Harlequin Superromance January 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: Everywhere She Goes\A Promise for the Baby\That Summer at the Shore (4 page)

What's more, Nell wasn't a casual acquaintance. Strange as the realization was, they were family.

“Not so much,” Cait admitted, answering the question about her relationship with her mother. “Once I hit my teenage years and rebelled, things went downhill. We've never quite recovered.”

Nell nodded. “Does she know you're here in Angel Butte?”

Cait winced. “No. If I get the job, I'll have to tell her eventually.”

Nell didn't say anything. Tiny lines on her forehead suggested she hadn't raised the subject only in a casual, get-acquainted way.
Good lord,
Cait thought;
Mom is her mother-in-law.
Cait knew Colin hadn't invited their mother to his wedding.

“I suppose Colin's told you that...our father was abusive,” she said carefully.

“Yes.”

“He and Colin fought a lot.”

“He told me that, too.” Nell still hadn't reached for her fork. “He thought he'd probably scared you and your mom both toward the end. He was trying to draw your father's anger away from the two of you, but he admits he was filled with a lot of rage, too.”

“That last couple of years were really horrible. I remember getting off the school bus and dragging my feet because I dreaded going home.” Cait tried to smile. “Anyway, if Mom was ever happy here in Angel Butte, she's long since forgotten. I think she feels guilty about Colin, too.”

“She should,” Nell said sharply, after which she made an apologetic moue. “That was tactless, wasn't it? I won't take it back, though. I don't mean to offend you, but the truth is, she abandoned him. Having his own mother leave him behind with the father he hated... He has scars.”

“He seems so...together,” Cait said hesitantly. “Except...I guess I could always tell that he wanted more from me than I knew how to give.” Her laugh was sad. “Family life at its finest.”

Nell's laugh held a similar note. “My family is no better—I assure you. One of these days, I'll tell you more about
our
soap opera.”

“I'd actually like that.” Cait smiled. “Misery loves company.”

“Absolutely.”

They both chuckled and, as they began to eat, turned the subject in other directions. They were talking about a women's self-defense class Nell had taken over the winter when Cait's phone rang. Of course it had sunk to the bottom of her too-roomy bag, but she snagged it by the fourth ring. The number was local, and not Colin's, unless he was using a landline at the police station.

“I'd better take this,” she murmured to Nell, and answered.

“Ms. McAllister.” The gravelly voice was unmistakable. “Noah Chandler.”

Her heart raced. Truth time. “Mayor.”

“Why don't we progress to Noah and Caitlyn? I'm calling to offer you the position.”

The relief was out of proportion, especially considering her mixed feelings about her return to Angel Butte.
A journey back in time,
she thought flippantly. “I go by Cait,” she said, sounding completely collected and mildly pleased. She impressed herself sometimes.

“Cait it is. Do you have a minute to talk?”

She grimaced apologetically at Nell, who waved her understanding and eavesdropped with interest.

A minute was all the conversation took. Mayor Chandler did not believe in beating around the bush. He laid out compensation, medical and dental benefits, retirement and vacation package with a take-it-or-leave-it curtness. She told him, equally briefly, that his offer was acceptable. He asked when she could start. Cait took a deep breath. “How about tomorrow morning?”

The momentary silence suggested she'd surprised him. But when he said, “Good. Let's meet in my office at nine,” his voice didn't confirm that impression.

Cait felt more than a little dazed as she dropped her phone back in her handbag. “Wow. The job's mine.”

Working with
him.

She didn't let herself linger on that vague sense of apprehension. Only that wasn't quite right.

She didn't have time to, anyway, since Nell jumped to her feet and hurried around the table to give her a quick hug. “I'm glad. Having you close will really make Colin happy, and I think you and I are going to be friends.”

