by Teresa Hill
"I'm so sorry," she said. "What can I do?"
"I don't think there's anything anyone else can do, and I have to go. I have to call my parents. I have to go to his wife. She... I know she loved him at one time, even if she probably came to hate him as much as I did over the years. But he was her husband, and they have two little girls. Two beautiful little girls."
"You don't have to do this alone," Allie said. "Let me help you. The way you've helped me. I wouldn't have survived the past few days without you, Stephen. I love you."
"Don't say that." He tried to pull away from her. When she wouldn't let him go, he took her hands and pried them loose.
Puzzled, she said, "I wasn't supposed to fall in love with you?"
"I don't deserve that, Allie."
"Of course you do—"
"No, I don't," he insisted. "And I can't talk about this now, all right?"
"Talk about what?"
"Any of this," he said bleakly. "There's no pretense left inside of me. There's nothing."
It was her first inkling that something was going on besides the fact that his brother was dead. She backed away from him. Not sure she wanted to hear any more.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I am so sorry."
Allie started to cry. She couldn't have said where the tears came from, or what warned her how very close to disaster they were in this moment. But there it was. Intuition, or maybe what she could see in his eyes. His painfully sad eyes. Nothing left inside of him, he'd said. Nothing.
Not even for her?
"I don't understand."
"Allie, I haven't told you everything," he said bleakly.
"You kept things from me. Things you suspected, things you feared. I know that. You told me that," she said, trying to make excuses for him now. It was so ridiculous. She found she couldn't help herself. She knew all about catastrophes, about everything in her life changing in an instant. Megan seemingly dying. Allie's mother taking her away. And now Stephen, the man she loved. They were one step away from disaster. She knew it.
She was scared, backing away from him, when he said, "I lied to you."
"No," she whispered.
"I wanted to tell you. I promised myself, the first moment I could, I would, and I suppose this is it. I don't have any words to make this easier. I couldn't put together a coherent thought right now. Not that it matters. There aren't any words."
"I don't understand at all," she whispered.
"I know. I always thought when this moment came, I would stand here one more time and say there were things I hadn't told you, that I still hadn't lied to you. But it's just not true, Allie. I've been lying."
"All along?" she choked out.
He nodded. "I knew you were coming back here. My father knew, and he told me. He was worried about what you were going to do, about what you were going to find out. He wanted someone to keep an eye on you, and he wanted you gone as quickly as possible."
Allie stared at him as if she truly didn't know him. He'd told her that all along. You don't know me. And she hadn't believed him. He'd told her she'd regret making love to him, too, and she hadn't believed that, either. Turns out, he was right. Stephen was always right.
"You've been spying on me?" she said when she could put together the words. "You've been reporting back to your father about me?"
He nodded.
She nearly doubled over from the pain that knifed through her, through her stomach, her heart, her lungs. A glutton for punishment, she whispered, "What else?"
"I had someone digging into your background, your financial records, your employment records and your mother's, before you ever got here. I knew you couldn't afford to keep the house, and I thought I'd make it easy for you to leave by offering to buy the house from you."
"I don't believe that," she said.
"It's true. I was waiting for you the night you arrived. It was no chance meeting."
Allie thought about the first time she saw him, standing there on the porch in the darkness. She thought about the dinner by candlelight and the way he'd utterly charmed her, thought about the way he'd held her when she cried and kissed her on the porch the next night. She thought about agonizing over the idea that he might be looking at her and still seeing her sister, that there might have been something between them and that he might be trying to relive those days with her now. But she never imagined anything like this.
"It was all a lie?" she cried.
"No." He shook his head, not quite meeting her eyes. "No, it wasn't."
She slapped him then, slapped him hard across the face for the second time in two days. He just stood there and took it. She watched as her handprint rose up red against his cheek and his jaw went even tighter.
"I can't believe this," she said, a fine trembling rolling through her entire body. She wasn't sure how she was still on her feet, she was so shaken. "I can't believe you'd do this to me."
"I'm sorry," he said.
She staggered back a step, thinking of the things he'd done to her, the things he'd said to her, and the things she'd said to him. Like I love you. She'd just told him she loved him, something she'd never said to another man in her entire life, and likely never would again.
"Don't you even have a conscience? I trusted you—"
"I had to have you trust me," he said. "I had to have you close, because I didn't know what my brother or my father had done all those years ago, and I didn't know what they might do to keep the truth from coming out now. I was afraid of what they might do to you, especially once you made it clear that you weren't leaving here without all the answers you thought you had to have."
"You're trying to tell me you did all this for me now? That you just wanted to protect me?"
"I did," he insisted.
"No—"
"Fifteen years ago, I did a lousy job of protecting your sister from my family. I sat back and did nothing, because this was my family and I thought I needed to find a way to coexist with them. Which I did by looking the other way, by being afraid to ask those really hard questions. Like What did you do to Megan? I was afraid of the truth. I thought I could slide all around it and somehow manage all these little problems without any of them blowing up in my face. But then that's just me," he said bitterly. "I always think I can handle any situation."
