“I’m sorry you got corralled into my family’s coffee time.” She walked over to the coffee table and toed her brother in the ribs. “I thought I asked you to bring him to Dad’s office?”
“You did, dear Becks,” Dennis said, catching her by the ankle. “But Mom’s a bigger boss than you. And if you have a problem with that, I’ll pull you down.”
“Why am I not surprised? You’re always pulling someone’s leg,” Becky said, shaking her foot loose. Dennis’s groans were joined by his sisters’.
“Oh, that’s nasty, Becks.”
She flashed them each a saccharine smile that melted away when she met Rick’s gaze.
“Have some coffee and a muffin, dear, before you get back to work,” Cora said.
But Becky shook her head. “I’ve got too much to do.” She gave Rick an apologetic smile. “Do you mind if we get at it right away?”
Rick shook his head as he picked up his mug and plate. “Can I finish this in the office? I haven’t had homemade muffins for years.”
“You have to take some home,” Cora announced. “Becky, you make sure you package some up for him before he leaves.”
Becky just nodded and, turning, led Rick down a narrow hallway to a spacious room, just off the family room. In the center of the room was a large flat-top oak desk. Bookshelves lined one wall, the other held a collage of framed pictures that covered every square inch of space above a long credenza that held more portraits.
She closed the door behind him. “Just put your stuff on the desk. I thought we could work there.”
Rick did as he was told, but his eyes were on the framed photographs. Children of all ages and groups looked back at him.
“These must be of your family,” he said, irresistibly drawn to the wall. He glanced them over, then pointed to one of a young girl sitting on a horse, grinning a gap-toothed smile. “I’m guessing this is you?”
“Not bad,” Becky said, coming to stand beside him. “One of the other times I was on a horse. That was taken at my grandmother’s new place.”
Rick glanced over the mélange of pictures, his gaze snared by a couple standing self-consciously in front of a mass of flowers. “You and Trevor?”
“Grade twelve graduation.”
“The cowboy and the editor.”
Rick glanced back at Becky who was avoiding his gaze, now busy with a stack of papers on the desk. “I’ve made a word-for-word transcription of our interview with the premier. That way we can decide which angle we want to take.” She was all business now and Rick took her cue, though he kept thinking about what Colette had said. Becky. In a dither.
“Do you mind if I skim through them first?” he asked, picking them up. “Did Trixie type them for you?”
“No, I did them myself. Just finished them now. They might be a bit hard to read. Dad’s printer is low on ink.”
She leaned back on the desk while Rick took an empty chair. It didn’t take him long to look it over. He had made his own notes on his part of the interview after their “chat” in the Jeep. When Becky had kissed him.
And he had kissed her back. And they had talked. And she had come so close…
Focus, Rick, focus.
A few minutes later he put the papers down and bit his lip. “You’ve got some good stuff here to work with. I like the gardening angle. Gives the piece a personal touch. I know that’s not been done before.”
“How would you know?”
Rick glanced up from the notes. “I’ve been following this guy ever since he got elected. Young man, came from nowhere, big ideas and dreams. I’ve wanted to get an interview for ages. I’ve read just about every interview with him that’s been archived on the Net, every report on him in every major newspaper in Canada and quite a few abroad.” He looked back at the papers. “The interview isn’t complete, is it?”
“What do you mean?”
“It doesn’t go much past what I heard before I took the phone call from Terry at the bank.”
Becky shrugged his comment aside. “We discussed personal stuff after that.”
“On or off the record?”
“Off.”
Rick saw the tape recorder beside the computer and pulled it over. “Can I listen?”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea. It was personal.”
“But it’s on the tape. You were still recording it.”
She nodded, edging up onto her father’s desk. “I forgot to turn it off.”
“Then it’s not personal.” Ignoring Becky’s protests, Rick hit Play and listened. He fast-forwarded the tape, but didn’t have far to go. Becky had stopped transcribing shortly before the phone call. Just at the point in the interview when the atmosphere had changed. When Jake started to talk about a girl named Kerra. He listened while Becky fidgeted restlessly in front of him.
“Kerra and I parted ways a long time ago,” Jake was saying, his voice quiet. “It is the one regret that I have.”
“Why do you say that?” Becky’s softly modulated voice came across on the tape, and Rick remembered the way she leaned closer, her gentle features expressing a concern that made Rick himself want to confess every secret he held.
Jake hesitated, his innate caution seemingly holding him back. “She was the only woman I truly loved. She was the only one…” Another long pause.
Rick hardly dared to breathe sensing a moment of disclosure.
“I loved her but I treated her wrong. So wrong,” Jake whispered finally. “I was young and ambitious. I had an advisor even then. An advisor who saw in me the potential to move higher and higher. He gave me bad advice.”
Another silence. “What kind of advice, Jake?” Becky asked.
“He told me to get rid of her. And I did. And after I did, I found out she was expecting a child. And I didn’t do anything about it. I left her on her own and didn’t take responsibility.”
Elation thrilled through Rick at his confession. This was what they were waiting for. The big breakthrough.
