by Gina Wilkins
Rachel tucked her purse more firmly beneath her arm. “Let’s go.”
Lucas nodded grimly. “Yeah. Let’s get this over with.”
Lucas’s idea of shopping, Rachel soon discovered, was to enter a store, point to something, and say, “I’ll take it.”
In an electronics store, he bought Wade Davenport’s son the newest, most sophisticated handheld electronic game on the market. The cost nearly made Rachel choke.
“That’s pretty fancy for a nine-year-old boy,” she murmured. “Are you sure it isn’t too much?”
He shrugged. “The programs are upgradable. They range from his age level to adult. It should do him for several years.”
“It’s expensive.”
Lucas’s mouth quirked. “I’ve only got one nephew. At the moment.”
After paying for the game, he led her to a sporting-goods store. “Emily said Wade likes to fish,” he commented. He nabbed a busy salesclerk. “Got anything new for fly fishermen?”
The clerk took one look at Lucas and led him to an array of expensive fishing accessories.
Fifteen minutes later, Lucas turned to Rachel. “Now for Emily.”
“Lead the way,” she murmured, her tone wry.
He walked into a jewelry store, pointed to a pair of diamond solitaire earrings and said, “I’d like to see those, please.”
The first pair he was shown didn’t please him. The second pair did. “These will be fine. Do you gift wrap?”
Rachel glanced at all the busy shoppers scurrying around them, looks of harried desperation on their faces as they tried to find something for everyone on their lists. Lucas had been shopping for just over an hour—most of that time spent standing in line—and he’d already accomplished his goals.
“I thought I’d pick up a nice bottle of wine for Bobbie and Caleb,” he said to Rachel, tucking Emily’s earrings into the bigger bag that held his other gifts. “I’ll send Emily and Wade a wedding gift later.”
She planted her hands on her hips. “Is there anything else you need me to help you with?” she asked very politely.
He lifted an eyebrow. “Is something wrong?”
“You knew exactly what you wanted to buy everyone on your list. You didn’t need my help. Why did you want me here?”
He returned her look blandly. “I don’t like to shop alone.”
Two children in a hurry for a last-minute visit with the mall Santa pushed past Rachel, followed closely by their weary mother. Still looking at Lucas, Rachel ignored them. “Do you have anything else to buy?”
“No. I think I’ve fulfilled all my Christmas obligations.”
“Then let’s have lunch. I skipped breakfast and I’m hungry. And by the way,” she added, thinking of how casually he’d just spent a rather sizeable chunk of money, “you’re buying.”
He laughed. The rusty sound seemed to surprise him almost as it did her. “You’re on.”
Lucas refused to eat at the food court or one of the crowded chain restaurants in the mall. They chose, instead, to drive their separate vehicles the short distance to a locally-owned Italian restaurant that had been in business for many years. Judging from the number of cars in the lot, it was still quite popular. And it was still a bit early for the real lunch-time rush.
“There will be a twenty-minute wait for a table,” a perky young hostess informed them.
Lucas nodded. “We’ll wait in the bar.”
Christmas carols played softly from hidden speakers as Rachel and Lucas sat at a tiny table. The bartender had recommended his special hot cider in honor of the holiday, so they had decided to try it. Rachel was glad she did as she sipped the rich, steaming brew. “This is delicious.”
“It’s good.”
“Your family will probably have a huge dinner tonight.”
“Emily was already cooking when I left. If everyone else brings as much, there will be enough food for most of Honoria.”
“And what are your plans for tomorrow?”
“Wade and Clay are staying over tonight. Emily wants to see Clay open his gifts from Santa Claus and then we’ll have a big Christmas breakfast. I offered to clear out tonight so it would just be the three of them in the morning, but Emily wouldn’t hear of it. She claims she needs me there as a chaperone. My sister,” he added ruefully, “inherited her full share of the McBride obstinacy.”
“After being separated from you for so long, I’m sure she wants to spend as much time with you as possible before you leave again.”
