by BJ James
With his hands he measured the height, then held up six fingers. “This many. With more crayons and watercolors than you would believe. Would you like me to get them?”
Tessa nodded, then looked quickly to Kate for permission.
“It isn’t my house, sweetheart.” As Devlin had, Kate knelt, as well, bringing her lips eye level for the little girl. “But I’m sure no one would mind.”
Golden brown eyes, fringed by lashes that seemed impossibly long, settled again on Devlin. A decisive chin bobbed again. A hand so soft and chubby and fearless reached out for his.
For the time of a lurching heartbeat, Devlin hesitated, lifting his gaze the little needed to touch Kate’s. With the glitter of tears on her lashes, she nodded in answer to his unspoken question. And a smile trembled on her lips as his strong, brown fingers engulfed the short stubby fingers offered in trust.
“Okay.” Devlin realized his own smile wasn’t quite steady as those tiny fingers lay calmly in his. Rising as Kate did, he added quietly, “I bet that by the time we make our choices, beautiful Miss Kate will have the tea party cleared away, and gorgeous Miss Tessa can draw and color at this table.”
Kate could only nod, her heart too full for words. As she watched the gallant, wounded man walk away, the hand of a lost child given without a trace of question into his care, tears she’d fought throughout the little party spilled down her cheeks. When she was alone, she stood listening to their fading footsteps over wood floors, hearing his one-sided conversations that didn’t seem so one-sided, after all. When the sound of the pantry door creaking open was followed by Tessa’s tinkling laugh and Devlin’s deep chuckle, Kate wiped her eyes and turned to clear away their tea party.
“Hobie?” Kate flashed an astonished look at Devlin. “Tessa was staying with him in the gatehouse?”
“It seems Jericho was right all along. Mary did see to Tessa’s welfare when she knew she was dying. And, in her condition, she couldn’t go far.”
“But why Hobie?” Kate’s hands were linked firmly in her lap as she watched Tessa choosing another color for her drawing. “With his back, and at his age…”
“He couldn’t take proper care of her?”
“No, no.” Kate quickly explained, “I didn’t mean that at all. But it would have been so difficult.” Gripping her hands closer, she said, “It makes sense now…how Tessa seemed to come out of nowhere. When, really she’d just crossed the bridge.”
“Still a long walk for one who’s only five.”
“She’s only five?” Tessa was small, but by her manner, Kate had thought she was at least a year or two older.
Devlin frowned, recalling the story Hobie told. “When one lives the life she’s lived, it’s grow up or else.” He stopped short, the alternative was too painful to speak.
“She was abused?” In horror, Kate turned to the child happily drawing houses and stick-figure families.
“Not abused,” Devlin explained, keeping his voice low, for he’d discovered that Tessa had a way of divining stress-filled emotions. Acute perception, not hearing. He’d seen it in the camp all those years ago. “Until Mary, not wanted.”
“Not wanted? Look at her. How could anyone not want her?”
“I think that’s Hobie’s story to tell, Kate.”
“Where is he now? Why didn’t he come back with you?”
“I asked him to wait.”
It made no sense to Kate that he would ask that of Hobie. Or that Hobie would agree. “Surely he was frantic about her. Good heavens! Surely he was too concerned to wait.”
An expression of bitterness crossed her face as she fell silent, watching Tessa. When she turned to Devlin again, her voice was filled with hurting. “Or doesn’t he want her, either?”
Taking her hands in his, Devlin stroked the taut curve of her fingers. “Hobie was concerned and worried half out of his mind. When I arrived at the gatehouse, he’d come back from a search of the riverbank and had just called Jericho.”
“Jericho. I didn’t even think to call.”
“It’s all right, love. Jericho’s on his way now. Hobie will be with him. He has the missing pieces of this puzzle.”
“He told you?”
“Only a little.” Releasing her hands, he rose to go to the window. The beach was quiet since McGregor had called a halt to work for the day. Thankful for that thoughtfulness and for the quiet, Devlin said, “He told me only a little, but enough that this begins to make sense. Tessa is Mary’s great-grandchild. Her mother was a second generation runaway.”
