Glory tried to ignore what being held so close to Jesse did to her, even under such uncertain circumstances. If she’d known Liza was safe and warm somewhere, Glory would have wanted him to make love to her. “Thanks,” she retorted.
Reaching the parking lot, Jesse set Glory back on her feet with an exaggerated sigh of relief. Moments later, he was in the front seat of his car, the microphone to his radio in one hand.
Glory heard the blunt, static-ridden answers to his questions as she snapped her seat belt in place, but she couldn’t make sense of what was being said.
“They didn’t find her at the bus station,” he said, staring out at the river as he put the microphone back in place, “and there’s no sign of her along any of the roads leading out of town.”
Panic rose around Glory like invisible floodwaters, threatening to drown her, but Jesse offered her hope as he started the car and shifted into reverse.
“That probably means she’s still somewhere in Pearl River,” he said.
Shivering with cold and fear, Glory hugged herself. “Maybe she went to your house, Jesse. There are a lot of outbuildings there, if I remember correctly, and she probably has happy memories of the place.”
“It’s worth checking out,” Jesse agreed. And then he headed back to the main highway.
It took a full forty-five minutes to search every nook and cranny in the Bainbridge mansion, and there was no sign of Liza anywhere between the wine cellar and the attic. The stables, carriage house, storage sheds and the guest house were all empty, too.
In the mansion’s huge kitchen, Jesse made instant coffee for Glory, lacing it generously with brandy, and then grabbed at the wall phone and punched out a number. Glory knew without being told that he was calling his office, hoping against hope that there would be some word.
She thought she’d faint with relief when, after barking a greeting, Jesse grinned. “Liza’s been found,” he said to Glory. “She went to the diner after she missed her train, and she’s okay.”
Glory swayed against the counter and took a restorative sip of her coffee. Thank you, God, she thought, closing her eyes. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
After a few more words, none of which Glory was able to grasp, Jesse hung up the receiver with a triumphant crash.
Glory started to set her coffee aside, but Jesse stopped her with a crisp, “Drink it down. You’re white as hell.” Then he took her arm and led her to the bench beside the big trestle table.
Knowing Jesse wouldn’t take her to her daughter until she’d done what he said, Glory sat down on the bench and drank her spiked coffee as fast as she could swallow it. Then they returned to Jesse’s squad car and started toward town.
Instead of heading toward the diner, Jesse took the first right turn after they crossed the city limits and brought the squad car to a stop in front of Dr. Cupples’s humble office. It was a small blue house with white shutters, and the doctor’s shingle hung from the scrollwork above the porch.
Glory hadn’t been near the place since that day a decade before, when she’d learned she was pregnant with Jesse’s baby. Despite the unhappy memories, she was right behind Jesse as he strode up the walk.
“I thought you said Liza is all right!” she cried breathlessly, when he reached the porch and wrenched open the front door.
“Johnson brought her here, just to make sure,” Jesse answered shortly. And then he was looming over the receptionist’s desk, demanding, “Where’s my daughter?”
“Right in there,” the middle-aged woman replied, pointing toward a doorway, not in the least intimidated by the sheriff’s manner.
As quickly as Glory moved, Jesse was through the doorway first.
Liza sat on the end of an examining table, wrapped in an oversized, old-fashioned felt bathrobe with Indian designs on it, sipping hot cocoa. Her eyes went wide when she saw Jesse.
He shook his finger at her. “You’re just lucky I’m too glad to see you to tan your hide!” he told the child furiously.
Liza looked from Jesse’s face to Glory’s, then sighed like a ninety-year-old woman. “I’m sorry,” she said, her little shoulders stooped.
Glory spoke far more gently than Jesse had. “Why did you do it?” she asked. Even though she was sure she knew, she still hoped she’d been wrong. “Why did you run away?”
Liza’s gaze was level. “Because you didn’t want me. I would probably be halfway to California by now, if that darned train had just stopped.”
Just then Dr. Cupples appeared in another doorway. He was an old man now, with white hair and kindly blue eyes. “Hello, Jesse,” he said. Then hesitantly he added a greeting for Glory. “Ms. Parsons. I wonder if I could speak with the two of you in my office.”
