Valentine's Child (25 page)

But it was not her problem. She was a mass of nerves anyway. She hoped,
prayed,
their coming meeting would be a joyous occasion, not confrontation. Maybe J.J. was as nervous as she was. Maybe that was it. Whatever the case, meeting Mandy was the first step toward the rest of all their lives. She had no idea what would come after.

“Turn here,” she directed, and J.J. silently guided the Jeep to the off-ramp and through the series of streets that led to Sherry’s apartment complex.

She had no feeling of coming home. The apartment, she realized distantly, meant as little to her as the colorless years of her life since high school. She’d been more alive and vibrant since Mandy had come into her life and she’d been forced to return to Oceantides. It was as if she’d been on sabbatical all these years. Absolutely everything had changed.

As soon as the Jeep was parked, Sherry slid out of the passenger door, glancing at the cars in the lot, wondering if one of them belonged to the Craigs. But no, she and J.J. were early. Mandy wouldn’t be here until dinnertime.

J.J. didn’t follow her to the door. “Are you coming?” she asked. He shook his head. His tension was palpable, and she felt a wave of empathy. “I can make coffee and sandwiches.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Neither am I.”

She let herself inside, flicking on lights against the growing darkness as night fell outside. Shivering a bit, she turned up the heat just as J.J., apparently reconsidering, stepped across the threshold and closed the door.

“I’m not hungry, but I’m freezing,” she said, plugging in the coffee maker.

J.J. stood at the edge of the cabinets that separated her U-shaped kitchen from the rest of the apartment. His silence unnerved her, and she kept her gaze on the coffee maker, watching steaming water gurgle through the filter. Now it was her turn to be unable to look at him.

“I know about the money.”

His voice could have chilled the Sahara. Sherry shivered and asked automatically, “The money?”

“That Patrice gave you.”

Sherry gazed at him in anguish. An unfathomable ache filled her chest. She was beaten. Aunt Elena had signed the check and she hadn’t stopped her. Sherry may have given her mother her life, but it had cost her J.J. “Aren’t you even going to try to deny it?” He asked hoarsely.

“I told the Patrice I’d pay her back.”

“Oh, God …” His words were a soft prayer. He sagged against the counter. Automatically she moved to help him but he jerked away and Sherry stopped short, stunned by his withdrawal.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured.

Betrayal filled his eyes. “I always told myself you were different. All these years, at some level I believed you were the one. I lied to myself about it, but then suddenly, here you were.
And I believed in you.
”

Sherry couldn’t answer him. No excuse was good enough.

“You know I expected you to tell me it was all a trick. Something my mother managed to pull off. I never knew why she hated you so much. I couldn’t understand.” His voice broke and he stopped himself.

“J.J… .”

“Don’t call me that!” His voice shook with loathing. “I told you I loved you, but I don’t know you. It’s all a lie!”

“Mandy’s real.”

The buzz of Sherry’s apartment bell felt like an electric jolt.

“She’s here,” Sherry said. A shudder went through J.J.’s strong frame as she walked to the door, her legs lead weights. It took every ounce of willpower she possessed to twist the knob.

“Hi,” she greeted Mandy and Gina and Tom Craig. “We’ve been looking forward to seeing you …”

Sherry sat in an armchair, too exhausted to do more than cradle her cup of coffee and watch the proceedings as if she were an uninterested party. Tom and Gina Craig sat on the love seat that flanked her left side. J.J. and Mandy stood tensely near the counter that divided the kitchen from view. They clearly did not know what to do with each other, but their fascination was obvious. From the moment Mandy had crossed the threshold, she and J.J. hadn’t taken their eyes off each other. Having gone through the same experience so recently, Sherry could well understand their absorption and shock.

As for her, there was another kind of turmoil inside her breast. He hated her. She’d taken the money and he hated her. Why, in all the worry over their secret love child, had she never considered that this would be the mortal wound?

Gina leaned toward Sherry. “They look a lot alike, don’t they?”

“Yes.” Sherry attempted a smile.

“It’s all so difficult …”

Sherry nodded.

“I’ve worried for years,” Gina confided. “As an adoptive parent you know that someday your child’s going to ask questions. We never hid her adoption from her, but we didn’t encourage a lot of discussion, either. It was too hard. And then when Mandy wanted to find you, I resisted a little. I guess I was afraid she’d love you more.”

Sherry nearly choked on her coffee. Her gaze was on Mandy’s expressive face. Although Mandy tried to hide it, her delight in meeting her father was self-evident. Her cheeks were flushed and her blue eyes sparkled. She smoothed back one of her braids, her fingers twisting the rubber-banded end, a self-conscious gesture that displayed none of the defiance she’d shown when she’d first met Sherry.

“He didn’t know, did he?” Gina guessed, throwing a look at J.J.

“Pardon?”

“About Mandy. You told him after Mandy found you. That’s what took so long.”

“No, he didn’t know,” Sherry admitted.

“He’s not going to tell her. At least, not now. He’s going to protect you.”

Sherry laughed without humor. “He wouldn’t protect me. He’ll protect Mandy.”

“In time, it will all work out.” Gina smiled. “I really did worry a lot before. I was so afraid she would meet you both and all of a sudden you’d be this happy family, and Mandy would be gone.”

