MAN IN THE MIST

by Annette Broadrick

  She had died in his arms before the paramedics arrived.

  Greg had lived with his guilt ever since that night. He should never have drawn his weapon. Instead, he should have grabbed Jill and gotten the hell out of there, then called the police.

  Better yet, he should never have been a cop. If he'd been an accountant or a truck driver, he wouldn't have made an attempt to stop a robbery. He would have gotten his wife out and made sure she was safe.

  Instead, he'd gotten her killed.

  The counselors he'd been forced to see for months after her death kept telling him that it was just one of those senseless killings. That none of it had been his fault.

  Even Helen had asked him how long he was going to continue to blame himself for what had happened. Now it was Helen who wanted to know what had happened to him while he'd been in Scotland.

  Fiona had happened to him.

  Fiona, the sprite, who had taken in a stranger and cared for him when he was out of his head with fever. Fiona, who looked so fragile and yet had so much strength.

  Fiona, who, naively, was convinced she had seduced him the last night he was there.

  Fiona, who had stirred something inside of him that he'd thought was dead.

  Now he had two women haunting him, one who would never return, the other too far away and much too different ever to become a part of his life.

  Not that he would want her in his life. He never wanted to feel so vulnerable again. The pain and sense of loss was something he never again wanted to experience.

  So he had left without explaining any of his life to Fiona. He had no reason ever to return.

  When Greg finally fell asleep, he dreamed of Jill again. She came to him and held him, trying to comfort him. When he tried to explain, she shook her head and smiled. She looked happy. She said she wanted him to know that she had no regrets. She loved him. What she wanted for him was happiness. True happiness.

  "It's time to let go of me," she whispered. "I'm fine. You must go on without me."

  With a final kiss, she turned and walked away from him, growing smaller and smaller until she disappeared.

  * * *

  Chapter 12

  « ^ »

  Greg left the subway and strode the blocks necessary to reach the restaurant where he was to meet with Kelly MacLeod. He'd been back in New York for two weeks. Instead of settling into his comfortable and familiar routine, he'd found himself becoming more and more restless.

  Erotic dreams of Fiona had him waking each morning in a trembling state of arousal. He felt as though her presence had taken over his life. He found himself reaching for the phone at odd hours wanting to call her just to hear her voice.

  When Kelly MacLeod had returned his call yesterday, he was reminded of Fiona's lilting voice, even though Ms. MacLeod's voice had no hint of a Scottish accent.

  Now he was going to meet her in order to tell her the final piece of news that he had not put into his report.

  As soon as he walked into the restaurant, he saw her sitting near one of the windows. As the light hit her, he could immediately see the same heart-shaped face, the long slender neck and the slight build of the woman who had haunted his dreams.

  When Ms. MacLeod turned and looked at him, the differences between them were more apparent. His client's eyes were a deep blue, not sea-green. Her hair, although as silky as Fiona's, was a light blond without a hint of red.

  He pulled out a chair and sat down. "I hope I haven't kept you waiting," he said.

  She smiled, but her eyes betrayed a sadness that hadn't been there when he had first met her. Or maybe he hadn't noticed back then.

  "Would you like to look at the menu and order?" she asked. "I was early so I already know what I want."

  Once their orders were taken and their beverages brought to the table, he said, "I have something to tell you that wasn't in my report."

  "Oh? About Douglas and Moira?"

  "No. Unfortunately, I ran out of leads where they were concerned. The attorney gave me additional information that I believe you have the right to know."

  "Which is?"

  "You were one of three girls born that night … and I believe I know where one of your sisters lives."

  Kelly stared at him in disbelief. "Are you saying that I was one of triplets?"

  He nodded.

  "And we weren't kept together?"

  "According to the attorney, he and the doctor felt the only way to protect the three of you was to separate you."

  "Because of the relative my mother was running from," she said thoughtfully.

  "That's correct."

  "You say you know where one of them is? But not both?"

  "I kept my search limited to your parents. Just before I left Scotland, I discovered from a relative of the doctor who delivered you that he had adopted a girl who shares the same birthdate as you. I believe that his daughter, Fiona MacDonald, is your sister."

  "And you told her this?"

  He shook his head. "It wasn't my place to tell her. You are my client. Therefore, I am giving you the information to do with as you please."

  Kelly leaned back in her chair. "A sister," she said a little breathlessly. "I have sisters I never knew about." She closed her eyes. "My life is becoming stranger by the hour."

  Their meals were brought and they ate without discussing his news. Over coffee, Kelly said, "Tell me about Fiona MacDonald. Did you actually see her?"

  "Not only did I see her, I stayed at her home for almost a week. I arrived there sick and she nursed me back to health."

  Her lips twitched. "That sounds terribly romantic, you know," she said. He knew that she was teasing but he couldn't control his embarrassed reaction. When she saw him squirm, she said, "Ah, perhaps it was more romantic than I thought. Please tell me more."

  "Uh, not really. I understand I wasn't a very docile patient."

  Her eyes widened. "Imagine that," she said with a chuckle.

