Unbreak My Heart (9 page)

"Stephen—"

"I bought and sold more than forty million dollars worth of real estate last year, Dad. I know what I'm doing."

"Still, why not help her along?" his father insisted. "Get her out of town a little faster. Whatever it takes."

Stephen bit back a curse.
Whatever it takes?
He suspected that would be his father's motto going into this situation. Stephen was ready to do whatever it took, as well, to keep his father from handling this in his own typically heavy-handed way.

"She's not going to stay in that house, Dad. She couldn't, even if she wanted to. Inheritance taxes will wipe out most all the cash her father left her. Even though the house is mortgage-free, the maintenance, the utilities, and the property taxes would be too much for her."

"You know that for certain?"

"Of course, I do. When I set out to buy a piece of property, I make it a priority to know who I'm dealing with and what assets that person has at his or her disposal," he said. "This woman hasn't had a paying job since before her mother died. She has a little in savings and a stack of medical bills of her mother's. Nothing that's going to allow her to stay in that house for long."

"Still, she's a woman. Women are sentimental, illogical—"

"She happens to be an accountant," he countered. "She knows she can't keep that house."

"Stephen—"

"I told you I'd take care of it, and I will."

"All right. In the meantime, stick close. I want to know what she's doing, who she's talking to, what she knows. All of that," his father said. "Turn on the charm, boy. It shouldn't be hard for you."

Stephen swore softly and got off the phone. When he and his father started thinking alike, he was in serious trouble. But the truth of his words couldn't be ignored. It would likely be very easy to find out what he needed to know when the woman in question was right next door. When she was all alone and very, very sad, and in need of someone in whom to confide.

She seemed surprised and pleased by the smallest of compliments that first night over dinner, seemed genuinely flattered and a bit shy. Before last night, he would have said it would be easy to talk to her, to flirt with her in the mildest of ways. To get her to open up to him as she decided what to do with the house, which fell perfectly into his father's request.

But it felt too personal now. He'd held her in his arms while she cried her eyes out. He began to realize the price she would pay simply for being here, for asking all those really hard questions about why her family fell apart. And he didn't like being the person standing between her and the answers she sought, even if he still believed she was likely better off not knowing.

He didn't like being attracted to her and knowing he shouldn't do anything about it. He hadn't quite figured out how he was going to stick close to her and not touch her again.

Stephen swore softly in the dark solitude of the morning. He should go back over there today because the quicker he wrapped this up, the better it would be for everyone, including her. He'd back up, he told himself. Start over. Surely he could charm her, without ever getting that close to her. Surely he could be with her and scarcely lay a hand on her.

He just had to get her to trust him and to leave. Before anything happened to her here.

* * *

Allie woke abruptly, pulled from sleep, by what she didn't know.

She lay absolutely still and listened. In her bleary, half-awake state she could swear she heard the sound of footsteps. Carefully, she worked to separate the sounds of her own pounding heart and labored breathing from the rest of the sounds around her.

There was something... Above her. On the second floor? The third?

It could be nothing but a mouse. Anything could have gotten in, she told herself.
Anyone.
It would be just her luck that the house sat here empty and undisturbed for two and a half years, and someone would pick the week she came back to break in.

She threw back the makeshift covers and padded into the hallway, turning on lights as she went. Upstairs, nothing moved, except a bit of dust floating on a ray of sunshine.

Dust didn't move by itself, did it?

She tried to fight off the sense of dread she felt at the thought of walking up those stairs and into any of the bedrooms.

She put her foot on the first step, had a death-grip on the banister. Her heart was thundering, drowning out everything else, and she felt feverish one minute, cold and clammy the next.

She couldn't go up there, she realized. She just couldn't.

Allie sat down instead on the bottom step, and then scooted down onto the floor. She was such a coward she just sat there until she realized that the noises overhead had ceased. She didn't have to go up there. Not yet.

She walked back into the family room, where she'd slept. Last night she'd been unnerved by the big, tall windows facing the backyard, bordered by a solid line of trees and vegetation. The house backed up to the creek that flowed into the river just past Stephen's house, and on the other side of the creek was an equally tall, thick stand of trees. No one lived back there. No one could see in the windows. But as she lay there trying to go to sleep, she felt as if she were being watched. As if someone was waiting to see what she would do. If she would run away in the middle of the night or if she would stick it out and finally find the answers she sought.

She'd double-checked all the locks on all of the doors and windows. One window in the family room had been unlatched. Of course, it could have been that way for years, but it left her feeling even more uneasy.

The moon had been out, shining through the trees in the backyard, casting all sorts of intriguing shadows through the room. There was a bit of wind, and every now and then she heard something thump up against the house, probably just a tree that needed pruning. Nothing more. She'd told herself quite firmly that she'd be fine in the morning, in the bright light of day, and what had she gotten? Footsteps.

Allie raked a hand through her hair and resolved to do better from here on out. To be calmer, more logical, and not so on-edge. She had to make a plan and stick to it. Even if it was merely to search the house room by room, starting with the first floor, packing and sorting as she went. It all had to be done. If there was something here—some clue as to what happened to them all, she would find it eventually. She wasn't leaving until she did. Maybe when the first floor was done, she'd find the courage to walk up those stairs and start on the second.

She felt calmer, more determined. Heading through the back hall toward the kitchen, she discovered the little piano tucked into the alcove under the grand staircase. She and Megan had spent hours here. Flipping back the lid, ignoring the cloud of dust rising from the keys, she softly played a scale, finding the instrument badly out of tune, the off-key notes echoing through the house.

Closing her eyes, she thought she could see her sister here, sitting on the piano bench. Her long brownish-blonde hair hanging down her back, her thin arms stretched out toward the keys, fingers spread wide to reach the notes of the last chords. She was smaller than Allie remembered, thinner, more delicate, looking as if a stiff breeze could pick her up and carry her away.