"That's what I am? A situation? Someone to be handled?"
He didn't say anything to that.
She felt the anger start to burn its way through every other emotion and decided to go with that. It was easier than anything else at the moment.
"So you decided to do a little job for your father? This man that you're not like at all? The one you can't stand?"
"I thought I could handle him, too. I thought I could feed him enough information to satisfy him so he'd leave you to me, so he wouldn't send anyone else to spy on you, and I thought I could stick close enough to you to make sure nobody hurt you," he said. "Which meant I had to get you to trust me, and to do that, I had to lie to you."
"And tell me that you were just so lonely," she sobbed. "That you just never quite fit in with the rest of your family, and you knew how I'd always felt. That we had so much in common."
It sickened her now, and he said nothing, which infuriated her even more.
"And yesterday morning? Yesterday afternoon? Last night? When you and I... When..." She couldn't even say it. He'd made love to her. At least she thought it had been love. "I can't believe this. You said you were afraid I'd hate you before this was over—"
"And now you do—"
"You said all those things about me belonging here. About this being my home, and the two of us being happy here."
"I want that. I still do."
"You made love to me," she cried. "And you made me fall in love with you. Why would you ever take things that far between us?"
"I never meant to," he said.
"So it was just one of those things?" she cried. "Is this the part where you try to tell me that was real? That everything el
se was a lie, but that part was real?"
"No." He shook his head and looked away. "I don't suppose I will."
"Why didn't you just tell me? Why not tell me the truth?"
"I couldn't take that chance, Allie."
"The chance that I wouldn't believe you?"
"That you'd be so angry and so hurt, you wouldn't let me anywhere near you, and my father or my brother would come after you," he said. "Think about what we just found out. My brother tried to kill your sister fifteen years ago. You saw him yesterday. You saw how angry he was. Do you think he wouldn't try to do something now to keep you from finding out exactly what happened to her? Maybe you'd take that kind of chance with your own safety, but I wouldn't."
"Because I mean so much to you," she said sarcastically.
He closed his eyes and backed away. A tense, deep silence stretched between them, and she had to concentrate hard just to breathe in and out and not scream at him or collapse on the floor in a heap.
Finally he said, "I never wanted to hurt you."
She laughed bitterly. "The people I love always end up hurting me."
"I never expected to feel this way about you, Allie. I never thought you'd come to mean so much to me, and by the time I figured out that you did, I was in way too deep. I was afraid they were going to hurt you. When it came down to making a choice—between hurting you emotionally or the possibility of you being hurt physically—I didn't see anything else I could do but protect you."
"Even if it meant I'd hate you for it?"
"I suspected that's exactly what it would mean," he said, obviously resigned to it. "And even knowing what I know now, if I had it to do all over again, I'd lie to you still. Because you're here. You're safe. You have your sister back and a nephew and all the answers you just had to have. I'd just try my damnedest not to fall in love with you, not to touch you, until I could tell you the truth."
"When you truly care about someone, you don't lie to them every time you see them, Stephen."
"I wouldn't know about that. My family lives on polite, little lies."
"Don't," she said. "Don't you dare."
"All right." He squared his shoulders and took a breath, looking every bit as bad as she felt. "I have to go. Rich... There are things I have to take care of, but you and Megan and Casey should be fine. Rich can't hurt you anymore, and I think my father's going to be too busy burying his son to give you and your sister a second thought. Just in case, I left the guards on duty outside."
Allie shivered and let miserable tears fall down her cheeks, and she wouldn't even look at him. She couldn't.
"I'm sorry, Allie," he said.
And then he was gone.
Chapter 19
Four days later, Allie and her sister stood on a pretty hillside beneath the sprawling branches of a willow tree, beside Allie's father's grave and the one that held Margaret Addison's body.
Allie and Megan had spent the last few days talking about everything imaginable and cleaning out the house. Allie found a letter addressed to her from her father, one he never mailed. It seemed fitting to read it at his grave.
It was dated nearly three years ago, right before her father died.
My dearest Allie,
If you've found this, I can only assume you've finally come home, because I'll never quite find the courage to mail it. I wish I could be there to say these things to you in person. I wish I had the right. But the truth is that I've been a coward for much of my life, and before that I was a fool.
I'm assuming you know everything now, that I married your mother and made promises to her and to Megan that I didn't keep. I honestly thought I could. I tried, but it just wasn't enough, and we've all suffered for that, for all my shortcomings. And for everything, I'm truly sorry.
I should have been kinder, more forgiving, more loving. I should have been more appreciative of all the precious gifts God gave me—most of all for you and your mother and Megan.
