Susannah's Garden

by Debbie Macomber

  Susannah stayed up and waited for Joe to arrive, which he did at two-thirty in the morning. As soon as she heard his car pull up, she opened the door, clutching her housecoat around her.

  Joe got out of the car and Susannah couldn’t wait a moment longer. She raced barefoot down the steps, throwing herself into her husband’s arms. As soon as she was safe in Joe’s grasp, she spread kisses over his face, letting him know without words how grateful she was to see him, to be married to him, to love him.

  Joe’s arms tightened around her waist. “To what do I owe this warm welcome?” he asked, chuckling.

  “I love you, Joe Nelson.”

  “I should hope so. We’ve been married for nearly twenty-five years.”

  “I mean, I really love you. I didn’t even know how much until these last few weeks. Oh, Joe, I have so many things to tell you.” Not all of them would please him, but Susannah vowed she’d hold nothing back.

  Because he was keyed up from the long drive, they sat side by side on the sofa with a glass of wine and talked for another hour. Joe had been able to reach a retired dentist friend, who’d agreed to step in while he helped settle everything in Colville.

  Susannah began to relate the events of the past weeks.

  “You didn’t!” Joe moaned when she told him about paying Troy the blackmail money he’d demanded.

  “He’s going to be looking for the extra twenty-five hundred in the morning.”

  Joe’s eyes narrowed. “He’s not getting it.”

  “But I—”

  Her husband shook his head. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of this. I have a few things to say to him, and if I have to bring in the sheriff, I will. Once I’m through with Troy Nance, he won’t be bothering Chrissie or anyone in this family again.”

  The relief Susannah felt was instantaneous. It was a joy to rest on his support and his love. She should never have tried to deal with this on her own. They were a team and she shouldn’t have forgotten that.

  Joe wasn’t finished. “First thing in the morning, return the rest of the money to Carolyn and give her a check for the other twenty-five hundred. I’ll have the bank transfer the funds.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  Joe put his arm around her shoulders. “I wish I’d come with you.”

  Drawing in a deep breath, Susannah bit her lip. “There’s more.”

  “More?” He sounded worried and Susannah couldn’t blame him.

  “Perhaps I should save this for another time?” she suggested.

  “Does it have to do with the P.I.?”

  Susannah shook her head. “With Jake.”

  Joe leaned back on the sofa and slowly exhaled. “Ah, yes, Jake, the love of your life.” There was a hint of irony in his voice, and she couldn’t blame him for that, either.

  “No,” she insisted, holding her hands against his cheeks, “the love of my life is you. It’s always been you and only you. For a while, I’d forgotten that.” Tucking her legs beneath her, she laid her head on his shoulder.

  “You’d better tell me.”

  For her, it really was the end as far as Jake was concerned. “Sharon Nance, Troy’s mother, told me Jake is his father.”

  Her husband gave a low whistle.

  “She seems to have been in regular contact with him. I don’t think I can believe everything she says, but she knew about the medal I’d given Jake years ago, so I tend to believe her on this.”

  Joe frowned. “I’m sure she was trying to upset you.”

  “Yes, but I don’t care anymore. I have you, and that’s all that matters to me.” And Susannah meant it.

  “Are you ready for bed?” he asked, yawning.

  Susannah nodded. “More than ready. I’ve been without my husband for a long time.”

  Joe chuckled and helped her off the sofa. With their arms around each other’s waists, they walked to her bedroom, next door to where Chrissie slept.

  Their daughter must have heard them talking, because the bedroom door opened and Chrissie appeared in the hallway. “Daddy?”

  “Hello, sugar bear.”

  Chrissie hugged her father close and Susannah noticed that her eyes were red and swollen.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” Chrissie said, looping her arms around her father’s middle the way she had as a little girl.

  “I am, too.”

  “How are you feeling?” Susannah asked, wishing there’d been some way to protect Chrissie from this pain.

  “I’ll be okay…. I just want to go home.”

  “You can leave in the morning.”

