The Wayward Son (16 page)

His vagueness pushed Anna to speak again. “Are you saying that Cynthia lied to me on Friday night? That it wasn’t your intention to turf Charles out and install your mother back where she so supremely believes she belongs?”

“I’m not admitting or denying anything. Charles will have a home to go to—that’s all you need to worry about for now.”

Anna lapsed into silence, frustrated by Judd’s stonewalling tactics. They were nearing their office block before she spoke again.

“I’m going to look for another job. I can’t work with you. Not now. Not knowing what you’re really like.”

“That’s your choice, but do you really think the timing is right to leave just now? Without Charles and Nicole, you’re pretty much it for historical knowledge and continuity around the place. Anyone would think you want to see Wilson Wines collapse into dust.”

“That’s not fair. You can’t expect me to keep working with you, not now that we—”

“Not now that we what, Anna?”

“Nothing.”

“And your resignation?”

“I will wait until Charles is better. That’s all I’m promising for now.”

The thought of leaving Wilson Wines, the only job she’d ever known, terrified her. But she couldn’t continue there, working for Judd, seeing him every day. Wanting him every minute.

Fourteen

J
udd’s head was reeling. The last thing he needed to deal with right now was Anna walking out on him. If anything, he needed her back home where she belonged as well, but he knew he had some hard work to do in that department before she’d even consider it.

What occupied his mind first and foremost now was something else. Something that challenged every belief he’d grown up with. Logically he’d always known there were two sides to every story, but he’d never dreamed his father’s side of things could be so different to what he’d always been told. He’d wanted to refute the words that had poured from his father’s mouth, but the man was virtually on his deathbed. Charles had no reason to lie and even with what Judd had always held to be the truth, there was a ring of honesty to what his father had said that demanded he give his old man full justice.

He couldn’t concentrate on his work in the office and surprised Anna by telling her he was leaving for the day.

“Call me at the house if you need me.”

“I won’t,” she said bluntly.

He could only give an ironic smile in response. Tough to do when what he really wanted was to lean across her desk and kiss her so thoroughly she would forget what day of the week it was. He’d save that for another time, though. Right now, he had more pressing business to attend to.

Fifteen minutes later, as he pulled into the driveway, he stopped and stared at the massive stone structure that dominated the property. He shook his head. It was only a building—yet it was so coveted, and at what cost? He eased his foot off the brake and slowly drove up the driveway. A van was parked near the front door and he pulled up alongside it, frowning as he read the lettering on the side. Decorators? He shook his head as he got out of the car and let himself in through the front door.

He could hear Cynthia in the salon and the softer murmur of another woman’s voice answering her. When he opened the salon door, both women looked up, his mother’s face wreathing in a smile of welcome.

“Judd, you’re home early! What a lovely surprise. Here, you can tell me what you think of these.” Spread before her were a stack of open books of decorating samples and she picked up a selection from the top, handing them toward him. “I think these will be perfect in here, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t,” he said grimly before turning to the other woman. “I’m sorry, but it seems my mother has wasted your time. We won’t be needing any decorating advice at the moment. Let me see you out.”

The other woman looked shocked, but to her credit she hastily gathered her samples in her arms, shooting worried glances between Judd and his mother as she did so.

Cynthia sat in mutinous silence, her dark brows drawn in a straight line—a harbinger of her temper. She would never argue with him in front of a stranger but he had no doubt that her blood pressure was rising to monumental proportions right now. If there was one thing his mother hated, it was being thwarted in her goals.

Let her be angry, he thought. It was nothing compared to how he was feeling right now. By the time he’d shown the decorator out and returned to the salon, his body was rigid with tension.

“How could you do that to me, and in front of a total stranger?” She rose to her feet and demanded the instant he’d closed the door behind him.

“You’re getting ahead of yourself,” he said calmly. Strangely enough, in the face of her fury, he began to feel himself settle down by degrees. “The house is still mine.”

