"Remy's mother Marie is a Navarre. She's my—my father's younger sister. They were pretty close—our families spent a lot of time together—and that meant Remy and I were pretty close, too. He was the older brother I'd always wanted. He was my best friend. My earliest memories—and most of my best memories—involve Remy. He used to come down and spend weekends and part of his summer vacation with us in New Orleans, and I spent a lot of time with his family. I loved it at their house. It was so different from the city, so big and beautiful, so much a home."
She broke off for a moment, thinking of the house where she'd done much of her growing up. A Greek Revival built on the river that had made a fortune or two in shipping for the first Sinclairs in Louisiana, Belle Ste. Claire was as gracious as its name. Oftentimes she had spread a quilt under one of the giant live oaks out front and had simply lain there, chin cushioned on her hands, and stared at the house. She had marveled that she was welcome in such a place, that she who lived in a tiny apartment in a shabby neighborhood in New Orleans had a right to stroll the grounds, to relax on the gallery or to walk right inside.
She had always thought Belle Ste. Claire was a special place. Being there had always made her feel a little special.
Remy had always made her feel special.
"I told you about my parents' divorce. I thought I could survive my mother's leaving—after all, I still had my father, and I adored him. I figured we could get by. I could cook a little, could clean and help out so he wouldn't be overly burdened. I had everything all planned when I came home from school one afternoon and found everything I owned in boxes and my father waiting to take me to his sister's." Two heartaches in two days. She had cried herself to sleep every night for weeks, had tried to figure out what she had done wrong, why the two people who were supposed to love her most had both left her. How had she disappointed them? What could she do to make them come back?
She had prayed, had promised God everything she might ever have, had offered deals, if only He would bring one of her parents back for her. Eventually her father had come back, but only for a visit. He'd had no intention of taking her away with him.
His visits were infrequent from the beginning, but they had become even more so after he met a woman up in Vicksburg. For a time they had simply lived together—Valery had heard gossip at a Navarre family get-together—but after a few years they'd gotten married and started a family of their own.
He hadn't told Valery that he was getting married again, hadn't told her that they were having a baby, then another and then one more. She'd found all that out from Aunt Marie. He hadn't told her anything, except that there was no room for her in his life or his heart, and he'd done that with absence and distance, not words.
"The only good thing to come out of the divorce—that I could see, at least—was that I would be with Remy all the time instead of occasional weekends and vacations. He was my best friend, even if he was a couple years older. He looked out for me when we were together. He made me laugh."
She broke off to watch Michael pour the pancake batter into the skillet. It was unlike any pancake she'd ever seen, huge and fluffy, rising in peaks all across the skillet. He put it in the oven, but didn't come to join her at the table while it baked. After taking a package from the freezer and a carton from the refrigerator, he continued working, leaving her to continue talking.
"It was kind of funny, you know. I'd known Remy all my life. I thought I knew him better than anyone else, and I knew he knew me better than I did myself. But I'd never found out how he felt about being an only child. I hated it. I would have died to have an older brother. I would have died to have Remy for an older brother. But he didn't want me for a younger sister. As a cousin living off in New Orleans most of the time, I was fine. But living in his house, sharing his home and his parents, intruding on his life…" She shook her head, remembering the incredible anger and resentment he'd shown her, feeling the shock and the hurt she'd felt then. She'd been eleven years old, and her parents had deserted her, but she could have handled that, because Remy was there. Remy had never let her down. He'd always looked out for her. He'd always taken care of her.
Finally Michael finished in the kitchen and went to sit across from her. He really would have preferred to stay in the kitchen—it seemed that distance might make this easier for them both—but everything he could do had been done. The pancake was baking, the cream was sweetened, whipped and chilling, the coffee was cooling, and the strawberries were thawing. All that was left to do was wait … and listen.
"Aunt Marie and Uncle George did what they could to make things easier for me. They spent a lot of time with me, gave me a lot of attention—attention that used to be Remy's. That made him dislike me even more. He wouldn't play with me anymore, wouldn't include me with his friends. Sometimes Aunt Marie made him let me tag along, but he'd be so hateful that I stayed behind. As he got older, he wasn't so openly angry, but he still thought I didn't belong there. I wasn't part of his family, as far as he was concerned, and damned if he was going to treat me as if I was."
Remy had been a spoiled kid, Michael thought, but that wasn't unusual with only children, especially those onlies from well-off families, the ones who got pretty much whatever they wanted. But that didn't explain the fifteen-year silence between him and Valery. Surely two adults could look back with maturity and resolve their childhood differences. So Remy had been selfish and cruel; kids were sometimes like that. He had been reacting to major changes in his life; the Navarres' divorce had affected everyone in the two families, not just Valery. And his behavior then certainly wasn't a reflection on the man he'd become. So Valery had intruded on his life and, to some extent, had taken his parents from him. She'd been an unhappy, needy child whose own parents had abandoned her. It wasn't her fault that she'd needed the Sinclairs more than Remy had.
"So you guys never worked things out," he said, his voice neutral.
