Secrets Rising (31 page)

"But...I thought you were going with me. I mean, I'm going anyway. There's no point in your riding in that thing. It's uncomfortable. That's a long ride."

"I expect I'll survive. There's a car rental place next door to the garage. This will be more practical than to have you go out of your way."

"I see. Okay, sure. I'll get your bag." Of course she was right. Practical. What difference did it make whether or not he got to spend the next three hours with her? After that, she'd be just as gone. Three hours one way or the other was inconsequential.

He carried the suitcase over and loaded it in the tow truck.

"Okay, Ms. Patterson, I think we're ready to go." The operator climbed up in the driver's seat.

Rebecca turned to Jake, squinting into the sun and shading her eyes with one hand. "Send me your bill, and I'll put a check in the mail. I appreciate all the work you've done, and I certainly appreciate your saving my life last night."

She sounded so formal. The green slits of her eyes revealed no clue as to what might be going on inside. He could only accept the stiffness of her voice and her posture.

They'd made wild, passionate love three times and yet it all came down to this.

He rubbed the back of his neck to give his hand something to do other than reaching for her and pulling her to him for one final kiss. Suddenly he felt an overpowering need to have one more kiss, to touch her lips one more time.

This was the way relationships always ended. He knew that. He'd never expected anything different. They'd had some really good times together, shared fantastic sex, and now it was over.

So maybe he cared for her more than he should. Maybe he even loved her a little. So? Nothing lasted forever, certainly not love.

A week from now he wouldn't even remember the way Rebecca had felt in his arms.

Or maybe a month from now.

He got in his car and peeled off, determined to be far ahead of them on the highway to Dallas, to avoid any accidental glimpses of Rebecca...to speed up this forgetting process.

Chapter 22

May 3, 1980, Plano, Texas

In the small office in the back of the Plano Diner, Mary finished typing a letter, stretching to reach the typewriter over her enormous stomach. With a sigh, she leaned back and spread her hands over the bulge.

"Soon, baby," she promised. "Any day now you'll be in my arms instead of my stomach, and I'll be able to see my feet again." She flinched then smiled as one side of her stomach bulged outward. "And we'll see if you're Sharise or Ben. With a kick like that, you could be a great football player."

She looked around the room and again blessed the Pattersons for helping her, taking her in, accepting her without question...and for insisting she do book work this last month when she'd become too unwieldy to wait tables.

They didn't want her to leave even after the baby came. Brenda, unable to have children, insisted Mary couldn't take away her God-child.

With all the horrible things that had happened this past year, Brenda and Jerry Patterson were the rainbow after the storm.

Almost they'd convinced her that the storm was over. She listened to their reassurances and wanted to believe that Charles couldn't find her this far away, separated from Edgewater by four hours and the sprawling, growing cities of Dallas and Fort Worth with a Metroplex population of over six million. In spite of niggling doubts, she desperately wanted to believe that her baby was safe and she could start her new life here with these caring people who'd so rapidly become her surrogate family. She'd lost so many people she loved...her mother and father, Ben and, by the necessity of her leaving, Doris and Edgar Jordan. She didn't want to lose Brenda and Jerry.

But Brenda and Jerry didn't know Charles Morton. They'd never looked into those icy blue eyes and seen the madness there.

As if summoned from her thoughts, Brenda came in, concern marring her normally smiling features. When she carefully closed the door behind her, Mary's heart began to pound even as she told herself to relax, that Brenda was undoubtedly worried about some problem with the new waitress.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

Brenda slid onto the desktop, dangled her feet and tried to smile. "Nothing. Not really. It's just—" She stopped and bit her lip. "We've never asked who you were running from or why. Not even who you are."

"I know. I appreciate that." Mary's mouth went dry, and her words came out stiffly.

"There's a police officer out there with a picture of you, of the way you looked before your makeover." She gave a weak half-grin.

Mary felt the blood drain from her face as a whirling tornado of panic swept over her, fogging her senses and blurring Brenda's image. She clutched the edge of the desk. "What—" She swallowed and licked her lips. "What does he want?"

Brenda laid her own hands over Mary's fingers where they gripped the desk. "Jane, it's okay. Relax. Take a deep breath. Do you want a glass of water?"

Mary shook her head, clutching at Brenda's words—
It's okay
. How she wanted to believe that.

"This man is saying the police in Edgewater, a little town about 200 miles from here, are looking for a pregnant woman named Mary Jordan, that she's unstable and could harm herself or the baby if she's not taken into protective custody."

"Oh, God! It's Charles!" She tried to get to her feet but fell back.

Brenda slid off the desk and grasped Mary's shoulders, forcing her to look into her eyes, to focus. "Jane! Mary! Stop it! You're safe! I swear!"

Mary pressed her hands to her cheeks. "I should have known I could never hide from him. The police stick together. They'll do anything for a fellow officer. Does he know I'm here?"

"No, nobody knows you're here. This officer was checking because he'd heard we had a pregnant waitress, but nobody could identify you from the picture he had. See, I told you the disguise would work." She grinned, but for the first time since they'd met, Brenda's gift of happiness didn't transmit to Mary. "I told him you were my cousin," Brenda continued, "and I knew for a fact you'd never been to Edgewater. When he asked if he could speak to you, I told him the father of your child had shown up yesterday, and you'd left this morning for Oklahoma to marry him."

