by Sharon Sala
He should have expected the mess on his desk. He’d been gone too long searching for Honor. Then he’d stayed too long after he’d found her. It had been all he could do last night to leave her standing at the doorway to her room. Every instinct he had told him to follow her inside, locking them in and the rest of the world out. Then he’d had to call Honor this morning to postpone their tour of Colorado Springs. He closed his eyes and sighed, recalling the soft, silky sound of her voice as she’d answered the phone.
* * *
“Hello,” she mumbled, wondering for a fraction of a second where she was and who would be calling at this time of morning.
The deep, familiar drawl was instant orientation and sent a wave of longing spiraling through the pit of her stomach that had nothing to do with the resentment she was supposed to be feeling for Trace Logan.
“Good morning, Honor,” Trace said softly. “Did I wake you?”
“Yes,” she answered, and stretched, muffling a yawn.
Trace groaned and tried not to think of how Honor would look stretched out on a bed…his bed…soft and pliant, sleep-muddled and sexy as hell.
“Did you want something?” Honor asked puzzled by the persistent silence on the other end of the phone.
All her question did was pull another soft groan from the pit of Trace’s belly.
“Are you all right?” she asked. “If you’re sick, we can postpone the sightseeing. After all,” she said quietly, “this trip wasn’t intended to be a vacation.”
“No, no, honey,” Trace finally managed to say. “I’m not sick. But I am going to have to delay our sightseeing. It looks like this office went to hell in a handbasket while I was gone. I can’t leave just yet.”
“No big deal,” she said, masking her disappointment with a blasé attitude. “Besides, your responsibilities toward me ended when you persuaded me to come to Colorado with you, remember?”
“Dammit, Honor! Don’t start that stuff again,” Trace growled angrily. “You know good and well what I think of you. At least you would if you’d quit blaming me for something I didn’t start.”
The silence stretched and Trace panicked, certain that he’d angered her into complete rejection. It was something he couldn’t face.
Finally she spoke and her words surprised him. It was the first time he’d ever heard her admit that he might be lacking in culpability.
“I know,” she finally answered. “But Trace, none of this is easy for me. Everyone keeps saying such horrible things about Momma. And I have to sit back and let them. I feel like a cuckoo’s child; left in the wrong nest on purpose for someone else to raise.”
“Look, honey,” he said quietly, “if you get to feeling unwanted, just remember that I’m still around. And I can say without hesitation that I damn sure want you. Now go back to sleep. I’ll call you later.”
He hung up before Honor had a chance to argue or agree. She didn’t know how she felt. One minute she wanted to curse the ground he walked on and the next she was resisting the urge to lay down on that same ground beneath him.
She rolled over on her stomach and buried her face in the pillow. Oh, Momma, I need you! I don’t know what to do! And as suddenly as she’d asked, she knew.
* * *
Trace suppressed his wandering thoughts and buzzed the outer office for Irene to bring in the latest projected air freight costs. The sooner he finished, the sooner he could see Honor. He knew J. J. was at the doctor’s office and hoped he would be released to come back to work. Even part-time would help.
It was nearly noon when he heard the door to his office open. He looked up and then smiled in pleased surprise as J. J. came striding in wearing a cocky grin and a pinstriped suit.
“Here I am, boy. Released with no restrictions. It’s about time, for my peace of mind as well as Sinless Sinclair’s safety. We’d spent just about all of the quality time with each other that we could stand.”
“You don’t appreciate Trudy,” Trace rebuked with a smile, and then looked beyond J. J., hoping for a glimpse of Honor’s tall, voluptuous figure and her smiling face.
“She’s not here,” J. J. said sarcastically. “I dropped her off downtown to do some sightseeing. Said she’d get a cab home. Damn, but she’s independent.”
“Not unlike others I might mention,” Trace reminded him, trying not to show his disappointment.
