Leigh

by Lyn Cote

  “Leigh, it’s Frank.”

  “Frank.” Her heart thumped and then slowed again. How long had it been since she’d heard his voice on the phone? That November day in 1963 flashed in her mind—the day he’d said that she attracted him like no other. “Hi,” she said, gripping the receiver.

  “I waited to call you until everyone here was asleep, and I hoped you’d be alone…”

  “Everyone here is asleep, too,” she whispered.

  “Leigh, I can’t tell you how I wish this hadn’t happened. We’re all praying for Carly along with our church here. I wish I could be there with you. But I can’t leave…”

  “I know.” He was stationed in Georgia and had three children.

  “Cherise says there’s a NYPD detective helping out. She thinks he’s… he might be interested in you.”

  Leigh didn’t know where this conversation was going. What did Frank want her to say?

  “I hope he is,” Frank murmured in that velvet voice of his that she’d never forgotten. “You’ve been alone too long, Leigh. I want you to find someone good who will love you like you ought to be loved.”

  Because you couldn’t let yourself love me} “I’m not thinking about that now,” she said, speaking close to the receiver. “I can’t think of anything except my little girl.”

  “I know. I just wanted to speak to you, to tell you…”

  Tell me what, Frank ?

  “You’ve always been a special friend to me… and Cherise. If you need me, I’ll find someone to take over the kids—”

  “No, Frank, Nate’s here, and he has the connections I need. And my Uncle Thompson is here, too.”

  “All right. But if you decide I can do anything, just call. I’ll come.”

  “I will, Frank.” His concern did shore her up. “Thanks for calling.”

  They both said their soft good-byes and hung up. Leigh kept her hand on the receiver. Did anyone ever forget a first love?

  But would there be a last love in her life? Unable to help herself, the tears started again.

  In one swift motion, Nate got up from the recliner and came to her. Wordlessly, he urged her back down on the sofa and then lay down by her side, facing her. With a gentle look, he put his arm around her and squeezed before laying his head down and closing his eyes.

  She nearly sighed aloud with the relief of feeling his body alongside hers. She didn’t take time to ponder it, but Nate had become intensely, intimately important to her over the tense hours since Carly had disappeared.

  “Nobody important?” he mumbled, already falling back asleep.

  “Not now.” She let herself relax against him. She didn’t have to stay alert. Nate was here.

  November 24, 1983

  The crucial phone call came late the next night. Carly had been missing two days, officially for a day. Leigh stood holding the phone to her ear, stunned. “My little girl’s where?”

  “She wandered in a few minutes ago and told us her name and phone number. Will you come and pick her up?”

  “Yes.” Feeling like a mechanical doll, she turned to Nate and her mother, who’d planned to spend the night with her waiting for any word of Carly. Chloe and Thompson had gone to Kitty’s. “Carly just walked into St. Vincent’s emergency room,” Leigh announced, hardly believing her own ears, “and they want me to come and get her.”

  Nate surged to his feet and lifted the receiver out of her nerveless hand. “This is Detective Gallagher, NYPD. Haven’t you watched the news tonight? Carly Sinclair is a missing person, believed to have been abducted. Make sure you keep her under close supervision. Call security to guard her, and don’t let anyone speak to her. I’ll bring her mother and grandmother right now.” Nate shepherded the two of them out to his car and they sped down the lamp-lit streets.

  “I can’t believe it. It doesn’t make sense,” Leigh, slumped beside Nate in the front seat, repeated. The suddenness of Carly’s return made her feel still trapped in a dream. What would they find out at the hospital about her baby? “Why would someone take her and then drop her at an emergency room?”

  From the backseat, Bette squeezed Leigh’s shoulder and held it, but said nothing.

  Nate also remained quiet, driving swift and sure through the light night traffic. Outside the emergency room, he screeched to a halt. The three of them—Nate holding Leigh’s hand—ran into the reception area. Behind the desk, Carly sat too still and too quiet.

