by Teresa Hill
"We've been over this," he reminded her, facing her again. "This was not your fault. The guy is nuts."
"And I went out with him for months."
"So? Guys like him are good at hiding who they really are. That's how they get nice girls like you in the first place."
"Okay. You're right, but—"
"No. No buts. You're not getting that part of it, Emma, because you still want to blame yourself." He sighed and then looked worried. "Is there more to it? Were you in a lot deeper than you told me? You didn't think you were in love with him, did you?"
"No. Not really... I mean, you're always wondering, aren't you? You meet someone, and isn't there always some part of you that thinks, maybe he's the one? I did in the very beginning with Mark, and then, mostly, I tried to figure out why I didn't feel more for him. Everything he showed me about himself seemed so right, and yet... It wasn't there. I thought about Sam and Rachel, about what I believe they feel for each other, and I..." She stared down at the floor, the little shimmering bits of light from the window she loved. "Don't laugh, okay?"
"Okay," he said softly.
"I thought about this floor."
"The floor?"
"Yes." She stepped back, out of the pattern of light, and he did the same. "See how pretty it is? How it shimmers and dances? See all the colors? I used to think that's what love was like. That it shimmered and sparkled and danced inside of you. That it was alive and had an energy all its own. I kept waiting, thinking I might feel that way with Mark, but I never did."
And now she was here with Rye.
The light beamed in through the window and danced between them.
She'd felt it from the first time she touched him, that little spark and sizzle. He'd been so wonderful last night, so kind, so tender. She'd felt closer to him than she'd ever been to another human being. She'd felt absolutely and completely safe, and this morning, she'd just wanted to drag him upstairs to her bed. This was everything that had been missing, and he was as different from Mark as night and day.
And she thought he was Sam's brother....
"You're sure?" Rye asked. "You just looked so sad for a minute."
It took her a minute to realize where they'd left off in the conversation. Rye asking about Mark and her thinking about Rye.
"I wasn't thinking about Mark," she said.
Rye looked at her and just as quickly looked away.
She was afraid of losing him, of never having him.
Did they really have to give this up because he might be her adoptive father's long-lost brother? Did that have anything to do with what they might feel for each other? And why was he so reluctant to admit to any relationship with Sam?
"So, when I call Sam," she began, "do I just tell him to come home, that I need him? Or do I tell him about you?"
"Emma, I don't know if there's anything to tell."
"You want to take him by surprise?" she asked. "It's fine with me. Just as long as... Rye, you came all this way. You're going to give him a chance, right?"
"I don't know what you think you know, but—"
"Of course, you do. You're Sam's brother."
* * *
He froze, his gaze locked on her. "Why would you say that?"
"Come on, Rye." She took her hand and slipped it into his, as if she couldn't stand the idea of him being all alone in this for another moment.
He stood there staring down at her hand. He felt like his entire body had been waiting for her to touch him. She had the power to steady him, reassure him, calm him, and at times, she just plain turned him on.
Please don't be Sam's daughter, he thought. Please don't let me be desperate for the touch of Sam's daughter. That was disaster in the making, almost as bad as thinking he'd struck out once again and would likely find himself on the road again next Christmas on a search as pointless as this one.
He just kept wanting things he didn't think he'd ever have, and he was afraid she was fast becoming one of those things he'd regret not having the most.
"Just tell me," she said, her voice as soft and inviting as any he'd ever known. "Or if you can't do that, I'll tell you. His name is Sam McRae. He was born in Chicago. His parents died when he was young. He came here to live with his paternal grandfather."
"The Sam McRae I'm looking for didn't have a grandfather," he said, forcing the words out. "The records show no listing for a paternal grandfather."
"What records?"
"Social services' records. When the parents died, social services went looking for relatives. There weren't a lot to be found. No grandfather."
"Maybe he and Sam's parents weren't speaking. He was supposed to have been an awful man. Sam was miserable here with him," she said. "What about you? What do you say when people ask about your next of kin?"
"I don't say anything," he admitted. Damn.
"The people who raised you? Do you give their names?"
"They're not my parents. Andrew and Gail McRae were my parents."
"Okay." She looked so damned understanding and so worried about him, he could hardly stand to face her. "I don't know Sam's parents' names. But I'm sure we can find out. We'll just ask him. Why is it so hard for you to just ask?"
"Because I've been through this before." Frustrating as it was, he couldn't believe he was putting himself through it again. "I might as well be chasing a shadow. At first, someone tried to tell me he'd been adopted by a cousin in Minneapolis. I chased down a guy named Greg Hammond, but he wasn't my brother. The Hammonds had Sam and they adopted a kid out of foster care at one point, but not Sam. And later, from what I could piece together, there just isn't anybody who fits what I know about... about..."
"About your brother," Emma said softly.
That word again. It rolled through him every bit as heavily as it had the first time. He looked up and found tears in her eyes, the kindest look on her face. Sometimes kindness was harder to take than anything else. Because it implied understanding, which meant the other person knew how you felt.
Eighteen years he'd been alone and so lost, he thought sometimes it would simply choke him, that it would crush the air from his lungs.
He'd never really thought it would end.
But everything inside of him said that maybe, just maybe, she understood it all. It was that come-through-the-fire look in her eyes. She had to have been lost at one point if she'd come here and been found.
"Sam has a brother," she said. "A brother he hasn't seen in years."
Rye tensed all over, and it wasn't until she gasped that he realized he had a near-death grip on her hand. "Sorry," he said, loosening his grip but not letting go. "What's his brother's name?"
"I don't know. I'm sorry. I don't think I ever heard his name."
Rye shook his head and swore. "He never talked about me?"
"Not really."
He nodded, clamping his mouth shut, trying hard not to make a sound.
That hurt.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"Not that it comes as a big surprise," he said, wincing at the bitterness coming through in his voice. "He sure never tried to find me."
"What do you mean, he never tried to find you?"
"Okay, once in all these years. He found me, then just walked away."
"Sam wouldn't," Emma insisted.
"You're the one who's telling me I'm his brother, and I'm telling you, that's what my brother did," Rye said, feeling raw and exposed, every emotion right on the surface. "I know this part of it, Emma. I was there. It's one of the few things I know for sure."
"So... You think he won't want to see you now?"
"I think that's a distinct possibility, and I'm not sure I want to know him. I mean, we're strangers. I have no idea what kind of man he is. He doesn't know what kind of man I am. Who's to say whether we'll ever have any kind of relationship? Hell, I might not even want him knowing who I am or how to find me. I might not want him in my life at all."
"Rye, you want it so bad you can hardly stand
it."
Shit, she did know.
"And what if I want something I just can't have?" he asked. "Surely you know what that's like. To want something so badly that you just can't have."
"You can have Sam. He's right here, and he's the best. All you have to do is tell him who you are. You'll never regret letting him into your life."
"You don't know that. There's no way you can know that."
"I know because I know Sam, and I know you," she said. "Tell him who you are. Give him a chance."
* * *
Emma finally talked him into it, offering to make the call herself to break the news. Rye was pacing back and forth in the living room. He simply couldn't stand still. She got Sam on the phone.
"I have some news for you, and you might want to sit down," she said. "Someone came to the house looking for you the other day."
"Who?" Sam asked cautiously.
"His name is Rye." Sam didn't say anything. She thought he might not know the nickname. "John, I mean. John Ryan."
The silence coming from the other end of the phone was deafening. She could feel the tension coming across the phone line. Sam made an odd, choking sound, and then he called out, "Rachel," like she was his lifeline and he needed her desperately right that instant.
"Say the name," Sam said urgently. "One more time."
"John Ryan," she repeated.
"God," Sam said.
She looked at Rye. Every muscle in his body seemed to tighten. "The name doesn't mean anything to him?"
"Yes, it does," Emma reassured Rye.
"Wait. Tell him it"—Rye took a breath—"tell him it's Robbie."
"Robbie," she said into the phone, thinking of the first day when she'd asked his name and joked about how hard a question that could possibly be. But maybe it was. "Sam, he says he's Robbie."
Sam called out to Rachel again, more urgently than before. Emma heard them whispering urgently. Rye was holding himself rigidly, so tall and so still, a world of hurt evident in the way he stood there.
Finally, Sam came back on the line. "He's still there?"
"Yes, he's standing in the living room right now."
"I should talk to him," Sam said, making a choking sound. "I... God, I don't know if I can."
She'd never heard Sam like this. Never heard him admit to being unable to do anything in the entire time she'd known him.
"I... I need a minute," Sam said.
"Okay. I understand."
"Does he?"
No, she could see that Rye didn't. He'd held out his hand for the phone, and now it hung in the air for an awkward moment, then dropped to his side.
"I'll explain," she said. "I'll make him understand."
"I need to come home," Sam said. "He's not going to go anywhere, is he? It's been so long.... Ask him to promise that he won't leave until I get back."
Emma thought about how simple it would be just to give the phone to Rye so they could talk to each other, thought about Sam saying he couldn't. Whatever happened to tear them apart, it must have been terrible.
"He asked you to promise to stay until he gets back," Emma said. Rye nodded, his eyes glistening with moisture, his jaw impossibly tight. She told Sam, "He will."
"Okay. Tell him I said thank you, and that I'll be there as soon as I can. Emma, is he okay?"
"Yes." As okay as Sam was at the moment.
"Are you okay?"
"Yes. There's some stuff I need to explain to you, but I'm okay, and Rye's looking out for me."
"Ask him if I can count on him to make sure nothing happens to you."
She did. Rye nodded, still looking wary, still looking like a man who wanted very much to be anywhere but there.
"He will, Sam."
"Emma, I can't..." Sam's voice broke.
Rachel came on the line. "Emma, I need to talk to Sam now, but I'll explain everything. Later, okay?"
"Okay," Emma said.
"Just don't let that man go anywhere."
* * *
Rye had heard enough. He headed out, thinking to get as far away from here as he could. He was in the backyard when he remembered Emma's crazy ex-boyfriend.
He couldn't go anywhere.
