by Nora Roberts
were difficult emotions. Untidy emotions.
Wonderful.
Calmer now that he’d sorted through the problem, and its solution, he went into the house.
There were shoes where there shouldn’t be, books and glasses and toys scattered instead of in their proper place. A pair of earrings tossed on a table, a trail of mud that hadn’t been quite scraped off on the mat.
It was home.
But where the hell were they?
He’d grown accustomed to finding them there. Bryan in the yard, or poring over his baseball-card collection in his room. The radio should have been blaring, or the TV turned up too loud. She should have been in the kitchen, or in her little studio in the back, or taking one of her cat naps on the sofa.
He went into the kitchen, laid the flowers down on the table. No note. No hastily scrawled explanation tacked to the refrigerator. Frowning, he laid his briefcase beside the flowers. The least she could have done was leave him a note.
They’d agreed to talk, hadn’t they? He had reams to talk about, and she wasn’t even here. He looked in her studio. A half glass of watered-down lemonade stood on her worktable near a clever, sly sketch of a flying frog.
Under other circumstances, it would have made him smile.
His mood darkening by the minute, he headed upstairs. Dragging off his tie, he walked into her bedroom. Her bedroom, he thought, sizzling. By God, that was going to change. He tossed the tie on the bed, followed it with his suit jacket.
They were going to have a long, serious discussion, he and Savannah. And she was going to listen.
He grumbled to himself as he changed into jeans and hung his suit in the closet amid her clothes. His teeth were set. One of the first things they were going to do was add another closet. A man deserved his own damn closet.
In fact, they were going to add on another bedroom, one big enough for his things, as well as hers. And another bathroom, while they were at it, because they were going to have more children.
And an office. She wasn’t the only one who needed work space.
Then he was going to build Bryan a tree house. The kid should have a tree house.
They needed a garden shed for her tools, and the lane needed work. Well, he would see to those things. He’d see to them because… He was going insane, Jared admitted, and sat down on the edge of the bed.
He hadn’t even told her they were getting married, and he already he was adding on to the house.
What was he getting so worked up about? Why was he so angry with her, with himself? Panic, he wondered. Little licks of fear. Worry that when he mentioned marriage, she would laugh and tell him that wasn’t the kind of thing that interested her.
Dragging his hands through his hair, he rose. She was going to have to get interested, he decided. And fast.
He might have calmed again, might have gone reasonably downstairs and started dinner for the three of them. He might have done that. It was in his mind when he noticed the box on her dresser.
He caught the glint of belt buckles. Big, showy buckles. Rodeo. He lifted one and studied the embossed horse and rider. Her father’s things. She’d received her father’s assets. And she hadn’t told him.
There wasn’t much. The prizes Jim Morningstar had won years before, bits and pieces of a man who had obviously traveled light and without too much sentiment. There was a larger box beside the dresser. Old, worn boots, a battered hat, a few articles of clothing that were still folded, as if she hadn’t touched them.
He saw the letter from his colleague in Oklahoma, the standard cover for the dispensation of effects, the itemized list, the offer to assist if there were any questions.
Jared shifted it aside. And found the photographs.
Most were crinkled, as if they’d been carelessly shoved in drawers, badly packed in a move. He saw Jim Morningstar for the first time. An impressive candid shot of a man, face hard and set, eyes narrowed as he sat a horse in a high, narrow stall.
The dark coloring, the high cheekbones Savannah had inherited. But there was little else in this tough, leathery face that had been passed to her, unless it was the set of that chin, he mused. The set that warned that if life aimed a fist, this one would meet it straight on.
He found another, poorly framed, of the same man standing beside a young Savannah. Jared’s lips curved as he studied her. She was maybe thirteen, fourteen, he thought. Tall, her body, tucked into jeans and a plaid shirt, already curving, her hair raining out of a cowboy hat.
She looked straight at the camera, her lips hinting at that knowing woman’s smile she’d have in later life. She stood hip-shot, a certain arrogance in the stance. One of her hands rested lightly on her father’s shoulder. Jim Morningstar had his arms folded over his chest. He didn’t touch his daughter.
There was another of Savannah, a still younger Savannah, astride a horse. It was a classic pose, the buckskin-colored horse rearing up, the rider with her hat swept off her head and lifted high in one hand.
