She stared down at the business card in her hand and knew the identity of the man who threatened to snatch the precious manuscript away from her.
Andrew Cane.
One of the prodigal sons of Cane had come home.
***
“So we’re going to be able to get the manuscript?”
Andrew Cane nodded in response to his half-sister Melissa’s question and leaned back on the window seat in the garret suite of his childhood home in Cane. “I think so. I told Tom Harrison I’d top any offer he got on it. As far as I know, the library is the only other potential buyer. I’m sure they want it but not as much as we do.”
“I’m so glad. Grandma will be so happy. It’s a perfect birthday present.” Melissa was propped up on the sofa of the sitting room, hugging her knees to her chest. She looked happy today—relaxed and already smiling despite the traveling they’d done over the last two days—but Andrew scanned her face carefully for any signs of anxiety or restlessness.
Noticing his gaze, she gave him a stern frown. “Stop worrying. You’re like a mother hen. I’m fine.”
He chuckled softly. “A hen? Let’s find a more dignified and masculine way to refer to me, shall we?”
When Andrew’s mother had left Joshua Cane twenty-four years ago, he’d been only twelve. The abandonment had hurt brutally, as had her quick remarriage to a dentist in Boston. Melissa was the child of that second marriage. When their mother died, Melissa had come to live with Andrew.
“If a hen is how you act, then a hen is what I’ll call you.” Her broad smile—exactly like their mother’s—disappeared abruptly at a loud sound from downstairs. Some of the color drained from her face, and she flashed scared gray eyes over to her brother.
“Jenson and Trish are still unpacking our stuff. Sounds like they accidentally slammed a door. No one else is here. Just you and me and Jenson and Trish.”
When Melissa had come to live with him, Andrew had hired Jenson and Trish—a comfortable, competent middle-aged couple—as domestic staff. The outside yard and housekeeping services he’d used were no longer options with Melissa in the house. While he had no trouble taking care of himself when he was on his own, he was ill-equipped and too busy to tend to all of Melissa’s special needs. Jenson and Trish had been with them for ten years. Both he and Melissa thought of them as family.
Melissa nodded at his reassurance and took a deep breath. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Clearing his throat, Andrew made a point of returning to their previous topic. “It’s not a done deal, but things are looking promising with the manuscript.”
“He was agreeable and everything, when you asked him?” Melissa had recovered quickly, and she was almost smiling again.
“Basically, yes.” Thinking over the phone conversation he’d had with Thomas Harrison, Andrew felt a flicker of hesitance. “I guess he’s been talking a lot to someone over at the college library. He said he was meeting with her this afternoon. I thought I’d stop by in a little while, just to make sure they don’t leave me out of the equation.”
Melissa started to frown in concern, so Andrew added quickly, “I know Tom can use some extra money right now. His inheritance was more of a financial drain than a boon. I’ll spend whatever I have to spend to get it. There won’t be a problem.”
“Money covers everything, I guess.” Although the words were a challenge, Melissa’s expression was fond.
“You know me better than that. But this is a financial transaction. It’s a purchase. The highest offer invariably wins, and I’ll make sure we make the highest offer.”
Andrew sat in silence for a few moments, rehearsing what he knew about the situation. Then he concluded, “Maybe I can talk to the librarian too—just to get a sense of their position. Tom said her name was Helen something.” Wrinkling his brow, he searched his memory until he found the last name. “Walton. Oh, I guess it’s probably Pastor Jack’s daughter.”
“You know her? The librarian? That might help.”
“Yeah. I remember her vaguely from a long time ago. She grew up in Cane too. She was a lot younger than me. Really shy. Liked to read.” Andrew was starting to get a clearer image in his mind of the girl—pale skin, pale hair, glasses, always hidden behind a book. “I should have known she’d end up as a librarian.”
“Hey,” Melissa said, looking at him reproachfully. “What’s wrong with liking to read and being bookish?”
“Nothing, of course.” His sister read all the time. She’d read more widely than anyone he knew, and she remembered nearly all of what she read. Had she been different, she could have had a remarkable career. “Bookish is the only way to go, and I’d never dare to say differently. Anyway, we should be all right with the manuscript if the librarian is who I think she is. She was always too scared to say anything, much less put up a fight.”
“Good. Grandma wants this so much.”
When their mother’s mother was a girl, she’d been courted by a member of the Harrison family. Due to financial and family pressures, the couple had never been able to marry. But their grandmother, over eighty now, still thought about her former beau with deep fondness. He’d been in possession of the manuscript to Shadow Past when he’d courted their grandmother, and they’d started to fall in love as they discussed the story. When Andrew had learned that the manuscript might be sold, he’d determined to buy it for his grandmother’s eighty-fifth birthday. “We’ll get it for her. Don’t worry about that.”
Andrew looked around the large, sunny room—the bedroom of the garret suite he’d had prepared particularly for Melissa before they’d arrived in town. “So the rooms are all right for you?” he asked, changing the subject so his sister wouldn’t worry any more about the manuscript.
“It’s great. Thanks for working so hard to fix it up for me.”
