Husband Wanted (15 page)

“No, Mandy, you should not hate. Not even if you think somebody deserves it.” Frannie recalled telling Clay the same thing and wondered if he’d tried to let go of his anger.

“I don’t think I can ever
stop
hating her,” Mandy said.

“Yes, you can. I’ll help you.”

“You won’t be there.”

Frannie took a deep breath. “I have something else I wanted to tell you,” she said. “I don’t want to get your hopes up because I can’t guarantee anything will come of it; but I want you to know that I’m going to fight for you. I’m not going to let you go like I did when I was seventeen years old and couldn’t take care of you. Clay spoke to an attorney last night. We’re going to give it everything we’ve got.”

Mandy’s eyes lit up. “That would be awesome!”

“Yes, it would be.”

“Aren’t I old enough to decide where I want to live?” Mandy asked.

Frannie reached for her hand and squeezed it. “I don’t want to tell you something that might not be right,” she said. “We’ll just have to hope and pray for the best. Do you think you would be okay living here for a while, if things go our way?”

“I don’t care where we live. As long as we can be together.” The girl paused. “I think I might have some information that would help our side.”

“Well, let me hear it.”

The girl looked at her hands. “You’re going to be mad at me.”

Two hours into the drive, Frannie turned to Clay. “I do not want to lie to Mandy’s aunt,” she said, “by telling her we’re married.”

Clay was clearly surprised. “I don’t understand,” he said, glancing her way. “It would be to your advantage if her aunt thought we were happily married. We’ll make a better impression.”

Frannie pulled off the small gold band Clay had given her when they had prepared for Mandy’s visit. She handed it to him. “My decision has nothing to do with you,” she said. “I am tired of lying. I’m a hard-working, responsible person with a good career ahead of me. I’m a
good
person. I want to be judged on my own merit.”

“I think you and Clay should get married for real,” Mandy blurted from the back seat.

Clay grinned.

Frannie looked from one to the other. “Um—”

“Like I said before, it’s obvious the two of you are in love. What are you waiting for?”

“Frannie doesn’t want to marry me,” Clay said, an amused look on his face.

Frannie looked at him. “I never said that. It’s just—” She paused. “I think we need more time to get to know each other.”

“I know all I need to know about you,” Clay said.

“How much time do you need to know Clay?” Mandy asked.

Frannie was clearly becoming flustered. “I’m not sure exactly, but I would really like to change the subject.”

Clay caught Mandy’s eye in the rearview mirror and winked.

It was after nine p.m. when Clay pulled in front of Rhea Turnbull’s house. It was tucked between two row houses in an area near Capitol Hill, a small pocket of upscale neighborhoods. The house was a narrow two-story structure with a postage-stamp-sized yard and a neat flowerbed on each side of the front stoop.

“See the flowerbeds?” Mandy whispered. “If I talk back to my aunt I have to come out here and pull weeds.” She grinned. “You won’t find even one weed growing in them.”

Frannie smiled, but her legs felt like rubber as she rang the front doorbell. She took a deep breath. She had promised Mandy that she would fight for her, and she planned to keep that promise. She squared her shoulders and prepared for battle.

The door was yanked open by a tall, raw-boned woman with hair the color and texture of a Brillo pad. She was dressed in a pink bathrobe that matched her bedroom slippers. One hand gripped a cane.

Her gaze hardened perceptibly as she faced Frannie. “So you’re Frannie Brisbane,” she said. “Amanda’s long lost mother. I see the resemblance.”

Frannie smiled, refusing to be put off by the woman’s rude tone or the judgmental look in her eyes. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Turnbull,” she said, then motioned to Clay. “And this gentleman is Clay Coleman. He drove us here. May we come in?”

The woman stiffened. “I expected you to arrive much earlier. As you can see, I’m dressed for bed.”

“Oh, we don’t mind how you’re dressed,” Frannie said, determined to get inside one way or the other. “We’d
love
to have a cup of coffee, wouldn’t we, Clay? After all, we’ve been on the road twelve hours, if you count bathroom stops and fast food restaurants.”

“Which reminds me,” he said. “I need to use the restroom.”

