by Valerie Parv
Nothing else explained why his lack of trust sliced so deeply.
Damn it, she wasn’t part of whatever game Karen was playing. Why couldn’t he give her the benefit of the doubt until they knew the whole truth? The answer was obvious. He wanted to make love to her, but he didn’t love her. With his history, he might not be able to love. She hated to think so, but the possibility had to be considered.
She slowly moved around the familiar yet strange rooms of her home, doing laundry and ordering pizza even though she wasn’t hungry. There wasn’t any fresh food and she didn’t feel like shopping. She debated calling Karen but if her husband answered, he’d want to know why Jo was calling Karen at home. What explanation could she give him? And if this was a misunderstanding, Jo didn’t want to cause trouble between the couple.
Instead, she called Lauren, telling the other girl about her adventures and promising they’d get together as soon as she could. Lauren sounded distracted and Jo soon learned the reason. She had a boyfriend, Adam, who’d moved into the group home soon after Jo had left for the Kimberley. In her usual way, Lauren’s whole attention was taken up with the new relationship.
Hanging up, Jo felt as if her world had shifted. In her own fashion, Lauren had grown up and didn’t need Jo anymore, not in the way she’d always had. From the sound of things, she might well marry before Jo. The thought choked her and the tears she’d held back all day formed a leaden lump in her chest. She jumped up, denying them escape.
She might not be able to redeem herself with Blake, but she might be able to help his foster father. During the flight, a theory had formed in her mind, but she would need help proving it. Her parents might be out of the country, but her brothers weren’t. What good was having brothers in specialized fields if she couldn’t call on them for assistance?
She cancelled the pizza and grabbed her handbag.
He’d been mad to come, Blake told himself as he paced his hotel room, dodging the remains of a room service meal. City surroundings always made him uneasy, bringing back memories of miserable foster homes where love had been at a premium.
It was at a premium now and it was his fault. He should never have accused Jo of conspiring against him. Suddenly, his pacing faltered. Was he getting his licks in before someone had the chance to hurt him, pushing Jo away before she could do the same to him? He owed it to her to set the record straight. He snatched up the phone book.
Not giving himself a chance to change his mind, he headed down to the lobby and gave her address to a cab driver, then drummed his fingers on the seat the whole way to her apartment.
She wasn’t home.
He actually debated waiting on her doorstep until she returned, but the lost-waif symbolism was too strong. He hailed another cab and went back to the hotel.
Jo made a point of arriving at the office of Australian Scene Weekly bright and early the next morning. Simon, the security man in the lobby, smiled in recognition, but Jo didn’t stop to chat as she usually did. She wanted to catch Karen when she was likely to be alone in the magazine’s offices. With no witnesses, she would have no reason not to be honest with Jo.
The editor was working and looked startled when Jo barged in. “This is a surprise.”
She planted both palms on Karen’s desk and leaned over it. “I want to know the real reason why you sent me to the Kimberley.”
Jo couldn’t recall Karen appearing so nervous before. “Because it’s a great story. And it’s working.” Her hand fluttered over a thick wad of e-mails. “Reader response is amazing.”
“Terrific. How did you know about the Baracchis?”
The editor stared at her for a long moment and then pulled in a deep breath. “You’d better sit down.”
Before she did so, Jo had to ask, “Are you Blake’s mother?”
“Go ahead, Karen. I can’t wait to hear this, too.”
Both women turned. Blake was angled against the door frame, his arms crossed over his broad chest. Seeing him out of his khaki bush clothes, Jo’s breath caught at how amazing he looked in a cream polo shirt and navy pants. Under the grim set of his mouth, his chin was shadowed. The effect was edgy and inviting. She looked away before she betrayed herself by making eye contact.
Behind Blake, a uniformed man hovered. “Sorry for the intrusion, Ms. Prentiss. This man almost knocked me out of the way when I tried to stop him coming up. I’m about to call the police.”
“There’s no need. Thank you, Simon. He’s expected. Come in, Blake.”
He did so, shutting the door behind him. He kept his distance from her, Jo noted, her heart aching. She hadn’t expected seeing him again, knowing he didn’t love her, to hurt quite so much. She shoved aside her pain. This wasn’t about her. It was about Blake.
Karen had linked her hands on the desk and was staring at them, avoiding Blake’s intense scrutiny. “I’m not your mother. I didn’t even know you existed until a year ago. Then I didn’t know where to start looking until I heard about the Logan family and their foster son called Blake.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“It’s the truth. Your mother was my older sister, Delia Rickard.”
Sadness for Blake gripped Jo. “Was?”
“Delia died in hospital last year. I’m sorry, Blake.”
Jo saw his hands clench into fists. So close, she thought. “What happened?” he asked tonelessly.
Karen rose. “I’ll get us some coffee. This could take a while.”
Jo motioned the editor to stay where she was. “I’ll get it.”
A coffeemaker was already bubbling on a side table across the office. Jo came back with two cups, sugar sachets and a container of milk, putting them in front of Karen and Blake, and then getting a cup for herself. When he automatically murmured his thanks, she caught a glimpse of his eyes, so filled with pain that her heart turned over.