She looked, Jared thought, as if she would dare anything.
There were more of Morningstar with other men—grinning, leather-faced men in hats and boots and denim. Backgrounds of corrals, stables, horses. Always horses.
It played through his mind that they might clear space for a paddock, use the barn at the farm and get a horse or two. Savannah obviously loved them, and Bryan might—
Every thought leaked out of his head as he stared at the last photo.
Yes, she would have been about sixteen, though her body was fully a woman’s, clad in a snug T-shirt tucked into tight jeans. Yet the face had a softness, a slight fullness that announced that the girl hadn’t quite finished becoming a woman yet. She was laughing. The camera had frozen her in that full-throated moment. He could almost hear it.
She was wrapped around a man. And the man was wrapped around her. Their arms were entwined, their faces were laughing at the camera. The man’s hat was pushed back on his head, revealing curls of shaggy blond hair. He was tanned, lean, tall. His eyes would have been blue, or perhaps green. It was hard to tell from the snapshot. But they were light, the corners crinkled with the smile.
The mouth that was cocked crookedly in that smile had been passed on to Bryan.
This was Bryan’s father.
Jared felt his anger begin to pulse. This was the man. A man, he repeated in his head, not a boy. The face was undeniably handsome, even striking, but it didn’t belong to a teenager. This man had seduced a sixteen-year-old girl, then abandoned her. And nothing had been done.
Morningstar had kept the photo. Because, Jared thought with a tight-lipped snarl, he’d known.
And nothing had been done.
Savannah watched him from the doorway. Her emotions had been on a roller coaster all day. This looked like one more dip.
She’d wanted to forget the edginess, the anger she’d felt when she left Jared’s office. She’d hoped to come home, find him here and share with him her small triumph in selling Howard Beels three paintings.
With a very good possibility of more.
She and Bryan had cackled about it all the way home. Over Howard himself and the way he’d hemmed and hawed over what she considered a highly inflated asking price, and settled on an amount that had been considerably more than she’d anticipated.
She’d even stopped off and bought a bottle of champagne so that she and Jared could celebrate. So that she could celebrate with him the fact that her long-buried wish of painting for a living was working its way to the surface.
But she could see there would be no celebration now. Not with that look on Jared’s face as he studied what her father had left her. She didn’t know where his anger came from. But she had a feeling she was going to find out.
The hell with it, she thought, and pushed away from the door jamb. Let’s get it over with.
“Not much of an estate, huh?” She waited until his head came up, until his gaze shifted to hers. The fury in them almost buckled her knee
s. “I imagine most of your clients have a bit more to deal with.”
He knew how to take things one step at a time, to start at one point and work his way to the heart. “When did you get the shipment?”
“A week or two ago.” She shrugged, then walked over to the window to look down. “Bry’s down in the yard. We picked up the kittens. He’s in heaven.”
Jared MacKade also knew how to stay on a point. “A week or two. You didn’t mention it.”
“What was to mention? I took out the check and gave it to that broker you recommended. I didn’t feel like dealing with the rest, so I put it aside until this morning. I guess I’ll put the buckles away for Bryan. He might want them one day. The clothes’ll go to charity, I suppose.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why should I have?” She turned back, vaguely annoyed, vaguely curious. “It’s not a big deal. No long-lost lottery tickets or pouch of gold dust. Just some old clothes, older boots, and papers.”
“And photographs.”
“Yeah, a few. He wasn’t big on souvenirs. There’s one of him in the chute I like. It shows who he was, always gearing up for the next ride. I figured Bryan might like to have that, too.”
“And this one?” Jared held up the snapshot of Savannah and the cockily smiling cowboy.
She lifted a brow, shook her head. “I don’t know how I got into those jeans. Look, I’m going to throw some burgers on the grill.”
When Jared shifted into her path, she was genuinely surprised. She tilted her head, studied him. And waited. “Have you shown this to Bryan?”
“No.”
“Do you intend to?”
“No. I don’t think he cares what his mother looked like at sixteen.”
“He would care what his father looked like.”
She could almost feel her blood slow, go sluggish. “He doesn’t have a father.”
“Damn it, Savannah, are you going to tell me this isn’t Bryan’s father?”