Mary broke into hysterical giggles. "You lied! The most honest person I've ever met and because of me you've turned into a liar."

Brenda laughed softly. "And a darned good one, if I do say so myself. I was pretty impressed that I came up with all that stuff!"

"What am I going to do?"

"Just off hand, I'd say you're going to have a baby, and pretty quick now. Beyond that, if you want to tell Jerry and me what's going on, maybe we can help you decide how to handle it."

Mary leaned back in the uncomfortable chair, trying to find a position that didn't make her back hurt. "I can't tell you. I told someone, and now he's dead."

Brenda squatted beside the chair. "That's not going to happen to Jerry and me. A psychic assured me once that I'm going to be very wealthy before I die, and we're pretty broke right now, so I figure I have a lot of years to go."

Mary found herself smiling in spite of everything. Brenda could always make her...or anyone else...smile. But even as her lips curved upward, tears sprang to her eyes. "You are rich, Brenda. You have a beautiful spirit, a wonderful husband, lots of people who love you. I can't put you in danger."

"Jane...or is it Mary?"

"It's Mary." The pain in her back increased, tensing the muscles in her stomach.

"Mary, do you really think this Charles person is going to believe you've lived with us all this time and not told us the whole story? He'll assume we know, so you might as well tell us. That way we can be prepared."

Whether she knew what Brenda said was true or whether she couldn't stand the stress any longer, Mary heaved a long sigh then began to talk, at first hesitantly, then faster and faster, hurrying past the worst parts, not wanting to relive them.

When she finished, she was out of breath, and tears streamed down Brenda's ashen face.

"Mary, you have to tell the authorities. Charles has to be stopped!"

Pain, from the memories, from her back, from all over her body, rolled around and through her, stabbing, squeezing, obscuring her vision. "Charles
is
the authority. I'm telling you, police stick together. They uphold each other, no matter what. You just saw that! This officer who doesn't even know him is helping him. You can never tell anyone. Swear!" The last word ended on a note that came perilously close to being a scream.

Brenda disappeared for an indefinite period of time—a minute or an hour, Mary couldn't be certain. Pain rushing over her, receding then returning, was the only certain thing in her life right now.

Finally Brenda returned with Jerry. He leaned over her. "How you doing, kid?"

She gritted her teeth until the pain receded and she could breathe. "I'm okay," she said, trying to sound as if she meant it.

"You'll have to carry her!" Brenda exclaimed. "She can't get up."

"Of course I can."

But Jerry scooped Mary up in his arms. "No problem. She and the baby together don't weigh as much as that furniture you've always got me moving around."

He carried her out to their old station wagon and settled her in the back seat.

Brenda climbed in beside her. "Mary, listen to me. Everything's going to be fine. The bad stuff is over. You're having a baby, and that's a beautiful miracle. Jerry and I will be right here. We'll raise this baby, the three of us." She smiled and patted Mary's hand. "They've been doing it in communes for years, having lots of parents for each child. So we'll just have our very own mini hippie commune. Or maybe that's hippie mini commune. Otherwise it sounds like a tiny little hippie."

Mary tried to laugh but another pain turned it into a groan.

"I'm being funny but I'm not joking," Brenda said quietly. "You know we want you and your baby to stay with us. You know we're as excited about this baby as you are. This kid's got it made with all of us just waiting to spoil it rotten!"

The love inside so fierce it made her dizzy, Mary lay on her side in the hospital bed, curled around her baby, around Rebecca. She'd been reluctant to name her Sharise, reluctant to leave any possible links Charles might pick up on.

"Rebecca," she whispered, touching the soft blond fuzz, marveling again at the tiny hands and feet, the wonder of this precious child who almost hadn't been allowed to survive. "If only your daddy could be here to see you." She bit back the tears that still came when she thought of Ben.

Mary tried to stop herself from searching Rebecca's features for Ben. A three-day old baby looked like other three-day old babies, not like her mother or her father.

This baby is ours. I don't care whose eyes or hair she has, who started the process. I don't care who planted the seed. It's our baby
. One of the last things Ben had said to her.

"I don't care, either, Rebecca," she whispered. "I loved you from the time you were a cluster of cells, multiplying hourly and making me throw up every morning. I loved you so much then, I thought I couldn't possibly love you more. Then you started to move, like butterfly wings beneath my heart, and I did love you more. Every day my love for you grew as you grew, but I never knew how much I could love until the first time I held you in my arms." She kissed the soft cheek. "I failed your daddy, but I won't fail you, no matter what it takes. I'll move heaven and earth for you, sweetheart. I promise."

The door flew open and Brenda charged in carrying a huge purple teddy bear. Jerry followed with Mary's suitcase.

"How are both our girls? We're here to take you home! Look what I brought for Rebecca!"

"And I brought her mommy some clothes so she doesn't have to leave here in that awful hospital gown." Jerry set the bag beside the bathroom door.

Mary sat up in bed, holding her child against her breast. "Has he been back?" she asked, as she'd asked every time Brenda had come to see her. Rebecca whimpered, and Mary realized she was holding her too tightly.

"No, the officer hasn't been back. The other girls at the diner can hardly wait to see the baby! Come to Aunt Brenda while your mommy gets dressed."