the driver a fistful of bills he’d pulled out of his wallet. The man’s pleased grunt in response told him that he had probably well exceeded the amount due, even when taking a generous tip into account.
Pocketing the money, the cabdriver jumped out of the vehicle, quickly removed the carry-on luggage and set it on the sidewalk. In two seconds, he was back behind the wheel and driving swiftly away, as if he was afraid that his fare would suddenly change his mind and take back some of the cash.
Alone, Sebastian stood and looked at the dark house where he’d lived for all his formative years.
The relentless sense of urgency that had dogged his every move throughout the five and a half thousand miles slipped into the background, pushed there by a very real, gnawing fear that once he was in his mother’s company, he would hear something he wasn’t prepared to hear.
He knew he wasn’t being realistic, but as long as the details were not out in the open, he could pretend that they didn’t exist, or at the very least, that they were better than he’d been led to believe.
Sebastian frowned in the dark.
Since when had he become such a coward? he silently demanded. He’d always gone full-steam ahead, hiding from nothing, consequences be damned. His philosophy had always been that it was far better to know than not to know. That way, he felt that he was always prepared for anything.
Yes, but this is your mother, your home port. Your rock. The cornerstone of who and what you are.
He was, he realized, afraid of losing her. His mother had always been the one steadfast thing in his life. She was why he felt free to roam, to explore the depths and extent of the possibilities of his life. As long as she was there to anchor him, to return to, he felt free to fly as high as he wanted.
But if she wasn’t there …
Grow up, Hunter, Sebastian ordered himself.
He left it at that, not wanting to follow his thought to its logical conclusion. Instead, he made up his mind that if his mother needed him, he would be there for her, no matter what it took, just as she had always been there for him.
From the time that he was five years old, it had been just the two of them. It was time that he paid her back for that. For all the support, emotional and otherwise, that she had so willingly, so freely given him.
Exhaling a long breath, he braced himself. Sebastian slipped his hand into his right pocket, feeling around for a moment.
His fingers curled around a very familiar object.
His house key.
He always kept the key on his person—for luck more than anything else. But now he held it in his hand, intending to use it for its true purpose: to get him inside his house.
For a moment, he considered doing just that. Unlocking the door, walking in and surprising his mother. But given the fact that she had suffered a recent, mild—God, he hoped it was truly just that—stroke, surprising her like that might bring on a heart attack—or worse. Most likely not, but he was not about to take a chance on even a remote possibility of that happening.
So he took out his cell phone and pressed the second preprogrammed number on his keypad. A moment later, he heard the phone on the other end ringing.
Two more rings and then a sleepy voice mumbled, “Hello?”
Why was he choking up just at the sound of her voice? He wasn’t going to be a help to anyone if he kept tearing up, he admonished himself.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Sebastian!” Besides instant recognition, there was also an instant smile evident in her voice. “Where are you?”
“I’m right outside your front door, Mom,” he answered.
“My front door?” she echoed, suddenly wide awake. “Here?”
“You have another front door I should know about?” Sebastian joked.
She sounded great. Just the way she always did. Maybe there’d been some mix-up, he thought hopefully. Maybe she hadn’t had a stroke. After all, her blood work had always been good.
So good, in fact, that it had been the source of envy among her friends.
His mother had always been the healthiest woman he’d ever known. Which made this news so much harder for him to accept.
Barbara didn’t answer her son’s question. Instead, she said, “Well, don’t just stand there, Sebastian. Come in, come in,” she urged.
Before Sebastian could pick up his suitcase and cross from the curb to the tall, stained-glass front door, it all but flew open. His mother, wearing the ice-blue robe he’d sent her last Christmas, her salt-and-pepper hair a slightly messy, fluffy halo around her head, was standing in the doorway, her arms outstretched, waiting for her only son to fill them.
Sebastian stepped forward, ready to embrace his mother. But when he reached out to her, he almost wound up stepping on a very indignant gray-and-white-striped cat that was weaving itself in and out between his legs.
The cat was not shy about voicing her displeasure at having to put up with an intruder in her well-organized little world.
Sebastian pretended to take no notice of the feline as he bent over and hugged his mother. Relief surged through him like unleashed adrenaline.
“Come in, come in,” Barbara urged eagerly, stepping back into her living room.
As Sebastian took a step forward, the cat again wove in and out between his legs, narrowly avoiding getting into a collision with him.
When he almost tripped on the furry animal, he frowned more deeply. He looked down at the offending territorial creature with sharp claws.
“When did you get a cat?” he asked. His mother had never been one for pets, and he had grown up without one.
“Don’t you recognize her, Sebastian?” Barbara asked in surprise.
He shrugged. “Sorry. You’ve seen one cat, you’ve seen them all,” he tossed out casually.
“He doesn’t mean that, Marilyn,” she told the cat in a soothing voice. Turning toward her son, she said, “That’s the kitten you gave me before you left for Japan. She’s grown some,” she added needlessly.
“Grown ‘some’?” he questioned incredulously, looking back at the cat. The cat looked as if she could benefit from a week’s stay at a health spa. “She’s as big as a house.”
“Don’t hurt her feelings, Sebastian,” his mother requested. “She can understand everything that we say about her.”
A highly skeptical expression passed over his face. As much as he would have liked to humor his mother, there had to be a line drawn somewhere. He fixed the cat with a look meant to hold her in place for a moment.
“Get out of the way, cat.” The feline didn’t budge. Sebastian grinned as he turned to his mother. “Apparently not everything.”
“Oh, she understands,” Barbara maintained good-naturedly. “She just chooses not to listen, that’s all. Not unlike a little boy I used to know,” his mother concluded with affection.
Sebastian brought in his suitcase, leaving it next to the doorway. He closed the door, then paused and took full measure of his mother, after she’d turned on the lights inside the room.
“Mom,” Sebastian began, partly confused, partly relieved, “you look good. You look very good,” he underscored. “How do you feel?”
It was then that Barbara remembered she was supposed to be playing a part. For a minute, seeing her son standing there on her doorstep, every other thought had fled from her mind. As she considered what she was about to say, the deception threatened to gag her. But then she recalled the afternoon of coaching she’d undergone with Maizie. The matchmaker