Her Sister (Search For Love series) (21 page)

Joe
picked up on the second ring.  "Clare?"

His voice
held a question, maybe because of the way he'd left the other night.  They
hadn't finished the conversation they'd started before her parents had
arrived.  After they'd left, he'd gone, too.  He hadn't known where he stood. 
What with all the turmoil she was in, he'd obviously decided not to press. 
She'd been grateful for that then.  But now?

"Amy
isn't my sister.  The DNA results came through."

He
didn't question her about the results.  He didn't ask her what she was
feeling.  He said simply, "I'll be right over."

She
didn't protest this time because she wanted him here beside her.

After Joe
opened the door, he took one look at her, folded his arms around her and guided
her to the sofa.  They sat there in silence until she tucked one leg under her
and faced him.  "I knew she couldn't be Lynnie.  I think I'm more relieved
than disappointed because deep down in my soul I knew."

"But
your parents are another matter?"

"Mom's
probably heartbroken.  More than ever, she'll be ready to adopt Shara's baby. 
She wants to fill that hole that Lynnie left."

She
studied Joe's face, the lines around his eyes, the strong jaw, the mouth that
had kissed her with promises of a lot more to come if she was willing.  "I
have to ask you something," she said.

"Ask."

"I
need to fill that gaping hole, too.  In a way, I have to make our family whole
again.  The way for me to do that is to raise Shara's baby.  For good or bad,
right or wrong, I'm going to convince her to have her baby, to let me and Mom
help her, to mend the past and look toward the future.  I don't know how I'm
going to do it, and I suspect all of our lives are going to be a mess for a
while."

"You
haven't asked me anything yet," he said seriously.

That's
because she was afraid.  She hadn't asked him because she hadn't taken any
risks in a very long time.  The question was in her heart.  It just wouldn't
come out of her mouth.  But finally after a deep breath, and a prayer for
courage, she asked, "Do you want to get involved with me…with my family,
or is all of this just too much to take on?"

His
answer was a slow smile.  His answer was opening his arms to her.  His answer
was clear.  "I'll take on you and your family, Clare, because I think we
can have a good life together.  After all, I've always wanted to be a dad…or a
grandpa."

Clare
wrapped her arms around Joe's neck and kissed him.

****

Chapter
Thirteen

On Wednesday
evening at the edge of dusk, Max did something he hadn't done for at least the
past five years.  He drove to Pine Hill and parked across the street from the
house with green siding and black shutters where he and Amanda, Lynnie and
Clare had lived.  They'd still had boxes to unpack when Lynnie had been
stolen.  They hadn't really even found their life there yet.  He'd moved his
family to the suburbs, a small town out of the city because he'd finally been
making some decent money, and the price of a house had been more reasonable
there.  Lynnie and Clare had had their own rooms.  There was a guest room, a
den for him, a family room besides a living room.  Every night Amanda had
cooked dinner and he'd tried to get home at a decent hour so they could all sit
down together.  It had been a stable life, the life he'd envisioned, a good
life.  He had a wife to love and children to nurture, and more than he'd ever
dreamed of.

Now he
studied the house whose siding was faded.  It would soon need a new roof and
the shutters replaced or repainted.  He wondered if the inside had been changed
drastically.

He also
wondered if Clare and Shara and Amanda had gotten settled in their hotel in New
Haven.  Then he remembered, Joe had driven them.  He was looking out for them...looking
after them.

Max
shifted in his seat feeling uncomfortable with that thought.  Uncomfortable...because
that was
his
job.

However,
he'd abdicated the position of caretaker, provider, protector and defender years
ago.  When Lynnie had been kidnapped?  When he and Amanda divorced?  When Clare
had gotten pregnant?  All life events that had shaken up his world, and
Amanda's, too.  In some ways, she'd weathered the storms better than he had.

Suddenly
the door to the house opened.  A couple stepped out who both looked to be about
Clare's age.  After them, three kids tumbled over the threshold onto the
porch.  There was a boy about eight, a girl who could have been five or six,
and then there was a little one...a little girl who toddled out who couldn't
have been more than three.  She had pigtails tied with pink ribbons.  Amanda
used to fix Lynnie's hair that way.

All at
once, Max couldn't stop the parade of pictures flashing in his mind, so many
pictures that he'd kept tightly locked in an album in his heart—Amanda kneading
dough to make sticky buns just like her mother had...Lynnie on a booster seat
at the table, mashed potatoes all over her face as she fed herself like the big
girl Amanda told her she was...Clare in a pink tutu and ballet shoes practicing
for her recital, looking up at him and asking him what he thought of her
pirouette.  The pictures of Lynnie he'd kept stowed away seemed bigger than life
as she wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him a smooch on the cheek...as
she held his hand when they crossed the street...as she cuddled against him in
a pink flannel nightgown when he'd read her a story.

At
first he thought the pain was in his shoulder again.  It was still sore and
throbbed and gave him fits when he did things he wasn't supposed to do.  But
the pain wasn't in his shoulder.

It was
in his heart.  Sitting outside this house, stepping back in time, remembering
the family he once had, the little girl he'd once held in his arms, he couldn't
keep the pain locked up in a box any more.  With the pictures it burst open,
practically overwhelming him.  As he watched the family climb into their
mini-van and drive away, he felt wetness on his hand.  When he looked down
another drop fell.

He was
crying.

Grown
men didn't cry. 

Strong
men didn't cry.  That's what his father would have said.  But his father had
been a drunk and mean and what the hell had he known?

