Anything for Her

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “No.” Whatever instinct had made him speak so quickly, Nolan was listening to it. Or, hell, maybe it was his bank balance talking. “No, let’s call it quits for now.”

  “Your decision. What about the son?”

  Nolan mulled that over. “Let’s hold off for now. I’ll let you know if I want you to talk to him, too.” He pushed the button to end the call and tossed his phone back onto the counter. “Shit.”

  What had he stirred? It made him uneasy that Mark Nelson first denied he had a daughter at all then refused to talk about her. If Allie and her mother had changed their names to make good their escape from him, you’d think he’d have been intrigued by a P.I. coming around and asking questions. It might have occurred to him that this could be a chance for him to track them.

  Why would he be angry? For that matter, why afraid? His wife and daughter had left town ten years ago. Too long for any crime he’d committed against them to be prosecuted now. Did they hold something over him? If they did, why had they run?

  And where did Allie’s brother fit in? Nolan heard a deep sadness in her voice when she talked about Jason. If the dad had hurt her, would the brother really have turned his back on her?

  Too many questions, no answers. Nolan had a bad feeling he’d just wasted his money—and taken a chance of losing Allie once and for all besides.

  Have I ever really had her, he asked himself bleakly, when she hasn’t even told me her real name?

  Now what?

  Quit pushing, enjoy the relationship for what it was, hope that over time she’d trust him enough to tell him her story? A raw sound ripped its way out of him. Oh, yeah, there was a plan. Fall deeper in love with a woman who lied to him every time she opened her mouth?

  It wasn’t in him.

  “Damn you, Allie Wright.” Laura Nelson?

  Right this minute, he wished he’d never met her.

  * * *

  ALLIE GLANCED AT the number displayed on her phone and groaned. She hadn’t talked to her mother since they’d parted Sunday after the movie. She’d ignored a couple of calls because she still had no idea what to say.

  This, she thought ruefully, was a perfect example of their differing styles. Or was it clashing? Mom wanted to confront problems head-on. Allie retreated into herself.

  But I do love my mother. I know that much.

  With a sigh, she picked up the phone.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “I was afraid you wouldn’t answer.”

  “I was planning to call anyway.” Sure I was.

  “I’m glad.” Her mother sounded a little hesitant. “I thought it would be good for us to spend some time together.”

  “Mom, I don’t think I’m ready to talk about this again. Not yet.”

  “Talking is how we work out problems.”

  “How do we work out something that’s over and done?” Bitterness made an abrupt appearance. “We can’t have a redo, can we? Can you honestly say you’d do anything different if you had the chance?”

  The pause was long enough she thought the call might have been dropped—or Mom had hung up on her. “You’re not being fair,” she said then. “You have the advantage of hindsight.”

  “But you still expect me to make any sacrifice you demand, don’t you, Mom?” And there, Allie realized, was the crux. Her greatest anger wasn’t felt for choices long past. It was for now.

  “That’s a hateful thing to say.”

  She needed her mother’s blessings for telling Nolan everything, and she wouldn’t be getting it. Mom still wanted to be the endangered heroine of their story, and giving Allie a happy ending would diminish that role.

  “Why can’t you respect my judgment?” she asked, her voice suddenly soft, hurt. “I have never loved a man before. I’ve never asked you for permission to tell someone the truth. I have kept your secrets for fifteen years. Do you really think I’m so foolish, I’d trust the wrong man?”

  “You know it’s not that!” her mother snapped. “I explained. So much could go wrong. Why take a chance when it’s not necessary?”

  Allie gently depressed the button that ended the call. She then turned her phone off.

  She sat in her chair beside Sean’s quilt, stretched in the quilt frame, but didn’t reach for her thimble or needle. The deep blue and white blurred before her eyes.

  She would be betraying her mother if she followed her heart.

  Anger had transmuted into anguish that had her bending forward, hugging herself and breathing fast and hard.

  It was a while before she had a moment of clarity. At least she still had her mother.

