by Marta Perry
Anne had to have more than this. “Did you see them together?”
“No...no, I don’t believe I ever did. Unless maybe it was at the café. Tina worked there, you know.”
“Yes, I know. But you must have some reason for thinking they went out besides seeing Tina wait on him.”
Or did she? Anne wondered. Sometimes body language between two people told you all you needed to know about their relationship. Her stomach knotted at the thought.
“Maybe it was something Tina said. Or Marcy said.” Her face brightened. “Yes, that’s it. It was something Marcy said.”
Anne’s heart pounded loudly enough for her to hear, but she’d keep her voice level in spite of it. “What did Marcy say?”
“Well, I don’t remember exactly.”
She gripped the counter, holding back the need to shake the truth out of the woman. “What do you remember?”
“Seems to me...” She paused, head cocked as if listening to voices in the past. “I know what it was. Marcy said Tina was crazy about the chief. “Head over heels in love with him”—that’s what she said.”
* * *
Head over heels in love. Anne wanted to grapple with Ellie’s revelation, to assess it the way she would any piece of evidence in a case, but she couldn’t seem to make her mind work that way. Ellie’s words had blown a gigantic hole through her heart.
This is crazy. How could her instincts possibly be so far off the mark? She thought she knew Mitch. How could the person who helped her when she was sick, who took in young Davey, possibly have been lying to her all along?
She couldn’t reconcile the two images of Mitch. They just didn’t fit.
She’d begun to trust him. That was what drove the hurt deep into her heart. She didn’t rely on people easily, thanks to her parents’ example, but she’d begun to count on Mitch. How could she possibly be so wrong?
There was only one thing to do, one way to cope with this. She’d have to confront Mitch and find out the truth, Anne decided as she left Ellie’s shop and got into her car.
* * *
But her courage left her when she reached Mitch’s house. What was she going to say? How could she believe him?
She had to confront him with it, that was all. Nothing would be more unfair than to condemn him on the basis of a rumor. No matter how difficult, she had to face him. She rang the bell.
She had rung it a second time before she heard answering footsteps in the hall beyond.
“All right, all right.” The masculine grumble sounded annoyed. “I’m coming.” The door swung open.
“Anne.” A quick smile lit his eyes. “Come in.” He gestured with the hand that didn’t hold the overflowing laundry basket. “I’m getting caught up on a few things before I go to the station.”
She followed him into the hallway.
“We picked up Davey’s clothes last night. Poor kid doesn’t have much, and what he does have needed to be washed.” He set the basket down. “I thought I’d...”
He stopped suddenly, his dark brown eyes focusing on her face. He went still, his gaze probing as if he could see into her heart.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“I... “ She opened her mouth, then closed it again. This was so difficult. The home he’d created surrounded her, warm and welcoming. It didn’t seem the right place for the accusation she had to make. And she couldn’t fool herself, any more than she could fool him. It was an accusation.
“Tell me.” He reached toward her, but stopped before his fingers touched her arm.
Maybe she was putting out warning signals, she thought.
“What’s going on?” he pressed.
“I talked to Ellie this morning.” Just get it out, any way you can. “I asked her about Tina. She remembered something.”
His face stiffened. “It can’t have been anything good.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because you look ready for a fight, Counselor.”
If he wanted the facts, he was going to get them. “Ellie remembered Marcy talking about Tina. And you.”
“There was no Tina and me.” He narrowed his eyes. “No matter what Ellie says.”
“Ellie wasn’t making any accusations.” Her voice grew stronger as the woman’s words rang in her mind. “She was just repeating what Marcy said.”
“And that was...?”
“That Tina was crazy about you. “Head over heels in love”—that’s what she said.”
He looked...astonished. That was the only word for it. “Ellie said that? I knew she didn’t like me, but I didn’t think she’d make up something about me.”
“She wasn’t. At least, I don’t think she was doing anything other than repeating what Marcy had said to her.”
“Hearsay, Counselor?”
She stiffened. “We’re not in a court of law. I’m trying to find the truth. The two things don’t always go together.”
“No, I guess not.” He took a step toward her. “But I thought we were beginning to trust each other.”
She winced at the pain in his voice. That had to be genuine, didn’t it?
“I just... I just don’t know.”
“We’re back at the same old impasse then, aren’t we.” His mouth hardened. “All I can say is that I barely knew the girl. If she had feelings for me, I wasn’t aware of it. I certainly never dated her.”
“Then why?” Her voice threatened to break. “Why would she say those things?”
She flung out her hands, and the question seemed to vibrate in the air between them.
“I don’t know.” His voice was heavy, final. “I guess there’s nothing else to say.”
She swallowed hard. “I guess there isn’t. When the DNA results come—”
“When the DNA results come, you’ll know I’m telling the truth. I wish you could trust me until then, but it’s pretty clear you can’t.”
Everything in her cried out to believe him. But she couldn’t. She could only shake her head and walk away.
