by Lyn Cote
“He isn’t, you know.”
Hannah frowned. “He isn’t what?”
“Mr. Harrison isn’t Callie’s dad.”
Hannah felt as if the bottom had just fallen out of her world. What on earth was Kim saying? “Of course he is,” Hannah said, striving to keep the tension she felt from her voice. “Callie looks just like the Harrisons. Why would you think otherwise?”
“She told me. She overheard her mom and Mr. Harrison talking yesterday about her real dad, Mr. Harrison’s brother.”
Hannah’s stomach clenched in sudden nausea, and the blood drained from her head so swiftly she felt faint. Very carefully, she set her plate of pizza on her TV tray. “Callie must have misunderstood. Johnny Harrison was my boyfriend back then, not Josie Jones’s.”
“It’s no mistake,” Kim said. Her eyes grew wide. “Oh, gosh! That means he cheated on you with Mrs. Harrison like Dad cheated on Mom with Brenda.”
Johnny and Josie? It wasn’t possible. It was a lie! Johnny would never, never have done such a thing…would he? Certain that her heart was breaking all over again, positive she was going to be sick, Hannah leapt to her feet, sending her TV tray crashing to the floor. “I can’t believe the two of you were talking about such a thing!” she said in a harsh voice.
“Callie is my friend,” Kim said, her own eyes flashing with anger. “She was upset about what she overheard and what her mom had done. She needed someone to talk to.”
Hannah set the tray upright and paced the length of the room, regretting the burst of temper, knowing it was unfair to take out her uncertainty and heartache on her niece. “I’m sure she did,” she said in a calmer voice. “And I’m sorry I yelled at you. Being there for Callie is a good thing,” she added, “but in my opinion, you’re both too young to be discussing such things.” Besides, I don’t want to hear these lies! “When I was your and Callie’s age I was still playing with my Barbie dolls.”
“Times have changed, Aunt Hannah,” Kim said, sounding very grown up. “If adults don’t talk to their kids about this stuff, they’ll find someone who will.”
“Well, obviously Callie is mistaken. And neither of you has any business repeating hurtful lies.”
“She wasn’t mistaken,” Kim said. “Callie confronted her mom and Mr. Harrison about what she overheard. They sat down and told her the whole story, about how her mom got pregnant and then Johnny got killed. Callie said she cried and her mom cried, and Mr. Harrison cried, too.”
Hannah barely heard. All she could think of was Josie and Johnny…together in ways he’d pressured her to be. A sudden memory flashed into Hannah’s mind. The memory of Josie’s eyes meeting hers during the shower, those blue eyes holding an apology Hannah hadn’t understood. If what Kim was telling her was true—and it seemed it was—that look made sense. With the confrontation with her daughter so fresh on her mind, Josie’s conscience must have been bothering her.
Hannah tipped her head back and stared at the ceiling through a film of tears. She wanted to scream out her misery. Wanted to tell Kim to be quiet, to stop repeating such hurtful things about Johnny, to leave her memories of him pure and beautiful the way things between them had been.
But she couldn’t do that. Wouldn’t. Deep in her heart, the heart that refused to believe what Kim was saying, Hannah knew it was true. No one would confess to something so damaging unless it were the truth. And clearly, things between her and Johnny hadn’t been as perfect as she’d believed. She buried her face in her hands.
“I’m sorry, Aunt Hannah.”
The sound of Kim’s voice pulled Hannah’s attention from the past to the painful present. She lowered her hands—clenched into hard fists—to her sides. Kim’s amber-colored eyes were sad. “I know how bad it must hurt to find out what your boyfriend did, just like it hurt Callie to find out what her mom did.” Kim gave a rueful smile. “At least Callie can get professional counseling about her feelings.”
Leave it to kids, Hannah thought. They had a way of not sugar-coating things, a way of cutting to the chase.
“Yes,” Hannah said in a numb voice. “At least she has Griff to help her work through things.” The question was, who would help Hannah with her problems?