“The daughter of a daughter who disappeared years ago. Long before Mary came to Belle Terre?”
“Yes. Tessa is the daughter of a granddaughter Mary never knew she had. Until she called asking that Mary meet her in Atlanta.” Facing Kate again, he gestured toward the shore and the shell road. “Jericho is here with Hobie. The rest of Tessa’s story is theirs to tell.”
Ten
Hobie stood by the door, turning his hat in his hands, then tapping it against his thigh. An action too recently familiar, recalling the scene on the beach, vividly burned into Kate’s mind and memory.
Watching, listening to his faltering greeting, she realized that in all the months she’d lived on Summer Island, she hardly knew him. Until today, he’d only been a smiling face and a friendly voice trapped in an aged, arthritic body.
How many times, in her self-absorption, had she ridden by with barely a wave to him? Yet, how many times had his smile been the brightest part of a particular day? Now, she saw how frail he was and how worried. And she understood that even keeping watch over Summer Island and its tenants must require great effort.
Yet he’d done it. Kate didn’t question that it was in that same spirit he accepted the care of Mary’s young charge.
Pangs of conscience for her unconcern, and guilt for her doubt of his devotion to Tessa, plagued Kate. For, if she’d harbored any doubts after Devlin told of Hobie’s search of the river, they would have been put to rest the minute she saw his face.
Going to him, with a nod of greeting for Jericho who stood a step behind him, Kate offered her hand. “Thank you for coming Mr….” Pausing, to her horror, she realized she didn’t know how to address him, because she didn’t know his full name.
But Hobie, being not just a Southern gentleman, but from another, more gallant era, only smiled as his gnarled hand enfolded hers. “A long time ago I was Mister. Complete with a name and even a middle initial.” His smile was gently amused as he bowed politely over her hand. “Hobart M. Verey, ma’am, at your service.”
He spoke the name with the old and proper pronunciation, giving the last syllable the sound of the letter a. Once it had been a proud name, one with much history and a great wealth of land holdings in its estate. A part of which had been Summer Island.
“Now I’m just Hobie, and if anyone remembers, Hobie Veree.” This time, giving his name the colloquial pronunciation, in his gentlemanly fashion, he set his hostess at ease.
Kate was surprised there was no bitterness in his words. From the history she’d studied, because the Verey family was also part of the history of Summer Island, she knew the land, wealth, even the good name had been lost by the time Hobart. M. Verey reached adulthood. A financial disaster leaving the following generation, and possibly the last of the line, to live in abject poverty.
But neither the past nor Hobie’s gallantry resolved the problem of how she should address him now. A frown drawing her brows down, she said quietly, “I’m sorry, I never knew your name or your connection with the island. All I’ve ever known to call you…”
“Is Hobie,” the elderly man suggested pleasantly, coming kindly to her rescue. “And Hobie’s who I am, Miss Gallagher.”
“Kate, please.” As she said it, she saw that the old man, who had been only a guard to her, had no more patience with even ingrained amenities. “You’re anxious to see Tessa, aren’t you?” Looking past him to the sheriff, she asked, “You, as well, Jericho?”
Hobie Verey took one small step forward, hat still in hand. “I was wondering where she is. If she’s all right?”
“I’m sorry.” Kate was shamed by her thoughtlessness. “I should have realized. Expected…”
Devlin’s arms circling her comforted her. “We,” he emphasized, drawing her back against him. “We should have realized, we should have expected you would be concerned about Tessa and want to see for yourself that she’s all right.”
“The long walk and the incident on the beach exhausted her,” Kate explained. “After the tea party she was so sleepy she could barely hold up her head. She’s sleeping soundly and peacefully.” With a gesture toward the hall, she offered an invitation. “She’s in my bedroom, if you’d like to look in on her.”
“I’d like that, Miss Kate.” The hat turned in another circle.
“I’ll show you the way,” she offered.