“I think so, too,” Cait agreed. From their first meeting, she'd had the feeling she and Nell already
were
friends. Maybe that was because her face was so disconcertingly familiar—Nell/Maddie hadn't changed as much as most people did from when she was a child. With that pointy chin, sharp cheekbones and disarmingly high forehead, she looked thoroughly adult and yet still like the little girl Cait remembered, scattering of freckles, big brown eyes and all. She had claimed to vaguely remember Cait, too, but sounded more uncertain. Cait knew her own face was nowhere near as distinctive.

It wasn't only familiarity that made Cait feel comfortable with this new sister-in-law, though. Nell had an air of reserve that reminded Cait of her own. Even after several months together, Nell seemed surprised by Colin's smiles, touches and the intimate way they sometimes looked at each other. Or maybe, Cait reflected, Nell was surprised by her own response to him. Cait knew enough from what she'd read about Nell's ordeal to be sure she understood self-doubt—and why trust could be hard.

Cait insisted on paying for lunch, which Nell finally accepted. They were walking out when Nell asked if she'd mind stopping to grocery shop on the way home.

“Of course not—” Head turned, she walked smack into someone. A man who asked if she was all right at the same moment she exclaimed, “I'm so sorry!”

And then she really looked at him. Shock seemed to squeeze her throat. “You,” she whispered.

Echoing shock showed on his fleshy but still handsome face. He was middle-aged, the auburn of his short hair muted from what she remembered by a substantial sprinkling of gray. He'd softened some around the middle, too, but...she did know him. Oh, why hadn't it occurred to her that he might still live here?

“Cait,” he said, sounding rueful. “I'm surprised you recognized me. What were you? Nine, ten, when you moved away?”

“Ten.” Her voice was a little too high. “Jerry, that's right, isn't it?”

“Jerry Hegland.” His gaze flicked to Nell, who was watching the odd encounter. “Aren't you—?”

“Nell McAllister.”

He looked momentarily confused.

“My sister-in-law,” Cait contributed.

“That's right.” He was apparently putting the pieces together and realizing Cait's companion was Maddie Dubeau. “I heard you'd married the police officer who found you. Ah, I knew Cait and Colin's mother,” he explained. His gaze traveled back to her. “We were getting to be good friends, weren't we, Cait?”

She managed a nod, her usual social skills having totally deserted her. This man had been her mother's lover. Of course, she hadn't known the truth until years later. Back then, she'd thought he was a nice man who Mommy and she happened to run into really often. He'd bought them lunch several times.

“I'll bet you remember me best for the handprints I left in your concrete slab,” she blurted.

He stared at her. “What?”

“You didn't know it was me?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.” Suddenly he was as brusque as Mayor Noah Chandler at his most impatient. He looked over her shoulder. “If you'll excuse me, I'm meeting someone.”

“Of course.” She wouldn't lie and say,
Great to see you.
It wasn't, even if she wasn't being fair. After all, Mom was the one who'd been married.

Unless he had been, too?

She didn't care.

I am angry at her.
Had been, still was. She had been only sixteen—and an already confused sixteen, at that—when she'd found out her mother had had an affair.

An
affair? Who knew? Maybe she'd been screwing around on Dad for years. Cait wanted to think the betrayal explained his rage.

She didn't look back as Nell pushed open the door and the two of them exited.

* * *

D
INNER
STARTED
WITH
them all clinking wineglasses in a toast to her new job. Cait was still feeling the glow, if also a whole lot of trepidation, when Nell glanced at her.

“So, who was that guy we ran into at the restaurant?” She transferred her gaze from Cait to her husband. “Please pass the butter.”

He did so automatically, but he was looking at Cait. “I didn't think you'd remember anyone from that long ago.”

Here was where she could say,
He wasn't anyone important.
But Colin likely knew him, she realized. Her brother had been enough older than her to be aware of relationships and undercurrents to which she'd been oblivious. In fact, she'd nursed some anger at him, too, for leaving her in ignorance even though, all grown-up now, she could see why he hadn't said anything to his little sister.

“Jerry Hegland.”

He frowned. “Who?”

She set her fork down. “You don't know him?”

