by Sharon Ihle
She raised her head and leaned back. "Have you forgotten who I am, Brent and what I am? Harry Benton is a thief, remember? My job is to find evidence of his crimes, then bring him in. I can't let this go until I've done just that."
Brent released her and moved far enough away to get a clear view of her expression. His voice incredulous, he said, "You can't possibly expect me to believe the Pinkerton Agency requires its operatives to arrest members of their own families."
"Please," she whispered, scanning the veranda and its surroundings. "I know you said we couldn't be heard here, but I'd appreciate it if you'd keep your voice down and not mention the name of my employer again."
"All right," he agreed softly, glancing around for a more private spot. "Why don't we take a stroll down the path to the oak grove. There's a nice little summerhouse right smack in the middle of the trees."
Jewel glanced up at the windows and looked for telltale shadows, but the curtains were all drawn. Assured their walk would be unobserved, she agreed. "I think that would be wiser than standing out here waiting to be discovered."
"Come on, then."
Reaching for her hand, Brent gave it a little squeeze before he guided her down the few short steps leading to the brick pathway. As they passed through the ruins of Miriam's rose garden, the scent of jasmine and honeysuckle grew stronger, beckoning to Jewel through the gnarled branches of purple-shadowed live oaks. A chorus of bullfrogs joined in with the crickets, and suddenly the peaceful countryside didn't seem so quiet anymore. Just as they reached the wooden steps leading to a small circular gazebo, a sparkling shower flashed before Jewel's eyes, startling her, then just as quickly darted out of her vision.
"Brent?" she said, searching the semidarkness for the images, doubting her usually excellent eyesight. "I thought I saw some tiny lights or something."
"Lightning bugs," he said as he guided her up the steps and onto the wooden platform. "Can't usually see them in the moonlight."
"Fireflies?"
"Yes, my dear. Fireflies looking for the perfect mate." Pausing, he made sure he had her full attention before he finished with "They're not so very unlike people."
At his final words, the heavy innuendo behind them, Jewel pulled her hand away and began to walk around the circumference of the summerhouse. She casually studied the lattice roofing and its covering of heavy vines, noting the small white blossoms and the heavy scent of honeysuckle. Taking a few more steps, she reached a small table with several cast-iron chairs ringing it. Jewel slowly ran her fingers over the scrollwork, then continued her silent, distracted inspection.
Growing impatient, assuming her careful perusal of the gazebo was only a way of avoiding his attempts at a personal conversation, Brent reverted to the previous discussion. "Why don't you have a seat and explain this nonsense about trapping your own father?"
Stopping at one of the chairs, she looped her fingers around the back and gripped the iron as she stared across the table at bim. "It isn't nonsense, Brent. I intend to bring Harry in if I have to follow him for the rest of my life."
His extravagant eyebrows drew together in disgust. Leaning over the table's glass top, he asked, "How can you even think of doing such a thing?''
Jewel set her jaw and leveled a defiant gaze at him. "I won't have any problem at all. It should be as easy as it was for him to abandon me twenty-six years ago."
"You mean he left when you were just a baby?"
Her fingers tightened around the scrollwork as she explained, "He left before I was born. He says he didn't know about me, that meeting me on the Dawn was the first he knew he even had a child. Hah," she added with a bitter laugh.
"It might be true, you know," Brent offered hopefully.
Jewel shrugged. "It doesn't matter one way or another to me. Let's just drop the subject. All right?"
Brent circled the table and reached out for her, but she eluded him and backed away. Holding his hands up, as much to ward off the sudden chill in her demeanor as to keep her standing before him, he said, "Take it easy. I'm just trying to understand—remember? I can't fathom your anger. What Harry did or didn't do in the past shouldn't matter too much now. He seems to enjoy being around you. I think he really likes being your father. Why not give him a chance?"
