A Woman Worth Loving

by Jackie Braun

  “My sister,” she confirmed.

  “Oh? Younger, older?”

  “Twin,” she murmured.

  He raised his eyebrows in surprise. His research had never turned up that fact, but then he hadn’t really been interested in learning anything about her family, only avenging his own.

  One side of her mouth lifted in a wry grin. “Don’t say it. I know.”

  “What?”

  “We don’t look anything alike.”

  Seth shrugged and divided a considering look between Audra and her sister, who now stood behind the reception desk a couple dozen feet away, talking with a guest. The women were the same height and polar opposites in every other way: Blond to brunette, blue eyes to tawny-brown, voluptuous to slender. Still, they did have one thing in common.

  “Oh, I don’t know. You’re both beautiful.”

  She acknowledged the compliment with a small smile and Seth pressed his advantage.

  “Let me buy you a cup of coffee. We can take it out onto the porch and make use of a couple of those rockers. The view of Lake Michigan is incredible and the coffee’s not too bad, either.”

  She glanced briefly back to the reception desk, as if considering her options.

  Finally she told him, “I take mine with cream and sugar.”

  The resort sat high on a hillside that sloped down to nearly white sand. In the summer, Audra knew the distance between the porch and the shoreline would be filled with a riot of wildflowers, but it would be a while yet before most of them bloomed.

  Waves slapped at the beach, pushed there by the wind. Between the island and the mainland they danced white on the lake’s blue water. Even so, Audra found the view soothing, the late morning sun on her face warm and refreshing despite the cool breeze that made her grateful for her jacket.

  She and Seth sat in a pair of wicker rockers tucked off to one side of a pair of doors that opened into the lobby, sipping their coffee and making small talk. She hoped he didn’t notice that she kept glancing through the window, trying to see beyond her own reflection to spot her sister inside.

  “Is this your first visit to Trillium?” she inquired politely.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you from Michigan?”

  “No. I live out West, actually.”

  “Oh.” She forced her attention back to her companion. “Small world. I’ve lived on the West Coast for a decade now, but I grew up here on Trillium.”

  “I can’t believe you’d leave this place, even for warmer climes. It’s beautiful.”

  She laughed softly. “You wouldn’t think that in January when icicles form on the end of your nose the second you walk outside.”

  “I guess every Eden has its serpent.”

  “That’s an interesting way of putting things.” She sipped her coffee again and then added, “But I take it you’re enjoying the sights.”

  The look he gave her was potent with male interest. “Yes, I am. There’s a great deal of beauty here.”

  She ignored his smile, even though she was tempted to smile back. In the car when she’d asked him if they’d met before, he’d said he probably just seemed familiar because he had “one of those faces.” But there was nothing ordinary about his face or the things it did to her pulse rate.

  She fiddled with the plastic lid on her coffee. “Have you done any hiking?”

  “Not much. No.”

  “You really should. The state owns a huge section of land about a quarter mile inland from the resort. It’s rich in wildlife. Trillium is blooming all over the place this time of year.”

  “Maybe you’d care to accompany me on a hike before returning to the ferry? You could point out the native flora and fauna. I could repay you with dinner.”

  She rocked backward in her chair and lifted her feet. “Sorry, I don’t have my hiking boots on today.”

  “My loss.”

  “So, what do you do besides rescue damsels in distress?” Audra asked.

  Seth choked on his coffee. “What do you mean?”

  “I’d just be limping up the steps right now if you hadn’t stopped to give me a ride.”

  “Ah, that.”

  “And back in there.” She hitched a thumb over her shoulder. “You did it again.”

  “Rescued you? How?”

  “Come on, it’s pretty obvious that my sister wasn’t all that glad to see me.”

  “Families can be complicated.”

  “Is yours?”

  The question caught him off guard, and perhaps because of that it opened a door he usually preferred to keep bolted closed.

