Perfect Family (27 page)

“The old primer,” she said. “The one you advised me to protect.” That was, in fact, how she met Sol. She had brought the book to Sol, and he'd told her that while it held a moderate value now, it could someday be worth a great deal more. It hadn't mattered to her. She had not planned to sell it in any event, but her father's words had lingered in her mind. He had told her to protect it. She'd wanted to know why. Sol's assessment had satisfied her. Maybe her father had not realized that something that old would not be as valuable as he'd thought.

But she had put it in a safe-deposit box. It had been the last thing she could do for him.

She saw the question in Sol's eyes.

“It's just an old book,” she said. Then she remembered the odd question from Sarah.
Did he leave any personal effects? Photos? Books?

For some reason, she hadn't mentioned the primer.

Her home. Her business. Her hotel room. All invaded
.

“You don't think anyone could be after the primer?” She finally put voice to the question in both their minds.

“I can't understand why,” he said. “It's not worth enough to commit a crime over. And you say you might receive an inheritance. They looked for you to give you something, not to take it away.”

“Did they?” she asked, suddenly in doubt. Had they looked for her father because they wanted a vote on the ranch? Or an old book? She felt chilled.

“Why don't we look at the book again?” he asked. “I'll get a friend who specializes in that field to join us. In the meantime …”

For the next few minutes, they called locksmiths until they found one willing to come first to the shop, then to her house. Sol reached out and put his hand on hers. “I'll get some groceries while you wait here. Then we'll both go with him to your house.”

Ben barked.

Sol chuckled, breaking some of the tension. “He approves. I actually think he's trying to talk to me.”

And Ben was, Jessie knew. He would sit and make little growling, grumbling sounds as if he were carrying on a perfectly natural conversation. If she didn't understand, well, that was her loss. He would keep talking anyway. How she'd missed him.

She also knew that Sol was trying to make her relax. She realized then that her hands were locked together, her fingers intertwined. They were pressing down on the desk.

“Will you be all right?” he asked.

“Yes, of course,” she said, unwinding her fingers. She wasn't entirely sure of that, but she didn't want him to know it. He'd said she'd been hiding. Perhaps she had. Perhaps it was time to come out of the shadows. “I have Ben,” she said.

“That's what worries me,” he said. He went to the door, then turned around to make sure. She nodded.

He left for the grocery store down the street. She started to straighten the top drawer of the desk. A customer came in, one she hadn't seen before, and for the first time she felt apprehension. She pushed it aside and went over to him. She wasn't going to succumb to fear.

“Can I help you with anything?”

“A friend told me you had a fine selection of Civil War books,” he said.

She showed him those shelves, then retreated to her desk. Ben had moved with her, right on her heels. She watched the customer out of the corner of her eye. He somehow looked out of place. He didn't have the laid-back, casual air of most of their customers from the university. He had the look of a bodybuilder, not the sedentary slouch of a professor, and his blue eyes were a little too sharp, as if they'd been trained to notice everything. She also noticed they didn't smile when his lips did.

He picked out a volume and brought it to her. She looked at it, a rare memoir of a confederate officer under Colonel Mosby, the gray ghost of the Confederacy. It was expensive. She named the price, and he pulled out a wallet that looked thick with bills.

“Do you wish me to wrap it?”

“No,” he said. He looked around again. “It's an interesting shop.”

Did she hear any nuances? Or was her imagination running wild?

Her gaze followed him out the door. There was no satisfaction in the sale, as she wondered whether she would have a cold chill every time the door opened.

The week passed slowly. The new locks did not give her a sense of security. Nor were any of her questions answered. Sol's friend was out of town, and they decided to wait until he returned to retrieve the book from its place of safety.

Her thoughts continually returned to the sun-kissed red formations of Arizona—the clean, clear skies and the untamed beauty of high desert. Her nights were haunted by thoughts of Ross and all of his complexities. She thought of the two times she'd seen him relax: the restaurant and those brief moments in his home. She remembered the kiss and her body tingled and ached.