  “Carly!” Leigh dodged around the counter and pulled her child to her. It wasn’t a dream. Tears poured down her face in sheets. Thank God. Thank God. Thank God.

  Showing his badge and ID to the triage nurse, Nate ordered, “This is a police matter. We need to have her examined immediately, so we can get her home.”

  Leigh squeezed her eyes shut and wished she hadn’t heard Nate’s order, vibrating with the horror of what the doctor might find. Don’t let anything bad have happened to her. Please. Please.

  The next minutes went by in excruciating slow motion for Leigh, who kept her hand pressed over her quivering lips and paced and paced. After Carly had been examined by a doctor with Nate at his side, Leigh was allowed back in and watched the doctor give her child a sedative. “She needs sleep more than anything,” he murmured. “And I suggest she see a child psychologist as soon as possible. Though I have not found any evidence of abuse, being abducted can have serious emotional consequences.”

  Leigh wanted to shout at him, “Do you think I’m an idiot! I know that!” But she only nodded.

  Her mother had stood at her side through it all, giving Leigh silent support. Now Bette began to weep quietly.

  “Don’t cry, Grandma Bette,” Carly said with genuine concern. “I’m home now. They got me away from the bad men.”

  Who were “they” and who were “the bad men?” Nate and Leigh exchanged looks laden with meaning. She knew without a word that he was going to see this through with her. She didn’t want to depend on him, but this was beyond anything she could handle alone.

  As they left the hospital, a few reporters and a TV van with a cameraman had gathered. Someone must have called the media about Carly’s reappearance. The night lit up with flashing cameras and TV lights on poles. Protecting her and Carly, Nate shouldered his way through the reporters, telling them to contact the NYPD for all the information.

  Nate had come through for her during the long hours of Carly’s abduction. He would guide her through the maze of recovery, as well as the continuing investigation into why Carly had been taken and then returned. The feeling of his arm around her shoulders, strong and protective, was balm and hope to her ragged spirits.

  Leigh had absolutely no right to expect this of him, but she knew she wouldn’t even need to ask. Nate would not desert her. Love for him sprouted, a tiny but brave new shoot in her heart.

  Nate drove them home. While she and her mother put Carly to bed, he called Kitty’s apartment to give them the good news and to ask them not to come over tonight. Carly needed quiet. At the hospital, he’d contacted the authorities.

  Both Leigh and her mother—one on each side—lay on the bed with the little girl, caressing Carly, kissing her, letting her touch their faces with her small, soft hands.

  Leigh had never felt closer to her daughter or her mother as she did at this moment. She reached over and briefly clasped her mother’s hand and then went back to stroking Carly’s long, dark hair. Finally, her sweet baby fell asleep, clutching the faded rag doll Aunt Kitty had made for her many years before.

  Bette touched Leigh’s shoulder. “If you don’t mind, dear, I’ d like to sleep with her tonight.”

  Leigh had wanted to sleep beside Carly. But something in her mother’s eyes stopped her from voicing this. “Won’t you be uncomfortable?”

  “No, I’ll be fine.” Bette gave Leigh a nudge. “You go and thank that good man again. I want to be here in case my precious granddaughter wakes up.” Her mother appealed to her with a look of remorse and hope.

  W
as her mother trying to finally close the distance be tween them? Leigh nodded, kissed both her daughter’s and her mother’s cheeks and then left, closing the door behind her.

  Just outside Carly’s door, all her self-control dissolved in an instant, and she started shaking. I could have lost her. I almost lost my child.

  Leigh was only alone for moments. Nate drew her into the dark living room. He urged her down onto her sofa. Murmuring, he sat down and laid her head against his shoulder. And slowly the trembling ebbed.

  Just two weeks ago, Leigh had only known Nate Gallagher, NYPD detective, professionally. He’d made it clear she interested him, but she’d kept him at arm’s length as she did every other man. Then she’d needed him and he’d come through for her. Now he stroked her long hair with strong, steady hands, giving her wordless comfort.

