by C. B. Clark
A quiet metallic click resonated, and the safe door swung open. “Yes!” She pumped her fist in the air. “Oh, yes. That’s what I’m talkin’ about.”
Chapter 26
He let out a whoop and swept her into his arms, capturing her mouth in a hard kiss. Before she could respond, he lifted his lips and grinned. His golden-brown eyes flashed. “You did it!” He planted another kiss on her mouth. “You’re really something, you know that?”
“It…it just made sense. I…” Her voice trailed off as their gazes met and held.
The air sizzled between them.
Her heart thumped like a drum. His eyes transformed to liquid molasses, the pupils dilating until she felt she was being drawn into his very soul. She tore her gaze free. “Let…let’s see what’s in the safe.” Heart pounding, she swung back to the safe and opened the door wider. A stack of tattered envelopes bound by a string sat in the middle of the small safe. She withdrew the packet, and her fingers shook as she untied the knot.
There were five envelopes, each addressed to Angus Crawford at a West Vancouver address.
Her knees turned to water, and she sagged against the wall.
“Athena? What is it?”
Russ’s voice sounded distant as if he were miles away rather than mere inches. The writing on the envelopes blurred, and she blinked to clear her eyes. She trailed her finger over the faded ink. Twenty-three years had passed, but she recognized the handwriting. Why would her mother write these letters to Angus Crawford? Were they rental payments? He was the island’s owner. Her parents would have made arrangements to pay for leasing the small plot of land where they’d built their house. But why would Angus keep rental payment statements in a safe?
“What are those? Letters?”
She held up the packet of envelopes and swallowed over the boulder blocking her throat. “They’re…they’re from my mother, and they’re addressed to Angus.”
His eyes widened. “Your mother wrote Angus letters? Why?”
“I…I don’t know.” She lifted the flap of one envelope and slid out a thin sheet of paper and opened it flat. Her mother’s neat handwriting covered the page. Her heart stuttered at the first three words—My Dearest Love.
“I…I need to be alone.” She tottered on wooden legs out of the small room and down the hall to the front door. Flinging open the heavy door, she stepped outside and headed for somewhere private where she’d have the courage to read the words her mother had written to the man Athena had hated above all others.
****
Russ found her sitting on a rocky headland overlooking the small bay. The sun was setting, casting a pink glow over the shimmering ocean. The storm had passed, and the sea had calmed. Waves lapped at the gravel shoreline below, the gentle ebb and flow a soothing melody.
Seagulls screeched and dove into the froth of the incoming tide, their raucous cries echoing off the surrounding forest and rising, rocky headland. The rain-washed air was fresh with the heady scents of fish, ocean, and forest. In the bay, the Minerva rocked at its moorings.
When she stumbled out of the study clutching the envelopes, she’d looked beaten, her face ashen, her eyes dull and lifeless. He’d wanted to stop her, to demand she tell him what was in those letters. But she was so shaken, he was afraid if he touched her, she’d shatter. So, he’d stood aside and let her go. Finally, worried about her, he’d gone looking.
She must have sensed his presence because her body stiffened, but she didn’t look up.
He settled on a large boulder several feet away, giving her space, and fixed his gaze on the sun as it sank beneath the horizon. Rich hues of orange, crimson, and purple painted the evening sky.
“How long have you known?” She broke the silence stretching between them.
His heart ached at the sadness etched on her pale, heart-shaped face, but he didn’t bother pretending he didn’t know what she was talking about. “The possibility occurred to me when I first learned the terms of Angus’s will, but I wasn’t certain until I saw the den with those boxes of photographs. Why else would Angus have all those pictures of you?”
She nodded and slapped the papers on her lap. “It’s all in these letters, every sordid detail. My mother loved him. Can you believe that? She loved Angus Crawford.”
A hundred platitudes struggled to break free of his tangled tongue, but nothing he said would ease her pain, so he tightened his mouth and kept silent.
