Her father rubbed a hand over his jaw and sighed heavily, shaking his head. “You had to work hard to come up with that one, I’ll say that much.”
“It wasn’t hard, Pop. It was easy.”
He got to his feet. “I’ve got work to do.”
“Pop—”
He turned to her with none of the aggravation she’d expected. “I don’t know much, kid. But I do know what’s mine to tell and what’s not mine to tell. Now, you up to pushing a broom?”
Penelope attempted a smile. She’d pushed her father as far as he’d be pushed. Let him digest what she’d said. “You know how to get rid of me, don’t you? I’ll go see what Wyatt’s up to.”
She stood outside the office and looked out at the windswept airport, not seeing him at first. Then she spotted him at the farthest of the three hangars. He didn’t notice her, and she headed over, a stiff, cold wind blowing in her face. She could feel her scrapes and bruises this morning. She caught up with Wyatt, the wind catching the ends of his hair. With the drop in temperature, he had on his leather jacket. “You should take flying lessons,” she told him. “You’d fit right in.”
He smiled. “I can see myself in the front row of one of your father’s classes.”
“He put up with me, he can put up with you. What’re you up to?”
“Just looking around.”
“There’s not much out here. We don’t really use this hangar until warm weather, when it’s busier. Pop brings in more staff, and this place really hums.”
“You love it, don’t you?”
“I do.”
But there was something in his expression. Pretending she hadn’t noticed it, she crossed her arms against the cold and walked to a corner of the hangar as if to get out of the wind. She glanced around for what had gotten his attention. And there, in the blackened remnants of snow and the frozen mud, she saw distinct footprints.
She swung around to Wyatt. “You weren’t going to tell me? Where do they lead—did you follow them? It’s not reporters, they’d have no reason to be way out here…” She stopped, catching her breath, knowing. “It has to be Bubba. My father’s hiding him.”
“There’s a side door to the hangar, way at the end. It’s locked. Penelope, we can’t let ourselves jump to conclusions—”
But she was already marching over the frozen snow and mud along the isolated far side of the hangar, the chain-link security fence a couple of yards to her left. She could hear Wyatt’s hiss of irritation behind her. Impulsive. Reckless. But not distracted, she thought. She was focused and she was mad—and she was certain.
She came to the door. It was windowless, locked. Because of its location, it was never used. It led to a small storage room that was generally accessed from an inside door in the main part of the hangar. Its huge doors, too, were locked this time of year.
If she wanted to hide someone, or hide herself, this would be a good choice.
She raised her fist to knock, then changed her mind and gave the door a good kick.
“Penelope!”
It was her father, with Wyatt right behind him. She ignored them both and kicked the door again. She thought of the creepy messages, her ransacked house, her broken door, her new locks, her terror yesterday when Bubba’s shed door banged into her face. It was all too damned much. If she’d changed her story from finding a plane wreck to finding a dump, it was done on impulse, out of fear for an innocent old man and a woman she cared about. It wasn’t calculated, it wasn’t deliberate. And it hadn’t gone on for years. Not like her father. He’d been lying to her forever.
“Penelope, goddamn it, you’re going to bust the door!”
“Good.”
Her father was huffing, out of breath. Wyatt, standing behind him, looked remarkably calm. All that Sinclair control kicking into gear. She was suddenly unreasonably irritated with him. He wouldn’t have told her about the footprints. He’d have found an excuse and snuck back here, even talked to her father behind her back.
And wasn’t that the pot calling the kettle black? She remembered how hard she’d tried to keep him from noticing Bubba’s footprints when they were collecting sap. When was that? Wednesday? It seemed ages ago.
“Jesus,” her father said. “Stop. He’s not here.”
She gaped at him, and her eyes clouded. “You lied to me.”
His mouth snapped shut, and he nodded. “All I can say is that it’s not about you.”
“Pop—my God—I can’t believe—”
But he and Wyatt were looking at something behind her. She pivoted, and Bubba was there, as if he’d materialized out of thin air. He must have been hiding around the corner of the hangar, heard her kicking the door, acting like a maniac. She gulped in air, and her father said, “Bubba, you have to tell them. It’s time.”