  “Good.” Chrissie returned to her room, shutting the door.

  Joe took Susannah’s hand and led her into the bedroom. He made a disgruntled sound when he saw that she slept in a twin bed.

  “We’ll cuddle close together,” she told him, nuzzling his neck.

  “Really close,” he said with a laugh. Then he abruptly went still.

  Susannah lifted her head. “What is it?”

  Joe released her and walked over to the dresser. “Someone’s been here and left you a message.”

  Whirling around, Susannah noticed the single sheet of paper taped to her dresser mirror. It read:

  MEET ME AT 10 A.M. IN THE CEMETERY.

  CHAPTER 43

  “You’re going?” Joe asked the next morning as they held each other in bed. They’d slept that way for most of the night, as though they couldn’t bear to be apart for even a moment. Their love was fresh and new and they’d rediscovered their appreciation for each other. Joe was her salvation, her constant, and she was horrified at what a dangerous thing she’d done.

  “Yes. I have to.”

  “How the hell did someone get in here?” Joe had been brooding about this since the night before. “If it was that Jake guy…”

  “Jake isn’t important to me.” All the desire she’d had to connect with him, to apologize for what her father had done, was gone. Whether he was Troy’s father or not didn’t matter to her. Jake belonged to the past, a past that couldn’t be altered or relived. She’d idealized him in her mind, canonized him, but he was no saint, then or now.

  “I can’t,” she whispered, hugging Joe, clinging to the husband who’d loved her and stood by her throughout her temporary insanity.

  Slipping his hand beneath her chin, Joe raised her face so that her eyes met his. “If you don’t, you’ll always regret it, always wonder. Get this completely out of your system.”

  “Will you go with me?”

  Joe’s chest rose as he considered her request. Finally he nodded.

  That changed everything. Susannah could face Jake with her husband at her side. With Joe, she could look her former boyfriend in the eye and tell him that her father’s arrangement was the best thing George Leary had ever done for her. Only now did she understand that because of Jake, her father had lost both his children. Doug to whatever drug deal the two of them had been involved in and Susannah to anger.

  By eight, Chrissie was up and packing. Susannah sat on her bed and they talked. “I really thought I loved him, Mom.”

  “I know, sweetheart.” She bit her tongue to keep from reminding her daughter how unworthy Troy was of her love.

  “I guess I thought my love would change him.”

  Susannah had believed that about Jake, too. “What you loved was the man you knew he could be,” she said, drawing up her knees and clasping her arms around them.

  Joe brought them each a cup of coffee and seeing that they were talking, promptly left.

  “I was so angry with you because you couldn’t see Troy the way I did, and now I realize I should’ve been looking at him through your eyes.”

  This was a giant step toward maturity for Chrissie, and Susannah had faith that it wouldn’t take her daughter nearly as long to recognize the truth as it had her.

  “Everything I did was out of love,” she told Chrissie.

  Her eyes filled with tears as her daughter walked over to the be
d and hugged her. “I know that now,” Chrissie said.

  At nine-thirty, Joe carried her suitcase to the car, and after a quick stop to see her grandmother, Chrissie would leave for Seattle. Once she’d spoken to her mother regarding the situation, even Vivian agreed that Chrissie’s living in Colville wasn’t a good idea. Susannah and Joe, arms around each other, stood on the sidewalk and watched their daughter drive off.

  “She’ll be fine,” Joe said. “This has been a tough lesson for her.”

  “Yes…” Susannah murmured. Growth was a painful process—as she well knew.

  “Are you ready?” Joe asked. “We should probably leave for the cemetery.”

  She didn’t know if she’d ever be ready for this confrontation. “Promise me that no matter what happens, you won’t leave my side.”

  “You don’t have to worry,” Joe assured her. “If this clown thinks he’s going to walk away with my wife, he’s got another think coming.”

  Susannah pressed her head to Joe’s shoulder and smiled, amused that he could even consider it a possibility. The man who held her was everything she would ever want or need in a husband.

