“You aren’t going to believe this,” she said, her voice squeaky from excitement.
“Calm down,” Nikki advised. “You’re going to have a heart attack.”
Jean drew a deep breath. “You’re right. You’re still not going to believe this.”
“Someone from America’s Most Wanted is in our waiting room?”
She sniffed. “Joke all you want, but you’re going to croak when you hear.”
“When I hear what?”
“Mrs Martin is back.”
A sickening feeling attacked Nikki’s stomach. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. She wants to see you.”
Wondering what had prompted this new development when she didn’t think the trial had ended, Nikki squared her shoulders. “What about the rest of the patients?”
“We have a fellow with a rash, but he’s the last unless someone else walks in.”
“I’ll see him before I talk to Mrs Martin,”
Nikki decided. “She can wait in my office in the meantime.”
Nikki immediately diagnosed Gary Carter’s problem as a case of contact dermatitis from the poison ivy he’d been clearing out of his field. She quickly dispensed a corticosteroid ointment, along with detailed instructions ranging from washing his clothes separately from the rest of his family’s to using calamine lotion for the itching, then sent him on his way.
Before she opened the door to her office, she drew a bracing breath and hoped this was only a whirlwind checkon-Emma visit because she wasn’t mentally prepared to become childless at a moment’s notice. By the same token, she hoped Galen would be busy for a little longer.
She went inside to find Alice pacing in her high heels and looking like an executive in her short blue skirt and white blouse. Even with age and her fine clothes, she still resembled the girl in Galen’s photo album.
“Hi, Alice,” Nikki said, closing the door behind her. “Or should I say Mary?”
Mary’s jaw dropped. “You know?”
“I guessed,” Nikki said as she moved to sit behind her desk. “I wasn’t expecting you for several more weeks. Has the trial ended already?”
This time Mary gasped. “You know about that, too?”
“I guessed,” she repeated. “Actually, it was a fluke. Galen and I’d been watching the news and a picture of the Arches courtroom flashed on. I recognized you. Or I thought it was you.”
“Then Galen knows?”
Nikki shook her head. “He knows that Alice Martin left her baby with me because she was somehow involved in the Arches trial, but I didn’t tell him that I thought you were his sister.”
Mary heaved a sigh. “I don’t know if I should thank you or wish that you had.”
“You have to see him,” Nikki insisted. “To tell him you’re alive and that the little girl he loves is his niece. You will, won’t you? By the way, what is your name?”
“Alice is a family name that’s been passed down through the family from my great-grandmother.”
Her smile became rueful. “Apparently having several Alices was rather confusing, so the rest of the family starting referring to them by their middle names. By the time I came along, no one bothered to call me anything but Mary.”
No wonder Galen hadn’t been remotely suspicious. Mary was a common enough name that he wouldn’t possibly make any connection.
“I was going to tell Galen today about you and Emma,” Nikki began. “I hadn’t planned to at first, but then I realized that he needs to know the truth.”
Suddenly Galen stood framed in the doorway, his face grim. “What do I need to know?”
Galen saw Nikki’s guilty expression and wondered what was going on until he saw her glance at the woman in the armchair. He shifted his gaze to her and finally saw a sight that left him reeling in shock.
She rose. “Hello, Galen.”
“Mary?” he asked hoarsely.
Her smile trembled as she nodded. “It’s me.”
Words failed him. He stood, stunned, staring at the woman who was an older version of the girl he remembered. She took a step forward, and the next thing he knew he was hugging her and fighting back the lump of emotion in his throat.
“You came back,” he breathed. “After all this time, I never thought I’d see you again.”
“Me, too.”
“How did you find me?” She stiffened and drew back. “It’s a long story.”
“Mary is our mysterious Alice Martin,” Nikki announced in the background.
He looked at Mary, then at Nikki, and back at his sister. “Then that means…”
“Emma is your niece,” Mary finished.
He shook his head, scarcely able to sort through this tangled web. “I don’t understand.”
“I told you it’s a long story,” Mary reminded him.
“I’m not going anywhere.” He pulled up another chair and sat down. After all this time he didn’t intend to let Mary out of his sight because he might blink and discover that he’d imagined the entire thing.
Mary took her seat again and folded her hands in her lap. “I’m not sure where to start.”
“The beginning is a good place,” he said wryly.
“After I left home—”
“Why did you leave?” he interrupted.
“I was young and stupid and believed the wrong guy,” she said flatly. “Jim wanted to go to California to start over.”
Jim? “James Bowman? You were hanging around with him?” Galen was aghast. “He was one step away from prison.”
“Galen,” Nikki chided. “Let her tell her story.”
Mary’s grateful glance at Nikki didn’t escape Galen’s notice and he clamped his mouth closed.
“Anyway,” Mary continued, “I soon realized that Jim couldn’t start over because he made his own troubles. By the time I learned that, I’d made so many bad decisions I didn’t know how to straighten myself out. He left and I lived hand to mouth for a while, doing odd jobs. Eventually I was hired as a waitress at a truck stop. The owner took me under her wing and encouraged me to finish high school.”