Good girls always like bad boys
. Where had she heard that? Probably the same place that she'd heard such relationships never work. She told herself that people can't change others, not the core of them. The essence of their soul. But women kept trying.

Ross, even if he was innocent of rape, was a loner. He would always be a loner.

She kept trying to banish him from her thoughts, but he wouldn't stay vanquished. His arresting face kept appearing in the oddest places. The car. The shop. A restaurant. She would see a dark head and her senses would reel. Then the head would turn, and it was someone else, and her heart plummeted.

She found herself reaching for the phone with more eagerness than before, hoping against hope she would hear the low lazy rumble of his voice …

Jessie shook her head as she bent over the account books. She knew he wouldn't call. He thought she believed him capable of rape. And she had, for the briefest of time, when the shock of his words had stunned her and carried her back to a long-ago night. Until she had time to think about it, and exactly what he'd said.

She tried to concentrate on the account books. That was her job. Sol's was the acquisition of books, and even now he was at some estate sale and she was alone at the store. It was empty, as it usually was on a weekday morning. Ben, who always accompanied her to the store now, was at her side, his head resting on one of her feet.

It was Friday. Saturday would be busy. She would work in her garden on Sunday. The thought usually made her happy, but instead she just felt … empty. She hadn't realized until now how much she'd isolated herself, how hesitant she'd been to make deep friendships. Except for Sol, she'd been afraid to trust anyone.

Maybe she would go riding Sunday. She had started to look in the Yellow Pages for a riding stable when the phone rang. She bit her lip for a moment, trying to keep her hand from reaching for it too eagerly, then picked it up.

Before she could say the name of the store, she heard Alex's voice. “Jessica?”

“Alex?”

“The same,” he said with that soothing confident tone of his. “I have news. The DNA results came back. You are a Clements. Your father was Harding Clements.”

For some reason, the news stunned her. She had come to believe it in her mind. The photos of her and Sarah were too similar, the younger and older ones of her father too telling. And yet her heart hadn't yet accepted it. She didn't realize that until this very moment. It was proof positive that her entire life had been a lie. That her father had a secret so terrible that he had deprived himself, and her, of a heritage, of roots, of family.

“Jessica?”

“I'm here,” she replied, knowing her words were strained.

“Can you return for a few days? There are things that must be discussed, papers to be signed.”

She couldn't speak. She felt as if a huge weight had been placed on her back. She wasn't sure she was strong enough to carry it. Or even wanted to.

“I'm … busy right now,” she finally replied.

He hesitated for a moment, then said quietly, “I didn't want to tell you this, but I think I should. Sarah's ill.”

Jessie's hand balled into a fist. “What? How?”

“She has a bad heart.”

“No one said anything to me about it.”

“I don't think anyone knows but me. I didn't know myself until the DNA test proved you were a blood relative. She came to me because she wanted to make a new will.”

Jessie waited. She knew whatever was to come was not good.

“I can't go into it now. She needs to tell you. Please come, Jessica. Just for a few days.”

“I can't just up and leave whenever you call. I have a business. A dog.” Even to her own ears, it sounded weak. She frantically tried to think of other excuses. She wasn't ready for this. She hadn't entirely accepted the fact she had a new family, and now she was being told that one of the two members she really cared about might be dying. The other didn't want anything to do with her.

Alex's voice became soothing, coaxing. “Hell, we'll fly the dog in. Marc is gone. There's plenty of room at the ranch house. It will mean everything to Sarah.”

Jessie wavered. That damn impulse to try to please everyone. In truth, she found she didn't want to say no. Something in her hungered to return, despite all the emotional warning signs frantically waving at her.

The Sunset was her roots.

“I'll have to talk to Sol,” she said, even as she knew he heard the surrender in her voice.

“Call me back as soon as you can,” he said. “I'll make the arrangements.”

