now, baby.” Rémi breathed the words into Claudia’s ear. Breathed them as her hips rocked and the ball of light rolled inside her, exploding finally to incinerate her senses.

  “Rémi!”

  “Yes, love. Yes.”

  Water birds, spots of brilliant white against the blue sky, glided over the water, calling passionately to each other. Waves lapping up on the rocks. The wind caressed the high grass, whispered incoherent love songs through the long limbs. Beneath Rémi, Claudia’s breath slowed to something like normal. Rémi kissed her parted lips.

  “I think you’ve put a spell on me,” Claudia whispered. Then she laughed, the sound ribboning up into the wind.

  Chapter 28

  “You two certainly looked refreshed,” Kelia remarked, looking the couple up and down as they came through the back door.

  Rémi closed it behind them and defiantly drew Claudia closer. “The view of the harbor is inspiring, as always.”

  Kelia’s smile flattened. “I’m sure.”

  “If you’ll excuse me,” Claudia said, cutting into the uncomfortable quiet. She pulled away from Rémi and took the blanket. “I’ll go upstairs to freshen up. Be right back.”

  Rémi watched her swaying backside disappear up the stairs, before turning back to her mother.

  “I wish I found the harbor so invigorating these days,” Kelia murmured, looking at her with an arched brow. “Some days I can barely tend to my garden and René without feeling drained.”

  “I think they have vitamins for that,” Rémi said.

  “But it’s not so much fun to take them solo.”

  Caught off guard, Rémi laughed.

  With an answering smile, Kelia led Rémi out of the hallway and into the den. She sank into the armchair near the darkened fireplace and sighed as she settled into its depths. Her slight figure almost disappeared into the large chair.

  Kelia’s body wasn’t the only thing that had downsized since Rémi’s last visit. The den as well as other areas of the house had lost furniture and become less cluttered, less claustrophobic. And there were no maids. Her mother seemed to be taking care of the house all by herself.

  “Thanks for inviting us to stay in the house.”

  Kelia pursed her lips, looking dismissive and insulted at once. “Where else would my child stay if not at home?”

  Rémi raised a mocking eyebrow. “At the B and B down by the lake, like last time.”

  Kelia winced. “Rémi. Don’t.”

  “Don’t what, Mama?” Rémi’s fingers tapped restlessly against her thigh. She fought the urge to walk out of the room. To leave her mother sitting there alone with her look of insulted parenthood. But she forced herself to sit still. “Please don’t pretend that everything is fine between us. I don’t have the energy for that right now. Things are complicated enough for me right now.”

  “With a new older woman, I can imagine how interesting life has become for you.”

  Was this how Kelia was going to welcome her back into the fold, by insulting her choice of girlfriend? Rémi clenched her teeth. “Please, don’t judge what I do with my life.”

  “I’m not judging. Just be careful.”

  “My involvement with Claudia is nothing for me to be careful of. You’re the one who hurt me. You’re the one I should be careful of.”

  Kelia’s hands burrowed into the pockets of her cardigan. “That’s not fair. Or true.”

  At the light sound of approaching footsteps, Rémi turned. Claudia appeared in the doorway seconds later.

  “Am I interrupting something?” she asked.

  “No.” Rémi glanced at her mother. “You’re not.”

  After a brief, hesitating look at Kelia, Claudia came fully into the room. She sat on the sofa, stretching out her legs and dropping her sandaled feet in Rémi’s lap. Rémi had a moment of déjà vu as Claudia gave her a gentling smile. That moment in Montréal came back to Rémi. The evening on the hotel balcony with the smell of the St. Lawrence River on the air and the drugs humming through her system like a low-grade fever. Claudia’s compelling beauty and Rémi’s irrevocable decision to get the older woman into her bed.

  Kelia cleared her throat. “My daughter and I were just discussing why she hates me so much.”

  A look of surprise flitted across Claudia’s face. She glanced first at Rémi then Kelia. “I don’t think she hates you. If anything, she hates the life you abandoned her to.” She paused as if carefully examining her next words. “Living without a mother is a hard thing. You left her to strangers. I’m sure she just feels that if you’d stayed in her life, she would have been a happier and better person.”

