Sweet Christmas Kisses (127 page)

Brodie was apparently hard at work in the cottage and didn't show up, but after a light, early supper with Sorcha and Aileen in the kitchen, the ladies shooed away Lucy's offer to help with dishes, so she returned to the library with a hot mug of Earl Grey, lit the fireplace and once again sat at the massive desk.

Rain still streaked the windows and darkness had already fallen. Feeling a sudden chill, she lifted an ivory woolen shawl that felt soft as cream from the back of the chair and snuggled into it.  A pang of wistfulness seeped through her.

Aunt Maura had sat at this desk, probably wrapped in this same shawl.  Perhaps reading, or paying bills. Had she ever written letters to America from here?  Letters that had been waylaid or returned as address unknown? 

The stained glass lamp on the desk bathed the dark, rich paneling and bookshelves of the room in glowing amber, the museum-like decor imparting a deep sense of history.  Her history.

"Thank you, Maura," she whispered as she opened the first desk drawer. 

The four drawers on the left hand side yielded a collection of Mont Blanc pens nestled in velvet boxes. A more mundane collection of office supplies, neatly arranged.  Stationery supplies, copy paper, computer supplies.

On the right, two deeper file drawers held hanging files neatly labeled for all the business details of running a B&B.  Receipts, tax records, warranties on various appliances and even for a new, high efficiency furnace installed just year ago.

None of it was personal. Had Simpson been wrong?

Disappointed, she pushed away from the desk and opened the wide center drawer.

"Not going so well?"  Brodie stood in the open doorway, leaning a shoulder against the doorframe. 

Her traitorous pulse hitched at the sound of his voice.  "I was hoping for more.  Personal correspondence, or something."

"Where have ye looked so far?"

"Just the desk.  I still have the file cabinet to go, and Maura's bedroom.  I would've guessed that she would have left something important in an obvious place, though.  Maybe there just isn't anything."

With a sigh, she pushed at the drawer but it balked.  She rattled it gently, and the corner of an envelope slid forward into view.

Her heart turned over.

Brodie sauntered in the room and sank into one of the leather chairs facing the desk.  "Now ye look like you've seen a ghost."

It was probably nothing--just a scrap.  But the weight of it when she pulled it forward felt like more.   Much more.

It was a business envelope with an unbroken blob of sealing wax on the flap.  The swirling inscription in blue ink on the outside made time stand still. "To my dear Lucy, with love."

"I can leave ye to it," Brodie said quietly.

She slid a letter opener under the flap. "No--please stay.  This could raise more questions than it answers, and maybe you'll know."

A key and a yellowed photograph fell onto the desk when she lifted out the folded pages inside. Lucy swiftly scanned the first page, her heart lodged in her throat, then she studied the photograph in shock, unable to speak.  It was of a young girl with thick, curly dark hair lying in what appeared to be a hospital bed, a swaddled baby held in her arms.  She appeared exhausted and overwrought. An auburn-haired young woman stood next to the bed, staring straight at the camera, her lips compressed in a straight line.

Black spots swirled in front of her eyes the moment she recognized the young woman who was standing, and she suddenly felt hot, and cold, and the room started to spin.

"I--I had no idea," she whispered.  "I was wrong about everything."

Brodie leaned forward, his eyes dark with concern.  "Is there something you need? Can I get you a drink or something?"

She took a deep, steadying breath, forcing herself to focus on the letter in her hand, then she looked up at him and shook her head. 

"The letter was dated just days before Maura's death. She...she says she kept her promise for thirty-two years, but knew she didn't have long to live and my mom was already gone.  She thought I deserved the truth."

Brodie folded his hands on the edge of the desk, his eyes gentle and quietly waiting. "Ye don't have to tell me, lass."

"Who else do I have to tell, now?"  She heard the raw pain in her voice and swallowed hard.  "My mother took her secrets to the grave.  I thought I'd guessed them long ago, but never asked.  I figured they were hers to keep, after what I thought she'd gone through."

"And ye were right?" he asked gently.

