by Eve Gaddy
He handed her a pad and she wrote her numbers on it, then made another copy for Jay, tore off the sheet and handed it to him. “I’m not sure when I’ll have a home number. I bought a house and I’m supposed to move in Friday, but who knows when I’ll get local service. I’ve written down my office and cell numbers, though.” Feeling awkward, she stood. “I’d better get going. I have to be in the office early tomorrow and I’m staying in Port Aransas until I can get moved in.”
Jay stood as well. “Mark, what about Sunday? You know, the barbecue.”
Mark looked at him blankly for a moment, then shrugged. Turning to her he said, “Cat and I are having a barbecue Sunday afternoon. Why don’t you come?”
She didn’t believe he really wanted her there. If Jay hadn’t prodded him he wouldn’t have asked her. But she couldn’t resist. “I’d love to. Thank you.”
They both walked her to the door. Jay hugged her easily, then released her. Unsure whether to make the first move, she looked at Mark, who was frowning at her.
“Oh, hell,” he said, and reached for her. He held her close for a moment then let go.
She hoped she could make it to her car before she broke down and cried.
“YOU WERE A LITTLE HARD on her, weren’t you?” Jay said to Mark as soon as the door shut behind Miranda.
No, damn it, not Miranda. Ava. “No more than she deserved.”
“That’s not fair.”
Mark looked at his brother. “I’ll tell you what’s not fair. It’s pretty unfair that she waited more than twenty years to finally look us up. And she wouldn’t have done it if she hadn’t been forced into it. She as much as admitted that to me before you came over.”
“You don’t know that. And we don’t know what her reasons were for not getting in touch.”
“No, and it doesn’t sound like she’s in any hurry to tell us, does it?”
“Give her time,” he repeated. “I know you’re hurting.”
“And you’re not?”
Jay put his hand on Mark’s shoulder and squeezed. “Not as much as you are.”
Mark looked away. Finally he said, “I had to tell myself she was dead. I couldn’t stand it any longer, looking for her and never finding her. Damn it, she vanished without a trace. What else could I think? And then to have her show up here. Out of the blue…I was so happy to see her I could have cried.”
“Mark, I think she will talk to you, but you have to give her some time.”
“I don’t have much choice, do I?”
“There’s always a choice.” He paused and added, “You forgave Mom for leaving us. Don’t you think you could do the same for Miranda?”
“It’s not the same. I never blamed Miranda for leaving. Even when I didn’t know exactly what the bastard had done to her, I didn’t blame her. Do you think I’d blame her now?”
“No. But maybe she has just as compelling a reason for not trying to find us as she did for leaving in the first place.”
“Maybe. I guess we’ll see.” Or they wouldn’t. “We have to tell Mom.”
“Yes. Ava doesn’t want us to. I told her that wasn’t an option. She refuses to see her, though.”
“Great. I get to tell Mom we’ve found Miranda but she doesn’t want to see her. It’s going to kill her.”
“Do you want me to do it?”
He’d gladly let Jay do it, but that wouldn’t be right. “No, it’s my responsibility.”
Jay smiled at him. “Everything isn’t your responsibility, Mark. We’re all grown now.”
“Yeah, I know. But I think Mom will take the news better from me.”
“All right. I sure as hell don’t envy you that task.” He glanced at his watch. “I’d better get home. Gail has no idea what’s going on and I’ll have to fill her in.”
“Okay. See you Sunday.” He’d see Miranda— Ava—Sunday, too. He hoped he could come to some sort of peace before that.
Mark locked up and checked on the kids. He kissed Max’s cheek, stroked a hand over his dark hair, wondering how his son could look so angelic in sleep when he was such a pistol when he was awake. He went to Miranda’s room next, adjusted her covers and kissed her soft baby cheek. Miranda, the child they’d named after his dead sister. Except his sister was alive and well and calling herself Ava Vincent.
He stopped with his hand on his bedroom door. This late in her pregnancy Cat slept as much as possible. He knew how tired she was taking care of two jobs, two young kids and another on the way. But damn, if he’d ever needed to talk to his wife, it was now. He turned the knob and stepped inside.
She was reading, or pretending to read. Love swamped him as he looked at her, this woman who had changed his life. Who had given him love and children he loved more than he could ever have imagined. The woman who had even helped him reconcile with his mother. The woman he’d always considered his own personal miracle.
Her smile bloomed when she saw him. She set the book down and said nothing but simply held out her arms. It wasn’t the first time he’d realized how blessed he was to have a wife who not only loved him but understood him.
He gathered her in his arms and held on tightly, wishing he knew what to do with the mix of emotions he’d experienced since walking into the den and seeing Miranda.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.
“I’d rather just hold you. And have you hold me.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do,” she said, and pulled his face down to kiss him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
JACK TOOK THE TRASH OUT to the curb, still thinking about Ava and Mark and the whole unbelievable scene he’d witnessed. And the one he hadn’t. Obviously, his suspicions, wild as they’d seemed, had been right on the money.
Ava really was Miranda Kincaid, the sister Mark had believed was dead. He wondered why she’d disappeared for so many years and why she’d finally decided to find her brothers. Or had she meant to find them? Maybe it had been a coincidence. If so, what a shock to the system that would have been. For all of them.
