Читать книгу Confessions Bundle - Jo Leigh - Страница 24

THE ROAR OF THE WAVES was so loud he could hardly hear himself think—not that he was having any thoughts worth hearing.

“I’m a klutz,” the child announced suddenly.

“What?” He watched her, his heart filling, breaking, and filling some more.

“I’m a klutz,” she repeated in a matter-of-fact tone that lost some of its effect with the residual sob that accompanied it. “You might as well know, I knock things over and fall a lot.”

The condition didn’t seem to upset her much.

“Okay.”

“I don’t need a father.”

The words might have hurt, if he’d had any room for any more emotion. But he’d figured out, somewhere during his trek as he’d replayed that scene on the beach between her and her mother, that Mary Jane would not have chosen to see him.

“You know who I am.”

Green. Her eyes were green with little brown flecks, just like her mother’s.

“You met my mother one night a long time ago.”

Well, that just about summed it up.

“I…”

“You can go now. We’re just fine without you,” she said, and then, as he digested that, as he told himself he couldn’t possibly feel more pain, her face screwed up as if she might cry again.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “That was mean.”

“A little.”

“But it’s true, and this is one of those times when someone asks if you like her dress and you have to say no, you hate it.”

In spite of all the heartache and frustration consuming him, Blake smiled. He couldn’t help it. The little girl intrigued him, and not just because she was his daughter.

But she was. He’d only just met her and suddenly felt as though he’d known this child all her life.

“You are your mother’s daughter,” he said.

“Yeah.” The derision was back. “But I don’t want her, either.”

“You don’t mean that.”

She studied him for a minute, her red-rimmed eyes serious beyond her years. “Pro’bly not, but I’m really, really mad right now.”

Taking a chance that she wouldn’t close up on him, Blake settled in the sand in front of her, his legs stretched out so his white tennis shoes were almost touching hers. Huge and so small. The contrast made his throat tight.

“Why is that?” he asked when he could.

Those wide green eyes hardened. “She lied to me. She promised me she wouldn’t tell you about me. I knew when she took your case this would happen, but she promised and promised and I believed her and she lied to me.”

Mary Jane knew he was Juliet’s client. And that he’d been with her mother once, a long time ago. What else did this precocious child know? The extent of his crimes? Why her mother never told him that she existed?

“She didn’t lie to you.”

Mary Jane didn’t believe him, not that he blamed her. He knew what it felt like to be lied to.

“I didn’t have any idea you existed until I saw you with your mother on the beach,” he said. “I knew she had a cottage somewhere on Mission Beach, that’s all. She’d never told me where. Freedom needs practice being around people. Mission Beach is a little busier than mine, but not too busy, so it seemed like a good choice.” It struck him that he was a grown man, sitting on the beach, confiding in an eight-year-old child.

He’d thought earlier that this child’s mother had brought him something he’d been searching for his entire life—a sense of peace that could be found with the right person.

Not with her—never again with her. But perhaps with the daughter she bore him.

IT WAS GETTING DARK. Pacing between the front door and the back, the beach and the street, with Freedom alongside her, Juliet watched frantically for anyone who might show up with her baby girl in tow. Duane and Donna were out, Marcie was out, some of the neighbors were out.

Blake was out.

The police had full descriptions and pictures, and had put out an alert.

Juliet was home in case the little girl returned on her own, and to answer the phone.

She was doing that, and slowly losing her mind. This morning she’d been relatively happy. She’d managed to patch things up with Mary Jane and Marcie. And she had Blake Ramsden on the periphery of her life, wanting to be her friend.

This morning she’d held her daughter in her arms.

Tonight, Mary Jane was gone. And two of the three people who owned her heart hated her.

Freedom whined, shoving his nose into her palm. She rubbed his black head almost unconsciously.

God, please let her be okay.

The eight-year-old had been gone for almost four hours. At best, she had to be getting hungry. At worst…

Juliet couldn’t even think about it. Not and stay standing.

