Serendipity By Rocky

CHAPTER 13

She was antsy. No, that wasn't right. She was scared. Amy bustled around the small house, dusting, straightening; anything to keep her mind occupied. What was going to happen tomorrow morning pestered her like a sore tooth. The more she moved through each of the rooms, the more she was reminded it could all be gone. All the precious bits and pieces that made up what was left of the life of her Aunt and Uncle would be scattered and lost.

It was impossible to think of Uncle Paul as more than that. She didn't want to touch the hurt that stood only a step away, threatening to consume the love she felt for him and Christen. Certainly they had their reasons for keeping the ugly truth from her, but that did not make the ache any less. Rory was in the other room even now poring over the document that proved her paternity and the enormity all that entailed left her feeling small and lost.

Walking over to a small table filled with pictures and knick-knacks, Amy lovingly ran her fingers across the glass on the front of a gilt framed snapshot. It was her favorite. Her Aunt and Uncle smiled back, wearing matching alpine mountaineer hats and each holding up enormous steins of beer. With their arms around one another, they were forever toasting their love of life and each other.

She hadn't noticed she was crying until a drop of water and salt splashed against the glass. Hugging the photo to her chest, she squeezed her eyes shut, fighting the pain that rose up in her heart like a hungry fire.

"Hey." A soft voice spoke above her head, as two warm arms encircled her, simply holding her gently and waiting with careful patience.

Rolling her head back to rest on the warm strength of her lover's shoulder, Amy soaked up the waves of caring like sunshine on a summer's day. They stood together like that for an eternity-long moment until their shared love pulled her back from the abyss of sorrow. "Thank you." She said softly and turned into the embrace. "I don't know why you put up with my bouts of melancholy. I hope you know that I never used to be such a cry baby."

Rory stroked a glistening tear that hovered, fat and round on the upturned face, with the tips of two fingers. "My Grandmother used to say, 'The more you cry, the less you have to pee." She grinned at the faint smile that appeared and ran her hands over the soft skin on Amy's upper arms. "What have you got there?" She asked, tapping one finger on the frame in the young woman's arms.

"It's the last trip Uncle Paul and Aunt Christen took before he died." Amy said turning the small frame so they could both see it. "They took a hiking tour of the Alps. This was taken at Innsbruck… I think."

Rory scanned over the two smiling faces. "They look so happy and healthy, what happened?"

"It was so stupid really, Uncle Paul was a very healthy man, and that's what killed him. He had never been to the doctor for anything serious in his life and what he thought was the flu turned out to be Viral Pneumonia. He kept refusing to go to the hospital, until finally Aunt Christen simply called an ambulance and forced him to go. ...He never came home."

Pulling her glasses down off the top of her head, Rory inspected the photo closer. She looked at the handsome man, blond hair curled out from under the hat and over his ears, and it hit her how familiar the warm smile was. "You know Honey, I can see the resemblance. He was a very nice looking man."

"Do you think so?" Amy took back the picture and looked at it with new eyes. The picture was too small to see it but she knew that he had green eyes. She had never wondered why her own eyes were green, considering the dark brown eyes of her father and her sister and her mother's blue eyes. She bit her lip as the realization hit home. The little piece of her that had refused to believe crumbled and gave in. "Why?" She asked the two people in the photo.

"We'll find out why honey, I promise." Rory said quietly. "The key, I'm sorry to say, is your mother. She's the only one left with any answers, so we are going to have to confront her some time."

Amy put the picture back down on the table and turned with a shy little grin. "You still want to moon my mother?"

Chuckling, Rory was pleased with the change of mood in her lover. "Flash, moon, obscene phone calls, you just name it and I'm there. But I can't hate her completely, after all… She gave birth to the woman I love." Bending slightly, she put a chaste little kiss on the tip of Amy's nose. "Seeing how well her daughter turned out, she couldn't have been all bad."

Setting the bitterness aside. Amy thought back to the good times she had growing up. The love she'd had for her family before they'd turned their backs on her. "No, I guess as far as moms go, she wasn't that bad. Dad was the strict one, and Mom simply went along with whatever he said."

"How about Sherri?"

Noticing that her lover was starting to wobble from standing on one leg, Amy eased her back onto the nearest seat, and crawled up into her lap. She absently played with the buttons on Rory's shirt for a moment and then looked up into the loving blue eyes. "I think Sherri's rejection was what hurt the most. We were very close, she was my little shadow right up until I left for College."