J. J. continued. “I can see how I rate around here now, so I’ll answer before you remember you didn’t ask,” he teased. “Well, Trace, my man, it’s great to be back. Thanks for asking.”
A red flush highlighted Trace’s cheekbones. He satisfied himself with a grumbled rebuke.
“Shut up, J. J., I don’t care if you are the boss. Grab a pen and paper and help me figure this bid.”
J. J. smiled slyly and complied with the younger man’s frustrated orders. They were soon both hard at work.
* * *
In spite of her resolve to keep Trace at arm’s length, Honor had been disappointed when he’d called to cancel their sightseeing trip. But it had given her the perfect opportunity to follow up on a decision she’d made after his phone call. She was going to the library and pull every old reference she could find pertaining to her disappearance from the Malone family. She needed to understand their point of view. Maybe then she could come to terms with her reluctance to face the fact that she was a genuine Malone. She didn’t want to face what her mother had done, and her cool reception at dinner last night had given her absolutely no incentive to pursue the matter further. Only an inbred sense of justice kept her from packing her bags and taking the first plane back to Texas. That, and a reluctance to tell Trace Logan good-bye.
Thanks to a very helpful librarian, it hadn’t taken long to find the material she needed. Due to the age of the documents, most of it was on microfiche. She settled down in front of the tiny screen and began to read. Her face grew solemn, and more than once, tears welled and spilled over onto her cheeks. But she read on, lost in the pictures and stories of a family’s tragedy, and finally an acceptance of their devastating loss.
The last article she read had an accompanying picture of J. J. Malone leaving the church after his wife’s funeral. The anguish and suffering on his face were caught forever on the tiny black-and-white print. The story was full of the sequence of events that led to the family’s run of tragedy and misfortune. But the truth could not be denied. It had all started with the disappearance of eight-month-old Mary Margaret Malone.
Honor turned off the microfiche reader and buried her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook with fatigue. Her eyes burned from the pressure of unshed tears.
“Oh, Momma,” she whispered. “What am I going to do? You caused all this mess, then sent me here to fix it. I don’t know how, Momma. I don’t know how.”
“Can I help you, miss?” the librarian asked, as she witnessed Honor’s distress. “Are you all right?”
Honor looked up, her gray eyes brimming, and smiled crookedly at the woman’s kindly face.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be all right again,” she whispered, then caught herself before she said too much. The woman’s curiosity was obviously getting the better of her as she glanced at what Honor had been reading.
“Thank you for your help,” Honor said, then grabbed her purse and quickly exited the cool, quiet halls of the library for the hustle and bustle of Colorado Springs on a beautiful sunny day.
The air was crisp, but not too cool. The smell of pine from the tree-covered mountains surrounding the city wafted teasingly through the air, competing with exhaust fumes from the constant flow of city traffic.
Honor began walking aimlessly, looking now and then at the displays in the store windows. But she wasn’t really seeing them. She couldn’t get past the pain-filled expressions in the newspaper pictures. She couldn’t forget the accusing stories of the journalists and their wild suppositions as to why no ransom note had ever appeared. Every trace of the Malone baby simply ended in the park o
n that day long ago.
A loud, familiar blast from a trucker’s horn brought her sharply back to the present, and she turned quickly, half expecting to see someone she knew. She sighed with disappointment as a man with an unfamiliar face smiled and waved at her. She smiled back, knowing the friendly innocence of his greeting came from the long, lonely hours on the road and a yearning to communicate with another human being, if only for a moment.
Soon the trucker was gone, taking the friendly face and teasing smile with him. Honor found herself looking around in confusion. She was hopelessly, definitely lost. And she was exhausted. She looked down at her wristwatch and then blinked in shocked surprise. It was nearly three o’clock. Her stomach grumbled, reminding her that she’d missed lunch. She began searching the store fronts for a promising place to get a bite to eat. She continued walking, unaware that she was being followed.
It was only after the man saw the possibility of losing her in the crowd on the street that he increased his pace and caught up and then passed Honor. He turned just as she started into a sidewalk café and held out his arm, blocking her path.