Turning her back on Brent, Jewel marched over to the waist-high wall and drew in a long breath before she answered him over her shoulder. "I appreciate what you're trying to do, but it's impossible for you to understand how I feel about Harry or what I have to do now." Her voice taut with the strain of holding her emotions in check, she spun around and said caustically, "You'll never understand because you can't know what it's like for a girl to be raised without a father."
"I can't?" he said, cocking his brow. "What about my niece, Missy? She doesn't have a father, but I believe she'll grow up to be a happy, well-adjusted young woman in spite of it."
"That's different," she grumbled. "Her mother was widowed, not deserted. I'm talking about growing up a bastard."
"I can't say I'm any too fond of your choice of words, but so far I don't see the difference between you and Melissa."
Jewel narrowed her eyes, waiting for him to laugh and tell her it was all a joke, but his expression remained dead serious. "Do you know what you just said?'' she breathed.
Brent leaned back against the railing and thoughtfully popped a toothpick into the corner of his mouth. Looking across the distance between them, he said, "I most certainly do, little lady. Mary Mildred was widowed, all right, but her husband was killed some twelve years ago during the War between the States."
Unable to comprehend the circumstances of the child's birth, Jewel sputtered, "But she said, I mean Mary led me to believe that her husband was the girl's father and that she'd been married only the one time. I don't understand."
"Regular miracle, isn't it?" He grinned at the family's private word for Melissa's conception, then explained. "After Mildred wed and moved to Vicksburg, Mary took to visiting her every six months or so. She come home from one of those trips in a family way. First thing she did was sit me and Beau down to explain that she wouldn't be marrying the baby's father and that there was no point in trying to find him or in doing something stupid like demanding a chance to defend her honor."
"You mean she refused to marry him?"
Brent shrugged. "We don't know if he ever even knew about Missy. From that day on, Mary insisted we never mention it again."
Her balance suddenly shaky, feeling as if she were negotiating the promenade deck of the Dawn, Jewel made her way to back to the table and steadied herself against a chair. "But your family is so affectionate toward Missy. They treat her like... like—"
"One of their own?" he supplied. "'Course they do. She is, you know. We all love her very deeply. Why would we feel otherwise? Missy never did anything wrong. For that matter, I'm not sure you could say that Mary did, either. Having that child has been a blessing for my sister. Missy has brought joy and laughter back to a woman who lost her spirit when her husband died."
Unable to fathom the kind of love a family could possess to be so completely accepting of a child born out of wedlock, Jewel turned her head and squeezed back a sudden rush of tears.
"Jewel darling?" Brent whispered softly as he closed the gap between them. "What is it, sweetheart? Please talk to me. Don't run away from me this time."
But her tears were gathering momentum. Afraid of making a fool of herself, she said, "I can't talk about this."
"But of course you can," he gently persisted as he took her shoulders in his hands and pulled her away from the chair. At that moment the moonlight caught the sparkle of dew on her cheeks, illuminated the trembling lips and eyes that sought to hide this sudden vulnerability from his gaze. "It's all right," he whispered. "Go ahead. Maybe crying will do you some good."
Jewel's eyes flashed opened, spilling their contents in a sudden rush as she insisted, "I don't cry. I never cry."
One corner of Brent's mouth curled u
p in a warm grin as he removed the toothpick and tossed it over the railing. "Come here, Jewel," he said tenderly, the words thick and dark. "Let me hold you while you don't cry."
And because she needed something from him at that moment, because her mind was too far in the past for rational thought in the present, she threw herself into his arms and allowed the tempest to run its course. After several minutes of tortured sobs and occasional whimpers, Jewel's humiliation and anger at this, her second bout of foolish weeping in less than a week, slowly evaporated along with her teardrops. Gathering herself, she drew comfort from Brent's strength and the depth of his compassion.
When she felt able to speak in complete sentences again, Jewel lifted her face off his damp shirt and sniffed. "I swear I'm really not one of those weepy females. I'm sorry if I—''
"Don't you dare apologize for having some honest emotions, little lady," he interrupted as he pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and gave it to her. After waiting until she finished dabbing at her eyes and nose, he went on, choosing his words carefully, speaking in a voice that was almost a caress. "Please don't feel that I'm pushing you into a corner, but it would mean an awful lot to me if you'd tell me what that was all about."