But as he thought about the young girl, anger chased away his jubilation.
This man had done the same thing to this Kerra girl that his own father had done to his mother. Left her a single woman trying to raise a child, dependent on family. Dependent on a cold man whose shame kept Rick at arm’s length.
“Do you know where she is now?”
Rick pulled himself out of his own emotional quagmire to concentrate on Jake’s reply.
“She changed her name, stopped singing and moved away. Her mother was an alcoholic and either didn’t know where she was or wouldn’t tell me. She died a couple of years after Kerra left town. She was my last and only link to Kerra.” Jake drew in a deep breath. There was a long pause and Rick wondered if the interview was over.
“Of course you realize all this is off the record, Becky,” Jake said, his voice changing back to the stern and controlled politician. “I should never, ever have told you this.”
“Going West is not aiming to be a tabloid magazine,” Becky replied.
Then a click and the tape was finished.
Rick leaned back and released his breath in a long slow exhalation. This was the scoop he’d been waiting for. This was the breakthrough that was going to make the difference he needed.
“We’re using this, Becky,” he said, tapping the papers into a neat pile and laying them carefully on the desk. “His comments. At the end of the interview. I want to use them.”
“They were off the record.”
“He only said that at the end.” Rick glanced up at Becky, who was frowning at him, her arms folded over her chest.
“That’s really splitting hairs. He told me that in confidence, Rick. While you were away, talking on the phone. And while he maybe didn’t follow so-called correct procedure, this wasn’t a police interview.”
“No. It was an interview conducted, for the most part, in front of two people and quite publicly recorded on tape the whole time.” Rick leaned forward, as if trying to force his
will on his reluctant editor. “This is the article I’ve been waiting for. The one that will turn Going West around.”
Becky pushed herself away from the desk, pacing around it, her head bent. “And that’s all that counts, isn’t it? No matter what the cost.”
“It was my job when I came here. You knew that.” Rick could feel her frustration pushing at him, and for a moment he hesitated. The magazine was floundering. The money was getting tight. Now more than ever he needed the boost this article would give the magazine. “You need the job, too. If this magazine fails, what will you do?”
“I’d sooner lose my job than put this out for everyone to read.” Becky placed her palms down on the desk. “I’m not allowing it, Rick. It’s not right.”
“He knew what he was doing when he allowed us to do the interview. It’s the truth and I think we have a responsibility to print it.”
“It’s his own private pain. We have a responsibility to leave that alone.”
“It’s the truth. And sometimes truth hurts. And as for his pain…” Rick paused, fighting his rising anger. “What about the pain of the girl and the child he left all alone? He abandoned both of them. Abandoned his responsibility to them. Doesn’t Kerra have any rights? Doesn’t their child?”
“That’s not the point.”
Rick banged the flat of his hand down on the transcript of the interview with an angry slap. “It is exactly the point, Becky. He holds a public office, and what he has done directly reflects on that office.” He spun around and drew his hands over his face, trying to pull his emotions together. Focus. Focus. But he couldn’t keep his emotions out of this. It was too close. “He has no right, had no right, to leave that woman and that child in the lurch. Their story needs to be exposed, as well. It’s the truth. And truth is part of what good reporting is all about.” He sucked in a long slow breath, willing his pounding heart to slow its erratic beat. Willing the storm of his own pain to stop hurting.
“This truth will hurt and break down, Rick.”
“It can also be liberating. Have you ever thought of that?” He walked slowly to the wall of pictures again.
Becky came to his side. He could feel her resistance, measure the tension in her body.
“Why does this matter so much? I’ve never seen you this emotionally involved in any article we’ve ever done.”
Rick let his gaze flick over the pictures. Pictures of parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters. Posed family pictures. Candid pictures. A legacy and a heritage. How could he explain to Becky why Jake’s mistake mattered so much? Becky who came from such a loving family. Would she have even an inkling of what he’d had to deal with?
He picked up a family picture. Becky flanked by her sisters and brothers, mother and father hovering over them all, grandparents on either side. His lack of family was no deep secret.
But his pain was. As was his dislike for his grandfather and the control he exerted over his life. His anger with Colson had been his constant struggle on his slow return to faith. And his anger translated into anger with God. Would Becky, sweet loving Becky, even begin to understand what emotions swirled beneath his smile? “We need to tell the truth.”
“But what is truth, Rick? It’s an age-old question. Bald statement of facts that can break down and destroy? You know what this would do to his career?”
Rick turned then. “And what about what happened to Kerra? What has happened to her life? Don’t you think her story should be told?”
“Not in this article.”
“Then when?”
“That’s not our responsibility, Rick.”
And that was that. Rick withdrew, but held his ground. “This article is going to make all the difference to the magazine. We’re going to run it the way I want to.”
Becky drew back from him, her eyes snapping. “Doesn’t matter who gets hurt, does it? As long as you can get the article that will turn this magazine around, and let you prove yourself to your grandfather.”
“He’s not a factor.”
