“And I can’t wait to show you. But first there’s someone I want you to meet.” Caitlin beckoned to Nico who had been standing to one side, watching the reunion.
But before Caitlin could perform the introduction, Mr. Haines and several of his men struggled through the door, each carrying an armload of luggage.
“Thank you, Mr. Haines. Why don’t you just leave it all there.” Julia gracefully waved a hand toward the door. “When I find out what bedroom Caitlin wants me in, I’ll give you a call.”
“Very well, Miss Deverell. And it’s good to have you back.”
Julia bestowed a breathtaking smile on the man. “Thank you. Caitlin, wait until you see what I brought you from India. Oh, who's this?” she asked, noticing Nico for the first time.
“This is a very special person in my life—Nico DiFrenza.”
With a surprised look at her daughter’s radiant face, Julia extended her hand. “It’s very nice to meet you, Nico. You know, I really must stop staying away so long. I miss too much.”
“Miss Deverell,” he said, shaking her hand.
“Please, call me Julia. I have a feeling we’re going to be getting to know each other quite well.”
He grinned. “Yes, I think so. And it will be my pleasure. I cam see now that Caitlin comes by her beauty quite naturally.”
Humor flashed in Julia’s green eyes. “I’m going to like you, aren’t I?”
“Elena DiFrenza is Nico’s great-grandmother,” Caitlin said.
Julia lifted her brows ever so slightly. “Does that mean in the future well be able to get our clothes discount?”'
Nico laughed. “I’m sure something can be worked out.”
“Oh,” Ramona said in a suddenly strange voice. “Here’s Quinn, about to leave us.”
Everyone turned toward the man who was standing, stone-still, in the center of the grand hall, his gaze fixed on Julia.
“Quinn!” Julia whispered.
Caitlin glanced at her mother and saw that all color had drained from her face. “Mother? Do you know Quinn?”
Julia, pale and motionless, stared at Quinn as if he were a ghost.
It was Quinn who finally moved. He put down his bags and walked slowly to her. “Hello, Julia,” he said quietly.
“Mother? Are you all right?”
With a look at Caitlin, Quinn took Julia’s arm. “Your mother and I are going into the salon and talk awhile.”
Dumbfounded, Caitlin gazed after Quinn and her mother as they disappeared through a doorway. “That’s the oddest thing I ever saw. They—” She broke off abruptly, because suddenly she knew . . . With an exclamation, she turned to Nico and received another shock. There was no surprise on his face.
“Quinn is my father, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“And you knew.”
“Yes.”
Caitlin felt as if the world had just been cut loose from its moorings and was spinning wildly through space. “I don’t understand.”
He took her arm, much as Quinn had taken Julia’s, and tried to think of the nearest room where they could have privacy and she could sit down. “Let’s go back to the study. Ramona, I wonder if we could trouble you for some tea?”
Gazing worriedly at Caitlin, Ramona nodded her head. “Of course.”
On the long walk back, Caitlin was silent. Nico let her be, knowing that soon enough the numbness would wear off.
He closed the study door behind them and watched while Caitlin made her way to her desk. Instead of sitting down, she rounded on him. “What’s he doing here?”
“He told me he’d just wanted to come see you.” “Me? Now?” Her laugh rang hollowly in the golden room. “Where’s he been for the last twenty-six years, and why hasn’t he come to see Mom in all that time?”
“You’ll have to ask him. ” Her eyes widened with a pain that nearly tore him apart. “I’m sorry, Caitlin, but it’s his story to tell.”
“The person you had check on Quinn, he told you about him, didn’t he? You knew all about this yesterday. ”
“The report I received gave me information on Quinn’s background. When I talked with him on the bluff, he told me the rest, but he asked me not to tell you.” *
“He asked you! Nico, he’s a stranger to you. You’re supposed to be in love with me. You should have told me.”
Nico reached out and tried to take her into his arms, but she shrugged him away. Frustrated, he ran his hand around the back of his neck. “Caitlin, Quinn didn’t want to see you hurt. As a matter of fact, he told me that’s why he searched my room. He saw how you felt about me and was worried about the type of man he thought I was. And of course he was absolutely right. ”
“What an extremely fatherly thing to do!”
“Caitlin—” A knock on the door interrupted. Nico opened the door and took the tea tray from Ramona. “How are you, honey?” Ramona asked Caitlin. “Did you know too?” she asked accusingly.
“No. But I suspected. I once saw an old photograph your mother kept in a drawer. He was a young man then, and the picture was taken from a distance." She shrugged. “I don’t know. When Quinn showed up, the similarity between him and the man in the photograph struck me. ”
“But why did you ask him to stay?” she asked, a small cry in her voice.
Ramona clasped her hands tightly together. “I just thought it was the thing to do. I still do.” “But why?’’
“Julia. You’ve said it yourself many times. She’s been like a butterfly, flitting from place to place, looking for something. I personally have always believed she was looking for someone. Your father, I think."
Tears filled Caitlin’s eyes and she sank back against the desk. “How is Mom?”
“I don’t know. I’m about to take her a tray of tea too.”
Caitlin nodded. “Please ... I’d like to be alone now."
“No,” Nico said. “I’m staying with you.”
“Just leave.”
“She’ll be all right,” Ramona said to him. “She needs a little time. Come with me to the kitchen, and I’ll make you a cup of tea. Caitlin? You drink the tea I’ve brought, you hear? Nico and I will be in the kitchen if you need us.”
“Caitlin?” he said, his tone pleading with her to ask him to stay.
She said nothing. And soon she was alone in the golden room she’d always thought so warm, she wrapped her arms around herself and wondered why she felt so cold.
Nine
She sought the sunshine and the sea. The heat of the sun and the power and unending rhythm of the ocean had always seemed to her a part of SwanSea and of her. She had a favorite seat—a rock that warmed in the afternoon and was lapped by waves at high tide.
It was there Quinn found her.
Somehow, he knew she would regard it an invasion of privacy if he tried to sit on the rock with her, so he stood on the sand, gazing at his daughter, his heart hurting for her, for him, for so many wasted years.
“I’d like to talk with you, Caitlin.” Her gaze remained on the horizon. “Your mother’s worried about you, and she wanted to come, but I asked her not to. I felt that it was my place to try and make you understand.”
“Does that mean Mom understands?”
His words were cautious. This wasn’t a simple situation; there would be no simple solution. “It’s not something that’s easily understood with just a
few hours of discussion, but let me put it this way— Julia now understands more than she did.”
She turned her head, and the expression in her eyes was flint hard. “Did you lie to her the way you lied to me when you told me that you had visited grandfather here?”
“You’re right, Caitlin. That was a lie. It was an expedient lie, but a lie nevertheless. More than anything, I wanted the opportunity to be around you for a few days, so that I could see you and come to know you in some small way.” His voice broke, and he stopped to clear his throat. “I was so hungry to know my daughter. ”
The ch
arming facade he’d kept in place since he’d been here had dropped away. Now Caitlin saw signs of vulnerability that deepened the lines of his face, and she realized it was the first time she’d seen him show any real emotion. Apparently he was adept at facades. Nico had been right when he’d said Quinn had taken great care to blend into the woodwork. She looked back at the sea. “I really don’t want to talk to you. Your explanations should go to Mom, not me. ”
“They have, and they will continue to,” he said gently. “But whether you’ll admit it or not, you’re angry and hurt, and I don’t blame you. Perhaps, though, you could simply sit there and listen to me.”
Her posture was stiff, full of dignity and pain, and he felt an ache of pride and sadness in his chest as he gazed at the lovely young woman who was his daughter.
