Secrets Rising

by Sally Berneathy

  Surprisingly, Rebecca, who had seemed so defenseless a few minutes ago, refused to be intimidated. After recovering from her initial fright, she seemed galvanized by the mysterious phone call. "The hell I say. This is what I came for, to act instead of waiting and wondering, to retake control of my life."

  While he had to give her credit for guts, he wasn't sure she was ready to hear what Mrs. Jordan might say. That phone call pretty much guaranteed a bad outcome to this whole thing. "Look, that call you got suggests we may be onto something. So why don't you go to the library and check newspapers for the months just before and just after you were born while I talk to Mrs. Jordan?"

  "Why should I check the newspapers? You think my mother might have taken out an ad announcing she had a child to give away?"

  Jake ignored her sarcasm. "This is a small town. There could be a mention of some teenage girl who left to spend several months with her aunt somewhere up north. Some kids could have run away to get married, then their parents had it annulled. There are a lot of possibilities for stories that might give us a clue."

  "You want me to read through every newspaper for five or six months?"

  Jake nodded. "That's what detective work is about, whether it's with the police force or private investigation. You search through a million grains of sand until you find the one that means something or maybe it only leads you to another one that means something. It's boring and tedious. On the positive side, the newspaper here won't be like the Dallas Morning News. Especially that long ago, it'll be a small paper, probably come out once or twice a week, and all you have to look for is the local news."

  She shook her head stubbornly. "I wouldn't know what to look for, and you know I wouldn't. You're just trying to send me off while you question Mrs. Jordan."

  He plowed his fingers through his hair. "Didn't we have this discussion earlier tonight? You either hired me to do a job or you're going to do the job yourself. Take your choice."

  "That's a totally illogical thing to say. I may not know what questions to ask or what newspaper stories to look for, but I'm a woman. Another woman is much more likely to talk to me than she is to you. Unless you can give me a damned good reason why I shouldn't, I'm going with you."

  She was a curious mixture of vulnerability and determination, of fears and courage, of blatant sexuality and dignified sophistication. And she was getting his mind and his body completely messed up.

  Telling her she couldn't come with him, making every attempt to avoid her, wasn't the real solution to that problem. Getting his head back on straight was the only real and final solution.

  He shrugged, as though the matter were of no consequence. "Fine. I can't stop you from coming with me, but you let me handle the questioning unless I ask for your help."

  "Fine. I'll be ready to go at, what? Nine-thirty?"

  "Nine-thirty."

  She started out the door then stopped. "Oh, your shirt. I—"

  "I'll get it tomorrow."

  She stared at him for a long moment then her gaze hardened and her jaw firmed. Slowly, deliberately, never taking her eyes from his, she unbuttoned his shirt, slid out of it, handed it to him and strode away. With each step her long legs flashed in the darkness and her rounded rear moved enticingly below her slim waist, the wispy gown accenting more than it hid.

  She vanished into her room, but her image remained in Jake's thoughts, imprinted on his eyelids, tingling between his legs.

  If she got any more calls tonight, he'd know because he wasn't likely to go back to sleep any time soon.

  ***

  "Good morning."

  At the sound of Jake's voice, Rebecca lowered her copy of The Edgewater Post and looked up to see him standing there in a denim shirt—the one she'd worn last night?—and faded blue jeans. The jeans were snapped today, thank goodness.

  She wasn't surprised to see him. The motel coffee shop—inappropriately called The Eat Rite Grill—was the only restaurant in the immediate vicinity. However, she was a little surprised to see him still looking so appealing in the light of day. She'd greeted a tired, drawn face in the mirror this morning, but Jake, in spite of—or maybe because of—an indefinable dishevelment, looked more rugged and sexier than ever.

  "Good morning," she said politely. "Would you care to join me?"

  "Thanks." He slid into the booth across from her, cast a quick glance at her half-empty coffee and picked up the plastic covered menu. "Are you eating or just pumping up on caffeine?"

