Blood Kin (23 page)

Bailey suppressed a shiver. Suddenly, for the first time, she glimpsed the man whom the islanders feared. “It's been a long time,” she offered. “Whoever it was may have moved away, or he could even be dead.”

“Maybe, maybe not. But if I ever find him, he'll wish he were.”

She pushed the remainder of the pie away. “Thank you for telling me,” she said. “It means a lot. I know
we're strangers . . . but you're the only real relative I have, other than my father. He's living in California, and I hardly ever see him.”

“He was good to you?”

“Yes, he was a good father. He and my mother gave me a home, an education. I never lacked for anything.” Anything but affection, she thought. “I loved them both, and I had a lot of respect for them as parents and as educators.”

Will nodded. “That's as it should be. I always hoped you were with good people. None of what happened was your fault. I always figured Elizabeth would keep you, raise you as her own. But she thought it was better for you to be away from all this.”

“But in the end, she brought me back here. When she left me the bequest, she must have known that I'd—”

“Blood is blood. And that's something that can't be changed by laws or courts or papers. You're Beth's girl, and no matter who fathered you, you're as much a Tawes as she was. And I know she'd be proud of that.”

Bailey stood. “I've kept you from your work long enough. I'd better—”

“No.” Will pointed toward the chair. “You sit. You wanted the truth, and I've given it to you. And so long as we're digging old turnips, there's more you need to know.”

Bailey sank down in the chair again. What more could he possibly tell her? Surely . . .

“I want to share a secret I've carried since before Beth was born. There's nobody else alive who knows, and I think it's your right to be told. Beth wasn't my niece, like everybody thought. She was my daughter.”

Bailey stared at him in disbelief. “What?”

“I know it sounds crazy, but it's true. I had a brother,
Owen, who was more what my mother and father expected in a son than I was. Owen and I rarely saw eye-to-eye, but for what's it worth, I loved him. The trouble was, we both cared for Anne.”

“Beth's mother?”

He nodded. “My head was full of drawing and whittling. I would work thirty hours on a carving without stopping to eat or sleep, but I didn't give a tinker's damn for planting corn or hauling in oysters for market.”

Will got up and walked to a window and looked out. And it seemed to Bailey that he was seeing not what was so much as what had been.

“I had it bad for Anne, and she was as wild as I was. I would have married her when I found out that she was in the family way, but she wouldn't have me.” He pressed the palm of his hand against the windowsill. “She knew how Owen felt about her, and she went to him and told him straight out about the baby.”

“And he married her,” Bailey finished.

Will glanced back at her, his weathered face a mask of grief. “Owen knew that I'd put that child in her, but he didn't care. He wanted Anne, and he got her.”

“But they never told anyone?”

“The Taweses protect their own.”

The sound of a four-wheeler and the dogs' barking brought Bailey to her feet. “That's got to be—” she began.

“Daniel Catlin. I know who it is, but we've got to be straight on this, girl.”

“Bailey,” she insisted.

He nodded. “Bailey. Let me finish. Anne and Owen made a marriage, and they both stuck by their vows. They were good together, probably a hell of a lot better than Anne and I would have been. But when they
drowned, I knew it was time for me to grow up and take my daughter to raise.”

The engine stopped. “Bailey!” Daniel's voice. “Will? Is she inside?”

“You're not to tell—not him, not Emma, not anybody. I'll not have Anne shamed now. Am I making myself clear, girl?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “I won't tell. But . . .” The implications of what he'd just said sank in. “If . . . you weren't Beth's uncle, then . . .”

“Then I'm your grandfather,” he finished.

She stared at him, suddenly unable to find the right words.

Daniel banged at the door. “Bailey!”

She glanced at the door and then back at her grandfather. “What do I call you now?”

“Will's fine. Just Will.”

“Why the hell are you knocking, boy? You walk in any other time you damn well please.” Will winked at Bailey as he went to the door. “What'd you think? That I'd shot her and nailed her hide over my fireplace?”

Daniel came in, followed by all three dogs, one of which made a dive for the toy duck and carried it under the table. “I thought I smelled coffee.” Daniel picked up the teakettle and filled it with water from the sink faucet. “I don't suppose you have any of that Gyokuro left?”