“They…they had an affair, and…and my mother got…pregnant. With me.” Her voice was thick with unshed tears. “He refused to marry her, said he wasn’t ready to settle down with a child.”
He flinched at the raw pain burning in the blue depths of her eyes.
“He broke her heart.”
“That’s why he left you the majority of his estate. It’s the only thing that makes sense.” He smoothed his hands over his thighs. “You were his daughter. He was trying to make amends for abandoning you.”
“My…my poor mother.” Sadness coated her words. “How horrible for her to live on his island and raise his child, all the while knowing he’d rejected her.” She rubbed her forehead as if her head ached. “Why would she do that? Why would my father, my real father—the man who raised me—want to live here?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense, but they must have had their reasons.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets to stop from reaching for her.
She looked at him with wounded eyes. “Did you know Angus wanted me to live with him?”
He blinked. “What?”
She nodded and toyed with the stack of letters, alternately creasing and smoothing the thin papers. “It was just before my parents vanished. I overhead them talking. Dad was out fishing. Mom and I were in the garden picking peas. When Angus showed up, she sent me to the kitchen for a glass of water.
“I was nervous because he hardly ever came to the house.” She mashed the pads of her fingers to her temples. “I came back with the water, and they were arguing.” She exhaled a shaky breath. “I hid behind the garden shed so they wouldn’t see me, but I heard them.”
She twisted her hands together on her lap. “They were talking about me. He wanted me to live with him in Vancouver. I didn’t understand why he would even ask. I mean, he was just our landlord.” She blew out a breath. “Mom refused, and he said something about getting his lawyer involved. Their voices grew louder, and Mom told him to leave.” She rubbed her temples. “After he left, Mom was crying, but she refused to tell me what was going on.”
A raven cawed, the bird’s haunting cry resonating through the forest. The heavy scent of wet earth filled the yawning void.
He cleared his throat. “Angus must have loved you very much.”
“Loved me?” She snorted, her lip curling in a sneer. “He broke my mother’s heart and deserted her when she needed him the most. When he realized he wasn’t going to have any other children, he wanted me, his heir, someone to carry on his bloodline. That’s all I was.” She planted her hands on her hips. “He was so desperate for an heir that when that didn’t work out, he adopted you.” She gasped and slapped her hand over her mouth. “I…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
He flinched at her harsh words, made all the worse because of their ring of truth. She was right. Angus had wanted an heir, someone to follow in his footsteps and run his business empire. That’s why he’d adopted Russ. He’d always suspected the harsh reality, but he’d hoped somewhere, deep inside, Angus loved him like a father loved his own son.
“I’m glad he’s dead.” Her outrage blasted the peaceful evening air like a fusillade of bullets. She kicked a rock, and the pebble shot off the cliff and bounced and tumbled to the beach below.
“Hate him all you want, but he was your biological father. That’ll never change. He made a mistake. We all make mistakes. Looks to me like he was trying to make amends.” He grimaced. Why was he defending Angus? The man had made his feelings about his adoptive son clear when he wrote his w
ill.
Bottom line—Russell wasn’t blood. Athena was. That astounding revelation explained everything. He’d suspected Angus had secrets, but this startling development was more than a simple secret. Hell, the revelation that Athena was Angus’s biological daughter was an atomic blast, an implosion that shook the very fiber of his being.
“Was my father aware of their affair? Did he know I wasn’t his child?” The bitterness had left her voice, replaced by a deep, aching sadness.
He shrugged. “You may never know.”
“I wish my parents were here. There’s so much I’d like to ask them.” She spread her hands on her lap. “Why were the circumstances of my birth a secret? Why didn’t my mother tell me? I had a right to know.”
“I’m sorry.” He grimaced. Sorry? A useless word, a meaningless platitude that rolled off the tongue, but did nothing to help. But what else could he say? He was sorry, both for her and for him. Sometimes life sucked, but you had to make the best of a bad situation.
