by Helen Brenna
No. She couldn’t. She had absolutely no frame of reference, and she’d had no idea his pain over his issues with his father ran so deep. God help her, but she wanted to reach out and hold him. “Jonas, if I’d known… If you’d shared.” She moved toward him.
In an instant, he shut down. As if closing a door on his soul, his features hardened, his eyes turned guarded. “I swore that would never happen to me. Get it? No matter what, I would always provide for my family.”
She reached out. “But, Jonas—”
“Don’t touch me, Missy.” He pushed open the door. “I can guarantee you won’t like where I’ll take it from there.”
J ONAS LEFT THE GIFT SHOP AND , knowing he wouldn’t be able to stomach going back to Missy’s house, headed to the lake to walk quickly along the shoreline. In a short while, he’d left the village behind and found a narrow path through the thick woods. He came to the lighthouse Missy had walked to the other night, wandered out toward the water and made himself sit quietly on a large flat rock.
He could see why she liked this place. The water was calm, as black as ink, and seemed to go on forever. A soft, cool breeze hit his face. There wasn’t a sound but the waves lapping softly against the rocks. Breathe it in. Relax. Slow down, Jonas. It wasn’t going to happen. Probably never would.
He couldn’t believe he’d dredged up those old memories of his father. He should have felt relieved to have shared an inkling of his past with Missy, but all he felt was vulnerable and weak. He’d exposed himself. With a few choice words, she could cut him to the quick.
She wouldn’t, though. Not Missy.
Or would she? Who filed for a divorce?
He would never be able to forget being rocked to the core when she’d come to him with those legal papers. The one person in the world he’d trusted had turned on him. And then cried at his funeral. Why?
Was it as simple as Missy claimed it to be? She’d felt lonely and unimportant? For the first time since she’d blindsided him with those legal documents Jonas realized that maybe he had given her cause. Maybe he was simply incapable of loving her back.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“HAVE YOU FOUND HER ?” Mason glanced again at the last known photo of the woman on his computer. She was attractive, in a refined, elegant sort of way, and he sure as hell couldn’t picture her with the likes of Jonas Abel. Not back all those years ago when he went to her house to tell her Abel was dead and sure as hell not now.
“This isn’t as easy as you’d think. She’s changed her name so many damned times her trail is like a maze. Moved at least six times since Abel’s death.”
“She doesn’t want to be found. Why?”
“You got me.”
“Criminal past?” Mason mused. “A stalker or abusive boyfriend in her background? Nutcase?”
“None of the above as far as I can tell.”
“I’ll talk to Abel’s old friends. Maybe they have something on her.”
“What if Abel’s wife is a dead end?”
“He’s got to be with her. He couldn’t have stayed under our radar all this time.”
“Delgado’s due back in Chicago any day. He’s going to want this locked up.”
Mason stood from his desk and glanced out onto the street. “So tell him what he wants to hear. That’ll buy us a little more time.”
“E NOUGH’S ENOUGH .” S ARAH CAME marching into Whimsy’s back storage room. “You’ve been avoiding me and I want to know why.”
Missy glanced up from the boxes she’d opened trying to find a new supply of recycled fabric purses from Thailand that had been practically flying off the shelves. One look at Sarah’s face and Missy’s stomach pitched. It’d been almost a week since she’d seen Sarah at Duffy’s for happy hour.
Sarah put her hands on her hips. “I was going to wait until you were ready to talk, but I’ve had it.”
“I haven’t been—”
“Don’t even try it,” Sarah said, scowling. “I’m not Ron and you don’t have me wrapped around your little finger. I want to know what’s going on.”
The comment about Ron was entirely uncalled for, but Missy couldn’t fault Sarah for being upset.
“I’m sorry,” Sarah said. “That was a low blow. I’m just worried about you. You haven’t been yourself these last couple of days.”
“Honestly, Sarah, I don’t know where to begin.”
“Anywhere is a start.”
She was right. Enough was enough. Either Sarah was going to accept Missy for who she was, or not. Missy sat on a box. “I lied to you.”
“About what?”
“Everything.”
Sarah didn’t say anything, only lowered herself onto another box and held Missy’s gaze.
“Jonas isn’t my brother.”
Sarah chuckled and crossed her legs. “For some reason that doesn’t really shock me.”
“Wait a few minutes. It’ll get more interesting.” Missy took a deep breath. “He’s my husband.”
Sarah’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you said your husband had died.” Her voice betrayed her deep concern for Missy. That was bound to change.
Missy forged ahead, explaining everything she knew about Jonas’s plan, knowing, at the very least, that Sarah wouldn’t put Jonas at risk. “He truly thought he was making things easier for us both.”
“He’s an idiot.”
“I’d filed for a divorce.”
“Whoa.”
Missy hesitated. “Everything happened so fast between us. I wasn’t prepared for the realities of a relationship and he…he… An FBI agent’s job is demanding. I felt so alone, even more so than before I’d met him. I’d started thinking we’d made a mistake. Then I got pregnant. I tried again to make our marriage work, but I miscarried the baby. He was out of town, unreachable, and I had to go to the hospital alone.”