“How did she die?” he asked, sounding as if the question had been forced from him.
Karen added milk to her coffee and stirred it. “There’s no easy way to say this. In her teens, she fell in with a bad crowd who encouraged her to experiment with dangerous drugs that resulted in her becoming mentally unstable. The family got treatment for her, but the harm was done. She probably died from an overdose of her medication, probably forgetting when or how much she’d taken. She’d been in and out of hospital from her early twenties. Sometimes she lived with our parents and managed her illness with medication. At other times she lived on the streets for months, completely out of touch with reality. You were most likely born during one of those episodes.”
“She must have received medical care, at least during the birth.”
Karen gave him a searing look. “Do you think I didn’t check with the hospitals? They had no record of her giving birth under her real name, but she used many different ones depending on her moods. It was a miracle that she’d given the hospital where she died her real name, or we may never have known what happened to her.”
“She was lucid enough to realize she couldn’t take care of a baby,” Jo contributed.
Karen nodded. “She could barely take care of herself. Our parents often found her wandering and brought her home. She’d be okay for a time, then disappear again.”
Blake’s stony expression gave no clue as to how he was taking the revelations. “How did you find out she’d had a baby?”
A faint smile lit Karen’s face. “Delia had a habit of writing notes to herself on scraps of paper because she didn’t trust her memory. Quite a few had her name written on them. She carried hundreds of the scraps with her everywhere she went. Among the papers the hospital gave us after she died was a thirty-year-old birth notice torn out of a newspaper and carefully kept in an old wallet. The original name had been crossed out and Blake Rickard written above it, with her name replacing the mother’s. In the margin, she’d written Baracchi and a street name. My family lived down the street from them for several years. But nothing else made any sense until I read about
Des Logan fostering an abandoned child named Blake.”
“The name Baracchi was never connected with me in the media,” Blake pointed out.
“Was that the slip of the tongue that brought you here? I suppose I had the name in my mind and it came out. Or perhaps I wanted it to come out. The reports did mention your name and the street where you were found. It seemed like too much of a coincidence for you not to be Delia’s child.”
“Why didn’t you tell me what you suspected, instead of fabricating a story assignment?” Jo asked.
Karen fiddled with a sugar sachet. “I didn’t want it to be true.”
Blake looked as if he’d been slapped. “I can see how a bastard nephew could ruin your yuppie image.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Ron and I were unable to have a child. It killed me to think Delia had left you with strangers when I would have given anything to have had the chance to raise you.”
Blake’s tone had softened fractionally as he asked, “Why do you think she kept my birth a secret?”
“Ashamed, perhaps. Our parents were fairly straitlaced. Or, more probably, delusional. At the time, she simply might not have known what was happening to her, or where the baby came from. We’ll never know. It might not mean much to you now, but I am truly sorry, Blake.”
“It was hardly your fault,” he said, earning a slightly surprised look of gratitude from Karen. “From the sound of things your family did all they could for—my mother.”
The slight hesitation wasn’t lost on Jo. She wished she could reach out and touch him. Unsure of her welcome, she held back. So much pain, so much loss. And nothing to be done except endure it. Blake’s mother hadn’t been a horrible person. She’d been a poor, tortured creature who, in all likelihood, hadn’t known what she was doing. In what glimmer of reality had remained to her, she’d tried to do what was best for her son in her own, confused way. Jo hoped the knowledge was some comfort to Blake.
“I can show you photos of Delia and your grandparents,” Karen offered. “My parents would have given a lot to meet you. Right to the end, they grieved for Delia, blaming themselves for what they could or should have done, when there was nothing. We even tried tracing your natural father, but didn’t have anything to go on.”
“Give me some time,” he said.
“As much as you want. I realize this is a shock. For me, too, when I learned that my sister could have had a child. For the year since I found out about your birth, I’ve lain awake at night thinking about you, and looked at men around the right age in the street and wondered if we were related.”
“What were you going to do once you were sure Blake was your lost nephew?” Jo asked. She saw him rest his hands on his thighs, his lean body angled forward, waiting.
Karen stared into her coffee cup and then lifted her head. “Would you believe, I had no idea? I knew he’d—you’d—be a grown man by now, independent. I didn’t know if you’d want to have anything to do with your mother’s family.”
He stood up, all restless energy. “I’ve lived with my history as I’ve known it for a long time. The Logans are the only real family I’ve had in my life. I can’t suddenly fit myself into another family as if I belong there.”
“Nor do I expect you to, not right away. The next move is up to you.”
In every way, Jo thought. There was one more doubt to be cleared up. “Karen, Blake thinks I knew why you gave me this assignment.”
His head snapped around and he really looked at her although his expression gave Jo no clue to his thoughts. “I know you didn’t,” he said quietly.
But Jo wanted no doubts left in his mind. “Karen?”
“I don’t know why it matters to you, Blake, but for the record, all Jo knew was that I wanted a series of survival-type articles written about her experience of roughing it in the Kimberley. I hoped you would agree to an interview, for my sake as much as for the magazine’s, but I didn’t tell anyone why it was important to me.”
