The Loner's Thanksgiving Wish (Love Inspired)

by Rustand, Roxanne

  Mei had always thought she didn’t belong. Thought that she wasn’t loved because she was different from everyone else. But it hadn’t been that at all.

  Instead, her idyllic, beautiful home had been a complete sham, with her handsome, womanizing father, and an ethereally lovely mother who was lost in a haze of medications.

  Mei rubbed her eyes, trying to sort through the revelations that had just changed everything she knew about herself and her family.

  “There’s more.” Lisette dropped into the chair next to Mei’s, her eyes haunted and apologetic. “I am so sorry, but there is more.”

  Mei stared at her. “I don’t think I want to know.”

  “I wouldn’t be telling you this now if I didn’t have to. But there’s not much time.”

  “Are…are you ill?” Mei felt another piece of her world start to shatter and fall away.

  Lisette shook her head. “I’d always known of your father’s affairs. But no matter how much it hurt, I kept his secrets while he was alive and protected his memory after he was gone—for myself, and for you and Lucas because I wanted to guard our own honor, even if he had none.”

  She pulled a small, folded piece of yellowed paper from her pocket and pressed it into Mei’s palm. “This was in your father’s pocket the day he died. Do with this what you will.”

  “I—I don’t understand.”

  “I believe you have a half sister…but if you want answers, you’re going to have to move fast. Because her mother is about to die.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  As Mei drove out to Darlene Perry’s house she called her cousins to find out where everyone was.

  Brooke and Gabe had taken Macy for an outing, so fortunately the child wouldn’t be home when Mei arrived, but both Arabella and Vivienne were already at Darlene’s house.

  Thankful that two of her cousins were there, Mei pulled into the drive, tapped on the back door and let herself inside. The two woman were carefully rolling Darlene over to lay on a different side in her hospital bed, so Mei waited quietly in the kitchen until they joined her.

  Arabella peeled off her disposable vinyl gloves, reached for a cup of coffee sitting on the counter and put it into the microwave. “You said you needed to talk to us about something important.”

  “I’m not even sure where to begin. What do you know about Macy’s father?”

  “Believe me, we would all like to know.” Vivienne turned to slip off her gloves and wash her hands at the sink. “Darlene has refused to tell anyone, and there’s not a father listed on Macy’s birth certificate. She’ll only say that the man died long ago and that she’s done her best to be a good parent. End of story.”

  “Well, I just spent a few of the most difficult hours of my life talking to my mom. She discussed a lot of personal things, but then started telling me about how my dad had lots of affairs. I was just stunned.”

  Vivienne and Arabella exchanged glances.

  “We’ve both heard about his affairs…just by overhearing things at family gatherings and such,” Arabella said as she retrieved her cup from the microwave. “It wasn’t common knowledge in the community, though.”

  Mei retrieved the folded piece of paper from her purse. “Well, my mom says this paper was in my father’s pocket the day he died. She kept it secret all these years because she wanted to protect his memory and, I suspect, salvage her pride. But when she started working on the Church Care Committee and learned of Darlene’s condition, she thought it was time to divulge it.”

  Mei unfolded it on the table. “All it says is ‘Darlene, 24 Snow Road,’ with ‘baby’ underlined twice. But the first time I saw Macy, I noticed her features reminded me a lot of Brooke’s school pictures when she was about that age. What do you think?”

  Arabella nodded. “Jonathan once told me that he thought the same thing.”

  “And Darlene was thrilled when Brooke said she would take Macy in and adopt her…well, when the time comes,” Vivienne added.

  Mei tapped the note on the table. “This poor little girl will soon be an orphan. Maybe Lucas could be DNA tested, in lieu of our dad, but I don’t understand enough about genetics to know if that would be enough proof. Would it rule out the other men in our family tree?” Mei faltered, thinking about her missing brother. “But if this note means what I think it does, Darlene’s confirmation that my dad was Macy’s father would give the child a true connection to us by blood—with cousins and aunts and uncles.”

