A Touch of Grace (22 page)

“How long have you known about them?”

“Since Christmas.”

His mouth gaped, incredulous. “This past Christmas?”

“Please don’t hate me, son. I couldn’t bear to lose you.”

Ian scooted back from the table and stood, gripping the top of the chair rail. “I could never hate you, Mom, but I am struggling to understand. It’s a pretty big shock for a grown man to discover he doesn’t know who he is.”

“You are who you’ve always been. A good son, a wonderful man of God. This doesn’t change who you are.”

But it did. How could she not see that it did?

Mom came around the table to lay her hand on his heaving chest, soothing him as she’d done a hundred times before. “I mean it now. Don’t go having an iden
tity crisis. That’s another reason I’ve kept quiet. You’ve always been sensitive.”

Sensitive?

“You knew Collin was searching for me?”

“Back at Christmas he called, asking for you. Well, asking for Ian Grace who had been adopted from Oklahoma City.” She turned away and started clearing the table. “I didn’t believe him at first. So I put him off.”

Ian could understand that. “I didn’t believe him at first, either.”

“Well, he’s a persistent boy.” Ian hid a smile at the gross misstatement. Collin had never been a boy. “He called again a month or so ago. This time before I could hang up, he said a couple of things that made me wonder if he could be telling the truth.”

“So that’s why you were acting so strange at Christmas. I thought you were sick and afraid to tell me.”

“I’m sorry, son, I didn’t know what to do when he called.” She paused, his empty plate in her hand. “I love you so much. If I lost you…”

He’d expected to feel anger. Instead, love welled in him for this woman who had taken on a sick child, nurtured and loved and raised him to be a decent man. He’d come from the bottom, but the Carpenters’ love hadn’t allowed him to stay there.

“You could have told me.” He took the plate from her hands, put it in the sink, then took her by the shoulders. Staring into the beloved face, lined now with years, he said, “I would have still been your baby boy. Nothing would have changed that.”

Her lips trembled. Tears welled. “I know that now.
You are the man your daddy and I prayed you would be. You could have handled it.”

Then she laid her head against his bursting chest and cried.

The drive back to New Orleans passed in a blur. Ian was tired. Shouldn’t be driving, but he was far too emotional to sleep.

After the talk with Mom, he was ready to face Collin.

A brother. He could hardly take it in. He wondered what Gretchen would think. Would she consider him less than acceptable because of his tainted past? Or laugh at him for thinking such a thing?

Ah, what was he thinking? The relationship with Gretchen was over. She would never be able to trust anyone, certainly not him. And even if they could get past the argument over the mission, there was still her estrangement from the Lord. Funny how he’d let that slide of late, hoping she’d change for him.

He knew how foolish such thoughts were. A woman didn’t change just because a man loved her. Tamma sure hadn’t.

By the time he returned to the mission, he figured the place would be crawling with reporters. Even though he’d had no time or heart to watch the news last night the rumor of impropriety had to be everywhere today. Bad news traveled fast.

There was little he could do about that now, so for once, his family would come first. The mission could wait another day. Collin had been waiting for more than twenty years.

Even now, as he rode the Sheraton elevator to the fortieth floor, his big brother waited.

A service cart filled with towels and other assorted amenities rattled up as he stepped out. Though impatient to find room 4003, he held the door for the maid. Mama had taught him manners.

He rubbed a hand over his burning eyes. As hurt as he was to have been kept in the dark about something so vital, he owed his adoptive parents a lot.

The hotel security lock echoed in the hallway. Collin yanked open the door before Ian could knock.

“Hey.” With the same probing intensity Ian noticed before, Collin motioned for him to enter. The guy must terrify suspects. “How are you?”

The question wasn’t a nicety. He meant it.

“Better.” Ian removed his cap and ran a hand through his hair. “Sorry to run out on you last night.”

“No problem. Considering that you had no prior memory of me, who could blame you for being shocked? I was pretty shocked myself.”

“You were?”

“I thought you were lying about the memory loss.”

“I thought you were lying about being my brother, though I couldn’t figure out why you’d do that.”

