Uncertain Past

by Roz Denny Fox

  “What do you think it means, Riley?”

  “Sick or not, I’m for questioning her again. I’d like to hear what she has to say in defense of those odd actions.”

  “So would I. Except Joleen already said she was worried about Fran’s grieving over the loss of her husband. Are you doubting Joleen’s friendship?”

  “Probably not. Put that way, you make what she did sound logical.” Still, Riley turned the car and drove straight to Joleen’s.

  She answered the door after only one knock, appearing recovered—although she was less than happy to see who stood on her porch. “You must leave me alone.”

  “Why?” Emmy said. “I’ll leave you alone if you’ll come clean and admit you’re my mother.” One of Emmy’s oldest questions spilled out uncontrollably.

  Joleen gasped and turned florid. “Where did you get that preposterous notion?”

  Riley explained what he’d learned, keeping his source private.

  Joleen shook her head vigorously through his entire monologue. “Yes, I pressured the agency to give you to Frannie,” she told Emmy, remaining visibly upset. “Frannie wanted to follow her husband to the grave. Nothing I said helped. Then you dropped into my lap, like a sign from God.”

  Emmy’s face fell. “Which means Mom Fran wasn’t my birth mother, either. After I spent more time in the foster system I sometimes wondered if she was maybe pregnant when her husband died leaving her in debt. Since the foster program provides funds I imagined it could have been something you and she cooked up.”

  “Fran always wanted kids. Couldn’t have them. You can verify that with Dr. Barr’s son. He has his father’s OB-GYN practice. Fran suffered from severe endometriosis. She never could get pregnant. It’s all in her medical records.”

  Riley felt another shiver of disappointment course through Emmy. He slid an arm around her shoulders. “Easy, sugar babe. We’ll find your mom. It’s a cinch you weren’t delivered by the stork.”

  Joleen glanced furtively up and down the street. Hurriedly withdrawing, she gripped the door tight. “Why can’t you be happy with the upbringing you had? Fran loved you like a real mother. Let that be enough.” Joleen slammed the door shut before either Emmy or Riley could comment further.

  “Come on.” Riley urged Emmy toward the car, tugging with gentle hands. “We’ll get nothing more from her even if she knows something else.”

  “Joleen acted like she was afraid a troop of Klingons would zap in from outer space and blast her with their phasers or something.”

  “Hey, you remember all the Trekkie trivia I taught you.” He grinned, then gave a deep sigh. “That’s great, but hardly applicable. Joleen’s a phobic old woman. It’s sad, really, how she’s shut herself away from the world.”

  “I guess that’s all it is.” Emmy climbed in the car after one last look at the house. Sunshine glinted eerily off the foil-covered windows. Hiding secrets, Emmy thought.

  At Riley’s late that evening, Emmy listened to the banter going on, but didn’t join in. Midway through the evening, Jed noticed. He sank into the empty lawn chair beside her. “You’re quiet tonight, Emmy-M. Did you and Riley have a fight?”

  “Uh-uh.” She listlessly retold what had happened at Joleen’s house.

  Jed rolled his bottle of beer between his palms. “I always thought she was an odd duck. Fran gave her free run of the house. Will caught her in our room once, snooping through our drawers. I know you thought we installed that lock to keep you out. We let you think it because neither of us wanted to tell Fran her friend was the real reason. Joleen never trusted Will. He figured she hoped she’d find drugs.”

  “Hmm. I must have been used to her. From my first memories, she made herself at home whenever she dropped by.”

  “I guess we ought to be thankful she worked two jobs, or she’d have spent even more time ordering us around.”

  “I didn’t know she worked two jobs. I rarely saw her in anything but a uniform. What else did she do?”

  Jed hunched both shoulders. “Nursing—weekends and a few nights a week at a street clinic in Tyler. I know Fran worried about her. She complained once that winos and degenerates hung out where Joleen had to park.”

  “I suppose she saw a lot of dope users. That’s probably why she snooped in Will’s dresser. He did sneak cigarettes. Maybe she was afraid he was smoking pot.”

  “I guess.” He shrugged again. “Fran didn’t have family. Joleen was the closest thing she had to a sister.”

