Suspicions: A Twist of FateTears of Pride

by Lisa Jackson

  “Because you’ve taken over the business while he’s been recuperating in Mexico?”

  “That’s right. It took me this long to get out of the old man’s debt.” Sheila could see the emotional scars of pain etched on Noah’s broad forehead; she could read the agony in his blue eyes.

  Her voice caught as she began to speak. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It’s over.”

  “It bothers you.”

  “I said, it’s over.” He shifted on the hammock and seemed to notice the darkness for the first time. His eyes searched the hillside. “The kids should be home.”

  Sheila, too, had been caught up in the complexity of his story. Panic began to take hold of her as she realized that night had descended and Emily was missing.

  “Oh, my God,” she whispered, clasping a hand over her mouth. “Where could they be?”

  “You tell me. Do you have any flashlights?”

  She nodded, and was on her way to the house before he could tell her to get them. She fumbled with the light switch in the kitchen in her hurry. Within two minutes she was back outside, listening for a response to Noah’s shout. Nothing interrupted the stillness of the night.

  “Damn,” Noah muttered as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “I should have listened when you wanted to search for them earlier.”

  “You didn’t know they wouldn’t come home.”

  “But you did.” He turned to look at her as they followed the bobbing circles of lights flashing on the ground before them. “Why were you worried—is it part of being a mother?”

  “Emily’s never late,” Sheila asserted breathlessly. They were climbing the hill at a near run.

  “Next time I’ll pay more attention when you begin to worry.”

  “A lot of good that does us now,” Sheila snapped back. She knew she was being short with Noah and that it was unfair, but her concern for her daughter made her irritable.

  Noah stopped and cupped his hands around his mouth to call Sean’s name. From somewhere in the distance they heard his answering shout. Sean’s voice sounded rough and frightened.

  “Oh, my God,” Sheila whispered, listening for Emily’s voice and hearing nothing. “Something’s happened.” Fear took a stranglehold on her throat, and she started running up the path, jumping to conclusions and imagining scenarios of life without her daughter.

  She stumbled once on an exposed root. Noah reached for her, but couldn’t break the fall that tore her jeans and scraped her knee. Wincing in pain, she continued to race up the hill, mindless of the blood that was oozing from the wound.

  Sean’s shouts were louder, and within minutes his anxious face came into range of the flashlights. Sheila choked back a scream as she saw Emily in his arms. The child was dripping wet, her face was covered with mud and there were several scratches on her cheeks.

  “Mommy…” Emily reached her arms out to her mother and tears formed in Sheila’s eyes as Emily clung, sobbing to her.

  “Hush…Emily, it’s all right. Mommy’s here.” Emily burrowed her nose into Sheila’s shoulder. The girl was visibly shaking and her teeth were chattering. Noah took off his shirt and placed it on Emily’s small shoulders. “Shhh… Sweetheart, are you all right… Are you hurt?”

  “It’s her ankle,” Sean interrupted. His face was ashen as he looked down at Emily.

  “Let’s take a look at that.” Noah took the flashlight and illuminated Emily’s right ankle. Gently he touched the swollen joint. Emily wailed in pain.

  “Shhh…Em, Noah’s just seeing how bad it is,” Sheila whispered into Emily’s bedraggled curls. Sheila’s eyes drove into Noah’s with a message that he had better be careful with her daughter.

  “I don’t think it’s broken…but I can’t really tell,” Noah said softly. “Here, Emily, let me carry you back to the house. We’ll call a doctor when we get there.”

  “No! Mommy, you hold me. Please.” Emily clung to Sheila’s neck as if holding on for dear life.

  “Emily,” Noah’s voice was firm as he talked to the little girl.

  “Don’t, I can handle her.”

  “Forget it, Sheila.” The beam of light swept from Emily’s ankle to Sheila’s torn, bloody jeans. “You’ll be doing well if you can get back to the house on your own. I’ll carry Emily.”

  “Mommy…” Emily wailed.

  “Really, Noah, I’m sure I can manage,” Sheila asserted, her gray eyes glinting like daggers.

