“All right,” she heard herself say. She was winning, but she was losing, too.
Mitch released a breath. “I thought I’d have to … argue a little, convince you what knowing the truth means to me.”
“The only thing I care about is what the truth means to me. Having a baby … that means more.” She didn’t say having Paul’s baby, remembering Mitch’s talk of stud horses. “And how did you find me?”
“I did some checking.”
“Why did you come all the way here in person?”
“It wasn’t exactly the kind of thing I wanted to say via Ma Bell.”
“Oh. Well, I suppose not.”
She grabbed up a rag and wiped her hands with it, keeping her mind off her emotions. “Did you bring some kind of agreement? About the baby, the inheritance?”
He walked to the corner of her workshop, looking out over the ocean. The breeze played with the loose lock of hair, making her want to brush it back from his forehead.
“I know you’re going to pretend that the baby is Paul’s.” He swallowed. “I know you loved him, so I can’t blame you for that. But I can’t pretend that the baby you’ll be carrying isn’t mine, or that it doesn’t exist. I want to set up some kind of trust for him — or her — and I want to be part of his life. As an uncle.”
For that moment the arrogance in his posture disappeared, leaving behind something raw and vulnerable. She exhaled, looking away from him for a moment. She caught sight of two little girls on the beach running around their mother as they headed back to the car. One ran back and leaped into her father’s arms, and he swung her up into the air.
“I never thought about what having a child might mean to you. I guess I imagined that it was only sperm, nothing more. You must think I’m pretty cold-hearted.”
“Not cold-hearted. Single-minded, maybe.”
She was grateful that he was being kind about it. She didn’t deserve it. “But you should know that, well, there are risks.”
His body stiffened. “For you? Because of your transplant?”
“It is because of the transplant, but most of the risk is the baby’s. Recipients can have children, but there is a chance the baby won’t survive.”
“What about the reason you had to have a transplant to begin with? Is it hereditary?”
“My doctor doesn’t know exactly why my heart walls started thickening. As far as I know, no one in my family had the problem. The doctor said it would be okay to try. Maybe it’s wrong to take the chance; maybe I’m a bad person for risking it, but I want a baby, my own —”
He took the hands she gestured with in his, stilling her words instantly. “Stop condemning yourself.” He looked down at where their hands touched, then let go.
Too many things bombarded her at once. The affinity in his touch, and his words. His presence alone. That he was being cold-hearted by making her face the truth, but then had the nerve to show her this tenderness. Jenna rubbed her palms down the sides of her shorts, really looking at the dresser for the first time. “Oh … my gosh.”
Mitch followed her gaze. “What’s wrong?”
The dresser looked like something out of a bordello. She took in his profile as he tried to figure out what was wrong. He was going to be part of her life if she had a baby. When he turned to look at her, she quickly averted her gaze.
“Guess I was a little heavy on the flowers.” She had felt Mitch’s arrival. Not good. And now he was here in the serenity of her backyard, and it was her place to offer him a bed for the night. If ever she’d wished for a night to be over, it was this one. “I’ve got a guest room … you’re welcome to stay in it.”
If he picked up on the falter in her voice, he didn’t indicate. “That’d be great, thanks.”
Jenna nodded, then headed toward the back door. He picked up his jacket, helmet and a duffle bag he’d left nearby and followed her into the house.
The sun catchers sent prisms across the kitchen. She wondered how Mitch would see her home, hers and Paul’s home. It wasn’t big and fancy like his place, but she loved it all the same. When she turned around, she felt slightly off-kilter. It was like having Paul back home again, yet this Paul was more physical, more dangerous.
He was looking around the kitchen when he met her startled look. “I only look like him, Jenna. I’m nothing like him,” he said in that Southern drawl.
She felt a warm flush cross her face. “I know. It’s just … weird. I’m sorry.” She knew well that Mitch and Paul were nothing alike, and looked different in the most important way: their eyes. “Come on, I’ll show you the guest room.”