Rory ran her hand in slow lazy circles on Amy's back. "Did you ever think that maybe she was jealous and hurt by your leaving?"

Cocking her head to one side, Amy regarded her lover like she had uttered something totally profound. "No… I hadn't even considered that. I always thought that she felt the same way as my parents. It never occurred to me that she might have her own agenda." Amy chewed her bottom lip in thought. "She said that she had come up to the house to check on me…" She frowned. "Maybe she really meant that and I jumped down her throat."

Tracing one finger down Amy's cheek, Rory smiled. "You were both upset. Don't beat yourself up about it." Drawing the smaller woman in for a long hug, the exec smiled as she felt warm lips doing a feather light dance up her neck and across her jaw line. "Mmm… Feeling better are we?"

"You always make me feel better." Amy mumbled into the ear she was nibbling on. "I think I'll keep you."

Rory arched one brow and leaned back to catch the impish look on her lover's face that was compounded by the presence of the colorful shiner. "You 'think' you'll keep me?"

"Yeah. One more 'test drive' and I'll know for sure." Amy replied with a wink, and pressed in close for a long lingering kiss.

The two women were a tumbled mess of arms, legs and loosened clothing when the doorbell rang like the end of a round in a wrestling match. They both groaned and parted, panting lightly. "Are you expecting anyone?" Rory asked annoyed, looking in the direction of the front door.

"No." Puzzled, Amy disentangled herself and rose to answer what was now insistent tapping.

The sight through the window in the door slammed Amy's heart into her throat. She opened the door with a ferocity that surprised even her. "Mother… What do you want?" She asked through clenched teeth.

The short red headed woman looked up into her estranged daughter's face. "Amanda… What ever happened to your eye? You're not into that M&M sex now too!"

Amy didn't know whether to laugh or scream. She leaned against the jamb, one hand over her mouth to hold in whichever it was. A soft thump-thump came up from behind her. She could sense the presence of her lover standing behind her. More amusing was the look on her mother's face as Amy watched Eleanor's eyes track up, up, up to the face of the tall woman.

Turning her head up, the small blonde caught sight of the cocked eyebrow and answered the unasked question. "Rory, this is my mother; Eleanor Stafford." She turned back to see the gaping look on the even shorter red head. "Mother, this is my lover," Her tongue tasted the word 'lover' as it passed her lips, with eager glee. "…Rochelle Winters."

A little strangled sound escaped from Eleanor's lips, and a hand moved unconsciously to the necklace at her throat. It was as if she shrank even further under the glacial scrutiny of those cutting blue eyes.

Rory shuffled forward on her crutches and extended her hand. "Hello Mrs. Stafford, I've heard a lot about you." Her smile was supposed to be warm and friendly but instead it seemed to say, 'Say the wrong thing to your daughter and I'll stuff this crutch up your ass!' The smile had a matching evil gleam in the tall woman's eyes.

Amy's mother looked down at the large hand like it was an alien thing that was about to bite her. Grasping the tips of the fingers gingerly in a quick shake, she looked over at her daughter. "May I come in?" She asked cautiously.

The irony was not lost on Amy. If only her mother had simply asked in the first place instead of trying to break into the house. Suddenly she felt superior to her mother. Armed with presence of her tall lover and the secret knowledge of what she suspected the visit was really about, she graciously stepped back and let her mother enter the house. "Certainly. Why don't you go have a seat in the front room." Reaching out to pat Rory on the arm she asked quietly, but still loud enough for mother to hear. "Baby, will you go put the coffee on?"

"Sure honey!" Rory replied, with a little more volume than she really needed, and winked before she thumped her way down the hall to the kitchen.

Eleanor was sitting in the high back cane chair in the corner rather than the couch or its partnered love seat. 'How Freudian,' Amy noted as she entered the room. 'Mom picks the tallest piece of furniture in the room and the only one where she's in no danger of sitting with either one of us.'

"So Mother…" Amy perched on the sofa, the seat closest to her mother. "Tell me the real reason for your visit. I know that you can't really be interested in whether or not I indulge in 'M&M' sex." She had to fight to keep a straight face, as the image of rolling nude in a pile of brightly colored candy with a certain tall brunette flashed through her mind.

Pursing her lips, Amy's mother focused a glare aimed directly in the middle of Amy's forehead. It would seem that she hadn't worked up the courage to look her in the eye. "You don't have to be snide 'Amanda', this is all your fault."

Amy sat back, her eyes wide with surprise. "My fault!"

