The blood rushed from her head. Swarms of dots filled her vision. “What?”
Jordan’s brows bunched. “Didn’t your Mother Superior tell you?”
She gripped the table and tried to focus on him. “Tell me what?”
His mother smiled. “Your mother, the town whore, committed suicide.”
Margaret Mary saw only blackness before she hit the floor.
* * * *
Her eyelids fluttered, thank God. Hopefully that meant she hadn’t hurt her head too badly when she fell. He chafed her hands, ice cold from shock, between his. Kneeling beside where she lay on the living room sofa, he looked up as Mandy brought in a glass of water. “Thanks.”
“Poor thing,” Mandy said in a low voice. “She can’t help what her mom was. Your mother ought to know that.”
“Miss Jacobsen wasn’t the town whore, Mandy. She was Brendan Tipton’s mistress. There’s a fine difference.” He looked up. “Do you know what’s going on around here? Mother’s been acting strangely.”
“Your parents hadn’t been happy for a long time, not since I been with ‘em, but I never thought after all these years your dad would ask for a divorce. Guess your mother didn’t either. That was a shock, and then the heart attack came on top of everything.”
“I thought they were happy. Shows how much I knew.” Catherine’s eyes opened slowly. “Hi. Are you all right?”
“You knew?”
“Of course. I thought you did, too. There didn’t seem to be any good reason to bring it up.”
“But that means she died without grace.”
“You don’t know that, now,” Mandy said soothingly. “The good Lord knows what’s in our hearts even before we do, and He listens.”
“I hope and pray He saw the right message in my mother’s heart.”
Jordan sat back on his heels. “I’m so sorry, Catherine. My mother had no right to speak to you like that.”
He glanced at Mandy to see if she noticed that he’d accidentally used Catherine’s actual name, but she showed no reaction. He’d have to watch it. Making that mistake in front of most people would give them away.
“Your mother is grieving. She lashed out, but she didn’t mean to hurt me. She just wants to be free of her own pain.”
“I believe you’re right,” Mandy said. “And it’s good of you to think that way.”
“Still, I’m getting you out of here.” Jordan stood, determined to get Catherine home as soon as possible.
“Mandy, I’m going to be staying with a friend for the next couple of weeks.” But what the hell would he do with Mark? Considering his mother’s attitude, he could hardly leave his friend there at the house, but neither would he give up his nights with Catherine.
Mandy considered Catherine for a moment and then looked up at him. “You can come by each morning and evening and pick up meals. You’ll have enough to worry about without dealing with food, too.”
He hugged her. “Thanks, Mandy.”
“I’ve known you since you were a little boy, Jordan. You take care, you hear?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She heaved a sigh. “You get this lady home now. Come by this evening. I’ll have some food put together.”
“Thank you for a delicious dinner,” Catherine said. After her shock, she still exuded a sense of calmness that he lacked at the moment. Where did she develop that well of peace from which to draw?
“You’re welcome, darlin’. I’m glad to meet you.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “If I thought no one else had, I would have told you.”
“Where is she buried? I should have asked Father Samuels before now. I should have asked to visit her grave.”
“She’s laid in a corner of Brendan Tipton’s property. It overlooks the ocean, I understand.”
“Did you attend the ceremony?” Her hand flew to her mouth. “Was there a ceremony? I’m sure Father Samuels didn’t preside.”
“I believe a few people from town attended.”
“I attended.” Mandy shot a look to the stairs. “Your mama don’t know,” she said to Jordan. “But Miss Jacobsen helped me out once, and I never forgot it. She was a kind lady who ended up in a bad situation.”
“I wasn’t home from Korea yet. Would you like me to ask Tipton if we can go up there?”
“No. Her body is there but not her soul.” She shivered, and he feared she would have a relapse. “I don’t want to ask Mr. Tipton for anything.”
“Good,” Mandy added. “She lays in a beautiful spot, in view of the ocean. That damn Tipton did her right in death at least.”