“I think he is. If it’s truth you are so concerned about, you better look at your own reasons for using Jake this way. You’re going to hide behind the so-called truth to get what you want. Just like all the other pieces you’ve written.”
Her accusations stung and his only defense was to attack. Push her back from the truth he almost told her this afternoon. He didn’t dare allow her closer.
“You sound like you’re afraid of the truth,” Rick said. “I always have to push you to acknowledge that in your own work. It comes out in your other writing, as well.”
“My ‘other’ writing is fiction, Rick. It’s the truth distilled.”
“But is it a truth for you? You could be a better writer if you faced the truth of your life. Your book was exactly as I described it. Sentimental and shallow. It skipped over the surface. You’re a better writer than that, Becky.” His words spilled out past the polite barriers he had put in place, past the diplomacy that came hard to him at the best of times.
Part of him urged him to stop, asked him why he was doing this.
Offense was the best defense. He couldn’t afford to let himself get involved with anyone. Least of all someone like Becky, who was already too close.
“If we’re going to talk about fear, how about discussing fear of failure? Don’t you think it’s easier to plunge yourself into community and church work than to make the commitment to becoming a better writer?”
“You didn’t help matters any. You and that nasty book review. Also the truth, I imagine.”
“Don’t hide behind me,” Rick said, holding up one hand. “Don’t hide behind what I wrote. You’ve ridden on that excuse too long. You have talent and brains and ability. Too much maybe. But you make yourself indispensable to the community so that you can hide behind that, as well. If you want to be the writer you claim you want to be, you need a stronger vision. A stronger commitment. You need to say no to a few things, cut some responsibilities out of your life. To realize that maybe when you do, you allow someone else to take your place. And whether you like it or not, that is the truth for your life.”
Becky took a step back, her voice quiet now, her face pale. What had he done with his rant? His big plan for her life.
“You talk about truth when you can’t even tell people the truth about yourself.” She paused. Held his gaze. “Tell me the truth now. Why does this matter so much? Why do you want to use the truth of what happened to Jake to hurt him and ruin the good he’s done?”
Her questions probed, picked at threads from the fabric of his life that she had already loosened. What would it matter if he told her? What would he be giving her?
She knew how he was raised. What she didn’t know were the emotions at his core. His fears. The yearnings for love that he had always disdained as weak. Needy.
But he had let her into parts of his life no one had been before. She had shown him living faith. And a pure love.
They were a potent combination that frightened him. But her gaze held his, her eyes seemed to catch his hesitation, encourage disclosure.
He retreated further.
“It matters, Becky, because this will sell magazines. And that’s what we do.” He looked down at the desk, unable to look her in the eye, feeling like a traitor. His own brave words about truth mocked him, but if he gave her more of himself, he would leave too much behind when it was time to go.
And he would go. He had to.
A beat of silence. Then Becky stepped back as if finally understanding what she was going to get from him.
“If you write this article, revealing the premier’s secret against his will—” Becky raised her hand as if making a vow “—I’ll quit.” Then she turned and left through the doors leading to the yard, the sound of the door like a gunshot in the silence.
Rick slammed his fists against the desk, then ran out into the yard, calling her name.
“Leave me alone, Rick,” she called out. “Go write your article. De
stroy a good man’s life.”
Rick stood on the edges of the light spilling out from the open door behind him, trying to see where she was going. But she had been swallowed up by the night.
With a frustrated sigh, he spun on his heel and strode to his vehicle. He vaulted into it, twisted the key of his Jeep. As it roared to life, he glanced back at Becky’s house. At the three people silhouetted against the window.
Surely Becky would enlighten her family as to what happened. It wasn’t on him.
He reversed, slammed the gearshift into first and spun out of the Ellisons’ yard. At the road he turned left, away from town, out into the dark countryside. The only sound was the throb of the engine, and the hiss of air slipping past a half-opened window. His lights cast a dim beam over the road, which was swallowed up by the heavy darkness as he approached.
As he drove, her words echoed and twisted through his brain.
“You’re an empty shell, Rick.”
“Why does this matter so much?”
He pressed harder on the accelerator, but he couldn’t outrun her words. They piled on top of each other, pulling down the barriers he had erected against her, at the same time, drawing him to a place he had been before.
And each time she brought him there, he gave her a little more of himself and allowed her closer.
And what was so bad about that?
He was leaving, that was nonnegotiable.
Why couldn’t he stay? Why not?
The question spun through his head as he stared sightlessly at the road, the ditches barely illuminated by his headlights.
Put down roots? Allow people into his life?
Did he dare?
Lord, what do I do?
His cry to a God he hadn’t spoken to came from the depths of his sorrow. His need.
Tell me what to do, Lord. I’m working without a net here.
Then a flash of brown. Red reflected in twin pinpoints of light facing him on the road ahead. The eyes of a deer standing in the middle of the road.
He slammed on the brakes, spun the steering wheel just as the deer jumped.
A sickening crunch. Pain that exploded through his head. His chest.
Then nothing.
A Place in Her Heart Page 16