The Homecoming Baby (6 page)

Mitch was tolerant, wise, good-natured—and kind of cute, in a big brown puppy sort of way. What on earth was Trish thinking? Good guys like Mitch Dixon didn't come knocking at a girl's door very often. Celia herself had been looking for one for years now.

“So you'll help me?”

“I might.” He gave her a wink. “As long as you can promise me Trish won't find out.”

“She won't.”

“Okay, then let me guess. You need me to find some excuse to keep the Scratch and Dent guy here so that the Hit and Run guy will be the one to take you home tonight.”

She groaned. “God, Mitch, is that scratch and dent joke all over town?”

“Pretty much, I'm afraid.”

She shook her head helplessly. “Anyhow, yes, that's exactly what I need. You see, my date was with Patrick. Jerry showed up unannounced. And now he won't budge. He's sweet, but he has very little imagination.”

His brown eyes twinkled. “Or maybe he has too much, and knows what might happen if he relinquishes the field.”

“It's been over between us for months,” she said. “Jerry was supposed to forget about me. He was supposed to get on with his life.”

He smiled. “Well, speaking as a guy in a similar situation, I have to say I respect a man who shows a little persistence.”

“You're not anything like Jerry, Mitch. And besides, the circumstances are completely different. Trish has had a tough life. It's made her very—”

“Stubborn?”

She laughed. “I was going to say cautious. But you'll get around that, I know you will. Just keep trying.”

They walked to the door, but just before they opened it Mitch put his hand on her shoulder. “One last thing,” he said. “I need you to promise me something.”

She looked up at him. “Anything.”

“Promise me you'll be careful. This Patrick guy seems nice, but you really don't know much about him yet. And there's something about him—I don't know. He reminds me…”

He shrugged and let the sentence drop. “I just want you to go slow. Don't go putting your heart out where anybody can stomp on it.”

Celia smiled. “Mitch, honestly. Don't listen to Trish. She worries about everything, and she—”

He shook his head. “This isn't about Trish. It's
about you. Face it, Miss Scratch and Dent. Trish may not be a romance expert, but
neither are you.
”

 

P
ATRICK WASN'T SURPRISED
when Celia accepted his offer to drive her home.

After all, she'd gone to a good deal of trouble arranging to get rid of Jerry, the well-meaning but rather dim bulb of an ex-boyfriend. She'd clearly enlisted the help of the restaurant owner, Mitch.

Mitch was one of those honest guys who didn't make a very good actor. He'd poked his head out right around closing time and stiltedly announced that he had some sales contracts on which he needed legal advice. Would Jerry please come back and help him out?

Jerry obviously didn't like it but was too polite to say no. Besides, he undoubtedly knew that he was a bit of a third wheel on Celia's date anyhow. He was going to have to concede defeat sooner or later, and Mitch's offer allowed him to save face.

Still, Patrick felt sorry for the kid as he said good-night and trudged back to Mitch's office. After having spent the evening watching her golden hair sparkling under the Silver Eagle's chandeliers, listening to her intelligent conversation, enjoying her cute, music-box laughter and occasionally catching a soft waft of her cinnamon-and-wildflowers perfume, he understood that losing Celia Brice couldn't be easy.

He kept her talking on the way home—partly because he enjoyed the sound of her voice. And partly
because getting information from her was still his main agenda.

He asked a few questions about the buildings they passed, and she offered a couple of anecdotes about Enchantment. He enjoyed it. She told a great story. She was witty and insightful, and although she poked gentle fun at her little town, clearly she loved Enchantment and everything in it.

When they arrived at her complex, he turned off the engine and looked over at her. Illuminated by the moon, her hair seemed almost white, and her profile looked like the princess carved on a silver coin.

He ought to ask another question. He needed to work the conversation around to the Linden family somehow. He didn't want to be stuck in Enchantment, New Mexico, forever while he tried to ferret out Angelina Linden's location.