"Not at all."  Her eyes burned.  "My entire life has been a lie."

"I always wondered why my mom and I looked nothing alike," Lucy said. "She was big-boned, with pale auburn hair, lots of freckles and blue eyes."

"What about your dad?"

"She would only say that they'd been married briefly and then he'd died long ago--before I was even born."  Lucy sighed.  "She remarried when I was a toddler.  I vaguely remember Alan, but that didn't last long, either."

 "So she raised you as a single mother, then."

Lucy nodded.  "I'm sure it wasn't easy.  I always figured she had me out of wedlock--and that there'd been a huge fight with her parents over her indiscretion.  Maybe they even kicked her out of the house, and she somehow ran away to the States.  She nursed a grudge against her family until she died."

"You never met any of them, then?"

"Never even saw a letter from them."  Lucy managed a wry smile.  "But then, she'd always told me her parents were deceased and she had no other relatives--probably to stop me from pestering her with questions."

"I'm sorry," Brodie said quietly.

"It was all I knew, so it was...okay.  Mom maybe wasn't the warmest, milk and cookies kind of mother, but she tried."   Lucy looked down at the letter on the desk. "I just can't believe she did this."

She began to read aloud.

Dearest Lucy,

Forgive me for typing this.  I feel more out of breath today and my hands are weak. If I use the computer, at least it will be legible.

I am praying that my solicitor will convince you to come to Scotland.  I pray that you will choose to stay for just a brief month so you can have a chance to absorb some of the family history that is yours.Perhaps you will even choose to make your home here in this beautiful house, where the Campbells have lived for almost three hundred years.

But whatever you choose, you have my blessing now and forever, my sweet girl. Though I have not been a part of your life, you have been the very beating of my heart since the day you were born.

I am now going to break a promise I made to my sister long ago.  For that I hope God and Anna will forgive me, but I don't have much more time here on earth, and she is already in heaven.  How can I leave you totally alone? That would be a greater sin.

When I was just fifteen, I fell in love with the most beautiful boy--he was so handsome, so sweet.  Our parents did everything to keep us apart, but he gave me a promise ring and...well, you might well guess the rest. I was sent to a place run by nuns outside of Edinburgh. There was no question about giving up the baby. I wasn't even asked--and with my weak heart, surviving the delivery was even in question.  And there was no way I could ruin my love's future by telling him about you. He was four years older, from a poor family, and he'd gotten a scholarship for university. If I'd told him, he would have thrown it all away to do the right thing.

"It's hard to even take this all in." A hollow feeling settled in her chest, making it hard to breathe. 

"If ye want me to go, I will."  He reached over and rested a hand on hers.  "But if you want to talk about it, I'm here."

 A feeling of peace and reassurance flowed through her at his brief touch.  She kept reading.

But even before you were born, I knew I couldn't let you go to strangers. Not when you had kin who could love you as I would.

Anna had already moved to the States, and I wrote her, begging her to take you.  She agreed--but no one was to ever know the truth. Not my boyfriend, not our parents. You would be hers and hers alone. The nuns helped her arrange the adoption, and then she took you away.

You deserve the chance to discover that you are not alone, so I will leave you this key for a safety box at the bank in Deoiridh.  I left your name and my instructions with the manager so you can access it.  If you choose, those questions can be answered.

I am so sorry, dear one.  Until now I kept the vow I made to Anna, before God.  I know she loved you deeply, but the thought of you going through life with no family to care about you has been a heavy weight on my heart.  My one hope is for that day when we will meet in Eternity.

With love forever, Maura

Lucy put the letter down and ran her fingertips over the key. "I don't even know what to say."

"I know it must be a shock, learning this now." He stared pensively into the fireplace for a long moment before continuing, as if carefully choosing his words. "But what happened to Maura is a story old as time. There's many a bairn born on the wrong side of the blanket who's adopted into a new family, a new life."

She gave a long sigh.  "That's true."