Long after Kim had gone home, Hannah sat in the darkness of the den, wrapped tightly in an afghan, with no illumination but the fireplace. She needed the cocoon of darkness to hide her tears. Needed the tightly wound blanket to keep her from flying into a million irreparable pieces.
Johnny and Josie. She’d never once suspected there was anything between them. Never once suspected anything was wrong with her and Johnny’s relationship. In her naïveté, she’d assumed that Johnny would happily accept her decision not to engage in premarital sex. Well, he’d accepted it, but evidently not too happily. Her eyes filled with tears that ran down her cheeks in silent rivers. There was only one explanation for what had happened. Johnny hadn’t loved her the way she’d loved him. Hannah blew her nose and tossed the tissue in the general direction of the wastebasket. What a fool she’d been to think any man was perfect!
Numb now, recovered somewhat from the initial shock of the news she’d heard, her mind wandered to other questions. If Johnny was the father of Josie’s baby, why had Griff married her? Did the Harrisons know the truth? And is this what Griff meant when he’d told her she didn’t know the whole truth about the night Johnny died?
There was only one way to find out. She knew she had to confront Griff with what Kim had told her. As the woman Johnny had professed to love, the woman he’d said he wanted to marry, she felt Griff owed her some answers, and from past conversations, she knew he would be happy to give them to her. The problem was, did she really want to hear what he had to say, and could she humble her stiff-necked pride and ask?
Chapter Eight
Hannah woke the next morning and pulled her dark hair into a severe knot at the nape of her neck. The austerity of the style fit her mood. She had no way of knowing it emphasized the pure lines of her oval face, the size of her dark eyes and the elegant sweep of her cheekbones. Even the paleness she felt made her look like death warmed over was attractive, giving her a haunted, ethereal look.
She donned jeans and an off-white sweater whose turtleneck made her feel protected somehow. She drove to the fair grounds, her heart still bruised, its load no lighter, but with her determination to get to the bottom of things firmly in place. She would fulfill her morning duties and then ask Griff if he could spare some time to talk to her. She was ready for the truth. Finally.
She spoke to several people as she entered the building, got herself a cup of coffee and set out the cookies, candy sprinkles and plastic knives for the frosting. It wasn’t long before children began to arrive and she was bombarded with little ones who smeared frosting and dumped far too much colored sugar on top of their cookies. She was wiping icing from a chubby little boy’s hands, smiling at the mess he’d made when she heard a masculine voice from behind her.
“Hi.”
Griff. Hannah swiped at a smear of frosting on the child’s face, handed him a paper towel and forced herself to face Griff with a smile. “Hi.”
“I’m sorry I’m late. I was literally walking out the door when I got this frantic call from a parent.”
“No problem,” Hannah assured him. “I have things as under control as they can be when you mix kids and messy stuff.”
“They’re having a blast, though,” he said, pulling up a folding chair and sitting next to her. “What do I do?”
Hannah gave him the simple instructions and they sat and watched as half a dozen children coated their cookies with the gooey frosting.
“Just think. In a few years some of these kids will be hiding drugs in their rooms.”
Hannah turned to look at him. “That’s a terribly depressing thought.”
“Believe me, I know. It’s a fact, though.” He sighed. “I wish there were some way we could know beforehand which ones were the ones who’d grow up with problem
s. Maybe we could intervene before things reach the boiling point.”
“Do you really think knowing what the future holds would make us behave any differently?” she asked, fearful that the pain she felt was mirrored in her eyes.
There was an unnerving directness in his gaze. “I’d like to think it would, but the reality is that even knowing what the consequences of our behavior might be, we sometimes make the wrong choices.”
“I’d like to talk to you about that,” she said, her voice quivering the slightest bit.
“What?”
“My behavior.”
“I’d be glad to talk to you about anything you’d like, Hannah. Any time.”
Something in his eyes—tenderness—made her swallow hard. She knew she had to forge ahead before she lost her courage. “Is after we get through here okay?”
“Sure,” he said with a shrug. “We can go to my house.”
