Coming Home to You Page 18

  “I can see the wheels in your head turning,” he said.

  “I was thinking about your family. Did you tell them I know?”

  “Hell, Kate, I never even told them I was giving you an interview, much less about this. When you came here, I warned them you were digging around, but then I lied and said you’d given up and gone back to Chicago. What about you? Did you tell your brother? What about this cop? Does he know?”

  “No one knows but me. My friend who looked at the prints won’t think twice about them, and Marcus believes I’m down here tying up a few loose ends. He doesn’t completely buy my cover story, though, and he suspects there’s something funny going on, but he loves me enough not to press me at the moment. He and I have always been close.”

  “I’m close to my family, too. I talk to them by phone a couple of times a week and we exchange letters once a month or more. Mom’s always been there for me. George, too, after my dad died and he and Mom got married.”

  “You should practice not calling him George.”

  “Why?”

  “Bret was only five when your real father died. George was the only father he knew, wasn’t he?”

  He nodded with understanding. “And Bret called him Dad, not George. I’d never even thought about that. I’m not very good at this intrigue stuff, am I?”

  “You almost fooled me.”

  “Yeah,” he said, frowning. “Almost.” He pushed a piece of egg around his plate with his fork as he glanced down at Sallie, no doubt wishing he’d fed her to the dog that first afternoon.

  “Did you plan the cover-up?”

  “No, I’d never have done that or even approved of it. I didn’t even know about it until after Mom did it. That’s no excuse for not rectifying things when I found out, but emotionally I couldn’t handle anything right then. When I could function normally again, the damage was done. Too much time had passed to keep Mom and George out of trouble.”

  “I find it incredible that she conceived this scheme, much less got away with it.”

  “She convinced herself it was the only way to save me from a life I hated. She’d already lost Bret. She didn’t want to lose me, too.”

  “But the whole world believes that drug-filled body in the wreckage was yours. Your reputation is ruined forever because of what she did.”

  “It’s a small price to pay for my freedom.”

  “And what about the tarnished reputation you gained by becoming Bret? How do you live with that?”

  “By trying constantly to improve it.”

  The significance of what he said hit her full force.

  “Memorials! My God, they’re memorials to your brother! The plaques with your—I mean Bret’s—name on them, Pine Acres, the other ranches, all the money you’ve given away, have been in his name. You told me you didn’t want to profit from your brother’s death, but as Bret, you were profiting indirectly by running all those millions through your foundation and not his. I couldn’t reconcile that contradiction. But you did it because you wanted Bret credited for the gifts, and not you. All the donations will live on as memorials to him.”

  “I guess you could call them memorials. I don’t have the power to bring him back, but I can take this life he gave me and do something better with it, make him somebody people look up to and remember. He didn’t leave much of worth, but I can change that.”

  “I couldn’t understand why the information you gave me was so different from my research, but when I realized who you were, the discrepancies made sense. You were purposely trying to sabotage my book. You were afraid I’d make Bret look bad and you look too good.”

  “I had to do it, Kate, but I am sorry.”

  “Sorry won’t help repair the damage you did to my work. And you told me so many lies I’m not even sure I know how to fix things.”

  “I could help you.”

  Her eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Help me? Two minutes ago you begged me not to publish it. Why would you want to help me?”

  “To buy time to convince you not to publish it. I’ll help you in exchange for time.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not dealing with you anymore. I can’t trust you to tell me the truth, and I’m already in danger of missing my deadline.”

  “Please hear me out. I swear I’m not trying to coerce you or mislead you. I’m only asking for the chance to convince you not to print what you know. And in exchange for your time, I’ll answer honestly anything you want to ask me.”

  She took her cup to the sink and rinsed it out, needing a moment to think and to put some distance between them. It was difficult to be rational when he was within ten feet of her. She constantly battled the desire to put her arms around him, to express physically the feelings she’d always held for him.

  He came up behind her, reached around and put his own cup in the sink. “Please?”

  She turned to face him. “I can’t tell you what I’m going to do, because I don’t know yet. This is too big a decision for me to make without a great deal of soul-searching. But I will promise not to do anything for a couple of weeks.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And I won’t insist you help me fix the book.”

  “That’s an unexpected concession.”

  “I got myself into this mess and I’ll get myself out—somehow.” He was standing close, too close, and she fought back a choking emotion. “What am I supposed to call you now?”

  “Continue to call me Bret. That’s what my family does. That’s who I’ve become. I think of myself as Bret now.”

  “But you aren’t Bret. You’re James. And a part of me has known that all along, I think, even with the disguise.”

  “I worried about that, especially when you dropped that bomb on me and said we’d met before. I got scared you might recognize me.”

  “Did you remember me from when we met at Columbia?”

  “No,” he said, breaking her heart. “Something about you seemed familiar and nagged at my memory, but I met so many people at interviews and concerts back then, and it was so long ago.”

  “Of course it was.” She was crazy to think she might have made the same impression on him that he’d made on her.

  “I went nuts that night at the motel, trying to come up with the details of our meeting. I kept asking myself—did she interview me? Did I sleep with her? What? I thought about going back to your door, banging on it and asking, but I was afraid my curiosity might make you suspicious.”