But, his private agenda aside, he was still a normal, red-blooded male, and Celia Brice was a pretty amazing woman. The urge to kiss her was beginning to be distracting.

And if one kiss led to another… If one
thing
led to another… What would be the harm in that? They were both consenting adults, after all.

As soon as he began formulating those rationalizations, though, he knew they were pure bull. He recognized her kind. Though it was rare, it wasn't extinct. Every inch of her projected a clean, idealistic innocence that told him she wouldn't be very good at short-term flings.

She would sleep with him. Patrick hadn't met the
woman yet who wouldn't surrender sooner or later. Usually sooner. But she wouldn't understand the rules.

She'd get hurt.

And that was the very thing he'd vowed he wouldn't do. He wasn't his father. He didn't hurt people for fun.

In the silence left behind while he wrestled with his conscience, Celia sighed. She stretched a little, like a silver cat in the moonlight.

“It's been such a lovely evening,” she said. “Would you like to come up for some coffee?”

Her smile was so unaffected. It made the classic question seem utterly sincere.

He knew, though, what would happen if he went into her apartment. He knew as if he saw it played out before him like a movie.

“That probably isn't a great idea,” he said. She looked crestfallen, and he smiled. “But your apartment complex looks like a fascinating old building. Spanish Colonial, isn't it? I'll bet it has a courtyard that looks great by moonlight.”

That beautiful smile again. Ivory and silver and stardust. Yes, he'd seen a lot of women in his day, but he'd never seen one quite as tempting as Celia Brice.

“Yes, it does!” She opened her door. “Come on. I'll show it to you.”

The night was clear and chilly, and there were so many stars it looked as if someone had knocked over a bottle of glitter. Patrick realized he wasn't used to
seeing the sky without peeking through skyscrapers. Out here it was so big it made you feel as if you could actually breathe better.

The complex, Celia explained quietly, obviously reluctant to disturb her sleeping neighbors, was an abandoned Spanish Colonial hotel that Mitch Dixon had renovated and turned into eight large apartments.

A two-story white structure, it had been designed in a square, with arched colonnades on the first floor, and cool, shady loggias on the second. The back doors of the apartments all opened onto a common area, an open, bricked courtyard complete with ivy climbing up the walls, hanging baskets of bougainvillea, potted trees and, of course, the requisite water feature, a bubbling, three-tiered fountain.

“We spend a lot of time out here,” she said as she led him to the center to get the best view. “All of us know each other pretty well by now. Lately we've started having potluck dinner parties out here at least once a month.”

He propped one leg up on the rim of the fountain's lower basin and scanned the pretty courtyard. “That must be fun.”

“Oh, it is!” She gestured toward the rooftops with her pale arms. “We string lights, and we mix up sangria in punch bowls. Eddie Lopez in number 5, he's a painter, and he plays the guitar like a bard. We get a little tipsy, and we dance like gypsies.”

She spun around, playfully illustrating. Her long white skirt twirled like a whirlpool of moonbeams. Watching her, he could almost see the parties. He
could see her dancing, her hair tangled, her lips and cheeks red from the wine. No wonder Eddie was inspired to make poetry on his guitar.

When she stopped spinning, she was very close, close enough for him to see the silver spangles of moonlight in her golden hair.

“You should come to the next one.” She tilted her head. “If you're still here, I mean. If you'd like to.”

“Celia—”

She took a deep breath. “You know, I don't honestly know how to bring this up, but I just thought I should tell you. Jerry—the guy you met tonight. Jerry isn't…you see, we're not…”

“I know you're not.”

She frowned. “You do? How? He was kissing me when you came in. He'd never done that before, not ever. But I was afraid that you'd think that he—that we—”

He chuckled. “No,” he said. “I definitely didn't think that.”

“Oh, really.” She tilted her head, giving him a teasing smile, as if she thought that might not be a compliment. “Why not?”

She was standing right next to the fountain, and it splashed tiny droplets of water onto her cheek. They clung in the downy blond hairs that grew near her temples. He could hardly take his eyes off those shining dewdrops. He had the sudden ridiculous notion that he'd like to kiss the place where they nestled.