The garret suite had originally been an attic, but when he was a boy, Andrew’s father had redone it as a bedroom, sitting room, and bathroom. Since it was on the highest floor in the back of the house, street noise was minimal. Big windows looked out to the backyard, and the old-fashioned furniture and hardwood floors gave the suite a comfortable, lived-in feel. He’d made sure the bedding and curtains were in the same colors as Melissa’s rooms at home, and he’d brought with them as many of her things as possible—so she wouldn’t feel like she was in a foreign setting.
“I’m sorry we’re going to have to be here for so long,” he said.
Andrew took business trips often, doing marketing and meeting with new clients, but he made sure they rarely lasted more than two or three days. This trip was different, though. He was going to have to be in Cane for at least two weeks, and if things didn’t go quickly it might be closer to a month. That was too long for Melissa to stay at home on her own. She was all right with Jenson and Trish for a few days, but Andrew was her main source of security. She couldn’t be away from him for too long.
Fortunately, as the owner of his own company, he was able to do much of his work from his home outside of D.C., and he just made sure he never left for long enough for Melissa to have a breakdown. Being tied to her in this way limited Andrew’s business activities, and it certainly put a crimp in his social life.
But she depended on him, and he loved her. He wasn’t going to let her down.
“Stop worrying about that,” Melissa said, breaking through his thoughts. “I think I’ll be fine up here. It’s a really cozy room and it feels safe. Kind of familiar. Maybe because this was your house growing up.”
Andrew glanced out the window at the yard of the home he’d grown up in. He’d loved this old house, the vast yard that led into sloping woods, the tree swing, the old shed he and his brothers had used as a fort. It was so long since he’d been here, and it brought back so many memories.
“Are you really going to sell it?” Melissa asked, evidently reading his mind.
“I don’t know.”
Andrew knew he should sell it. The house had stood unlived-in for six
years, kept up only by the local service he hired. When his father died, his two brothers had sold their share of the house and grounds to him, so he owned it now free and clear. He wasn’t sure why he was holding onto it. It was nothing but a drain on his bank account.
Long ago he’d resolved that he wouldn’t live in Cane again, but he hadn’t yet been able to let the old house go.
When the Geneva Bale manuscript that was so important to his grandmother had become available, he’d taken that as a sign that it was time to do something. The house needed some work—even if he was going to just sell it, and he had a few other loose ends to tie up in Cane anyway.
So he’d packed up himself and his sister, and they’d driven across Virginia to the mountains. Andrew was determined to stay here—no matter how hard the memories were—until everything that needed to be done was complete.
It was really strange being back, though. Hard in a way he hadn’t anticipated. Most of the time, he was satisfied with his stable, comfortable life at home. He channeled most of his drive and energy into work. He was still close to Geoff, his middle brother. Andrew had Melissa, and he had a wide circle of friends at home. He used to date a lot, although recently he’d had trouble summoning much interest for the variety of women who threw themselves at him as a well-to-do and relatively attractive bachelor.
He was successful, respected, and comfortable, but more and more he recognized something missing from his life. Returning to Cane was making that gap more apparent. It dredged up a lot of old feelings he’d rather not have to deal with.
He would deal with them, though. He’d never been a coward, and he needed to finally get this done.
Shaking off his reflections, he gave his sister a sheepish look. “Sorry about that. My mind was drifting.”
“You looked sad.”
“I wasn’t.” He smiled at her warmly, determined that she would never worry about him. “Oh, by the way, this evening I’m having a couple of people over. A few of my friends from high school still live in Cane, and it would be rude not to have dinner with them at least once.”
Panic flared in Melissa’s eyes, and he saw her shoulders tense. “Okay.”
“It will just be a couple of hours,” Andrew said, in the low voice he always used to soothe his sister’s anxiety. “I won’t let them stay too long, and I’ll make sure they stay on the ground floor.”
She nodded a little jerkily. “This is a good place. I should be all right up here.”
For years Melissa had been crippled by an intense fear of strangers. During the year she’d been fourteen, she’d gradually withdrawn from the world until she started having panic attacks whenever she was faced with someone she didn’t know.
Andrew had tried everything to treat her condition. Regular counseling, intensive bouts of therapy, experts all over the world. A few years back he’d put her in a world-class psychiatric facility for a week. She’d been so terrified they’d had to sedate her almost constantly, and Andrew couldn’t resist her desperate pleas to bring her home. All of the doctors had agreed that she couldn’t make any progress because she refused to try. She didn’t want to get better—at least not enough to make any real efforts toward healing—and so there was no treatment that could possibly work.
Andrew had begged her to try harder. He’d talked to her for endless hours in order to discover the block that was keeping her from taking a first step toward a normal life. He never stopped searching the new medical and psychological research done on anything resembling Melissa’s condition.
Nothing had worked.
So he took care of her as much as possible. He let her stay at home all the time. He’d brought in tutors in order to complete her education—although the process of introducing a new tutor had taken months. He spent as much time with her as he could and made sure her surroundings were comfortable and secure. She was happy at home—with him and Jenson and Trish. And she loved when Geoff or their grandmother came to visit.
She refused to go out, though, and she panicked whenever she was confronted by a stranger.
