by Teresa Hill
Stephen must have seen it in her eyes, all the doubts, all the hurt.
"Let's go find my brother," he said in a tightly controlled voice.
Twenty minutes later Allie had changed her clothes, spoken with Casey, and climbed into the car with Stephen. She watched as he smoked another cigarette, which seemed to irritate him to no end. She was amazed at what seemed to be a blatant lack of control on his part.
She didn't ask where they were going, and he didn't say anything, except to pick up his cell phone, speaking quickly and with familiarity to a woman named Renee.
"My sister-in-law," he explained when he was finished.
"Oh?" she asked as casually as she could manage.
"Careful. I might think you'd care if there was another woman in my life."
"You'd be mistaken," she lied.
He never took his eyes off the road. The car shot forward as he said, "It meant something to me, too, Allie."
"What?"
"Last night. This morning. You can't be so inexperienced that you don't realize how special it was. How good we are together."
"We had sex," she insisted, needing to put it on that level. "And it was a mistake."
"Maybe. But not for the reason you're thinking. It was a mistake because it happened before you were ready. Before we knew each other well enough to trust each other, and I apologize for that. But not for the fact that we were together. It was bound to happen sooner or later. I think in your heart you know that."
"Stephen, don't."
"All right," he said. "I'm done for now."
They drove for another fifteen minutes before her need to talk things out overcame her reluctance to say anything at all to him.
"I still can't make sense of this. Even if Megan was pregnant, even if my parents reacted badly at first, they would have forgiven her and taken care of her. For the baby's sake, at least."
"You're sure about that?"
"They would have been disappointed, and my mother would have been embarrassed." Again, she thought of her mother's angry words to her father. You wanted her gone. Again, she dismissed them. "They wouldn't have turned their backs on her or her baby."
"Maybe. Maybe not. What do you remember about that summer?"
"That she was too thin, too pale. That she looked different, frightened maybe. What about you? What do you remember about her?"
"She had a way of pulling inside herself. Like she wanted to just disappear. She'd always been like that to some degree, but it was more pronounced that summer. I tried to talk to her about it one night, but she didn't give a lot away. She just seemed so sad."
"Did you ever see her with bruises?"
"No."
"Did you ever think my father had hurt her physically?"
"No. He seemed to be a very loving father to you. I saw the two of you together a lot, and I envied the relationship the two of you had."
"What do you mean?"
"You trailed after him like a shadow. He could be working in the yard or around the house, and you'd be right there with him. He always made time for you. He was patient and kind, and he wanted you with him."
Stephen said it matter-of-factly, but Allie suspected there were a lot of things he hadn't said about his relationship with his own father. "Your father didn't make time for you?"
"He was more interested in the idea of a son than the reality."
"And now?" she wondered.
"We have very little in common. He doesn't understand me, and I don't have any respect for him. I'm not my father, Allie. If you don't believe anything else I tell you, please believe that."
"I'm not going to judge you based on your father's actions, Stephen."
"Of course not." He laughed bitterly. "There's no need. Not when I've given you so much ammunition to hang me with."
"I don't know what I think of you," she said.
And to that, he said nothing.
A few moments later, Stephen zoomed through an intersection near the airport. He drove down a road amid tall trees and rows of parked cars, and pulled to a stop at the entrance to a massive stone structure, where a man in a green suit jacket hurried forward to take the car.
Allie got out and waited for Stephen to come around to her side of the car. He pressed the palm of his hand to the small of her back and led her inside a door marked "Clubhouse entrance."
"Where are we?" she said.
"Keeneland," he replied.
"Keeneland?"
"Allie, are you sure you were born and bred in Central Kentucky? It's a racetrack. A very famous racetrack. For Thoroughbreds."
She looked around, taking in the elegance and grace of the old stone building, the beautiful arching windows. "It looks like a castle."
"To the horse set, it is."
"Your brother's into horse racing, too?"