“Well, why not?” she asked again.

“Because I know what a woman looks like when
she wants to be kissed. It's written on her face. It's written in every muscle of her body. And that's not how you looked.”

“It's not?”

He shook his head. “Not at all.”

“Oh.” She looked at him for a long moment with clear, unblinking eyes. She took another deep breath. “Well, how do I look now?”

He started to toss back a flip response, but then he realized she wasn't being coy. Both honesty and urgency lay behind that liquid gaze. She was so different from anyone else he'd ever known—and that alone was somehow exciting. Something hot spiked in his blood, like a jolt of electricity.

“Celia, listen—”

He wasn't sure what he thought he was going to say. But it didn't matter. Suddenly nothing mattered except that she wanted him to kiss her. And he was going to do it.

He slid his hand behind her back, her fragile bones curving against his palm. He pulled her in, and he felt the warmth of her breasts against his chest. Her heart was very light and fast, a sweet counterpoint to his own pounding beat.

Yes. He closed his eyes against a sudden flood of desire. He was going to kiss her, and it was going to be as intoxicating as drinking undiluted moonbeams.

“Celia?” The new voice seemed to come from a long way away. “Are you out there? Don't you think you should come in, sweetheart? It's getting very late.”

Like a star falling out of the sky and smashing onto
the courtyard bricks, reality crashed into the picture. As if someone had shut off all the special effects—the shimmering moonlight, the mist drifting around their feet, the aroma of starflowers and the far-off echo of liquid music—the courtyard became once again mere bricks and mortar, potted geraniums and electrically pumped fountain water.

Celia, too, became a mere woman, tensing in his arms with frustration, and something that looked a little like embarrassment. He followed her gaze with his own. The woman's voice had come from one of the arched colonnades—one of the downstairs apartments.

“Yes, Trish. I'm here.” Her voice was polite, but laced a little more tightly than before. “Patrick brought me home, and I was showing him the courtyard.”

The woman spoke again. “It's getting cold. Don't you think you should come in?”

Celia cleared her throat and smoothed her hair around her shoulders. “Trish, come meet Patrick. I know it's late, but I've been eager for you two to meet each other.”

A pause. Then a small, uncomfortable laugh. “All right,” Trish said. “Just for a minute.”

After the first sting of animal frustration, Patrick hadn't been particularly annoyed at the woman for interrupting them. If anything, he was grateful. Things could quite easily have gone too far.

And besides, if this really was Trish Linden, she was—

Angelina's sister. The very woman he had come to Enchantment to meet.

In spite of himself, his pulse began to thrum. Trish Linden was his aunt.
His aunt.
The first and only real blood relative he'd ever set eyes on.

But even now something in him wanted to reject the idea. Patrick realized how intensely he wanted Don Frost's information to be wrong.

He didn't want this hideous history.

He hated the idea of being the town tragedy, the bloody urban legend, the ghostly infant who had haunted the dreams of high school girls for more than thirty years.

He hated the idea that his mother had left him there to die.

But it was no longer up to him. He'd set this investigation in motion, and now he'd have to live with whatever he discovered. And so he watched in complete silence while the newcomer walked toward them, emerging from the shadows.

He realized he was holding his breath. And as soon as he met Patricia Linden's wide, horrified eyes, he saw the truth.

This woman knew him.

She had recognized him in one look. And it had taken the breath right out of her. Her mouth was open, as if she were choking. It was clearly all she could do not to cry out—or run away.

So, God help him, it was true. It was true, in all its glorious, horrible irony.

Patrick Torrance had come home.

T
RISH QUIETLY CLOSED HER DOOR
and locked it. Then she went into her bedroom, sank to the edge of her bed and folded her hands in her lap.

Her fingers twitched against each other, and under them her knees were trembling as if she were cold.

Somehow she steadied them. She must not fall apart.

