by Eve Gaddy
Uh-oh. She’d have to tread carefully. It wasn’t her place to encourage a student to defy his parents. “Does he say why he doesn’t support the change?”
Jonathon shot her a shrewd glance that suddenly made him seem older. “He says archaeology is a dead end and I’ll never make any money in it.”
Tessa had to smile at that. “Well, to be honest, you’re not likely to get rich going into archaeology. It’s possible to make a living, but if money is your goal, then you’re in the wrong profession.”
He waved his hand impatiently. “I know that, and I don’t care. But my father does. He’s like the ultimate in corporate America. He wants me to go into business and won’t even talk about anything else. It’s like, he wants me to be his clone or something.”
“I don’t think it’s unusual for a parent to want his child to follow in his footsteps.” God knows, a lot of them did. Hers included. “And it isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t care what I want.” He began to fidget. “What’s the point of making a living doing something you hate? I’ve told him and told him I can’t take business anymore. It’s not for me. But my father, he doesn’t see that. He’s only interested in how it affects him.” Eyes blazing with emotion, he halted in front of her. “He wanted me to go to a different school, one that had more prestige. The only reason I’m at CLC is because they gave me a full scholarship, tuition and living expenses.” He waited a beat and added, “In the business school. He wasn’t about to turn down a free ride.”
“Oh. That does make it tougher. So you need his financial assistance if you’re going to transfer to the science department.”
Stuffing his hands into his pockets, he shrugged. “It would help, but I don’t have to have it. I can work. And I might be able to get some sort of scholarship or student loan. That’s why I came to you. I thought maybe . . .” He looked at her eagerly. “Could you help me, Ms. Lang? If you could put in a good word for me, it might make a difference to the scholarship committee.”
“Of course I will, if that’s what you really want.” She put her hand on his arm, looking at him intently. She didn’t see a speck of confusion or doubt in his gaze. “Jonathon, you’re taking a huge step. Shouldn’t you discuss it with your father again before you make this decision? You’re talking about something that will affect the rest of your life.”
His gaze turned cynical, odd in one so young. “I know, that’s why I have to change.” He pulled away, sat in the chair again, dejected. “It won’t make any difference, my talking to him. I’ve talked and talked and talked, and he never hears what I’m saying. He thinks refusing to pay for it is going to change my mind. Or threatening to disown me. But he doesn’t understand that it’s my life, my future.” His gaze caught Tessa’s, locked on it. “I have to be the one to make the decision. He can’t make it for me.”
Struck, Tessa stared at him. Wasn’t that what she was doing? Letting her mother make decisions for her? But they were talking of Jonathon, not her. “I hate to see you estranged from your parents. Can your mother help?”
“She’s dead,” he said matter-of-factly. “Died when I was a baby.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. But it just makes my dad more focused on getting me to do what he wants.”
“Would you like me to talk to your father? I can’t say it will help, but I’d be glad to try.” Oh, that’s good, Tessa. You can’t stand up to your own mother, but you’re going to stand up to this man?
“Thanks, but he won’t listen to you, either. My teachers in high school used to try to talk to him, but it never did any good.” He drew in a breath, blew it out, his brown eyes full of determination. “My father will either get over it or he won’t. But at least I’ll be on the career path I want in the meantime.”
“You’re very determined.”
“I know what I want. And I’m going to get it.”
The gangly boy she’d pictured was gone, replaced by a young man who knew his own mind, a man who would succeed, whatever his chosen field. Tessa wished she had a tenth of his self-possession. A tenth of his certainty.
She leaned back against her desk. “What if you find out you made the wrong decision? What if archaeology isn’t for you, either?”
“It is. But even if it isn’t, it’ll be my mistake, not my father’s. It’s my life, not his.”
Tessa gazed at him as Will’s words came back to her. “It’s your life, your career. Not your mother’s.”