  They took the road out of town, neither of them in the mood to talk. The cast-iron gate leading into the cemetery was open when they pulled off the highway. As before, the note hadn’t mentioned where they were to meet. Joe parked near her father’s grave, which was close to the mausoleum, and they waited in front of the car, holding hands. It was still early; they had five minutes to spare.

  Before, when Susannah had visited her father’s grave, she’d felt nothing but anger, venting her frustration at him. Her attitude was vastly different now. She smiled down at the gravestone, her heart filled with renewed love for him, and a sense of loss for the wasted years.

  Joe’s hand tightened around hers. When she glanced up, she gasped. It seemed as if her heart had suddenly stopped. The world started to spin. No, this couldn’t be right—she must be seeing things. It was because she’d been thinking about her father….

  Stepping out from behind the mausoleum and walking toward her was…George Leary. Only he was younger, handsomer.

  “Dad?” she whispered, her voice cracking.

  “Susannah,” Joe said softly. “It’s Doug, your brother.”

  “Doug?” Tears flooded her eyes and her knees went out from under her. Her brother had been dead for over thirty years. She would have collapsed onto the freshly mowed lawn if Joe hadn’t grabbed her waist and kept her upright.

  “I’m sorry to shock you,” Doug said, rushing forward, “but I didn’t know any other way to do this.”

  “How…why…when?”

  “Perhaps we should go back to the house and talk about this,” Joe suggested.

  Doug frowned, looking uncertain. “Your daughter’s staying with you?”

  “She’s gone back to Seattle.”

  Doug nodded. “Good. I’ll meet you there.”

  Susannah continued to tremble once they were inside the car. “He looks so much like my father.” Then it came to her. “Oh, my goodness, Mom…” Her mother had repeatedly told Susannah that she’d seen George, and she had seen him, a younger version of her dead husband. Her son. With her mind befuddled by grief and disorientation, Vivian must have believed that George had come back from the dead to be with her. It explained so much of what her mother had told her. How quick Susannah had been to dismiss her claims.

  Doug arrived at the house five minutes after Susannah and Joe, and surreal though it seemed, introductions were made. Susannah brewed a pot of strong coffee. She needed it. Had it been later in the day, she would’ve reached for a shot glass. There were times the body needed that kind of jolt to cope with shock.

  Doug was about to take a seat at the table when Susannah began to speak. “I thought Jake was the one who left me the notes,” she told him. “How did you get into the house the last time? I had the security alarm on.”

  Her brother smiled apologetically at her. “I turned off the alarm. The code was easy enough to figure out. You used your birthdate, and I had the key from inside the brick.”

  Of course. That was how Chrissie had gotten inside the house that first evening. Chrissie had put it back and neither of them had ever checked again. Susannah had forgotten all about it.

  “I figured you’d think it was Jake,” he went on. “Contacting you like this was a rotten thing to do, and I apologize.”

  “But…but if you’re alive, is anyone buried in your casket? And what was in the house that you kept trying to find? It was you all these times, wasn’t it?”

  Doug put up his hand to stop her. “Maybe I’d better tell this from the beginning.”

  “Please,” Joe said, gesturing toward the kitchen table. They all sat down.

  Doug, who faced the window, stared sightlessly into the distance. “It started just before you went to France, Susannah, when Jake came to me. He needed money and needed it fast. He was desperate to keep you from leaving, and he’d gotten involved in a drug deal to make some quick cash. He ended up in Idaho, where he got into trouble with some not very nice guys, and asked me for help. I don’t know what he thought I could do, but I went back with him in the hope of straightening everything out.”

  “Were you selling drugs?” Susannah asked.

  “No,” Doug returned adamantly. “I had no idea what I was getting into. Jake, either. By the time we knew, it was too late. We were part of a sting operation designed to catch the big-time suppliers, the guys Jake had gotten himself mixed up with. We were just some of the little fish caught in that net. But both of our names were on the arrest warrant.”

