Valentine's Child (27 page)

Jake waited. What the hell did this have to do with the price of tea in China? Lindy rushed on, “Of course, it’s none of my business, but I was cleaning up one day and I dumped out her wastebasket and, well, your name just jumped out at me.”

“My name?” Jake asked, confused.

Reaching into her purse, Lindy pulled out what looked like a letter, all ripped up and taped back together. Shyly, she handed it to Jake.

“It was powerful information. I didn’t know what to do, so I just kind of kept it a while, but now that she’s gone I thought you’d better have it, in case she never told you …”

Jake accepted the letter and glanced down at the pages. Then he looked again, harder. Distantly, he heard Lindy say, “I just thought you should know, y’know …”

Pregnant… Our daughter… Mandy… Wanted to tell you so badly… So sorry… so awfully sorry…

Blood pounded in Jake’s head. Lindy kept talking but he only caught the gist of what she was saying, which was mainly about how she didn’t know whether to tell him or not. Silence filled his office, a strange backdrop to the turbulence inside him. He read the letter again, although there was nothing in it he didn’t already know.

When he was finished he sat back in his chair and tried to summon the strength to go running. He couldn’t move. He felt zapped, enervated, destroyed. It was like being dunked underwater every time you surfaced. Over and over and over again. He was powerless to kick himself free.

Shadows lengthened outside his window and the pink neon crab and scripted letters of
Crawfish Delish!
came alive in the gathering gloom. Jake clenched his teeth together. It hurt. It hurt like hell. So what if he knew the contents of the letter, it still hurt every time he was reminded of Sherry’s betrayal and treachery. Slowly, slowly he was coming to terms with why she’d hidden Mandy’s existence from him…
But not the money!
He could never forgive her that. Her cold avarice ripped at his soul.

“I’m going home now,” Barb called over the intercom. “Can I get you anything?”

“No, thanks.”

Moments later he was alone. The letter lay between his hands. He crumpled it, just as he’d crumpled the checks a few days earlier. He wanted to crush her words from his sight and rip her memory from his mind’s eye.

A jolt. His heart somersaulted painfully. Realization drove the blood from his brain and set up a hard hammer inside his veins.

He smoothed out the letter, examining it carefully.

“My God,” he murmured, shocked.

He examined her words again, reading between the lines this time to something Sherry would never have suspected he could see. He waited, making sure, asking himself if he might not just be playing the fool because he loved her so much.

But no, the truth was there.

With a lighter heart and firmer resolve, he slammed out of the office, taking the stairs three at a time as he raced to his Jeep.

Late afternoon sunlight slanted over Oceantides, like an arrow pointing the way home. Caught in its glow, Sherry opened her car door and was immediately met with a puff of brisk ocean breeze. Her hair whipped around her face and she pulled back the errant strands and breathed deeply, closing her eyes and turning her face into the cool wind, listening to the distant roar of the surf.

On her way to the Becketts’ and Patrice. The final stop on this tour of destiny.

But first, a walk down memory lane at Bernie’s Pizza.

“Sustenance,” she murmured, hurrying across the street and through the front doors.

Jukebox music blared — something in the alternative-rock line that was faintly memorable but even less melodic. To her delight, Bernie was there, along with Ryan.

“Hi!” they both called in unison.

“Hey, there,” Sherry greeted them. “A root beer,” she ordered before either of them could ask. “I need a shot of courage.”

“You look better,” Bernie decreed, his eye skimming over her discerningly.

“I’m at the end of a long, hard journey.”

“Going to see J.J.?” Ryan guessed.

“Jake,” Sherry corrected. “But no, I’m checking in with Madame Beckett.”

Bernie’s face twisted into a look of comical horror. “Her?”

The Dragon Lady herself.
“Yep.”

“You take care of yourself,” Bernie warned. “She’s a mean woman with a tongue that could cut glass.”

“Dad!” Ryan laughed.

“She’s lucky her son’s like his father. Oh, Rex had his faults.” Bernie waved off any protests either she or Ryan might make with both hands. “He liked a good time too much, maybe. But he wasn’t mean. He liked people and he loved his children. He had a nice daughter, too, but she had to leave for good because that wife of his was full of acid, heel to scalp. Picked out Jay’s wife before he was even born and did everything she could think of to get rid of anyone else!” He shook his finger at Sherry’s nose. “Don’t think I don’t know. I always knew! She hurt you, and she’ll keep right on doing it.”

“She can’t hurt me anymore,” Sherry said quietly, touched by Bernie’s concern.

“No?” He didn’t believe her.

“No,” she assured him.

He frowned and blinked at her, wanting to concur but unable to. She loved him for that. Holding out her arms, she gave both of them big hugs before she reluctantly eased away.

“You come back here if she beats you down. You come back to Bernie’s! We’re your family, you know!”

“I know.” Sherry struggled to smile, then slipped out the door to her dance with destiny.

Beckett Manor loomed large and bleak even with the watery sun trying to fight its way free of clinging gray clouds. Sherry climbed from her car and marched to the intercom, pressing the buzzer with a slightly unsteady finger.

“Anybody there?” she demanded, sure Patrice was sitting in her web, just waiting.

For an answer the gate buzzed open. No verbal response, just an eerie, silent admittance that made Sherry’s throat go dry in spite of her bravado.

But that was all it was, she could admit now that she was away from Bernie and Ryan’s support. Bravado. No substance. A blustering façade that lacked any real conviction. Patrice had wronged her, but somehow Sherry knew
she
would be the villain. Patrice would twist and turn and blame and nearly convince Sherry that it was all her fault anyway.

