If I Wait For You (27 page)

“
She’s said yes, mother,
but is now torturing me by hinting at some deep, dark secret.”
Gardner had relaxed noticeably, apparently thinking that nothing
Sara could say would shock him, would make him withdraw his offer.
Oh, Sara thought, you are so wrong. She wished suddenly West was in
the room helping her. He could convince them of her
innocence.

“
Is West at home? I think
he should be here, too,” Sara said, thinking her idea
inspirational.

Gardner scowled. “This has nothing to
do with him,” he said forcefully. “Besides, he’s gone to Boston to
look for new buyers.”

“
Oh.” Sara’s heart sank.
She took a fortifying breath and began.

“
What I am about to tell
you will hurt you both terribly. I want you to know that my two
years here have been the happiest time of my life. I love you both
dearly. I want you to remember that. Please, remember
that.”

Gardner’s face lost all signs of
humor. “My God, Sara, you’re starting to scare me with such
talk.”

Sara gave him a tremulous smile. “I
know. I’m scaring myself, too. I’m telling you both this because I
love you and because you deserve to know the truth about me.” She
could not talk past the lump in her throat and so sat there feeling
horrid and very alone while Julia and Gardner waited for her to
confess her sins. Closing her eyes briefly, she took another
calming breath.

“
My name is Sara Dawes,”
she began, and didn’t stop until she’d revealed everything but that
she had fallen in love with West. She was thankful they were silent
throughout her monologue, for it made it so much easier to get
through her story. She realized quickly it was shock that silenced
mother and son. Shock and outrage.

When she was finished, she sat still,
her eyes going from Gardner to Julia, trying to discern what they
were thinking. Gardner was the first to speak.

“
That is quite a tale,” he
said, looking at his mother.

Julia sat like a statue, her face
completely unreadable.

“
Julia, Gardner. I know how
awful this must be. I didn’t intend to continue lying to you, but I
didn’t know how to tell you the truth, either. West thought, for my
own protection, that it would be better to live this fabrication. I
don’t think either of us thought past my coming here and being
safe. The longer it went on, the easier it became to continue this
charade. We certainly never foresaw our falling in love,” she
finished, looking at Gardner, her eyes pleading with him to
understand.

“
I imagine not,” Gardner
said coldly. He walked to the bank of windows and looked out,
effectively turning his back on her.

Finally, Julia spoke quietly and with
frightening finality. “I want you to leave. Pack whatever things
you need to live on, and leave.”

Sara let out a ragged gasp. “Please,
Julia, I…”

“
How dare you! I gave you
everything. Clothes, money, love. I nearly gave you my son. And all
you have given me is fabrications.”

“
I know it seems
awful.”

“
It is worse than awful,
Miss Dawes. It is unforgivable. I will not tell you again. I want
you out of this house.” Her eyes were hard, but tears glittered
there, breaking Sara’s heart. She loved this woman, and yet she’d
lied and lied and lied.

Sara stood on shaking legs. In all her
imaginings, she’d never thought this would happen. She knew they
would be upset, knew that, perhaps, Gardner would withdraw his
proposal. But she never dreamed they would completely turn away
from her. As if they never truly loved her.

“
Gardner,” she said in a
voice clogged with tears. “If you love me, you’ll forgive me. I’ve
never lied to you about loving you.”

“
Haven’t you?” he said
without turning to her. “I think we both know who you love, Sara.
And it sure as hell isn’t me.”

Sara began sobbing in earnest. “You’re
wrong. I do love you.” She walked over to where he stood, taut and
angry and hurt. “Please. Gardner. You’ve no idea how difficult it
was for me to tell you these things. But I told you because I love
you, because I couldn’t go on lying to you.” She placed a hand on
his arm but he jerked away, still not looking at her.

“
Don’t do this, Gardner. I
do love you.” She stood next to him crying softly, fighting the
urge to crumble up into a ball at his feet and beg him to forgive
her.

“
The question is, Sara, do
you love
only
me.” He turned to her then, his eyes filled with anger and
pain and soul-wrenching resignation. She knew he would forgive her
anything—except loving West. Sara was silent, for she would not lie
to him again.

“
Go, Sara. Do as mother
says,” Gardner said wearily. And when she remained standing by his
side, he pounded the wall with sudden fury. “I said get the hell
out of here!”

Sara turned and fled to her room, her
slippered feet flying over the soft carpet. With every step she was
brutally aware that she would never walk these halls again. For two
years, she had lived a fantasy, she had pretended her life before
she came here did not exist. But now her past had slammed into her
with cruel force. As she numbly gathered a few items and shoved
them into a small carpet bag, Sara tried to think where she could
go, what she could do, but nothing came. She sat down on her bed
heavily, tears drying on her face leaving behind salty tracks. She
sat there a long time staring at the flowered wallpaper, thinking
she should try to remember the pattern, thinking it was time to
remember everything.

That it was time to turn herself
in.

Chapter FOURTEEN

It was a kind of symbolic suicide to
have walked into Judge Robert Reynolds’ office and calmly announce
who she was. Sara had waited patiently for the judge to return to
his office; no stabs of panic assaulted her. She accepted with
strange calmness her fate, like a person who is fighting death then
finally welcomes it.

It was over.

When Judge Reynolds entered the room,
his eyebrows rising when he saw her, Sara stood. Judge Reynolds was
a handsome older man, distinguished and tall, with a bearing that
bespoke privileged and power. She knew him as a man who had been
kind to her, and hoped he would be in this instance, as well. Upon
leaving the Mitchell home, Sara had briefly considered turning
herself into the police corps, but decided instead to go to Judge
Reynolds.

“
Miss Dawson,” he said
taking his seat and indicating that Sara do the same, “how can I
help you?”

