by Gina Wilkins
“Hell, is that nosy old biddy still around? She was the worst gossip in town when I was a kid.”
“She still is,” Emily admitted. “But she’s not all bad, Lucas. She’s just...nosy.”
“How have you been treated by the locals, Emily? Did anyone hold it against you that you’re a McBride? My sister?”
“And Nadine’s daughter,” she reminded him. “I’ve heard my share of comments about you both—but you expected that, I’m sure.”
He nodded. “Yeah. But I’d hoped with both of us gone, the gossip would eventually fade away.”
She frowned. “Is that why you left? To protect me from the gossip?”
Rachel’s face hovered in Lucas’s mind. “One of the reasons.”
Emily shredded a biscuit onto her plate. “I would much rather have had you here.”
He swallowed. “Were you treated well?” he persisted.
“On the whole, everyone’s been kind. I’ve been active. in church, at work and in the community, and I have many friends. Honoria’s grown since you left; there are a lot of people who know very little of the McBride history. With the exception of Sam Jennings and April Penny, for the most part, I’ve been treated with the same respect as anyone else.”
“Sam Jennings?” Lucas almost spat the name. “Has that bastard given you a hard time?”
“Nothing I couldn’t handle. He’s a jerk, but I try not to let him get to me.”
“Who’s April Penny?”
“You might remember her as April Hankins, that’s her maiden name. She’s a few years older than I am—she’d have been about fourteen when you left town.”
Lucas shook his head. “I don’t remember her. I knew there was a family named Hankins who lived out on Culpepper Road.”
“Same family. April’s brother Vince was Savannah’s high-school boyfriend. He was the football captain, class president, Mr. Popularity. And so conceited it’s a wonder his football helmet fit over his big head.”
Lucas swallowed a mouthful of still-warm peach cobbler and almost groaned in appreciation of the taste. “Sounds like he and our cousin Savannah were well-matched. Ernestine had her so spoiled, Savannah thought the world should be handed to her on a silver platter. And that she should be wearing a beauty-pageant tiara when she accepted it.”
Emily smiled a little, but shook her head. “Savannah’s changed a lot since you knew her, Lucas. She had to grow up fast when she found herself pregnant with twins at seventeen. Raising them with no help from anyone but her mother put an end to her beauty-pageant days.”
“Did the Hankins kid father the twins?”
“Yes, though he denied it. The entire Hankins family acted outraged at the suggestion that their son had behaved inappropriately. They implied that Savannah was a promiscuous tramp who wanted to trap Vince into marrying her. As if he was some great catch,” she added scornfully.
“She had no doubt he fathered the kids?”
“Of course not. Savannah was devastated when Vince and his buddies told everyone she slept around. She swore Vince was the only one—and her family believed her.”
“So how come she didn’t get a blood test and prove it to everyone? Make the guy own up to his responsibilities?” Lucas had no respect for a man who would deny his own children. At least he could be confident that he hadn’t left Rachel in that kind of trouble when he’d taken off fifteen years ago.
“Because she inherited as much of the McBride pride as she did their recklessness. She didn’t want anything from Vince. And she didn’t want to force any man to be a father to her children. She’s been a good mother, Lucas. The twins are good kids. And now she’s married to a man who appreciates all of them. He’s Christopher Pace, the author. You might have heard of him.”
Lucas lifted an eyebrow. He’d heard of Pace, even read a couple of the guy’s books. “Sounds like everything turned out all right for her.”
“Yes. Which made April even more hateful to me—to all the McBrides. She resents the idea that Savannah is now married to a wealthy, famous man while her precious brother is only a used-car salesman.”
“Why should she take any of that out on you?”
“Who knows? She just doesn’t like McBrides. It always seemed to irk her that I have more friends than she did, even though I was your sister and Nadine’s daughter. She can’t see it’s because she’s so spiteful that people tend to give her a wide berth.”
Lucas had lost interest in April Hankins. It sounded to him as though Emily could hold her own against the woman. In fact, it sounded as if Emily had made a satisfying life for herself here despite her family’s less-than-spotless reputation.
