Leaning forward in his chair, he studied her sad face. “Why are you doing this to me? I’m not Lee Rollins. I’ve not left a wife and child behind.”
She flinched, then turned her gaze away from him. “No,” she said bitterly. “That’s one thing I won’t have to worry about. You’ll make damned sure you don’t have either one of those.”
Disgusted now, Jake muttered a few choice words under his breath. “I don’t know what in hell you want or expect from me, Mom. You say I’m just like Lee and not fit to be a husband or father. And then in the next breath, you ridicule me for not having a family. I guess it would be too much of a strain for you to find anything worthwhile in your son, yourself or your life.”
Her head whipped around and she gaped at him in shock. “That’s a horrible thing to say to me!”
“Is it? I’m thinking I should have said it a long time ago.”
“Jake—”
“Look, Mom, just because you want to be alone and miserable doesn’t mean I want to be.”
She looked at him in stunned disbelief and Jake suddenly realized that he was partly to blame for his mother’s cynical attitude toward life. All these years of coddling had only fed into her self-pity.
“What are you talking about? You are alone, Jake,” she shot back at him. “And that’s the way the both of us are always gonna be. Your father ruined us.”
His jaw tight, Jake rose to his feet. “Only because we’ve let him.”
He started off the porch and Clara called after him. “Come back here, Jake. I’m not finished.”
Stepping onto the ground, he glanced over his shoulder at her. “But I am finished, Mom. Finished with the whole rotten mess of Lee Rollins.”
Minutes later, as Jake drove north of Ruidoso to Rebecca’s place, he tried to forget the exchange he’d had with his mother. It wasn’t like him to lose his temper with her. She was basically the only family he had and after his father had left, she’d worked hard and sacrificed to raise Jake. He respected her for that and he loved her. But that didn’t mean he had to abide her attitude toward him or herself.
You are alone, Jake.
Of all the things Clara had said to him that had cut the worst. Although, he didn’t understand exactly why. A few weeks ago, he probably would have agreed with his mother’s observation. He’d always been a man alone. Until Rebecca had come into his life. Now he felt different. Now he felt a connection.
Was it love?
Hell, how could he know the answer to that? He’d never been in love. And maybe this thing with Rebecca was just lust, he mentally argued. God only knew how much he’d wanted her the other night. He’d not been satisfied to make love to her once and then take her home. No, he’d had to make love to her a second time and then a third. And to make the matter even more worrisome, he’d wanted to keep her with him all night. He’d wanted to wrap his arms around her and hold her until morning filled the sky. Something he’d never done with any woman.
But somehow, in the wee hours of the morning, he’d found the strength, or maybe it had been fear that had finally pushed him, to drive her home and kiss her good-night. Since that night his thoughts had been besieged with the woman and now he was beginning to wonder what tomorrow was going to bring to him. Once she returned to Texas, how would he go back to being the old Jake, the man who flitted from one woman to the next, the man who never thought about a wife, children or the future?
A half hour later, he rolled to a stop behind Rebecca’s old truck. The sight of the vehicle assured him that she was home, so he climbed to the ground and went to work unloading his horse.
By the time he’d taken Banjo to the barn and turned him loose in a small catch pen, Rebecca still hadn’t appeared, so he quickly returned to the house and knocked on the front door.
There was no sound coming from inside and he was beginning to think that maybe Abe or Maura might have picked her up and taken her to Apache Wells for a neighborly visit, when he finally heard footsteps rushing through the house.
After a moment, she appeared behind the screen door and he smiled with relief. “Rebecca, for a minute I thought you were gone.”
She pushed the door wide and without a word fell sobbing into his arms.
“Rebecca! Honey, what’s wrong? Are you hurt? Sick?”
Lifting her head from his chest, she tried to speak, but only more sobs passed her parted lips. Jake urgently wrapped an arm around her waist and ushered her into the house.
Once he had her sitting on the couch, he sank down beside her and pressed both her hands tightly between his. “Take a deep breath, Becca. Calm down and tell me what has you so upset.”