A mournful ripple of guitar music came in through the window, like the sound of someone crying. She started for a moment, then realized it must be Eddie, her next door neighbor. He frequently practiced at odd hours, trying to learn some of the old Mexican ballads, which were invariably sad. Death, lost love, murder, ghosts. No wonder she found it hard to sleep.

Oh, look. She'd left the window cracked. That must be why she was so cold. She reached across the bedside table, pulled the window down and locked it.

That was better. Now nothing could get in.

For many minutes she stared at the blank, butter-colored wall in front of her, gathering her composure. She had decorated this apartment with a monastic simplicity, and that simplicity braced her now. She lived like a woman with no past—and no real anticipation of a future.

The twin bed was hand carved, but needed refinishing. The wooden floors were clean and bare. Three homemade quilts were folded on their rack under the window, ready to be donated to The Birth Place. The armchair in the corner held the beginnings of her fourth. Over the years, quilting had helped to pass many a sleepless night.

The bedside table held only four things: the reading glasses she'd recently begun to need, the novel she'd borrowed from the library, a plain lamp and a picture of the Bridge of Sighs in Venice.

In a way, this spare apartment symbolized the bargain she'd made with Fate a few years ago, after the last of her futile attempts to put together a normal love life had failed.

She wasn't going to bother with all that anymore. She would work hard. Be useful. She would not ask for the things other people had. She wouldn't ask for trinkets and frills, any more than she would ask for love and family and laughter.

She'd lost any right to those things thirty years ago, the night her sister and Tee Ellis disappeared.

That horrible, horrible night.

No one knew the whole truth about that night. Some people knew pieces of it—other people had guessed a little more. But no one, not even the police, who had tried to find out, knew exactly how Tee Ellis had ended up at the bottom of a mineshaft, or why Angelina's body had never been found.

No one knew that but Trish herself.

And only she knew that the tragedy was really all
her fault. Only she knew how much damage a fifteen-year-old's desperate jealousy could do. Only she knew how a fat, gawky girl could envy her butterfly-brilliant older sister. How her lumbering, stolid body could hide a painful love…for the boy in her sister's arms.

She remembered the night those unwanted feelings had been born. Tee had always been reckless—it was part of his appeal. But that night he had been worse than ever. He had made love to Angelina at three in the morning, in their own front yard, while a frozen, hypnotized fifteen-year-old Trish had listened from the upstairs window.

She had been so afraid—afraid of what their daddy would do if he heard, but even more afraid of the strange feelings that stirred in her own clumsy body as the muffled noises below grew primal, piercing. It was almost as if Tee were hurting Angelina, as if he were killing her.

Tee had known Trish was there, of course. When it was over, he had looked up at her window and grinned. Blue-eyed, black-hearted Tee—with that smile that could make good girls do very, very bad things.

Tee's smile… Suddenly the face Trish had just seen in the courtyard—Patrick Torrance's face—rose before her, as vivid and clear as if she had hung his picture on her wall.

Oh, God.

It was no coincidence. Patrick Torrance was Tee Ellis's son. Her whole body knew who he was. He
had Tee's eyes, Tee's mouth, Tee's hair. Yet he was indisputably a Linden, too. He had the same small cleft in his chin that had been a part of Angelina's famed beauty, and their father's domineering charm.

Trish reached out and opened the drawer of her nightstand. Her fingers were still trembling, so she moved very carefully.

In the drawer, under her spare glasses and her hand lotion, were two pictures she had never framed.

The first one was Angelina and Tee together. Angie sat on the ground, and Tee knelt behind her, his hand under her chin, getting ready to tilt it ruthlessly upward, so that he could kiss her. Tee looked as cocky and dangerous as ever. Angie looked mesmerized—hopelessly in love.

The other picture was of Mitch Dixon, taken last summer. He stood halfway up a ladder, sweaty and disheveled from repairing the roof of the apartment complex. He was laughing, waving his hand to make her put the camera down. He thought he looked too dirty, but Trish loved the picture. He looked kind and purposeful, lighthearted and good.