“I shouldn’t have doubted you, Jo,” Blake said, his tone rough. “This is one hell of a shock.”
“To all of us,” Karen put in. “Finding your sister had a child you never knew existed is a lot to take in. If it helps, she would have been proud of you.”
“I have to take your word for that.”
“There’s a lot I can tell you about growing up with Delia, before she became ill. Will you let me share some of my memories with you?”
“In time.” When he’d had a chance to absorb the full import of what he’d learned, Jo heard. When she’d recovered her repressed memories in the cave, he’d advised her to give herself time and to seek help if she needed it. She hoped he would take his own advice.
While they talked, she’d been aware of the magazine staff arriving to start their day and the floor outside Karen’s office was gradually assuming its usual hum of frenetic activity. Jo felt strangely detached. Had her reality changed so much in a couple of weeks? Not only her reality had changed. She also had changed.
She would turn her back on this world, once offering everything she’d thought she needed, and return to the Kimberley with Blake without hesitation if he wanted her.
Karen’s door flew open and a harried, middle-aged man stepped inside the office. “Our production manager,” Karen said for Blake’s benefit.
The man nodded to Jo and Blake. “Sorry to butt in, but if this story is to make next week’s issue, you need to sign off on these ASAP.” The man gave Jo a nod of recognition.
Karen’s shoulders lifted in an apologetic shrug and she reached for the glossy proofs the production manager held out. Blake’s photo jumped out at Jo. She stared at it in disbelief. “What’s going on, Karen?”
Blake looked over Jo’s shoulder. She could feel his anger radiating toward her as he read. “What the devil is this?”
The headline read Exclusive! Crocodile Man’s Family Secret Revealed.
Karen gave a wan smile. “I was going to show it to you.”
“When? The day after the magazine hit the newsstands?”
“Of course not. Al, leave this with me. I’ll get back to you shortly.”
Caught in the crossfire, the production man seemed more than happy to retreat. Jo didn’t blame him. Blake’s murderous glare raked her and he stabbed his finger at the page. “Tell me you didn’t know about this.”
“I can’t deny some of the photos are mine.” One was of him working on the shelter. “I never meant them to be used in this way.”
“Jo knew nothing about this,” Karen said. “It was my idea. Possibly not one of my better ones.”
“Use any of this without my permission and I’ll sue the magazine and everyone responsible for every cent you’ve got.”
He didn’t have to single out Jo. He might accept that she hadn’t been part of Karen’s original agenda, but expecting him to believe she wasn’t behind the sensational headline was too much. “You can’t use my photos, either,” she said shakily.
“I’m afraid we can. Your contract gives the magazine the right to use anything you produce in the course of an assignment,” Karen assured her.
Denial screamed through Jo with one stroke, Karen was destroying Jo’s chance of having a future with Blake. “If you do this, I’ll never write a word for the magazine again,” she vowed.
Blake’s palms came together in silent applause. “Quite a double act you two have going. The hard-boiled editor and the writer innocently duped into supplying her with headlines. Well, this time you chose the wrong target.”
He took the proof and tore it in half, returning the pieces to Jo, the symbolism clear. “Blake, I didn’t know,” she repeated. If he chose not to believe her, there was nothing more she could say.
Looking unconvinced, he said, “Whether you did or not, both of you owe it to Delia Rickard’s memory not to be a party to this sensationalized garbage.”
Karen spread her hands wide in a defensive pose. “I won’t run the story. Just don’t disappear fro
m my life, Blake.”
Or from mine, Jo prayed. But the door had swung shut behind him.
Chapter 15
Karen sank back, her expression as much puzzled as hurt. “I wouldn’t have used the story without checking with him first. If he’d given me the chance, I would have made it worth his while. I understand his foster father is ill and in need of funds.”
Jo placed the torn pages on her boss’s desk. “Some things aren’t negotiable.”
“Like integrity, I know,” Karen said, sounding distant. “For all her problems, Delia had her own kind of integrity. She kept her little notes because she didn’t want to hurt anyone. They were her way of keeping track of her life and the people in it. The doctored birth notice showed she was proud of Blake and wanted to make sure she didn’t forget him, although she did anyway.”
“She couldn’t help herself.”
The editor went on as if she hadn’t heard. “He’s right, you know. I was jealous of Delia—of her freedom to come and go as she pleased, leaving me to take care of our parents, although all their concern was for her. I was never more jealous than when I learned she’d had the baby I wanted so desperately.”
“So Blake was also right about why you sent me to the Kimberley? You wanted me to spy on him for you.”
Karen seemed to bring herself back from a long way away. “Not entirely. I wanted to know how he’d turned out, of course, but the survival story was attractive, too. I thought it would be exciting and different. You were just the writer to take the ball and run with it. The avalanche of response to your first article shows I was right.”
“About everything except Blake. He might be your sister’s child, but you have a lot to learn about him. He’s a man of courage and compassion, but because of his experiences, he’s also a very private person. Sensational headlines are the last thing he would want. I may not have much control over the situation, but if you run any of this, I mean what I said. I’ll never write a word for you again.”
“Are you in love with him?” When Jo didn’t answer, the editor pressed on. “You are, aren’t you?”
