Meant To Be

by Неизвестно

  I kept pacing. I thought about going outside, looking for a rock or two to throw. I thought about scouting the forest for a tree limb and practicing a karate chop. But mostly I thought about flying to California and attacking a woman I’d never met.

  "The reason I’m telling you this," Tia continued finally, perhaps after waiting for me to cool down, "is that it all relates to the question you asked me earlier. You were absolutely right about Fletch—he is still carrying around a lot of hurt, over and above the loss of our parents. You were also right that maybe your being here is making it worse."

  I stopped pacing and looked at her with alarm. "How’s that?"

  To my surprise, she smiled again. "Well, that’s the second half of the story. You see, as wonderful a guy as Fletch is, he shares one truly obnoxious fault with our mother. He’s dogmatic as hell. He makes up his mind about something, and that’s the end of it. No more discussion. Cutting down hundred-year-old trees to build a shopping center, for example, is wrong with a capital W. Extenuating circumstances? Well, they just don’t exist. His mind is made up."

  She paused for me to comment. I didn’t, and she went on. "When the situation with Isabella hit the fan, he was completely blown away. But instead of recognizing the one bad apple, he extrapolated to the entire female race. He looked back over the other hundred or so women he’s dated—not one of which, for obvious reasons, ever shared his excitement at the prospect of raising a litter of children in the middle of nowhere—and decided that the whole love-and-marriage business simply wasn’t worth the grief." She took a breath, then let it out with a chuckle. "So like an idiot, he makes this vow. He swears to me that he’s done with women—period. That he can be perfectly happy living here all by himself—at least until he can find some agency or other that will let him adopt as a single parent."

  She shook her head with derision. "Did I point out the fallacies here? Of course I did. But he wouldn’t listen. He doesn’t listen. Happily-ever-after is nothing but a myth, he says—romantic love is a sham. Won’t he get lonely living out here all alone? Of course not, he claims. He still has plenty of friends around, and there will be kids too, someday. What about affection? He says he just answered that. What about sex? No comment."

  She turned around in her chair and looked at me, a smile playing on her lips. "So you see," she finished with a touch of drama. "If it seems like you’re making his anguish worse, you absolutely are, my dear. In fact, I’d say you’re torturing the man."

  I felt suddenly defensive, even as my heart pounded at the thought. "What are you talking about?" I whispered.

  She chuckled. "Oh, please! I was here last night, remember? I’ve seen fewer sparks flying on the Fourth of July." She made a show of examining her arm. "In fact, I think I got singed in the cross fire."

  I didn’t think it was possible, but my cheeks got redder. "Was I that obvious?"

  Tia laughed out loud. "Subtlety isn’t your strength. But that’s okay. For what it’s worth, I think you fooled him. You must have, or he’d be running for the hills by now."

  My entire body flushed with heat. My limbs threatened to tremble. Everything she’d told me made perfect sense. How the pain in his eyes had only seemed to worsen whenever things went well between us. Whenever I reminded him of Isabella. Whenever he dared to start thinking of me as more than a friend. He had been fighting me. But not because he didn't want me.

  "I thought you should know," Tia said softly, "because I didn’t want you to blame yourself. It’s not like you’re doing anything wrong." She grinned again. "But poor Fletch—he must think someone up there’s playing some colossal joke on him. No sooner does he swear off women altogether than you fall right into his lap—a beautiful, sexy, sweet schoolteacher who cooks like a wizard and says she likes trees."

  I blinked, overtaken by a sudden, inexplicable urge to verify that I really did like trees. But before I could get the words out, Tia was talking again.

  "You know," she said with a giggle, "when we were teenagers, we made this deal. I told you how much Mom wanted grandchildren—she demanded no fewer than eight. But as you’ve probably figured out, I’m not the motherly type. Far too flighty. Though I would," she stressed, pointing a finger, "make a fabulous aunt. So I told Fletcher that having the eight kids would be his job—that I’d contribute by popping in for birthdays and delivering extravagant gifts. He said that was fine, but that if I expected him to provide eight nieces and nephews, I had to find him a wife that would still look sexy after having eight kids. And—here was the kicker—she also had to be able to bake pies as good as Mom’s."

  My eyes widened. The pie. I’d offered the man a homemade pie, and he had completely freaked. He really did think I was some sort of cosmic setup!

  I felt myself smiling, and a wave of happiness rushed through me. So I’d been torturing him, had I? Well, good. The important thing was—there was no other woman. The only thing holding him back from me was his own stupid vow. He had been hurt badly, and he was afraid of being hurt again. But he would get over that, eventually. I did.

  I drifted back to the table and sat down. "Well," I asked lightly, my head now firmly in the clouds. "Did you ever come up with any candidates?"

  "Of course not. Nobody bakes homemade pies anymore. Though I have sent a few good cooks his way." Her dark eyes locked on mine then, and her tone turned serious. "A lot of women have fallen for Fletch over the years, Meara. It’s an easy thing to do, I know. He’s good-looking and he’s sweet—at least to women who aren’t his sister. But you’ve got to understand, he’s not some city sophisticate who just happens to look good in jeans. It’s the other way around. He’s an old-fashioned, moralizing, stick-in-the-mud, country-bumpkin, Eagle Scout who just happens to look sophisticated in a suit."

  "He was an Eagle Scout?" I commented, impressed.

  She stared at me a moment. "My God, you’re frightening," she said finally, letting a shiver rock her shoulders. "The point is, you shouldn’t let yourself think that Fletch’s wanting to live in these mountains the rest of his life is a pipe dream, because it’s not. He got talked out of it by a woman once—it won’t happen again."

  "Why would I want to talk him out of it?"

  Her eyebrows rose.

  "What?" I pressed, feeling defensive again. "This is a wonderful place to live. It’s beautiful, it’s quiet, there’s a grocery store within half an hour. He’s obviously happy here. What’s wrong with that?"

  Her mouth hung open. "Are you serious?"

  I stared back.

  She shuddered again, then rubbed her arms. The gesture seemed over-the-top, and I began to get the feeling I was being played. "This place," she insisted, "is like something out of a thesis. Rural Living Linked to Dogmatism, Obsession with Uninteresting Nature-Related Trivia, and General Brain Deterioration. This place is boring, Meara. There isn’t a decent bookstore for miles. Upscale shopping? Forget it. You can’t even get cable here. To you, this is a vacation, but living here 365 days a year—and being snowed under for at least a third of them—is different. I was so ready to split this place I barely graduated high school. Couldn’t wait to see the real world—never wanted to come back. Just visiting gives me hives. More than three or four days here, and I feel like I can’t breathe. You understand what I mean?"

  "Actually, no," I said honestly. "But to each his own."

  She studied me for another long moment, then stood up. "Well, that tears it," she announced. "Don’t move. I’ll be back in a second."

  She traipsed out the French doors and across the patio, then disappeared around a corner of the inn. In a few moments she reappeared, holding something green. She marched back inside and laid it on the table in front of me.

  It was a leaf.

  "You said you’re into trees," she stated. "But do you just think they’re pretty to look at, or do you know all kinds of boring stuff about them, too?"

  I suppressed a smile. "There’s nothing boring about trees."

  Her eyes
rolled. "Yeah, right. So what kind is this?"

  I picked up the leaf and pretended to study it closely. "I don’t know," I said, sounding perplexed.

  Her face fell.

  "It’s either a red oak or a black oak," I continued. "but you can’t tell from the leaf. I’d have to take a look at the acorns. You see, the caps on the acorns of red oaks are relatively smaller in proportion to—"

  She ripped the leaf from my hands and sank into her chair, laughing hysterically.

  "Tia!" I demanded, smiling with her now, "what is your problem?"

  She couldn’t respond. She was laughing too hard. Mercifully, the phone rang, giving me an excuse to reach across the table and smack her on the shoulder. "Stop laughing and answer that!" I ordered. "It’s not my phone."

