The Rebel's Return

by Gina Wilkins

  Wade chuckled and ruffled his son’s red hair. “Being kinda’ cocky there, aren’t you, boy? You’ve only asked Santa for a new bike. You haven’t actually gotten one, yet.”

  Clay didn’t look particularly concerned.

  Emily hit the side of her head. “What am I thinking, leaving everyone standing this way? Please, sit down. Can I get you anything? Coffee? Iced tea?”

  Lucas didn’t particularly want anything, but he needed a few moments to recover from this unexpectedly enthusiastic reunion. “Iced tea sounds good.”

  Wade also asked for tea.

  Wade settled onto the sofa and nodded toward the two chairs grouped nearby. “Have a seat.”

  It was more of an order than an invitation. Lucas thought it was pretty obvious Wade Davenport wasn’t overjoyed that his future brother-in-law had reappeared.

  Lucas couldn’t really blame the guy. Davenport had probably heard talk around town about the infamous Lucas McBride, generally believed to have literally gotten away with murder.

  Having little experience making polite conversation with cops—and no experience with future brothers-in-law—Lucas didn’t know quite what to say to fill the taut silence. “I, er, was sort of surprised that Emily recognized me. After all these years, I’d half expected her to have forgotten me.”

  “She’s never forgotten you. Never stopped wondering why you left without telling her goodbye.”

  “I had my reasons,” Lucas said coolly, keeping in mind that young Clay was watching them curiously.

  “I’m sure you did. Just as I’m sure you have a reason for coming back.”

  Lucas’s only answer was a shrug. He wasn’t ready to lay all his cards on the table just yet.

  Emily came back into the room, balancing a loaded tray carefully. Wade sprang to his feet to take it from her. He set it on the coffee table, careful not to spill the three glasses of iced tea or the small glass of milk. Emily distributed the drinks, then handed Lucas a plate of what appeared to be sliced banana-nut bread.

  “I thought you might like to have a slice of this,” she explained to Lucas with an endearingly shy smile. “Aunt Bobbie brought it over earlier today. I remember that you always loved her banana-nut bread.”

  Lucas was startled all over again. “You remember that?”

  “Yes. And so does Aunt Bobbie. She mentioned it when she came by earlier. She and I both wished you were here to enjoy it with us. And now you are.” Emily blinked several times, her eyes looking unnaturally bright.

  Lucas. sincerely hoped she wasn’t going to cry. “How is Bobbie?” he asked quickly, to distract her.

  Emily smiled again as she sat beside Wade and Clay on the couch. “She and Uncle Caleb are both fine. Their family is growing. Tara and Trevor are both married now, and Trevor has a two-year-old son. Trent’s a senior at the Air Force Academy.”

  The cousins she’d named were all considerably younger than Lucas, closer to Emily’s age. He hardly remembered them, but he feigned interest. He swallowed a bit of banana-nut bread, which tasted every bit as good as remembered. “Sounds like they’re all doing okay.”

  “Yes. And Savannah’s married now, too. Her twins are almost fourteen now.”

  Lucas didn’t have to feign his reaction that time. “Fourteen? Savannah’s not much older than you.”

  “She had them when she was seventeen. It’s a long story. I’ll tell you about it later. She and her family live in Campbellville. Aunt Ernestine lives with them.”

  Lucas winced. He remembered Ernestine. His father’s sister-in-law had always been a difficult woman. She’d given Lucas a few scathing lectures about his responsibility to the family name. As if the McBride name had been all that sterling even before Lucas had done his part to tarnish it.

  Emily’s expression turned suddenly serious. “You haven’t asked about Dad. Do you know he died last spring?”

  Lucas nodded. “I know.”

  “He was sick for a long time. The last couple of years he was totally bedridden. He couldn’t even speak.”

  Wade covered Emily’s hand with his. “Emily took care of your father during his illness, with very little outside help. And with very little thanks, from what I understand.”

  Lucas gazed into his glass. “I can’t imagine my father thanking anyone for anything, unless he changed considerably after I left.”

  “He never changed,” Emily said with a touch of wistfulness.

