But here she was now, ten years later, with tears in her eyes, telling him things he no longer wanted or needed to hear.
But as soon as the thought shot through his mind, he dismissed it. He must have imagined the tears and the remorse, because Hope’s eyes now were clear and more determined than ever, with not so much as a hint of regret shimmering beneath the surface.
“The point is…” she said, walking toward him. She stopped just short of his desk. Of him. “It may have been the worst decision of my life, and then again, maybe it wasn’t. Who’s to say what our lives would have been like if I hadn’t broken off our engagement. Who’s to say we would have stayed together anyway. I’ve always liked to believe things happen for a reason.”
He wanted to ask her what reason she’d had for marrying Andrew Kingsley, but he didn’t think he’d like her answer. So he said nothing. Instead he stood there feeling like a jerk, and he didn’t even know why.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is that if I made a mistake ten years ago, it was my mistake to make and I’ve had to live with the consequences.” Her chin lifted stubbornly, a gesture that was all too familiar to Jake. “I won’t be made to feel guilty about it any longer.”
“Is that what you think I’m doing?” Jake asked, his own anger stirring to life. “Trying to make you feel guilty?”
“This thing you have about the Kingsleys—”
“Was there a long time before I ever met you,” he finished for her.
“I know,” she said. “But can you honestly say you would have gone after Andrew the way you did if it hadn’t been for me? Can you honestly say you wouldn’t be willing to help me now if I were just Andrew Kingsley’s widow and not your ex-fianc;aaee?”
“Who’s to say?” Jake retorted, flinging her own words back at her. “The situation is what it is, Hope.”
“Ten years is a long time,” she said quietly.
An eternity, he thought. Although not all the years since their breakup had been bad ones. In fact, he’d had some pretty damned good times. He’d even come close to getting engaged again, but things hadn’t worked out. Unlike him and Hope, however, he and Melanie had managed to part as friends. They still got together occasionally for drinks. So why did he still feel this bitterness toward Hope? Why did he still feel that she’d betrayed him?
If she’d married anyone but Andrew Kingsley, would he still have felt the same way?
Somehow Jake didn’t think so, and the realization wasn’t one he was particularly proud of. His rivalry with Andrew went back to their childhood, and Hope had somehow gotten caught in the middle. She was still in the middle, even though Andrew was dead, and suddenly Jake saw how his bitterness toward Andrew, toward all the Kingsleys, had affected his life. Was still affecting him.
Hope was right, he thought. Ten years was a damned long time. People changed. He wished to hell he had. But here he was, still blaming the Kingsleys for everything that had gone wrong in his life. Still blaming Hope for marrying a man who could give her all the things Jake could never hope to provide.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course,” she replied, but her gaze faltered uncertainly.
“Why did you marry Andrew? Was it because you loved him, or because you wanted to punish me for not leaving the department?”
After a split second of indecision, she shrugged. “Maybe it was a little of both,” she admitted. “Dad’s murder did something to me. I couldn’t seem to pull myself up out of the grief, and every time I saw you in your uniform, it reminded me of…his death. Of what could happen to you…” She trailed off and turned away. “I thought if you would just leave the department, everything would be all right. I could put what happened to Dad behind me and we could get on with our lives. When you refused, it was like a slap in the face. Being a cop was more important to you than I was.”
“I couldn’t understand why you were making me choose between my life’s work and you,” Jake said, trying to hide the lingering bitterness. “Being a cop was all I ever wanted to do. It wasn’t just what I did, but who I was.”
“I know that now,” Hope said. Her violet eyes lifted to meet his. “I probably knew it back then, but at the time, it didn’t seem to matter. All that mattered was making sure I never went through that kind of pain again.”
An image came to Jake now, of the night her father had been killed, of the way he’d held her in his arms while she’d wept bitter tears, while she’d asked him over and over, “Why? Why? Why?” She’d clung to Jake desperately in those first few hours of grief, but by the time the funeral was over two days later, she’d already begun to pull away from him. Nothing he said or did got through to her. It was as if she’d erected a stone wall around her heart, a wall Jake didn’t have a prayer of scaling unless he took off his badge for good. And that, he hadn’t been willing to do. He had his pride, after all.
