by Teresa Hill
"And what am I supposed to do?" she said. "Wait for you to take care of everything?"
"I'd feel better if you did."
"It so happens I don't give a damn how you feel."
"You'd be safer that way, Allie."
"And your big concern here is my safety?"
"Yes."
"No. You just want me to be quiet and not ask any questions that make you uncomfortable."
"I'm not the one you have to worry about," he insisted.
"Then who? If I'm in such danger, tell me who I'm supposed to be so afraid of?"
"I don't know," he said.
"Of course." Allie laughed. "How did I know you were going to say that? You know I'm in danger, so much so that I shouldn't even ask any questions about anything to do with my sister, but you don't know who's out to get me."
"I don't. If I did, I could deal with it. But right now, I don't know, and I'm worried about you. Could we leave it at that, please?"
"No, we couldn't," she shot back.
"Allie—"
"Tell me," she said.
"I won't."
"What?"
"I won't. I can't."
Allie gaped at him, fury rushing through her. The next second her palm connected solidly with the side of his face, the sound echoing through the corridor. The blow turned his head to the left. Her handprint came up red on his cheek, and for another long minute, they just stared at each other.
She couldn't believe what she'd done. She didn't think she'd ever struck another human being in her entire life, and yet she was still furious enough to want to do it again. She'd believed him! About everything!
"Tell me," she said. "Dammit, just tell me!"
Her hand came up again, and he caught her by the wrist to keep her from landing another blow. She struggled against him for a minute, frustrated beyond belief and started yelling.
"Stop it! Allie, stop it!"
He was much stronger than she was. There was no way to fight him and win, though she kept struggling against him, pointless as it was. To her horror, it wasn't long before she felt hot, angry tears running down her cheeks. When she was too weak to fight him any longer, he pulled her into his arms.
"Oh, God," she said, trembling, her knees going weak. "I can't believe I did that."
"It's all right. I deserved it."
Stephen's lips found the side of her face, stringing soft kisses along her cheekbone and her brow. Despite all her resolve, Allie sagged against him, exhausted and spent.
"I'm sorry," he said.
Was he? Too stunned at the moment, she couldn't begin to judge. She'd never lost control like that, never been quite that mad. Because she'd trusted him. She'd told him things she'd never told anyone else, believed in him, and now she felt like she didn't even know him. He didn't understand her at all. Not if he could do this.
"You just don't know..." she said.
"What? What don't I know?"
"How awful it is for me to be here. To remember all these things. I've been running from the truth my whole life, Stephen. You're right. I'm scared of it, too. And being here is tearing me apart."
"Okay," he soothed. "I'm sorry."
Allie lifted her head from his shoulder, and a moment later his mouth was on hers. She couldn't have been more surprised, couldn't deny him anything, it seemed. She opened herself up to him so easily, gave herself over to the smooth, slow-building heat between them. He kissed her as if they had all the time in the world, as if he knew just what he was doing, just where he wanted to take her. Maybe he did, she thought. Maybe this was all part of his plan to keep from telling her anything just yet. Maybe he knew how easily he could distract her with his touch.
Poor, little Allie, all alone in the world and scared. Starved for another human being's touch. For a bit of gentle concern. For strong arms around her, so she wouldn't be so afraid. Every bit of that was true, she acknowledged bitterly, pulling away from him. She saw dark, compelling eyes looking down at her, little lines of tension at the corners of his eyes and his mouth, a grim set to his jaw.
"I'm sorry," he said bleakly. "And I truly don't want you to get hurt."
"Stephen, I've lived my whole life with someone who wouldn't tell me anything, all in the name of protecting me."
"Allie." He reached for her again.
"Don't." She held up both hands to ward him off. "Not anymore. Not today."
"If you could just trust me a little bit, I could find the truth for you."
"That would be a first," she said wearily, bitterly. "No one else has ever told me the truth."
He reached for her one last time, but Allie slipped out the door and ran into the street. She got lucky. There was a cab, and she slid into it. It pulled away from the curb just as he came outside, and she couldn't help but watch him, standing there watching her, until the cab turned a corner and he disappeared from her sight.
God, help me, she prayed. There was still a part of her that wanted to believe every word that came out of his beautiful mouth. Another part just as determined not to let go of any of this. Not her need to find out what happened to her sister, not her determination to make the shelter work.
She just didn't know how she was going to come out of it with a whole heart.
* * *
Stephen stood at the curb, swearing as he watched the cab pull away and disappear from sight. He couldn't believe he'd so thoroughly lost control of the situation.
The woman was giving him fits, nearly as much as the situation. The private investigator digging into her sister's so-called accident, the mysterious letter writer, the fact that she was in that house. It was no telling what she might find there. And she was remembering. He hadn't been able to get his father to say exactly what might be inside Allie's head for her to recall. She would not let go of the idea of turning her house into a runaway shelter, and now there was the mysterious boy who showed up at her house.
Casey Adams didn't exist, as far as Stephen could determine. So who the hell was he? Stephen tried to reassure himself that his father wouldn't have sent a kid to deal with Allie. Still, the whole thing made him uneasy as hell.
