When I Found You (A Box Set)

by Webb, Peggy

  Her son had never been so pricklish with her. Curious, Eleanor watched as he stalked to the other side of the room. When he was beside the fireplace, he propped one arm on the mantel, leaning sideways so his eye patch was turned away from the door.

  Sharp pain sliced through her, as if the panga were still carving away at her heart. If Ruth cringed from the sight of her son’s eye patch, she’d ... She got so worked up at the idea that she didn’t know what she’d do.

  “Joseph.” He sat in his chair as if a fog had suddenly descended over him and he was trying to figure his way out. Her voice was sharper than necessary, but, Lord, it did look as if Joseph might not be so distant, today of all days. “Let’s greet our daughter-in-law together. Come and stand beside me.”

  Joseph ambled over. Even the way he walked irritated her today. She hoped her irritation didn’t show.

  She could hear Malone laughing just outside the door. Any minute it would burst open, and the Corday family would never be the same. Five instead of four. And one of them a stranger.

  Eleanor smoothed her denim shirt. Should she have worn her blue silk dress? It was too late to worry now, for the door swung open.

  And her daughter-in-law took her breath away.

  “My dear.” She took Ruth’s hands. “Welcome to the Virungas.” She’d meant to kiss her cheek, but there was a deep reserve in Ruth that didn’t invite instant familiarity.

  “Thank you.” Ruth’s voice was soft, full of the cadences of the South.

  Joseph clapped both hands on Ruth’s shoulders and kissed her cheek.

  “Welcome to the family, Ruth.”

  Eleanor was astonished—and a bit jealous—that Joseph, for all his earlier nonchalance, had managed to do and say exactly the right thing. Her own greeting echoed in her ears. Welcome to the Virungas. Indeed. As if she were a travel agent and Ruth a tourist on a three-day jaunt.

  “I hope you’re hungry, Ruth. I think Eleanor has managed to cook everything on the mountain.”

  “Pay Joseph no attention. He loves to tease.” Eleanor glanced at Brett. Why was he standing on the other side of the room without so much as a word? “This, of course, is Brett. I’m sure Malone has told you about his brother.”

  As if she had to have someone tell her about Brett Corday, Ruth thought. As if he hadn’t been the first person she’d spotted when she’d walked into the room. Even now, after she’d given herself time to adjust to the idea of seeing the man who had exercised such a powerful pull over her for so many years, Ruth had a hard time keeping her excitement from showing. They mustn’t see, this new family of hers, how he made her face feel hot. They must not know how her breath rushed up and tried to clog her throat. They might get the wrong idea, and she wasn’t going to let anybody get the wrong idea about her, ever again.

  Ruth hoped she looked perfectly normal as she moved toward Brett Corday. How could anyone be normal moving toward an icon?

  “He didn’t have to tell me,” Ruth said. “I became a student of anthropology because of Dr. Brett Corday.”

  He’d held himself in profile to her since she’d entered the room, showing only that side of himself that was unmarked. When he turned to face her, the full impact of him took her breath away. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. She saw the fierce challenge in his eye, the look that said Don’t you dare pity me. She wished it was pity she was feeling. She wished it was sympathy. She even wished it was sadness. Anything except the frantic, pounding rush of blood that threatened to drown her.

  “I’m so happy to meet you ... at last.” Did she dare touch him? Did she dare not?

  Eleanor watched as the beautiful woman who belonged to her youngest son presented herself to Brett. Something was not right. They stood opposite each other as stiff as new shoes that wouldn’t give an inch, no matter what you did to them, and for a while it looked as if Brett were not even going to acknowledge her presence, let alone take the hand she offered.

  Eleanor breathed a sigh of relief when he finally nodded, though the nod was neither friendly nor welcoming, but the kind of curt acknowledgment he would give to somebody he wished would simply vanish from his beloved Virungas.

  Ruth stood, uncertain, her hand wavering between them. Suddenly it seemed that her hand was the only object in the room. Even Malone, who had to have a guide to find his way through a dinner-table conversation, noticed that his brother was ignoring his wife’s outstretched hand.