“Anything else come back to you?”

“A lot of things.” He pinched the ball cap into a V-shape. “I talked to my mother.”

He didn’t bother to correct the term. She was his mother.

“She told you.”

“Everything she knew, which wasn’t a lot. I was sick
when they first decided to adopt me. Some kind of amnesia brought on by the meningitis.”

Collin nodded, quiet.

Ian studied the sculpted face, finding hints of the boy in the man. “You really are my brother.”

“Yeah.” Collin stuck his hands in his back pockets, movements stiff with tension.

His big brother was stressed to the max, and Ian wasn’t sure how to go about easing the strain. They stood like what they were, two strangers grasping for something to say.

Emotions riotous, Ian longed to recapture all that was lost. For Collin, the feelings must be even more powerful.

Finally, the words threatening to choke him, Ian said, “Thanks for finding me. For all those years of searching. Thanks for not giving up.”

Hope sprang into the man’s dark eyes. “You mean that?”

“This may sound strange, but something in me always missed you.”

Collin slowly removed his hands from his pockets. “I missed you, too.”

They hovered there, inches apart. Ian wondered how Collin would react if he hugged him.

“Remember that bike we built out of parts from the dump?” he asked instead.

Collin’s face softened. “You remember that?”

Ian grinned. “Yeah. And I also recall that you had a crush on some girl named Melinda.”

Collin smirked. “Other way around. She had a crush on me.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Tell it to someone who wasn’t there.”

Relief a palpable thing, Collin said, “You really do remember.”

Ian grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. “I remember that you were the best brother anyone could ever have had.”

Collin gazed at him, eyes bright. He cleared his throat. “You were, too.”

“I was a pain.”

“No, that was Drew.”

They both chuckled then, lost in the memory of a childhood cut short.

“Tell me about Drew.”

Collin’s smile faded. “I wish I didn’t have to.”

“Is it bad?” Since the return of his memory, he’d imagined all kinds of possibilities for his wild brother, none of them good.

“The worst. Drew died in a fire when he was fifteen.”

All the air went out of him. A brother gained. A brother lost. All in a matter of hours.

“Oh, man.”

The room grew painfully silent while they both mourned the loss. The air-conditioning kicked on. In the next room someone ran water. Drew, the wild one, the fighter, was gone. Ian didn’t recall much about him, but he remembered the brotherly love, the solid front they’d presented to the world. All for one. One for all. Now, he’d never have a chance to tell Drew how much that had meant to a scrawny little boy.

Thank you, Lord, for Collin. For at least sparing one.

Collin pulled a chair away from the built-in desk.
“Sit down, little brother, before you fall down. You look pretty weary.”

“I didn’t sleep much last night.” To tell the truth, he was out on his feet.

“Wanna save this talk for another day?”

He shook his head. “No way. We have a lot of catching up to do. I’m not going anywhere.”

Collin’s stoic face bloomed into a smile. “I was hoping you’d say that. I bought some snacks, fruit, cheese, stuff like that.” He motioned toward a large stash piled on the dresser. “Beats some of the things we’ve eaten.”

Ian laughed and made himself comfortable. Collin had fed him as kid and now as an adult. Somehow that felt exactly right.

The rest of the afternoon flew by as the brothers caught up on twenty-three years. He learned that Collin had grown up in group homes, that he’d put himself through college, later becoming an Oklahoma City police officer. He learned of Collin’s rescue farm for wounded animals and his love for a woman named Mia.

Pride surged through him. Collin, despite all the odds, had made a success of his life.

“Mia led me to the Lord,” his brother said, dark eyes alight with the love he had for his fiancée. “And when I heard you were a minister, man, was I happy.”

The comment was a reality check. Ian thumped the heels of both hands against his forehead. He’d been so engrossed in his personal situation for the last twenty-four hours that he’d shoved the mission’s problems out of his thoughts.

“My days as a minister may be coming to a halt, at least here in New Orleans.”

Collin popped a green grape in his mouth and chewed. “What does that mean?”

He told his brother about Gretchen’s series, about the rumors and untrue allegations. He even told him about the situation with Roger, though he carefully refrained from using Roger’s name.