So she'd kept it, though she knew she had no right, considering the deal she had long ago made with Fate. If only she could be forgiven for her sins, she'd promised, if only they could stay buried in the past, she wouldn't ask for more.

Maybe that's why this had happened tonight. Maybe Fate knew she had begun to fudge on her side of the bargain. At the Silver Eagle, hadn't she been looking at Mitch, wondering if maybe she could be
allowed to have something of her own after all? Hadn't she been thinking, for that one weak moment, how nice it would be to open her heart and let Mitch Dixon in?

What a fool she was! She should have known it was impossible. If Mitch knew the truth about her, he wouldn't want her anymore, anyhow.

She took the picture of Tee and Angelina, held it at both ends, and began to tear it into small pieces.

Two pieces. Four, six… She should have done this years ago.

Because the past wasn't going to stay buried. It was free. And it had found her.

“Trish?”

The apartment was small enough that she could hear Celia's careful whisper. She heard the light knocking. “Trish? Are you still awake?”

But Trish didn't answer the door. She didn't want to see Celia right now. Though she didn't realize it, Celia was the one who had brought the past to Trish's door.

Trish was not so delusional that she could make herself believe Patrick had ended up in Enchantment by pure chance. No, he was there because he knew. He knew about his birth, and now he would insist on knowing more.

Patrick would want to know about his father, who had lain for two years in the silent, sunless air of a forgotten mineshaft. He would want to know how such a thing could happen.

And then… The torn pieces of photograph dropped from her limp fingers and fluttered to the ground.

And then he would want to know where he could find his mother.

 

“S
OY ARREPENTIDO
, señor, pero yo no puedo fijar su coche hoy.”

Patrick stared at the mechanic, a skinny young Mexican boy named Lugo. Lugo's father, who had fixed Patrick's car in the first place, wasn't around. So now that Patrick's car had begun to make strange noises again, it was Lugo who looked at it, shook his shaggy black hair and finally, wiping his hands on his dirty rag, pronounced that indecipherable sentence.

Patrick thought of the years of Japanese and Chinese instruction he'd taken—which had resulted in a fairly decent acquaintance with both languages, enough at least for a comfortable professional dialogue. But he'd never taken Spanish, which he now saw had been a serious mistake.

The boy looked at him as if he were an idiot.
“Soy arrepentido, señor,”
he repeated, a little louder and more slowly.
“Pero yo no puedo fijar su coche hoy.”

Patrick made out just three words, but they were enough. No,
hoy
and
señor. Not today, mister.

He cursed. The boy's face darkened, and Patrick quickly apologized. He'd forgotten that some words were pretty much part of a universal language. “I need my car,” he said. “Surely it's just a belt or something?”

The boy folded his arms. “No.”

“Well, how long? Tomorrow?” He searched his mind. “Mañana?”

The boy shrugged.
“¿Por qué usted está en tal apuro? Nuestro pueblo tiene muchos lugares interesantes para ver.”

Patrick didn't comprehend a word of that one. He went over and peered at the engine, as if he might see something Lugo had missed. The kid watched him, his expression just barely short of contemptuous eye-rolling. Apparently Lugo measured a man's worth by the calluses on his hands, and he had already judged Patrick a citified loser.

Patrick saw nothing, of course. He thought about asking Lugo when his dad would be back, but decided it would insult the boy.

Great. Now what? Suddenly Patrick's cell phone rang. He straightened up, banged his head on the hood of the car, which gave Lugo a chuckle, and answered the phone.

“Yes. What.” It wasn't a very polite greeting, but damn it, his head hurt, and Lugo was getting a rather conspicuous kick out of watching him rub the sore spot.

“What on earth is the matter with you, Patrick? It's Ellyn. I'm sorry if I've caught you at a bad time, but you did ask me to call you.”

He shut his eyes. “Sorry. I'm just having a really rotten day.”