This twenty-year-old boy was willing to risk financial hardship and disinheritance by his family in order to have the career—the life—he wanted. And she was afraid to risk—what? Her mother’s anger and disapproval? Why was that so important, when she’d never managed to gain her mother’s approval no matter what she did?
Here she was, on the brink of throwing away not only a career she’d discovered she truly enjoyed, but the man she loved, because she couldn’t admit what she really wanted was right before her. Not because she didn’t know what she wanted, but because, out of some misguided sense of loyalty to her mother, she couldn’t admit to wanting it.
“Ms. Lang? Are you all right?” Jonathon stood beside her, eyebrows drawn together in a frown of concern.
With an effort, Tessa smiled. “Sorry, you’ve given me lots of food for thought. I’ll do whatever I can to help. With your grades it shouldn’t be a problem to get you at least a partial scholarship. I can’t guarantee it, of course, but I’ll do my best. And Jonathon, you’re welcome to work at my Caddo dig and any future ones I have in the area.”
His face lit up. “Wow, thanks, Ms. Lang. I really appreciate that.”
“The pay isn’t great,” she warned. “But the experience will help you.”
He shook her hand, pumping it up and down enthusiastically, and thanked her again. Finally he started to leave, but turned at the door and looked back at her. “About those digs, I thought you said you were only here for the summer?”
Tessa gave him a brilliant smile. “My plans have changed. I’m staying.”
“Great! I know a lot of kids who’ll be happy to hear that. A lot of them think you’re the best teacher they’ve had. And some of them don’t even like archaeology. They took it to fulfill their sciences requirement, and they thought it would be easy. But you made them like it. Even glad they had to take it.”
Unexpectedly touched, Tessa laughed. “High praise, indeed. Thank you, Jonathon. You’ve helped me, more than you can imagine.”
Tessa waited until he left, then picked up the phone and punched in a number. “Dean Salazar, please,” she said, asking for the head of the sciences department. He came on the line a moment later. “Dean Salazar, this is Tessa Lang. About that offer for the professorship, I accept. I’m thrilled to be a part of your faculty.”
She hung up a few minutes later, grinning from ear to ear. Her grin faltered when she thought about the next call. She was on a roll, though, so why put it off? A short time later her mother’s ice-cold voice sounded in her ear. “Theresa, finally. I’ve been waiting for your call. I can’t put the China expedition off forever. Now, you’ll depart for San Francisco—”
Tessa interrupted. “I’m not going, Mother. I’ve been offered a full professorship of Archaeology with Caddo Lake College. I accepted today.”
A stunned silence greeted her announcement. “What?” Olivia finally said. “You must be joking.”
“No, I’m very serious. I’m sorry, I know it’s not what you wanted for me, but it’s what I want. What I need to do to be happy.”
Total silence.
“Mother? Are you still there?”
“You’ve lost your mind. It’s that man, isn’t it? He’s the one who’s behind this. You’re ruining your life because of a fleeting sexual attraction.”
Tessa gave a gu
rgle of laughter. “Will’s part of it, yes. The attraction isn’t fleeting, though. You really shouldn’t talk that way about your future son-in-law.” Unless he’d gotten so fed up with her he no longer wanted to marry her.
Her mother moaned but didn’t speak, so Tessa continued. “I’m doing this for me. Not for Will, or you, or anyone else. For me. Because I want to teach. I want to see those faces light up when they discover that they want a career in archaeology. Or even when they discover that archaeology class is a lot more fun than they’d expected. And I want to try to reach the ones who are bored, who don’t know what they want and aren’t sure they even want to be in college. I want that challenge, and that joy.”
“Teaching isn’t all challenge and joy. You’ve got some ridiculous Pollyanna view of it. It’s drudgery, ninety percent of the time.”
“Not for me. Oh, I know I’ll have failures, kids I won’t be able to reach. But I can handle that, as long as I have the others, too.”
