Rugged Fire [Rugged Savage Valley, Colorado 4] (17 page)

That didn’t mean she was ready for this.

I am a smart, successful individual.

I’ve been running my own company for almost two years. I know what I’m doing.

I don’t have anything to worry about. These kinds of conversations happen all the time.

Besides, I am a badass, motherfucking businesswoman.

That was a bit of a stretch, she knew, but it was probably better to overshoot rather than hold back in situations like this one.

“Lianne,” Ulysses said, rising from his high-backed leather chair and walking around to shake her hand. “It’s lovely to see you this morning. I trust your drive was all right?”

“Yes, thank you. It was a great drive. Really great.”

“Please have a seat.” He gestured to a chair, pulling it out for her.

“Thanks.”

“Would you like anything to drink? We have orange juice, soda, water, coffee, anything you’d like.”

“No thank you. I had a coffee on the way here. Thank you.”

Lianne had a strange feeling. She couldn’t stop saying “thank you.” She couldn’t catch her breath either. Mr. Norman’s behavior and…well, his civility was so different than the way Jamie had painted him. He seemed very attentive and almost a little nervous himself. Jamie always talked about how manipulative he was, and how condescending and controlling. Maybe it was just an outsider’s perspective, but so far, Lianne had found him to be exceedingly pleasant.

It was making her nervous.

“So let’s cut to the chase, shall we,” Mr. Norman said. “You’ve come here to further discuss my offer.”

She let out a breath and felt her shoulders slump a little in relief that she wasn’t the one who had to bring it up. “Yes.”

“Good. It shows integrity that you’ve come in person rather than informing me via phone or e-mail. I appreciate that. But, please, I’d like to say something first.”

“Of course. Go ahead.”

He drummed his fingers on his desk and gazed at her, quite openly, for an uncomfortably long moment. She shifted in her seat. He continued to stare.

“Mr. Norman?” she ventured.

“Excuse me,” he said, frowning, “I got lost in a thought.” With efficient movement, he pulled open a drawer and fished out a manila envelope. He placed it before her. “That is for you. It’s from your mother.”

Whatever Lianne had been expecting, whatever direction she’d dreamed and feared and hoped this meeting would go, this was not it.

“My m–mother?” She choked on the word and stared at the envelope. For some reason, she didn’t reach for it. It seemed volatile, dangerous, lethal. A Pandora’s box. She couldn’t be sure if she actually wanted to open such a thing.

Mr. Norman nodded. “I saw her the day you were born. I visited her in the hospital.”

“You were there?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I felt obligated. Forgive me. That sounds wrong. It was my responsibility. I wanted to be there.”

“Oh god.” Everything felt gooey. Everything felt hot and sticky and gooey. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, couldn’t think. She and Jamie. Jamie and her. Everyone always said they were twins. The summers in Savage Valley. Mr. Norman’s obsession with the town. Everything fell into place, but everything fell out of place.

“You’re not…you can’t be…it can’t be you…not all these years.” She didn’t even know what she was saying. Her voice sounded a thousand miles away. The space around her head felt so heavy. “Oh my god, the piano. That was you. That was
you
?”

“Yes. That was me.”

And then Mr. Norman was right in front of her, lightly slapping her cheek and speaking in a stern voice, saying something about her looking. She needed to look somewhere. At something. At someone. At him.

Her eyes focused and she sucked in deep lungfuls of air, the oxygen replenishing her bloodstream and bringing her thoughts back into order. “What are you trying to say?” she asked, still gasping. “What the hell are you trying to tell me? Are you saying that you’re my father? That you’ve known, all these years, that I was your daughter and you never said a goddamn word? Oh god, Jamie. Jamie, Jamie,” she whispered her friend’s name, wondering what her friend would think or how she would react. This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t real.

“Lianne, no. I’m sorry. No, you’ve misunderstood. I’m not your father. I wasn’t there because I thought it was my duty. I mean, it
was
, but not in that way. Not in the way you’re thinking. I’m not your father.”

She sucked in a deep breath and stared at him. She sucked in another deep breath. “But you know who is,” she finally said. It wasn’t a question. She knew. All of sudden, she just knew.

