The Return of Caine O'Halloran: Hard Choices

by JoAnn Ross

  “You need to be on the town council,” Logan said. Maybe there’d be some hope of the place moving into the current century.

  “It’s not all bad, Logan. There’s a...oh, I don’t know. A sort of healing mystique.” She shrugged. “Sometimes miracles happen here. It’s hard to resist. And for me, it’s home.”

  Healing? Not in his experience. “You ought to be married with kids by now.”

  At that, her eyes rolled. “Now, you sound like Dad.”

  “Great.”

  “And we could say the same about you,” she pointed out. “But I suppose you’re too busy leading your mysterious life to have stopped and made time for a wife and kids. Unless you’re hiding them away somewhere for fear they’ll fall in love with the island home you hate.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment. God.

  Sara was silent for a long while. “Dad misses you, you know.”

  Logan doubted it. But his thoughts weren’t on Hugo. Or Turnabout. Or even his little sister, for that matter. “Riley knows Annie is her natural mother,” he said abruptly.

  Sara sucked in her breath. A long moment ticked by. “Oh,” she said on an exhale, “my. I’d be lying if I said it’s completely unexpected. Sooner or later, Riley was bound to find out something.”

  “She did.” He told her what Lucia had done.

  “That woman should never have had children. Only then there wouldn’t be Annie or Will. You know Annie told me once that Lucia told her she’d been a mistake. That she’d never wanted another child after Will.” Her eyebrows lifted delicately. “And Annie told you about Riley?”

  The rising sun glinted against the sand. It was a sight he’d known as long as he could remember. “Not intentionally.” He slanted a look at her. “You’ve been a good friend to her.”

  Sara’s lips curved, and for a moment she looked sad. “It hasn’t been a one-way street, you know. She’s been a good friend to me, too.” She caught his narrow look and the cast of her lips turned upward. “Don’t worry. Nothing like what Annie went through.”

  “Good.” He was pretty sure he wasn’t up to hearing what sort of situations remained after that “nothing like” of hers.

  She looked vaguely amused, then. “Do I need to ask you what your intentions are toward Annie?”

  “You’ve already posted your warning.” Which he’d ignored.

  “That’s not an answer, Logan.”

  “It’s the only one you’re going to get.” He pulled her head close and kissed the top of it. “Go find Annie. She needs a friend.”

  Her head tilted back, looking up at him as he stood. “What about you? What do you need?”

  The same thing he’d needed for sixteen years.

  Redemption.

  Instead of finding a piece of it by coming to Turnabout, he’d succeeded only in pushing it further from his grasp.

  “Breakfast,” he said smoothly, and looked up the hill to where a crowd had been steadily growing by the community center. “I need breakfast.”

  His sister’s lips smiled faintly, but her eyes did not. It might have been years since they’d seen one another, but her expression exposed his lie for what it was. “Well, it’s up there waiting, Logan. All you have to do is put out your hand and ask. You’ll get your fill.” She pushed off the wall and headed down the beach.

  Logan shoved his hands in his pockets, and stared out at the water.

  Reach out and ask?

  Easy enough to say.

  Impossible to do.

  Chapter 15

  The sky above the lattice roof was blue. All hint of the storm gone.

  What she was facing now was worse than any storm.

  Annie looked away from the blue expanse as she paused at the entrance to Maisy’s open-aired dining room. It wasn’t hard to spot Riley.

  She was the only person there. Everyone else had gone to the community center for a hot breakfast.

  She slowly crossed to the small round table where the girl sat. It was the same table where the three of them—Annie, Riley and Logan—had sat the day he had showed up at the shop.

  How could a person’s life change in a matter of days?

  The question was futile, though.

  Her saner self already knew the answer. Lives did change. In the blink of an eye. And in the passage of decades. In her case, the days had been numbered.

  Truth rises.

  Will had always believed that. Had told it to Annie time and again when he’d helped her out of some foolish stunt she’d pulled to gain her parents’ attention.

  “Truth rises, Annie,” he’d say. “Stop trying to find it the hard way.”

  And there was nothing harder for Annie now than crossing that room, watching Riley eye her with such a tangle of distrust and pain that it caused a physical ache inside her.

  She stopped shy of the table. It didn’t matter how hard Annie found this. Riley mattered more.

  She always had.

  “We should have told you.”

  Riley’s eyes reddened. “Yeah.” She looked down at the orange she held. She didn’t say anything else. Nor did she shove back from the table and leave.

  Annie cautiously pulled out the opposite chair and sat. “I’m sorry I accused Kenny of hurting you.”

  “Just because he has a pierced lip doesn’t mean he’s bad.”

  “I know.” She struggled for words. Something, anything to make this better. “I’m sorry.”

  “Did you love him?”

  She moistened her lips. “Drago?”

  “Not him. Logan. You’re sleeping with him. You told me that you didn’t sleep with men you didn’t love. Or was that just another big lie of yours?”

  She tucked her hands in her lap, her hands twisting together. “Yes.”