That look in Blake’s eyes when he’d realized Mary Jane was his child tortured her. Over and over again. She’d lost the respect of the one man whose regard meant more to her than her independence.

And the worst part was, she’d deserved that look. She’d robbed a father of eight years of his daughter’s life.

Just as she’d robbed her sister of the confidante she’d needed at one of the most critical times of her life.

And at least partly because she had this contrary habit of believing that she knew what was best for everyone. How in the hell had she developed such an ego? And without knowing it? No, it had taken seeing everyone she cared about in pain before she’d recognized that little fact about herself. It had taken these hours of being utterly alone.

She’d meant well. And that fact didn’t do anyone one bit of good.

Her gaze stretching so far her eyes ached, Juliet took in the beach for at least the hundredth time. Where was he? Had he found her?

She looked and saw nothing. Her vision blurred as tears filled her eyes again. She’d fallen apart a couple of times since Marcie had announced that Mary Jane was gone.

For once in her life she felt completely powerless. There was no way she could fix this one. She just didn’t know what to do.

Except check out front again to see if anyone was coming.

No one was. Juliet’s head dropped against the front window as sobs shook her shoulders.

“Oh God, Mary Jane. Please come home. Please, baby. I didn’t lie to you. I didn’t tell him about you. I love you, baby. Please come home…”

At first the words just played over and over in her mind. But eventually, as she stood there, a dead weight against the window, she started to talk to her daughter out loud. The words were sometimes indistinguishable, broken up by almost animalistic moans of pain, but she continued to talk to Mary Jane. Maybe the little girl would feel the power of her need.

Or maybe she was losing her mind.

“I didn’t lie to you, imp. I’d never lie to you…”

“I know.”

Juliet froze, her forehead wet and sticky against the window.

“I know you didn’t lie. Blake told me.”

She spun around and then, with huge, gulping sobs, grabbed up the child who had miraculously appeared in the room behind her. If she was demented, so be it. She didn’t want them to ever bring her out of it. Freedom was barking like crazy.

“Mary Jane?” She couldn’t let go long enough to look at the child’s face. But she knew the heart beating against her own. “Thank God. Oh, thank God.”

She had no idea how many minutes passed before she noticed the man standing behind their daughter, watching her. No matter what happened from there on out, how much he hated her, how horrible he was to her, she would always be grateful to him. Blake had brought her baby back to her.

The irony in that didn’t escape her.

IT WAS ANOTHER TWO HOURS before Juliet had a chance to be alone with Blake. Once she’d assured herself that, while Mary Jane might look a mess, she was none the worse for her escapade, Juliet had the wherewithal to call the cell phones of the other searchers and tell them that Mary Jane had returned. She owed them all more than she’d ever be able to repay.

And she called off the cops.

Everyone, including the pair of officers she’d spoken with earlier, stopped at the house, just to see for themselves that the little girl was fine. They all wanted to hear the story of how Blake had heard her whimpering behind a rock several miles from home, and then carried her all the way back.

Sitting at the kitchen table eating a peanut butter sandwich after her bath, with Freedom sleeping under the table at her feet, Mary Jane held court with her visitors, telling them about her adventure. The little girl would have to be punished, Juliet knew that, but not yet. Not tonight. Tonight she was home and safe, and needed all the nurturing she was getting.

It wasn’t every day that, with no warning, a girl came face-to-face with a stranger who also happened to be the man who’d fathered her.

And when Mary Jane’s eyes started to droop, everyone except Blake said their goodbyes.

The neighbors had given the tall, good-looking man several curious looks. Duane Wilson was going to be grilling her like crazy when she got to work on Monday, asking why her client had been on her beach in the first place.

“It’s past your bedtime,” Juliet announced as soon as the front door closed. She needn’t have bothered. Mary Jane was already off her chair, hugging her aunt Marcie good-night. Juliet waited to walk with her down the hall and tuck her in. Tonight, of all nights, she wasn’t going to miss that.