But, so what? There was no other option, no other path to pursue.

Wind slapped at her face and slid cold fingers beneath the collar of her black jacket. Her boots slipped a bit on the damp stone walkway. Infuriated by her whipping hair, she yanked it back into a ponytail and held it with one hand. Inelegant, perhaps, but too bad.

With her free hand she rapped on the door. Would Patrice magically open it, as well?

But it was Jake who twisted the handle and split the well-oiled oak door open. The chandelier cast sparkling shadows on the floor and across his face. In low-slung jeans, a torn denim shirt and toting a hammer, his hair tousled, a smudge of dirt near his chin, he looked strong and vulnerable at the same time. All the vinegar went out of Sherry and she stood in shock, consumed by the desire to throw herself into his arms and beg him to believe in her.

“Jake,” she said through numb lips… .

His mouth twisted. “No more J.J.?” He sounded faintly sad.

“I thought you didn’t like it anymore.”

He shook his head, his eyes hooded so he she couldn’t read his expression.

“I — I talked to Mandy,” she said as he closed the door behind her, creating an unintended intimacy that crawled across her skin like a premonition. “I think she really enjoyed being here with you.”

“She’s a great kid.”

Sherry’s eyes searched his face, her heart skipping a beat. “You think so? I mean, I do. I can’t believe I missed all that time with her, and now I just want to hold her and tell her how sorry I am.

The way his eyes stared into her soul silenced her tongue. She wanted to cry. He wouldn’t understand. He would be the last person on earth to understand. “I just love her so much,” Sherry finished awkwardly.

“Were you looking for my mother?” he asked, frowning at the floor, as if continuing to look at her was too much effort.

“Uh, yes …” The urge to throw the money in Patrice’s face had disappeared. Now she just felt tired. “I need to — pay her back.”

“She’s in Seattle. We had words and she decided she needed a little vacation.”

“Words?” Sherry asked, instinctively knowing it concerned her.

“Do you want to give me the check? I promise I’ll see that she gets it.”

Sherry didn’t know what to do. It seemed so anticlimactic, somehow. Reluctantly, she reached into her purse for the envelope with the cashier’s check. “I added interest on. If it’s not enough, I’ll be happy to pay more.”

A spasm crossed his face. For a moment she thought he was going to refuse the envelope, but then he snapped it from her fingers and boldly ripped it open. He stared at the check for a long moment. “How much money did you borrow?” he asked.

“Didn’t I tell you? Ten thousand dollars.” She craned her neck to look at the check. “Why? I said I’d pay more if it’s not enough.”

“My mother had checks written to you for over one hundred thousand dollars.”

“No. No! I took ten thousand dollars for my mother, and I shouldn’t have, but I — ” Sherry swept in a harsh breath, shaking all over. “She lies!”

“It’s not a lie. I talked to — ”

“You — you can’t believe that I took — I took — ” Sherry stumbled over the words, hurrying them out. “I didn’t. I couldn’t! I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”

“Wait — ”

“No, no!” She threw up a hand, warding him off.

“Sherry!”

Tears blurred her vision. “Take the check!” She gulped, stumbling away. “We’re even!”

“For God’s sake,
I know
you didn’t take the money,” Jake hissed through his teeth, grabbing her arm. Sherry pulled at his fingers, wrenching away. “I
know
,” he said again and slowly his words finally penetrated. She carefully glanced up at him, her eyes full of questions.

With a groan, he suddenly pulled her close, until she could feel the light beating of his heart beneath her tense fingers. “Then what?”

“Let me just hold you,” he said, pulling her close, his breath tickling the hairs near her ear.

Time seemed suspended. Sherry drank in his scent like a sweet elixir, letting it fill her head. She wanted to collapse against him, but she didn’t dare. What did he mean?

Without a word, he drew back, gazing down at her in a way that made her heart skip a beat. “Come out to the tree house,” he invited roughly.

Tree house? Sherry let him lead her to the base of the tree where a ladder had been securely lashed to the trunk. Jake climbed up and reached a hand down to her. Glad for her own jeans and boots, Sherry climbed to the newly laid floorboards of the infamous tree house, scene of reluctant memories of her youth.

“So, that’s what the hammer’s for,” she murmured, smelling the new wood.

“Mandy wanted to be here. I haven’t climbed up since high school and the place was rotten.”

“And you decided to save it?” Sherry asked, dozens more pressing questions flying inside her head, unable to voice any of them.

“I thought it was worth saving.”

The hammock swayed softly. A new hammock. Not as big as the other. Big enough, though, she thought inconsequentially.

“You look scared,” Jake said softly.

“I’m thinking about Patrice.”

He threw back his head and laughed. “Liar,” he said.

“I’m thinking about the money,” Sherry clarified. “And that reminds me of Patrice.”

“The money Patrice sent Elena.”

Sherry stilled. “What do you know of Elena?”

“I know she’s your aunt and that she endorsed the original check Patrice sent you for her mother. I know she endorsed at least ten other checks as well, all made out to you and equaling ten thousand dollars each. I know she deposited them in a bank under your name.”

The ground rushed forward. Sherry’s head buzzed. It suddenly was too heavy to hold up. “Wha-at?” she whispered, as J.J.’s arms suddenly closed around her, supporting her, guiding her to the hammock where they both fell in a tangle of arms and legs that normally would’ve embarrassed Sherry, but right now was very necessary support.