Pride was damn cold comfort on long, lonely nights, he thought now. But if he had it to do over again, he knew his decision would probably be the same. He wondered if Hope’s would be.
“A few months after our breakup,” she said, “I ran into Andrew at an art gallery in Overton Square, one of those little avant-garde places you always hated. I was surprised he remembered me. I’d only met him that one time at your father’s house, remember?”
Jake nodded grimly.
“We got to talking. He told me he was sorry about my father, and then he took me out for coffee. I didn’t think I’d ever see him again, but he started showing up at the school where I taught, waiting in the parking lot for my classes to be over, and then he would take me out to dinner—or to the theater, to all these wonderful places I’d never been to before. He was a very interesting man. Unlike anyone I’d ever known. He was charming and sophisticated and he made me laugh again,” she finished softly.
And don’t forget the money, Jake thought.
“So you fell in love with him,” he said, struggling to keep his voice neutral.
“I came to love him,” she said. “I thought he was exactly what I needed.”
“And was he?”
She glanced away. “For a while. But then…”
Jake waited for her to continue, but all she did was shrug. “It doesn’t matter anymore. All that’s behind me now. I’m only telling you this so we can come to some sort of understanding.”
He smiled ironically. “That the past is the past?”
“Exactly.” Her gaze met his again, and for a moment he thought he saw a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes, as if she hadn’t quite convinced herself. Then, with that same stubborn resolve he’d come up against more times than he cared to remember, she said, “So what do you say, Jake? Will you take this case? I don’t know what arrangements you may have made with Victor, but I’m willing to offer whatever you want.”
Jake doubted that very much. “Tell me what you know about this guy. This Michael Eldridge.”
Her features tightened. “I don’t know that much. Only that he says he’s a stockbroker from Houston, he grew up in a series of foster homes, and that he looks…very much like Andrew.”
“What was your gut reaction to him?”
Her startled gaze flew to his. “Wh-what do you mean?”
“I mean, what did your instincts tell you about him? You think he’s the real thing? An impostor? What?”
“I’m not sure,” Hope said in a voice that didn’t sound like hers. If he didn’t know her better, Jake would have sworn he detected a note of fear. But why would she be afraid of this man? Hope wasn’t Iris Kingsley’s heir. She didn’t stand to lose a fortune even if this man did turn out to be Adam Kingsley.
So where did her fear come from? Jake mused. And then it hit him. He felt a sinking sensation somewhere in the pit of his stomach. Could it be that Hope was afraid of falling in love with Michael Eldridge? Because he looked so much like Andrew?
Jake stared down at her, and as if she’d read his thoughts, she glanced away guiltily.
“But what do you think?” Jake persisted, studying her closely.
“I think he might be,” she said, again in a tone that left Jake wondering. “I have to know the truth about him, Jake. I have to find out if he’s who he says he is. For Iris’s sake,” she added, though Jake wasn’t convinced her urgency stemmed solely from her concern for Iris Kingsley. There was something Hope wasn’t telling him about Michael Eldridge, but he knew better than to press. If Hope wanted him to know, she would tell him. If not, she would withdraw even more if he questioned her.
Proceed with caution, Jake told himself, but whether he liked it or not, he had to admit he was hooked. He would take the case, all right, but not just because he needed the money. Not just because it would give him a measure of satisfaction to be going behind Iris Kingsley’s back or to tell Victor Northrup what he could do with his offer.
He would take the case from Hope because if she was falling in love with this man, Jake wanted to make damn sure she wasn’t going to get hurt.
* * *
THE TREE-SHADED STREETS of midtown were bursting with color. Pink, fuchsia, and white azalea blossoms hung heavy on thick bushes that crowded the brick facades of post-World War II houses, while wide rows of tulips, jonquils, and hyacinths lined sidewalks and driveways.