“Last night, Channel Eleven aired a story about money embezzled from the mission with me as the prime suspect.” He crushed a pop can with one hand and tossed it toward the trash can to join the other two he’d downed. “So, as Mama would say, the fat is about to hit the fire.”

Collin shook his head. “Are you sure? I’ve sat in front of this tube all night and all day waiting for your call. I didn’t see anything about your mission.”

Ian sat up straighter. “Were you watching Channel Eleven? A gorgeous blonde with one of those short, flippy haircuts, huge green eyes and a voice that could melt a man’s heart.”

Collin lifted an eyebrow. “Is this a woman your brother should know about?”

“She would be. I wanted her to be.”

“In love?”

“Yeah, but it’s hopeless.” In more ways than one.

“I watched her report last night. She’s pretty, all right. But there was nothing on there about your mission.”

Ian’s heart did a
kerplunk.
“Seriously?”

“Not a word. She talked about some place that takes in recovering drug addicts.”

“Second Chances?”

“I think that was it.”

She’d told him about the place in glowing terms, holding it up as ideal.

Bewildered hope began to rise. “Not a word about Isaiah House?”

“My memory’s not as bad as yours,” Collin teased.

How could that be? Why wouldn’t Gretchen follow through on her plans? She’d made a promise to the station. The segment was scheduled.

The ray of hope began to burn brighter in his tired spirit. Could she have decided to trust in him after all?

Chapter Seventeen

C
ar keys jangling, purse flapping against her side, Gretchen slogged into her apartment and collapsed in the nearest chair.

Last night she’d committed the reporter’s cardinal sin. Today she’d paid for it.

To make matters worse, her heart hurt from the argument with Ian. He probably never wanted to see her again, especially after she’d embarrassed them both by calling him a liar and telling him she loved him all in one breath.

How messed up was that?

“Bad day at the office?” her roommate asked.

As usual Carlotta looked magnificent while Gretchen felt like an unmade bed. “You don’t know the half of it.”

“Kick off your shoes and relax. Tell Mama all about it.”

“Mike threatened to fire me. Then he threatened to end the series. Then he told me to find him a good story and find it fast.”

Carlotta munched the corner of a Fudgsicle. “What did you say to that?”

“I asked him if a certain reporter went berserk and killed her boss on the air, would that constitute a good story?”

Carlotta laughed and pointed the ice-cream bar. “I take it he was not amused.”

“Who knows? I ducked out of there before the explosion.”

“No regrets?” Carlotta knew what she’d decided.

“Are you kidding? My middle name is regrets.” She shoved a hand through her hair, ripping through the gel that kept the side flip under control. “My whole life to this point has been regrettable. Until last night. Finally I did something right.”

Carlotta rose and went into the kitchen. Her voice rose over the soft sucking noise of the refrigerator door being opened. “By killing the story on Ian?” She returned to the living room and handed Gretchen a fudge bar. “The things we do for love.”

“Not only love, Carlotta. Oh, I’ll admit that played a part.” Okay, a huge part. Gretchen toed off her espadrilles and curled her feet beneath her, then unwrapped the cold treat. “But my decision was more about God, about doing what would please Him. After I prayed in the chapel, the choice was easy.”

Carlotta held up one perfectly manicured hand. “You lost me there. I don’t know much about religion.”

“And I know too much. The point is God, not religion. Ian kept trying to tell me that, but I’m a hard head sometimes.”

“Your boss would agree.”

They both chuckled.

“What are you going to do about Ian?”

“I have no idea.”

“The man should be groveling at your feet.”

“I doubt if he even knows.”

“Then tell him. You love him, don’t you?”

Enough to risk her career for him. If Mike had his way, she’d be demoted a notch or two. Maybe even be phased out in the next round of changes. Double-crossing an obsessive boss wasn’t the smartest career move. She licked her ice cream and fretted.

“Maybe you should give him a call.”

“I doubt he’d want to talk to me. I called him a liar to his face.” Worse than that, she’d said she loved him. “Besides I don’t think Ian’s interested in me that way.”