His Brother's Bride

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “I wasn’t spontaneous! I’ve never been spontaneous. When it comes to my personal life I’m the most cautious person I’ve ever known.”

  “And when you finally had a family to love you, when you started to trust us to be there for you, that person who’d been locked defensively inside you during all those years of being shuffled from one foster family to the next started to emerge.”

  She made a sound. Scott waited, thinking she’d said something. But maybe not.

  “That girl had an infectious spontaneity Laurel. Not that it had much chance to take root. Paul squelched it fairly rapidly.”

  “I needed Paul,” she said, her voice taking on an edge it hadn’t had before. A certainty. “I needed his conservativeness, his unwavering ability to stick to the road he was on.”

  “Because his road led to you?”

  He could understand that. He just didn’t like it. That was no reason to tie herself to someone—and now to his memory—for the rest of her life.

  “No,” she said, slowly turning to face him. “Because I needed someone who would teach me to trust. Someone who was going to be predictable, who I could count on to do exactly what he said he was going to do, someone who wasn’t going to change his mind about me. Someone I could believe.”

  As a child she’d been told so many times that she was home—only to be taken away again when the family decided they no longer wanted to do foster care, or the money wasn’t enough to make the job worthwhile anymore. Or when they got pregnant with a child of their own and needed Laurel’s room.

  Scott knew all of those things had happened to her.

  “What about now?” He had to ask—to twist his own knife a little deeper, give those demons inside him more reason to keep tormenting him. “Do you still think you need someone conservative like Paul?”

  “I still love Paul.”

  It didn’t quite answer the question he’d asked.

  Or maybe it did.

  * * *

  CECILIA HAMILTON’S HOME was a beautiful ranch-style building with a huge expanse of lawn broken only by the occasional flower bed filled with colorful, late-blooming perennials.

  Those flower beds were well tended. Someone had to be in residence, or a service had been hired to care for the place.

  “And this is a summer home?” Laurel said, accompanying Scott up the massive walk.

  He grinned. “Kind of makes you wonder what her real home looks like, doesn’t it?”

  There was no answer to Scott’s knock on the front door.

  “Maybe she’s out for the morning,” Laurel said, peeking in the curtained front window.

  “And maybe she returned to her full-time residence.”

  “Before the end of summer?”

  “Let’s check around back.” She was standing too close to him. He was smelling lilacs again.

  Though he made no reply, he followed Laurel as she rounded the corner of Ms. Hamilton’s home.

  “Oh, my God.” Her voice shook.

  Alarmed, Scott stopped. “What?”

  She pointed. He looked.

  And froze.

  William Byrd’s car was in the driveway.

  * * *

  SCOTT’S PACE QUICKENED. He pulled the notebook out of his pocket, though he didn’t need it. He’d already ascertained that the license on the black BMW matched the one Byrd had left on his registration at Twin Oaks.

  “So he was with her,” Laurel said, looking in the passenger side of the car as Scott tried the driver’s door.

  The car was locked.

  “Apparently.”

  “But if his car’s here, why isn’t he?” Cupping her hands around her face to shield the light, Laurel peered in the back window. “There’s nothing in the car.”

  Scott made note of the mileage on the odometer. “Let’s go try the house again.”

  Their second attempt was no more successful than the first. Pulling out his cell phone, Scott tried Ms. Hamilton’s number again.

  Nothing.

  If someone was home, they were choosing not to let anyone know.

  * * *

  “LOOK AT THIS,” Laurel said, pulling newspapers out of a delivery slot by the front door. She was getting a bad feeling about this whole thing and was very glad that Scott was with her. “There are over three days’ worth of papers here.”

  “That pretty well indicates she didn’t plan to be away,” Scott said.

  “Or else she’d have canceled the paper,” Laurel finished for him.

  Scott took the newsprint from her. “They date back to Saturday.”

  “She wasn’t here then, but Byrd’s car was?”

  “Or it came later.”

  Laurel frowned. “Do you think William’s been here without her?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Maybe when they met for lunch, she gave him a key to the place.” Laurel desperately wanted to hope so.

  “Maybe. Doesn’t make sense that he’d stay here without first getting his stuff from Twin Oaks, though.”

  “Especially since his computer was there.”

  She’d never noticed how stern Scott looked when he was focused on an idea. For that matter, she’d never noticed such intense concentration in him before. He’d always seemed more interested in getting her and Paul to lighten up.

  But he was the smartest man she’d ever met. Scott had a photographic memory, and all through high school he’d never studied for a test, yet graduated with a perfect grade point.

  Since they were alone, Laurel pulled out her tape recorder and chronicled a few of her observations—more for descriptive purposes than for solving the case.

  “Makes you wonder if someone was really after Cecilia Hamilton,” Scott said, taking up the conversation as if they’d been talking right along. He was checking windowsills and bushes.

  “And William just got caught in the middle of things.” She hated to even say the words. William Byrd was not in that kind of trouble. He was not going to be the innocent victim in someone else’s game.