"Yes. I know it was you who hired that nasty man who told those awful things to the police." Eleanor ran her hands down to her knees to smooth her skirt and tugged at the hem. "I want you to tell them to drop the charges and that this was all an terrible mistake."

A thousand emotions stampeded through the small blonde's psyche. She wanted to laugh at her mother. She wanted to strike out and physically hurt her. She wanted to scream, rant, cry, tear her hair out… anything. Jaw hanging open, she sat. Here she was, a grown woman who hadn't spoken more than a handful of words to her mother in the past six years, rendered mute like a small child.

The sensation of the sofa cushions next to her, sinking under the weight of her lover, broke the spell. Without looking her hand reached out and found warm slender fingers that clasped her own. A small squeeze and Amy found her voice again. "Come off it Mother, why were you and Sherri trying to get into the house in the first place?"

Eleanor frowned as she felt the control of the room shift back to her daughter. Time passed with the long measured ticking of the hall clock as her gaze traveled over the towering woman and the clasped hands. Out of her depth she fell back on the offensive. "I 'Do Not' need reasons to enter my own sister's home." She said thrusting out her chin in defiance.

"Until tomorrow, this is 'My' home mother."

"That's just a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo, and you know it Amanda." Eleanor replied waving her hand as if to clear a bad smell. "Chrissy was my sister and I am a beneficiary in her will. Mr. Twist said so. Although I can't see what all the fuss is about. Just look at all this cheap bric-a-brac." She leaned back indicating the contents of the room. "It's going to take days to clean all this out."

Rory could feel the anger rolling up through Amy's small frame. Now was not the time for a crime of passion, so she leaned in and spoke low into Amy's ear. "Honey will you please help me bring in the coffee?"

The soft whisper in Amy's ear startled away the words of anger and hurt that were working their way up to her lips. "What? …Oh sure Baby." She looked back at her mother. "Excuse us moment." The cool air of the polite statement felt like the coming of the next ice age.

Amy was pulling a tray and coffee mugs from the cupboard when the hand on her shoulder tugged her gently around. She looked up into the face of compassion and sucked in a shuddering breath. "Thank you for keeping me from murdering my mother."

"You're welcome." Rory rolled her eyes. "Although I really couldn't blame you if you did. She's quite a piece of work." Her wry smile changed to a sober thoughtful look. "You know you're going to have to let her win this one…"

Amy frowned and looked at Rory like she'd lost her mind.

"…Or we'll never get the truth." The exec paused to brush one blonde curl behind Amy's ear. "One small call to the police won't kill you. Just make sure that she knows that she is in your debt."

Walking over to the coffee maker to begin filling the cups, Amy stared out of the kitchen window for a moment. "Okay. But if she starts harping on trashing the stuff in the house, I want you to do something to make her really uncomfortable."

Flashing a smile full of teeth, Rory winked and turned back down the hall.

Looking up to see that the tall woman had returned to the front room alone, Eleanor tried to hide the look of fear from her face by quickly examining the polish on her nails. Keeping her eyes down she didn't even acknowledge that Rory had entered the room. Because she was intently studying the tips of her fingers she never saw the feral smile that had made business people across the continent shiver in their boots.

Chuckling silently, Rory moved to sit at the end of the loveseat. Stretching out one long leg she deliberately invaded the older woman's space, forcing her to recognize her right foot at the very least.

The war of the blue eyes had begun.

Had the auras been visible, the fireworks would have been spectacular! The air was almost crackling with tension as the struggle for Alpha bitch silently seethed between small and domineering, and tall and powerful. Where Eleanor's gaze was stubborn and defiant, Rory was irreverent and amused. She moved her toe closer -- the small woman tucked in her feet until they were nearly under her chair.

The battle of wills raged on over many long agonizing seconds. Amy had to step back into the hallway to compose herself when she came upon the spectacle of her mother's eyes yo-yoing up and down between trying to stare her lover down and the blue ankle sock at her feet. Grasping the tray tightly and pursing her lips to banish a cocky smile, she entered the room and set the tray on the coffee table. "Do you still take milk and sugar?" She asked, handing her mother a cup.

An invisible flag of truce was waved as Eleanor had the good grace to say, "Yes please." The offending foot withdrew slightly and 'Mother' stopped trying to burn a hole in Rory with her heat vision. All three women sipped quietly at the hot beverage, letting the charged air settle around them.

Rory looked up over her cup and gestured to the older woman's neck. "What a beautiful necklace… Cultured?" She kept her tone neutral; managing to sound honestly interested in the glowing jewelry.

