Winds of Change (15 page)

Could Nikki not at least have faced up to her? Clearly not. She was as bad as her aunt Miranda.

Then a terrible thought occurred to Regina, so terrible she froze where she stood.

Was
she
like her brother Sebastian?
Were they both bullies?

No, of course she wasn't. She was only trying to help her daughter. Sebastian, on the other hand, was trying to keep hold of their sister's money. And succeeding. He didn't give two hoots whether Miranda was happy or not.

When she'd calmed down a little, Regina rang her daughter's mobile phone, but only got voicemail.

‘For heaven's sake, Nikki, ring me back or better still, come home and discuss things with me. Running away never solves any problems.'

She ended the call and went to unpack but kept finding herself standing stock-still in the middle of a task, worrying about her daughter.

In Wiltshire Katie Parrish looked at the letter, wondering who could be writing to her. Shrugging, keeping one eye on the clock, she tore it open and began to skim through it. The words seemed to shimmer in front of her as she tried to take in what they meant.

She forced herself to breath deeply a few times then read the letter through slowly.

Dear Ms Parrish

I believe you've been searching for your birth parents for a while now. I'm sorry I didn't find out about this until recently.

If you're still interested, I may have information about your birth father.

Could you please email me at the above address? If you don't now wish to pursue matters, I shall not trouble you again.

Yours faithfully,

B. Lanigan

She began to shake as she read it for the third time and had to fumble her way to a chair. She'd given up on her search because she'd not had a single response on the two websites she'd found to post such queries.

‘Mum? I have to go to school now.
Mum?
'

She jerked upright and stuffed the letter into her handbag. Ned came running into the room, ready to leave, so she grabbed her car keys and led the way out.

Five minutes later she sat in the car and watched him dash into the playground. He joined the other little boys and she watched them running round, gesticulating wildly, throwing balls, anything but standing still. Groups of mothers were chatting by the gates. She wasn't as good as Ned at making friends and hesitated to join them. She'd do it soon, but not today.

She drove home, sighing as she went back into the too-quiet house. Having a husband serving in the armed forces made life difficult. When he was back home, life was wonderful, but he was on a tour of duty in Afghanistan at the moment and she was back to months of raising Ned on her own. And she wasn't coping as well as she'd expected to.

If only her parents were still around, she'd be able to discuss this letter with her father, but he'd died suddenly of cancer three years ago. Her mother had remarried last year and gone to live in Cornwall. She could ring Mum up when she needed advice, and they often chatted – about everything except this.

Her mother didn't understand her desire to meet her birth parents and got upset when it was mentioned. Her father had told her to find them, if it meant so much to her. And it did.

She pulled out the piece of paper and read the brief message again.

Should she reply to it, go further? Or would she be opening a can of worms that would put barriers between herself and Mum? If she did open the can and didn't like what she found inside, she might not be able to put the lid on again. Pandora's Box hadn't meant much to her when she learned about Greek legends at school, but it did now.

Like the mythical Pandora, she was a classic case of curiosity leading to something unknown and potentially dangerous. If she hadn't ferreted through the old papers in the attic when she was a teenager, she'd not have found out she was adopted. Her parents said they'd intended to tell her when she was older, but she suspected her mother wouldn't have done so unless forced.

Since then Katie had become consumed with a desire to meet the two people who had created her and to learn about her birth family background.

She closed her eyes and tried to work out what to do now. Should she reply and risk upsetting Mum still further? After all, her adoptive mother had been good to her and was letting her live in the family home rent-free now that she'd moved to Cornwall with her second husband.

Should she abandon the quest altogether? Mum thought she'd done that already, but hope had still lingered, even though the searches had been fruitless. She'd not been adopted through any known adoption agency, but privately, so it was much harder to find things out. There simply were no records, well, not that she'd been able to trace. How had her birth parents managed to do this?

She sighed and began to fiddle with the corner of the letter, folding it carefully at ninety degrees, then unfolding it and doing the same to the other corners.

She was, she decided suddenly, going to reply and ask this B. Lanigan for further information. She'd never be able to forget this now.

Miranda spent the next two weeks in a whirl of activity, encouraged and often accompanied by Lou.

At Sally's prompting, Sebastian had signed an agreement to pay her what seemed a substantial sum every month.

‘I don't think we can squeeze any more out of him,' Lou said regretfully.

‘It's far more than I've ever had before.'

‘But the trust is generating a lot more income than they're giving you, so you
ought
to be living more comfortably. If anything happens to you, the capital will go to your nieces and nephews.'

The words slipped out before she could prevent them. ‘Unless I can trace my daughter.'

‘Have you never tried to do that? There are places where you can register to say you want to contact your child.'

‘I know. But it didn't seem fair while she was growing up and then, well, there was Dad getting grumpier by the day. I have looked on line but the Family Tracing Service here doesn't seem to do much if you don't have certain information. I don't even know the date the baby was handed over, or which adoption service they used. I haven't been able to find
anything
out.'

His voice was very gentle. ‘We could hire a private investigator.' He gave her one of his wry smiles. ‘I know a guy who can work miracles when it comes to getting hold of information. He's saved my bacon a few times.'

She didn't trust her voice not to quaver, because the thought of actually finding her daughter made her feel as if she was standing on a precipice, so nodded breathlessly.

‘Right then.' He pulled out his notebook. ‘Who handled the adoption?'

‘My father.' She explained about the years in a mental hospital and saw horror on his face, but he didn't withdraw from her.

‘Your own father had you committed.'

‘Yes. And the drugs they forced on me made it feel like being in prison in your own body. It took me a while to recover, even after I came out of that place.' She brushed away a tear. ‘He must have forged my signature on the adoption papers and it was all finished with by the time I realized what was happening. I only saw my baby once.'