“You miscarried and went through it all by yourself?” Sarah seemed to fall back into her own past. As a single mother, she was sure to have gone through many things alone with her son though she’d never shared anything with Missy about Brian’s father. The fact that they both seemed content sharing the present had been one of the things that had bound them as friends. “No wonder this adoption has been so important to you.”
“I wanted that baby. If he’d been there, if I’d even been able to get ahold of him on the phone, maybe things would’ve been different. The fact that I couldn’t talk to him at the most difficult time in my life was a last straw for me.”
“You never told him that happened, did you?”
“At first it was all too raw. I was angry. Filed for a divorce almost right away. Not long after that he faked his death.”
Sarah sighed. “Does he know the truth now? About the miscarriage?”
“No. I don’t plan on telling him.” The last thing she needed was to expose more tender spots to Jonas. Not after all that had happened between them.
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, but you have to do what you think is right.” Sarah put her arms around Missy and hugged her, but Missy shrugged away. In another minute or two, the only best friend Missy had ever had was bound to feel betrayed.
Sarah sat back. “There’s more, isn’t there?”
Missy nodded. The rest was the hardest part, but there was no going back. She’d started a ball rolling and she needed to follow through. Still, she couldn’t look at Sarah, couldn’t handle the pain of betrayal she was bound to see. “My real name isn’t Missy Charms. It’s Melissa Victoria Camden. I’m Arthur Camden’s daughter.”
“ Senator Arthur Camden? Of the east coast Camdens? The famous family?”
Missy nodded.
As if she couldn’t quite believe it, Sarah tried one more time. “You mean the Camdens who get mentioned on the entertainment channels? Whose pictures are on magazines and in newspapers?”
She nodded again.
“That means…that means you were once upon a time one of the richest children in United States history
?”
Missy held her breath. Please understand. Please.
“Shit,” Sarah muttered. “You’re the daughter they never talk about. The one who’s estranged from the family.” She paused, seemed to be absorbing the information. “That’s a damned big lie. Why?”
Missy tried to explain how she’d never felt a part of her family, how the fact that she’d had money—a lot of it—had changed how people looked at her, how she’d wanted to be someone other than who she was. “All my life. I just wanted to be normal.”
“Normal? Like shop at second-hand stores normal? Like not sure how you’re going to put food on the table normal? This is unreal.” Sarah jumped up and paced what little she could amidst the boxes scattered across the floor. “So the other day when I told you about getting stiffed on that bill for that extravagant wedding and not being able to make my rent that month, you could’ve snapped your fingers and made the whole problem go away.”
“I don’t do that,” Missy whispered. “Other than taking small amounts out for living expenses, I don’t touch the money in my trust fund unless it’s a crisis.”
Sarah laughed sourly and shook her head. “And your best friend’s crisis isn’t your crisis?”
“That’s not true. I knew you’d be okay, Sarah. I knew Ron, Jan and Marty would cut you slack.”
“So what if the crisis had been worse? What if I was about to lose my house or my business? What then, Missy?”
She looked away, unable to bear the look of betrayal in Sarah’s eyes. “I would’ve found a way to help, but probably wouldn’t have told you about my family.”
“Probably?”
“Sarah, you’re strong. A helluva lot stronger than me. It’s best for people to stand on their own two feet.”
“Like you?” She shook her head. “Now I know how you can manage with a gift shop that never makes any money.”
That stung. “I guess I deserved that.”
“Does anyone else know about this?” Sarah asked.
“I told Ron and Jan the other day.”
“What did they say?”
“Actually, they were relieved. They thought I was running from the police.” She chuckled.
Sarah didn’t even crack a smile. “Here I can’t seem to get my head above water financially, and you have enough money to buy this entire damned island.”
“I don’t want to buy the island. I just want to be me.”
“That begs the question…who exactly are you?”
Missy turned toward her, held her gaze. “You know who I am, Sarah. That, at least, hasn’t been a lie. I am Missy Charms.” She tried like hell to believe it.
“You’re sure about that? Any other lies I should know about?”
Missy shook her head. “Sarah—”
Sarah went to the back door. “I have to go—”
“Can I tell you something first?”
Sarah crossed her arms in front of her, but at least she didn’t walk away.
“I had a best friend in college,” Missy started. “The first one ever, really. Chrissy was on scholarship and never had much spending money. She didn’t come from a wealthy family. I think that’s why I liked her so much. She was real, seemingly unaffected. Until she found out I was a Camden.
“The changes in our relationship didn’t happen overnight, but before I knew it, she asked to borrow some money to pay for a movie. Promised to pay me back as soon as she got her next paycheck. She didn’t, but I honestly didn’t care.
“We’d go out shopping. She’d try things on, and then say she couldn’t afford them. I’d feel bad and buy them for her. Little things like that kept happening.
“The real problems started when my mother invited her to come with us to France for spring break. My family paid for everything. Her airfare. All of her food and activities. They even took her on a shopping excursion and spent thousands on clothes for her.
“After that, nothing was ever the same between us. She’d borrow things from me and never return them, use my makeup, and stopped offering to pitch in on things. My CDs and DVDs would end up in her room. It didn’t take long to start wondering why she wanted to be my friend.”