  “Did you...” Lucas hesitated, not knowing quite how to ask the question that had haunted him for so long. “Was everything okay for you here—after I left, I mean?”

  “I was never mistreated, if that’s what you’re asking. Dad made sure I was fed and healthy, that my homework was done and my teeth were brushed. Aunt Bobbie took pains to see that my clothes were in style and that I stayed involved in youth groups and school organizations, so I would have plenty of friends. After Grandmother McBride died, Aunt Bobbie went out of her way to serve as a mother figure for me.”

  “So you were happy.” He thought maybe he could let go of some of the guilt he’d been carrying around about the way he’d deserted his little sister.

  A jumble of emotions crossed Emily’s face, bringing the guilt back in full force. “I suppose so,” she said, though her tone wasn’t particularly convincing. And then she smiled and squeezed Wade’s hand. “I’m very happy now.”

  Lucas thought of the article he’d read, the one that had brought him back to Honoria. Emily had been attacked right here in her home, when she’d interrupted an apparent robbery. The only item listed that had been stolen from her was something that Lucas had thought long buried.

  Again, he wasn’t quite ready to talk about that yet. Especially not with Wade Davenport and his kid listening. And, apparently, Emily had fully recovered from the attack. She looked healthy and happy. “I’m glad to hear it.”

  Emily’s expression turned suddenly pensive again. “Dad was very angry with you after you left. I suppose you knew he would be.”

  Lucas nodded.

  “He didn’t leave much of an estate,” Emily continued. “The medical bills wiped out most of the cash. Dad had some life insurance, but it wasn’t an enormous amount. He left the house to me. I sold it to Wade.”

  Lucas lifted an eye brow as he looked at Wade, who was listening without expression. “You bought the house?”

  Wade nodded. “It was before Emily and I decided to marry. Now we’ll use the mortgage money to finance the repairs that have been needed for some time.”

  Lucas was beginning to understand where the conversation was headed. “I didn’t come here to claim anything, Emily. I only came to see you. To make sure you’re okay.”

  Her smile was radiant. “I’m so glad you did. Still, there are several things here that belonged to your mother, Lucas, and a few of Dad’s personal belongings. If any of them have any sentimental value for you, you’re welcome to whatever you want.”

  Her generosity touched him. She didn’t owe him anything. She had every reason to be angry with him. But if she was, she hid it well.

  “I don’t want anything,” he said quietly. “Knowing you’re well and happy is all I’d hoped to gain.”

  “I’m happy,” she assured him again.

  He quickly changed the subject, finding talk of inheritances uncomfortable. “So, when are you two getting married?”

  “We had hoped to be married before Christmas, but Wade’s been so busy as police chief that we had to put it off until New Year’s Eve. Now I think we were meant to wait for you. Please say you can stay for my wedding, Lucas.”

  Lucas frowned at the news that Wade Davenport was Honoria’s chief of police. He’d assumed the guy was just a cop. “I wasn’t really planning to stay that long.”

  He saw disappointment darken her eyes, but she managed to hold on to her smile. “All right, I won’t press. But if you decide to stay, Wade and I would love for you to be there.”

  Lucas thought she might well change he
r mind about that once she’d had a chance to think about it. Why would she want him at the wedding, where the guests would more likely be staring at him than at the bride? He hadn’t forgotten the way the people of this town had looked at him. The way they’d condemned him with disdainful glances and vicious whispers.

  He had not returned to Honoria to ruin his sister’s wedding. He would hang around a day or two to make sure everything really was okay, and then he’d take off again.

  “You’ll at least stay for Christmas, won’t you?” Emily’s expression had turned pleading. “It would mean so much to me, Lucas. I’ve missed you.”

  “I wouldn’t blame you if you hated me,” he said, more gruffly than he’d intended. “I left you to deal with all the baggage I left behind.”

  She met his gaze steadily. “I’ve been angry with you at times—maybe I still am, a little—but I’ve never hated you, Lucas. Even at eleven, I understood why you had to go. I didn’t really blame you then, and I don’t now. But I don’t want to lose you again so soon, now that you’ve come back. Please say you’ll stay for Christmas. It’s only a few days away.”

