by Jeanne Allan
“A friend of Lorie’s wouldn’t have gone to that expense and trouble.” To Addy’s amazement, her voice worked. “Keep reading.”
“‘I have now learned a Loraine Johnson gave birth to a baby daughter named Emilie Adeline on August 30, 1992, in Denver. Her birth certificate listed the father as Unknown. I am assuming this child is the child I am seeking information about.’
“‘Further search led the detective to the apartment where you lived at the time Emilie was born. A photograph of Loraine shown to your neighbors elicited the information that you and the child moved away after your sister’s death. The neighbors were unable to tell the detective where you relocated, but it is only a matter of time before the detective finds you.’” Sam looked up from the wrinkled page. “Why did you move? To elude pursuit?”
“No. It never occurred to me... I never thought to tell anyone not to say anything. I never imagined he’d come looking for us. I moved because—” she twisted her hands in her lap “—too many unhappy memories. I wanted Emilie to grow up in a happy place. Since then we’ve moved several times... Rent increases, one place the owners sold, a better neighborhood for Emilie, to play in...” Almost to herself she added, “I didn’t think to hide, even so, it’ll take a while to find us.”
Sam started to say something, stopped, then turned his attention back to the letter. He read silently, but the words were burned on Addy’s brain.
“‘It has become a matter of some urgency for me to locate the child and learn the circumstances of her current situation and satisfy myself as to her well-being. I would be happy to meet with you and your husband, if you now have one, at a time and place of your choosing. I am more than willing to fly to Colorado on a moment’s notice. I am anxious to meet the people raising Emilie and, of course, to see Emilie for myself. As I mentioned before, I would like to discuss with you issues concerning the child. I assure you it would be in your and Emilie’s best interests to agree to such a meeting. I shall look forward to hearing from you in the near future. Sincerely, William Burgess.’”
Addy could sit no longer. Jumping to her feet, she paced back and forth across the small expanse of kitchen floor. “The despicable, villainous louse. A ‘personal interest in Emilie.’ Who does he think he is? After all these years, thinking he can have her.”
“Maybe he wants to reassure himself she’s doing well. He says nothing more than he wants to meet her.”
“Don’t you understand?” Addy practically shouted. “He’s a spoiler. He plans to challenge my custody of her. I won’t let him. He can’t have her. How dare he?” She shoved a chair out of her path. “Where was he when she needed middle-of-the-night feedings? Where was he when her mother abandoned us? Where was he when she was sick and needed rocking for hours? He was out in Hollywood seducing more starlets, that’s where he was. And now he’s threatening me. It’s not enough he killed Lorie, he wants to destroy her daughter. I won’t let him. Do you hear me? I will not let him.”
“You don’t know—”
“Don’t you dare—”Addy whirled “—tell me what I do and don’t know. I know. He’s evil. Ruining an innocent young girl, making her someone I didn’t know. Someone hard, cruel, ugly...” Turning from him, she stuffed her fist in her mouth, biting down hard on her knuckles.
A wooden chair crashed to the linoleum behind her, and Sam’s hands fell heavily to her shoulders. “C’mon, Adeline, pull yourself together—”
“That’s what I said.” The harsh laugh tore her throat. She welcomed the pain. “‘Pull yourself together, Lorie,’ I said. ‘It’s only two years.’ There wasn’t enough money. Our folks didn’t have much insurance. Our relatives were all kind, but we were burdens on them, and we knew it. They passed us around—spreading the burden, Aunt Marie once said, not knowing I hard.”
“I don’t understand what—”
“If I didn’t go to the university then, I lost the scholarship. I couldn’t risk not getting another one. She was sixteen. Two years. I thought it would be OK. Only it wasn’t. She was too pretty. The boys liked her too much, the girls not enough. She didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late. Boys took her out to park, but they took other girls, more respectable girls, to dances. She had no friends. We’d moved too often. All she had was me. And all I could think about was going off to college.”
