To Have Vs. To Hold

by MJ Rodgers

  She quickly turned back to him. “We need to talk, Adam.”

  Adam felt a vague sense of unease collecting in the pit of his stomach. “You’ve learned something?” he asked.

  “I’ve found the foster family who raised Patrice,” A.J. said.

  Adam smiled. “I had no doubts you would.”

  A.J. did not smile back.

  “What’s wrong?” Adam asked, his previous uneasiness growing appreciably in light of his sister’s continued formality.

  A.J. glanced over at Whitney.

  “You can speak freely, A.J.,” Adam said, sensing his sister’s hesitation.

  The elevator doors opened, and a bunch of workers from other offices in the building began to pile out into the underground garage on their way to their cars.

  “Not here,” A.J. said, after a quick glance at the group.

  “Shall we go back up to the office?” Adam asked.

  “No. I’ll meet you at your place.”

  And with that, A.J turned and walked away.

  Adam watched his sister disappear into her Jeep Cherokee at the end of a row of parked cars.

  “What’s wrong?” Whitney asked beside him.

  “I don’t know, but something has upset her. Whatever it is, it must relate to her finding that foster home. I’d like you to be there to hear what she has to say.”

  “But the question is, will A.J. want me there?”

  Adam turned to Whitney, surprised by her question. “Why should she object? She knows I will not keep something from you that is germane to this investigation. You might as well learn what she’s found out now instead of later.”

  Whitney said nothing in response. Adam was certain he understood her hesitation.

  “A.J. isn’t generally so abrupt, Whitney. Don’t take it personally. Something is bothering her.”

  “Yes.” She paused to sigh. “Obviously. As you say, I might as well find out now. I’ll follow you in my car.”

  Whitney turned to go.

  Adam reached out to take her arm, halting her retreat. “Ride with me. I’ll bring you back here later.”

  She looked up at him, surprise in her eyes.

  He understood her surprise. All day long he’d resisted saying or doing anything that wasn’t in keeping with the businesslike behavior she had a right to expect of him. Still, he had almost kissed her in the car the morning before when he drove her home. And now, as he looked into her face tilted up to his, his arms ached to hold her.

  He shouldn’t have asked her to ride with him. He shouldn’t be touching her. He should be keeping his distance. He shouldn’t be wondering what it would have been like two nights ago if he hadn’t walked out of her hotel room.

  He shouldn’t be, but he was.

  “Come ride with me, Whitney,” he said again.

  Before she could say the words that would remind them both of all the good reasons why she shouldn’t, he urged her over to the passenger side and opened the door to the Jaguar, helping her inside and closing the door behind her.

  She could have protested. If she had, he told himself he would have backed off immediately. But she hadn’t protested, and he was halfway to convincing himself that she wanted this as much as he.

  She was quiet on the drive to his home. He was quiet, too, reflecting on this step he had just taken toward violating their agreement. He knew he could still stop this. He knew it wasn’t too late. He could still drive her back to her car tonight,

  He knew he wasn’t going to.

  He passed through the security gate and drove up to his house. A.J. was already parked in the driveway. He had been so preoccupied with thoughts of Whitney that he had nearly forgotten he was meeting A.J. here. And why.

  He remembered now. And with the memory came a renewed sense of foreboding as he reflected on A.J.’s somber demeanor.

  He left the Jaguar at the front curb. When they were all in the house, he closed the door behind them and led the way into the living room, flipping on the lights. He gestured toward the white silk sectional sofa. Whitney sat, but A.J. headed for the portable bar to immediately mix some drinks.

  Adam’s unease continued to mount. His sister rarely drank.

  A disturbing quiet descended on the room, broken only by the click of ice cubes and the pouring of liquor. A.J. filled three glasses and handed the first to Whitney.

  “Campari and soda, right?”

  Whitney took the glass from her with a startled glance. “Yes, that’s what I prefer, but how did you—”

  A.J. turned to Adam. “And your favorite, straight Smirnoff on the rocks.”

  Adam took the drink and the lick of apprehension that went with it.