  “Do you feel that she would have been a better person?”

  “I can’t imagine her being better than she is now.” A smile played briefly around Claudia’s mouth before she sobered. “But happier, yes.”

  Kelia visibly swallowed. But she said nothing. Then: “We could all be happier with the hand that we were dealt in life.”

  Rémi wanted to howl in frustration. But she only shook her head. Why had she allowed herself to even hope that Kelia could see what she had done to her oldest child? As far as her mother was concerned, as long as Rémi hadn’t ended up on the streets, starved, or molested by strangers, she did her job well. Claudia’s foot intentionally grazed her arm but she couldn’t look at her lover.

  “And speaking of the hand that we were dealt, why are you with my daughter?”

  Rémi stiffened and opened her mouth. “That’s none—”

  But Claudia sat up on the couch, put a gentling hand on Rémi’s. “What do you mean by that? Doesn’t Rémi deserve someone to love her?”

  Love?

  Kelia looked away briefly, as if embarrassed. The reason for her asking that question backfiring spectacularly in her face. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Then tell me please, what exactly do you mean?”

  “You’ve had men in your life. A husband. You have grown children. Why are you with Rémi? You’re still attractive. You can still get a man. Why are you with my child?”

  Rémi swallowed. As much as she was insulted that Kelia, a virtual stranger to Claudia, would dare ask this question, she wanted to know the answer to it. They’d never talked directly about what had brought her into Rémi’s bed. She could have said no when Rémi pressed her. She could have walked away. But Claudia had done neither of those things.

  “Are you asking this as a concerned parent? Or are you trying to satisfy some kind of morbid curiosity?”

  “I’m asking out of concern for my child.” Kelia’s voice was soft. “You have to admit this situation is a bit unusual.”

  “This concern you have is a little bit too late, don’t you think?” Rémi sneered, unable to keep quiet.

  Claudia squeezed her hand again. “Darling, please. Let your mother talk.”

  Kelia glanced at her gratefully before turning to Rémi. “I know you think that I don’t care for you. Yvette thinks the same thing. But I wouldn’t have done what I did fifteen years ago if I didn’t love you.”

  “I’d hate to see what you’d do to someone you didn’t give a shit about.”

  “I’m with Rémi because I want to be.” Claudia spoke into the resulting silence. “And even though this is what I want and she is who I want, I admit to some nervousness about being involved with a woman for the first time. Sometimes I find myself worrying about what my friends will say, or even my ex-husband.” Her eyes flickered to Rémi. “I’m not perfect. I don’t even think I’m perfect for her. But I’m being selfish right now and taking every wond
erful thing that she has given me. I was happy with my husband, and after that with other men. Now, I’m happy with her.”

  In her oversized chair, Kelia drew a deep breath. “That’s hard for me to imagine, but you seem sincere enough.”

  “There’s nothing for you to image, Kelia. Just know that I love your daughter and won’t hurt her.”

  Rémi swallowed past the unexpected lump in her throat at Claudia’s declaration. “I hope that answers your questions, Kelia.”

  “For now.” Her mother looked at Claudia. “Thanks for sharing that with me. In spite of my misgivings, I appreciate your candor. Now”—she stood—“I’m going to see about dinner.”

  After Kelia walked out the door, Rémi pulled her lover into her arms. Kissed her unsmiling lips. “You said quite a mouthful just now.”

  “Yes, I know. Did that make you uncomfortable?”

  “Just the opposite.” She breathed in Claudia’s clean smell. “I can’t believe I waited so long for this.”

  “This is perfect timing. I wasn’t ready for us before.” The distance between them disappeared as their mouths met and their sighs tangled.

  A cleared throat just outside the den’s open door drew them apart.

  “What’s with all the smoochy-smoochy?” Yvette asked.

  “What’s with you calling kissing ‘smoochy-smoochy’? How old are you, anyway?” Rémi absently smoothed her hand down Claudia’s back, and she smiled when her lover shuddered beneath her casual caress.

