by Pat Warren
She smiled, bending down to pet the affectionate dog. “I don’t think King gets enough attention with your being gone so much. He’s lonely.”
Michael reached out to rub the thick coat. “I know. He makes me feel guilty. Paul has a house a couple of blocks over and owns a Doberman. We run on the beach with them early some mornings. King loves that, but we don’t do it often enough.”
The center of attention at last, King rolled over on his back, begging to be scratched. “You’re something,” Fallon said with a laugh, accommodating him.
“Are you hungry or do you want to wait awhile?” Michael asked. “Eldora left cold chicken and her homemade potato salad in the fridge.”
She hadn’t noticed his car phone the first night she’d ridden in his van. On the way to his home, he’d called Donovan and made arrangements to return her car to the house and he’d called his housekeeper, informing her that he was on his way with a guest. “You mean she whipped all that up since your call?”
“Not exactly.” He led the way to the long dark green leather couch that faced the windows. King followed along, settling at Michael’s feet. “She always has something ready in case I show up, which isn’t all that often lately. I stay at the house two or three nights a week, depending on how things are going. Eldora’s used to my crazy hours.”
She was intrigued with the way his dimples appeared, then disappeared. He was beautiful to look at, even if he was bossy as hell and so sure his way was the only way. She took a sip of the wine and felt the warmth trail all the way down to her toes. She wasn’t much of a drinker, but she had to admit that on a night like this, with the wind slamming the rain against the windows and the scare she’d had still fresh in her mind, the port went down well.
She hadn’t felt like talking in the van, so Michael had been patient. But it was time. “Do you want to tell me who frightened you so badly that you were running down the middle of the street in a downpour?”
Remembering, Fallon shivered. “I overreacted. Stupid. I should have known better. I put myself in jeopardy for nothing.”
Michael leaned back, angling sideways so he could watch her as she set her glass down, unwrapped her head and leaned forward, towel-drying her hair. “How did it happen?” he asked.
Fallon finished with the towel and sat back. Because she couldn’t avoid it any longer, she told him the story, feeling even more ridiculous as the words tumbled out. “From across the street, the girl looked a lot like Laurie. About the same age, the same build, same color hair. I just had to find out, to make sure, especially when this kid was manhandling her.” She draped the towel across her lap and finger-combed her hair back from her face. “I followed them into that building—not a very wise thing to do. I just wasn’t thinking straight.”
“Was her boyfriend waiting for you?”
“Not at first, but then he showed up and told me to leave. When I wouldn’t without a closer look at the girl, he came after me with a board. A board with nails. I’m not usually so careless, it’s just that I—”
“You were reacting emotionally instead of rationally. That happens when we’re searching for someone we love.”
Fallon took in a deep breath. “And now you’re going to tell me that that’s why I should have waited for you, the dispassionate one.”
A frown flickered across his features. “I’m not exactly detached when it comes to runaways. But I’ve been at it a long time, so I’ve tried and discarded most of the things that don’t work and kept the few that do. Which puts me a little ahead of the game.”
“Actually, I’m glad the girl turned out to be someone else. I don’t like to think that Laurie’s under some man’s control like that, even a young boy who couldn’t be more than eighteen.”
In the rain beside the van, she’d ranted at him about always being sure he was right, about telling her what to do. Michael didn’t really feel that he tried to control people. He was curious as to why she thought so. “Control is a big issue with you, isn’t it?”
Fallon took another sip of her drink before answering. “You’d have to have grown up with a stepfather like Roy Gifford to understand.”
“I take it he liked to run the show.” She’d told him a little about the irresponsible father who’d died and the mother who’d then married his exact opposite. But he wanted to know more, and not just to enable him to find Laurie. His curiosity extended to the woman herself, the things that had made Fallon who she was today.
“Oh, yes. Roy held all the cards and made sure we all knew it. He owned the house, had the money to feed, clothe and educate us, and so we did it his way.”