He set the trash bags down and glanced at Mark’s house. Ava’s car was still parked at the curb but even as he looked, he saw the taillights come on and she drove off slowly. A short way down the street, she pulled over and stopped.
Torn between wanting to make sure she was all right and not wanting to butt in to what was clearly none of his business, he hesitated. “Oh, hell,” he muttered, and walked down the street to her car.
The streetlamp gave off enough light that he could see inside, though not too clearly. Sure enough, her head was down on the steering wheel and he thought her shoulders were shaking. He rapped on the window.
Her head jerked up and she stared at him. He made a motion for her to roll down the window. She waited so long he didn’t think she would do it, but she finally did. She didn’t speak, just gazed at him with tear tracks on her cheeks. And she didn’t look particularly happy to see him.
“Are you okay?”
She laughed, sounding anything but amused. “Yeah. Just wonderful.”
“Can I do anything?”
“No. I can’t talk. I need to leave.”
He hesitated again. She was a grown woman. She could take care of herself. Why this compulsion to help her when she clearly didn’t want a near stranger in her face? He ought to leave her alone but he knew he wouldn’t. Instead, he walked around her car, opened the passenger-side door and slid inside.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked, looking at him like he was a crazy man.
Making sure she didn’t drive off, that’s what. “Take a minute. You shouldn’t drive when you’re so upset.”
Her hands tightened on the steering wheel. “What I do is none of your business. I’m perfectly capable of driving. I’m not going to have a wreck just because I’m upset.”
“Trust me. It happens.” He’d come to terms with his wife’s death a long time ago. Or believed he had. But he still felt the swift surge of guilt whenever he rememb
ered Cynthia’s accident.
Her eyes widened as she stared at him. “Oh, God. Your wife. You said she died in an accident. A car accident…” Her voice trailed off and she looked sick.
He nodded and shrugged, pretending an acceptance of fate he didn’t feel. “Like I said, it happens.”
He recognized Jay’s car as he pulled up beside them, stopped and rolled down his window. “Are you all right?” he called.
“I’m fine. Jack and I are just talking.”
Jay didn’t look too sure of that but he seemed to accept it. “Okay. You’ll be at Mark’s Sunday, right?”
“Mark only asked me because you twisted his arm.”
“That’s not true. He wants you there, and so do I. Promise me you’ll come.”
She hesitated a long moment, then said, “All right. I’ll come.”
Jay drove off and Ava turned back to Jack. “At least he doesn’t seem to hate me.”
“Mark doesn’t hate you.” If he knew his old friend at all, he knew that.
She didn’t say anything and when she finally spoke she went back to the previous subject. “Your wife. The accident. Why…why was she upset?”
He sighed and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “You ever been married?”
“Yes. I’m divorced.”
“Then you know how it works. We didn’t fight a lot, but when we did—” He shook his head. “You know how sometimes you fight about stupid things? Things that really don’t matter but you have a big knock-down, drag-out fight anyway?”
She smiled faintly. “I remember.”
“It was about wallpaper. We fought for weeks over the damn wallpaper in the kitchen. Cynthia tried everything she could think of to get me to go for new wallpaper but I wouldn’t. The more she pushed the more stubborn I was about it. No how, no way were we getting new wallpaper.”
“Why? Couldn’t you afford it?”
“Yeah. If we did the work. But I ran a charter fishing service then, and the last thing I wanted to do in my time off was wallpaper the kitchen. One Saturday, my first day off in weeks, we got into it again. Cynthia finally got fed up and said she was going to do it herself. Then she took off for the store. She left Cole at home with me.” Usually, she took him with her. But that day he’d had a cold. It terrified him to think how close he’d come to losing both his wife and child. “It was raining. A nasty, messy day.”
“That’s when she had the accident.”
He nodded. “She ran a stop sign. An eighteen-wheeler broadsided her, and that was it. They said…the doctors believed she died on impact, so at least she didn’t suffer.”
“I’m so sorry, Jack.”
“Yeah.” He looked at her. “If I’d known what was going to happen, I’d have wallpapered the whole goddamn house. It was such a stupid, stupid thing to fight about.”
“You blame yourself for her accident, don’t you?”
“Sometimes. Yeah, sometimes I do.” He looked off in the distance before turning back to her. “I went to counseling. I know the guilt trip is not productive. I know she wouldn’t want me to blame myself. But I still wonder if we hadn’t been fighting would she have paid more attention?” He spread his hands. “Fruitless, but I can’t seem to help it.”
Hesitantly, she reached out and put her hand over his. “You shouldn’t blame yourself. She shares the burden. Unlike—” She broke off and withdrew her hand.
“Unlike?” he prompted.
Her mouth tightened into a thin line. “Unlike me, I was going to say. Mark hates me, and he has every reason to. None of this is his fault.”
Maybe there’d been a point to him sharing that story. She’d needed to hear it so she could talk about her own. “I’m sure Mark doesn’t hate you,” he said again. She remained silent. “I take it the reunion didn’t go well.”