Sometimes Andrew was afraid he was enabling her—making it too easy for her not to try—but he didn’t know what else to do. He couldn’t force her. Couldn’t abandon her. She was family, and he’d do what he could to keep her safe and happy.
“I’m sorry I’m such a pain,” Melissa said. “Why do you even put up with me?”
She looked so little and anxious curled up on the sofa that Andrew got up to give her a hug. “Because I love you,” he said, his voice a little gruff. “And you put up with me.”
She clung to him for a long time, and Andrew didn’t break the hug until she finally released him.
Then he straightened up and said, “Let me know if you need anything else to make these rooms work. I better head over to the Harrison house.”
Melissa smiled at him, evidently recovered from her fluttery nerves. “Don’t let the manuscript go without a fight.”
Andrew smiled. “You know me. I don’t know how to give up.”
Chapter Two
A half-hour later, Andrew pulled onto the side of the street to park in front of the old Harrison house.
His car was a luxury import SUV with darkly tinted windows in the back—which after a lot of searching he’d determined was the best means of transporting Melissa. She didn’t leave the house very often, but when she did he needed a car that would make her feel safe.
Andrew studied the Harrison house as he slid out of the passenger seat. It needed a lot of work. He hoped it was a good sign that Thomas would be amenable to a generous offer for the manuscript.
He looked from the house down the block, to the church he knew was situated across the street at the corner. It was the First Church of Cane—the one he’d attended for the first eighteen years of his life.
The thought gave Andrew more of those tight feelings in his chest. When he’d left Cane so many years ago, he’d left his faith as well. He’d never stopped believing, but for years he’d lived as if God had no claim on his life.
Only in these last few years had he started to recognize what he’d lost. Several months ago, he’d finally heeded Melissa’s encouragement to read the Bible and attend church.
He was even praying—although he’d been almost embarrassed to do so again after having ignored God for a decade—but he was still missing the sense of peace about his faith that he knew he should have.
He wondered if Jack Walton was still the pastor of the church.
Evidently Walton’s only daughter was now a librarian at Cane College.
The thought brought him back to his purpose here, and he noticed a blue, midsized sedan across the street and wondered if it belonged to the Walton girl.
He started up the front walk toward the house, convinced that the manuscript purchase shouldn’t be too much of a challenge. Thomas needed the money, and Helen Walton was the kind of person who scared easily.
He remembered once, when he was in high school, coming upon Helen unexpectedly in a back room of the church. She’d stared at him like he was a monster, her little glasses slipping down her nose. When he’d given her a perfectly polite hello, she’d opened her mouth but no words came out. Then she’d turned around and ran away.
Andrew chuckled at the memory of her huge, round blue eyes and the little squeak she’d made as she fled.
He reached the front door and was about the ring the bell when he noticed two people in the side yard. Thomas Harrison was sitting on a bench near the ramshackle gazebo with a woman beside him.
Andrew was caught off guard.
Because of the play of branches from the surrounding trees, Thomas was entirely in the shade and the woman was in direct sunlight. She looked gilded, set off by a fall of bright light. Her blond hair glowed in the sun like luminous gold, and her skin was alight with the same brilliance.
Everything about her—her hair, her skin, her smile—all of it shone with startling radiance.
They hadn’t s
een him yet, so Andrew started over, wondering who she was and how Harrison had managed to snare himself such a beautiful girlfriend. As he got nearer, he saw that the woman’s hair was pulled up into some sort of bun and she was wearing an outfit that looked feminine and old-fashioned, so different from the urban women he was used to.
She was talking earnestly, no longer smiling, but she still seemed luminous, lit from within. He’d never seen anything like it.
Andrew continued approaching, staring at the woman, until near the gazebo he stopped himself short. He was acting like a half-crazed boy, mesmerized by a pretty face and a trick of the sunlight. He could see Thomas’s face now, and the man’s expression seemed to indicate that he and the woman were definitely a couple.
Maybe the Walton girl had already left.
Andrew stood for a minute, recalling his strategy for approaching Thomas and telling himself not to stare anymore at the radiant woman.
When he’d basically returned to his senses, he called out a friendly, “Good afternoon. I’m sorry to interrupt.”
Thomas turned in surprise, and the woman actually gave a little jump. Both stood as Andrew walked up to them.
“Andrew,” Thomas said. “It’s good to see you. It’s been a long time.”
They shook hands, and Andrew’s eyes strayed over to the unknown woman. Her expression was a little odd now—kind of tight around her courteous smile.
Noticing his preoccupation, Thomas said, “This is Helen Walton. I don’t know if you’ll remember her or not.”
It felt like someone kicked Andrew in the gut.
Helen stretched out her hand to him. “Mr. Cane, it’s nice to see you again. I remember you, but you probably don’t remember me. I was several years younger than you growing up.” She gave a little start. “I guess I’m still several years younger.” Her cheeks reddened a little as she added the sheepish addendum.
Andrew cleared his throat, forcing down his shock and disorientation. “I do remember you. You’ve changed a lot.”
No Shadow (Prodigal Sons of Cane) Page 2
