by Helen Conrad
She licked her lips. “Because I’m looking for my father and he thought maybe I would be able to help him look for his.”
He was searching her face, the frown fading. Instead, there was a look of apprehension taking its place. “What did the birth certificate say?” he asked quietly.
She hesitated. “Nothing. Just that Millie was his mother and his father was unknown.”
His relief was palpable. “Well, that’s not a lot to go on.”
“No.” She looked at him levelly. “I think he deserves to know the truth, personally.”
He glanced at her and then away. “It’s none of your business,” he said for the second time that day.
She stood up from her chair. “You said that before, and I still don’t buy it,” she snapped. “All you ever do it push me away. And then you give out hints of more mysteries to come. For instance…” She glared at him. “What was that sheriff talking about? What does he think you’re involved in?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? None of my business?”
He turned away. “Nothing, Carly. You wouldn’t understand.”
She shook her head, trembling with anger now. “There are too many secrets hovering around this place. You know something about my father, and so does your mother. You and Millie and your mother probably all know who Trevor’s father is. What makes you think the people most involved—Trevor and I—should be protected from the knowledge? What gives you three the right to keep things from us?”
He touched her, his hand on her shoulder, his finger flexing gently. “Carly,” he said softly. “I really don’t know as much as you think I do. And these aren’t my secrets. I... I don’t have any right...”
“Joe.” She put her hands to his chest, her fingers curling around the lapels of his crisp cotton shirt, her face turned up to his and suddenly a tenderness for him bubbled up in her, making her weak. “Trevor thinks you’re his father.”
The shock of her words went across his face in waves. “What?” he said hoarsely, wincing. “Oh my God. When... what did he say... ?”
“Joe.” Her hand flattened against his chest, right over his heart. She searched his eyes as though she could find the truth if she only looked hard enough. “Are you?”
His eyes closed for a moment, and he slowly shook his head. “No, Carly,” he said softly. “I’m not Trevor’s father. I told you. Millie and I have never been lovers.”
She nodded almost groggily, surprised at how relieved she was to finally have it spelled out for her in no uncertain terms. “Good,” she said. Her bones had turned to liquid. All energy had suddenly drained away.
He heard her reaction and looked down, reaching out with a finger to tilt her chin up so that he could look into her eyes. She stared up, fascinated. His eyes were so dark, and yet she thought she could see clouds of smoke swirling in them. Something opened, like a corridor into the clouds, and she watched as it seemed to deepen and stretch farther and farther into nothingness. She couldn’t look away.
“Carly?”
He was going to kiss her again. She felt as though she were floating, as though her arms and legs had lost all ability to move. This time his mouth was hard and hungry, and she gasped at the white-hot desire she felt in the rasping urgency of his tongue against hers, against her lips, against her vulnerability.
He pulled back and swore softly, repeatedly, before he pushed her away and said in a low, harsh voice, “Go to bed, Carly. Go. Go quickly.”
She stared up at him, stunned and not sure what to do.
He reached out and took her shoulders in his hands, turning her and steering her toward the doorway. “Go,” he said again. “Before it’s too late.”
She went, though everything in her screamed out to stay. She hurried up the stairs and down the hall to her bedroom and flung herself onto her bed. It took a long time to still the pounding of her heart. Why did Joe have such incredible control over her emotions? She’d never been swept along this way before, like a leaf in a swirling rush of a river. The only thing she knew for certain was this—she didn’t hate it.
When her mind finally cleared, she pushed Joe into the background. Thinking about him only made her feel confused and guilty. She needed to put Trevor’s visit into perspective. One by one in her mind she went over the things he had shown her. The one thing that stuck was the picture of her family. What on earth was that doing with Millie’s private papers?
She didn’t even consider confronting her about it. She hadn’t had a straight answer from that source yet. She would have to go to the newspaper and look at their old files. That way she could find out what article went with the picture. But would that tell her why Millie had kept it? Maybe not. Still, it was bound to give her something more than she had at this point. She would get to the newspaper office as quickly as possible.
She groaned as she realized she wouldn’t be able to do that until Monday, and here it was, only Friday night.
A whole weekend to wait. Carly sighed and looked at the ceiling. A whole weekend with nothing to do but think about Mark and Joe and why she only got more and more baffled by the situation as time went by.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE CARLY AND TREVOR PLOT
“Do you have to wait a long time before you get married?”
Joe looked up, a little startled, from his newspaper. Beth was playing with her Barbie dolls on the floor at his feet. She had Barbie and Ken in fancy dress, he noted with relief. It must be those two she was planning nuptials for this morning.
“That depends, sugar,” he said, smiling down at her. “How long has your Barbie known your Ken?”
Beth’s brow furrowed as she thought about it. “I got Ken on my sixth birthday. So she’s known him for over a year.”
“Great. That’s plenty of time. He can go ahead and ask her any time now.”
He turned back to his paper, but Beth wasn’t satisfied. She reclaimed his attention with a hand on his knee.
“You have to wait a year?” she asked, her face stricken.
He frowned as he looked back at her. “No,” he answered a little impatiently. “Not necessarily.”