Nodding jerkily, she drew in several bracing breaths. “I—I’m so sorry, Jake. I didn’t mean to—to break down like this. But when I saw you—oh, Jake—I don’t know where to begin.”
Fresh tears rolled down her cheeks and he quickly pulled a bandanna from the back pocket of his jeans and wiped them away. Once he was finished, her trembling lips tried to form a grateful smile.
“Are you ill, Becca?”
She shook her head. “No. I guess you could call it…shock.” She pulled her hands from his and swiped at the tumble of blond hair hanging near her eyes. “This afternoon I was going through Gertrude’s correspondence and I found out—quite by accident that—she was…my mother.”
Stunned, Jake stared at her. “Did I hear you right? Did you say mother?”
Rebecca nodded, then released a long, shuddering sigh. “That’s right. I said that Gertrude was my mother.”
“But how? Are you sure?”
Jumping to her feet, she began to pace around the tiny living room. “I found letters from my father written to Gertrude. He called her Gerta and talked about how much he regretted the fact that they couldn’t be together.” Her woeful gaze lifted from the floor and over to him. “Oh, Jake, the things he wrote—he clearly loved her. And—”
His heart aching for her, he watched her cover her face with both hands. “Are you sure about this, Rebecca? Just because he loved Gertrude, that doesn’t make the woman your mother. And even if she was actually your mother, why didn’t she raise you?”
Dropping her hands from her face, she stared helplessly at him. “I’m going crazy trying to figure that out, Jake. None of it makes sense.”
“Does your mother—the mother who raised you—know that you’ve uncovered these letters?”
She nodded stiffly. “Right after I found the letters I called my—I called Gwyn and confronted her with the contents. She didn’t try to deny any of it. She simply said she’d catch a plane to Ruidoso tomorrow and I’m to meet her there so that we can talk. Apparently she’s decided she can’t hide the truth any longer. But what that truth is—well, I can’t imagine what I’ll hear from her. All I know is that my real mother is dead. And I never had the chance to see her, touch her or hear her voice. It’s killing me, Jake.”
The agony in her voice pushed Jake to his feet and he quickly pulled her into his arms and cradled her head against his chest. “I don’t know what to say. To say I’m sorry wouldn’t be right. Because this might be a good thing, Becca. You’ve been confused and wanting answers about Gertrude. Now you have them.”
Her hands gripped the front of his denim shirt as though he was her lifeline. The idea that she needed to be close to him, that she was even sharing this most private part of her life with him, left Jake overwhelmed with emotions.
“Yes. But I’ve lost so much,” she said in a tear-ravaged voice. “And why?”
“Oh, Becca, I can’t give you the answers. But please don’t cry anymore.” Gently, he stroked a hand down the back of her head. “No matter what the truth is, it’s not going to change the wonderful person that you are. And trust me, this will all get better with time.”
Tilting her head back, she focused her watery gaze upon his face. “Oh, Jake, I’m so glad you’re here,” she whispered hoarsely. “I need you. You can’t imagine how much.”
&
nbsp; Need. Not want. Need. The notion that this woman needed him, in any capacity, amazed Jake, filled his heart with a kind of warmth he’d never experienced before. And as he watched the dark agony in her eyes turn to something soft and sweet, he couldn’t stop his head from bending or his lips from finding hers.
A faint groan sounded deep in her throat. Or was it a whimper of surrender? Either way, the sound stirred him, made him forget that he was supposed to be consoling her. Heat flashed through him as he tightened his arms and crushed her closer against him.
The taste of her mouth was like sipping a favorite wine, one that he could never get enough of. As his lips plundered hers, his tongue slipped between her teeth and rubbed a bumpy track along the roof of her mouth. At the same time he could feel her hips arching toward his, her fingers crawling up his chest and linking at the back of his neck.
His body had forgotten none of the pleasures she’d given him the other night and the memories melded with the erotic sensations zipping hot and wild along his veins. The search of his lips turned rough and urgent and she matched each desperate movement with a frantic need that left his whole body aching to be inside her once again.