  Hell. If it meant that much to her, he guessed he would have to stay. He supposed he owed her that much, at least.

  “I’ll stay for Christmas,” he said. “If you’re sure you want me to.”

  She beamed at the victory. “Oh, this is wonderful. I have my brother home for Christmas, and I’m only two weeks away from marrying the man I love. I’ve never been happier.”

  The two men responsible for her elation gave each other long, measuring looks.

  After a moment, Wade glanced at his watch. “It’s getting late. Clay and I have to get going. Er...where were you planning to stay, Lucas?”

  “I’ll probably get a room in one of those new motels west of town.”

  “You’ll do no such thing.” Emily spoke with a new determination. “You’ll stay here, in the house where you grew up. This is still your home, too, Lucas.”

  Wade cleared his throat. “Um, technically....”

  She rounded on him. “Don’t even try to make me rescind my invitation. He’s my brother, Wade. Would you make your sister stay in a tacky motel?”

  “You haven’t seen your brother since you were a child,” Wade retorted. “I’m just saying I think it would be better if...”

  “You might have noticed that on this particular point, I didn’t ask what you think.”

  Lucas grimaced. Great. Now he’d caused a quarrel between his sister and her fiancé. He really should have just ignored that inexplicable impulse to return to Honoria. “I’ll stay in the motel. I really don’t mind.”

  Emily glared at him. “I mind. What kind of Southern hospitality is it when family has to stay in a motel? And at Christmas, too!”

  She was just getting warmed up. “Grandmother McBride would be spinning in her grave. Aunt Bobbie and Uncle Caleb would probably come after you and insist that you stay with them if your own sister turned you out on the streets. As big as this house is, with all these empty bedrooms just waiting to be used, why in the world would I send my brother to a cold, impersonal motel room?”

  Both Lucas and Wade were smiling ruefully by the time Emily ran out of breath. Clay was watching in wide-eyed fascination.

  Lucas looked at Wade and spoke before she started again. “I think I’ve gotta stay here.”

  Wade nodded gravely. “I think you’re right.”

  He set his empty glass on the tray and turned to his son. “Ready to go, Clay?”

  “I sure will be glad when we live here,” Clay muttered, climbing reluctantly off the couch.

  Lucas saw the heat in Wade’s eyes when he looked at Emily. “So will I, son,” he murmured. “So will I.”

  Emily blushed happily. “I’ll walk you guys out to the Jeep.”

  Clay took her hand. “‘Bye, Uncle Lucas,” he called over his shoulder as the family-to-be headed for the door.

  “Yeah, er, see you, Clay.”

  Cute kid, he thought. He wondered how long it would be before Emily and Wade gave him a brother or sister. And didn’t that thought make him feel old? Lucas still tended to think of Emily as his baby sister.

  He spent the fifteen minutes while Emily was outside looking around, first studying the collection of antique Santa figurines on the mantel, a few of which looked familiar, and then the old photographs displayed on the sideboard. One photo, in particular, held his attention. It was a candid snapshot of himself at about thirteen, holding his little sister’s hand. Dressed in lace, bows, and ruffles, four-year-old Emily held an enormous Easter basket and strained against Lucas’s hand, eager to begin the search for colored eggs and candy.

  He remembered that day. The family had gathered at Grandmother McBride’s for Easter. Excited children had been underfoot, the table had almost groaned beneath the weight of all the food, the adults had been relaxed and happy. Even Josiah McBride Jr., Lucas’s dour, emotionally withdrawn father, had been in a fairly good mood that day. And tiny, motherless Emily, so sweet and pretty in the dress Lucas had wrestled her into before church, had basked in the loving attention she received from her grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins.

  A hand fell on Lucas’s arm, drawing him abruptly back to the present. Her hair a bit tousled, Emily looked from the photograph he’d been studying to his face. “I’m so glad you’re here, Lucas. We have so much catching up to do.”

  He turned away from the photos. “Why don’t we save it for tomorrow? It’s late, and I know you must be tired.”