Jesse nodded shortly, and his brown eyes were hot as they swung back to his daughter. “I still haven’t decided against spanking you,” he warned, “so don’t you dare move!”
Glory, for her part, was swamped with memories as she preceded Jesse into the doctor’s small office. Here, the physician had given her happy news that was to have tragic, far-reaching results. She felt weak as she sank into one of the chairs facing Dr. Cupples’s desk.
Jesse took the other, lifting one booted foot to rest on the opposite knee.
The doctor carefully closed the office door, then went behind his desk to sink into his swivel chair with a weary sigh. He pressed a button on his telephone and said, “Doris, will you please hold my calls for a few minutes?”
Jesse shifted uncomfortably in his chair, then leaned forward, his brows drawn together in a frown. “What’s this all about?”
The old man sat back, making a steeple of his fingers beneath his double chin. “I have a confession to make, and it’s not an easy thing to do, Jesse Bainbridge, so I’ll thank you to keep your pants on until I get it said!”
Still glowering, Jesse subsided a little, settling back in his chair. Glory, meanwhile was perched on the edge of hers, sensing that Dr. Cupples was about to make an important announcement.
“After you came to see me that day ten years ago, Glory,” he said with resignation, “I betrayed your trust—and my own vows as a physician—to call my friend Seth Bainbridge and tell him you were expecting a baby, and that Jesse was the father.”
Glory wasn’t surprised; she’d deduced that long ago. But Jesse straightened in his chair, poised like a rocket about to shoot off the launchpad.
“What?” he rasped.
“I thought I was doing a friend a favor. Now, of course, I wish I’d just stayed out of the whole thing. That little girl out there might have been a whole lot happier if I had.” Dr. Cupples sighed and leaned forward, bracing his forearms against his cluttered desk. “The judge thought it was important for you to go to college and marry well, Jesse, so he paid Ms. Parsons to leave town.”
Jesse shot a lethal look in Glory’s direction. “Don’t blame yourself too much, Doc,” he rasped. “The plan wouldn’t have worked if Glory hadn’t been so damn willing to be bought off!”
Glory would have liked to think Jesse didn’t mean what he was saying, that he was just reacting to the unavoidable stress of losing a child and finding her again, but she knew he meant every word. And she was too crippled with hurt and regret to defend herself.
“Glory was eighteen,” Doc Cupples pointed out kindly. “A fatherless girl, with nobody to take her side.” His blue eyes shifted to Glory’s face. “You have no idea how sorry I am for my interference, my dear, or how much I wish I’d done something to help you.”
Jesse thrust himself out of his chair and stormed out of the office, and Glory followed him, after one apologetic look at the doctor.
In the examination room, Jesse scooped Liza up in his arms, borrowed bathrobe, and all, and held her tightly against his chest. His gaze punctured Glory’s spirit like a lance. “You and your lawyer wanted a fight,” he breathed. “Well, lady, you’ve got one!”
Before Glory could work through the wall of pain that surrounded her an
d respond, Jesse strode out, carrying Liza with him.
Dr. Cupples laid one hand on Glory’s shoulder. “Jesse’s a good man,” he said quietly, “even if he is hot-tempered. He’ll come to his senses if you just give him a day or two.”
Glory felt broken and bruised inside. She nodded distractedly and went out.
Walking to her mother’s diner, she heard Liza’s words over and over in her mind…you didn’t want me….
When Delphine saw her daughter, she was visibly horrified. Stepping back to admit Glory to the little apartment over the diner, she said, “Glory, sweetheart, what’s happened? I thought you’d be happy, finding Liza safe—”
Glory sank into a chair and kicked off her eel-skin shoes. They were completely ruined, but she didn’t give a damn. “You were right,” she said brokenly. “You were right.”
Delphine bent to unbutton Glory’s coat, as she might have done when her daughter was a child, and pushed it back off her shoulders. Then she took the crocheted afghan from the sofa and draped it tenderly around Glory’s legs. “There, now,” she whispered soothingly. “What was I so right about?”
