“No.”
“Is that your final answer?”
She dared not turn around and look at him. “That’s my final answer,” she said in a monotone.
She heard him retreat, his heavy steps taking him as far as the living room. Without warning, he rushed back into the kitchen.
“Just one damn minute,” he shouted. “I don’t accept that. You just finished telling me how much you love me!”
She couldn’t deny it and so she said nothing.
“If you’re going to reject my proposal, then at least have the decency to look me in the eye when you do it.”
Slowly, her heart breaking, she turned toward him.
“Tell me to my face that you don’t want to marry me,” he demanded.
Her chin came up. “I won’t marry you.”
Grady’s jaw was clenched. “Why not?” The two words were like knives.
“Because if you married me…” she began, gazing straight ahead. She couldn’t go on.
“I’m not good enough for you, is that it?”
“No!” This was said with all the conviction of her soul.
“Then say it,” he yelled. “Just say it.”
“Because if you married me,” she started again, “you’d be left to deal with yet another one of Richard’s mistakes.”
He frowned darkly. Then he understood, and a look of horrified disbelief came over him. “Are you saying that Richard is Maggie’s father?”
Caroline hung her head and nodded.
10
RICHARD WAS MAGGIE’S FATHER. NOTHING CAROLINE could have told him would have shocked Grady more. The news went through him like a bolt of lightning. He was speechless with surprise, then numb with disbelief. Richard? His no-good, cheating, irresponsible brother was the father of Caroline’s child? It was more than he could take in. More than he could accept.
Once his mind had cleared enough to let him respond, he asked the obvious questions. “When were you lovers? I don’t remember the two of you so much as dating.”
“We didn’t, not in the normal sense.” She reached for her wine. “I was in San Antonio in college, my senior year,” she said, her voice low. “It was finals week. Knowing how crucial it was for me to do well, my mother didn’t tell me what’d happened to your parents until after the exams. I felt horrible, sick to my stomach the moment she told me. I was furious with her for not letting me know. I’d always loved your mother. Your father, too.” She inhaled deeply.
“You weren’t at the funeral, were you?”
“No—because I didn’t hear about it in time.”
“Then how does Richard play into this?” He realized he sounded irritated; he couldn’t help it. Damn it all, he was furious. Exasperated, too. The numbness was wearing off, and in its stead, a slow-burning anger began to build. Once again his brother had found a way to cheat him. Nothing in his life, nothing, was untainted by that bastard and his fiascos.
“San Antonio was his first stop after he took the money,” Caroline continued.
Grady’s eyes narrowed. “So you know about that? The theft?”
She nodded. “Savannah told me,” she said. “Years later.”
Grady pulled out a chair and sat down. He didn’t think his knees would support him much longer.
“It was one of those flukes,” Caroline went on. “I was gassing up at a service station and Richard pulled in. He didn’t recognize me at first, but I told him how sorry I was about his parents.” She looked away and took another steadying breath. “He seemed broken up about it.”
“Broken up enough to walk away with the forty thousand dollars that was our inheritance,” Grady mumbled.
“We had coffee together and he told me how he’d found your mother’s and father’s bodies.”
“That’s a lie!” Grady cried, knotting his fists in outrage. “Frank Hennessey found them and came and told us.” How like Richard to seek all the sympathy!
“I know it’s a lie now,” she whispered, “but at the time I didn’t have any reason not to believe him.”
Grady vowed to stay quiet, seeing as every time he spoke, it interrupted the story, and this was one he very much wanted to hear.
“He broke into sobs and…and said he hadn’t been able to bear the pain and after the funeral had blindly driven off, not knowing where he was going or how he’d gotten to San Antonio. He said he hadn’t eaten or slept in days.”
“And you believed him?” Grady shouted.
“He’d suffered a terrible loss.” She raised her voice. “So, yes, I believed him.”
Grady wiped a hand down his face. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell.”
“I…I didn’t, either.”
Despite the apology, he struggled with his temper. “It’s something of a shock to learn that the woman I love has slept with my brother.”
She didn’t respond, but Grady could see that his words had hit their mark. He didn’t want to hurt her, but he felt a sick ache in every part of his being, and lashing out was a natural response. Even when he knew he was being cruel and unfair. He hated himself for it, but couldn’t seem to hold back.
To Caroline’s credit she didn’t retaliate or ask him to leave. He admired her restraint and wished his own response had been more generous, more forgiving. In time, perhaps, he could be, but not now. Definitely not now.
After a silence Caroline picked up her story. “He was an emotional mess and I took him home with me. We weren’t in the house five minutes when he fell asleep on the sofa. I phoned my home and my mother confirmed that Richard had disappeared the afternoon of the funeral. I…I didn’t tell her he was with me. I should have. I realized that too late, but my sympathies were with Richard. He’d received a terrible shock and—”
“No less terrible than what Savannah and I suffered.”