It had obviously been unnecessary for Lucas to come rushing back to Honoria. He could have stayed away. Could have avoided getting himself roped into a family Christmas—and seeing Rachel again. Hearing Rachel admit that she was afraid of him.
“What do people say about me in town?”
Emily busied herself clearing away the remains of their lunch. “Oh, you know...they wonder whatever became of you. Why you left so abruptly.”
He covered her hand with his, stilling her movements. “Emily. What do they say about me and Roger Jennings?”
She cleared her throat. “Some of them—especially Sam Jennings and his friends—say you got away with...with...”
“With murder.” Lucas could say it, even if his sister could not.
“Yes.”
He kept his hand on hers. “I didn’t kill Roger.”
Her gaze met his, and he was relieved to see that there was no shadow of doubt in her eyes. “I never for a moment believed you did. And neither does anyone else with half a brain. If there had been any evidence to link you to Roger’s death, Chief Packer would have found it. He certainly tried hard enough to find a reason to arrest you. But there was no evidence, and you had an alibi.”
He released her hand. This time it was Lucas who looked away, uncomfortable by the mention of that “alibi.”
“Whatever happened to Lizzie Carpenter?” he asked gruffly.
“She married a guy from Macon about ten years ago and moved away. She would never talk about you after you left. She tended to burst into tears whenever your name was mentioned, so people eventually stopped asking her about you.”
Lucas winced. “Great. Everyone thought I slept with her, ruined her reputation, and then left town and broke her heart, right?”
“I’ve heard murmurs to that effect,” Emily said almost apologetically.
Lucas shook his head, thinking of Rachel and remembering the old pain he’d seen in her eyes. God, what a mess he’d made of things fifteen years ago.
The telephone rang. Emily reached for the kitchen extension. “Surely Martha Godwin hasn’t already found out you’re in town.”
Lucas grimaced.
But it was immediately obvious from her besotted smile that the caller was her fiancé. “Lucas and I just finished lunch,” she said. “We’re having a very nice visit.”
To give her privacy, Lucas motioned to his sister to take her time with her conversation and walked out the kitchen door.
He had a lot to think about, and he needed a few minutes alone to do so.
It had been a hell of a day. And it was only a little after noon.
3
THE BIG OAK TREE had to be well over a hundred years old. Its trunk was huge, gnarled, its branches spreading far out around it. Lightning had hit the tree at some point in its long history, leaving a thick scar down the north side. But the tree had endured.
Lucas didn’t remember the first time he’d climbed that tree. He couldn’t have been more than seven or eight. Some twenty feet up was a hollow formed by the juncture of several large, leafy branches. In the summertime, a boy could sit in that hollow, hidden from the world, and do a lot of thinking.
He remembered well the last time he’d sat in that spot. He’d been twenty. It had been an impulse of a young man who was desperately in love, frustrated, confu
sed, angry, uncertain.
He’d had a quarrel with an angry Roger Jenkins that morning. Roger had found out that Lucas had been secretly meeting Rachel, despite a long history of animosity between the McBride and Jenkins families. Roger had been infuriated that his sister had been consorting with the stepson of the woman who’d seduced their father away from his family.
There’d been some pushing. Some shoving. Some threats.
Resting one hand against the trunk of the oak, Lucas closed his eyes, and he could almost hear Roger snarling, “Stay away from my sister, McBride. Or I’ll kill you.”
And Lucas had answered, with his usual reckless temper, “I’ll kill you before I let you keep me from her.”
“The same way your father killed his wife and my dad?”
Lucas’s first reaction to Roger’s question had been scorn. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Nine years earlier, Nadine McBride and Al Jennings had run off together. They hadn’t been heard from since. Roger had been convinced that his father, Al, would never have voluntarily abandoned his children. “If he was alive, he would have called. He would have wanted to see us. I think your father caught my dad with your slut of a stepmother and killed them both.”
