My Front Page Scandal (17 page)

Determination settled in his gut. He had another reason to make good, now. The best reason.

Brooke’s fingers tightened on his shirt, but she didn’t speak.

He jiggled her shoulder. “Brooke?”

Her head moved against his chest. “I’m just so happy.” She sniffed. “I’ll have to tell the girls I’ve seen the light. There’s something to this daring stuff.

Ever since we met, I’ve been telling myself that I shouldn’t hope for more.

There was no way. But things have changed—I’ve changed in the past week. I decided to go for it.”

“I’ll say.” He touched her bare thigh, where the skirt was still hiked up to her waist. He wasn’t quite as certain as she seemed to be, maybe because he was still holding back. Not his feelings.

His past.

“You’ve said you’re actually a conservative girl, but that’s getting tougher and tougher to believe.” He tilted forward to eye her blouse, which was as sheer as a veil except for a couple of medallions of lace here and there in crucial areas. He fingered the fabric. “Want to explain this?”

“Well.” She chuckled. “I found it at the back of Lindsay’s closet. There’s supposed to be a camisole or at least the right kind of bra underneath, but that wouldn’t be very daring, of me, would it?”

He shook his head. Lindsay Beckham and her Martinis and Bikinis club were a dangerous influence. “Sounds like you’re getting closer to Lindsay.”

“Slowly. I think we’ll be sisters and friends.”

“You’re lucky.”

“I haven’t felt that way, just lately.” She sat up, drawing her hands through her hair. “I know. It’s ridiculous to complain, with all my advantages and a family who are all so wonderful. Irritating, at times, but wonderful. Very caring.”

He felt a pang. “That’s what I mean. You’re lucky.”

She squirmed on the step, smoothing the skirt down over her legs. The jiggle of her breasts beneath the lace was distracting, until he shut his eyes and told himself to concentrate on her words, not her body. Even that was difficult, with the lingering scent of sex and skin in the air.

“I am lucky.” She straightened her hair. “It doesn’t really matter who my father was.”

“I wouldn’t necessarily say that.” Before she could take notice of his emphatic reaction, he settled back on one elbow. “There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging the truth and what it means to you.”

She looked at him with wide, dark eyes, slowly shaking her head. “I don’t know how my family will react. My grandparents, my aunt—they’re the true traditionalists. They’ll still love me, of course, but this’ll inevitably change what they think of me. The family lineage is important to them.”

“Lineage,” he said, his mind going to his own sorry excuse for a family tree.

“Maybe I won’t tell them.”

He studied her bowed profile, the soft blush of her cheeks and lids and lips.

“It’s your choice, but I think that’s a mistake. You’ll never feel right, keeping such an important secret.” With that ironic statement stabbing at his conscience, he sat forward, putting his elbows on his knees and hanging his head low. Lower than a groveling mutt’s belly.

Brooke had trusted him. Now he was going to have to trust her.

“We’ll see.” The corners of her mouth twitched. “There’s a family dinner tomorrow. Want to come?”

His head jerked up. “Huh? What?”

“We do it once a month at my grandparents’ home. Great Aunt Josephine is always there, and my sisters. Sometimes our cousin, Eve, and assorted uncles and aunts and in-laws. I’ve got to warn you, it’s fairly formal. Several courses, fancy dress. Company manners.”

“I don’t know.” He rubbed his jaw. “Doesn’t sound like I’d fit in. I’m not really the kind of guy who gets brought home to meet the parents.”

“Nonsense. I’d be proud to have you as my guest.”

He wanted to live up to her expectations. “Would there be questions about my intentions?”

She smiled. “Probably.”

“And about my lineage?”

“Perhaps.”

“You don’t want me there, then.”

“Oh.” She blinked. “I see.” After taking a shaky breath, she conceded. “I suppose I’m jumping the gun. The Winfields would be enough to scare off any suitor.”

“Suitor,” he echoed. “Is that what I am?”

“I can hardly introduce you as my lover. Suitor is a Great Aunt Josephine word.

Don’t pay any attention.”

“Damn if I don’t like the sound of it.” He leaned sideways and whispered it in her ear. “May I be your suitor?”