  “It’s all my fault,” the words flowed out of Leigh’s mouth. Through the crisis, she’d fought voicing this admission—knowing it wouldn’t help, knowing that guilt was natural and unavoidable—yet all the while fearful that someone else, everyone else,would point accusing fingers at her.

  Nate said nothing in reply, just continued stroking her hair. In her weakness, she was very aware of the latent strength in his large, rough hands.

  “I’ve always carried so much guilt about Carly,” she whispered. “Not just now. But always.” And I always will.

  Little Carly’s face glowed in Leigh’s mind. “My Grandma Chloe always says my little girl gets her looks from my grandfather, who died in World War I. But that’s because Grandma never saw Carly’s father. My daughter’s the spitting image of her own father. Carly has never seen her father, either, and she wants to know about her ‘daddy.’ She keeps asking me, and I never know what to tell her. How can I say I made a horrible mistake and not make her feel that she’s one, too?”

  Leigh couldn’t go on. This riddle never stopped gnawing at her peace, and somehow it had created an invisible barrier between Leigh and Carly. Her daughter’s sober little face, her silent little mouth, those somber eyes that hid every thought haunted Leigh.

  “Everything will be okay,” Nate said at last. “You love her very much, and she knows that. You’ll find the strength to tell her the truth.”

  She gazed up at him, his face in shadow, but the moonlight illuminated the warmth of his auburn hair. She couldn’t form words, her mouth paralyzed. Will I find the courage to tell her what she wants, needs to know?

  I’ve stood apart from my daughter since she was horn. Secrets separate us. Secrets I can’t divulge. Will I never break through to her, connect with her heart-to-heart?

  She reached up and captured his face between her hands. “Kiss me,” she implored.

  Enfolding her, Nate lifted her head and shoulders and pressed his mouth to hers. She drowned in his tender care, his persuasive lips, his solid arms. Her tears had left her drained. And he was so very strong. But a tiny voice in the back of her mind cautioned, “This is all very nice, but be careful. You’ve always been unlucky at love.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Three days later, Minnie brought Cherise and little Tad over to say good-bye. Cherise and Tad were flying home to Atlanta in a few hours. Tad, Chloe, Bette, Kitty, and Minnie were all playing with Carly, who wouldn’t be going back to school until next week. Christmas had come early for her daughter, and she sat in the middle of an embarrassing array of new toys—even a Cabbage Patch doll. Leigh couldn’t take her eyes off Carly.

  In the aftermath of her abduction, Carly had not been able to give much information about her kidnapping. A blindfold had been taped over her eyes, and she’d been afraid of the bad men who’d forced her into their car. Understandably, her daughter didn’t like it when Leigh left her sight.

  The psychologist had told Leigh not to push Carly to speak about what had happened, but on the other hand, not to overreact with extra mothering or show of fear. The question of why Carly had been taken had so far been left begging. Carly hadn’t been sexually assaulted, physically abused, or otherwise threatened with harm. She’d just been taken and returned. Was this the end of it?

  Apparently not, since their apartment was still under police surveillance.

  Cherise drew Leigh out into the hall and in a voice that communicated, “We need to talk,” said, “Let’s have a cup of tea before I go.”

  Wondering what her friend would have to say that the others shouldn’t hear, Leigh followed Cherise into her small kitchen, filled the kettle, and set it on the burner.

  “Frank said he called you.”

  Suspicious of Cherise’s motive, Leigh nodded and stood across from her friend, who sat down at the small kitchen table. In the past, other married women had distrusted her around their husbands. “Yes,” Leigh replied in a very neutral tone, “I appreciated his concern.” Please, Cherise, I have had a rough, very rough week. I can’t take any—

  “I know that you were in love with Frank.”

  Leigh stood stock still. Normally she wouldn’t reply to this. She would have ignored it, like Carly’s questions about her daddy. But too much had happened over the past week and, too, if this week hadn’t happened, Cherise probably wouldn’t have said this. Leigh lifted her chin. “I always wondered if you knew.”