Rhea Turnbull was clearly taken aback by Frannie’s boldness. She hesitated a moment before stepping out of the way so they could enter. She fixed her gaze on Mandy. “I hope you’re proud of yourself, young lady,” she said. “My doctor had to increase my blood pressure medication because of your shenanigans.”

“I’m sorry, Aunt Rhea,” Mandy said. Her tone was flat, as though she’d used the words so often that they no longer held meaning.

“Sorry?” the woman repeated. “That’s all you have to say for yourself? I could have dropped dead of a stroke, right here in my living room, and Lord only knows when somebody would have found me. You know I’m not well.”

“May we sit?” Frannie asked, suspecting the woman would go on for hours about her poor health, especially if she had a captive audience.

“Yes.” Rhea Turnbull motioned to the sofa. She took the chair across from them, then turned her attention to her niece once more. “Our guests would like coffee.”

“I’ll make some,” Mandy said, hurrying from the room.

Frannie did not appreciate the woman’s belittling tone toward Mandy, but she decided to ignore it for the time being because, in all fairness, she had a right to be upset with the girl. Instead, Frannie glanced around at her surroundings. She felt claustrophobic in the narrow room with thick wool rugs, heavy brocade drapes, oversized furniture, and at least a dozen pictures on the walls. “You have a lovely home, Miss Turnbull,” she said. “Have you lived here long?”

“I was born and raised here,” the woman said, “but I’m in no mood for pleasantries. I should have phoned the police the moment I realized you were harboring my niece.”

Clay opened his mouth to speak, but Frannie beat him to it.

“With all due respect, Miss Turnbull,” Frannie said, “I had no idea that Mandy did not have permission to visit. Were you aware that she was writing to me?”

“Absolutely not! I have no idea where she found your address.”

“She went through her father’s files after the accident. You
do
realize it was a closed adoption, right? I’m surprised Mandy was able to find the information surrounding it. And so easily,” Frannie added, “meaning my identity was not protected, as it should have been. Think how badly things could have turned out for me had I married and kept it a secret from my family. Which happens in a lot of cases.”

“I think it could have resulted in a lawsuit,” Clay said.

“I had nothing to do with that,” Rhea said. “I didn’t even know she had a post office box until—” She did not finish her sentence.

“Until you tossed her room and found her diary beneath a board under her bed,” Frannie said.

Rhea glanced away. “My cleaning lady found the loose board while mopping Amanda’s room. How was I supposed to know that’s where Amanda hid things?”

“So you took a pair of scissors and cut the strap on her diary,” Frannie said.

“I had no choice. I was afraid for Amanda.”

“You were afraid for yourself, Miss Turnbull. I mean, how would it look if Child Protective Services discovered that Mandy was able to buy a roundtrip airline ticket and hitch a ride to the airport with a complete stranger?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about!”

“Mandy paid a high school boy fifty dollars to drive her to the airport. A boy she had never laid eyes on.”

All the color seemed to drain from the woman’s face. “Amanda’s parents were well off. The girl has a couple of trust funds, and she receives a generous allowance. She has her own savings account. I suppose she has been putting money aside. I assumed she caught a bus to the airport. I know absolutely
nothing
about any boy, but I will certainly take it up with Amanda, believe-you-me.” She gave a huff. “This is precisely why I’m sending her to that special school.”

“You get a generous allowance as well, don’t you?” Frannie asked.

The woman hitched her chin high. “My sister made certain I would be able to cover living expenses for Amanda.”

“Fifteen hundred dollars a month should cover a lot of expenses for a girl who, as you say, receives a generous allowance. Won’t you lose that money if you send her away?”

“I don’t have to defend myself to you or anyone else,” Miss Turnbull said. “It was my sister’s decision. This just proves that Amanda has snooped through my files as well. She is a sneaky girl. I can’t take my eyes off her for a minute.”

“Which makes me wonder how she managed to slip past you with her suitcase,” Clay said.

“It was easy,” Mandy said, having returned to the room. “Aunt Rhea takes so much medication at night she wouldn’t hear a bomb go off.”

“Oh, something else we need to take up with Child Protective Services,” Frannie said.

Miss Turnbull drew herself up sharply. “Excuse me? Who are
you
to come into
my
home and chastise me as to how I choose to raise my niece, after you tossed her to the curb like yesterday’s trash?”