  “I’m going to check around some more,” Scott said.

  Laurel followed him, partly because she, too, wanted more of a look around. Two sets of eyes were better than one, and they might find some fresh footprints or a matchbox or key ring someone dropped.

  She also followed because at the moment, being with Scott made her feel better than standing out in front of the house without him.

  * * *

  MS. HAMILTON’S GARAGE was empty.

  Laurel’s instincts were telling her that they were on to something serious.

  “Do you think someone could have been after William and took Ms. Hamilton, too?” she asked.

  “Of course it’s a possibility. And maybe someone was after both of them—or neither of them, and they just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “One thing’s for sure,” she said, following Scott back out to his car. “It doesn’t make sense that they’re just happily off someplace together, or Byrd would have checked out of Twin Oaks.”

  “Or at least called.”

  “So whatever happened to Mr. Byrd, it’s serious enough to have prevented him from getting back to the bed-and-breakfast.”

  “For several days.”

  Laurel buckled herself into the front seat next to Scott. It was beginning to feel like her seat. Like she belonged.

  And as much as she liked that, she didn’t like it at all.

  It wasn’t fair to Scott, this dependency she was developing on him. She was transferring her grief for Paul into a need to be close to his younger brother. And it wasn’t healthy for her to be feeling such peace inside when she was with Scott.

  Scott pulled into the drivew
ay next door to Cecilia Hamilton’s. “I’m going up to ask a few questions,” he said, giving her a sideways glance. He hadn’t looked her straight in the eye all morning. “You want to wait here?”

  “Not unless you need me to.”

  “No.” He didn’t hesitate. “You’re welcome to come along.”

  Laurel was out of the Blazer before he was.

  As it turned out, they questioned several of the neighbors and found out very little.

  Though they’d all met Cecilia at an open house they’d held to welcome her to the neighborhood, no one had seen her much since then. They’d had a get-together barbecue and swim on Saturday on the terrace of one of the mammoth homes, but Cecilia never arrived.

  She drove a white Crown Victoria, and no one had even seen that since Saturday morning.

  Back in the Blazer, Scott called a buddy of his at work and asked him to let Scott know if anyone reported Ms. Hamilton’s car abandoned. Then he backed up to Ms. Hamilton’s driveway again.

  “I want to check around one more time,” he told Laurel. She followed him, wondering what he was looking for, but not wanting to ask while he was so focused.

  Scott was a lot more aggressive in his search this time, checking windows, working around the security system—something he seemed quite adept at—so he could test for an unlocked window or loose door latch. He stopped just short of picking a lock or breaking the door down. Technically he should have waited to get a warrant, but without an official investigation, that wasn’t possible.

  And lives might be at stake.

  * * *

  THEY LEARNED ONE thing more about Cecilia Hamilton: her house was very secure. The elaborate security system was only the beginning. She had dead bolts on all of her windows and doors, and, Scott told Laurel, probably sensors, as well. When it became obvious that he wasn’t going to get inside, and he’d exhausted his search of the premises outdoors, they finally gave up and headed back to Cooper’s Corner. On the way, Scott tossed Laurel his notebook and had her read back to him everything that he’d written.

  Laurel began reading his notes in a professional voice—until she reached the part where he’d written her name. More than once. With heavy lead.

  She skipped that part, but she couldn’t ignore what she’d seen.

  And the thought of Scott writing her name like that made it hard for her to breathe.

  * * *

  SCOTT MADE A few calls, including one to William’s publisher to see if they knew anything about the author’s whereabouts or whom he associated with. But the people he needed to speak to were out until the next morning, so all he could do was wait to hear back on the various calls he had out.

  That was the part of his job Scott hated the most.

  He should take Laurel back to Twin Oaks, but he knew he wasn’t going to do that. He couldn’t bear to waste whatever hours or days he had left with her before she was gone from his life for good.

  And because he didn’t trust himself, he figured it was probably time to tell her the truth about some things. Paul’s death—maybe. His own wrongful feelings—maybe. He couldn’t imagine confessing any of it. Yet he knew he was going to have to tell Laurel he wasn’t the man she thought he was.

  That look in her eyes the previous night had really undone him. He’d spent more than half of his life wanting just a single glimpse of that look directed at him, and yet he knew that he could never, ever, pursue the desire he’d read there.

  “Have you had a chance to spend any time out in the country since you’ve been here?” he asked, craving the peace and freedom of the Berkshire countryside.

  “Just driving. I didn’t feel comfortable walking around alone....”

  Scott grinned. “This is Cooper’s Corner, not New York City.”

  “I know. I should’ve gone.”

  “So let’s stop by Tubb’s Café for some sandwiches and drive down by the old sugar bush for a picnic,” he said as they reached the outskirts of town and she’d said nothing about seeing him at all the rest of the day.

  “Okay.”

  If she’d had any idea of even half the content of his thoughts, she wouldn’t have agreed so easily.