"In this state, in April and October, nearly everyone is. This is the Lexington social scene, but a lot of business is transacted here, too."
Stephen led her to an elevator marked "private" and had a few words with the attendant, who summoned the car and allowed them to enter. Allie found herself growing apprehensive about seeing Stephen's brother. She'd expected a private exchange between the three of them in an office in the governor's mansion. She now knew it would be anything but private. And she suspected it wouldn't be cordial, either.
"Does your brother know we're coming?" she said.
"No. He's been dodging my calls all week." Stephen looked at her. "I have been trying to find out for you, Allie. I didn't lie to you about that."
Allie said nothing. The elevator slid to a stop. They walked into a richly appointed clubhouse, elegant but obviously very expensive, then through a door also marked "private." The next room was even more richly appointed, all dark wood and a deep shade of green. There were perhaps two dozen people present, businessmen in suits and ties, a few well-dressed women, all clustered around the large windows in the front of the room or one of two TV screens mounted on the wall. A race was in progress, and Allie could hear people cheering, the roar of the crowd both outside and in.
Stephen slipped through the crowd, his hand in hers as he led her to his brother's side. "Rich? I've been trying to get a hold of you."
Richard Whittaker, taller and heavier than Allie remembered, his face a bit flushed and a woman in a low-cut dress hanging onto his arm, turned to face his brother. "I've been busy." He frowned. "I was going to call you tonight."
"I thought I'd save you the trouble," Stephen said. "And I wanted you to meet someone. An old friend, actually."
Stephen stepped back, leaving her face-to-face with his brother.
Richard Whittaker nearly choked on the whiskey he'd just put in his mouth, and he turned pale. Two men, security people Allie suspected, rushed to his side. Coughing, he brushed them off, then rudely got rid of the woman lingering by his side as well.
Furious, he turned back to Stephen. "Come with me."
Rich charged through the room, rudely dismissing all attempts at conversation, then stormed into an office and asked the startled man behind the desk to leave them alone.
The man closed the file on his desk and got up to leave, but not before looking over Allie and Stephen suspiciously. "Do you need anything else, Mr. Whittaker?" he said, obviously thinking of calling security himself.
"Just privacy," barked the man, obviously used to being obeyed.
"Nice touch, Rich." Stephen waited until the man was nearly out the door to say. "You really know how to handle the little people."
Rich glared at him, then turned his attention to Allie. She shivered as his gaze raked over her from head to toe.
"What's wrong?" Stephen taunted. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
"Megan Bennett," he said, shaking his head in disgust and downing what was left of the whiskey in his hand. "God, where did you dig her up?"
"Not from some creek in Georgia, that's for sure."
Rich moved more quickly than Allie would have thought a
man of his size could. One minute he was two feet away, and the next he was right in her face. His breath reeked of alcohol, his grip hard and painful on her upper arms.
Allie knew instantly where the bruises on her sister's arms came from.
"What kind of lies have you been telling this time, Meggie?" he said menacingly.
Stephen didn't ask his brother to let her go. He shoved him out of the way, putting himself between Allie and Rich. Allie thought they were going to come to blows. She thought Stephen would have welcomed it.
"You'd better watch it, Rich. You'd have a hard time explaining a black eye on the campaign trail."
Rich blustered, his face flushed, a string of curses coming from his lips. "I don't know what kind of game you're playing, but if you're smart, you'll stop right now. And as for you?" He glared at Allie again. "I will destroy you. Nobody believed you fifteen years ago. What makes you think they will today?"
Allie drew herself up straighter, taller, hating this man on sight, ready to play along with the fact that she obviously looked enough like her sister to fool him. Maybe he had a guilty conscience, as well.
"It was your baby," she said.
Rich paled once again, and Allie knew it was true.
"You go through with this... you try to mess with me, and I will crush you," he threatened. "Remember what it felt like when nobody believed you, Meggie. Remember when your own father didn't even believe your little lies?"
