Secrets and Lies

by N. C. Anderson

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  The Fiction Works

  www.fictionworks.com

  Copyright ©2000 by N.C. Anderson

  First published by The Fiction Works, July 2004

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  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  Prologue

  Valencia Cove, California, 1929

  Changes that would affect the rest of his life began this day for Patrick Logan. His nanny Cora had finally let him leave his rooms after keeping him there for hours and hours. She hardly said much all day and she was wearing a black dress like mommy's. He had never seen her wear a dress like that. And she usually read him stories and talked and talked and helped him with colors and things. Except for humming songs about Jesus, she barely spoke and he was lonely.

  Before entering his father's den, and to avoid being told he should not be sucking his thumb, four-year-old Patrick popped his thumb from between his lips and placed his hand behind his back. He had just watched a lot of people leaving the house. First his mother cried and cried, then she was quiet. So he sought out his daddy. Daddy would tell him what to do.

  "Daddy?” he called while walking toward the giant desk near the windows. When he got no response he moved closer to see why his father sat all bent over the desk with his head in his hands, and why he hadn't answered him. He'd always answered him before.

  "Where's Matthew?” Patrick asked. He wanted to make whistling sounds and tickle his baby brother. They didn't let him play with Matthew yesterday because he was with Daddy at the hospital. Patrick hadn't heard any of Matthews funny noises all day. Cora hadn't seen him either. She said Daddy or Mommy would tell him where Matthew was.

  Brian Logan lifted his head “I can't talk about Matthew, Patrick. Go find your mother."

  Patrick had never heard his father's voice sound hard and strange. Nor had he ever seen him cry and his cheeks were wet like Patrick's got when he cried. “But I want Matthew,” Patrick whined. “I want to see Matthew."

  With a jerky movement, Brian swiveled his chair to face Patrick. “Listen carefully, Patrick. I don't want you to talk to me again about Matthew.” He pointed toward the door. “Now, go find your mother. She won't have any problem answering your questions."

  Patrick thought about being stubborn, then, because of the angry expression on his daddy's face, decided to obey and look to see if his mother now had her usual smile. He didn't realize that his parent's lives together suffered a near-mortal blow that day; that his family's emotional scars would bother him forever.

  Brian watched Patrick's little shoulders droop forward as he turned toward the door. He wanted to grab him, hug him, but the pain coiled relentlessly around his soul, becoming unbearable. The stark image of Matthew's tiny face, grayed in death, his thin five-month-old body still on the operating table, remained suspended behind Brian's eyes. And Brian felt certain that if he were to touch someone, he would shatter into a billion pieces—then cease to exist.

  * * * *

  After that day of being left out, tears, sadness, and four more years of growing, nothing much had changed in the being-left-out department for Patrick, except, for now. His parents had found an even more painful way to get rid of him, boarding school. The private school he had attended was several miles away, but he could always come home every day. He wanted to come home every day. Some of his friends had gone far away and he'd never seen them again. Maybe they were dead. Like Matthew.

  He wouldn't cry, though, not for anything. Eight-year-old boys didn't cry. But tears intruded, burning his eyes as he sat on the front steps of his house and watched a pocket-sized girl, skipping down the redbrick sidewalk toward the school up the street.

  As she slowed to a walk, Selena McRae smiled and soothed the skirt on her new dress. So that she could wear the dress, a once a year Sunday-best, she'd made her mother a promise, and nothing was going to keep six-year-old Selena from getting to school on time.

  Selena approached the front yard of the Doctor's house. Lined up in the long driveway were two big trucks, and men were carrying boxes from the house. Her mother had said Doctor Logan was moving because he had lots of money. She said they never had to stand in line for food or anything. She glanced toward the front door. Her mother also had said the doctor had a son, but hardly anyone had ever seen him because he went to school in Fresno. A boy was sitting on the steps. His chin was resting on his hands. Deciding he must be the son, she waved at him, but he didn't seem to see her though he looked right at her. With her mother's words and her own promises echoing in her ears, she resisted the temptation to go ask him how come he didn't wave. It would have been polite.

  When she glanced back to see where she was going, she found three boys from school blocking her path.

  "Walk in the street, McRae,” the biggest one said, his feet wide apart, his hands on his hips, his brown cap tipped to the side, his knee socks wrinkled and sagging. “You might contaminate this sidewalk."

  The boy nearest him snickered. “She might throw-up on it like her old man.” He laughed harder. “Or she might spill scrub water on it like her mother."

  Selena clinched her fists and stomped toward them. “You won't talk about my mother.” She didn't care anymore what they said about her dad. She just didn't care.

  She swung a fist at the boy who had talked mean about her mother, missed, and fell sideways onto the grass, skinning her knee as it grazed the sidewalk, landing hard on her ribs. Then she remembered her new dress. When she saw the grass stain on the flowered skirt, she exploded off the ground. She would get them. She would really get them. Only her feet were no longer touching the ground, and an arm held her tightly around the waist.

  "You guys want to pick on someone, then pick on me,” a voice above her said.