His eyes stung, and the muscles of his throat throbbed from the effort of holding back almost twenty-seven years of tears. But it wasn’t the time to cry. He owed her so much, and an explanation was first and foremost. “You see, Caitlin, I met your mother twenty-seven years ago. Most of the house was closed up at that time, but Julia and her brothers had a habit of coming up from Boston from time to time to check on SwanSea and enjoy the solitude and the house where they had been raised. I was on vacation, wandering around the village, and met your mother by accident one afternoon.
“It was 1962, Caitlin, an extraordinary time. John F. Kennedy was president. Already that year John Glenn had become the first American to orbit the earth. The Peace Corps had just been established, and young people were going off to foreign countries to help those less fortunate. I felt I too could make a difference, perhaps even accomplish great things.”
Caitlin had slowly turned toward him. He had at least captured her interest, he thought, however unwilling that interest was. “I was twenty-five years old with a master’s degree in world economics and had a great desire to do something with my knowledge other than make money. I was eager and idealistic, and I’d agreed to take a very difficult, secret position with the government.” He sighed, thinking that living the past had been a hell of a lot easier than trying to explain it. “In the fall of 1962, the Cuban missile crisis shook the world, and the following November, President Kennedy was killed. I’d been doing the work for over a year by then, and I’d lost my idealism. But by that time, it was too late. I was in something I couldn’t get out of. .
Quinn's voice trailed off. His gaze was fixed on the horizon, but Caitlin sensed he was seeing something inside him. She waited, wanting in spite of herself to hear more about the events that had affected her mother and her father, the events that had shaped her life before she had been bom.
“I loved your mother, Caitlin, you must believe that. We were together for two intense, glorious weeks. By the end of that time, 1 couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her, but I had no choice. Everything was ready and in place for me to be slipped into a certain volatile situation. What’s more, 1 couldn’t tell her why I was leaving. One night while she slept, I left. It must have been devastating for her.”
For the first time Caitlin spoke. “When I was a little girl, I used to ask where my father was. She told me my father had gone away. I asked why, and she said she had no answers, but some things weren’t meant to be. She also said that she thought she must have loved you more than you loved her. I just didn’t see how that was possible. ”
“It wasn’t.” Deep sorrow etched his face and aged him before her eyes. “Originally I thought I’d be back within five years. I held on to the thought that I’d see her again, and every night I’d pray that when we met again, she’d still have me. But the operation became so involved—and, by the way, so successful—I couldn’t leave. I was placed in such a strategic position that if I’d pulled out, it would have meant the death of many other agents.” He met her eyes. “It was a bitter pill for me. In reality, no one could really stop me from leaving, but I knew that my happiness would come at great sacrifice to others. I just couldn’t do it. And there was also the very real possibility that I would be followed out of that life and into the one I truly wanted. There would have been danger for Julia, and as it turns out now, for you. Attempts to contact her could have also met with the same result. Until just recently, I didn’t feel free to make inquiries. That’s when I discovered I had a daughter.”
She digested that. “You didn’t know about me?” “No.”
“I always wondered.”
“If I had known ...” His voice trailed off, and he took a deep breath.
“Are you through with your work now?”
“Oh yes,” he said most definite. “I’m really retired.” So now she knew. Finally all of her questions had been answered, but she still felt empty and flat. “Tell me, do you feel you made a difference?”
He thought for a moment. “Yes. Yes, Caitlin, I do. But I wish with all my heart I’d left it to someone else to make the difference.”
The sound of the surf and the gulls couldn’t disquise the fact that conversation ceased while seconds stretched to minutes.
“I have a favor to ask of you, Caitlin,” he said when it became clear she wouldn’t say more. “I’d like to stay here a while longer to give Julia and myself a chance to become reacquainted.”
“Is that what Mom wants?”
“I hope so. I’ve suggested it, and I’m hoping she’ll agree.”
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s whatever she wants."
“What about you, Caitlin? Is it too much to ask that we could get to know each other better?”