The old Allie would have shrank away from him. She would have cried and run away, leaving all the secrets in the past, where everyone had always claimed they belonged. But not this Allie. She faced down Richard Whittaker as she imagined her sister would have liked to, if Megan were here today.
"I'm not a little girl anymore," Allie said. "I'm not scared of you, and I'm not going to keep quiet."
"You stupid little bitch—"
Stephen drew back his fist and slammed it into his brother's nose. Blood came gushing out, and Rich was swearing and gagging as he slumped against the desk, trying to stem the flow of blood from his nose.
"Shut up, Rich."
"She's nothing but a tramp," he yelled. "She came trotting after me that summer like a bitch in heat, all because you didn't know she was alive. All I did was give her what she was asking for."
"Of course. Can't stand to send them away disappointed, can you?"
"What the hell are you talking about?" Rich said.
"I think there was another girl, wasn't there? Who took exception to what you did to her. I think you were sure she wanted you, too. You have such a way with women, after all. I bet if I tried hard I could remember her name."
"You have no idea what you're getting into," Rich warned. "And you can't believe anything this woman says."
"Really?" Allie said. "You know, I saw you in Macon, and I'm going to tell everyone what you tried to do to me."
Richard Whittaker stared at her. He staggered backward a step. Then another. She'd never seen anyone go so pale so fast, and felt a small amount of satisfaction for being the one to scare the man so badly. Suddenly he looked about ten years older than he really was, and Allie knew. She knew he'd killed her sister.
"What do you think you're going to do?" Rich said menacingly, when he'd recovered a bit. "What the hell do you think you're going to do to me?"
"What you deserve," Stephen said. "What you've always deserved."
* * *
Stephen drove into an open field labeled overflow parking, still on the racetrack grounds, and cut the engine. Nervous energy pushed Allie out of the car, where she could pace back and forth. Stephen got out, too, and leaned against the side of the car.
"He raped her!" Allie said finally. "Your brother raped my sister all those years ago. You knew that?"
"I thought it was a possibility. But no, I didn't know."
"God, Stephen? Is that your answer to everything? That you don't know for sure. So you just ignore things and look the other way. Is that what kind of man you are?"
"I'll tell you what I knew," he said, the barest hint of anger in his tone as he fought for control. "And then I'll tell you about me. After that, you can judge for yourself. All right?"
Sick, she nodded.
"I knew your sister was upset. I held her one night while she cried her eyes out, but I couldn't make her tell me what was wrong," he said. "Rich was always in trouble. From the time he was fifteen or so, my father was always getting him out of one kind of jam or another. He drank. He wrecked cars. He got into fights, acted like there were no rules that applied to him. He thought he had a license to do whatever he wanted, maybe because my father brought him up that way. Whatever Rich did, my father never thought it was that bad. He was always quick to cover things up, to make things right. Money could almost always fix whatever Rich had done. Then there was a girl I heard about. Rich supposedly slept with her, and she took exception to it afterward. I thought he must have gotten her pregnant. I never thought he was raping women. I wouldn't have kept quiet about that.
"I hardly ever saw him, Allie. He was in law school at UK, and I was at Vanderbilt. That summer, my father was upset with Rich, but that was nothing new. And I never connected what was going on with Megan to Rich," he said. "Why would I? Megan was sixteen. Rich was twenty-two, and your quiet, shy older sister was not his usual type."
"So how did you put it together?"
"After Megan ran away, people were saying she was pregnant. I overheard my father say something to Rich about her—something about how Rich should be glad that little problem was out of the way, and that he hoped Rich learned something from the whole experience," Stephen said. "I thought Rich got Megan pregnant and asked her to leave town. The other girl I brought up to Rich—that happened later. It wasn't until then that I started wondering about Megan. If maybe he forced her, too. At that point, what could I have done, Allie? Megan was gone. And the other point? That he might have intimidated her into leaving? She left on her own. No one forced her to go. I know that because she left with me."