“You can’t blame yourself.”
“She cried and begged me not to leave her. I told her to pull herself together. Two years later I begged her to come to the university. She had no scholarship—her grades had plummeted—but I thought if we both held down jobs while we went to school, and got some loans... She looked me right in the eye and said since I’d wanted to go off to school so badly without her, I could stay at school without her.”
“That’s when she went to Hollywood?”
“I don’t even know where she got the money for the bus ride out there,” Addy said tonelessly. She didn’t want to know. After Lorie left, her aunt’s husband dropped some angry hints about blackmail to Addy. After that vacation, Addy never visited that particular aunt and uncle again. She suspected her decision to stay away relieved them. Future annual Christmas cards from her aunt never mentioned Lorie.
Addy’s eyelids rubbed her eyes with sandpaper. “She thought I cared less about her than going to school. Isn’t that crazy?” She couldn’t cry. She’d used up her quota of tears for Lorie years ago. “I loved her more than anything. I thought I was thinking about our future.”
“You were.”
“I convinced myself I was. Because I wanted to go to college. I wanted to get away from being an object of charity. My selfishness killed my sister. I shouldn’t have left her. I’m sure I could have gotten another scholarship, a loan, something... If I had stayed she wouldn’t have started on her destructive spiral downward.”
“What happened wasn’t your fault.”
Addy twisted out of his grasp, and faced him, dry-eyed. “You haven’t been listening. I murdered my sister. If I’d held a gun to her head and pulled the trigger, I couldn’t have killed her deader than I did by walking out on her.”
“Adeline, you can’t—”
“I will never, ever walk away from Emilie. Never. If I have to lie, steal, cheat...”
“Or marry.”
Addy looked him squarely in the eye. “Or marry.”
“All right. Marry me.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
A STARK silence filled the kitchen, broken only by the loud ticking of the wall clock. Addy stared dumbfounded at Sam. His entire body appeared carved from stone. Only the shock in his eyes betrayed him. The marriage proposal had stunned him as much as it had stunned Addy. Thanks to her pathetic confession, Sam Dawson had, undoubtedly for the first time in his life, spoken without thinking.
Sam blinked, and the shock disappeared from his eyes, so quickly and completely Addy might have imagined it. Except she hadn’t. The cool blue gaze locked on her face as Sam waited for her answer told her more clearly than words that, having made the marriage proposal, Sam considered himself bound to honor it.
If she said yes, he’d marry her. Emilie would have a father. Addy could pretend she didn’t know the prospect of marriage to her horrified Sam. Maybe he really did want to marry her. She couldn’t jeopardize Emilie’s future because of one-fleeting emotion she may or may not have seen in Sam’s eyes. There was only one way to find out. “Why did you say that? About me marrying you?”
“Adeline, ever since I arrived in Colorado, you’ve been obsessing over the need to acquire a husband,” he said with exaggerated patience. “How many other available men do you know?”
His question answered hers. Pity, and nothing else, had prompted his proposal. Besides, he was hardly available. “What about your Boston beauty?”
“There is no Boston beauty.”
“You lied about that? Darn you.” She wanted to slug him. “I knew you made it up. I knew it. It was charity.” Just like his involuntary marriage propos
al. Resuming her pacing, she showed massive restraint in kicking a table leg in passing instead of kicking Sam. “I hate charity.” She shoved a chair out of her path. “Hate it, hate it, hate it.”
“Do you think you could stop with the temper tantrum and tell me what you are talking about?”
“The mythical woman you supposedly wanted me to design a necklace for.” She could hardly tell him she was talking about stupid ignoramuses who offered marriage out of pity before they even realized what they were saying. Pity! She didn’t want his stupid pity.
Dawning comprehension supplanted the puzzled look on Sam’s face. “She’s not from Boston, that is—”
“The point is not where she lives.” Addy wanted to sit down and howl. “But that she exists.”