“Look in the back, behind the Russian Caravan blend. In that black tin.” Will glanced at Bailey. “Man can't drink Ceylon or Earl Grey, like normal folks. No, he wants fancy foreign tea.”

Daniel grinned. “It's all foreign tea, Will. And you like a cup as well as I do.”

“Tea's for drinking alone. Coffee is for sharing.”

“I hear you.” Daniel put the water on to boil, got down a brick red teapot, and measured out the tea leaves.

Bailey glanced down at the large animal near her feet and edged her chair back a few inches.

“Stop fidgeting,” Will said. “She's not going to take your leg off. Not unless you attack me with that fork, anyway.” He crouched and whistled softly. The dog went to him, duck clamped in its mouth. “You think I want this old toy? Why would I want that mangy thing?” He patted the animal's head and it wagged its tail. “Why you scared of dogs, girl?”

“One attacked me when I was a child,” Bailey said. “I had eight stitches in my left arm and two on my chin.” She turned her hand so that he could see the scar near her elbow. “He bit my leg and my right hand too.”

“I'm sorry for that, but you needn't worry about these three. They guard the place for me, but none of them has ever bitten anybody, so far as I know.” He patted the shaggy tricolored dog again. “This one's Blue, and she's a mongrel and the smartest of the bunch. The male over there, the big Chesapeake, is Raven, and the bitch is Honey. She's the sweetest, and the hardest to keep out of my bed on a winter's night.”

Daniel brought the teapot and his blue pottery mug to the table. As he sat down, he glanced around the room. “Where's your shotgun, Will? That old Fox double-barrel that belonged to your daddy? This is the first time I haven't seen it hanging over the kitchen door.”

Will scowled. “Lost it hunting last winter.”

“Lost it? How did you do that?”

“Fool dog. Raven was having some trouble climbing back into the boat, out on the far side of Freeman's Marsh. I laid the gun down to heave him in, and it slipped over the side before I could catch it.”

“You couldn't retrieve it?”

“Water's twenty feet deep there, maybe more. Muck bottom.”

“Bad luck. I know how much that shotgun meant to you.” The two exchanged looks. “Funny, you never mentioned it before.”

Will shook his head. “I put some store by that gun. It cost Daddy a whole winter's muskrat skins.”

“I'm surprised that you hunt, being such an animal lover,” Bailey said.

“Deer, waterfowl, an occasional squirrel or rabbit. More for meat than sport these days.” He glanced at Daniel. “He don't, though. Used to when he was a young buck, was a pretty damn good shot.”

“I ought to be,” Daniel said. “You taught me to use a gun.”

“Somebody had to.” Will chuckled. “His granddaddy gave him a twenty-two rifle when he was ten, but none of them took the trouble to show him how to keep from killing himself or wiping out Nathan Love's milk cows.”

“Pay no attention to him,” Daniel said. “I only shot one cow.”

Will folded his arms over his chest. “Took half its left horn off. Nathan was some put out, I can tell you.”

“He chased me for the better part of a mile.”

“Would have caught you too, if the snow hadn't been so deep.” Will laughed. “Daniel didn't weigh as much as that dog over there. He could run on top of the snow crust like a fox, and Nathan kept sinking in with every step. But if he'd caught him, he'd had taken the hide off the boy's rear end, preacher's son or not.”

“But you don't hunt anymore?” Bailey said. “Why?”

A shadow passed behind Daniel's eyes. “I suppose I saw enough bloodshed in Afghanistan.”

“Pay no attention to him,” Will teased. “If they ever
have an Angus hunting season, he'll be out before dawn. He likes his steaks rare, and he won't say no to venison stew either.”

Daniel drank his tea, and Bailey listened as the two men made idle talk about fishing and the best place to dip for soft-shell crabs in the summer. “I should get back to work,” Daniel said, glancing at her as he carried his cup to the sink. “I wouldn't want my employer to think I was slacking on the job.”

“No need to hurry off.” Will gestured at the chair Daniel had just left. “Work's not going anywhere. The two of you are more than welcome to stay to supper.”

