“Don’t worry about it, the Hendersons are a frisky pair themselves,” Ian assured her quietly after the couple had disappeared inside the house. “I caught them making out behind the buffet table at their last Christmas party.”
“It’s fine.” Brooke smoothed out the rumples in her dress with her palms, and then patted the back of her hair to check for loose strands. “Shall we go inside now?”
“As long as we can pick up where we left off later on,” Ian agreed with a half-grin, clasping her hand to lead her inside the house.
Passing a mirror in the vestibule, Brooke paused to examine her reflection. Noting the lipstick smears at the corners of her mouth, she briskly rubbed the colour away with her thumb. Though her face looked flushed, no one would detect the warm and weak-kneed sensation lingering within her, or the frenetic pattering of her heart.
She hooked her arm through Ian’s as they entered the spacious living room. Many of the guests mingling there were people she knew, some from her childhood and others she’d met around town in the past few weeks. Offering smiles and waves in greeting, she cast her eyes about in search of Faith, but didn’t spot her.
It was Ted who appeared beside them, rosy cheeked, his eyes bright with the satisfaction of a hard-earned victory.
Ian released Brooke from his arm to pump Ted’s hand. “Congratulations, Mr. Mayor. It was a well-deserved win.”
“Thank you. I’m glad you could both make it.” Accepting the bottle of champagne, Ted turned his attention to Brooke. “Brooke, you look stunning.”
She leaned in to plant a quick kiss on his cheek. “Thanks, and congratulations.”
Ted eyed the couple in front of him with interest. “Faith tells me you two are getting quite serious. Maybe I’m not supposed to put you on the spot; it’s just that I was thrilled to hear it. Back in high school, I thought the two of you would get together at some point. I didn’t think it would take this long, but it’s great to see it finally happening.”
Recapturing Brooke’s hand, Ian squeezed gently as he cast her a tender smile that warmed her to the core. “It was worth the wait.”
Ted glanced at the staircase behind them. “Faith should be down in a few minutes. She’s putting Brandon to bed. He’s just getting over an ear infection, so he’s not in the best of moods.”
“That’s a shame. Poor little guy.” Mention of the boy reminded Brooke of something that had slipped her mind. “Oh, I forgot the gift in the car. I brought a toy for Brandon. I’ll just run back to the car and get it.”
As she turned toward the door Ian held fast to her hand, stopping her from going. “You stay here. I’ll get it.”
“All right, thanks.”
As Ian left the house, Ted regarded Brooke with his dark eyebrows arched. “He’s nuts about you.”
“I know,” she said, feeling warmth suffuse her cheeks.
“Would you like a drink? Andrew’s in the kitchen, acting as bartender.” Ted’s eyes rolled upward with implied disapproval. “He’ll get you whatever you’d like.”
“Thanks.”
Leaving Ted as more guests swarmed to greet him, Brooke wandered into the kitchen, curious to see Andrew Kinley after more than a decade. She found him alone, leaning back against the island in the center of the room with a bottle of beer cradled in one hand, his ankles crossed casually. She recognized him at once, his copper curls and blue eyes as distinctive as Faith’s, though his trim frame had thickened around the middle, giving him the look of someone older than his late twenties. Behind him on the island, various bottles of wine and spirits were laid out, alongside stacks of clean glasses.
He cocked a smile as Brooke approached. “Can I get you something, darling?”
“I’d love a ginger ale, Andrew, if you’ve got some,” she said.
His eyes widening, he studied her face a moment, struggling to focus. Then his lips slowly broadened into a grin. “Brooke Eldridge? Wow. I haven’t seen you in—what, fifteen years?”
“Not quite that long. But it’s been a while. How are you, Andrew?”
“I’m great. Business is booming on the west coast. I’m sure Faith has told you all about it.” He turned to open the fridge, holding tight to the handle as he swayed on his feet. Retrieving a bottle of ginger ale, he set it on the island with a heavy clunk. “She’s mad at me for staying away so long, but she should understand, you can’t build a successful business from the ground up without putting in twelve-hour days, seven days a week. Am I right?”