Mr. Norman nodded. “I do.”

“And him, whoever he is, he’s in that envelope, isn’t he?”

Mr. Norman nodded again.

“Why now? Why this moment? You’ve had so much time, so many opportunities.”

“When you were born, your mother made me promise to keep his identity a secret. She thought it might affect things—your life, mainly—if people knew.”

“And after she passed? Why not then?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t know you. I know how Jamie feels about me, and honestly, I wasn’t sure if you’d even want to know, after having gone so long without.”

She sat for a moment, almost completely unable to think or process anything. “I think I’ll take that orange juice now, maybe with a little vodka if you’ve got it.”

“Aren’t you driving home?”

She glared at him.

“Okay, but only a splash.” After a couple sips, Lianne sat back in her chair and met Mr. Norman’s gaze. He’d moved back to his side of the desk and was watching her intently.

“So?”

Mr. Norman smiled tightly. “Take the envelope. Don’t look at it here. I don’t want my presence to disturb you as you review the information. Come back after lunch. John at reception will let you in. After you’ve had a bit of time to think, I’d like to discuss your company.”

She opened her mouth to tell him that she’d already made a decision, but he held his hand up, silencing her. “Please wait until this afternoon to discuss it further. Please open the envelope and think about what’s inside. And please, remember, I’ve always stuck close to my family.”

She frowned, unnerved by his last statement. Skyler had impressed upon her how important it was to keep that side of their discussion strictly between him and her. He seemed to believe that Mr. Norman would never admit to those ulterior motives, so why would he bring up family now? Especially when Lianne, of all people in the universe, would know that what he said wasn’t true. He and his daughter barely even spoke to each other. Lianne had heard story after story of how he never paid attention to Jamie. He never showed up to any of her piano recitals. He was always in the office, from six in the morning every day until past midnight every night. He didn’t come to her graduation ceremony. He sent all of her calls to voice mail. From what Lianne had heard from Jamie, Ulysses C. Norman was not a man who gave a rat’s ass about family.

She’d originally accepted Mr. Norman’s offer in the heat of the moment. She’d been angry at the twins, but now, everything seemed murkier. This envelope’s appearance felt a little too convenient. But she wanted to open it. She wanted to rip into it. And Mr. Norman was right.

She didn’t want to do that in front of him.

“Okay,” she heard herself saying. “I guess I’ll see you this afternoon. After”—she held up the envelope—“well, after this.”

An hour or so later, after she had a cinnamon latte and pain au chocolat in her stomach, she pulled the envelope out of her purse and set it on the small café table in front of her. She wished she had one of her mother’s journals with her. She wanted that small piece with her when she opened the envelope. A piece of her mother and a piece of her father.

A cold sweat broke out across her brow at that thought.
This is it. I’m finally going to know who he is
. “Damn it,” she muttered under her breath because her hands were trembling. “Just open the damn thing, Lianne.”

Fingers still shaky, she pulled on the metal tabs and then slipped the flap off. Her hands clenched for a moment, but she forced them to move again and reach inside the envelope. She grasped a thick packet of papers and with one final breath pulled them free.

At the very top was a note in her mother’s handwriting.

Ulysses,

Thank you for your stolid presence these last few weeks. No matter where our lives lead us, I will ever be grateful for all that you’ve done for me, but more importantly, for my daughter. This may not seem logical or even practical, but for personal reasons, I’ve decided to keep Lianne’s father’s identity from her. I would appreciate it if you did the same. I’ve enclosed all documents with this information in case you need them for legal reasons in the future.

However, I must insist that you not visit our little family anymore. I know you do so out of the goodness of your heart, but I must firmly insist that you do not. I feel myself too dependent on you already, and as you know, I’m rather resentful of the debts I owe others. I shall forever owe Nicholas for this tiny, precious gift he’s given me, and yet I shall forever be unable to repay him.

But I’m rambling. Again, thank you for your every kindness. All the best to you, your wife, and the newest addition to the family, your own darling girl.

