Shattered Silence

by Marta Perry

  Robinson blanched. “It’s not that serious, really.”

  “To you, maybe. To Julie?” She turned away from him, back to Clint. “We can go now.”

  Clint nodded. “Right. Let’s go.”

  Rachel was quiet all the way back to her house. Clint glanced at her from time to time, not sure whether he should speak or not. Finally he couldn’t handle the silence any longer.

  “Tired?”

  She turned toward him, seeming to return from a distance. “A little. Mostly just...spent. Is it really over?”

  This he could understand. He’d been there a time or two himself—that moment when you couldn’t quite believe the trauma had ended and didn’t know whether to count on it or not.

  “Hard to believe, isn’t it?” He considered. “It’s over in the sense that the truth is out now. But there will still be legalities to go through. And if it comes to a trial, we’ll have to get through it.”

  “If?” Anger flared in her eyes. “He’s not going to get away with it, is he?”

  “I hope not. Attwood will certainly be charged. But there’s always the possibility he’ll plead guilty to avoid a trial. Or that his attorney will strike a plea deal to let him plead guilty with a chance of parole after a good long time. You can never predict what a court might do.”

  “I’m not vindictive.” She said the words slowly, as if she were feeling her way. “When I think about what he’s done, it makes me angry, but if I’ve learned anything, it’s that I can’t let anger and disappointment affect the rest of my life.” She looked at him, green eyes huge and serious. “Or guilt.”

  Clint felt as if she were looking right into his heart and seeing the pain and guilt that had taken up residence there after his partner’s death. But like her, he’d come through it to the other side.

  “You’re going to be all right,” he said. “So am I.” Smiling at her, he pulled into her driveway.

  Rachel sat still for a moment, and then she returned his smile. “Come in?”

  In answer he got out, came around the car and clasped her hand as they walked to the door.

  Once they were inside she turned to him, something questioning in her face. All the resolutions he’d made about taking it slow, giving her time, starting over...they just melted away. He drew her close, wrapping his arms around her and knowing he never wanted to let her go.

  It was enough. In that moment it was enough just to hold her...to know she could step out of the cloud that had followed her and start to live again.

  Finally she pulled back, just a little, studying his face. “Is this too soon? We’ve only known each other for a few weeks, but I feel as if we’ve always known each other.”

  “Me, too.” He smoothed the hair back from her face. “We know the important things about each other. Nobody could go through what we did and not get that. The rest of it...” He cradled her face between his hands. “What kind of movies you like, your favorite foods, my pet peeves... We can catch up with those while we go along. Don’t you think?” He couldn’t help there being a little anxiety in the question.

  “Yes, I think so.”

  He heard the confidence in her voice, saw it in her eyes, and knew it was going to be all right. He took a deep breath.

  “I wasn’t going to say this yet. I was going to take my time, move slowly, work up to it. But I can’t. I love you, Rachel. I love everything about you, and when I know all there is to know, I’m just going to love you more.” He paused for breath, hardly able to believe he’d said it. “Is that all right with you?”

  “Oh, Clint.” Her eyes were shining, so he knew she wasn’t going to say no. “I was so confused, so sure I couldn’t trust myself where men were concerned, and then you burst into my life at the worst possible time, and I finally got it. What happened in the past...it has nothing to do with us. With you and me. I don’t need to go slow or be cautious. I already know everything that’s important about you, and I love you.”

  Hands on either side of his face, she drew him down for a kiss. Somewhere in the midst of all the rockets that were going off he felt it—felt the solid sureness that this was right. He’d nearly messed it up by his stupid jealousy of Paul, but Rachel seemed able to forgive him, maybe because she’d come to terms with the past. They both had.

  This was good, and it was forever.

  EPILOGUE

  RACHEL LIFTED A massive bowl of mashed potatoes over the heads of Daniel and Thomas as they ran through the kitchen. The aroma of roasting turkey filled the whole house, proclaiming that it was Thanksgiving. A day for giving thanks, and she had so much to be thankful for.

  The kitchen was filled with women, but Sadie had everything organized. Each person had a job to do, and if she could do it and talk at the same time, so much the better. Her cousins and their wives were here, leading a horde of small children being corralled outside for the moment. Rachel exchanged a smile with her aunt, home at last after superintending the arrival of her new grandchild.

  She held her breath as Sadie’s boys scooted around Grossmammi, who was sprinkling brown sugar over the top of the sweet potatoes, but her grandmother had long experience in avoiding small children while cooking.

  “Out, out.” She waved her hand at the boys, who were suffering from the usual overexcitement of the entire family gathered for Thanksgiving.

  Clint, grinning, picked up one boy under each arm and carted them toward the door. “Let’s go, guys. We’re in the way, and that only leads to trouble. If you want your share of a drumstick, you have to leave the cooks alone.”

  They probably didn’t understand the English words, but they caught the meaning, giggling as he hauled them out into the crisp November sunshine to join the other young ones.

  Grossmammi looked after them for a moment, smiling, and then turned the smile on Rachel. “You’ve got yourself a gut man there, Rachel. Don’t you let him go.”