  “Shit, Brett. I know she’s beautiful, but I didn’t think she’d render you speechless.”

  “My apologies, Ruth. You have rendered me speechless.”

  Brett touched her hand, and Ruth felt the tingle all the way to her toes. It was more wonderful than she’d imagined, and more terrible. She couldn’t get her hand away fast enough. But he didn’t seem to notice. When he pulled back to the mantel, she felt as if she were in Mississippi and he in Africa.

  “You’re a lovely and welcome addition to the family,” he said.

  Eleanor saw right through him. Brett was probably the worst liar on the face of the earth. Did he know something she didn’t know? Had Malone sent him a separate cable? Was this girl pregnant with somebody else’s child? It would be just like Malone to fall for a pretty wrapping without checking out the whole package.

  “Why don’t you tell us all about yourself, Ruth?” Eleanor made a mental note that the pearls weren’t real, which didn’t necessarily tell her a single thing.

  “Mother, why don’t you feed us before you get into twenty questions? It’s been a long flight. I don’t know about my wife, but I’m starving.”

  Malone started toward her with his love and intentions clearly visible on his face, and Ruth fixed her face in a welcoming smile, forced herself to watch him with the fond anticipation of a new bride. When he slid his arm around her, Ruth glanced sideways at his brother. It was only a fleeting glance, but that was all it took. In that one moment she saw what she had done, saw the enormity of it, the horror. By taking the easy way out, by fleeing instead of staying to fight, she’d consigned herself to a life of fiction. Exactly like her mother.

  “Why don’t I show you where to freshen up?” Eleanor said.

  Ruth could have kissed her feet. Escape. At last she could escape the room where expectations far exceeded reality, where the reality was so twisted that only fantasy would make it possible for all of them to survive.

  “That sounds good.” Ruth was careful not to look at Brett, careful to focus all her attention on her mother-in-law.

  “Let me show her. She’s my wife. She belongs to me now.”

  Belongs to me. Like a chair or a favorite suit or a new bird-dog puppy. Ruth’s heart was so heavy, she was surprised her feet could move. Their laughter followed her, Joseph’s genuine and Brett’s merely polite. Would they be laughing if they knew?

  As soon as Malone and Ruth disappeared down the hallway, Eleanor took Brett to task.

  “Is there something about this woman that you’re not telling me?”

  “Mother, she’ll hear you.”

  “You can’t hear a stampede of elephants in that bathroom. Besides, the way Malone looks at her, he probably won’t be able to keep his hands off her.”

  “Eleanor’s right,” Joseph said. “We might not see them again for hours.”

  Brett stalked toward the door, grabbing a handful of pretzels on his way.

  “Where in the world are you going?” Eleanor asked.

  “I don’t have time to stay for dinner. Cee Cee needs me.”

  “I need you. Brett, I’m counting on you.”

  “I’ve met Malone’s wife. She looks okay to me.”

  “That’s it? You’re just going to leave?”

  “She seems to be a nice lady. Isn’t that all you want? My opinion?”

  Eleanor was astonished. Brett had been practically rude to Ruth, and now he was acting like a rebellious teen with her. It wasn’t at all like him. Eleanor guarded her family unit with the ferocity of a lioness, but
family was practically sacred to Brett. The loyalty and love that burned in him was of almost saintly proportions.

  Eleanor was both proud of and awed by that quality in her son.

  What was wrong with him? She’d rarely had occasion to find fault with her firstborn, but she was in no mood to tolerate anything except the best from him today.

  “If you walk out that door, don’t you expect anything else from me, Brett Corday. Ever again.”

  “What? No coconut cake?”

  The smile he gave her was more like the old Brett.

  “Absolutely none.”

  “You know this is blackmail.”

  “When it comes to family, I’m not above anything.”

  It was the wedding that had set her mind askew, the sudden marriage and the dreadful premonition that it was not a union of love but one of convenience. Whose? Ruth’s or Malone’s?

  Suddenly Eleanor was too tired to move. Feeling her age, she sat down in a chair. Furthermore, she planned to sit there until she had to get up, and she dared Joseph to say anything to her. Brett, either, for that matter.