In a voice that shook only slightly,
Sara said, “My name is Sara Dawes, your honor. I’ve come to turn
myself in.”

He studied her a long, uncomfortable
minute, and Sara could almost see his mind work out the details and
decide whether she was guilty or innocent. What he said shocked
her.

“
I had my suspicions of who
you were, Miss Dawes.”

Sara shook her head in confusion. She
had never seen Judge Reynolds a handful of times over the past two
years. “How?”

“
The similarity in names,
for one. And other things.” He let out a long, contemplative
breath. “Young lady, you’ve been very foolish.”

Sara nearly quaked at his stern voice.
“I know. At the time of the fire, I didn’t think I had a choice but
to run away. May I tell you my story?”

He nodded, and she told him what she’d
told Julia and Gardner.

The older man appeared genuinely sorry
to hear Sara’s tale, including the information that she was thrown
from the Mitchell house. Sara told the kind old man she had no
money, nowhere to go, no one to go to. She didn’t want to burden
her brother with her plight, she was tired, so tired, of putting
her life in the hands of others. Sara knew she could have avoided
all this heartache if only she’d had the courage three years ago
that she now had.

“
I did not kill my parents.
I didn’t even know that young man they found near our house. But
I’m tired of running, of pretending I’m someone I’m not.” She did
not tell him she’d suspected her father was somehow involved with
the young man’s death.

The judge had leaned back, steepling
his fingers in front of his face. “You are in a precarious
position, young lady,” he said sternly. “I tend to believe every
word you’ve said, but I need to talk to West Mitchell to see if
he’ll corroborate the story about the thugs. I can see for myself
that you’ve been injured,” he said eyeing her long scar. “But that
could have happened any number of ways. I’ll send a note over to
his home immediately, telling the Mitchells you are in my custody
and asking West come here upon his return. There isn’t enough
evidence to charge you with your parents murder. There never was,
dear girl,” he said kindly.

Sara looked at him, flabbergasted.
“But the police corps put a reward out. The city was mad to find
me. How can that be?"

Judge Reynolds shook his head sadly.
“I can understand why you were frightened, perhaps even a little
why you fled.”

“
If I could do it all over
again, I would stay. But you’ve no idea how frightened I was,
especially after those men attacked me. All I could think was that
I had to get out of the city. I had to be safe.”

“
Until Mr. Mitchell
returns, I’m going to hold you, Miss Dawes.” At Sara’s widening
eyes, he held up a hand to pacify her. “I’d be a fool to let the
only suspect we have in a triple murder go simply because she is
beautiful and claims to be innocent. You can stay in my home until
matters are settled one way or the other.”

Sara was dumbfounded. Though she knew
little of the legal process, she was quite certain it was highly
unusual for the judge to take custody of a suspected
murderer.

Seeing her disbelieving look, the
judge said, “My dear girl, it is more for your protection than
anything else. As you have admitted, you have no money, nowhere to
go. What were you planning to do?”

Sara shook her head. “You
misunderstand, Judge Reynolds. I’m grateful, deeply grateful, that
you are handling this matter in such a generous way. And I don’t
want you to think I do not realize how charitable you are being
with your offer. But, sir, I don’t understand why you would welcome
me into your home. I wouldn’t want to put you in an untenable
situation by my presence there.”

“
You will understand soon
enough,” he said, suddenly seeming tired and old. “I’m afraid
you’ll understand all too much.”

With those ominous words ringing in
her head, Sara walked with Judge Reynolds the short distance to his
pretty little manor house. A brick sidewalk led up to the Federal
style brick home, its fluted columns giving the entrance a grand
air. Judge Reynolds, after handing off his top hat and coat and
giving instructions to a maid to take Sara’s few belongings to a
guest bedroom, led her directly to his second-floor office. There,
with an air of expectation, he led her to the sofa and sat in a
chair positioned at an angle to Sara’s seat.

It was a richly appointed room, with
dark paneled walls and molded ceilings. Judge Reynolds sat there,
clearly expecting something from her, his large blunt fingers
tapping a rhythm against his thighs. Sara looked around again, her
discomfiture increasing with each second that beat out of the
pretty little mantle clock.

“
It’s a lovely…” She
stopped, her eyes pinned to a portrait of her brother hanging above
the fireplace to her left. “Why do you have a picture of my brother
in your office?” she asked, stunned.

“
Take a closer look, Miss
Dawes. It is not your brother.” She stood and walked to the
portrait of a handsome young man, noticing what she hadn’t
before—the old-fashioned clothes, the rich brown hair tied back in
a queue.

“
That is me when I was
twenty-one years old. The year I graduated Harvard.”

Sara looked from the young man to the
judge, slowly comprehending what was becoming so obvious. “You’re
the one,” she whispered.

He nodded, a small jerk of his head.
“I was already married and quite unhappy. Gertrude and I had no
children, and I think that made her bitter. I know it was a great
disappointment to me. I was thirty-five, your mother just nineteen
and so beautiful.” He gazed at Sara, his eyes warm. “You have her
eyes,” he said softly, then cleared his throat.

Sara gave him a tentative smile. This
man was irrevocably tied to her family and she hadn’t known. Her
mother had loved him, had born a child by him, and no one had ever
known. No wonder he was helping her now.

“
Was she happy?” he
asked.

Sara thought to lie, but then shook
her head. “No, sir, she was not. I never understood why until
recently. Zachary told me we have two different fathers, but he
doesn’t know who you are.”

The judge chuckled. “But I knew him.
At least I watched him when I could. I’d walk by your house hoping
to catch a glimpse of him. Or her. Ah, well. Let me show you to
your room. I want you to be comfortable here, to think of this as
your new home. At least until we get all that ugliness behind us,
eh?” He waved a hand for her to precede him from the room. “You do
look remarkably like her this light. So beautiful.”