Secrets Rising (7 page)

Jake turned down a street with trees so big they formed a canopy overhead. The houses here were small and old. He pulled up in front of a yard bursting with a kaleidoscope of disorderly flowers.

"You know," he said, "you don't have to go in." The first words he'd spoken since they'd left the restaurant were brusque but with an underlying note of concern. Or maybe she just wanted to hear that underlying note.

Probably.

She opened the car door and climbed out.

The sidewalk leading up to the porch was cracked, but no grass sprouted between the cracks just as no weeds grew in the profusion of flowers. Morning glory vines twined around a trellis on one side of the porch, and a couple of wrought iron chairs with faded cushions seemed to be waiting for people to visit.

As Rebecca stepped onto the porch, she noticed that the trellis of vines curtained a swing on that side, a place to sit hidden from the world.

The screen door opened, and a regal woman wearing light gray slacks and a matching silvery dress appeared. "Good morning. You must be Mr. Thornton. I'm Doris Jordan." At first glance, in spite of her perfectly coifed white hair, she looked younger than the seventy-some years Charles Morton had mentioned. But her face was creased with a network of fine lines, and her pale green eyes held depths that could only have been acquired from many years of living.

"I'm Jake Thornton, and this is Rebecca Patterson. I hope you don't mind if she sits in on our discussion."

"Not at all. I'm always glad to have company. Please come in."

Jake had not specified her role in being there, and Doris Jordan was too polite to ask. Rebecca was grateful for that, for the chance to be merely an observer rather than someone with so much at stake.

Jake's hand touched the small of her back as he entered the house behind her. It was a casual gesture, the habit of a man accustomed to walking beside a woman. Nothing in the brief contact justified the surge of heat that shot through her.

Her emotions were running rampant again. She gathered her dignity about her and resolved to keep a tighter rein on her volatile reactions to Jake Thornton, to get in control and stay there.

Though the morning was already warm, Doris Jordan's house with the curtains drawn against the sun still retained the night's cool.

Doris left the room, and Jake looked around then sat in a large, overstuffed chair. Rebecca sank onto the far end of a sofa printed with muted or possibly faded flowers and draped with a colorful afghan. The room, like the yard, was filled to overflowing but didn't feel crowded. A roll top desk occupied one corner. A small television housed in an old Victrola cabinet sat in another. The sofa and two chairs were grouped around a marble topped coffee table. Occasional tables holding pictures and lamps dotted the room. Everything was immaculately clean and polished and gleamed warmly in the dim light.

"Here we are." Doris returned with a silver tray holding a matching pot, sugar bowl and creamer, a large mug and two dainty cups and saucers. "My husband, Edgar, and I received this beautiful tea service for a wedding gift. We never drank hot tea, so I've always used it for coffee. I saw no point in letting it go to waste." She set the tray on the table and served them, giving the mug to Jake, then sat down on the other end of the sofa, between him and Rebecca. "Men like the big mugs. I suppose their fingers are simply too large for the smaller handles. My husband and son were both large men like you, Mr. Thornton."

Rebecca accepted the china cup with irises painted in delicate shadings of purple and lavender. "This is beautiful."

"Thank you." Doris held up her own, similar in design but with roses trailing around it. "I began collecting them years ago, back when we thought all our dishes had to match. I saw no reason for that and decided I'd have a flower garden in my china cabinet."

"What a lovely sentiment. A garden inside to match the one outside."

Doris smiled warmly. "Exactly. You obviously noticed my flowers in the front yard have no particular design, either. The random patterns appeal to me with their special brand of unplanned beauty."

Rebecca thought of the kaleidoscopic flowers out front and imagined Doris' china cabinet filled with more of the dainty cups in myriad flowers and designs. "Beauty in chaos."

"I find it wild and soothing at the same time. Would you like more coffee?" She lifted the pot and Jake held out his mug.

"Thank you. It's great," he said.

"Yes, it is," Rebecca agreed. "What we had at the motel coffee shop was...less than wonderful."

"Wilbur doesn't supervise his restaurant staff closely enough. I don't believe they clean the pots adequately. It's so important to get rid of the rancid oils."

"You know the motel owner," Jake said, and Rebecca caught the subtle shift in his voice, the hint of business mixed with the conversational tones.

It was enough to pierce the haze of contentment that had settled around her. Doris Jordan's house, her yard, her furniture, her tea service, her manner of speaking had soothed and lulled her. She'd relaxed into Doris' sofa, sipped coffee from her flower-garden cup, luxuriated in the cool dimness of the room and the faint scent of violets or some other old-fashioned flower. Somehow she'd momentarily lost sight of the reason they were there.

"Oh my, yes," Doris said. "I went to school with his mother. I've lived here all my life. I know most of the people."

"I imagine a lot of the women bought dresses from your shop."

"Yes, they did." She set her cup and saucer on the table and folded her hands in her lap. "At one time, having a dress with my label in it was considered special. Not like Neiman Marcus, but special in our little town. Most of the women in Edgewater shopped there as well as many of the women from smaller towns in the area."

Rebecca's heart sank. The chances of this woman's remembering one blue dress were becoming smaller and smaller.

"How'd you come up with the name
Sharise's Shoppe
?" Jake asked, his tone still a careful combination of casual and intense.

