Jude Deveraux (29 page)

'Minnie,'
Eden said softly. 'I haven't done anything to be ashamed of. If anyone thinks I
have, then they are the ones who have the dirty minds.'

'Then I
guess that includes Brad.'

'Brad
thinks I —?'

'Brad
thinks you're little better than his wife, that's what. You hurt him, Eden. You
hurt him deeply. He got on a plane just hours after he saw you in the arms of
another man, and no one has heard from him since. You know what he did? He
called my mother.'

At that
Eden drew in her breath. Minnie's mother. The woman Brad had had an affair
with.

'At
least I'm glad to see you remember who she is. Brad will never marry her, but
she won't believe that. You should see her now. She's giddy with happiness
because she thinks Brad's going to ask her out again. I tried to talk to her,
but she won't listen. I told her that Brad will probably forgive
you
and
that he'll drop her again. But she won't listen. And I'm caught in the middle.
My mother wants me to spy on Brad, and he needs me to clean up after him. If it
weren't for my daughter needing her relatives, I'd leave this town forever.'

'Minnie,
I'm sorry,' Eden said. 'I never meant — '

'Right.
You never meant to hurt anyone. You just loved having two men drooling over
you, didn't you?'

'I
think that's quite enough.' Turning, Eden took a step to leave.

'You
were a slut as a teenager and you haven't changed since, have you?'

Eden drew
in her breath, then she turned to look back at Minnie. The young woman's face
was so distorted with anger that Eden could hardly  recognize  
her. There   was   nothing   she could say to
combat anger like that. She left the office.

Minnie
sat down hard on her chair, and for a moment she wanted to burst into tears.
With Eden Palmer's betrayal, all her plans for her future had been ruined. Brad
would never marry Eden now. He'd had enough gossip about his first wife; he'd
never set himself up for something like that again. And then there was Jared.
Minnie felt betrayed by him too. She'd really felt as though they'd started
something good, but it had all been an act. He'd only been in town because of
Eden. Minnie wasn't sure why Jared McBride had been there, but she knew it had
something to do with Eden's disgusting past. And as soon as he'd found out
whatever he wanted to know, he'd left. So Minnie was right back where she'd
started. She wasn't going to get a house of her own, and she wasn't going to
get a gorgeous hunk of a man for herself. Instead, she was going to continue to
be Braddon Granville's cleaning woman and gofer.

She put
her head in her hands and thought how she'd like to make them all feel as bad
as she was feeling right now. How could some girl who came to town pregnant and
destitute have
two
men after her? And at
her
age!

Minnie's
head came up. What was it Eden had said at that dinner about the man who raped
her? He was head deacon at her church. Yes, that was it.

She
jumped up from her chair, jerked open the second file drawer, and pulled out
Eden's folder. She'd had  to fill out  an employment card, and on it
was the name of her birth town in Ohio. It took only one phone call to the
local library in Eden's hometown to find the name of a 'little stone church,'
then she called the pastor and asked him if he could possibly find out who had
been the head deacon in 1976.

'I
don't have to look up the answer,' the man said, 'because you're not the only
person to ask me that question. It was Walter K. Runkel.'

Minnie
didn't ask who else had called; she didn't care. 'Mr. Runkel isn't by any
chance still living, is he?'

'Yes,
he is. He works at the local carpet store. Would you like to have the number?'

'Yes, I
would,' she said, smiling at the phone. 'I'd like that very much.' Minutes
later, Minnie hung up, then she called Eden's house. Minnie and the rest of
Arundel knew that Eden's pregnant daughter was staying with her.

'Is
Eden Palmer there?' Minnie said in her most businesslike voice. 'I have the
information she requested.'

'Information?'
asked a sleepy Melissa. 'She's not — '

Minnie
cut her off. 'I have the information she requested about her daughter's
father.'

'Her .
. . ?' Melissa asked slowly, coming awake. 'Father? I don't understand. She
doesn't know who the father is.'