The old man nodded. He looked at Penelope, and then he looked at Wyatt, and he said, “My real name isn’t Bubba Johns. I made that up. My real name—” and he paused, swallowing, the frosty eyes filling with unexpected tears “—I’m Colt Sinclair.”
Lyman Chestnut, the taciturn New Englander, and Colt Sinclair, the scraggly hermit, made an odd pair in the chief of police’s office. They wanted to make a clean breast of it. How Colt had survived the plane crash, what had happened to Frannie, what he knew about the diamonds, how Lyman had come to be involved. Everything. And they wanted to do it properly, to the police, before anything else could happen.
This did not please Penelope. She wanted answers, and she wanted them now. Wyatt could see her bursting with impatience, almost losing it when Andy McNally, curt but professional, asked the two of them to leave. But Wyatt touched her hand, felt some of the stiffness go out of her, and she followed him.
The wind had died down, but the air was more winter than spring. They took his car to the inn, where the reporters had gotten word about Bubba Johns showing up at the police station and were on their way. Penelope was not of a mind to worry about the old hermit. “He and Pop deserve what they get.”
Her mother, fussing with the fireplace, was of like mind with her daughter, which Wyatt didn’t expect happened often. “I always knew Lyman would get himself arrested over a Sinclair one of these days.”
“He hasn’t been arrested,” Penelope said. “What would Andy charge him with, keeping secrets from his wife and daughter?”
Robby Chestnut paled, and Wyatt felt for her. Her husband was sitting in the police chief’s office, and her daughter was bruised, bloodied and standing with a Sinclair. And all she wanted was a pretty inn, a nice life. She said, “He and Frannie—God, he adored her. We all did. She was so full of life, so determined to make her mark in the world. He’d have gone to the ends of the earth for her.”
Penelope grabbed her mother’s arm. “Mother—you’re not saying Pop and Frannie…”
“No!” If possible, she paled even more. “Oh, good heavens, no. He was just fifteen. He wasn’t…” She shook her head, adamant. “No.”
“I didn’t think so. But with the way things are going—”
“You don’t have to explain.”
Robby stuck a log on the fire, and it almost fell onto her foot. Penelope said, “Not that way, Mother, you’ll burn yourself,” and Wyatt left the two of them alone.
He found his father on the front porch, staring at Lake Winnipesaukee. He wore no coat, just a heavy Scottish knit sweater. Before Wyatt had come beside him, he said, “It looks remarkably the same up here. It’s more populated, of course, and this was just a dying, isolated little village in the fifties. Now it’s got an active, vital, year-round population, as well as a thriving tourist business. This inn—” He paused, glanced at the covered furniture, the wide, quiet porch. “It was just a crumbling old lake house when I was a boy.”
“You were so young when you were here last. It must be strange coming back.”
“I wanted to help find Colt. I remember—I was so desperate to find him. It was all I could think about for weeks, months. But my father forbade
it. He didn’t even allow me up here. I stayed in New York with Mother, attended my classes. I did what was expected of me, but all I wanted to do was run away from home and find my brother.”
“Father—”
He shook his head, cutting Wyatt off. “I did run away. Three times. All in the first eighteen months after Colt left. Once I got as far as Massachusetts, the other two times I was picked up at Port Authority.” He inhaled sharply, containing his emotions. “I think, secretly, Father was pleased.”
“This must be very painful for you,” Wyatt said lamely, feeling helpless.
“I heard about the hermit on our land years ago. I suppose I suspected it might be Colt. I never could bring myself to make a serious effort to find out.” He looked at Wyatt, his gaze hardening. “He walked away from his family, not once, but twice. He ran off with Frannie Beaudine without saying goodbye. And he survived the plane crash and became this Bubba Johns character. He’s had forty-five years, Wyatt. If he’d wanted to see me, to know you, he knew where to find us.”