And now Allie didn't trust Stephen at all.
He swore yet again. He'd just wanted to stop this shelter idea before it got out. Before his father heard about it. That's all he meant to do today.
And he'd blown it.
He raked a hand through his hair and wondered how one woman could so thoroughly throw him off balance. Could make him feel so guilty and at the same time... he liked her. He genuinely liked her.
He'd told her things he'd never told anyone. About being lonely. About knowing he'd been a grave disappointment to his father his entire life.
Which made it even worse that he couldn't tell her the things that truly mattered here: that his father was under the distinct impression that Stephen was working for him right now, that Allie was a little problem Stephen was handling. That Stephen was starting to fear that if someone was responsible for her sister's death, it was someone named Whittaker.
* * *
Allie sat in the cab with tears streaming down her face. Thankfully the driver pretended not to notice. He kept his gaze firmly on the road ahead and inquired politely about where she'd like to be taken. She looked around and realized they were near downtown. Mitch Wilson's restaurant and bar were near downtown.
"Vine Street?" she said. "I'm not sure of the street number, but the restaurant is called Mitch's on Vine."
"Sure thing, miss."
Glancing at her watch, she saw that it wasn't quite seven and doubted they'd be open, unless they catered to the fancy coffee and bagel crowd. Allie decided to try it anyway.
His restaurant was pretty, full of polished wood and all sorts of greenery. It wasn't open, but she caught an employee going inside, and the man let Allie in and offered to find Mitch for her.
Allie was standing by the front window, staring out into the street, when she heard footsteps coming up behind her a
nd a man said, "Can I help you?"
She turned around and said, "Mitch Wilson?"
"Yeah. What can I..." All the color drained from his handsome face. He went stark still and closed his eyes for a moment. With equal parts of disbelief and hope, he looked at her again and said one word. "Megan?"
Allie shook her head back and forth and took a step closer to him, so he could see her more clearly. "I'm her sister. Allie."
He gaped at her, leaning back against the bar, as if he were too weak to stand. He was a tall man, handsome, broad-shouldered, dark-haired, dark-eyed, and at the moment she guessed, unusually pale.
"You knew her in Georgia, fifteen years ago, didn't you?"
He didn't say a word, just struggled to breathe.
"I need to know what happened to her there," Allie said. "And what happened to her here, too. If you know anything about that."
"You're telling me you don't know?"
"No." Allie shook her head. "We never knew much about the car accident. Or if my parents knew, they didn't tell me, and they're both dead now. And I was so young when she ran away from here."
"She didn't say much about this place," he said. "And I learned to stop asking questions about her a long time ago."
"What do you mean you learned to stop asking questions about her?"
He turned his head to the right and fingered the long, faint scar running down the side of his jaw. "I learned my lesson."
"Someone did that to you?" Allie couldn't believe it.
The man nodded.
"When?"
"A few months after she died."
"Because you were asking questions about Megan?"
He nodded.
"Oh, my God. Who?"
"He didn't give his name, just sent a couple of his friends to deliver his message. Megan was dead and buried. End of story."
"I don't understand."
"Neither did I," he said, his face impassive.
"So, you just let it go? Just like that?"
"Those men put me in the hospital," he said. "They said the next time, they'd put me in the morgue, and I tended to believe them."
"But—"
"Like they said, Megan was dead. I decided to let her go."
"You thought they were going to kill you?" Allie thought that was what he meant, but she had to hear it for herself in order to believe it.
"Yes," he said.
"Oh, my God," she whispered. Despite all the odd things—the mysterious letter, the fact that someone else was looking through the records and the doctor who seemed to be lying—it was hard to believe anyone would threaten to kill someone because he was asking questions about her sister's death.
Allie watched with wide eyes as Mitch came closer. He put his hand to her face. She trembled, but stood her ground.
"Judging by the resemblance, I don't think there's anyone you could be but Megan's sister. And I'd like to help you, but I've got to wonder if this is a test?"
"Test?"
"To see if I forgot that I'm not supposed to talk about Megan," he said. "People are asking questions about me in Macon after all this time, and I don't like it."
"I hired a private detective," she said. "He's there. Someone wrote my mother a letter. I guess they didn't know she was dead. They said they had questions about Megan's accident and information they were willing to share."
"What kind of information?"
"I don't know. I traced the letter back to a man in Georgia who claimed to know nothing at all about it."
"What man? What was his name?"
Allie took a breath and said, "I don't think I'm going to tell you. Not if you don't have anything you can tell me. But... you don't have to worry about the man in Macon asking questions. He's working for me, and we don't have people beaten up for refusing to talk to us."
"I'm sure I'll sleep better at night knowing that."
"I'm her sister," Allie said, ready to beg. "I just want to know what happened to her, that she was okay those last few months. Anything..."
"She was scared," he said.
"Of what?"
"You tell me. You were here."
"I don't know," she cried. "I don't."