  Cherise nodded. “I gave it a lot of thought back when we were teens together. From what you told me about Frank’s parents and from what I guessed that you didn’t tell me, I decided that he wouldn’t make any promises to you. He wouldn’t become involved with a white girl.”

  It’s just what Leigh had thought, but that didn’t absolve Cherise. You were my friend. “So he was fair game?” Leigh couldn’t hold back the mocking tone.

  “Yes.” Cherise’s eyes never left Leigh’s. “As we three girls wrote him those letters, I began to see that he was the kind of man I was looking for, and when we met, I fell for him.”

  “This is all ancient history.” Leigh threw a piece of crumpled paper from the countertop to the waste basket. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I’ve always wanted to tell you, to try to explain that I felt bad for you, but that I wasn’t what was keeping you and Frank apart.”

  “I knew that. But it still hurt.” Leigh looked back at the kettle, which was bubbling.

  “I know. I just wish… Dane hadn’t died.”

  “You’re not alone there.” Did Cherise have any idea of how tired Leigh was?

  “Sometimes I feel funny calling you like I do—knowing that you had, maybe still have, feelings for Frank. But the truth is that I’ve found you to be one of the most honest, most vital friends I’ve ever had.” Cherise’s voice begged for understanding. “I know it probably stings you to hear from me, but I can’t break with you. Not you. You were the one who introduced me to the man who’s given me everything I’ve ever wanted.”

  The kettle began to whistle in earnest, giving Leigh a chance to think of what she wanted to say. She turned and lifted it from the burner… but nothing came to mind. So she said, “I wouldn’t want to lose you, either, Cherise.”

  The words were automatic, had come out of their own will. Still, they connected with deep truth inside her. She loved them both, and she always would. Cherise and Frank had made a good family together. It was right. And she wouldn’t begrudge them anymore. “And I’m happy for you and Frank, truly I am.”

  “I believe you—”

  Tad ran to his mother, resting his outstretched arms on her lap. “What was that whistle?”

  Cherise stroked the little guy’s face, a face that said, “This is Frank’s son.” “Aunt Leigh is making me tea. Do you want some?”

  “If it gots honey in it.”

  Leigh went about making the tea and getting down the honey. Then she turned with the tray and said in a sassy tone, “Cherise, I know you’ve used up your vacation time with this trip. But girlfriend, you and Mary Beth and I have got to have a girls’ weekend soon!”

  Cherise smiled. “Soonest.”

  It w
as Monday, a bright, shiny-as-a-new-penny, crisp November day. Thanksgiving was just around the corner. A grisly murder in Boston had overshadowed the news of a local girl’s kidnapping, so Carly was back in school without TV cameras following her and Leigh was going back to work. Wearing her royal-blue parka unbuttoned, she walked briskly toward her office building in Manhattan, feeling a wonderful joy at the normalcy of the day.

  A black limousine with tinted windows glided to a stop at the curb right beside her. The rear passenger window slid down.

  “Miss Sinclair!”

  Leigh froze.

  “Miss Sinclair, may I speak with you?” The voice was old, deep, and rough like heavy-duty sandpaper.

  She approached the limo cautiously and glanced inside the dim interior. A lone older man, well-dressed and with white hair, looked back at her. “I need to talk to you, Miss Sinclair.”

  It was too much like a setup. “They’d” taken Carly. Did “they” want her now? “I…” Heart racing, she began backing away.

  “I’m here to tell you why your daughter was kidnapped.”

  Halting, Leigh couldn’t draw breath. People hurried around her, barely glancing her way. She opened her mouth to what—scream for help? She couldn’t think.

  “I’m Dane’s grandfather, Roman.”

  Something told her this was true. But why was he here? Leigh reached to open the door, paused, and then she squeezed the handle and slipped inside. She stared at the man as the window beside her slowly went up. She saw Dane in his face. Or was it just her willing imagination?

  “If it’s okay with you, I’ll have my driver take us ’round while we talk and then he’ll drop you back here.”

  She studied the man. He was Dane’s grandfather. He had Dane’s eyes and brows. Or vice versa. She nodded.