Secrets Rising (27 page)

"This
nobody
sure has you scared. You can't just go running across the country, pregnant, without anyone to help you or a place to stay. You can stay here until you have your baby. We need another waitress, and Jerry and I both adore babies. We'd have a dozen if we could."

"Well, it doesn't matter who he is. Even if he does find you, he won't recognize you." Brenda leaned across the desk, opened a drawer and took out a pair of scissors. "We'll cut your hair and dye it dark brown and get you a pair of glasses. Hey, it worked for Superman, and Clark Kent didn't even change his hair."

The smile that crept over Mary's lips felt good, as good as the grin at Brenda's nonsense had a few minutes ago. It seemed like a lifetime since she'd done either. "Thank you. You have no idea how much I appreciate your offer to help, but I have to go. I have to get as far away as possible."

Jerry didn't bat an eye. He stepped forward and extended his hand. "Pleased to meet you, Jane Clark. Can you start tomorrow night? We're awfully short of help."

Mary shook her head in amazement. "You people don't even know me. You don't know what kind of problems I have, what kind of trouble I'm in. How can you offer me a job and a room in your home? How do you know I'm not a criminal?"

Jerry shrugged. "If you want to steal the television, go ahead. It's black and white, and the focus is really bad on it. And if you have any need for a really ugly orange sofa, we could work some kind of a deal where I pay you to take it."

"Jerry! He's kidding. He loves that sofa. His aunt gave it to us."

Jerry rolled his eyes. "Sure. I love getting a good case of the flu, too."

"Hon, can you handle things the rest of the evening? Jane and I have to go home and do her hair. We'll take your car, Jane, put it in the garage and close the door so nobody can see it."

Mary couldn't agree to Brenda's plan, but she was too tired to argue and found herself swept along. It felt so good to have somebody else making the decisions, taking care of her. Maybe she could stay for a little while, just until she could come up with a better plan.

Chapter 19

Jake located a motel half an hour from Edgewater. Rebecca remained frustratingly silent the entire trip. At first he'd told himself he should leave her alone, let her work through this on her own. She was finally coming to grips with reality and, while it wasn't fun, it wasn't fatal, either. She was building those muscles he'd told her about.

But he couldn't seem to do that. He felt her distress as if it were happening to him...as if he were once again a child, being tossed from one family to another and unable to cope with the confusion and hurt. So he'd tried to talk to her, making conversation about inconsequential topics, avoiding the painful subject of Doris' rejection, unsure how to bring it up until she did.

She'd been unresponsive, answering in monosyllables or ignoring him completely.

They stopped at a drive-in for burgers, hardly the pleasant meal with Doris Jordan in the best restaurant in town that Rebecca had planned. She ate determinedly, as if the burger was an enemy to be vanquished. But at least she ate.

He checked them into the motel, relieved and disappointed that this place was full enough they couldn't have adjacent rooms. For the space of a heartbeat he'd considered asking for one room with a king size bed. What if the person who'd tampered with her brake lines tried to hurt her again? Shouldn't he be nearby to protect her?

If somebody
had
tampered with her brake lines. If it had been deliberate and not an accident. If he wasn't trying to find an excuse to spend the night with her.

He took the two rooms, returned to the car and drove around back. "You're in 145." He handed her the key. "You get the one with the patio door that opens onto the pool area."

Rebecca stood beside the bed, gazing around the room. When she turned to him, he saw that she was wearing the haunted expression she'd ascribed to Mary Jordan.

"Thanks for bringing in the suitcase," she said.

He wanted to go to her, take her in his arms, comfort her, kiss her, make love to her, see passion sweep that haunted look from her eyes.

Instead he stood in the open doorway, one hand braced on the frame. He didn't dare close that door. No telling what stupid act he might commit if he did.

"Rebecca, while we were gone this evening, something happened to Doris to change her mind about us staying there. Who knows what it was? We could speculate all night and still not figure it out, but something did happen. She seemed confused, even a little scared. You can't take it personally."

She sank onto the bed and pulled one of the pillows into her lap, smoothing the white cotton case, avoiding his gaze. "My first guess would be that Mary told her I was Ben's illegitimate daughter."

"Which would still make you Doris' granddaughter, so I wouldn't give that idea a number one rating. Hell, she could have received a phone call from an old boyfriend who wanted to spend the weekend with her."

Rebecca looked up and smiled wryly. "I wouldn't give that idea a number one rating, either."

"Okay, but you see my point. We don't know. Nobody can ever know what causes another person to act the way they do unless that person tells you. And even then you can't be sure they're telling the truth."

She tossed the pillow onto the bed and leaned back on her arms. "Thank you so much for sharing that bit of wisdom. Believe it or not, it comes as no surprise to learn that I don't know anything about anybody. I pretty much figured that out the day I discovered I was adopted."

Sarcasm was better than the withdrawn depression she'd exhibited during the entire trip.

"No, you didn't figure it out then. If you had, you wouldn't have come looking for answers and found only more questions. If you'd figured it out then, you'd have accepted that your real parents—the Pattersons—that's as real as you're going to get for parents—you'd have accepted that they loved you for a long time, longer than most people ever will, longer than most people are ever loved."

She flinched as if he'd struck her, but he'd said what she needed to hear. He wanted to shout at her, shake her until she accepted the truth, until she stopped letting people hurt her.

Then hold her until the wounds healed.

