“It’s lavender,” she said, breathy from his closeness and his compliment.
“There’s only one thing that would make it look better,” he said, deftly unbuttoning the top three buttons of her shirt to expose skin and pink lace. “Pink. My favorite color.”
Heat crept along her neck and smothered her face. She wasn’t good at casual flirting, but apparently, Jack was.
He traced a finger along the buttons of her shirt, skimming his thumb over her flesh. “I couldn’t get you out of my head today.” His lips pulled into a half smile. “Very distracting.”
Audra wet her lips. Just tell him and get it over with.
“Is that a deliberate tease, or do you really not know what you’re doing?”
She moved his hand from her shirt and cupped it between her own. “I need to talk to you, Jack. Please don’t make this any more difficult than it already is.”
When he saw her obvious distress, he tensed, all teasing gone. “What is it?”
“I don’t write advertisements for a medical supply company.”
His gaze narrowed. “Okay, what do you do?”
She took a deep breath and blurted out, “I write soap operas.” His lips twitched and then he threw back his head and laughed so hard tears pooled in his eyes. “It’s not that funny. I’m actually quite good at it.”
“Soap operas?” Another bellow of laughter. “Which one? Please not the one my father’s obsessed with.” When she didn’t answer, he wiped his eyes and tried to contain another burst of laughter. “Why would you keep it a secret?”
“Because in Soap Opera Land, it’s a big deal. People want to know about the writers, the stories, everything,” she said. “I didn’t want everyone snooping into my private life, following Christian and Kara. Or coming back here. I invented a writing name, but someone figured it out and now my name will be plastered on every newspaper and tabloid in the country.”
His smile faded. “Would they do that?”
“Look what the paparazzi does to every decent human being. They pursue them and create a story even if there isn’t one. Imagine what they’ll do if they start talking to people around here. You’ll be reading about the soap opera writer’s mother who overdosed on valium and vodka. Someone will dig up pictures.” She rubbed her temple. “It won’t be pretty.”
“Isn’t there anything the producer can do to shut it down?”
“Peter thinks he might be behind it. You know how scandal improves ratings.”
“Jesus, I’m sorry.” He grasped her hand and stroked her thumb. “Maybe you should hide out here until it dies down.”
Was that an offer buried in there somewhere? Did she want it to be?
He shrugged. “It’s just a thought.”
“I don’t know how much longer I’ll be staying once Bernie sees Kara for the follow-up next week.”
He ignored the comment, saying instead, “She’s done very well. She’s a fighter.”
“She takes after her father.”
Jack’s hand stilled. “Yes, she does,” he said quietly.
Kara banged the back door open and moved toward them, sloshing lemonade over the sides of two glasses. “Uncle Jack, want some lemonade? Grandma and I just squeezed the lemons.”
Jack leaned forward and accepted the sticky, wet glass. Kara handed Audra the other one. “Uncle Jack,” she beamed, “do you know my mom writes the stories for On Eden Street?”
“I just heard that.”
She whispered, “Know what it’s about?”
A sliver of panic burst through Audra. “Honey, Uncle Jack doesn’t want to hear about that silly show. He’s got much more important things to do, like operating on eight-year old girls and boys.”
“I know, but Grandpa says it’s not silly. He says it could really happen.” She nodded her blond head, and smiled up at Jack.
“Tell me the story, Kara,” he said in a gentle voice. “I’d like to hear it.”
No, you really do not want to hear it.
Kara moved closer and said, “There’s these two brothers and they both like the same girl, only she just likes one of them.”
“Kara, I really think—”
“Shhh,” Jack said. “Let’s hear the story. And this girl only likes one of them,” he prompted.
“Yup, and she gets pregnant to the guy she really likes.”
“Well, that’s good,” Jack offered in a serious voice.
Maybe Kara’s childish presentation wouldn’t make Jack suspicious. Maybe he’d pass it off as just another daytime drama.