  Vivienne rested a hand on Mei’s arm. “How do you feel about all of this?”

  “I don’t even know yet. I’m still reeling with shock after discovering that the dad I thought I knew was really a complete stranger. But Macy’s welfare is what we need to think about now. Do you think Darlene is up to answering this question?”

  Vivienne looked pensively toward the darkened living room. “Every day she fails a little more. Sleeps more. The hospice nurses say it’s part of her gradual decline as her organs shut down. She isn’t going to get better. I don’t know if we dare wait.”

  “But what about the stress?” Arabella frowned. “Do we dare upset her?”

  A long silence fell between them, then Vivienne cleared her throat. “I don’t think there’s even a question of what to do. We need to ask—for Macy’s sake.”

  An hour later Mei heard a soft, weak moan. “Is she waking up?”

  “She does that in her sleep sometimes, but I’ll check on her.” Arabella’s forehead was lined with worry. “Vivienne, I think you’ve been here the most and have the most rapport. If you want to talk to her, Mei and I can serve as witnesses.”

  “I’ll ask. If she’s relieved to have the weight of this finally off her shoulders, maybe she’d agree to being recorded, just so we would have additional proof. There’s a voice recorder function on my phone.”

  Mei nodded. “But the only people who would contest her words would be my dad’s heirs. Mom wanted me to come here. I wouldn’t argue, and I can’t imagine Lucas would, either. This just narrows down whose DNA should be tested.”

  The vertical blinds in the living room were drawn against the harsh winter sunshine, though thin bars of light leaked through the vanes and painted the room with bars reminiscent of a jail.

  Vivienne approached the bed first and rested a gentle hand on Darlene’s frail arm. “Darlene. Can you hear me? Are you awake?”

  She shifted her weight and moaned again. Her eyes fluttered open. “Vivienne. Is—is Macy all right?”

  “She’s fine. She’s off on an adventure with Brooke and Gabe. I think they were taking her to Erin Fields’s horse rescue to see a donkey, and then they planned to go sledding and have lunch at the café.”

  Darlene rolled her head a few millimeters, her mouth twisting in a grimace that might have been intended as a smile. “Arabella. And…Mei.”

  “You have lots of visitors this morning, hon. It’s a beautiful, sunny Saturday morning. Thanksgiving is just five days away. Though it seems more like January with all the snow we’ve been having.”

  Darlene nodded almost imperceptibly.

  “We have a question for you. It’s really important and it’s about your daughter.” Vivienne curled a hand around Darlene’s and smiled. “You know that she will always have a home with Brooke and Gabe. A good, loving home. But we’ve come across some evidence. A note from long ago that makes us think that Vern Clayton was actually her real dad. Is that true?”

  Darlene’s eyes opened wider. She drew in an agitated breath, then started to cough, flailing her free hand as if she were warding off an enemy. “No. That isn’t…isn’t true.” Her rusty voice rose with each word.

  Vivienne waited for Darlene’s rapid breathing to calm down. “We don’t want to upset you, but leaving your daughter with knowledge of her true father would be a blessing to her, don’t you think? Lisette Clayton thought the note might be proof that Dr. Clayton was Macy’s dad. No one is blaming you, Darlene. No one will hold the truth against you or your daug
hter. Whoever the man was, it can only be a good thing if Macy knows.”

  Darlene rolled her head away from them and faced the wall, her eyes closed. “No.”

  Vivienne looked over her shoulder at Mei and Arabella and shook her head, then tucked the blankets around Darlene’s shoulders. “It’s okay, Darlene. You rest now…just rest.”

  Out in the kitchen the three women gathered around the small kitchen table.

  “I don’t understand it,” Arabella said softly. “Darlene has been so relieved to have Macy placed with a Clayton family. She has said it a dozen times just to me. She is so protective of her daughter that I would think she’d grasp at this chance to create stronger ties between Macy and our family.”