"No. We had other problems to tend to. We were both growing up, and we had all the usual teenage angst to deal with, and I was still seeing my father from time to time. It seemed as if every time I finally got used to having him out of my life, he came back for a visit. He'd stay a few hours, maybe even a day or two, and then leave again. It was hard—it left everything so unsettled—but I couldn't tell him not to come back. He was my father, and even if he didn't want me, I still loved him."
She paused a moment, gazing into the distance, the most exquisitely haunted look Michael had ever seen in her eyes. Damn her father for putting it there, and her mother and, yes, damn Remy, even if he had been just a spoiled, selfish kid.
Then the sorrow faded—didn't disappear, but simply faded back to the edges of her expression. "Anyway, things got better when Remy went off to college. He rarely came home, and when he did, he pretended I didn't exist. I missed him like hell, but I pretended it didn't matter. Then, on one of his visits, I overheard him arguing with his parents about his graduation. They were planning a big celebration, but he didn't want to include me."
Her voice quivered just the slightest bit, and her eyes were a touch too bright. "They said of course I would be there, and he responded with, 'Why of course? It's not as if she's actually family.' I'd heard that from him before, it wasn't anything new. But that time he went further. He was tired of the lies and the pretense, he said. Tired of the way everyone treated me. Tired of pretending that he didn't know good and well that I had no ties to the Sinclair family, that I didn't even have any ties to the Navarres. The whole family knew, every last one of them, that my mother had been pregnant when she'd met my father. Everyone in the whole damn world knew that he had agreed to pass her illegitimate daughter off as his own … everybody but me."
He saw her tears, heard them in those last sad words, and turned his gaze away at the same time that she bowed her head. He didn't want to hear any more, didn't want to see her cry, didn't want to sit there, as much a bastard as Remy had been, without any comfort to offer her.
After a
moment she went on. "I walked into the room and confronted him. I was going to call him a liar, to make him admit that he was lying, but I knew from their faces that he was telling the truth. For the first time since I had moved in eight years earlier, he seemed sorry. He hadn't meant to go that far. He certainly hadn't intended for me to hear what he was saying. I was heartbroken. All I'd had, the only thing I'd had, those years was my father's family. I didn't even know my mother's family—she had left home before I was born and had lost touch—but the Navarres and the Sinclairs… They were my family. They were my life."
And Remy had taken that away from her, Michael acknowledged. In one angry moment, he'd stolen the last constant in her less-than-happy young life.
After one last, soul-weary sigh, she finished. "Remy's parents were furious. His father ordered him out of the house, told him he was ashamed of him, told him not to come back until he'd made a better man of himself. None of us have had any contact with him since." She offered a teary smile that Michael saw from the corner of his eye. "And that's everything, detective. Any questions?"
He had questions—he always had questions—but now wasn't the time. Shaking his head, he got up to check on breakfast. First, though, he stopped beside her chair, tilting her face up, wiping away a few tears. "There are different ways to define family, Valery. Blood is one. Love is another. The Sinclairs didn't take you in because they had to, because they were obligated by blood. They did it because they loved you. They're still your family. Remy didn't change that. Nothing ever can."
Bending, he brushed his mouth across hers, a simple gesture of comfort that hinted, far too quickly, at something more, something that was neither simple nor a mere gesture, something that could provide him with a hell of a lot more than comfort.
Something to be explored later, he silently promised as he went on into the kitchen.
Something to be explored in full.
And not too much later.
* * *
"Explain something to me."
Valery was lying on the sofa, her head tilted back, studying the textured tin ceiling, when Michael spoke. His voice was as quiet and lazy as the air, as quiet and lazy as she was this bright, warm, winter afternoon. They had shared breakfast—something of a cross between a pancake, an omelet and a meringue, mounded with whipped cream, warm strawberries and sugar—and had whiled away the rest of the morning watching old movies on TV. Although there had been little conversation, no touching—and no more kissing—it had been, she decided now, a lovely way to spend a morning.
Although she could think of much lovelier ways to pass the afternoon.
Rolling onto her side, she plumped the pillow underneath her head, then smiled sleepily at him. "What do you want to know?"
"When you left the police station last Monday, why didn't you go to Remy?" He raised his hand, stalling the response she was ready to give. "I understand that you two have had problems, but that was in the past. Last Monday you were afraid, you had nowhere to go and you thought your life was in danger. Don't the problems between you two seem rather insignificant in comparison?"
Of course he was right, she silently admitted. If the only thing standing between her and Remy was their childhood rivalry, yes, she probably would have called him, probably would have forgotten or forgiven everything in exchange for his protection.
But then, childhood troubles weren't the only thing between them.
"Why didn't you call him?"
She shrugged. "I couldn't. I just couldn't."
"Is he the reason you refused to go to the FBI? Because you thought he might be working the case? Because he let you down all those years ago and you were afraid he would do it again?"
"I thought he might be involved," she replied, choosing her words carefully. After a moment she asked a question of her own, one that hadn't occurred to her until just now. "Do you know him?"
Michael was silent for a moment, thoughtful. When he finally answered, it was with a sigh. "I know who he is. It's hard to be a cop as long as I've been and not have at least a passing acquaintance with most other cops, local and federal, in the city."
