He felt better, then. And when she sent him another hopeful look, he granted her a careful smile.
Yeah, he was nervous about suggesting it to her. What if she said no?
Well. Then he would have learned something, wouldn't he? So what if it was something he didn't want to know?
If she was planning on dumping him, he needed to know.
He brought it up later, when they were alone. After they'd made up, more or less. After he'd taken off all her clothes and kissed every inch of her and pushed her down on the pillows and buried himself inside her. After she cried out and clung to him and they went over the moon together.
She lay tucked up next to him, her head cradled on his shoulder and her golden hair spilling across his arm when he said, real casually, "I've been thinking that we ought to make some plans for the babies' room...."
She didn't pull away, or stiffen up. She cuddled even closer and she tipped her head up to look at him. "What kind of plans?" She had a soft smile on her mouth and a look of interest in her eyes.
He stroked her hair. "Well, I was thinking we could move the master suite upstairs. You know the bedroom at the back, the one that used to be my mother's, with the sitting room attached?"
"The sitting room? You mean the big room with all the windows where she used to do her painting?"
"That's right, my mother's studio."
"Yeah, I'm with you." Molly's voice was eager.
He knew then that he had her, that she already liked where he was going. His confidence returned in a sweet, hot rush. "Well, you know how that bedroom at the back has the bathroom attached—and when you go through the bathroom..."
"There's that front bedroom on the other side." She canted up on an elbow—and then bent her head to plant a quick, hard kiss on his mouth. "Oh, Tate. It's a great idea. We'll have that nice bedroom and the big, bright sitting room. And the babies will be right nearby..."
He took a lock of her hair and coiled it around his index finger. "You like it?"
"I love it. I think we should start fixing it up right away."
Thursday, Molly had her ultrasound. Tate went with her. He saw his son and his daughter—faint, floating gray images on the monitor above the padded table where Molly lay. His daughter—or at least, the one the technician said was his daughter—appeared to be sucking her thumb.
"Cute, huh?" said the technician. He was moving a wandlike device through the clear jelly he'd spread on Molly's rounded belly.
Tate nodded, his throat clutching up and his heart pounding fast.
Molly laughed. "You sure? A boy and a girl? How can you tell?"
The technician pointed out what was apparently the crucial evidence. Molly nodded. "Ah..."
Tate only stared. In the strange, black and white pulsing space on the monitor, things weren't all that clear.
Not that it really mattered. As he'd become more accustomed to the idea of being a father, he'd cared less and less whether their child was a boy or girl. And now that there were two children, well...
Twin sons. Twin daughters. One of each.
It had somehow become fine with him, whichever they were. Just let them be healthy, he thought. Healthy and strong. And Tate would be satisfied.
Saturday, Molly woke early with a feeling of anticipation. A skinny shaft of bright Texas sun found its way in at the split in the curtains. It was going to be a hot one, according to yesterday's weather report.
102...in the shade.
Not that it mattered how hot it was going to be out there. It was cool in the ranch house and Molly was planning on going nowhere that day. Yesterday, she'd managed to reschedule all her appointments. She had today to herself. And Sunday and Monday were her usual days off. She might check in at the salon Monday, just to see how things were going and pick up the deposit to take to the bank, but essentially, she would have a three-day weekend to get going on the rooms upstairs.
She smiled at the sleeping man beside her. A dark lock of shiny hair had fallen half-across his forehead. Molly resisted the urge to smooth it back.
He looked so peaceful and sweet when he was sleeping. She didn't want to disturb him. She just wanted to lie there for a moment and enjoy the sight of him with his mouth all soft and his eyelashes so long and spiky against his tanned cheeks.
They were doing real well, she thought. Day-by-day she was growing more and more certain that they had a chance together—and a pretty good one, too.
Soon, she was going to tell him that she would be proud to be his wife. Heck. Maybe she should have said yes the other day, in his study, when she broke the news to him about the twins.
But it was so strange. Every time he asked her, she would look at him and her chest would feel tight. She would think how much she wanted him, how she couldn't picture her life anymore without him in it.
And still, at that moment, the moment when he asked her, she just couldn't do it—couldn't open her mouth and say the word "yes."
She wanted him—wanted to be with him. But at the same time there was a painful and powerful conflicting feeling that something was missing.
That something just wasn't right.
She'd tried more than once to explain it to him. But what was there to explain, really?
It was nothing concrete. She had no real reason to keep telling him no.
And he was getting pretty put out about it. Each time he asked and she turned him down, it took him a little bit longer to forgive her.
And really, could she blame him?
She was carrying his babies. He treated her right, and they had a great life together.
What more was there for her to want before she could say yes?
Molly didn't rightly know.
She wondered sometimes if there was something really wrong with her. Maybe all those years of Granny's man-bashing, maybe the fact that her own dad had run off without even telling her mom his name. Maybe the bad treatment Dixie later received at the hands of too many mean men...
Maybe all that had gotten to her, to Molly. Maybe it had shaped her somehow, messed her up in a permanent way. Maybe she was never going to get past her upbringing to become the kind of woman who could hook up long-term with a man.