  She covered her mouth with her hands and shook her head.

  I rolled my own eyes, then rose and headed toward the desk. All of a sudden, I was feeling pretty darn wonderful. Not only was Fletcher not in love with someone else, but I was pretty sure that his sister, in her own, obnoxious way, had just given me her blessing.

  And she didn’t even know I baked pies.

  Chapter 25

  "Black residence," I announced, my voice chipper.

  "Meara, is that you?" Alex asked.

  My spirits sank. I had promised to call him later in the morning. He wouldn’t be calling me first unless something had happened. "Yes," I answered. "What is it? What’s wrong?"

  "Don’t panic," he said smoothly. "The house is fine. Nothing’s horribly wrong, but I didn’t want to wait around for you to report in, either. It’s just this: I got a call first thing this morning from the foreman on the abatement crew, telling me that one of his men noticed a car circling the block the day before the break-in. Apparently, this guy didn’t think too much about it until he heard about the door being left open, but then he told the foreman right away. I said that everything was fine and that you weren’t pursuing the issue with the police, but then I figured I’d better call you first and make sure that’s still the case."

  No, I thought bitterly. I had put the incident in Pittsburgh out of my mind, and I wanted it to stay there.

  "Meara? Are you there? Don’t freak out on me, please. If you’re worried, we’ll get the police involved."

  "I’m not freaking out," I responded, knowing my thin voice was less than convincing. In my mind I saw Jake driving slowly in front of my parents’ house, his car window rolled down, his head turning, his eyes watching…

  "Did the worker say if he got a look at the driver?" I blurted.

  "No-go on that. He was working on the roof or the attic or somewhere—watching the street from above. In any event, he must have spent more time than he should have watching the cars go by, because he was certain that this one was a dark-blue Ford Taurus, probably about ten years old. He says it must have gone around the block a dozen times over the course of the day."

  Chill bumps spread over my arms. I rubbed them with my free hand. "Did he say if the car came back after the break-in?" I asked.

  "He wasn’t working at the site yesterday," Alex explained. "That’s why we’re not hearing any of this until now. But he’s definitely going to keep an eye out for it today. Do you want me to call the police again? It might be better if you called them directly. I have the name and number of the officer who came out yesterday—he’ll know what you’re talking about."

  I took down the name and number, then realized that Tia was watching over my shoulder. "Thanks, Alex. I appreciate your calling. And I’ll handle it myself from here. Thank you."

  After I had assured him several more times that I was all right, we hung up.

  Tia looked at me worriedly. "News about the break-in?" she asked.

  I gave her a summary. When I had finished, she looked even more worried.

  "Okay," she queried. "So what is it that you aren’t telling me? You think you know who’s behind it, don’t you?"

  I let out a breath. I wasn’t sure how much Fletcher had told her about Jake, but I knew that he hadn’t talked to her since I had shared my fears with him at the cabin. I didn’t want to explain again—didn’t want to face them. But I knew I couldn’t escape them, either.

  I proceeded to fill Tia in, beginning with the meeting at the diner, and ending with my theory of Sheila’s abuse. My voice wavered every time I was forced to speak Jake’s name, and as Tia listened, her worry lines deepened. When I paused, she led me back to the table to sit down.

  "Meara," she asked. "Why are you so certain this man isn’t your birth father?"

  I looked into her shrewd eyes, and found myself unable to answer. The only reason I had for believing that Jake Kozen wasn’t my birth father was my impression that he had been lying when he said that he was.

  That, and the fact that I couldn’t bear the alternative.

  "I hope that he’s not," she said pointedly. "But you have no business staking your whole well-being on it."

  I took in a sharp breath.

  "Whether he is or he isn’t your birth father shouldn’t matter to how you view yourself," she continued, her voice firm.

  I said nothing. I looked at my hands.