  In the bathroom Ruth kept soaping her hands as if she’d never get them clean. Maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe she was like Lady Macbeth, with the blood of the entire Corday family on her hands.

  “Honey, you’re going to wash the skin right off.” Malone wrapped his arms around her from behind. “Not that I mind being in such close quarters with you.”

  She minded. She wanted to bow her back up and cast him away like a coat that had suddenly grown too hot and too tight. The reason was standing down the hallway leaning against the mantel.

  Ruth looked down at the water running over her hands. She couldn’t stay in the bathroom forever. She had to face him. Them, she corrected herself. There would be no him. There could be no him. Only Malone.

  Her husband nudged closer, and she felt the heat of his desire. If it had been possible, she’d have crawled into the drain and hoped the water washed her all the way back to Hawaii.

  But it was never possible to go back, only forward. And she wasn’t about to cower in the bathroom like some timid, cornered animal. She’d chosen her path, and she was determined to make it a good one, no matter who stood at the mantel filling her with a wonderful, horrible confusion.

  She pulled the towel off the rack and briskly dried her hands.

  “Let’s go, Malone. I want to get to know your family.”

  “You’ve already wowed them. Especially Brett.”

  “I don’t want to wow your family. Just to be a part of it.”

  “You already are, sweetheart. You became a Corday the minute I slipped my ring on your finger.”

  “Ruth Corday. I like the sound of that.” And she did. A new name. A new life. And she was going to fill it with respect and kindness and genuine affection in the hopes that love would come. She’d make it come.

  Lifting her chin, she took her husband’s arm and marched back into the bosom of her new family.

  “Atta girl,” Malone said.

  When she heard them coming back, Eleanor popped out of her chair like a piece of bread from a toaster.

  “Oh, good, you’re back.” She sounded like an anxious debutante, hoping to be selected for the lead at a coming-out party. Help. “Brett ...”

  She turned to her son, then froze. His eyes were fixed on his brother’s wife ... and hers on him. The hair on the back of Eleanor’s neck stood on end. Had the serpent finally entered their Garden of Eden?

  This new fear gave her tongue wings.

  “I was just thinking that since you’ve eaten everything in this room except the mantel clock, perhaps you’d better escort your new sister-in-law to the dining room.”

  For a heartbeat Brett held his stiff posture, and then he offered his arm.

  “Gladly. May I?”

  “Of course. I’m so anxious to hear about your work with Cee Cee. And to meet her.”

  “I think that can be arranged, though I’ll have to warn you that she doesn’t take kindly to strangers.”

  “Then I’ll try not to be a stranger.”

  Ruth was astonished that she could sound perfectly normal, that she could let her hand rest in Brett Corday’s arm as if her whole insides weren’t ringing like a buoy bell gone wild in a heavy wind. If she thought about her reaction to him, considered why, she might possibly lose her mind on her very first day in Africa. And so she wouldn’t let herself think. She’d concentrate on making each minute a building block for her marriage so that eventually, when she added them all up, she’d have something solid and reliable, something that couldn’t be shaken by a simple glance from a single black eye.

  Just ahead lay the dining room with red flowers on the table, lace curtains drawn back to catch a pale light that had found its ways through the mists, and oak chairs substantial enough for big men, arranged and waiting for this family she now claimed as her own. Joseph moved to the head of the table, and already Eleanor was sitting between him and Malone. That left her to sit beside Brett. The two empty places yawned ahead like jaws waiting to suck her in and devour her. Suddenly she saw her marriage for what it was, a sham, the rash act of a foolish woman. If she was going to survive, she’d have to stop being foolish and start being smart.

  “What a perfectly lovely room,” she said, smiling. “Every bit as warm and inviting as my new family.” She intended to do more than survive; she intended to triumph.

  Malone smiled at her as if she’d invented happiness. Feeling like a hypocrite, she sat in the chair Brett pulled out for her.

  “Have you had any hands-on studies with primates, Ruth?” he asked.