Her eyes lit up, but she frowned just as quickly. “Are you serious, or are you teasing me?”

“How do I prove it? Do I declare my love?”

She laughed, still not believing him. “Not so fast. Let’s think about this.

Maybe take it a little more slowly.”

“Dare you,” he said.

Her mouth popped open. “David! You can’t just…you can’t…” She reached for his hand. “I dare you. To come to the Winfield family dinner.”

He looked down, not speaking for so long he could feel Brooke starting to get nervous. He squeezed her fingers for reassurance, silently reminding himself that even though she had a family lineage to live up to, she was also kind, and generous, and that telling the truth would not automatically end their budding relationship.

“Brooke, honey, there’s a lot about me that you don’t know. These are things that no one knows, because some of the court records were sealed.”

Her face went pale. She searched his expression for clues. “You were…in jail?”

“Not me. My father.”

“Oh, David.”

He gulped. This was it. Make or break time. “Here’s the thing. My name’s not David Carerra. It’s Jaden David Jackson. When I was ten, I turned my father over to the police for the murder of his common-law wife.”

“You’re not…” Her voice died. She flexed her hands and tried again. “What was the name?”

“Jaden David Jackson. The first ten years of my life.”

“Jaden.” How strange. She’d thought that learning your father was not your father was cause for confusion. But this?

She folded her arms for warmth. “What happened?”

David held his head in his hands. When he looked up, she saw how blank his face had become. “My mother took off when I was a baby, so I was raised by my father.

Sometimes I kicked around with other family members, but when Maribeth moved in with my dad, they kept me full-time.” He shrugged. “It wasn’t the best home, but it was almost stable, except when my dad was on a bender or getting hauled off to jail.”

“I see.” She glanced up the stairwell. The space that had seemed so warm and tight ten minutes ago was now cold and empty. The careful nothingness of David’s voice made her throat tighten with sympathy.

“He hit her.”

Brooke stopped breathing.

“They fought a lot, especially when they were drinking. Sometimes he hit me, too, but I knew when to stay out of his way.” David eyed her doubtfully. “Do you want me to go on?”

She nodded.

“So one night they were raging at each other. It got so bad I couldn’t block out the yelling anymore. I was going to sneak out the window, but on the way I saw them—struggling. He slugged her. She attacked back. He shoved her, hard, and she fell and hit her head on the corner of the kitchen countertop.” David shuddered.

“The sound it made was terrible—her skull cracking.”

Brooke crossed over to put her arms around him. “I’m so sorry.”

He held himself stiffly. “It was a long time ago.”

She sat beside him. “Well, yes, but so was my conception. That doesn’t mean the damage no longer matters.”

“You said it didn’t.”

“I put up a good front.” She touched the back of her hand to his face. “So do you.”

David closed his eyes, still reliving the past. “He left her there. On the floor in a pool of blood. Left her to go and pass out in the bedroom.”

“You must have been so scared.”

“I couldn’t move. It seemed like hours before morning came. I still wonder if Maribeth might have lived, if I’d called for help right away.”

“But you were only a boy. You can’t blame yourself.”

“I was old enough. I wanted to call, but I just…couldn’t.” His voice cracked. “I was afraid he’d wake up and catch me and maybe hurt me, too.”

She leaned into him. “How did it end?”

“My father didn’t come to until the next afternoon. When he found her, well, it wasn’t pretty. I don’t know what he’d have done if I hadn’t been there as a witness.”

“You mean, like taken care of the body?”

“He always used to say that if I gave him too much trouble, he’d take me to the swamps and feed me to the gators. I believed it.”

“What a horrible man.” A huge understatement, but the best Brooke could do. Her mother’s secrets seemed harmless by comparison.

“Yeah. After he realized that dumping Maribeth would only make him look guilty, he threatened me, said I’d better keep my mouth shut. And only then did he call in her supposed accident. He told the cops she must have fallen while she was drunk. They were skeptical, but since there was alcohol in her blood and no other proof except the usual signs of their battles, he was going to get away with it.”

She inhaled shortly. “Until you told the truth.”