“I think we’ll be on our way, Mandy.”
“Yes, go before your mama comes back down. And take care, now.”
“We will.” Jordan helped Catherine up. “How do you feel?” he asked her.
“Fine. I’m fine, Jordan.” But she gripped his hand as though he was her only lifeline.”
He nodded. “Let’s get you home.”
As he backed down the drive, he looked up to the window of his parents’ bedroom. He saw a brief glimpse of his mother, and then the curtain fell back into place.
“Please don’t leave me home alone today, Jordan. I don’t think I could stand to be in that house all day with only my thoughts keeping me company.”
“I’d hoped you’d come to Portland with me. Remember I told you about my friend Mark? He’s coming in today on the train.”
“I’d like to go with you. Thank you.”
“And I think you should wear one of your mother’s dresses for the trip. Will you consider it?”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t keep my eyes off you, and because I want to hold your hand even now. Do you want to go all day and not touch?”
“No.” She didn’t sound too totally convinced.
“I don’t want to push you into anything, but you know how I feel.”
“I feel the same.” She stared out the windshield and frowned. “What about Mark? What will you tell him about me?”
“I’m not sure. We will talk with him when we see him.” He cast a quick glance her way. “I don’t want to give up our time together.”
“I don’t either.”
She faced him, and he saw shadows in her eyes. Had he put them there? Him with his ideas of “taking her home to meet mother”? What a farce that had been. What had he hoped to prove, that life with the Parnells would be better than life in her convent? If so, he’d failed.
She bit her bottom lip. “Jordan, you know I have to go back, don’t you?”
His heart sunk. “Do you?”
“Oh, my love, you know I do. It’s my life, my vocation. This is a moment in time that has changed my life, but I have made a commitment to God and my community.”
“What have you committed to me, Catherine?” He felt like a selfish SOB for sounding so needy, but God damn it, he loved her.
“My heart. My body. Is that enough?”
“I guess it has to be.” He knew that leaving the convent would have been a giant step for her. He also knew he would do everything in his power to convince her to take that step.
Chapter Twenty
They stood on the platform looking like every other couple, a handsome man holding the hand of a plain, tall woman. Catherine—she could only be Catherine in the peach-colored dress and matching cardigan, for Margaret Mary would surely sink into the Earth from shame—couldn’t get used to having her legs exposed from the knees down or feeling the breeze on her neck. Her hair was badly cut—even someone as inexperienced at judging hair as she could tell that—but the wave and curl stopped it from looking as badly as it might. Standing ramrod straight and stiff as the pillar holding the roof over their heads, she thought people might pity someone as good-looking and confident as Jordan being with someone like her, but no one seemed to pay them any mind at all.
Gradually, the crowd thinned. Singles, couples, and groups departed in varying stages of gaiety. Soldiers in uniform heft
ed duffel bags and dispersed, all of them studied and dismissed by Jordan, looking for his friend.
Finally, when no one else exited the train for several minutes, he frowned. “I wonder if something happened.” With a tug to her hand, he nudged her toward him. “Will you be all right by yourself for a few minutes? I’ll check at the information desk and see if he left a message.”
She squeezed his hand. He had tried so hard to make up for his mother’s disclosure, showing his concern and worry with every action and word. “I’ll be fine. Go and see if you can find out what happened.”
He kissed her forehead and set out down the platform and into the station.
Alone, Catherine folded her hands at her waist in her familiar way, feeling for her absent rosary beads. Had she arrived at the Ballymeade rail station less than a week ago? How much had changed. Never would she have imagined a short week ago, riding the train with Sisters Celeste and Brigitte, that she also rode toward a destiny completely unthought of. Jordan had brought equal amounts of bliss and confusion to her life.