“That’s just what I used to tell my parents,” Brooke said, realizing that in his condition he wouldn’t likely catch the self-deprecation in her tone. She watched with unease as he attempted to fill her glass, his wavering hand causing the liquid to splatter onto the island. Ted must have been too busy to notice his brother-in-law’s inebriated state; Andrew had probably been loitering in the kitchen for some time, consuming as much beer as he could get his hands on.
“You sure you don’t want anything in this?” he offered, with a quirk of one eyebrow. “I could throw in a splash of rum.”
Brooke snatched up the glass. “No, thank you. I don’t drink.”
He uttered a short laugh. “Of course you don’t. You and my sister are two peas in a pod.” He tipped his head back to take a long draught of beer, then settled his gaze back on Brooke, smiling lazily. A sudden chill shuddered through her; so much about his manner—the bleary gaze, the sluggish speech—drew her mind back to the piercing gaze of Ross Kinley, whom Andrew was beginning to resemble as an adult. Years ago, Brooke had seen Ross in a similar state a number of times, but she could only imagine how often both Faith and Andrew had had to endure their father’s drinking binges. Faith would be beside herself when she saw her brother like this, serving her guests when he could barely stand up on his own.
Brooke swallowed some of her ginger ale to soothe her dry throat. “Is Carly here?” she asked, hoping his wife might be retrieved to deal with him before Faith came downstairs.
“No, unfortunately, my beautiful wife couldn’t make this trip,” Andrew replied, his tone revealing nothing of the marital problems Faith had hinted at. “She stayed behind to keep an eye on the business. I really couldn’t do it without her.” After another gulp of beer, he inquired boldly, “What’s up with you and Ian McCarthy? I saw you come in with him. Are you two an item?”
Brooke bobbed her head. “We’ve been seeing a lot of each other.”
His brows lifted in surprise. “Now that I never would have expected.”
“Why’s that?”
Andrew slanted her an assessing look, his blue eyes sharp despite his inebriated condition. Then his lips tilted into a shrewd smile. “That’s right; of course Ian doesn’t know. He wouldn’t have shown up at dear old Dad’s funeral if he did. Unless, of course, he came to spit on the old man’s grave.”
“Andrew, you’re drunk,” Brooke whispered fiercely, as sudden heat flushed through her. He couldn’t possibly know that his father was responsible for Mary McCarthy’s death; no one but she and Faith knew, now that Ross was dead. But what else could he mean?
“True. I won’t deny it.” Andrew titled his head back to drain the rest of his beer, then set the bottle on the island, where it tipped onto its side and rolled against a bottle of Scotch with a clank. “But at least I know how to be honest. Something tells me you haven’t been.”
Brooke felt all the air leave her lungs in a rush, making her head swim as panic began to well within her. “What do you know about it?”
He smiled mildly, observing her with a narrowed gaze. “I’ve always known, Brooke. I overheard you and Faith talking. If there’s one thing little brothers are good at, it’s hiding in closets to get the goods on their sisters’ secrets. I learned a doozy of a secret that night.” He leaned his elbow casually against the island, clearly enjoying the shock he’d inflicted on Brooke. “I never told anyone what I heard. I suppose I was afraid to. But that was a long time ago. I’m not ten years old anymor
e, am I?”
Brooke gaped at him, astonished. His tone implied threat, and fear gripped her at once, settling in her stomach like a cold, hard stone. Could she simply walk away from him and disappear into the crowd? Would he let it drop then, or was there something he wanted from her?
Shuffling back to the fridge, Andrew grabbed another beer and twisted off the cap. “It just surprises the hell out of me that you’d have the gall to date the guy, after keeping such explosive information from him all these years.”
“Andrew, please keep your voice down,” Brooke hissed, her heart pulsing a frantic rhythm in her throat as she glanced around. They were still alone in the kitchen, but clusters of people hovered just outside each of the two doorways, too deep in conversation to notice the tense exchange taking place only a few feet away. If Andrew kept on at the same volume, it wouldn’t take him long to rouse their curiosity—and it wouldn’t be long before everyone in town knew just what had happened to Mary McCarthy.
