Peter sighed. “You don’t remember what Mom went through during those terrible days of her depression, before she found the right combo of meds to control it. I do. I remember it vividly. I was nine and I can remember days when I was afraid to come home from school, because I didn’t know what I would find. It was horrible. The medication they gave her made it worse. She was barely there and when she came to herself, she would rage and scream at Dad for hours.”
She closed her eyes, feeling battered and achy and still fighting tears. If she let them out, she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to stop.
“Do—Do Ella and David know?”
He shook his head. “Bethany knows and I’ve confided in two others, seeking advice—a social worker and friend at the hospital and more recently, Richard Green.”
She stared. “Richard knows? And he said nothing to me?”
“I only told him today after I saw you in J.D.’s office. I swore him to secrecy.”
So Richard hadn’t betrayed her. She found some solace in that.
“Will you tell them? David and Ella, I mean?”
Peter shook his head. “That’s your decision. If you want them to know, I can tell them but perhaps you should be the one to do it. And if you decide to say nothing, I will back you up.”
He paused, appearing to choose his words carefully. “Things are difficult between us all right now. I would only ask that if you tell them, you don’t do it out of spite or anger.”
His words were a blunt reminder of the rift between her and her siblings, of the chasm she had no idea how to cross.
She forced a smile that didn’t feel at all genuine. “Always the protector, aren’t you, Peter?”
He studied her solemnly. “Of you as well, Anna.”
She didn’t know how to respond to that and the tears seemed even closer to the surface. Bethany seemed to sense the fissures in her control. She squeezed Anna’s arm.
“The wedding rehearsal dinner is next Friday,” she said softly. “It would mean a great deal to us if you would be there. Will you come?”
Would she even still be in town? she wondered. The hospital board of directors was set to vote on Thursday and everything would be decided by then.
Still, she was deeply grateful suddenly for Bethany’s freely offered friendship.
“I’ll try,” she managed.
Bethany gave her a hug. “That’s all we can ask,” she said.
To her shock, Peter hugged her next. “I would say welcome to the family, but it doesn’t seem quite appropriate since you’ve been my sister for thirty years.”
Somehow she managed a smile, though it felt watery and thin. “Thank you for bringing this, even though you didn’t want to. I understand your hesitation a little better now.”
“Dad never should have kept it from you and I shouldn’t have either for this long.”
He paused, then embraced her again. “When the shock wears off, I hope you will see this as a good thing. You’ve always been one of us, Anna. Blood or not. But maybe knowing you share our blood will help you see that more clearly.”
She nodded and showed them out.
When they left, Lilli gazed at her quizzically. Anna reread the letter, still fighting tears, while the walls of her bland, boring, temporary home seemed to be closing in on her, crowding her, smothering her.
She suddenly needed to escape from the thick emotions squeezing her chest, stealing her breath, choking her throat.
And she knew exactly where she needed to go.
* * *
“Good night, kiddo. You be good for Grandma, okay?”
“Dad!” In that single word, Ethan managed to convey all the disgust of a teenager instead of a five-year-old. “You know I always am!”
Richard smiled into the phone. “Of course you are. I love you, bud.”
“I love you, too, Dad.”
The sweet, pure words put a lump in his throat, as they always did. “Can you put your grandma on the phone again?”
“Okeydokey.”
After a moment’s silence, his mother picked up the phone.
“Are you really sure you want to do this, Mom? You’ve had him all day.”
“Absolutely.” His mother’s voice was firm and not at all as exhausted as he might have expected after she had wrangled Ethan for the past ten hours. “You know we’ve been planning this sleepover for a week. We’re camping out. I’ve got a tent set up in my living room and the sleeping bags are already up. We’re going to roast marshmallows in the gas fireplace after I crank up the air conditioning to compensate and I have all the makings of s’mores ready to go. We’re going to have a blast.”
That was part of the problem, Richard admitted. He hated being excluded. He hadn’t seen Ethan since dropping him off at his grandmother’s that morning and he missed his son.
Ethan’s absence was part of his restlessness, but not all of it. Some had to do with a particular woman he couldn’t get out of his mind.
“Thanks, then,” he said. “You two have a great time. I’ll pick him up tomorrow morning.”
“No hurry. We’ll probably sleep in.”
“Wishful thinking, Mom. Ethan’s idea of sleeping in is waiting to jump out of bed until six-forty-five instead of six-thirty.”
His mother laughed. “I’ll survive. The question is, what will you do with a night to yourself?”
He was so unused to the idea that he found the prospect of an evening without Ethan rather daunting. “I’m slammed with work right now so I’ll probably just take advantage of the chance to catch up.”
“Booorrring. Can’t you think of something better than work? It’s Friday night. Why don’t you go out and have some fun? Call up one of those girls on your BlackBerry and head out for a night on the town.”
The only females on his BlackBerry were clients or associates, but he decided his mother didn’t really need to know that particular piece of information.