  "Meara O’Rourke!" she thundered, startling me to attention. She was giving a good approximation of my own best intimidation stare, and I wondered if she had ever considered school teaching. "I know what you’re thinking, and I’m not having any of that crap in my presence! You do not need to find out that Jake wasn’t your birth father in order to feel better, or less guilty, or more deserving, or whatever else it is that you’re thinking. The man is an unqualified, grade-A, criminal asshole either way. You are a wonderful, warm, sweet, and sensitive woman either way. Finding out the worst, as emotionally upsetting as it would be, will not change who you are. You will be strong. You will allow yourself to be a basket case for a suitable period of time, and then you will accept the historical reality and move on. Or else I promise you, you will have to deal with me. Got it?"

  I blinked at her. Then amazingly, I found myself smiling. Tia always seemed to know just what to say to make me feel better.

  "Now," she continued, her tone still didactic, "speaking as a woman with considerable expertise in the area of jackass birth fathers, I have to tell you this. I agree with Fletch that you need to get a professional’s advice about this stalking thing. Did he hear back from Ben yet?"

  I shook my head. "Not that I know of. At least not before he left here last night."

  She rose. "Well, you need to tell Fletch what you just told me. I suppose we can try him on his cell phone. Not that there’s any chance he’ll actually answer it. I swear he just uses the thing to collect messages."

  She walked to the desk and extracted Mitchell’s address book from the drawer, then dialed the phone. She flipped idly through the listings as she waited for a response, but her eyes soon came to rest on something that interested her, and her gaze remained on the page even after she had removed the receiver from her ear and hung up.

  "Well?" I asked. "No answer?"

  "No," she responded, closing the book. "But I’m sure he’ll be down soon enough. He was muttering something yesterday about being out of coffee at the cabin, though that was probably just an excuse to see you." She returned to the table and began sifting through one of her stacks of envelopes. Her face wore a puzzled expression.

  "What is it?" I asked, my heart leaping a little at her last comment.

  "James P. McElron," she stated. "Whoever that is. All I know is that my father paid him a heck of a lot of money."

  I watched as she extracted what she sought from the pile.

  "Look at these," she explained, laying them out. "Four checks to James P. McElron. From $300 all the way up to $1685, none of them with a thing written in the comment line. The first was dated a week after my mother died, the last one, a little over a month ago. And I just saw his name in the address book, too. No location, just the number. Who the heck is this guy?"

  "Good m
orning."

  I turned to see Fletcher standing at the French doors. Elation rippled through me at the sight, and my eyes lingered involuntarily over his solid form.

  "Good morning," I said with a smile, rising. "You want some coffee?"

  He smiled back. His expression was guarded, but for once I didn’t worry about his reaction. As of this morning, not only did I know the cause of his hesitancy—I also knew what to do about it.

  "Don’t mind if I do," he answered, heading to the kitchen to pour it himself. "I ran out."

  "Of course you did," Tia commented. The sarcasm was subtle, but the sideways dart of Fletcher’s eyes told me he hadn’t missed it.

  Wary of Tia’s "help," I attempted to divert his attention. "Did you hear back from Ben?"

  He nodded as he tasted the coffee, then moved out toward the couches by the fireplace. I followed, and we sat down. Tia remained at the table, but turned her chair around to listen.

  "Ben says if you’re convinced you’ve got a problem, you should report it and shoot for a restraining order," he began. "But stalking cases can be tough, particularly in a situation like this, when you made first contact. You’d have to provide some proof of what was happening.

  "He suggested you save the card from the flowers and the tapes from your answering machine and make note of the times and dates. You should also check and make sure that the police filed a report on the possible break-in. But what you’ve got so far isn’t enough. Jake lives hours away from you—at the very least you’d have to show that he had been near your house."

  I exhaled slowly, then explained Alex’s report about the blue car. Fletcher’s expression darkened. "Then what we need to do," he said, rising and moving toward the phone, "is find out what kind of car Jake drives."

  I rose also, my heart beating faster than I would have liked. I was pleased that he and Tia were taking my concerns so seriously. But a part of me wished they would simply laugh and tell me that I was making a mountain out of a molehill. Maybe I could even believe them.