  Vivienne nodded. “Even if Vern wasn’t Macy’s dad, this was a perfect chance for her to give Macy a true legacy. Why wouldn’t she tell us the name of Macy’s father?”

  Mei looked thoughtfully at both of them. “Considering how weak she is, her strong reaction conveyed an awful lot of emotion. It reminded me of the line from Hamlet that’s always being misquoted. ‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks.’ But the next big question is why?”

  All the way back into town, Mei’s thoughts spun. Her mother’s confession. Her dad’s lies. The fact that she’d been in town over three weeks already, yet there’d been not a single word about her brother.

  Her nightmares about him were occurring more frequently. Visions of him being lost and hurt, trying to escape the Florida swamps, while alligators followed him relentlessly, closing in one inch at a time with the promise of a terrifying death waiting in their powerful jaws.

  She needed answers. She’d prayed for answers. Why hadn’t there been any news?

  Back in town she drove down Eagle Street past the sheriff’s office, but Zach’s car wasn’t out front. Why wasn’t he doing anything? Frustrated, she pulled off the street and scrolled through the phone book in her cell phone, then called his private number. He answered on the third ring.

  “Mei. I suppose you want to know about Barbara Meier.”

  “With everything else that has happened in the past twenty-four hours, I haven’t even thought about her.”

  “Everything all right?” he asked.

  “Fair. We can talk later if you’re busy doing something right now.”

  “This is a good time. Just so you know, on Friday night Gina insisted on giving us a statement with her lawyer present, and the D.A. is racking up a number of charges against her mother. We also found some drugs on Barbara and obtained a search warrant on her rental house.” He cleared his throat. “We found some meth lab paraphernalia in the basement, so I think Barbara and her tattooed buddy are going to be out of the picture for a long time. Gina said she was just sick of all the lies.”

  Mei thought about Gina, masking her pain with her sarcasm and false bravado, and her heart wrenched. “What will happen to her?”

  “It’s all being sorted out, but she’s a juvenile and it’s pretty clear to me that her lovely mom pushed her into that plot to discredit you. Gina’s paternal aunt and uncle are good, solid people, and they want her to stay with them long-term.”

  “That’s good news.” Mei gripped the phone a little tighter. “What about Vincent?”

  “The D.A. doesn’t think we have enough yet to charge him for anything. But maybe this situation will be enough warning that he’ll finally get his act together.”

  “And Lucas—have you heard anything at all?”

  “Nope. I’ve been following up every other day with the police chief down there, but there’s been no news at all. I’ll call them again on Monday.”

  Disappointment washed through her. “Thanks, Zach. I know you’re doing your best.”

  She debated about going to the Cowboy Café for breakfast. To Mom’s for coffee, to tell her about Darlene. Or just going home and going back to bed.

  But after a moment’s indecision, she headed for Jack’s cabin. Of all the places in town, there was nowhere else she wanted to be right now.

  She just hoped that he would be home.

  “I suppose you’re real pleased with yourself,” Pauley spat. He glanced around the log cabin housing the wildlife biologist’s office. “Fancy degree. Fancy job.”

  “I’m not sure where this is going,” Jack said mildly, looking up from his computer screen. “But if you stopped in to hand out compliments, thanks.”

  “You heard about Gina and her mother blabbering about Vincent. This time with their lawyer in the room. Why couldn’t those two leave well enough alone?”

  “Maybe they realized that telling the truth was important.”

  Pauley grunted in disagreement. “You know it’s gonna hurt Vincent’s reputation around here.”

  “What reputation? This is just more of the same for him.”

  “But it diminishes our family name all the more. I’m the mayor. I have to be concerned about such things.”

  Jack kept typing up his report on his latest bear count. “As I see it, you aren’t so concerned about doing something bad. You just don’t want it widely known.”

  “That’s not true at all,” Pauley blustered. “Not true at all.”