Sam gave her a startled look. “Does she matter?”
“Of course she matters, you idiot.” Everything mattered. Nothing mattered. “If you’re committed to her...” Addy grabbed the dirty plates from the table and flung them into the dishwasher. Peanut butter stuck to her fingers. Peanut butter. Blast peanut butter. The dishwasher would never remove the peanut butter. She hated peanut butter. She grabbed the dishes from the dishwasher and scrubbed and scrubbed the surface of the plates. If she had her way peanut butter would be banished from the face of the earth. His Boston beauty, who wasn’t from Boston, undoubtedly never had peanut butter in her fancy condo which certainly wouldn’t have purple walls. Nor would she have kids around who thought there was only one major food group—peanut butter and its by-products such as peanut butter cookies.
Sam rescued the plates and stuck them in the dishwasher. “No woman, from Boston or anywhere else, expects me to propose marriage to her. No hearts will break when we get married.”
“You never wanted jewelry. Now I owe you for the train ticket. Lying to me about wanting a necklace was the same as stealing money from my purse.” Focusing on the jewelry kept her thoughts from other, immensely more painful subjects.
“You’re overwrought. Calm down so we can discuss this in a calm and reasonable manner.”
“I’m not overwrought,” Addy screeched, “I’m not wrought at all. I am going to kill you, but I am not overwrought. I should have known. I did know. You don’t even like my jewelry. Why would you want your girlfriend to wear it?”
Sam sighed. “Fine. We’ll deal first with the issue of the jewelry. I want you to make me a necklace. I commissioned it, and I will pay you for it, even though you’re going to be my wife. Let me finish,” he said as she opened her mouth. “As for my like or dislike of your jewelry, my tastes are irrelevant. The women of my acquaintance dress to please themselves.”
“Considering the way you’ve criticized every stitch on my body from the moment you walked in Hannah’s front door, I find it hard to believe any woman within a hundred-mile radius of you wears anything but lab coats or beige.”
“This particular woman wears black night and day.”
“She sleeps in black?”
“Since she doesn’t wear jewelry to bed, what difference does it make to you what she sleeps in?”
“None,” Addy snapped.
“Then quit probing for information on my sex life,” he said mildly. “We’re not married yet.”
Addy knew her face matched her crimson blouse. “I haven’t the slightest bit of interest in your sex life, and I’m not going to marry you. My sole interest in her clothing is to help me personalize her jewelry.”
“She always wears plain black clothes and huge jewerly. Her necklaces, collected from all over the world, include pearls and gemstones and beads made from about anything you can think of, and more you never thought of. The more exotic, the better.” Sam gave her a mocking look. “Anything else you want to know? Her favorite breakfast is a banana and peanut butter sandwich, and she likes it served in bed.”
“I’m sure that will be sufficient.” He knew what she wore to bed. He knew what she ate for breakfast. He spent nights with her. In her bed.
“There is one more thing, Adeline. The woman I want the necklace for is my mother. Now,” he asked politely, “can we move on to the more important subject of our marriage?”
“No.” He really expected her to believe he wanted a necklace for his mother?
He sighed again. “What else is there to discuss about the jewelry?”
“I meant, no, I’m not going to marry you.” He’d probably give the necklace to the woman as a farewell gift. Or maybe he had no intention of bidding the woman farewell. It wasn’t as if he’d be marrying Addy because he was crazy in love with her.
“Adeline, I was lured out here to marry—”
“I had nothing to do with that letter. I never wanted to marry you. I don’t want to marry you. I’m not going to marry you.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to. What are you, some kind of god that a woman dare not reject your marriage proposal, no matter how. . .” She couldn’t find the word she wanted. “Awful it is?”
“Excuse me,” he said sarcastically, “I didn’t realize the moment called for champagne and red roses and me down on my knees. I thought I was offering you a helping hand.”