  His family had been complicated. His father had died when Seth was twelve and his mother had remarried a year later. Then LeeAnn was born. He’d loved his sister, but even her pleading couldn’t make him love his stepfather. Seth and John Woods had locked horns from the first day they’d met…right until that last day out by Big Sur.

  He pushed away the memory.

  “I don’t have any family,” he said.

  His gaze slid back to Audra and he willed the grip he had on the foam cup to loosen. He needed to reel in his temper before he blew everything. So he stood, eager for a few minutes to collect himself.

  “How about a refill?” he asked.

  Audra smiled, completely oblivious to the deep, festering wound for which he fully intended to hold her responsible. Pulling a twenty-dollar bill from her purse, she held it out to him.

  “I’ll pay this time.”

  Oh, indeed, she would.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE following morning Audra was aboard the ferry, once again heading toward the island. This time she sat in her rental car with six pieces of luggage weighing down the trunk and rear seat. She’d checked out of the hotel in Petoskey, where she’d registered under an assumed name and paid in cash to keep a low profile. Now she planned to stay at the resort. Ali would have to talk to her—if not as a sister then as a paying guest.

  When the ferry docked and the gate lowered, Audra was the first to drive off. Rain dripped from a sullen gray sky, splattering her windshield. The weather was a perfect complement to her mood.

  She hadn’t slept well the night before. In fact, she hadn’t slept much at all. But she’d forgone the tranquilizers stowed in her makeup case, just as she had passed on her usual evening cocktail the night before. It was time to face life without props.

  Even so, Audra fantasized about a cigarette as she slowed down near the entrance to the resort. Then she drove past. She needed a little more time before she faced her sister’s stony glare again. So, she headed farther south and then west. The road followed the curve of the shoreline for several miles before gradually cutting away, moving farther inland and giving the homes on the waterfront more privacy, thanks to a thick fringe of towering oaks, maples and cedars.

  The route was familiar and brought memories rushing back. She’d learned to drive on this stretch of blacktop with her dad riding shotgun on the bench seat of the old Buick, and Ali and Dane in the back. Her know-it-all sister had hollered out instructions the entire time while her comedian big brother had made a show of buckling his seat belt and then lamenting loudly his lack of a will.

  Despite the route’s familiarity, though, she nearly passed the driveway. The huge oak tree that had stood sentinel at the edge of the property line was gone, she realized. Only a weathered stump remained, atop which was a carved wooden sign that read: Dane Conlan, C.P.A.

  Audra shook her head. Her brother, an accountant. She still couldn’t quite accept his choice of professions. It seemed like such an oxymoron. All of the accountants she’d met over the years were buttoned-down, spit-polished and, well, boring. The Dane she remembered was responsible but full of adventure, with a quick and cocky grin that landed him in as much trouble as it managed to get him out of.

  A white-tailed deer hopped across the driveway a dozen feet ahead of her car, appearing as startled as she was. She’d bet her last dollar that Dane still had a feeder out bac
k, stocked with dried corn and the occasional carrot and sugar beet.

  Her older brother would never admit it, but he was a soft touch. How else to explain why he could forgive Audra for her sins long before she’d sought his absolution?

  The rain was coming down good now, but she hardly noticed. She parked next to Dane’s bright red Trailblazer in the gravel driveway and sat inside her car, staring at the house. The outside looked the same except for the red shutters on the windows in the upstairs dormer. She closed her eyes and recalled the interior: Kitchen, living room, bedroom and bath on the main floor, and two small bedrooms separated by a closet of a bathroom upstairs.

  She’d grown up here. The house, with its stone facade and red tin roof, was as small as she remembered, and not nearly as glamorous as the newer homes on the northern rim of the island. That no longer embarrassed her. Audra had lived in the lap of luxury with all three of her husbands. Big wasn’t necessarily better.

  It had taken her thirty years, but Audra finally understood that sometimes big could be empty, no matter how many expensive possessions one filled up the space with. Just as she had been empty, cutting herself off from the people who mattered most in her life, and telling herself that self-respect was overrated and that happiness could somehow be bought.