“I’m going to tell you that isn’t Bryan’s father. A couple of rolls in the hay doesn’t make a man a father.”
“Don’t slice words with me.”
“It’s a very important distinction in my book, Lawyer MacKade. And since this seems to be a cross-examination, I’ll make it clear and easy. I had sex with the man in the picture you’re holding. I got pregnant. End of story.”
“The hell it is.” Furious, he slapped the picture down on the dresser. “Your father knew. He wouldn’t have kept this, otherwise.”
“Yeah. That occurred to me when I found it.” And the hurt had come with it, but it had been slight and easily dispatched. “So what?”
“So why wasn’t anything done? This isn’t a kid we’re talking about. He had to be over twenty-one.”
“I think he was twenty-four. Maybe twenty-five. It’s hard to remember.”
“And you were a minor. He should have been prosecuted—after your father broke his neck.”
Savannah took a deep breath. “In the first place, my father knew me. He knew that if I’d slept with someone, it was my choice. I was a minor, technically, but I knew exactly what I was doing. It wasn’t a mistake or an accident. I wasn’t forced. And I don’t appreciate you casting blame.”
“Of course there’s blame,” Jared shot back. “That son of a bitch had no right touching a girl your age, then taking off when there were consequences.”
Her eyes lit. “Bryan is not a consequence.”
“You know damn well that’s not what I meant.” Pulling both hands through his hair, he paced away. “There’s no going back and righting wrongs at this point. I want to know what you intend to do now.”
“I intend to cook hamburgers. You’re welcome to stay, or you’re welcome to go.”
“Don’t take that attitude with me.”
“It’s the attitude I’ve got.” Then she sighed. “Jared, why are you gnawing at this thing? I slept with a man ten years ago. I forgot him. He forgot me.” To illustrate, she picked up the photo and dropped it carelessly in the wastebasket beside the dresser. “That’s that.”
“Just that simple?” It was that, Jared realized. Exactly that that gnawed at him. “He didn’t mean anything to you?”
“That’s right.”
“You conceived a child with him, Savannah. That boy who’s down in the yard, playing with his kittens. How can you just dismiss that?”
Temper streaked through her. “You’d prefer a different story, wouldn’t you, Jared? A different story you could live with. One about the poor, innocent, neglected girl looking for love, seduced by an older man, betrayed, abandoned.”
“Isn’t that what happened?”
“You don’t know who I was, what I was, or what I wanted. You don’t want to know, not really. Because when you do, when you hear it, it’ll stick in your craw. How many men has she been with? Can I believe her when she tells me she didn’t sell herself? Even her own father didn’t stand by her, so what does that tell me? Now that I look back, I remember she was ready to hit the sheets with me from the get-go. What kind of a woman have I got myself tangled up with? Isn’t that what you’re wondering, Jared?”
“I’m wondering why there are so many things you don’t tell me. Why you shrug off ten years of your life and how they affected you. And, yes, I’m wondering what kind of woman you are.”
She threw her head back. “Figure it out.” She started to storm out, then came up hard, toe-to-toe with him. “Keep out of my way.”
“I’m in your way, and you’re in mine. And it’s long past time to settle this. You say you love me, but you pull back every time I touch a nerve, every time I want a clear picture of what brought you to this point in your life.”
“I brought me here. That’s all you need to know.”
“It’s not all I need to know. You can’t build a future without drawing on the past.”
“I can. I have. If you can’t, Jared, it’s your problem. You know what you’re doing?” She tossed the question at him. “You’re harping on a face in a photograph. You’re insulted by it, threatened by it.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it? It’s all right for you to have been married before, to have had other women in your life. I haven’t asked you how many or who or why, have I? It’s all right for you to have been wild and reckless, to have sauntered around town with your brothers, looking for trouble or making it. That’s just dandy. Boys will be boys. But with me, it’s different. The problem is, you got tangled up with me before you thought it through. Now you want to shift the pieces around, see if you can make me into more of what seems suitable to the man you are now.”
“You’re putting words in my mouth. And you’re wrong.”
“I say I’m right. And I say the hell with you, MacKade. The hell with you. You want a victim, or you want a flower, or someone who looks just right at some fund-raiser or professional event. You’ve come to the wrong place. I don’t read Kafka.”