“Why didn’t you ever call?” he demanded.
“You were the smart one of the family,” she said simply. “Everyone always compared me to you, especially Mom, and I came up short. So I thought I’d wait until I’d made something of myself. Eventually, I’d found out Mom had died and heard you were in med school. By then I wanted you to be proud of me, so I enrolled in classes at the community college and found a job as a secretary.”
“Where does Emma come into it?”
“When I went to work for Mr Arches, I met a man who also worked for him—Henry Lucas. We started seeing each other, and talked about getting married once we knew Emma was on the way. But Henry had some concerns about the way Mr Arches did business and we both suspected that he was involved in something shady. A few months later Henry’s car went over an embankment and he was killed. The police said someone had tampered with his brakes and I knew his death wasn’t an accident.”
Nikki broke in. “Who was the older man I saw you with in the courtroom?”
“Henry’s father. He insisted on being there. Anyway, I was afraid so I contacted the police and told them everything I knew about Arches’s accounting practices and business deals. For my safety and Emma’s, I started using the name of Martin.”
“And you came to Hope.”
She nodded. “The district attorney decided that it would be safer for Emma if she and I weren’t in the same place while we waited for the case to go to trial. I hated to leave her, but Mr Arches has rather long arms,” she added ruefully. “So I thought of you. Most people didn’t know I even had a brother, which was exactly the type of person I needed. After the DA found you, I came to Hope, intending to beg you to take care of Emma.”
“But you didn’t leave Emma with me,” he said, as the cold spot in his chest grew. “Did you?”
She squirmed in her chair. “I was going to, but the more
I thought about it, the more I didn’t know how you’d react to having your long-lost sister show up and ask you to look after a baby. I was ready to take my chances when I realized that if the DA had found you without any trouble, Arches’s henchmen could, too. Emma’s safety was my main concern, so when I was hanging around the hospital, trying to decide what to do, Nikki seemed like my perfect answer. I’d planned to come to you when everything was over and explain. Honest.”
“That doesn’t justify why you couldn’t have shared your plan with me beforehand. I would have understood your reasons.”
She avoided his gaze, and he knew there was something else she hadn’t told him. He cast around, trying to imagine what it might have been. “Did you think I wouldn’t want Emma? Or that I would brag to the world that she was my niece when I knew the importance of secrecy? Didn’t you trust me?”
His question hung in the air like thick fog.
Mary pursed her lips, then finally answered. “I was also afraid you might do something so I couldn’t get Emma back.”
“Not give her back?” he said incredulously, ignoring Nikki’s gasp across the room.
“You were always complaining about how irresponsible Dad was for leaving us, and after I ran away with Jim, I knew you’d think the same thing about me. You’d turned into a responsible doctor while I was a struggling secretary, which only made me feel even more insecure. I was scared that you’d use my youthful indiscretions against me and try to get custody of Emma on the grounds that I was an unfit mother. Putting Emma in Dr Lawrence’s care and keeping my identity a secret seemed the lesser of two potential evils.”
From where he sat, his sister had put her faith in a stranger rather than in him because he’d become a potential evil. The sister whom he’d adored, the sister he’d looked after, had thought he was so mean-spirited that he’d take away something so precious to her. If his own flesh and blood didn’t consider him worthy of trust, then how could he possibly expect any other woman to do what she could not? The ache in his chest grew stronger.
“I’m sorry,” Mary said faintly. “I was wrong to think the worst of you. I know that now, but I was only trying to prepare for every eventuality, to protect the little piece of Henry that I still had. Can you forgive me?”
He rubbed the bridge of his nose, trying to sort through her revelations and his fragile emotions. At the moment, too many internal wounds were bleeding for him to feel magnanimous and grant her the forgiveness she sought.
He focused on Nikki. “Were you in on her deception?”
“No!” Nikki shook her head. “I didn’t figure it out until the day we visited your apartment. The evening I looked at your photo album.”
No wonder she’d been preoccupied. She’d been hiding the truth from him when she should have mentioned her suspicions.
The V-neckline of his scrub top suddenly seemed too tight. He rose, intending to seek solace in distance, but first he wanted to know what to expect.
“Is the trial over?” he asked Mary.
“Yes, thank God. Arches was convicted of a long list of crimes. He’ll be in jail for years.”
“What are your plans now?” he asked, steeling himself to the possibility that he might not see his new niece until she was a teenager, or older.
Mary stood as she fixed her gaze on him. “Emma needs a masculine influence in her life. I was hoping she could get to know her uncle.”
He’d expected her to say that she was moving on and blinked back his surprise that she wasn’t. Yet he wasn’t willing to raise his hopes. “Which means?”
“I’d like to stay in Hope.” She glanced at Nikki, then back at him. “If this is where you’ll be.”
He purposely avoided looking at Nikki. What would be the point of wanting to be with a woman who refused to be honest with him?
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “Do you have a place to stay?”
“Not yet. I thought Emma and I would go to a hotel until I found a house.”