“I shouldn’t have come here,” Glory fretted in utter despair. “All I did was mix Liza up. She ran away because she thought I didn’t want her. And, Mama, she could have been hurt or even killed. Someone awful might have picked her up—”
“Hush!” Delphine interrupted with affectionate harshness. “The child is safe and sound, Glory—that’s all that matters.” She moved toward the kitchen to brew the inevitable cup of tea, always part of her solution to any heartbreak. “You were right about one thing,” she said cheerfully. “That little girl is the spitting image of Bridget McVerdy!”
Glory began to cry softly. Liza might have been saved all this trauma if Glory had just kept her promise to the judge and stayed away from Pearl River. But no, she’d had to come here and blow the lid off everything. Now Liza would not only grieve for Sandy and Gresham, she would suffer with the knowledge that her birth parents had failed her.
When Delphine returned with tea, a little plate of colorful Christmas cookies and a packet of tissue, Glory was slightly calmer. She dried her eyes, no doubt smearing her makeup all over her face, and then blew her nose. When that process was completed, she accepted one cookie and the strong, fragrant tea.
“There is one obvious solution to all this, you know,” Delphine said gently, sitting down on the sofa facing Glory and folding her hands.
“What?” Glory sniffled, taking a disconsolate bite out of an angel’s wing.
“You and Jesse could get married. Then the two of you could go about making a life for yourselves and your daughter.”
Glory shook her head. “I’ll admit it, Mama—I’m just crazy enough that I’m as much in love with Jesse as I ever was. I g-guess I’m one of those women who loves pain. But there’s no hope for us. Jesse’s furious with me—he can’t see past the fact that I took money from the judge when I left Pearl River. I hurt him far more deeply than I ever dreamed I could, and he’s never going to forgive me.”
“Why don’t you decide that after you’ve gone to him and told him the truth, Glory—that you love him desperately?”
Glory imagined the scenario and shrank from the accusations she knew she would see burning in Jesse’s eyes. “I can’t.”
“It would seem you’re not all that crazy about pain, after all,” Delphine observed with a wry twist to her mouth. She reached for a reindeer cookie and bit off its antlers.
Glory sighed. “You know, Mama, I wish I were more like you. You’ve had lots of heartache in your life, but it never broke you. You were brave. You just kept putting one foot in front of the other and, lo and behold, here you are with a business of your own and a man who adores you.”
“Do you think I never ran away from a problem?” Delphine asked, raising her eyebrows. “If you do, you don’t have a very good memory. When we came here to Pearl River, you and Dylan and I, we were on the run from a very bad situation.”
“But you started over. You made the best of things. What would you do if you were me?”
“Knowing what I know now? I’d stand toe to toe with Jesse Bainbridge and tell him I loved him. Then I’d work at my job and I’d find a way to build some kind of relationship with Liza.”
Glory set her teacup aside. She wasn’t as courageous as her mother; she couldn’t endure Jesse’s hatred, or the knowledge that she’d done her own child more harm than good. No, the best thing to do would be to go away.
Eventually Liza’s wounds would heal over and so, hopefully, would her own.
She set the afghan aside and rose shakily to her feet. “I’d better go home,” she said. “I have things to do.”
“I’ll drive you there,” Delphine told her, standing and going to the closet for her own coat.
“That won’t be necessary, Mama,” Glory protested woodenly. “My car’s at the bank.”
“You’re in no shape to walk even that far,” Delphine insisted. “And you’ve ruined your shoes. I doubt they’ll even stay on your feet.”
Sure enough, the high heels were destined for the rubbish bin. Glory accepted a pair of her mother’s slippers, since any of her shoes would have been too small, and obediently followed her downstairs to Delphine’s little silver car.
Delphine didn’t take Glory to the bank parking lot, she took her directly to her apartment. There, she undressed her like a child, put her into a warm flannel nightgown, turned up the heat, and tucked her into bed. Then Delphine brought her a cup of hot lemon juice mixed with water and honey and two aspirin tablets.