  Riley’s jaw cocked to one side. “A big lie.”

  “Yes, I love him.” Her throat closed. The truth of it couldn’t be escaped. She’d loved him in her dreams for sixteen long, lonely years. She loved that he’d looked beyond the surface to see what was beneath, even when that meant calling her to task for throwing herself at him. She loved that he made her smile when she least expected, that he braved storms, heated water and made something withered inside her bloom when he touched her.

  And she’d love him when he left, which he would surely do. “But Logan’s not part of this, Riley.” She watched Riley’s fingers turn the orange. “When you were a baby, you loved anything, as long as it was orange. Orange-tasting. Orange-colored. It didn’t matter.”

  “I painted a wall in my room orange. Mom hates it.”

  “Is that why you did it?”

  Riley didn’t respond.

  Annie exhaled. “You know that I used to do everything under the sun if I thought there was a good chance of upsetting my parents.”

  “Is that why you got pregnant with me? To piss them off?”

  She winced, but for once she didn’t hear her mother’s screeching voice in her head accusing her of that very thing. “No. No, you were totally unexpected.”

  “A punishment.”

  Annie’s hands immediately lifted above the table. She settled her fingers on the revolving orange. “No, Riley. A gift. Always, always a gift.” Her voice went hoarse.

  A tear slid down Riley’s cheek. “Then why’d you give me away?”

  The hardest question of all. “Because I loved you that much. And I couldn’t take care of you the way you deserved.”

  “You could have gotten rid of me before I was born. Grandma and Grandpa would never even have known.”

  Annie could barely stand to hear Riley speak of George and Lucia. But she had no intention of burdening Riley with the knowledge that they had been the ones to demand her pregnancy be terminated. Nor
was she going to get into a debate over the right or wrong of abortion.

  She stopped the orange again, waiting until Riley finally looked at her. “There was never a day that I regretted being pregnant with you.” Riley’s very existence had forced her to stop seeking what she’d never find from her parents. Love. Acceptance. “Not one single day. Not before you were born. Not after. I loved you all the while.” Her head ached with unshed tears. “And so did Will and Noelle. We should have just told you the truth long ago, Riley, but please don’t believe that it was ever because any of us didn’t love you. Or that we didn’t want what’s best for you.”

  “Mom can’t have kids, you know. She told me that when she started in on sending me to Bendlemaier. That I was the only child she’d ever have and she wanted me to have the best.” Riley’s voice broke.

  Annie nodded, even though she hadn’t known. But it made sense. Noelle was cultured, beautiful and excruciatingly intelligent. An attorney. Yet she’d never made any secret of her adoration of Riley. If she’d been able, she’d have probably filled Will’s house with children.

  “How come you hardly visit us? And you want me to leave Turnabout so badly?”

  Why didn’t you love me enough?

  It was her own voice she heard in her head this time. The endless cry she’d never cried, that she’d finally realized would never be answered. Not by George and Lucia.

  “Because it hurt too much to see you,” she said, and the honesty stripped her raw. “And to have to leave you again. And when you came here, I said I wanted you to go...because my heart...” she pressed her hand against her chest, her voice nearly soundless “...only wants you to stay. But no matter what I feel, your home is with...your parents. They’ve raised you. They’ve loved you.”

  She tried to draw in a breath, but it rattled with tears. She exhaled. Swallowed. Steadied her voice. “And no matter how mad you are about Will’s campaign or your mom’s job, or about the garbage your grandmother dumped on you along with the facts, you love your parents, too. Or you wouldn’t be so hurt now.”

  Riley’s silence lengthened. Then slowly, she let go of the orange and it rolled off the table. She touched her fingertips to Annie’s. “Can I come back and visit?” Her voice was very small.

  Annie nodded.

  Then she opened her arms when Riley rounded the table and sat on her lap, her young arms a crushing grip around Annie.

  And Annie wondered, yet again, how many times a person’s heart could break.

  * * *

  “She’s ready to go home.” Annie didn’t move from the couch when Logan let himself into her house later that afternoon. “Whenever you can arrange it. She won’t be running away again.”

  He pushed the door closed behind him with his foot and set the small heater and heavy electrical cord he carried on the floor. She’d be able to hook it up to the small generator he’d finally scrounged up in Diego’s mess of equipment at the dock. “Are you okay?”

  “No.” Her voice sounded raw. As if she had a cold. Or she’d been crying. “But I’ll survive,” she went on. “It’s what I do best.”

  “Nice try,” he murmured. “You may be a survivor, but there are other things you excel at more.”

  “Like wanting impossible things?” She sighed and finally looked at him. “Sam brought this message by for you.” She held out a scrap of paper. It vibrated with a fine shimmer. “Apparently it came in this afternoon over that radio he got.”

  He took the sheet and shoved it in his pocket.

  “You’re not going to read it?”

  He shook his head.

  “It said two days. That’s all. Just two days.”

  He wasn’t interested in the message. “Where is she?”