“I know, but he was with me and you were here in Promise.” She clenched her hands in her lap. “Don’t you think I’ve gone over this a million times since? Don’t you think I have my regrets, too?”
He nodded, hating himself for being angry and unable to keep his emotions under control. Every time he thought about Richard being Maggie’s father, a fierce kind of outrage gripped him.
“Do…do you want me to continue?”
“Yes,” he replied, mentally preparing himself for what was to follow.
“According to Richard, he was overcome with grief, running from his pain and…and he’d found me.”
“It was fate, right?” Grady’s sarcasm was heavy.
“Yes…”
“He spent the night?”
“Yes.” Her voice grew small. “I made up a bed in the living room for him, but in the middle of the night he came into my bedroom and said he needed someone to hold.”
“And you let him?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose he felt all better in the morning, then?”
“Grady, it wasn’t like that.”
Her voice grew strong, then defiant. He stared at her, and for a moment almost hated her. But it wasn’t possible; he loved her too much. No one else possessed the power to hurt him like this. Loving Caroline and Maggie had brought him such joy, but it made him vulnerable, too. Vulnerable to pain and to anger. Vulnerable to a lot of emotions that were unfamiliar to him. Uncomfortable emotions.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to experience them again, not if it made him feel like this.
All at once sitting became intolerable and he jumped to his feet. “Was it rape?”
She took a long time answering. “No. That’s not Richard’s way. But I was inexperienced and he…he used my naïveté.”
It came to Grady, then, what she was telling him. “He seduced you, didn’t he?”
br />
“I was young and a virgin. I thought he was the most handsome man in the world. He was hurting—both his parents had died in a tragic accident—and he’d turned to me for comfort. I didn’t mean to let him make love to me, but he was so convincing, and before I realized what was happening, he was in bed with me, kissing me, telling me how much he needed me to take away this terrible pain. I tried to tell him I couldn’t do that, but he wouldn’t listen and then…he climbed on top of me and—”
“How long did he stay at your place?” Grady asked, thinking how desperately he and Savannah had searched for Richard. His sister had been close to a nervous collapse those first few days following the funeral.
“I woke up alone the next morning.” She swallowed and wrapped her arms around her waist as if warding off a sudden chill. “He was gone. Without a word, without a note. Gone.”
“When did you realize you were pregnant?”
“Six weeks later. I didn’t know what to do. I was in denial and then in shock. It was horrible enough knowing I’d slept with a man who didn’t care about me, who’d used me for his own purpose. Later, after a doctor confirmed the pregnancy, I had no way of contacting him to let him know.”
“Did you think he’d leap up and offer to marry you?” Grady knew he sounded sarcastic but couldn’t restrain himself.
“No…but I thought he should know.”
Grady said nothing, not wanting to ask the obvious question, and then he found it impossible to keep silent. “Does he know now? Is that why he took Maggie? Because he learned he had a child?”
“No!” she cried. “He knows nothing. I didn’t even put his name on the birth certificate.”
“Why’d he bring her back, then?”
“How should I know? But I’m grateful, terribly grateful, that he did.”
So was Grady.
“Maggie’s my child,” Caroline said with open defiance. “There’s none of her father in her.”
Grady wanted to believe that. Now that he knew the truth though, it was obvious Maggie was his brother’s child. Biologically, at any rate. Maggie had Richard’s eyes and his dark hair.
“When he came back, did he try to pick up where you’d left off?” This was another one of those questions it hurt to ask because he feared the answer. And, he saw, another one of those questions that cut Caroline to the quick.
“No,” she whispered. “When Richard first returned, I was terrified he’d figure out Maggie was his daughter and try to take her away from me. Don’t you remember how I avoided the ranch after he first got home?” Her voice grew tight with remembered anxiety. “In the beginning I invented one excuse after another not to stop by. Every time I was near him I was afraid he’d say something about that night, and then I realized…” She paused, then covered her mouth with one hand and closed her eyes.
Grady’s arms ached to hold her, but he remained where he was, steeling himself against her. “Realized what?”
“That…that he didn’t even remember. I was just another face, another body. He’d used me the same way he’d used people his whole life. He might have suspected he’d…he’d been to bed with me, but he couldn’t be sure, so he kept quiet.”
“You’re positive about that?”
“With Richard how can anyone be positive about anything? But it was just that one time and it was so long ago. I’m sure there’ve been a hundred women since.”
They were silent for several moments before Grady spoke again. “Does anyone else know?”
She shook her head.
“Savannah?”
“I think she might have guessed, but we’ve never discussed the subject, and I’ve never come right out and told her.”
“Then what makes you think Savannah’s guessed?”
“I saw her look at Maggie once and then at Richard. Later I saw Richard’s baby book in the kitchen and I knew she’d been comparing photographs.”
So his sister knew, which left Grady to wonder how many other people in Promise suspected. How many others were laughing at him behind his back?