In spite of the blow to his self-esteem, Mary was still his sister. He dug in his pocket, pulled out his car keys and removed one from the ring. “Here’s the key to my apartment. You’re welcome to live there as long as you like. It isn’t anything fancy,” he warned, intending to turn his room over to Mary and Emma while he slept on the sofa. He could even bunk down in the doctors’ lounge, if necessary.
She accepted the key. “I’m sure it will be fine. Thanks.”
He opened the door. “I have to get back to work. Nikki can give you the address and directions.”
She nodded.
Galen turned away, then stopped. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re here,” he said simply, then walked away without a backward glance. He might be able to forgive Mary for her choices because she didn’t know the man he’d become, but he couldn’t overlook Nikki’s actions as easily. The one woman who knew him better than anyone else, the one whom he’d trusted to be honest and forthright, had lied by omission.
If Nikki could keep such important information from him, knowing that he was desperate for news about his sister, then what else would she choose not to tell him? He’d never imagined that she could or would let him down in such a fashion, but she had, and in the process had brought down the rest of his dreams as well.
Nikki looked at Mary, not sure what to say. If only she’d been able to prepare him for the shock, if only she’d won the gamble she’d taken, but she hadn’t. Now she’d lost everything.
Mary’s smile seemed forced. “That went better than I’d expected, but I still have a lot to make up for. I really hurt him, didn’t I?”
Nikki recalled his bleak expression and the way he’d avoided her gaze. “Not as much as I did.”
If she let him walk away, she’d lose the ground they’d gained over the past month. The fear of that happening swelled to choking proportions and left her at the proverbial fork in the road. Did she intend to fight for what she wanted or not? Would she meekly accept his rejection as her due, or would she take a chance and grab for the prize?
“I have to go,” she said, rushing to the door. “I have to fix this.”
“You love him, don’t you?” Mary asked, stopping Nikki in her tracks.
She didn’t hesitate. “I do. Completely. In fact, I want to marry him, if he’ll have me.” Which was why she was so afraid that she’d irrevocably ruined things between them and so desperate to repair the damage she’d caused.
Mary smiled. “I thought so.”
Nikki started to rush on, then realized she couldn’t leave Mary stranded without knowing her daughter’s whereabouts. “Ask Jean to escort you to the day-care center so you can see Emma.”
“I will. Thanks. And good luck,” Mary called as Nikki increased her pace. Galen had probably returned to the ER, so she’d look for him there first.
And when she found him, she’d do or say whatever was necessary to set their relationship to rights. It would be a time for brutal honesty and heartfelt sincerity.
And what if he won’t listen?
Fear of failure threatened her again, but she quickly refused to let it take root. Galen would listen to her, she vowed, even if she had to resort to doing something drastic.
She caught up to him just as he was ready to push through the fire doors separating the main ER from the MEC. “Galen! Wait.”
He paused, before turning slowly to face her. “What do you want?”
“I want to talk to you.”
“Why?” he asked bluntly.
“Because I want to explain.”
“Sorry, don’t waste your breath.”
She dashed in front of him to block his path. “I wasn’t sure if Alice really was your sister.”
“You weren’t sure about the woman on television either,” he reminded her. “But that didn’t stop you from voicing your suspicions. Or did you think I would somehow jeopardize Emma’s safety if I knew she was my niece?”
“No! I was only trying to protect you fr
om being hurt.”
“You had no right to keep something this big a secret from me. To think I wanted to earn your trust and your love by showing you mine all this time.”
He shook his head in obvious disgust. “If keeping secrets and not trusting is what you think love is, I don’t want a part of it.”
She froze as his comment sank home. “You love me?”
“Did you think that hearing of your duplicity would hurt so much if I didn’t?”
“I was going to tell you about Mary,” she reminded him, more determined than ever to straighten out this mess. “I tried, remember? But you were taking Melanie to lunch. And then—”
Galen threw up his hands and turned away. “I don’t know why I’m bothering to discuss this. We’re not getting anywhere.”
“If you go,” she warned as he started to storm through the fire doors, “then you aren’t as interested in commitment as you claimed.”
He paused. “I just happen to think it’s a two-way street.”
“Which is why if we don’t clear the air, we’re doomed to repeat the same mistake we made a year ago. I, for one, don’t want to do that. Not this time.”
He rubbed his face in obvious frustration. “The point is, I know you’re afraid to trust me for fear that I’ll make a promise and still leave you someday, just like your birth mother did.
“I also know that my track record hasn’t been good,” he continued. “I’d hoped to prove myself through actions rather than words that I wasn’t like my father and could handle the responsibility of a family.”
She interrupted. “Handle responsibility? Prove your willingness to settle down through your actions? Then why didn’t you move in me with when I asked you?”
“Because I was trying to measure up to your brothers!” he roared. “They were the ones who protected you and always looked out for your best interests, but I’ve since learned it’s impossible. You’ll never trust me the same way you trust them.”
Measure up to her brothers? Suddenly the cogs began to click into place. It had been his own determination to be honorable, to prove his worthiness to her brothers, that had stopped him from taking what she’d so freely offered to him a year ago. And now, twelve months later, he was doing the same thing.
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