“Not when you march into this house and bully my daughter. Alex and Tyler have every right to be here. Any ninny with half a brain can see Tyler is Brandon’s son.”
His mother stumbled back a step. “What did you say?”
“You heard me,” Evelyn said, lowering her voice. She took a deep breath and reached for Alex’s hand. “I’m sorry, baby. I know it wasn’t my place to tell her, but she needs to know. In fact, she needed to know years ago.” She turned back to Irene and looked her full in the face. “You’ve actually been lucky, you know. Alex could have caused quite a scandal if she had wanted to. And why my daughter didn’t ask your family for more child support, I’ll never understand. Those puny checks Brandon sent twice a year were hardly enough.”
“Mom, be quiet,” Alex warned.
“It’s the truth,” Evelyn snapped. “It’s time she knew it.” She turned to Jack. “It’s time you knew your mother is not some high and mighty Kentucky blueblood. She’s a small town girl, just like me.”
His mother’s hand turned cold and damp. Jack looked down to see her whole demeanor had crumbled. “Mother, are you okay? Would you like to sit down?”
“I don’t have to take this abuse,” Irene stammered, letting him take her to the sofa. “Jack, do something.”
“What do you want me to do?” He sat down by her side.
“Get them out of here. You know I can’t stand liars.”
“I don’t know if Mrs. Marsden is a liar.” He glanced at Evelyn. “I’ve never heard you talk about your childhood. I never knew my maternal grandparents.”
Irene had gone pale. “But the other thing. What she said about Brandon.”
It was time for the truth. All the way around. He glanced up at Alex and tried not to be dismayed by the unreadable stare she returned. Jack squeezed his mother’s hand. How did he tell her? For so long he wanted to protect her from knowing about Tyler. He wanted to believe Brandon would step up to his responsibility, and later keep alive the myth of his brother’s heroism.
His insides felt like gum, sticky with mixed emotions and regret. He took a resolute breath. “It’s true. I’ve known since Brandon admitted it to me eight years ago. You know he could never keep anything from me.”
“And you didn’t tell me?” Some of her spunk returned and Irene straightened her shoulders, her posture stiff.
“It was Brandon’s place to tell you. Not mine.”
“Neither one of you told me.”
He heard the hurt in her voice, the hurt he’d tried to protect her from. “Mother, I thought Brandon would tell you, but when he didn’t, I covered for him.” Jack slumped forward and looked as his clasped hand. “I told Brandon if he wouldn’t marry Alex and give his child the Breckinridge name, then he didn’t deserve the perks of that name.”
“I don’t believe it.”
He should put his arm around her, but his mother never invited warmth and affection. “I told him to enter the army. Maybe that would make a man of him. But Brandon took it as a way to duck out of his responsibilities.”
His mother’s eyes showed the torture of confusion and disbelief. “I blamed you for Brandon leaving.”
Jack gave her a sad smile. “I know. I tried to make it up to you in other ways.” He thought about Gloria Fenton and the parade of other women he couldn’t force himself to marry.
He glanced at Alex. Evelyn stood next to her, supporting her, much as he tried to support his mother. Alex looked so forlorn holding herself up by the crutches and searching his face with a gaze fraught with despair.
“At least Brandon didn’t forget us completely,” Alex spoke up. “He sent us a little money each year.”
“I suppose that is something,” Irene said dully. She reached a manicured hand into her Coach bag and put the envelope inside.
What did it matter that his mother had little faith left in Brandon? It couldn’t hurt to let his mother think him honorable in the end. Jack stood up and looked at Alex. Would she mind if he took a step toward making them a real family?
He turned to his mother. “How about meeting your grandson? He’s a great kid.”
“Now?” Casting a wary glance at Evelyn, she muttered, “I’m not sure I’m ready to be a grandmother.” She rose to her feet, her haughtiness returning. “At least a part of my Brandon still lives,” she said in a hushed voice.
Evelyn wiped away a tear and Alex nodded at him. Jack went to the foot of the stairs and called up, “Tyler, come downstairs. Your mother and I want to introduce you to someone.”
* * * *
When Irene and Evelyn had gone home and Tyler and Copper had finally fallen into bed, Alex hobbled onto the screened-in porch, seeking the peace and quiet of the approaching night.
The introductions had gone well. Tyler had been respectful and polite, Evelyn had been restrained, and Irene had surprised everyone by her quiet dignity if not her genuine warmth. It had been tricky explaining about Brandon, but even that had been softened for the benefit of an eight year old.
Alex had never told her son much about his father other than he was a soldier. Together she and Jack accounted for Brandon’s absence—he was busy serving his country—and told him about his father’s recent death. Standing in the family room, eyes wide with curiosity, Tyler had taken it all in like a champ.
“You’re named for my son,” Irene had told him. “His middle name was Tyler.”
“It was?” He had seemed impressed, glancing all around.