“Excuse me, miss, but could I see some identification?” he said.
Honor looked startled and took a step backward, eyeing the stocky man’s crumpled suitcoat and baggy pants. What gray hair he had left on his head was cut in an old-fashioned flat top. His pudgy cheeks made his small, close-set eyes nearly disappear behind their fleshy bulges. He looked to be in his early sixties and had at one time probably been quite tall. Now he was so stooped that it was hard to guess his height.
“Not until you tell me why you need it,” Honor answered, and stared suspiciously.
The man put his hand inside his coat pocket and pulled out a leather-bound wallet. It fell open in his hand with a long, practiced plop. The badge caught the afternoon rays of the sun and flashed sharply in the corner of Honor’s eyes. She breathed a sigh of relief. A policeman! She grinned, flashing her single dimple.
The policeman’s eyes narrowed. He seemed to be searching his memory as he scanned each and every feature of her face.
“You scared me, Officer. I thought you were trying to mug me. You couldn’t have turned up at a more opportune time. I seem to be lost. Maybe you could help?”
The man didn’t change his expression nor did he change the nature of his request. Once again, he asked to see her identification. Honor complied with no hesitation. She pulled her wallet from her purse and willingly handed it over. He looked at the face on her driver’s license and then back up at Honor, noted the address and then growled, “I wonder if you’d mind coming down to the station with me,” he looked back at her license, “Miss O’Brien?”
Honor raised her eyebrows in shock. “It surely can’t be a crime to be lost in Colorado Springs. I have no intention of going anywhere with you,” she looked down at his badge, “Officer Lane. Not until you tell me what this is all about.” She stood firm, a bit frightened of his suspicious manner.
The man knew he had no reason to make her come with him. How could he explain that when he’d first seen her, he thought he’d seen a ghost. It had been instinct that told him she might be the answer to solving a case that had haunted him for years. It couldn’t be a coincidence that she was the mirror image of a woman who had belonged to one of Colorado Springs’s foremost families. Before he could think of another excuse, the woman took away his decision to insist.
“If you have any questions regarding my presence here, you may want to call J. J. Malone. I’m visiting at his home,.” Then she frowned and muttered, “Some welcome I’ve received from Colorado. This is getting ridiculous.”
Lane’s heart skipped a beat. She’d mentioned the magic words and she didn’t even know it. He put his badge back into his pocket, ran his thick, beefy fingers through his chopped-off hair and muttered, “You mean you’re already staying at the Malone estate?”
“Yes, and if I can find a cab, I’m going to J. J.’s office. I’ve had more than enough sightseeing for one day.”
“I’ll be quite pleased to take you there myself,” he replied. “There’s a little matter of some unfinished business that I think J. J. Malone and I have to conduct.” He grabbed Honor by the elbow and escorted her toward an unmarked car that looked just about as well kept as his clothing.
His badge and brusque manner got him past the security guard at the gate of Malone Industries and past the guard just inside the main door of the building. Before Honor knew it they were exiting the elevator on the tenth and top floor of the building where the offices of the president were housed.
The perfectly groomed secretary at the main desk looked up at the approaching couple and then stood abruptly, unable to mask her shock as she limply dropped the phone receiver onto her desk.
Honor had seen that look before and masked a sigh of despair. This day wasn’t getting any better. Obviously this woman had also known the first Megan Malone, and quite well. She seemed to be in shock.
“Is J. J. Malone in?” Lane growled, refusing to relinquish his grasp on Honor’s arm.
Irene nodded dumbly and then finally managed to speak.
“But you can’t go in there. He’s very busy.”
She couldn’t quit looking at Honor. She wanted to ask but couldn’t bring herself to voice the question. It simply couldn’t be! Megan Malone was dead. She’d gone to the funeral herself. So, if this wasn’t Megan Malone, then who in the world…?