“Except”—Kara wagged a finger at him—“the guy doesn’t know she’s pregnant and he breaks up with her. He’s really good looking, too, Uncle Jack. You should see him.” She squinted her eyes to study his face. “He kinda looks like you.”
Jack smiled, unaware of how true Kara’s innocent words were. “Thank you.”
“Welcome. So this guy breaks up with her and just leaves her all alone. She cries and cries and then she goes back home.”
“Where was she?”
“Oh, in college. The guy she really liked was going to be a doctor.” She grinned again. “Like you, Uncle Jack.”
Audra watched him out of the corner of her eye. He sat very still, listening intently.
“So, the girl goes home and tells this guy’s brother she’s pregnant and he marries her and takes her far away.”
Audra knew the instant he suspected. His nostrils flared, his breathing grew rapid and harsh. “Then what happened?” he asked in a deceptively soft voice.
“Then the girl and the guy moved away and had a baby and lived happily ever after.” She scratched her curly head. “Well, so far they’re happy.”
“Did the girl have a baby boy or a baby girl?”
“A girl.”
“I see.” He stared at Kara as though he could see her DNA strands with his eyes. “What happened to the doctor?”
She shrugged. “Dunno, but Grandpa says sooner or later he’s going to find out that’s his real baby.”
“I suspect Grandpa’s right,” Jack said, turning toward Audra. “Sooner or later the truth always comes out.”
Chapter 22
“That’s my price for silence.”—Jack Wheyton
He couldn’t get her to the Expedition fast enough. With his hand grasping her forearm, he hurried her along, not quite dragging, but close. She knew better than to fight him, and merely followed, lips pursed, jaw set, eyes straight ahead. Jack threw the SUV in reverse and sped down the forest of streets he’d grown up on—Elm, Sycamore, Chestnut. They all blurred in his effort to blank out the last ten minutes.
He drove to the park, past joggers and mothers with baby carriages, boys tossing Frisbees, dogs on leashes, couples on blankets. Normal slices of life—everything his life wasn’t. Normal had shriveled with Kara’s innocent words. When he reached a secluded stretch of park he pulled in, gravel spewing under the tires, dust clouding the blackness of the vehicle. He thrust the Expedition in Park and shut off the motor. “Talk.” He turned toward the woman who had made his life hell for nine years. She met his gaze head on, not a tear in her eye. The Jack Wheyton look had scared many a new resident over the past few years. Not Audra Valentine. She played it cooler than a slab in a morgue.
“What do you want to know?”
“Give it up. I’m not playing games.”
“You think you have it all figured out, don’t you?” The emotion seeped from her voice. “You don’t know anything.”
He’d had enough. “Is she mine?” Before she could answer, a couple burst through a wooded path, holding hands and laughing. Fools. A second of bliss for a lifetime of torture. It sure as hell wasn’t worth it. “Is she mine?” he repeated.
She sank against the seat and closed her eyes with a quiet sigh. The sun glinted across her face illuminating her forehead, lips, lashes, neck. She’d never looked more beautiful. “Yes,” she whispered.
Jack opened his mouth and gulped pockets o
f air. My child. Audra remained motionless, eyes closed, body still. Waiting. When he could take in a full breath, he spoke. “You had no right to keep that from me.” All these years he’d had a child and never known. How many times had he avoided seeing Kara so he wouldn’t be reminded of her mother? He knew the answer—too many.
“It was better that way.”
“Better for whom?”
“You. Me. Christian. Kara. Your parents.” She paused. “Everyone.”
“Did you tell Christian the baby was his? Is that why he married you?” When she didn’t answer, he said, “That’s it, isn’t it? You let him believe Kara was his. And my brother being the noble one would, of course, marry you.” It all made sense now—the quickie wedding, the move to California, the annual visits minus a wife. She’d planned it all and his innocent lovesick brother had been nothing more than a pawn. Jack might have found out nine years too late, but she was not going to get away with it. “Damn you for using Christian. He was always too damn gullible.”