  The boys began backing away. “Hey, how ya doing, Logan?” the biggest one said, his eyes wide. “We were just having a little fun."

  "This little girl is a friend of mine,” Logan said, tightening his grip on a vigorously squirming Selena.

  "She will tell me if the three of you bother her again."

  "We would never bother a friend of yours, Logan,” they said in unison. With no hesitation after they reached the curb, they sprinted toward the school three blocks away.

  "Put me down, Logan What's-his-name,” Selena panted. “I can't breath.” He was the doctor's son. All the kids talked about him on the playground, but Selena had never seen him before. They'd said his name was Patrick. “And, I can take care of myself."

  Logan set her on her feet. He watched her for a moment, then reached out and touched the tears on her cheeks. “You're too little to beat them, you know?"

  She shook her head. “I'm not afraid of them. I see them every day, and one day, I'm gonna knock them silly.” Looking down at the green stain on her precious dress, she sniffled. “They ruined my dress. My very first new dress. My mommy will be sad."

  His gray eyes seemed serious, yet gentle as he leaned down to look at the stain. “Your mommy will fix it,” he said with authority. He straightened. “Do you go to school?"

  School! She started to run. She couldn't break her promise even if her dress was ruined. “Bye, Logan,” she called over her shoulder. “See you.” For a moment it had felt great having someone standup for her. It had been the very first time. But he was moving away. The kids at school would hear about it. Selena was used to being alone in her fight—she wasn't afraid.


  * * * *

  Ten years later.

  The house might be a deserted one, but instead of lifeless and lonely it felt alive and comfortable to Selena. It was wrong to be here. She knew her actions could bring big trouble down on her, but it was much better than being at home and watching her father be sick or slumped in a chair. People had treated her like dirt long before she ever did anything to be looked down on anyway. Her mother was the only one she didn't want to hurt by action or word. But this was Logan, and it was right no matter what anyone said. They belonged together. It was fate.

  "Oh, Logan, I love you,” she whispered, her breath, laboring in the aftermath of love. She gloried in the smooth texture of his skin as she brushed her fingertips across his cheek. Every time she was with him, her actual life seemed imaginary. She could banish from her mind all the disheartening shoddiness of her home, all the pain in her mother's eyes when her father staggered into the house. Logan's world was at the other end of what she considered life's spectrum.

  Logan kissed the side of her neck, and then unhurriedly flicked his tongue over the fullness of her bottom lip. “I love you, too, Selena."

  "I never want to be away from you, Logan. Please say I'll never have to be away from you."

  Logan stopped kissing Selena and backed away. He swung his legs over the side of the mattress they'd placed on the otherwise bare floor. He dreaded telling her the way things had to be between them. As he slipped the prophylactic from himself, he glanced over his shoulder at her young, languid, but questioning expression.

  Selena wasn't certain she liked the way Logan was looking at her. His cheeks, flushed under his tan, his eyes, holding a seriousness she'd never seen in them before. He mumbled under his breath. “I couldn't hear you, Logan. Would you run that past me again?"

  Logan sighed as he cupped his hands on the sides of her face. “I love you, Selena. But we're too young to make a lifetime commitment.” He stroked her hair. Surprise, then pain flickered in her eyes. “Come on, Selena, you know I'm right. You're only sixteen, and at eighteen, I don't have all the answers.” He didn't want to be right, but he was.

  "You don't want us to be together,” she said, her voice sounding far away to her. She didn't feel sixteen, more like sixty going on ninety.

  He wanted her with him. He wanted it so much it hurt. Their relationship had to end before he could no longer handle it. “What I want about us has nothing to do with it.” He closed his eyes for a moment then opened them. “I have to become a doctor, sweetheart. It's going to take years of concentration and my parents control the purse strings."

  Selena could see the tears in his young eyes, and tried to ignore them. Her mind seemed hardly capable of thinking about anything other than that they would no longer be together, and she loved him. She'd given herself to him, and he would never make a sacrifice for her. “Why didn't you tell me this a month ago?” she cried. “You can take, Logan, but you can't give, right?"

  A month ago they'd made love the first time. Selena had been a virgin, and when it came to downright experience, so had he. He knew exactly what she was talking about. He hadn't been completely in love with her then, but he was now. “I guess you must be right, Selena. I meant it when I said I love you. But I didn't realize the choices a month ago.” He brushed a tear from her cheek with his thumb. “I never wanted to hurt you, Selena.” He shook his head slowly, trying to see her clearly through the moisture in his eyes. “I never wanted to hurt anybody,” he added, his impatience for independence, punctuating each word.

  "But you are hurting me, Logan,” she mumbled, her throat, dry, constricted. “This ache in my heart feels fatal."

  He pulled her against his chest, resting his chin on her hair. “I can't do it all, Selena. I just don't know how."

  She couldn't force him to want her, though she wished so. He was telling her that they wouldn't be together again. This would be the last time. She rested, placing her arms around him. “And, I don't know how to stop loving you, Logan.” Her life suddenly seemed permanently, endlessly hollow, numb. It wouldn't be easy to survive without him. Selena thought about his family's moneyed influence. It hadn't been her most intelligent idea to believe that love could bridge the gap between their worlds.