“Thanks,” Daniel said, “but Emma's making crab cakes tonight.”

“How about you?” Will looked at her.

“Perhaps another day, but I don't have to hurry off.” Bailey didn't want to leave—not yet. She was still in shock from what Will had told her about actually being Beth's father, rather than her uncle. She didn't want to wear out her welcome, but she had so many more questions that she didn't know where to start.

“Suit yourself.” Will stood. “I was planning on putting together a fish chowder and some corn bread. Nothing fancy.”

“I'd like to get that back step fixed before one of us breaks his neck on it.” Daniel opened the back door. “A shame about your daddy's gun.”

“Yeah, it is. Not many of those Damascus-steel barrels left.”

Will walked out on the back stoop. “Stop back tomorrow if you want some of that fish soup,” he offered. “Either that, or I'll have to feed it to the dogs.”

When Will came back inside, Bailey looked up at him expectantly. “Is it true? Are you really my grandfather?”

Will's mouth tightened into a thin line. “I don't lie. Ask anybody. No matter what they think of me, there's none who can say I ever have.”

She sat there, numb, unable to think of what to say.

His expression softened. “Maybe you'd like to take a look at your mother's room.”

Bailey felt a rush of excitement. “Could I?”

“Nothing left of hers up there, course. Elizabeth cleaned it all out while I was in prison.”

“I see.” She glanced toward the front entrance and the staircase. “I guess it's silly, but I'd still like . . .”

“Come on, then. We'll take the grand tour.”

“I've always loved sketching and watercolors,” she offered, as she followed him up the steps. “I wanted to study art in college, but—”

“But you went into teaching instead,” Will finished.

“It was what my parents . . . what my father and mother thought was best for me. I probably didn't have enough talent—”

“Art is a gift you're born with, an eye for what's right. When I carve a snow goose or a chipmunk, I start with a piece of wood and start whittling. I just carve away what doesn't belong there.”

He looked back over his shoulder, and she saw a flash of mischief in his eyes. “No magic to it. You can do the same thing with a brush or charcoal, if you have the patience and a mind to it. Important thing is, have a clear picture in your head of what you want to end with before you make the first mark. Start with a blank sheet and just work in reverse.”

At the top landing, Will led the way past a bathroom, stopped in front of a closed door, and cleared his throat. “Look all you want,” he said huskily. “I haven't set foot in there since I came home.”

“Thirty-five years?”

“Yep. Nothing left for me in there.”

He turned and went back downstairs, leaving her to turn the knob and gaze into the empty room. Faded pale yellow wallpaper with pink roses curled and peeled on three walls. On the fourth, two big windows, curtainless, opened onto the outside world from a fairy-tale forest mural complete with rainbows, waterfalls, unicorns, and dancing otters. The painted walls showed the decay of time, the braided rug was thick with dust, the ceiling laced with cobwebs, but amid the stark silence and the sorrow lingered a hint of laughter.

Bailey's throat constricted with emotion. She pulled the door shut with too much force and hurried back to the main floor. Will Tawes—her grandfather—stood in the adjoining room gazing at the charcoal of Elizabeth on horseback.

“I'm sorry I . . .” She took a deep breath and wiped her eyes. “I'm . . . I wish I'd known her. Aunt Elizabeth.”

“She would have liked you. You two would have got on like peas in a pod. She was a teacher too, you know. Acorn doesn't fall far from the tree.”

“I was so wrong about her,” Bailey said. “I'd conjured this image in my head of a sick old woman.”

“Elizabeth?” Will snorted in amusement. “Strong as an ox. Never needed a doctor in her life, except one time she fell out of the barn loft and broke her arm. She rode those horses of hers every day, rain, snow, or sleet. Never could figure how she fell down those steps.”

“Is that how she died? An accident?”

He nodded. “She'd gone up and down that staircase every day of her life.”

“It must have been a shock to you.”

Grief etched his features. “It was. So long as Elizabeth drew breath, I thought there might come a time when we could mend fences between us. But then she was dead. And where I'm going, I don't expect to see her again.”