“No,” Hobie said in a voice so low it could barely be heard above the normal sounds of a day that had been anything but normal. “I know the house. I can find her.”
Jericho chose to stay behind, but neither of the three spoke as they tracked the sound of his limping footsteps down the hall. When the uneven cadence halted, Devlin was first to comment. “Maybe I shouldn’t have asked him to wait to come to Sea Watch until you came, too. But he was so distraught after searching for her for so long, then hearing of the close call on the beach, I thought…”
“You did the right thing.” Jericho’s interruption was meant to be assuring. Beyond a murmured greeting the formidable and taciturn sheriff had only watched and listened as Hobie said what he had to say. “The day must have been traumatic enough without a frantic relative descending on her. It’s good for both of them that she’s asleep. Rest for her, a calming time for Hobie.”
“How is it that Mary brought Tessa to him?” Kate asked, stepping from Devlin’s arms to lead both men to the sofa. “Surely there’s a connection, but I can’t begin to guess what or how.”
“There is.” Jericho was no less formidable sitting than standing. His fingers looked too powerful, too intimidating as he plucked a ribbon knotted into a clumsy bow from the table at his side. Letting the yellow satin glide through his fingers to his palms, he folded his fist over it. His dark face was unreadable when he looked up at Devlin and Kate. “A connection I should have found, and would have if I’d been looking in the right place.”
The uneven gait signaling the old man’s return from the bedroom interrupted Jericho’s subdued self-disgust. Almost on cue, each of the three lifted their faces, waiting for Hobie Verey to reappear, wondering if a silent Tessa would be with him.
Meeting their intense gazes, the old man stopped in the doorway. “She’s sleeping. Looks like an angel, she does.”
Looking from one to the other, he moved his head in a curt nod. “Guess you’re wondering how an old, lame security guard came to be guardian of a sleeping beauty?”
Hobie’s gaze flickered to Jericho. “Unless you told ’em.”
“No, Hobie.” The sheriff’s stern demeanor didn’t alter. But Kate was learning that it was an expression men like Jericho Rivers and Devlin O’Hara wore when circumstances beyond their control took matters beyond the reach of their protective instincts and skills. Both were inclined to see failure rather than the unpredictable power of fate.
The old man shuffled farther into the room. “You wanted Miss Kate and her gentleman to hear it from me? It being a family secret.”
“Something like that, Hobie.” Jericho’s gray eyes never strayed from the guard. That he liked the old fellow was clear. That he was troubled by the situation grew ever more apparent.
“Let me take your hat.” Having realized Hobie still clutched his immaculate hat in his hands, Kate stood to take it from him. From long, entrenched custom Devlin and Jericho stood, as well.
Hobie’s faded scrutiny followed as she took the hat and crossed to the door and a row of pegs that served as a catch-all in season. He didn’t take the chair Kate indicated, until she was seated, flanked again by Devlin and Jericho. Studying one dark-haired man and then the other, he let his gaze settle, finally, on Kate. For a long while he seemed to examine her closely, as if he were seeking something. Assessing.
“I don’t suppose it’s any wonder that you’re all questioning how it came to pass that Tessa’s with me.” Before his features were almost pained in their worry, now that he’d seen Tessa, Hobie relaxed. “Not a likely choice, an old bummed-up codger like me. Not if there’s another choice. Because there wasn’t at the time, Mary brought her to me, charging me with a mission.
“So why me? For two reasons. The first was that her only parent died shortly after Tessa came to stay with Mary.” The timeworn voice roughened. Hobie coughed and drew a slow breath as his audience waited patiently.
“The second is that I’m the child’s only known blood kin.”
He waited for the expressions of surprise, and no one disappointed him. “Mary was never legally a Verey, but she could have, should have, been. She was my half sister.” Another small cough was followed by another pause. Kate would have gone for water, but an anticipating touch from Devlin stopped her.
“How could it be that she was your half sister?” Jericho asked thoughtfully, but the expression on his face suggested he already knew the answer.