Would she have remained in Ohio and let the local priest handle her mother’s estate had she any inkling of what she would learn about herself in Oregon? But even with that knowledge, in ways different than before but no less real, she felt an outsider, with no place in either world—the convent or with Jordan.
She glanced up the track, where cleaning crews had boarded, and saw a tall, thin man exit the train very slowly. He leaned heavily on a cane while trying to lift a bulging duffel bag with his right hand. He was not in uniform but had the bearing of a soldier when he stood and looked the length of the path he would travel. She saw the studied look of his gaze and felt the breath he inhaled as he squared his shoulders and set out, measuring each step as though determined to make it the entire way, no matter what. Without thinking, she stepped forward and walked to meet him.
His limp became more apparent the closer she came to him, as did something more horrible. His left ear was deformed. Horrific scars marred his left cheek and crossed over his eye. He didn’t meet her gaze as she approached. Here was a man who had lost his place in the world. She identified with him immediately.
“You’re Mark, aren’t you?” she said when they met.
“Yes.” He gazed at her a moment and then looked beyond her, down the track. “Are you with Jordan?”
She smiled. “He didn’t tell you he was bringing me, did he?”
He shifted his focus to her again and, for a second or two, studied her face. In that instant, his eyes—beautiful, expressive brown eyes—softened. “He said ‘we’ would be here to meet me. But he didn’t say the other half of ‘we’ was a beautiful woman.”
The heat of a blush stole across her cheeks. “Thank you,” she said, ducking her head in embarrassment.
“Mark!” Jordan hurried toward them. Catherine stepped back as the two men came together, Mark dropping the heavy bag and catching himself on his cane just as Jordan shook his hand excitedly and then hugged the man. Catherine—and, she saw, Mark—recognized his one swift glance as Jordan’s appraisal.
“How the hell are you?” he asked and picked up the duffel in such a casual way she might have thought he and Mark planned it. With his other hand he took hers, holding it so tightly she would have eased his grip if she hadn’t felt he needed to hold on for support. Seeing Mark scarred as he was must have been a shock.
“You’ve met Catherine, then,” Jordan continued without waiting for Mark’s reply, because his slow progress and scarred features showed all too clearly how he was doing.
“I didn’t actually catch the name, but one look at her and it was clear she had to be with you. All of the prettiest girls always gravitated to you.”
“The hell you say,” Jordan said, laughing. “This is Catherine Jacobsen. Catherine, meet Mark Collins, my best buddy since Parris Island and the best damned Marine ever.”
“After you.”
“I stand corrected. You’re with the two best damned Marines ever.”
She laughed. “I feel very safe.”
“You should,” Mark said. “How long have you two been together?”
“I first laid eyes on this gorgeous woman less than a week ago. But already she’s captured my heart.”
“I can see that,” Mark said at the same time she quietly said, “Jordan, really.”
“It’s true,” he affirmed.
They reached the station and entered the busy lobby. “You two wait by the door over there and I’ll bring the car around.” Jordan flashed her a reassuring smile and backtracked to a door behind them.
“You’ve really known him for years?” she asked Mark.
“Yeah. You’ve really known him less than a week?”
“It seems longer,” she said and then quickly covered her mouth in surprise when he laughed. “I didn’t mean it quite like that.”
“I understand, though. He can be overwhelming.”
She smiled and they walked on, her letting him set the pace to the door. “Are you in pain?”
“Some. I’ve been on the train for a day and a half and my leg has gone too long without being worked, but it will get better.”
“We have about two hours to Ballymeade. If you sit in back and put it on the seat, will that help?”
He pushed the door open with his right hand and held it for her.
“Thank you,” she murmured. She moved close to the curb, where he came up alongside.
“Are you and Jordan lovers?”
Startled, she looked up and then was startled again to find his intense gaze focused on her. “Why do you ask such a thing?”
“Because I more or less invited myself down here, and I don’t want to intrude.”
“I will let Jordan explain our relationship.”
