Suddenly there was a soft knock on the door. She glanced at the clock. Seven already. She padded barefoot to the door and opened it.
“Joe.”
Joe stood there, his denim jacket open to show a white, open-necked shirt underneath, worn with the faded jeans and boots. She couldn’t deny her instant reaction—first surprise, then pleasure, then apprehension. The man seemed to fill the world around her, blurring out every other thing, and her first impulse was to slam the door shut and hide.
ALL DAY JOE had been walking around town, half expecting to see Alegra coming toward him. He’d prepared himself for that moment, when he met those amber eyes. He’d been bracing himself for it, but when he hadn’t seen her anywhere, he’d felt let down. You don’t know me, she’d said last night. And he didn’t. But he wanted to know her.
That was when he’d had the idea to come to her cottage, walk up to the door and knock on it. Now he’d done that and she was right in front of him, and he was staring at her like some artless teenager. The lights from the room behind her made a halo of her loose hair. She wore a sweatshirt and jeans, and looked for all the world like a kid. Her amber eyes were regarding him intently.
“Why are you here?” she asked with a frown.
Just the sight of her was bringing a response he definitely didn’t want at the moment. “I wanted to talk to you.”
That brought a deeper frown. “I thought I told you I didn’t want to talk.”
“Nothing personal,” he said quickly, but didn’t mean it.
Her expression darkened even more, and it jarred him. There was something so familiar about the look. It came out of the past, way back when he was a kid, but he couldn’t pin it down. Just then the heavens opened and the rain came in torrents.
Alegra stared at him, then finally said with more than a bit of grudging, “I guess you better come in.” There wasn’t any welcome in her invitation.
She moved back and he stepped over the threshold, closing the door behind him. Then he turned to face her, and met her eyes.
That was it! It was her eyes. The frown there. The unveiled expression in them that let him know she didn’t want him here, but wasn’t about to tell him to leave. The jolt of recognition seemed to come out of nowhere. A child looking so young and so unwelcoming superimposed over the image of the woman in front of him. The lighthouse. The huge rock. The girl sitting on that rock.
Everything fell into place, making a crazy sense for him. His mind raced as piece after piece fit into place. The girl he and his friends had stumbled on more than once sitting alone there, her legs bent, her head pressed to her knees. Just the way the woman Alegra sat there.
Farfetched as it seemed, he was beginning to think that Alegra Reynolds was that girl. The girl with amber eyes who had glared at anyone who intruded on her solitude. There had been whispers about that girl, about her mother disappearing and her father being a crazy drunk.
But Alegra had said she’d never been here before, that the island was a strange place for her. Then again, she’d found the parking clearing by the lighthouse. She’d been upset off and on, and he’d sensed she found no pleasure here.
One thing he knew for sure. He wasn’t going to leave here until he knew the truth.
ALEGRA WAS UNNERVED by the way Joe was studying her, not saying a thing.
“I need to…” he finally started, pausing as if to find the right words, and all that did was make Alegra more tense.
Letting him in the cottage had been a mistake. Now he wanted to talk to her about something, and she prayed it would be something impersonal and brief.
Instead of giving her an answer, he tugged the front of his jacket open, as if getting the wetness of the back off him, and she did the polite thing. “Let me take that,” she said.
Quickly, she put it on a peg by the door, then turned and found Joe looking around the room. His blue eyes skimmed over the expensive antiques, the plush rugs and the highly polished wooden floor. She could see him take in the desk, her papers, computer and the cell phone lying there. Then he turned back to her. Without thinking, she crossed her arms on her breasts and moved to let her hips rest back against the cool wood of the door.
“If I can wait here a bit, I’m sure the rain’ll let up,” he said.
His presence was diminishing her ability to breathe. “Do you need a ride?” she asked.
He crossed to the painting propped against the wall. He crouched in front of it and eased the brown paper back to expose it completely. She thought he’d say something like “It’s a great painting” or “You really overpaid,” but he didn’t. He asked, “Why did you buy this particular painting?”
He cast her a look over his shoulder, and she found herself blinking at the intensity of his gaze. “Why not? It’s very good, and I collect things I like.”
“It is good,” he murmured as he stood again. But he didn’t turn to her. Instead, he crossed to the windows, looking out at the rain-drenched evening. “We’re used to wet weather around here, but this is more rain than we’ve ever had for the festival.”
He was making small talk, and she moved closer to him. She could see his reflection in the glass, blurred and almost surreal, partly from the streaking rain and partly from the lack of light. “That’s why they should have it another time during the year,” she said.
Before she could ask him again why he was here, he was the one asking a question. “So, you’ve never been here before?”
Something in the way he asked this made her tense. “Did I say that?”
He turned and she faced the reality of the man. It had been much easier to watch his reflection than to meet those deep blue eyes now. “I thought you did,” he murmured.
Had she slipped up? She thought she’d just not said anything about it. But she said, “No, I never said that.”
“So, you have been here before?”
