Open Secret

by Janice Kay Johnson

  That steamed Mark again, but he hid his anger. “Did you argue?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t totally remember, but I know I let the car keys drop and said, ‘It’s your car,’ and then I just walked away. I kept walking until I got to a bus stop down on McGraw, and I waited and then transferred downtown, but I had to wait a long time and it was cold—” She broke off. “I think…” A shuddery breath. “I think I’ve been disowned.”

  He didn’t know her parents. His contact with both had been unpleasant. Their attitude had been proprietary, controlling, arrogant. He’d put it down to the fact they’d been afraid.

  But Carrie, by her very nature, told a different tale about them. She wouldn’t be the woman she was if they hadn’t been supportive, loving, patient people.

  “I don’t believe it.” He shook his head. “When they’re angry, people do say things they don’t mean. Haven’t you ever?”

  Her brow crinkled, and she seemed to give it serious thought. Finally she let out a soft sigh. “I’ve never been that angry. Not until I found out you were telling me the truth and that they’d lied to me my entire life. So…no. Until then…”

  The way she stopped this time, Mark guessed she’d remembered something.

  “Until then?”

  Slowly, with apparent reluctance, she admitted, “Mom accused me of being cruel.”

  “Were you?”

  Her chin jutted. “Maybe my honesty felt cruel to her.”

  “And maybe you were trying to hurt her.”

  She was silent for a moment. “Okay. I was.”

  “You see?”

  “This was different.”

  “How?”

  She opened her mouth, then closed it. Her face showed her struggle to articulate what she knew, or thought she knew.

  “Why didn’t you argue?” Mark asked.

  “Argue?”

  “Yeah. Get mad and say, ‘You’re the one who lied to me.’ Maybe, ‘Are you talking about money, or am I supposed to somehow repay the time you spent helping me with my homework?’”

  Her lashes fluttered. “I…don’t know.”

  “Is that normal for you, to take a blow without fighting back?”

  “No.” She looked stunned. “No. I’ve been accused of being mouthy.”

  “So why weren’t you this time?”

  Her gaze had become unseeing, as if her internal search absorbed all her senses. “I think,” she said finally, in a small voice, “it was because he hit where I’m already…tender.”

  Mark waited patiently, letting her think it through.

  “I’ve been conscious lately of how much my parents have given me. How generous they’ve been, how willing to support me even when I was flaky and kept changing career goals. And how much I took advantage of that.”

  He waited some more. What she’d described was just the surface. It wasn’t the core fear that had caused her shock.

  “Mostly, I suppose, since I found out I was adopted I’ve felt…” She hesitated again, then found a word. “Insecure. Who am I? Where do I belong? If I wasn’t born to my parents, if they just pretended I was their daughter, how much was real? Do they really love me as much as if I was? And they gave me so much! Did they do that to disguise what they couldn’t give?” She shivered, her eyes finally focusing on his. “And the way he said it, as if I’d been unsatisfactory. Have I really been such a failure as a daughter?”

  He wanted to swear again, circle the table and cuddle her. But instinct told him she needed to work through this rationally, not just grieve like a wounded animal or child.

  So he said, “My suspicion is that biological fathers say things like that to their grown kids all the time when they’re mad. ‘I paid $40,000 for your education and now you’re throwing it away? Where’s your gratitude?’”

  “It was more his expression. I didn’t know he could look at me with so much hate!”

  “Carrie, I’m not excusing him. I don’t know him. I’m saying maybe you overreacted, because of your current vulnerability.”

  After a quiet, withdrawn moment, she gave a wry smile.

  “I suppose that’s possible, oh wise one.”

  “Don’t call me that.” His voice had more snap than he’d intended.

  Her eyes widened. “What?”

  He reined in the flash of irritation and unease. “I’m no wiser than the next man, I promise you. I’m not offering gospel!”

  Carrie studied him with perplexity but no hurt, thank God. Clearly she sensed she’d touched a spot where he was tender, although he hadn’t yet figured out why it annoyed and, yes, alarmed him so much when she said things like that.

  “Okay. Can I thank you for listening?”