  A.J. raised her glass for the toast. “To honesty, loyalty and love—the three dying arts,” she said. Adam and Whitney only took a sip in response to the toast. A.J. drained her glass.

  Adam put his drink down on the black onyx coffee table. “A.J., what is it? What did you learn?”

  She faced him fully. “The names of Patrice Feldon’s foster parents are Marla and Lydon Miller.”

  “Lydon Miller?” Adam said. “As in Dr. Lydon Miller, the scientist at Crowe-Cromwell?”

  “The very same. Patrice was raised by the Millers until she was eighteen. She went off to the University of Puget Sound, received an undergraduate degree under the name of Feldon and went to work for her foster father as his assistant at CroweCromwell.”

  “That ties her to Crowe-Cromwell even more strongly,” Whitney said, resting her drink on the coffee table.

  Adam nodded. “This news is far from palatable in terms of the beneficiaries, A.J. But I don’t see the necessity of washing it down with a drink.”

  “That’s because I haven’t fed you the least palatable part of it yet. Patrice wasn’t the only one of the Rubins’ runaways that the Millers took in and raised. Three years before, they accepted a thirteen-year-old boy by the name of Peter Danner.”

  A.J.’s words hacked through Adam’s memories like a machete, slashing and shredding their previous meanings.

  Peter Danner. A.J.’s fiance. Patrice’s lover.

  “Yes, Adam,” A.J. said. “Patrice and Peter played us both for fools from the start. They didn’t meet through us, five months before she ran off with him, as they both pretended. They had known each other from childhood.”

  Adam could barely believe how completely he had been duped. Up until now, he’d looked upon his year of marriage to Patrice before Peter had come along as idyllic. But now he knew all the time it had been Patrice and Peter.

  The phone began to ring. Adam ignored it.

  He reached for his drink instead.

  Chapter Twelve

  Whitney watched Adam’s face as he calmly sipped his drink. As usual no emotion reflected in his strong, stoic features. But she could imagine what he must be feeling. Her heart pitched painfully.

  A.J. silenced the ringing telephone.

  “It’s Octavia,” she said, handing the receiver to Adam.

  When Adam took the phone, A.J. turned to Whitney. “Walk me out,” she said.

  It was more of a summons than an invitation. Whitney got up and followed A.J. outside.

  A warm night breeze whispered through the trees as they walked slowly toward the Jeep.

  “Wouldn’t you prefer to take a taxi home, A.J.?” Whitney asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had stretched between them.

  “There’s no cause for concern. Unlike yours and Adam’s, my glass was filled with plain water.”

  “Of course. I should have realized you had better sense.”

  A.J. stopped when she reached her Jeep, then turned to face Whitney. She crossed her arms over her chest. Her tone was cool and impersonal. “Not your first error in judgment on this matter, is it?”

  Whitney had been expecting this. A.J. was strikingly similar to her brother in many ways—the same black hair, the same pale blue eyes, the same uncompromising look in them. When A.J.’s eyes had met
Whitney’s tonight, Whitney knew it was all over. She had been found out.

  “So, are you going to tell Adam or am I?” A.J. asked.

  Whitney took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “I’ll tell him.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight. I’m sorry, A.J. I couldn’t tell him before.”

  A.J.’s uncompromising look did not change. Neither did the cool tone of her voice. “You couldn’t be honest?”

  “He would never have let me be the G.A.L. for the unnamed heirs on the case.”

  “You’ve never been about money or publicity before. I would have thought this kind of subterfuge beneath you.”

  “I had to know about Patrice. I had to understand why she did what she did…to me.”

  A.J. uncrossed her arms. “Did to you? What did Patrice do to you?”

  Whitney said nothing, mostly because she didn’t know how to begin to explain to this strong woman what it was like to be so weak-minded and foolish.

  “Does this have anything to do with a man?” A.J. asked after a moment.

  Her understanding startled Whitney. “Yes.”

  “A man. Of course. What else? I should have guessed.”