“The name is vaguely familiar.” He seemed to be searching his memory. “Wait. Something to do with the airport?”

“I don't actually know.” But, yes, once Mom and she had gone out there to watch planes take off and land. Angel Butte Regional Airport wasn't all that exciting, of course; at least in those days, aside from privately owned small planes, traffic had consisted of no more than a couple of flights a day to Portland and Seattle using turboprop commuter planes that carried something like fifteen or twenty passengers. Still, she remembered standing beside the runway as one of those planes tore by, gaining momentum and then lifting into the air.
She
had been amazed. Her family had never flown anywhere.

That had been one of the occasions when the nice man bought lunch for her and Mom, at the café in the airport terminal.

“Then how do you know him?” Colin asked.

“Mom.” She sounded like a crow. Harsh. “He and Mom...”

Her brother's expression gradually changed with dawning horror. “He and Mom
what?
” he asked in a hard voice.

Cait was distantly aware that Nell's mouth hung open. She'd had no idea what she was starting.

“They had an affair. Didn't you know?” she begged.

“Hell, no!” He gave his head a shake. “I can't believe— How did
you
know?”

“I always assumed... Wow.”

“Cait.”

“Don't snap at me!”

Now they were glaring at each other.

Well, what difference did it make? she reasoned. Colin and Mom never talked anyway.

“I had no idea back then. I thought he was a friend of Mom's. But when I was sixteen, I was rooting in her closet looking for something.” She'd been snotty, and Mom had taken away her cell phone in punishment. The minute Mom left for work the next day, Cait in a fury had dug through all of her mother's dresser drawers, looked inside coat pockets in her closet, then taken down every box on the closet shelf. In the second one, she'd found a couple of photo albums and letters and been distracted from her search. She remembered sitting on the bed turning pages in the albums. Already her memories of her dad and her brother were fading. But here were Colin's and her school photos, as well as lots of family snapshots. Mostly those weren't all that great—people were squinting against the sun or looked posed and uncomfortable. There were first-day-of-school pictures, when Colin or she were stiff in their new clothes. And some of Dad laughing with his arm around one of them. She'd felt strange, seeing those.

She hadn't paid much attention to the letters, beyond dumping them out on the bed so she could look at the loose photos. There had been a bundle tied in ribbon with handwriting she'd recognized as Nanna's. But then she saw that a picture of a man she had recognized was bundled with a few notes that weren't in envelopes.

“I found some notes he'd written Mom,” she said. “They were...um, kind of explicit. And then in one he was pleading with her to leave Dad. He said he'd take us, too. In the last one, he said, ‘Why won't you call me? You're wrong, whatever you think.'” She remembered it word for word. “It freaked me out. I guess Mom slept with him, but then she ditched him when he got serious about her. Which made me wonder if there hadn't been other men, too.”

Colin hadn't moved. “Mom?” he finally said in a low, dark voice.

Cait bobbed her head. “I always thought...”

His eyes focused on her.

“That you must know. I mean, you were older—”

“No. I had no idea. What does he look like?”

She did her best to describe the Jerry she remembered from back then and the one she'd encountered today.

“That son of a bitch,” he muttered.

“Maybe,” she said. “But it's still mostly Mom I stumble over. I mean, she was married. She had
us
to think about.”

“You mean, she had
you
to think about,” he said, with less emotion than she suspected he really felt about being deserted by his own mother. But then his eyes narrowed. “Why would she have introduced you to him?”

“I guess sometimes they wanted to get together and she didn't have any place to leave me. Or maybe they were playing family. I don't know. I was a kid. I thought we ran into him by accident.” She told him about having lunch with the man, and the treat of getting to go practically out onto the runway to watch planes take off and land. “One time we had a picnic. I don't remember where. We swam. I remember the water being really cold, but it was fun.” She shrugged. “All innocent, until I found out it wasn't.”

“Goddamn it,” her brother said bitterly.

“Do you think Dad knew?”