  He almost sounded as if it mattered to him whether or not she ate breakfast. Almost. After his callous treatment of her last night, she knew better than to expect any such thing from Jake.

  When she'd impulsively run to him after the shattering phone call, he'd seemed reassuring and concerned at first. He'd wrapped her in his shirt that smelled of laundry detergent with a faint essence of Jake, and then brought her a glass of tap water. For those few moments he'd seemed human, his dark eyes warm like a summer night. For those few moments she'd leaned on him. Then he retreated from her, brushing aside her fears with a cold reminder that she'd known going in her mother didn't want to be found.

  She'd lain awake the rest of the night regretting her impetuous flight to him.

  "I've ordered eggs, bacon and biscuits," she said. "I had a rough night, so I figure I need something besides coffee to get me through the day."

  A waitress appeared and refilled her cup, then poured coffee for Jake and took his order.

  Jake smiled up at the woman, a warm smile Rebecca had never seen from him before. He certainly had never used it on her. "I'll have the same thing this young lady is having."

  "Got it." The waitress returned his smile, took his menu and left.

  He drank deeply from his coffee before he spoke. "Any more calls?"

  "No, none."

  "Don't be surprised if you do get another one. If somebody is trying to keep you from finding your mother, they'll probably try again when they figure out the first attempt didn't work."

  Jake was being so calm, so rational, so normal that she wanted to fly into his face, grab his broad shoulders and shake him until something sparked in those cold eyes.

  She lifted the heavy mug and drank more of the muddy coffee.

  The problem was hers, not his. He was doing the job she'd hired him to do. Nothing said he was supposed to get emotional about it.

  She, on the other hand, had let her emotions get as much out of control as everything else in her life. The death of her parents had upset her, then finding the note about her birth mother had caused her even more distress. When she met Jake, she'd been in an extremely vulnerable state.

  She was attracted to him. There was no point in denying it. He was an attractive man. More importantly, he was the man who was going to help her put herself back together. She'd let that factor confuse her, gotten everything all mixed up with the attraction and her dependence on his skills translating into an emotional dependence.

  Thank goodness he'd brought her out of that fast enough with his brutal coldness. He'd snapped her back to reality, and she'd taken great delight in defying his objection to her accompanying him to Doris Jordan's house. The righteous anger had felt good, a relief from the emptiness she'd lived with since her parents' deaths...since she'd lost herself.

  The anger was, she thought, the healthiest of her rampant emotions.

  But she hadn't been able to stop herself from giving him back his shirt and flaunting her nearly-nude body in front of him as she went back to her room. In spite of her distress, she hadn't missed the desire in his eyes when she'd come to his room in the middle of the night. In her anger, the temptation to taunt him had been irresistible.

  Though she hadn't looked back, she'd felt his gaze on her, hot and hungry, and she'd loved every second of it. She'd managed to take control of at least that much of her life.

  The waitress arrived with heavy plates of eggs, bacon, hash browns and biscuits. Rebecca had lost her appetite when her parents died, b
ut today she resolved to eat every bite. Today she had a feeling she was going to need all the strength she could find.

  Chapter 5

  Rebecca studied every house, every tree, every lawn of the small town of Edgewater as Jake guided his dark blue, nondescript sedan along the maze of streets toward Doris Jordan's house.

  A young boy skated down the sidewalk on roller blades. Two girls sat on a front porch having a tea party with their dolls. A group of kids were shooting baskets in front of somebody's garage. An older couple rocked to and fro in a porch swing.

  Had her mother or father grown up in one of those houses, in a world not all that different from her own?

  Was her mother or father sitting in one of those houses right now?

  Was that teenage boy riding a bicycle her cousin or even her half-brother?

  Jake turned down a street with trees so big they formed a canopy overhead. The houses here were small and old. He pulled up in front of a yard bursting with a kaleidoscope of disorderly flowers.

