by Gina Wilkins
“They’re staying for the wedding, I suppose.”
He didn’t know why Rachel kept bringing up Emily’s wedding. She seemed to disapprove of his plan to skip the ceremony. But surely she could understand why he thought it best to do so.
She’d said she’d tried to forget the past. He doubted that she’d really forgotten the way people had whispered about him before he’d left town.
From the time Lucas was a kid, he’d given the bored gossips of Honoria plenty to gab about. His secret meetings with Rachel would really have had their jaws flapping—which was the reason he’d been so careful to keep those meetings secret.
“Are you looking forward to seeing your cousins again?”
He grimaced. “Not particularly. Basically, they’re like strangers to me. They’re all younger than I am—I didn’t know them very well even before I left town.”
“The few cousins I have are scattered around the country. I rarely see them.” Rachel sounded a bit wistful.
“At least you don’t have to spend Christmas trying to make conversation with them.” Lucas dreaded that.
Rachel shook off her introspective mood and forced a smile. “Have you finished your Christmas shopping?”
Lucas frowned. “I...er...”
“You haven’t done any?” She lifted an eyebrow.
“I’m not very good at that sort of thing,” he admitted.
“Surely you’ll want to get something for Emily. And you’ll probably want to get her a wedding gift, too.”
“A, uh, wedding gift,” he repeated blankly. Did she mean something like a toaster? Emily probably already had a toaster.
“And you’ll want to get a gift for Chief Davenport’s son—he’s about to be your nephew, of course. Maybe something for your aunt and uncle.”
Rachel stopped suddenly and flushed. “Sorry. It’s none of my business who you do or do not buy Christmas gifts for. I’m hardly an expert on family Christmases. I usually have dinner with my mother on Christmas Eve, then spend Christmas Day watching Jimmy Stewart and Bing Crosby movies and eating myself into a stupor. What do you usually do on Christmas?”
He shrugged. “I usually work. It’s the one day I can almost guarantee I won’t be interrupted.”
Rachel studied him across the table. “I don’t know which of our stories is more pathetic,” she murmured.
Lucas stood abruptly and tossed some bills on the table. “Let’s go.”
Rachel looked a bit startled, but she rose obligingly. “I was finished, anyway.”
Lucas didn’t bother to reply as he led her out of the diner and into the cool, damp night air.
6
IT BEGAN TO RAIN just as Lucas drove out of the diner’s parking lot. The rain fell gently against the roof of the car, a soft, steady background to the oldies still playing on the radio. The sound of the rain took Rachel back to that Saturday afternoon in the rock house. She’d been so happy then. So deeperately in love.
So young.
She risked a sideways look at Lucas. Did he remember that day? He seemed so different from the hot-tempered, passionate, reckless young man she’d known before. Now he was more stern. Quiet. So self-contained, she found it almost impossible to read his expressions.
And yet...he was still Lucas. And, in some ways, she still felt as though she knew him very well.
She reminded herself that she’d once thought she’d known him better than anyone else in the world. And yet he’d hurt her in a way she’d been totally unprepared to handle.
She’d been so damned young.
When Lucas turned off the main road and onto the country lane that led to McBride land, Rachel frowned. This was the road that ended at the bluffs. Why was Lucas driving this way?
If he thought they were going to indulge in the old-fashioned “parking” they’d spent so much time here doing as teenagers, then she intended to firmly let him know that wasn’t going to happen. Tonight, or ever again. Or, at least, she hoped that’s what she’d find the willpower to say to him, she thought, remembering just how exciting and delicious those interludes had once been.
He stopped the car at the gate that prevented them from driving all the way to the end of the lane. “I didn’t know this gate was here.”
“I’ve climbed over it twice now,” Rachel confessed.
“My father must have installed it. He was never particularly encouraging to visitors, anyway.”
“For some reason, there was a steady stream of sightseers to the bluffs after you left. You’d be surprised how many people wanted to see the place where my brother died.” She heard the undertone of bitterness in her voice, but couldn’t seem to do anything about it.
Lucas looked straight ahead, through the rainsplattered windshield. “You’d think people would have better things to do with their time.”
“Yes.” Rachel twisted her fingers in her lap, remembering the inquisitive looks. The whispers. The blatantly intrusive questions.
“There are a couple of things I want to ask you, Rachel. I’m not sure how to begin.”
His hesitation seemed uncharacteristic. She gripped her hands more tightly together. “Just ask.”
“How much did Roger talk to you in the days before he died?”
Watching Lucas as closely as she could in the darkness, Rachel chose her words carefully. “Roger and I never talked much. You knew we weren’t particularly close. We tended to argue, because he wanted to tell me what to do and I didn’t like it when he did.”
“Did he say anything about your father’s disappearance?”
“That was something that was never mentioned in my house,” Rachel answered flatly, wondering where Lucas’s questions were leading. “My mother became hysterical every time she heard my father’s name. Roger and I learned very young to avoid speaking of him.”
“Roger never said anything to you about finding a gold bracelet?”
Rachel was growing more confused with each question. “No. Why?”