He took everything in as they walked through the middle hallway and up the stairs. She’d offset all the dark wood in the house with light accents, but walking up those stairs with Mitch made her feel suffocated. She opened the door to the guest room and stepped back, not at all ready to be inside the room with him.
He walked past her and set his things on the bed, a four-poster like the one in Paul’s room, she realized. Remembering what she and Mitch had done by that bed made her step back. He caught the movement.
“Jenna, don’t look at me like I’m the big, bad wolf.”
But he was, the very bad wolf. She wrapped her arms around herself. “It’s the truth I’m afraid of.” Well, not entirely. “Come on, I’ll show you the house.”
Mitch followed, feeling responsible for that fear in her eyes and the way she held herself protectively. But he had to find the truth, and besides, he’d promised to give her what she wanted.
He could see how thin she was. Thin and afraid, yet willing to face him and the truth to get what she wanted. The woman was a paradox of fragility and strength. He understood why Paul had tried to protect her.
But this is what you wanted, brother. You brought her to me, and now I’m finishing it.
“This is our — my bedroom,” she said, leaning into the open doorway across the hall from his room.
Her slip cranked up that strange jealousy that had resided in him since her arrival at his house. It got even worse when he looked at Jenna and imagined that Paul had touched her everywhere, had loved her and made sounds issue from her throat when she came. He didn’t meet her eyes, instead peering into the room where all that he’d just thought about happened.
A big bed covered in a blue and white bedspread, blue carpet and a ceramic dog, the room she and Paul had shared. Large windows spanning the length of the house opened to the ocean, framed in flowered fabric he somehow knew Jenna had fashioned into spirals. Along the top edge of the wall was a painted border of seashells. In one corner sat a treadmill and a stair stepper.
She caught his gaze returning to that bed, and he looked away. “Nice,” he said, feeling far from that word at the moment. He had given a lot of thought to this whole situation, weighing the cost of finding the truth against hurting Jenna, and against starting something that could not end well for either one of them.
“That’s the nursery,” she said in that soft voice, nodding toward a closed door across the hall and starting to walk down the stairs.
“I’d like to see it, considering … .” He wasn’t even sure how much of a role he wanted to play in this child’s life, but he realized he couldn’t just walk away.
She stiffened, but slowly turned back and led him to the door. His boots sounded loud on the wooden boards beneath them. His senses were heightened around her, taking in the smells of polish and paint and even her deodorant; he could feel the heat from her body, the warm air coming in through the open window at the end of the hall; and mostly he could sense her hesitation at showing him the nursery.
She opened the door and stepped inside, like a mother ready to protect her cubs. She was not in that self-protective posture anymore, now with her feet apart and arms at her side. But her eyes gave away her vulnerability, and suddenly he felt like the big, bad wolf.
When he could tear his gaze away from Jenna, he looked around at the little piece of motherly heaven she
’d created. The polished crib and mobile, a frilly bassinet (at least he thought that’s what it was called) … and the beautiful border along the top of the wall filled with bears and balloons. He remembered the border she’d drawn on the back of Paul’s death certificate, the roses she’d painted on the child’s dresser and the seashells in her room.
He met her eyes, the woman who had created this haven and filled it with her love and dreams. “When did you do all this?” he asked, finding his voice reverently soft.
“When Paul and I moved in, after we’d renovated the interior. I … I couldn’t try to have a baby until I had the transplant, but I always decorated one of the rooms as a nursery. I thought it might bring good luck.”
God, he wanted to pull her into his arms and hold her tight. He wanted to make her smile, laugh, and sigh contentedly. His voice sounded funny when he said, “I’m sorry I used this to get the truth. It was all I had.”
Her fingers curled over the edge of the crib. “It was enough,” she said, a bitter edge in her voice.