“Interesting idea,” he murmured. “I doubt it will happen but I’ll certainly add it to the list of possibilities.”
His mother was quiet for a moment. When she spoke, her voice held a surprising degree of concern. “I worry about you, Richard. You’re a wonderful father, but your world has become only about work and about your son. You need to take time for yourself once in awhile. Go have a little fun. Grab a little spontaneity in your life.”
Richard frowned. Where was this coming from? Okay, so he didn’t have much of a social life. But when, exactly, was he supposed to find the time for one while being a full-time father?
He opened his mouth to answer, but before he could, the doorbell chimed through the empty house.
Relief flooded him at the convenient excuse to end the conversation. “I’ve gotta go, Mom. Somebody’s at the door.”
“Oh, good. Maybe it’s a hot girl looking for a little action.”
A strangled laugh escaped him. “Wouldn’t that be an odd twist of fate?”
“Stranger things have happened.”
“If I were you, I wouldn’t hold my breath. Have fun sleeping on the floor.”
He hung up and hurried to answer the door. In light of the conversation with his mother, he couldn’t have been more shocked to find Anna Wilder on his doorstep.
“Anna!”
“I…didn’t know where else to go.”
His initial surprise shifted quickly to concern. Her eyes were hollow and her face looked ashen in the pale glow of his porch light.
She was holding an envelope in her hand and he knew instantly that Peter must have given her James’s letter.
He only had about half a second for the thought to register before she launched herself into his arms.
He caught her but the momentum pushed them both back into the room. He heard a strangled gasp and then, like a torrent, she began to weep great, heaving sobs, as if she had been waiting for only this moment to unleash them.
He eased down to the sofa and pulled her onto his lap.
&n
bsp; He held her for a long time, until the sobs finally began to subside. She was trembling, little shivers that broke his heart, and he tightened his arms. After a moment, she let out a deep breath and struggled to regain control, and he relaxed his hold a little.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice sounded raspy. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to…I never intended to come here and break down like this. I just…I had to talk to someone and I didn’t know where else to go.”
“I’m glad you came here.”
“I feel so stupid. I don’t know what happened. I saw you and suddenly it all just seemed too much.”
He was honored and humbled that she trusted him enough to let him see beyond the cool veneer she showed to the world. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“You mean blubbering all over your shirt for twenty minutes isn’t enough torture?”
It was torture having her in his arms, but not the way she meant. Despite the toll it was taking on his control, he wasn’t about to relinquish this chance to hold her, in any capacity.
“I’m guessing you talked to Peter.”
She sighed. “Yes. He said he talked to you earlier today and told you about the letter from my father.”
“He did.”
“Then you know the truth. That James Wilder is my father. My true father, not just my adopted one.”
“A bit of a shock, wasn’t it?”
She gave a short, bitter laugh. “It changes everything I thought I knew about myself.”
“You’re still the same person, Anna. Finding out your genetic blueprint doesn’t change thirty years of living.”
She was silent for a moment, her cheek still pressed against his chest. She didn’t seem inclined to leave his lap and he certainly wasn’t in any hurry to let her go.
“I have always believed I stood on the outside of the Wilder family circle. My mother—Alice—didn’t exactly push me out but I never truly felt welcome, even though James did everything possible to make me feel I belonged. Now I understand why.”
“She knew you were his child?”
“My father said in the letter he thought she must have guessed but they never discussed it.”
“It must have been terribly difficult for her if she did suspect. To keep her head high while she raised her husband’s illegitimate child.”
“Yes. It explains so much about…everything.”
To his regret, she finally slid from his lap and sat beside him on the couch, her hands tightly folded on her lap.
Though he knew a little distance was probably a wise thing right about now, Richard couldn’t prevent himself from reaching out and covering her clasped hands with his. After a moment, she gripped his tightly.
“You know, I think he tried to tell me several times over the years, in an oblique kind of way,” she said. “The summer I…left, when I dropped out of med school and everything, I tried to tell him how unhappy I was. I told him straight out that I was afraid I just didn’t have the Wilder gene for medicine. I can remember him saying in that sturdy, no-nonsense voice of his, ‘Don’t let me hear you say that again. You’re as much a Wilder as the rest of my children!’ I thought it was simply another effort to make me feel I belonged in the family.”
“What will you do now?”
She closed her eyes and leaned against the sofa. Her color had returned, he was pleased to see. Despite the crying jag, she was so beautiful he couldn’t seem to look away.
“I don’t know. Peter says he hasn’t told Ella and David. He seems to think I’ll blab it to them out of spite over the hospital merger.”
Despite her glib tone, he could hear the hurt underscoring her words and his heart ached for her. He couldn’t help himself, and he pulled her into his arms again.
“You’ll figure it all out, Anna. I know it must feel like an atomic bomb has just dropped into your lap, but when you think about it, what has really changed?”
“Everything!”