She had to blink back more tears when Mary Jane stopped in front of Blake.

“Thank you for finding me,” the child said solemnly, staring up at him.

His eyes glistened as he gazed at his daughter, as though enraptured. “You’re welcome.”

“And I’ve thought over what you said and it’s okay for you to see me again. But I still don’t need a father.”

He bowed his head, whether simply to accept her offer, or because he was hiding emotion he didn’t want them to see, Juliet didn’t know. “Thank you.”

Mary Jane reached out one small hand and patted his. “Good night.”

Hands on the table in front of him, Blake said, “Good night, sweetheart.”

Juliet had a feeling he’d have given his life for a hug, and felt her heart break a little bit more when he didn’t push the little girl.

HE WAS WAITING alone in the kitchen when she returned from the bedroom.

“I’m so, so—”

“Don’t.” He held Freedom’s leash. “I don’t want to hear it. I just stayed to let you know I intend to see her as much as possible over the next couple of weeks.”

There was no softness in his voice, and no warmth in the eyes staring back at her. Cold and withdrawn now that Mary Jane was gone, Blake was more of a stranger than he’d been the moment she’d first met him nine years before.

“As long as it’s okay with her, it’s fine with me.”

“You don’t really have much choice in the matter. You owe me eight years and I’m not aware of any way you’ll ever be able to pay that back.”

She could feel the tears filling her eyes again and could do nothing to stop them. She didn’t blame him for his anger and wouldn’t blame him if he never spoke a civil word to her again.

“If you’re ever ready to listen, I’m here and will tell you anything you want to know.”

He tapped his leg for Freedom. Put the dog on his leash.

“Would you like me to drive you to your car?”

His eyes were hard as he glanced over at her. “I’ll walk,” he said. “I need the air.”

And being in the same car with her would be far too confining, she read between the lines.

He opened the back door and was halfway through it before she spoke.

“Blake?”

He turned.

“Do you want to find a new attorney?”

He frowned, gave a derisive sigh. “There’s hardly time, is there?”

Probably not. The paper trail was too extensive for anyone to have time to come in cold and get up to speed.

“I’ll do my best.”

He nodded. Walked out. And closed the door behind him with obvious finality.

OVER THE NEXT TWO WEEKS, Juliet saw Blake but spoke to him only briefly, to make arrangements for his visits with his daughter and to update him regarding his case. She tried a couple of times to speak with him about the past—and a future. Each time, he reminded her that he was her client and any kind of personal interaction between them would be unethical.

They both knew his words were more a slap in the face than a demonstration of concern over legal ethics. While they certainly couldn’t embark on a relationship while she was representing him, they’d already had some highly personal conversations.

Mary Jane was still claiming she didn’t want a father, but after her first dinner with Blake—a dinner she almost backed out of—she agreed to see him every time he asked. She didn’t say much to Juliet about what they did or where they went, or even what they talked about. For the first time, her daughter wasn’t sharing everything with her.

Juliet tried to talk with Mary Jane about her growing feelings for her father, whatever those feelings were, wanting her to know that she supported them, but Mary Jane wouldn’t discuss Blake with her. Nor did she seem to want to talk about Blake’s upcoming trial.

Until the day the trial began.

“You’re not wearing red,” Mary Jane said that morning, her voice almost accusing as Juliet came into the kitchen.

“It’s not my turn yet, you know that,” she said, pouring herself a second cup of coffee. She’d taken the first one into her bathroom with her while she got ready for a day she was dreading.

Marcie had come into the bathroom and talked with her while she put on her makeup and did her hair, but, not feeling well, she’d gone back to bed for another half hour rather than follow Juliet out to the kitchen.

“But this case is special. You should wear your power suit every day.”

If she’d had more than one red suit, she would have changed. “I can’t wear the same suit every day of the trial,” she told the little girl. “Besides, it loses effectiveness if you wear it all the time.”