“Right. The story made the papers. I was known all over the county as the boy who ratted out his murdering old man. And a lot of people—Maribeth’s family especially—blamed me for not calling 9-1-1.”

“But surely they didn’t print your name!”

“Nope, but they printed my father’s. It was a small town. The identity of the snitch was an open secret.”

“So you changed your name, to escape the notoriety.”

“I guess. Yes. Eventually I realized that I’d never be out of the old man’s shadow as long as I stayed J.D. Jackson.”

“What happened to you, after…?”

“After my dad went to prison? Some relatives took me, but that didn’t work out.

I was messed up. I went through a couple of foster homes before finally landing with the Carerras. When they adopted me, I was happy to shed my old name. I thought I could start over as a new person, but it wasn’t that easy.”

Brooke had been putting together the puzzle pieces, remembering small comments that he’d made in the past week. She’d always assumed that he was referring to his baseball troubles.

Maybe it was both.

“David, why did you quit baseball?”

He looked at her with the lopsided grin. “You’re a smart one.”

“The World Series made you famous,” she said.

“That’s right. And I enjoyed it at first, because I hadn’t thought it through.

After reporters started getting interested in my story, making me out to be some kind of colorful character, I realized that I sure as hell didn’t want to be famous. Not infamous, either.”

“You quit to prevent them from uncovering your past.”

“Yes. I’ve always been ashamed of it.”

She admired the forthright way he owned up to that, particularly since she’d tried to submerge her fear over being revealed as a counterfeit Winfield.

Nonetheless, she argued, “But it wasn’t you who—”

“Same bloodlines. That matters, right?”

He had her there. She’d been in a spin ever since she’d learned that hers was less than ideal. She’d even gone a little crazy. Imagining what David had faced gave her a better understanding of why he’d taken such drastic action.

“But now you’re getting back on the team,” she pointed out. “What changed?”

“After I resigned, I went home to cool off. Geno talked straight to me, made me see that running away wouldn’t solve anything. Still, I wasn’t ready to risk the exposure—not until you.”

“Me? What did I do?”

“You made me want to be a better man.” He answered with such a naked honesty that she filled with pride.

“So you’ll go public with the truth?”

“I haven’t figured that out. I don’t know if I’m ready to call a press conference. I just know that I won’t hide anymore.”

She nodded. He made a lot of sense. For her, too.

They fell silent, sitting side by side in the shadowed stairwell, touching shoulders, thighs, hands clasped. Brooke felt drained, yet somehow invigorated.

For David, she wanted to be a better woman. And that meant facing her family with pride in herself, come what may.

Her gaze drifted. She noticed that her discarded thong had become snagged on her heel. Surreptitiously, she scraped her shoe against the step, then reached down and folded the garment into her fist.

David looked at her curiously.

She straightened, keeping her hand curled in her lap. Silly, but in some ways she was still that prim woman. She shivered. “I’m so cold. Will you put your arm around me?”

“Of course.” With a groan like a bear, he wrapped her up in his embrace. His body heat was a comfort. She snuggled in close against him, using the movement to detract from her hand darting toward his pocket. In other ways, not so prim.

“This is nice,” she said. “I’m glad we talked.” And didn’t talk. “You’re coming to dinner, I hope.”

He pulled back a couple of inches, looking startled. “You still want me?”

She kissed his cheek, and it was apparent to both of them that the physical attraction had become something bigger. Something that included a whole lot of love and admiration. “Yes, Jaden David. I want you. I want you more than ever.”

DAVID STARED AT THE POND. The water was green, a round, flat mirror that reflected the golden ring of trees surrounding the grassy banks. Only a scattering of leaves and a pair of mallards marred the glassy surface.

For a moment, he thought about running through the bushes and diving in. Crazy idea, but this little pond in the park near Brooke’s house on Hawthorn Lane reminded him of home. He’d first seen it when they’d gone for a run that morning, with her teasing him that she’d get him in tiptop shape for spring training. They’d returned to her house, showered, ate a big breakfast, then spent the rest of the morning in bed—to build his stamina, she’d said. The phone rang a number of times, but she refused to answer it. Not wanting the outside world to intrude or keeping him a secret, some abject part of him wondered, even if it was only for a little while longer?