Jack had surprised them all by asking Tyler if he wanted to be adopted and become a Breckinridge for real. Alex had given her son permission by a silent nod and they had all celebrated with delivered pizza, even Irene who had behaved like a trouper and seemed somewhat chagrinned over her past behavior.
Things were working out for Tyler, Evelyn, and even Irene and Jack, who had at least started to reconcile their differences. But what about their marriage?
She didn’t want to love Jack, was afraid to love him. She had loved Brandon and that love had not been returned. But he had taught her a bitter lesson.
Loving in isolation was pointless. True love was mutual. Quid pro quo, something for something. She wanted that something.
Jack came out into the porch and shut the door. He approached and stood behind her so close that she could feel the heat emanating from his body. His warm breath on the back of her neck. His thigh against the back of her knee.
When Jack touched her shoulders, chills clashed with the warmth corkscrewing down her spine. He brushed her hair away from her neck with a gentle kiss.
She stiffened, trying to stay the desire that ran hot and cold through her. She fought her fear of his rejection. “Don’t, Jack.”
He hesitated for only a moment. “This thing between us, Alex, we’ve got to solve it,” he whispered in her ear.
Her knees were about to buckle. “How?”
“By clearing the air.” He turned her around. “By telling the truth.”
She gazed up into his handsome face, longing for peace between them, longing for so much more that her tied-tongue couldn’t express.
“As much as I wanted to protect Brandon, in the end it was a mistake. I don’t want to fix his mess.” He brushed the hair from her eyes, his fingers tender and warm. “I don’t want your gratitude, Alex, but you need to know the truth. I sent those checks.”
“You gave me money all those years?” Brandon was a jerk. She’d been a fool to think otherwise.
He nodded, and cupped her face in his hands, looking down at her. “I was mad when I found out about Greco,” he said softly, “because I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I’m a good rider, Jack.”
“I know, but I don’t want to lose you too.”
“What?”
He looked away, but not before she read his heartache. “I’ve lost Brandon and Nana. I can’t lose you.”
“Oh, Jack,” she said with a sigh. What was she supposed to say? In her mind, his fears were unreas
onable, but did they mean something more?
His smile was sad and sweet. He gently traced her lips with a fingertip. “I love you, Alex. I’ve loved you a long time and I’ve made so many mistakes. Can you ever forgive me?”
She caught his hand and leaned her cheek into it, savoring his warmth, his nearness, his love. “I need to fess up too,” she murmured. “I know you thought I loved Brandon. Maybe you even think I still do. But it was over years ago, Jack. I did love him once, but when he abandoned his son, I couldn’t continue to love him.”
Alex searched Jack’s face, probing deep into his heart. “I told you I couldn’t marry someone I didn’t love.”
“But you married me.”
“I know. I didn’t make a mistake,” she said with fierce conviction. “I love you, Jack.”
Jack stopped her next words with his mouth. “We’ve talked enough.”
He kissed her slowly, her head tilting back and her hair falling over her shoulders, loose and long. He slid his hand behind her neck and tangled his fingers in her thick mass of waves.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered. “Let’s go make a real marriage.”
About the Author
Jan Scarbrough lives in Louisville, Kentucky, along with two dogs and four cats. Dreams do come true! On January 2, 2000, she married Bill, her soul mate. When she’s not writing, Jan takes riding lessons every week on her favorite horse, the American Saddlebred. She also volunteers at The Luci Center, a therapeutic riding center.
Jan says, “The process of becoming a published author has been fun. My best friends are fellow writers. Who else will check a point plot for me or understand GMC and POV?”
Jan Scarbrough is a member of Novelists, Inc., Romance Writers of America and the Kentucky Romance Writers, where she served as president, secretary, and newsletter editor. Jan is currently the web mistress of the KYRW chapter’s award-winning web site.
To learn more about Jan Scarbrough, please visit her at:
http://www.janscarbrough.com
http://www.myspace.com/janscarbrough
http://www.myspace.com/ladiesoflegend
http://sisterwriters.blogspot.com
Also Available from Resplendence Publishing:
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Project Manager: Georgina Coleman, VP at Pacific Bank, 28 years old. Brilliant and determined, but lacking in social skills.
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Secrets of the Heart by Jannifer Hoffman
Nicole Anderson owns a successful costume design business, has a wealth of small town friends and sleeps in a lonely bed haunted by demons from the past. She’s convinced herself her life is exactly the way she wants it and has shot down every marriageable man within a fifty-mile radius.
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Ladies of Legend: Finding Home by Janet Eaves, Magdalena Scott, Maddie James and Jan Scarbrough
What happens when four writers who love romance get together and create a town, the people who live in it, and the stories of those people’s lives? You get Legend, Tennessee — where four women from different backgrounds find purpose, love and their future in a town intent on preserving its past.
Ladies of Legend: Finding Home is an anthology including four novellas:
Claiming the Legend b
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The Reunion Game by Jan Scarbrough... Plain Jane Smith reunites with her long lost love by playing a game of "bait and switch" with her famous twin sister.
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