Stifling a hiccup as she considered his request, she drew in a calming breath and offered something close to the truth. "You wouldn't understand, Brent, not coming from a family like yours. You couldn't possibly imagine what it was like being raised in a home where you were thought of as something less than human."
Jewel dried yet another trickle of tears before she finished what she had to say. "I was treated like a repulsive aberration, bound to that... that''—she swallowed hard, nearly unable to speak the word as she thought of the Flannerys—"family only by the accident of my birth. I'm surprised they didn't drop me on a stranger's doorstep. At times, I wish they had."
Brent felt as if his gut had collided with the hub of the ship's wheel. His breath came in a short gasp as he whispered, "Good Lord, Jewel. I had no idea."
"You still don't," she said, curiously willing to share some of her past with him. Her strength renewed, Jewel stepped away from him and resumed her trek around the summerhouse. "How do you think I learned to play billiards?" she went on, her fists clenched. "It sure as hell wasn't because someone took the time to teach me."
Resisting the urge to follow her, to take her back into his arms and comfort and soothe her, he kept his silence, hoping she would feel secure enough about him to reveal more of herself.
She did. "I taught myself, that's how," she replied, answering her own question with more pride than hurt in her voice. "Whenever Grandfather Flannery had guests, whether they were business associates or members of my own family, I was hidden away in the bowels of his mansion. More often than not, I chose to disappear into the billiard room."
Unable to follow her logic, he asked, "Why did you hide if it upset you to do so?''
"I guess I didn't make myself clear," she said, kicking at a wooden post as she passed by. "I wasn't given a choice, Brent. I was ordered to vanish."
At his expression of disbelief, she balled her fists and closed her eyes. Memories of long ago came flooding back, images of Lemuel and his spiteful eyes, Lemuel and the judgmental tone in his voice whenever he spoke to her. The man was fuelled by hatred. He thrived on watching her cringe whenever he rapped his cane against the countertop. "You're long overdue for a good cuffing, you misbegotten daughter of Satan. I'll show you what happens if you behave improperly around me, I will." he would say, rationalizing yet another unjustified beating.
Lemuel's image was suddenly so clear that she could almost feel the ivory cane biting into her tender flesh, so vivid she could smell the sour venom of his breath mingled with the scent of freshly minted money. Jewel gasped, and her eyes flew open. After taking in her surroundings, assuring herself that she was not in the Flannery mansion, she straightened her spine and began pacing again.
Through a jaw so tight and aching she could barely form the words, Jewel forced a nonchalant tone and finished her explanation. "You see, Brent, the way Grandfather figured it, if his rich clients didn't know about me, he wouldn't have the chore of explaining my presence." She stopped pacing and turned, looking Brent square in the eye. "How does the very snobbish president of a bank explain that he harbors a bastard in his otherwise proper home?"
"He was the bastard," Brent growled, the acerbic taste of anger and disgust filling his mouth, turning his stomach. "Did he behave that way toward other members of your family, too?"
Looking away, she said slowly, painfully, "I wouldn't know my own cousins if I fell over them."
"And your grandmother?" he asked, his anger growing, "And what about your mother? She let him get away with that kind of cruelty?''
Jewel shrugged, surprised she was able to relate the story. "I wouldn't know what to say about Grandmama. I usually have pretty good instincts about people, but that woman was the most closed-up, untouchable person I ever met. I don't know what she thought about me, my mother, or even Grandfather, except that she was afraid of him. We all were."
His heart going out to her, still he fought the urge to touch her, to break the spell. His tone carrying his feelings across the distance, expressing the depth of his emotions, Brent asked, "Didn't you have anyone, sweetheart? No one to turn to, to love you?"