“That’s what she says.”
Rachel searched his face. “Why do you find that so surprising?”
“Emily has every reason to resent the hell out of me for leaving the way I did. Our father was a cold son of a bitch who was incapable of showing her any real affection. All the old meddlers in town loved to rehash the stories about Nadine’s running around, about the fights I got into, and about the speculation that I’d had something to do with Roger’s death. After I left, there were apparently other scandals in the McBride family, so Emily bore the brunt of the gossip.”
“From what I’ve heard, the townspeople are very fond of Emily, for the most part—despite her McBride blood.”
Lucas nodded. “She’s made a place for herself. I’m afraid she’s had to swallow her pride a few times to stay in the town’s good graces, but she doesn’t seem to regret her choices. And she tells me she’s learning to take up for herself when it’s necessary.”
Rachel twisted her cider mug between her hands. “When are you going back to California?”
He shrugged. “I promised to stay through Christmas. I’ll probably clear out first thing on the twenty-sixth. Emily has a lot to do to get ready for her wedding next week, even though she’s keeping it simple. I don’t want to be in her way.”
“Somehow I don’t think she would see you as an inconvenience,” Rachel murmured, remembering the way Emily had looked at her brother.
Lucas stared at his mug. “How long are you going to be in town?”
“It will probably take another week for me to get Grandmother’s affairs in order.”
“Sir? Ma’am? Your table is ready.”
In response to the hostess’s summons, Rachel and Lucas stood and followed her into the dining room, to a nicely secluded table for two. They glanced at the menu, placed their orders, then studied each other until their meals arrived.
“You haven’t mentioned what you and your grandmother are doing for the holiday,” Lucas said.
“After dinner—which I’m going to cook for us—my grandmother wants me to take her to her church for a candlelight service. She hasn’t missed one in almost fifty years. She’s very aware that this will be the last one she’ll attend here.”
“You won’t be seeing your mother for Christmas?”
“Mother won’t come back to Honoria. We decided to postpone our holiday dinner until New Year’s day. She’s spending this evening with a couple of single friends from her widow’s support group.”
Lucas didn’t say anything, but Rachel felt a need to explain, anyway. “Mother tells everyone her husband died twenty-four years ago. As far as she’s concerned, of course, he did.”
Lucas frowned down at his plate. “No one has heard from your father since he ran off with my stepmother? He’s never made any contact with anyone?”
She shook her head. “He never even tried to claim the money he left in savings accounts and other investments. If he ever knew his son had died, he made no effort to contact us. For all I know, he may be dead. Mother has every right to claim widowhood, if that makes her more comfortable.”
“Yes, she does. Er... your brother had a theory of his own about why your father disappeared.”
Rachel didn’t know what Lucas was talking about. “What do you mean?”
“He decided that my father killed Al and Nadine and hid the bodies, then told everyone they’d run off together.”
7
RACHEL REALIZED that her jaw had dropped.
She closed her mouth, then shook her head. “That’s insane. What makes you think Roger believed such a thing?”
“He told me. The night he ordered me to stop seeing you. He said he wouldn’t allow his sister to be involved with the stepson of a whore and the son of a murderer. When I asked what the hell he was talking about, he told me his crazy theory. And then he pulled out what he claimed was proof that he was right.”
She could hardly believe what she was hearing. “What kind of proof?”
“A gold bracelet. It was covered in dirt and dried mud, but I recognized it. It had belonged to Nadine. She never took it off.”
“Where did Roger find Nadine’s bracelet?”
“He said he’d been walking in the woods behind the rock house—which is where he claimed your father and my stepmother used to secretly meet. He claimed his dog dug up the bracelet. From that evidence, he concluded that Nadine and Al were buried somewhere in those woods.”
“This is crazy,” Rachel murmured, shaking her head in dazed disbelief. “I know Roger had a hard time accepting our father’s disappearance, but how could he have come up with this ridiculous theory?”