He leaned against the door frame, pressing his cheek to the wood. “Do you think I want Paul to be guilty? You think I want to find out my twin brother has the capacity to murder, especially his own parents?”
“Then wouldn’t it be better not to know?” she asked. “Can’t you just go on and assume Paul is innocent? I can. Even with what I know, I can because I love him.”
He shook his head, feeling the edge of the frame biting into his cheek. “I can’t let it go. I can’t …”
“Why?” She walked closer, close enough for him to reach over and run his finger across the smear of pink paint on her cheek. She had broad cheekbones, creamy soft skin.
He let his hand drop when he realized what he was doing. “Paul and I share the same genes, the same environmental influences. If he’s a murderer … then I could be one, too.”
Chapter 7
Mitch’s words echoed in Jenna’s mind as she prepared dinner. She focused on those words, because dealing with all of it — Mitch’s arrival, her agreement, having his baby — was too much at once.
That vulnerability she’d seen in his eyes when he’d spoken those words, oh, my, what it had done to her insides. Not that he’d intended to let her see it. Mitch wasn’t the kind of man to use such a ploy, or to even think of it. And just where did she get off, knowing him so well?
Jenna looked down to realize she was mangling her beautiful tomatoes, banging her knife down on the same slice again and again. She stilled her hands, closing her eyes for a moment. Last week she had been comfortable, if lonely, in her little world, safe with her memories. Now she was a wreck.
The knife banged down on the cutting board, and she set it aside before she ended up chopping off a finger. Had she sold her soul to the devil by making this bargain with Mitch? It was sure looking that way. Wasn’t the devil the source of these sinful feelings she felt whenever Mitch was near, and especially when he touched her?
The devil made me do it. Now she knew why people embraced that trite saying as an excuse for treachery. But that was the coward’s way out.
She involuntarily rubbed the back of her hand across the place on her cheek he’d touched. After she’d given Mitch a brief tour of the downstairs, they both retired to their rooms to shower. When she’d walked into her bathroom and looked at her reflection, she’d experienced something so foreign to her, she had to lean back against the wall. Vanity. She’d seen the paint streaking her face, her disheveled hair, lack of any makeup, and had actually cringed. In fact, the only thing that looked good were her eyes, bright and shiny for the first time in a long time.
Even as she had piled her hair on her head and swiped some blush on her cheeks, she told herself she was doing this for her. She sighed. Still a lousy liar. Where do you get off caring what he thinks about the way you look?
And now Mitch was coming down the stairs. Each footfall stepped up the pace of her heart. She told herself not to look anywhere near the doorway, but Mitch didn’t just walk into a room — he seemed to burst in, full of energy. She was looking at him before she could chide herself for doing so.
“Nothing like a cold shower to invigorate a man,” he said, shaking his damp hair. He wore a white cotton button-up shirt and another pair of blue jeans.
“Sorry about that. I wasn’t sure if the tank would handle two showers at once; Paul and I always made sure there was enough time in between our showers for the water to heat up.”
He moved up next to her, taking in the sorry little puddles of tomato guts on the cutting board. “That could put a damper on taking a shower together.” When she looked up at him, he added, “I mean, you and Paul.”
She turned quickly back to the tomatoes, wishing she hadn’t looked so shocked at his words. Of course he hadn’t meant for them to take a shower together. Just the thought of it … oh, brother, just the thought of it. She didn’t mention that she and Paul had never taken a shower together. An image of their bodies sliding together beneath the flow of cool water jumped to mind, and she had a terrible feeling the Elliot man in the image wasn’t Paul.
“Can I help?” Mitch asked.
She wanted to send him far away from her. “I could use another tomato.” I hear they’re nice and ripe out in California this time of year. That’s what she wanted to say, anyway. “If you don’t mind going out to the garden and picking one.”
“Sure.”
He was out the door in a flash, striding across the back yard as though he belonged there. No, he certainly did not belong there!