  “That’s why you asked me to go riding, wasn’t it.”

  “I needed an excuse to talk to you about it some more. I had to know what happened, whether or not I’d hurt you, and taking you to see the ranch gave me a way to do that. You have to understand that in my early days I was bad about getting drunk and waking up in bed with women I didn’t know. I had to make sure you hadn’t been one of them.”

  “I wasn’t.” She told him the complete story, how he’d convinced her to stay in school and have faith in herself. “It was innocent, like I told you, until I stupidly offered myself to you. Thank God, you turned me down.”

  “Must be one of the few times in my life I did the right thing.” He put his hands against her face. “I won’t turn you down again. I’m giving you fair warning about that.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what? Don’t tell you that even now, when I know you’re probably going to expose me, all I can think about is how much I want you? Don’t tell you how much I need you in my life? I’m empty without you, Kate.”

  “Please, Jamie, don’t.” She tried to move past him, but he held her tight and refused to let her go.

  “Oh, no, you’re not running away from me or from what I have to say to you. I was miserable when you went home to Chicago. Losing you tore me in half.”

  “Don’t lie to me. Not about this. It’s too important.” She turned her head, but he forced her to look at him.

  “I can’t blame you for not trusting me. I’ve lied to you. I said awful thin
gs to you that night we fought. But it was because I’m in love with you, Kate, and I completely lost it when I found out I was competing with myself.”

  She couldn’t respond.

  “I said I’m in love with you.”

  She was barely able to find her voice. “I heard you. But you’re only saying this so I won’t go through with the book.”

  “No, I’m not. If you won’t believe what I’m telling you, I’ll have to show you.”

  He took his time kissing her, engulfing her to the point that she couldn’t protest, couldn’t think, almost couldn’t breathe. She clung to him because her body wouldn’t let her do otherwise, and because she suddenly felt weightless, as if she might drift away without the anchor of his arms about her.

  When at last he lifted his head, what she saw in his eyes extinguished her breath completely.

  He was telling the truth.

  THAT AFTERNOON James brought Henry back to the house for a visit, and the boy squealed when he saw Kate, holding out his arms to be held. Once numerous kisses were exchanged, Henry stuck out a tiny boot-covered foot and showed it to her.

  “See, Mo?”

  “Oh, what do we have here?” she asked. “Are those new boots?”

  He nodded and pointed to James. “Bet bot me lik him boos.”

  Kate looked at James in desperation. “Can you translate that? I don’t have a clue.”

  “He’s trying to tell you I bought him boots like mine a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Oh!” She made a big show of examining Henry’s boots and fussing over them. “I think those are the best-looking boots I’ve ever seen. You can use those to ride Patch, can’t you?”

  His dark head bobbed.

  Watching them together filled James with such longing that he nearly couldn’t speak when Kate asked him how the other kids at the ranch were doing.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, becoming concerned at his odd behavior. “Are the kids okay?”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” he said at last. “The kids are fine.” He took Henry from Kate’s arms. “Come on, partner. Let’s get this jacket off you.”

  “Toons?” Henry asked. He pointed to the TV.

  “Okay, but I bought you something that’s going to be fun, and I want you to use it and not sit here watching cartoons all day.” He put in a Bugs Bunny video, then took a drawing pad and crayons from a paper sack in the bookcase and gave them to the child.

  The three of them settled on the couch and, to James’s disappointment, Henry sat in the middle. But it wasn’t long before the boy was sprawled on top of them both, his legs in James’s lap and his head in Kate’s. She scratched lightly across his small back as he drew.

  “What’s the status of you-know-who’s case?” she asked. Henry attention was glued to his artwork.

  “It goes to court in three weeks.”

  “Anything new happening?”

  “Nothing.”

  She gazed down at Henry, who was distracted by the colored circles he was drawing. “He loves you, you know. He thinks of you as his father.”

  James swallowed hard. “I know he does.”

  He’d thought about Henry a great deal in the past few days, what effect it might have on the boy if Kate published her book. And if she didn’t. His sad conclusion was that he couldn’t adopt the child either way. The risk was too great.

  Besides, Henry needed a complete family, one with two parents and siblings. After what he’d been through, he deserved the best life could give him. James didn’t know if he even possessed the qualities necessary for fatherhood. He’d failed so miserably at being a good brother. Chances were he’d probably fail at being a good father, too.

  Henry giggled and pointed to the scribble on his sketch pad. “Mo.”

  “Oh,” Kate said. “Let me see. You drew my picture?”

  Henry nodded.

  Kate looked at it and pretended amazement. “That’s so good! I can’t believe you drew that. I’m in a tornado? What are all these things around me?” She pointed to a series of spirals.

  “Uh-oh,” James said.

  “Mo…debil,” Henry said, then he gestured at the TV where the Tasmanian devil had whirled to a stop in front of an unconcerned Bugs Bunny.

  “Who told you I was like that?”

  Henry grinned at James. “Bet.”

  “You’re in big trouble, Hayes.”