Allie sensed something in the memory that suddenly turned so vivid, something waiting for her. She looked at Megan's hands moving across the keyboard. Her hands were so small, her arms so pale. She'd lost weight, Allie remembered, realizing this must have happened that summer, right before Megan left. Allie had noticed her sister losing weight.

"Megan?" she whispered. "What's wrong?"

Megan hit a jarringly wrong note. She winced, and her hands fell to her lap. She turned briefly toward Allie, seeming to look right through her, and there were tears on her face. Megan was rubbing her hands together and shivering when Allie noticed the bruises on her sister's arm, as if someone had grabbed on to her and refused to let go.

"What happened?" Allie whispered. "Megan, please. Just tell me, what happened?"

But her sister didn't say a word. She brushed away tears, put her hands back on the keys, and started to play again.

Startled, Allie opened her eyes to find her own fingers on the keys, playing that same song she thought Megan had played that day. She felt a chill in the air, one that seemed to go right through her, and fought the urge to run screaming from the house. Instead, she closed her eyes, wanting one more look at her sister, and waited until the sound of the music faded completely away.

* * *

Five minutes later, Allie was still sitting with her back to the wall, still able to close her eyes and see the bruises on her sister's thin arm, when the phone rang, startling her yet again. She grabbed it like a lifeline and said, "Hello?"

"Hi," Stephen said. "I'm sorry, I know it's early, but I saw your lights on and thought I'd take a chance on calling. Tell me you were up."

"I was up," she said, wondering what he'd say if she told him,
I saw my dead sister playing the piano and begged her to tell me what was going on, but she wouldn't.

"Are you all right?" he said.

"Yes," she lied, thinking
bruises.
Who had done that to Megan? Who had hurt her and made her cry?

"I was wondering if you'd like to get out of that house for a while."

She was trembling hard enough and was paranoid enough to think he knew everything, that he somehow just knew, but she managed to keep it to herself and simply ask, "Why?"

"I want to see you."

He'd said that the first night, and she'd wanted to believe it. It was harder now. Every bit as enticing, but harder to believe. She kept thinking about Megan. How awful it felt not to be Megan for the mother who had loved her. For the mother who could never love Allie as much as she had loved her sister. Allie didn't ever want to try to take her sister's place again, not in any way, no matter how little or how much Stephen might have felt for her sister.

"It's going to be beautiful today," he said. "Much too pretty to stay inside all day."

Allie frowned, thinking it wasn't fair that he could cast a spell over her, just with his voice. The familiarity of the cadence of his speech hit her again. It wasn't what she was used to from Connecticut, and yet she recognized it, much in the same way she felt a recognition of the place itself, of the trees, the grass, the sky, everything. The man could draw her to him with his voice alone.

"We were doing so well that first night over dinner," he coaxed.

Before she thought he was involved with her sister and that he was keeping something from her about Megan's disappearance.

Allie sighed. The saddest part was that despite all her doubts, all the reasons she had to be cautious around him, those moments in his arms had felt better than anything she'd experienced in months. More likely years. How many men could chase away loneliness and bone-deep sadness with a kiss?

Even so, she couldn't let it happen again.

"Let's back up, all right?" he said. "Be friends. I was wondering what you remember about Kentucky."

"Not much." And she didn't need to. She was likely leaving never to return again. She was supposed to resist any excuses he came up with for them to be together.

"I thought I could show you some of the sights."

"I don't have time for sight-seeing, Stephen. I have so much to do..."

"And you will. Later. Just give me an hour."

"I've barely started sorting through everything and packing. I only got half the kitchen done yesterday." And found pictures of Megan. And fallen apart in Stephen's arms.

"You can't mean to work every minute you're here," he argued.

"Actually, I did." That was why she'd come. To work. To find out what she needed to know and leave. She could scarcely remember the time when she thought it would be as simple as that.

"This is your home, Allie. There's no place in the world as beautiful as Kentucky on a cool, misty morning in the fall. I want to show it to you."

What did the beauty of anyplace have to do with anything?

Megan,
she thought, closing her eyes and hearing her sister's name spoken with that deep Southern voice of his. Seeing the haunted expression on her sister's face as she sat playing the piano with bruises on her arms.

God, the bruises.

"Allie?"

She closed her eyes and counted to ten, knowing she should stay away from him, particularly when he was acting this way. Like this was about her and him and nothing else.

It was more than that. Something else had him here, acting this way.

"Come with me," he said.

"It's six o'clock in the morning, Stephen."

"It's the best time of the day."

"I'm not even dressed," she protested, although she couldn't help but be curious. What could he possibly show her at this hour?

She sighed, already finding excuses for herself and what she wanted. Like, how was she going to find out what he was up to, what he knew? Spending time with him seemed to be the simplest way.

"Put on some jeans and a sweatshirt. I'll be there in fifteen minutes," he said. "I'll even bring coffee. Very good coffee."

Before she could say another word, he hung up.

Torn, Allie glanced at the now-silent piano and shivered yet again. The thought of getting out of the house, for any reason at all, seemed too good to pass up.

She wondered if years ago she'd
seen
Megan with bruises on her arms, if the image had been inside her head all this time waiting to come out? The sister she remembered had been a solemn soul, quiet, serious, secretive even. But not sad. Not crying. Not bruised. This was like trying to put together a puzzle without having all the pieces, without knowing what the picture was supposed to look like in the end. But pieces of her life were coming back to her, the memories too vivid to be anything but the truth, pieces of her old life.

And next door was a man who knew more than he was telling her about her sister's disappearance. Maybe he knew about the bruises, too. Surely that alone was enough of a reason to spend an hour with him this morning.