  “Yeah, that I’ll take.”

  “Then thank you.” Her voice was husky, thick with emotion. “I’m glad I had you to go to tonight.”

  Now he did rise and circle the table to her. “You’re very welcome.”

  She stood and slipped into his arms. “I’m going to have to ask another favor of you, you know.”

  Even with her cheeks tearstained, her eyes puffy, her hair mussed, she was beautiful. She had the most vivid, expressive face he’d ever seen. He loved trying to read it, to keep up with the emotions and reactions that raced across it like darting hummingbirds. Almost absently, he said, “What’s that?”

  “I need a ride home.”

  Of course, she had no car.

  “Oh, right. Sure.” He rubbed his thumb across her cheek, feeling the stiff residue of tears. “Anytime.” Recognizing that he was being selfish, he asked, “Can you stay awhile?” She was probably exhausted after the storm, ready to curl up into a little ball all by herself, and he wanted to kiss her.

  “I’m not in any hurry…” She gasped. “Oh, no!”

  Mark gripped her shoulders. “What?”

  “My keys! I dropped my keys!”

  “You don’t have a spare?”

  She shook her head, then lightly bumped her forehead on his chest. “I kept meaning to make one, but… Oh God. I’ll have to call the manager. What if she’s not home?”

  He cleared his throat. “You know, you’d be welcome to stay the night.” Feeling the tiny stiffening under his hands, he added, “I do have a guest room, if you’d prefer. I could run you to work in the morning, and then you’d have all day to figure out how to replace your keys and get some transportation.”

  Carrie lifted her head, tilting it back so she could study his face. Just above a whisper, she echoed, “If I’d prefer?”

  He hunched his shoulders. Bad timing. A chivalrous man wouldn’t have even hinted that he wanted to take advantage of a lady in need. “You know I want you.”

  “I wondered… You haven’t asked.”

  “I was trying not to rush you. And,” he admitted, “I don’t have much practice at this kind of thing. I was married for ten years.”

  “Haven’t you been dating?”

  “A couple of times. ‘Dating’ being the key word.”

  “Oh.” Pink touched her cheeks. “You mean, you haven’t, um…”

  “Once. It felt…” Tawdry. That sounded too Victorian, so he said only, “I guess I still felt married.”

  “Oh.” She gave a little laugh that was rusty. “How many times have I said that tonight?”

  “So…” With force of will he let her go. “Shall I put fresh sheets on the bed in the guest room? Or would you rather I drive you home?”

  “No. I’d like to stay, if you mean it.” She rolled her eyes. “Of course you mean it! Listen to us! We’re being so polite.”

  “That’s me. Civil to the core.”

  “I think that’s one of the reasons I…” She strangled the next word, blushing furiously.

  Love? Was that what she’d been going to say? And if so, had it been a figure of speech, or was there any chance at all that she really meant it?

  Still blushing, she laid a hand on his cheek and rubbed it over the stubble. “You look so
dangerous, and underneath you’re incredibly kind. Every woman’s fantasy.”

  Voice low, rough, he asked, “Am I yours?”

  “You haven’t noticed?” She stood on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his. In a whisper, against his mouth, she said, “You don’t have to bother with those clean sheets. Whatever’s on your bed will do fine.”

  He made a guttural sound, plunged his fingers into her hair and kissed her with need he quit bothering to mask. Her lips parted, her tongue met his, and she wrapped her arms around his waist as if to hold on for dear life. They strained together, each making hungry sounds. He was so hard he ached, so desperate he wanted to ease her onto the table and take her right there.

  But they were going to make love—not simply have sex—if it killed him, and that meant at least getting her into his bed. He lifted his head and looked down at her swollen mouth and dazed eyes. With a groan, he gripped her hips and lifted her.

  By instinct, her legs came around his hips and she grabbed his shoulders. The feel of her thighs squeezing him didn’t help, and neither did having her ride him the way she was, but he got his feet moving anyway and blundered toward the stairs. He slammed her into a door frame, but, busy nipping his earlobe, she didn’t even seem to notice.