Because, despite his reluctance—maybe he was the one who wanted to stay a secret—she still planned on bringing him to the Winfields’ house for dinner that evening. He’d taken another shower, shaved under her watchful eye, then dressed as she deemed appropriate, in the only button-down shirt he’d brought along, black jeans she frowned over, and a tie of her dead father’s. She’d retied his lopsided Windsor knot and threatened to trim his hair, but had settled for combing it this way and that until he’d raked a hand through her handiwork and called it good. Her fussing had reminded him of Maribeth on his first day of kindergarten. She’d been the only mother he’d ever known, not much of one, true, but at least she’d made sporadic attempts to give him a normal childhood. She’d once even bought him a yard-sale lifejacket to wear in the swimming hole, and had harangued him to put it on until his dad had brought home a stolen case of Pabst and she’d forgotten all about little Jaden.

David picked up a rock. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you, Maribeth.” He pitched the stone into the middle of the pond. The splash set off the ducks, who rose quacking off the surface and circled overhead before setting down on the other

side.

Brooke was waiting, but he stayed by the water, watching the ripples fade away.

She hadn’t wanted to ride the Honda in her dress, and had been a little miffed that he’d insisted on driving it instead of going with her in the car. But she’d given him the directions to her grandparents’ and said that she’d meet him there in ten minutes after she’d finished wrapping up a painting she was bringing with her.

It hadn’t crossed her mind that he might not show up.

He turned away from the pond and swung his leg over the motorcycle. He took hold of the leather grips and thought about how easy it would be to start the engine and drive off in the opposite direction.

Not so easy, though, to break Brooke’s heart.

David fired up the bike, splintering the bucolic peace. His father had been convicted of aggravated manslaughter. With the man’s lousy record, he’d been given a long sentence, but even so he’d soon be up for parole. Once he was out, David suspected that the old man would hunt him down, looking for cash, and when that failed, he’d sell his story to any news outlet that showed interest. For fifty bucks and a carton of smokes, if that was all he could get. He’d trashed his son for less.

Leaving now would keep Brooke from getting pulled in when the sordid mess of David’s past came to light.

He goosed the gas just to hear the powerful engine roar. He couldn’t leave, but he couldn’t seem to make himself go to her either.

“Damn,” he said, smashing his palms against the chrome handlebars. He sat back, his mood lightening just a little because if Brooke had been there, he might’ve said dang to make her smile.

Make up your mind. Go or stay? He turned up the collar of his jacket and thrust his hands into the pockets.

What was…?

A crumpled triangle of sheer blue nylon spilled from his fingers. Brooke’s thong from the night before.

He let out a bark of a laugh, setting off a yapping spaniel being walked by a couple in trench coats and tweed caps. They looked at him as if he’d wandered free from a disreputable neighborhood. Maybe he had, but suddenly he was certain that Brooke could handle his world and all that came with it. And there was a way to make his father’s eventual release easier on both of them. The Sox PR people had always talked about “getting out in front of the story.” He still wasn’t ready to call a press conference, but Sports Illustrated had been bugging him for an interview since he’d quit…

He waved at the yuppies before driving off, the midnight-blue thong caught on one finger, swinging free in the light of a new day.

BROOKE BENT TO REACH into the backseat of her car. The balmy breeze blew up her flirty little skirt, one much shorter than she usually wore to the Winfield dinners. She brushed it down, then emerged with her painting for the Ladies’ League auction wrapped in brown paper. She’d made a last-minute switch, abandoning the expected landscape for something a bit more daring.

She counted the cars in the brick parking court while waiting for David.

Everyone else was inside. The full contingent, including an uncle and aunt who were usually in Palm Springs. Eve’s Lexus was there, unfortunately. And even a car Brooke didn’t recognize—a Mercedes sedan so predictable that it had to belong to someone dull.

David was at least ten minutes late. She held her cell phone under her chin. Was he lost? Should she call? No. He’d already been irritable with her, for fussing with his hair and tie.