“Don’t you dare tell me after all this time you’re changing your mind. This house is mine by right, it always has been. I just bet it’s that upstart, Anna Garrick. Has she been poisoning your mind all morning? That type will always try, you know. They cloud your judgment with sexual favors and then they try to pull your strings for the rest of your life.”

“Is that what you tried to do with Charles?” he asked pointedly.

Slap!
In all his life his mother had never struck him, but it appeared he’d crossed a line with her today. Judd tested his stinging jaw and locked his gaze with hers.

“Now that’s out of the way, perhaps you could answer my question.”

“How dare you!”

“No, Mother, how dare you lie to me all these years. What kind of mother lies about her son’s paternity and deliberately keeps a boy from his father?”

“Whatever I did, I did for you, Judd.
I love you.
”

“Inasmuch as you’re capable of loving anyone more than you love yourself, and this house.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Oh, I think I do. I understand you were young and foolish when you met Charles and that you saw in him a chance to relive the former Masters glory that you had pined for all your life.” He shook his head. “Why did you lie to him, Mother? Why did you let him drive us away? Was it really worth hurting him so badly?”

“We’d grown apart. After I had Nicole it was as if he lost all interest in me as a woman. At first he said he was having to work longer hours and didn’t want to disturb me, but then it became another excuse, and then another until we weren’t even sharing a room anymore.”

Judd knew his mother better than probably anyone else, and he knew that, for Cynthia, losing Charles’s attentions would have been a dreadful blow to her self-esteem. For a woman who appeared so strong, she was more fragile than others knew. She measured herself by the success around her. If the physical side of her marriage was failing, then
she
was a failure.

“Why did you lie to him about Thomas Jackson?”

“You know about Thomas?”

“Only Charles’s side. Now I want to hear yours. The truth this time.”

His mother began to pace the room, every now and then stopping to finger one ornament or another.

“You don’t know what it was like. Charles was such a dashing man when he came to visit us at The Masters’ that time. And he was clearly smitten with me. The age gap didn’t seem ridiculous to me—he was such a charismatic and
vital
man. He promised me everything I’d ever wanted. He promised me this.” She flung her arms out wide before wrapping them tight around her middle. “He made me feel as if his entire world revolved around me. But then, he started pulling away.

“I didn’t know what to do or where to turn. I had no other family here. He was my everything, and suddenly he didn’t want me anymore. I just wanted to make him jealous. To make him want
me
again. So, I turned to someone else for attention, to show him that if he didn’t want me, another man would.”

“But his best friend? What were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t thinking, that much is quite obvious. Thomas could see there was a growing rift between Charles and me. He loved us both and wanted to do whatever he could to help us over our rough patch, as he called it. I, shamefully, took advantage of his friendship and used it against him. I just wanted to hurt Charles any way I could at that point. I didn’t realize then just how much I would end up hurting everyone else. When Charles threatened to send me back to Australia alone, I overreacted. I couldn’t lose you and Nicole as well as my home and my marriage. I lied to him about Thomas being my lover and I led Charles to believe it was Thomas who was your father.”

Cynthia sighed deeply and sank into a nearby chair. A glance at her face told of the toll her honesty had taken on her after all these years of perpetuating a lie.

Judd chose his words carefully. “They never spoke again, did you know that? Charles refused to see or speak to Thomas for the rest of his life, despite his best friend’s repeated entreaties. You destroyed their friendship as thoroughly as if you really had slept with Thomas Jackson. It was only when Thomas died recently that Charles began to wonder if Thomas had really been telling the truth all along.”

She nodded and wiped an errant tear from one eye. Judd wasn’t moved by her unexpected emotional display. He wasn’t even convinced it was genuine until she looked up and met the censure in his eyes. For the first time she showed every one of her fifty-one years and then some.

“I’ve been such a fool. I was so angry and so bitter it was easier to perpetuate the lie than it was to tell the truth. Besides, once Charles had it in his head that you weren’t his, he couldn’t wait to see the back of us. I hit him where it hurt the hardest, and he got me right back.”

“You could have told him the truth at any time.”

“I couldn’t. I wanted him to hurt, to know what it was like to be rejected.”

