Her nervous gaze strayed to the screen door, through which Merl could be seen, calmly doing her needlework, well out of earshot.
He answered her unvoiced fears. “No, I didn’t ask your mother about it. You’re the one who started this, Leah. It’s your job to enlighten me, not Merl’s.” He took another swallow from the beer can.
“James, how did you find out...?”
“That Merl and Douglas are your parents? Purely by accident, I assure you. I’m as good as my word. I had no intention of getting in touch with you.”
She crossed to the calico-draped window over the sink and stood gazing outside as he explained, “It was Kara. She took it kind of hard when you left without saying anything to her. And then you got unlisted numbers. Taking no chances, eh?”
Leah glanced at his bitter smile. She and Kara had become close friends while she and James had been together.
He said, “And you didn’t return her calls when she left messages at your office. She was hurt, Leah.” He drained his beer can. “Kara ended up talking with your Miguel the other day when she was trying to get you. Before long they were chatting like long-lost cousins.”
Leah could believe that. Miguel and Kara were possibly the world’s two most loquacious and outgoing people.
“Trust Kara,” he said. “Five minutes talking to her, and Miguel was singing like a bird, giving her your folks’ names and this address. Funny. All the time we spent together and not once did you mention your parents’ names. Now I know why. Not that I noticed at the time. I was too...bewitched, shall we say. Blind might be more accurate.”
She turned to face him. The unforgiving bitterness in his eyes chilled her. “Why?” she asked.
“Why was I so damn gullible or why did Kara want to know about your parents?” When she greeted this barb with stony silence, he answered, “Possibly because she likes you, Leah. And she’s not used to friends who burn her off with no explanation. She figured she might be able to get in touch with you here.”
“She knew we broke up. Wasn’t that explanation enough?”
“Not for Kara. Anyway, she thought Merlina Moody Harmony was an interesting name and didn’t I think so, too?”
Leah groaned inwardly. So that was how he’d made the connection.
“I suppose she thought I’d break down and go after you,” he added, beginning to stalk around the small room like a caged lion. “Merlina Moody. Not a name you forget too easily. She and Annie were a part of our household during most of my childhood, you know.” Abruptly he stopped pacing. “And then one day they were gone. Just like that. With no explanation. Annie had been like a sister to me for so many years.”
He looked intently at Leah. “But she was your sister. God, you look so much like her. I can see it now. When I first met you, I thought there was something familiar...” He stopped and gave an incredulous little laugh, but there was no joy in it.
“You searched my purse,” Leah accused. “You knew about the picture.”
He raised a palm. “You left the photo lying out.”
“But why didn’t you say anyth—”
“I didn’t recognize her. That snapshot you have is in such poor condition it was hard to make anything out. It’s no wonder—I was a kid when I took it, with my very first camera, so it’s been kicking around for a few decades. Anyway, after I found out Merl’s your mother, I remembered the photo I’d seen in your room and it hit me—it was Annie Moody. So I rummaged around in my old negatives till I turned it up.”
“Where was it taken?”
“At Whitewood. There used to be a grape arbor on the east side of the house, where the flagstone patio is now.”
She’d turned back to the window, and now she sensed him behind her, his breath warm on her neck.
His voice was quiet, controlled—edged with a determination born, she suspected, of the same yearning and sleepless nights she’d endured for two months. “I have a right to know what this is about, Leah, what brought you to New York. I have a right.”
She watched Penny, the mutt, roll in the dry dirt outside. “Yes,” she said at last. “You do have a right to know.” She felt him tense in expectation. “James...I’m sorry. Please try to accept that I—I just can’t—” She swallowed around the lump in her throat, determined not to take the easy way out and unburden herself at the expense of her brother’s peace of mind. Better he should detest her than have to live with the knowledge of what they’d done.
She heard his swift intake of breath, felt his heavy, warm hands on her shoulders as he turned her to face him, forcing her back until she was trapped between the sink and his hard body. Those hands framed her face and tilted it up. Not until she felt his touch did she realize just how acutely she’d missed it. Her eyes glazed with tears as he again made her meet his gaze.
“Understand this, Leah. I will have the truth. With or without your cooperation.”
“James...” Her eyes squeezed shut, a single tear escaping to roll down her cheek.
“Open your eyes.” He waited until she did. The intensity of his expression rocked her. His callused thumb caught the tear and wiped it away. “I could pretend you meant nothing to me,” he said softly. “I could stand here and tell you I never thought of you in the last two months, never missed you or ached for you.” Something between a sigh and a growl escaped his throat. Through the haze of tears she saw his face move lower, closer, until their lips nearly touched. “But you’d know I was lying,” he whispered.
His warm breath, the scent of him, the very heat of him, conspired to part her lips as his touched them. The contact was featherlight, as if he struggled to deny a force more powerful than his will. His fingers tightened their grip, pulling her closer. His wide mouth brushed hers in lazy side-to-side strokes that stole her breath and caused a tingling current to invade the deepest recesses of her body. Somehow the whispery contact was more tantalizing, more erotic, than the deepest kiss.