“Russ?”
His name on her lips drew him out of his dark thoughts. “What is it?”
“Is it too late to sail to Vancouver?” She gestured toward the glistening bay. “The storm’s passed. The water looks pretty calm.”
“The Minerva has night running lights. We can leave whenever you want.”
“Good. The sooner I get off this island, the better.”
“There’s something I have to show you first.” He swallowed and searched for the right words. “There was something else in the safe other than those letters. Something you missed.”
Her brow furrowed. “What is it?”
He dug in his pocket and tugged out the thin gold chain he’d found hidden in a crack at the back of the small safe. “I found this.”
She lifted the bracelet from his palm and studied it. “This is a baby bracelet. Why would Angus Crawford have a baby bracelet?”
He’d asked himself the same question.
She sucked in a sharp breath. “I don’t believe this.” Tears slipped from beneath her lowered lashes and trickled in a silver path down her pale cheeks. Her tear-glazed gaze met his. “This…this is my bracelet.”
“Yours? Are you sure?”
“It has to be.” She held up the thin chain and pointed at the ID plate. “My name’s engraved inside this heart. Why would Angus have this?” She closed her fingers around the chain and squeezed until her knuckles stood out white and stark.
“Like I said before, he loved you. That explains all those photographs in his cottage and the baby bracelet. Even though he couldn’t claim you as his child, he thought about you and wanted to be close to you in the only way he could.”
A tear trembled like a tiny diamond, caught on her long eyelashes.
Enough common sense remained in his brain that he didn’t give in to his desperate desire to gather her in his arms and kiss away the shimmering drop. Spending the night holding her in his arms was a mistake, one he couldn’t take back. Touching her now, when she was so vulnerable, would compound his error. They were involved in a business deal. That was all this was, nothing more, nothing less. Just business.
Really? If you believe that, you’re a damn fool.
He gritted his teeth and ignored the snide inner voice. Now that the truth of her parentage was out in the open, their agreement had become far more complicated. She was Angus’s daughter, and as such was the rightful heir of his estate. Russ’s claims would be kicked out of court. If he wanted her to follow through on her plan to sign over her share of Angus’s estate, he had to keep their relationship on an impersonal level. For the time being, it was hands off. But when she was hurting, he struggled to remember his vow to remain unmoved.
She sniffled and wiped her face with her sleeve. “This is all too much.”
He fished in his back pocket and tugged out a tissue and dabbed at her tears. His fingers tingled as they grazed the silken softness of her smooth cheek. He studied the rich fullness of her mouth and ached to kiss those sweet lips.
She licked her bottom lip with the tip of her pink tongue.
His breath gusted out in a whoosh at her innocently sensual gesture. His blood thickened and headed due south.
She shot to her feet, the letters and necklace clutched in her hand. “Let’s leave now. Please?”
He forced his gaze from the rich softness of her mouth and that pink tongue. “Um, sure. Whatever you want. We’ll leave right away.”
Chapter 27
While Athena gathered her few possessions and washed their coffee cups and tided the cottage, Russ left in search of Rick. He wanted to talk to the caretaker and make sure the guy repaired the broken window in Athena’s family’s old house. With the recent storms, he was concerned about water damage. It was nice he cared about the place, but she wouldn’t return. Never again would she walk through that familiar door and step into the past. The memories were too painful. She had to move on with her life and put the past behind her.
Yeah. Sure. Like that was going to happen. She swiped at the sudden dampness in her eyes. She couldn’t move on until she knew what happened to her parents. Hopefully, Russ would be able to help her find answers.
She’d pulled herself together by the time he returned.
He locked up the cottage, and she followed him down the path to the beach where they’d left the rubber dinghy. The last rays of the setting sun lit the top branches of the tallest cedars on the headland in a golden glow. The ocean rose and fell in rhythmic, gentle waves.