  "You know," he said, "you don't have to go in." The first words he'd spoken since they'd left the restaurant were brusque but with an underlying note of concern. Or maybe she just wanted to hear that underlying note.

  Probably.

  She opened the car door and climbed out.

  The sidewalk leading up to the porch was cracked, but no grass sprouted between the cracks just as no weeds grew in the profusion of flowers. Morning glory vines twined around a trellis on one side of the porch, and a couple of wrought iron chairs with faded cushions seemed to be waiting for people to visit.

  As Rebecca stepped onto the porch, she noticed that the trellis of vines curtained a swing on that side, a place to sit hidden from the world.

  The screen door opened, and a regal woman wearing light gray slacks and a matching silvery dress appeared. "Good morning. You must be Mr. Thornton. I'm Doris Jordan." At first glance, in spite of her perfectly coifed white hair, she looked younger than the seventy-some years Charles Morton had mentioned. But her face was creased with a network of fine lines, and her pale green eyes held depths that could only have been acquired from many years of living.

  "I'm Jake Thornton, and this is Rebecca Patterson. I hope you don't mind if she sits in on our discussion."

  "Not at all. I'm always glad to have company. Please come in."

  Jake had not specified her role in being there, and Doris Jordan was too polite to ask. Rebecca was grateful for that, for the chance to be merely an observer rather than someone with so much at stake.

  Jake's hand touched the small of her back as he entered the house behind her. It was a casual gesture, the habit of a man accustomed to walking beside a woman. Nothing in the brief contact justified the surge of heat that shot through her.

  Her emotions were running rampant again. She gathered her dignity about her and resolved to keep a tighter rein on her volatile reactions to Jake Thornton, to get in control and stay there.

  Though the morning was already warm, Doris Jordan's house with the curtains drawn against the sun still retained the night's cool.

  "Would you like some coffee? I've just made a fresh pot."

  "Thank you, I'd love a cup." Jake gave the older woman the same charming smile he'd given the waitress.

  "And you, Ms. Patterson?"

  "Yes, please."

  Doris left the room, and Jake looked around then sat in a large, overstuffed chair. Rebecca sank onto the far end of a sofa printed with muted or possibly faded flowers and draped with a colorful afghan. The room, like the yard, was filled to overflowing but didn't feel crowded. A roll top desk occupied one corner. A small television housed in an old Victrola cabinet sat in another. The sofa and two chairs were grouped around a marble topped coffee table. Occasional tables holding pictures and lamps dotted the room. Everything was immaculately clean and polished and gleamed warmly in the dim light.

  "Here we are." Doris returned with a silver tray holding a matching pot, sugar bowl and creamer, a large mug and two dainty cups and saucers. "My husband, Edgar, and I received this beautiful tea service for a wedding gift. We never drank hot tea, so I've always used it for coffee. I saw no point in letting it go to waste." She set the tray on the table and served them, giving the mug to Jake, then sat down on the other end of the sofa, between him and Rebecca. "Men like the big mugs. I suppose their fingers are simply too large for the smaller handles. My husband and son were both large men like you, Mr. Thornton."

  Rebecca accepted the china cup with irises painted in delicate shadings of purple and lavender. "This is beautiful."

  "Thank you." Doris held up her own, similar in design but with roses trailing around it. "I began collecting them years ago, back when we thought all our dishes had to match. I saw no reason for that and decided I'd have a flower garden in my china cabinet."

  "What a lovely sentiment. A garden inside to match the one outside."

  Doris smiled warmly. "Exactly. You obviously noticed my flowers in the front yard have no particular design, either. The random patterns appeal to me with their special brand of unplanned beauty."

  Rebecca thought of the kaleidoscopic flowers out front and imagined Doris' china cabinet filled with more of the dainty cups in myriad flowers and designs. "Beauty in chaos."

  "I find it wild and soothing at the same time. Would you like more coffee?" She lifted the pot and Jake held out his mug.

  "Thank you. It's great," he said.

  "Yes, it is," Rebecca agreed. "What we had at the motel coffee shop was...less than wonderful."