  “Hey, you guys, quit talking and listen up.”

  Jed and Emmy raised their heads and realized Josey had stood up and clapped her hands to gain everyone’s attention.

  When all talk had stopped, she hurried over to Cleon, who sat talking to Neva. Grabbing his hand, she pulled him to his feet. “This is kind of a celebration for us tonight. After work on Wednesday, we stopped at the J.P.’s and . . . well, we got married.”

  Shock rippled through the audience. “Married?” Emmy was first to emerge from her stupor. “But . . . last week you said—”

  Josey nodded, suddenly shy. “That’s what started Cleon thinking. He said Riley was right, I’m more important to him than any inheritance. So here we are.” She pulled a set of sparkling rings from her pocket and handed them to Cleon. He gazed at her like a lovesick hound as he slowly worked them onto the third finger of her left hand.

  Riley whooped and pounded his sister’s husband on the back. Alanna danced circles around Gwyn, who’d jumped up to congratulate the happy couple. Jed joined her, as did Neva.

  Emmy was slower in climbing to her feet. While she was happy for her friend and thought they’d made a wise decision, she also dealt with pangs of jealousy. As the evening wore on and turned into a wedding party, she despaired of ever finding her own roots so she’d be free to marry Riley.

  Miraculously, she made it through the evening. And through seven long days of the next week, with Riley’s mother taking every opportunity to issue not-so-subtle hints on the subject of marriage. Specifically, Emmy’s marriage to Riley.

  The following Sunday, the women stood side by side at the bus depot. Riley had taken Alanna outside to watch luggage being loaded onto a bus. Neva made one last attempt to strong arm Emmy. “Josey cheated me out of my one and only chance to do what mothers of brides get to do. I’ve pictured shopping for gowns, flowers, invitations, oh—all that storybook wedding stuff. Since you haven’t got a mom, I’d be more than willing to assist you.”

  Inured by now, Emmy smiled. “Riley told me he was going to ask you to move in with him to help care for Alanna.”

  “He did, and I’d love to. But my brother’s health is failing. He needs me more than Riley does right now. What my son needs is a wife, Emerald. Alanna needs a mother.”

  Emmy sidestepped that direct shove toward the altar and harked back to Neva’s previous statement. “Riley doesn’t talk about his first wedding.”

  “That girl,” Neva said acerbically. “I hate to speak ill of the dead, but her uncle lives in a different century, and he had way too much influence on her. He performed his own version of a wedding ritual. If Riley hadn’t asked my brother to have tribal headquarters file his marriage with the county, it wouldn’t have been legal in the state.”

  “Legal or not, he’d still have Alanna. Neva, if I were ever to marry Riley—and please don’t get your hopes up, because I need to find out who I am and where I came from first. But if I did, you should know I’m not big on pomp and ceremony, either.”

  Emmy was saved from the lecture Neva was sure to deliver by Riley’s return. Alanna raced up and threw her arms around her grandmother’s hips. “Your bus just came in, Grandma. I wish you didn’t have to go home.” She started to cry. “Everybody always leaves me. If you stay, I’ll be a really good girl.”

  Emmy forgot her own dilemma in
the midst of consoling the brokenhearted child. Still, it made her nervous to hear both Riley and Neva assure Alanna that she had Emmy, who’d always care for her.

  “Emerald’s not going anywhere,” Neva declared stoutly.

  The knot in Emmy’s stomach coiled tighter the minute Alanna transferred her full allegiance from her departing grandmother. The child placed her small, sweaty hand in Emmy’s and gazed at her with such trust, Emmy panicked. All her life, she’d been a nomad, an outcast who belonged nowhere and to no one. Was she afraid that would always be her condition—forever an outsider? Or did she fear not measuring up, being unable to meet a child’s needs? Or a husband’s?

  She hung back, letting Riley and Alanna escort Neva to her bus.

  On the final leg of the drive home, after they’d stopped for dinner at one of the lake lodges, Riley leaned close to Emmy’s ear. “Please,” he said in a voice too low for Alanna to hear, “spend the night with me.”