"So you just let it go?"
"I felt guilty as hell about what happened to her. But I still didn't know anything. I didn't see the point in asking my father or my brother—I wouldn't have believed anything they said about it. And without any evidence... what could I have done? She was dead."
"I don't know," she said. "All those questions... All those doubts..."
"You lived with them yourself for years," he pointed out. "And I'm not saying that to hurt you or to criticize you. I'm saying people make compromises all the time. Your mother was all you had left. You lived with the questions, you made your peace with it, for the sake of your relationship with her."
Allie closed her eyes, not quite able to bring herself to admit she'd done just that.
"This is my family," Stephen said finally. "I've been trying to find a way to co-exist with them for years. Mostly, I go my own way now. I love my mother, but I don't understand her. She stays with my father even though he treats her like shit. My father and I are like polite strangers. I tolerate him for my mother's sake, and I tolerate my brother, as well, but I don't trust him and I worry about what he's capable of doing to someone else or even to himself. We gather around the dinner table on national holidays and act as civilized as possible. I run into them every now and then when I go see my mother. But that's it. That's my big, happy family.
"Did I do the wrong thing all those years ago? I don't know. I regret a lot of things—especially the fact that your sister died. But regrets don't change anything. I've tried hard to live my life the way I see fit and be comfortable with the man I've become. But looking at it all through your eyes, I don't really like what I see. I'm afraid you won't, either."
Allie squeezed his hands more tightly, hating the bleakness of his tone. He'd been hurt, too. "Stephen—"
His hands were on her arms, gentle and soothing where his brother had no doubt left bruises. He seemed to feel the need to atone for what his family had done, so Allie let hers
elf rest there, nearly in his arms, nearly back under the mesmerizing spell that was Stephen Whittaker.
"I'm sorry, Allie." He brought one of his hands to the side of her face. "I'm so sorry. I hate what my family's done to yours."
She leaned into him, into the luxurious warmth and reassurance of his touch. In a few short days she'd become addicted to it. She didn't protest when he shifted, bringing his body in line with hers, pulling her to him and wrapping his arms around her. He pressed her head down to his chest and gently stroked her back. She felt some of the tension seep out of her, some of the ugliness of that scene with his brother fading away and that awful, enveloping loneliness fading away. Even now, he just took it all away.
"How do you make every bad thing seem not so bad when you touch me this way?"
"I don't know, Allie. I do know life looks a whole lot better when you're in my arms."
Allie didn't know what she could say to that. She liked the whole world so much better when she was in his arms. But she didn't trust the feelings, either. Didn't trust them to last, didn't trust him not to hurt her again.
He made her feel so much, as if her heart was so full it hurt. It scared her, and she didn't understand it, and it hurt. She felt raw and utterly exposed. But she didn't know how to walk away from him, either.
He rested his chin on the top of her head, her face was buried in the sweet-smelling curve of his neck. Heat radiated from him, and she snuggled closer. After years of being so empty inside, she didn't know how she could go back to the way things had been without him in her life.
Chapter 16
Martha heard about the runaway boy during the lunch shift, and she hurried home to tell Tucker, hoping it would put his mind at ease about his silly notion that the boy could be Janet Bennett's son.
It hurt Martha that her man was still so hung up on a woman he hadn't seen in fifteen years that he was in a tizzy about this boy. Martha had been living with that kind of hurt for as long as she'd been involved with Tucker. He'd been up front with her from the start. He'd given his heart to someone else, and even if he couldn't be with that woman, he would never love anyone else. Martha heard him loud and clear. She simply hadn't believed him at the time. But it turned out to be the truest thing anyone had ever told her, and she couldn't even find it in her heart to hold it against Tucker when he'd warned her so plainly. What he didn't understand was that Martha didn't have a choice at that point, either. She was already in love with Tucker, even if he couldn't love her back.