Times like this, when she looked at Tate sleeping beside her and she realized deep in her heart that he was all she wanted in the world—he, and their babies. Times like this, she couldn't help wondering what the heck was the matter with her.
She couldn't resist. She reached out and pushed that fallen lock of hair back from his forehead.
His eyes opened and gave her a slow, lazy kind of smile. "C'mere." He hooked his big arm around her and gathered her close.
Soon, she thought, as she turned and cuddled against him, spoon-fashion. Soon, I will manage to tell him yes...
After breakfast, Tate had to head into town for meetings with two of his partners—Davey Luster at the hardware store and Morley Pribble at the Gas 'n Go. Molly commandeered Miranda and Jesse and they went to work upstairs.
The first order of business was to clear out Penelope's studio. Tate had said Molly could put everything in a storage room off the old barn behind the back gardens until they had a chance to go through it and decide what to keep. So she and Miranda packed boxes, and Jesse carted it all down the stairs and out to the barn.
It was kind of sad, really, putting away all the stuff that Penelope would never use again, including a few unfinished paintings—of the view out the window on the garden in back; of Tucker, taken from an old childhood photograph clipped to the edge of the canvas; of a scary-looking fellow with wolflike silver-gray eyes.
It was not only that Penelope was gone from this life, but also the very badness of the paintings that made the job of packing away her studio more than a little bit depressing. Molly was no expert on fine art, but even she could see that Penelope Tate Bravo had possessed almost no artistic talent. Maybe Penelope should have tried those kinds of paintings with just splashes of color all over the place and not
hing recognizable, nothing from the real world. If she had, it would have been harder for your average, everyday person to figure out how terrible her paintings were.
But instead, Penelope had painted people and places that were supposed to look like real life. So the bench in the back garden was flat-looking, like nothing anyone could ever sit on, and Tucker came out with a head shaped like a pinto bean. And that strange, evil-looking guy with the silver eyes—well, nobody had eyes like that, now did they?
And Penelope had kept at it all her life. Now, why, Molly wondered, did that seem so sad? After all, people did have hobbies, didn't they? There was no law that said you had to be good at something you did for pleasure—was there?
Maybe it was just all the stories Molly had heard. About poor, beaten-down Penelope, dominated for most of her life by her man's man of a father, Ol' Tuck, only escaping him just long enough to get pregnant by a stranger—twice. Ol' Tuck, folks said, had as good as taken her boys from her. He'd brought them up the way he though they should be raised. The only thing she'd really had was her painting— and she wasn't any good at that.
By noon, when they broke for lunch, Molly had the studio pretty much handled. With the clutter of easels and canvases and all the paint supplies cleared out, the beauty of the big, sunny room came all the clearer. The parquet floor, paint-spattered and scratched, needed stripping and waxing. And the walls cried out for fresh paint—a leaf-green or a honey tan, she was thinking, with the woodwork all in fresh, clean white. She'd see to all that during the week. And she would get Tate out with her next weekend to choose some furniture. They could drive into Abilene, make a day of it. And before that, she would check in the storage areas around the property to see if anything they already had would look good up here.
Tate came home and joined her for lunch in the breakfast room. She brought him up to speed on her progress upstairs, and he told her about how Ray and Davey Luster were getting along.
"Davey's kind of fussy," Tate said. "And Ray takes things slow and easy. I swear, it's beginning to seem like Ray is settling Davey down—and Davey's teaching Ray to be responsible."
She looked across the table at him and thought again about saying yes, about just popping out with it, right there, over taco salads and lemonade.
Tate. We really are working out just fine together. I would be so pleased and happy if we could get married right away....
But the minutes ticked past and they ate the salad from their taco shells and drank their lemonade and somehow, by the time he got up to head on over to the Cottonwood Room at the country club for a few games of pool with a couple of his rich friends, she still hadn't said the magic words.
He bent over her chair and she tipped her head back and they kissed, a sweet, long kiss that curled her toes and made her heart beat faster. When he pulled away, he asked, "You sure you don't need my help upstairs?" His big hand rested on her shoulder.
She gave that hand a fond pat. "Go on, meet your friends."
"How about in a few hours, I come back and get you? You can drive out to the airfield with me and we can—"
She shook her head before he could go any further.
"No way. I'm not getting near that airfield any time soon. You know the minute I do, Granny'll start in on me to go flying with her."
He squeezed her shoulder. "Truth is, I was thinking of trying to get you up in the air myself."
"Later for that."
He chuckled. "When's later?"
"Not while I'm pregnant, I can promise you that much—but you go ahead. And maybe tomorrow, after church, you can help me out some upstairs."
He bent close for one more kiss—a quick one, that time—and then he was gone. She lingered alone at the table for a few minutes, sipping her lemonade, wondering again why she never could manage to get the important words out.
Upstairs, Molly started on Penelope's bedroom. She was clearing out the big mahogany bureau, putting Penelope's socks and sweaters and lingerie into boxes, when Miranda and Jesse appeared in the doorway to the hall. She sent them back to their regular duties. Tomorrow, after she'd filled a bunch of boxes, the housekeeper and her husband could start carrying things downstairs.