Eventually the need for air and the desire to take the embrace to a deeper level forced their mouths apart. His breathing heavy, he gripped her shoulders and looked ruefully down at her.
“I must be a bastard, Becca, for wanting you like this—now. You need—”
“I need you. Only you,” she interrupted in a desperate whisper. “Make love to me, Jake. Make me forget everything. Everything but you.”
He kissed her again. More gently this time and once their lips parted, she took him by the hand and led him down the short hallway to her bedroom.
The small space was equipped with only one window facing the backyard. It was bare of curtains and opened to the cool breeze. Now as she pulled Jake down on the bed beside her, the sage-scented air wafted across their heated skin and ruffled the blond tendrils of hair lying upon her shoulders.
For long moments as they lay with their faces mere inches apart, Jake could only wonder how much longer he would have her to himself like this. She was at a crossroads in her life. That much was obvious to Jake. And the road she eventually chose to take would more than likely be away from Lincoln County, away from him. The notion chilled him and he fought to push it away at the same time he reached to draw her close to his heart.
The next afternoon, Rebecca drove to the Ruidoso airport and waited for Gwyn Hardaway’s small commuter jet to land. Their initial meeting in the lobby was worse than stiff and, though Rebecca allowed the woman to give her a brief hug, there was little warmth between them as they exited the building and walked to the parking lot.
When they reached Rebecca’s old Ford, it was clear that Gwyn was disgusted by the mode of transportation and even more embarrassed to be seen in it, but Rebecca didn’t make any apologies. The truck had belonged to her mother and that alone made it special.
Rebecca drove them to the hotel where Gwyn had booked a room for the night, then waited in the spacious lobby while the other woman checked in and dealt with her luggage. So far only a handful of words had passed between the two of them and the strained silence reminded Rebecca how drastically her life had changed since she’d come to New Mexico. She watched her real mother be laid to rest and the woman who’d raised her had become a distant stranger. And then there was Jake. The man she’d fallen in love with. Would he want to be a part of her scattered life?
Her mind was replaying last night and how Jake had made love to her so tenderly and completely when Gwyn’s voice abruptly sounded behind her.
“Would you like to go up to my room to talk?”
For some reason Rebecca had no desire to closet herself in a private room with Gwyn. She already felt as though the woman had isolated her. As far as Rebecca was concerned, it was time for everything to be out in the open.
“Let’s find a restaurant,” Rebecca suggested. “I need a cup of coffee.”
Thankfully, there was an eating place connected to the hotel and after a short walk, they seated themselves in a booth looking out a wide plate-glass window. After the waitress left to fetch their drinks, Gwyn stared out the window.
“I wonder what Gertrude saw in this place,” she mused aloud. “I admit it has a quaint charm, but it’s so Western.”
And Gwyn was so big-city, Rebecca thought. She loved the hustle and bustle, the shops, the arts and social life attached to them. On the other hand, from what Rebecca could gather from her home place, Gertrude had been just the opposite. A quiet loner who was content to live with her animals.
“Do you know why she chose to live here?” Rebecca asked.
Gwyn’s gaze remained on the window. “No idea. In fact, after we parted ways, I never knew where she’d gone to. I didn’t want to know,” she added bitterly.
As the two of them had walked to the restaurant, Rebecca kept reminding herself to keep an open mind and not allow her temper to rise to the angry point. After all, she didn’t yet know what had gone on between the twin sisters. So now she quietly studied Gwyn’s stiff expression and wondered how the woman could’ve turned her back on her sister and deceived her own child.
“Why?”
Gwyn turned her gaze on Rebecca and this time she could see dark shadows of pure hatred in their depths. The sight shocked Rebecca and made her realize there were sides to this woman that she could have never imagined.
“Do we really have to get into all of this, Rebecca? Isn’t it enough to know that she was your biological mother? The rest is…unimportant.”
