Secrets Rising (11 page)

Gradually when enough of the inner tension had been thrust outside of her, she was able to catch her breath and again tried to push away.

He loosened the circle of his arms enough to allow her to pull a handful of tissues from her purse and blow her nose. Gently he coaxed her back to him and continued to stroke her hair. In spite of herself, she relaxed, unballing her fists and pressing her hands against him instead.

"Just because your parents loved every stray that crossed their paths doesn't mean they put you in that category." His words whispered past her, so soft she wondered for a moment if they existed only in her mind.

"I never said that," she murmured against him, refusing to look up and meet his gaze.

"Not in so many words. But you thought it, didn't you?"

She took in a long breath, wondering if she could answer that question, if the answer would be a betrayal of the two people she'd loved most in the world. Probably.

Jake didn't press her, and suddenly the words began pouring out as uncontrollably as her earlier sobs.

"One day when I was ten years old, I was playing at my girlfriend's house, and I said to her that I wished my mom and dad loved me special the way hers loved her. Her mother overheard me, and she called me in for a talk. She told me how proud I should be of my parents, how wonderful it was that they were so kind and loving to anyone in need. She made me feel very selfish because I resented something everybody else admired."

Waiting for the expected censure, Rebecca stood with every muscle in her body tense.

"I don't think that sounds selfish. It sounds like every little kid in the world."

"I thought I should be special to them because I was their little girl, their only little girl. When I grew up, I was more adult about it. I knew they loved me. I knew they were terrific people with big hearts and plenty of room for everybody. But then they died, and I couldn't be adult about it anymore. I understood then why I'd never been special to them. I was just another homeless person they took care of. It was like I'd been an orphan all my life, like I'd never had a home or a family."

"And you thought if you found your birth mother, you'd have a real family, a real life."

She leaned back in his arms and looked up at him. The sun had almost vanished from the sky and his face was shadowed, unreadable. "Pretty dumb, huh?"

He chuckled quietly without humor. "Been there, done that. Trust me, it is possible to survive."

She recalled Jake's farcical recitation of his own family life. Had he once been a small boy looking for someone who'd love him in a special way?

She searched his face for the softness, the vulnerability that must have been there once. He moved his head slightly, and a final glimmer from the sunset reflected in his eyes, bringing to life bright flames of raw desire, igniting an answering flame deep inside her.

For a long moment he stared at her, his gaze flicking across her face and back again. She tried to turn away so he couldn't see the way he affected her, but she remained immobile, as if her body had somehow linked itself with his. His head dipped toward her, and she could only lift her lips to his as all rational thought disintegrated into pure sensation. His mouth on hers, warm and soft and firm and demanding and giving, carried her away from the empty world she'd been trapped in, created a whole universe of twinkling stars and swirling galaxies, of moons and planets and suns waiting to be explored.

Her arms wrapped around him, her hands splaying across his back, her fingers searching the corded muscles beneath his denim shirt. Her heart pounded in rhythm with his ragged breathing, as though the two of them comprised a single entity. He pulled her more tightly against him, one hand sliding down her hip while the other tangled in her hair.

With every breath she drank in more of him. The scents of denim and masculinity she'd noticed in the library mingled with the green scent of the freshly-mown grass, and all seemed to belong to Jake. He surrounded her, his lips devouring hers, his arms wrapping her body, his essence invading her soul. She could feel his hardness against her and she wanted him, wanted all of him, needed to be a part of him, as if by a physical union he could fill the black hole she'd become.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, an alarm bell clanged. She wanted to ignore it, to immerse herself in the wild sensations Jake's kiss created in her, to grasp for the elusive quality of completion, but the alarm kept screaming discordantly.

She'd just lost her family, maybe twice. This frantic need for Jake wasn't going to change that. He wasn't going to fill the void.

His eyes searched hers for a long moment, then he nodded. "You're right," he said, and she wasn't sure if he was responding to what she'd said or what he'd seen in her eyes. Or both.

They crossed the cemetery side by side but not together, and the setting sun cast long shadows before them.

When they were seated in the car, Jake sat for a moment with his hand on the key. "I shouldn't have done that," he said, not looking at her.

That made a horrible situation even worse, made her eager participation one-sided, desperate. "It's all right," she mumbled, studying her hands in her lap.

If Rebecca had felt alone before, the sensation was multiplied exponentially now. For a few brief moments she'd known a joining to someone else, a belonging. With the withdrawal of that connection, the barren wasteland inside her seemed even more stark.

"As soon as we get to the motel, I'm going to pack up and drive back to Dallas," she said. "Tonight."

"Good idea. I'll keep you up-to-date on anything I find."