  “I won’t, believe me.” She hugged her happiness to her heart. To be here, with the family she loved, celebrating, and to see how they loved and accepted Clint—what more could she ask of life?

  Sadie shook her head. “Ach, Rachel, don’t stand there in a lovesick haze. We’ve got to get this food on the table while it’s hot.” But she scolded with an understanding smile, and the other women smiled. Sadie understood. Even better, Sadie was happy for her.

  They all were, she knew. She’d been restored to her right place in the family.

  Maybe, if life had gone on the way she once thought she wanted, she’d never have come home again. She wouldn’t have been a part of this, and all through her own foolishness.

  What’s more, she might never have met Clint, never have had the love that filled her life and spilled over onto everyone she met.

  But Sadie was determined not to let anyone stand around and think when there was a meal to serve. Rachel was swept into carrying food to the tables, set up everywhere a table could be squeezed in. With this number of people, it had to be done. Grossmammi was determined that they wouldn’t eat in shifts. They’d all sit down together and give thanks.

  She was surveying a table to be sure everything was there when someone moved behind her. She knew without looking that it was Clint.

  He rested his hands on her shoulders.

  “This is the first real Thanksgiving I’ve had since I left home,” he said. “I’d forgotten how much I was missing.”

  She put her hands over his. “That first of many real celebrations to come. Did you get through to your mother on the phone?”

  “I called. Mom and Dad’s place sounded about like this, and I’m sure I heard Dad arguing with someone about who would get the drumstick. They send their love.” His breath touched her cheek. “I told them you sent yours right back.”

  “Good. Did you tell them we’d be there for Christmas?”

  He laughed, low in his
chest. “I thought Mom was going to come right through the phone, she was so delighted. Of course she made noises about how maybe we wanted to have our first Christmas in our own home together, but I could tell she didn’t mean it.”

  “That does sound tempting.” She leaned against him, just for a moment. “But it’s important that we go to them this year. Besides, I want to experience all of your family’s traditions.”

  “Fine. Just don’t let Mom convince you to try some lutfisk, or you’ll regret it.”

  “Lutfisk? That’s a new one on me.”

  “Mom’s family is Swedish. It’s a tradition. And before you say you want to experience it, let me warn you it tastes like rotten fish.”

  She laughed. “You’ve convinced me.”

  Clint drew her a little closer, so that she could feel the steady beat of his heart. “We’ll have lots of celebrations ahead of us. Time to blend a lot of traditions together and maybe invent some new ones of our own. A lifetime of them.”

  A lifetime of celebrations with the man who loved her—what more could anyone ask? Grossmammi would remind her that everyone got their share of sunshine and shadows, and she didn’t doubt that there would be difficult times. But whatever came, they’d meet it together.

  Together, bonded in a love and a promise she could trust forever.

  * * * * *

  HOUSE OF SECRETS

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER ONE

  CATHERINE MORLEY STARED in frustration at the black wrought-iron gates of the property known as Morley’s End. Frustration had been the key word of this entire trip. Her flight from Boston had been delayed, the car rental people at the Savannah had been extremely polite but also extremely slow, she’d gotten lost twice finding St. James Island and now the caretaker, promised by her late great-aunt’s attorney, wasn’t here to let her in.

  She reached in the car window to hit the horn. Its blare sent birds fluttering from the branches of the live oak that overhung the gate, making the Spanish moss sway as if it were alive. The lush, secretive maritime forest had frightened her on her one previous visit as a confused eight-year-old, sent away to a great-aunt while her parents tried futilely to patch their broken marriage. She wouldn’t allow it to frighten her now.

  Still, Catherine couldn’t help glancing over her shoulder. She’d turned off the main road, where the new vacation houses of the wealthy had changed this end of the island beyond all recognition with their manicured grounds that tamed the teeming low-country growth. And then there was Aunt Henny’s place—thirty acres of prime building land and beachfront, enclosed by an uncompromising metal fence.

  The stone pineapples on the posts at either end of the gate were hidden by rough wooden boxes, painted with a stark message. Keep Out! Typical Aunt Henny. If Catherine were safely back in Boston dealing with the multiple responsibilities of being a junior partner in her father’s law firm, she’d find it amusing. Since she was here, executor of Aunt Henny’s estate and unable even to get inside, it wasn’t funny.

  But there, finally, was the caretaker, ambling toward the gate as if he had all the time in the world at his disposal. She resisted the impulse to blast the horn in his ears and contented herself with a glare that would have dented an alligator’s hide. It didn’t seem to have any noticeable effect on him. Six feet of solid muscle, marred by a faint limp, thick black hair countered by a pair of the bluest eyes she’d ever seen, a lazy smile that seemed to find amusement in the sight of her standing hot and fuming in front of the closed gate—this didn’t look like any handyman she’d ever seen.

  “I expected you to be here to open the gates when I arrived.” She matched him stare for stare. “My aunt’s attorney assured me I wouldn’t have any trouble getting in.”

  “Relax, sugar. Henny always said you’d hurry yourself into a heart attack if you didn’t learn to slow down.” He pressed a hidden button and the gates slid smoothly back.