  She wouldn’t have agreed at all.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  IN BUSINESS FOR ALMOST a hundred years, Smith’s Maple Sugar Bush was a family-owned sugarhouse that was pretty much a monument in that part of the Berkshires. The stand of old maples turned to a blaze of fiery colors in the fall, and in the summer provided welcome shade from the hot sun. During their high school years, the sugar bush and its surrounding meadow had been the site of more than one weekend party—parties that lasted from Saturday afternoon until Sunday morning. Kids would bring sleeping bags, build a bonfire, and tell scary stories, and as long as there was no alcohol and they cleaned up after they left, the Smith family didn’t mind.

  Scott remembered those times with fondness. He hoped he’d still remember the sugar bush with such fondness after this afternoon.

  “This is so good,” Laurel said, biting into a chicken salad sandwich. “Just like one your grandma might make.”

  He wondered how Laurel could make such associations when she’d never had a grandma.

  He wondered if she’d ever be one.

  Scott ate silently, enjoying the sandwiches, chips and fruit as though this were going to be his last supper.

  In a way, he felt it was.

  “Where do you picture yourself five years from now?” he asked, propped up on one elbow on the blanket they’d spread beneath a hundred-year-old tree.

  Laurel sat cross-legged, looking comfortable and at ease. She slipped off her white strappy sandals.

  “I don’t have a picture of that.”

  He frowned, looking at the glass of wine he held. “You don’t plan to be around five years from now?”

  “I don’t look that far ahead.”

  “You don’t?” Scott had been looking ahead his entire life. “Why not?”

  He glanced over at her and she turned away, hugging her knees up to her chest. “Growing up like I did, you learn not to look too far ahead, because what you see isn’t what’s going to be there when you reach that point.”

  A dull ache of compassion spread through him. “But what about now?” he asked. “You’re in charge of your life now, not some faceless state employee.”

  “Am I?” Her gray eyes were almost bitter as she turned back to study him. “Can I tell the Fates to bring Paul back? Was I in charge when they took him in the first place?”

  Scott pushed his food aside, no longer the least bit interested in it.

  “It was an accident,” he said softly, pleadingly. He was a pauper, begging for one small morsel of forgiveness.

  “And how can I be in charge when ‘accidents’ happen around every corner?”

  Sitting up, Scott gazed out into the surrounding meadow, searching for the peace he’d come there to find. He didn’t know when he’d hated himself more than he did at that moment.

  Not only was he responsible for his brother’s death, he’d also killed Laurel’s ability to hope.

  “Don’t you ever look forward to things?” he asked, not breathing as he waited for her answer.

  She shook her head, eyes dry as she smiled sadly. “Not since Paul died. If good happens, I have plenty of time to enjoy it then. And the rest of the time, I’m not left with bitter disappointment when it doesn’t.”

  “What about goals?” Scott just couldn’t let this go. He needed her to have something left. An ability to believe. Have a little faith. Something. “You don’t have a career as successful as yours without goals.”

  “Actually, you can,” she said, her smile brightening just a bit, though her eyes were somber, remnants of the painful memories still resting there. �
��I didn’t have any plans to be where I’m at at this stage. I thought I’d be married and raising children, not using my journalism degree.”

  “But after the accident, once you grew to be serious about a career, then you had goals.” He watched her, wanting like hell to change things so that his time with her wasn’t so short.

  “Not really.” She shook her head, her hair glinting pure gold in the rays of sunlight shining down through the leaves of the old maple. “I love what I do. But I got where I am by hard work, not planning. I didn’t go after my current job. It was offered to me.”

  He picked a blade of grass and rolled it between thumb and forefinger.

  “So how far ahead do you look?” he asked.

  “A few months, maybe.”

  Scott thought that was one of the saddest things he’d ever heard—and knew he’d never climb out from beneath the weight of guilt.

  * * *

  “REMEMBER OUR SENIOR PROJECT?” Laurel asked Scott almost dreamily. Though the remains of their picnic still lay around them, they’d finished eating quite a while before, and were lounging quietly on the blanket, enjoying the peace of the late August afternoon. “What were there, fifty of us out here helping to tap the trees?”

  Though she’d been desperately missing Paul, who was away at college that spring, the final semester of her senior year of high school had been one of the happiest times of her life.

  “I remember we had to reschedule because a warm front blew in. We thought we’d never get started.”

  Maple trees could only be tapped when the nights were freezing and the days were mild. That was when the sap ran.

  “We all had blisters on our hands from drilling those holes,” she said, gazing toward the sugar bush and the scars of old holes in the trunks of the trees. “I remember worrying so much over whether or not I got the holes three inches deep. I didn’t want to go too far and damage the tree—and if I didn’t go far enough the sap wouldn’t come out.”

  Scott wasn’t looking at the trees. He was watching her, his eyes hooded. Laurel wished she knew what he was thinking.

  She’d usually known what Scott was thinking. They’d spent a lot of time together that last semester of high school. Scott had appointed himself her protector in his brother’s absence. And since Laurel’s date was living a couple hundred miles away, Scott had stood in for Paul on several occasions.