'I can
only give the information about the father of her child to Ms. Eden Palmer
herself. Are
you
Ms. Palmer?'

There
was a hesitation on the phone, then the voice  changed. 'Yes, I'm 
Ms.  Palmer. You  can give the information to me.'

'Do you
have a pen and paper to write down the address and phone number?' Minnie heard
a drawer being opened.

'Yes,'
Melissa said. 'Go ahead.'

Eden
couldn't sleep. She'd tried everything she could think of, but, still, she
couldn't sleep. The over-the-counter pills had done nothing. She'd had two
glasses of wine. She'd watched one of those sci-fi movies about giant ants
attacking a town full of overly-made-up people, but that hadn't put her to sleep
either. Even the manuscript about the Jack the Ripper — the killer hadn't made
her sleepy.

She
wanted sleep more than anything in the world. She'd like to get into bed, close
her eyes, and . . . What? Never wake up?

No,
that was too dramatic, but at the moment, she felt as though her life had gone
from being wonderful to horrible. Odd, she thought, that having her house
ransacked and being locked in a cellar hadn't upset her much, but now she was
truly miserable.

She'd
left Minnie's office with her shoulders back, and her head high. She was
innocent and Minnie was crazy. It was simple, wasn't it? And Eden was a hundred
percent in the right, wasn't she?

So why
was she feeling so bad?

She'd
gone to the grocery, taking her time to choose foods that she knew her daughter
loved. This will be all right, Eden told herself as she put lemons in a bag.
Maybe she'd lost Brad, but it was better to find out that he was so jealous and
unforgiving before she got serious about him. As she chose broccoli, she
thought that her sympathy should go to Brad's wife. Maybe she'd had a reason to
be unfaithful.

But
Eden knew she was lying to herself. For a moment tears came to her eyes, but
she blinked them away.

It will
be okay, she told herself. She had her house and her garden — and maybe she was
going to have her daughter and grandchild living with her. That would be fun,
wouldn't it? She'd buy a big play set, one of those redwood things with a
climbing wall. No, that would be too dangerous.

Maybe
this time she'd be able to give the child a good childhood. No day care centers
such as Melissa'd had. Yes, Eden told herself, she was being given a second
chance. Melissa would, of course, get a job, and she'd leave the baby with
Eden, so she'd get to raise a second child.

Eden
conjured a vision of a lovely afternoon in the garden with her grandson, but
unbidden to her came a TV commercial for a cruise line. A handsome couple,
older, were standing at the rail of a cruise ship, arms about each other and
looking at the sunset. There was another scene of dinners with wine and
dancing. A couple laughing together. No children anywhere.

'Ow!'
Eden said. She had an artichoke in her hand and had been clutching it so
tightly the spines on the tip of the leaves had nearly punctured her skin.

Again,
she blinked away tears of self-pity. She finished the grocery shopping, then
drove home.

Melissa
was sitting in the living room, and when she saw her mother, for a second,
there was a look of anger on her face that almost made Eden's heart stop. But
in the next second, the look was gone, replaced by a false cheerfulness that
Eden almost found worse than the anger.

'Did
you get the fish?' Melissa asked, heaving herself out of the chair.

'Yes,'
Eden said softly. 'Melissa, has something happened?'

'Absolutely
nothing. Why don't we make dinner together? Like we used to do when I was a
child?'

Her
daughter's tone was making Eden's hair stand on end. She put her hand on
Melissa's shoulder. 'What's wrong?'

'Nothing!'
Melissa said, shrugging away from her mother's touch.

Eden
wanted to sit her daughter down and make her talk, but she couldn't do it. Eden
knew that whatever was wrong with Melissa would be said to be her fault. 'My
fault,' Eden whispered.

'Did
you say something, Mother?' Melissa asked in a chilly voice.

Eden
knew that right now she didn't have the emotional security to take on more
complaints about herself. Minnie's angry words still haunted her.

It had
been a cool dinner, with stilted conversation between them. Twice Melissa had
shot Eden that look of anger — or was it hatred?