As Hope drove past the Memphis State campus, a touch of nostalgia swept over her. Students lingered on the grounds, enjoying the warm, spring day. Couples strolled along the walkways, groups of friends clustered around benches, and a few brave sunbathers, wanting to get a jump start on their tans, lay shivering on blankets and beach towels.
The year her father had been killed, Hope had been a senior at Memphis State, majoring in elementary education. She’d already had a job lined up at Claymore Academy, an exclusive private school near the medical center, to teach kindergarten in the fall, and she and Jake were to be married in late summer.
Stopping at a light, Hope closed her eyes for a moment, letting the bittersweet memories wash over her. She tried to decide how she felt about her meeting with Jake. She’d certainly accomplished what she’d gone there for. He’d agreed to investigate Michael Eldridge, and Hope knew she should be relieved, but she couldn’t quite dispel the premonition of dread that had hung over her since Michael had shown up at the mansion yesterday.
Who was he? If he really was Adam Kingsley, then his physical resemblance to Andrew was understandable. But what about his mannerisms? The way he talked, the way he walked. The way he looked at her. How could that be explained?
And why hadn’t she told Jake about her secret fear?
Because you’d sound like an idiot, that’s why.
Still, it bothered her that she hadn’t been completely honest with Jake. About a lot of things.
She pulled into her mother’s driveway, parking her white Jag behind her mother’s dark blue Taurus. A pair of white and pink dogwood trees graced either side of the white-brick house, and the same pink-and-white theme had been carried through in the tulip beds and azalea bushes, giving the place a candy-cane effect that had always reminded Hope of something from a fairy tale.
Her mother loved to garden, and as Hope let herself in the front door of the modest house, she thought again how coincidental it was that her mother and Jake’s father shared in this common passion. Hope and Jake had once shared a mutual passion also, but it hadn’t been gardening, she thought with an inward blush.
Joanna Sterling, dressed in a green-and-white jogging suit and Nike walking shoes, was on the telephone in the kitchen. She was a small, trim buzz-saw of a woman who walked five miles every day, rain or shine. Hope was lucky if she made it to the gym two or three times a week. As she glanced at Joanna’s slender physique, the perky haircut, the sparkling hazel eyes, she thought that at fifty-five, her mother was probably in better shape than she was—both physically and mentally.
Joanna held up one finger, letting Hope know she would just be a minute. Her gold wedding band sparkled in the sunlight streaming in through the bay window behind her. Hope glanced down at the wide band of diamonds on her own finger. In ten years, would she still be wearing the ring Andrew had given to her on their wedding day? Somehow the thought made her indescribably weary.
She sat down at the breakfast table and folded her hands in her lap, catching snippets of her mother’s phone conversation.
“Could even do the chapel Friday night after the rehearsal if we need to,” she was saying. “I’ll call everyone this afternoon, get everything organized….”
Her mother was always organizing something. She worked at the local library part-time, was heavily involved in church activities and with her garden club and women’s groups. She made Hope tired just listening to her.
“What a nice surprise,” she told Hope as she hung up the phone. “I wasn’t expecting to see you today.” Pouring them both a glass of orange juice from the fridge, she came over to the table and sat down across from Hope. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
Hope shrugged. “I just wanted to see you, but it sounds like you’re busy.”
Her mother brushed off her concern with a wave of her hand. “Oh, that. Tilly McIntyre broke her ankle yesterday, poor old thing. Tripped over a loose board on her porch steps. She’s been meaning to get it fixed for ages, but you know how that goes. You remember her, don’t you, dear? She’s been the cleaning lady at Saint Anthony’s for years.”
Ever since her meeting with Jake, memories had been churning inside Hope, and now at the mention of Saint Anthony’s, yet another one swept over her. She and Jake had planned to get married in Saint Anthony’s, just as Hope’s mother and father had. Instead, Hope had exchanged vows with Andrew at Saint Mary’s, a huge cathedral downtown, in a ceremony carefully orchestrated by Iris.