Doris smiled, the lines of her face spreading outward in a way that was more wistful than happy. "My son was a twin. His sister, Sharise, died at birth. So when I opened the dress store, it was either
Doris' Dresses
or
Sharise's Shoppe
. Not much of a choice, really."

"It's a beautiful name," Rebecca said. "I don't think I've heard it before." Her own pain of loss reached out and blended with the older woman's. She recalled that Morton had mentioned Doris' son being killed years ago and her husband dying more recently. He hadn't mentioned the death of an infant, too.

For all her pictures and flowers, Doris was alone in the world...as she herself was.

"I'm not sure where I heard the name. Possibly in a book. I read a lot."

A click drew her attention to Jake. His open briefcase sat in his lap, but his intent gaze was focused on her. Immediately he averted his eyes, looked into the briefcase and withdrew the dress. "Any chance you'd remember this?"

"This is the dress you said belonged to your client's mother?"

Jake nodded.

Doris accepted the garment and studied it carefully, her fingers caressing as they slid over the material, as though she would retrieve the era represented by the dress, an era when she had a dress shop and a husband and a son. Finally she looked up, directly at Rebecca. "I sold so many of these."

"The woman would have been short and slim, dark hair, and she wore glasses." Rebecca knew it was useless, but she couldn't give up so easily.

Doris shook her head and handed the dress back to Jake. "I'm sorry. My memory isn't what it used to be."

"It's all right," Jake said smoothly. "I knew it was a long shot. What about somebody who might have come to your shop looking for loose clothes to disguise a pregnancy around 1978 or 1979?"

"I've been thinking about it ever since you phoned me yesterday, but I can't recall anything that might help you. My son, a police officer, was killed on duty in 1979. My husband had his first heart attack when he heard the news, so I'm afraid I didn't notice a lot outside my own family that year."

Doris related the incidents with sadness but without any visible signs of the heart-wrenching grief that still came when Rebecca spoke of her parents' death. Thirty years from now, would she be as accepting as Doris Jordan?

"I'm sorry," Jake said. "I didn't know."

Rebecca impulsively placed her hand over Doris'. "Me, too. We didn't mean to revive painful memories."

"It's all right. If we live long enough, we all lose people we love. I've made peace with my losses." She placed her other hand over Rebecca's and gave it a quick squeeze. "Is this your mother you're looking for? Are you Mr. Thornton's client?"

Rebecca looked to Jake as if she thought he had any answers. Of course he didn't.

"Yes," she said. "My parents were killed in an automobile accident recently, and I discovered I was adopted."

Doris took a pair of wire framed glasses from a carved wooden box on the coffee table, put them on and scrutinized her closely, then shook her head. "I've thought since I first saw you standing on the porch that you look vaguely familiar, but I'm afraid I can't quite put my finger on it." She sighed. "I've lived a long time, seen a lot of people and watched a lot of television. You're a lovely young woman. You probably look like someone on my favorite soap opera."

"Thank you for talking to us, Mrs. Jordan," Jake said. "You have my number at the motel if you remember anything."

"I'll be sure to call if I do." She turned and lifted slim, dry fingers to Rebecca's cheek. "I hope you find what you're looking for, my dear. But try to keep an open mind. It's more likely to be in the future, not the past."

Rebecca felt a lump rise in her throat and could only nod in response.

She hated to leave this woman's house with its feeling of home and belonging. She and Doris Jordan were two of a kind, alone in the world.

But, Rebecca thought in abrupt self-loathing, Doris had come to terms with her aloneness. She wasn't grasping for any pseudo-family member to fill the void the way Rebecca was.

She walked outside with Jake, into the sweltering mid-day heat. He opened the car door for her, and she slid in, the leather hot through the fabric of her slacks.

What you're looking for...it's more likely to be in the future, not the past.

She'd always forged ahead toward the future, optimistic and determined, searching for whatever lay ahead, whatever might be lacking in her life, always certain she would find that something. Now she had no past and couldn't conceive of a future.

Chapter 6

September 30, 1979, Edgewater, Texas

Mary stepped back to study the table and see if she'd forgotten anything. The good china Ben's mother had given them, linen napkins, candles....everything had to be perfect.

She spread one hand over her still-flat stomach and smiled. She'd suspected for the last couple of weeks but hadn't wanted to get Ben's hopes up until she was certain. Though she had been certain in her heart, so certain her joy had filled every crevice of her soul and pushed out all but an occasional stab of the pain and horror that had been her constant companion since that day in August.

Blackness tugged at the edges of her mind even now, but she shoved it aside as she heard Ben's car pull into the driveway. Moving quickly, she lit the candles, determinedly focusing on the happy excitement, leaving no room for that darkness to intrude.

A few moments later his key turned in the door she always kept locked now, and he stepped inside, a big bear of a man, a warm smile on his face. "Something sure smells good."

Mary rushed into his arms, lifting her face for his kiss.

"Umm," he murmured. "I don't know whether you or dinner smells the best." He touched his lips to hers again, this kiss more intense, and she felt a response to his passion. He nuzzled her neck. "I know dinner couldn't taste any better than you do. I don't suppose it's one of those meals that could wait a few minutes?" He kissed his way back to her lips. "Better make that a lot of minutes. Maybe an hour or so."