Secrets Rising (30 page)

"Why don't you get that white robe you had on earlier and let's go up to my room?" His tone was soft with an edge of forced teasing.

"Why don't I not?" She'd already let go of that element, left his arms and walked away from him. She didn't want to have to do it again...wasn't sure she had the strength to do it again, not after tonight, after he'd held her naked body against his, comforting and soothing her with no sexual intent...after he'd shown her another facet of himself and added another level to her desire for him.

He stood, his eyes darkening, his brow furrowing in irritation. "Fine. Why don't you stay here in this room with a broken front door so the guy with the big, strong hands can get to you easily and finish you off tonight?"

He turned away, took two steps toward the door, then strode back, leaned down, yanked the covers off her, slid his arms under her and lifted her off the bed. "Or why don't I just carry you, buck naked, up to my room? Give everybody here a little more entertainment."

The way he looked at her, with a combination of hunger and gentleness and anger, tugged at her, made her want to wrap her arms about his neck and let him carry her away. The anticipation of having Jake's arms wrapped around her, holding her securely all night, with or without sexual context, was entirely too tempting.

"Why don't you put me down and let me get on my clothes and I'll ask the manager to move me to another room." She forced herself to retreat, to make her voice cold.

Jake's eyes went as cold as her voice, and he deposited her back onto the bed. "In case you've forgotten what the paramedic said, you can't be alone tonight. So it's either me or the emergency room."

She pulled the sheet around her. "I'll get my robe."

If only she wasn't so pleased about losing the argument. If only she didn't remember quite distinctly that her last thought, when she'd believed she was dying, had been thankfulness that she'd made love with Jake.

Love and let go.

An easy resolution to make and such a hard one to keep.

But she would.

She would spend the night with Jake, face Doris Jordan tomorrow and let go of both of them, then get on with the rest of her life.

He gazed down at her for a long moment, his eyes black as the darkness that had enveloped her in the pool. Finally he nodded. "Wise decision. I'll wait outside while you put your robe on."

The distance between them gaped wide and deep. She would spend the night in his bed, but she might as well be back in Dallas. Jake had already let go.

Chapter 21

Rebecca stared unseeing out the car window as she and Jake crossed the city limits sign into Edgewater the next morning.

She'd been so exhausted when they got to Jake's room the night before, she'd slept soundly and awakened in his arms, the thing she'd both wanted and feared. For one luxurious, shining moment, she'd reveled in the feeling...before she came completely awake and remembered all the circumstances, the temporary nature of everything with Jake.

Jake had awakened when she'd tried to move away from him, and they'd shared a tense breakfast then called a towing service to meet them at Doris' house.

Tonight she'd be back in her condo, ready to begin sorting things out, trying to find herself and create her place in the world...rather than searching futilely for one that didn't exist.

At least at home she wouldn't have to worry about snakes in her bathtub or men in black trying to drown her.

"I keep expecting Farley Gates to show up and slap me with a ticket or haul me off to jail," Jake said, turning onto a residential street—a deceitfully peaceful street. The whole town was deceitfully peaceful.

"Or worse," Rebecca added.

"Yeah. You think that might have been him last night?"

Though she'd like to forget the episode entirely, Rebecca thought back to the steely fingers in her hair, to their strength as she'd tried to pry them loose. "No, I don't think so. Gates is pudgy and has small hands. Charles Morton had big hands, and he looks like he works out regularly. But I guess it doesn't matter. By this afternoon I'll be home, and all this will seem like a crazy dream. A nightmare."

As they turned onto Doris' street, a block ahead of them Doris and Mary Jordan appeared to be involved in a heated discussion as they came down the walk toward Mary's car.

Jake stopped and backed up a few feet. They'd still be visible if either Doris or Mary looked up, but that seemed unlikely. The two women stopped at the curb, and Doris held one hand toward Mary beseechingly. Mary shook her head and yanked open her car door. Doris went around and got in and they drove away.

"Something's going on," Jake said. "We have about an hour before the towing service should be here. Why don't we just ease along behind those two, see what they're up to?"

"No. Let's park behind my car and wait. I don't want to know. I told you, I'm through with this whole thing."

Jake stole a quick glance at her. "You're lying. And you don't even do it very well. I can hear it in your voice and see it on your face."

He was right. In spite of all her good resolutions, she did want to know. Obviously she hadn't honed either of her newly sought skills—lying or letting go.

They followed Mary and Doris across town, never losing sight but always staying a careful distance behind.

"This is easier when there's a little more traffic and when I'm not driving a car with a broken headlight," he grumbled, but he was successful in tracking them to their destination.

The Edgewater Cemetery.

"This could prove interesting," he said as he parked behind a large tree. He opened his door and turned to her. Rebecca sat frozen even as the oppressive heat invaded the air conditioned vehicle.

"Might be better if you wait here."

His comment galvanized her into action. "No. I'm going with you. You were right. I don't care about these people, I don't care who my mother was, but I want to know why they're acting this way. I want to know why somebody wants me dead." Her lethargy of the night before had passed, and she found herself developing a righteous anger. Searching for her birth parents might be misguided, but it shouldn't be a fatal offense.

She slid out of the car and was already crossing the cemetery in hurried strides, determined to do this before she lost her nerve, when Jake caught up to her.

"You might try walking a little more slowly and quietly unless you want them to know we're coming."

She slowed her steps just as they spotted Mary and Doris up ahead. Doris sat on the ground beside a grave and Mary stood.