  Identifying in his voice a mixture of love and the same desperation she wasn’t handling well, Emmy accepted. If stolen nights were all she was going to have with the man she loved, then she’d grab them without qualms.

  They didn’t rush into the house and jump directly into bed, although each could see it was precisely what was on the other’s mind. Emmy ran Alanna’s bath. Both adults sat beside her on the bed as Riley read her a bedtime story.

  Even after the little girl fell asleep, they didn’t rush off to Riley’s bedroom. It was as if each knew that prolonging the inevitable would heighten their pleasure. “I bought a bottle of real champagne to drop by Josey and Cleon’s. If you’d like, we can indulge and I’ll buy them another.”

  “What’s the occasion?”

  He took her in his arms and kissed her long and deliciously. “We’re the occasion,” he whispered, kissing her earlobe. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I patched things up with my family. But do you know how many days it’s been since I’ve had you to myself?”

  The tightness which had taken up residence in Emmy’s stomach unfurled a little. “Our lives have been a bit of a whirlwind.” She smiled. “I never realized your mother was such a shopping machine.”

  “I don’t want to talk about my mother.”

  “Oh? Okay.” Still smiling, Emmy crossed her arms and skimmed her sweater off, leaving her blond hair a flyaway mess of curls. She wore nothing underneath the sweater. Her reward was the gleam of lust that darkened Riley’s eyes and brought an immediate heavy droop to his eyelids.

  “To hell with the bubbly.” Growling low in his throat, he scooped Emmy into his arms. In three long strides, he’d entered his bedroom. After two more steps, he dropped her in the middle of his bed. “I intended to have a civilized discussion with you about your search. What our next strategy should be,” he said in a muffled voice as he yanked his knit shirt over his head and hopped on one foot to shed his jeans. “Forget that.”

  Emmy, meanwhile, had kicked off her capri pants and her lace bikini panties. Just for tonight, she didn’t want to talk about the disappointing progress of her search. She held out welcoming arms.

  Riley sank into her softness. If any strategy remained in his head, other than coming up with new ways of pleasing her, he uttered no words to that effect.

  Some hours later, thoroughly loved and completely sated, they clung together and drifted into slumber.

  Emmy awakened with a start. Shaking cobwebs from her brain, she slid out from under the muscled arm Riley had draped across her middle. A breeze blew in the open window, rustling white sheers that held the darkness at bay. Suddenly thinking she heard a car door shut, Emmy got quietly out of bed.

  Aided by the glow of the bathroom nightlight, she threw on her clothes before dashing to the window. If local kids were messing around Riley’s convertible, she’d wake him up. But if the noise turned out to be her imagination, she’d let him sleep.

  The area near his car was dark and quiet. The same with her pickup. But wait. A car at the end of her lane had just switched on its headlights. A big dark car that squealed its tires in a U-turn and sped toward town. Emmy didn’t get enough of a glimpse to make any kind of identification. What she saw in the bright flash of the car’s high beams was a square paper flapping on her screen door.

  According to the clock on Riley’s nightstand, it wasn’t quite five. Time for her to sneak out, anyway, or run the risk of Alanna waking and catching them in bed.

  Taking care not to disturb Riley, she slipped into her shoes and crept downstairs and out the door.

  It wasn’t until she’d ripped down the note and gone inside and turned on the kitchen light that she realized it was a warning. Someone had used the stick-on letters available at office supply and craft stores. Her hand shook. Terse and to the point, the note said: Drop your search ASAP or I’ll see to it that Gray Wolf and his kid will have a nasty accident, too.

  Emmy read “nasty accident” to mean something horrible and permanent, like had happened to Mom Fran. Crushing the paper to her chest, she found it hard to breathe. She loved Riley and Alanna so much. If anything happened to them because she’d twisted Riley’s arm to help her dig into her background, she’d never be able to live with herself. Drenched in icy sweat, she ran to her bedroom.

  The only solution, she decided on a panicky spur of the moment—was to pack a few clothes, grab her cat and leave town. With her gone, whoever found it necessary to make threats would surely back off. Stifling sobs, Emmy haphazardly tossed shirts and jeans into her treasured basket.