  “Whatever.” Yvette laughed and shook her thick hair back from her face. “I came down to watch TV until dinner was ready, but if you’re going to do that”—she waggled a hand at their close bodies and entwined hands—“I can go back up to my room.”

  “Oh shut up and come in here.” Rémi waved her sister into the room. “If things were that serious we would’ve at least locked the door.”

  “You’d hope.” Claudia smiled.

  “You never know.” Yvette shrugged and dropped her slim form into the chair Kelia’d just vacated. She grabbed the remote. “Is Top Chef okay?”

  Rémi reached for the blanket draped over the back of the couch and pulled it over her legs and Claudia’s. “Whatever you want to watch is fine. Right, love?” She turned to Claudia.

  Her companion hummed in agreement and lay back into Rémi’s chest. Moments later, the television flickered to life and washed them in a cool, soothing gray light.

  Chapter 29

  “Mama, you shouldn’t have made all this food!” Yvette stared at the feast Kelia had prepared.

  “But I did, sweetheart.” Kelia leveled a dry look at her daughter.

  Rémi sat down at the table. Despite the quantity of food, the meal at the table was thankfully plain. And light. Caesar salad in a large wooden bowl, a platter of spring vegetables tossed with red sesame seeds, a whole roasted chicken, brown rice, wheat rolls still steaming from the oven, and fresh bread pudding sprinkled with crushed almonds and sitting in its clear Pyrex dish. Although Rémi wasn’t particularly hungry, she felt strangely pleased about the food on the table.

  Growing up, she had gotten used to her father’s monumental experiments in haute cuisine—dishes thick with butter, cream, and cheese that reminded him of the home he abandoned in Normandy. His endless versions of wine-laced boeuf bourguignon, meaty cassoulet, or canard à la Rouennaise all became too much for Rémi’s stomach. Not even breakfast was safe from his extravagant touch. She grew sick of crepes and quiches. During the first few months of her exile in Miami with Yvette and Kelia, Rémi had delighted in scrambled eggs on wheat toast. The simpler the meal, the more she loved it.

  Across the table, Claudia looked at the food with admiration. “The food looks wonderful, Kelia. But”—she exchanged a glance with Rémi—“we couldn’t begin to do this lovely meal justice.”

  “Don’t apologize. Just eat what you can. But don’t be surprised when you see the same thing on the table for lunch tomorrow.”

  “It’ll be nice to have this tomorrow afternoon, Kelia,” Rémi felt obligated to add. “Thanks for making it.”

  Her mother gave a strained smile. “I wish you’d stop calling me that.”

  “It is your name, isn’t it?” Rémi folded a napkin over her lap and reached for her water glass.

  “I’m your mother, damn you! Treat me like it.”

  Her sudden outburst brought all three pairs of eyes at the table swinging toward her.

  “Mom, please!”

  Kelia ignored Yvette, staring hard at Rémi. “I’m tired of this.”

  “Supporting someone financially doesn’t make you their mother,” Rémi said acidly, refusing to feel guilty.

  “Mama, you did do something wrong,” Yvette finally spoke up. “Please stop pretending that nothing was your fault. Daddy did terrible things, but you did too.”

  “I didn’t ask you back here to blame me, Yvette.”

  “Then why am I back here?” Yvette clenched her fist on the table. Did not look at her mother. “I’ve talked with Rémi. She’s not the bad person Papa made her out to be.” Her face became flushed with indignant blood and she blinked quickly as if fighting tears. “She’s pretty and she’s kind and she’s my sister. I still don’t understand why he kept saying those bad things about her. Or why you never once came to her defense. It was like you cut her off from you, just so you could be with Daddy.”

  Rémi reached blindly for her water again. Swallowed the cool liquid past the sudden lump in her throat. It was just like she had imagined. Her mother and Yvette living a life in Maine as if she never existed. But to hear it from her sister’s mouth . . . Nausea settled in the pit of her belly. She tore the napkin off her lap.

  “Excuse me.”

  Upstairs in her old room, she gently closed the door behind her, willing the tide of sadness to subside. She’d known. Dammit, she’d known. Shit! Moisture slid past her tightly closed eyelids but she pressed her fingers against it, wiping the tears away. This was not worth crying about. Not after all these years.