  “Forget it…. Sean, you carry the gear and the flashlights.” Noah carefully extracted Emily from Sheila’s arms, but still gave orders to his son. “Then you walk with Sheila; she’s cut her leg. Now let’s go. The sooner we get Emily home, the better.”

  Not even Emily argued with the determination in Noah’s voice. Sheila pursed her lips together and ignored the urge to argue with him. The most important thing was Emily’s well-being, and Sheila couldn’t find fault with Noah’s logic.

  “Tell me, son,” Noah said sternly, when the lights of the château were visible. “Just what happened?”

  “We were fishing.”

  “And?”

  “Well, it was getting dark, and I guess I was in kind of a hurry,” Sean continued rapidly. “Emily kept getting behind, and when we crossed the creek, she slipped on a rock. I threw down the gear and reached for her, but the current pushed her off balance and pulled her under the water. It was lucky that the creek was shallow, and I got to her. Then she started crying and screaming about her ankle and, well, I just started carrying her down the hill as fast as I could.”

  “You should have been more considerate, Sean. If you weren’t always hurrying to get where you should have been an hour ago, this might never have happened!” Noah declared gruffly.

  “I didn’t think…”

  “That’s the problem, isn’t it?”

  “Noah, don’t,” Sheila interjected. “It’s not Sean’s fault. Arguing isn’t going to help anything.”

  It seemed an eternity to Sheila, but eventually they got Emily to the house. While she cleaned and dried the child, Noah called a local doctor who was a friend of Sheila’s. Sean paced nervously from the living room to the den and back again until Emily was propped up in bed and the doctor arrived.

  Dr. Embers was a young woman who had a daughter a couple of years younger than Emily. She was prematurely gray and wore her glasses on the end of her nose as she examined the child.

  “So you took a tumble, did you?” she asked brightly as she looked into Emily’s pupils. “How do you feel?”

  “Okay,” Emily mumbled feebly. Her large green eyes looked sunken in her white face.

  “How about this ankle…does this hurt?”

  Emily winced and uttered a little cry.

  The doctor continued to examine Emily while Sheila looked anxiously at the little girl, who seemed smaller than she had earlier in the day. Lying on the white pillow, Emily seemed almost frail.

  Dr. Embers straightened, smiled down at the child and gave her head an affectionate pat. “Well, I think you’ll live,” she pronounced. “But I would stay off the ankle for a while. And no more jumping in creeks for the time being, okay?”

  Emily smiled feebly and nodded. Dr. Embers took Sheila into the kitchen and answered the unspoken question hanging on Sheila’s lips. “She’ll be fine, Sheila. Don’t worry.”

  “Thank goodness.”

  “She shouldn’t need anything stronger for the pain than aspirin, but I do want you to bring her into the clinic on Monday for X-rays.”

  Alarm flashed in Sheila’s eyes. “But I thought…”

  Donna Embers waved Sheila’s fears away with a gentle smile and a hand on her arm. “I said don’t worry. I’m sure the ankle is just a sprain, but, I want to double-check, just in case there’s a hairline fracture hiding in there.”

  Sheila let out a relieved sigh. “I really appreciate the fact that you came over tonight.”

  “No problem; what are friends for? Besides, you’ll get the bill.
”

  Sheila smiled. “Can you at least stay for a cup of coffee?”

  Donna edged to the door and shook her head. “I’d love to, really, but I left Dennis with dinner and the kids, which might be just a shade too much responsibility for him.”

  Sheila leaned against the kitchen door frame and laughed. The last thing she would call Donna Ember’s loyal husband was irresponsible. A feeling of warm relief washed over her as she watched the headlights of Donna’s van fade into the distance.

  “Is Emily going to be all right?” Sean asked when Sheila walked back into the kitchen and began perking a pot of coffee.

  “She’s fine.”

  Sean swallowed and kept his eyes on the floor. “I’m really sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Sheila maintained.

  “Dad thinks so,” Sean replied glumly.

  “Well, your dad is wrong.”

  Sean’s head snapped upward, and his intense blue eyes sought Sheila’s. “But I thought you liked Dad.”