As much as Brandon thought he might be burying his emotions, coping with them, triumphing over them, his mix of anger, betrayal, loss and confusion was right there at the surface, raw and impossible to ignore. Wyatt felt no relief, no satisfaction. Inside this fifty-six-year-old man was a boy trying to come to terms with what his big brother had done, the choices he’d made that left his little brother alone.
It was so searingly simple. He’d loved his big brother, and it wasn’t enough.
“I’ve failed you in a thousand ways, Wyatt,” his father said. “I know that. But I’ve never abandoned you—I’ve always tried in my perhaps inadequate way to be there for you.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
His tone was almost harsh. Wyatt nodded. “You love all of us. Ellen, Beatrix, me. It’s all we could ask, and it’s enough.”
Colt Sinclair was alive.
Harriet stood at her bay window overlooking the lake. She was stricken, hardly able to breathe. Her chest hurt. Her heart raced. She thought she might collapse.
If Colt was alive, he couldn’t be her father. He would never have left his own child on a doorstep. He would have taken her and raised her.
He was only twenty-one. Not much more than a boy himself.
Still, she knew he wouldn’t have abandoned his own child.
She’d never figured out who’d done the leaving. Who’d wrapped her in a blanket and put her in an apple basket and tucked her onto the church doorstep that cold, dark April night. Now it looked as if it must have been Lyman. Her own cousin, a man she’d known all her life. He’d known their town hermit was really Colt Sinclair. What other secrets did he have?
She didn’t want to see him, speak to him. Not right now. Right now, she only wanted to breathe.
There was a quiet knock at her door. She shrieked and jumped, knocking over her needlework stand.
“Harriet? It’s me, Jack.”
Ridiculously, she pushed back her hair, checked her dresser mirror to see if she was at all presentable. She wasn’t. Hair dank and gray-looking, eyes wild, and so pale. She was too stunned to cry. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t considered Bubba Johns might be Colt. She hadn’t ever expected it to be real.
“Harriet—”
“I’m here!”
She pulled open the door, inhaled at the shock of his sexiness. It was there every time she saw him, thought of him. “Jack—what can I do for you?”
“May I come in?”
“Of course.”
He shut the door behind him. Harriet felt a rush of excitement that did nothing to steady her breathing. Jack walked around, checking out her three rooms, and she bit the insides of her cheeks to keep from passing out. She was so self-conscious. She couldn’t remember when she’d had anyone besides Robby and Penelope to her rooms. Most of her friends she met downstairs in one of the common rooms. She’d never had a man up here. He looked so out of place amidst her laces and flowers and frills, and yet he didn’t seem to mind.
He smiled at her. “This is just what I pictured.”
“It’s especially nice in the summer, when there’s a breeze off the lake—” She stopped, stunned, when he pulled open one of her dresser drawers. “What are you doing?”
“I’m just wondering what you did with the diamonds.”
She didn’t speak. Couldn’t.
“Good,” he said. “At least you’re not going to pretend you don’t know.”
“Jack, don’t. Please.”
He sat on the edge of her bed, his flat eyes taking her in. She had on navy chinos and a white button-down shirt, just her watch for jewelry. She didn’t have Robby’s flair for clothes, Penelope’s natural good looks—she had to work at her appearance. And most often she didn’t. This morning she’d given up on makeup and washed it all off.
“Harriet—” He sighed audibly, shaking his head. “Hell, you’re my weakness. But I think you know that.” His gaze narrowed on her, the detective at work. “I figure you found the wreckage a long time ago. How long?”
Her mouth was parched, and she almost couldn’t get the words out. “I was sixteen.”
“Sixteen. A hell of an age to find the plane you believed your parents died in.”
“My birth parents,” she amended in a whisper.
“Birth parents. Right. Christ, what a quaint term. So, you’ve kept quiet for almost thirty years. That’s damned impressive, Harriet. Damned impressive.”
“I never—I never looked in the wreckage. I didn’t want to see the bodies. I stumbled on it by accident. A friend and I had gotten separated….” She shut her eyes, the door to that long-locked closet in the recesses of her mind popping open, a tornado ripping through everything she’d buried, denied even to herself. “I found the diamonds on the hill a few yards below the wreckage, lodged against a rock. They were in a small artist’s case. It must have tumbled down the hill during the crash.”