Immediately
after dinner, Melissa had gone to her room and shut the door.

Slowly,
trying not to think, Eden had cleaned up the kitchen, then gone to her room and
tried to copyedit a manuscript. But she couldn't keep her mind on what she was
reading. Instead, she kept asking herself, Now what? Now what was she to do
with the rest of her life? Would Stuart never show up and take his wife away?
If he didn't, would Melissa blame Eden for that too? 'If you'd just been nicer
to him,' Eden could hear Melissa say. 'If you'd just — ' Was it a fact of
motherhood that you got blamed for everything bad in your child's life?

At two
A.M., Eden was still awake, still trying to not think about her future. What
was she to do now? How did she make the best of what life was handing her?

At
two-thirty, she got up, pulled on her jeans and a sweatshirt, and tiptoed down
the stairs. Maybe if she had something to eat she could sleep. Or maybe if she
— She stopped thinking when she looked out the window and saw a tiny light. It
was like a cigarette tip or a little flashlight. Whatever it was, it shouldn't
be there.

Her
cell phone was in its charger on the kitchen counter. She'd already programmed
Jared McBride's number into it. Should she call him? He was probably back in
D.C. by now, she thought. He was probably far away. He was — She picked up the
phone and pushed the buttons to send the call through to him before she argued
herself out of it.

He
picked it up on the first ring, but he said nothing.

'There's
someone outside my house,' Eden whispered.

'I
know. It's me,' came Jared's voice. 'I saw your light on. If you want to talk,
I'm here.'

Without
thinking about what she was doing, Eden snapped the phone closed, then ran out
the door into the night. She ran past the herb garden, then headed toward the
orchard. There wasn't anything clearly in her mind about what she wanted to
say, but the thought that there was someone nearby who she could talk to made
her frantic. 'Where are you?' she asked in a loud whisper, then felt a touch on
her arm. Turning, she looked up into the dark blue eyes of Jared McBride.

'What's
wrong?' he asked, and his face was that one she'd seen earlier: full of concern
and ready to listen.

'I . .
. ' Eden began, meaning to sit down with him and talk over her problems, one
adult to another. But the moment she looked at him, she collapsed. If Jared
hadn't caught her in his arms she would have fallen to the ground.

'Hey,
hey,' he said softly, pulling her to him, holding her tightly and stroking her
hair. 'What's happened? Has someone hurt you?'

'No,'
she said as the tears began. 'Yes, I ... I ... '

'Sssssh,'
he said, holding her tighter. Then he bent and put his arm under her legs and
lifted her.

Eden
sank into him, limp and helpless. Never in her life had she felt such a need to
surrender to someone. When she'd been a pregnant teenager there had been a lot
of fight in her, defiance. There was a streak in her that made her determined
to win, no matter what she had to do. She was going to do anything she could
for the child she was carrying.

But now
the fight seemed to have gone out of her. Tears came that seemed to have been
buried for years and years, maybe for all of her life. As he carried her across
the lawn, she clung to him, tears pouring out of her so hard that her entire
body was shaking.

After a
while Jared stopped and put her down on something soft, but her arms were still
around his neck. She tried to stop crying, but couldn't.

He sat
down with her, still holding her, took out a handkerchief, and began to wipe
her face.

'I'm
making a fool of myself,' she managed to say.

'Tell
me what's happened,' he said, ignoring her comment.

'It's
just that ... I mean . . . ' Sniffing, she moved slightly away from him and
looked around. 'Where are we?'

'The
well house,' he said.

Blinking,
she looked about her. A flashlight was pointed at the ceiling. The building,
eighteenth century, and quite pretty, had once been the smokehouse to the
plantation, so it had no windows. In the corner, inside an ugly plywood closet,
were the tanks and pump necessary for piping well water to the house and the
outside spigots. The rest of the small building had been used for storage, and
it had always been filled to capacity. She saw that now it was clean and had
what looked to be a mattress and blankets on the floor.