Her limbs beginning to quiver, Brooke gripped the back of one of the kitchen chairs for support. “You need to go someplace and sober up before Faith sees you like this,” she told Andrew weakly.
“I’m fine.” He took a step toward her, his thick, coppery brows inching upward. “What, am I embarrassing you? Is perfect little Brooke afraid of having her reputation tarnished?”
“Please don’t do this to me,” she begged. It wasn’t like the Andrew she remembered to be so cruel; she’d had no idea he harboured any bitterness toward her. “We can talk about this some other time.”
Smirking, he waved off her entreaty. “Don’t worry, Brooke, I’m not going to spill your secret to Ian or anyone else. I put up with my bastard of a father for eighteen years. If I can live with the damage he did to my family, I’m sure you’ll have no trouble getting cozy with the guy dear old Dad hurt the most, while keeping him in the dark about it.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Ian’s voice boomed from behind Brooke, and she whirled around to find him standing rigid in the kitchen doorway, the blue polka-dot gift bag he’d gone to retrieve clutched in one hand.
Andrew greeted him as though nothing were amiss. “Hey, Ian, we were just talking about you. How’ve you been? You’re looking well.”
Ian simply glared at Andrew, the muscles in his jaw pulsing, before shifting his gaze to Brooke. “What exactly am I in the dark about?”
She opened her mouth to speak, but couldn’t force any sound from her throat or even manage to draw a breath. She swayed on her feet, gripping the chair back more tightly. The room seemed to tilt under her, and as she squeezed her eyes shut to steady herself, she barely heard Andrew’s voice from behind.
“Better to get it out in the open, don’t you think?”
Brooke turned to glower at him, an impulse sweeping through her to shriek and pummel his chest with her fists. He’d destroyed any chance she had of explaining things to Ian in her own way, at the right moment. But she didn’t have the strength to attack, and anyway, it would hardly help the situation.
Instead she sank heavily onto the chair she’d been holding. Finally she drew a shuddery breath, filling her lungs, letting the room swim back into focus. “We can’t talk about this here.”
“What’s this about, Brooke?” Ian sank onto one knee on the floor in front of her, cupping her chin firmly in his palm to force her to look at him. The soft green eyes that had regarded her with tenderness only minutes ago now probed her gaze with stony resolve. “I’ve sensed all along that you were keeping something from me, though I convinced myself it was my imagination. Has it got something to do with Ross Kinley?”
Brooke understood that she had no choice but to tell him the truth. She nodded slowly, blinking back the tears that burned behind her eyes. “I was going to tell you, when the time was right.”
Ian’s expression didn’t change. He replied with a calm, insistent tone. “Tell me now.”
Drawing a few deep breaths to settle herself, Brooke rose to her feet. Taking his hand, she led him to the back door and opened it, guiding him out onto the patio where they could talk without interruption.
Chapter Nine
Brooke closed the door behind them, damping the boisterous chatter of the guests inside. She turned to face him, her skin ashen in the pale light cast by a row of hanging lanterns bordering the flagstone patio.
Ian stared at her, baffled by the abrupt change in the serene, alluring woman who had arrived on his arm, now gazing up at him with the wide eyes of a frightened child. Her anxiety tugged at his nerves; waiting for her to speak, he felt the rapid pummel of his heart against his ribs, and heard it pulsing in his ears.
Dropping her gaze, Brooke fixed her focus on his chin, barely blinking. She pulled in a deep breath and released it slowly before speaking.
“You’re right, I’ve been hiding something from you,” she began, a slight quaver to her voice. She cleared her throat and continued. “It’s about Ross Kinley.”
“I gathered that.” Ian kept his arms wrapped tightly over his chest, steeling himself. “Go on.”
She nodded briskly, clutching the fabric of her skirt in both fists. “He was the one who hit your mother. He was drunk. It was just an awful accident.”