  Along with his sense of dishonor, Logan tucked the despair of loss away in his mind the same way he'd always handled the curves life threw him. If only he had the knowledge and the age that went with it, then maybe he could force some of those curves to pass by him. “I'm sorry, sweetheart,” he whispered hoarsely. “I wish I could make you understand just how sorry."

  * * * *

  Selena arrived home that night thinking nothing on the face of the earth could make her feel worse. Then, because she was concentrating on her misery, she nearly collided with a man standing in the shadows on her warped, sagging front porch.

  For the first time, Selena clashed with Patrick's father, Doctor Brian Logan. And when he stomped away, she hoped it would be the last time.

  Chapter 1

  The year of our Lord, 1959

  Patrick Logan brushed his hand across the sweat on his chin in frustration, and then pushed his Stetson hat lower over his forehead. What was he doing, anyway, waiting like a spy in a hotter-than-hell parking lot, and making himself feel like an over-cooked lobster, just for a glimpse of a woman he hadn't seen for years? Because, and in spite of a profound, self-justifying debate against the idea, he couldn't talk himself out of it.

  He didn't know why Selena was back in Valencia Cove instead of at her home in San Diego. But her name in the realty ads made it look as though she planned to stay for a while, and one of her ads provided the excuse Logan needed to see her. If he walked up to her without a convincing reason, she'd think he was a lunatic. Especially after what had happened between them sixteen years before. Since he remembered the pain in her eyes as if it were just yesterday, Selena could possibly recall it even better.

  Logan balanced the toe of his boot against the wood-grain dashboard of his pickup and grabbed the classified section of the newspaper spread out on the seat beside him. He scanned the real estate ad he'd circled with heavy black ink. The ad described the two hundred mountain valley acres he wanted; in addition, the agent's name jolted his heart when he read it now; the same as it had when he'd read it yesterday. Selena Flynn. She'd still had a year to go in high school when she married old man Flynn. Logan thought he'd finally forgotten about her, about everything, but he hadn't.

  Logan elevated his gaze to the buildings. The blazing California sun lit up the glistening new real estate sign across the parking lot. Della McRae Realty stood out in dark gray letters against a soft rose background. Very classy, he thought, for a woman whose husband drank himself to death, for a woman who used to clean everyone else's house for a living. He shoved his hat back. Good god, now he was thinking like his class-structured father. Selena's mother worked hard; had always worked hard. She deserved whatever she earned. So what if Selena's rich husband had helped finance Della's agency. It wasn't any of his business.

  But, what could have brought Selena back?

  Then he saw her. She emerged from the Valencia Cove State Bank two doors down from her mother's agency. She wasn't alone. The young man wearing jeans and a football jersey walking beside her was one of the new boys trying out for the high school football team Logan helped to coach. They seemed to be in deep conversation.

  Logan carefully studied Selena. Expensive-looking white and navy pinstripe jacket, navy skirt, matching two-toned low-heeled shoes—Selena no longer resembled the poorest girl in town, wearing clean but faded clothing. And something else appeared different. Instead of the graceful gliding walk that had always mesmerized him, she limped slightly. Her curly, red-gold hair framed her heart-shaped face; the soft curls lifting slightly with a breeze, and reminding him of spun sugar.

  As the pair disappeared into the realty office, Logan glanced at his watch, knowing if he stayed another minute, he would be late for work.
It didn't matter, because seeing her was provoking a necessity he didn't understand, and curiosity won out. Would her voice sound the same? Did her eyes still shimmer with laughter? He should leave, should get back to the clinic where a multitude of patients was waiting for him. Hell.

  Logan dropped his foot back to the floor, shoved opened the truck door, and made his way across the sun-baked parking lot.

  * * * *

  I'd better get Telly on this immediately, Brian Logan decided, as he leaned closer to the darkened window on his limo and watched his son march across the parking lot. He'd felt mildly surprised to see Selena Flynn come out of the bank, and would have thought nothing about it, until he saw his son watching her. If anything, he thought Patrick would have forgotten her after all these years. Yet, there he was, a definite purpose to his stride, following her into her mother's office.

  Brian reached for his car phone. After connecting to the mobile operator and finally getting through, he said, impatiently, “Get Telly on the line, Janey.” He tapped his fingers against the leather armrest. “You tell Telly's secretary that I must talk to him today. And, make certain she understands it's urgent."

  He stared at the Realty office, premonition making his face heat, his skin flush, and his blood pressure elevate. That woman would sympathize with Patrick's pointless ideas, and most likely had access to her husband's millions. And after their altercation years ago she also had a strong dislike for Brian. If Patrick persuaded her to invest in his second-rate clinic....

  Influencing Selena Flynn wouldn't be easy like with the others, but he would find a way.

  No matter what it took.

  * * * *

  Having searched for a fresh, credible argument to use on her son and coming up empty Selena eyed her fifteen-year-old son as he parked his bike near the back wall of the office kitchen. “All right, Gregg, you win. You can play football, but one cut, one bruise and it's over with."