"But you're not friends." She was relieved by that. His self-imposed obligation to her would go a long way, but she didn't know how it would stand up against his loyalty to a friend. Thank God she wouldn't have to find out. "How long have you been a cop?"
"Fifteen years."
"Was it something you always wanted to do?"
He shook his head. "I didn't know what I wanted until I was in college. My dad had always hoped I'd take up one or both of his callings, but I'd had enough of farming, and I always thought I lacked the … goodness for preaching."
Interested, she sat up, giving him her full attention. "Your father's a minister?"
"He prefers preacher—says it sounds less stuffy. He's been pastor of the Titusville First Assembly of God for about thirty-five years now."
"Is it true what they say about preachers' kids being the wildest kids in town?" she asked with a grin.
"Not in Titusville," he responded dryly. "You don't have a chance to be wild when every single person in town, whether they're a churchgoer or not, knows you and your father."
She thought of the story he had told her about Evan, of the pictures he had painted, of the faith he had lost, and her amusement disappeared. "Does he know how you feel? Does he know that you no longer believe…?" How that would hurt, after devoting his adult life to God and the church, to watch his son turn his back, to know that his own child, the son he had hoped would also become a minister, could find no peace with God.
Michael had also grown serious. "No, he doesn't. It would worry him and my mother, and I try not to worry them. And it's not that I don't believe, Valery. I still believe in God." Bleakness edged into his voice. "I just don't think He believes in me."
Wanting to erase that bleakness, even for just a moment, she steered the conversation in a slightly less serious direction. "Your being a cop—I assume that worries them?"
"I convinced them that it wasn't so dangerous once I made detective and was out of uniform. That blue uniform makes a pretty good target. It's hard to deny what you are when you're wearing it. When I worked homicide, they found the idea a little unsettling, but they liked it better than having me on the streets." He paused, then shrugged. "They don't know I work drugs now."
And the fact that he hadn't told them meant it was probably higher risk than homicide. What was it like, she wondered, to live with the knowledge that someone you loved worked a dangerous job? To know that every time you saw him might be the last? To know that someone, some low-life scum who didn't even have the right to exist, could take his life in an instant and leave you to handle the loss? How had Evan's wife dealt with the fear of losing her husband? Worse, how had she dealt with the reality of it?
It was apparent how Beth Bennett had dealt with the fear. She wasn't cut out for being a cop's wife, Michael had said. She had learned to stop caring, and she'd gotten out. Valery would bet next month's paycheck that Beth's new husband had a nice, safe, dull job, like accountant or stockbroker.
Could she do it? she wondered. Could she love a cop? Could she accept the uncertainty of that way of life? Could she marry a man who might not be there for her tomorrow, a man who could plan a future but couldn't guarantee he'd be there to share it?
Yes. Because if life had taught her anything, it was that there were no guarantees. Her father—the man she still called father even though he wasn't—had been a factory laborer, but he hadn't been there for her. Her mother, a frustrated housewife, hadn't been there for her, either. The job didn't matter. The uncertainties of life didn't matter. The person did.
Michael did.
Still, she casually asked, "Could you ever see yourself doing something else?"
He grinned. "You mean give up my badge and gun and wear a suit and sit in an office all day?"
"That's one option. Or you could buy a little piece of land and sit on a tractor all
day. Or buy a folding chair and set up shop down there on the square, selling your paintings to tourists."
His chuckle was charming and warm. "I had enough of farming by the time I was sixteen. As for the other, honey, I'm too old to become a starving artist. Besides, I got the impression that you weren't particularly impressed with my work."
"I didn't say that," she protested. "I like the paintings on the walls in here. I just think the ones of the churches are depressing."
"They're meant to be."
"So you accomplished what you set out to do. I still don't like them."
"I don't either," he admitted at last. "It's just something I had to do." He gazed over at the studio, at the shrouded portrait on the easel. "You still haven't looked at the painting I did of you, have you?"
Flushing, she shook her head.
"Are you afraid I gave you two heads, or horns and a pitchfork or something?"
"Of course not." She wasn't sure exactly why she'd avoided the portrait. Maybe because it was a painting not of her, exactly, but of the visions he'd been having of her. Or maybe because she knew he hated the visions and she feared some measure of that might have come through. Maybe it was because she remembered the angels in the painting of the lovely white church.
"Come on." He got to his feet, grabbed her hand and pulled her along. She had no choice but to scramble to her own feet or be dragged off the couch and across the wooden floor. He positioned her in front of the easel, released her to reach for the cover, then caught her again as she started to turn away. Holding her with one arm around her waist, he lifted up the sheeting, then stepped back with her for a look.
The portrait was beautiful, far more beautiful than she could ever hope to be. The colors were soft, the details precise, the talent undeniable. And the passion…
She was impressed. Flattered. And just the littlest bit scared.
When a shiver passed through her, Michael, standing behind her, drew her closer and wrapped both arms around her waist. She felt safe in his embrace. Protected.
MICHAEL'S GIFT Page 13