“He never rejected you, Mother.”

“Really?” She shook her head at him. “Then what do you call him removing himself from my bed, my whole life, the way he did? If that’s not rejection, then what is it?”

She stood opposite him, so proud and defiant and yet still hurting inside after all these years.

“Charles is diabetic. At that stage his illness was undiagnosed and untreated. He had no idea that’s why he’d become impotent until years after, but he was too proud to seek help for the problem.”

She drew in a shaky breath. “You mean it wasn’t me all along?”

Cynthia’s voice broke as genuine tears began to fall down her cheeks. Despite her focus still being so self-oriented, Judd felt his earlier anger toward his mother defuse entirely. He could begin to understand how her need for payback had molded her ambitious nature into one of harshness—even cruelty. She hadn’t been solely responsible for what had happened; both his parents had their crosses to bear, but maybe now they could begin to heal some of the hurt they’d caused. It was going to be a monumental task. So many years and words lay like an echoing chasm between them all. He’d had enough of it. It was time for change—for all of them. Charles, Cynthia, Anna and himself.

He took a step toward his mother and drew her into his arms. Forgiveness had to start with a first step; he only hoped that he could begin to make things right before it was too late.

Judd and his mother talked for hours. When she was finally spent, he saw her to her bedroom with a light meal on a tray and went to his own room to change. She’d agreed to go back to Adelaide in the morning. She would definitely be back, but at a time when emotions weren’t so fraught and when Charles was better. Who knew, perhaps between the two of them, his parents could finally lay old ghosts to rest and find some peace between them.

What a freaking day it had been. Exhaustion pulled at every part of his body. Whoever said that the truth will set you free never once mentioned the high emotional toll that could take. Today’s revelations had taught him a very important lesson. Life was too short to let go of what mattered to you, especially of what you loved. He didn’t want to live the rest of his life plagued by bitterness and regret over relationships he’d allowed to fall apart, as his parents had. He grabbed his cell phone from on top of his briefcase on the bed and punched in Anna’s number.

She didn’t pick up. No problem, he decided as he descended the stairs and headed for his car. He could ring her and ring her until she eventually gave up and answered. He knew she wouldn’t turn off her phone altogether because she was one of the emergency contacts for the hospital.

“What?” she demanded as he called for the ninth time.

“Where are you? We need to talk.”

“We have nothing to say.”

“Yes, Anna, we do. We have everything to say to each other. I won’t give up, you know. I will call you and call you until you give in.”

“Look, I’m tired. Can’t this wait until tomorrow at the office?”

“I need to see you now. Please? It’s important.”

He heard her sigh before she answered, “Fine, then.”

She rattled off an address that he rapidly keyed into the GPS of the late-model Mercedes he’d bought so Evans would be free to drive Charles whenever he needed him.

“I’ll be there in half an hour,” he said, checking the ETA on the screen.

“Don’t rush on my account,” she answered before severing their connection.

By the time he pulled into the budget motel at the address Anna had given him, he felt a knot of anticipation grow tight in his gut. He parked beside her Lexus, which was outside one of the motel units that formed an L-shape just back from the road. Her door opened as he got out of his car.

“Why here?” he asked as he walked the short distance to her door.

“Clean, cheap and close to the motorway. Is that all you wanted?”

She didn’t so much as budge from the doorway, nor did she seem to be in a hurry to invite him inside.

“No, that’s not all I wanted.”

“Then please say what you wanted to say and leave.”

Anna’s grip on the edge of the door made her fingers ache but she had to hold on to something, anything. If she didn’t, she was afraid she might reach out to Judd, to touch him, and then she’d be lost. As much as he’d hurt her, she couldn’t deny her body’s response to him.

“I’m not doing this outside on the forecourt of some tacky motel, Anna. Let me in.”

He spoke quietly but she had no doubt that he meant every word he said.

“If it means I’ll be rid of you sooner, then, sure, come on in,” she said with false bravado.

She pushed the door open wide and held her breath as he stepped over the lintel and into the compact unit she’d inhabited for the past three nights.