Rachel Lee (16 page)

And, as always when any such possibility passed his lips or entered his mind, he found himself thinking of Karen. As if Karen's death meant the end of all that for him, too. As if somehow he would be cheating on her if he married.

How the hell had his mind gotten into such a mess?

But apparently Joni's was in the same mess with him, because the first thing she said was, "You don't date much, do you? Not since ...

Karen."

He really wished he could laugh off the question or tell her she was crazy. Unfortunately, he knew he would be wasting his breath and wouldn't be fooling either of them. She'd hit the nail on the head when she had said it was as if they were frozen in time.

"I feel guilty," he finally admitted, thinking how stupid that sounded.

But she nodded as if she understood. "We're sick, Hardy. You know that? Most people would have gotten past this by now. Most people figure out how to get on with their lives."

He wanted to defend himself. Or maybe he wanted to defend her more.

He knew the mire he was living in, but he couldn't see any blessed reason why Joni should be living in it, too. She hadn't been driving the car. She hadn't been planning to dump Karen. He had plenty to feel guilty about, but Joni didn't have one single thing to apologize for.

"I'm getting on with life," he finally said. "Most of it."

She surprised him with a faint smile. "Yeah. Most of it. It's the rest of it I've started worrying about. I got to thinking that maybe Witt was the reason I couldn't move on. The way he nursed his anger against you, the way I was supposed to avoid you, it kept it alive.

Kept it fresh."

He gave a sideways bob of his head, not quite a nod, more of a "maybe."

"And now that you've broken the taboo?"

Her smile died completely. "It didn't make anything good happen, did it? Which, I guess, just goes to prove that Witt is always right. If Karen had listened to him, she wouldn't be dead. If I had just listened to him, he wouldn't be lying in a hospital bed."

He didn't like the sound of that, but he didn't exactly know how to contradict her in a way that would convince her. This was going to require some thinking. Heavy-duty thinking.

"I wish my mom hadn't told me that Witt is my dad."

He nodded, giving her room to speak.

"I mean, it's not just that I'm not who I always thought I was. I'm not sure that even makes a difference. Part of me thinks it doesn't make any difference at all to me. It won't change my genetic makeup, or my personality, or the color of my hair."

"Right." He said it gently, waiting to hear the rest.

"But it changes me emotionally, Hardy. And I don't like the way it changes me. I don't like the way it makes me feel about my mother.

God! All I can think is that she was a cheater, too."

"Too?"

"My dad cheated on her. A lot. I figured that out by the time I was around eleven. I could smell it on him sometimes when he came home.

Another woman's perfume. Another woman's body. I kept waiting for my mother to say something, but she never did. And by the time I was eleven, I'd figured out that she knew about it, too. But she never said a word."

Hardy felt his chest squeeze. "That's awful."

"It was ... confusing. Instinctively I knew what he was doing was wrong. I didn't need anybody to tell me. And I'd get so mad sometimes, but I couldn't say anything. Somehow I knew I'd just get into trouble if I did. So I kept my mouth shut. And for a long time, I hated my dad."

Hardy wanted to reach out to her, but the model was between them.

Maybe a good thing. Getting close to Joni was dangerous to what little peace of mind he'd managed to find over the years.

"Then I got indifferent. Developed the attitude that it wasn't my problem. But I never had a whole lot of respect for my dad. Now ...

now I don't have any respect for my mother, either. Maybe she didn't cheat all the time like he did. Maybe Witt was a onetime thing. But he was her husband's brother. And Witt ... my God, he's so self-righteous sometimes, but he was still capable of cheating with his brother's wife."

"It does sound sordid," Hardy agreed, trying to keep his tone neutral.

At the moment, he felt the best thing he could do for Joni was let her rant. And maybe, at some point, convince her to see a therapist.

Because she had been seriously wounded, wounds so deep he wasn't sure she could get past them without professional help.

She jumped up from the table and started pacing the room, weaving among tables and desks, not even sparing a glance for the wide windows with their view of the snow-covered backyard.