Instead of answering, Lucas asked yet another question. “Did Roger say anything to you about your involvement with me?”
Rachel froze. “Roger didn’t know I was seeing you. I made very sure he never found out. He’d have been furious if he knew. He hated you.”
“He made that very clear when he told me he would kill me if I ever saw you again.”
Rachel couldn’t say anything for several minutes. “Roger found out about us?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“He came to me the day after you and I last saw each other. He told me then to stay away from you.”
“He didn’t say anything to me. I thought he was acting even surlier than usual, but... why didn’t he say anything?”
“He probably thought you’d be even more determined to see me if he tried to forbid you. So he came to me, instead, hoping to scare me off.”
“He didn’t know you very well, did he?”
“He didn’t know me at all. He knew only that I was a McBride. And that’s all he cared to know.”
Rachel’s’ hands were beginning to ache, but she couldn’t seem to loosen her grip. “I...always wondered what Roger was doing here that night. Do you think he was watching for me? Spying to see if I was going to meet you?”
Lucas shot her a quick, searching look. “Some people said I lured him here so I could push him off the bluffs.”
“I know what some people said.”
His fingers flexed on the steering wheel. “You didn’t believe them?”
“If there had been one shred of evidence against you, Chief Packer would have put you behind bars. And, besides, you weren’t even here that night.”
Roger had most definitely been in the wrong place at the wrong time, Rachel thought sadly. If he’d been trying to catch Lucas slipping around to meet someone, he should have been watching Lizzie Carpenter’s house.
Lucas didn’t seem particularly satisfied with Rachel’s answer. Without moving, he watched the rain,
his thoughts seeming very far away.
Rachel was trying to think of something to say to break the silence when Lucas finally spoke again. “You never told your mother about us?”
Her mother would have totally freaked out. Jane had bitterly disliked all McBrides after her husband ran off with Lucas’s stepmother.
“I never told anyone about us.” Not her family, not her closest friends...no one.
While they were together, Lucas had been Rachel’s cherished secret. The secrecy had made their relationship seem even more romantic and magical.
She’d sat in her classrooms, bored with the teachers’ lectures, daydreaming about the day she and Lucas would surprise everyone by announcing their love for each other. Or maybe they would elope, she’d fantasized. They would return to Honoria as Mr. and Mrs. Lucas McBride, and all the girls would be so envious that quiet, shy, good-girl Rachel Jennings had caught the most exciting, daring, dangerous bad boy in town.
Had she really been that naive and foolish?
She had grown up fast the day she’d been told her brother was dead—and that the only reason Lucas hadn’t been arrested for his murder was because he’d spent that fateful night in Lizzie Carpenter’s bed.
And then he’d left town, without a word. He’d abandoned her at the lowest point of her young life, leaving her with a devastated, embittered mother and a secret that had become more tragic than romantic.
She could forgive him for most of the things he’d done—maybe she could even forgive him for Lizzie—but she still couldn’t remember his leaving the way he had without being overwhelmed by a wave of betrayal.
Shouldn’t she have gotten past that by now? It had been so long ago. They’d both gotten older. She wasn’t sure, however, that she had gotten much wiser. If she had, why was she sitting here now with Lucas McBride?
Maybe a similar thought crossed his mind. He reached for the ignition and started the car. “It’s getting late. I’ll take you home.”
Home. Rachel mulled the word over in her mind as he drove. Where was home? Certainly not her grandmother’s house, though that was where she’d lived from the time her father had abandoned his family when she was only nine until she’d left for college nine years later. The functional, few-frills apartment she maintained in Atlanta had never really had the feel of “home.” It was just a place to live.
“Home” wasn’t a place, she’d always heard, but a feeling. Rachel had been waiting a long time to find a refuge to call home. She’d begun to wonder lately if she ever would.
Lucas had always had an uncanny ability to sense what she was thinking. “What’s your life like in Atlanta?”
“Quiet,” she answered after a moment. “Peaceful. I have a good job, a nice apartment, a few good friends.”
“Is that all you want?”
Something about his question made her defensive. Okay, so maybe her life at thirty-three was much different from her daydreams at eighteen. But it wasn’t all that bad. She had made her choices, and she was content with them, for the most part.
“It’s all I want for now,” she answered a bit shortly.
It was still raining when Lucas drove into the driveway of her grandmother’s house.
“Hold on a minute,” he said, reaching over the back of his seat into the tiny storage space behind. He pulled out an umbrella. “Sit tight, I’ll come around.”
“I can make a run for it,” she protested, reaching for her door handle. “There’s no need for you to get out.”
“Stay,” he said, and opened his door.
She didn’t particularly liked being talked to like a trained pet. But she didn’t move until Lucas opened her door and held the umbrella over her as she climbed out.
He looped his left arm around her shoulders, holding the umbrella over them both with his right hand. Rachel huddled into her jacket, telling herself Lucas had pulled her close only to ensure that she stayed dry.
She still wasn’t sure why he’d invited her to accompany him this evening, but there’d been nothing in the least suggestive about his behavior. He’d treated her like an old friend he’d run into by chance. Which, she told herself quickly, was just fine with her.