She turned from him, caught a glimpse of her glass and the bottle of cognac on the table where she’d left them. She didn’t hesitate crossing to them, sinking onto the couch and pouring more in her glass, ignoring the unsteadiness in her hands. “Help yourself,” she said without looking at Joe. “There’re glasses in the armoire.”
He quietly crossed to the cabinet, then she heard the clink of glass on glass. He came back into her line of vision, sat in the chair across from her and reached for the bottle of cognac. He poured himself a little, then watched her so intently she couldn’t keep meeting his eyes. So she moved back into the cushions, sat cross-legged and stared into her snifter.
He sipped some cognac, then said, “I’m here for the interview. I don’t want to give up on it.”
Rain beat on the glass, but Alegra didn’t look away from Joe. “Why not? It’s not going to get you a Pulitzer.”
“I’m not looking for a Pulitzer,” he countered.
“Well, I’m definitely not interesting enough to support any sort of story.”
He shook his head. “You don’t think so?”
She touched her upper lip with her tongue. “I don’t think so.”
“But you’re here, and you came a long way to be here. How long are you staying?”
“Until after the ball.”
She was getting more and more uncomfortable with this line of talk. He went on, “I could understand it if you’d been here before and wanted to come back, but to spend what it costs for the ball and do it on a whim?”
She finished what was in her glass, then put it on the table. When she looked at Joe again, she was hit hard by his expression. Waiting and expectant. She knew without question that he’d figured out who she really was.
She looked down at her hands clasped in her lap, seeing how white her knuckles were and feeling the bite of her nails in her palms. She didn’t look at him when she spoke. “If I tell you anything personal, it can’t go any further until I give my approval.” She lifted her gaze to meet his and this time she didn’t blink. “Agreed?”
He studied her, then fin
ally said, “Agreed.”
“Okay,” she said, releasing a deep sigh. Her hands pressed to her knees and she tried to think how to start. Then she knew. She’d begin at the beginning. “I was born here.” He didn’t show any sign of surprise. She’d been right. He knew.
“There was never anyone named Alegra Reynolds living around here when I was growing up,” he said. “The only Reynolds was Natty Reynolds, the original owner of the feed store, which is where Angelo now has his gallery.” Joe took a sip of cognac, but his eyes never left hers over the rim of his snifter. “Natty died a bachelor and had no family.”
He was leading to the inevitable truth, and something in her recognized the fact that he probably knew where it was going even before she started to talk. She shifted on the seat, clasping her now empty snifter between both hands, and pulling her elbows against her sides self-protectively. This was it. “I’m no relation to Natty Reynolds.” He nodded slightly. “I took my grandmother’s last name, but Alegra is my real first name.” He stayed quiet, and she felt tension in her becoming almost unbearable.
She nodded. “Alegra Peterson. No one called me Alegra back then.” She bit her lip, then said, “They called me Al, or little Al, or pitiful Al, or sad little Al.”
The pain in her voice was just there and she couldn’t do a thing about it. She didn’t try to. At least she wasn’t crying. “Al Peterson,” he repeated. Then he took her totally by surprise by saying, “You used to sit on the rock under the lighthouse.”
It was a statement, not a question, and it stunned her. “How did you know that? How did you recognize me? I don’t look anything like I did as a kid.”
He took another sip from his drink before answering her. “It’s the eyes.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your eyes, the look in them. I remembered that same look in your eyes back then.”
This was crazy. “What look?”
He tossed off the last of his drink, but didn’t make a move to refill it. “That look,” he said, and motioned with his empty glass toward her. “The ‘go away and leave me alone’ look.”
“I liked being alone at the rock,” she said defensively.
“That’s why you bought that painting?”
“I don’t know.” She really didn’t, not anymore. There was no revenge buying the painting of Sean Payne. He’d never know she had his painting or care, for that matter. He’d have his money. And buying it just to remember the lighthouse didn’t sit right with her, either. The moment she left the island, she’d probably put it away and forget about it.
“Why did you come back?” he asked bluntly.
“I came to tie up a loose end—a couple, actually, and after I do, I’m leaving and I won’t be back. I’ll stay out there in the real world.”
“I thought this place was pretty damn real.”
“It’s not my reality. I don’t want any part of it.” She knew the harshness of her words jarred him, but she didn’t try to soften them. “It’s all yours.”
He narrowed his gaze on her, but nothing lessened the intensity of his look. “You hate it here. Why?”
She hadn’t planned on telling him anything else, but that single word cut into her, and she started talking, words tumbling out on words, telling him in a rush about her childhood, just bits and pieces, but she knew he was putting it all together. She tried to skim over how alone and miserable she’d been. And he’d seen her on the rock, without having a clue why she was there or what was going on with her. Her mother had walked out on her and her father and she had never heard from her or of her again.
She got to her father and his drinking, and the day she knew she was leaving. She got to the moment she stepped on the ferry, getting away from the father whose drunken rages were only increasing, and the islanders who taunted her or humiliated her with their charity and their pity.
She stopped, spent, and the only sound was that of the rain outside. Joe shifted, sitting forward and putting his glass on the table. “So you ran away?”
She nodded.
“Where did you go?”