With an obvious effort he tore his mouth away. He rested his forehead on hers, his agitated breathing betraying the depth of his longing, the fierce battle being waged within him. “What have you done to me?” he demanded. “You give me no peace. You’re there when I close my eyes and when I open them. You invade my dreams. And every waking minute. Damn you.” His grip tightened. “I hate you for making me love you.”
She twisted free and crossed the small kitchen, hugging herself to still the trembling that wouldn’t stop. “I’ll always regret going to New York, disrupting your life the way I did, James.” Her voice quavered. “I—I’m sorry for that. If I could undo the past...” She took a deep breath. “I don’t expect you to understand my decision not to confide in you. Or to believe me when I tell you it’s for your sake that I don’t.”
“For my sake? Don’t do me any favors, sweetheart.” He leaned back against the sink and crossed his arms over his chest. “As I said, I’ll get to the bottom of this on my own. You should’ve heeded my warning not to try to make a fool out of me.”
“I didn’t—”
“Don’t! Don’t say it, Leah. No more lies.”
She started for the back door but stopped herself short, slamming a fist against a cabinet door hard enough to rattle the contents. “How dare you accuse me of lying. If you hadn’t lied...Damn you! If you hadn’t lied to me, none of this would’ve—”
“What the hell are you talking about?” His face was a study in righteous indignation.
“You aren’t adopted, are you?”
In his astonishment, he took a moment to answer, a long moment during which she found herself praying for the impossible. She was to be disappointed.
“No,” he said. “I’m not.”
She closed her eyes for a moment and willed calm into her voice. “You told me you were adopted, James. You lied to me.”
“What the— Yes, I lied,” he admitted lightly, clearly oblivious to the import of his words. “Don’t try to equate one lie with the other, Leah. I’m tired of your little game
s.”
“Why did you lie?”
“What difference does it make? It has nothing to do with—” He broke off, staring at her intently. He pushed off the sink and closed the distance between them. “Or does it? Why do you care whether or not—”
Defeatedly she said, “Just tell me why you did it.”
His expression hardened. The wall went up and she knew he’d reveal nothing he didn’t want revealed. “That’s my business and I don’t care to share it. Least of all with you.”
“You can’t change who you are—or who your parents were—just by wishing, James. Believe me.” Her chest constricted with anguish as she recognized the bitter truth of her words. How she’d wished, for both their sakes, that the people who’d raised her were her biological parents. But they weren’t. And if she could accept her parentage, why couldn’t her half brother? Was it because of traumas he’d experienced at their father’s hand? She’d never know.
“It would seem we’re at an impasse,” he observed coldly. “I’ll make you a deal. Since it seems so important to you, I’ll give you the whole story, tell you why I let you believe I was adopted, if you do the same. If you tell me why you came to New York. Agreed?”
“No.” His reasons for lying made no difference. The fact that he was indeed the flesh-and-blood child of James Bradburn, Sr., was the only thing that mattered. Simply because she was, too. And she was stubborn enough to keep her promise to herself not to share her misery with him.
He pushed past her, throwing open the screen door.
Her voice was a sad whisper as the door slammed on his retreating back. “Oh, James, why did you have to lie to me? You’ll never know how much damage you did.”
Chapter Twelve
“I wish you’d stay for dinner, James.” Merl was snapping the ends off green beans and tossing them into a bowl. Later they’d be coated with batter and deep-fried. The glazed ham in the oven sent its delectable aroma wafting through the tiny house.
He’d showered and stepped back into his grease-stained jeans. Now he pulled his white polo shirt over his head, leaving it untucked, and raked his fingers through his wet hair.
“I appreciate the offer, Merl, but my flight leaves in a little over an hour.”
Leah checked her watch: It was a quarter past two. “I’ll take you to the airport. I have to be going myself.”
“Not a very long visit,” Merl grumbled.
“I’m sorry, Mama. I’ll stay longer next time.”
Merl wiped her hands on a kitchen towel. “Well, don’t you know Douglas is gonna be sore when he finds out he missed you, James.” She led the way into the room that served as living room, dining room, and den all in one. “I want you to do something for me before you leave.”
James laughed. “Uh-oh. I’m warning you, I don’t have time to wash and wax the pickup, Merl. Or paint the house.”
She acknowledged his good-natured banter with a wry smile, then crossed the room to an old bird’s-eye maple secretary. She opened a drawer and removed a tiny blue plastic key case.
The key to the safe-deposit box.
Leah’s eyes widened. She flashed a glance at James and wished she’d fled when she had the chance.
“I hope you have time for this on your way to the airport,” Merl said, staring at the key.
“What’s that, Merl?” he asked.
She hesitated. “You don’t know what it means to me, you coming down here to give me those pictures, James.” She looked up into his eyes, so filled with warmth now. “You didn’t have to do that—you coulda mailed ’em. But maybe it was God’s will that you come down, ’cause what I’ve got to give you...well, I can’t very well put it in the mail.” She fingered the smooth key case.
He stepped toward her and enfolded her small, wrinkled hands in his big, sun-browned ones. He didn’t press her but waited patiently for her to continue.