“You’re throwing away the chance of a lifetime to teach at a backwater country college. Why?” For once, Tessa heard true emotion in her mother’s voice.
“I have the chance of my lifetime right here, Mother. Don’t you see, I want a home. A family. I want kids and dogs and cats and birds and a husband who loves me.” Glancing out her window, she saw two students walking hand in hand. She smiled, thinking how much she wanted that with Will, the time to walk through the woods, simply holding hands.
“I want to go to work and know I’ll be coming home to the same place, day after day, year after year. To know that I can make friends and not have to leave them after six months or a year. I want to plant flowers and trees at a place that’s mine. I want roots and permanence, and all those things you never seemed to miss. With grandmother, I had those things, and I’ve missed them ever since. I want them now, Mother, and I intend to have them.”
“I don’t know what to say to you.” Olivia sounded uncertain, another first in Tessa’s memory.
“Say you wish me happiness. Say you’ll try to understand.” Say you love me, Tessa thought, but she knew that wouldn’t happen.
After a long silence, Olivia spoke. “I . . . sometimes wonder what my life would have been like had I made different choices. Perhaps your way is better. For you.”
It was a concession she’d never expected to hear from her mother. A concession Tessa hadn’t thought her mother capable of making. Could Tessa possibly have misjudged her mother for all these years? Or was it because Tessa had finally stood up for herself and actually told her mother what she wanted? “It is, Mother. Believe me, it is.”
“Are you really going to marry that man? It’s that serious?”
“Yes. If he’ll still have me.”
“If he’ll have you? Why wouldn’t he?”
“I—I hurt him. I’m not sure how he feels about me right now.”
“He’ll come around. You are, after all, a Lang,” her mother said loftily, sounding more like her old self. “If he’s the man you want, then you’ll just have to convince him.”
Tessa laughed. “Oh, I intend to. And Mother . . .” She hesitated, choosing her words carefully. “Thank you. I didn’t expect you to take my announcement so well.”
“I’m disappointed, of course. I may not agree with you, but I want you to be happy. It may not have seemed that way to you, but I do.”
Tessa hung up the phone feeling like the weight of Tut’s tomb had been lifted from her chest. In shock, she sat and stared at the phone. Had that really been her mother? Speaking as if she cared about her—cared about her feelings, not just her career? Maybe the thing lacking in their relationship for so many years had been Tessa’s backbone. They might establish some kind of connection after all.
If only her talk with Will would go as well. Now she had to find him and convince him he still wanted to marry her.
Chapter Twenty
AT NINE THE NEXT MORNING, Will met Jed at the Gray Wolfs’ house. Jed had wanted to be there when Will told Emmy the news, and Will had agreed he should be. Emmy would definitely need all the support she could get.
They had hoped to take care of it the night before, but when Will had called, Emmy had already gone to sleep. Instead, he set up a meeting time for this morning with Emmy’s husband, Riley. Riley was too well mannered to ask what the hell Will wanted, and Will didn’t fill him in. It wasn’t a conversation for the phone.
He still didn’t know how to tell her. But he knew she had to be told, and by someone who cared about her.
“Will, are you going to ring the bell or do you intend to stand there all day?” Jed finally asked.
“Stand here all day,” he muttered, but he rang it.
The door opened a couple of seconds after he rang. Emmy’s gaze fastened on his. “Okay, Will, what’s the big mystery? Riley said you wouldn’t tell him what this was about.” The words tumbled out before she finished opening the door. Then she saw Jed standing behind him and her eyes rounded. “Jed? What—I didn’t think you two—Why are you both here?”
Her eyes darted between them, her expression worried. She looked cautious, unsure. And why wouldn’t she be? Will thought. After all, he’d arrested Jed.
“We have some news we thought we should tell you together,” Will said. “Why don’t you let us in and we’ll talk?”
“Oh. All right.” Emmy stood back to let them enter. She hugged Jed, started to hug Will, but then she backed off, settling on patting his arm. It hurt him, to think of Emmy too scared—or too angry—to hug him.