Mary Jane dug into her bowl of cereal, spilling some of it over the side of the bowl onto the table. “You’ll wear it the first day it’s your turn, though, right?”

“Right.”

“And you’re going to win.”

“I’ll do my best.” She couldn’t give the girl the promise she wanted.

Eight years of love and trust had seen them through this crisis with Blake. Neither of them had ever mentioned Mary Jane’s mistaken assumption that Juliet had lied to her. But she couldn’t risk having Mary Jane accuse her of lying a second time.

JURY SELECTION TOOK ten days. The prosecution only took four to present enough evidence to put Blake away for life. Much of it was circumstantial. The bank account was not.

Juliet had a few tricks up her sleeve, but even with those, things didn’t look good for Blake.

“We’re up first thing in the morning,” she told him as they left the courtroom the second Wednesday in August. Dressed in a navy suit and sedate navy and cream tie, Blake walked beside her out of the building and toward her car.

It was the first time he hadn’t taken his leave of her at the first opportunity.

“For what it’s worth,” he said, hands in his pockets, “I have complete faith that you’ll do the best job that can be done. I won’t blame you if things don’t go well.”

He blamed her for robbing him of his daughter, but she got full marks for her legal ability.

Juliet wondered if that said something about her priorities. She hoped to God it didn’t, and was scared to death it did.

SHE ASKED HIM to go for drinks, to talk over the questions she’d be asking him on the stand the next morning. He figured he already knew the drill. They’d been discussing the case for months. But for some reason, he agreed anyway.

Probably because Mary Jane was out with Marcie that evening and Blake didn’t want to go home to a house empty of her sweet voice. He’d had her for dinner almost every night since the day he’d met her. She wouldn’t let him get too close, wouldn’t discuss her feelings and interrupted him or pretended not to hear any time he tried to tell her how he felt. But she was friendly and generous with her thoughts on any number of topics. And she had hundreds of questions. Blake attempted to answer every one of them. He tried to be patient, although the days were passing far too quickly—days that might be his only chance to establish a relationship with the daughter he’d lost.

Juliet had been completely generous with the little girl’s time; he had to hand her that.

Or not. So she’d given him a couple dozen nights. She’d taken eight years.

He’d have preferred to meet Juliet downtown, some bar with a lot of people and enough noise to make conversation just difficult enough to keep the meeting short. They ended up at their usual bar out in Mission Beach, but only because Blake wanted to stop in and see Mary Jane before she went to bed.

As soon as Lucy had served them, commenting on their absence in the past weeks, Juliet got right to the point, outlining the questions she’d be asking—about his time abroad, his relationship with his father, certain business dealings that revealed him as a man to whom integrity came first. She didn’t acknowledge the possibility of losing, only of giving a win their best shot.

He’d been right to think he had it all down. There were no surprises here. He nodded. Sipped his whiskey. And nodded some more. Until her voice trailed off.

And then there they were, with half a drink apiece, and nothing left to say.

Had Lucy been close, he would’ve motioned for the check. She was across the room, her back to them as she waited on a group of guys in another booth.

“I was wrong.”

He considered pretending that he hadn’t heard Juliet speak. He looked at her through half-lowered lids, instead, saying nothing. But listening.

Not because he believed she had anything to say that he wanted to hear. Or because there was anything she could ever say that would make him okay with what she’d done.

Perhaps what he felt was morbid curiosity. Or maybe just the simple fact that anything was preferable to being alone the evening before he took the stand in his own defense.

She toyed with the stem of her wineglass, her eyes focused somewhere between it and the table.

“I didn’t figure it all out until just recently,” she said. He couldn’t tell if she was talking to him or just taking out loud to herself. Somehow that made him pay more attention. “I had this conversation with Marcie…”

She looked over at him. “She lied to me.”

“Must run in the family.” Blake regretted the words as soon as they were said. Not because she didn’t deserve them, but because they were beneath him. He’d never deliberately hurt another individual in his life.