“What did Rick say?” She slipped on a fluorescent-yellow life jacket.
Russ shrugged into a salt-stained PFD. “He won’t let any strangers on the island, and he promised not to talk to any reporters.”
“Do you think he’s figured out who I am?” She tightened the waist strap.
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. But it’s only a matter of time.”
Russ was right. Her physical appearance had changed in over twenty years, but she still possessed her distinctive red hair. In his research into the O’Flynn family, Rick would come across a photo of her from a newspaper article or television newscast and make the connection. Once he did, the proverbial cat would be out of the bag. And then her life would once again become a circus. Heart thudding, she helped Russ lug the rubber raft to the water’s edge.
He held the raft steady while she jumped in, scrambled to the stern, and sat on the small bench seat facing the bow. He shouldered the raft into the surf and settled on the middle seat. Hefting the oars from the oarlocks, he used quick, sure strokes and rowed the small boat through the breaking surf to the calmer waters of the small bay.
The raft rose over the crest of a wave and sank with a thump into the following trough. Gripping the canvas straps on the gunnel, she held on tight. Leaving the shores of Shelter Island filled her with mixed emotions. She’d hoped revisiting her old home would answer the questions that had plagued her for so many years. Instead of peace of mind, her brief time on the island had raised even more unsettling issues.
Russ had shoved the sleeves of his long-sleeved T-shirt over his elbows. The tendons in his tanned forearms bulged, and the muscles in his biceps flexed. A look of intense concentration was fixed on his handsome face, as with each powerful stroke, he dug the oar blades deep into the blue-green water, shooting the little raft ahead.
“Here we are.” He shipped the oars. “Hold on until I secure the raft to the ladder.” Grabbing the painter, he slipped the coil of rope through a metal cleat on the Minerva’s shiny hull. With quick efficiency, he tied a bowline. “Okay. You’re all set to board.” He held the raft steady as she struggled out of the bobbing dinghy and clambered up the ladder to the Minerva’s deck, wincing as her knee protested the awkward movement.
Minutes later, he climbed aboard and secured the dinghy. Moving about the boat, he worked with calm efficiency, preparing to set sail.
She settled on the padded bench seat in the stern, resting her injured leg, and star
ed out at the deepening dusk. So much had happened in the past two days. Her entire foundation had shattered. Facts she’d held to be true were no longer her reality.
Angus Crawford is my father.
The shocking refrain echoed through her brain on an endless rerun, but no matter how many times she repeated the words, they were impossible to accept. That tall, remote man wasn’t her biological father. Her mother didn’t have an affair with him. The letters weren’t real. They were part of some sort of elaborate hoax.
Deep down she knew the awful truth. Angus Crawford was her father. The question that haunted her was why did her mother move to Shelter Island? Did she still have feelings for Angus? Was that the reason? Had her father known the truth about Athena’s parentage? She crushed her hand to her stomach in a futile attempt to ease the painful cramping. Stars popped out in the clear velvet night sky, the rising moon a distant glow on the horizon. She inhaled the fresh sea air, fighting for calm.
Russ stood at the helm, feet braced against the boat’s gentle rolling, his hands commanding the wheel. Under the reflection of the lights from the control panel, his cheekbones stood out stark and hard as if carved from granite in his tanned face.
She’d known him all of two days, but they’d been through so much, their time together felt longer. But she couldn’t forget who he was and why he was helping her. They had an agreement. He wanted Angus’s money, and she wanted his help in finding answers to her parents’ disappearance.
Sure, there was an attraction. She grimaced. An attraction? More like an explosion of lust. She couldn’t keep her hands off him. Just looking at him heated her blood. When he caressed her—or God forbid, kissed her—the rational world vanished in a blaze of desire. The previous night in the luxurious cottage, they’d almost made love, would have if the situation had been different. If she spent any more time alone with him, the inevitable would happen. And sex would be a complication. Her life was messy enough. She didn’t need more problems.