“Yes,” she said after a long pause, “I think it is. You chose your path, and I grew up without a father. Now you’ve suddenly reappeared. Okay, fine. But I’m not affected. I see no reason why I would need a father at this point in my life.”
Late that night, Nico opened the door of Caitlin’s bedroom. He found her lying back against a pile of pillows, reading through a folder of correspondence.
A jade-green silk chemise stopped at the middle of her thighs, and her long legs stretched out in front of her, crossed at the ankles. She looked very relaxed, very beautiful, very unattainable.
“What are you reading?” He grimaced at his unintentionally harsh tone. He’d wanted to ask what she was doing in this room instead of his bedroom, his bed. But at the last minute, he’d decided he was afraid to hear her answer.
For some reason, Caitlin had begun to shake as soon as he’d walked in the room. As calmly as possible, she set aside the letter she’d been reading and self-consciously pulled at the hem of the chemise. “It’s from an interior-decorating magazine, requesting an interview with me. They want to plan an entire issue featuring SwanSea.”
“Are you going to agree?”
“Maybe.” She eyed him through a thick fringe of dark lashes. Suddenly it dawned on her that it was two o’clock in the morning and he was wearing black jeans and a black sweater. “You’ve been out to the island, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
She sat up. “Have you lost your mind? There’s a full moon tonight.”
“That’s why I went. I figured there wouldn’t be any activity out there, and I was right.”
"Still, you never should have gone. How did you get out there anyway?”
“I used one of the speedboats. In case you didn’t know, there’re three speedboats down at the boathouse that have been refurbished to date.”
She gazed at him broodingly. “I knew.”
Damn. This wasn’t what he wanted to talk about. “I took the smallest boat.”
“And?”
“I found evidence of activity, but nothing I could use to pin on Rettig.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Keep watching. Caitlin ...” His voice dropped and roughened. “What are you doing in here? Why aren’t you in my room? Our room?”
She subsided against the pillows and linked her fingers together. “I decided I didn’t want to be there tonight.”
“And what about tomorrow n
ight?” he asked, trying to be civilized. He wanted to jerk her into his arms and make love to her until she had no energy left to be upset with him. “Where do you think you’ll want to be then?”
“I don’t know.”
He sat down beside her on the bed. She started to scramble off the other side, but he caught her wrist, keeping her where she was. “Caitlin, I know you’re hurt and confused, but please don’t stay away from me. Let's work it out together.”
She should have been quicker: she should never have let him get this close. His presence had a way of endangering her equilibrium. She tried to jerk away, but he held her tight.
“I’m not confused, Nico. As a matter of fact, it all seems crystal clear to me. I feel your first consideration should have been to me, not honoring some pledge to Quinn that you wouldn’t tell me.” Tears formed in her eyes, making them glisten like jewels.
“You were my first consideration, honey. I was trying to protect you.”
“I don’t need protecting, dammit! I’ve told you time and time again.”
“Oh, right. You’re a Deverell. You’re tough. Well, big deal, Caitlin. I’m not impressed.”
“I don’t care.”
“Well, I do, and it just seemed to me that having a father appear out of the blue like that wasn’t something that should be sprung on you.”
“You mean like it was?”
“Exactly. And as I told you, it was Quinn’s story to tell.”
She gazed down at her hands. “You think I’m being unreasonable, don’t you?”
“No, not at all. You’ve received a tremendous shock. I just don’t think you’ve let yourself feel that shock yet.”
“Then let me, Nico. Just back off and let me.”
He stared at her for a long minute, then sighed. “I can’t. I wish I could do as you ask, but I can’t. I have this great urge to cushion all your shocks and blows for you.”
“You just don’t listen to me, do you?” she cried.
“I always listen to you, but I admitted to you days ago that I’m a bastard. Remember I also said in spite of all my sins and crimes, I love you. And because I do, I'm enough of a bastard to stay here in your room if you won’t come back to mine.” He took her arms and twisted her around and down until she lay on the bed.
The Legacy Page 14