Tom reached over and silently clasped his wife’s hand. It was then Sherry realized that Gina was trembling; that this whole scenario was so incredibly hard on her.

“You never had to worry,” Sherry blurted out. “You’re her parents. You raised her. I can’t deny I haven’t had those same dreams, but that’s not the way it works.”

“When she got so belligerent, I blamed myself,” Gina murmured, tears developing in the corners of her eyes. “I wanted to just hold on and keep her home.”

“You can’t do that,” Tom muttered, as if he’d said it a thousand times before, which he probably had.

Gina nodded. “No, you can’t. But it’s
so hard!
”

“You’ve been really wonderful,” Tom interjected seriously. “Gina was so afraid, and so was I, that meeting her parents would backfire and Mandy would be more angry.”

Sherry twisted her cup in her hands and flipped a look at J.J. His animosity toward her was carefully veiled, or with any luck, momentarily forgotten, as he talked quietly with Mandy. “I think it’s a good thing.”

“Oh, it is.” Gina nodded. “I’m so glad.”

“I guess we’re all wondering what the future will bring,” Tom said, and at that moment there was a lull in J.J. and Mandy’s intimacy.

“Mandy says you’re not flying back until this weekend,” J.J. said to Tom and Gina. “If that’s the case, I’d like to invite you all to Oceantides, where I live.”

Mandy’s bright face turned eagerly to her parents. Tom and Gina looked uncertain, and the pain in Sherry’s breast swelled to drastic proportions. She wanted to be a part of this. She wanted to be invited, but she knew there was no hope.

“All right,” Tom agreed.

For a split-second J.J. glanced at Sherry. His thoughts were unreadable, but the slant of his jaw told a story of its own.

“I’m driving home tonight,” he suggested. “Why don’t I take you all to your hotel and we’ll pick up your luggage and go …”

The yearbook tumbled out of her closet as if it had been waiting for just the right moment to surprise her. Stuffed beneath the piles of belts and jewelry, she’d taken it to be part of the shelf during her search. Her eye had traveled over it a dozen times while she’d concentrated on more hidden areas where she’d assumed the yearbook must be.

Now, when one of her belts lopped down and impeded the closet door, she yanked the offending article out and the yearbook followed. A sense of premonition ticked icily down Sherry’s spine. Frozen for a moment, she almost reluctantly picked it up and carried it to the bed.

J.J. and company had been gone less than an hour, and in that time she’d desperately tried to put them out of her mind. Thinking about them was dangerous. She’d always wanted a family and for the second time in her life she was the uninvited and unwelcome interloper. Couldn’t she be a part of it? Couldn’t she?

She’d called Dee at work, but Dee had been unable to talk because she was working alone and there were just enough customers to keep interrupting their conversation. Sherry had offered to help, but Dee absolutely insisted she stay home and “work through this.” Sherry thought working at the deli might be a better antidote, but she could sense how weary she was. So, she’d prowled around the apartment in misery and frustration and then the yearbook had popped into her possession.

With slightly unsteady fingers she opened the gilt-edged cover. Memories from high school flooded her vision. Jennifer and Julie and Roxanne and Summer, and most of all, J.J. Beckett. Casually she turned the pages, lingering on his senior picture, consumed by how young he looked. How young
she
looked.

It was all well and good remembering, but it struck Sherry how incredibly long ago and far away it was.

His football pictures brought back an extra tingle of resentment. She’d been blamed, after all, for the team’s floundering in the play-offs. But seeing him drawn back for a pass, right hand in the air, his uniform mud spattered, a surge of players surrounding him, Sherry suddenly wondered what all the fuss was about. Why had she cared so much? Why had everyone? It was silly, really. A silly game. A silly time of her life. There was absolutely no reason to waste all this energy on something that, in the end, mattered so little.

Closing the book, Sherry flopped down on her bed. She considered calling him and telling him all the reasons why she’d done what she had, but he probably wouldn’t take her call anyway. The yearbook images stayed in her head. And in her soul was the deepest heartbreak she’d experienced to date.

Her eyes burned and she laid her cheek onto the comforter and tried not to think at all.

The floorboards of the tree house were mushy with rot. Jake stepped gingerly across them to the window. It was a strange feeling, being here, but yesterday Mandy had insisted on climbing inside and Jake, fearing for her safety, had accompanied her and they’d spent a pleasant afternoon together.

Mandy was gone now. He’d driven her, Tom and Gina to Sea-Tac airport this morning. But her memory lingered and Jake couldn’t help the chuckle that erupted from him now as he glanced toward Beckett Manor.

Mandy had taken Patrice by storm!

Not that he hadn’t been in a state of delayed shock himself; meeting his full-grown daughter had left him speechless and locked in amazement. But when they arrived in Oceantides and Patrice got a look at Mandy — and narrow-eyed, Mandy regarded her grandmother right back — the fun began. Woe to anyone who tried to mold Mandy Craig, and Patrice jumped right in to do just that. Patrice might not like Sherry, but Beckett blood was Beckett blood and she’d been determined, by God, to win her granddaughter to her side. Being her usual forceful self, Patrice had taken over, dragging Mandy through the house and yammering madly about what it meant to be a Beckett. What Patrice didn’t count on was that Mandy was a Beckett through and through; she wasn’t about to be coerced, cajoled or forced into anything. And Mandy said so, in no uncertain terms.