  Greg understood his client's need to find out more about Fiona, so he began to tell her about the cottage, about McTavish and Tiger, about Fiona. He must have gotten carried away because he seemed to talk forever before he finally ran down.

  She had listened carefully, her chin resting on her clasped hands, while he had described the area, the people and his stay there. She said nothing when he finished, which further embarrassed him. No doubt he'd given her much more information than she had either wanted or needed to hear.

  The waiter refilled their cups. Once he walked away, she said, "You're in love with her."

  He frowned. "Of course not. She was just a woman who—"

  She waved her hand, stopping him. "I'm very much aware that 'she was just a woman who.' You're a very observant man, Mr. Dumas, and you are meticulous in recalling all that you saw. That goes without saying. You wouldn't be as successful as you are without it. And you came highly recommended when I was looking for someone to handle this matter for me.

  "It isn't what you said. It's how you said it. Even the way you say her name. So don't deny it, Mr. Dumas. Whether you intended to keep it a secret or not, the fact is, you're in love with her. If it makes you feel better, your secret is safe with me." Her gamine grin reminded him so much of Fiona that he felt the pain of loss more sharply than usual.

  "Well, it doesn't matter," he finally said gruffly. "I just thought you would want to know something about her."

  "Oh, I do. And I've been thinking. I have some free time on my hands. I'd like to go to Scotland and meet my sister and perhaps the attorney, as well. And I now have a new assignment for you. I want you to find my other sister, as well as introduce me to the one you found."

  "You don't need me for that, Ms. MacLeod," he said hurriedly. "I'm sure that you can explain—"

  "But since you know her so much better," she said slyly, "it would make more sense for you to break the news to her that we're related before we actually meet, don't you think?"

  Greg was beyond thinking at the moment. How
had he managed to reveal such strong feelings for a person whom he had every intention of forgetting?

  "I'm willing to pay you anything you ask if you'll go with me to Scotland and handle this matter for me."

  He stared at her in dismay. She was absolutely serious. He could see that. He didn't really blame her. She'd been looking for birth family. Even though she hadn't found what she had expected, there was family there for her.

  "I won't take your money, Ms. MacLeod, but if you insist, I'll take you to Scotland and introduce you to Mr. McCloskey and Ms. MacDonald."

  "Ahh. It's Ms. MacDonald, is it? Well, whatever you choose to call her, I hope you will prepare her for the shock of finding that she has a sister."

  "There will be another shock, as well. She was told that she was adopted because she was the niece of Mrs. MacDonald. Discovering that they lied to her will be disturbing."

  "Really! Then that will give us something more in common, won't it?" She glanced at her watch. "I'll see about getting reservations for us, Mr. Dumas, and regardless of your chivalrous offer, I intend to pay you for your time and expenses." Kelly stood and adjusted the strap of her purse over her shoulder.

  "I'm glad you didn't put this bit of news into the report. Knowing you, you wouldn't have given me all the details that you've provided over lunch."

  He stopped himself from rolling his eyes. "I'm afraid you're reading too much into my verbal report, Ms. MacLeod."

  She smiled. "Am I? Well, we'll see, won't we?"

  * * *

  Greg let himself into the Santini home, already dreading to tell Helen that he would be returning to Scotland. On his way back to Queens he kept going over what Kelly had said to him. His thoughts didn't do much for his mood. By the time he walked into the house, he felt so frustrated and irritable that he wondered if he shouldn't have gone on home first.

  "It's me," he called out, heading toward the kitchen, the center of activity for the family.

  Helen was putting the finishing touches on the top crust of a cherry pie when he walked into the room. She looked at him in surprise. "Did my clock stop or are you early today?"

  He glanced at his watch. "I'm early," he said shortly, and helped himself to a cup of coffee. He sat on one of the chairs near a wall and tipped it back on two legs, staring at nothing.

  Helen slipped the pie into the oven, set the timer, poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down across the table from him. "Bad day?" she suggested.

  He dropped the chair and set the cup on the table. "Yeah. A bad day, a bad week, a bad month."

  "Is it something you want to talk about?" she asked with sympathy.

  He leaned his forearms on the table and stared down at the coffee. "Yeah, because you need to know."

  She folded her hands on the table and waited. She knew that sooner or later he'd find the words to express what he was feeling. He'd never been good at expressing himself, particularly when his emotions were involved. She hadn't seen him so edgy in a long while.

  He glanced at her, then away. "Have you ever heard this advice about listening to other people? If someone comes up to you and comments on your tail, you can ignore him because you know damn well you don't have a tail. If a second person comes along and makes some remark about your tail … you might wonder why people are commenting on something that doesn't exist. However, if a third person mentions it, you'd better turn around and look. There's a good chance you have a tail, whether you know it or not."

  Helen smiled. "Good advice, I would think. So did you just discover you have a tail?"

  He groaned and rubbed his hand over his face. "Worse. Much worse. I finally realized—after Minnie MacDonald, you and Kelly MacLeod pointed it out to me—that I'm in love with Fiona MacDonald." He picked up his cup and drained it.

  Helen smiled. "And that disturbs you?"

