Harlequin Historical May 2021--Box Set 2 of 2

by Elizabeth Rolls

  “And she taught you.”

  “Yes.” She pointed at a driveway ahead. “Don’t turn in there. That’s the main entrance. We need to go to the next block and drive to the back side.”

  While driving past the road that led into the entrance, he let out a low whistle at the number of lights on the side of the building and on poles in the parking area. “That place has more lights than a Christmas tree.”

  “It never used to be like that,” she said quietly, as if afraid someone would hear.

  All these years, he’d been focused on how her leaving had affected him, but she’d gone through hell. He couldn’t help but wonder where her family had been through it all. He wanted to ask, but sensed she wasn’t ready to answer those questions.

  “There is a new administrator,” she said. “One that is more strict than the previous one.”

  He reached over and took hold of her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. The warmth that spread up his arm went straight to his heart. He still cared about her. Would always care about her. A first love was special, and she had been his. He’d assumed it had been the same for her, and that was his problem. For assuming too much.

  He wasn’t assuming now. She needed his help, and he’d do whatever it took to help her. He released her hand and turned off his headlights before turning onto the street that ended up near the back of the building.

  “Why did you turn off your lights?” she asked.

  “So we aren’t seen.” Though the car had a powerful, straight-eight engine with over a hundred and thirty horsepower, the motor was quieted by the exhaust system. Unless they were listening for a vehicle, the car wouldn’t be noticed over the crickets and rustling of the large maple and oak trees surrounding the monstrous building.

  The street, like the others they traversed along, was empty, and Connor asked a niggling question he’d had since leaving Twin Pines. “How do you know girls will try to escape tonight?”

  “Because Naomi and Cheryl were going to be on the lookout,” she said, while scanning the roadway and trees.

  “And?” he asked, elongating the word.

  “Cheryl has a friend who still works here and drops hints about where a girl might look for help if they choose to leave.”

  Once again, he had to believe there was a better way to help those who didn’t want to be here. He wasn’t sure what, but would think of something. Mick might be able to help him, but he wasn’t overly sure that he wanted to ask his brother. The only person who knew how Jenny’s disappearance had truly affected him had been his brother. He hadn’t even needed to say anything; there were just times where they knew how the other was feeling, and that had been one of them.

  It went both ways, when Mick had dated an actress for a while, an inner, unexplainable feeling inside Connor had told him that she hadn’t been right for his brother. That she’d make him unhappy. That’s exactly what had happened.

  Growing up, Mick had been too busy working to date or even participate in school activities, but after his short relationship with the actress, it was as if Mick had completely written off women. Connor had wondered if he should consider that, too.

  In a way, he already had. Though he dated, went out with girls on a very regular basis, it was all for show. A way for him to keep up the happy-go-lucky, got a girl on my arm, and life is good, persona that people had come to expect since he’d been in high school. It was a farce. He’d created it to pretend it didn’t hurt to be second best, and after Jenny’s disappearance he’d needed to continue it in order to pretend that nothing affected him. He’d hoped it would help him believe that, too.

  “Connor, there’s someone by the far end wall.” She pointed toward where the wall was partially hidden by the trees. “Do you see them?”

  There was a shadowy figure near the corner of the large stone wall that was made out of the same square-cut stones as the building and ran along the entire length of the property. “Yes, I see them,” he said, more focused on what he’d noticed ahead of them. “But we can’t stop.”

  “Why?” She gasped. “There’s more than one! I saw two. One could be Cheryl or Naomi. We have to stop!”

  “We can’t. There’s a uniformed man, my guess is a police officer, near the other end of the wall at the entrance to the driveway.”

  “Oh, no! Do you think he’s looking for them? What if—”

  “He sees us,” Connor said.

  She clasped ahold of his arm. “What are we going to do?”

  “It’s going to be fine. Just act natural.” He increased his speed and drove forward, to where the police office had stepped into the street. “Maybe we can distract him long enough for them to get away.”

  Stopping next to the cop, Connor shifted the car into Neutral and released the clutch. “Hello, officer, perhaps you can help us. We are traveling, and looking for a motel. Had pulled in here because of all the lights, but it doesn’t look like it’s a motel.”

  “Why are you driving with your headlights off?” the officer asked.

  Acting surprised, Connor reached down and clicked on the headlights. “No wonder it was so dark. I must have bumped the switch with my knee. As I was saying, my wife and I are on our way to Niagara Falls, but we need to get some sleep. Too tired to keep driving.”

  Rubbing his neck, Connor kept talking because the officer leaned closer, to get a better look at him and Jenny. “Been driving all day and really need to find a place to rest for a few hours.”

  The officer pulled out a flashlight and shone it into the backseat.

  “Is there something wrong, officer?” Connor asked.

  “Just looking for some suspected runaways,” he answered, clicking off his flashlight. “You see anyone out on the road?”

  “No, but we were looking for a hotel,” Connor answered.