“Then come on home,” she said sweetly. “I've got a Elves and Fairies SpringFest fund-raiser for the
ASPCA next Saturday. Everyone will miss you if you're not there.”

Good God. He tried to imagine the costume Ellyn probably had picked out for him to wear. Suddenly the small-town, casual, fresh-air feel of Enchantment didn't seem so bad after all. It beat a bunch of bored grown-ups playing elves and fairies in the backyard of some millionaire's faux-Versailles estate.

“I'm afraid I can't make it,” he said, trying to sound disappointed. “I haven't finished my business here, and besides, my car is making weird noises. It's probably not safe to drive, and they can't repair it right away.”

“So?” Ellyn sounded confused. “Get a loaner from the dealership.”

He tried to imagine exactly where in Enchantment, New Mexico, they would put the Mercedes dealership. “Can't,” he said. “Town's too small to have one.”

“It is?” Ellyn was a nice woman, but she was San Francisco born and bred. The only small towns she'd ever actually seen were quaint little Italian rooftops that formed the view from her rental villas. “Where on earth
are
you?”

“Enchantment, New Mexico.”

Her pause spoke volumes.

“Oh,” she said. He could tell she was itching to ask him why—but she'd been brought up to believe that gracious women never badgered men for information the men didn't offer voluntarily. “I see.”

She didn't, of course. How could she? She didn't
even know he had discovered he was adopted. She certainly couldn't have guessed that he had traced his origins to the dingy girl's bathroom at the Enchantment public high school. If he told her the whole story right now, she probably wouldn't believe him.

He hardly believed it himself.

But apparently it was true. Actually he'd known it was true the minute he'd met Lydia Kane at The Birth Place. Don Frost's notes had indicated that Lydia had handled the adoption. She was a midwife, not an adoption counselor. There couldn't be all that many babies under her care who got offered for adoption—so of course the name Torrance had been familiar.

Even before he gave his name, though, she'd recognized his face. That had been interesting. He must look a great deal like either his father or his mother.

And, just in case he'd needed more proof, Trish Linden's ashen face last night had provided it. After meeting him, she had managed to make a bare minimum of respectable small talk, but her panic had been palpable. She obviously recognized him, and she couldn't wait to get away.

Apparently the Linden family still didn't want to acknowledge their relationship to Patrick Torrance. Apparently they were still eager to run away from the responsibility, the scandal, the shame.

Well, it may have been easy to run away from the whimpering baby on the bathroom floor. It was going to be somewhat more difficult to escape the grown man—the man who intended, for the first time in
thirty years, to place blame squarely where it belonged.

On the shoulders of Angelina Linden.

“Ellyn, I was hoping you'd do me a favor.”

“Of course,” she said. “Do you need me to come get you?”

“No, I'm fine. I just need you to mail me something.”

If she was disappointed, she didn't let it show. “Of course. What?”

“In the left hand drawer of the desk in my office at home, there's a file, a large one, marked Dr. Anton Misrati.”

“All right. I'm sure I can find that.”

“Thanks. If you'd just mail me that file, I'd appreciate it. Just address it to me, care of the Morning Light Bed and Breakfast, Enchantment, New Mexico. Send it priority, if you would. I'd like to get it in a couple of days.”

She didn't ask who Dr. Misrati was, or what was in the file so urgent he needed to get it ASAP. Ellyn was one of a kind, which was why he'd chosen her for this task.

He had put all the documents into a closed envelope, but the seal could be easily broken by anyone who wanted to snoop. Patrick trusted his employees—to a point. Ellyn was different. She'd been so well bred she'd never, ever pry into someone else's affairs, no matter how curious she might be.

Which was a very good thing, because these documents would shock even people far less sheltered
than Ellyn Grainger. In that overstuffed file were copies of all the emergency room reports, X rays and doctor's notes—dozens of them, each in dry but graphic detail—that documented more than ten years of Julian Torrance's systematic abuse of his adopted son, Patrick.