“And I think you’re out of your mind.”
Roger had sworn then that he would find proof. “And when I do, your father will go to prison. And my sister will never let you near her again.”
They’d parted after a few more angry snarls and empty threats. Needing to cool off before facing his family, Lucas had come impulsively to the old oak tree where he’d spent so many quiet hours as a boy. The hollow had still held him, hidden him from view. Given him a private place to get his temper under control and contemplate Roger’s ridiculous accusations.
He’d been sitting there perhaps half an hour when his little sister and their cousins, Savannah and Tara, had trudged into the clearing, toting an old cypress trunk between them. From his vantage point, Lucas could see and hear them as they’d giggled and chattered and dug in the rain-softened ground with shovels borrowed from his father’s tool shed.
Shamelessly eavesdropping on the conversation, Lucas had discovered that the girls had designated the trunk as a “time capsule,” to be dug up in fifteen years on Savannah’s birthday—a time so far in the future they could hardly imagine it. Before burying the trunk, they’d opened it to make sure the contents were securely wrapped. Lucas had learned that each girl had packed an individual box of “treasures,” written their names on the tops with permanent markers, and wrapped the boxes in plastic garbage bags to protect them inside the trunk.
He’d found the little ceremony amusing, a welcome distraction from his personal problems. He’d thought Emily was so cute tagging along with her older cousins, imitating their speech and behavior, participating so eagerly in burying the trunk. He had wondered if they would remember to dig up the trunk in fifteen years, or if it would be long forgotten by then.
Now, after reading the article in the Honoria Gazette and learning that a heavy gold bracelet had been stolen from Emily in a recent home break-in, Lucas knew that the trunk had, indeed, been unearthed.
Lucas himself had hidden that bracelet in Emily’s time capsule only two weeks after the girls had buried it. It had been the day after Roger Jennings fell from the bluff—less than two months before Lucas left town vowing never to return.
What had Emily thought when she found it? Who had taken it from her, and where was it now?
Those were the questions that had brought Lucas back to Honoria, questions he hadn’t found quite the right time to ask.
“Lucas?”
It took Lucas a moment to make the transition from past to present. Emily-the-child faded into memory as Emily-the-woman approached her brother. Bundled into a down-filled parka, she carried his leather jacket in her arms. “Aren’t you getting cold out here without your jacket?”
He was cold, actually. He was just so caught up in his thoughts, he hadn’t realized it. He took the jacket and shrugged into it, touched by her concern. It had been a long time since anyone had worried about him.
Emily tucked her hands into her pockets and looked around. “Checking out the old grounds?”
“Yeah. Hasn’t changed much.”
“No. Not much.” Her gaze drifted to the bare patch of earth where the chest had once been buried.
Lucas didn’t mention the time capsule, since Emily didn’t know he’d seen her bury it. Instead, he asked another question.
“What did the old man tell you about me, Emily?”
She looked surprised. “Dad?”
He nodded.
“Nothing. He never mentioned you at all. I sometimes wondered if you and he had a fight before you left. Did you?”
Lucas wouldn’t have called it a fight. A confrontation, maybe. It had ended with Josiah telling his son he never wanted to see him again. Lucas hadn’t gotten any of his questions answered, but he had learned once and for all that Josiah was incapable of loving anyone—something both of Josiah’s wives must have discovered on their own.
“Dad and I just didn’t get along,” was all he said to Emily.
“He couldn’t seem to get along with anyone. I suppose the only reason he and I didn’t quarrel is because I never challenged him. I learned to be quiet and good so everything would be peaceful.”
Lucas grimaced. “Not much of a childhood for you. I’m sorry, Emily.”
She shook her head. “It wasn’t your fault. You did what you had to do. Even though I never stopped missing you, I had people here to love me. Aunt Bobbie and Uncle Caleb were always nearby when I needed them, and that meant a great deal to me.”
“I want to thank them for that before I leave again.”