  She didn’t need to ask who he meant. “Still at Maisy’s. She, um, she wanted to help out with the kids again over there. Mostly, I think she wanted some distance to...to digest everything.”

  “You talked to her, then.”

  “Yes.” Her expression was too still.

  “And about Drago. That you think you were with Ivan Mondrago. That he is Riley’s natural father.”

  Her hands curled into fists. “Who else could it be?”

  Logan’s chest ached. “And you told Riley that?”

  “She didn’t ask about Drago, and I didn’t tell. God knows what exactly Lucia told her, seeing how I’d done such a whiz-bang job of earning their disgust.”

  “Stop blaming yourself for their failings.”

  “Habit.” She finally pushed off the couch and noticed the heater. “What’s that for?”

  “It’ll keep you warm at night. I scared up a generator for you. It’s out front.”

  Her lashes lowered, hiding her expression. “You could keep me warmer.” She laughed humorlessly a moment later and waved her hand in dismissal. “Thanks. I know it would be easier if I just stayed at the community center, but—”

  “You want to be in your own home.” Because it was one of her own creating.

  She nodded. “I, um, I need to thank you. For keeping me from doing something awful to that poor boy. I don’t know where my mind went. Well, no,” she added after a moment. “I do know. And I didn’t want that to happen to Riley.” She ran her hands down the sides of her pale-blue jumper, looking so brittle that he was afraid even to reach out for her, lest she shatter.

  “You didn’t want what to happen to her?”

  “I never told Drago I’d sleep with him. I never told anyone I’d sleep with them. They just looked at the way I dressed, and the way I behaved, and always thought...assumed...and it infuriated my parents, so I fostered the impression. For their benefit. The guys—I never promised any of them anything.”

  “I know.”

  But she was beyond hearing. “I told Drago over and over again that I had no intention of sleeping with him. We’d had a deal. He wanted an in at Bendlemaier and I believed riding on his reputation would get me out of Bendlemaier. When I learned he was dealing drugs, I told him the deal was off. I wasn’t going to be part of that scene. But he wouldn’t believe me. He’d bought my act too well.” She pushed her hands through her hair, shaking her head. “I was such an idiot, such a fool. I deserved whatever happened to me. I all but asked for it.”

  “It.” It was all he could do not to grab her. “What it?”

  “There was so much champagne left over. My parents were furious with me, accusing me of inviting Drago.”

  Forget control. Logan closed his hands over her shoulders, turning her around to face him. “You sneaked more champagne, even after what happened between you and me by the boathouse?” He’d already realized that’s what she must have done.

  “Yes, I—” She frowned. “I took a bottle to my room. I drank it all, I think. I don’t remember.” She pushed at her forehead. “I...it’s all messed up with my dream, you see. But I woke up in my bed in the morning and I was...naked...and my—I felt sore—” She shook her head. “Before I could even get out of bed, the police had arrived. They’d found Drago hiding in the wine cellar. And they came in and arrested me, too.”

  Her eyes were wet. “He was in the house that night. And...while I was drunk...he, we...God.” She pressed her face into her hands, her shoulders shaking. “What’s worse? Willingly sleeping with someone I despised, or being so drunk that I can’t even remember him forcing me? Lucia, of course, assured me that she saw Drago leaving my room before dawn.”

  Logan hauled her into his arms. No matter what his life was, he couldn’t let her continue believing what she thought. “Maybe Drago was in your room that night. But you weren’t. You weren’t with Drago. He didn’t force you. And you didn’t choose him.”

  “You don’t know that. I don’t know that! I spent years in therapy, and the therapist doesn’t know that.”

  “I d
o know that.” He caught her face between his hands and carefully made her look at him. Her lashes were spiky from tears. “I know, because you were with me that night. In the guest room. I carried you back to your room in the morning.”

  Her softly arched brows drew together. Her lips parted. “What? No, that’s not right. You didn’t want me. You told me so at the wedding reception. You’d never have—”

  “I did.” There was no mitigating the truth. “You came to my room late that night. I woke up and found you in bed beside me.” And even after realizing the warm, enticing female wasn’t the bridesmaid who’d been coming on to him throughout the wedding festivities, but his best friend’s impetuous little sister, Logan hadn’t done what he should have done. Instead of bundling her off to her own bed without so much as touching a hair on her head, he’d kissed her mouth, tasted the champagne she’d consumed on her tongue and had dragged her beneath him.

  He’d broken the trust of his friendship with Will that night, and he’d taken advantage of Annie’s inebriated innocence. He’d thought he’d never regret anything more. Until now. Until realizing what Annie had believed all these years about that night.

  His hands were shaking as he brushed them down her hair. Him. The man whose hands never shook. Who never missed. Who went in and cleaned up situations where there was no other recourse. “I didn’t realize you couldn’t remember.”

  “It was real?” She was staring at him as if she’d never seen him before. “All these years, it’s the...dream...that’s been real.”

  “What dream?”

  “About you. And me. Making love.” She stumbled back from him, covering her mouth. Her eyes looked dazed.