Hannah had hoped they could talk in a café, somewhere where there would be people around and she wouldn’t feel so vulnerable. On the other hand, her curiosity was definitely piqued. A person’s home said a lot about his personality. “That’s fine.”
“Good. It’s a date.” He smiled again, and her heart did a little tap dance. “Uh-oh,” he said, the smile fading as a group of about ten children headed their way. “We’re about to be besieged.”
“You’re right,” she said, grateful for the brief reprieve. As she doled out cookies and sprinkles, her mind replayed his words. It’s a date…a date…a date…
“How about a cup of coffee?” he asked two hours later, when she was settled in an armchair next to his fireplace. “Or are you a tea drinker?”
“I like them both,” she said. “Whatever’s easiest.”
“Good. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Left alone, she made a visual tour of the room. The house was one of the historic homes on Elm Street. Somehow she hadn’t thought of him as an antiques lover, but he evidently was. The room was tastefully and classically decorated with an abundance of green plants.
“This is a beautiful room,” she said when he returned a few moments later with a tray bearing two cups of steaming coffee, a matching sugar bowl and creamer and a small plate with several cookies.
“Thank you.” He set the tray down. “I’ll bet you never thought of me as a traditional sort of guy, did you?”
“Actually no,” she confessed. “Or a plant lover.”
“If I hadn’t chosen family counseling as a life’s work, I’d have gone into horticulture.”
Her eyebrows lifted in amazement. She accepted the cup and saucer he offered. “That was fast.”
“I cheated. This is the leftover breakfast coffee. I poured it into one of those insulated carafes. But the cookies are homemade,” he hastened to add. “Mom.”
She watched as Griff added a spoonful of sugar to his coffee. Seeing the surprise in her eyes, he said, “I’m sure you’d be the first to agree that I need a little something to sweeten me up.”
Since he was obviously teasing her, Hannah made no reply. Instead, she asked the question that had plagued her since their earlier conversation. “What sort of problem did you have growing up? Your parents were the best.”
He had no difficulty making the leap in conversational topics to what had caused him to go bad as a teen. If he was offended by the very personal question, he didn’t let it show. One corner of his mouth hiked up in that familiar wry smile. “What is this, Hannah? Genuine interest about my wild youth or morbid curiosity?”
“A little of both, maybe.”
“Well, well. An honest woman. Something of a rare bird these days.”
“Really?”
“Really.” He took a swallow of his coffee and set his cup back on the saucer. “I guess you could say that my parents’ genuine decency was part of my problem. They seemed so perfect, so inherently good that I felt I’d never measure up. Johnny was the good son. He did as he was told—at least it appeared he did. It was always ‘Yes, ma’am’ and ‘no, sir.’ I never seemed to do anything right.”
“So you took out your frustrations by rebelling?”
“That’s the road I chose, yes. And believe me, it was a deliberate choice, the way all our actions are. But I was born to the role. I was always the mouthy one, the one who questioned and challenged everything, pushing the boundaries. And I had more than my share of impure thoughts.
“In retrospect, I was a fairly normal teenage boy, but Mom and Dad had no idea how to handle me, which eventually underscored the fact that they had feet of clay, just like everyone else.”
“How?”
“Well, I found out that they did have tempers and they weren’t always fair if it meant punishing me, and Dad was even known to let loose with a cuss word every now and then.”
“And did it make you happy to knock them off their pedestals?” Hannah asked, fascinated by this intimate glimpse into the thinking of this man who’d set the small town on its ear and caused his share of gossip and scandal.
“Happy, no. At first I felt this sort of gloating satisfaction that they weren’t all they seemed, weren’t what I thought they were. Then all those years of Bible study started nagging at me, and I felt bad that I’d pushed them so hard. I knew I needed to clean up my act, but I wasn’t sure how. And then Johnny died.”
His off-hand comment about Johnny hit a raw and bleeding nerve. Hannah glanced away for a moment, then forced her gaze back to his. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Johnny?”