Her face cleared. “If it’s true love,” she said, completely confident now that she understood, “then you can ask any time. Even after one week. Right?”
She won him over again. He couldn’t hold back his smile. He tossed her curls with a quick move of his hand, then touched her cheek. “That’s right, sugar. True love makes anything possible.”
She nodded, her lower lip caught by her upper teeth as she thought about it. “Is it true love with you and Carly?” she went on as though it were the most natural question in the world. “She’s been here for more than one week.”
Joe’s eyes widened and he stared at her. “What?” he choked out.
“How long do you have to wait?” She gazed at him serenely, waiting for his answer.
Joe opened his mouth but not a thing came out. What could he say to her? Where had she picked up this outlandish idea?
“Uh... Beth, honey, Carly and I... We’re not...” The words just wouldn’t come. He stared at her dumbly, and from the hallway he heard Carly’s voice.
“Beth! Garfield’s on in the den! Better hurry!”
Beth’s mind dropped the wedding issue in anticipation of her favorite morning cartoon.
“Garfield’s on. Gotta go.” Leaving Ken and Barbie in a heap on the floor, she jumped to her feet and ran from the room.
Joe sat very still, not sure what had hit him. Beth... did she think he was in love with Carly? Had he done something to give her that idea? Or did she just want Carly to stay so badly that she thought she’d found a way to make it happen?
And then he didn’t have any more time to think it over, because Carly was coming in through the doorway.
“Oh, hi, I’ve been looking for you.” She thrust a stack of letters into his lap. “What are these? I just found them stuffed behind the bread box.”
He looked at her first, admiring the way her jeans hugged her hips and the nice curve of her breasts where the plaid shirt had been tucked into the belt of her pants. She wasn’t as skinny as she had been at first, he realized suddenly. She was softening, rounding out. And his hands itched to explore her new dimensions. But he wasn’t going to do that, he reminded himself. He’d been letting control slip a little lately, and that had to stop. She was only here for another few days at the most, he was sure. Surely she had come to some conclusion about this Mark person by now. One way or another, she must be starting plans for heading home.
“Look at them,” she was insisting, and he tore his attention away from the way she filled her clothes and took a look at the papers she’d dumped in his lap.
Picking them up in a lump, he looked at them with distaste. He recognized them right away. Maybe he should have aimed them at the trash instead of holding on to them all this time. “They’re nothing. Just notes the teachers send home periodically.”
Carly frowned, looking from the papers to his eyes and back again. She couldn’t believe what he was saying, that he could be so uncaring. “But... there seem to be some real problems here. Have you been in to talk to the teachers at all?”
He shrugged, on the verge of resenting her for bringing it up. “No. I figure they should be able to handle things at school, and I’ll handle them at home. Share the burden, so to speak.” He folded the letters in two and glanced around the room for a wastebasket.
Carly frowned, clearly upset by what she’d read. “I can’t understand how you can be so cavalier about this.” Before he had a chance to get rid of them, she’d snatched them back. “No, listen, Beth’s teacher seems to be really worried about the extent of her daydreaming. And look at what this teacher says about Jeremy. She says he’s sullen and unresponsive and doesn’t interact with the other children.” She looked up at Joe with a puzzled expression. “That isn’t how he was last night. He was beaming, full of life and laughter.”
Joe shrugged as though he were wrestling with an uncomfortable shirt rather than an uncomfortable idea. “Yeah, but he’s a quiet, solemn sort of kid. That’s just the way he is. So the teachers are always writing about it, as though he could change if he wanted to.” He made a gesture of dismissal. “There’s nothing wrong with him. He’s doing okay.”
Carly shook her head slowly. “I don’t think so, Joe,” she said softly. “I don’t think you’re right at all.”
Now his resentment was bubbling up in his throat and he had to hold back his anger. Who did she think she was? She was only here for a few weeks. Tomorrow she would be gone. What did she want to do, stir up a hornets’ nest and then take off to leave him to try to put things back together again? They were getting along fine. They didn’t need her to tell them how to live their lives.
“Stay out of it, Carly,” he said evenly. “Everything’s all right.”
She was still shaking her head. Why couldn’t he understand how important this was? Children were only young once, and for a very short time. You couldn’t just let things slide and hope for the best. If things went bad, there was sometimes no time to make them right again. She didn’t know how or why she knew this. But she knew it, just the same, and that fact surprised her, pleased her. Maybe she had some natural mothering instincts after all.
“I think something’s wrong,” she insisted. She hesitated, then plunged on. “I know Ellen probably used to do these things and you’re not used to handling them. But believe me, Joe, you’ve got to take over.” She waved the letters. “Someone has to go in and talk to his teachers.”
Anger cut through him like the flash of a blade. This damned woman—she came in here, getting the kids to love her, making them see what they’d been missing, throwing his life into a tailspin—why the hell had he ever let her in? He’d been crazy to do it. If he had any guts at all, he’d kick her out.
“Joe, someone has got to talk to them.”
He jerked himself to his feet and glared at her. “Well then, why don’t you go on in and do it? I don’t have the time.”