  Hands-on. His hands were still on her chair, barely brushing her skin, raising goose bumps at the back of her neck. Ruth carefully unfolded her napkin and placed it in her lap. It was a good place to hide her hands so no one would see their trembling.

  “I’ve had very limited experience with primates. We had two chimpanzees in our lab, Quantum and Do Re. As you can guess, one of the people who named them loved math and the other music.”

  Everybody laughed as if she’d said something extremely clever. The laughter washed over her like balm. Malone reached across the table for her hand. She squeezed it and held on. Tight. Ever so tight. She was going to make everything work. She had to.

  “Brett will spend the next four hours talking about primates if we let him,” Malone said. “Don’t give him too much of an opening.”

  “Thanks for the warning. I don’t plan to give him any opening at all.” Everybody laughed once more, not having any earthly idea that Ruth was not talking about gorillas.

  “Why don’t you tell us how the two of you met,” Eleanor said.

  “At Malone’s lecture.”

  “I was bold.” Malone wagged his ears at Ruth.

  “You were shy, but very sweet.”

  “I swept her off her feet.”

  “I always keep my feet planted firmly on the ground.”

  The easy banter between Ruth and Malone somewhat eased Eleanor’s mind. Even Brett had loosened up enough so that his smile didn’t look as if it had been pasted on.

  In her years on the lonely mountaintop at the mercy of a capricious and sometimes cruel fate, there were few givens she could count on. Two of them were Brett’s unfailing kindness and good manners. She was glad to see that he had them back. At least partially.

  Eleanor had let her imagination run wild, fed as it was by her overwrought state. She patted her younger son’s arm.

  “One of you tell us the real story,” she said.

  Over roast pork and dumplings Malone told the story of his courtship of Ruth, making them all laugh with the story of Hector, the puppet.

  “I think Ruth fell in love with Hector, instead of me.”

  Ruth smiled at her husband, but rich color suffused her cheeks. At first glance it might have seemed to be love, but long years of peering at the world through a lens had taught Eleanor to search for and find the truth. What
she saw was a shining sort of hope coupled with an elusive sadness. She studied Ruth, hoping to be wrong.

  “Why don’t you tell us about yourself, Ruth—your family. I can tell you’re Southern by your accent. I grew up in Alabama, myself. Joseph says he can still hear the grits and molasses in my voice.” There she was, sounding like a nervous debutante again, but Eleanor couldn’t seem to help herself. She’d so hoped to feel an instant affection for her new daughter-in-law, when all she felt was a vague fear mixed with awe.

  Maybe love would come in time.

  Ruth spoke of her life in Mississippi with detachment, as if she viewed it from afar, perhaps on a film that had blurred over the years. The only time her voice was alive with passion was when she spoke of her studies.

  “Bellafontaine? I knew a girl once by that name, from New Orleans, I think. They had a sugar plantation down there. Could she perhaps have been a relative of yours, Ruth?”

  “No.”

  This was dangerous ground her mother-in-law was forcing her to tread. Smiling and silent, Ruth refused to step into treacherous territory.

  “It’s not a common name,” Eleanor persisted.

  “Mother ...”

  The subtle warning in Brett’s voice was unmistakable. Ruth felt as if he’d suddenly drawn a sword, thrown a cloak about her, and pulled her from the jaws of a dragon. She wanted to curl up in his lap like a little girl and bury her face against his chest.

  She concentrated on keeping her hands perfectly still, on keeping her eyes and her mind focused on Eleanor.

  “I just thought perhaps your father’s people were from there,” Eleanor said, persistent. “Mobile, perhaps? Bellafontaine is a prominent name in south Alabama.”

  “My father’s dead.”

  Ruth hated the ease with which she lied. But, then, she’d had long years of practice, of being Ruth the Ice Princess instead of Ruth the rich man’s favorite toy.

  A heavy silence fell over them, as if the death had been recent and they were all still in mourning.

  “Well ... ,” Malone said.

  “So ... ,” Joseph said at the same time.

  They all looked at each other, strangely uncomfortable. Everybody except Brett. He looked determined.