“Johnny and the fact that my behavior toward you hasn’t been very exemplary.”
Griff didn’t press. He just sat down in a chair across from her and waited for her to continue.
Hannah took a deep breath, met his eyes with sheer effort of will and made the plunge. “Callie told Kim about overhearing you and Josie talking about…Johnny and the fact that he…he’s her real father, not you.”
Griff’s eyes drifted closed, as if, she thought, he wanted to block out the pain he heard in her voice, the pain that must be mirrored in her eyes.
“I know it must be true,” she stated when he opened his eyes again. “You wouldn’t tell something like that to a child if it weren’t.”
“It’s true.” His voice was emotionless, flat.
“Does…did…that have anything to do with the accident?”
“It had everything to do with the accident.”
Another shaft of pain sliced her heart. “Tell me, Griff,” she said simply. “Tell me everything. I’m ready to hear it.”
Nodding, Griff exhaled a noisy breath and scraped a hand through his hair. “After Johnny took you home from the prom, he came looking for me. I was down at the creek drinking beer and playing poker with some of the guys. Johnny had a bottle of Jim Beam and he’d been hitting it pretty hard. He said he needed to talk to me, so we got in my truck and took a drive.
“He told me he had a problem, a bad problem. He said he’d been seeing Josie on the sly.” Griff glanced at Hannah.
“Go ahead,” she said.
“I told him he was a jerk, that if he wanted to see someone else, he should have the guts to break up with you first. He said he didn’t really want to break up with you, that he loved you, not Josie, but that he’d started seeing her because—as he put it—he couldn’t get past first base with you.”
Hannah pressed her trembling lips tightly together.
“I told him to dump Josie, then, but he said he couldn’t do that because she was pregnant. He was crying.”
Hannah’s own eyes filled with tears. Hearing the story in Griff’s cold, unemotional tones did nothing to lessen the pain of the truth.
“I told him a lot of things,” Griff said, his voice laced with the remnants of an old anger. “And I called him a lot of things. He asked me what he should do. I told him there was only one thing he could do. The right thing, the honorable thing for Josie and his baby. I told him he should marry her.”
Griff’s mouth twisted into the familiar mocking smile. “I’m not proud of it now, but as upset as I was, a part of me relished his misery. Perfect Johnny had finally messed up and messed up big-time.” Griff slumped back in his chair and pinned her with that unnerving, penetrating gaze. “He told me he didn’t want to marry Josie and accused me of wanting you for myself. I didn’t deny it.”
A soft gasp escaped Hannah’s lips, and her eyes widened in surprise.
“I found a place and turned around, so we could go to your house and he could tell you what was going on. He asked me what I was doing. I told him that if he were going to abandon Josie, if he wanted a future with you, he should be a man and tell you what was going on and let you decide if you wanted him under those conditions. I told him he should know that good marriages weren’t based on lies and deceit.”
Griff leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. “He started yelling at me to stop—to turn around. I wouldn’t. Then, before I realized what he was doing, he grabbed the steering wheel. We wrestled with it for a few seconds and the next thing I knew we were headed for the ditch and this big pine tree…. When I woke up I was in the hospital with a bump and a cut on my forehead, and Johnny was dead.”
Hannah wanted to cry. She even felt tears prickling beneath her eyelids, but they didn’t fall, maybe because the soul-deep chill that had seeped into her bones had frozen them. The cup and saucer in her hands began to rattle.
“Hannah…” Griff’s voice held concern and wariness.
Instead of answering, she set the cup on the tray with extreme care. Then she stood. As she reached for the coat that lay on the back of a nearby chair and headed for the door, Griff stood, too.
She was at the front door when his hands closed over her shoulders. “Hannah…” he said again.
The pain in his voice was almost her undoing. In an effort to escape before she made a complete fool of herself, she shook her head and wrenched free of his hold. She couldn’t talk about it right now, couldn’t take anymore. She might have other questions later, but for the moment, her mind had absorbed all the pain it could bear.