"I don't think you'll find anything else. I think Janelle Griffin was my mother." The last of her hope had gone with Jake's withdrawal. The bleakness in her soul was complete. "I think my mother's dead. I've got to accept that and do as you said, get on with my life. Go back to work, reclaim my friends, carve out a place for myself." Though that seemed an impossible feat right now.

"Good idea," he repeated.

So it was sealed. She'd leave and never see Jake again, never again experience the heady sensation of his touch, his kiss. The night stole into the car, seeping inside her pores, running through her veins where hot blood had flowed only a few minutes before.

"In this town? Considering our relationship with the local police chief, I wouldn't dare change lanes without giving a signal. Assuming we could find a street here with an extra lane to change to."

Gates walked to the front of the car, took out his club and swung it downward. Rebecca gasped in shock as the sound of breaking glass filled the quiet summer night. He walked back to the window and handed Jake a ticket. "Like I said, you got a busted head light."

Finally he turned to Rebecca. "I've got a real strong hunch Janelle Griffin is not your mother. Otherwise, he wouldn't still be trying to get rid of us."

Comprehension finally penetrated Rebecca's shock, followed by righteous anger and a new determination. "I'm not going back to Dallas."

"I had a hunch you'd say that, too."

He didn't sound upset, but he didn't sound glad either.

It didn't matter. No more than it mattered that her mother didn't want to be found. At the cemetery she'd given up her mother, had accepted that she would never be special to anyone, that she had no identity. Dealing with the pain only to find it was a false alarm had hardened something inside her. She would find her mother, even though the woman might slam the door in her face, she'd find her and meet her and see the color of her eyes, the shape of her chin, the slant of her nose, then turn and walk away from her.

And then she'd be in control of her life. Then she'd be able to take her hard-won identity and go forward to that future Doris Jordan had urged on her.

Chapter 9

October 20, 1979, Edgewater, Texas

Mary sat curled on the sofa with a book open in her lap. She'd just read the same page three times and still had no idea what it said.

The time was five minutes after eleven p.m. Ben should be home soon. This month he was on the evening shift, 3:00 to 11:00, and she hated the long hours of darkness until he returned.

She hadn't always felt like this. She'd lived in Edgewater all her life. Nobody locked their doors. Nobody worried.

Except now she did. She compulsively locked her doors and windows and jumped at every noise, especially every time the phone rang.

Of course, some of that concern wasn't new. Every policeman's wife lived with the fear of the phone call telling her that her husband had been injured...or worse.

Not that such things happened in Edgewater where calls to the police department were usually teenagers having a loud party or Jimmy Drake drunk in public again.

Still her fears ran rampant, especially after the sun went down.

Pregnancy. That's all it was. Hormones. The changes her body was going through making her more emotional, bringing back all the old fears she'd thought were behind her, fears of losing those she loved the way she'd lost her parents. And now, added to that old fear was apprehension for the fragile new life growing inside her that she already loved more powerfully than she could ever have imagined.

Resolutely she turned away from the other explanation for her fears, from the black place in her memory. Like the black holes in outer space, it would suck her in, steal the sunshine from her life, whirl her someplace far away where only pain existed.

The phone shrieked and Mary gave an echoing gasp. Her book slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor. Who would be calling at this hour? Not Ben. He encouraged her to go to bed, to be asleep when he got home, especially now that she was pregnant.

She reached toward it, the movement slow and difficult, as movements in a nightmare when some evil creature pursued the dreamer.

She should be relieved that Ben was safe, that no one was calling to say,
I'm sorry, Mrs. Morton. There's been an accident
. But she wasn't relieved. The gargoyle creature of fear still sat beside her and taunted her.

"My partner tells me he's going to be a daddy," he continued when she didn't respond. "At least, he thinks he's going to be a daddy. You and I know different, don't we?"

Her heart crawled into her throat, pounding so hard she couldn't talk, couldn't deny the unspeakable thing he'd just suggested.

"Let me tell you what else I know. I'm not having any damn kid messing up my life again just because you women are too stupid to use birth control. You wanted what happened as much as I did. You teased me and flirted with me and now you think you're going to have some squalling brat and prove it's mine and ruin everything for me. Well, you're dead wrong, bitch. I've got somebody who'll take care of things. You meet me tomorrow at—"

"No!" The word erupted as a volcano, propelled by the horror in Charles' diatribe.

For a moment, Charles said nothing, just long enough for Mary to think perhaps she was having a nightmare, this wasn't really happening. It couldn't be happening.

"No?" His voice, deceptively soft, sent a chill down her spine. "I don't think you mean that. I don't think you want Ben to know what we did, how you seduced me into betraying my partner." He paused for a long moment then continued in a slower, deeper tone. "I don't think you want to worry about whether or not your husband will make it home some night."