  Both of them had been hurt by Allie’s dad’s defection and then by Jason’s. Mom might only be desperate to know that at least one member of her family wouldn’t desert her. It was hard to believe in other people when the ones who were supposed to love you most abandoned you.

  Who knew that better than Allie?

  She never did work on Sean’s quilt.

  * * *

  “WHAT’S THE DEAL with Allie?” Sean asked as he grabbed sour cream and steak sauce from the refrigerator.

  Nolan set the platter with baked potatoes on the table. “What do you mean?”

  “You didn’t see her this weekend, did you?”

  “I don’t always tell you when I get together with her.” Nolan checked the steaks he was broiling, decided they were done and grabbed a plate. He was glad to have his back to Sean. “Will you get me a beer?” he asked.

  Silence. Reluctantly he turned to find his foster son hadn’t gone back to the refrigerator. He was staring at Nolan.

  “What?”

  “You hardly ever drink.”

  “You know I like an occasional beer.”

  “You can tell me it’s none of my business, you know.”

  Nolan groaned. “Can we sit down and eat?”

  As ordered, Sean got their drinks and joined him at the table. They ate in silence for a good five minutes. Nolan finally broke.

  “I’ve had a lot on my mind, that’s all.”

  “It has something to do with her saying she lived one place and her mom a difference place, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Nolan admitted. “Like I told you early on, I’ve got a thing about lies.”

  “You think she lied.”

  The kid was a persistent little bugger, Nolan had to give him that. “It’s more complicated than that,” he said. “I think it was her mother who lied. But there’s something going on that Allie doesn’t want to tell me. I can’t do a relationship where the trust isn’t there.”

  Sean pondered that while inhaling baked potato heaped with sour cream. “Allie doesn’t seem like someone who would lie. You know?”

  Nolan grimaced. “I know.”

  “So maybe...”

  “Maybe what?”

  The boy’s shoulders moved awkwardly. “I don’t know. Maybe she has to keep quiet for someone else. Or what if she’s scared or something?”

  Scared, like her father was? “Scared of what?” The question was really for himself.

  “Have you asked her?”

  “No. I was hoping she’d come to me.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t know you’ve guessed something is off,” Sean suggested.

  Nolan felt certain Allie was well aware of his doubts and questions. The tension had been there all along; even on their first date, she wasn’t eager to talk about her history.

  “You weren’t all that high on me dating her,” Nolan reminded the boy. “What’s with the grilling?”

  Some color touched his cheeks and he ducked his head. “She’s cool. It was me, not her. She treats me like a person, not a kid. If she was my girlfriend, I wouldn’t want to screw it up.”

  Nolan didn’t want to screw it up, either. Was that what he was doing? In his obsession with honesty, had he blown it with the first and only woman he’d ever thought of the word love in connection with?

  “I was your age when I found out my mother had been sleeping
around,” he heard himself say abruptly. “The man I’d called ‘Dad’ my whole life isn’t my biological father.”

  Sean gaped. “No shit?”

  “No shit,” Nolan said grimly. “My brother, Jed, is his kid. My sister, Anna, isn’t.” He hesitated. “We think we have two different fathers.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “My mother won’t talk about it.”

  “So you quit talking to her,” Sean said slowly.

  Nolan raised his eyebrows. “How do you know that?”

  Sean looked at him as if he was stupid. “I hear you on the phone with your sister and brother, but never either of your parents.” He flushed. “I mean, your mom and...”

  “I still call him Dad.” Nolan grimaced. “I got snotty for a while back then and called him by his name.” A reluctant smile tipped his mouth. “He didn’t like it. He persuaded me that he was, by God, my father in every way that mattered.”

  “So...” Puzzlement tugged the boy’s eyebrows together. “Why are you so mad at him?”

  “Because he knew. All those years, he knew. We all lived a lie.”

  After a minute Sean nodded and then applied himself to eating. Nolan looked down and realized his food was probably getting cold. He picked up his knife and fork, too.