“I told you my mother committed suicide,” she said, her eyes narrowed and tired-looking as she peered at him through the dim lighting. “What I didn’t mention was that I was the one who found her.”

Shit. She’d been what? Twenty-three? Four?

“I came home to help her get ready for a surprise birthday dinner in the city. I’d brought a new outfit for her to wear—a silk dress just like she’d worn when she was married to my father. I even had pumps to match…”

Blake swirled the whiskey in his glass. She didn’t have to tell him this. He didn’t need to hear.

“She was lying faceup in the tub. She’d only been in there a couple of hours, but already her skin was gray, her body bloated and wrinkled.”

He wanted to down the rest of his glass and order another. He couldn’t make himself lift it to his lips. Couldn’t be that present in the moment.

“I called 911, and then got obsessed with the idea that she’d be mortified if perfect strangers came in and saw her naked. She’d want to be seen in that new dress…”

He was still watching her. Couldn’t pull his gaze away from hers, even when her eyes filled with tears.

“So I hauled her out, dried her as quickly as I could, struggled with underwear. And panty hose…”

Juliet’s voice trailed off and Blake breathed a sigh of relief that she was done. Even though he knew she wasn’t. He waited.

“I had her completely dressed, shoes and all, by the time they got there.”

She shook her head and smiled, as though trying to pretend that she hadn’t just been talking about dressing her dead mother’s naked body.

“You should never have had to go through that.” He hadn’t meant to comment. “Especially not alone.”

With a half shrug, Juliet picked up her glass, swallowed the remainder of the contents.

“Yeah, well, the thing is, I thought I’d dealt with all of that. I went to counseling. I understood the phases of grief. I went through them and got on with my life.”

He wanted to hold her in his arms. Just for a second.

“I learned from the experience, used it to catapult me to success. My mother got pregnant just before she was due to start college. She gave it all up to get married and have Marce and me. I wasn’t going to do the same. I was going to make her sacrifice worthwhile by not repeating the same mistake.”

No. He wasn’t going to let her make sense. Wasn’t going to understand. Her choice had cost him too much.

“But you know what?” She looked as innocently lost as their daughter had that day he’d found her huddled behind a boulder on the beach.

“What?”

“I wasn’t over it at all. Instead of learning from my mother’s life, from her choices, I let her death rule me.”

Eyes narrowed, Blake sipped his drink, and motioned to Lucy for two more. “How so?”

“When I first found out about Mary Jane, when I first knew that I was pregnant, what I wanted more than anything was to tell you.”

He might have thought she was lying, but she didn’t seem to care whether he believed her or not. She was telling him what she knew without any apparent interest in his response. She was confessing, not convincing.

“I wanted to believe in the fairy tales and magic my mother had always talked about. The stuff she’d read from those storybooks from the time we were toddlers.”

She stopped as Lucy brought their drinks, and then, without touching hers, continued.

“I let my fear of being too much like her, my fear of making the same wrong decision, my fear of believing in love at first sight distract me from the truth.”

It made perfect sense. But so much had happened between then and now. So much had changed.

“There wouldn’t have been a way for you to contact me,” he heard himself saying. The pain of losing so many years of Mary Jane’s life had been easier to bear when he could blame it all on her. “When I first left, even my father didn’t know how to reach me.”

There was always later, though.

“Would you have come back if you’d known?”

And that was the million-dollar question. Blake would like to believe, unequivocally, that he would have.

He just wasn’t sure.

“And what about five years ago? You were married to an unhappy wife, disoriented yourself, thankful that you didn’t have children.”

Mary Jane would have been three. Still a toddler. Too young to remember that he hadn’t been around from the beginning.

“I would’ve taken responsibility.” He meant what he said.

But how could he have managed that? As she’d already said, he’d had an unhappy wife. He’d been filled with guilt and grief. Disoriented.

She nodded. Stood.

“See you tomorrow,” she said, and walked out, leaving him there with her untouched drink.