Feeling strangely impassive about such a personal question, Jewel glanced across the table, seeking his gaze. When it connected with hers, she felt the breath whoosh out of her, and her heart seemed to skip in her breast. Her mouth trembling, her mind racing, she said, "I don't think I really know what love is, Brent. My mother cared about me. I do know that much. When Grandfather wasn't around, she always made a great fuss over me and tried to make up for his cruelty. We had some good times together."
"When Grandfather wasn't around," he qualified.
Embarrassed as much for her mother as for herself, she slowly nodded and lowered her eyes. "Yes," she said, her voice so faint it was nearly carried away on the sultry evening breeze. "Mother had no trouble loving me when we were alone, but I could always count on her to betray me the minute Grandfather walked through the front door."
No longer able to stay away from her, his need to comfort her desperate somehow, Brent edged closer and tentatively took her hands. "I wish I had the power to let you relive your childhood in a home filled with love. Maybe if you let me try, I can help wipe those terrible memories from your mind."
Suddenly feeling stripped, as if her mind were a bashful nude exposed for all the world to see, she claimed, "They don't usually bother me so much. I figure if you just refuse to think about a thing, it can't hurt you."
Brent recognized her discomfort, assumed this was the first time she'd ever discussed the indignities of her childhood at such length, and decided a change of subject was in order. "You remind me of the Mississippi," he said, his grin back in place.
"Oh?" she said through a nervous laugh, relieved he was no longer interested in dwelling on her tormented childhood. "Why? Do I have mud on my face?"
Chuckling along with her, he squeezed her hands and explained. "You and the river have the same characteristics. You're both wild and untamed, and you both do whatever you damn well please, no matter how hard people try to change your direction. Like the river," he said, "you're unpredictable, exciting and deceptive. And like the Mississippi, it seems that whenever I relax and think I've got you tamed, whenever I drop my guard, so to speak, you rise up and overwhelm me, sinking me."
Jewel shivered at the thought. She glanced out of the summerhouse, smiling as she spotted the distant courtship of a few fireflies, and forced a tiny chuckle. "If the Mississippi was that bent on sinking me, Mr. Steamboat Owner, I think I'd make it my business to stay the hell away from it."
But he wasn't letting her off so easy. Not this night. He grinned back and quietly said, "She draws me to her. I can no more stay away from the Mississippi than I can stay away from you." Brent rel
eased her hands and cupped her face. His voice a lover's caress, his eyes dark with something more than passion, he pulled her mouth within inches of his own and murmured, "I happen to love that river, Jewel, and I love you."
Her heart began to race, and her mind suddenly exploded with a thousand fragmented thoughts. Jewel tried to pull out of Brent's embrace, but his grip was as determined as the man. In desperation she said, "Please, don't say things like that. I'm not ready to have anybody love me, especially not you. I don't know how to handle it or what to do."
"Then you need a teacher." He was ready for her arguments this time. "I have enough love for both of us until you've learned your lessons. Have you ever been in love before, Jewel? Ever done some poor young man the honor of lending him your heart?''
She strained against him, pleading, "Don't do this, Brent. You don't know what you're asking of me."
But he held fast, sure of his course. "Then I invite you to tell me."
Jewel gave up the fight then and allowed him to tilt her head back until their eyes met again. No longer as firm in her convictions, she said, "I've never loved anyone before, and I don't want to be in love with you, Brent. It's that simple. Love is for the feebleminded, those who are unwilling or unable to rely on themselves."
Remembering the supper conversation, the musings of Raiford concerning her intentions toward Brent, she added, "After listening to the comments of your family, I have to assume you plan to marry sometime in the future. I care enough about you to make sure you understand that I can never be that woman."
His heartbeat suddenly irregular, vibrating with foreboding, he recklessly said, "How can you be so sure of that?"
"I don't ever intend to get married to anyone. I will never be caged by any man again, not like I was in Grandfather's house, and not by the law and some silly wedding ring."
"But, Jewel," he protested, unaware he was practically asking for her hand, "marriage doesn't have to be like that. You simply haven't had the chance to see that for yourself. Our life together would be one hell of a lot better than anything you've described here tonight."