“Did what his way?”
“Everything. He picked out the clothes we wore, the food we ate, the movies we saw, the books we read. Nothing happened that Roy didn’t approve of.” She heard the resentment in her voice and it surprised her. She hadn’t consciously resented Roy while she’d lived under his roof, although she recalled being glad to be away from his strict rules. Only since Laurie had left home did the memory of the way they’d had to live begin to bother her.
“And your mother went along with everything?” He watched her take a sip of the port and wondered if it was the wine allowing her to confide more readily or if she’d begun to trust him.
“Mom was so relieved to hand over the money worries to someone that I don’t think she realized until it was too late that she’d traded her happiness for financial security.”
“But you managed to spend your teen years in that house and not run away. Are you so different from Laurie?”
Fallon thought that over. “I think we are different. Also, as I’ve said, I was older and didn’t mind Danny, but Laurie developed a resentment and began rebelling at an early age.”
“Roy was even harder on her because of that rebelliousness, right?”
She wrinkled her brow in surprise. “Yes, how did you know?”
“I have a degree in psychology, remember? Most resentful kids figure that bad attention is better than no attention.” He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, in a thoughtful pose as he stroked King’s shaggy head. The dog’s dark eyes looked up at him adoringly. “But if she started having trouble with Roy at two, why did it take her till age sixteen to run away?” He shook his head. “I go back to my original statement—something happened to trigger Laurie’s abrupt departure. Did she leave a note?”
“Yes, but all it said was that she felt she had to leave for a while and that they shouldn’t worry about her. And for two weeks, Mom tried not to. Finally, she called me.”
Puzzled, Michael thought aloud. “Two weeks, they did nothing. Not even your mother.” He swung about to face her. “And you’re absolutely certain that Roy wouldn’t have molested Laurie?”
Resolutely, Fallon shook her head. “I honestly don’t think so. My mother may have looked the other way about Roy ordering us around, but not about that. And Laurie’s not the type to let that go and just quietly leave. She’d have blown the whistle, if for no other reason than to get Roy in trouble.” Absently, she threaded her fingers through her hair. “No, that’s not it. I sure wish I knew what it was, though.”
Michael wasn’t convinced, but he decided not to pursue that line just now. “You mentioned this morning that you might call home. Did you?”
“I only talked to Mom. Roy was at work. She sounded worried, but glad that I’d found a trail, weak though it may be.” Fallon struggled with a yawn. “Mom’s basically a good person. It’s just that she had a hard life with Dad. I adored my father, yet I can imagine how difficult it was as the wife of a man who kept investing in one foolish thing after another, often leaving the family with not enough to eat.”
Michael leaned back, wondering if Fallon had put a charitable spin on her mother’s actions because she loved her. He had a little trouble with a woman who would allow her children to be bullied in exchange for an easier life.
Fallon could see she hadn’t convinced him of much, and his stubborn in
ability to look beyond his nose irritated her. “I know all this is hard for you to understand. You come from a very different background, different life experiences. We struggled for years just to get by. No Ivy League schools, always wearing secondhand clothes, never any frills. I understand you graduated from Stanford and lived in LaJolla. You probably celebrated your birthdays at some country club. Yes, you mingle with people down on their luck now, but your childhood was vastly different. It’s amazing that you can be so compassionate with these kids when you came from such a dissimilar world.”
He had turned so that he was facing her on the couch, one leg bent, his eyes questioning. “Is that what you honestly think?”
“Yes, of course. Michael, who is Jonathan Redfield to you? He’s not your father, is he?” It was time to switch the focus.
Michael toyed with his wineglass. “No. I guess you could call him my mentor. We’re not related—by blood, that is. But he’s one of the kindest men I’ve ever known. I took his name to honor him for all he’s done for me. And I didn’t do that lightly, because I loved my biological father, too.”
“Didn’t that upset your parents? You mentioned that they loved you. I should think such a thing would hurt them, especially your father.”