  The officer looked at Jenny. “Did you see anyone, ma’am?”

  “No,” she replied.

  Connor wasn’t sure if the yawn she covered as she turned and glanced out the window was for show or real. He guessed show, but either way, it was convincing.

  The officer nodded and gestured with one hand. “There’s a motel up on the highway, about a quarter of a mile or so, on the left.”

  “Thanks, does this road go back out to the highway, or I should turn around?” Connor asked, just biding more time for whoever had been in the shadows to make their escape.

  “It goes back out to the highway,” the officer said, taking a step back.

  “Are the runaways dangerous?” Connor asked. “Convicts or something?”

  “No, just young girls who don’t know how good they have it,” the officer replied gruffly.

  “That’s too bad,” Connor said.

  “It happens often enough around here.”

  Connor shifted the car into gear. “I hope you find them.”

  “They’ll get caught,” the cop replied. “Hotel should have a vacancy sign outside.”

  “We’ll look for it,” Connor said. “Thank you very much.”

  The cop took another step back and waved them to drive forward.

  Sensing Jenny was about to twist and look behind them, he said, “Don’t turn around—I can see him in the mirror and he’s watching us.”

  “What’s he doing?”

  “Just watching us.”

  “Why did you say that to him?” she asked, in somewhat of a hiss.

  “Say what?”

  “That I was your wife and we were on our way to Niagara Falls!”

  He turned the corner and drove toward the highway. “Should I have said that we are looking for runaway pregnant girls to haul back to Twin Pines?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Then that’s why I said it.”

  “Sure, because you don’t know that Niagara Falls is the honeymoon capital of the world.”


  “I didn’t say I didn’t know that. Everyone knows Niagara Falls is the honeymoon capital of the world, but that doesn’t have anything to do with us or what is happening tonight.”

  * * *

  Jenny’s cheeks were on fire over the direction her mind had gone. He was right; what he’d said to the police officer had nothing to do with what they were doing. She was just near her wit’s end. Gretchen had offered to be the one to go to Albany tonight, but Jenny hadn’t been sure that Connor would agree to take Gretchen. She hadn’t been sure that he’d agree to take her, either, but thought he would. And he had.

  The other thing was that since he’d told her about his father’s birthday party, she’d been thinking about how different things could have been if she’d only have known.

  “You want me to say that I lied to the officer? Fine, I lied to him. You knew that from the moment I opened my mouth.” He huffed out a breath while turning onto the highway. “But I didn’t lie to you about going to New York, or about anything else.”

  Old habits were hard to break, yet at this moment, she needed to apologize to him. She hadn’t been accusing him of lying; she’d been reacting to how his claiming that she was his wife had made her heart stop. There had been a time when that had been her greatest dream. One she hadn’t quite gotten over. “I’m sorry, I—”

  “No, I’m sorry. I know you’re upset, tired and worried.” Glancing at her, he continued, “We’re going to drive up the road to that motel and park the car in case that officer drives by to check. You are going to wait there while I walk back here and find those girls.”

  “You can’t. They’ll run from you, and what if the officer sees me waiting in the car? We’ll both walk back.”

  “Do you argue with everyone, or just me?”

  Her spine stiffened. “I only argue when someone is too stubborn to listen.”

  He laughed, and the sound evoked other memories, those of having fun with him, laughing with him. It was enough to make her want to smile. She tried to hide it, but it won out.

  She didn’t let him see it by looking out the passenger window as he pulled into the motel and parked near the back of the lot. They had only dated for a short time, but it had been the happiest time of her life. It had also heartbroken her like nothing else ever had, and she would never do something foolish enough to let that happen again.

  As soon as he shut off the car, she opened her door.

  “Slow down,” Connor said. “We aren’t just going to go running down the streets. There are two blocks of houses between here and the home.”

  “I know,” she answered while climbing out.

  He stepped out of the car on his side and collected his jacket from the backseat. While putting on the suit coat, he walked to the front of the car. “Don’t want my white shirt sticking out like a sore thumb.” Nodding in the general direction of the home, he continued, “I think our best bet would be to go to the river and follow it to the property—hopefully the runaways are coming this way.”

  Jenny hoped so, too. “With the policeman stationed near the front, I would think this is the direction they’d go.”

  “Where did you go when you ran away?”

  “Toward town, but there wasn’t a policeman at the entrance when I left,” she answered as they started walking. There was no use keeping certain things secret. Other things, she’d never tell. “I met Cheryl in the park the next morning, and she told me to go to the flower shop.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Downtown, about twenty blocks from here.”

  “That’s over two miles. You had to have been scared.”

  It felt strange talking about it to him, yet wasn’t difficult. “Yes, and no. Anything would have been better than staying there.”

  “How long had you been there?”

  “Almost a month.”

  They were walking along the edge of a lawn belonging to a large brick home, and when he took her hand, she wasn’t sure if it was for comfort, or because the lawn had started to slope down a hill that led to the river.