A helping hand. As opposed to seeking her hand in marriage. Addy clenched the top of the nearest chair. He meant charity. She looked at the chair, then at Sam. With his height, the weight of the massive chair, not to mention she couldn’t count on him to stand passively by while she hefted the furniture over her head... Reluctantly she concluded she’d never be able to break the chair over his head. She never considered the chair might break his thick skull. The bulldog look on his face told her he wouldn’t accept another rejection of his suggestion—she refused to call it a proposal. Addy temporized. “This letter, your offer...everything has messed up my mind.” That part was true. “I need time to think.” Also true. “I’ll let you know my decision later.” Maybe not so true.
Sam scrutinized her face. “Is your reluctance based on a belief I have another woman somewhere?”
“No.” She would have turned him down anyway.
“As you’ve repeatedly pointed out, I’m not the best catch in the western hemisphere, but I think we could work things out.”
He sounded so sincere. Addy could almost believe he’d managed to convince himself he wouldn’t mind marrying her. Almost. “As long as we have white living rooms and beige furniture and I allow you to select my clothes?” As if that was the issue.
He frowned. “Do you really think—”
“No.” He’d spoken so precipitously he wouldn’t have considered any of the ramifications of marriage. He no doubt planned to marry Addy, give Emilie a father in name and then return to Boston where he’d never to have to deal with Addy or Emilie again.
“You’re concerned I won’t make a good father for Emilie. That’s it, isn’t it?” he asked heavily.
Addy stared at him in astonishment. He’d make Emilie a wonderful father. Even if he was so stupid he didn’t understand anything about anything. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped. “I just need time to think about it. To analyze the data. In a calm and reasonable manner.” She fled the kitchen for the security of her rooms, barreling up the stairs and through the sitting room doorway.
Hannah grabbed the top of the stepladder she stood on. “Goodness, Addy, you took ten years from my life.” Reaching back up, she removed Addy’s grandmother’s wedding dress from where it hung on the sitting room wall and carefully handed the dress down to a waiting Emilie.
Addy skidded to a halt. “What are you doing?”
“Getting down your wedding dress. We may need to do a little altering, and it could use freshening up.”
Emilie, conscious of the enormous responsibility resting on her shoulders, took careful mincing steps to the sofa where she gingerly laid down the dress. She immediately whirled and ran to Addy’s side. “Aunt Cora said I get to carry pink roses.”
Addy helped Hannah down from the stepladder. “Pink roses?”
&
nbsp; “For our wedding.” Emilie dashed back to the sofa and softly stroked the yellowed white satin. “We’re gonna marry Sam, Addy. Aren’t you glad?”
A number of emotions rocked Addy. Gladness didn’t happen to be one of them.
Seated in Hannah’s front parlor, the four women smiled and looked expectantly at Addy when she came in after putting Emilie to bed. Addy took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “Hannah told me you were coming over this evening to discuss wedding plans.” All smiles widened as they nodded. “Don’t you remember my telling you we don’t plan to get married for a while? That we’re going to see how things go after Sam returns to Boston?” Addy intended to nip this wedding business in the bud.
“Yes, dear, but that was before you had to get married.”
“Had to get married?” Addy asked. “Cora, I don’t have to get married.”
“No shame in it,” Phoebe said. “Mr. Carlson, Jim’s father, counseled young mothers to marry for the sake of the baby.”
Addy turned to the retired legal secretary. “Shame? Baby? I’m not expecting a baby.”
Belle laughed. “Of course not. Hannah said Emilie’s father threatened to take Emilie away if you’re not married, so Sam offered to marry you. We’ve always said Emilie needed a father.”
“You don’t have to worry about what kind of father Sam will make Emilie. I’m a little prejudiced about my grandchildren, but Sam’s the oldest and he always watched out for his two younger brothers. What scamps they were,” Hannah added fondly.
“He’ll be a wonderful father, but I’m not sure—”
“Of course not, dear. Marriage is a big step and it’s hard to be sure, but love smooths the way.”