'The
men used it,' Jared said as he lit a fat candle and turned the flashlight off.
He was sitting just inches from her on the mattress. 'They were taking a chance
that you'd find them, but a lock's been installed and . . . ' Trailing off, he
shrugged and looked away.

Outside,
the rain began to sprinkle, making a pleasing noise when it hit the tin roof of
the building. Eden wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. 'I better get back
inside. Melissa will — '

Jared
caught her arm. 'You're not going anywhere until you tell me everything that's
been going on.'

'Nothing,'
she said. 'I need to get back inside. Melissa might need me.'

'I
think that girl needs to be turned over somebody's knee.'

Eden
smiled at him in the candlelight. 'That's no longer done. Besides, Melissa is a
grown woman.'

'She's
a little girl in a woman's body,' Jared said, unsmiling, 'and you let her stay
a child. You ought to — '

At
that, Eden's tears started again. She put her hands over her face and began to
cry harder than before.

Stretching
out on the mattress beside her, Jared pulled her into his arms. 'Ssssh, baby,
be quiet. I'm here,' he whispered, stroking her hair.

The
rain came down on the roof, isolating them in the beautiful old building. She
clung to him,  plastering  her  body  against 
his.   She   so needed the comfort of another human being.
She was sick of trying to be strong, of trying to be everything to everybody.
She was worn out from being strong.

The
harder the rain came down, and the harder she cried, the closer she wanted to
be to the warmth of his body. He pulled her to him, but when her leg moved over
his, he pulled back. 'I can't do this,' he said, his voice husky. 'I can't hold
you and not do anything else.'

'It's
okay,' Eden said, her tears beginning to dry. 'It's okay.'

'I . .
. ' Jared began, but when he looked at Eden it was as though he'd made a
decision. In the next moment, he was beside her, and pulled her into his arms.

'Yes,'
she murmured, her arms around him. 'Yes.'

He put
his hand in her hair, clasped the back of her head, and turned her face to his.
For a second he looked into her eyes, then put his lips on hers. He was
tentative at first, giving her one last chance to back out, but her arms
tightened about his neck, and his kiss deepened.

Eden
knew that never in her life had she needed anyone as much as she needed this
man at that moment. Lightning showed through the holes in the old walls of the
little building, and in the next moment a clap of thunder echoed around them,
making her move closer to Jared.

His
hand went under her sweatshirt. She hadn't bothered with a bra, and when his
hand touched her breast, she moaned under his lips.

After  
that,   he   didn't   
hold    back.   Within seconds, he had her shirt off
and he was caressing her with his warm hands. His lips were on her neck and
moving downward. It seemed that it had been forever since she'd been in a man's
arms. Forever since she'd —

She cut
off her thought and for a moment she pulled back to look at the man who was
kissing her. His eyes were half closed and his lips were full and soft. He's in
love with me, she thought. The Jared McBride she'd met such a short time ago
was gone, and in his place was a man who had no defenses, no pretenses. What
she was seeing was not covered under a mask of lies.

He
opened his eyes to look at her, and in an instant, that guarded look was back.
It was the face of a man who had been hurt and needed to protect himself. Like
me, Eden thought. Pain beyond bearing.

Jared
seemed to sense that something was different, and he started to roll away, his
eyes hard, guarded, covered.

But she
put her hand on his shoulder. He hesitated for a moment, then he looked back at
her. She was on her side, naked from the waist up, her jeans unzipped and
pulled low on her hips. She saw the desire in his eyes, and she saw the deep
feeling there. She knew that if she had any sense, she'd stop this here and
now, before it went any further, but she didn't. Smiling in invitation, she
rolled onto her back and opened her arms to him.

There
was a moment of hesitation from Jared, then with  a  small 
smile, he went  to  her and slipped the jeans down over her hips,
giving a low laugh when he saw that she was wearing no underwear. She laughed
too, then he turned slightly away from her. 'Oh, no, you don't,' she said. 'I
want to see the hand I'm being dealt.'