“James, your mama...she gave me something when I left your house.” Merl’s voice softened. “Hard to believe that was a quarter century ago.”
Leah shoved her damp, icy hands in the pockets of her dress and prayed Merl didn’t have any spectacular revelations planned.
“It’s a necklace,” Merl said, “a fancy thing—pearls and diamonds and whatnot.” She handed the key to Leah. “Your name is on that box, too, Leah, so they’ll let you get into it.”
“Merl...” James looked from her to Leah. “If my mother gave you something, she meant for you to keep it.”
“You don’t understand, James,” Merl said. “It wasn’t...a gift like that. She wanted to make sure we never went hungry, that’s all. But that necklace was your mama’s. It belongs to you and your brothers, no two ways about it.”
James was shaking his head. “Still...”
“James, take the necklace,” Leah said, intensely relieved that this seemed to be all the explanation Merl intended to offer. “Mama won’t let you go home without it, trust me.” His eyes bored into hers, penetrating, inquisitive, as if he knew this was part of the mystery that plagued him. She dragged her gaze away.
“Your mama was a good person, James,” Merl said. “And it was real good of her to want to help us. Go by the bank and get it, you hear me? It’ll be a real burden off my mind.”
James smiled. “Yes, ma’am.” Leah’s breath caught at his tender smile, a smile she’d thought to see again only in her dreams. He leaned down and hugged Merl hard, giving her a firm kiss on the cheek.
Merl’s eyes glistened. “You turned into a fine man, James Bradburn, Jr.”
“Is this the same woman who used to call me a foulmouthed brat?” he asked.
She held him at arm’s length. “Well, you were a foulmouthed brat.” She turned to Leah. “He was.”
“I believe you,” Leah said, trying to repress a smile. James met her eyes, and for an instant something flickered between them, something that made her heart skip a beat, before they caught themselves and looked away.
*
“James...” It was an awed whisper. “I had no idea....”
The necklace had been swaddled in a faded piece of cotton flannel, a scrap from an old nightgown, Leah guessed. They were in a tiny cubicle in the bank vault, where the bank employee had left them after retrieving her folks’ safe-deposit box. Now she stared transfixed at the magnificent piece of jewelry Antonia Bradburn had removed from her neck without a second thought and pressed into Merl’s hands so long ago.
“I remember this piece from old photos.” James lifted the heavily jeweled necklace to examine it. He rubbed his thumb over a huge teardrop pearl. The diamonds and pearls glinted in sharp contrast to the deeply tanned skin of his long fingers, making her stomach tighten with feelings she wished she could control. “I wondered what happened to it. It wasn’t in the safe and it never turned up with her things.” Gone was his previous cynical hostility. “It was decent of your mother to return it to my family. She’s a woman of integrity. I’d like to do something for her, but I know she wouldn’t accept anything from me.”
“It’s enough for her just to be able to return it, James. This must’ve been weighing on her conscience all those years. Mama had this necklace since the day she left Whitewood.” She felt his eyes on her and realized she’d said too much. But rather than badger her for more answers, he simply rerolled the necklace in the cloth and carefully packed it in his carryon bag.
A brooding silence stretched between them as they made their way out the air-conditioned bank to the hot, sun-dazzled parking lot. He seemed lost in thought. She sensed in him not anger now but a sober resignation. She would have preferred the anger.
“You should make your flight with time to spare,” she commented as she drove. He didn’t reply. “Where do you change planes? Atlanta?”
“Yeah.”
She felt ridiculous trying to make small talk with the man she loved, the man she’d never set eyes on again after this day. Did he feel the same barrenness, the sense of loss? she wondered.
“
Stop the car!” His sudden command caught her by surprise, snatching her from her gloomy reverie.
“What...?”
“Pull in here, Leah.”
She stared in incredulous horror at the establishment he pointed to on the right side of the road. Her bug-eyed gaze swung to his now-animated features—the glinting eyes, the sexy mouth curved into a beguiling grin. He couldn’t be serious.
She found her voice. “Hell no!”
“Hell yes!” His long arm snaked across the steering wheel, dislodging her hands and palming the wheel smoothly, steering them into a restaurant parking lot while she bellowed at the top of her lungs. “I didn’t know you knew those words,” he said, and steered the Miata more or less into a parking space.
She braked jerkily and demanded, “Get your hand off that gearshift!”
“Okay.” He snagged the keys from the ignition and hopped out of the car. She glared icicles at him through the windshield as he jauntily circled around to open her door.
She looked up into his maddeningly cheerful face—could this be the same man who’d been sitting next to her like death since they left the bank?—and then up at the enormous, garish sign on a pole: Ma Chum’s Catfish Shack.
“James, why are you doing this to me?” She wished she’d never mentioned the name of the restaurant where she’d once waitressed.
“Because they advertise all you can eat for one low price. See?” He pointed to a sign in the window. “And I’ve decided I want to eat all I can eat.” He dragged her out of the car. “For one low price.”
“You have a flight to catch.”
“To quote a lady who once sat in my bathtub with her clothes on, there will be other flights.”
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