“Serendipity,” Jack said, amused, sarcastic.
Harriet looked at him, and for that split second she saw what he might have been—what they could have been together—and what he was. A gentle man with a dream of owning a Texas ranch, and a tough, competitive man who would burn anything in his path—including her—now that his dream was within his reach.
“I didn’t take them at first,” she said. “I wasn’t sure what they were—if they were real. I didn’t think I was supposed to find them. I left them with the wreckage. Later, after Bubba Johns built his shack, I got them.”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone you’d found Colt and Frannie’s plane?”
She licked her lips, but there was no moisture left in her mouth, on her tongue. “I wasn’t ready to know the truth, whatever it was. I loved my parents. My real parents. And I just didn’t—”
“Where are the diamonds now?”
There was no point in lying. He would tear her room apart if he felt he had to. She was on the third floor. No one would hear. If she started to scream, he’d gag her. “They’re here.”
She showed him. She opened the antique trunk in her sitting room, and inside, down at the bottom, was the artist’s case filled with diamonds. She’d made a black velvet bag for them, with red ribbon ties. She opened it and gave the diamonds to Jack.
“Fuck, Harriet.” His voice was a hoarse whisper, his eyes pinned on her. “I wish things could be different.”
“I know.”
He touched her cheek, let his fingers drift into her hair. “You want me to be your knight in shining armor. I’d like to be, maybe more than you know. But I’m just a rough Brooklyn boy who’s getting his the only way he knows how—the only way he can. I want my ranch, Harriet. I wish I could explain—”
“You don’t have to explain, Jack. I understand. When Robby and I were transforming this falling-down old house into an inn, I could imagine it all done up with needlepoint pillows and pretty wallpapers and potpourri. There were days we’d be working, down on our hands and
knees, so bone-tired and discouraged that we just wanted to give up, and I’d watch the sun glow orange on the lake—” She stopped herself, swallowed in her dry, tight throat. “I know what it is to have a dream.”
“I thought being a Sinclair was your dream.”
She smiled sadly. “No, that was just a silly fantasy. I’m a Chestnut. I belong right here where I am. It’s a little late to realize that….” She shrugged. “But it’s true.”
Jack tilted his head and appraised her. “Holy hell. Harriet, you’re the one who’s been trying to scare Penelope.”
She lowered her head. Another door popped open, another terrible truth fell out. She was so ashamed. She couldn’t cry. Tears were too easy.
“What the hell was your point?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered, her voice barely audible. “I just don’t know. I guess I wanted to be the only one who knew where Colt and Frannie’s plane went down. I was afraid of the truth, and Penelope—” She gulped for air, unable to stand the strain. “Penelope isn’t afraid of anything. I sent her the e-mail, the fax—but I never hurt her. That was you, Jack. I know it was.”
“Believe in me, Harriet.” Jack reached over, took her hand in his. “Come with me. We’ll make this work, you and me. I don’t know what it is about you. I never thought I’d fall for someone like you, but I have.”
She squeezed his hand. It was warm and strong, callused in the right places. “Did you leave Bubba out there to die?”
“Hell, no. I knew Wyatt and Penelope would find him. I followed the old bastard to the wreckage, but he knew I was there all along. He tried to get the drop on me. I hit him on the head, he dropped like a rock, and I checked out the plane wreck. No bodies, no booty.”
“Did you know there were diamonds?”
“I guessed it was something like diamonds that wouldn’t get ruined from exposure. I finally dragged it out of Brandon Sinclair. It’s taken me a while to put it together that it was you. Harriet, I’m not a murderer. I’ve worked hard my whole life. You don’t know how it is—I can’t slice honor and integrity and put it on my plate. I can’t buy a ranch with it. I can’t watch it from my front porch. I came back to New York for a fighting chance at the good life. I’ve spent three years saving Brandon Sinclair from his own paranoia. It’s my turn now. I deserve this chance.”
Kiss the Moon Page 28