  She wiped a tear from her cheek. Too bad her parents weren’t on Trillium to witness her epiphany. They lived in Florida now, on the Gulf Coast. Eventually Audra would go to see them and seek their forgiveness, too, but the island and Ali needed to be her starting point.

  The rain wasn’t letting up. In fact, it was coming down harder, sluicing from the house’s pitched roof in thick waterfalls that splashed mud against the foundation. Of course, Audra didn’t have an umbrella. No matter, it didn’t bother her to get wet on this day.

  The cold rain baptized her the moment she stepped from the car, cleansing in an odd sort of way. She tipped her face up, let it wash over her and took a deep breath.

  New and improved.

  As she dashed to the home’s back door she was glad that on this day she had chosen a pair of more practical shoes: Expensive and designer, but practical nonetheless with their low heels and rubber soles. She reached for the door handle but stopped herself before turning it. She didn’t live here anymore. Raising her fist, she knocked.

  No one answered the door. Instead, a familiar male voice hollered, “Come on around back!”

  Dane.

  Audra was smiling when she turned the corner of the house. Despite her already dripping hair and soaked clothing, nothing could suppress the grin. It had been too damned long.

  Her brother stood under the shelter of the wide covered porch that hugged the back of the house. He held a mug of something steaming in one hand. The look on his face was priceless and a balm for her wounded soul. Finally someone looked happy to see her.

  “Good God! It’s you!”

  He set down the mug, unmindful of the hot contents that sloshed over its rim onto his hand, and catapulted over the railing. He was three years older than Audra and he stood a good head taller, but he looked like a kid when he let out a whoop of joy and scooped her up in a bear hug that all but compressed her rib cage.

  “You’re a sight for sore eyes, kiddo,” he said, still holding her tight.

  Kiddo. Audra couldn’t stop the tears that came. They leaked out, coursing down her cheeks—hot tears mingling with cold rain.

  This was how it had always been: With Ali she could do no right. With Dane she could do no wrong.

  “It’s good to see you, too,” she managed to whisper.

  Left unsaid was that she’d banished him from her life and not the other way around. Dane had come to see her shortly before her divorce from Reed Howard. Audra had been twenty-four at the time and utterly heartbroken over her husband’s infidelity and suggestion that she not only accept it, but participate in it. She’d been naive and stupid, but hardly depraved. To her way of thinking, “the more the merrier” did not apply when it came to sex. She’d consoled herself by going on a weekend spending binge that ran into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, all of it charged to her husband’s credit cards. Dane had been appalled.

  “He can afford it,” she’d scoffed at the time, stung by Dane’s accusing tone. “Besides, I’m a very wealthy woman, soon to be independently wealthy.”

  “Your marriage is crumbling and that’s what’s important to you?”

  Audra hadn’t clued him in to the particulars of her marriage or pending divorce. It had been less demeaning to let him think her greedy and cold.

  They hadn’t seen one another face-to-face since, although they’d spoken on the telephone occasionally and traded greeting cards and e-mails a little more frequently. Each one of his had ended with the words, “Please, come home.”

  Now she had and, bless Dane, he appeared to be genuinely happy about it.

  “God, Aud, I’ve been so worried about you. Especially after—”

  “I know, I know. Ali said you flew out to see me, but I was already gone.” She hugged him back just as fiercely, glad to hold on to something solid and real and welcoming. The words that had seemed so hard to say to other people just tumbled out. “I’m sorry, Dane. I’m so very sorry for everything. I’ve made a real mess of things.”

  “Forget that now.”

  “No. I can’t. There are things I want to say, things I need to explain to you—and especially to Ali, once she’s willing to listen.”

  “I know, but they can keep for now. I’m just glad you’ve come back.” He glanced up at the weeping sky as if just realizing it was pouring. “Hell of a homecoming, huh, kiddo?”

  She laughed and repeated the old saw, “What do you expect? This is Michigan. Wait five minutes and the weather will change.”