Ian stood frozen, letting the words filter through his brain, absorbing the answer she’d bluntly provided to the mystery that had plagued him for eighteen years. Ross Kinley, drunk at the wheel. Ian hadn’t suspected the man, yet he could easily picture it. The single statement brought with it a deluge of questions, tumbling into his mind one after the other, faster than he could shape them into words.
“How long have you known?” he asked after a moment.
“Since it happened.”
With a narrowed gaze, he glared at Brooke, astonished. “All these years, you knew? And you kept it from me?”
She winced at the sudden ferocity of his tone. Her gaze snapped up to fix onto his, beseeching. “Ian, please understand. Faith and I were scared. We thought if her father went to prison, her mother wouldn’t be able to look after Faith and Andrew. She did live for several more years, but at that time she was really sick. Faith thought her mother might by dying, and she was terrified of being separated from her—especially of being sent to live with her aunt, who I can tell you didn’t care much about Faith.”
Ian turned abruptly away from her, raking both hands through his hair in agitation. It made sense now, the way both girls had avoided him after his mother’s death, carefully guarding their terrible secret. Even now, as she and Ian grew close, Brooke continued to distance herself from him—burdened, no doubt, by the weight of the truth she chose to withhold.
He swung back to face her, barely restraining his anger. “We’ve been together almost every day for weeks, Brooke. At some point during that time, haven’t you once thought of telling me all this?”
Stepping forward, she grasped his arm, holding tight to his sleeve. Through the layers of his jacket and shirt he felt her fingers trembling. “I did think of it, a million times. Faith begged me not to, but I wanted to, so much. I wanted you to know your mother didn’t suffer. She was killed instantly.”
“How can you possibly know that?”
“Because …” She paused, sinking her teeth into her lower lip as she dropped her gaze. Releasing his sleeve, she curled her hand over the pendant suspended around her neck, squeezing it tightly. “Because I saw her.”
“You saw her?”
Brooke dipped her chin in a brisk nod, then drew a lungful of air and went on. “I was there. Faith and I ran away that day, and her father brought us back home, late at night. We were in the truck with him. It was so dark; he didn’t see your mother on the road. His truck was so beaten up already, I suppose no one noticed the damage. He was never questioned by police, as far as I know.”
Ian stumbled back, swaying on his feet as a series of horrific images swam into his mind’s eye. Over the years he’d tried not to visualize his mother�
��s death; now he couldn’t stop himself from envisioning her twisted body by the side of the road, her dark curls a tangle of blood and gravel; he pictured Ross Kinley clutching the wheel of his battered blue truck—a truck Ian had seen the man drive through town dozens of times, before and after the accident.
From the back seat he imagined the two girls watching the ghastly scene unfold, helpless to stop it. He understood the paralyzing fear that must have gripped them both; he saw it in Brooke’s eyes now. What he couldn’t fathom was that eighteen years later, as a grown woman, she’d allowed him to confide in her and grow to trust her, with memories of that awful night still imprinted on her brain—and said nothing.
She held fast to the pendant around her neck, as though drawing strength from it. Ian had given it to her to symbolize his faith in her. Since his mother’s death he’d been wary of allowing anyone too close, protecting himself from the pain of loss that he couldn’t bear to suffer again. But Brooke had found her way into his heart so easily, and he’d placed it willingly into her hands, trusting her implicitly. The irony almost made him laugh.
“Ian, are you all right?” she asked, her voice high and tentative. “Please say something.”
He couldn’t speak for a moment longer, the smoldering anger within him threatening to flare beyond his control. He only realized as his fingers numbed and his shoulders began to ache how tightly his hands were balled into fists, and how rigid his muscles had become.
“So what you’re telling me,” he said at last between gritted teeth, “is that all those years, you knew, you saw, what happened to my mother, and you never said a word.”
“I’m so … so sorry.” Tears spilled freely down Brooke’s cheeks as she struggled to speak, her chest hitching between words. “It’s tortured me all this time. In high school, I wanted so badly to get close to you … but I couldn’t bear to, knowing I couldn’t tell you the truth. I thought that moving away would help me forget. I haven’t been able to come back to Eastport because of the memories, and the guilt I feel.”
Secret Vow Page 9