  A.J.’s face and tone softened with those words, telling Whitney very clearly that as strong as she might be, A.J. was a woman who had suffered from something very similar.

  Whitney rested her hand on A.J.’s arm to let her know she understood. “At least when Patrice took the man I loved, she did it openly.”

  A.J. shook her head. Her tone was decidedly disappointed. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

  “Sorry to hear it?” Whitney repeated, removing her hand, certain she must have heard wrong.

  “Yes, Whitney. I hoped what you had to tell Adam about Patrice would be completely descriptive of the callous disregard and contempt she had for the feelings of others.”

  “You hoped?” Whitney echoed, still surprised at this reaction.

  “Adam needs to hear the worst.”

  “He’s already heard the worst,” Whitney said.

  “Has he? When she left him for Peter, that should have done it. Hearing about Huntley and Brinkley Carmichael should have done it. Learning tonight that Patrice lied to him from the start about her and Peter should have done it. But I’m not sure any of it has.”

  “Done it? Done what? A.J., what are you talking about?”

  “Whitney, do you care for my brother as much as he cares for you?”

  “Cares for me? How do you know he cares anything for me?”

  “You’re the first woman he has brought to his home since Patrice left it. Do you understand? The first one in seven years. Not even his female law partners have been invited here. When he drove up here with you tonight, I knew. Don’t you see? That’s why I didn’t tell him about you and Patrice back there just now. That’s why I’m giving you this chance to tell him yourself.”

  A warm, exciting rush washed through Whitney. Adam cared for her—enough to bring her to his home. She’d had no idea what his inviting her here tonight meant.

  “I realized that for the first time there was hope he’d be able to put the past behind him and extinguish the torch for that damn woman,” A.J. continued.

  Whitney’s warm rush quickly trickled to a complete stop.

  “The torch for…you don’t mean he still cares for Patrice?” Whitney said. “No, A.J. That’s impossible. He hates her.”

  “Hates her? He hasn’t shown any interest in another woman in seven years. Does that sound like hate to you?”

  “She hurt him. Her betrayal made him lose faith in love.”

  “Lose faith? Whitney, open your eyes. Look at his house—his black-and-white house. It wasn’t that way when he first brought her here. It was full of bright, beautiful color. But she couldn’t see the color. All she could see was gray. She was—”

  “Color-blind,” Whitney said, understanding dawning. “That’s right. I remember now. Patrice was color-blind.”

  “And that’s why he ripped all the color out of his house—and his life—and replaced it with black and white. For her.”

  “She did talk about having the house redone,” Whitney said. “Getting rid of the busy wallpaper. Covering the furniture in white silk. Putting in the black marble floors.”

  “Only she didn’t stay around long enough to do it,” A.J. said. “So Adam changed it for her. After she was gone. After she had run away with Peter.”

  “Afterward?” Whitney said.

  “Yes, Whitney. Afterward. He made it a shrine to her. Does that sound to you like a man who’s lost faith in love? Or does that sound like a man who will always be hopelessly in love with that damn dead woman.”

  Whitney licked dry lips. “No, A.J., that’s not possible. Not after all he’s learned. He can’t still…love her.”

  “I’d like to think you’re right, Whitney. I’d like to think that finally the truth about her has broken the yoke of her hold on his heart. But I have to warn you. Adam has a loyal heart. Too damn loyal for his own good.”

  “ADAM, I JUST HEARD from my contact in the sheriff’s office,” Octavia said over the phone. “They found your golden cross and neck chain in the wreckage. They tracked them back to the jeweler. They know Patrice gave them to you.”

  “I should have realized I lost them there,” Adam said, relieved that A.J. had suggested Whitney walk her to her Jeep. This was not a conversation he would have been comfortable conducting in front of either A.J. or Whitney. “Well, now at least we know why Sergeant Ryson has been paying me so much attention.”

  “There’s more, Adam. Ryson got approval to send the golden chain and cross and the remnants from the wreckage back to the FBI forensic team for a more extensive evaluation. The reports are due back anytime. Adam, I have to ask. If what they have is enough to convince a judge to issue a search warrant, what will they find?”