  She nodded. “I’ll take tomorrow afternoon off work. We can spend that time getting to know each other again.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll go out to my car and grab my bag.”

  “I’ll put out fresh sheets. I’m still using my old bedroom for now. Er...would you like the master bedroom? It’s the only one with a king-size bed.”

  “I’ll take my old room, if it’s available.” Lucas had no desire to sleep in his father’s former bedroom. The cold-hearted bastard’s ghost would probably haunt him.

  Outside, he stood for a few long moments with his hand on the trunk of his car, listening to the familiar sounds of the rural Georgia night. Crickets, frogs, the occasional hoot of an owl or distant baying of a dog. The old house was surrounded by acres of uncleared woods, which he knew were alive with deer, raccoons, opossums, squirrels, and other wild creatures.

  The happiest times of his youth had been spent in those woods, tracking animals, fishing in the creek, or sitting in his favorite “thinking place” in the branches of the big oak.

  Memories. They crowded his mind no matter how hard he tried to push them away. A few good ones—but even more bad ones.

  He shouldn’t have come back. What the hell had he thought he would do? What had made him think Emily needed him, when it was obvious that she’d been getting along just fine on her own?

  What he wanted to do was climb behind his steering wheel and get the hell away from Honoria and the memories it held for him. He might have done just that, had he not suddenly realized that Emily was standing in the open front door, watching him as though she was afraid he might decide to leave without a goodbye again.

  He couldn’t do it to her. He’d hurt her enough the first time; he wouldn’t ruin her Christmas or cast a pall over her wedding just because he was an emotional coward. He waved a hand to her and opened the trunk, hauling out his bag.

  At least, he thought, he wouldn’t have to see Rachel Jennings while he was in town.

  That was one old memory he simply wasn’t prepared to face.

  2

  RACHEL JENNINGS couldn’t have explained why she’d been compelled to drive to the overlook Monday morning. Technically, the scenic point was on McBride land—it had once belonged to Lucas’s grandparents, and now to his uncle, Caleb—but it could be reached by way of a country lane that turned off the main highway into town. The woods surrounding the area blended into the twenty acres once owned by Lucas’s
late father—and now, Rachel assumed, by Emily. A well-worn footpath led from the overlook to the house in which Lucas and Emily had been raised.

  Once a prime spot for hiking, picnicking and teenage necking, the overlook had been made offlimits to trespassers fifteen years ago—right after Rachel’s brother died there.

  Without pausing, Rachel drove past the Do Not Enter signs. A few yards down the road, the woods seemed to close in behind her, cutting off her view of the highway. As a teenager, she’d loved driving her battered old Mustang past that point of visual contact with the world outside these woods. She’d been romantic and fanciful then, and she’d imagined that the trees had welcomed her, conspiratorially hiding her from disapproving eyes. And at the end of the lane, she’d known he would be waiting for her.

  He wouldn’t be waiting this time. Lucas McBride had vanished into the night fifteen years ago and no one in town—not even his family—had heard from him since. At least, that’s what Rachel had been told by some of the avid gossips in town. Rachel hadn’t asked about Lucas on this visit—not that she would have, anyway. But the gossips had been all too eager to bring up old scandals and probe for a reaction from Rachel.

  Which was exactly why Rachel had avoided coming back to Honoria for so many years. She’d dealt with too much scandal in her teen years. She had allowed gossip to dictate her actions then, but she’d long since stopped basing her behavior on what anyone else might say about her.

  She’d also grown accustomed to spending her Christmases alone in her apartment in Atlanta, except for brief, stilted visits with her mother in Carrollton every Christmas Eve. She would have been perfectly content to spend this holiday the same way, had not family obligations interfered. Her maternal grandmother had grown too frail to live alone, and planned to move into a retirement home close to Rachel’s mother after the first of the year. Feeling a bit guilty because she’d stayed away from Honoria—and her grandmother—for so long, Rachel had volunteered to help settle the details.

  She braked when she came to a gate blocking the road, yards short of the bluff she’d impulsively decided to visit. The gate hadn’t been there fifteen years ago. The McBrides had apparently gotten serious about keeping people off this land.