Glory dutifully took the aspirin and sipped the lemon concoction. “I’m not sick,” she protested.
“You will be, if someone doesn’t take care of you,” Delphine responded firmly. And then she left the room, and Glory heard her talking on the telephone, telling Harold she was spending the night at her daughter’s apartment.
When Glory had finished her drink, she settled down into the covers and closed her eyes. She’d just rest for a few minutes, then she’d get up and telephone her attorney, and Mr. Baker at the bank.
When she awakened, she was instantly aware that hours had passed. Delphine was humming along with Christmas carols on the radio, and something smelled heavenly.
Glory got out of bed and, after a short visit to the bathroom, ventured into the kitchen. The tree was lit, belying the fact that suffering existed anywhere in the world.
Pulling back a chair at the table, Glory sat down. “Hi,” she said.
Delphine kissed her forehead, and once again Glory thought how much she’d missed having someone to fuss over her when things were going wrong. “Hi, sweetie. I cooked your favorite for supper—spaghetti and meatballs.”
Glory sighed. “That was a good trick, since I didn’t have anything in the cupboards or the fridge—I was planning on going shopping tonight after work.”
Back at the stove, Delphine was stirring the savory sauce she and she alone could make. Her slender shoulders moved in a pretty shrug. “Harold stopped by the supermarket for me.”
“You should have invited him to stay for supper,” Glory said, feeling guilty. Here she was, a grown woman, getting in the way of her mother’s romance.
“I did,” Delphine answered. “He said we needed this time together without him hanging around, getting in the way. Those were his words, by the way, not mine.”
Glory propped her chin in one hand. “He’s a great guy,” she said. “I think if I didn’t love you so much, I’d be jealous.”
Delphine smiled. “You might find that Jesse is a ‘great guy,’ if you’d just wade through all that hostility until you reached the real man.”
“That calls for a braver soul than mine,” Glory answered softly. “And what makes you think Jesse is so wonderful, anyway? Some mothers would resent him, you know, for making their teenage daughter pregnant.”
After dishing up two plates of spaghetti and meatballs and bringing them
to the table, Delphine went back for salad, wine and garlic bread. Not until everything was ready and she’d taken her seat at the table did she respond. “Jesse had more privileges than you and Dylan did,” she said in a thoughtful voice as she and Glory began to eat. “But he’s had just as much unhappiness, if not more. First his parents died, then he lost the girl he loved, then Gresham and Sandy perished in that plane crash. I’ll wager that on some level Jesse’s afraid to let you know how much he still cares for you, thinking you’ll either die or disappear again if he does.”
Glory bit her lower lip for a moment to keep from crying. She’d done enough of that. “What makes you think Jesse still loves me?”
Delphine chuckled softly. “I should have realized it that first morning you were home. He watched you every single minute, except when you were looking at him, of course. And his rage tells me a lot, too. Fury isn’t the opposite of love, Glory—indifference is. And Jesse Bainbridge is anything but apathetic, where you’re concerned.”
Swallowing, Glory remembered the night she and Jesse had gone to dinner and ended up making love in his grandfather’s car. His passion had been partly anger, but he’d taken the utmost care to please her. Still, when it was over, things hadn’t been any different between them. “Face it, Mama. You were right in the first place—I should have stayed away from Jesse and Liza, even after I discovered the truth. Once your wedding was over, I could have gone on to San Francisco, and nobody would have been any the wiser where Liza’s parenthood was concerned. I really blew it.”
“I’m not so sure of that, darling. A little girl needs a mother, and there’s no doubt that that child’s been lonely, even though Jesse and Ilene have done their best by her.”
Glory’s throat thickened. “Big girls need their mothers, too, sometimes,” she said, grateful that Delphine had come through when she needed her. Glory had wanted to be there for Liza, but she’d botched everything, and the damage seemed irreparable.
Delphine made a bed on Glory’s sofa that night, and Glory slept better, knowing she wasn’t alone. In the morning, though, her resolve was as firm as ever. She would make the necessary arrangements and leave Pearl River before she did anything else to hurt her child.
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