“Can I get you some coffee?” she said, her confusion evidently growing.
“Yeah, thanks.”
She left the room quickly, after, shooting another puzzled glance at them.
Will glanced around the living room and frowned. To Jed he said, “I hope Riley’s here. I asked him if he would be.”
“Riley’s just getting back from taking Alanna to preschool,” Emmy said, reentering the room carrying a tray with four mugs. “I hear his car now.”
“We’ll wait, then,” Will said. “You’ll want Riley here.” He looked around at the living room of the house Emmy shared with Riley and his daughter. Emmy’s adopted daughter now, he reminded himself. A nice room, a comfortable room. The oak and leather furniture showed signs of wear and tear, though the room was tidy, with newspapers stacked neatly and Alanna’s toys in bins in the corner of the room. Not Emmy’s doing, he suspected, unless she’d changed drastically from her childhood. But Riley had always been neat.
Riley entered just then, greeting the two men and taking a seat on the couch beside Emmy.
“Why are you being so mysterious?” Emmy asked, impatient as always. “You’re making me nervous. And Jed hasn’t said two words.”
Jed smiled. “Hard to get more than two words in with you here, Emmy.”
She returned the smile, then sobering, turned to Will. “What is it? Is it more bad news? Why are you two here together? I thought you weren’t even speaking.”
Will took a deep breath, fumbling for a way to begin. “I’ll get to that. I know you’ve been upset with me lately, Emmy, and I’m sorry for it.”
Candid green eyes met his. “Well, I still don’t really understand how you could suspect Jed.” Her gaze flitted to Jed, then back to him. “But Riley tried to explain that part of it is your job. He says it’s understandable, you being in law enforcement, that you would have to approach the case the way you did.” She shot Riley a glance that implied she didn’t agree with him, either. “But just because I was upset with you didn’t mean you had to quit seeing me. I’ve missed you, Will, and so has Riley.”
“Given the circumstances, I thought it was best. But I missed you, too.” He hadn’t realized how much, though, until just this minute. He looked at Jed and nodded.
“Speaking of those circumsta
nces,” Jed said, “the charges against me have been dropped. I’m no longer a suspect in Frannie’s murder.”
Emmy jumped up from the couch and crossed the room to hug Jed enthusiastically. “Oh, that’s wonderful, Jed. When did you find out?”
“Last night. Will brought me the news.” He patted her back and smiled, but Will could see his eyes looked worried.
“We arrested the murderer yesterday,” Will said. “He gave a full confession.”
She sat beside Riley once again, barely containing her excitement. “But this is wonderful news!” She looked from one foster brother to the other. “Isn’t it? Why don’t you two look happier? What’s wrong? I don’t understand.”
Will cleared his throat, wishing he knew an easy way to break the news to her. “It’s great for Jed. But it isn’t so great for you.”
Riley spoke up for the first time. “I’m confused, too. Why isn’t it good for Emmy? Who killed Frannie?”
“Ray Jennings.”
Still confused, Emmy frowned. “Why? Why would he kill her? And what does that have to do with me? I barely even know the man.”
Will moved to the couch to sit on Emmy’s other side. “Frannie found out a secret that Ray didn’t want told. Emmy,” he grasped her hand and squeezed gently, wishing he didn’t have to be the one to make those pretty green eyes widen with horror. “Emmy, I’m sorry, but it turns out Ray Jennings is your father. He killed Frannie so it wouldn’t come out.”
Dumbstruck, she stared at him. “My . . . my father?” she faltered. “Raymond Jennings is my father?” She shivered, the thought obviously unnerving her.
Will nodded. “Yes. He’s admitted it. And he admitted writing those anonymous letters, so you and Riley would call off the search for your birth parents.”
“How—how can he be my father? How is that possible?” She turned imploring eyes to Jed. “Did you know?”