“He refused to accept that Al would abandon his children for Nadine. It was easier for him to believe that your father was dead than to admit Al cared so little about the two of you that he would simply disappear from your lives forever.”
“I didn’t like admitting it, either,” Rachel replied. “And I doubt that Emily likes knowing that her mother ran off when she was just a baby. But this...”
Lucas nodded grimly. “That’s pretty much the way I reacted when Roger threw this tale at me. I thought he’d lost his mind. I told him my father was a bastard, but he wasn’t a murderer. My father never cared enough about anyone to be driven to that point.”
“Nadine must have dropped the bracelet by accident. Finding it in those woods is no proof of anything.”
“That’s what I told Roger.”
“And what did he say?”
“That he had more proof.”
“What?”
Lucas shook his head. “He wouldn’t tell me. He said I would believe him when he found...”
“When he found what?” Rachel prompted.
“The bodies.”
She pushed her plate away, leaving her lunch half-finished. “That’s what he was doing in your woods that night? Looking for my father’s body?”
“Either that or hoping to catch you meeting me there so he could force a confrontation. I don’t know.”
Scrubbing a hand over her face, Rachel sighed. “Why did you tell me all this?”
“Because I thought you had a right to know. And because...”
Again, he hesitated. Again, Rachel prodded. “What?”
“A couple of months ago, someone broke into Emily’s house. She walked in and was knocked unconscious. When she woke up, she found her room had been ransacked and some of her jewelry was missing—including the bracelet she was wearing when she entered the house.”
Rachel was horrified. She’d been told there’d been a series of break-ins around Honoria, but she hadn’t heard about the attack on Emily. “Is that why you came back? Because you heard about the break-in and you wanted to make sure Emily was all right?”
“The bracelet taken from her wrist was the one Roger found in the woods. Emily had discovered where I’d stashed it before I left. I didn’t realize she had found it until I read in a newspaper article that a gold bracelet belonging to her mother had been stolen. As far as I knew, Nadine had left no other gold bracelet behind—and even if she had, my father got rid of everything that had belonged to Nadine. He didn’t save anything for Emily. It bothered me that nothing else of consequence was taken. I couldn’t help wondering if there was any connection between that bracelet and the attack on Emily.”
“What connection could there possibly have been?”
Looking a bit sheepish, Lucas shrugged. “I haven’t found any reason not to believe Emily was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Rachel linked her hands in her lap beneath the table, gripping her napkin between them. “Even if the bracelet was evidence that Nadine had been...killed, the only person who would want the evidence hidden—your father—was already dead when Emily was attacked.”
Lucas nodded, though his frown only deepened.
“Unless, of course,” Rachel murmured, carried away for a moment by imagination, “someone else had reason to want that bracelet to remain hidden. Someone who took advantage of the break-ins to target Emily specifically to get the bracelet.”
Lucas grimaced. “Doesn’t sound very likely, does it?”
“That’s what you thought? That Emily was attacked just so someone could take her mother’s bracelet from her?”
“I don’t know what I thought. But it seemed like a good time to come back and check on her. I, er, didn’t know you’d be here.”
Rachel pleated her napkin. “Are you sorry now that you came back?”
After a moment, he answered simply, “No.”
She bit her lip.
“Are you sorry I came back?”
She didn’t know how to answer that one. “I...”
Lucas gave a dry, humorless chuckle. “Never mind. Do you want dessert?”
“No, thank you. I’d better go check on my grandmother.”
He nodded. “Thank you for helping me with my shopping.”
“I’m not sure I was much help, but you’re welcome, anyway.”
Though the check had not yet arrived, the bills Lucas tossed on the table were more than sufficient to pay for their meals. “I’ll walk you to your car.”
The parking lot was even more crowded now than before, and traffic was heavy on the streets. But Rachel wasn’t aware of anyone except the tall, dark man walking at her side.