  She was in the middle of frantically stuffing the cat carrier into her truck when sanity of sorts descended. Hadn’t she suffered the anguish caused when someone disappeared without a word?

  Jed.

  She’d tell Jed and Gwyn that she was going. They didn’t need to know the reason. Let them think she and Riley had quarreled.

  Yes, it was the right thing to do. By the time Jed circulated the news that she’d dropped the idea of finding her birth family, she’d be long gone. Riley and Alanna would be safe again. Their safety was all that really mattered.

  Why would someone threaten them? They wouldn’t except for her.

  Leaving Riley, leaving Alanna. It hurt so much. Emmy scrubbed at tears coursing down her cheeks. Tears that stung her eyelids, blinding her as she backed out, sobbing a second unheard farewell to the only man she’d ever loved.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Emmy drove through the gates of Beaumarais before the sun had broken out of the mist rising off the lake. She expected to have to drag Jed from his bed. But there were lights on in the house.

  He answered the door, fully dressed in black jeans and matching cowboy boots. “Emmy! What a nice surprise. Gwyn and I are having breakfast in the morning room. Come back and join us,” he said, shutting the door.

  Gwyn glanced up from her meal as Emmy preceded Jed into the room.

  “Get Emmy a plate and silverware, would you please, Gwyn? I’ll pour her a cup of coffee. Sugar, right?” he asked, lifting the carafe as he reached for the sugar bowl.

  Gwyn wrapped her hand around Jed’s wrist. “Jed, wait. Emmy’s been crying.”

  Emmy tried to act as if dropping in unannounced at the crack of dawn was nothing out of the ordinary. “I need to talk with you for a minute. I’m not hungry.”

  Jed set down the carafe, a troubled frown replacing his smile. Taking Emmy by the hand, he forced her gently into the wicker chair that sat empty next to Gwyn. “Now, Emmy-M, what’s this about?”

  “I’m going away. Today. Right now.” Unable to meet either pair of probing eyes, she nervously separated and twisted a lock of hair. “I woke up and . . . and saw how I’m wasting my own time and everyone else’s. I’ve lived thirty-two years without knowing my real identity. I can go on doing that. Anyway, my search went nowhere. I’ve gotta hit the road before the sun g
ets too hot. I have the kitten and my air conditioner’s on the fritz. I saw your lights and figured you wouldn’t mind spreading the word that I’ve taken off.”

  “Like that? Going where?” Jed shared a puzzled glance with his wife.

  Gwyn picked up the carafe and poured a clean cup full of coffee. She set it in front of Emmy, and slid the sugar bowl closer.

  Emmy reached for the cup. Her hand shook so hard she spilled the sugar.

  Gwyn left her seat and threw an arm around Emmy’s bowed shoulders. “Have you and Riley had an argument? Is that why you’re leaving? Emmy, the man loves you. Nothing could be so terrible that discussing it rationally wouldn’t patch things up.”

  “What did that knucklehead do?” Jed demanded. “I’ll phone him right now and read him the riot act.”

  “No, don’t,” Emmy said in a strained voice as she catapulted from her chair and grabbed the cellular phone Jed had flipped open. “Please give me an hour’s head start before you tell Riley. Please.” Tears streamed from pleading eyes. She let them run down her cheeks and drip on her blouse without even trying to rub them away.

  “No mere argument would cause you this much pain,” Gwyn declared. “I think you’d better tell us the truth, Emmy.”

  Jed pried his phone out of her white-knuckled fingers. “Gwyn’s got a point. There’s no way I’d let you on the road in this condition. You’re an accident waiting to happen. And don’t give me any crap,” he added sternly. “As a kid, you always twisted your hair like that whenever you tried to get away with telling a whopper.”

  “All right.” Emmy capitulated with a huge sigh. Digging in her pocket, she pulled out the crushed note. Gwyn and Jed grouped around her to read it. “Now do you understand?” Emmy cried. “Some birth parents don’t want to be found. Ever. I know Riley. He’d insist on tracing this note. He’s stubborn and very protective. I hate to think what he’d do if he found the person who left it. I’m just not willing to take a chance that this person would act first. Would you?” She put her question squarely to Gwyn.