  “Allie might be different,” Sean said at last, tentatively. “I mean, you don’t know why she doesn’t want to talk about...whatever.”

  “That’s true,” Nolan admitted heavily.

  “I think you should talk to her.”

  “Yeah.” Nolan smiled at him. “You’re right. I should.”

  “So you will?”

  “You don’t give up, do you?”

  The response was a wicked grin, one that would have girls’ hearts fluttering. Maybe already did; Nolan remembered the teammate’s twin sister who’d been asking questions about Sean. Good God, Nolan thought; there’d be girls beating down the door before he knew it.

  “You going to answer?”

  “Not sure it’s really any of your business,” Nolan told him, “but yes. I will talk to her. Give her a chance to talk to me. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Sean’s gaze settled on Nolan’s plate. “Are you going to finish the rest of your steak?”

  Nolan had almost forgotten what it felt like to be hungry 24/7. “You can have it.” He forked the steak and shifted it to Sean’s plate. “The potato is all mine.”

  “That’s cool.” He’d earned another grin. “I saw the pie. We get that for dessert, right?”

  “It’s raspberry. And, yes, we do.”

  “Ice cream, too?”

  “Can’t eat pie without it.”

  “Awesome.” Around the bite of steak he’d shoved in his mouth, Sean said, “I can dish it up.”

  “So you can cut the pie in fourths instead of sixths?”

  “It’ll get soggy if we don’t eat it fast enough.”

  No denying it, fruit pies did get soggy as the days passed. He laughed. “You can dish it up.”

  Satisfied, Sean asked Nolan if he’d ever read Lord of the Flies, because he’d started it for English class but he’d already read the end because that’s what he did. Nolan dredged up his memory of the rather disturbing book and they had a discussion about it that went deeper than he would have expected with a kid Sean’s age. It almost succeeded in keeping Nolan’s mind off what he’d decided he’d do right after dinner: call Allie.

  Half an hour later, the kitchen clean, Sean bounded up the stairs to read a couple of chapters, he said. Nolan had noticed he was spending a lot more time online, too. On the whole, he thought it was a good sign suggesting Sean really was making friends. All those Facebook pages to check out.

  With some reluctance, he picked up the phone and dialed Allie’s number.

  “Nolan,” she said, her tone totally unreadable.

  “Hey.” He winced. Not the best lead-in. “Listen, I was wondering if I could come over tomorrow night. I’d like to talk to you.”

  The silence stretched long enough to make him nervous. “Is this a breaking-up kind of talk? ‘Allie, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I don’t think this thing we have is going anywhere’? Because if so, I’d rather you said it right now and got it over with.”

  He scrubbed a hand over his face. He’d thought about saying something like that—and couldn’t imagine now that he’d ever have been able to spit it out. Or that he’d ever have gotten over the regret if he’d been that stupid.

  Yeah? What if I ask my questions and she says, “None of your business.” What then?

  Nolan didn’t know. His heart ached.

  “No,” he said. “It’s nothing like that. I really do want to talk to you.”

  “Do you want to come to dinner?” she asked carefully.

  He hesitated. “Why don’t I come over after? Is that okay?”

  Silence pooled again, deep and dark. “All right,” she said finally. “I’ll see you when I see you. Good night,” she added, and the dead air told him she hadn’t waited for any good-nights from him.

  Oh, crap. Now he was committed to laying it all on the line. He discovered that now he was the scared one.

  * * *

  ALLIE SURVEYED THE contents of her refrigerator and cupboards, but nothing appealed to her. She’d weighed herself that morning and knew she was in trouble. She’d be looking really scrawny soon, if she wasn’t careful. But knowing Nolan would surely be here within the next hour, having no idea what he would have to say, she couldn’t make herself eat.

  She paid bills. Business had been good this fall, but that didn’t mean she was able to draw a huge salary from the store. Looking at her public-utility bill, she got up and turned down the thermostat. Wow. Time to start wearing sweaters.