Once the bureau was empty, she tackled the closet, which smelled faintly of paint thinner and Chanel No. 5. Molly folded up and boxed the dresses and skirts and blouses and three racks of expensive shoes—some, judging by the style of them, over twenty years old.
Once she got the clothes and the shoes out, she had only the stacks of boxes on the upper shelves to deal with. There were a lot of those, of varying sizes. Some contained purses and some, more shoes. Some held books. A couple were filled with photographs. Molly took a half hour or so to glance through those, smiling at the occasional pictures of Tate and Tucker as they were growing up, studying the stern face and tall, broad-shouldered figure of Tucker Tate IV and the delicate form of Tate's grandmother.
Finally she put the boxes of pictures aside. She could spend forever going through them. But if she did that right now, she wouldn't achieve her goal of getting the bedroom packed up by dinnertime.
She'd reached the end of the shelf on one side, and was taking down the last box there when the floor beneath her feet gave an odd, rubbing kind of squeak. If she hadn't had that secret compartment in her bedroom closet at home, she probably wouldn't have given the faint squeaky noise a second thought.
But she did have a hidey-hole at home. She knew that if you stood on it just right you'd get a sound like the one she'd just heard.
Molly left that final box on the end of the shelf and knelt to have a look. The overhead light wasn't all that bright, and her body cast a shadow, but since she knew right where to look, she quickly found the secret compartment by feel. The hooked-together section of boards pried up easily.
Underneath, she could see...a book. Hardbound, dark green, it looked like, with a gold border in a pattern of leaves and flowers. The gold leaf shone dully when it caught the dim overhead light. Beneath the book was a fat manila envelope.
She started to reach for the book, but thought better of that. A dark, undisturbed hole in the floor was a prime hiding place for fiddleback spiders and who knew what other kinds of biting, dangerous critters.
She levered to her heels and then rose to her feet and went out into the bedroom to get the flashlight she'd left on the bureau. Back on her knees in the closet, she shone the light into the shadowed space.
No spiders or other creepy creatures that she could see. Since the book was on top, she reached in and snatched it out. She blew the dust off the gold-trimmed cover and opened it.
The first page was blank, except for the words Penelope Tate Bravo and a date—almost three years ago—written in a cramped, back-slanted hand. Some kind of journal, then?
Molly began flipping through the gold-leafed pages. They were all filled with writing in that same tortured hand.
Tate's mother's journal...
Oh, my, my. This was just too exciting!
Carefully, watching for anything that might bite, she reached into the secret space a second time and pulled out the thick manila envelope. A quick final scan with the flashlight and she was sure that was it. Nothing else in there.
Her goal to get the bedroom packed up in the next couple of hours forgotten, Molly took the book and the envelope out of the closet and set them on the bed. As she stood looking down at them, she wondered if she ought to wait to start nosing through them until Tate got home. After all, they were his mother's private papers.
And there must be secrets involved—or why would they have been stashed in a hidden compartment in the back of the closet?
She glanced at the clock by the bed. It would be at least a couple of hours before Tate returned....
Maybe just a tiny peek.
She opened the curtains wide to let in the afternoon sun, slipped off her shoes and climbed up on the bed. She took a minute to plump the pillows. Then, with an eager sigh of pure anticipation, she ope
ned the manila envelope and peered inside.
Newspaper clippings.
Carefully she reached in and scooped them out onto the floral-patterned bedspread. There were at least twenty of them, some dated as recently as three years ago—some over thirty years old.
They concerned a man named Blake Bravo and the wealthy Southern California family that had disowned him. They recorded Blake Bravo's death by fire—at just about the time that Tate's father would have died—and the kidnapping of the deceased Blake's baby nephew, Russell Bravo, the famous Bravo Baby, two years later.
There was a picture of Blake as a very young man, in a family portrait with his mother and father and brother, Jonas. Those silver eyes were unmistakable. They were the eyes in Penelope's unfinished painting. So strange, Molly thought. Despite being such a bad artist, she'd managed to get those eyes right.
And what could all this mean, but that the silver-eyed Blake Bravo had been Penelope's lost husband—and Tate's father?
In the more recent clippings, it came to light that Blake Bravo had actually lived another thirty-two years after he was supposed to have been dead and buried. As Molly already knew, the long-missing Bravo Baby was finally found living in Oklahoma City, a grown man who had no idea of his original identity. It had been Blake—dead for real, at last, of heart disease—who had kidnapped him all those years and years before.
Molly sat for a while, staring at the yellowed clippings spread out on the bed beside her.
It had just never occurred to her that those legendary Los Angeles Bravos could have a thing to do with Tate. She doubted anyone else in town had made the connection, either. If they had, you could be darn sure it would have spread through the Junction like a grassfire in a high wind.
And speaking of who knew, what about Tate? Was it possible that he knew who his father really was?
Uh-uh. Unlikely. From the few brief talks they'd had on the subject, Molly was pretty certain that Tate really believed his father had died all those years ago, before Tate was even born. Tate surely knew his father's first name—though, now she thought about it, he'd never mentioned it to her. But apparently, even if he knew that his father had been a man named Blake Bravo, he'd never connected him up with the notorious kidnapper of the Bravo Baby.
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