"But it seems like the best possible outcome, aye?  You're a fine woman, so ye must've been raised right. And though Maura and her sister have passed, ye can still connect with your heritage while you're here."

"I just wish I could have found out sooner--while there was still a chance to meet her."  She picked up the key and turned it over in her hand.  "And now I can't help but wonder what she put in that safety deposit box--and why she didn't simply leave it here."

 "A grand mystery." Brodie lifted a brow and smiled.  "But there's one way to find out, if you're game."

The bank manager, a ruddy-faced old gent, studied Lucy's driver's license, then scowled up at Brodie.  "Maura left clear instructions about Miss Davis coming in, but who might ye be?"

"Just a friend offering moral support.  I'll stay in the waiting area."  Brodie watched the two of them disappear into a back room, then settled into one of the hard wooden chairs with his iPad in hand.

Had it been Lucy's encouragement yesterday about writing fiction that had spurred his thoughts in a different direction?  He'd thought about it over the years, the yearning to let his creativity fly free into the commercial realm sometimes jack-hammering at his brain.

But he'd always done the responsible thing.  Forced his focus back to much loftier projects--dry research articles and weighty tomes that ensured his ongoing position at the university and added more lines to his curriculum vitae.

Until he'd hit an impassable mental roadblock. 

And then, Lucy showed up.

Even now, sitting in this dimly lit reception area, his fingers itched to open up his iPad case and start tapping out the ideas for a hard-edged suspense novel that were rushing through his brain like a mountain stream in springtime. 

His writer's block had vanished...but for the completely wrong genre. And now he was even questioning the path of his entire career.

The mobile in the back pocket of his Levis vibrated.  He glanced at the screen and then took his brother Ross's call outside.

"We haven't heard from you in months, bro.  Mum and dad are worried."

"I've been busy."

"Holed up in some little cottage in the middle of nowhere?  Mum thinks you're in a deep, devastating depression and wants to fetch you back home. It's all we can do to keep her from taking Dad's Land Rover and doing just that."

"I'm working."

"That's what I tell her.  She won't believe it."  Ross chuckled. "She also talks about writing your dear ex-wife and ordering her to come back where she belongs."

Brodie groaned. "What part of 'divorce' does she not understand?"

"What she understands is 'until death do you part.'  To her, the rest is just lack of trying.  She says she put up with plenty from dad, and they're now perfectly content in their old age."

Brodie had to smile at that.  Alyce MacLaughlin was the antithesis of old age at sixty--slim as a teenager, with a long list of charities she chaired, a wicked golf game, and a stable of horses she actively showed throughout Scotland and northern England. She likely wouldn't act like an old lady until she hit a hundred and five.

"Maybe I should have been more forthcoming to her about the details. Like, the part about Trisha being the one who walked out, filed, and then left for the U.S. with most of our assets."

"She'd probably want it all forgiven."  Ross's low chuckle rumbled in Brodie's ear.  "She's still badgering us about grandchildren, so maybe she thinks you're her best hope."

"I doubt that will ever happen, now." Brodie lifted his gaze to the bank, wondering what Lucy was discovering in the safety deposit box.  Wondering--just briefly--how different his life would have been if he'd found someone like her instead of falling prey to Trisha's flirty glances.

The thought made him suddenly feel old.  Sad.  And way too pathetic.  "Progeny are your job as the eldest son, you know.  That crumbling pile of stones will fall into your lap someday."

"Not literally, I hope."  Brodie could hear the sound of voices in the background, then Ross cleared his throat.  "I've been told to make sure you remember the Christmas shindig.  You don't have to worry about a date, though.  Mum has someone in mind whom you're sure to like. Or so she says."

That sounded bad.  "Tell her I'm not coming."

"You tell her that.  And anyway, you have to come.  It's not optional.  Family tradition and all that."

Brodie sighed, knowing it was true.  No matter what his mother had up her sleeve, it wouldn't be Christmas without going home to be with family, and joining in the festivities his parents threw for the village on the second weekend in December.  "I'll be there, but tell her I'll bringing my own date--and make that clear."