He stared at the firelight streaking her chestnut hair with red, turning her skin golden. He could think of a dozen different conversations he would rather be having with a beautiful woman in front of a fire on a rainy night. But he’d known this discussion was inevitable. “Is it that time, Fallon, when we exchange life stories?” He’d known her a little over twenty-four hours, yet it seemed much longer. Was it the intensity of the situation, the one that had brought her to him? Or did it have more to do with the obvious chemistry between them that they’d both been trying to ignore?
Scooting back, and facing him, her elbow on the back of the couch as her fingers toyed with her hair, she nodded. “Yes, I guess it is. I’ve already told you a great deal. Your turn.
Michael sighed, delaying. “I don’t often talk about myself, my past. It seems irrelevant to what I do, to what I am.” He looked toward the fire, wondering why he was considering baring his soul to someone he’d just met.
“irrelevant? Hardly. As a psychologist, surely you know that we are what we were. No one escapes the past. It molds us even as we fight it.” Hadn’t she proved that to herself tonight in acknowledging that she’d probably begun resenting Roy almost immediately, although she’d consciously denied it?
“I guess you’re right.” He paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts. “I’m not originally from California. I was born in Michigan, in a small farming community, Frankenmuth. My father was Lance Richards. He’d inherited the farm we lived on from his father, who’d inherited it from his father. Third-generation Germans, hardworking, honest.”
Fallon listened without comment, not wanting to break his concentration. She was wide-awake now, and very interested.
“My father met my mother in high school and they fell in love at first sight, he used to tell me.” Michael wasn’t aware of his smile as he recalled the parents he still thought of so often. “Her name was Julia and she’d been born in Mexico near Mazatlán. Her parents had migrated to this country when Mom was quite young and had opened a restaurant. She’d had a lot of adjustments to make—a new language, new customs, new people. But Dad took her under his wing and when she was sixteen, she discovered she was pregnant with me.” He glanced over at Fallon, wondering at her reaction. “Needless to say, both families heartily disapproved.”
“I can imagine. Thirty-some years ago, that sort of thing was even more frowned upon than now.”
“Thirty-two years ago, to be exact, and you’re right. But the families eventually accepted the situation and they were married. Mom quit school and they lived on the farm with Dad’s folks. He was an only child, so when his parents died a few years later, he inherited the farm. And all the work that went with it. I remember getting up at first daylight and going to gather eggs in the barn when I was five or six. Later, I’d tend to the horses and work the fields, then go to school, come home and work until nightfall alongside my father.”
“You were an only child?”
“No. My sister, Hannah, is four years younger and then there was the baby, Katie, eight years younger. You can’t know how many hours I’ve sat wondering where they are, how they are.”
“You were separated? What happened?”
Michael had difficulty speaking of the loss of his sisters. With no small effort, he went on. “There’d been two years of drought and Dad had had to mortgage the farm to keep going. The worry took its toll on my mother, too. She’d always been so strong, so upbeat. Suddenly she began losing weight, coughing all the time, barely able to drag herself out of bed. I was only fourteen, but I remember going to sleep at night worrying about both of them.”
“That’s a lot for a young boy to have to deal with.”
He didn’t want her feeling sorry for him—not then, not now. “I don’t want to mislead you, here. We were a happy family. We didn’t have a lot of money to spend on material things, but before she became really sick, my mother made that place into a home.” A home such as he’d never known since. “She baked, she sewed our clothes, she made each holiday into an exciting event. And Dad always made time for us to go on picnics or to sandlot ball games and to the county fair. We laughed a great deal. There was a lot of love in our home.”
“That’s the way it was with us before my father’s accident.” Fallon was unaware how wistful she sounded.