She laughed harshly. “You could say that.” Then she glanced at him speculatively. “How did you know it was a reunion?”
“It wasn’t that hard to figure out, especially given your resemblance to each other. And right before I left you admitted you were Miranda.”
She shrugged, then said haltingly, “At first Mark was happy to see me. I know he was. But later, after he’d had time to think it over—” She broke off, pressing her fingers to her temples. “He hates me.”
“I’ve known Mark a long time. Sixteen, no seventeen years now. And until the other day I never knew he had a sister. But it wasn’t because he’d forgotten you. I think it hurt him too much to talk about it. When he told me about his lost sister, the one he thought had died, he sure didn’t sound like he hated you.”
“Not then, not when he didn’t know I was all right. You don’t understand. I vanished without a trace, and I never contacted him. Never contacted any of my brothers. Not once in all those years.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I couldn’t. I wanted to…but I just couldn’t.”
“Did you tell him why?”
“No,” she said, her voice low. “I couldn’t do that either. And he doesn’t understand.”
That made two of them, but if she wouldn’t tell her brothers she obviously wouldn’t tell him. “Why would he ask you to come to his house again if he hated you?”
“Because Jay made him. Jay isn’t as angry at me as Mark is. I’m not sure why. Maybe because he was so young when I left. Or maybe…maybe it didn’t hurt him as much as it did Mark. After all, he hardly knew me.”
“Are you ever going to tell them why you lost touch?”
“Not if I can possibly help it.” She looked at him. “You think I’m awful, too, don’t you?”
“Look, Ava, I don’t know enough about what’s going on or what went on to know what to think.” He shoved a hand through his hair, still finding it hard to believe. “But you obviously care about your brothers and what they think, or you wouldn’t be this upset.”
“Just answer the question. Do you think I’m horrible for not telling them why I never tried to find them?”
His gaze locked with hers. “I think you must have a damn good reason. And I also think you’re going to have a tough time reconciling totally with any of them, especially Mark, unless you do tell them.”
“I think so, too.” She sighed and added, “Which means I’m screwed.”
Jack laughed. “I said tough, not impossible.”
“Semantics,” she said. After a moment she spoke again. “Why are you being so nice to me? You hardly know me. And you said yourself you’re an old friend of Mark’s. It seems like you’d be on his side in all this.”
“No one told me I had to choose sides.” She said nothing, just continued to look at him. He patted her hand, which lay on the seat between them. “You looked like you could use a friend. I thought I’d offer.”
“That’s it? You didn’t have another reason?”
Man, she was suspicious. He’d felt her stiffen when he touched her hand. “Like what?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t know. Maybe you have an ulterior motive.”
“Oh, sure. Like what?” he repeated.
“You tell me.”
“What, you think I’m being nice so I can maneuver you into bed?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you thought it.”
“All right. Yes, it crossed my mind.”
He couldn’t deny he’d thought about taking her to bed. Not that he’d had any intention of following up on the idea. And for sure he didn’t plan on maneuvering her into something she didn’t want to do. But she was beautiful and single and he was single and lonely, and hell, he was just a man. Who wouldn’t think about it? Which, of course, really burned him. He hated to be so predictable.
“That’s some ego you’ve got there, lady.”
She’d been glaring at him but at that her gaze fell.
“You’re right. I’m…sorry. But you did ask me to dinner. So I wondered—” She fumbled for words, then swore. “Damn it, now I feel like a fool. It’s just m
en, most men— Oh, forget it. I’m sorry if I insulted you.”
He tilted his head, considering her. “Does every man who asks you out try to get you into bed?”
She snorted. “Most of them.”
“But you were tempted to go out with me when I asked you. Weren’t you?”
She pursed her lips, answering reluctantly. “Yes. I thought you were nice. I enjoyed talking to you on the boat. You didn’t make innuendos, or…comments, like so many men do. And it didn’t really sound like a date, at the time. More like just grabbing a bite after work, which is entirely different.”
“You have a very suspicious nature, you know that?”
“With good reason.”
“I haven’t even kissed you. I haven’t even made a move like I want to kiss you.”
“I know. I said I was sorry. I’m upset and I jumped to conclusions. I have a habit of doing that where men are concerned.”
“Do you automatically condemn a man just because the poor slob tries to kiss you? Or wants to kiss you?”
“No, of course I don’t. I—” She glared at him. “I have no idea how we got onto this subject. This is ridiculous.”
“Maybe so, but you’re not crying anymore.”
Her lips curved into a smile. “You’re right, I’m not.”
“So my job is done.” He got out and leaned down to look at her through the open door. “Drive carefully, Ava.”
“Jack,” she called as he walked away. He stopped and turned back to her. “Thanks.”
“No problemo.” No, the problem was, now instead of a low-grade urge, he wanted to kiss her so badly he could taste it. God, he wanted to taste her. And somehow he didn’t think that was going to happen any time soon.
CHAPTER NINE
AVA DIDN’T SEE JACK the next day. Just as well, she thought. After all, she’d basically made a fool of herself by jumping to the conclusion that he was coming on to her. Maybe if she hadn’t been so rattled from seeing her brothers, she wouldn’t have. She’d never know now.
