The Second Sister
Page 23
Bram nodded. “That makes sense. Maybe Marcus didn’t kill your mother after all.”
“Or maybe he had help,” George said grimly. “Her adopted parents had almost as much to lose as Marcus.”
Everyone began to talk at once except Leigh. She held Gavin’s gaze. “Alexis doesn’t know. I can’t explain why I’m so sure, but I am. She doesn’t know about us. I don’t know what happened in New York or out back in the garden, but Alexis doesn’t know about us. She thinks she’s alone.”
Gavin touched her cheek. “Three days,” he told her. “And if I get disbarred, you’ll have to support me.”
Leigh threw her arms around him. “I love you.”
Gavin felt as if a gate inside him had opened, allowing years of carefully contained emotions to flow freely for the first time. Leigh loved him.
“Let’s call the private investigator now,” Hayley said.
“It’s Sunday,” George pointed out. “I doubt anyone will answer on a Sunday afternoon. Don’t you think we should take the time to read through everything in this file first?”
IT WAS HOURS LATER before Gavin drew Leigh outside on the back-porch swing. Another storm was sweeping across the Hudson River. Cloud lightning flashed in the distance.
“How are you holding up?” he asked.
“I’m okay. I keep wondering what she’s like. How do we tell her what Marcus did?”
“You and Hayley will find a way.”
“How could he be our father? What sort of a monster was he?”
“I don’t know.”
She sought his hand and he pulled her against his side. For a long time, they simply sat there in silence watching the storm approach.
“George said something to me the other day… Actually, he said several things, but they made a lot of sense.”
“George usually does,” she agreed.
“He said a person can’t love if they can’t trust.”
“Is that why you asked me if I trusted you when we were checking out the balcony yesterday?”
He nodded. “You didn’t hesitate. You said yes. But he said the trust you lacked was in yourself. You compare yourself to your sister and feel like you come up short.”
“Is that what you think?”
“No. I think you know who you are.”
“I do now. When I compare myself to Hayley, I see differences. Sometimes I wish I could emulate her, but that usually gets me into trouble. I’m me, good, bad or indifferent.”
“How about spectacular?”
“Spectacular’s good.” She grinned at him. “I like spectacular. What about you?”
“He nailed me,” Gavin admitted. “He said I didn’t trust easily because I couldn’t shed my guilt over what happened to my family.”
“Ah, but not trusting easily isn’t the same thing as being unable to trust at all.”
“I know.” He smiled, pleased she’d seen that instead of telling him he had nothing to feel guilty about. “You said you loved me. Because I agreed to help you?”
She searched his face. His chest constricted, growing tighter and tighter as he waited for her answer.
“I fell in love with you when I was thirteen years old. Mom stopped for gas and I saw you changing a tire. Your eyes haunted me. I wanted so badly to fix whatever had put that shuttered look in your eyes.”
His mouth went dry.
“Mom said that of all the kids Emily and George took in, you and R.J. were special. She said if you ever learned how to open your heart, you’d be the sort of man a woman could always depend on, but she wasn’t sure it was a lesson you were going to learn.”
“She told you that?”
“Yes. My mother was wise in a lot of ways. She knew how I felt about you.”
“You were thirteen! A kid!”
She smiled. “I doubt she thought I was going to nurse those feelings for the rest of my life. She was trying to teach me how to look beneath the surface of a person. At least, I think that’s what she was doing. Was she wrong?”
“Do you mean, have I learned that lesson? Am I the sort of man a woman can depend on?”
“I already know I can depend on you.”
“So you want to know if I’ve learned how to love? I don’t know, Leigh. All I can tell you is that those minutes up on that balcony last night were the worst minutes of my life. When I thought you’d been shot, I was devastated.”
She closed her eyes. His stomach contracted. “I’m saying this all wrong.”
“No, you aren’t.” She opened her eyes and they were filled with love.
He pulled her into his arms. “I love you, Leigh.”
“I know. I think I knew the day you told me about your family. You don’t trust easily, but you trusted me with something that was vital to who you are.”
“God, but I love you. I know you wanted a formal proposal—”
“No. I only want you.”
“You deserve it all, the dinner, the moonlight, the flowers—”
She laughed up at him with her eyes. “You on bended knee? Can we get pictures? Hayley will never believe it otherwise.”
“Brat.”
“Hayley’s the brat. I’m the quiet one, remember?”
“A malicious falsehood. I know better.”
For a long time, he simply held her, content to feel her against his chest. “People will say I’m marrying you for your money, you know.”
“So what? They’ll say I bought you for your looks and charm. Let them talk. It gives them something to do.”
“Then you’ll marry me?”
“Anywhere, anytime.”
He fished in his pocket and pulled out the ring George had given him early this morning.
“Where did you get this?”
“George took it from the safe-deposit box for me yesterday. It was my grandmother’s ring. Ironically, it’s an emerald, not a diamond, but I thought you could use it as a place holder until we have a chance to select something more to your taste.”
“No, not irony—fate,” she corrected, staring at the brilliant green stone. “This was meant to be my ring.”
Her eyes filled with tears as he slipped it onto her finger. The ring was only a little bit loose.
“I don’t want anything else. All I ever wanted was you.”
Rain splattered against the porch. “Are you crying?”
“Tears of happiness,” she assured him.
“We’d better go inside before we get soaked.”
“I don’t mind.”
Neither did he. Nothing had ever felt more right than sitting here in the rain holding Leigh like this.
“Gavin?” she said after several minutes had passed. “If we’re right about Alexis, I’m off the hook, aren’t I? She’s the one who should inherit Heartskeep.”
“The missing heir,” he agreed. “The third twin.”
Leigh’s answering smile was wistful before her expression filled with new resolve.
“Good. All we have to do is find her.”
“We will. I promise you. We will.”
ISBN: 978-1-4592-3736-0
THE SECOND SISTER
Copyright © 2003 by Patricia A. Gagne.
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* Fools Point/Mystery Junction
†Heartskeep
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen