The Edge of Heaven (17 page)

"He asked you to promise to stay until he gets back," Emma said. Rye nodded, his eyes glistening with moisture, his jaw impossibly tight. She told Sam, "He will."

"Okay. Tell him I said thank you, and that I'll be there as soon as I can. Emma, is he okay?"

"Yes." As okay as Sam was at the moment.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes. There's some stuff I need to explain to you, but I'm okay, and Rye's looking out for me."

"Ask him if I can count on him to make sure nothing happens to you."

She did. Rye nodded, still looking wary, still looking like a man who wanted very much to be anywhere but there.

"He will, Sam."

"Emma, I can't..." Sam's voice broke.

Rachel came on the line. "Emma, I need to talk to Sam now, but I'll explain everything. Later, okay?"

"Okay," Emma said.

"Just don't let that man go anywhere."

* * *

Rye had heard enough. He headed out, thinking to get as far away from here as he could. He was in the backyard when he remembered Emma's crazy ex-boyfriend.

He couldn't go anywhere.

He'd promised his brother.

God,
his brother...

He was still standing there in the middle of the yard a moment later when Emma came out. She stayed there on the porch, as if she were afraid coming at him right now might send him running in the other direction.

He just turned and looked away.

"You said your name is Rye," she said finally.

"It is."

"But I don't understand." To which he said nothing. He didn't understand, either. "Is that what I'm supposed to call you? Rye?"

"It's what everybody calls me."

Except for the parents who weren't his parents, whom he didn't talk to anymore at all. He didn't recall ever being Robert Jordan McRae, and even when he'd found out that was the name he'd been born with or that they'd called him Robbie, that person seemed like a stranger to him. As much of a stranger as John Ryan had become.

What did a man do when neither name seemed to fit anymore? He'd stuck with what he'd always been called and left it at that. Whoever had actually given birth to him and Sam had died long ago, and the only person who even remembered Robbie, as far as he'd been able to figure out, was Sam.

Emma walked up to him. He heard her coming. Tried to brace himself for what would inevitably happen, but what could he really do?

There it was. She put her hand on his arm and asked, "Are you okay?"

He stared down at that hand. Her touch, as always, was light and somehow comforting. He just wanted to hang on to her, to lean on her a little, but he didn't lean on anyone. He hardly trusted anyone. He lived a solitary life, and some might say it wasn't much of a life at all, that it hadn't been for the longest time. But she made him want to let her in just a little bit.

And if Sam really was his brother...

Oh, hell.
She was Sam's adopted daughter, and that would make him an uncle of sorts....

Rye felt oddly like he'd taken a blow to the chest, like something huge and solid had connected solidly, dead center to his chest.

He felt oddly like he'd lost something very precious, like it had been torn from him before he'd even known what he had.

"Rye?" she asked again, still touching him.

He couldn't have her doing that. He stepped back for real this time, turning to his side, not quite facing her, but not looking away, either.

Her hand fell to her side, and he told himself he did not miss having her touch him, that he wouldn't really miss her. They'd be some kind of distant relatives. He might never see her again. He might never see Sam again. What did he really expect to come of this anyway?

"How is it that you and Sam were raised apart?" she asked.

"I'm not sure." How in the world had he ever even gotten here? To this point in his life?

"Then why are you so angry at him? You don't even know him."

"Which is probably a big part of why I'm angry, Emma." And he wasn't very proud of that, because he knew it wasn't quite fair. But that's the way he felt.

"You think it's his fault that the two of you were raised apart?"

"I know that he knew about me, when I didn't know about him for the longest time." And Sam had been right here in this town the whole time, this house, even. He looked up at it, bathed in late-afternoon shadows from the tall, broad trees. It looked tall and proud and so very solid, a vast amount of space, the kind to shelter a man all the days of his life.

So different from where he'd been.

"You don't have any memory of him?" Emma tried again.

"Just that one time when he walked away without saying anything. It's been years now. Maybe he forgot he ever had a brother. Maybe that's the way he wants it."

"It's not that." Emma slid closer. She was going to touch him again. "You didn't hear his voice on the phone—"

"Emma, he wouldn't even talk to me. You caught that part, right? I was right there, and he wouldn't even talk to me."

"He could hardly talk. I think it was hard for him to even breathe, Rye. I asked him about you once. It seemed like it hurt him too much to even talk about it and all he said was that he'd lost you."

"Lost? Like he put me down someplace and forgot where he left me?" He scowled. "You don't lose a human being."

"How did you lose him?" she asked, her head resting against his arm.

"I was two or three. Hell, I don't even know, and I can't do this anymore, Emma. Not now. I'm sorry. I have to get out of here." Oh, hell, but he couldn't go anywhere. He'd promised his brother. "I'm just going to take a walk. Up and down the street in front of the house. I won't go any farther than that. I'll keep the house in sight the whole time."

"Okay," she said.

So understanding.