* * *
Mitch tried to ignore the emotions that surged through him. It didn’t work. They pounded at him. Anger, pain, disappointment. He’d thought... What had he thought? That she’d begun to care for him? That she returned the caring he’d tried so hard not to admit?
He couldn’t deny it now. He looked bleakly at it. He cared for her. And she didn’t trust him. That was it, bottom line. She didn’t trust him.
Just like his father. Nobody’d trusted Ken Donovan, with good reason. He’d betrayed everyone who’d made that mistake—every friend, every employer. Everyone who’d given him a chance to make something of himself.
And then he’d betrayed his family. To Mitch, looking at that was like looking into a black hole. Worse, it was a hole that threatened to suck him in.
The doorbell rang. Anne? Impossible.
But he crossed the hall in a few long strides, grabbed the knob and flung the door open. And looked into the face of his brother.
“Link.”
“Hey, big brother.” Link slouched through the door without waiting for an invitation. He dropped an overloaded duffel bag on the floor and turned to Mitch. “Don’t look so glad to see me.”
In spite of everything that experience had taught him to expect from Link, he couldn’t help a surge of affection. Link, looking at him with that boyish grin, hair falling in his eyes, was for a moment the little brother he’d tried to teach and protect.
He held out his hand. “It’s been a long time.”
Link gripped his hand briefly. “Can’t say it looks like much has changed in Bedford Creek while I’ve been gone.”
“Don’t suppose it has.” Be careful. He couldn’t let Link in on the biggest change in Bedford Creek. The one in the house right across the street. Link wouldn’t be any support. I
n fact, he’d probably enjoy seeing Mitch embarrassed.
“Small town attitudes, small town minds.” The familiar mocking note came into Link’s voice. “How do you stand it?”
“I’m happy here. Some people wouldn’t be.” He snapped the words.
“Happy? How can you be happy knowing everyone in this town is looking down at you?”
“Nobody looks down at me.” His temper flared. That was Link, pushing the familiar buttons. “Not anymore.”
“Yeah, right.” Contempt saturated the words. “You’re the police chief now. That just means they’ll use you to clean up their messes. But don’t make the mistake of thinking they have any respect for you.”
“You’d know a lot about that, wouldn’t you? You don’t have any respect for anyone or anything.”
They were back to the old arguments, the ones they never seemed to get past.
Link shrugged. “I just look at the world a little differently from the way you do. Realistically. Nobody’s going to give you a break, so don’t expect it, and you won’t be disappointed.”
Like Anne, who didn’t trust him, Mitch thought. He stared bleakly at his brother, wondering how, in a few short moments, Link had managed to zero in on his pain.
Chapter 12
Anne looked out the front window the next morning for what must have been the twentieth time. The police car still sat in the driveway, so Mitch hadn’t left yet. Also for the twentieth time, she longed to run across the street, to tell him she believed in him. DNA results or not, she believed in him.
But she couldn’t do it. Each time she thought she was ready to take that step, something held her back.
When she thought of the pain in Mitch’s eyes the day before, she wanted to do whatever it would take to wipe it away.
Then the doubts crept in, poisoning her thoughts. What if she was wrong? What if Ellie’s presumption was true? What if Mitch really had been the man in Tina’s life?
Why can’t I know, Lord? Why can’t I know the truth, and then I could trust him?
No calmness came to still the tumult inside her. No answer presented itself, fully formed, in her mind. She didn’t know, she just didn’t know.
She heard the steps creak outside and turned back to the window in time to see the mail carrier going down. Kate was busy in the back of the house; Emilie safely napping upstairs. She might as well bring the mail in.
Anne carried a fat bundle inside and began to sort it on the hall table. Most of it was for Kate, of course, but—
She stared at the envelope with McKay Laboratories on the return address, and her heart started to hammer uncomfortably.
It was here. The DNA report was here, a week earlier than she’d hoped. When she’d called the lab to give them her address in Bedford Creek, she’d been told they were backed up with tests.
“Anne? Is something wrong?”
She’d been so preoccupied that she hadn’t heard Kate come in from the kitchen. The elderly woman was drying her hands on a tea towel, looking curiously at her.
“No, no, nothing.” Her face must betray that as a lie. “I’m fine. Excuse me.”
Clutching the envelope, she hurried up the stairs. Kate would think her rude, but she just couldn’t help it. She had to get away from the woman’s curious eyes while she held Emilie’s fate in her hands.
She slipped into the sitting room quietly and sank into the nearest chair. It was here, and now that it was, she could hardly bear to open it. She wanted to know; she was afraid to know.
Help me, Lord. Please help me. I’m afraid.
Suddenly the conviction she’d been seeking filled her, taking her breath away. The certainty pooled inside her, deep and sure. It wasn’t Mitch. Whoever it was, it wasn’t Mitch.
She opened the envelope and pulled out the results. They confirmed what she already knew. Mitch Donovan hadn’t fathered Tina’s child.