He lowered the umbrella when they stepped under the small porch at her grandmother’s front door. Rachel fumbled in her purse for the key. At least this time, she didn’t have to crawl in through her bedroom window, as she’d had to do fifteen years ago, she thought wryly.
She looked up at him. “Thank you for the pie and coffee.”
“Tomorrow is Christmas Eve.”
He had a bewildering habit of replying in non sequiturs. It took her a moment to catch up. “Yes?”
“If I’m going to buy presents, I guess I’ll have to do it in the morning.”
“Probably,” she agreed, somewhat amused by his grim tone. He looked as though he was planning a root canal.
“I could use some help. Will you go with me?”
“Er...” Caught off guard, she hesitated.
“I don’t have anyone else to ask,” he said simply.
Hardly the most flattering justification, but it was honest enough and innocuous enough to put Rachel more at ease. “Do you really think it’s a good idea for us to be seen Christmas shopping together? Can you imagine the gossip? But then again, I guess there aren’t that many people in town who know us...”
“After that scene in the café today? Don’t kid yourself. Everyone in Honoria knows we’re here now. And that you spoke politely to my sister and me before your uncle showed up.”
“I suppose you’re right,” she admitted. “The gossip lines have probably been buzzing all afternoon.”
“Still, I see no reason to give them any more material. I thought I’d drive to the mall over in Logan’s Ridge to do my shopping. Chances are less likely there for us to run into anyone we know.”
She couldn’t help thinking about the past again. She and Lucas had always been so careful not to be seen together. They had known what a stir it would create if people knew they’d fallen for each other, despite their family history. How much more scandalous would it be if she were seen with him now?
“We could take our own cars,” she said, the suggestion escaping her almost before she knew it. “Meet at the mall.”
“That would be fine. How about just inside the main entrance at 10:00 a.m.?”
Rachel nodded. “All right. I’ll see you then.”
She had some shopping of her own to do, she rationalized. Even though all of it could have waited until after Christmas.
She turned toward the door. Lucas’s hand on her arm compelled her to face him again.
“There’s something I’ve been wanting to do since I saw you standing in that rock house Monday,” he muttered.
Before she could ask what he meant, he covered her mouth in a hard, fierce kiss that nearly made her knees buckle.
Memories of the past evaporated in the heat of the present. Rachel was no longer a shy, inexperienced girl. And Lucas wasn’t an eager, impulsive young man. The years had changed both of them.
But the chemistry between them was still there. Still so powerful it threatened to explode.
She was still clinging to Lucas’s jacket when he finally drew away. One by one, she loosened her fingers, dropping her hands heavily to her sides.
She stared at him, her mind completely blank.
It took Lucas a few moments to speak. When he did, it was only to say, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He turned on one booted heel and walked away without bothering to use the umbrella. The cold rain must have soaked him through by the time he reached his car, but he didn’t seem to notice. He threw the umbrella inside and climbed in after it.
Rachel didn’t want him to see her watching him drive away. She turned quickly and opened the door, closing herself into her grandmother’s house. And then she peeked through the filmy curtain over the diamond-shaped window in the door and watched until Lucas’s taillights had disa
ppeared from sight.
GOING TO THE MALL to help Lucas with his Christmas shopping was not a good idea, Rachel told herself as she tossed and turned in her bed Wednesday night. She was still trying to convince herself as she showered Thursday morning and dressed in a cheery Christmas sweater and a pair of black jeans. And even as she kissed her grandmother’s cheek and went out to her car, she was cursing herself for a fool.
And as she drove through the crowded mall parking lot, looking in vain for a space, she admitted that she was also looking for an excuse to turn around and go home.
She finally found an opening at the farthest edge of the lot. She took it, to the annoyance of a man in a Cadillac who’d been trying to beat Rachel to the space.
“So much for Christmas spirit,” she muttered as the guy flipped her a finger and drove on.
At least the rain had stopped. The sun was shining in a cloudless, winter-blue sky. It wasn’t even cold enough that she had to wear a jacket over her warm sweater. She hurried toward the main entrance, wondering if Lucas would be waiting for her—or if he, too, had come to the conclusion that this was a really dumb idea.
A Salvation Army volunteer stood beside a bucket, ringing a bell and looking tired even though it was still early. Rachel stuffed a couple of bills into the bucket.
“Bless you. Merry Christmas.”
Rachel smiled. “Merry Christmas to you, too.”
And then she drew a deep breath and entered the mall.
For a moment, she was disoriented by the cacophony of noise, lights, glittering decorations and milling bodies. How would she ever find...?
A hand fell on her arm.
“Thank you for coming,” Lucas said as he stepped in front of her, his black jacket, shirt and slacks a somber contrast to the colorful background.
Rachel didn’t smile. “I almost didn’t come.”
“I know.”
She grimaced. “You’re claiming to know my thoughts now?’
“I know you.”
He had known the girl. He didn’t know the woman. But this wasn’t the time to tell him, she thought as a shopper loaded down with packages jostled her.