Her reprieve was brief as he came in tossing the tomato up and down, catching it with a soft smacking noise. He set it down on the board in front of her, looking at the pulpy mess. “Looks like the last one exploded.”
“Spontaneous tomato combustion.” She’d never felt so uncomfortable in her own kitchen before.
“Hate when that happens,” he said with a chuckle.
“I’m just making a salad. I’m afraid I don’t have a lot of meat around the house, but I do have a leftover grilled chicken breast I can add to the greens.”
He grinned, a heart-stopping smile like she’d never seen before. “I brought some of Betzi’s brownies for dessert.”
“Great.” She nodded, feeling awkward as they held each other’s gaze. “I’ve got some tamales in the cabinet, too,” she said just to say something.
“Tabasco?”
“In the fridge next to the fire extinguisher.”
He laughed, and it warmed her that he found her sorry attempts at humor amusing. He fished a tamale out of the jar, poured the hot sauce on the end and took a bite. “I can set the table if you point me to the silverware.”
“Sure, that’d be great. In that drawer; dishes are over there.”
He wasn’t wearing shoes, she noticed, as he set the table by the window. Paul always wore shoes, even when he was just lounging around the house. Mitch had sexy feet, and she honestly couldn’t remember what Paul’s feet had looked like to compare. She finally finished the tomatoes and started chopping up the different kinds of lettuce. When she couldn’t put the task off any longer, she carried it to the table.
Jenna poured two glasses of iced tea and reluctantly sat down across from Mitch, who was twirling one of her sun catchers with his fingers. A plastic case on the table held her array of prescription bottles, and one by one she laid out the more than dozen pills she had to take twice a day. If ever she had to do this in public, which was rare, she couldn’t help noticing people around her gawking as though she were some addict.
Mitch watched with curiosity, but his attention seemed to be on her hands and not the pills themselves. “Your transplant?”
She nodded, feeling completely self-conscious as she started swallowing the pills two by two. “Every morning and every evening. They suppress my immune system, so it doesn’t think my new heart is some foreign object and attack it. That’s called rejecting.”
“How long do you have to take the
m?”
“Forever.”
He lifted his eyebrows at that. “Tell me about the surgery. What was it like?”
“The surgery itself only took about three hours. It’s actually simpler than some heart surgeries. Then I spent almost four weeks at the hospital, then another three months at a special apartment complex near the hospital. After that, I came back here.”
He leaned forward, propping his chin up with his palm. “Do you have to be careful about what you do? Eating right, not straining yourself, that kind of thing?”
“Not any more than the average person. I have to go in for biopsies every year, exercise regularly, and I have to be careful about germs.”
Mitch tilted his head, as though he found her words endlessly interesting. “Did you know it was Paul’s heart … when they put it in you?”
Jenna finished taking her pills. “I didn’t know until I reached the hospital. My doctor told me that Paul was in Maine … brain dead. And that he’d arranged for me to have his heart. His retrieval team was already there, waiting. I gave them permission to donate his other organs, too. I tried not to think about getting his heart.” She started pouring low-fat ranch dressing on her salad, wanting to put an end to this conversation.
Mitch must have sensed this, because he gave the dove sun catcher beside him another twirl and said, “I don’t see Paul living here.”
She remembered her earlier realization that Paul hadn’t put his touch in any of the homes they shared. The lace curtains, the fruit border she’d painted, the white tiles with tiny designs in the corners, all hers.
“We collected Toby mugs,” she said, wondering why such a lame thing had come out of her mouth.
Mitch lifted an eyebrow. “Toby mugs?”
She pointed to the shelf that ran along the wall behind him where they kept their collection. “We used to give each other mugs for birthdays, Christmas. We’d try to find the rare ones, surprise each other.” Her voice trailed off. Mitch wouldn’t understand the excitement of finding the one mug Paul had wanted. Mitch wouldn’t collect mugs; he’d collect horses, women.
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