Frannie felt as if she had been punched in the gut. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out.

“Now, hold on a damn minute,” Clay said.

“Don’t talk to my mother that way!” Mandy shouted.

“Do
not
raise your voice at me, young lady,” her aunt said.

“Then stop being so mean!” Mandy suddenly burst into tears. “That’s why I don’t have any friends. You made them feel unwelcome so they stopped coming around.”

Frannie reached for her daughter. “Mandy, honey—”

“It’s true!” the girl said. “I used to have a lot of friends in my other school. We had sleepovers. We did all sorts of fun things together. They loved coming to my house.”

“It’s not my fault you had to change schools,” Rhea Turnbull said.

“Maybe not. But you didn’t have to put me in a private girls’ school, where I can’t so much as blink an eye without getting written up. I hate that school, and I hate living here!”

“That’s enough, Amanda!” the woman said, before turning her attention back to Frannie and Clay. “Do you see how disrespectful she is? Why, if I had talked to my mother that way, she would have slapped me so hard my ears would ring for a week.”

“Did your mother also toss your room?” Frannie asked. “Is that where you learned it?”

Rhea Turnbull’s face turned so red that Frannie feared she would indeed have a stroke. “How dare you!”

“I want to live with Frannie,” Mandy said. “If you won’t let me go back with her, I’m going to run away. And if the police find me and bring me back, I’ll just run away again and again and again.”

Rhea Turnbull glared at Frannie. “Look what you’ve started. As if I don’t have enough to worry about. As if my stress level weren’t already more than I can bear.”

“It’s
my
fault,” Mandy said, “because I planned it, and I lied to everybody.” She looked at her aunt. “But I’m not sorry. I’m tired of living with a mean old grouch.”

“Mandy,” Frannie said gently, reaching for her hand. “I know you’re very upset at the moment, but I’m going to have to insist that you show your aunt proper respect.”

The woman looked shocked that Frannie would take up for her. She turned to Clay. “I thought you had to use the restroom, Mr. Coleman.”

“I’m okay.”

“How do you fit into this equation, if I might ask?”

“Frannie and I are sort of pre-engaged,” he said, drawing a look of surprise from Frannie.

“What does that mean exactly?”

“It means I plan on asking her to marry me,” he said, “once I’m convinced she’ll say yes. You might be relieved to know that Frannie plans to be a social worker.”

“And you?”

“I’m a contractor,” Clay said.

“He’s rich so he doesn’t have to work if he doesn’t want to,” Mandy said, “so you have no right to turn your nose up at either of them.”

Clay stood and motioned for Mandy. “Let’s you and I step outside so you can cool off.” She nodded and followed him out.

Rhea Turnbull was visibly shaken and didn’t say anything for a minute or so. Finally, she met Frannie’s gaze. “My younger sister was unable to have children. She and my brother-in-law tried for many years. They were ecstatic when their lawyer informed them there was a baby girl in need of a loving home. My sister made me promise that I would take care of Amanda if something ever happened to them. Of course, I was thirteen years younger at the time and not plagued by health problems. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I never expected raising a child would be so burdensome.”

Frannie suddenly felt sorry for the woman. “I’m offering to lift that burden, Miss Turnbull,” she said.

“Then you should never have given her up.”

“Would you have preferred your niece live in poverty?” Frannie asked.

“What about the promise I made to my sister?”

“I don’t think your sister would expect you and Mandy to continue living this way. I think your health would improve dramatically if you weren’t so encumbered. Besides, things will only get worse between you and Mandy. I believe she will indeed run away again and again, and that is too risky for a pretty young girl like her. Unlike Mandy, who is still very naïve, you and I know what can happen to a young girl on the street. It’s too horrible to imagine. Are you willing to take that chance?”

“Wow, I hope you never get mad at me,” Mandy told Frannie the following morning after they had packed her belongings and crammed everything tightly into Clay’s car.

Rhea Turnbull had looked sad but relieved as they left. “I will expect a letter from you once a month,” she’d told Mandy.

“I promise,” the girl had said, then surprised everyone, including her aunt, by giving her a hug.