  He was kneading her buttocks even as he carried her, and she wriggled in response. Making it as far as the bed was about all he was going to manage, the way they were going.

  Damn, he thought suddenly. What had he done with the condoms he’d bought?

  Bathroom. He had a sudden image of dropping the box into a vanity drawer. He’d have to let her go that long.

  She strung kisses along his jawline, then up to his mouth. Halfway up the stairs, she sucked his bottom lip and he almost lost it. He shoved her against the wall and kissed her frantically, his hands gripping rhythmically, their hips rocking. It had been too long; he wasn’t going to be able to wait until he got his damn pants off.

  Too long? Who the hell was he kidding? It had never been like this.

  “Can we…hurry?” she whispered.

  “Oh, yeah.” He lifted her again and took the stairs two at a time, then strode down the hall without stopping, bumping open his bedroom door with one shoulder. He cracked her head against this door frame, but when he exclaimed she said, “Hurry.”

  He all but flung her on the bed, went to the bathroom for the damn condoms while his legs were still working, then returned to the bed to find that she’d shimmied off her T-shirt and was unsnapping the waistband of her jeans. Her bra—a little lime-green cotton strip with skinny ribbons for straps—was the next thing to nonexistent. Her nipples pushed hard against the fabric.

  “Let me,” he said, voice thick, unrecognizable even to his own ears. He laid his hand where hers had been and pulled down the zipper, a slow rasp. They both watched as he parted her jeans, exposing a smooth belly and a pair of skimpy hot-pink cotton panties with tiny yellow and green palm trees on them.

  She lifted her hips for him to pull off her jeans. Her sandals went with them, dropping to the floor. Even as he reached for her, she tugged his shirt upward and, impatient, he yanked it off. Then he pressed her backward onto the bed, closing his mouth over her breast through the bra. He sucked a hard nipple into his mouth, then pulled back long enough to dispose of the bra, too. Her breasts were small, perfect, sensitive enough to have her arching and crying out when he suckled this time.

  Her legs wrapped around his waist again, and he suddenly couldn’t bear to be wearing pants. He pulled back enough to remove them, then slid her panties down her long legs and tossed them.

  The nest at the vee of her thighs was as dark, silky and curly as the hair on her head. He slid his fingers into it, found her wet and ready, quivering as he explored. When she took him in her hand in turn, he shook his head.

  “Don’t. I’m… Don’t.”

  He wouldn’t let her put on the condom, even though she wanted to. Her small hands working it delicately over his painful erection would have been more than he could stand.

  Carrie lay back, lips parted, legs parted, and watched him with dark, tumultuous eyes. When he was done, she held out her arms. “Now. Please, now.”

  He found her opening and drove into her even as he went into her arms. She was tight, small, slick, her body slight but not delicate. No, she felt like a live wire, crackling with electricity.

  She rose to meet each plunge, her fingernails biting into his back, her cries all for him.

  Somehow, he held on until he felt her body convulse around him, and then he groaned and let himself fall into a release so long and sweet, it was like a skydive, the soar through thin air, the floating once the chute opened.

  Dazed, collapsed on her, he had trouble summoning the will to roll off. Had he ever had sex like that? As if he were drunk, he flopped over, then missed her warmth and gathered her against him.

  “Did we hurry enough?”

  Sounding as satiated as he felt, the words slurring, she murmured, “We hurried just right,” and then went lax against him, trusting enough to tumble into sleep.

  Amusement curved his mouth. A man could be insulted.

  Personally he was going with flattered.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  SUZANNE CALLED the next day at lunch just to say she’d enjoyed Saturday. Carrie had ordered out to a deli that delivered and was eating her sandwich alone at her desk. It seemed as if everybody else in the building had gone out. She’d been invited to join a few groups, but casual lunchtime gossip was beyond her today. Even leaving her emotional state out of it, she was still wearing yesterday’s jeans and T-shirt. She was lucky this was a casual office!

  “Do you want to do something again this weekend?” Suzanne asked. “Tell me if I’m being too pushy.”

  “Don’t be silly. But…” Carrie hesitated. “I’m not sure I can. I’m currently carless.”