  “I’ll take care of it, Octavia,” Adam said carefully.

  Octavia sighed. “Oh, hell, I knew it. You never threw it away. For your sake, for both our sakes, get rid of it, Adam. Tonight. Now. And if Ryson shows up with a warrant of any kind, call me. Do not try to do this alone. You know an attorney who represents himself has a fool for a client.”

  “I’ll be in touch,” Adam said before hanging up the phone.

  Adam got up slowly and walked into his study. He made directly for his desk. He opened the bottom drawer. He reached beneath the family album, beneath the stack of his law-review honors, to the very bottom. He found what he had been seeking, removed it and closed the drawer.

  Carefully he unwrapped the crystal picture frame. He stared at the picture of the woman it held, the incomparable woman.

  Large, velvety, violet eyes set in a heart-shaped face. Porcelain skin surrounded by thick golden curls. And that angelic-looking smile.

  All too beautiful to be real.

  “Oh, God, it’s true,” Whitney’s voice said from the doorway.

  Adam looked up with a start. He hadn’t heard her come in. When he saw the look of utter dismay on her face, he was astounded. He set Patrice’s picture on the desk and went to her. With every step he took toward her, she seemed to grow sadder.

  “Whitney, what’s wrong? What’s happened?”

  “A.J. was right. You’ve kept Patrice’s picture all this time because you’ve never stopped loving her. Even now, after all you’ve learned, you still love her.”

  “A.J. told you that?” Adam asked, more than surprised that his sister would share such a confidence with Whitney. He could think of only one reason why A.J. would. He was so fascinated with that discovery that for a moment it made him miss the anger and hurt in Whitney’s voice.

  “Were Patrice to walk into this room this minute, you would forgive her, wouldn’t you? You’re just like Michael and all the others—still worshiping at the altar of her beauty.”

  The message in her words immediately grabbed his attention.

  “What are you talking about, Whitney?
What others? Who’s Michael?”

  “You want to know about Michael? Fine, I’ll tell you. Michael was my fiancé, my first love, the man I would be spending my life with if Patrice hadn’t happened along. Yes, Adam. I knew Patrice long before she waltzed into my office that day and asked me to hold that envelope for you. I knew her long before you two even met.”

  A dozen emotions marched through Adam, anger and disappointment leading the charge. He took Whitney’s shoulders within his hands and stared hard into her eyes.

  “You lied to me about knowing Patrice?”

  She stared back, meeting his gaze squarely. He could see the stiff pride keeping her spine and shoulders erect.

  “Just because I didn’t tell you everything doesn’t mean I lied to you. I’m not accusing you of lying to me because you neglected to mention you still love her. You want to know about me and Patrice? Well, that’s fine, because I’m ready to tell you all about it.”

  Adam kept his tone cool, but just barely. “You’re ready?”

  Hurt filled her eyes. “Unless you’re too angry to listen.”

  Adam’s anger fled in the face of Whitney’s words and the sadness in her eyes. Gently he drew her over to the couch in the corner of his study. He urged her to take a seat and sat beside her. When she attempted to move away, he followed and lightly wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

  “I’m ready to listen, Whitney.”

  Her body was stiff, ungiving, but at least she didn’t pull away. She looked down at her hands as she began.

  “Patrice and I became roommates during my second semester at the University of Puget Sound. She was there under the name of Feldon, going for her degree, just as A.J. told you. I was there with my leg in a cast—a skiing accident that had occurred over the Christmas holidays. She was so helpful and kind as I hobbled around. I never imagined she could do anything cruel.”

  Whitney paused as a small, unhappy sigh escaped her lips.

  “Is this where Michael comes in?” Adam guessed.

  Whitney nodded. “He was a teaching assistant. We had met the first semester and had become engaged. We were planning to marry as soon as the school year ended. He didn’t come back with me after our skiing trip over the Christmas holidays. He stayed with his folks to help out with his older brother’s wedding.