  “So you fled.” Susannah didn’t understand why, if he was innocent, her brother hadn’t simply faced the authorities.

  “Jake and I hightailed it out of Idaho, and it was the stupidest mistake of my life,” her brother said. “I didn’t realize that when I returned to Washington, a minor drug bust became a federal crime. All I could think of was to get to Dad and ask for his help.”

  Susannah nodded, but she still didn’t grasp how the situation had gotten so quickly out of hand. “I was ready to give up, take my punishment,” he said. “I even had a date with Patricia the night we got home, but then Jake panicked and went to Sharon Nance. Apparently she couldn’t or wouldn’t help him, so he stole my car.”

  “Did Jake resume his relationship with Sharon while I was in France?” Susannah asked.

  “No,” Doug said.

  “Later then. He must have if she had a son by him.”

  “No,” Doug told her again. “There wouldn’t have been time. As I said, he stole my car and made a run for it.”

  “And got himself killed,” Joe supplied, figuring that part out before Susannah did.

  “Jake is…dead?” Susannah was having trouble taking this in. “But that’s impossible! Sharon said he’s Troy’s father and that she’s been in touch with him.”

  Her brother’s smile was grim. “She lied.”

  “But…why?”

  “She obviously resented you,” Joe said, reaching for her hand and gently squeezing her fingers. “For some messed-up reason of her own. She refused to help him—and never saw him again. This summer, when she learned you were looking for Jake, she told you all those lies. She obviously wanted you to think the worst of him. And, Suze—it means he wasn’t Troy’s father.”

  Susannah could barely take that in, but her heart lightened. Jake had been true to her, true to the end of his life.

  Doug sipped his coffee and went back to his story then. “With Jake dead, it all came down on me. Proof of my innocence had been destroyed. Dad had got hold of Sheriff Dalton before we learned about the accident. He knew he could trust his friend, but because everything had been turned over to the FBI, there was nothing the sheriff could do.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “It was Dad’s idea to bury Jake in my stead.” He spoke in a low voice. “He knew the chances of me getting off were slim, despite my innocence.
After all the men he’d sent to prison, he feared it would be hell on earth for me there.”

  “What about Jake’s father? Did he ever know?”

  Doug shook his head. “To the best of my knowledge, he didn’t. He took the money Dad gave him, and from what I understand, Jake and his dad had a falling out before the move. His father was living in Oregon, and Jake said he was finished with him.” Doug paused for a moment. “Allan was the one who went to Dad, you know. When Jake found out, he was furious. Jake tried to be the man you wanted him to be, Susannah. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out for him.”

  Despite Allan Presley’s inadequacy as a father and a human being, she found it sad that he never knew his only son was dead.

  “How did they ever manage to bury Jake and pass him off as you?” Joe demanded.

  “Sheriff Dalton had Jake placed in a body bag at the scene of the accident, and he took him to Uncle Henry’s.”

  “Uncle Henry?” Joe asked, frowning.

  “My dad’s brother owned the town mortuary,” Susannah said. “He died years ago and it was sold.”

  “The funeral was closed casket,” Doug went on, “and that was understandable with the type of accident it’d been. No one questioned any part of it. Jake was buried, and I was dead to my family.” He paused for a moment. “Dad was able to get me new identification papers, and a social security number. He had the connections.” He stared down at his hands. “Dad found out about a baby born the same year I was, a baby who died at six months of age. David Langevin. That’s who I became.”

  “All this time Mom thought you were Dad.”

  Doug’s sigh revealed his chagrin. “Yes, I know. But there was nothing I could do except let her assume that. I guess I do look a bit like Dad these days. Or at least the way he looked in middle age.”

  “She didn’t know the difference,” Susannah said.

  “I never intended to show myself to her. I found her by the park one night, sitting on a bench, and she was clearly lost. I had to help her, but when she saw me she assumed I was Dad. I didn’t speak for fear she’d figure it out. I didn’t want to confuse her any more than she already was.”