“No,” she said. “I'll do this my way.” She hadn't figured out yet what
her
way would be, but she knew she had to fight for her independence, to remain neutral, even apart. She feared being torn asunder if she did not.

“But you will call me?”

“Yes.”

She hung up the phone very carefully. As if sensing her careening emotions, Ben whined beside her.

“Ah, Ben,” she said. “What have I done? I really thought I was finished with Wonderland.”

She leaned back in her one extravagance in the shop, a cushioned swivel chair, and looked around. It was everything familiar, everything comfortable.

But she hungered for the high desert, the spectacular scenery, the clean air and the clear nights. She'd felt from the first sight of it that she belonged, that it was the home place she'd always missed.

And Ross?

She hungered for him, too. Or did he just represent the land that had so enchanted her? The lonely splendor that touched her soul as nothing else had.

Jessie wondered whether she was willing to risk everything to discover whether it was all a mirage, a siren song that only meant disaster.

But she would never forgive herself if she didn't find out.

sixteen

S
EDONA
, A
RIZONA

Sarah put down the phone receiver. Jessie was returning.

She sat down heavily. She wished she weren't so tired. Sometimes her heart hurt so badly she thought she wouldn't live through another day. She wanted to live long enough to ensure the safety of the Sunset. She wanted even more to leave her son a piece of it.

An era was disappearing. A way of life fading into something called progress. The Sunset was one of the last remaining working ranches in the area. The rest had been redesigned into dude ranches, or bed-and-breakfast inns or resorts.

Was it so wrong to keep alive just one? Somehow she had to persuade Jessica to help her do that.

Sarah didn't know what had made Jessie flee days earlier. She only knew that the girl had done exactly that. Fled. From her. From the Sunset. From her heritage.

And she wasn't a tender shoot easily bruised. She had strength. Sarah knew that when she hadn't panicked the night she'd lost her way. The family hadn't daunted her. But what most impressed Sarah was that she'd never asked for a thing.

She'd known then what she had to do. She'd kept her failing health from the family. Now she wasn't above using it to bring the girl back. She'd didn't have enough time to play fair.

She'd realized that she could die at any time. Unfortunately, Ross couldn't inherit her share of the ranch. But a blood relative could. And there was only one that she would trust with the Sunset. She had meant to tell Jessie the moment the DNA tests were confirmed, but the girl disappeared into her other life. She'd sent yellow roses to Sarah, though, a thoughtful thank-you.

When the DNA results came in, Sarah had asked Alex to plead with Jessie to return, to use her health if necessary.

She had expected an argument. Strangely enough, she didn't receive one. Instead, he'd merely suggested that she would probably outlive them all. It was then, and only then, that she told him there was some urgency to the matter. His subsequent phone conversation with Jessica, as related to her, had been disappointing. She hadn't refused to come, but she hadn't caught the first plane, either. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe the girl wasn't as enchanted with the Sunset as Sarah had thought.

Sarah thought she'd seen that glimmer of belonging in her eyes when they'd ridden together up to the Saddle. But then Marc … damn him.

She'd never had a chance to reassure her, to tell her that Marc's accusations were only a reflex reaction against what he considered an obstacle in the way of something he wanted. Marc and Ross had always been like oil and water. Despite the fact that Marc, the golden child, had been much older, he'd always resented Ross, and particularly his father's trust in him.

But he must know that Ross would never hurt him. He'd also known that even the slightest inference would set the police on Ross. Her son had never recovered from the accusation of rape, even after the girl recanted.

She sighed. She hoped Jessie would return. Perhaps they—she and Jessica—could go for another ride, a less eventful one. She looked at Jessie and saw herself, though she hoped Jessie wouldn't make the same mistakes she'd made.

Or were they mistakes? Was loving too much a mistake? She'd forgiven her husband so many times she'd stopped counting them. She'd loved him so much that his son became her son, and she'd loved Ross with every fiber of her being. He made up for the children she hadn't borne, that she'd so badly wanted. God had not seen fit to bless her. Because of what she'd once done?