Breath whistled into his mouth. ‘He played dirty.'

‘Yes. He always boasted that he played to win, whatever it took. Sebastian's the same.'

‘I'll get my guy on to it. We want to speed this up.'

‘I can see to all that later, Lou. Just leave me with some pointers.'

‘Let me help you now. If you could get in touch with your daughter, I'd not be leaving you on your own and that'd make me very happy.' He held out one hand to her. ‘You're the gentlest, kindest person I've ever met, Miranda. I wish I'd known you before.'

She wasn't used to compliments, could feel herself blushing. His skin felt warm against hers, and beneath it there was strength, even now. It was a long time since she'd held a man's hand. She'd forgotten how good that felt.

He gave her hand a squeeze then let it drop. ‘Change of subject before we get too maudlin. I don't want to spoil the mood, but I'm afraid there's something else we need to talk about.'

‘Oh?'

‘If I die suddenly, I don't want any attempts at resuscitation.'

All her joy fled. She hated the way he kept reminding her that he had only a limited amount of time to live.

‘I've made a living will, with Sally's help, and given copies to my doctor and Jack. I've got one for you as well. I mean it, Miranda. No resuscitation attempts. If I go suddenly, that's it. It'll save me a lot of pain and is infinitely preferable to a slow exit.'

‘Are you . . . in more pain these days?'

‘A bit. I'm coping, but I can see that I'll have to start using stronger drugs soon to control it. I hate having my head messed around, which painkillers always do. I'd not be me if I were all doped up.'

‘What did the oncologist say last time you saw him?'

‘That I'm doing well, better than expected.'

‘That's good . . . isn't it? Means you may live longer than predicted.'

‘Yes.' He lost his solemn look and gave her one of his boyish grins. ‘I'll do my best, I promise you. I'm enjoying life so much, thanks mainly to you.' He waved one arm at their surroundings. ‘This is a great place to live and you're great company. I'm just trying to cover all eventualities with this no resuscitation stuff. Being prepared is a good way to face life. So . . . let's get cracking on finding your daughter. And on making plans for what you'll do after I go.'

‘You don't need to worry about that.'

‘Humour me. I want to be sure you'll continue to build a new life for yourself without your damned brother intervening.'

‘I won't let him take over again, I promise.'

He looked at her gravely. ‘No. I don't think you will. But he won't make it easy, so it might be good to get clean away from him. How about moving to England?'

‘Regina suggested that, too.'

‘I don't want you under her control, either, mind.'

She chuckled. ‘Regina's not at all interested in controlling me. She has her own life. And she's not in Sebastian's league for control; she isn't even managing her own daughter very well. Nikki's left home and is living in a bedsitter with the father of her coming baby. She emails me sometimes. Poor kid. She's finding it hard living in such cramped conditions.'

‘You're a rather dysfunctional family, aren't you? Not together emotionally at all.'

‘We all have different mothers and there are several years between each of us, so we didn't play together or anything. And it's different, I think, having a much older father. Dad had some very old-fashioned ideas about bringing up children. But Sebastian's happily married.' She remembered Dorothy's bland expressions and added, ‘Well, I think he is.'

‘You don't sound sure. Are there visible signs of affection between him and his wife? You know, smiles, touches, that sort of thing.'

‘We're not a demonstrative family.'

He held out his hand to her again and she took it. ‘See.
You
touch me without hesitation, and you pat me sometimes when you're helping me. I think you
are
a touchy-feely person, Miranda – or you could be.'

‘I'm sorry if I've been . . . intrusive.'

He rolled his eyes. ‘Intrusive-shmoosive! It's normal for human beings to touch one another. I
like
it. They call it skin hunger when you don't get touched by other people who care about you. I've felt that for a while.'

She realized she still had hold of his hand and tried to pull away, but his grasp tightened.

Her thoughts must have shown in her face because he let go of her abruptly.

‘No! We're not going there, Miranda. You can't change the facts, you can only change how you deal with them. If you get too fond of me, I'll throw you out. I can't cope with that. Not now.'

His voice was so harsh she knew she'd really upset him. But he was right. ‘I'm sorry. I won't . . . annoy you again.'

She'd expected him to smile and return to his old easy tone of voice, but he didn't. Grim-faced was the only way to describe him. Her heart began to pound. What would she do if he threw her out? She might be on her way to independence but she wasn't nearly there yet, needed his help to move on.

‘I need a rest now, Miranda. Go and . . . do something.'

When she'd left, he stared blindly at the swimming pool outside. As the flickers of sunlight blurred and ran into one, he raised his hand to flick away the tears but more kept coming. He could so easily have loved her, made a life with her. He'd never met anyone quite like her: soft, utterly soft and feminine, completely without guile . . . Life was cruel.

It was a while before the tears stopped. Only then did he ring for Jack.

‘I'm tired. I think I'll have a lie-down for a bit.'

Lou could see from Jack's expression that it was obvious he'd been crying. But Jack was a near-perfect carer and he made no comment, just walked along in front of the wheelchair and opened the lift door.

Pity the man was gay, Lou mused. It'd have been great to find someone for Miranda. No, there wasn't time for that. He must just focus on setting her up to succeed and then trust she'd find her own way in life and perhaps a man to share the future with. He was pretty sure she would. She didn't realize how attractive her gentleness was.

Three days later there was a message from the private investigator now tracing the adoption. Lou called to Miranda to come quickly, so she went hurrying into his computer room, a lavish home office, fitted out in style with the furniture he'd brought out of storage.

‘He's found her.'