She could tell him this much more easily than the other things. She told him about going to her grandmother’s, getting the scholarship for college, then her big break with a very respected designer who, after seeing her designs, had agreed to mentor her.
JOE HAD NO IDEA what he’d helped to unleash until he listened to Alegra’s torrent of words, which matched in intensity the storm outside. He ached at the pain he heard in them, and found himself in unknown territory with a woman—wanting to protect her from all the evil and pain in the world. Just as he did with Alex.
Gradually, her words slowed, and her tone got lower and less animated. By the time she waved a hand vaguely and said, “The rest, as they say, is history,” her voice was barely above a whisper.
She stared down in her empty snifter and Joe watched her. Internally he couldn’t begin to fathom what she’d felt back then. He sought words that wouldn’t bring back the pain she’d just exposed to him to ask the main question of her. “Why did you come back at all?” he finally asked.
She sat forward, put her glass on the coffee table, then settled back into the cushions with a heavy sigh. She looked as if all emotion had been drained out of her. She didn’t meet his gaze. “To wipe out the past.”
He wanted to do that very thing for her, wipe out the things that little girl had endured, but he didn’t know how anyone could do it for her. “How?” he asked.
She clasped her hands tightly in her lap. “I thought and thought about that over the years. Then three months ago a business associate started telling me about this place. He had no idea I’d ever been here. He talked about the festival and how he was quite certain the proceeds from it kept the island afloat, so to speak. And I got to thinking that maybe now, instead of me being the needy one, I could make this place need me.”
He heard her words, but for the life of him, he didn’t understand where she was going with this. “You mean, make them beg?”
That brought a smile, but there was no humor in the expression. It was almost a grimace. “Not that the concept doesn’t hold a certain amount of appeal for me,” she said, “but that isn’t going to happen.”
He stayed in his seat, never taking his eyes off her. “Then what is going to happen?”
She met his gaze then and spoke in an even tone. The passion of moments ago when she’d described her life here was gone. “I have money, lots of it, and I decided to make a donation to the island. A large one. I decided to come here and go to the ball, where I would be thanked publicly. You see, they asked on their paper-work when I sent in the donation if I would be willing to be thanked this way. I agreed, because it fit right in with what I’ve wanted to do for a long time.” The smile was back, and this time he didn’t like it at all. “What do you think those people will do when Alegra Reynolds steps up to be thanked for the staggering amount of money she’s donated, and they find out that Alegra Reynolds is really Al Peterson? Because I’ll tell them.”
Now he understood and it brought a bitter taste to his tongue. “So that’s it? All you came back for was to humiliate the townspeople and get your revenge?”
Chapter Ten
Alegra disliked Joe’s take on her reasons for being here, but the next moment, she embraced it. It made it clearer for her. “You know, I think that’s it. Humiliation and revenge. Sweet and neat.” She sat forward and her voice was louder now. “And they’ll take my money and they’ll do what I tell them to do with it. Then I’m leaving, and this place can go to—” She cut off the curse before it came out. “This place won’t exist for me any longer, and I’ll be free.”
He was looking at her with an expression she hated. Pity. “And you think that doing that validates everything you are and who you’ve become?”
She felt heat rise in her cheeks, and she got to her feet. “No, it won’t. I’m valid, here or back in New York or San Francisco. I don’t need that from any of the islan
ders.”
“Then why this grandstanding? Why do you need it?”
She closed her eyes and shook her head. “You’ve got it all wrong.”
“How do I have it wrong?” he asked.
Alegra felt exhausted. Once she’d started talking, she couldn’t stop, and now that she had told Joe the truth, she wished she hadn’t. For the pity and condemnation in his eyes made her stomach churn.
What had she expected after she’d bared her soul to him? A “Good for you. Throw it at them, then get back to your real life”? That hadn’t come, and now all she felt was tired and defensive and off balance.
The rain beat on the cottage and she heard a low rumble in the distance. “It doesn’t matter,” she answered at last and knew she wanted him gone. Being alone was far better than being with a man who pitied her. She rose to her feet.
But he didn’t move. “Why did you come back days before the ball if you wanted to just strike, then make your escape?”
He made it sound like war. “I had things to take care of, and I thought I’d need the extra time.”
“Things?”
He wasn’t letting it go. “Okay, my father’s house. I wanted to take care of getting rid of the place. Either sell it or burn it to the ground, I don’t give a damn. I just want it gone. There. Are you satisfied?” She’d heard the quaver in her voice and tried, in vain, to get control of herself. But soon she was shaking, and Joe must have noticed, because he stood and moved close to her.
He tipped his head to one side, his lashes lowering to hide some of his expression as he said softly, “Maybe you came back for something else.”
“What?” she asked through clenched teeth.
“If you don’t know, I surely don’t,” he said, then unexpectedly touched her cheek with his knuckles. His heat startled her as much as the contact and she realized how very cold she was right then. She moved her head, breaking the contact.
“I just told you why I came back,” she muttered. “I can’t help it if you don’t approve.”
“It’s not up to me to approve or disapprove,” he said.
Alegra's Homecoming Page 10