“What in the sweet hell are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about reality. The reality is, I don’t need this kind of grief from you.”
His eyes narrowed. “It’s not just about what you need. Not anymore. That’s reality, Savannah. I don’t have to justify wanting to know how you could toss out that photograph, or dismiss your father’s things and not even tell me you had them. I don’t have to justify asking you what you want from yourself, from me. From us. Or telling you what I want, what I expect and intend to have. That’s everything. Everything or nothing.”
“Down to ultimatums, are we?”
“Looks that way. Think about it,” he suggested, and strode furiously out.
Steaming, she stood where she was. She listened to the door slam below. It took every ounce of willpower she had not to race to the window, to watch him. Maybe to call him back. Minutes later, she heard the sound of his car.
So, that was that, Savannah thought. All or nothing. He had a nerve, demanding she give him
all, leave herself nothing to fall back on. Nothing to cushion a fall. She’d been there once, and the bruises had plagued her for years. By God, she wasn’t going back.
Steadying herself, she went downstairs. She ignored the flowers on the table, the champagne chilling in the refrigerator. Maybe she’d drink it herself later, she mused as she took out some hamburger. Maybe she’d drink the whole damn bottle and get herself a nice fizzy buzz. It would be better than thinking, better than hurting. Better even than this simmering anger that was still hot in her blood.
But when the door slammed and she looked around she hated herself for the stab of disappointment when she realized it was her son.
“Is Jared mad at you?”
“Why?”
“I could tell.” Uneasy, Bryan sat down, propped his elbows on the table. “He stopped to look at the kittens and stuff, but he wasn’t paying attention. And he said he couldn’t stay.”
“I guess he’s mad at me.”
“Are you mad at him, too?”
“Yeah.” Slapping patties together was a fine way to release a little violence. “Pretty mad.”
“Does that mean you’re not stuck on him anymore?”
She looked over, and her own temper cleared enough that she could see the worry in Bryan’s eyes. “What are you getting at, Bry?”
He moved his shoulders, kicked his feet. “Well, you’ve never been stuck on anybody before. He’s mostly always here, and he brings you flowers and hangs around with me. You kiss each other and stuff.”
“That’s true.”
“Well, Con and I thought maybe you were going to get, like, married.”
A quick arrow shot straight into her heart. “Oh.”
“I thought it would be kind of cool, you know, because Jared’s cool.”
She put the patties aside. To give herself time, she ran water, washed her hands and dried them thoroughly. All the while, all she could think was, what had she done to her little boy?
“Bry, you know that people kiss each other all the time without getting married. You’re smart enough to know that adults have relationships, close relationships, without getting married, either.”
“Yeah, but if they’re really stuck on each other, they do, right?”
“Sometimes.” She skirted the table to lay a hand on his shoulder. “But it’s not always enough to love someone.”
“How come?”
“Because…” Where was the answer? “Because people are complicated. Anyway, Jared’s mad at me, not at you. You can still be pals.”
“I guess.”
“You’d better go out and make sure those kittens keep out of trouble. I’m going to fire up the grill.”
“Okay.” He dragged his feet a little as he started toward the door. “I was thinking if you got married, he’d be sort of like…”
“Sort of like what?” she asked.
“Sort of like my father.” Bryan moved his shoulders again, in a gesture so very much like her own when she blocked off hurt, another shaft of pain shot through her. “I just thought it would be cool.”
Chapter 12
Bryan’s wistful statement dragged at her mind and spirits all through the evening. To make it up to him for a disappointment she felt unable to control, she made the casual meal into their own private celebration.
All the soda he could drink, french fries made from scratch, wild, involved and ridiculous plans on how they would spend the fortune they would amass from selling her paintings.
Trips to Disney World weren’t enough, they decided. They would own Disney World. Box seats at ball games? For pikers. They would purchase the Baltimore Orioles—and Bryan would, naturally, play at short.
Savannah kept up the game until she was reasonably sure both of them had forgotten that what Bryan really wanted was Jared.
Then she spent the night staring at the ceiling, thinking of all the wonderful, hideous ways to pay Jared MacKade back for putting a dent in her boy’s heart.