He was angry. She licked her lips and tried to think what she could do to quell it. She shouldn’t have mentioned Ellen. She knew that. He wasn’t over her death. That much was obvious. And how could he be? Her influence was everywhere, in everything in the house. He must mourn her every day. She wished she could think of a way to comfort him, to reach out to him.
She had to keep this in mind, especially when he kissed her and made her feel as though she couldn’t live without his mouth caressing hers. He was just looking for the closeness he had lost when his wife died. He was hungering for the touch of a woman, and it had a lot more to do with missing Ellen than it did with liking Carly. She would forget things like that at her own peril.
“Well, I could go if you want me to,” she offered tentatively.
He muttered something she couldn’t understand and swung around. Two long strides brought him to the doorway.
“Where are you going?” she cried.
He turned back and looked her up and down with unfriendly eyes. “I’m going over to see Millie,” he said, his anger fraying the edges of his words. “There are more problems around here than scare notes from teachers. And I think she has a right to know about this little conspiracy you and Trevor have cooked up behind her back.”
“Joe-“
But she might as well have saved her breath. He was out the door and out of the house in no time.
She stood very still, listening to the screen door slam. She’d thought they were talking about Jeremy and Beth. How did Millie get into the picture all of a sudden?
Breakfast had been surprisingly peaceful, considering what had happened the night before. There was undeniable tension between the two of them whenever their eyes met, but they’d managed to stay calm and to act in front of the children as though nothing had happened.
Sunny’s mother had come to pick her up after breakfast and she’d stayed for a long time, talking about Sunny and Beth and life out here in the country. It had been fun talking with someone who had no ties to the questions she carried with her all the time now. She’d been able to relax and enjoy a normal conversation. She’d almost been able to forget all the rest.
But now it was back in a rush of confused emotions. What was Joe going to tell Millie? To beware of Carly? To come on over and confront her? To get Trevor out of town and away from her influence? There was no telling. She sighed, shoulders sagging. In the meantime, she was just going to have to go on as though nothing were happening.
There was certainly plenty to do. She spent some time going through the china cabinet, polishing silver and admiring the lovely pieces. At first she’d thought they must be Ellen’s, but the few that were inscribed all had the Carrington name or the name Spangler, which she assumed must have been Phyllis’s maiden name. Some dated from the nineteenth century. More history to be delved into.
The intercom buzzed three times while she was working. This was something new. Phyllis was beginning to communicate. Suddenly, she needed things from downstairs, like orange juice or the television schedule or someone to come up and catch a spider.
“It’s a new campaign,” Carly muttered to herself after the spider incident. “She’s bound and determined to drive me away, or drive me crazy, whichever comes first.”
She fixed lunch for the kids, vaguely wondering what Joe could possibly be talking about so long with Millie, and then she gathered up some clothes that the cleaner had delivered, and took them up to Joe’s room. They were shirts and a suit, and she hung them up. Out of the corner of her eye she could see women’s clothing still hanging in the back of the closet.
Ellen’s. It had to be. She turned and looked, and then curiosity got the best of her, and she reached in and pulled out a handful of crowded hangers.
Ellen certainly had good taste in clothes. Silk pant-suits, a designer-label rayon dress, cashmere sweaters in bags, fine wool slacks—everything she touched looke
d expensive and well made, but something seemed slightly out of whack. Somehow this gave the appearance of the wardrobe of a big-city professional woman rather than a country mother. What had Ellen been like?
Joe had loved her. And that was just about all she knew. It was strange that no one talked about her. At first she had attributed it to being careful of Joe’s feelings, but now she wasn’t so sure. You would think Millie would have a thing or two to say about her, at least when Joe was out of earshot. But she really hadn’t commented, any more than Phyllis or the children had.
The children. Surely they missed their mother. Losing her had been traumatic. But they never said a word about her. Now that she thought about it, their silence on the subject seemed rather strange.
Maybe looking at the wardrobe of the woman would give her a clue or two. She laid the beautiful clothes out on the bed and went into the closet for more.
And found more of the same—three-piece suits and hostess gowns and cocktail dresses. Where did she find the opportunities to wear these things here in the valley? And what did she wear when she went to the market or took the children out to watch their father work in the orchards?
Carly draped the rest of the collection over the bed and looked at it. What an astonishing assortment of sophisticated clothes. She wished she knew what Ellen had looked like. Joe had to have a picture somewhere.
She looked around the room, tempted to start going through drawers. But that wouldn’t be right. Besides, if he walked in, she would look like a thief.
She turned back to the clothes. They were beautiful and expensive and sophisticated. But that didn’t really tell her much. Ellen might have been the same—or a complete opposite who just had a thing for lovely clothes that she stuffed into her closet and never wore. She really knew no more about the woman than she had before she’d started this. Sighing, she began to put the clothes back.
She was half finished when she saw her favorite again—the black-silk pantsuit with a huge parrot hand-painted up the left side. Smiling, she slipped it from its hanger and walked over to the full-length mirror, pressing it to her and posing.