  She bit back a retort about his use of her aunt’s first name. Henny had been the eccentric one of her father’s family, causing her Boston relatives endless embarrassment over her antics. It would be like her to be on a first-name basis with the help. “Thank you,” she said shortly. “Has Mr. Adams arrived yet?” Why had the attorney insisted on meeting her here rather than at his office in Savannah? Surely that would have been easier for him, and then she could have visited the house alone and said goodbye to her aunt in her own way.

  He nodded, so she yanked the car door open and got in. Before she could turn the ignition, the caretaker had reached the passenger’s side and slid in next to her. He gave her a bland smile that didn’t quite mask the impression that he knew something about this situation she didn’t. “Might as well ride back as walk,” he drawled. “I don’t reckon you mind, do you, Miz Catherine?”

  Up close she could see the scars, white against the tanned skin, running down his right leg from khaki shorts to battered sneakers. She looked away, but not before she caught the tightened lips that said he’d caught her staring. “That’s fine. But the gates—”

  He held up the remote in his hand. “Got it covered, sugar.”

  “Don’t call me that,” she snapped, and something about the words seemed oddly familiar, as if they’d had this exchange before. She drove through, the gate closing smoothly behind him. Closing them in. The tangle of dark pines, gnarled live oaks, dangling moss and dense undergrowth crowded the car, and the lush, fecund smell of the salt marsh stirred memories—of herself, too high on the wide branch of an oak, of a boy’s laughter as he teased her to get down.

  She stopped the car and frowned at him. “Who are you?”

  “Just call me Nathan, ma’am.” He accentuated the drawl to the slow trickle of molasses.

  “Nathan Corwin.” She said the name slowly. One of her aunt’s eccentricities had been to keep her own name through two marriages. The fact that both husbands had been wealthy had alleviated the embarrassment slightly in her family’s view. Daniel Corwin had been her second husband, coming into the marriage with a son. Nathan. “Why are you pretending to be a handyman? Just out of a need to embarrass me? As I recall, that was one of your many talents.” She’d been eight, so he must have been ten—an age to resent having an unknown little girl foisted on him as a relative-by-marriage he had to entertain. He’d coped by tormenting her with typical little-boy tricks.

  His dark brows lifted. “Looks like little Cathy has developed a sharp tongue. Guess that goes along with being a Boston lawyer.” He shook his head. “Disappointed Henny, that did. Figured it meant you were turning out just like your father.”

  “That’s none of your business, even if you are my—” She stopped, unable for a moment to put a name to their relationship.

  “Step-uncle, maybe?” he drawled. Yes, definitely laughing at her.

  “We aren’t related at all, so drop it. You still haven’t told me why you’re pretending to be Aunt Henny’s handyman. The last I heard, you were working in Atlanta.” And that had been ages ago. Obviously something had changed in Nathan’s life.

  “I happen to be a very good handyman. And, to use your elegant words, anything else is none of your business.” The undertone of bitterness in his voice silenced any retort.

  “Fine.” She reached for the gearshift. His hand closed over hers, sending an unexpected jolt of warmth up her arm.

  “Wait a second.” He took his hand away slowly, the movement almost a caress. “There’s something you have to know before you go up to the house and face Henny’s lawyer and her other relatives-by-marriage.”

  She glanced at him, and the intensity in those deep blue eyes had her suddenly b
reathless. “What?”

  “Your aunt’s will has disappeared. And I don’t buy the idea that her death was natural.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  CATHERINE’S HEAD WAS throbbing in time with the babble of voices that had followed the announcement by her aunt’s attorney. The will had, indeed, disappeared.

  Bradley Adams, the lawyer, sat behind the massive mahogany desk in the room Aunt Henny had called her workroom. It had certainly never been a formal parlor. The desk surface still held stacks of books, papers, magazines, a basket of yarn and knitting needles, and a half-finished piece of needlework. Across the room, the latest flat-panel television was flanked by a dartboard and an easel, and the walls held everything from faded prints to garish posters. Aunt Henny might have been eighty-two and in poor health from diabetes, but she’d never lost her interest in everything and everyone.

  Catherine cleared her throat. “Surely you have a copy of my great-aunt’s will.”

  Adams’s shock of white hair, bushy white brows and drooping moustache hid his expression to some extent. “Your aunt was a very strong-willed woman. She wished to have the only copy. I’ve looked in all the obvious places, but I haven’t found it.”

  The rambling old beach house had a dozen or more rooms, attics, walk-in closets with hidden panels and a widow’s walk that gave a view of the ocean. It had been Nathan’s father’s house, she remembered, brought by him into the marriage and renamed Morley’s End in honor of Aunt Henny. Now his son claimed to be the handyman. She looked for Nathan and found him across the room, leaning against the fireplace with his arms crossed over his chest. Their gazes locked. Clashed, and again she felt that odd sensation of warmth, as if they were connected.

  “Still, you must know what was in it.” Flora Judson leaned on the desk, hands planted. “You can tell us. We’re all family.”