She opened her eyes and turned toward him. “He knew you were the father.”
Jack gripped the steering wheel so hard he thought he’d rip it off the column. “That’s a lie.”
“It’s the truth. He knew.”
“So you let him play chivalrous knight and swoop you away even though it wasn’t his battle to fight.” When she didn’t answer he said, “Damn you for stealing my brother and my daughter.”
“You didn’t want me in your life, remember?” Her words blasted him though she didn’t raise her voice. “Can you sit here and tell me you would have welcomed a baby?”
What would he have done? No doubt, he would have been upset. School would have been delayed, his goals pushed back and recalculated. But deep down he knew it would have forced him to own up to his feelings for Audra instead of ignoring them until it was too late. “I would have married you,” he said quietly. She gasped and covered her mouth with both hands. Well, apparently she hadn’t been expecting that. So much for true confessions.
Her eyes filled with tears, fast and furious like a river, overflowing onto her cheeks, her chin, her neck. She swiped at them and muttered, “Don’t say that.”
“Why? Is the idea so offensive?” More tears, more swipes. Well, he was about to cause a damn break. “I couldn’t wait for that stupid ski trip to finish so I could come back and tell you how miserable I was and what a huge mistake I’d made.”
“Don’t.”
She could barely get the word out around her tears. Even with a red nose and swollen eyes, she looked beautiful. He wanted to reach across the seat and push the strands of hair from her face. But he wouldn’t touch her. He couldn’t. Jack stuffed his hands in his pocket to keep from doing something foolish. “None of it matters now, does it? It probably never would have worked between us anyway. But the way I see it, you owe me a daughter.”
“Jack—”
“Should I take her for the next eight years? Nine if you count in utero?”
“Please, don’t do this.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not that much of a heartless bastard.” She’d backed up against the passenger door, putting as much space between them as possible. Maybe she really was afraid of him.
“Thank you.”
The words had no breath in them as though she’d been deprived of oxygen too long. “Don’t get too carried away with the thank you’s. I’m going to be part of my daughter’s life, never mistake that.” Again, she cringed against the door. “Stop that,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you. What do you think I am?”
“You’re not going to tell her the truth, are you?”
“You’re suggesting I follow your lead and lie? I mean, why not? Everything else is a big lie, why not keep it up, a great, big subterfuge no one will ever figure out, least of all, our daughter. What? You don’t like the sound of that? Our daughter, as in you and I procreating.” He forced out a cold, hard laugh so she wouldn’t know how much her revulsion bothered him.
“She just lost her father—I mean the man who raised her. I don’t think it’s a good idea to spring this on her, not with Christian and now her surgery.”
“Of course it’s not a good idea. She needs to heal, mentally and physically. Bernie told you she’s not out of the woods yet. We’ll have follow-up tests and if you insist on returning to San Diego—”
“If I insist? I am going back, Jack. It’s my home.”
He considered her words. “Is it now? Christian’s gone, your MO with the soap is blown, what else do you have there?”
“We have friends,” she persisted, her tone deflating.
“Friends. You mean Peter. Tell me what he is to you, again? I never really understood that relationship. An uncle who isn’t really an uncle.” There was much more to that. “Very interesting tangle of lies you had going there. A father who wasn’t a father, too. Hmmmm. And then that left me, the uncle, who was really the father.”
“It made sense to us,” she insisted.
“I’m sure it did.”
“What about Kara?”
He stared at her until she fidgeted. “I haven’t decided. I just found out five minutes ago I’m a father.”
“Will you tell your parents?”
“Possibly. Eventually. I don’t know.”
“Please don’t do anything rash. Think of Kara.”
“I am thinking of her. She’s the only reason I’m not blurting it across town in tomorrow’s paper.” Of course, he didn’t mean that but he wanted her to believe him capable of anything.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. I’m really not that generous.” An idea flitted through his brain and scorched his senses. “I want you to give my parents a chance to get to know their granddaughter.”