In the summer morning the cemetery stretched around them, peaceful with its collection of softly weathered old stones and sharply cut new ones, its recently-mown grass, the stately trees adding the deeper hues of their shade to patches of grass, birds chirping in the background. But the air around Doris and Mary seemed darker and roiling with disturbances.

Doris rose slowly and spoke quietly, embracing Mary who shook her head again as she stood rigid, arms folded, refusing the comfort offered.

Jake held out a restraining arm, trying to halt Rebecca while they were still some distance away, but she brushed past him. If she ever stopped, she'd turn around and run back the other direction, all the way to Dallas and out of this nightmare.

"It's got to stop." Rebecca heard Doris' tense words just before the older woman, apparently sensing or hearing their approach, turned to face them. "Good morning, Rebecca," she said. "And Jake."

Mary whirled toward them, a horrified expression draining what little color she had left in her pale features, leaving only the dark circles beneath her eyes. Immediately a curtain fell, cutting off any hint of a discernible emotion in the haunted depths of those black-ringed eyes.

As she and Jake approached, she could see tear stains on Doris' lined face. Her usual tranquility had been replaced by a deep sadness. In spite of the recent rejection, Rebecca wanted to go to Doris, wrap her arms about her, soothe away that sadness.

She glanced at the stones and noticed that the graves Doris stood between were those of Edgar and Ben Jordan. Her husband and son. Father-in-law and husband of the stoic Mary.

Rebecca wanted to march over to Mary, grab her shoulder, force her to look into her eyes, shake her and demand to know how she could be so cold, how she could refuse her mother-in-law's comfort. Yet for all her irritation, there was something indefinable about Mary Jordan that tugged at her heart and kept her from completely hating the woman who was consistently rude to her.

"We came to get Rebecca's car and saw you leaving," Jake said. "We were afraid you wouldn't get back before the tow truck arrived, and we wanted to talk to you."

Doris cast an anxious glance in Mary's direction. "I apologize for last night, but something's come up. You have to leave. Please."

Jake folded his arms, making his spraddle-legged stance even more formidable. "We're leaving as soon as we get Rebecca's car. She's given up, decided finding parents who don't want to be found isn't worth risking her life."

Doris' gaze darted to Mary then back to them.

Rebecca thought Mary stiffened, but her small body was already so stiff, it was hard to tell. For a fleeting moment, Rebecca considered that Mary was the right size to have worn the blue dress.

But surely a mother couldn't hate her own child the way Mary hated her.

Surely.

Anyway, that made no sense. Mary had been married. Though she might not have wanted a child, it wouldn't be something shameful, something to hide and run away from. Mary in the role of her mother didn't fit with any of the data they had accumulated.

"What did the police say?" Doris asked. "Did they find any clues? Did they see anybody leaving the pool area?"

It was Rebecca's turn to stiffen. How had Doris known about the incident last night?

Jake's arm slid around her waist as if to caution her to be silent.

"No," he said. "Nobody suspicious was seen, and the police don't think there's anything to investigate. Seems they'd already had a call from the Edgewater Police telling them Rebecca was suicidal. They think Rebecca tried to drown herself. Hit herself on the head, too. You know how cops are. They stick together."

Doris' eyes flared wide, her pupils shrinking to pinpoints, then she turned away and sank to the ground as if she no longer had the strength to stand. Her long fingers traced the name of her son carved into the cold, lifeless stone. "Yes," she whispered. "I know about the brotherhood of police."

"Doris," Jake said softly, "how did you find out about what happened to Rebecca last night?"

Doris froze, then shook her head. "It doesn't matter. All that matters is that you need to get out of this town and never come back."

"We're both getting out of here as fast as we can," Rebecca assured her. Yet none of her determined resolutions of the night before prevented her from feeling empty and desolate. Easy to say she was going to forget about people who didn't want her, but not so easy to do.

"Let's go, Jake," she said. Only by getting away from Edgewater, from Doris, from all the pain that seethed just beneath the surface, could she make good on those resolutions.

As Jake walked beside her, close but not touching, never touching in any real sense of the word, she reminded herself that he was one of the things she had to get away from.

Go home and forget about it
. That was the advice he'd given her the first time she walked into his office. If she'd only taken it then, she could have saved herself a lot of heartache.

But then she'd never have made love with Jake, never have felt him slide into bed next to her to warm her body with his after saving her life.

Love and let go.

As she slid into Jake's car and he closed the door behind her, she resolved that she would take that last piece of advice.

Let go of her parents, natural and adopted. Never think again about the woman in the blue dress. Reclaim the beautiful memories she had of Brenda and Jerry.

Let go of Jake and sometime in the future when it didn't hurt so badly, she could take out the memories of him and revel in them.

***

As he drove back toward Doris' house, Jake cast a surreptitious glance at Rebecca. Her lips were compressed into a thin line and she was a little pale, but other than that, she appeared to be dealing pretty well with this latest rejection. She was acquiring those emotional muscles fast, growing stronger.

She wasn't going to have any problem walking away from Doris and Mary...and from him.

Which was the way he wanted it, the best possible outcome. If her walking away from him caused a ripple of unease, he just needed to flex his own emotional muscles.

"Doris and Mary are somehow involved in what happened last night," he said, changing the direction of his problematical thoughts. "Otherwise they wouldn't know about it."

"I don't care. We shouldn't have followed them. I shouldn't have come here. You were right all along. This whole thing has been a mistake."

First time being told he was right had made him feel lousy.

He didn't say anything else until they got back to Doris' house. The tow truck had already arrived and was hooking up Rebecca's car.