He'd promised his brother.
God, his brother...
He was still standing there in the middle of the yard a moment later when Emma came out. She stayed there on the porch, as if she were afraid coming at him right now might send him running in the other direction.
He just turned and looked away.
"You said your name is Rye," she said finally.
"It is."
"But I don't understand." To which he said nothing. He didn't understand, either. "Is that what I'm supposed to call you? Rye?"
"It's what everybody calls me."
Except for the parents who weren't his parents, whom he didn't talk to anymore at all. He didn't recall ever being Robert Jordan McRae, and even when he'd found out that was the name he'd been born with or that they'd called him Robbie, that person seemed like a stranger to him. As much of a stranger as John Ryan had become.
What did a man do when neither name seemed to fit anymore? He'd stuck with what he'd always been called and left it at that. Whoever had actually given birth to him and Sam had died long ago, and the only person who even remembered Robbie, as far as he'd been able to figure out, was Sam.
Emma walked up to him. He heard her coming. Tried to brace himself for what would inevitably happen, but what could he really do?
There it was. She put her hand on his arm and asked, "Are you okay?"
He stared down at that hand. Her touch, as always, was light and somehow comforting. He just wanted to hang on to her, to lean on her a little, but he didn't lean on anyone. He hardly trusted anyone. He lived a solitary life, and some might say it wasn't much of a life at all, that it hadn't been for the longest time. But she made him want to let her in just a little bit.
And if Sam really was his brother...
Oh, hell. She was Sam's adopted daughter, and that would make him an uncle of sorts....
Rye felt oddly like he'd taken a blow to the chest, like something huge and solid had connected solidly, dead center to his chest.
He felt oddly like he'd lost something very precious, like it had been torn from him before he'd even known what he had.
"Rye?" she asked again, still touching him.
He couldn't have her doing that. He stepped back for real this time, turning to his side, not quite facing her, but not looking away, either.
Her hand fell to her side, and he told himself he did not miss having her touch him, that he wouldn't really miss her. They'd be some kind of distant relatives. He might never see her again. He might never see Sam again. What did he really expect to come of this anyway?
"How is it that you and Sam were raised apart?" she asked.
"I'm not sure." How in the world had he ever even gotten here? To this point in his life?
"Then why are you so angry at him? You don't even know him."
"Which is probably a big part of why I'm angry, Emma." And he wasn't very proud of that, because he knew it wasn't quite fair. But that's the way he felt.
"You think it's his fault that the two of you were raised apart?"
"I know that he knew about me, when I didn't know about him for the longest time." And Sam had been right here in this town the whole time, this house, even. He looked up at it, bathed in late-afternoon shadows from the tall, broad trees. It looked tall and proud and so very solid, a vast amount of space, the kind to shelter a man all the days of his life.
So different from where he'd been.
"You don't have any memory of him?" Emma tried again.
"Just that one time when he walked away without saying anything. It's been years now. Maybe he forgot he ever had a brother. Maybe that's the way he wants it."
"It's not that." Emma slid closer. She was going to touch him again. "You didn't hear his voice on the phone—"
"Emma, he wo
uldn't even talk to me. You caught that part, right? I was right there, and he wouldn't even talk to me."
"He could hardly talk. I think it was hard for him to even breathe, Rye. I asked him about you once. It seemed like it hurt him too much to even talk about it and all he said was that he'd lost you."
"Lost? Like he put me down someplace and forgot where he left me?" He scowled. "You don't lose a human being."
"How did you lose him?" she asked, her head resting against his arm.
"I was two or three. Hell, I don't even know, and I can't do this anymore, Emma. Not now. I'm sorry. I have to get out of here." Oh, hell, but he couldn't go anywhere. He'd promised his brother. "I'm just going to take a walk. Up and down the street in front of the house. I won't go any farther than that. I'll keep the house in sight the whole time."
"Okay," she said.
So understanding.
It was killing him.
He had to get away from her before he did anything else he'd regret. Like beg her to hold him for another minute.
He'd kissed her, he remembered again. More than once. His brain was so scrambled, he'd actually forgotten that for a moment when he started to believe he'd finally found his brother.
Sam, he told himself over and over again. Sam's daughter. Sam's little girl. Maybe if he could make it sound remotely incestuous, he would be okay.
"About what happened this morning..." he began, withdrawing completely, leaving her standing in the middle of the yard alone.
"When I kissed you?" Her chin came up. "And you kissed me back?"
Yeah, that.
"You know that can't happen again, right?"
"Because you're Sam's brother?"
"Yes," he said.
"But you're not my uncle," she said. "Sam hasn't seen you in years. I've never seen you in my life. There are absolutely no blood ties between us."
"It doesn't matter. And I just came here to find Sam. I told you, Emma." But that wasn't fair at all. He'd told her one thing with words, and then somehow he kept ending up with her in his arms. "I'm sorry. I can't do this. Sam is... There's no way he'd understand or even begin to approve, and even if he did..."
He let the words trail off, wincing when he realized what he'd said, when he thought of how she'd take it.
"I told you, there are things you just don't know about me."