  "Hell, yes, it disturbs me! Why shouldn't it? How could I have been so unaware of my feelings for her, so convinced that the attraction wasn't anything that could become permanent even when I've been unable to get her out of mind?"

  "I take it that Kelly MacLeod asked about Fiona."

  He sighed. "Yeah. She asked me to tell her about Fiona. So I did. That's all. I just told her what I'd observed and learned about her. Kelly accused me of being in love … and she doesn't even know me! Have I been so obvious to everybody else and still didn't see it?"

  "I would say that pretty well sums it up."

  He played with the handle of his empty cup. "I still can't believe it. How could I let myself fall for somebody that lives on the other side of the Atlantic? The whole idea is ridiculous." The heat had gone out of his voice.

  "We don't always have control over who we fall in love with, you know. If we did, I would never have married George Santini!" She chuckled at some memory from the past. "What do you intend to do about it?"

  He looked up from his intent absorption in the cup and Helen had a glimpse of what he was going through.

  "I don't know," he answered quietly. "I honestly don't know. I mean, look at the whole thing sensibly. Our lives are so different … our culture is different … I know she would hate living here, but how can I move there?" He gave his head a quick shake. "That's assuming, of course, that she feels the same way, which is far from certain."

  He thought of the last night they'd spent together and how she had clung to him, responding to him with complete abandon, encouraging him to continue to make love to her through most of the night.

  Was that when it first happened that he slipped from being attracted to her into this all-consuming, nerve-wracking obsession he seemed to have developed. He couldn't sleep without dreaming of her. She was on his mind so much, he was distracted most of the time whether he was at home or working.

  "Have you discussed any of this with Tina?" Helen asked, breaking the silence that had fallen.

  "Of course not! She wouldn't understand at all."

  "You might be surprised. Tina doesn't remember Jill, you know. I leave Jill's photographs around the house so that she will have some idea what her mother was like. She asks questions, sometimes, but what I see is a little girl who wants a mother in her life, someone young like the other children's parents."

  "I didn't know."

  "That's because she doesn't want to hurt your feelings. She loves her daddy. He just can't take the place of a mother. Does Fiona know about Tina?"

  He nodded. "I can't believe I'm in this situation. We only knew each other a week or so."

  "You told me you knew that you wanted Jill the first time you saw her."

  His lips curved into a slight smile. "Well, yeah, but I'm not sure that was love."

  She wrinkled her nose. "Okay, it was lust at first sight on your part, but it quickly developed into much more."

  "I know." He got up and got another cup of coffee, refilling Helen's cup, as well. Once he was seated, he said, "I don't want to go through that again, Helen."

  "Falling in love? I believe it's been established as having already happened."

  "I don't want to go through the pain and sense of loss I went through when we lost Jill, Helen. It hurts too much."

  "I understand about being vulnerable, Greg. The fact is that whenever we love another person, we're vulnerable. It's part of life's experiences. That doesn't mean we stop loving. That's the same as to stop living. If something happens to a loved one and we lose them, there's nothing we can do except to grieve the loss and go on." She reached across the table and rested her hand on top of his. "You've dwelt on the downside of love long enough. It's time for you to enjoy the upside—the joy of being with the one you love. We both know that life is too uncertain not to cherish every moment we are with a loved one.

  "It's time for you to go after what you want, Greg," Helen continued. "That's one of the many traits I've admired about you—your tenacity. You've never let anything stand in your way."

  He looked at her, his gaze bleak. "I've started to call Fiona a half-dozen times since I got home, but I
never had the nerve. When I left, I said nothing about returning … and now I'm going back, like it or not."

  "Really? Did your client ask you to return?"

  He nodded. "She wants to meet Fiona. And she wants to find out what happened to the third sister. So she's going over as soon as she can arrange everything and wants me there to introduce them."

  "There you go. A perfect opportunity to see Fiona again."

  The front door slammed and racing steps echoed in the hallway. "Daddy, you're here!" Tina said, charging into the room and barreling into him. He lifted her onto his lap and gave her a kiss and a hug.

  "How was school?" he asked.

  "Bor-rring," she replied. "But you know what? One of the mommies brought everyone cookies so we had a party."

  "Well, good for you."

  Tina glanced at Helen. "Maybe sometime could you bring something for us?"

  "You bet. Just tell me when." She looked past Tina at Greg and said, "Your daddy has some exciting news for you."

  Tina turned and looked at him. "Really?"

  Greg took a deep breath and made the plunge. "I need to go back to Scotland for a little while. There's a lady over there that I really like and I miss her. I'm hoping she feels the same way."

  "You mean you're going to marry her?"

  "I don't know. But I'm going to ask her."

  "Can I go with you?"

  "Not this time, but soon." He looked at Helen. "Her aunt asked me if you would be willing to move there."

  Helen straightened in surprise. "Us? George and me?"

  "Yeah."

  "Now there's an intriguing thought. George's been talking about retiring for the past couple of years but complains that after he quits, he won't have anything to do."

  Thinking aloud, Greg said, "I'm going to look into opening a branch office in Edinburgh. I could use George in the office, if he thinks it's something he'd like to do."