“Maybe you found out your father had some human weaknesses after all. But your siblings are still your siblings, just as they’ve always been. You might all be going through a rough time right now with the hospital merger but they still love you.”
She sighed against his chest. “I feel like everything I thought I knew about myself is a lie.”
“It’s not, Anna. Not at all. What’s different right now than it was a few hours ago? You’re still a bright beautiful woman who loves her dog and is kind to little boys and who still makes my heart pound.”
Her gaze flashed to his for one breathless moment before he surrendered to the inevitable and kissed her.
CHAPTER TEN
Anna closed her eyes and leaned into Richard, trying to absorb his strength.
She needed him. For comfort, yes, but for so much more. She found a peace in his arms that she had never known anywhere else.
Though she had dated in the eight years she’d been away, she had never cared enough about any of those men to take a relationship beyond the casual to this ultimate step.
This had never felt right with anyone but Richard. He was the only man she had ever made love to.
She wondered what he would say if she told him that and decided to keep the information to herself for now.
She wrapped her arms around his neck with the oddest sensation that this was where she belonged. Right here, with his mouth firm and insistent against hers, his masculine scent filling her senses, his hard strength against her.
Here, in his arms, she didn’t feel disconnected or off kilter. It didn’t matter whether she was the odd Wilder out or James Wilder’s illegitimate daughter. She had nothing to prove here—she knew exactly who she was when Richard Green kissed her. Everything else faded to nothing.
He deepened the kiss, until tiny sparks raced up and down her nerve endings, until her thighs trembled and every inch of her skin ached for his touch.
“You taste exactly like I remember,” he murmured.
“How?” Was that breathy, aroused voice hers, she wondered with some amazement. What happened to the brisk and businesslike woman she had always considered herself?
“Like every delicious, decadent, sinful dessert ever created. Sweet and heady and intoxicating. That’s you.”
His words ignited more heat and she kissed him fiercely, reveling in his sharp intake of breath, in the tremble of his hands on the bare skin above the waistband of her jeans.
He traced designs on the sensitive skin at her waist for long, intoxicating moments, then finally moved to the buttons of her white shirt.
A wild hunger for his touch bubbled and seethed deep inside her and she arched against his hand, needing him with a steady, fiery ache.
He opened the buttons of her shirt and touched her through the lacy fabric of her bra and she found the sight of his sun-browned hand against her pale skin the most erotic thing she’d ever seen.
She arched against him, wanting more. Wanting everything. For long moments, they kissed and touched, until nothing else mattered but this moment.
“I’m going to have to stop.” His voice was raspy with need. “I’m afraid I have no self-control where you’re concerned.”
“Take it from me. Self-control is overrated,” she murmured, her voice a breathy purr.
He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, they were dark with passion. “I can’t take advantage of you, Anna. You’re upset. This isn’t really what you want.”
“You couldn’t be more wrong. This is exactly what I want.”
He looked torn between desire and his sense of duty and she decided to take the decision out of his hands. She kissed him hard, wrapping her arms around him tightly and savoring the strength against her.
He groaned. “I can’t fight you and myself at the same time.”
“Then don’t,” she said.
He kissed her again, fierce and possessive, and her stomach trembled with anticipation. It wouldn’t be the same magic she remembered from eight years ago, she warned
herself. It couldn’t be.
She was only half-right.
It wasn’t the same. It was better. Much, much better.
They kissed their way down the hall to his bedroom and she had a vague impression of bold masculine colors and a massive bed before Richard began to undress her with a soft gentleness that nearly made her weep.
She was in love with him.
The realization washed through her, not with the punishing force of a tidal wave, but like a sweet cleansing rain on parched desert soil.
It was terribly difficult not to blurt the words out right then but she choked them back. He didn’t want to hear them. Not now. She had hurt him eight years ago, he had said as much. He might let her into his arms and his bed but somehow she knew finding her way back into his heart wouldn’t be nearly as easy.
She put the fear away for now as she helped him out of his clothes and then she forgot her fears, lost in the sheer wonder of having all those muscles to explore.
They kissed and touched for a long time, until both of them were breathing raggedly, their hearts pounding.
At last, when she didn’t think she could endure another moment, he grabbed a condom from the bedside table and entered her, and she again had to choke back her words of love as sensation after sensation poured over her.
She pressed a hard kiss to his mouth, desperate to show him with her lips and her body how she felt about him, even if she didn’t quite feel she could say the words yet.
He gripped her hands tightly as he moved deeply inside her and she cried out his name, stunned at her wild hunger. She arched into him, desperate and achy.
She couldn’t wait another second, another instant. Sensing how close she was to the edge, he reached between their bodies and touched her at the apex of her thighs and the world exploded in a wild burst of color and heat and sensation.
While her body still shivered and hummed, he pushed even deeper inside her, deeper than she would have thought possible, then groaned out her name as he found his own release.
He held her while they floated back to earth together and she mouthed the words she couldn’t say aloud against his chest.
Reunited in Walnut River Page 11