Unimportant? Rebecca wanted to scream. Before Jake had shown up at her door yesterday evening, she’d read all the letters that had been stashed in the jewelry box and they’d given her bittersweet glimpses to her parents’ relationship. The words her father had written to Gertrude were full of anguish, love, sorrow and regret. His life had been torn between two women and a child. How could Gwyn have the gall to say none of it was important?
“I’m not a child, Mother. And don’t insult my intelligence. I didn’t come here to meet with you just so you could hem and haw. If you don’t want to give me the truth, I’ll be on my way.”
Gwyn’s nostrils flared with anger, but any retort she might have said at that moment was interrupted by the waitress returning to their table. After the woman had served them and gone on her way, Rebecca stirred cream into her coffee and waited with patience that was wearing thinner and thinner with each passing moment.
“If you walk away now, Rebecca,” Gwyn finally said, “you’ll never know the truth.”
She made it sound almost like a threat, as though she wouldn’t think twice about withholding the answers that Rebecca so desperately needed. The realization stunned her. Gwyn had always been a temperamental person and spoiled by having her own way, but Rebecca had never seen this sort of cruelty in the woman.
“That’s where you’re wrong. I have Daddy’s letters. They explain a lot.”
Gwyn had ordered iced tea. Now, after a long sip, she plopped the glass down with a loud thud and quickly reached for the sugar shaker. “Damn people! Don’t have the slightest idea of how to serve sweet tea!” She dumped a small mountain of white granules into the drink and as she absently stirred the tea, she turned an unseeing gaze toward the window. “Oh, yes,” she said bitterly. “Those letters you found. I wasn’t expecting you to stumble across anything like…that.”
“Why not? You knew I was staying in Gertrude’s house. Surely you figured I would run across them at some point.”
Gwyn’s head jerked around and Rebecca could see her face was now mottled with red splotches. “I didn’t— I never knew Vance had been corresponding with Gertrude. I didn’t know my husband had been speaking to the woman in any form or fashion!”
Oh, God, this was worse than anything Rebecca had anticipated. She wanted answers, but unlike Gwyn, she wasn’t a hurtful person. She didn’t want to cause her mother
more pain than she was already going through. But neither could she avoid the truth. “You never suspected that he was harboring feelings for Gertrude?”
Gwyn’s gaze dropped shamefully to the tabletop. “No,” she said hoarsely. “I thought all of that was over—after—”
When she didn’t go on, Rebecca pressed her. “After what? After I was conceived? For both of our sakes, I think you need to go back to the beginning, Mother.”
With a long weary sigh, she lifted her head and looked straight at Rebecca. By now her face had gone very pale, making her red lipstick stand out garishly against her white skin.
“All right. From the beginning my sister and I were always very different people. Even our looks were nothing alike. Gertrude was tall and blonde while I was dark and petite.”
“Was she pretty?”
Gwyn shrugged one shoulder, an expression she’d always reprimanded Rebecca for using. “I suppose you could’ve called her pretty. She was the outdoorsy, girl-next-door type. And so quiet and reserved that I often wanted to scream at her. Yet as children we—well, we loved each other and were actually quite close.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Well, we were. Even though we did have our differences at times. As teenagers I was always pushing her to be more outgoing. I wanted her to have dates and fun—I wanted her to be someone I could be proud of. Instead, she chose to be a bookworm and for the most part shunned any advances the boys made toward her. She said they made her uncomfortable and that she would have a relationship whenever it felt right and not before. At that time neither one of us had met Vance. That didn’t come until much later when we were in our twenties and our parents—your grandparents—had already passed on.”
“You told me that you met Daddy at a dinner party. Is that where Gertrude met him, too?”
Gwyn grimaced. “Yes. At the time I thought she hardly noticed him. But that could have been because I was too busy trying to catch his eye,” she added thoughtfully. “Anyway, after that we began to date. When he asked me to marry him, I was over the moon. Your father was killer handsome and though he wasn’t rich by any means, he was a man with prospects and all of that put together made him one of the most eligible bachelors in our social circle. After he proposed, I immediately began to plan a big wedding and with Mother already gone, I needed Gertrude to help me with the details.”
His Texas Wildflower Page 14