  “I do…I like him very much,” Sheila admitted, “but that doesn’t mean he can’t be wrong some of the time.”

  Sean sank into a chair near the table. “I should have been more careful.”

  “Even if you had, the accident might still have occurred. Just be thankful it wasn’t any worse than it was.”

  Sean’s face whitened at the thought. “I don’t think it could have been worse.”

  “Oh, Sean, it could have been a dozen times worse.” Sheila took a chair near Sean and touched him lightly on the shoulder. “Emily could have struck her head, or you could have fallen down, too…a thousand different things could have happened.” Sheila fought the shudder of apprehension that took hold of her when she considered how dangerous the accident could have been. “Look, Sean, you did everything right. You got Emily out of the water and carried her to me. Thank you.”

  Sean was perplexed and confused. “You’re thanking me…why?”

  “For clear thinking, and taking care of my little girl.”

  “Miss Lindstrom—”

  “Sheila.”

  Sean shifted uncomfortably on the chair. He was still carrying the weight of guilt for Emily’s accident and had transformed from a tough punk teenager into a frightened boy. “Okay…Sheila…I’m…sorry for the way I acted last night.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “But I was crummy to you.”

  Sheila couldn’t disagree. “You were.”

  “Then why aren’t you mad at me?”

  “Is that what you want?” Sheila inquired, taking a sip from her coffee.

  Noah had heard the end of the conversation and stood in the door awaiting Sean’s response to Sheila’s question.

  Sean looked Sheila in the eye, unaware that his father was standing less than five feet behind him. “I don’t know.” He shrugged, some of his old bravado resurfacing. “I just didn’t want to like you.”

  Sheila’s eyes flicked from Sean to Noah and back again. “Because you were afraid that I might take your father from you?”

  Again the blond youth shrugged.

  “I would never do that, Sean. I have a daughter of my own, and I know how important it is that we have each other. No one could ever take me away from my child. I’m sure the same is true of your father.”

  Sean looked at Sheila, silently appraising her. His next words shattered the friendliness between them. “My dad still cares for my mom!” His look dared her to argue with him.

  “I’m sure he does, Sean,” Sheila agreed, silencing Noah with her eyes. “And I don’t intend to change that.” Knowing that Noah was about to break in on the conversation, and hoping to avoid another confrontation, Sheila changed the topic. “Emily made some brownies for you earlier, but she must have forgotten them with all of the excitement about fishing.” She rose from the table and began putting the chocolate squares on a plate. Noah entered the room, but Sheila ignored him. “Why don’t you take this into Emily—cheer her up?”

  “Do you think she’ll want to see me? She might be sleeping or something.”

  “She’s awake,” Noah stated. “I just left her, and believe it or not, I think she’s hungry.”

  Sean grabbed the plate of brownies and, balancing them between two glasses of milk, left the kitchen in the direction of Emily’s room. Without asking if he wanted any, Sheila poured Noah a cup of coffee.

  “How’s your leg?” Noah asked, eyeing Sheila skeptically.

  “Never better. I cleaned it and it’s okay. A little of the skin is scraped off, that’s all.”

  Noah took an experimental sip from his coffee as he looked dubiously at her white slacks. “Did Dr. Embers look at it.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I told you I cleaned it and bandaged it. Look, it’s really no big deal.”

  Noah didn’t look convinced. “I’m just sorry that you and Emily had to suffer because of Sean’s neglect.”

  “Noah, please. Don’t blame him. He’s just a child himself.”

  “He’s sixteen and has to learn responsibility sometime. He should have been more careful.”

  “He knows that—don’t reprimand him. It would be like rubbing salt into his wound. He feels badly enough as it is.”

  “He should.”

  “Why? Because he was careless? Noah, accidents will happen. Give the kid a break, will you?”

  Noah set his cup down on the table and walked over to the sink. For a few silent moments he stared out the window into the night. “It’s not just the accident, Sheila. It’s his attitude. You were there the night he came home drunk. It wasn’t the first time.” He breathed deeply and tilted his head back while squinting his eyes shut. “He’s in trouble at school and I’ve even had to pick him up downtown. Since he’s a minor, he hasn’t been in jail, but he’s been close, damned close. He missed a couple of probation meetings, and so now he’s walking a very thin line with the law.”