Emeline

Lianne pressed the letter flat across the other documents, covering them for a moment. “Nicholas,” she whispered. “My father’s name is Nicholas.”

Her mother’s letter raised so many new questions. Why would she write this? Why would she send all of this stuff to Mr. Norman? Why would he be helping her? She’d already glanced at the date and knew her mother had written this only a couple months after her own birth. Why would he be taking care of her and her mother? Who was Nicholas? Who was her father?

That question, that burning question, the question that had plagued her existence since before she could remember, made her push her mother’s letter aside. The first thing she saw was a birth certificate,
her
birth certificate, but on top of that was an old photo of her mother with a man. Nicholas, she presumed. She brought it close to her face and studied them. They were on a couch. The camera was pretty close to them. The only other thing she could see was a blank wall behind them and a tacky orange afghan tossed across the back of the couch. Her mother was stretched out over the man’s lap but had propped herself up on an elbow for the picture. They both grinned at the camera, but the man had his hand on her mother’s hip in a possessive, affectionate gesture. They seemed to fit together perfectly, Lianne noted, and she couldn’t help thinking about her mother’s special ability.

This was only a moment between them, a quick, passing moment captured and held prisoner on film. Lianne knew he’d left before she was even born, before he even knew her mother was pregnant. She studied his face, wondering if she could detect any sort of distance or disconnect in his eyes, but there was only a dancing light.

He looked vaguely familiar, but then again, the photo was old. He could have been anyone. From everything she could see in the photo, though, whoever he was, he appeared to be wholeheartedly in love. She placed the photo with her mother’s letter. She couldn’t let herself think too long. She just had to make it through all of the papers, and then she would go for a walk. She would go for a very long walk. She would have to call Jamie.

And Seb and Will, too, she realized. Even if they didn’t know it or accept it, they were important to her. She wanted to talk to them about this, wanted to share this with them. But later.

She just had to make it through this small stack of papers. Then she could break down or scream or jump naked into a river or do whatever the hell she needed to do to process. But for now, she would read.

Next was the birth certificate. She saw her name at the top, Lianne Emeline Seward. She saw her mother’s name, Emeline Katherine Seward. She saw her father’s name, Nicholas T. Norman.

Norman?

Norman
?

Who was Nicholas T. Norman? It couldn’t be coincidence. There was no way in hell, but she’d never heard of a Nicholas T. Norman, only Ulysses C. Norman. Was he a distant cousin who passed through twenty some odd years ago? Had she ever unknowingly met him? Did Jamie know who he was? She dug through the rest of the papers, but they were all hospital records and county documents. There were a few receipts and a few odd slips with handwritten notes that she could sort through later. Nothing said who this Nicholas Norman was or how he fit into everything.

She texted Jamie. “Do you know anyone in your family named Nicholas T. Norman?”

A couple seconds later, Jamie wrote back. “That’s my Uncle Nick. I’ve never met him. Left town a long time ago and never came back. Why?”

“Call you soon,” she sent.

“Oh my god.” She couldn’t breathe. “Oh my god oh my god oh my god.” She gripped the café table. “Holy shit!”

“Ma’am, are you okay?” one of the baristas asked, shooting her a half-concerned, half-annoyed look. She waved a hand at her.

“Fine,” she croaked out. If Nicholas Norman was Jamie’s uncle, that meant Jamie’s father was his brother. That meant Jamie was her birth father’s niece. Holy shit, that meant Jamie was her cousin. “Oh my god oh my god oh my god.”

No wonder we look alike! No wonder we get along so well. Oh my god oh my god oh my god.

She couldn’t think. She wanted to jump, run, sing, shout, cry, wail, howl. She didn’t know what the hell she wanted to do. She needed to call Jamie. She needed to call Will and Seb. She wanted to hear their voices. She wanted to tell them everything. God, she wanted to sob, and she wanted them to hold her while she did it.

Her body felt hot. She didn’t know what to do with all the swirling and tilting and swaying. Her emotions had nowhere to go, and she felt ready to explode out of her skin.

Maybe that naked jump into a river wasn’t such a bad idea after all.