He nodded and searched the street instead of her face. What a strange man. Inside she quaked at Mark’s straightforward question, but she gathered courage in that she didn’t withdraw or collapse under his direct gaze. She was growing.
* * * *
“Are you hungry?” Jordan turned the car south on State Route 99.
Mark, in the backseat as Catherine had suggested, took a shuddered breath, believing that the swelling in his foot and lower leg would be reduced within an hour with them elevated on the seat. The trip had been pure hell, but he’d had little choice intruding on Jordan’s privacy. “No, I’m good.”
“Well, then, I might as well bring this up now. Since we spoke yesterday, a lot has happened.”
Mark tensed with anticipation of bad news.
“Catherine is in town for only a short time, and things have moved pretty fast. At the same time, my mother has started acting strangely, to the point where I’ve moved partially to Catherine’s.”
“I don’t want to intrude.”
“No, no. There’s plenty of room at my mother’s. You’d only be sleeping there. You’d spend the rest of the time with Catherine and me at the cottage. I just hesitate to ask you to spend the nights at home without me to serve as a buffer. I’m not sure what crazy things my mother would say, and I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”
“If she doesn’t mind my being there, I’m sure it’ll be okay.” Any other time, Mark would have kidded Jordan about sleeping with the beautiful woman while he, Mark, stayed at home with “Mom.” But after the last many months, Mark had had enough more important things to worry about than who had the best-looking girl. That was something he no longer need worry about, anyway. Women virtually ran from him in terror once they saw the scars that marked him outside. They didn’t hang around long enough to see the ones inside.
“Jordan, I wonder if maybe Mark couldn’t stay at the cottage. There’s the sofa in the living room. I believe it even folds out.”
The men spoke simultaneously. Jordan said, “Are you sure?” as Mark said, “I don’t want to interfere.”
“I don’t doubt Jordan’s mother would welcome you,” she said, half turning in the front seat. “But I
’m also sure you and Jordan have a great deal to talk about. I’m just offering you a place with us if you want it.” She faced Jordan. “Or, Jordan, perhaps you should go home at night, too. That would give you both a more comfortable place to sleep and time to talk.”
“I’m not leaving you until and unless you kick me out.”
Jordan shared a moment’s telling glance with the woman. Something wasn’t quite right, but Mark had no way of knowing what. Nor, truth be told, did he give a flying fuck at that moment.
“We have time to think about it,” Jordan said. “So tell me what you’ve been doing.” He met Mark’s eyes in the rearview mirror.
Mark gave a tired chuckle. “If I said learning how to live again, would I sound melodramatic?”
“Hell yes, but I’m sure it’s true, too. When did you get out of the hospital?”
“Two weeks ago.”
Jordan’s brows rose in the mirror. “You’re shitting me.” Then he cast Catherine a sideways glance. “Sorry, sweetheart.”
So that’s how it is. Poor bastard has it bad.
For her part, she cupped his cheek and then sounded as though she was praying. Mark never imagined Jordan—on whom recruits had placed bets for the most number of women fucked on their first weekend leave after basic training—would end up with a Bible thumper.
“I went home for a week,” he said to Jordan, and then to Catherine he added, “Home is Minneapolis, ma’am.” He stopped a minute, trying to block the sight of his mom’s face from his mind when she first saw him. “But you know how it is. My mom was making too big a fuss, cooking my favorite meals every night and plumping pillows and all that shi…stuff. Too much for this Marine to handle.”
In fact, his mother couldn’t stop crying. The doctor had given her a sedative, so she’d divided her time between crying or sleeping his whole time home. His sister wouldn’t let her friends in the house, rushing out the door to intercept them on the porch instead. After a few days of that, he’d felt less welcome than a leper. That was when he thought of calling Jordan. He had no one else he thought would understand. When he announced he was leaving, he didn’t know who had been more relieved, his family or him.
Seducing Their Nun [Unlikely Bedfellows 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 13