  “Yours broke down?”

  Telling Mark had been one thing, Suzanne another. But sooner or later, she’d have to.

  “I went to see my parents.”

  Her sister put a heck of a lot of expression into her, “Oh?”

  “My father confronted me. He…said some things that really hurt.”

  “Carrie, I’m so sorry! This is my fault. What did he say?”

  “That I’d broken my mother’s heart. He implied that I’ve acted badly, after everything they’ve done for me. I, um, took it to mean financial. They bought me the car, for one thing. So I handed him the keys and in essence said fine, you can have it back, and left.”

  “Oh, Carrie,” Suzanne breathed again. “This never would have happened if I hadn’t contacted you, but…everything they’d done for you? Is that how he saw adoption? That they’d rescued you? Did he keep some kind of tally of how much you’ve cost?”

  Protesting came instinctively. “He isn’t like that.”

  “I thought—hoped—that your adoptive parents were nice people. This doesn’t make it sound like they are.”

  Carrie was suddenly, irrationally angry. “Why do you always say that? Adoptive parents. Like they’re…somehow less?”

  Sounding shocked, Suzanne said, “I…didn’t realize I did.”

  “Always! You make a point of it! They’re my parents! It’s like you want to put them in their place!”

  “I don’t…”

  “I know you remember our biological parents, but I don’t. Okay? I only have one mom and dad!” She heard footsteps outside her cubicle and realized she’d been shouting. “I’m sorry, Suzanne, but… I’m sorry. I’ve got to go.” Without waiting for a response, she hung up.

  She was breathing as if she’d finished a step-aerobics class. Tears burned at the backs of her eyes but refused to fall.

  “Oh God,” she whispered. “Why did I say that?” She closed her eyes, hugged her arms to her body and rocked herself, trying to regain composure. She’d been horrible! As bad as her dad! It was as if…as if…

  She’d wanted to drive Suzanne away.r />
  Carrie’s eyes popped open, although she saw neither her desk nor the half-eaten sandwich.

  Why would she do something like that?

  Because she felt guilty, as though she’d chosen this birth sister over her parents? Or was it that, somewhere deep inside, she wanted to go back to before, to the time when she was a normal, beloved, only child? When she didn’t have a sister?

  A wave of devastation hit her, lifted her off her feet, swept her away from the familiar and safe. Maybe she didn’t have a sister anymore, not after the things she’d said. Maybe she didn’t have anybody.

  Except Mark. She grabbed at the thought. Last night she’d felt so safe, so loved. When he was holding her, smiling at her, it seemed as if nothing and no one else could hurt her.

  Without even making a decision, she dialed his cell phone number. She just wanted to hear his voice.

  After two rings, she got voice mail. He had his phone turned off for some reason. She could try him at the office… But she felt pathetic, needy. She didn’t want him to know how pathetic she was! She could wait until tonight. She was strong enough…

  Her phone rang and she snatched it up. “Helvix Medical Instruments, Carrie St. John speaking.”

  “Carrie? It’s Suzanne.”

  “Oh, Suzanne, I was awful…!”

  “No, you were right to say what you did.” Her speech was formal, dignified, as if she’d rehearsed what to say. “I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry. I suppose…I suppose I’m a little jealous of how close you are to your parents. Maybe without realizing it I felt that they and I are battling for you, in a way. As if you can’t acknowledge that I’m family, too, without rejecting them, at least a little bit. I didn’t realize I did feel that sense of competition. So I wanted to say that I’m sorry and…” Her stiffness and her voice cracked at the same time and she finished hastily, “That’s all. Um, let’s talk later, okay?”

  With that, she was gone.

  Carrie looked up to see the clock inching toward one. She heard voices beyond her cubicle wall. Phones had begun ringing. She had the afternoon to get through, a manual to review. She would have to pretend that winds of emotion weren’t whipping inside her, forming the ominous beginning of a vicious funnel. She felt so many things she couldn’t even name, all conflicting: love and resentment and loss and a terrifying aloneness and bewilderment, swirling and tumbling and tearing into tatters her comfortable sense of self.