  “A lot of kids get into trouble.”

  “I know. I should count myself lucky that he doesn’t use dope, I guess.”

  Sheila approached Noah and wrapped her arms around his waist. How long had he tortured himself with guilt for his son? “Sean will be all right, Noah. I’ve seen more kids than you’d want to count in my job, some easier to deal with than Sean, others more difficult. Sean will come through this.”

  He put his large hands over hers, pressing her fingertips into his abdomen. “Why did you let him lie to you?”

  “About what?”

  “His mother. You know how I feel about Marilyn.”

  “Sean probably does, too. But he can’t admit it to me, not yet. He still considers me a threat.”

  “I think you’re reading more into this than there really is.”

  “Adolescence is tough, Noah, or don’t you remember? Add to that the fact that Sean knows his mother rejected him. It makes him feel inferior.”

  “Lots of kids grow up without one parent…even Emily.”

  “And it’s hard on her, too,” Sheila sighed against his back.

  Noah turned around and faced her. One hand pushed aside her hair as he studied her face and noticed the thin lines of worry that dimmed her smile. He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “You’re a very special woman, Sheila Lindstrom, and I love you.” He traced the edge of her cheekbones with his finger. “It’s times like these that I wonder how I managed to live this long without you.”

  Sheila warmed under his unguarded stare. “I guess you must have a will of iron,” she teased.

  “Or maybe it’s because I’m a stubborn fool.” He draped his arm possessively over her shoulder and guided her out of the kitchen. “Let’s go check on Emily.”

  “In a minute…. You go look in on her, I’ll be there shortly.” She moved out of his embrace and pushed him down the hall. “I’ve got to make a phone call.”

  Noah looked at his wristwatch. “Now? To whom?”

  She was ready for his question. “I thin
k I’d better call Jeff.”

  “You’re ex-husband?” Noah was incredulous. “Why?”

  “He has the right to know about the accident,” Sheila attempted to explain. Before she could get any further, Noah cut her off and his mouth pulled into a contemptuous scowl. A thousand angry questions came to his mind.

  “Do you think he would even care?”

  “Noah, he’s Emily’s father. Of course he’ll care.”

  “From what you’ve told me about him, he hasn’t shown much fatherly concern for his daughter!”

  “Keep your voice down!” Sheila warned in a harsh whisper. “Jeff has to know.”

  Noah’s face contorted with disgust. The skin stretched tightly over the angled planes of his features. “Are you sure the accident isn’t some handy excuse?”

  Sheila’s gray eyes snapped. “I don’t need an excuse. He has to know and I can’t have him hear it through the grapevine.”

  “Why not?”

  “How would you feel if it were Sean?”

  “That’s different. I care about my son. I would have done anything to have him with me. It was a little different with your husband, I’d venture to guess.”

  “He’s still her legal father. This is a rural community, but word travels quickly. I either have to call Jeff or his mother, and I’d prefer not to worry Marian. If I call her now, she’ll be over here within a half hour.”

  “And what about Coleridge? Is that what he’ll do—come racing over here to check on his daughter and his ex-wife. Is that what you’re hoping for?”

  “You’re impossible!” Sheila accused. “But you’re right about one thing, I would be thrilled to pieces if Jeff came over here.”

  “I thought so,” he commented dryly as he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall, looking as if he were both judge and jury. She, of course, was the unconvincing defendant.

  “But not for the reasons you think,” she continued, trying to stem her boiling anger. “Jeff is Emily’s father, for God’s sake. She’s just been through a very traumatic experience, and I think she could use a little support from Daddy.”

  “A little is all she’d get, at the very best,” Noah pointed out in a calm voice. His blue eyes looked deadly. “Jeff Coleridge is no more Emily’s father than Marilyn is Sean’s mother! I can’t believe that you’re still hanging on to ideals that were shot down years ago when he walked out on you and your kid, Sheila. You don’t have to paint the picture any rosier than it really is. It’s not good for you, and it’s not good for Emily.”