  “Hayes? Is that the name you’ve decided on?”

  “It’s the best I can do.”

  “I can think of some better ones.”

  “Like what?”

  “Darling. Sweetheart. Lover.”

  She shook her head. “I think I’ll stick with Hayes.”

  “But that’s what you call me when you’re irritated with me.”

  “I know, and I have a feeling that’s going to be appropriate most of the time.”

  “Does that mean I won’t ever get to see that pretty smile of yours again? I sure have missed it.”

  “Don’t try to charm me. It won’t work.”

  “I’m simply stating facts. I’ve missed a lot of things about you, the way you snort when you laugh too hard, and how you sing off-key when you cook. I’ve missed your smell in the house and seeing your shoes next to mine at the back door. I’ve actually missed those pencils sticking out of your hair like antennae.”

  She bit her lip. Patches of color appeared on her cheeks. “Ha, ha.”

  “I even miss your annoying chatter,” he added.

  “You’re crazy if you’ve missed that.”

  “Crazy about you.”

  Henry sat up and thrust his pad at them. “Bet,” he said, pointing to a swirl.

  “I like that,” James told him. “And this one? Is that you?”

  Henry nodded.

  James looked at the drawing and his mood plummeted. Kate. Him. Henry. Together. At least as scribbles on paper. What he wouldn’t give to have that in real life.

  SHE NEVER AGREED to let James help with the book, but he was an expert at slyly easing things into the conversation. By the end of the next week they’d settled into a comfortable routine of getting together after he finished his work each day to have supper either at his house or the grill and to talk.

  He was so open in what he told her, so interesting as he related the tales of his boyhood and rise to fame, that she conveniently forgot she wasn’t going to let him help her. She looked forward to their sessions, to simply seeing him, much like a child who knows she’s going to Disneyland every night at six o’clock. Each time he walked through the door at the motel, fresh from the shower and smelling like heaven, her stomach fluttered.

  This night he didn’t make it until eight. He handed her a sweatshirt, a flannel shirt and a thick jacket and told her to put them on. “We’re going to be outside,” he said. “Wear heavy socks and your tennis shoes. And go change into your oldest pair of jeans. Nothing that can get messed up.”

  “Messed up? Now wait a minute, Hayes. You know I’m a city girl and I don’t like getting messed up. Where are you taking me?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “I don’t like surprises.”

  “You’ll like this one, city girl.”

  Quilts and pillows lay stacked in the jump seat of the truck. He’d also brought a full grocery sack and clothes hangers, which only increased Kate’s curiosity. “If you get me dirty or bitten by something, I’ll never forgive you,” she told him. “I’m warning you, I go more than a little nuts over spiders. And lizards. And roaches. And don’t even say the word snake to me. I mean it.”

  He chuckled. “Will you relax? This is an adventure. Enjoy it.”

  When they turned onto the dirt road leading to his house, Kate sighed in relief, certain he’d only been teasing her. But he drove past the house to the gate that marked the end of the yard and the beginning of the back pasture. Opening the gate and ordering Sallie to stay in the yard, he took the road that led away from the lighted barn.

  “Hayes, I�
��m not sure about this,” she said uneasily, seeing little except darkness beyond the headlights of the truck. He was taking her into the middle of nowhere, and nowhere wasn’t a place she wanted to go.

  A few minutes later he stopped the truck, put it in Reverse and backed up a few yards, stopped again, put it in Park and let the engine idle. “We’re here,” he announced, a playful tone to his voice.

  “You’re joking.” Kate looked through the back window and saw nothing. No house, no barn, no food to appease her growling stomach. Nope, this wasn’t going to be the kind of adventure she enjoyed.

  He adjusted the heater. “Stay in the truck where it’s warm until I get the fire going and the lanterns on.”

  He disappeared out the door and for a time, she couldn’t see or hear anything. Then she heard a popping sound, and a fire roared to life behind the truck. Two lanterns flickered on to chase away the darkness.

  He opened the door, leaned in to shut off the engine and said, “Come on out.”

  Reluctantly she did. They were in a pasture, miles away from civilization.

  “Grab those pillows,” he said, pushing the seat forward to get the grocery bag and the quilts.

  “Why do we need quilts and pillows?”

  “For the show.”

  “What show? I hate to point this out, but there’s no theater here.”

  “This is a different kind of show. But first I’m going to cook you dinner.”

  “You’re going to cook? The man whose idea of a hot meal is sticking his bowl of cereal in the microwave? Now I know this adventure isn’t for me.” She followed him anyway, as he walked around to the back of the truck to let the tailgate down and deposit everything on top of it.

  “Trust me, Kate. This kind of cooking I can do.”

  She looked in the sack and saw hot-dog wieners, buns and chips. “And how do you intend to cook these things?” He picked up the metal clothes hangers and rattled them; Kate shook her head. “Hot dogs cooked on a clothes hanger? That’s your idea of dinner?”

  She laughed, unable to help herself. When he’d called and said he wanted to take her out for a change, she’d imagined them driving out of town for an intimate dinner at a nice restaurant and maybe going to a late movie.