Thank you, Lord. Thank you.
She had to tell him. She folded the envelope and stuck it in her pocket. She had to tell him, now.
Kate stood in the hallway, glancing through a catalog. She looked up as Anne came down the stairs.
“I don’t know why they keep sending me these things. I never order anything from them.” Her gaze was keen on Anne’s face, but clearly she wouldn’t intrude.
Anne swallowed hard. She’d like to confide in Kate, but she couldn’t. “I need to speak to Mitch for a moment, and Emilie’s napping. Would you mind...?”
“Of course not.” Kate’s response was immediate. “You go on. Take as long as you want.”
She’d reached Mitch’s door before the thought occurred to her that he might be angry. He might well say, “I told you so.”
Well, he deserved to be able to say it, and she had to give him that chance. She knocked at the door.
Mitch pulled it open, his gaze both surprised and wary when he saw her. “Anne.”
“May I come in?”
“Of course.” He stepped back, his expression giving nothing away.
She walked in, trying to find the right words. Funny, she’d felt just that way the first time she’d seen him. Apprehensive, tense, struggling to find the right words. Maybe there weren’t any.
She swung toward him and held out the envelope. He took it automatically, staring from it to her with a frowning intensity.
“It came.” She took a breath. “I want you to know this. I don’t see any reason why you should believe it, but it’s true. Before I opened the envelope, I knew what it would say. I knew it wasn’t you.”
He flicked at the opened envelope flap with his finger. “I see you still had to look.”
All right, she deserved that. “Yes, I guess I did.”
He nodded, his face expressionless. Then he handed the envelope back.
“Aren’t you going to look at it?”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Why? I know what it says.”
She turned away from that searching gaze. “I wish...” Her cheeks grew warm. “I wish things could have been different. I’m sorry I put you through this. Maybe I never should have come to Bedford Creek.”
He took a step closer, not touching her, but close enough that she could feel the heat of his body. “If you’d never come, I’d never have met you.”
She tried to smile. “I would think you’d consider that an advantage.”
He shook his head. “I’ll trade the suspicion for the chance to know you any day of the week.”
For a moment her eyes met his. The barriers he usually put up were gone, and she seemed able to see right into his soul. To see the integrity. He wasn’t a man who hid his weaknesses behind a façade. The only thing hiding behind his mask was strength.
He reached out to touch her cheek. His palm was warm and strong against her skin. The feel of him seemed to spread out from his fingers, coursing along her nerve endings, warming her all the way through.
“Mitch.” She barely breathed his name.
He slid his hand down her neck, leaving longing in its wake. He grasped her shoulder and drew her toward him.
It was all right now. He hadn’t been involved with Tina; he wasn’t lying to her. She could trust him. She could let herself care about him. She leaned toward him, expecting to feel his lips on hers.
Instead he held her close, his cheek against hers.
“Will you tell me something?” His voice was soft, a whisper in her ear.
“Tell you what?” How she could think clearly enough to tell him anything, she couldn’t imagine. Her mind seemed totally involved in the feel of his cheek was against hers, how strong his muscles were under her hand, how the two of them fit together perfectly.
“Tell me why it’s so hard for you to trust.”
The words brought her back...back to a world where explanations had to be made, where people had a right
to know things, no matter how painful.
She met his eyes. “Are you sure you want to know?”
* * *
Mitch watched the play of emotion on her face. She’d come so far into his life in such a short time and now he couldn’t imagine doing without her.
“I think I already know some of this. It has to do with your parents, doesn’t it?”
He could feel the resistance in her. She didn’t want to tell him this. The muscles in her neck worked, as if she had swallowed something unpalatable.
“Poor little rich girl.” Her voice mocked herself. “That’s what it sounds like, so I don’t talk about it.”
“You can talk about it to me.” He led her to the sofa, sat down next to her. “I want to understand.” He managed a smile. “After all, you know the worst about me, don’t you?”
She stared down at her hands, still resisting, still holding back. Then she looked up at him, her eyes defiant. “My parents never hit me. They never mistreated me. I had everything I needed.”
He rested his hand on the nape of her neck, feeling the tension there. “You couldn’t have had everything you needed, or you wouldn’t feel the way you do.”
Anne stiffened. “There’s nothing wrong with the way I feel. I just...”
“You just can’t rely on anyone.”
“Well, maybe I can’t. Maybe people aren’t very reliable.”
“Some aren’t.” He met her look steadily. “But some are.”
“I guess I have trouble telling the difference. After all, I was married to someone who recreated the same pattern. That wasn’t smart, was it?”
Her anger was still there, but he recognized it for the defense it was. If they were ever going to get past this, he had to get her to level with him.
“I think I can almost fill in the blanks.” It could be that throwing it right at her was the only way. “Your parents provided you with every material thing you needed. They just neglected the little things—love, attention, support.”
“They probably thought they were doing the right things for me. I should have been stronger. I should have been able...”