She stood abruptly and walked over to the dresser, her eyes meeting his in the mirror, as if she couldn't talk to him directly. "I know my parents loved me." Her voice was soft but firm. "They loved the whole world. They were wonderful people, and I was damned lucky they took me in after my real mother tossed me aside. But that's what they did, took in outcasts. Our guest room was always full. A battered wife. A family out of work. If they had kids, the kids shared my room. I used to hate myself for being so petty about wishing those people were gone and I had Mom and Dad and our house all to myself. I realize now that I got more than I deserved."

"Rebecca, they loved you. That's more than a lot of people ever get. They only stopped loving you when they died, and their deaths don't change the past. They were there for you. They cared about you. Doris cared about you, and then she stopped though she didn't die. You don't know why she stopped, and you don't need to." He slapped the door frame. "Damn it, Rebecca, you've got to learn to love and let go. Enjoy it while it lasts and forget about it when it's over. Nothing lasts forever, especially something like love, an emotion that hinges on a thousand other factors, factors over which you have absolutely zero control. You need to live in the present and let go of the past."

"
Love and let go
," she repeated. "
Enjoy it while it lasts
. Like you do?"

"Yeah, like I do." And then, for some reason, he could no longer bear to look into the reflected image of her smoky green gaze. He turned away. "I'm in room 287 if you need me."

He left, closing the door behind him.

***

Jake yanked the covers off his bed, stacked both pillows behind his head and stretched out, still wearing his jeans. He wasn't sleepy and, though he was exhausted, he was too wired to think about resting.

This case, a simple matter of locating Rebecca Patterson's parents, had turned into one of the most complicated, and certainly the most frustrating, cases he'd ever taken on.

Something was definitely going on with Doris Jordan, and he wasn't basing that solely on his impression of her state of mind when she'd sent them packing. She wasn't the type to turn against someone because of that person's heredity. No, it would have to be something pretty big to make Doris act the way she had...to cause such a well-adjusted, self-confident woman to become confused and frightened and rude.

Nothing in this case made sense.

Especially not his reactions to his client.

Rebecca was fragile and vulnerable and had just received from Doris one of the many blows he'd warned her to expect. That should reinforce her decision to return home tomorrow as soon as she could make arrangements for her car. Her leaving would solve a lot of his problems.

His head would clear when she was gone. She had a way of keeping his hormones stirred up, his mind in a fog, going off in directions that made no sense, constantly thinking about her, unable to focus on what he needed to focus on.

A knock sounded at the door.

He knew it was Rebecca before he opened it. He could feel the energy, the tension of her nearness the way he'd felt the approaching electricity in that storm.

She wore a white satin robe, belted at the waist. Her skin glowed and her hair was damp at her cheekbones as if she'd just showered. She looked up at him, and in the glare of the outside light, the sadness and vulnerability that had been a part of her expression since the first time he'd seen her appeared to have been replaced by a brittle hardness. "Make love to me," she said.

He gulped, not quite certain he'd really heard her. "What?"

"Make love. Have sex. Do it. Whatever phrase you want to use. Tonight. The last time I'll ever see you. For an hour, let's be lovers...or sex partners, if you prefer that terminology. In the morning we'll let go and be on our separate ways. Like you said."

He stared at her, trying to determine if she was serious...afraid to believe she was serious.

For a moment her expression faltered. "Don't you want to make love to me?"

He stepped back and allowed her to enter then closed the door and turned to face her. She stood two inches away, so close he caught her scent of honeysuckle and roses and summer, felt the current that sparked between them...so close he had only to reach for her and pull her into his arms. He held his hands rigidly at his sides.

"God, yes, I want to make love to you. I wanted you the first time I saw you. Since that day in the park, I haven't been able to think about you without wanting you."

So why was he hesitating? Because suddenly he wasn't sure he could love and let go?

Because suddenly he was afraid she could?

Where the hell did he come up with such strange stuff? Of course he could love and let go. And if Rebecca could, too, that was what he wanted. He could make love to her without worrying about anybody getting hurt when it was over.

He drew her into his arms and kissed her. She returned the kiss with an intensity that amazed him even after their lovemaking in the park.

Suddenly his desire blazed beyond control. He deepened the kiss, holding her tightly with one hand, unwilling to break the contact even as he fumbled with the tie of her robe. Her fingers joined his, tugging at the knot, even as her mouth clung to his and her tongue danced with his, moving in and out, back and forth, in pale imitation of the dance that was to come.

She hadn't been shy last time, but tonight she was bold, voracious, meeting him on an equal footing.

The knot loosened, the sash fell away, and her robe opened. His hand touched bare, satiny skin at her waist. He slid his hand upward, around her breast, over the swollen nipple. She'd worn nothing beneath the robe, not even the skimpy gown he'd seen her in the first night. A minute ago he'd have sworn he couldn't become more aroused, but he was.

She tangled her fingers in the hair on his chest, then slid them down, stroked the bulge in his jeans and struggled with the zipper. Unable to stand the pressure any longer, he moved away from her, yanked off his jeans and shorts, and pulled her onto the bed with him.

He could wait no longer to bury himself inside her, to be joined with her, to feel her hot slickness, to relieve the tension and ride again that storm of ecstasy, arriving at the peak with her around him and beside him.

As he entered her, the single thought shot through his mind that this was even more incredible than the first time. After that, all thought processes became lost completely in overpowering sensation.

He thrust hard, almost angrily, and she met him in the same fashion. Together they raced to that white-hot pinnacle. He cried out as he exploded over the top and heard her do the same. The aftershocks seemed almost as potent as the initial quake, and for a moment, he thought they might go on like that all night.