Rolling the strands in her fingers, Eleanor smiled. "I don't know actually. They were a gift from my husband when Amanda was born." If she was surprised by the tall woman's interest, she didn't show it.

Amy made a choking noise as her coffee cup fell from nerveless fingers to the floor, the brown liquid soaking into the carpet at her feet. "Oh shit!" She murmured almost absently and bent to retrieve it.

"My goodness!" Eleanor exclaimed. "Quick Amanda, if you get some soda on that, it won't stain."

The clean up forestalled further conversation for a few minutes and gave Amy the opportunity to gather the rampant thoughts that circled madly through her mind. 'What if… What if… What if.' Damn! She didn't know what to think. It was easier to concentrate on scrubbing the mark from the carpet than to ponder the possibility that her whole life was a lie.

As the young blonde woman rose from her task, her mother spoke up glancing at Rory. "I really must be going. Have you thought about what I asked you earlier?" It was obvious that she was uncomfortable discussing her incarceration with the tall woman still in the room.

Amy sighed. "Yes mother, I'll call the police and ask them to drop the charges." She brought her chin up and forced her mother to meet her gaze. "I want you to know I'm doing this because you came to the front door and asked. I don't want to be your enemy, despite the fact you and Dad have cut me out of your life, I still love you and I want you to know that."

The painful admission was not lost on the short red haired woman. Gripping her pearls, Eleanor searched her daughter's face. "Oh Amanda…" She said softly. A fleeting look of love and concern crossed her face. "If only you didn't…" She failed to finish the sentence. Instead looked away and stood to leave. "Thank you." She was visibly shaken. "I know my way out."

Long after they heard the front door close, Rory and Amy sat on the love seat simply holding hands.

"I'm so proud of you." Rory whispered in her lover's ear.

Amy reached up and ran a hand over the long dark hair. "I know she was lying. I wanted to hate her. I wanted hit her. But most of all I wanted to hug her like when I was a little girl." She elected to hug the warm body beside her instead. "Thank you for being here."

"I wouldn't want to be anywhere else." Rory reciprocated by wrapping her arms around the smaller woman and pulling her into her lap. "You know…" She started wistfully and leaned back to touch her head to a blonde brow. "I don't think 'Mom' could handle it if I was to moon her. She could barely hold her water at the sight of my foot without a shoe on it." A half grin was visible as she bit down on her bottom lip. "A full moon might just kill her."

"Oh I don't know. Maybe she'd finally understand the attraction if she saw just how nice a tokhes you have." A warm hand slid down, giving a little squeeze to the body-part in question.

Rory laughed with abandon. "Ms. Stafford, I never realized that you were an 'A' woman."

"Neither did I, considering that you were sitting down when I first met you." Amy leered evilly. "Now that I've seen the whole package, wrapped and unwrapped I might add, I'm also an 'L & T' woman!" She cupped her hands up under the dark hair and pulled Rory close to steal a kiss. "The epics I could write, all dedicated to your various parts."

"Even my broken parts?" Rory said lifting her leg to regard the hard fiberglass that incased her left foot.

Kissing the tips of her fingers, Amy leaned down to touch the tips the toes peeking out of the cast. "All of you!" She tiptoed the same fingers up to tease at her lover's shirt buttons, opening each one with a kiss to the bared skin. "Now where were we?"

Sprawling back over the loveseat, the tall woman hung over both ends. She couldn't care less. Her mind was clouded by red mist that floated across her vision. Red like the lips that were planting a trail of fire down the middle of her chest.

"Baby?"

"Hmm…?"

"I have to run to the store."

"Huh?" Rory opened one eye. "What… Why?"

Amy was working her way back up and paused to lick and nibble at the base of Rory's throat. "I have a craving for candy covered chocolate. I want to see if I can get it to melt in my hand."

Both blue eyes popped open and the brow over them knitted into a frown. "NOW?"

"I won't be five minutes."

"NOW?!" Rory sputtered, her heart was still racing from the love bite she had just received on her collarbone.

Then Amy hopped up. "Go get in bed. I'll bet I can be back before you're between the sheets." She scooted out the door leaving a very hot and bothered Western Sales Manager scrambling for her crutches. "Now?" She said weakly to the empty room, and hobbled to the bedroom. What ever it was that the young blonde had in mind, it had better be good!

*M&M's® is a product of Mars Inc.

(c) 2000 S. Day

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