Coming Home to You (18 page)

“All I want is a measly five thousand dollars,” Bret said.

“I gave you money two weeks ago. You couldn’t have spent it already.”

“You can afford it. You carry more than that in your wallet all the time. I’ve seen it.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then what is?” Bret moved back and forth across the bedroom with the nervous pace of a caged animal,
seeming more agitated by the moment. His eyes were wild; his body shook although the temperature in the suite was comfortable.

“You’re on something,” James said.

“No.”

James wanted to believe him, but all the physical signs were there. He walked to him and grabbed him around the back of the neck, pulling his face close so he could look him in the eye. “Don’t lie to me.” Bret tried to pull away but couldn’t. Growing up, even though Bret was younger, he was always bigger and stronger. James rarely wrestled him and won. But tonight James moved Bret around as easily as a rag doll. “I want to know what you’re on.”

“I told you,
nothing
.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Who gives a shit what you believe?”

James let go of him and he fell back across one of the beds. “You’d better give a shit if you want my money. I’m not financing your drug habit.”

Bret sat up and straightened his clothes. “It’s not drugs.”

“What, then?”

“I got in a little over my head on a deal.” He nervously licked his lips. “I need to pay the people off.”

“What kind of deal?”

He hesitated, then said, “A bet.”

“Gambling?” James took his turn pacing now. “Who?”

“Better you don’t know. Let’s just say that if I don’t come up with five thousand by midnight, I’ll be permanently disabled.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this to begin with?”

“Because I was afraid you wouldn’t help me.”

“Haven’t I always helped you when you needed me?” Bret didn’t say anything. “Haven’t I?”

Bret stood. “Yeah, big brother. Every time I get my sorry ass in trouble, you’re right there to bail me out and remind me what a disappointment I am to you. Your
help
always comes with a lecture. So how about giving me the money and the lecture and letting me get the hell out of here?”

“When are you going to get your life together? You can’t keep a job. You have no plans. No goals. Mom and George are going crazy wondering what to do about you.” Bret didn’t respond, just gave him a blank stare. “I don’t understand why you’re so unhappy. I’d give anything to be you, to be free to do anything I wanted.”

“Free?” Bret asked angrily. “I’m not free. I’m James Hayes’s little brother. Do you have any idea what that’s like?”

“You keep throwing that in my face. Why don’t you enlighten me?”

“Because it’s not worth wasting my time.” He turned and headed toward the door.

“Wait!” With a sadness that cut him to the bone, James opened his wallet, took out five thousand dollars and offered it to him. “That’s it, Bret. I mean it. Settle your debt and don’t come back asking for more because I won’t give it to you. No more money. And no more lectures.”

“A
ND WHAT DID HE DO
?” Kate asked, bringing James back the present.

“He took the money and left without a word.”

“But it wasn’t the last time you saw him that night, was it?”

“No. Later, after the concert, we fought again like I told you. Physically.”

“So everything you told me about that night was true?”

“Yes. I cut the last set short and went back to the hotel. He wasn’t expecting us so soon. He was having a little party in my suite with four or five people I’d never even seen before. He’d lied to me, Kate. The story about the gambling was a cover.”

“He admitted that?”

“Yeah. He used the money I gave him to buy drugs.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said, putting her hand over his. He turned his hand to thread his fingers through hers, finding comfort in touching her.

“When I walked in and found him putting that blotting paper in his mouth, I went crazy, started beating the hell out of him and had to be pulled off by some of the band members. When I calmed down, Bret begged me to help him get straightened out, but I thought it was another of his lies and I couldn’t handle it. I’d had enough, so I told Malcolm and the guys I was leaving for few days to cool off. I didn’t tell them I didn’t intend to come back.”

“Why was Bret on the plane?”

“I don’t know. Christmas was coming up and the band had a break until after the holidays, so I’d like to think Bret decided to catch a ride home. But the truth is, he could’ve been so out of it, the guys stuck him on the plane and hoped Mom and George would
deal with him when they landed.” He shook his head. “Only…they never landed. Webb, Malcolm—all of them were gone in an instant. When I heard the body count and that
I
had been on the plane, I knew it was Bret.”

He thought the tears would come then, but they didn’t. After so many years, so many tears shed, perhaps there were none left to fall.

“I can’t help thinking,” he continued, “how ironic it is. I envied Bret the freedom he had. I wished more than once I could change places with him permanently and be able to go anywhere and do anything I wanted without people recognizing me. That night I got what I wanted. And in a sad way I think Bret got what he’d always wanted, too.”

“What was that?”

“To be me.”

“W
HAT ARE YOU GOING
to do?” he asked her again.

“Fix you something to eat.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know, but at the moment that’s the only answer I have.”

They walked to the house where Kate made him an omelet and prepared a pot of coffee. She sat quietly at the table while he ate, thinking about everything he’d told her and how difficult it had been for him to share it.

What
was
she going to do? She wished she had an answer. This was an impossible situation with no obvious solution. She saw no way to finish this book and maintain her integrity without exposing him. But to expose him, to subject him to the media circus that would follow… If he thought his life had been hell before the crash, it would be a hundred times worse if he suddenly showed up alive. And there was no guarantee, despite the advanced age of his mother and stepfather, that they wouldn’t face criminal charges.

“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 things 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.

T
HAT 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.