Emily sighed. “I don’t like to think about you leaving. But I’d like to call Aunt Bobbie and Uncle Caleb to tell them you’re here. Their feelings will be hurt if they hear it first from someone else.”
“You can tell them tomorrow,” Lucas conceded somewhat reluctantly. Though he rather dreaded the extended family reunion, he knew Emily had her heart set on the family being together for Christmas. Lucas couldn’t help feeling that he owed her this.
“I heard something today I think you should know,” she said, seeming to broach the subject carefully. “Rachel Jennings is in town for the holiday.”
It took a massive effort for Lucas not to react visibly to the name. As far as he knew, no one except Roger had learned that Lucas and Rachel had been involved. How could Emily possibly have found out?
“Er...why did you think I should know that?” he asked, his tone carefully neutral.
“She is Sam Jennings’s niece. I’m sure Sam has tried to poison Rachel’s mind against us, the same way he has tried to influence others. If she blames you for what happened to her brother, it could get awkward if you run into her unexpectedly. I just want you to be prepared.”
Lucas wished he’d been prepared before he had run into Rachel. He couldn’t forget the way she’d flinched when he’d stepped toward her.
He hadn’t been prepared for her fear. Did she really think he would ever do anything to hurt her?
“She wouldn’t be the only one in town who blames me for Roger’s death.” Lucas was unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “Believe me, Emily. I know what to expect.”
Emily sighed and placed a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry you were treated so badly here, Lucas. It wasn’t fair for people who didn’t even know you to judge you so harshly.”
Lucas had once thought Rachel knew him better than anyone in the world. And still she’d judged him—and had obviously found him guilty.
He cleared his throat. “We’d better get back to the house. I imagine your cop boyfriend will be showing up before long.”
Emily giggled. “My cop fiancé,” she corrected him. “I hope you and Wade can become friends, Lucas.”
“Me, friends with a cop. It would be a first—but for you, I’l
l try.”
“Thank you.”
Lucas looked around the clearing one more time, deliberately avoiding looking toward the path that led toward the stone shelter and the bluffs. He would go back there, of course, but tonight he needed to put his talk with Rachel out of his mind.
He exhaled deeply and turned to his sister. “Your nose is getting pink. Let’s go inside.”
Emily tucked her hand beneath his arm and matched her steps to his, walking close to his side.
His sister made it very clear that she wasn’t afraid of him, he mused.
Why the hell was Rachel?
FROM THE BIG WOODEN rocker on her grandmother’s front porch, Rachel could see the festive lights strung on the neighbors’ houses. Most had decorated lavishly for Christmas this year. The house next door had a Santa in a sleigh with all eight reindeer on the roof, surrounded by blinking lights and glittering illuminated “icicles.” Farther down the street, she spotted plastic snowmen, a couple of Nativity scenes, some animated carolers, and trees decorated with lights and ornaments.
Finding the festive display oddly depressing, Rachel looked away from the scene.
There were no colored lights on her grandmother’s house. Jenny Holder would be moving in less than a month, and hadn’t wanted to bother with Christmas decorations this year. Easily tired these days, she’d turned in early, leaving Rachel alone and wide-awake at just after 9:00 p.m. When the house had become too close and quiet, Rachel had pulled on her coat and come outside, hoping the night air would soothe her.
She knew she would never sleep as long as Lucas’s words kept echoing in her mind.
In my whole life, there have been only two people I would have died for. My sister is one. You’re the other.
Just as she couldn’t forget his words, she was haunted by the look on his face when he had asked her if she was afraid of him. When she had answered that she was.
She’d hurt him. As hard and intimidating as he’d appeared, she had hurt him with her candid, one-word answer. And now, idiot that she was, she was feeling guilty about it.
She didn’t owe Lucas McBride apologies or explanations, she reminded herself. Exactly the reverse was true. She’d had every reason to verbally flail him for the way he’d hurt her fifteen years ago—to tell him exactly what she thought of him for causing her so much pain. To say all the things she’d fantasized about saying on those nights when she’d lain awake, remembering and seething with anger.