“Then I guess you know what I mean. Just like with you, things changed because my father had an accident, too. He was fixing the tractor for the umpteenth time since there was no money to buy a new one and somehow, it ran over him.” Michael could hear again his father’s scream and picture the scene as he’d run across the fields, praying yet already certain he was gone. “We were all devastated, my mother especially.”
“Of course she would be.” Fallon noticed that he’d kept his face expressionless throughout the recital, almost as if he’d been telling a story about someone else. Until now. His eyes were dark blue and bleak. As the oldest child, and the only male, he’d probably felt the weight of the world on his shoulders, left with a mother who wasn’t well and two young sisters. “How did she manage to run the farm with just your help, or were you able to hire someone?”
“It was rough. Just like your folks, they’d let Dad’s insurance lapse, so there was no money. Mom got weaker, sicker, and I couldn’t keep up with all that needed doing. Before long, she collapsed. They diagnosed her as having tuberculosis. They took her away by ambulance to a hospital for contagious diseases.” He swallowed hard. “I never saw her again.” Outside the windows, lightning flashed, then thunder rumbled as if in punctuation to the end of his childhood.
“Oh, Michael.” She moved closer, her hand reaching for his.
Was it the storm, the wine or Fallon’s nearness that had loosened his tongue? Michael didn’t know and no longer cared. It had been years since he’d talked about his past in this way. Even Jonathan and Paul, the two who were closest to him, hadn’t heard the whole story in detail; just bits and pieces, snatches of memories. He hadn’t wanted their pity or even their concern back in his youth when he’d met both of them. He still wanted nothing to do with those emotions; yet somehow, with Fallon, he felt more like explaining.
Maybe because he wanted her to understand, to know that he wasn’t what she thought he was, a moneyed man playing at a charitable enterprise.
“That’s how the three of you got separated, then?” she gently prompted. She’d never dreamed when she’d begun questioning him about Jonathan Redfield that this kind of story would emerge. She believed Michael when he said he rarely spoke about his past. She rarely did, either. Yet she felt that in many ways, telling her was cathartic for Michael.
He twined his fingers with hers, his eyes on their clasped hands. “Child Protective Services stepp
ed in and we were sent to separate foster homes. Like Daryl, I didn’t do well in the system. I was angry at the gods for taking my parents away, worried about my mother and I felt guilty that, as the oldest, I couldn’t look after my sisters.”
“You were only fourteen,” she reminded him.
“Yeah, but I’d been left the man of the house six months earlier when Dad had died. I’d been doing a man’s job on the farm and still going to school. I felt I let them down. The worst part was that no one would tell me anything. I wasn’t allowed to visit my mother because the whole hospital was quarantined. They wouldn’t reveal where my sisters were or I’d have found a way to go to them. I remember that time as being filled with anger, ready to fight at the drop of a hat. Small wonder that one foster family after another found a reason to get rid of me. I was branded incorrigible.”
He’d said the last almost with a hint of pride. Fallon understood. Rebellion had been Michael’s way of handling the pain. Much like Laurie’s, she realized.
“The day I turned sixteen, I hopped a bus and went to the Child Protective Services demanding some answers. They shuffled me around for a while and finally told me that my mother had died several months before. They hadn’t even bothered to let me know. That did it. That night, I packed the few belongings I had and ran away.”
That was something she hadn’t suspected—that he’d once been a runaway, too. On closer inspection, she saw that the old wounds of that time weren’t raw and bleeding, but they were far from healed. “I guess you do know how these kids feel.”
Michael drained his glass, stretched out his long legs and kept her hand wrapped in his. “Yeah, all too well.”
“Where did you run to? How did you survive?” Her interest had accelerated. The choices he’d faced then were the same ones Laurie had faced recently.
“I knew they’d come after me, so I hitchhiked out of Michigan. I set out for California where I’d heard the weather was great and there were plenty of opportunities for those not afraid to work hard.”
“You couldn’t have hitchhiked all that way. What did you use for money?” In the foster-care system, he couldn’t have had much. Laurie at least had her small bank account.