His gaze narrowed on her. He hesitated, then said, "If you're asking questions about her, you should watch your back, even if it has been fifteen years. She was terrified of someone back here. She thought he followed her all the way to Macon. She thought she saw him the day before she died."
"You think someone murdered my sister? Someone from here?"
"Watch your back," he said, and left her standing there, dizzy and hot all over and more scared than she'd ever been in her life.
Chapter 10
In a daze she caught another cab. Shivering, she sat there trying to imagine why anyone in the world would want to kill her sister. What kind of secrets could exist to push someone into making death threats against a man merely asking questions about Megan? It sounded like something out of a bad TV movie. She simply couldn't fathom it.
She also didn't want to consider that Stephen warned her of nearly the same thing Mitch Wilson had. She'd slapped Stephen's face for it, and had believed Mitch Wilson, a man she'd never even seen before. The scar had been convincing, along with the absolutely stunned look on his face when he first saw her. Maybe the way his hand had trembled when he'd touched her face, as if he couldn't quite believe she was real. Maybe the certainty with which she believed that at one time Mitch Wilson had been in love with her sister, that he might still be today. Had he come here seeking revenge on someone for her death? And he was leery even now, fifteen years later, simply talking about Megan and her so-called accident.
Who could have done it? Who could have hurt her sister? Who could have wanted her dead? All too soon, the cab pulled to a stop in front of the house. Allie didn't want to get out. She was starting to dread walking across the threshold. What in the world happened inside that house? Steeling herself, she paid the driver and sent him away with her thanks. She was relieved to see Casey on the porch, her kitten in his arms.
"Hi," he said cautiously. "You okay?"
"I will be." Allie gave him a smile she felt must have wavered badly. "And I'm so glad you're here."
She looked at the boy and the kitten, so grateful not to be alone now and wondering why she hadn't started taking in strays years ago. It was certainly one way to keep from being alone. She could gather people around her, rather than simply mourning the loss of her family. She could build something here, something lasting. Maybe she could help herself as much as she could help Casey and other kids like him.
One step at a time, she told herself. It might not seem like it, but she was making progress. She would let this thing with Megan play out. Sooner or later the answers would come. She would make her plans for the shelter, move on, build a life. Maybe, she'd finally be happy.
For the moment she'd deal with what was at hand. She fed Casey and the kitten, put him to work in the attic so she could call Greg without Casey hearing her end of the conversation. She passed along the cryptic warning from Mitch Wilson. Greg promised to dig a little deeper and again warned Allie to be careful.
Waiting for her on the desk in the hallway was the preliminary report from the home inspector who'd come the day before. Glancing at it, she decided the news was grim indeed. Outdated plumbing and electrical systems, inadequate heating and air-conditioning, a roof that needed to be replaced, not counting cosmetic work needed throughout. The rough estimate was staggering.
She would deal with it, she vowed. There had to be a way. If it simply took more money, she'd find a way to raise it. Which reminded her—somewhere in the middle of her argument with Stephen, he mentioned population figures. The library would have statistics on population and personal income, as well as information on past fund-raising events and how successful they had been, even who had raised the money and for what causes. She needed to know who those people were, needed to try to win them over to her side, so she could make this wor
k.
Allie called the librarian, who remembered her, and told her what she needed. The population and income statistics were there and easily located. The librarian also offered enough information on three past fund-raisers—one for the town library itself and two for the hospital—that Allie could pull newspaper articles on those herself next time she was in town.
She hung up the phone feeling marginally better. No matter how upsetting the morning had been, she'd managed to take one more small step forward. That was all she had to do. Just find the next step and keep going.
She was mulling over her next move when a car pulled into her driveway. Her heart kicked into high gear, remembering that she was in an isolated spot with nothing but an overgrown boy and a baseball bat for protection, and now she was seriously afraid to be here.
But the would-be intruder turned out to be a floral delivery boy. He had an extravagant, but delicately beautiful arrangement of cut flowers in pretty blues, pinks, and purples. She took the heavy crystal vase in one hand, tipped him, and locked the door behind him.
The scent of fresh flowers filled the entire foyer. Allie set them down on a small table in the family room and looked at the card. It said simply:
I'm sorry.
Stephen
Allie sighed, the hand that held the card still trembling. She didn't want to like him anymore. She didn't want her sense of fairness arguing on his behalf.
He'd told her he was almost always right, and it seemed he was. He'd scared her a bit this morning, his intensity, his determination. He'd scared her by making her wonder what in the world he knew that he didn't think he could tell her, and that still made her so angry. Who was he to keep things from her? Things about her own family?
Why would he do that? If he truly didn't have anything to do with Megan's disappearance... If he truly cared about her sister, but only as a friend... Could he want the answers as badly as Allie did? He said he did, and her gut instinct was to believe him on that point.
Still, he was keeping things from her. Why? The only reason she could think of was that he was protecting someone else. If not himself, then who? She'd seen evidence of that protective streak inside of him. She'd felt it directed at her and found it practically irresistible. To have such a strong, determined, capable man watching out for her, fighting for her, protecting her. She'd needed someone like that her whole life. She'd never known how much until she met him.