“Mary claimed a lot of names over the years, or so she told me. But the first and true name was Delacroix. I was told she was a beautiful woman.” Hobie drifted into the past, then quickly abandoned the memory. “Beautiful like her mother and her mother’s mother before her, and destined for the same fate. As was the line that could be traced back far more than a century.
“A family that produced mostly women. All beautiful, each born and trained to be, not a courtesan, but the mistress of one man. These were more than relationships. They were commitments that lasted a lifetime, often spawning second families. As had been the custom for countless years, Mary’s mother went on the bidder’s block when she was sixteen.” Hobie’s gaze sought Kate’s. “To some it suggests slavery, or prostitution, but it wasn’t.”
“It was simply a custom of long-standing.” Jericho explained an old ritual of Belle Terre. “Mary was in her eighties, so this was only a little past the turn of the century. At that time, many of the ways of the Old South were revered and observed. It doesn’t excuse the practice, but men and women held different values then. My own grandfather kept a mistress. It was accepted, even expected among a certain class of Southern males.”
Jericho looked to Hobie, at his nod, and to spare him the breath, he continued, “The women weren’t disturbed by the arrangements. They were proud of the price and the stylish lives their exclusive services brought them. If the price was insulting, or the man wasn’t acceptable, the girl in question had the right of refusal. Obviously, Mary’s mother didn’t refuse.”
“From the day she was chosen, she lived the life of a queen.” Hobie took up the story. “But with little real freedom. Yet she would know that and expect it. The prize of each auction was always the Delacroix woman. They were renown through the South for their spectacular beauty and rare elegance. Mary’s mother was the most beautiful of all, and she belonged heart and soul to William Verey, my father.”
“Belonged, but never acknowledged,” Kate suggested.
Hobie nodded. “Common knowledge, never acknowledged.”
“Mary’s choice was the same?” Devlin prompted.
“But by then, times were changing.” Hobie shrugged a thin shoulder. “People were changing. Not always for the better. Mary went to the bid and the fellow who won her took her away. She was gone for more than sixty years.”
“You lost touch?” Jericho, guiding him through the story.
Hobie lifted the bony shoulder again. “You can’t lose touch with someone you don’t know. She was just a name.” He looked up from his gnarled hands, meeting Kate’s look. “You might think it strange I didn’t know my half sist
er, but that’s just the way it was.
“I grew up on what was left of the plantation. We still had part of the family fortune then, so, as was the custom, my father’s mistress lived on a particularly elegant street in Belle Terre. Even today, some of the finest houses are there on Fancy Row. Though a lady of Fancy Row lived well, out of respect for his wife, the Southern gentleman saw to it his second lady and his second family never associated with his legitimate family.”
“But his wife knew. You knew,” Kate ventured softly.
Hobie nodded. “But neither family suffered for it.”
“Mary was the last of a breed, the last of a custom as Belle Terre practiced it. One that deemed you never meet,” Devlin mused as softly as Kate had.
“Yes, sir.” Hobie agreed. “I never met Mary Delacroix, never knew what happened to her. I never met Mary Sanchez, or knew who she was. Until she came to me about Tessa.
“We were strangers before.” The rasping voice was only a whisper. “We were strangers when she died.”
“But you took Tessa,” Kate said. “Why would you?”
The pride evident in Hobie’s gracious manner burned in his eyes. “I took her because she’s a Verey. Maybe not by much, but so longs as there’s a drop of the blood in her, she’s a Verey.”
“And because Hobie is Hobart M. Verey, a man of honor,” Kate suggested in a thoughtful tone.
“Hobart M. Verey, once last of the line,” Devlin added.
Hobie looked at Devlin. “So I believed, until now.”
A proud line had dwindled to an old man and one small child with a single name. Tessa.
Kate smiled at Hobie. “There was more Mary asked of you?”
“Two things.” His breath stentorious, Hobie was clearly in distress. “That I take her ashes to Wild Wood, the Verey home place she’d never seen. And that I find a home for Tessa.”