  After a long moment of silence, he asked, “Your mother wouldn’t let you return home?”

  “I never contacted her. Haven’t seen her since the night she dropped me off. She’d made it clear that I’d been disowned and that paying for my stay at the home was the last thing they’d ever do for me.”

  His hold on her hand tightened. That simple gesture warmed her soul in a way that nothing else had in a long time.

  “Jenny—”

  “I was fine with that,” she said, stopping him from saying more. Sympathy was not something she needed. “And still am. I would never have been allowed to keep Emily had I contacted them, and I wanted my daughter.” Quiet, peaceful night sounds surrounded them. The chirp of crickets, rustling of leaves, the soft splash of the river rolling along the banks. Oddly, there was a peacefulness inside her. An acceptance that she’d acquired long ago. “Things were so different after my father died and my mother married Richard. We were never a family after that., I felt like I was a burden, baggage. Richard traveled a lot, selling his cameras, and my mother joined him, leaving me home with a housekeeper, like that was all I needed, someone to cook me meals and make sure I went to school every day.”

  He stopped and stepped in front of her, looking at her. “Why didn’t I know any of that?”

  “Because I didn’t want you to know.” It had taken her a long time to figure it all out, but now she knew, and accepted her childhood. “I didn’t want anyone to know just how unwanted I was. Or how lonely.” The only time she hadn’t felt unwanted or lonely had been when she’d been with him. He’d filled her with such joy, such happiness, there hadn’t been room for anything else.

  He nodded. “Just like I didn’t want you to know about me and my father.”

  The softness of his touch, of one knuckle touching her cheek, made her eyes sting. They’d both been so young. So naïve. “I guess so.”

  “I’m sorry, Jenny.” His palm cupped the side of her face. “I wish I could say more than that. I wish I would have found you. Helped you so you didn’t have to go through so much by yourself.”

  “No, you don’t, Connor. Trust me.” She didn’t ever want him to know who had fathered Emily. And he might have, back then.

  He grasped her shoulders, pulled her against him and engulfed her in a hug. It was a haven she’d never known and could easily get lost in it, especially when his lips brushed the top of her head. Therefore, she pressed her hands against his chest to separate them. “But I do appreciate your help right now. Tonight.”

  The sigh he released echoed inside her, and left her feeling shaky as he took her hand and started walking again.

  A short time later, while they were walking along the edge of the riverbank, staying hidden just inside the line of trees and brush between the lawns of the homes and the water, she heard something. A thud and a muffled yelp.

  He pulled her deeper into the trees, where they crouched down behind a cluster of thick brush. Side by side, they remained still.

  After a long, silent time, without a single unrecognizable sound, she whispered, “Do you hear anything?”

  He shook his head. As he rose to his feet, he kept hold of her hand to help her stand. Her heel caught on a twig as she took a step, making her stumble.

  Connor caught her around the waist. Her upper torso ended up pressed against his. The contact stole her breath and sent her heart racing.

  He pressed a finger to her lips and then pulled her down behind the bush again. “Someone’s coming.”

  Past the thudding of her heart echoing in her ears, she heard a rustling that sounded like footsteps.

  Connor tapped on her shoulder, then pointed deeper in the woods, closer to the river.

  Three figures were slowly making their way around the trees. Women. All t
hree of them. She nodded to Connor, knowing his silent question asking if it was the runaways or not. She recognized Cheryl’s larger shape, which confirmed it was them. After scanning the area and not seeing anyone following the women, she held up a hand, telling him to stay put, and slowly rose to her feet.

  He caught her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze, before giving her a nod and releasing her hand.

  Being so close to Connor, holding his hand, having his arms around her, was affecting her far deeper than it should. Far deeper than she could allow. Needing to keep everything in perspective, she kept her eyes on the women while slowly making her way toward them.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Connor couldn’t hear what was being said as Jenny approached the other women, but he was sure they’d found the runaways. He was glad, and couldn’t wait to get them all out of here, but his mind was still honed in on Jenny.

  On her mother for disowning her.

  That angered him.

  Deeply.

  Yet, recalling how her mother had been cold, distant and indifferent to his concerns when he’d tried find out where Jenny had gone after he’d returned home, he believed all Jenny had told him.

  He’d sought his father’s approval, but he’d never doubted that he was loved. Would never have been disowned. It was unfathomable to him that a parent would do that.

  Anger tightened deep in his stomach, and it was directed at himself. For not knowing how bad Jenny’s home life had been. She’d never invited him to meet her parents, and he should have questioned that.

  As his thoughts continued, he once again scanned the area, looking for anyone following the women. When his gaze landed on Jenny again, he realized that although he understood more, he still had no idea how she’d become pregnant, or by whom.

  She started walking toward him, with two others, while the third one walked in the opposite direction. He moved forward to meet Jenny.