That view was one that often brought him peace. But not today. Today it made an icy backdrop to a friend's crisis.

"Maybe," he said carefully, "it was one of those accidents."

"Accidents?" Her laugh was harsh, bitter. "You don't get in bed with someone by accident."

"Well, okay, it was a poor choice of words. One of those moments of passion. One of those moments when neither one of them was up to snuff. Up to saying no, for whatever reason. A little too much to drink, whatever. Maybe it happened and they've both regretted it ever since."

"So?"

"I'm just saying that maybe your mom didn't consciously cheat on your dad. Maybe she never meant to. Or..." He hesitated, then plunged on.

"Or maybe she just did it in a moment of rage to get even."

Joni shook her head, disgust written all over her face. "Saying no isn't that difficult, Hardy. I've said no plenty of times."

"Yeah? Maybe you just haven't met the right guy under the right circumstances."

You know, he found himself thinking as his words cast the room into utter silence, at his age he ought to have better control of his tongue than that. Now how the hell could he apologize for his remark in a way that would undo it?

But before he could think of anything, Joni was glaring at him. "Just need the right man? Jeez, Hardy, you sound like one of those jerks in a bar! It's not about raging hormones, it's about love and caring."

He knew better, but he supposed that, given her history, she was going to be inclined to feel that way. "Sure," he said, trying to smooth it over. But she was not so easy to placate.

"You men are all like my dad. You want something, you take it, and never mind who it hurts."

"Now wait"

"It was probably all Witt's fault," she said, charging forward without regard to his interruption. "All his fault. He probably seduced my mother."

"Whoa. Are you saying Hannah was a helpless pawn? Because I'll tell you, Joni, I really don't think she'd like that description. What's more, she's not the type to be a helpless pawn. You're just going to have to get used to the idea that your mother and your uncle, for whatever reason, had a passionate affair, albeit probably a brief one.

They're human.

And like all the rest of the damn human race, they make mistakes. "

"Yeah? Then how come you weren't allowed to make a mistake? How come I wasn't? Where the hell does Witt get off being so damn judgmental?"

"He's hurting."

She made a disgusted sound. "Yeah. That's a great excuse. He's hurting, so he spends twelve years lashing out at other people."

"Only at me, Joni. Only at me."

She waved her arm almost wildly. "What right does he have to do that?

What right?"

Hardy looked down at his hands, still holding carefully shaped pieces of wood hardly bigger than toothpicks. He should never, ever, have allowed Joni into his life again, he thought. Never. His chest was so tight he could hardly breathe, and she was bound and determined to keep raking at the past until all the wounds were open again. Witt evidently couldn't handle bleeding all over again, and Hardy wasn't sure he could, either.

"Look, Joni," he said, trying to keep his voice level. "I've spent years trying to get past that night. I may not have done a perfect job of it, but I spend every day of my life trying to look forward and not back. And I really don't want to rake this all up again."

"Sure." She put her hand on her hip and looked at him with disappointment and disgust. "We'll all go back to living in our glass cages, crippled by feelings we can't deal with."

"I've dealt with it. I've been dealing with it for twelve goddamn years!" He didn't mean to shout the words, but they came out that way.

And she shouted right back.

"Right. Dealing with it. And you can't even date! God almighty, Hardy, we're all of us messes and we won't even admit it."

"You...?"

"Me. Yeah, me. I've been feeling guilty every day since Karen died.

Guilty I'm still alive. Guilty I can still have fun. Guilty that I wanted her boyfriend, and I find myself wondering if those jealous thoughts had something... something..."

She broke off, turning her back to him and hunching her shoulders. Her words struck him like bricks, awakening all the guilt he'd been carrying, leaving him feeling almost sick.

"Joni ... Joni, being jealous doesn't kill people. Not unless you pick up a weapon and do it yourself." She had wanted him, too. He'd guessed it. And he'd been about to ditch Karen. Oh, God, he hated himself.

He couldn't say any more. Couldn't bring himself to talk about this with her another minute. All the things he'd thought he'd buried were clawing their way out of the graveyard of his soul and shrieking at him.