Grady decided it was time to leave. He’d heard everything he could bear to listen to for one evening.
“Thank you for telling me. I know this wasn’t easy—and I appreciate your honesty. You needn’t worry—your secret is safe with me.”
“It wouldn’t work, Grady,” she said sadly, her eyes full of tears. “I can see that now. It just wouldn’t work with you and me.”
Then, weighed down by a sadness that seemed to encompass all the grief and despair he’d ever felt, he walked out the door. He had her answer. He loved her, had asked her to be his wife and she’d rejected him. Now he understood why.
* * *
“MOMMY,” MAGGIE WHISPERED as Caroline lay on the living-room sofa, “are you sick?”
“I’m fine, honey.”
“Then how come you’re crying?”
“I’m sad, that’s all,” she said, discounting her pain for her daughter’s sake.
“Why are you sad?” Maggie pressed.
“There’s a pain deep inside here,” she said, flattening her hands over her heart.
“It’s not going to bleed, is it?”
“No.” Although a physical wound would be easier to endure.
In two days she hadn’t heard from Grady, but then, she hadn’t expected to. Twice Savannah had phoned, but Caroline had let her answering machine take the calls. She wasn’t up to talking, even to her best friend.
“Are you going to bleed?” Maggie asked her again, her small face stiff with fear.
“No, Maggie. What makes you ask?”
The child didn’t answer and Caroline slid over on the couch to give her room to sit down. The little girl curled up with her, and Caroline held her tight. It took a long time for the tension to leave Maggie’s body. Eventually she drifted off to sleep and that, in Caroline’s eyes, was a blessing.
Such a release didn’t come for her, but she longed for it. At least when she was asleep, Grady’s face wasn’t there to haunt her. Awake, though, she couldn’t escape the image of his shocked expression when he’d learned the truth.
The accusation, the blame, the disgust. By the time he left, he could barely tolerate being in the same room with her.
Caroline hugged Maggie, and to her amazement soon found herself drifting off. She must have slept because the next thing she knew, Maggie was shaking her shoulder with one hand and holding the portable telephone with the other.
“It’s Savannah,” she said.
Caroline could see it would be impossible to delay talking to her friend any longer. She sat up and took the receiver. “Hi,” she said, still groggy and slightly confused.
“It’s Savannah. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she lied.
“If that’s the case, why haven’t you returned my calls?”
“I’m sorry, but I just didn’t feel like talking.”
Savannah hesitated, then blurted, “Good grief, what’s the matter with you two? You sound as miserable as Grady.”
Caroline had nothing to add to that.
“I’m coming over,” her friend announced.
“Savannah, no! Please.” But the line had already been disconnected and Caroline realized there was no help for it. Savannah Smith was a woman on a mission, and she wouldn’t rest until she’d done whatever she could to straighten things out between these two people she loved. Two people who loved each other, according to Savannah. Well, she was right. Caroline did love Grady and was confident he loved her. Just not enough.
Knowing Grady’s sister was coming to visit, Caroline washed her face and applied fresh makeup. The last thing she needed was for Savannah to return to the ranch with tales of Caroline pining
away for want of Grady—however true that might be. She changed into a fresh shirt and jeans, then ran a comb through her hair.
Savannah arrived less than an hour later, storming into the house like an avenging angel. Caroline was ready with a fresh pitcher of iced tea, waiting for her in the sunny backyard patio. Maggie played contentedly in her sandbox, building castles with imaginary friends.
“All right,” Savannah said, the minute they sat down. “What happened?”
“You mean Grady didn’t tell you?”
Savannah gave a soft snicker and rolled her eyes. “All he’d say was that what happened is between you and him.”
“He’s right.”
“I can’t stand this, Caroline! He asked you to marry him, I know that much.”
“He told you?”
“He didn’t have to—I saw the diamond. Which means if he has it and you don’t, you must’ve turned him down. But that doesn’t make any sense. You love Grady.”
Caroline said nothing.
“You do love him, don’t you?”
“Yes.” But that wasn’t the issue.
“Then, Caroline, why would you reject him? I don’t understand. I know it isn’t any of my business, but it hurts me to see two people so obviously in love this unhappy.”
Caroline didn’t mean to start crying. The tears embarrassed her and she blinked rapidly, praying Savannah wouldn’t notice. But of course she did and wasn’t about to pretend otherwise.
Leaning forward, Savannah placed her hand on Caroline’s arm. “Oh, Caroline, please tell me. I want to help.”
“You can’t. No one can.”
Savannah wasn’t so easily dissuaded. “You helped me when Laredo left, don’t you remember? When he went back to Oklahoma, I was in so much pain I didn’t know if I’d survive it, and you were there for me. It wasn’t so much what you said, although I recall every word. It was your love and friendship that helped me through a horrible time. Let me help you now.”
Caroline cupped the cold glass of iced tea with both hands. “He did ask me to marry him, and you’re right, I refused.”
“But why?”