Hope had even worn Iris’s wedding gown, a Chanel original that had been a showstopper in a 1930s Paris fashion show. The gown was exquisite, trimmed with real diamonds and pearls and lace so delicate it looked as if it would melt to the touch. But Hope remembered thinking, as she fingered the silky folds on the day of her wedding, that she would have much preferred the wedding dress Mrs. Jamison, a seamstress who lived three doors down from her mother, had planned to make for Hope.
“Anyway, she’s going to be out of commission for several weeks, and I want to make sure the church is spic-and-span for Brant’s wedding on Saturday. You are coming, aren’t you?”
“Actually, the wedding kind of slipped my mind,” Hope said. “A lot’s been going on lately.”
Her mother’s gaze filled with mild reproach. “The Colters are very old friends of ours, dear. I know it would mean a lot to Brant if you were there. And, I’m sure, to Valerie, too,” she added, referring to Brant Colter’s fianc;aaee.
“What’s she like?” Hope asked.
“Oh, she’s very nice,” Joanna said. “A little on the reserved side, but that’s understandable, considering. Hard to imagine the two of them finally getting together with all the obstacles they had to overcome. Her, the daughter of a convicted kidnapper and murderer, and him, the son of the detective who put her father in prison. And then to find out thirty-one years later that her father was innocent, framed by Brant’s uncle…” Her mother trailed off, shaking her head in disbelief. “It just goes to show you, that true love always wins out.” She took a sip of her orange juice and eyed Hope over the rim. “By the way, you’ll never guess who I saw the other day.”
Her mother’s innocent tone immediately raised Hope’s suspicions. “Who?”
“Jake McClain.”
Although she had been half expecting to hear his name, Hope’s heart did a strange little flip inside her chest. “Oh? Where did you see him?”
“Right outside. I was working in the yard and a truck drove by. Went right past the house at first, then backed up. Jake got out and came over to say hello. Said he just happened to be in the neighborhood, but I think he was checking on his
house, making sure the new owners were taking care of it. He loved that place.” Her mother shook her head sadly, but her eyes never left Hope’s face. “It was such a shame, what the department did to him.”
Hope remained silent, although she knew her mother was waiting for her to say something. When she didn’t, Joanna continued, “There was talk that Iris Kingsley got him fired, you know.”
Hope sighed but still said nothing. What was the point?
But her mother wouldn’t let it rest. “You surely don’t condone what she did.”
“I don’t know that she did anything,” Hope said. “I know you don’t care for Iris. Few people do. But she’s always been very good to me.”
“And I’m grateful for that. But Iris Kingsley doesn’t do anything without asking for something in return.”
“She’s never asked anything of me.”
Her mother’s gaze narrowed on her. “Then why are you still living in that house?”
“We’ve been over this before,” Hope said wearily, tired of having to justify her actions to everyone, including herself.
“You may not see her manipulations,” her mother warned. “But I certainly do.”
Frustration erupted inside Hope. “It’s not like she’s holding me prisoner, for God’s sake. I’m a grown woman, Mother. Capable of making my own decisions. I’ll move out when I think the time is right.”
“The time will never be more right that it is now,” her mother insisted. Her eyes filled with worry. “I don’t trust her, Hope.”
“I know you don’t. You didn’t trust Andrew, either.”
“With good reason.”
“Maybe so,” Hope conceded. “But you never gave him a chance because you never forgave me for not marrying Jake.”
Her mother lifted her chin stubbornly, an action that reminded Hope of herself. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, her father used to say fondly. “Well, since you brought it up, I’ll just come right out and say it. Jake is a good man, Hope. He didn’t deserve the way you treated him.”
Hope put a hand to her forehead. “We’ve been all through this, too, Mother.”
Kingsley Baby Trilogy: The Hero's SonThe Brother's WifeThe Long-Lost Heir Page 25