  "Wilbur doesn't supervise his restaurant staff closely enough. I don't believe they clean the pots adequately. It's so important to get rid of the rancid oils."

  "You know the motel owner," Jake said, and Rebecca caught the subtle shift in his voice, the hint of business mixed with the conversational tones.

  It was enough to pierce the haze of contentment that had settled around her. Doris Jordan's house, her yard, her furniture, her tea service, her manner of speaking had soothed and lulled her. She'd relaxed into Doris' sofa, sipped coffee from her flower-garden cup, luxuriated in the cool dimness of the room and the faint scent of violets or some other old-fashioned flower. Somehow she'd momentarily lost sight of the reason they were there.

  "Oh my, yes," Doris said. "I went to school with his mother. I've lived here all my life. I know most of the people."

  "I imagine a lot of the women bought dresses from your shop."

  "Yes, they did." She set her cup and saucer on the table and folded her hands in her lap. "At one time, having a dress with my label in it was considered special. Not like Neiman Marcus, but special in our little town. Most of the women in Edgewater shopped there as well as many of the women from smaller towns in the area."

  Rebecca's heart sank. The chances of this woman's remembering one blue dress were becoming smaller and smaller.

  "How'd you come up with the name Sharise's Shoppe?" Jake asked, his tone still a careful combination of casual and intense.

  Doris smiled, the lines of her face spreading outward in a way that was more wistful than happy. "My son was a twin. His sister, Sharise, died at birth. So when I opened the dress store, it was either Doris' Dresses or Sharise's Shoppe. Not much of a choice, really."

  "It's a beautiful name," Rebecca said. "I don't think I've heard it before." Her own pain of loss reached out and blended with the older woman's. She recalled that Morton had mentioned Doris' son being killed years ago and her husband dying more recently. He hadn't mentioned the death of an infant, too.

  For all her pictures and flowers, Doris was alone in the world...as she herself was.

  "I'm not sure where I heard the name. Possibly in a book. I read a lot."

  A click drew her attention to Jake. His open briefcase sat in his lap, but his intent gaze was focused on her. Immediately he averted his eyes, looked into the briefcase and withdrew the dress. "Any chance you'd remember this?"

  "This is the dress you said belonge
d to your client's mother?"

  Jake nodded.

  Doris accepted the garment and studied it carefully, her fingers caressing as they slid over the material, as though she would retrieve the era represented by the dress, an era when she had a dress shop and a husband and a son. Finally she looked up, directly at Rebecca. "I sold so many of these."

  "The woman would have been short and slim, dark hair, and she wore glasses." Rebecca knew it was useless, but she couldn't give up so easily.

  Doris shook her head and handed the dress back to Jake. "I'm sorry. My memory isn't what it used to be."

  "It's all right," Jake said smoothly. "I knew it was a long shot. What about somebody who might have come to your shop looking for loose clothes to disguise a pregnancy around 1978 or 1979?"

  "I've been thinking about it ever since you phoned me yesterday, but I can't recall anything that might help you. My son, a police officer, was killed on duty in 1979. My husband had his first heart attack when he heard the news, so I'm afraid I didn't notice a lot outside my own family that year."

  Doris related the incidents with sadness but without any visible signs of the heart-wrenching grief that still came when Rebecca spoke of her parents' death. Thirty years from now, would she be as accepting as Doris Jordan?

  "I'm sorry," Jake said. "I didn't know."

  Rebecca impulsively placed her hand over Doris'. "Me, too. We didn't mean to revive painful memories."

  "It's all right. If we live long enough, we all lose people we love. I've made peace with my losses." She placed her other hand over Rebecca's and gave it a quick squeeze. "Is this your mother you're looking for? Are you Mr. Thornton's client?"

  Rebecca looked to Jake as if she thought he had any answers. Of course he didn't.

  "Yes," she said. "My parents were killed in an automobile accident recently, and I discovered I was adopted."