  Her stomach was balled in a knot. She tried hard to focus entirely on her checkbook balance and whether she ought to completely pay off the VISA bill or let part of it ride until next month. She noted how many minutes she’d spent on her cell phone—lucky she and Nolan usually talked in the evening and not daytime—but her mind kept flickering to him.

  The pain in her stomach grew. She saw that her hand, wielding the pen, had a fine tremor. Anxiety swelled until she could hardly breathe.

  What was she going to do? She knew what he wanted, what he was going to ask of her. The idea of defying her mother to this extent terrified her...but so did the idea of seeing frustration close down Nolan’s expression. He would walk out, she knew he would, and Allie didn’t think she could bear it.

  If that happened, the wound wouldn’t only sever her relationship with Nolan. It would also be the killing blow to the love she felt for her mother, love that had been unquestioning until so recently.

  Until Nolan.

  At a sharp rap on the door, she jumped six inches. Why hadn’t she heard his truck? His footsteps on the steps? Oh, God, I’m not ready.

  No choice.

  She looked at the table in front of her and was surprised to see that she was apparently done paying bills. A neat pile of envelopes ready to go sat on one side, the checkbook on another. Wonderful. She didn’t remember putting stamps on the envelopes or even writing some of the checks, for that matter. It might be a good idea to check her math later, given that she didn’t remember doing that part of keeping a checkbook, either.

  She got as far as the door, closed her eyes and willed herself to some kind of composure. What if she was terrifying herself for nothing? What if he only wanted to apologize for going missing this week, and maybe suggest they do something special this weekend? What if...?

  She opened the door.

  He was the original stone man. That craggy face was completely impassive. Even his eyes were shadowed, less clear and penetrating than usual. No, Allie realized, he wasn’t here to suggest they do something special this weekend.

  “Allie,” he said, nodding.

  She stepped back. “Come in. Please.”

  His gaze did shift to the quilt. “You’ve made a lot of p
rogress,” he said quietly.

  She let herself look fully at him. “I’ve had plenty of time to work.”

  That made a muscle in his jaw spasm.

  “I had to do some thinking.”

  “I take it you’ve reached a conclusion?”

  “Can we sit down?” he asked.

  “Oh, um, sure.” She turned her head. Here? Or at the table? “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

  He shook his head, crushing her last desperate hope that this visit was casual on some level. “I’m good.”

  She nodded and waved him to a chair. She turned hers from the quilting frame to face him. I want to be numb, she thought. Please let me go numb so I can think.

  If wishes were horses...

  She swallowed, looking into a face she realized now wasn’t impassive. It was implacable. Hard as granite.

  “Allie, I know you’re hiding something. And maybe we haven’t known each other long enough for me to have any right to demand answers. I keep telling myself I should be patient.” He frowned, the first real expression he’d shown. “Funny thing is, usually I am. But you know how I feel about dishonesty. And why.”

  Unable to meet his eyes again, she gazed down at his hands. “I haven’t exactly been dishonest.”

  “Haven’t you?” His tone was as unbending as his face.

  She opened her mouth to say no, then closed it. Her name was a lie. She was a creation, not a real person.

  “I...” Her throat clogged. She didn’t know what she’d intended to say anyway.

  “Why, Allie?” Suddenly he sounded so gentle, she thought her heart might break. “What is it you’re afraid to tell me?”

  She lifted her head and saw that his eyes were kind, too. Despair washed over her, chased by something unexpected. Relief. He had made up her mind for her. If he’d been brusque, said “tell me or else,” she might have chosen her mother. That’s what this had come down to, hadn’t it. Mom or Nolan.

  I choose Nolan. The power of the emotional punch made her bow forward.

  He half rose to his feet. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.” She took a deep breath and straightened her back. “I’m fine. It’s just that...I had to swear never to tell anyone.” Never, never, never. Her nails bit into her palms. “I became Allie Wright when I was seventeen.”