  “Tell me about it. It was nearly seventy degrees a couple weeks ago and then I swear I saw snowflakes two days later. Let’s get you out of the rain,” Dane said.

  He put an arm around her shoulders and ushered her up the steps. Water puddled on the wooden slats around her feet when she reached the top and stood under the safety of the porch’s roof.

  “I’ll stay out here till you get me a towel. I don’t want to drip all over the floor.”

  “I should be charging for towels today,” Dane joked, motioning toward the man who stood on the porch, far enough back that Audra hadn’t noticed him before. “The weather caught him off guard about an hour ago. This is—”

  “Seth,” Audra supplied, unable to suppress the smile that bowed her lips or the kick of attraction that nearly had her sighing. New and improved, she reminded herself silently before saying nonchalantly, “We met yesterday.”

  “Oh?” Dane divided a glance between the pair of them, but made no other comment. “I’ll go get you that towel. And how about something hot to drink to ward off the chill?”

  “Tea. Herbal, if you’ve got it.”

  He paused at the door, sending an are-you-kidding look over his shoulder.

  She tried again. “Decaffeinated Earl Grey?”

  “A cup of regular Lipton it is,” he replied, disappearing inside the house.

  “What a coincidence, seeing you here,” Seth said.

  “Yes.”

  Her gaze dipped to the object he held in his hand. It was a camera, and not some cheap Instamatic with the standard lens, either. No, this one was big and black, state-of-the-art and very expensive-looking. The kind the professionals used, Audra knew, since she had seen more than her fair share of them in her previous life. The way he held it—left hand cupping the underside, right hand on what she had always thought of as the trigger—told her that he was well-versed in how to use it.

  Had he taken a picture of her as she’d hugged Dane?

  Her stomach did a slow slide down before lurching back up. She had once welcomed the camera’s intrusion into her life, or at least she had done precious little to try to stop it. But right now she didn’t want the glare of the media’s spotlight focused on he
r. She needed privacy to reconcile with her family, to reconnect with her roots and to start her life over.

  Suspicion crept into her tone, turning it cool when she said, “I didn’t realize you were a photographer.”

  “Hobby.” He shrugged, but his movements were sure and meticulous when he bent down to store the camera in the black tote at his feet. When he straightened, he said, “I decided to take your advice.”

  “Oh?”

  “About the hike. I was out taking pictures of trillium when I got caught in the downpour.”

  His story seemed plausible, but…

  “So, how do you know Dane?” he asked. “He’s not a boyfriend or something?”

  Audra felt herself relax slightly. Maybe Seth didn’t know who she was after all. Surely if he did, and if he were one of the paparazzi he would have figured out that she and Dane were siblings. Conlan wasn’t that common of a surname.

  “He’s my brother.”

  He smiled. “Brother, huh? Good.”

  “Why’s that?”

  He winked. “Just glad for you that this sibling relationship appears to be far less complicated than the one with your sister.”

  She smiled fully now. “It is that.”

  “I take it you’ve been away for a while.”

  “A while,” she agreed.

  “Well, I won’t stay. You probably have a lot you want to catch up on.”

  Seth lifted the strap of the bag onto his shoulder, but he didn’t leave. He had hoped to run into Audra today, although not necessarily at her brother’s house. And, oh, yes, he’d known exactly whose door he’d been knocking on when he’d sought refuge from the downpour.

  Seth had parked his rental car up the road half a mile and walked—very slowly—hoping that his bedraggled appearance would elicit enough empathy from the other man to be invited inside for a minute or two. God love a small town, Dane had done exactly that.

  The problem was Seth liked Dane. The other man was friendly and open, down-to-earth and just plain nice. He was the type of guy Seth wouldn’t have minded grabbing a beer with under other circumstances, which made him feel a little uncomfortable for operating incognito, but he needed the contact. He wanted to be around Audra as much as possible. Befriending her brother seemed to be a good way to go about it.