“I can do that. I’ll extend our stay another week.”
“Uh, I don’t think so. Plan on extending it indefinitely.” He pulled his lips into a tight smile. “That’s my price for silence.”
Hours after he’d dropped Audra off at his parents’ house, he still couldn’t erase the look on her face when he’d told her he would have married her. Disbelief? Mortification? Revulsion? He guessed all of those and then some. He sat on his deck, sipping Wild Turkey and watching the sun slide beneath the skyline. He played their conversation in his head with the same precision he employed before entering a patient’s brain. Data collection and analysis he called it, and he did that now—every nuance, inflection, inference. It all meant something and he’d sit here until he figured it out.
It took him two and a half hours and three more bourbons to determine the truth. Audra might desire him, but she didn’t want him, not in the long-term sense. She’d had Christian for that and Peter Andellieu stood in the wings ready to take over, if he hadn’t already laid the preliminary foundation. The other truth he acknowledged didn’t make him any happier. It gave him a miserable headache which he attributed to the bourbon. The truth, hitting him boldly between the groin with an uppercut to the brain, was his desire to have a relationship with Audra—a long term, ‘til death do us part one.
“Christ,” he muttered, scrubbing a hand over his face. There it was, a spot in his brain, as obvious as an x-ray, illuminating the truth. There was only one solution. Jack picked up the phone and called Bernie Kalowicz. “Hey, buddy, what’s the name of that jeweler you use?”
***
“How on this earth did you ever convince her to stay?” Marion said in a loud whisper. She didn’t speak in normal tones anymore, not since her mother started losing her hearing three years ago, which made it fine for everyday chit-chat, but when there was someone in the next room you didn’t want hearing your conversation, well, that posed a problem.
“Shhh.” Tilly put a finger to her mouth. “She’ll hear you.”
“Doubtful.” Alice shook her head and sliced a piece of pumpkin roll. “Joe’s quizzing her on the characters and trying to beat the rest of the story out of her. Not that she’ll know, since she
says she resigned, but they could keep her storyline.”
“Why is she quitting?” This from Marion, again ten decibels above normal.
Joyce leaned over and said, “Seems Mr. Big Shot Producer has issue with a mother taking care of her child and seeing her through surgery. Did you ever hear of such a thing?”
“Not since my Rose got let go for refusing to work night shift at the shirt factory.”
Tilly raised a penciled in brow. “That’s hardly the same thing.”
“Is to me,” Marion said, setting down her knitting needles. “A child’s a child and a parent’s a parent. Least ways, that’s how I look at it.”
“She does love that child,” Alice said, placing the pumpkin roll on a doily covered tray. “Sat up with her last night when Kara couldn’t sleep. Never complained, just sat in the rocker with the child bundled on her lap. I heard her singing You Are My Sunshine. Who’d have thought?”
Tilly shrugged and picked up a slice of pumpkin roll. “Even animals in the wild have instincts to care for their young.”
“How long will they stay?” Joyce asked. “Did she say?”
“I didn’t ask. No sense getting my hopes up. I’ll just take one day at a time and be happy with that.”
“As long as she doesn’t stir up any trouble,” Marion said, pointing a knitting needle in the air. “I heard she showed up at Malcolm Ruittenberg’s and then Henry Stivett’s, too. Lordy, why would she see those two? One thinks he’s Hugh Hefner and the other has a sister who keeps his privates in a jar.”
“Marion!”
Marion shrugged. “Just sayin’.”
“Why in the devil would she visit them?” Joyce asked. “They’re about as different as sugar and salt.”
“I’m sure she had her reasons,” Alice said, anxious to be done with the conversation. Since her daughter-in-law told her about the extended stay, Alice had been looking at her differently. The woman didn’t have to make such a gracious offer and the fact that she did, without any persuasion, said a lot in Alice’s book. For the first time in years, she might not have to pay a visit to Pastor Richot for absolution. Now how about that?
Pulling Home (That Second Chance) Page 15