It was far from over, he realized as lead settled in his heart. Far from over. Joni was bound and determined to rock the precarious balance they'd all managed to find. She was determined to claw her way out of the past, no matter what the cost.

And he didn't know if he was for her or against her. He didn't know if he could survive it.

Getting to his feet, he walked out of his office, grateful to see that his mother had come back from her lunch date. "Joni's in my office,"

he said abruptly. "Keep an eye on her. She's terribly upset."

Barbara's face creased with concern. "Where are you going?"

"Out. Anywhere."

"Hardy..." But Barbara stopped herself and, with the wisdom of a mother, let him go.

But there was something she could do. Squaring her shoulders, she marched into the office to deal with one problem she could attack. It was time for tough love.

Joni was sitting slumped at the table, such a picture of dejection that Barbara unwillingly felt a twinge of sympathy. Then she thought of the look on her son's face as he'd stormed past her, and she hardened her heart.

"Why are you doing this to Hardy?" she demanded.

"I'm not doing anything to him," Joni said, looking up with red-rimmed eyes. "He's the one who dragged me back here."

"Only to help you. Well, why don't you climb out of that pit of self-pity you seem so determined to sink into, and look around you at what you're doing to other people."

"What I'm doing?"

"What you're doing. You're hurting my son. He's spent twelve years paying for an accident he couldn't prevent. Paying for a crime that was committed by someone else. Hardy's spent twelve years beating himself up, twelve years being haunted by one single night that wasn't his fault. Where the hell do you get off rubbing his nose in it all over again? Why in God's name can't you just leave him in peace?"

Joni's face was as white as the snow outside the window. Her blue eyes were dark, so dark they were like windows on a grave. "Peace?" she repeated thickly. "What peace? None of us have had any peace since that night."

"You're not helping."

"Maybe not." Joni's head sank again, as if it were being weighed down.

"But if we don't ever face it, Mrs. Wingate, we're never going to get past it."

"And you're the self-appointed catalyst for all this healing you think everyone needs, huh?"

Joni shrugged but didn't answer.

Barbara, who had seen the pain written clear on Hardy's face, wanted to stay angry with Joni. Wanted to tell the young woman to get out of her house and never come back.

But as she stood there glaring at Joni's bowed head, her anger began to soften and her kinder side to come to the fore.

As difficult as it had been on Hardy, he'd at least been able to get away from memories of Karen occasionally. To forget it for a few days or even weeks at a time as he became involved in a project. Or took a trip. But Joni. Joni dealt with it every day because she saw Witt every day. Even if he didn't say anything about it, how could Joni see Witt without remembering Karen? God knew, Hardy couldn't.

A sigh escaped her, and she sagged into a chair at the table. Hardy must have been sitting in it when he decided to depart in a hurry, because it hadn't been pushed back under the table, but sat askew. It was a silent testament to his agitation, because Hardy always put things back in their proper places. Even chairs.

"I'm exhausted," Barbara said after a while. "I'm not coming back from that pneumonia as fast as I'd like."

"I'm sorry," Joni said quietly. "You were very ill. And I shouldn't be here."

"No, you stay. I don't mind you being here."

Joni lifted her head. "How can you say that?"

"After getting so angry, you mean?" Barbara shrugged. "Getting angry isn't usually a permanent state of affairs. Not for me, anyway. I said what I needed to, and now I'll put it behind me."

"I wish I could be like you."

Barbara smiled faintly. "I think you have a bit of your uncle in you."

Apparently that was the wrong thing to say, because much to Barbara's horror, tears began to roll down Joni's face.

"He's going to be all right, you know," she said reassuringly. "It was just a little heart attack. He might not like giving up his bacon and eggs at the cafe three mornings a week, but he'll get used to it."

"It's not that," Joni said, tears still flowing, her voice thick with them. "It's not that. It's ... it's that I just found out ... Witt is my father."

Barbara was shocked. It wasn't that such things were unknown to her.