It was killing him.

He had to get away from her before he did anything else he'd regret. Like beg her to hold him for another minute.

He'd kissed her, he remembered again. More than once. His brain was so scrambled, he'd actually forgotten that for a moment when he started to believe he'd finally found his brother.

Sam,
he told himself over and over again. Sam's daughter. Sam's little girl. Maybe if he could make it sound remotely incestuous, he would be okay.

"About what happened this morning..." he began, withdrawing completely, leaving her standing in the middle of the yard alone.

"When I kissed you?" Her chin came up. "And you kissed me back?"

Yeah, that.

"You know that can't happen again, right?"

"Because you're Sam's brother?"

"Yes," he said.

"But you're not my uncle," she said. "Sam hasn't seen you in years. I've never seen you in my life. There are absolutely no blood ties between us."

"It doesn't matter. And I just came here to find Sam. I told you, Emma." But that wasn't fair at all. He'd told her one thing with words, and then somehow he kept ending up with her in his arms. "I'm sorry. I can't do this. Sam is... There's no way he'd understand or even begin to approve, and even if he did..."

He let the words trail off, wincing when he realized what he'd said, when he thought of how she'd take it.

"I told you, there are things you just don't know about me."

"I remember." She nodded. "A long, sad story. So's mine."

"Your father treated your mother like a punching bag. That's not anything you've done."

"I grew up that way. With the arguments and the yelling and the hitting."

"It's not who you are," he insisted. "It's what you came from. We all have bad times. We all have choices. Some people handle whatever comes along. Some people run away. Some people feel sorry for themselves. Some people hit. Some of 'em do worse than that."

"And what did you do?"

"Worse than that," he said.

"Oh, please. Look at me. I thought I was falling in love with a man who hits me when he gets mad."

"We're not even talking about the same things. Not even close."

He could tell her. He figured he owed her that. But if he told her the truth about the last eighteen years of his life, she'd probably kick him out right now, and he couldn't take that kind of chance with her safety. He wasn't leaving her alone now.

"Is that what you're so worried about with Sam?" she asked. "Telling him what you've been through? What you've done?"

"I'm not looking forward to it." Maybe that was why he'd never heard from Sam. Maybe Sam knew exactly where Rye had been.

"Sam is the kindest, most generous man I know. He'll give you a chance."

"I guess we'll see about that," Rye said.

"And I... Rye, I—"

He put his thumb to her lips, not letting her say it, wishing he could have found a way to stop the words without touching her again, because damned if he didn't still like touching her.

"I'm sorry. It's not going to happen," he said, and then made himself walk away.

Chapter 9

Emma let him go because she could see how torn he was. Not just about her and him, but him and Sam.

It's going to be all right, she wanted to tell him. You're in the right place. You've found your way home.

She wanted to take him in her arms and just hang on to him. Nothing felt quite as good as that to someone who was lost.

Except he didn't want her anywhere near him.

Was that from the shock of what he'd found out? That Sam was his brother. Would anyone really care? And they hadn't even addressed the whole age thing. Sam had just turned thirty-nine. Emma wasn't sure how old he'd been when his parents had been killed in an auto accident. If he'd been ten and Rye was just a baby... What did that make Rye now? Twenty-nine? Thirty? At the youngest?

Perfect, Emma.

She watched as he stalked across the yard, heading down the driveway to the front of the house. She knew he wouldn't leave her. Even as upset as he was, he was still taking care of her. She wanted to take care of him, too.

Emma went inside, carefully locking the door behind her. Upstairs in Sam and Rachel's room was an old cedar chest. A newer one in the family room held pictures and some of Grace's baby clothes, things Zach and Grace had made at school, certificates Emma had won, but the chest upstairs had much older things. She went to that chest, pulled off the framed photos and a delicate piece of lace used as a drape, opened the chest, and carefully pulled things out.

Somewhere, there was an album with a very few photos of Sam as a child and his parents. It was all she knew to do for Rye now—show him his past, help him to understand what he could have here in the present with Sam.

The two of them, she'd worry about later. Let him settle in, feel like a part of them. She knew what it was like to need a place to belong, and she wanted him to have that.

He wouldn't leave now.

Sam wouldn't let him.

Calm down, Emma,
she told herself quite sternly.

This was not disaster in the making.

He'd found them. They wouldn't give him up.

She sat down on the floor by the chest and paged carefully through the photos. There were ones Rachel had taken of Sam, a few when he was fifteen or so and more after that. There were heartbreaking ones of Rachel pregnant and then nothing for a long time. A couple of her grandfather, who'd died not long after that, some of the house as they slowly restored it.

She moved farther back.

There was Sam at... She couldn't tell how old he was. Certainly not ten. He was with a pretty young woman who had to be his mother. A tall, serious-looking young man stood by her side, and she was pregnant, too.

With Rye?

So there weren't that many years between them?

Emma had to tell herself to calm down once again.