She unlocked her car door, then looked up at him. “Lunch was very...enlightening. Thank you for telling me the things Roger said to you. I suppose you answered some questions for me.”
“And provoked a few new ones, I’m certain.”
“Yes.”
Lucas glanced at the street. “There’s a lot of traffic. Drive carefully.”
“I will.” She opened her door, then hesitated. Without looking at him, she asked, “Will I see you again before you leave?”
“You know where to find me. If you want to find me.”
She looked up at him. “You hurt me very badly, Lucas. It took me a long time to get over you.”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. “How long did it take?” he asked after a moment.
Fifteen years and counting, she almost answered. But she wasn’t prepared to be quite that honest. “Too long,” she said quietly.
He stepped back. “Goodbye, Rachel.”
At least he’d said it this time. She nodded mutely and climbed into her car, made clumsy by her haste and the thin film of tears that had suddenly appeared in her eyes.
CALEB AND BOBBIE McBride’s house was filled almost to the rafters with people. And all of them seemed to be talking at once.
Lucas, who’d admittedly been somewhat of a loner for the past fifteen years, attending social occasions only when absolutely necessary, was having a rather difficult time keeping up with everything going on around him.
His relatives had all been told he would be there, so they greeted him with more curiosity than surprise. His Aunt Bobbie, the hostess for the evening, took it upon herself to introduce Lucas back into the family. Holding his arm in a grip that felt more restraining than supportive, she propelled him around the room.
“You remember my daughter, Tara, of course,” she said in her booming, schoolteacher’s voice.
Lucas nodded pleasantly to his delicately pretty cousin, hoping he wasn’t expected to kiss her or anything. He told himself he hardly remembered her—though he was sure her hair had been blond last time he’d seen her, rather than the flattering dark red it was now. “Nice to see you again, Tara.”
; She answered with a touch of the shyness he remembered. “Hello, Lucas. I’d like you to meet my husband, Blake Fox.”
Blake Fox was golden-blond with bright, sharp blue eyes. He wore a loose-fitting blue shirt, suspenders, and pleated gray slacks that could have come from the wardrobe of an old Cary Grant movie. An eccentric type, obviously, Lucas mused, remembering that Emily had told him Fox was a private investigator.
“So you’re the prodigal son I’ve heard so much about,” Blake said, taking Lucas’s hand in a firm grip.
“I’m more often referred to as the black sheep of the family,” Lucas drawled.
“No, that’s my title,” a well-built blonde murmured as she moved close to Lucas’s side. “Let’s keep the facts straight, cuz.”
Lucas didn’t have to be told who this was. “Well, if it isn’t the beauty queen. Where’s your tiara, Savannah?”
“Still as obnoxious as ever, I see.” She didn’t wait for Lucas to decide how to greet her, but rose on tiptoes to lightly kiss his cheek. “Welcome back, Lucas.”
“Thanks.”
It was possible, Lucas decided, that Savannah was no longer the spoiled, shallow cheerleader he’d remembered, just as he had outgrown his smart mouth and fiery temper. She was, however, as stunningly attractive as ever.
She drew a dark-haired, dark-eyed man to her side. “This is my husband, Kit Pace.”
Lucas shook the man’s hand. “Christopher Pace. I’ve read and enjoyed several of your books.”
“Thank you. It’s nice to finally have a chance to meet you. I’ve heard a bit about you.”
Responding to Pace’s wry tone, Lucas chuckled. “I imagine you have,” he muttered, glancing at the stern-faced woman hovering nearby. She had positioned herself rather protectively between Lucas and a couple of teenagers Lucas assumed to be Savannah’s twins. “Hello, Ernestine.”
His widowed aunt-by-marriage nodded stiffly. “Lucas. What brings you back to Honoria? We noticed you didn’t make it back for your father’s funeral last spring.”
Savannah rolled her eyes. “Mother...”
Ernestine exhaled impatiently. “All right, I won’t say anything more. I just can’t help wondering what he’s after, showing up now after all these years.”