Sarah said nothing.
“Chrissy wasn’t the only one,” Missy said. “I could go on and on about how the last name Camden impacted my relationships. Your friendship, Sarah, was too important to risk.”
Sarah’s eyes watered, but her expression remained resolute. “I have to think about this.” She turned. “I’ll get back to you.”
As Missy watched her best friend walk away, what little was left of her world seemed to turn to dust at her feet. That had definitely not gone the way she’d hoped, but she couldn’t blame Sarah if she never did get back to her.
Missy swiped her eyes dry, and oddly enough wished Jonas were here so she could talk. He’d always been such a good listener.
After letting Gaia know she was heading out for some air, Missy left Whimsy and took off down the street. She passed the small lot filled with Ron’s equipment rental inventory, including strollers, bicycles and bike trailers meant to carry small children, as well as more active rentals like kayaks and windsurfing boards. Slowly, she stepped into Ron’s shop, guessing she’d find Jan there, as well. It was very early in the afternoon and they usually made it a point to take lunch together.
Ron glanced up from helping a customer at the counter. “Well, I was wondering where you’ve—” He stopped and narrowed his eyes at her.
Jan hopped up from the table where she’d been eating a sandwich. “Missy, what happened?”
“I’m okay,” she said. “I’ve just been crying.”
“We can see that,” Jan said, putting an arm around her shoulder.
“Let’s go out back.” Ron turned the customer he was helping over to one of his assistants and then drew Missy through the back workroom and out the door to the alley. Jan followed close behind.
Missy paced beside them. “I told Sarah the truth. All of it.”
“Let me guess,” Jan said. “She didn’t take it very well.”
Missy shook her head. “She was downright mad at me.”
“I have to admit,” Jan said. “At first, it hurt a little bit that you didn’t trust us with the truth months, if not years, ago.”
“I’m sorry.” Missy glanced from one to the other. “There didn’t seem to be any reason to bring it all up.”
“Give her some time,” Ron said, rubbing Missy’s arm. “She’ll realize that none of these revelations changes who you are deep inside, honey.”
With that, Missy fell into his arms, big, strong arms that felt as if they could fight off the world. He rocked her back and forth as she cried. While her own father had done nothing except dictate, Ron had listened, counseled and consoled on more occasions than Missy could count.
Although it was possible Sarah might never forgive Missy, it’d been the right thing to do. Still, facing her and being honest with her had been one of the hardest things Missy had ever done. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.” She glanced at Jan. “You two have been more like parents to me in the last couple of years, than my real parents were in twenty.”
“Some people just don’t have it in them, Missy,” Ron said, setting her away from him. “Then there are others we judge a bit too harshly.”
She glanced at him. “You think I’ve been too harsh with my family?”
“No,” he said. “I only wonder.”
“I’ve never been a mother,” Jan said, “but I imagine it must be hard for a woman to know her child has turned away from her, and I’m not sure blaming your siblings is fair. They were in the same boat with you, right?”
That’s something Missy had never considered. “You’re right. As usual.” Missy sighed.
“What are you planning to do about Jonas?” Jan asked.
Another tough one, considering Ron and Jan’s conservative views about marriage. “I know you don’t believe in divorce, but there doesn’t seem
to be any other option.”
“There are always other options,” Jan said.
“He doesn’t love me enough, and he loves his job too much.” At least that’s what Missy had been telling herself since Jonas first showed up on her porch, but after his admission the other day in Whimsy about the financial difficulties of his childhood, Missy was no longer sure about anything.
“Did you love him?” Ron asked.
Of that, there’d never been any doubt. “Yes.”
“Well, then, seems pretty simple to me,” Ron said. “Jonas has been dead to you for four years, Missy. Things may have changed. Maybe you should give yourself more than a couple of days to decide what’s for the best.”
J ONAS PACED M ISSY’S HOUSE . Nearly every hour, he’d checked the e-mail account Louis Reynolds would be contacting and had found no messages. He should be doing something to get off this damned island. But what? He couldn’t go back to Chicago and risk being discovered. He couldn’t go to D.C. to face Stein and risk the investigation. There was still a chance they could bust Delgado. Hell, he couldn’t even leave Missy’s house. Every hotel room on the island was booked through the summer.
Missy.
Ever since he’d shared the truth about his childhood, he’d felt raw, like one big bullet wound. Now he was the one avoiding her. Memories of her, old and new, flooded in, and his anger, at her and himself, built. Dammit! He wanted to punch his fist through the wall. He should’ve never come here. Never. He’d thought he’d be safe with her. If only for a few weeks. His body might be healing, but it felt as if his heart was breaking all over again.
But that couldn’t be. His heart wasn’t—couldn’t be—involved in this. He wouldn’t let it come to that.
Work. That would distract him. There had to be something he could do. Keeping his fingers crossed that Reynolds had made some headway, Jonas dialed the agent’s cell phone.
“Special Agent Reynolds.”
“It’s Abel. What do you know?”
“I’ll make this quick. It appears your undercover op with Stein is not entirely legit.”