Bitterness is an ugly thing in a person, my darling. The roots can sink down so deeply, it can be almost impossible to dislodge. The truth is that the people we love are seldom perfect. We all make mistakes. Even good people sometimes make terribly hurtful mistakes, and then we have to choose. To forgive them and to move on, or to hold onto all those old hurts and let them ruin not only the present, but the future as well.
That's what I did. I can see that now, but at the time I was blind to it all. I did this to all of us. I knew it from the moment we woke up that morning and Megan was gone. I knew something terrible was going to happen, and I knew it was my fault.
Finding out that Megan was dead, and having to tell your mother and you, having to go to the cemetery that day and put her into the ground—it was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. And I don't think I realized until Megan was gone how very much she meant to me. She may have been another man's child, but in truth she was more mine than his. I was there the day she was born. I was there for nearly every day of her life, and I didn't see what a blessing that was until it was too late. I did love her, even if I didn't show her that love, not the way a father should have. But I loved her, and I hope that I'll see her again someday, somewhere, and that I'll have a chance to beg her forgiveness, just as I beg now for yours.
You were the absolute light of my life, and I hope that after you and your mother left here, you found all the happiness you deserve.
I hated to see you go. I missed you desperately, but your mother was right to take you from me. I don't deserve to have you in my life, not after what I'd done to tear our family apart.
So I've been here, all by myself in this house that was once filled with so much joy. I've had more time than I could ever need to examine the mistakes I've made along the way, and I suppose that's a fitting punishment for what I've done.
I can only tell you that I wish I'd been a better man, a kinder, more forgiving, more generous man. I wish I'd been the father you and your sister deserved, and I hope you'll never doubt that I truly loved you. I wish you all the happiness in the world, all the good things life has to offer, my precious, precious girl.
Allie swiped at her own tears and passed the letter to her sister. "Read it. It's about you, too."
She stood there while her sister read, while her sister wiped away tears of her own. "God, what a mess," Megan said. Allie nodded and had to remind herself that this was what she wanted. The whole, ugly truth. All her family's failings, all their faults, all their mistakes, all the answers. Uncovering them had cost her a great deal, but it had given her so much, as well. She had her sister, her nephew, and she was truly free to start her life all over, to do anything she wanted.
Megan had made her decision. She was coming back to Kentucky, back home. Mitch Wilson had shown up on their doorstep the first night she was in town and grabbed onto her like he would never let her go. He'd always had trouble accepting the idea that she was dead. All these years, he'd been looking for her, waiting for her, loving her. Allie thought her sister loved Mitch just as deeply.
Megan had chosen to tell Casey the whole, painful truth about his biological father, because Rich was gone now and couldn't hurt him anymore, and because Casey had an uncle, a grandmother, two grandfathers. She suspected Tucker might be marrying Martha soon, giving Casey a step-grandmother, as well. There were also his two half sisters. Casey had taken to his grandmother right away, and he was fascinated by the two little girls, who were two and four and absolutely bewildered to find their daddy gone.
Mrs. Whittaker had decided to end her forty-year marriage to Stephen's father. She'd kicked her husband out of their home and taken her daughter-in-law and two granddaughters in instead, and made it clear that Casey would always be welcomed there. She'd made a heartfelt apology to Megan and Allie for everything her family had done to theirs.
Casey had been with her and the girls today, in an overflowing church for Rich's very public funeral and now for what the family had decided would be a very small, private graveside service. Allie an
d Megan watched and waited from a distance, taking this time to say good-bye to John Bennett and to simply be with each other.
The emotional roller coaster of the last week seemed to have consumed Allie with a vengeance. She was tired, and felt like she still had so much to do. At the moment she simply felt incapable of doing anything.
Megan slipped her arm around Allie's waist, and they leaned on each other for a moment. "You haven't told me what you've decided to do," Megan said.
"I just don't know." She felt that awful sense of rootlessness once again. Before, she'd thought to stay here. To make the runaway shelter a reality and to be with Stephen.
"Casey and I are going to be here. With Mitch, and I want you here, Allie. You were all set to stay before."
"I know." But Allie didn't know if she could be here anymore. Stephen was going to be a part of Casey's family, too, and they were bound to run into each other from time to time. It would be so painful.
"What about the shelter? You were so excited about it, and it's a good idea," Megan said. "It's important."
Allie sighed. "It was important to me, but the more I've thought about it, the more I see that I wanted it for all the wrong reasons. I think it was about me wanting a place to belong. I wanted a way to stay in the house we grew up in. I wanted to have a family around me, even if it was a family of teenage runaways. Which is a purely selfish reason to build a runaway shelter."
"Maybe that was part of it. But I think underneath all the hurt and the natural reserve that comes from the way you were raised, lurks the heart of a closet idealist, Allie. Someone who honestly wants to make the world a better place." Megan smiled gently. "We all have a choice about how we spend our lives. You want to take your time and energy and use it to help people, and I admire that about you so much. The world needs people like you. There are a bunch of lost teenagers who need you, too."
Allie fought back more tears. "You really think so?"