Honor stared angrily at the officer’s grip on her arm, pried each finger off with sarcastic disgust, and then turned her back on the man. She’d had just about all she was going to take from this man. He wouldn’t explain himself, yet had nearly dragged her to Malone Industries.
“Is Trace Logan in his office?” Honor asked sharply, and watched the woman’s perfectly drawn eyebrows raise even higher on her forehead as she nodded her reply. “Then may I please see him? Just tell him Honor is here. He won’t refuse to see us. I can promise you.”
Irene looked down in surprise at the phone receiver dangling by its curly cord and quickly placed it back in its proper position. She leaned over, buzzed Trace’s office, and then complied with Honor’s request. She had barely lifted her finger from the intercom when Trace burst through his office door with J. J. following quickly behind.
“Honor!” Trace couldn’t disguise the pleased surprise in his voice. But the expression on Honor’s face and the stubborn look on the older man’s face standing behind her brought him up short. Something was very wrong. Honor’s chin began to tremble. If he’d had to fight snakes, he’d have been ready.
“What’s wrong, honey?” he asked. He pulled her into his arms as she began to shake. The fury that exploded inside him surprised them all as he turned on the big man beside her with a vengeance. “What have you done to her?” he growled. “Better yet, who the hell are you?”
J. J. stepped forward and regained control of the situation. “I think I know why he’s here,” he said, recognizing the elder man. “What I don’t understand is how you found out so soon?” He smiled congenially. “I haven’t even had time to think about calling the police on this mater. She just arrived yesterday,” he explained, as they disappeared into his office.
Trace cupped Honor’s face in his hands and took swift note of the look of weary shock in her eyes.
“I’m fine,” Honor said, embarrassed at herself for acting so helpless where Trace was concerned. She pulled away from his protective grasp and began to pace the floor, waving her arms in furious abandon. “He just grabbed me on the street and started telling me I was going to have to go to the police station with him. I got lost, and I’m tired, and I missed lunch, and I’m sorry I’ve disturbed…”
Trace interrupted her, caught her by the shoulders as she paced past him and laid his finger against the pouting softness of her mouth. “You didn’t interrupt a damn thing. Thanks to J. J.’s appearance earlier today, we had just finished. Besides, you don’t have anything to be sorry for. I suspe
ct this was something J. J. overlooked when he discovered your existence. Even I didn’t think about what the police and, God forbid, the media will do with your appearance.”
The look of dismay on her face made him regret his hasty words. Not one bit of this whole damn thing had been thought through. All they’d done was yank an unsuspecting woman from her home, thrust her into a strange, unfamiliar family that didn’t seem to want her, and then wonder why she was less then receptive to the idea of being a Malone.
“Then she is related? Thank goodness. I thought I was losing my mind.”
Irene’s shaky remark brought them both to their senses as Trace smiled.
“No, Irene. You haven’t lost your mind. That’s just the reaction I experienced when I first saw her.”
Honor stared at that slow, sexy twist of his mouth as he continued the introduction and ignored the smoldering fire in the pit of her stomach.
“Irene, I’d like you to meet Honor O’Brien. At least that’s the name she thought was hers. This is also Mary Margaret Malone, J. J.’s granddaughter.”
Irene gasped, grabbed her throat in dramatic dismay, and then grabbed a handful of tissues from her desk as she broke into tears. “Oh, this is just wonderful. I’m so pleased to meet you, dear. I’m not normally so distracted.”
Trace smiled and patted Irene on the arm. “We’re all glad she was found, Irene. I just hope she learns to feel the same about us. So far, it doesn’t look like her welcome has been all it should have been.”
Irene nodded, quickly excused herself to repair her makeup, and left Trace to deal with the front office.
“Come into my office, Honor. You’ll be safe there. I’ll just leave the paperwork on this bid with Irene and then I’ll take you home.”
His words were cajoling, his manner concerned, but there was nothing he could have said that would console Honor today. She’d had more than enough.