  Beyond the windows the bay glittered in the darkness. On the water’s surface, lights from pleasure-bound boats bobbed gently in the inky black. Rémi flinched when the door opened behind her, but didn’t turn around.

  “Darling.” Claudia’s low voice curled against her ears but Rémi shook her head, knowing that she needed something but uncertain about what it was.

  “Darling,” her lover said again, but she couldn’t look away from the comforting darkness beyond the window.

  A light hand settled on her back, smoothed over the tense muscles that bunched and released under her shirt. “Fourteen years is too long to carry this pain,” Claudia said. “Try to let it go.”

  Rémi rested her knee against the padded bench below the window and sagged against its frame. “I wish I could.” Her fist clenched, banged once against the window, rattling it. Claudia’s palm pressed against her spine.

  “Don’t hurt yourself over this.” Hands slid around to press against her belly. She felt Claudia’s cheek on her back, the delicate breath fanning her skin through the cotton shirt. “The time for pain is past, don’t you think? Allow this visit to be about healing and forgiveness.”

  A rusty chuckle worked its way past Rémi’s lips. “It’s not that easy.” Even now, her hand throbbed faintly with pain from its impact with the window. It felt good.

  “It can be easy. Just open yourself and let it go.”

  The hands crawled slowly up her belly, unbuttoning the shirt as they went. Rémi drew in a deep breath. “I don’t think—”

  “Now isn’t the time for you to think, my darling.”

  The shirt came away, then the white undershirt. From behind, Claudia grasped Rémi’s belt buckle and pulled until they faced each other. Her hands skimmed over Rémi’s belly, barely touched her skin. Her nipples. Goose pimples exploded over her arms. The fingers floated over her throat and settled gently around them as if to squeeze, but instead she reached up higher to gr
asp Rémi’s jaw and pull her head down for a searing kiss of teeth and tongue that dragged a premature grunt from deep in Rémi’s belly. The teeth yanked her mind from the pain of the last hour and settled her firmly in her lover’s unflinching gaze. Claudia was serious.

  Rémi licked her lips, willing now to be distracted. “I can see where you’re going with this.”

  “Good. I’d hate to think that I was being unclear.”

  With a growl, Rémi lifted Claudia up until they were at mouth level, turned to sit her on the window seat, and kissed her. Sucked the last taste of roasted chicken from Claudia’s tongue until all she drank in was the clean and intoxicating flavor of her lover, sipping her soft moans and feeling delicate arms around her neck.

  “Perfect,” Claudia murmured against her lips.

  Rémi pushed up her skirt, up past her thighs, and grazed her fingers atop the crotch of damp panties over the press of her needy clit. Yes. This was perfect; this was what she needed. Claudia opened her legs wider, making inciting noises in her throat, fingers sinking into Rémi’s shoulder and pulling her closer. She unbuckled Rémi’s belt, and Rémi’s belly jumped when her hand slid between cotton and flesh. The fingers effortlessly found Rémi’s clit, and her knees almost buckled.

  “Let me—” Ah! So good. Claudia’s thighs opened for her and the velvet pussy purred under her fingers. “Let me get my . . .” what was it that she wanted again? Her mind went blank. All she wanted was to get inside. To feel that sweetness around her hand. The panties were no barrier to her fingers. Cotton tore easily and the hot cunt eagerly swallowed what Rémi had to give. She groaned. So wet.

  With one hand, Rémi pulled off Claudia’s blouse, pulled the green silk out of the way to get to the hard nipples, the soft skin.

  “You taste like heaven,” Rémi whispered. “You feel like heaven.”

  She sucked the nipple into her mouth, and Claudia’s pussy greedily sucked her fingers in turn. Claudia fumbled up, her hands grasping for the window frame above her head, mouth parted, head thrown back, breasts even more in Rémi’s face. Yes. Her lover’s pleasure urged her on. The small noises she made in her throat. The way her hips thrust back against the fingers, hunting with frantic circling motions for pleasure. And she found it. Claudia groaned. Her fingers sank into the back of Rémi’s head.