  “You’ve all got a great opportunity for some positive PR coming right up. Though I don’t expect you’ll have the courage to show up.”

  “You mean that ridiculous Thanksgiving dinner.”

  “That’s exactly what I mean.” Jack stopped typing and swiveled his chair toward Pauley. “The whole lot of you should attend. Show you can be civil for three hours. Make nice conversation. Be interested in all of those people you count as enemies, and maybe you’ll find a lot of common ground. And then this ridiculous feud can finally come to an end.”

  “Maybe we will—if only to show you that you’re wrong.” He started for the door, then turned back, his mouth twisted in a leer. “So tell me—how’s that big romance of yours coming along? Got your hooks into that little gal yet?”

  “It’s not a big romance. And I’m certainly not trying to get at her money.”

  Pauley chortled. “Glad to hear it because I have it on good authority that your little Mei Clayton has no intention of staying around here—and she wants absolutely no ties to you or anyone else that might complicate a speedy departure once her twelve-month sentence is up here. So, sonny, don’t think that you’ll have a chance of holding her back.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  When she drove up Bluebird Lane, crossed the Silver Creek bridge and turned into the lane leading to the cabin housing the Clayton County Forest Service offices, Mei smiled to herself and sighed with relief. Jack’s county SUV was still parked out front, along with a car she didn’t recognize, but at least he wasn’t off in the mountains somewhere.

  Over the course of the past month she’d taught classes with him, faced difficult situations and had enjoyed some of the most wonderful evenings, just talking with Jack over cups of coffee and Arabella’s pie.

  Her mother was dead wrong.

  Through it all she’d come to see him as so much more than the handsome boy back in high school. He wasn’t anything like Vincent, even if her mother couldn’t see it. He was a thoughtful, intelligent and honorable man, with a remarkable level of patience for defiant teenagers—and that alone ought to give him gold stars in anyone’s grade book. Not to mention that his wicked sense of humor charmed her completely.

  She already knew their relationship didn’t have a long-term future, but she was going to pray that it lasted at least until she left town. She would then treasure the memories because she already knew that no one else would ever measure up…and no one else would ever be able to capture her heart.

  She waited in her car until Jack’s visitor came out and drove away, then turned off her engine and headed inside the building.

  She found Jack frowning at his computer, with a tall stack of files at his elbow and a clipboard next to his keyboard. “This is Saturday. No rest for the wicked?”

  He looked
up at her and smiled, though his smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Hello, Mei.”

  She cocked her head and studied him. “Is something wrong?”

  “Not at all. I’m just trying to catch up on things. I’ve had a lot going on lately.”

  He didn’t automatically invite her to sit down or ask what she was doing for lunch, and now she felt a frisson of unease. “I…um, thought you might like to hear that Gina has provided statements against her mother and Vincent. The deputies also found drug paraphernalia in Barbara Meier’s basement, so we won’t be faced with her verbal attacks in the future. Gina has decided to move in with an aunt.”

  Jack shook his head. “I feel sorry for her. It’s going to be humiliating for her to come back to school on Monday after her mother’s scene during the open house.”

  “If it were middle school she would probably beg to move to a different district. But kids aren’t quite as cruel by the time they’re seniors in high school.” Mei smiled. “I think she’ll be surprised at how much the kids try to befriend her after this.”

  “I’m glad, then.” He looked at his computer monitor, clicked his mouse, then pulled his gaze away from the screen. “So…what’s it like being back home? Is everything else going okay?”

  “No word on Lucas, and if I don’t hear something soon I’m going down to the Everglades myself.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “Actually, I am. I don’t think anyone else really cares. And on the home front, I had a long and difficult conversation with my mom.”

  He glanced at her. “How did that go?”

  “Surprisingly, I think we’ve finally made a connection after all these years. That was one of my main reasons for coming back here for a while.”

  “So you found common ground.”

  “More than we’ve had. I’ve always wanted to have a better relationship but just never thought it was possible.”