Max
couldn't sit there another moment...couldn't remember a perfect life...a
destroyed life...a little girl who would never return.  He switched on the
ignition in spite of his blurred vision.  He backhanded his eyes, willing the
tears to stop.  Feeling like a fool, he drove back to his apartment.

After
he parked and let himself inside, he went numb.  He wanted a drink so badly his
hand shook.  The memories could drive him to drink again.  He should call his
sponsor—

But he
knew what the man would tell him.  Scott would advise him to
feel
.  
Feel
was the last thing he wanted to do.

Yet the
photo review in his mind wouldn't quit.  He sank down into a recliner he hardly
ever used—sitting still was always too dangerous because it provoked
introspection he avoided—and let the memories stream like a never-ending
movie.  The tears burned again.  But this time he didn't focus on them...he
focused on his wedding day, Clare's birth, Lynnie's baptism.  Amanda kept
photos of it all and he knew she often sat and cried over them.  But he didn't
need the albums.  All the pictures were in his heart.

He
wasn't aware of time as he sank into memories...as he re-experienced love and
pain.  He'd kept everything bottled up for years because he thought that was
what he was supposed to do.  But what he was supposed to do had lost him
everything…and everyone.

Sitting
in the dark, he ran his hand over his face, heaved in a shuddering breath, and
knew the life he'd been living had been no life at all.  He needed to change
that.  He needed to wake up before his life was over, even if he never knew
what happened to Lynnie.  He could still grab some happiness before he lost
everything that mattered most.

Since
his return from New Mexico, he hadn't been able to forget his night in
Albuquerque with Amanda—not the passion, not the fervor, not the pleasure, not
the…love.  He still knew Amanda well enough to acknowledge the fact that she
never would have made love with him again if she didn't still love him.

Maybe
the same was true for him.

So now
what?

Now he
needed some light.  He switched on the floor lamp and checked his watch.  It
was midnight!  For hours, he'd been sitting there replaying his life.  He had
too many regrets.  He'd made too many mistakes.  The latest?  Not accompanying
Amanda, Shara and Clare to New Haven and taking part in the interview.  He
should have gone with them.  He shouldn't have fought the idea of talking to
the journalist.  He should have supported Amanda and Clare and Shara by participating,
giving them moral support and jumping into a conversation they should all have.

Hindsight
was 20/20, true.  But the past could teach if he'd let it.

He
loved Amanda and he wanted her back.  That he was sure of.  He wasn't going to
stand by again and watch his future head south.

New
Haven was a five-hour drive.  He would get to that interview.  He would prove
to Amanda that he was the man she'd always known he could be.

****

Amanda
was following Tessa, Clare, and Shara down a corridor to the set where they'd
be taping their interview when her cell phone vibrated in her pocket.  Maybe it
was Max, wishing them good luck at least.

But it
wasn't Max.  It was Gillian.  She'd sent a text that said—
I know the taping
will go well, and you'll help lots of families.  E-mail me and let me know how
it goes.

Amanda
had spoken to Gillian last night when Gillian had called to ask about Shara and
how she was faring now that she was home.  Amanda had filled her in on
everything and she suspected that they were going to stay in touch.  She hoped
so.  Gillian was a special person.

They'd
almost reached the studio when Amanda heard her name.

"Amanda,
wait."

It
sounded like Max.  It couldn't be Max.  He was back in York.

"Amanda,"
he called again, and then he was there, looking out of breath and harried, his
pale blue Oxford shirt looking a bit wrinkled, his old jeans faded from many
washings.

"Max,
what are you doing here?"

"I
thought I'd have plenty of time.  I thought I could drive here, see you at the
hotel, change clothes—"

"You
drove?"

"All
night.  There was an accident on the Interstate and I got held up more than
once.  But here I am.  I want to do the interview with you.  More than
that."   He took her hands between his and looked deeply into her eyes. 
"I want to marry you again.  I want to become a family again.  I love you,
Amanda.  I always have.  I could never admit how much I felt, what I felt, but
I am now.  You know what I am.  I can be a workaholic sometimes.  I'm going to
have to go to meetings.  I might call my sponsor in the middle of the night,
but I want to live each day beside you and recreate that night we had in
Albuquerque."

"Oh,
Max, I've been waiting for you to wake up.  I've been waiting for so long…  Yes,
I'll marry you again.  Yes!"

Max
took a kiss that was deep and hard but short because he knew others were looking
on.  When he broke away, Amanda saw Tessa looking as if she'd just found the
story of the century.  Shara was grinning and Clare was teary-eyed, and Amanda
felt like laughing and crying all at the same time.

Max
squeezed her close, but then asked the journalist, "Can you pull in an
extra chair for this interview?"

She
answered him with a knowing look that said she was already rethinking her
questions.  "I sure can."

****

In
Pittsburgh, Beth sat at the work station in her living room finishing up a website
design for her client.  She just had a few more bells and whistles she wanted
to add.  She took a break this time every morning to watch Tessa Kahill
Winthrop's program NEWS NOW on one of the cable news channels.  The journalist
had a way with words and a point of view that Beth liked.  She spent most days
in her apartment working from eight to five, even though her adoptive parents
encouraged her to get out more.  But she was a homebody because of her
background, a homebody because of her past, a homebody because she had a past
and shadows she'd had to overcome in order to have close to a normal life,
though who really knew what "normal" was.

Using
her remote, she turned on the cable channel and swiveled her chair around for a
good view.  She was few minutes late turning the program on today, and Tessa
was in the middle of her interview.

"So
you're ready to raise your daughter's child?" Tessa was asking.

Beth
froze.  She studied the young woman's face Tessa was addressing.  She was
practically Beth's mirror image!